how many garrisons did you build? and did you use them as a firewall for defensive lines? they shouldnt be all that bad on the defensive
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how many garrisons did you build? and did you use them as a firewall for defensive lines? they shouldnt be all that bad on the defensive
That's quite interesting! So, the TRM is difficult enough even without the "Bring 'em on!" option enabled...? Very good. Could you report how your game progresses, please? (no AAR needed, just some brief info - how does it go in Russia, do the Allies land in Europe etc.)
For all TRM lovers - a russian guy was kind enough to translate and upload an excellent documentary series from 2010 about the Eastern Front. Great complement to the Battlefield series.
http://www.youtube.com/user/38602
http://www.youtube.com/user/38602
Just noticed something in Panzer Generals' AAR that has happened in my games, too: Italy almost invariably declares war on Greece in June of 1940 and Japan on the USA in October 1941. I have tried playing with the events a bit myself, but this always happens. Any chance these could be made to occur on or closer to the correct dates (Oct. 40 and Dec. 41)? Not a major issue and makes the game (very) slightly harder for Germany, so would not waste too much time on it, but might be nice if they could happen on the historically correct dates....
I undoubtedly agree with your second claim, that Italy should't be encircled through amphibious landings but I disagree with your claim that Italy should be ravaged if it has no help. As one historian pointed out, Italy would have been fine handling a war on one front, but from the start Mussolini over extended his army, as seen with his ultimately pointless and costly expedition in France, his attempted invasion of Greece and, against the will of his generals, the sending of over 250,000 men armed with the best armaments Italy could offer to fight against the USSR in 1941-42. If he had focused the majority of his forces (or at least the best equipped and trained of his army) on North Africa (and Malta) then, in my view, the war in the Mediterranean would have ended differently or would have been prolonged in the least.
Also, +1 to Caesar's comment
And I think the manpower nerf for Italy is just too harsh, I keep checking it and it has no MP by 1937. Also the Italian intervention event triggers even if Italy does not have enough supplies. I can tweak these myself but I just wanted to mention them.
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I will take a look at the timing of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Mussolini's invasion of Greece. I probably switched too soon to aggressive AI settings.
Regarding Italy, I made some changes that should help them out in the next patch. Here they are in no particular order....
•Reworked the Italian AI, or at least tried to…. Italy will dedicate more IC to upgrades and reinforcements instead of producing tens of thousands of unneeded supplies. Updated its technology and build preferences. The ITA ai should now properly garrison Tobruk, Tripoli, and Benghazi (as well as Alexandria, Suez, and Tel Aviv if it captures those provinces). If none of the following six provinces is controlled by Italy – Tobruk, Tripoli, Bengazi, Alexandria, Suez, Tel Aviv – then the Italian AI will go into a defensive posture by abandoning Africa and the Med Sea islands to better garrison Italy and Illyrian Peninsula. To further help the Italian AI, the “Italians are Lovers, Not Fighters” event only nerfs Italian manpower by -15% instead of -20% like in previous versions of TRM. Italy now begins the Scenario with the Rear Area Supply Dumps 1936 technology (1310) and also receives a blueprint for Deep Logistic Organization 1940 technology (1320) by event to reduce its desert attrition. Unfortunately, none of these changes seem to have made any difference whatsoever; Italy still gets crushed very quickly by the Allies (unless of course the Human Player sends German units to North Africa and/or assumes military control of Italy).
•New event will dramatically increase infrastructure levels in 25 North African provinces on 1 January 1936. Another event will bring these infrastructure levels back down to normal when ITA goes to war with ENG. This event eliminates the ridiculous desert attrition that the Italian army suffered in peacetime. The event will also prevent attrition of English troops stationed in Alexandria and Suez.
•If Germany controls Suez, and if Syria is in the Axis, and if Syria controls any provinces in the Palestine area, then Syria will cede those provinces to Germany, which will then enable Germany to create the independent state of Israel. A similar event makes Iraq cede Palestine provinces to Germany, also.
•Troop transport ship visibility lowered from 50 to 45 (vanilla is 90). This will make them harder for the enemy to spot, and hence should make them harder to sink.
•Destroyer visibility lowered from 50 to 45 to be same as revised troop transport ship (vanilla is 50).
•Raised infrastructure in North Africa because desert attrition continued to be too high. Coastal provinces now have 50, provinces with military ports such as Tripoli have 60, and inland provinces have 30. Four inland desert provinces where the Italian AI insists on placing its troops got 45 infrastructure rather than 30. (Note that this map change is separate and apart from the change described in the event section, above, which temporarily raises North African infrastructure via event until Italy goes to war with England).
•Removed beaches from seven North African provinces: Bizerte (940), Sousse (938), Zuara (933), Bardia (916), Fuka (910), El Alamein (909), and Port Said (901). After this change, ten beach provinces remain along the North African coast between Casablanca to Suez, inclusive, which leaves plenty of opportunities to conduct amphibious operations. Updated USA, ENG, and ITA ai amphibious invasion settings based on this change.
•Misc file supply distance severity lowered from 2.4 to 2.3
Regarding Italy, I made some changes that should help them out in the next patch. Here they are in no particular order....
•Reworked the Italian AI, or at least tried to…. Italy will dedicate more IC to upgrades and reinforcements instead of producing tens of thousands of unneeded supplies. Updated its technology and build preferences. The ITA ai should now properly garrison Tobruk, Tripoli, and Benghazi (as well as Alexandria, Suez, and Tel Aviv if it captures those provinces). If none of the following six provinces is controlled by Italy – Tobruk, Tripoli, Bengazi, Alexandria, Suez, Tel Aviv – then the Italian AI will go into a defensive posture by abandoning Africa and the Med Sea islands to better garrison Italy and Illyrian Peninsula. To further help the Italian AI, the “Italians are Lovers, Not Fighters” event only nerfs Italian manpower by -15% instead of -20% like in previous versions of TRM. Italy now begins the Scenario with the Rear Area Supply Dumps 1936 technology (1310) and also receives a blueprint for Deep Logistic Organization 1940 technology (1320) by event to reduce its desert attrition. Unfortunately, none of these changes seem to have made any difference whatsoever; Italy still gets crushed very quickly by the Allies (unless of course the Human Player sends German units to North Africa and/or assumes military control of Italy).
•New event will dramatically increase infrastructure levels in 25 North African provinces on 1 January 1936. Another event will bring these infrastructure levels back down to normal when ITA goes to war with ENG. This event eliminates the ridiculous desert attrition that the Italian army suffered in peacetime. The event will also prevent attrition of English troops stationed in Alexandria and Suez.
•If Germany controls Suez, and if Syria is in the Axis, and if Syria controls any provinces in the Palestine area, then Syria will cede those provinces to Germany, which will then enable Germany to create the independent state of Israel. A similar event makes Iraq cede Palestine provinces to Germany, also.
•Troop transport ship visibility lowered from 50 to 45 (vanilla is 90). This will make them harder for the enemy to spot, and hence should make them harder to sink.
•Destroyer visibility lowered from 50 to 45 to be same as revised troop transport ship (vanilla is 50).
•Raised infrastructure in North Africa because desert attrition continued to be too high. Coastal provinces now have 50, provinces with military ports such as Tripoli have 60, and inland provinces have 30. Four inland desert provinces where the Italian AI insists on placing its troops got 45 infrastructure rather than 30. (Note that this map change is separate and apart from the change described in the event section, above, which temporarily raises North African infrastructure via event until Italy goes to war with England).
•Removed beaches from seven North African provinces: Bizerte (940), Sousse (938), Zuara (933), Bardia (916), Fuka (910), El Alamein (909), and Port Said (901). After this change, ten beach provinces remain along the North African coast between Casablanca to Suez, inclusive, which leaves plenty of opportunities to conduct amphibious operations. Updated USA, ENG, and ITA ai amphibious invasion settings based on this change.
•Misc file supply distance severity lowered from 2.4 to 2.3
I don't know if its just me, but in my last game Italy did not annex Ethiopia until 1938 and its entire army there suffered from total lack of supplies. I obviously have a legal copy of the game and get the code CABN as Gringo says but I still get this frustrating convoy problem and disastrous Italian AI.
I think that I have been able to fix the Italian AI and make some other changes that will greatly aid Italy in the next TRM release (see list in post #467, above). Up until now, the ITA AI files were basically just copied from DAIM, but I took some time over the past couple months to rewrite them. Italy will still eventually lose, though, unless the human player assumes military control of Italy and also sends a large German force to Africa. This will be especially true after the USA enters the war and focuses its huge military on the Mediterranean area. Not unlike what happened IRL....
One thing that may be hurting the Italians is the -5% Axis combat penalty on normal settings in the difficulty file. For the next TRM release, I might drop the Axis combat penalty from -5% to only -3%, but I would offset this by changing the human penalty from -2% to -4%. Human Germany would suffer the same -7% combat penalty as it currently does in TRM 1.07, but the Italian AI (and also Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria) would not be nerfed quite as badly. That being said, I don't want to un-nerf the Italians too much, because during WW2 the hearts of the Italian soldiers were just not in the fight. Here is an example copied from Wikipedia which inspired the quote "never in the course of human events have so many surrendered so much to so few":
In early 1941 British forces were engaged in Operation Compass, an attempt to drive the Italians out of North Africa. On 21 January 1941 the Australian 6th Division made an assault to capture the Italian-garrisoned port of Tobruk, which offered one of the few good harbours between Alexandria and Tripoli.
The Italian army was unable to put up an effective resistance. The Italian commander, General Petassi Manella, was taken prisoner after 12 hours of battle, and 24 hours later the Australian troops had cleaned up remaining resistance. The Australians lost 49 dead and 306 wounded, while capturing 27,000 Italian POWs, 208 guns and 28 tanks. Many serviceable trucks and a large quantity of supplies were also captured (as the Italian army was getting ready to advance towards Egypt). The Italians had constructed some impressive defences, including a perimeter of concrete pits.
By the end of the first week in February, Operation Compass had resulted in the Italian forces being driven from Cyrenaica and in the surrender of the Italian Tenth Army.
I don't think this is a fair assessment. The game already models morale and motivation via the land doctrine tree, why add further disadvantages?
How many did the British lose in Singapore? In a fortress that was supposed to hold out for months? Or the Americans in the Philipines and on the impregnable Corregidor? Or the BEF, trapped and nearly annihilated? And what about the 70-odd French divisions still intact after Dunkirk?
Oh, but we have our excuses why the US/UK loss so incredibly easily to the Japanese, that fits our victor's narrative of the war, and isn't at all based on cultural bias or even racism.
Since there seems to be some dispute on how strong the Italians should be, I thought I would add my two cents.
From a purely game play perspective, I think it is balanced quite well at present (though I agree with Gringo's changes for removing certain beaches, etc.). Since the point of TRM is to create a challenging yet historically plausible game for Germany, I think forcing the choice between reinforcing the Italians or using those divisions in Russia is important and adds a difficult dilemma for the player.
From an historical perspective, I'm no expert on Italian forces in WWII, but I think it can be said that while certain divisions acquitted themselves quite well, Italy never really had any success on a theatre or army group level without German leadership and support. Their performance in North Africa before Rommel was pretty abysmal, they were embarrassed in Greece, and required German reinforcements under Kesselring in Italy. As for their navy, it was significantly weakened at Taranto early on. Yes, every combatant nation suffered some defeats in this war, but Italy suffered many and never really had a success without German assistance. Of course, whether that is primarily a result of morale, poor officer training, insufficient equipment, failure of industry and supply, etc., can be debated ad infinitum.
From a purely game play perspective, I think it is balanced quite well at present (though I agree with Gringo's changes for removing certain beaches, etc.). Since the point of TRM is to create a challenging yet historically plausible game for Germany, I think forcing the choice between reinforcing the Italians or using those divisions in Russia is important and adds a difficult dilemma for the player.
From an historical perspective, I'm no expert on Italian forces in WWII, but I think it can be said that while certain divisions acquitted themselves quite well, Italy never really had any success on a theatre or army group level without German leadership and support. Their performance in North Africa before Rommel was pretty abysmal, they were embarrassed in Greece, and required German reinforcements under Kesselring in Italy. As for their navy, it was significantly weakened at Taranto early on. Yes, every combatant nation suffered some defeats in this war, but Italy suffered many and never really had a success without German assistance. Of course, whether that is primarily a result of morale, poor officer training, insufficient equipment, failure of industry and supply, etc., can be debated ad infinitum.
Crazy fool, been reading Edward Saïd have we?
Anyway on the game itself, do you think Italy has been nerfed enough on vanilla AoD alone?
TRM v1.07.1
for Arsenal of Democracy 1.07
29 June 2011
You can download the latest version of the Third Reich AoD Mod at:
http://www.gamefront.com/files/20496249/TRM+v1.07.1+XQSX.rar
if gamefront goes down, there is a backup copy at
https://rapidshare.com/files/1449546179/TRM_v1.07.1_XQSX.rar
The checksum is XQSX (when installed over AoD v1.07 MZJY)
The prior version of the Mod, TRM v1.07, was downloaded 264 times.
Thanks to everyone who made suggestions on this thread, by PM, and by email. I tried to incorporate as much feedback as I could.
______________________________
Change control TRM v1.07 to v1.07.1
Events
•Added 23 historical flavor German events which were suggested, researched, and partially written by clist123abc. Twelve of these new events fire before Danzig or War, which helps to reduce the tedium of the early game.
•Added six new events with actual jokes told in Germany during the 1936-1945 timeframe. Some people may find them annoying, but in my opinion they add immersion and flavor. You have the option to sleep these joke events if you don’t want them.
•Added a dozen recurring events related to the Battle of the Atlantic to enable the Kriegsmarine to more-effectively blockade England. Credit for the overall concept and the initial event scripting goes to Kilolima.
•To represent Norway’s strategic importance and to allow the Allies to interdict ore shipments between Germany and Sweden, all trade agreements between Germany and Sweden will be temporarily canceled if the Axis does not hold the province of Narvik. This recurring event fires on a semi-monthly basis beginning in June 1940.
•To assist the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, ENG will receive a provincial AA gun and a radar station by event in summer 1940 in Portsmouth, Plymouth, Dover, and Norwich. This might make it harder for the Luftwaffe to pulverize the Royal Navy with port strike missions if British ships are docked in Channel ports.
•New event will dramatically increase infrastructure levels in 25 North African provinces on 1 January 1936. Another event will bring these infrastructure levels back down to normal when ITA goes to war with ENG. This event eliminates the ridiculous desert attrition that the Italian army suffered in peacetime. The event will also prevent attrition of English troops stationed in Alexandria and Suez.
•If Germany does not declare war on the USA after Pearl Harbor, then the dissent hit will be only 5 rather than 10. It is likely that the USA will join the Allies anyway during the course of the game, so a 10 dissent hit was too much. Besides, if Germany lands troops in England, then the USA will automatically declare war on Germany via event. I expect that most Players will probably take the historical option and declare war on the USA.
•If Germany controls Suez, and if Syria is in the Axis, and if Syria controls any provinces in the Palestine area, then Syria will cede those provinces to Germany, which will then enable Germany to create the independent state of Israel. A similar event makes Iraq cede Palestine provinces to Germany, too.
•The Hans-Ulrich Rudel event was moved up by several months, from July 1943 (when he became air group commander) to February 1943 (when he completed his 1,000th sortie and began flying the Ju-87G). This event provides the blueprint for the 1943 air tech Bomber Ace Initiative but no longer gives Germany a free Ju-87G aircraft wing.
•New event in summer 1941 will give Germany the blueprint for the Marder III tank destroyer (1941 tech).
•Greatly improved the traits for German panzer general Hermann Balck, who now becomes available in early 1943 via event.
•Fixed the trigger for the event that was supposed to nerf Vichy France’s manpower and IC output. Also, when VIC is created, its military will begin with one less naval bomber, infantry division, destroyer, and transport ship than it did in TRM 1.07. On the other hand, VIC’s two tactical bomber wings now have attached escort brigades rather than being naked.
•Updated trigger for the event whereby England cedes Karachi to the USA.
•Corrected the trigger for the Hitlerjugend event.
•Reworded the text for Last Flight of Rudolf Hess event.
•Updated the text of the Sloped Armor event.
•Rewrote the text for the Me-163B Komet event.
AI Historic Behavior
•AI controlled Germany will choose the historical date to launch Fall Weserubung (April 1940) rather than attacking Norway and Denmark in October 1939.
•The Japanese AI will probably wait until early December 1941 to attack the USA. In prior TRM versions, the war in the Pacific usually began in October 1941.
•The Italian AI should wait until October 1940 to declare war on Greece, rather than doing so in mid-1940.
The Russian Front
•‘Buffed’ the Finns. When the Winter War starts in 1940, Finnish ground defense efficiency is raised by 15% (from 0.80 to 0.92) and Finnish land unit morale goes up by 10. Finland begins the Scenario with the 1936 Rear Area Supply Dumps technology (1310) to reduce attrition during winter and/or in low infrastructure provinces. The Winter War might take a month or so longer than it did previously, but nevertheless Finland will eventually lose to the overwhelming might of the Red Army.
•The Soviets will always claim Bessarabia from Romania. Vanilla AoD has a 97% chance of the AI doing this.
•Soviet Great Patriotic War event will fire when the USSR has lost 8% of its national territory, rather than at only 5% in prior versions of TRM. (The vanilla AoD value is 10%).
•New event whereby Soviets will offer a ceasefire to Germany if the Germans are successful during the initial phases of Operation Barbarossa in summer 1941. This event is inspired by the real life proposal that Pavel Sudoplatov made to the Bulgarian ambassador in July 1941. The Soviet Union will offer the Germans 54 of their western provinces (all of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and eastern Poland, plus the western areas of Belarus and the Ukraine) in exchange for a peace treaty. If you accept the ceasefire, Stalin will be very angry and is likely to betray Germany in the winter of 1943-1944, which means that you should have about two years of peace on the Eastern Front. The Red Army will probably be huge by the time Russia goes to war again. On the other hand, the pause in the eastern conflict might give Germany time to finish off the western allies. Accepting the Soviet ceasefire proposal would NOT be historical and I doubt if many Players will do it. But I wanted to add this event for flavor after I watched BBC War of the Century (which is an excellent four-episode series, by the way). In any case, it is your decision whether or not to accept the Soviet peace proposal or drive east towards Bitter Peace….
•New event will raise Soviet ground defense efficiency from 0.80 to 0.82 on 12 September 1941. This event relates to Stavka Order 1919 whereby blocking detachments were established behind Red Army units to prevent unauthorized retreat. (Soviet GDE permanently increases to 0.84 when the General Winter Event fires in mid-November 1941. The vanilla AoD GDE value for all countries is 0.80; therefore, the Red Army gets a slight defensive bonus in TRM).
•Updated Bielski Partisan event so the partisan unit arrives in the correct province.
•New Soviet event provides the Red Army with one free locked garrison unit in Brest Litovsk and creates a size 1 land fort there. Historically, the besieged soldiers at Brest Litovsk put up a heroic defense at the outset of Operation Barbarossa. So heroic, in fact, that Hitler and Mussolini traveled there to personally visit the site IRL.
•New Soviet event under the “Bring ‘Em On” tougher Barbarossa campaign option will create the 5th Guards Army with nine free divisions in July 1943 if Germany is at war with the Soviets at that time.
•New Soviet event under the “Bring ‘Em On” tougher Barbarossa campaign option will create the 1st Belorussian Front with eight free divisions in June 1944 if Germany is at war with the Soviets at that time.
•Two new Soviet events will trigger if the USSR and Japan are at war with one another at any time between May 1941 and July 1945. These events give the Soviets a total of 7 free divisions in eastern Siberia. Historically, Japan did not assist the Germans by attacking the USSR; instead the Japanese focused on China and the Pacific. If the German Player goes ahistorical and brings Japan into the conflict against the Soviets, then these extra seven units should help the Red Army hold onto Siberia without having to divert units from the German front.
•The ten Guards Airborne Divisions that the USSR receives under the “Bring ‘em On” tougher Barbarossa campaign option will be Paratrooper 1942 model 2 (SKIF icon level III) rather than 1940 model 1 (SKIF icon level II).
•For flavor, added quotes from German soldiers to the text of three ‘notice events’ that can occur under Bring ‘em On.
•SOV AI will deploy a few divisions along its southern border with Persia in 1941 just in case the Axis tries to take Russia from behind.
•SOV AI will permanently switch from an offensive to defensive posture in the Spring of 1943 rather than in the Winter of 1942-1943.
•If Germany is AI-controlled, then it will choose the standard Barbarossa option rather than Bring ‘em On.
•Raised the infrastructure level in twelve Russian provinces from 50 to 60. These provinces represent railway links between Moscow and Sverdlovsk, and between Stalingrad and Sverdlovsk. This higher infrastructure should give the Red Army slightly better ESE in western Russia after the Soviet capital relocates from Moscow to Sverdlovsk. Also, as the Germans drive eastward across the Volga, this extra infrastructure might help the Player somewhat (in TRM v1.07 German ESE dropped under 10% as the Germans moved east into the Ural Mountains, even when using the Guns & Butter Minister).
•Removed the port from Mezen (1771), just north of Archangelsk, to increase the strategic importance of Archangelsk. Changed Mezen’s provincial infrastructure to 9. The AI will not voluntarily enter Mezen because its infrastructure is below 10, but Red Army units will be able to retreat into that province if Axis forces capture Archangelsk.
•Raised provincial infrastructure of Barguzin (1521) in eastern Siberia from 10 to 40.
•Revolt file – it is now mandatory to control Rogachev (274) prior to puppeting BLR. Previously, this province had been “extra”.
Free German Units
•New German event creates the ‘free’ 4th SS Polizei motorized infantry division with an attached police brigade.
•Six new German events create ‘free’ static (locked) fortress divisions along the Atlantic Wall, if Germany has enough spare resources available. Five of these units are garrison divisions and the other is a militia division (Luftwaffe Feld). These events also create a coastal fort or land fort in the province where the division will be located.
Unit Stats
•Troop transport ship visibility lowered from 50 to 45 (vanilla is 90). This will make them harder for the enemy to spot, and hence should make them harder to sink.
•Battlecruiser visibility lowered from 60 to 55 (vanilla is 80).
•Destroyer visibility lowered from 50 to 45 to be same as revised troop transport ship (vanilla is 50).
•Light Cruiser visibility lowered from 60 to 50 (vanilla is 60).
•Naval camouflage smoke screen brigades (b_u6) may now be attached to DD and CL. With this change, a small task force composed of a BC and a screen might be effective at convoy raiding, provided that all ships in the fleet are brigaded with smoke screens.
•Lowered visibility for 1938 submarine SS3 (SKIF Icon IV) from 6 to 5 (vanilla is 7).
•Added 1 to the air defense and air attack of rocket interceptors. Lowered the tech research cost of the 1943 rocket interceptor Me163B Komet model by a wee bit. Changed range to 125 (vanilla is 150). A range of 125 is half the range of model 0 and model 1 interceptors and about 1/3 the range of the 1944 turbojet interceptor. Rocket interceptors were used for point defense and therefore should have a short range.
Map
•Raised infrastructure in North Africa because desert attrition continued to be too high. Coastal provinces now have 50, provinces with military ports such as Tripoli have 60, and inland provinces have 30. Four inland desert provinces where the Italian AI insists on placing its troops get 45 infrastructure rather than 30. (Note that this map change is separate and apart from the change described in the event section, above, which temporarily raises North African infrastructure via event until Italy goes to war with England).
•Removed beaches from seven North African provinces: Bizerte (940), Sousse (938), Zuara (933), Bardia (916), Fuka (910), El Alamein (909), and Port Said (901). After this change, ten beach provinces remain along the North African coast between Casablanca to Suez, inclusive, which leaves plenty of opportunities to conduct amphibious operations. Updated USA, ENG, and ITA ai amphibious invasion settings based on this change.
•Changed four provinces to urban terrain: Aachen (66), Odessa (233), Vienna (463), and Breslau (473). Also changed Rome from hills to plains and Reggio di Calabria from plains to hills.
•Removed 2 oil from Ploesti (431), 1 from Hannover (86), and 2 from Lvov (501). Balanced this by adding five oil to Hungarian province Gyor (458) bringing Gyor’s oil up to seven to emphasize the importance of the Hungarian oil fields during World War II.
•Two of the province connections between Afghanistan and India are now impassible to make it more difficult for German land forces to bypass Karachi as they drive into India.
Other
•Reworked the Italian AI, or at least tried to…. Italy will dedicate more IC to upgrades and reinforcements instead of producing tens of thousands of unneeded supplies. Updated its technology and build preferences. ITA should now properly garrison Tobruk, Tripoli, and Benghazi (as well as Alexandria, Suez, and Tel Aviv if it captures those provinces). If none of the following six provinces is controlled by Italy – Tobruk, Tripoli, Bengazi, Alexandria, Suez, Tel Aviv – then the Italian AI will go into a defensive posture by abandoning Africa and the Med Sea islands to better garrison Italy and the Illyrian Peninsula. To further help the Italian AI, the “Italians are Lovers, Not Fighters” event only nerfs Italian manpower by -15% instead of -20% and Italian land units only get a -2 morale penalty rather than -5. Italy now begins the Scenario with the Rear Area Supply Dumps 1936 technology (1310) and also receives a blueprint for Deep Logistic Organization 1940 technology (1320) by event to reduce its desert attrition. Unfortunately, none of these changes seem to have made a damn bit of difference; Italy still gets crushed very quickly by the Allies (unless of course the Human Player sends German units to North Africa and/or assumes military control of Italy).
•If Germany is AI controlled, then it will receive some bonuses once it goes to war with Russia, and will also get twelve free divisions. If you are playing as Japan or Italy, or if you run a handsoff playtest, then the German AI should be able to hold out a little longer than it did previously. This event will not trigger for Human Germany.
•CAS Bomber Ace tech year changed from 1942 to 1943. (Germany receives a blueprint for this tech via event in February 1943). This tech now provides a 1 bonus to CAS soft attack and hard attack in addition to its vanilla benefits.
•Basic Tank Destroyer tech moved from 1940 to 1941. Model name and picture changed from Marder II to Marder III.
•Updated the name of the 1940 CAS aircraft from ‘Hs 129’ to ‘Hs 129 Panzerknacker’.
•Minor aircraft model name and type adjustments: the 1944 turbojet interceptor model changed to He 162 Volksjager, the 1946 improved turbojet interceptor is now the FW Ta 183 Huckebein, and the 1946 improved turbojet fighter (multi_role) became the Horten Ho 229. Each of these three models uses Tripartite Pack icons instead of SKIF icons.
•New picture for German 1943 anti-tank brigade properly displays an 88mm gun.
•Replaced pictures for one DD tech and two CV techs.
•German minister Julius Ringel (187) ideology changed from PA to NS. He is a Guns & Butter minister who becomes available in 1942.
•Misc file supply distance severity lowered from 2.4 to 2.3
•Axis combat penalty on normal difficulty reduced from -5 to -2. To offset this, the human combat penalty on normal difficulty increased from -2 to -5. Therefore, the sum total combat penalty for Human Germany remains at -7 (i.e. no change from TRM v1.07). Although there is no impact to Human Germany, AI-controlled Axis militaries (e.g. Italy) should perform a little better.
•The USA AI is instructed to not conduct amphibious assaults on Korean, Chinese, or Indochinese beaches until after Germany has surrendered, although it seems to ignore these instructions….
•The VIC AI should properly garrison its North African beach provinces, although once it goes to war it seems to relocate these troops to somewhere else….
•Minor changes to CHI AI switch file that takes effect if Japan puppets Nationalist China.
for Arsenal of Democracy 1.07
29 June 2011
You can download the latest version of the Third Reich AoD Mod at:
http://www.gamefront.com/files/20496249/TRM+v1.07.1+XQSX.rar
if gamefront goes down, there is a backup copy at
https://rapidshare.com/files/1449546179/TRM_v1.07.1_XQSX.rar
The checksum is XQSX (when installed over AoD v1.07 MZJY)
The prior version of the Mod, TRM v1.07, was downloaded 264 times.
Thanks to everyone who made suggestions on this thread, by PM, and by email. I tried to incorporate as much feedback as I could.
______________________________
Change control TRM v1.07 to v1.07.1
Events
•Added 23 historical flavor German events which were suggested, researched, and partially written by clist123abc. Twelve of these new events fire before Danzig or War, which helps to reduce the tedium of the early game.
•Added six new events with actual jokes told in Germany during the 1936-1945 timeframe. Some people may find them annoying, but in my opinion they add immersion and flavor. You have the option to sleep these joke events if you don’t want them.
•Added a dozen recurring events related to the Battle of the Atlantic to enable the Kriegsmarine to more-effectively blockade England. Credit for the overall concept and the initial event scripting goes to Kilolima.
•To represent Norway’s strategic importance and to allow the Allies to interdict ore shipments between Germany and Sweden, all trade agreements between Germany and Sweden will be temporarily canceled if the Axis does not hold the province of Narvik. This recurring event fires on a semi-monthly basis beginning in June 1940.
•To assist the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, ENG will receive a provincial AA gun and a radar station by event in summer 1940 in Portsmouth, Plymouth, Dover, and Norwich. This might make it harder for the Luftwaffe to pulverize the Royal Navy with port strike missions if British ships are docked in Channel ports.
•New event will dramatically increase infrastructure levels in 25 North African provinces on 1 January 1936. Another event will bring these infrastructure levels back down to normal when ITA goes to war with ENG. This event eliminates the ridiculous desert attrition that the Italian army suffered in peacetime. The event will also prevent attrition of English troops stationed in Alexandria and Suez.
•If Germany does not declare war on the USA after Pearl Harbor, then the dissent hit will be only 5 rather than 10. It is likely that the USA will join the Allies anyway during the course of the game, so a 10 dissent hit was too much. Besides, if Germany lands troops in England, then the USA will automatically declare war on Germany via event. I expect that most Players will probably take the historical option and declare war on the USA.
•If Germany controls Suez, and if Syria is in the Axis, and if Syria controls any provinces in the Palestine area, then Syria will cede those provinces to Germany, which will then enable Germany to create the independent state of Israel. A similar event makes Iraq cede Palestine provinces to Germany, too.
•The Hans-Ulrich Rudel event was moved up by several months, from July 1943 (when he became air group commander) to February 1943 (when he completed his 1,000th sortie and began flying the Ju-87G). This event provides the blueprint for the 1943 air tech Bomber Ace Initiative but no longer gives Germany a free Ju-87G aircraft wing.
•New event in summer 1941 will give Germany the blueprint for the Marder III tank destroyer (1941 tech).
•Greatly improved the traits for German panzer general Hermann Balck, who now becomes available in early 1943 via event.
•Fixed the trigger for the event that was supposed to nerf Vichy France’s manpower and IC output. Also, when VIC is created, its military will begin with one less naval bomber, infantry division, destroyer, and transport ship than it did in TRM 1.07. On the other hand, VIC’s two tactical bomber wings now have attached escort brigades rather than being naked.
•Updated trigger for the event whereby England cedes Karachi to the USA.
•Corrected the trigger for the Hitlerjugend event.
•Reworded the text for Last Flight of Rudolf Hess event.
•Updated the text of the Sloped Armor event.
•Rewrote the text for the Me-163B Komet event.
AI Historic Behavior
•AI controlled Germany will choose the historical date to launch Fall Weserubung (April 1940) rather than attacking Norway and Denmark in October 1939.
•The Japanese AI will probably wait until early December 1941 to attack the USA. In prior TRM versions, the war in the Pacific usually began in October 1941.
•The Italian AI should wait until October 1940 to declare war on Greece, rather than doing so in mid-1940.
The Russian Front
•‘Buffed’ the Finns. When the Winter War starts in 1940, Finnish ground defense efficiency is raised by 15% (from 0.80 to 0.92) and Finnish land unit morale goes up by 10. Finland begins the Scenario with the 1936 Rear Area Supply Dumps technology (1310) to reduce attrition during winter and/or in low infrastructure provinces. The Winter War might take a month or so longer than it did previously, but nevertheless Finland will eventually lose to the overwhelming might of the Red Army.
•The Soviets will always claim Bessarabia from Romania. Vanilla AoD has a 97% chance of the AI doing this.
•Soviet Great Patriotic War event will fire when the USSR has lost 8% of its national territory, rather than at only 5% in prior versions of TRM. (The vanilla AoD value is 10%).
•New event whereby Soviets will offer a ceasefire to Germany if the Germans are successful during the initial phases of Operation Barbarossa in summer 1941. This event is inspired by the real life proposal that Pavel Sudoplatov made to the Bulgarian ambassador in July 1941. The Soviet Union will offer the Germans 54 of their western provinces (all of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and eastern Poland, plus the western areas of Belarus and the Ukraine) in exchange for a peace treaty. If you accept the ceasefire, Stalin will be very angry and is likely to betray Germany in the winter of 1943-1944, which means that you should have about two years of peace on the Eastern Front. The Red Army will probably be huge by the time Russia goes to war again. On the other hand, the pause in the eastern conflict might give Germany time to finish off the western allies. Accepting the Soviet ceasefire proposal would NOT be historical and I doubt if many Players will do it. But I wanted to add this event for flavor after I watched BBC War of the Century (which is an excellent four-episode series, by the way). In any case, it is your decision whether or not to accept the Soviet peace proposal or drive east towards Bitter Peace….
•New event will raise Soviet ground defense efficiency from 0.80 to 0.82 on 12 September 1941. This event relates to Stavka Order 1919 whereby blocking detachments were established behind Red Army units to prevent unauthorized retreat. (Soviet GDE permanently increases to 0.84 when the General Winter Event fires in mid-November 1941. The vanilla AoD GDE value for all countries is 0.80; therefore, the Red Army gets a slight defensive bonus in TRM).
•Updated Bielski Partisan event so the partisan unit arrives in the correct province.
•New Soviet event provides the Red Army with one free locked garrison unit in Brest Litovsk and creates a size 1 land fort there. Historically, the besieged soldiers at Brest Litovsk put up a heroic defense at the outset of Operation Barbarossa. So heroic, in fact, that Hitler and Mussolini traveled there to personally visit the site IRL.
•New Soviet event under the “Bring ‘Em On” tougher Barbarossa campaign option will create the 5th Guards Army with nine free divisions in July 1943 if Germany is at war with the Soviets at that time.
•New Soviet event under the “Bring ‘Em On” tougher Barbarossa campaign option will create the 1st Belorussian Front with eight free divisions in June 1944 if Germany is at war with the Soviets at that time.
•Two new Soviet events will trigger if the USSR and Japan are at war with one another at any time between May 1941 and July 1945. These events give the Soviets a total of 7 free divisions in eastern Siberia. Historically, Japan did not assist the Germans by attacking the USSR; instead the Japanese focused on China and the Pacific. If the German Player goes ahistorical and brings Japan into the conflict against the Soviets, then these extra seven units should help the Red Army hold onto Siberia without having to divert units from the German front.
•The ten Guards Airborne Divisions that the USSR receives under the “Bring ‘em On” tougher Barbarossa campaign option will be Paratrooper 1942 model 2 (SKIF icon level III) rather than 1940 model 1 (SKIF icon level II).
•For flavor, added quotes from German soldiers to the text of three ‘notice events’ that can occur under Bring ‘em On.
•SOV AI will deploy a few divisions along its southern border with Persia in 1941 just in case the Axis tries to take Russia from behind.
•SOV AI will permanently switch from an offensive to defensive posture in the Spring of 1943 rather than in the Winter of 1942-1943.
•If Germany is AI-controlled, then it will choose the standard Barbarossa option rather than Bring ‘em On.
•Raised the infrastructure level in twelve Russian provinces from 50 to 60. These provinces represent railway links between Moscow and Sverdlovsk, and between Stalingrad and Sverdlovsk. This higher infrastructure should give the Red Army slightly better ESE in western Russia after the Soviet capital relocates from Moscow to Sverdlovsk. Also, as the Germans drive eastward across the Volga, this extra infrastructure might help the Player somewhat (in TRM v1.07 German ESE dropped under 10% as the Germans moved east into the Ural Mountains, even when using the Guns & Butter Minister).
•Removed the port from Mezen (1771), just north of Archangelsk, to increase the strategic importance of Archangelsk. Changed Mezen’s provincial infrastructure to 9. The AI will not voluntarily enter Mezen because its infrastructure is below 10, but Red Army units will be able to retreat into that province if Axis forces capture Archangelsk.
•Raised provincial infrastructure of Barguzin (1521) in eastern Siberia from 10 to 40.
•Revolt file – it is now mandatory to control Rogachev (274) prior to puppeting BLR. Previously, this province had been “extra”.
Free German Units
•New German event creates the ‘free’ 4th SS Polizei motorized infantry division with an attached police brigade.
•Six new German events create ‘free’ static (locked) fortress divisions along the Atlantic Wall, if Germany has enough spare resources available. Five of these units are garrison divisions and the other is a militia division (Luftwaffe Feld). These events also create a coastal fort or land fort in the province where the division will be located.
Unit Stats
•Troop transport ship visibility lowered from 50 to 45 (vanilla is 90). This will make them harder for the enemy to spot, and hence should make them harder to sink.
•Battlecruiser visibility lowered from 60 to 55 (vanilla is 80).
•Destroyer visibility lowered from 50 to 45 to be same as revised troop transport ship (vanilla is 50).
•Light Cruiser visibility lowered from 60 to 50 (vanilla is 60).
•Naval camouflage smoke screen brigades (b_u6) may now be attached to DD and CL. With this change, a small task force composed of a BC and a screen might be effective at convoy raiding, provided that all ships in the fleet are brigaded with smoke screens.
•Lowered visibility for 1938 submarine SS3 (SKIF Icon IV) from 6 to 5 (vanilla is 7).
•Added 1 to the air defense and air attack of rocket interceptors. Lowered the tech research cost of the 1943 rocket interceptor Me163B Komet model by a wee bit. Changed range to 125 (vanilla is 150). A range of 125 is half the range of model 0 and model 1 interceptors and about 1/3 the range of the 1944 turbojet interceptor. Rocket interceptors were used for point defense and therefore should have a short range.
Map
•Raised infrastructure in North Africa because desert attrition continued to be too high. Coastal provinces now have 50, provinces with military ports such as Tripoli have 60, and inland provinces have 30. Four inland desert provinces where the Italian AI insists on placing its troops get 45 infrastructure rather than 30. (Note that this map change is separate and apart from the change described in the event section, above, which temporarily raises North African infrastructure via event until Italy goes to war with England).
•Removed beaches from seven North African provinces: Bizerte (940), Sousse (938), Zuara (933), Bardia (916), Fuka (910), El Alamein (909), and Port Said (901). After this change, ten beach provinces remain along the North African coast between Casablanca to Suez, inclusive, which leaves plenty of opportunities to conduct amphibious operations. Updated USA, ENG, and ITA ai amphibious invasion settings based on this change.
•Changed four provinces to urban terrain: Aachen (66), Odessa (233), Vienna (463), and Breslau (473). Also changed Rome from hills to plains and Reggio di Calabria from plains to hills.
•Removed 2 oil from Ploesti (431), 1 from Hannover (86), and 2 from Lvov (501). Balanced this by adding five oil to Hungarian province Gyor (458) bringing Gyor’s oil up to seven to emphasize the importance of the Hungarian oil fields during World War II.
•Two of the province connections between Afghanistan and India are now impassible to make it more difficult for German land forces to bypass Karachi as they drive into India.
Other
•Reworked the Italian AI, or at least tried to…. Italy will dedicate more IC to upgrades and reinforcements instead of producing tens of thousands of unneeded supplies. Updated its technology and build preferences. ITA should now properly garrison Tobruk, Tripoli, and Benghazi (as well as Alexandria, Suez, and Tel Aviv if it captures those provinces). If none of the following six provinces is controlled by Italy – Tobruk, Tripoli, Bengazi, Alexandria, Suez, Tel Aviv – then the Italian AI will go into a defensive posture by abandoning Africa and the Med Sea islands to better garrison Italy and the Illyrian Peninsula. To further help the Italian AI, the “Italians are Lovers, Not Fighters” event only nerfs Italian manpower by -15% instead of -20% and Italian land units only get a -2 morale penalty rather than -5. Italy now begins the Scenario with the Rear Area Supply Dumps 1936 technology (1310) and also receives a blueprint for Deep Logistic Organization 1940 technology (1320) by event to reduce its desert attrition. Unfortunately, none of these changes seem to have made a damn bit of difference; Italy still gets crushed very quickly by the Allies (unless of course the Human Player sends German units to North Africa and/or assumes military control of Italy).
•If Germany is AI controlled, then it will receive some bonuses once it goes to war with Russia, and will also get twelve free divisions. If you are playing as Japan or Italy, or if you run a handsoff playtest, then the German AI should be able to hold out a little longer than it did previously. This event will not trigger for Human Germany.
•CAS Bomber Ace tech year changed from 1942 to 1943. (Germany receives a blueprint for this tech via event in February 1943). This tech now provides a 1 bonus to CAS soft attack and hard attack in addition to its vanilla benefits.
•Basic Tank Destroyer tech moved from 1940 to 1941. Model name and picture changed from Marder II to Marder III.
•Updated the name of the 1940 CAS aircraft from ‘Hs 129’ to ‘Hs 129 Panzerknacker’.
•Minor aircraft model name and type adjustments: the 1944 turbojet interceptor model changed to He 162 Volksjager, the 1946 improved turbojet interceptor is now the FW Ta 183 Huckebein, and the 1946 improved turbojet fighter (multi_role) became the Horten Ho 229. Each of these three models uses Tripartite Pack icons instead of SKIF icons.
•New picture for German 1943 anti-tank brigade properly displays an 88mm gun.
•Replaced pictures for one DD tech and two CV techs.
•German minister Julius Ringel (187) ideology changed from PA to NS. He is a Guns & Butter minister who becomes available in 1942.
•Misc file supply distance severity lowered from 2.4 to 2.3
•Axis combat penalty on normal difficulty reduced from -5 to -2. To offset this, the human combat penalty on normal difficulty increased from -2 to -5. Therefore, the sum total combat penalty for Human Germany remains at -7 (i.e. no change from TRM v1.07). Although there is no impact to Human Germany, AI-controlled Axis militaries (e.g. Italy) should perform a little better.
•The USA AI is instructed to not conduct amphibious assaults on Korean, Chinese, or Indochinese beaches until after Germany has surrendered, although it seems to ignore these instructions….
•The VIC AI should properly garrison its North African beach provinces, although once it goes to war it seems to relocate these troops to somewhere else….
•Minor changes to CHI AI switch file that takes effect if Japan puppets Nationalist China.
Just a minor thing, but Italy starts off with NO naval brigades (I think AoD v1.02 is the only one that gives Italy brigades)
As far as I remember, all nations start the TRM scenario with the same navies they have in vanilla; TRM does not change the initial naval order of battle for any countries. The only exception I recall is that I attached a CAG to the French aircraft carrier that did not have any aircraft.
Yes and its the same in vanilla version, apart from 1.02. I tried to copy and paste it from 1.02 but since you've added new units it didn't work.
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It is not acceptable to release a new version, when I only have a few weeks to finish a big assignment! 
Well done to Gringo on improving the UK AI as a Sealion in 1940 is a real challenge (for me anyways) I haven't played this game in a while so I'm a little rusty but I honestly think I had a good invading force. Also found out that tactical bombers are a waste of space when it comes to bombing Britain, only reducing coastal forts by 0.01 every bombing run. My amphibious invasion force was winning and, while I was paying attention to the North African Campaign (which was relatively easy with just Italy, although the convoy problem has been ridiculous, so I placed 50k supplies in Tripoli) , suddenly 9 out of my 10 divisions had been routed within hours of them winning. I think I'll restart and make paratroopers next time.
Perhaps this is just me being a noob, but 9 divisions in Gibraltar and Malta is a bit too much isn't it? Also if I puppet Norway, will I still get the nuclear blueprint events?
Also good to see the Allied AI countries working together with their bombing runs and air tactics in general, their attacks are quite unpredictable and efficient as well.
Perhaps this is just me being a noob, but 9 divisions in Gibraltar and Malta is a bit too much isn't it? Also if I puppet Norway, will I still get the nuclear blueprint events?
Also good to see the Allied AI countries working together with their bombing runs and air tactics in general, their attacks are quite unpredictable and efficient as well.
It is not acceptable to release a new version, when I only have a few weeks to finish a big assignment!
Yeah, I know how you feel. I should be looking for a job but instead I keep playing TRM....