THIRD REICH AoD MOD

[unmerged(227225)]

And yet one more thing (and apologies for all the comments): why did you buff the recon plane rather than just adding to the air attack/defense values of the STRATs. I have a feeling buffing the recon plane will benefit my naval bombers more than it hurts me, and it also seems unrealistic to have recon planes functioning as escorts.

 

[Gringoesteban]

Well, however you do it will be somewhat arbitrary, but I guess I don't like the thought of having the rocket interceptor impact the entire industry.

The Player always has the option to not research the rocket interceptor techs. The Luftwaffe can do just fine without them. Personally, I like building Komets for flavor, though, since they were a unique plane.

Another solution: since the mod ends in 1946, you don't need all of the late model INT. So make 1943 rocket INT level VII (first jet INT is level VI). Make 1943 INT (V) required before researching the rocket int. Now the max difference can be 2 levels. I think upgrade cost in TRM is 0.8?? So now going from 5 to 6 is 0.8 * 0.8 or 0.64 rather than the 0.8 that it theoretically should be (going from 4-5 would be about 0.5 rather than 0.64). The difference now is very minimal. And adding say 20 days to INT construction time would also not be a big deal if you wanted to do that, too. (Same principle for 1946 rocket, now INT VIII). For those players that want to extend the timeline into the 50s to go after the USA, upgrading through the rocket INTS wouldn't matter much at that point anyway.

Unfortunately this would re-create the vanilla AoD (and HOI2) bug that I fixed in TRM by re-ordering the interceptor aircraft model numbers. Units must be upgraded sequentially, say from model 3 to 4 to 5 to 6 to 7. Using your suggestion would therefore mean that a regular propeller interceptor would have to upgrade to a rocket interceptor before it became a turbojet interceptor. Basically we are coming up against a hardcoding issue where rocket interceptors should have been a whole different unit type, separate and distinct from normal interceptors. (BTW, a similar issue was introduced in AoD with heavy submarines, so I scripted the TRM AI's to not research heavy submarines, but that means they cannot research subs beyond the 1938 model 3 / SKIF icon IV IIRC).

 

[Gringoesteban]

And yet one more thing (and apologies for all the comments): why did you buff the recon plane rather than just adding to the air attack/defense values of the STRATs. I have a feeling buffing the recon plane will benefit my naval bombers more than it hurts me, and it also seems unrealistic to have recon planes functioning as escorts.

I guess I could add it to the strats instead. The AI's brigade 100% of their strats with recon acft brigades, so I suppose it would not make any difference. Seems reasonable, but I need to think about it.

 

[unmerged(227225)]

The Player always has the option to not research the rocket interceptor techs. The Luftwaffe can do just fine without them. Personally, I like building Komets for flavor, though, since they were a unique plane.



Unfortunately this would re-create the vanilla AoD (and HOI2) bug that I fixed in TRM by re-ordering the interceptor aircraft model numbers. Units must be upgraded sequentially, say from model 3 to 4 to 5 to 6 to 7. Using your suggestion would therefore mean that a regular propeller interceptor would have to upgrade to a rocket interceptor before it became a turbojet interceptor. Basically we are coming up against a hardcoding issue where rocket interceptors should have been a whole different unit type, separate and distinct from normal interceptors. (BTW, a similar issue was introduced in AoD with heavy submarines, so I scripted the TRM AI's to not research heavy submarines, but that means they cannot research subs beyond the 1938 model 3 / SKIF icon IV IIRC).

Yes, I only build them for flavor anyway, and probably would not....

However, I thought the issue was that the Rocket INTs used to be level VI and VII, and the regular jet int began at level VIII (thus you had to upgrade through both rocket int to get to the jet int). My solution is to make the rocket int level VII rather than level IX. So now you upgrade from level V to level VI (first jet aircraft) no problem. You wouldn't need to research the last two jet INTs anyway because they are outside the timeframe. Maybe this doesn't work--I've never tried it. If it doesn't work, I stand corrected.

 

[unmerged(10338)]

Himmler

please oh please remove Himmler as a general or if you gotta keep him make it in 1945

 

[Titan79]

Yeah, but then if Italy declares war on Greece before joining the Axis, then Greece would not be in the Allies, and the Italians will seize the undefended island (this happened in my test game yesterday). Therefore, the locked Crete division needs to be Greek and needs to activate as soon as Greece is at war.

Ok, last proposal, then : Italy is at war with Greece and...

●) is not part of the Axis: in Crete a Greek unit is activated;

●) is part of the Axis/joins the Axis after having declared war on Greece: the Greek unit on Crete is replaced by a British one.

Usually Italy declares war on Greece in October 1940 IIRC, around the historical time. That is how the ITA AI instructions are scripted. But for some reason in my test game yesterday Italy attacked Greece in like April 1940 and in your game they never attacked at all. Welcome to the joys of modding.....

Well, I guess it's been bad luck, then. If you've already scripted the Italian AI to attack Greece around October 28th, 1940, then it's fine to me.

 

[Gringoesteban]

....My solution is to make the rocket int level VII rather than level IX....

Great minds think alike -- that was part of the solution I finally implemented, after wasting an hour of my life that I will never get back.

Anyway, here is what I did.

1) Re-ordered interceptor models. Changed the 1950 supersonic interceptor from model 7 to model 9, changed the 1943 Komet rocket interceptor from model 8 to model 7, and changed the 1946 Natter rocket interceptor from model 9 to model 8. Moving up the rocket interceptor tech by one slot will reduce the upgrade advantage somewhat (although it still exists). This is similar to what you suggested.


2) The Komet tech will require the 1943 regular interceptor tech rather than the 1940 tech. Therefore, you will discover the Komet later in the game. To take full advantage of the cheap upgrade of of your 1940 interceptors to the 1943 model, you would have to wait a few months with your interceptors on "do not upgrade" until you have finished researching the Komet tech. The air war heats up in 1943, so the USAAF and British will be bombing the crap out of you in the meantime while the Luftwaffe has obsolete interceptors. Or else you could just pay full cost and immediately upgrade 1940 Fw-190A to 1943 Bf-109K Kurfurst after discovering the regular 1943 interceptor tech.


3) The Komet tech increases interceptor build time by 56 days (40% of the 140 day cost of the Model 0 interceptor, kind of like having a negative Aircraft Assembly Line tech). This extra 56 days partially offsets the upgrade bonus, although upgrading will still be quicker and cheaper than it should be, and Germany has an advantage.

4) I decreased the build time of the Komet and Natter by 56 days so rocket interceptors take the exact same time to build as they did in TRM v1.07

I fixed the events, icons, tech pictures, aircraft model names, etc. to correspond to these changes.

BTW, I got rid of the -3% IC hit that I had originally proposed. The solution above is much more complicated but it is more reasonable. The issue is resolved as well as it can be.

 

[Gringoesteban]

please oh please remove Himmler as a general or if you gotta keep him make it in 1945

Okay, done. Himmler arrives in 1945 as a skill level 0 general with no traits. His max skill level is 1. Too bad you can't have negative skill in AoD -- this guy really sucked as a general. And as a human being too....

 

[Gringoesteban]

Here is the updated change list. If you have been following the thread, you shouldn't see any big surprises.

edit - refer to the change list for TRM v1.07.4

 

[clist123abc]

Regarding the Kriegsmarine, I built a lot of submarines and nine destroyers early in the Scenario to be ready for the Battle of the Atlantic. I built the rest of the ships after I had discovered the Ship Assembly Line technology (and the appropriate ship tech) so that my navy would be ready for Sealowe after Bitter Peace. This is a list of what I built and does not include ships that I started with or ones that arrived via event. I included the model number and tech year.
45 SSIV (1938)

Could you explain exactly how you do the "battle of the atlantic / blockade of murmansk" ? i've terrible at naval warfare aspects aside from amphibious assaults / shore bombardment and i've noticed that after patrolling most of the subs get discovered and wiped out fairly quickly. i've never built more than 15 or so subs so maybe that's my prob but what's your tactic. Do you assign 2/3 subs to each zone around the british isles? Would you regard the sub investment as worthwhile?

 

[unmerged(227225)]

Great. Very interested to see how the added Soviet divisions impact the eastern front....

 

[Gringoesteban]

Could you explain exactly how you do the "battle of the atlantic / blockade of murmansk" ? i've terrible at naval warfare aspects aside from amphibious assaults / shore bombardment and i've noticed that after patrolling most of the subs get discovered and wiped out fairly quickly. i've never built more than 15 or so subs so maybe that's my prob but what's your tactic. Do you assign 2/3 subs to each zone around the british isles? Would you regard the sub investment as worthwhile?

TRM has 12 different Battle of the Atlantic events. (The concept was suggestd by Kilolima, who was kind enough to send me the initial event scripting). Each events can fire up to two times a month. Each event corresponds to a different sea "area". If the German navy has 3 or more ships in an area, and if the Allies have 1 or zero ships in that same area, the event fires. The event subtracts resources and supplies from the English stockpile and also gives England a tiny dissent hit.

Always keep your subs in groups of at least 3, because if you have only 2 or 1 subs in a sea area then the event will not fire. Likewise, if you send out capital ship raiders, your minimum task force size should be three ships (say the Scharnhorst and two destroyers).

Spread your naval forces out across as many sea zones as possible -- from the Faroes Gap in the northeast, to the Bermuda Triangle in the southwest, to the Azores in the south, and all sea areas in between. (Note that the sea areas to the east of the British isles, like the North Sea region, are not covered by the Battle of the Atlantic events).

Assign each of your task force or wolfpack to convoy raiding in a different area. You will need a minimum 36 ships/subs to cover the whole Atlantic, plus some extras to replace losses or to be raiding while damaged ships are being repaired.

Note that by mid-1942 your wolfpacks will start getting annihilated by the US Navy. So plan to do your convoy raiding from the fall of France until shortly after the US enters the war.

These events are good for flavor and to simulate Allied merchant marine losses. Convoy raiding is far more "worthwhile" than in regular AoD. That being said, by not researching or building subs, you could save a few tech slots and a little IC. If your only goal is to "win" the game, then maybe you should not build any subs and not even bother to challenge the Allies at sea. But where's the fun in playing Germany if you don't send wolfpacks into the Atlantic?

 

[Gringoesteban]

Great. Very interested to see how the added Soviet divisions impact the eastern front....

It's not so much the extra 27 divisions that are making things harder. The big impact compared to TRM v1.07.3 is that all the free Soviet armies (around 200 total divisions) now arrive on the map with full organization.

 

[unmerged(52751)]

Hi Gringoesteban,

I noticed in my last game that one thing that the AI excels at is using tactical bombers to constantly bomb static units, like in Occupied France for example. Even though there is no damage against a dug-in unit, the AI constantly sends TACs on these missions, and the German player can effectively ignore the entire front and let France get bombed back into the Stone Age with no damage to their Atlantikwall garrisons.

Well, if the AI is already so great at something, why not modify it so that interdiction missions against stationary units actually do something? It should be essential to maintain at least air parity over every front, and the player should have to devote some resources to protecting his troops from air attack. I think that even now it is possible to successfully invade France or Russia without even using air power, which of course is totally unrealistic.

Of course, the player could really abuse this and it could turn tacs into a unit-killing super weapon. Maybe increase org damage only so that the effect of continued aerial bombardment would result in zero org units incapable of defending from amphib assault.

Or utilize events like the "Blockade of Britian" series to give a dissent and MP hit to Germany if allied air units are consistently over Germany, and infra/IC/fortification damage if over Occupied France areas (in effect replacing the useless interdiction missions for strat ones without the associated high str damage those usually entail).

Cheers,

kilolima

 

[Titan79]

What about teaching AI's Tac bombers to perform more often Infrastructure bombing missions, instead of interdiction on dug-in troops? Those would have an effective impact on the player since they require IC to be repaired.

 

[Gringoesteban]

Okay, I adjusted the USA Air AI:

•The US Air Force AI will give lower priority to ground attack missions with its tactical bombers, and it will also be more selective in its target selection in order to keep its bomber losses down. As a result of this change, you may see more logistical strike, runway cratering, and interdiction missions than you did previously.

Specifically, here are the changes --

# desirability is a multiplier used when calcualting the mission desirability
groundattackdesirability = 11.0 # lowered from 16 for TRM v108

# tolerance is the required kill:loss ration expected to do
# mission, 2.0 accept twice the losses of your enemy, 0.5 accept half
groundattacklosstolerance = 1.4 # lowered from 2 for TRM v108

 

[vitality]

Hey Gringo, mind uploading a alpha/beta of the next release? I'd love to try these new changes.

 

[Gringoesteban]

Hey Gringo, mind uploading a alpha/beta of the next release? I'd love to try these new changes.

I don't want to release anything until I have been able to play a full game myself through the end of 1946. It will probably be a couple weeks. Maybe AoD 1.08 will be finalized in the meantime so I will be able to release TRM 1.08 instead of TRM 1.07.4....


I ran a handsoff playtest as Dominican Republic through December 1946 and nothing crashed (using AoD 1.08A exe). For some reason Germany seems to have a little less IC with the 1.08A exe. I do not have any hard evidence, just a gut feeling. For that reason, I am using 1.07 for my own playtest.


I made two more changes to help with historical accuracy. First, Belgium declared war on Germany in early 1940 during my test game, and that is ridiculous. To counter this, I added a new event that subtracts 1 interventionism from Belgium's and Holland's diplomatic sliders at the end of 1939. Second, Finland had low interventionism and I could not invite them to join the Axis. I added a new event which fires in February 1941 whereby you can force Finland into the Axis. (I know that Finland was never actually a full member of the Axis IRL, but we have to live with the AoD game mechanics, and an alliance is the best way to simulate the cooperation between Finland and Germany in their joint war against the USSR).


Another irritating thing that happened in my test game is that South Africa dropped out of the Allies and made peace with the Axis. I was not asked if I wanted peace; it just happened. I could not find an SAF event whereby this would occur, so I do not know why it happened. In my test game, I immediately declared war on SAF so that I would not have an advantage. I adjusted the SAF ai file to lower 'neutrality' from 50 to 1 (making SAF less prone towards neutrality) and also raised its 'befriend' with England to 100. If anyone knows why SAF may have dropped out of the Allies and what I can do to prevent it, please let me know.


edit - I have played through April 1942 in my test game. During the initial phase of Barbarossa (late May 1941 through late November 1941) I was able to capture Leningrad and Rostov and advance to within 1 province distance from Moscow. I lost Rostov to fierce counterattacks during the winter of 1941-1942 just like what happened in real life, and perhaps partially influenced by the new Rostov Counterattack event that was just added to TRM. I surrounded and destroyed about 207 Red Army divisions during the first five months of the war on the eastern front. Unfortunately, however, as of April 1942, the Russians still have 282 divisions left.


I still have time to make more changes if people have suggestions.

 

[derpenburg]

Hey Gringo, don't let my post count discourage you, I'm not an adbot and won't try to sell you things. You actually made me comment on the forums because of how great this mod is! Made my life absolutely miserable and was the first time I played a game with over ~50 saves just fighting against the Soviets. Being stuck on 0 manpower from 1942-46 was amazing. At the end of it all, I declared that I finally 'beat' AoD and moved on to DH. Despite the newer, harder version of TRM now in the works. Yeah, I'm weak

I don't really have any real recommendations on how to improve the mod, to me its already the best balance between difficulty and historical flavour I can get out of a world war 2 game. Just keep up the good work, there's tons of people who enjoy masochism and love the crap out of it! Also, obligatory self-promoting end of 1946 casualties:

(Sorry if this is too obstructive)

 

[Gringoesteban]

....You actually made me comment on the forums because of how great this mod is! Made my life absolutely miserable and was the first time I played a game with over ~50 saves just fighting against the Soviets. Being stuck on 0 manpower from 1942-46 was amazing.... I don't really have any real recommendations on how to improve the mod, to me its already the best balance between difficulty and historical flavour I can get out of a world war 2 game. Just keep up the good work, there's tons of people who enjoy masochism and love the crap out of it!

I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed playing TRM! Oh, and welcome to the forums as a poster!

....At the end of it all, I declared that I finally 'beat' AoD

Maybe I should create an event that fires on 29 Dec 1946 to declare Germany the 'winner' if certain conditions are met. Someone mentioned this idea earlier in the thread. Perhaps these conditions would be required: 1) Bitter Peace achieved, 2) England has surrendered, 3) Germans hold Paris and Berlin and Baku, 4) Germany has more victory points than the USA. With an event like this, the Player would feel that the game had a formal 'end'.

But there are so many different ways that the game could unfold that I'm not sure an event could be formalized. As an example, say the English never surrendered, but they lost the British Isles and Gibraltar and Suez and only owned India. Maybe Germany conquered the entire USA instead of sending troops to India. Conquering North America would be more of a victory and a prouder accomplishment than driving into India, but then the game would fail condition (2) from my list. That's why I haven't made an event to end the game, because it is too tough to anticipate every possible outcome.....

....and moved on to DH. Despite the newer, harder version of TRM now in the works. Yeah, I'm weak

I like a lot of things about DH, especially the map. From my personal preferences, AoD's supply system makes AoD more enjoyable to play, but that is just my opinion. The games have different approaches and different strengths and weaknesses, and both are excellent. I own both and I play both. It might be worthwhile to try out the next version of TRM since now all the free Soviet armies arrive with full organization level (and generals but this was added in the last version) and Russia also gets 27 more free divisions. If you beat TRM once you will certainly beat it again, but with the new events and new techs and added challenge, it might be fun if you need a break from DH.

Also, obligatory self-promoting end of 1946 casualties

Looks like you kept up a pretty good kill ratio against your enemies. You also must have had some serious naval battles, given that Germany lost 12 capital ships.