Oh hey, this got finished. Awesome, and wtg!
I stopped when this had its little hiatus, and never got around to going back, until now. I just picked up TFH and want to refresh my memory. I figure I'll follow along with this from the beginning as well as I can, considering it's bound to be outdated in places.
Any advice for the new systems, or what to do differently and watch out for compared to this older version of the game (which is even, if I remember right, on a different map, no?)?
Like, for example, is it still worth rushing some research, like the Attack Delay-reducing one, now that it's far more expensive to research ahead?
where to begin? for one thing, tech rushing IS a lot more expensive now and they have changed the end date display. Up to FtM, it showed you the final end date with all factors allready calculated. now it shows you the end date CONSIDERING CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS. So if you research Operational Level Organisation 1940 in 1936 or 1937, it will show you an end date somewhere in 1942. At the start of the new year, the game will recalculate and show you the new projected end date, which would be sometime sooner. and so on.
In practice, this means it will be only be worth it for a very specific purpose, depending on your overall strategy. for instance, tech rushing Op. Lvl. Org. will still yield more or less the same end result, but it will feel different.
Trade has had a major overhaul as well. Nations now show a definite preference for getting their biggest shortages dealt with first (if Italy has an energy shortage of -25 and a metal shortage of -15, it will now try to get the energy before accepting any major metal deals). Supply trades have been capped at about 20 per deal. in other words, you will need to make more deals to get the same end result.
Threat now has a bigger effect on diplomacy. If you simply ignore the natural drift of the Netherlands all game, like we did before, they will probably join the Allies at the start of the war. If you only have the French border guarded at the time, the effect could be disastrous. keep a closer eye on where your neighbours are drifting in the triangle and be prepared to spend extra Leadership on keeping them neutral. on the other hand, I've read threads just yesterday, where Spain and Turkey can now join the Axis a lot sooner as well. so it works both ways.
Espionage. you can now have your spies working multiple missions at once, but the more missions you load them up with, the less successful they will be and the more chance there will be of having them found out. you seem to gain more spies per Leadership Point spend, though.
There is no more "military espionage" mission. Instead, you will see aproximate locations of enemy units ON THE MAP.
Covert missions have been added to the mix. you can use you spies abroad to slow down enemy troop movements, speed up your own troop movements and more. all these cost Covert Ops Points, which can be gathered by setting your spies on the "Covert Missions" and will gather very slowly. This can be used to simulate capturing key bridges and border outposts ahead of your advancing column, sabotaging road signs and stuff like that. extremely useful to have, but they run out rather quickly (I think the cap is 50 points and using them will take between 10 and 15 (25?) points a pop.) note that this cap is PER COUNTRY. So if you want to smash the Low Countries all at once, you will need Covert Ops Points in all 3 nations, plus France.
The AI WILL now use underground resistance cells to maximum effect. For instance, the Soviets will try to spawn partisans in Poland when you launch Barbarossa, which will cut some of your supply lines and force you to redirect troops that you had other uses for. always keep some troops in your back as a strategic reserve!
Norway has been turned into a Black Hole of Disaster. using the AI to steer your troops will probably seem them get bogged down and the UK is now bending over backwards to liberate them. Invade at your own peril!!
And if that wasn't enough, the Combined Arms modifier has had a major overhaul. I would suggest reading up on it in the dev diaries and asking around the forum for the details, but it comes down to this: every brigade type now adds a small CA modifier. (3 inf+ 1 artillery now has 5% CA bonus) But the biggest difference lies in the new Armour/Piercing rules.
In short it boils down to this: every tank you field now has a new stat, called armour. Anti-Tank weapons now have a Piercing stat. when the two collide, the game will check if the enemy has larger Piercing than your Armour. If they do, you're in trouble. if they don't, their rounds will just bounce off.
you can therefore no longer ignore AT weapon techs. you absolutely need to keep them up-to-date in order to overcome enemy tank units and make sure to actually field AT brigades.
oh, and artillery now requires more supplies to field.
so, yeah, it is a completely new game overall. more realistic and reasonably well balanced, but it makes following my OOB to the letter a thing of the past. you will need to experiment a bit to find out what works best for you.
what should still work, are the overall invasion plans I laid out in the AAR, since they were based on RL German invasion tactics.
Enjoy!
but as you said it is something coded by the creators of the mod.
