The East is Red -- Goering's Delay: Mighty G. V. Cueball
Players:
Mighty G, UK and the Allies
Cueball, Germany and the Axis
Introduction:
For those of you who aren't familiar with the East is Red multi-player modification for HOI II Armageddon it probably deserves a bit of an explanation. The mod and the community has been around for about 2 years now, and played in various forms by a fair number of players -- mostly hardcore MP players who simply can not abide ruthlessly crushing the hapless AI, over and over again. It started out as a simple thing, mainly meant to deal with some pretty common exploits that are common in HOI MP play.
The list is long. The holes are large, and the rule-sets devised to take care of them as large and long, as well. Rules? Who needs em?! The object was to make it possible for players just to "play the game", in a somewhat "historical" way, rather than argue about how it should be played to get somewhat "historical" results and be a fair game at the same time.
So its two years later now, and the mod has evolved substantially and now is a comprehensive mod that changes nearly every aspect of the game. From ground combat, through air combat, right up to diplomacy.
The East is Red, for most people, is basically unrecognizable as HOI II vanilla. For example, there is no pre-set date for "Danzig", no pre-set dates for "Munich", Russia has to declare war on Finland to trigger the "Winter War", China can not be annexed and released; the combat model follows in the vein of many of the "slow" combat systems popular in most mods, "CAS Deathstars" are not nearly as effective as they are in vanilla, and the UK can not achieve "air superiority" over Berlin in 1940; units costs and IC are high enough that the division levels for the major powers are much more in line with the historical number of divisions active in the war -- no more 500 division by 1941 for the USSR here.
This version is the latest version ported to accommodate the many excellent changes made in the HOI II 1.3beta patch, and indeed is the first version of the mod where I have made an effort to get the AI's for the major powers to simulate human play, and to accommodate the fluid reactive events system I designed and called "Goering's Delay"
But that is enough of that, here is the game:
Mighty G. v. Cueball 1 v 1.
Mighty G. is an excellent fellow and one of the first players to play the mod when I first started putting it together. Most of the best multi-player games I have played have included Mighty G. in the game somewhere, both on mods and in vanilla. MG. hasn't played this mod in a fairly long time, so everything here is pretty much new to him, so I will be playing Germany, and he will be playing the United Kingdom.
What happens when and if the war progresses beyond the Fall of France, is still up for grabs. (We are still looking for a volunteer to play the Soviet Union in that event -- though it maybe that our buddy Geofactor, a longtime HOI mp addict, will be on board for that) It is very possible, and often happens, especially in vanilla MP play, that Germany just can't get through France because of the well known "All or Nothing in France" strategy -- one of the aims of the mod has been to reduce the effectiveness of that strategy to allow for more historical results, so, for play test purposes setting up with these two powers is the best possible scenario.
First and foremost, Germany must conquer France. We will figure out the rest later.
What is "Goering's Delay"?
"Goering's Delay" is what I call the latest adaptation of the "East is Red" events system. Historically, Herman Goering was opposed to war with the Allies in 1939 and argued for war with more preparation at a later date. Our purpose with this event system is to make that possible in HOI II without disturbing the main lines of the historical events themselves. Of course, theoretically speaking anything is possible in HOI II, however, doing anything even mildly radical, such as attacking Poland early, or occupying Denmark first before anything else, or ignoring Poland and attacking Belgium means that many of the other important events in the game will not happen, such as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
In vanilla, you can not, for example, decline to invade Poland in September 1st, 1939, as Herman Goering advised, and still have a semi-historical game.
In this system all of these events "float" on a variable time-line, and are interdependent but not locked into pre-set historical dates. Germany, with the right preparation, should be able to start the war of in early 1939, choose the historical path and attack Poland in fall 1939, or even ignore Poland and invade Belgium 1940, or rush build and start the war in 1938.
What's new?
The British Raj. One way I chose to limit the ability of the UK and the Allies to zerg build tanks and other advanced units in preparation for the war in France was by adding a new puppet to the empire, in the form of the British Raj, a colonial puppet in Asia. The puppet produces a fair amount of infantry, but with this, I was able to reduce the British Army to something close to its historical size, and prevent too many absurd exploits.
Thumbnail to larger image with more detail.
The Balance of Power:
The first thing that Germany must do is build an army. Without having military parity with it European neighbour, France, the Austrians will not listen to the call for Anschluss, and there will be no forcing Czechoslovakia to come to terms at Munich.
See the above image for more details on the build order I have been using to get the historical events to fire more or less along the historical time line against the AI. It's true, losing 30 IC to the British Raj is a big nerf for UK, but Germany has other new problems, and can't simply build straight IC for three years, and expect good results, since waiting too long will put off the unification with Austria, and the Fall of Czechoslovakia, both events that give Germany needed resources, units, manpower and IC.
After Germany initiates the collapse of the Treaty of Versailles by rebuilding it military power it is solely up to the German player to decide when and how he will start the war.
A Few Surprises:
If anyone wants to check this out in Single Player, feel free to do so, since I have spent considerable time reworking the AI's so that not only do they react to what the player is doing, but they will also freely choose different options. The German AI might skip Munich and just attack Czechoslovakia as soon as the effect of the "Treaty of Versailles" has passed -- most likely it wont, but it can and does happen.
For more information you can check out the "East is Red" wiki page at the HOI II wiki site, and that will give you links to more detailed explanations for everything, which are found at the main mod forum at Lord Ederon's forums.
So there is the introduction. More later as things unfold.
Players:
Mighty G, UK and the Allies
Cueball, Germany and the Axis
Introduction:
For those of you who aren't familiar with the East is Red multi-player modification for HOI II Armageddon it probably deserves a bit of an explanation. The mod and the community has been around for about 2 years now, and played in various forms by a fair number of players -- mostly hardcore MP players who simply can not abide ruthlessly crushing the hapless AI, over and over again. It started out as a simple thing, mainly meant to deal with some pretty common exploits that are common in HOI MP play.
The list is long. The holes are large, and the rule-sets devised to take care of them as large and long, as well. Rules? Who needs em?! The object was to make it possible for players just to "play the game", in a somewhat "historical" way, rather than argue about how it should be played to get somewhat "historical" results and be a fair game at the same time.
So its two years later now, and the mod has evolved substantially and now is a comprehensive mod that changes nearly every aspect of the game. From ground combat, through air combat, right up to diplomacy.
The East is Red, for most people, is basically unrecognizable as HOI II vanilla. For example, there is no pre-set date for "Danzig", no pre-set dates for "Munich", Russia has to declare war on Finland to trigger the "Winter War", China can not be annexed and released; the combat model follows in the vein of many of the "slow" combat systems popular in most mods, "CAS Deathstars" are not nearly as effective as they are in vanilla, and the UK can not achieve "air superiority" over Berlin in 1940; units costs and IC are high enough that the division levels for the major powers are much more in line with the historical number of divisions active in the war -- no more 500 division by 1941 for the USSR here.
This version is the latest version ported to accommodate the many excellent changes made in the HOI II 1.3beta patch, and indeed is the first version of the mod where I have made an effort to get the AI's for the major powers to simulate human play, and to accommodate the fluid reactive events system I designed and called "Goering's Delay"
But that is enough of that, here is the game:
Mighty G. v. Cueball 1 v 1.
Mighty G. is an excellent fellow and one of the first players to play the mod when I first started putting it together. Most of the best multi-player games I have played have included Mighty G. in the game somewhere, both on mods and in vanilla. MG. hasn't played this mod in a fairly long time, so everything here is pretty much new to him, so I will be playing Germany, and he will be playing the United Kingdom.
What happens when and if the war progresses beyond the Fall of France, is still up for grabs. (We are still looking for a volunteer to play the Soviet Union in that event -- though it maybe that our buddy Geofactor, a longtime HOI mp addict, will be on board for that) It is very possible, and often happens, especially in vanilla MP play, that Germany just can't get through France because of the well known "All or Nothing in France" strategy -- one of the aims of the mod has been to reduce the effectiveness of that strategy to allow for more historical results, so, for play test purposes setting up with these two powers is the best possible scenario.
First and foremost, Germany must conquer France. We will figure out the rest later.
What is "Goering's Delay"?
"Goering's Delay" is what I call the latest adaptation of the "East is Red" events system. Historically, Herman Goering was opposed to war with the Allies in 1939 and argued for war with more preparation at a later date. Our purpose with this event system is to make that possible in HOI II without disturbing the main lines of the historical events themselves. Of course, theoretically speaking anything is possible in HOI II, however, doing anything even mildly radical, such as attacking Poland early, or occupying Denmark first before anything else, or ignoring Poland and attacking Belgium means that many of the other important events in the game will not happen, such as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
In vanilla, you can not, for example, decline to invade Poland in September 1st, 1939, as Herman Goering advised, and still have a semi-historical game.
In this system all of these events "float" on a variable time-line, and are interdependent but not locked into pre-set historical dates. Germany, with the right preparation, should be able to start the war of in early 1939, choose the historical path and attack Poland in fall 1939, or even ignore Poland and invade Belgium 1940, or rush build and start the war in 1938.
What's new?
The British Raj. One way I chose to limit the ability of the UK and the Allies to zerg build tanks and other advanced units in preparation for the war in France was by adding a new puppet to the empire, in the form of the British Raj, a colonial puppet in Asia. The puppet produces a fair amount of infantry, but with this, I was able to reduce the British Army to something close to its historical size, and prevent too many absurd exploits.
Thumbnail to larger image with more detail.
The Balance of Power:
The first thing that Germany must do is build an army. Without having military parity with it European neighbour, France, the Austrians will not listen to the call for Anschluss, and there will be no forcing Czechoslovakia to come to terms at Munich.
See the above image for more details on the build order I have been using to get the historical events to fire more or less along the historical time line against the AI. It's true, losing 30 IC to the British Raj is a big nerf for UK, but Germany has other new problems, and can't simply build straight IC for three years, and expect good results, since waiting too long will put off the unification with Austria, and the Fall of Czechoslovakia, both events that give Germany needed resources, units, manpower and IC.
After Germany initiates the collapse of the Treaty of Versailles by rebuilding it military power it is solely up to the German player to decide when and how he will start the war.
A Few Surprises:
If anyone wants to check this out in Single Player, feel free to do so, since I have spent considerable time reworking the AI's so that not only do they react to what the player is doing, but they will also freely choose different options. The German AI might skip Munich and just attack Czechoslovakia as soon as the effect of the "Treaty of Versailles" has passed -- most likely it wont, but it can and does happen.
For more information you can check out the "East is Red" wiki page at the HOI II wiki site, and that will give you links to more detailed explanations for everything, which are found at the main mod forum at Lord Ederon's forums.
So there is the introduction. More later as things unfold.
Last edited: