Final summary of changes for 1.8

[Mark Stevens]

Changes for 1.8

Map

Moved the Swiss surrender hex to Berne

Made Danzig Allied and added the ‘Polish Corridor’ - Eastern Prussia is now cut off from the rest of Germany, except by sea

Moved an Axis Supply Point from Tobruk to the more important port of Benghazi

Made Narvik, and indeed Norway in general, strategically more important by adding a line of impassable sea hexes to the north, and a Sea Supply Road from Scapa Flow to a nearby port

Added the Egypt-Sudan railway line

Made the French Alpine border far more difficult terrain, and redeployed the defenders

Added the Pre-War French fortifications at Mareth (Tunisian-Libyan border)

Removed some of the Finnish exclusion zone to make a Soviet ‘Winter War’ marginally easier

Removed the ’Jewish Revolt’ hex at Gaza: the anti-British agitation subsided when the Jewish settlers realised the likely alternative

Fortified the hexes comprising the Stalin Line

Changed the Copenhagen-Malmo land bridge

Moved Casablanca to allow the Allies to ‘steer’ round it without automatically mobilising the Vichy French in North Africa

Made Tripoli accessible from the Eastern or Western Mediterranean

Units

Added two Soviet Formations (‘Artillery’ and ‘Guards Reserve‘) to give the Russians a bit more flexibility to break down individual units

Tied the weak Maginot Line garrison units to their forts until the Germans are within two hexes of Paris

Added two weak, non-reconstituting Communist Partisan units in Northern Italy if Mussolini raises a fascist militia there after his rescue

Made the starting Swedes considerably weaker (after a careful look at a good website)

Added extra equipment and troops, by disbanding supply units, if the Russians declare the ‘Winter War’ against Finland

Added an independent Polish Mechanised Brigade in Warsaw - there was one - to the Polish starting forces, and the small (4 destroyers) Polish Navy off of Danzig

Added small mobile regiments to the fixed Malta and Gibraltar garrisons

Added two battleships (actually HMS ‘Valiant’ and ‘Resolution’) to the Allied Naval unit ‘Force H’ off Gibraltar

Changed the ratios of Hurricanes to Spitfires (and added Early Spitfires) to the RAF: SkyVon did a great deal of additional research on the air units, but it would have meant rewriting the entire air OOB

Added two more Russian Volunteer units to the Axis OOB if the Germans reach Kiev

Added a British supply unit in the Middle East as it’s a long way to Tunis!

Events

After wrestling for many happy hours with the Event Editor!

Tried to tidy up the News Strings in general, but there are still some repeats and statements can appear out of sequence

Tied the +15 on US Entry to an invasion of France (two from Paris) rather than ‘Case Yellow‘, as the latter Option disappears if the Germans build the Siegfried Line

Made ‘Operation Marita’ an integral part of an Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, rather than an Option (which could be used for other purposes)

Made it clear that Yugoslavia and Greece only mobilise as full Allies if actually invaded by the Axis: if not, they are active neutrals, free to redeploy within their own countries

Added a stipulation that ‘Case Yellow’ can only be used from Spring 1940: the German Army was not prepared to launch a blitzkreig style attack before then

Added a four turn delay before the USSR can declare war on Germany as a result of the latter’s landing in the United Kingdom

Shortened the Russians ’learning the lessons’ of the ‘Winter War’ to six months - one year

Cancelled the Axis Option to mobilise Spain (by giving Franco French North Africa) one year after the USA enters the war

Delayed the possible start of the war until Turn Three, to allow for the Pre-War extension to the Maginot Line, construction of the Siegfried Line in response, and the Axis' Options to build their armies or navies above the historical levels before the actual combat starts

Several players have been good enough to look through these changes and playtest them, but any remaining bugs are entirely my responsibility. I wish that I could guarantee that there aren’t any lurking in the scenario, but this really is now so complex and interlinked that it’s virtually impossible to test every possible permutation. I've looked at a couple of programmes that are meant to review the scenario, but there's no substitute for actually sitting in front of the PC and pressing every button in sight. Do let me know via the Board or directly at markterence.stevens@virgin.net if you do spot anything.

I'll upload this to the Board early next week, and ask Ulver to post it to other depots. (I want one final weekend of playtesting!)

[Kraut]

Great!
Are we finally closing in on EA (final) ??

By the way, do you plan to change the equipment of the moscow defence fortifications and garrisons ? As I said in the (g) thread, otherwise it would take 2 years to fill up the howitzer slots as all fortifications use just one modell (76mm).

I can't imagine the russians waiting 2 years to build their capital defences with the germans on the outskirts of moscow ;)

[FAIRS]

Mark, Otto and I would like to help playtest 1.8 this weekend as we both have time and he just cleaned my clock on ver.1.7 and I want another crack at it! We understand it may not be ready but we dont mind restarting later in the week if there are any bugs.
PS he told me that in our v 1.7 game as axis he took gibralter and his shippng went to 6000 but when he subsequently won the battle of britain it went down to 5000, is this a bug?

PLEASE POST THE GAME EARLY!! :D

[Dan Neely]

Originally posted by FAIRS
PS he told me that in our v 1.7 game as axis he took gibralter and his shippng went to 6000 but when he subsequently won the battle of britain it went down to 5000, is this a bug?


Event engine limitation. There's no event to do seatransport = seatransport + XXXXX, only seatransport = XXXXX. Inorder to avoid oddness, you'd need a large number of events to cancel/activate others depending on the current ammount of seatransport.

[Mark Stevens]

I suppose that for the sake of consistency we ought to keep the post-Sealion bonus at 6,000 rather than let it fall to 5,000. It will also allow Axis reinforcement of a successful landing at a slightly higher rate.

It is silly that, having taken Gibraltar and got the 6,000 sealift bonus, an attempt on the UK leads to it falling back a few turns later.