Starfire Historical Mod - PreRelease

[unmerged(19545)]

Okay, I must admit I'm a bit relieved.

A few details to touch on:

I have in a few Regimental Museums in my time, many of which had captured trophies. German WW2 ordinance had incredibly good levels of detailing and machining, and by all accounts worked brilliantly. Does the cost in time and IC for all their stuff represent this? I have read many accounts that suggest they weren't getting enough extra performance to justify the increased expense.

The only way the substantial increase in performance can be fully justified in game terms is, IMHO, any other country can choose to also increase build times to the same level, and get the same 25% increase to their killing ability.

I see no reason to code in any extra performance for the Germans just because of leadership. The leader file for the Germans is an embarrassment of riches as it is, and any German army in the game almost always has a leadership advantage over any opponent anyway. And not simply the extra 10% for the average skill advantage, but also for the special traits. I rarely fight a German leader who doesn't have at least one trait, and two is quite common. IIRC, the effect of the trait is multiplied by skill level too, so I'm almost always fighting at an efficiency disadvantage.

Slightly O.T.: I appreciate your calling the superiority a myth. I think that what the Wermacht showed us in WWII is something that every kid in every school yard already knows: If you don't yell 'race you to the monkey-bars' before you are already half way there, you will usually win the race. What the allies then taught them in return, is that if the other kid beats you to the monkey bars, keep running: you might beat him to the slide, or if not the slide, the see-saws for sure.

 

[Mithel]

DC, as I've said several times (in other threads) I don't think we can polish HoI to be "correct". We must make decisions as to what crude methods we use to approximate history. And I think many of us will always disagree on those methods.

Yes, Germany did a lot of R&D development and had many fine weapons overall they probably consistently had far better tech than any other nation (certainly America's "Ronson Lighter" Sherman tanks are an embarrassing example of America's tech disadvantage and in HoI it's going to be hard to stop that mega economy from generating by far the best teched units). But at the cost of not adopting mass production. That's why I've added a second "mass production" tech into the Starfire Historical Mod. If Germany wants the same mass production advantages of some other nations (USA & Russia) they will need to sink time and money (ICs) into gaining those techs.

While Germany has many good leaders in it's leader file, Russia has even more better ones! (definitely not the conventional view of leadership in WWII and France which demonstrated some horrible leadership has some excellently rated leaders too). My concern with the leaders is that the AI is braindead in selecting leaders. So a "superstar" like Rommel or Guderian may sit commanding some pitiful garrison force far from the action while some skill 2 no-names may be leading the offensives in the critical theaters.

I'm not modding in the German advantage "just because of leadership" - as I noted it's because of training, training, training, experience, leadership and equipment. Everything I've ever read implies Germany has held military service in high honor (thus they had some really excellent manpower talent in the military). The Germans trained many armies (in China and in South America for example) around the world prior to World War II.

The absurd notion that a German (implication I suppose of pure Aryan racial stock) soldier is somehow magically superior is a rather silly myth (apparently promoted by both sides as justification for a number of things). None the less, the German military achieved spectacular success and sustained an impressive record of skill in fighting all the way to the bitter end. To reflect this purely by techs would be a staggering job. It's a real shame that HoI doesn't include an "experience" rating (the closest they come is "organization" and the skill bonus of leaders).

- Mithel

 

[Long Lance]

Sorry, total newbie to SF.
Just looked at it and was wondering that total IC for the US is about 25 % of maximum. Didn't find something about this in the readme, on the SF-Website or in this post. Is this a bug, or corrected by an event (and, if so, when?).

Anyway, thanks for the mod!

 

[Mithel]

Long Lance, this is very intentional. The USA economy cut at the beginning is to reflect the USA's peacetime economy that spent very little on the military. There are two events that kick in the USA economy. One is based on the USA's war entry level and the other is fixed at January 1941 (assumption being that by then the USA would clearly be aware that war can't be avoided).

Keep in mind the player should also be heavily building the USA ICs and that as war entry level raises the consumer goods demand will drop also.

So what you should see is pre-war USA being foolishly naive and by Jan 1941 the USA economy blowing past all other economies and growing to an overwhelmingly powerful nation that clearly in the long run would be capable of defeating Germany and Japan.

- Mithel

 

[Long Lance]

I thought/hoped this, and this makes perfectly sense!

Very Good idea! I'll be back soon, justt started a HSR yesterday. But this mod is definately worth a try!

 

[frank2003]

The "superiority" of the German soldier in my opinion is "myth". However there are some good logical reasons why the average German soldier far outperformed his opponent that are based in fact:

1) Training - German military training was probably the best in the world in the WWII era.
2) Training again - German training doctrine included training each soldier to perform the duties of the rank above him so they were well prepared to handle losses.
3) Training yet again - the German training encouraged independent thinking at lower levels allowing them to skillfully adapt to the situations. (you'll note that in the Starfire Historical Mod it takes longer for the Germans to build an Infantry division than other nations - this is an offset from giving them the ground defense efficiency bonus).
4) Leadership - well trained and skilled leadership at all levels (and extra experience gained from Spain and the early conflicts).
5) Equipment - often German equipment had designs or features that were subtle that dramatically improved effectiveness - the best example being the Germans usage of radio. Russian tanks and aircraft without radios were at a severe disadvantage.
6) Experience - the Wehrmacht gained a lot of fighting experience and this was often employed against foes that lacked actual combat experience.

- Mithel

I ´d like to add that there was adifferent doctrine, too.
Alied and Russian forces got preceise orders what to do, the Wehrmacht gave targets to take, the means were up to the single commanders. So implementing a tech called "order-doctrine" or "target-doctrine" should play the trick.

 

[Mithel]

Version 0.99g has been released.

- Mithel

 

[unmerged(25229)]

Hey just some feedback

I downloaded the mod and decided to play a hands off game as the US just to watch how things went. Not sure if you ment for these things to happen or not.
A. NatChi is beating the crap out of Japan. Never seen that before

B. Took Ger about 4 months to annex Poland

C. Ger annexed Den quite easily, steamrolled Belguim but they havent even tryed to attack France after 1 yr of fighting.

Just wanted to let you know incase these arent intended results.

Oh yeah, I downloaded it last night, not sure what ver. that was and I am playing on the normal level.

 

[Mithel]

Fender, those are very unusual results! Currently I'm adjusting Japan (currently Japan's land army is too large compared to historical figures) to be a bit weaker so they aren't so effective against Nat China. Germany usually trashes Poland in one to two months (if Poland ceeds Danzig then it's a bit harder on Germany with the later start).

Germany sometimes gets in a stalemate with France but I haven't seen that happen in the past several versions. I'd say 9 out of 10 times Germany beats France fairly close to historical. Sometimes if Netherlands or Belgium stays neutral some odd results will develop.

I'm glad you mentioned you are playing on "normal" (the other settings will have bad results). You are playing the 1936 scenario correct???

- Mithel

 

[unmerged(25229)]

yep

.

Fender, those are very unusual results! Currently I'm adjusting Japan (currently Japan's land army is too large compared to historical figures) to be a bit weaker so they aren't so effective against Nat China. Germany usually trashes Poland in one to two months (if Poland ceeds Danzig then it's a bit harder on Germany with the later start).

Germany sometimes gets in a stalemate with France but I haven't seen that happen in the past several versions. I'd say 9 out of 10 times Germany beats France fairly close to historical. Sometimes if Netherlands or Belgium stays neutral some odd results will develop.

I'm glad you mentioned you are playing on "normal" (the other settings will have bad results). You are playing the 1936 scenario correct???

- Mithel

I am playing the 1936 scenario and I can send you the save file if you want to disect it a little more thoroughly. I figured out that I downloaded the .99g version. France does have forts all along the belguim border so not sure if that is holding up Germany. Like I said after the 4 months to take over Poland Germany has been steamrolling all the little countries. They havent started the invasion of finland but I would expect that soon. As for Japan they have failed to take a singel prov. while NatChi has taken 6-7 of Japans. No amphib. landings either that I noticed. It will be interesting to see if NatChi can do an amphib. invasion of japan . That would be different.

Forgot the Netherlands did remain neutral so that might have something to do with the difficulty in France.

 

[unmerged(16832)]

The Germans should have a supply efficiency problem. For all their combat effectiveness their supply system was extremely poor in comparison to their opponents'.

 

[frank2003]

The Germans should have a supply efficiency problem. For all their combat effectiveness their supply system was extremely poor in comparison to their opponents'.

Have you worked on that topic? Have you read a book about the topic? I wonder how you come to the conclusion you draw.

Let´s stick to facts, ok?
a) Germany fought a war against Poland and there weren´t too large supply problems.
b) Germany fought a war against France and there weren´t too large supply problems.
c) Germany fought a war against Russia and now there were some supply problems. The troop out ran the supplylines. Yes. After going about 2000km supplylines were long and supply wasn´t optimal.

d) Russian had no supply system. They equipped and supplied their divisions and when soldiers/material ran out the division was redrawn from front and rebuilt/reequipped.
e) The Allies had large supply problems in the summer of 1944, although they had airsuperiority and worked in a friendly /liberated nation and the supply line was only 400 miles long.

f) Germany had problems with supplies in the western Front because the Allies had air superiority.


As a matter of fact ou can research supply techs in HOI, which give you advantages.
The HOI engine should allow to reduce supplies with tactical attacks on land units.

Why should there be a penalty for nothing? What if the Allied player doesn´t build fighterbombers? Should there be the penalty, too?

 

[Mithel]

Fender, ah, thanks. In your game France must have selected it's "static" AI. And thus my German AI is too cautious in assaulting the forts. Thanks! I can improve that.

Supply is barely modeled in HoI. In HoI there is no difference between a 50 km supply line and one reaching thousands of kilometers. I actually have a little bit in that helps represent the German difficulties of driving so deep into Russia. But overall we are stuck with a very simplistic supply system.

- Mithel

 

[unmerged(25229)]

Another question

Ok back to the current game things have changed drastically in the japan-china war. Is there an event as japan that puts them on war industry like the US? Late '41 situation has reversed from earlier and Japan has retaken all of its territories and is now using amphib landings like normal. Weird thing is how quickly it happened in a time of about 6 months they started winning all of the battles and basically acting like they normally do. Just to let you know Russian has now dow'd germany so I am not expecting any major changes to the France situation.

 

[Mithel]

Intriguing Fender, you certainly have an usual game running! No, Japan doesn't have any economic kick in that I've added. Perhaps they joined the Axis and gained some of the SE Asia provinces via one of Paradox's events?

I'm afraid I'm to blame for Germany stagnating against forts (French Static AI path) so you're unlikely to see Germany storm France. And with a two front war I'd expect Germany to be crushed by Russia & France. How is Italy faring against the UK in North Africa?

- Mithel

 

[Mithel]

Version 0.99h has been released with an enhanced German AI and Russian AI.

- Mithel

 

[Mithel]

Version 0.99i has been released with enhanced Russia AI and fixed up Finland.

- Mithel

 

[Mithel]

Version 0.99k is now available with massive changes.

- Mithel

 

[Mithel]

Version 0.99m is now released.

Major changes to manpower, several AI files tweaked.

Edit:
Version 0.99n is now available.
AI files for Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary and Romania improved
Vehicle Mass production techs adjusted
Spanish Civil War tweaked.
2nd Edit:
Version 0.99o is now available.
- ground unit fuel usage increased
- bug fixed in Industry tech for vehicle mass production concept tech

- Mithel

 

[hbrsvl]

Starfire Historical Mod

We have released a first "half baked" version of our "Starfire Historical" Mod. You can download a copy from:
http://www.mnstarfire.com/ww2/hoi/recommendations.html

Don't expect it to work too well. It still needs major work. But I'd be curious if any of you play test it and I'd love to hear comments.

Note: this is intended for the 1936 scenario only! I suggest you also read the "player's guide".

Tonight I'll be tweaking up a few more values and releasing another update.

- Mithel

Mithel- I'm a new Star player-I hope this is in the right spot-if not please direct me. My ? Playing US . reached Dec. 16, '38. An event triggered-"US adopts Technology War Production". What is the effect of this? Where do you find it on the Technology Screen?( I looked at Industrial, Electroinics screens I could not find anything there. ) So far I like this mod very much. Thanks.Hugh Browne