while im not playing with 1.1 (due to the "fixes" it provides...), i wanted to share a few things that i noticed while playing DD.
lets start with the most glaring issue:
Nationalist China is WAY to powerful. In my game, the chinese somehow researched Adv Infantry (1943) in 1941. They also had over 200 infantry divisions, over 300 if you include the militia. The infantry divisions were all upgraded to 1943. They had, in effect, the second strongest army in the world second to mine as Germany. Needless to say, japan got stomped into the ground. This totally destroys the already weak pacific war. They need to be seriously toned down in their research and upgarde priorities- their army was more powerful than the SU/US/GB...
Air Power-
Strategic bombing still does not do enough damage. The allies sat a good 100 air divions in england and pounded away at occupied france, inflicting little, if any damage to me.
Ground attacks v. troops are far to powerful, however. In my invasion of the SU, a group of 3 of their CAS managed to destroy 1 HQ, 2 armored, and 8 mechanized divisions in under a week.... the problem gets even worse in africa, where movement can take over a month. The US has destroyed over 80 italian divions (pretty much their entire army) due to ground attacks.
Interceptors- Exremely underpowered and innefective. Basically useless. My wing of 4 interceptors, with radar and AA support and max doctrine, loses to 4 unescorted strategic bombers (well, they have escort fighter brigades).... how is this even possible? I have the advantage in leadership, doctrine, and tech (lvl 5 interceptors to their lvl 2 bombers), combined with AA/radar support, and I lose EVERY engagement. Its not a huge issue for strategic bombing, but when my troops are so easily annihalated from ground attacks, interceptors not being able to stop anyone is extremely annoying.
Auto promote- still doesnt work very well, or requires insane numbers to work. In my current game, its 1943 and i have over 500 divisions. Hussuar, Manstein, Guderian, and Rommel are all lt generals. I have a grand total of 4 field marshals, and not 1 new general since i started the game. Not 1. 0. Why is this feature even in the game if it doesnt work? The problem is compounded for naval and air leaders- if they are in command of a unit, they cant get promoted!!! So, any commander worth using to fight with wont ever get promoted because he is in command!
edit: Forgot about another big one: the new intilligence system
Most of the options are relatively useless, or have a chance of success so low that there is no point in doing them. The most useful appear to be smear campaign and steal blueprint. Heres the problem: its micromanagement hell, in a game already filled with micromanagement. One major issue is the reward is not worth the time spent to due this.
The big thing here is that given the low success rates, your spy is going to get killed 90% of the time. Since you only have a 35-45% chance to send a spy, each operation you do will take at least a month to get a new spy back in place and do it again. Ill give an example, Blueprint stealing: I should be able to select which blueprint I want. Or, if this is not possible, at least a specific tree. If im germany and stealing blueprints from the US, i dont want land doctrines, i want Naval doctrines/aircraft research. Basically, i only have a 20% chance for this to work out. Further, even if it does work, the majority of the time im going to get something useless to me. After a while, the only thing i used the intelligence system for is counter esponioge on myself every few months, because it simply wasnt worth the time. Lots of risk/wasted time for no reward... so tell me again why i should do this?
Another aside on this- i really liked looking at the national army/navy/airforce comparisons, and because of the intilligence system i can no longer due this. If i have 10 spies in a country and it can tell me exactly how many infantry/armored divisions, how many carriers/battleships they have, why cant this information be displayed on the comparison screen?
Thats about it for the negatives, the positives-
SU is much, much better at managing its fronts. Doing encirclements has become much harder, and leads to less reward. The invasion of the SU overall is no longer just a steamroll, i actually have to think about what im doing.
There is one issue- they still stack divisions in VP provinces like crazy. They were down to 1 province that had VP left, and when i went to take it, they had over 100 divisions stacked in it. I finially had to load the game as the SU and disband all their divisions manually so i could annex them.
US- The US AI is way better, and actually helps in the war now. In fact, they are extremely frustrating to fight against. They landed ~50 divisions in africa, have 40 in stoneard (or whatever that island chain province is on the british isles) forcing me to keep 20 divisions stuck in the UK, and have at least 5 divions per beachhead on the continental US. I landed in canada, and the US has me stalled just 3 provinces in. I have over 200 divions in halfax/saint john, and the US has matched me with 200 of their own.
Im not sure if its possible to annex them, since i cant make distraction landings elsewhere because of the 5 division garrison at every beach... luckily nukes are only about 6 months to 1 year off (its 1943 at this point in the game), so that will hopefully break the stalemate. There is one slight problem with the US ai and it has to do with how they build their navy. Ive sunk all of the US carriers with my own, but in almost all of these engagements the US was sending the carriers out unguarded.
lets start with the most glaring issue:
Nationalist China is WAY to powerful. In my game, the chinese somehow researched Adv Infantry (1943) in 1941. They also had over 200 infantry divisions, over 300 if you include the militia. The infantry divisions were all upgraded to 1943. They had, in effect, the second strongest army in the world second to mine as Germany. Needless to say, japan got stomped into the ground. This totally destroys the already weak pacific war. They need to be seriously toned down in their research and upgarde priorities- their army was more powerful than the SU/US/GB...
Air Power-
Strategic bombing still does not do enough damage. The allies sat a good 100 air divions in england and pounded away at occupied france, inflicting little, if any damage to me.
Ground attacks v. troops are far to powerful, however. In my invasion of the SU, a group of 3 of their CAS managed to destroy 1 HQ, 2 armored, and 8 mechanized divisions in under a week.... the problem gets even worse in africa, where movement can take over a month. The US has destroyed over 80 italian divions (pretty much their entire army) due to ground attacks.
Interceptors- Exremely underpowered and innefective. Basically useless. My wing of 4 interceptors, with radar and AA support and max doctrine, loses to 4 unescorted strategic bombers (well, they have escort fighter brigades).... how is this even possible? I have the advantage in leadership, doctrine, and tech (lvl 5 interceptors to their lvl 2 bombers), combined with AA/radar support, and I lose EVERY engagement. Its not a huge issue for strategic bombing, but when my troops are so easily annihalated from ground attacks, interceptors not being able to stop anyone is extremely annoying.
Auto promote- still doesnt work very well, or requires insane numbers to work. In my current game, its 1943 and i have over 500 divisions. Hussuar, Manstein, Guderian, and Rommel are all lt generals. I have a grand total of 4 field marshals, and not 1 new general since i started the game. Not 1. 0. Why is this feature even in the game if it doesnt work? The problem is compounded for naval and air leaders- if they are in command of a unit, they cant get promoted!!! So, any commander worth using to fight with wont ever get promoted because he is in command!
edit: Forgot about another big one: the new intilligence system
Most of the options are relatively useless, or have a chance of success so low that there is no point in doing them. The most useful appear to be smear campaign and steal blueprint. Heres the problem: its micromanagement hell, in a game already filled with micromanagement. One major issue is the reward is not worth the time spent to due this.
The big thing here is that given the low success rates, your spy is going to get killed 90% of the time. Since you only have a 35-45% chance to send a spy, each operation you do will take at least a month to get a new spy back in place and do it again. Ill give an example, Blueprint stealing: I should be able to select which blueprint I want. Or, if this is not possible, at least a specific tree. If im germany and stealing blueprints from the US, i dont want land doctrines, i want Naval doctrines/aircraft research. Basically, i only have a 20% chance for this to work out. Further, even if it does work, the majority of the time im going to get something useless to me. After a while, the only thing i used the intelligence system for is counter esponioge on myself every few months, because it simply wasnt worth the time. Lots of risk/wasted time for no reward... so tell me again why i should do this?
Another aside on this- i really liked looking at the national army/navy/airforce comparisons, and because of the intilligence system i can no longer due this. If i have 10 spies in a country and it can tell me exactly how many infantry/armored divisions, how many carriers/battleships they have, why cant this information be displayed on the comparison screen?
Thats about it for the negatives, the positives-
SU is much, much better at managing its fronts. Doing encirclements has become much harder, and leads to less reward. The invasion of the SU overall is no longer just a steamroll, i actually have to think about what im doing.
There is one issue- they still stack divisions in VP provinces like crazy. They were down to 1 province that had VP left, and when i went to take it, they had over 100 divisions stacked in it. I finially had to load the game as the SU and disband all their divisions manually so i could annex them.
US- The US AI is way better, and actually helps in the war now. In fact, they are extremely frustrating to fight against. They landed ~50 divisions in africa, have 40 in stoneard (or whatever that island chain province is on the british isles) forcing me to keep 20 divisions stuck in the UK, and have at least 5 divions per beachhead on the continental US. I landed in canada, and the US has me stalled just 3 provinces in. I have over 200 divions in halfax/saint john, and the US has matched me with 200 of their own.
Im not sure if its possible to annex them, since i cant make distraction landings elsewhere because of the 5 division garrison at every beach... luckily nukes are only about 6 months to 1 year off (its 1943 at this point in the game), so that will hopefully break the stalemate. There is one slight problem with the US ai and it has to do with how they build their navy. Ive sunk all of the US carriers with my own, but in almost all of these engagements the US was sending the carriers out unguarded.
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