Appeasement and Agression Released!

[Case]

Now that FW is back in action, I'm working on the upgrade. If you've got any more sugestions for improvements, I'd love to read them.

[Boco]

moving 6 invasion divisions across the channel to Europe on D-Day took the best part of year's worth of British and American naval construction, and Opertion Sea Lion would have required something like half of Germany's entire fleet of barges and merchant ships (including those captured in 1940).

This sounds good. A&A shouldn't follow history, but is the historical path of invasions possible?

[AGRICOLA]

Germany/Deity. June 1937


TOP SECRET

OPERATION SEELÖWE

OKW EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR DER FÜHRER:

The invasion of Britain will begin in 1938 when:

1. Calais is in German hands. [Accomplished]
2. Freighters are available to transport 20 units per turn from Calais to south coast of Britain. [Accomplished]
3. Conquest of continental France is completed. [Operation ROT in progress]

TOP SECRET

[josefstalin]

well done
This is the best scenario I have seen to date

[AGRICOLA]

Game: Germany/Deity

I think that there is something very wrong with the 8/10 tech paradigm used in this scenario.

The following table shows the number of technologies (not counting all the "Not German", "Not British" etc.) that the major powers had at the start of the scenario and the number they have in July 1937 (Turn 10).

Britain 33/46
France 32/41
USSR 31/41
Italy 33/40
Germany 32/48

At its present, sustainable rate of 2 tech advances per month, Germany will obtain Nuclear Doctrine (Atomic Bomb) in December 1937.

Also, Germany can finish the entire tech tree some time in '39.

From the looks of it, Britain will not be far behind unless (heaven forbid) someone quickly nukes it back to the stone age.

Seriously, I think the tech paradigm is much too low. I don't think that this should be a nuclear scen until at least '44. Maybe an early but key precursor to Nuclear Doctrine should be an unreachable tech that is given by events to all major powers some time in '44 or '45. Let the race for nuke technology begin at that point.

In a multi-player game the threat of retaliation might keep players from using nukes. That is not the case with AI which uses nukes indiscriminately as soon as it can build them. My experience has been that nukes generally make for boring play.

[Case]

At its present, sustainable rate of 2 tech advances per month, Germany will obtain Nuclear Doctrine (Atomic Bomb) in December 1937.

Also, Germany can finish the entire tech tree some time in '39.

From the looks of it, Britain will not be far behind unless (heaven forbid) someone quickly nukes it back to the stone age.

Seriously, I think the tech paradigm is much too low.

*Moans*

Back to the drawing board.

BTW, which version of civ are you using? (not that I suspect that this matters)

[AGRICOLA]

I hope you are not a member of the school of scen designers that shoots bearers of bad news.

CIV II MGE

German research rate is the result of 10-15 freights delivered monthly to London and a 40% tech rate that gets 1 tech per month. An added benefit is that the German economy is reasonably robust by Aug '37, producing surplus revenues of ~$400 million each month. I have a feeling that one of the intents in the scen was to have Germany in constant economic difficulty.

I've made Nuclear Doctrine (A-bomb) an unreachable tech.

While you are at the drawing board could you also consider the possibility of changing either Engineers or Sappers to a Mv=2 unit so they can keep up with infantry? Sappers (Settlers) would probably make the most sense. They travel pretty light compared to Engineers.

[Boco]

If tradaholism is a major cause for an excessive tech rate, you might be able to limit that by (1) shifting the Freight unit away from the freight slot, and (2) giving Inv, Nav, and Fli to all civs from the onset. That should reduce the tech payoff for freight deliveries by 1/2 (non-Freight slot) * 1/2 (Inv) * 1/2 (Nav) * 2/3 (Fli). If my understanding is right, the cumulative effect is a 92% reduction. My woefully uninformed guess is that Agricola discovered Rearmament (Inv) very early. Not sure when Naval Warfare (Nav) or Bomber Doctrine (Fli) entered the picture.

I imagine that high freight delivery payoffs also allowed science to be boosted at the expense of taxes and possibly luxes. Is that right, Agricola? Perhaps the Freight cost should be substantially increased. With fewer and less rewarding trade payoffs, a player might have to take wealth away from science.

[AGRICOLA]

I'm afraid that I don't follow your reasoning.

The first mention of any difficulty in this scen was by Justinianum.

Originally posted by Justinianum
I'm playing as Italy (emperor level) and I'm following an hystorical tech path, being in mid-'39 researching the first monoplane fighter. I'm astonished to see Germany and France with jet fighters .
My opponents seems to research 10 times faster than me. Is it all right?

My subsequent comments echo Justinianum's in that research appears to be extraordinarily cheap.

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
Your comments seem to explain why at the start Germany needs only ~360 flasks for a tech advance. The results have been puzzling me a bit because freights are generating flasks at a very high rate compared to what is needed for tech advances while the $$ returns have been quite a bit lower than I would have expected, considering the commodity, the number of trade arrows in the home city, the probable number in the destination city and the route taken by freights.

I was not sure of how cheap research is until I did a few numbers.

Originally posted by Agricola
I think that there is something very wrong with the 8/10 tech paradigm used in this scenario.

The following table shows the number of technologies (not counting all the "Not German", "Not British" etc.) that the major powers had at the start of the scenario and the number they have in July 1937 (Turn 10).

Britain 33/46
France 32/41
USSR 31/41
Italy 33/40
Germany 32/48

The problem is that everyone's discovery rate is sky high. Britain has had a discovery rate of 1+ techs per turn and the rest are at or just under 1 per turn. The author clearly did not intend this.

Originally posted by Case
All the main civs should develop a tech every two or three turns.

Tradeholism is NOT the source of the problem, it is the only way to play Germany and survive in this scenario.

Finally,

Originally posted by Boco
I imagine that high freight delivery payoffs also allowed science to be boosted at the expense of taxes and possibly luxes. Is that right, Agricola?

I wish it were so.

Originally posted by Case
The main reasons the trade cash returns are low is that there are no RRs and the trade unit is a caravan and not a freight. As the 1930s and 1940s were a time of protectionism and autarky the low cash returns don't bother me.

That's because he's not playing the scen.

[Case]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
I hope you are not a member of the school of scen designers that shoots bearers of bad news.

No, quite the opposite. I like negative feedback.

I have a feeling that one of the intents in the scen was to have Germany in constant economic difficulty.

Yeah, it was.

While you are at the drawing board could you also consider the possibility of changing either Engineers or Sappers to a Mv=2 unit so they can keep up with infantry? Sappers (Settlers) would probably make the most sense. They travel pretty light compared to Engineers.

Like artillery, I want those fairly powerful units to lag behind the combat units in order to prevent missuse.

Perhaps the Freight cost should be substantially increased. With fewer and less rewarding trade payoffs, a player might have to take wealth away from science.

Combined with swapping the unit's slot that's a rather neat solution. Thanks

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by Case
Like artillery, I want those fairly powerful units to lag behind the combat units in order to prevent missuse.

Pardon my stupidity, but if that is the case, what is the point of having these units or building them? I've always considered artillery and engineers to be combat units or, at least, part of a combat team. How can one misuse such a unit?

I think its time to take a break from this scen until the revised version comes out. There is no question in my mind that it will be an interesting and very challenging scenario once you get the tech bug out of it.

Best of luck with re-balancing the tech paradigm so the AI rate doesn't get out of hand and force players to use extraordinary measures to try to keep up. I feel a bit sorry for Justinianum who must have been running a pretty standard science % and found his biplanes having to take on jet fighters in '39.

[Case]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA Pardon my stupidity, but if that is the case, what is the point of having these units or building them? I've always considered artillery and engineers to be combat units or, at least, part of a combat team. How can one misuse such a unit?

As all the units already represent combined arms forces, units like Sappers and Corps Artillery are ment to represent the units which were used to back up the line divisions when they hit tough opposition. These units couldn't keep up with rapid offencives and were too valuable to risk in day to day fighting. Basically, their role is to crack strongpoints.

[Justinianum]

Any news about this scenario? I'd love to play the final version

[josefstalin]

likewise

[Case]

Originally posted by Justinianum
Any news about this scenario?

Um, no

Now that I'm working full time the following constraints apply:
1) I have less time
2) I now have enough money to buy new games

In short, when I get sick of Warcraft III or chuck a sickie I'll move back to good old Civ and fix this up.