I think Locutus may have played it .

The Germans are still one of the easiest to play in this scenario. If you want a real challenge, take the allies .

In fact, this entire scenario is more supposed to be fighting on the land, why is it called "Desert war" after all? You have an easier time defending your objectives as the Germans, the only problem is, you don't have much of a navy. Forget that, your troops are the best, the Panzers kick some serious rear, and then there's also the arrival of the Afrika korps...

But as the Germans, you basically need to wait for certain events to happen. Until then, you can just build up. To get a taste for the scenario, you can try being the UK first, it's pretty easy and will give you a taste for it.

Once or twice

The Germans will get Transport technology and some units in Africa after 7 turns. Historically, they only recently conquered Greece at the start of the scenario, so you'll need to build up a little before you can join the main battle. As Solver said, if you want instant action, play with Italy or the UK.

I had some experience playing this scenario as allies.
But the strangest thing is that my biggerst enemies were vichy france with their huge stacks of artillery.

When west invasion force (6 land units, a joke?) comes they have no chance. So vichians always get conquered from the east, with gibraltar only used as Airforce factory.

Yes, typically the game will not play out the way history played out, this is due to some limitations in the design of the game, and because a key concern was to make this scenario balanced and fun to play (and not excessively hard to design, as designing a scenario simultaneously with the main game is like trying to hit a (fast-)moving target), even if that did go at the expense of some historical accuracy. I'm sure not everyone will be equally thrilled with the balance we struck, but that's why we created these forums for fans to b*tch and whinge about it

The main problem is that in Civ, your cities can produce new troops. Historically this was not true for NA in WW2: almost all the troop building facilities were off the map (in Germany, England, the US, etc) and transported to the NA scene from there. The French factions didn't have any significant troop building facilities at all... Disabling the ability to build troops for this scenario would have killed off a key element of the Civ experience. Of course not doing so really changes the dynamic of the battlefield (most notably in that it gives Vichy France a lot of time to build up and as such makes them formidable opponents if you play as the Allies -- we actually disabled their ability to build Tanks to tame them a little bit). The former alternative was not really an option for a number of reasons, so we went with the latter.

The events (such as Operation Torch) are really intended as atmosphere enhancers, not as game breakers. Strong effects are very hard to balance (especially if the rest of the game design is in constant flux), and we didn't want to force the players down a certain path: Civ is about replaying history, not about re-enacting it. E.g. if you want to play as Germany and invade Turkey and the Middle East as part of a giant pincer movement on Egypt, it would be really stupid if whole armies of reinforcements arrived in Algiers. As it is, you have to build and move most of your troops yourself, which allows you to create your own strategies rather than being forced to follow the historic ones (so we actually played the troop-building card to our advantage here (hey, that's our story and we're sticking with it ))

E.g. you can still invade Morocco from the west if you want, but you'll have to build your own invasion force in Gibraltar. Especially if you time it so your own force can be combined with the Operation Torch reinforcements and an attack on Tunesia/Algeria from the east, a naval invasion in Morocco can be very successful indeed. But if you don't want that, you can also use the production power in Gibraltar to build a navy or an airforce, or to send troops to the eastern front (my favourite strategy) -- the choice is yours...

My personal opinion is that costs of units should really at least be doubled (I haven't seen Civ game with so many of doom stacks), and that triggered events should really give more units (so they can actually matter a bit, exempt for enabling techs for units of course).

Also I haven't seem too much use for Infantry. Artillery did job better in most of the cases. Exempt from some medic infantry for agressive factions.

hmm, okay. thanks. I couldn't figure out which technology gave me transports. I just wish there was a readme or something for this scenario to help get me started. I'll play around with this scenario some more.

There is, although a bit hidden: [Civ4 install folder]/Mods/Desert War/Info/Desert War Readme.doc

Also remember indeed that, if you're an allied power, then the events are really going to be minor things. The only event that's major enough is the arrival of Afrika Korps. BTW, Locutus, I'm glad to see the Korps are in good shape in the final version .

I don't consider a minor Perl Harbor event that enables air troops for "Allied" player.

Well, the Allied are hard as hell to play anyway, so if you do it, you're hardcore .

The late game has a few pretty major events for all players as well (D-Day, Italian capitulation), but the problem is you guys are probably too good, you've already won the game by then

Don't ever say I don't listen to feedback

Any chance of updating scenario in future.
Like finishing missing art?

Not really (well, not me anyway, don't know about Dale or Isak), but feel free to do it yourself.

If I ever revisit WW2 (which isn't my favourite topic to be honest, I much prefer pre-Industrial scenarios), I'll be much more ambitious about it. Compared to my CtP modding, this scenario is awfully simple and straight-forward. For these circumstances that was necessary, but I much prefer to design along the lines of CtP2's Alexander the Great scenario, with loads of major rule changes and scripted events and stuff. When it comes to modmaking, my motto is: if it doesn't seem impossible, it's not worth doing

Well here you go.
It's just visual pack.

It has:
-all Tanks in groups of one and Arty in groups of 2 (like in original Civ4)
-Tactical bombers with bomber animation (not B-2)
-all unit icons matching their animations

For install unzip to Deser War folder.
It only replaces CIV4UnitInfos.xml file and adds copy of original called CIV4UnitInfos.xml.ORG


P.S.
It's fully compatible with old saves.
It's just graphic fix pack.