Starfire Historical Mod

[boromir]

UK tanks were disbanded because i landed in Tunis again, this time practically making sure those tanks will be destroyed.

Of course, German tanks driving west from Cairo were also important to this maneuver.

Hmm, AFAIR the UK tanks disbanded after my tanks caught up with them and they lost a battle or two, though of course cutting him off in Tunis helped.

Anyway, I guess we should close this discussion

Still, the game was fun and we should try again some time

EDIT: one more point about the tanks - the UK Navy has the mobility necessary to quickly dump troops wherever they want in the West. The only German hope is to counter that mobility, again preferably with tanks (motorized also helps)

 

[Mithel]

Some thoughts:

I believe the game has some problems in that Germany gains too much IC from it's conquests. I do plan at least one tweak to this.

What I'm trying to simulate is Russia's choice to standardize on a single model of tank rather than building a zillion improvements like the Germans did. Thus I basically agree, the Russians should be one tank model behind Germany but they will have them "cheaper" due to the mass production techs. And it will be more difficult for Russia to research more tank models.

Russia did have manpower problems (they even used a fair number of women in combat) but they should be able to generate two to four times the manpower of Germany. The trick is to get this to kick in later in the game and you guys are finishing games far earlier than a lot of this kicks in. We will continue to work on ways to delay and slow the game down. I'm still not clear why the Allies "gave up" when it sounds like Germany hadn't even taken the major Russian cities.

I felt the engineer move time bonus of +1 is too much too. But I consulted with my friend (who is in the military and is a military historian) and he argued strongly that of course a major role of engineers is to speed the movement of a division and that this should remain. I think you've got a great idea there though. We should reduce the initial engineer speed benefit and increase it with techs. Great idea for the next version!

I disagree strongly with lowering the R&D costs further so that "everything" can be researched at the same time. This is a vital part of the game, the strategy and decisions on *what* to emphasize on research. Do I want better tanks or better aircraft? Better bombers or fighters? Should I improve the tech of my navy? All these trade-offs are what makes the game great fun!

Definitely I need to increase manpower for Russia in the next version. I need to figure out the best way to handle this though. I wish the AI was intelligent about using ministers. As far as I can tell giving players critical ministers is a major balancing problem for the AI as the AI appears to be completely braindead about using ministers.

The Soviets certainly can get Romania to join them via diplomacy. I've had it done against me in the past!

DarthMaur, my tactics and the tactics of my group are completely different from what I've seen of your group. We never have an "empty province" on the front (or the coast of France).

{smile} I wouldn't say I was surprised that you guys play as you do, just that when my opponents have tried anything remotely like that they were cut to pieces. There is a huge difference in the playing styles of players and I'm enjoying dealing with your group as I'd like to adjust the mod to handle more or less any style. I do desire to minimize "exploit" tactics. If all of you are convinced "tanks" are the only thing worth building then either A) your opponents aren't exploiting your weaknesses or B) Something is wrong with my mod. Certainly I'm trying to address point B.

- Mithel

 

[boromir]

Some thoughts:

I believe the game has some problems in that Germany gains too much IC from it's conquests. I do plan at least one tweak to this.

What I'm trying to simulate is Russia's choice to standardize on a single model of tank rather than building a zillion improvements like the Germans did. Thus I basically agree, the Russians should be one tank model behind Germany but they will have them "cheaper" due to the mass production techs. And it will be more difficult for Russia to research more tank models.

Russia did have manpower problems (they even used a fair number of women in combat) but they should be able to generate two to four times the manpower of Germany. The trick is to get this to kick in later in the game and you guys are finishing games far earlier than a lot of this kicks in. We will continue to work on ways to delay and slow the game down. I'm still not clear why the Allies "gave up" when it sounds like Germany hadn't even taken the major Russian cities.

I felt the engineer move time bonus of +1 is too much too. But I consulted with my friend (who is in the military and is a military historian) and he argued strongly that of course a major role of engineers is to speed the movement of a division and that this should remain. I think you've got a great idea there though. We should reduce the initial engineer speed benefit and increase it with techs. Great idea for the next version!

I disagree strongly with lowering the R&D costs further so that "everything" can be researched at the same time. This is a vital part of the game, the strategy and decisions on *what* to emphasize on research. Do I want better tanks or better aircraft? Better bombers or fighters? Should I improve the tech of my navy? All these trade-offs are what makes the game great fun!

Definitely I need to increase manpower for Russia in the next version. I need to figure out the best way to handle this though. I wish the AI was intelligent about using ministers. As far as I can tell giving players critical ministers is a major balancing problem for the AI as the AI appears to be completely braindead about using ministers.

The Soviets certainly can get Romania to join them via diplomacy. I've had it done against me in the past!

DarthMaur, my tactics and the tactics of my group are completely different from what I've seen of your group. We never have an "empty province" on the front (or the coast of France).

{smile} I wouldn't say I was surprised that you guys play as you do, just that when my opponents have tried anything remotely like that they were cut to pieces. There is a huge difference in the playing styles of players and I'm enjoying dealing with your group as I'd like to adjust the mod to handle more or less any style. I do desire to minimize "exploit" tactics. If all of you are convinced "tanks" are the only thing worth building then either A) your opponents aren't exploiting your weaknesses or B) Something is wrong with my mod. Certainly I'm trying to address point B.

- Mithel

The Allies surrendered because their tanks got severely beaten in every confrontation with Axis tanks. Their infantry losses cost them tons of manpower. Losing a couple of more battles would have them depleted to zero manpower reserves. But they should have at least tried

IC is boosted by researching electronics and industry techs, not just conquests.

Leaving no empty provinces on the coast of France would mean that you:
1) run out of manpower if you put large stacks
2) get blasted to pieces by the UK air force, losing tons of manpower, unless you build lots of AA and AA units, which you won't have time for. Have you been attacked around the clock by 12 improved dive bombers and couldn't do anything about it?
3) easily get overrun by the Allies at a landing of their choosing with maximum force concentration - they will be in Berlin by the time your forces in Normandy move two provinces

Germany is destined to lose if it doesn't invest primarily in planes and armour. I'm sure many MP groups have arrived at the same conclusion. Armour and planes are the best investment regardless of mod (in vanilla HOI mechs are great too). This need not mean that a war with such an army setup has to end quickly, if both sides are more or less balanced it has the potential to last pretty long. Nevertheless if you look at the multiplayer forum you will see that most complain that wars do not go past 1941.

This does not mean infantry is useless, it just isn't a primary focus, especially for the Germans. Try playing with such a tactic and see what happens

Anyway, Fiendix and Orthank will do some tests and we shall see ...

 

[unmerged(12303)]

Losing a couple of more battles would have them depleted to zero manpower reserves. But they should have at least tried

Boromir - need I remind you that it was 8 am - so we played for 16 hrs straight... If your tanks would have been improved - uk had more manpower and I would have had more also we could have saved and continued as I think we would have stood a chance.

 

[unmerged(12303)]

Some thoughts:

I believe the game has some problems in that Germany gains too much IC from it's conquests. I do plan at least one tweak to this.

its not only conquest - its prince of terror + computer techs..

What I'm trying to simulate is Russia's choice to standardize on a single model of tank rather than building a zillion improvements like the Germans did. Thus I basically agree, the Russians should be one tank model behind Germany but they will have them "cheaper" due to the mass production techs. And it will be more difficult for Russia to research more tank models.

How do you want to do this? Put the IC costs down for the russians? Dont forget that the germans should only be one model ahead not more.

Russia did have manpower problems (they even used a fair number of women in combat) but they should be able to generate two to four times the manpower of Germany. The trick is to get this to kick in later in the game and you guys are finishing games far earlier than a lot of this kicks in. We will continue to work on ways to delay and slow the game down. I'm still not clear why the Allies "gave up" when it sounds like Germany hadn't even taken the major Russian cities.

Well I think they had manpower issues only later in the war - they mostly used women in city combat like Stalingrad - when it was obvious that everybody had to fight.. The allies gave up as we played for 16 hrs. It was obvious Russia had too little manpower and the uk could not pose any threat to the germans.

I felt the engineer move time bonus of +1 is too much too. But I consulted with my friend (who is in the military and is a military historian) and he argued strongly that of course a major role of engineers is to speed the movement of a division and that this should remain. I think you've got a great idea there though. We should reduce the initial engineer speed benefit and increase it with techs. Great idea for the next version!

Well just dont go over the 0.5 as +1 is too much for the "realities" of this game..

I disagree strongly with lowering the R&D costs further so that "everything" can be researched at the same time. This is a vital part of the game, the strategy and decisions on *what* to emphasize on research. Do I want better tanks or better aircraft? Better bombers or fighters? Should I improve the tech of my navy? All these trade-offs are what makes the game great fun!

Trade off would still have to happen - the issue is that due to the low IC at the start it would still happen. The point is that russia upgrading has to have a chance to research the basics - infantry, tanks, artillary + land doctrine. - all gold techs. The way it is right now is that it cant do it. Russia HAS to upgrade its territories. Its a waste if it doesnt. Germany will have the techs anyways - however much it costs. Also I think that some of the dead end tech may cost more ic & time but be more beneficial - there the germans would have the advantage - not in the gold "concept" techs.

Definitely I need to increase manpower for Russia in the next version. I need to figure out the best way to handle this though. I wish the AI was intelligent about using ministers. As far as I can tell giving players critical ministers is a major balancing problem for the AI as the AI appears to be completely braindead about using ministers.

Well in mp nobody really cares for the ai . Russia should have the mass combat chap in 1940 latest. 39 may be too early - I would have had 2000 manpower when we ended if he came around 39 and 1200 if he arrived in 40.

The Soviets certainly can get Romania to join them via diplomacy. I've had it done against me in the past!.

yes well in the last 2 mp games I played I couped them twice so did the germans after that. It ended in romania going axis which if it would have happened would have given them a huge advantage. I just did not want to risk it...

DarthMaur, my tactics and the tactics of my group are completely different from what I've seen of your group. We never have an "empty province" on the front (or the coast of France).

do you have a save that I could see?

{smile} I wouldn't say I was surprised that you guys play as you do, just that when my opponents have tried anything remotely like that they were cut to pieces. There is a huge difference in the playing styles of players and I'm enjoying dealing with your group as I'd like to adjust the mod to handle more or less any style. I do desire to minimize "exploit" tactics. If all of you are convinced "tanks" are the only thing worth building then either A) your opponents aren't exploiting your weaknesses or B) Something is wrong with my mod. Certainly I'm trying to address point B.

- Mithel

I will send you the save from the lst game - you tell me what you would do at the start of the war.

F

PS It looks like we have "taken over" your thread

 

[boromir]

Yeah it looks like we hijacked it

So I'll be taking a break from posting here and wait for 1.06

 

[Mithel]

{laugh} I wouldn't worry about hijacking the thread, it's all on topic - how to improve the Starfire Historical Mod. So keep posting thoughts, ideas, and experiences.

Operating with zero manpower is normal. {grin} It's not an indication that it's time to surrender. You are not supposed to be able to rebuild your divisions constantly, you are supposed to be waging war with understrength divisions. (I think this is a main feature of Starfire vs vanilla!)

Let me copy and respond to several points one by one:
"Leaving no empty provinces on the coast of France would mean that you:
1) run out of manpower if you put large stacks"
- well, none of us use large stacks for coastal defense. The purpose of the coastal garrisons is just to slow down the invasion until your reserves can be brought into action.

"2) get blasted to pieces by the UK air force, losing tons of manpower, unless you build lots of AA and AA units, which you won't have time for. Have you been attacked around the clock by 12 improved dive bombers and couldn't do anything about it?"
- nope, I've never had that problem as defending fighters shred intruding bombers and defending flak makes those air attacks extremely costly. The Brit commander tends to learn not to do those after trying it a couple times. (and definitely position divisions with AA brigades in the vulnerable spots *and* build province AA)

"3) easily get overrun by the Allies at a landing of their choosing with maximum force concentration - they will be in Berlin by the time your forces in Normandy move two provinces"
- the coastal garrisons aren't suppose to stop them on the beaches. Nearby units shift to help contain the invasion as the mobile reserve moves into position to counter them. They aren't going to Berlin without supplies.

I absolutely agree that armor is essential for all major nations. The only issue I see is how much you build. The same goes for airforce. And the amount you build should depend largely on what you expect from your opponent.

Most likely the first IC "fix" I'll do in the next version will be to reduce the IC increases due to techs.

Fiendix, I think I have an old save game of one of our multiplayer games around (older version). I'll zip it up and e-mail it to you.

- Mithel

 

[unmerged(12303)]

Operating with zero manpower is normal. {grin} It's not an indication that it's time to surrender. You are not supposed to be able to rebuild your divisions constantly, you are supposed to be waging war with understrength divisions. (I think this is a main feature of Starfire vs vanilla!)

True but the tanks just mill through the infantry thus I have to spend a lot of manpower for them to be at full strenght - if they are not then I couldnt even stop his infantry..

Let me copy and respond to several points one by one:
"Leaving no empty provinces on the coast of France would mean that you:
1) run out of manpower if you put large stacks"
- well, none of us use large stacks for coastal defense. The purpose of the coastal garrisons is just to slow down the invasion until your reserves can be brought into action.

but you would lose those little stacks of units. And by how long would you slow them down a day?

"2) get blasted to pieces by the UK air force, losing tons of manpower, unless you build lots of AA and AA units, which you won't have time for. Have you been attacked around the clock by 12 improved dive bombers and couldn't do anything about it?"
- nope, I've never had that problem as defending fighters shred intruding bombers and defending flak makes those air attacks extremely costly. The Brit commander tends to learn not to do those after trying it a couple times. (and definitely position divisions with AA brigades in the vulnerable spots *and* build province AA)

how many aa units would you have to have to stop him - and how many province aa's for it to make a difference? How many dives does the british player usually send???

"3) easily get overrun by the Allies at a landing of their choosing with maximum force concentration - they will be in Berlin by the time your forces in Normandy move two provinces"
- the coastal garrisons aren't suppose to stop them on the beaches. Nearby units shift to help contain the invasion as the mobile reserve moves into position to counter them. They aren't going to Berlin without supplies.

I would love a game against you

Most likely the first IC "fix" I'll do in the next version will be to reduce the IC increases due to techs.
.

just make the techs harder to reach - like by 42/43 and we should be all right...

Fiendix, I think I have an old save game of one of our multiplayer games around (older version). I'll zip it up and e-mail it to you.

- Mithel

thanks

F

 

[Mithel]

It's better to deal with the IC gain by lowering the tech benefits because that also helps improve the resource situation. Resources don't change in HoI (unless you conquer them) and that gives the economic model fits.

I usually build AA up to about 4 in Germany. After the UK has beaten himself senseless against the AA in Germany (before the fall of France) he has learned to leave me alone. Then I usually build the coasts up with AA to 3 or 4 (more valuable than coastal forts).

But let's not let this dissolve into a strategy discussion. Let's stick to what can be improved in the mod.

- Mithel

 

[unmerged(12303)]

But let's not let this dissolve into a strategy discussion. Let's stick to what can be improved in the mod.

- Mithel

true but strategy can lead to exploits so its also important to see what others do. Like in our case - building so many tanks may be considered an exploit..

F

 

[boromir]

Oh well, I'll post again then, why not

The UK dives will not get shredded by German fighters. German fighters will get shredded by UK fighters that will attack you at night, making full use of their nightflyer commanders. You won't have enough German fighters anyway, because you will need some for the East as well, so the Allies will have air superiority pretty quick. They will use their air superiority to trap you into the plane retreat bug which will result in you losing your entire airforce in a couple of hours. So now you can't use your dives/tacs anymore. I may have failed to mention this but my improved fighters with air to air missiles got shredded by UK *basics* at night (I lost three in just one fight).

So now you have no air force in the West and not enough in the East.
But you don't have enough land forces for the East anyway, because you built too much infantry and can't attack

Your small stacks will quicky get killed by the bombers, followed up by the invasion force led by tanks. Your remaining infantry will quickly be surrounded and destroyed and the whole of France will see German troops with the white flag in an eternal retreat until they all die . The mobile UK force will run circles around you. The IC you spend building up the AA's across Western Europe will have Stalin smiling happily too (manpower is also used up for this, is it not?).

Of course, the UK only goes to Europe when Barbarossa starts

Once you have zero manpower and the opposition has more manpower and better org than you, you are dead, no time for the manpower to be "rebuilt".

If you want to see less tanks in the game, you can make them more expensive IC-wise, that is the simplest solution, though you may need to rework the manpower values. This way infantry will become more cost effective and will be built more. Tanks would still be deadly though. Planes are ok cost wise as they are though.

Maybe we really should play an MP game against each other someday

 

[unmerged(11775)]

SF Mod

While I haven't posted much on this thread, I have been playing the SF Mod exclusively for about the last month to six weeks. I don't really have any experience with the other mods (did play New Order once), but I've only played HoI since about the first of the year even though I bought it when it came out -- played a year of EU2 first. Kudos to Mithel for the extensive changes (improvements) he's made since version .97 of the mod.

It appears I get a little further into the game timeline than the MP group, usually 43 or 44 before I give up (or a new version comes out). No major complaints, but I will ask the creator to look into the AI garrison configurations, some strange things have happened in a couple of my games -- like Japan not garrisoning the Central Pacific whatsoever. May be helpful for Britain's values to be the same across the southern beach provinces, seen them put 8-10 div in one spot and only 1-2 in the others, and Italy putting 20+ div on Rome. These may have been already tweaked; just recollections from some old sessions. Anyway, thanks for all the hard work Mithel!

 

[Mithel]

I agree, some discussion of strategies and tactics is very valuable. I don't mean to squash it, just want to make sure it doesn't become a competition of "my strategy is better than your strategy".

Boromir, sounds like we need to fix the night air combat problems! I guess we can hope the plane retreat bug is fixed in v1.06.

The tanks are already "more expensive" in v0.99o because of the later development of "mass production" so that should help some. Infantry and armor are balanced for cost effectiveness (Infantry is more cost effective but armor is essential to defeat/push back Infantry). Germany of course can't build too much infantry because they lack the manpower.

Kalax, thanks for the comments. Garrisons are notoriously goofy. Britain's garrison values are the same across the south coast, but the AI shuffles them around real weird! Japan is partly my fault as I have always given Europe more attention. Japan has another problem in that they historically did not produce very many divisions.

According to the AI files Italy shouldn't put all that much in Rome. Perhaps they are gathering for a planned Amph assault? I really don't see any obvious improvements to make to Italy's garrison AI. (Rome is after all an important place to garrison!)

Garrison AI only works decently when the AI has a ton of available divisions. But I'll still give it a look. I may be able to improve it.

- Mithel

 

[unmerged(12303)]

(....) just want to make sure it doesn't become a competition of "my strategy is better than your strategy".
- Mithel

I think both of us are too old for that kind of arguement .

F

 

[Mithel]

{laugh} True... but in a written medium like this where we can't write novels to express our thoughts misunderstandings sometimes happen.

It sounds to me like there is a strong argument that "uber stacks of panzers" are the most effective way to wage ground warfare in HoI. And I think all of us are in agreement that we'd like to see it a bit more historically realistic and the first step toward accomplishing the realism is to make the war drag out longer (prevent blitzkrieg victories on the Russian front).

I won't really have time to work on it tonight but I'll probably release another major update on Wednesday (with my naval mods).

- Mithel

 

[Soapy Frog]

I dont think that the war needs to be dragged out longer, I think that armor needs to take more damage in combat.

The strength of an armoured division should exhaust much faster than the strength of an infantry division, for example, but should be counter-balanced by increased effectiveness (which is already well represented in the game by increased org damage inflected by armor on soft targets).

The ratio of an armoured divisions SA:IC cost should be less than the ratio of an infantry division's HA:IC cost... and by the late war, the infantry's ratio should be increasingly superior.

Armour should have significantly higher org to compensate. In short, they have a better chance to outlast a defence made up entirely of infantry and win the battle, but they will take highly significant losses doing so. By the same token, two equivalent (in stats) armour forces in combat should pretty well batter themselves to pieces before one or the other side breaks.

 

[Mithel]

Interesting Soapy... so raise HA on both Infantry and Armor?

I'll ponder this in relation to the values I have now.

Keep in mind that replacing a point of armor costs three times as much as replacing a point of Infantry, per IC cost per point, and thus is usually about ten times as much. Thus if you lose fifty points of infantry and fifty points of armor it'll cost you only 29 supply to rebuild the infantry but 455 supply to rebuild the armor.

Still Soapy, I think you're on the right track... we need to make armor burn out faster.

- Mithel

 

[Soapy Frog]

Yep you want to make armor expensive to rebuild and expensive to USE... it's a war winning weapon after all.

A Nation which ries to build nothing BUT armor divisions should go bankrupt trying (and failing) to resupply them all in combat.

 

[unmerged(12303)]

It sounds to me like there is a strong argument that "uber stacks of panzers" are the most effective way to wage ground warfare in HoI. And I think all of us are in agreement that we'd like to see it a bit more historically realistic and the first step toward accomplishing the realism is to make the war drag out longer (prevent blitzkrieg victories on the Russian front).

- Mithel

right - but on the other hand what we have right now is very close to what I think we need in terms of balance so if you do big changes we might go back to square 1.

F

 

[Kindjal]

One can get +30% IC from the computer tree, +22% from the industrial tree and +15% from the nuke tree.

And the default IC gain of annexed countries is 33%, occupied 25%, and if I am not mistaken the prince gets it to 58 and 50%.