I was worried this would happen. And it has.
That game will be the WW2 Mod for Victoria 3.Have expressed a wish for someone to make such a game at some point. Maybe one day.
I was very pleased with the Evil Teleporter idea.Brilliant.
A little thing like being on the wrong continent would in no way stop de Wiart from getting involved in a scrap.O it's the final days, and teleporting to Moscow is likely to lead to a fate worse than death. Of course, teleporting to Ankara would spell an even worse fate, but we don't talk about that...
My bet is on General Carton de Wiart. Not because he was born in my home town, but because he was a brilliant madman and a badass, and he fits the description given by Ike. Well, except for the fact that he's actually in China at this point in the war...
These are problems it is true and they also have to balance historical realism vs it being a game. You want WW2 to go pretty much as planned if you are just watching a game (or playing as Dominica) but for the player to be able to radically alter the result when playing as Major, or even a minor, power, quite the challenge for any AI. Given all of that surely AI should have been the top priority, yet it always seems like an afterthought at best.In fairness to Paradox, much as it pains me to be so, they do face a certain challenge in designing the game to be played by both player and AI. If the player is always Germany, then the design is in theory quite simple (and in practice, quite impossible for Paradox, but be that as it may), simply balance the economic instability against mobilization and challenge the player to hold the peacetime economy together long enough to build enough forces to defeat Poland --> France --> USSR. Thus the player has the option of an earlier war, with likely-insufficient forces, or a later war on the off-chance their economy somehow hasn't collapsed already.
The problem, as always, is the AI - that is, if the AI has to play as Germany, a France which gives the player a right proper challenge will simply eviscerate an AI Germany, while a France AI that is balanced against AI Germany will offer no challenge to the player and an early war becomes easily preferable (this is what happens in game already). Of course, this could be solved by creating an asymmetric game, i.e. one where the AI cheats against the player, but Paradox seems to shy away from such things and so we must rely on the modders to solve these problems for us. And as brilliant as they are "reliable" is hardly in the modders' collective vocabulary.
Modders do occasionally listen to users and fix bugs, things Paradox are loath to do, so I will forgive them a little unreliability.
Exactly. If only the Japanese had combined their government, secret police and so on all in Tokyo rather than spreading them out.Japan has unfortunately for T&T spread their evil too far out across too many fronts to mass a sufficient concentration for the teleporter to target, say, Tokyo or somewhere.
Brilliant!
Long and contrived headquarter acronyms are a T&T trope that could not be denied.But amusing.
This is all true, he would merely have to glare at Berlin in a mildly miffed manner to force it's surrender such is the power of his eyepatch. But alas it is not him, Paradox retire him in Jan '43 so he is not available in the '44 start. He is of course available in the June '41 and Dec '41 starts, despite being in an Italian POW camp at that point. Because Paradox are never knowingly consistent or competent.My guess is hardly unique, it seems, but I'm betting on Carton de Wiart as well, for general colourfulness as well as having one of the more amusing names to pronounce amongst the British leaders. And also, in a world in which hat and mustache styles determine so much of a general's combat effectiveness, clearly an eyepatch is the most superior accessory any general can have.
Obviously a British commander taking Berlin, couldn't trust a colonial with such an important job.Come on, you nearly had it bang on for VE day and to miss it now after all this time by one day?
Sheesh, must be a British commander in charge of taking Berlin.
T&T should not be allowed to sully VE day, so weren't.
He was an amazing chap.
They are going to avoid having the Slovaks turn up and form a government-in-exile, something that is very in Japan's favour surely?It seems the concentration of evil has not developed entirely in Japan’s favour.
There is a lot of truth in this but I can see why Paradox avoided it as it would be a fair chunk of work to create, let alone test and balance (though as they don't do play testing, maybe it wouldn't be that much work.... )On the game balance debate: the (initial, anyway) overpowering of Germany is one of the reasons I find it more enjoyable playing against them. Though I note some people (often the same ones as object to the set up) also object to the MP crunch that drags them back later.
I think also those arguing it’s just hard to even out the human-AI disparity are right - even with a reasonable AI. So you either need to craft a set up that makes it a fair challenge whoever you play (difficulty level, start year, player rules on use of AI command etc, picking a smaller power and so on). A bit like you did @El Pip in making sure Overlord didn’t fail at its start.
If the game engine itself can’t provide the challenge, scenario or map mod type set ups could be the answer. Don’t try to make the game do what it can’t, but tinker with it set up for the major powers to handicap it for them in a bespoke manner. You can change a whole bunch of things if you want to. Even script some events (in the played country and/or its opponents) if you want to go that far. Leave the rest up to the player to determine their own handicap. So, France Challenge scenario might start in 1938, fiddle with some aspects of the base or unit set ups, etc
Not realistic in absolute terms, I know, but unless you have MP human players, until Skynet is in operation I doubt any AI will be up to it alone.
When it was announced the HOI4 focus tree system seemed a way to get that sort of result. Nation specific events and if you wanted a challenge you just didn't pick the over-powered focus' (and Paradox would code the AI to take certain focuses to ensure a challenge when playing against them. I get the impression it's not quite turned out that way?
Competence and Hat are the key criteria, as is magnificence. I don't think it's a particularly ironic choice and he is certainly not a Zombie, that is more a German approach.I‘m at a loss as to who the mystery general might be: is the main selection criterion competence, irony/comedy or jauntiness? Or the triple threat of all those? Or perhaps a zombie, who is therefore unafraid of death?
I am curious about who the obvious, clear cut choice is given that Pip pretty much summarily dismissed the vast majority of British officers who have ever existed beforehand: no overpromoted flag officers, no lunatics, no glory hounds, no politicos, no veneral slugs masquerading as military...he didn't say genocidal maniac or would-be dictator so quite a few previous heads of state could be wheeled in I suppose but pop culturally speaking, on land, the British seem to find the silliest people possible and put them in charge.
Wise words from our Antipodean correspondent.That’s one of those irregular adjectives: “I am idiosyncratic, you are silly, he is stark raving bonkers.“
As Carton de Wiart is sadly unavailable, guessing remains open.
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