The 39er's, part II

[unmerged(8114)]

OK, due to the many requests there will be a new 39er's game. There are already 8 players, so we cannot accept anyone more for this game, sorry.
The game will start on Sunday, 17th, 19:00 CEST.

Players (country):
Juv95hrn (Axis, Germany or Italy?)
MadViking (Axis, Germany or Italy?)
Aldo (Axis, Rumania?)
Jan (Axis, Japan?)
Hortlund (UK)
Isebrand (SU?)
Loco (NatChina or US?)
Andrew (US or NatChina?)

Houserules (from DEG, a few changes):

Abbreviations:
CG = Consumer Goods
CW = Commonwealth (includes UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zeeland)
AI = Any non-human controlled nation
DOW = Declaration of War
WE = War Entry


Version: 1.06, no modifications. Not even the picture pack, because it includes some other stuff. If you have the picture - pack, please reinstall HoI + p1.06.

General rules and limitations:
Nukes: Not allowed.
Paras: Allowed. Make as many as you want, and use them any way you want.
Resources and supplies: You can only send to nations in your alliance (exception: USA and CW nations may send to Soviets if Soviets are at war with Germany AND if the war was started by the Axis).
Events: Players are allowed to choose any of the choices available during an event or election (exception: France must accept Vichy if the Germans offer this, Japan must choose to become Paternal Autocrat).
Stacking limits: There are no limitations for stacking.

New unit deployments: Newly produced units must be deployed and cannot be kept in the force pool. You can only keep forces in the force pool that you strategically redeployed. I think I don't have to mention it with this group: Building units until only a few days are left and then moving other units in front of them would be using an exploit. Of course you are allowed to give a unit you build a higher priority if you really need the unit. But not in order to stop building other units. I don't think any explicit rule when you are allowed to do that is neccessary, so use it carefully.

Surrounding enemy capital: Not allowed (this sabotages production and distribution of supplies), unless you attack the capital within a reasonable amount of time.
General exploits: Not allowed (includes Japan annexing China before the Nanking event, using ghost armies to conquer enemy provinces, upgrading infrastructure in provinces that you will loose).
Major bugs: For major bugs such as important elections or events not happening and units that vanish, we will strive for an immediate editing of the save file and a re-host.

Diplomatic actions:
You can not coup or influence a human player. USA may not become Stalinist.
Alliances: Soviets can not join Axis or Allies. Nationalist China can not join any alliance.
DOW: You are only allowed to DOW a country if your land forces take a direct part in the invasion of the country (example: an Axis Italy can not DOW Denmark in order to get a lower increase in US WE).
Military access: You can not ask for military access (exception: you can ask military access from a puppet you control). You may only base your units in a country in your alliance (you don’t need military access for this). In other words, you may not refuel aircraft of ships in any country that is not in your alliance. You may not attack from neutral land or make an amphibious assault from neutral ships. (example: a non-Axis Japan may not have their units on German or Italian soil, the UK and USA may not have their units on Soviet soil and vice versa, Japan can not refuel their fleet in Brazil)
Military control: If you assume military control over an AI nation you may not use this nations units at the expense of the host nations security (example: the UK takes control of AI France and moves the entire French Army to UK mainland).
Expeditionary forces: You may send an unlimited amount of units to a country in your alliance, but a maximum of 3 units to a country not in your alliance (exception: you may not send any units to Spain unless you also decided to support them from the event).
Coup+DOW: Couping a nation simply in order to be able to DOW at more favorable conditions (such as avoiding a French AI auto-DOW, avoid raising US WE, avoid dissent) is not allowed. You may “re-coup” a nation that has been couped by the opposing side, and then DOW them if you wish (example: the Italian player may not coup Turkey and DOW them in order to avoid the French AI auto-DOW, but if the UK coups Yugoslavia so it becomes democratic, the Italians may coup them back to paternal autocrat and then DOW them).
Annex: You do not have to annex a country, even when this is possible. You do not have to annex even if you control 100% of that nations provinces.
Puppet: You are allowed to puppet a human player. However, the puppeted player is free to take any actions he wants, so you might be better off to annex the nation.
Liberate puppet: You are not allowed to liberate a puppet.
Tech sharing to human nations: Not allowed (exception: CW nations may send both silver and gold tech to other CW nations, even if they are human controlled).
Tech sharing to AI nations: You may only send to AI nations in your alliance, and you may only send silver tech (exception: CW nations may send both silver and gold tech to AI controlled CW nations).

Game speed and hosting:
Pausing: All players may pause when necessary.
Game speed: The host decides the game speed. During peace time this is generally “Above normal” and in war time “Below normal” or “Slow”. Any player may request a lower game speed. It is preferred to have a lower game speed than to have continual pausing.

 

[unmerged(8114)]

Amphibious assault: Does someone has an idea for amphbious landings? We used to have the rule max div = no of transports/10 for beach landings. Once a province with a habour is conquered, normal numbers of troops can be shiped.

A simpler rule is to limit landing size to 6 divs.

Any preferences?

 

[unmerged(14249)]

Pausing: All players may pause when necessary. IMPORTANT: since this is a multiplayer game, avoid pausing the game if you are not at war, and avoid doing it for non-essential tasks such as queuing research or making units.

How is making units or queuing research non-essential? And how is pausing ever strictly necessary within the game? This rule is meaningless.

Andrew

 

[unmerged(8114)]

How is making units or queuing research non-essential? And how is pausing ever strictly necessary within the game? This rule is meaningless.

Andrew

It is, I simply copied from DEG and forgot to delete it.

 

[unmerged(15723)]

Why are we not playing with picture pack? Of course the events from the pack should not be installed but the leaders, ministers and pictures really adds a lot to the game. The propaganda posters I can live without.
Edit: No leaders are included in the latest pic pack that aren't included in 1.06. So no problem.

 

[unmerged(8114)]

Why are we not playing with picture pack? Of course the events from the pack should not be installed but the leaders, ministers and pictures really adds a lot to the game. The propaganda posters I can live without.

The picture pack seems to include additional leaders, so please make a clean parallel installation of HoI + p1.06 for MP purposes.

 

[juv95hrn]

So we decided to allow 4 silver tech shares per year within an alliance even to human players. UK-US and Italy-Germany will benefit some from this but I harldy think it will unbalance the game.

We got started very late but once started the game ran on fine. Slow speed was neccessary with war starting from day 1. Germany followed the usual course of invading Poland, Denmark and overrunning France and installing Vichy. March 1940 Germany DOWed Spain. Some Italian forces have been put under Wehrmacht command for this operation.

Italy evacuated Ethiopia, attacked Yugoslavia and Greece during 1939 and entered the war spring 1940. Very limited gains were made in France with toulon; corsica and gabes in tunisia going to italy: the libyan army pushed on to next to alexandria where an assault was stopped.

At sea success was better. The naval air and navy of Italy are reported to have sunk at least 3 cruisers, 2 CVs, 3 submarine flotillas, some transports from the Royal Navy, barring these units being in repair. It's not impossible that even more ships have been sunk. Italy has only lost one cruiser and one fighter squadron so far. The Vichy fleet and the Free French fleet are about the same size even if some French ships were sunk by Italy before the Armistice.

The Italian army is reforming and Marshall Gariboldi have promised Il Duce that he will conquer Alexandria and the Delta area during the upcoming summer offensive.

 

[unmerged(3352)]

We need a houserule on aircraft stacking.

The way the airforce is used right now is ahistorical and it is killing the game.

Stack
12 bombers to kill any army
12 naval bombers to kill any fleet
12 fighters to kill any airunit

This game is becoming a battle of the killerstacks, and that is now how it is supposed to be

 

[Kindjal]

The picture pack seems to include additional leaders, so please make a clean parallel installation of HoI + p1.06 for MP purposes.

IIRC it has been repeatedly stated by either Max or Vulture that the ministers of the picture pack are all in 1.06.

 

[unmerged(8114)]

We need a houserule on aircraft stacking.

The way the airforce is used right now is ahistorical and it is killing the game.

Stack
12 bombers to kill any army
12 naval bombers to kill any fleet
12 fighters to kill any airunit

This game is becoming a battle of the killerstacks, and that is now how it is supposed to be

12 is not a killer stack. 100 planes as in 1.03, that's a killer stack.
But I wonder why people still stick to 12? Penalty is already there after the 2nd plane, so 12 is just an arbitary number from earlier patches.

The solution: Build more planes. And find an optimal stack size to counter your enemies stacks.

 

[unmerged(3352)]

Actually I was asking for a houserule not tips on how to counter these stacks.

 

[unmerged(14249)]

IIRC it has been repeatedly stated by either Max or Vulture that the ministers of the picture pack are all in 1.06.

And so the picture pack is not needed. It's currently a dangerous mess as you can see from this thread http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137122 The picture pack includes events which break 1.06. And you should generally be wary of any revisions to it so long as they put in files other than pictures. So long as they do this, the picture pack is not an official patch, it's a mod. If we're going to play with mods then I'd rather play with full CORE.

Andrew

 

[Kindjal]

Currently, I rather not play at all.

 

[unmerged(8114)]

Actually I was asking for a houserule not tips on how to counter these stacks.

And I actually think we don't need a houserule.

 

[unmerged(3352)]

So what do you others say? You too are content with 42-aircraft-stacks-roaming the map destroying everything in their path like mini-deathstars?

Have every war decided by the initial 20 vs 20 fighters duel, where the loser will see all his landunits vaporized by airpower, making any attempt at defensive stands completely pointless?

Where is the fun in that? Where is the game in that? Where are tactics and strategy if we are reduced to tech-rushing and killer-stacking?

 

[unmerged(14249)]

So what do you others say? You too are content with 42-aircraft-stacks-roaming the map destroying everything in their path like mini-deathstars?

I am sympathetic to your complaint but would like some specifics please. What has happened to you so far in this game? Myself, I've not taken any significant punishment from Japanese air power yet.

My cpmplaint is that it seems to be common to set up killer stacks and then use the repeat mission option to destroy weaker opposing stacks before they can react. This is when I find the game speed so critical - if you can get to the battle in time you can reinforce the target units and pull them out. But this tends to be a big mess if you're not the host and the game is running quickly - you get retreats and lag which foul things up. And I don't want to pause the game every time there's an air battle. I'd like to forbid the repeat mission option if the game speed setting is above slow.

The trouble with requiring small stacks of air units is that it would be difficult to manage offensive air operations - there would be too many units. And people might still use the group move and CCB options to put lots of separate units into the same province at the same time. So what's the alternative?

Andrew

 

[unmerged(3352)]

It is not so much a personal complaint as a worried observation. Right now, at the eve of war in Spain, Germany has 42 airunits stacked and ready on the Spanish border.

My personal experience of killerstacks so far is mostly against Italy.

A stack of 12 airunits tac and fighters paved the way for the Italian advance in Egypt, crushing all British defences.

I managed to halt the Italian offensive in Egypt by moving half the RAF down there to build my own killer-stack to defend against his. That is the killer-stack focus Im talking about that this game is being turned into.



But this is not about my personal experiences with killer stacks, this is about what the game will become if we allow unlimited stacking.

Player A will stack 10 fighters in one stack, and then 10 tac bombers in another, maybe also 10 divebombers in a third stack.

First the fighter stack will kill the enemy airforce, then the two tac/divebomber stacks will take turns to reduce province X to dust. Then the tanks move in and capture province X. Meanwhile the tac/divebomber stacks continue to reduce province Y to dust, and a short while later, the tanks capture Y. Rinse-repeat until the nation is captured. Player B cannot do anything to counter this because his airforce was killed during the first battles, alternatively it is hiding. And if he tries to use his fighters against Player A, player A will only shift his fighter-stack to the area and kill the remains of Player Bs airforce.

Where is the game in that?

 

[unmerged(9612)]

A stack of 12 airunits tac and fighters paved the way for the Italian advance in Egypt, crushing all British defences.

I am not in that game , so obviously I dont know what happened..

But what you describe, sounds very close to what happened historically. In Poland or France the Luftwaffe blasted holes in the defense with the stukas literrally terrorizing the infantry. In Egypt, when the British gained air superiority, they were able to stop the germans and eventually send them running all the way to Tunisia

In the game, in order to gain decisive advantage from air power, you need to have made significant technical progress and have a clear technical edge or large numerical superiority over your opponent. You are not going to wipe out the ennemy air if you have a slight numerical and/or technical edge.. he can just sit tight with his fighters and when you send in your tac or nav he will blast them. But then the side that has either owerwhelming numbers or technology will also prevail in real life

Also when you have large armies, the effect of air attacks is not so drastic as a stack of 24 may not be so impressed by 10 dive dombers attacking (in several games on the eastern front we saw the germans defeated despite the fact they had owerwhelming air superiority against the soviet) .... Finally there is AA. Air units are expensive (both research and build) and so it seems the effect they have is proportional to their cost.

 

[unmerged(3352)]

But what you describe, sounds very close to what happened historically.

Ah yes, the terror of the Italian airforce.

Actually I am trying to avoid the historical side of this coin, and I am arguing the gameplay-side of having the game reduced to a handful of key killerstack-vs-killerstack-fights, followed by a merciless and unavoidable slaughter of landunits.




If you want we can argue the historicity of the matter. But your problem would be that I would argue that no airforce on any side during world war two operated in units larger than 1-200 aircraft as an absolute maximum. So having 1000+ aircraft-units roaming the map is so ahistorical that its ludicrous. Not even the largest 8AF bombing raids or the famous 1000 plane raids by the BC had that many aircraft operating in units.

The bottom line is that by having that many aircraft stacked together, attacking the same unit at the same time is *very* ahistorical and it represents a type of coordination that simply did not exist in ww2. Im not even gonna go into the effects of the air attacks on the ground units. Lets just say that to have airunits destroy divisions or lowering their org to 0 making them mop-up-victims at best is beyond ahistorical...its ludicrious.

 

[juv95hrn]

The Italian advance was unhindered, air or no air, all the way to Alexandria. In the airbattle over Alexendria, while the Italian Army was assaulting, the Italians lost big time, which they should with their shitty tech. The Italian ground forces retreated in good order long before their org was depleted to avoid an air supported counter attack by the WDF/CW forces in Egypt. If the few pre-war tac bombers of Italy would have decided/changed the outcome of the battle for Alexandria if RAF hadn't stopped them I don't know but I doubt it. Actually I think the Italian ground forces could have broken the defenders without air support but I am too mean to sacrifice that much MP when there are cheaper ways to acheive the same goal.

Killer stacks of uber-teched units in general are much more rare in the 39 scenario which is one reason why I like this scenario more than the 36 dito.

The problem is often that the Axis are operating on the inner lines and can rebase his 12 fighters from UK to Egypt pretty fast and effortlessly since supply in North Africa is often not as scarce as it was historically. The UK can hardly afford to have 12 fighters to counter this in both UK and Egypt and it takes way to long time to rebase it here an counter it thus the axis can gain local air superiority almost where the choose in the early stages of the campaign.

My advice to the UK is to reserach a lot of fighter tech and build many fighters to be able to achieve air parity against the axis where ever they attack. This will often stop their advance and then you can start reconquering what has been lost in the inital blitz.

I'm not sure if air killer stacks is a problem since you need a lot of bombers to affect large land unit stacks. One suggestion would be to not allow the use of more bomber units than the number of targeted units but that would be almost impossible to implement as a house rule. Especially if a nation jas low intelligence tech and dont even know exaclty how many units he will bomb.

Another option would be to allow 3 fighters and 3 bombers of any kind as a maximum but what would that do to a 24 land unit stack in Russia? Nothing.

Possibly the -2 per air unit is the best possible solution as the current patch offers already? I'm just trying to deepen the discussion further.