This is an absolutely marvelous mod, thanks, mates. You must be hearing this a lot (grin), but its true meant, and I hope it’s one of the things one can’t hear often enough after all those hours of work you must have put into it.
I played three games since 1.5, one as Germany, two as EU. The last one was ‘til 2025, and with very careful preparations I survived two nuclear wars that left Russia, china and USA as EU puppet states and the rest of the world pretty much conquered.
It’s a scary mod, though, if you are the kind of guys getting involved in your game: when the shit hit the fan in the pact-coalition war and the organized unfriendliness got nuclear, I decided to intervene (btw: it would be great to have a “news on cnn event” telling you who actually started the nuclear war, since i.e. EU might want to decide on whose side to intervene according to this). I took about a dozen nukes, and when the reports came in – Berlin, London, Paris, Madrid, Prague, Budapest, Stockholm … - I realized that there was hardly a city among them I didn’t have close friends or relatives in. When my troops conquered Shanghai about a year later (I took the land route), I realized that the province was radioactive rubble (my fiancé is from Shanghai, we visited her family this summer…). The US had gotten into a nuke-frenzy, and China (now puppeted by me) had been reduced to 8 IC and suffered from severe manpower shortage ever since (imagine: cina!). Scary mod.
I don’t have much of “error reporting”, since few errors remain. The game is already great fun as it is. The Belarus and Taiwan events fired, even though both countries had accepted peaceful reuniting before, but I guess you are already working on that. A couple of crashes, but I don’t mind that, actually. The EU is really short of tech teams, but I guess you are gonna fix this by giving them teams from the member states.
Some purely European tech teams might be:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Institute_for_Security_Studies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Satellite_Centre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Defence_Agency
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Force
Generally, the implementation of the EU – especially since you made the unification optional – is brilliant, I love it.
I think the EU thing is one of the greatest potentials of the mod. What the EU story lacks (as does the entire mod so far, but it’s a beta after all) is drama. An event changing the face of the political world, creating the grates superpower of all times, and it comes along like a simple bureaucratic act ;-) well, that holds well with the EU tradition of being unromantic to the bone, but still … ;-)
Also, most of the actual EU isn’t a member in the game, most notably UK, which can’t even become one since it is in the coalition. I find a unified union hard to imagine without the UK. (and none of the member states could afford to leave the union without being thrown into economic turmoil)
How do you think about EU having all its real members, but not uniting before say 2009 earliest? (Then the constitution gets ratified. Even though one may argue that the EU members aren’t sovereign nations anymore for the past 10-15 years (whatever they tell their citizens) – so you could actually set the unification event as early as 2003 without being too unrealistic, it will not be til 2009 that the EU is an operational entity).
The six years (and the only thing I do not like about the mod is that it starts 2003. You lose so much time for your story …) ‘til unification can be filled with events leading there. The EU player could get involved more and more in geostrategic politics which eventually leads to unification.
This would be interesting only if it was possible to give the EU military units even though they have no territory. Can they have off map IC production? (zero manpower would suffice to keep them from building anything else). Or large off map money production, so they can buy the needed supplies? Or a huge supplies stack that lasts til the actual creation of a EU nation? (I tried, but it didn’t work. But I never modded anything before, so if you say it aint possible anyhow, or it aint wanted, I can stop trying to learn)
They could get the Eurocorps right from the start since it existed already before 2003 and get the EUFOR in 2004, the European Gendarmerie Force in 2006, the Battlegroups in 2007. There are thought on placing the foreign legion under EU command. The Dutch-German Corps and the Polish-German-Danish Corps are set up under the framework of NATO, but these are purely multilateral agreements between those nations with NATO actually not involved and could easily be transferred to EU (as they frequently are on a misson basis).
For transportation, the EU player would have to commandeer national units by taking command of a member with the desired capabilities (just like in real life), as for air support.
This way a player could have an interesting (if very different) game until the formation of the EU nation. A player could even choose not to unite EU and play just with those troops (up to ~20 divisions all in all), hoping for air cover and naval action from his allies. A very different game, but maybe interesting, too.
Events could call EU forces into action in missions to Congo, the Balkans, Sudan and the like. To me, here is the biggest hindrance the start in 2003, since it severely limits the possibilities for a thrilling plot. (btw.: are you planning to port the mod to today?)
My Ideas for the gradual formation of an EU army could include (obviously I had to change the Battlegroups, since the EU Battlegroup concept doesn’t fit with HOI2 Divs):
EU Army (as of 2007)
Eurocorps (Start)
• Eurocorps HQ (Headquarters) (Strasbourg)
o Eng. Brigade
• Franco-German Brigade (Infantry) (Freiburg)
o Rec Brigade
• Etat-Major de Force 3 (Armoured) (France)
• 10. Panzerdivision “Löwendivision” (Armoured) (Friedrichshafen)
o Rec Brigade
• 1 Gemechaniseerde Division (Mechanized) (Belgium)
o Rec Brigade
• División de Infantería Mecanizada Brunete n. 1 (Mechanized) (Spain)
o W. Arm Brigade
EU Battlegroups (2007)
• Nordic Battlegroup (Paratroops) (Sweden)
o AT Brigade
• Mediterranian Battlegroup (Marines) (Italy)
o Rec Brigade
• HELBROC Battlegroup (Special Division) (Greece)
o Pol Brigade
• Transport Squadron (for Nordic BG)
• Transport Flotilla (for Med. BG)
Further Units
• European Gendarmerie Force (Special Division) (Venice) (2006)
o Pol Brigade
• EUFOR HQ (Headquarters)
o Pol Brigade
Possible Units
Foreign Legions
• Légion étrangère (Paratroops) (Guyana)
o Pol Brigade
• Legión Española (Special Division) (Ceuta)
EU Based NATO Units
Multinational Corps North East
• Multinational Corps North East HQ (Headquarters) (Stettin)
o Eng Brigade
• Danske Division (Mechanized) (Denmark)
o Helicopter Batallion
• 12. mechanizovaná divize (Mechanized) (Stettin)
o SP Art Batallion
• 14. Panzergrenadierdivision „Hanse“ (Mechanized) (Stralsund)
o W. Armour Brigade
1. Deutsch-Niederländisches Corps
• 1. Deutsch-Niederländisches Corps HQ (Headquarters) (Münster)
• 1. Mechanisierte Division Schaarsbergen (Mechanized) (Neatherlands)
• 1. Panzerdivision „Division Eingreifkräfte“ (Armoured) (Hannover)
o Eng Batallion
When the player decides not to unite Europe in 2009, events spawn more EU Battlegroups in member nations, named with “Battlegroup”, “Kampfgruppe” or “doesanyoneknowwhattheyarecalledinfrench”
