A good idea which i thought of the other day:

[N35t0r]

Let's please keep what is going on to the OT forum...


Anyway, goo dnews. I'm (finally) getting a decent computer (celeron 466 with 88 MB of RAM) which is a very nice improvement from my P133; so i will be able to play SMAC at decent speed, and help more with this stuff.


Russian industries were actually moved from the west to the urals as the Germans advanced; so we should just make Russian bases there the industrially powerful ones.

The russians, by the end of the war, were producing enough units to replace what was lost in the front. This was so much that the average tank crew was considered veteran if they survived more than one week.
I'll try to check on it though.


About Americans; i thnk that the only rason they overproduced Germany was because of factory bombing in Germany, and the high losses that German planes started suffering due to the rebuilding British aircraft industry after the bombings had diverted mostly to London...

[Ned]

The point about bombing reducing Germany's industrial output can be simulated in SMACx by continuously attacking a base's defenders. If the base has to replace them, it cannot produce new "offensive" units. Obviously, Germany's industry were within range of Allied bombers. But it also seems apparent that Germany did not not have long range bombers so that it could even reach, let alone sustain, a campaign against English fighter and bomber production.

Once the U.S. entered the war, it could not hope to destroy American bomber production. However, it should have, but did not, seek out and destroy American aircraft on the ground. Again I suspect the Germans did not have long range bombers.

If this is all true, we have to figure out a way to give America and England long range bomber capability not enjoyed by Germany.

Ned

[Blake]

Although WW2 is not one of my primary interests I have a fairly good understanding. As I understand here is what happened regarding air superiority.

Initially Germany had almost complete air superiority, and once they could they started bombing airstrips in Briton, indeed, they *almost* completely destroyed Britons airforce by this bombing.
BUT
Then Briton accidently bombed a German city, which was a civilian target. Hitler, in his infinite wisdom, thought that wasn't on so bombed London in retaliation. (thus no longer bombing military targets, this could be considered the turning point of the war)
BUT
Now the bombers were no longer bombing the British airfields they got repaired and the fighters replaced, and then the allies kicked the Germans out of their airspace and regained local air superiority. (indeed, IIRC the germans bone-headedly continued to bomb London even as the Allies airforce recovered)

Then a little later the allies started bombing Germany en masse, destroying German airfields and making it difficult for Germany to launch it's bombers, this sustained bombing of airfields meant that Germany lost air superiority over in it's own space. Any aircraft which got launched got chewed up by the allies fighters. (and the allies could replace and launch these at a tremendous rate, because they weren't getting bombed *anymore* and the Allies had fuel, which the Germans ran seriously short of)

Also the allies regularly bombed the crap out of the Germans research facilities - much of these got moved into mines (until they ran out of room in the mines, hahah), but this bombing set back the Germans nuclear program by months, long enough for the Allies to invade Germany and force surrender - if Germany wasn't being harassed they would have had a fair shot at completing the nuke before America, in fact they probably would have easily beaten America (to the nuke), seeing the Allies got a lot of German technology which helped their own research. (another factor is Germany chased many scientists out before the war, most of these fled to America which helped the Americans nuclear program)

-- end historical --

Unfortunately, due to the lack of triggers in SMAX making a WW2 follow even remotely the path of WW2 would be exceedingly difficult - short of hacking a resident-in-memory trigger thingy the only thing you can do is have multiple scenarios starting at different points during the war.

[Sikander]

Just a quick reality check on relative aircraft production during WWII. Both the British and the Soviets produced more aircraft during the war than the Germans. The Americans produced more aircraft than the British and the Soviets combined, though obviously some of these were destined for the Pacific theatre. The Germans never had a chance to win the air war, though the complete effects of allied production were delayed by the lack of range for allied fighters. Until enough long range types could be fielded, both sides would hold local air-superiority over their own airspace. This effort reached critical mass in early 1944 as the P-51 took control of the skies over Europe permanently, and paved the way for allied medium bombers to prepare the battlefield for the invasion in the summer of '44.

[Ned]

Blake, Without triggers, it is literally impossible to set up a WWII senario and give the Axis powers any chance of winning. For Germany to win, they had to knock out England before America or Russia entered the war. This means that both those countries must declare war on Germany by 1942-3, giving 1939-41 as Germany's window of opportunity.

In the Pacific, Japan cannot be initially engaged in war with the United States. But it should be faced with an American declaration by 1943 regardless. For the Japanese to win, IMHO, it had to defeat China and build the capacity to actually invade the United States. This means they had to achieve and maintain naval superiority in the Pacific.

Let us hope that Civ III has triggers and abandon this project in SMACx.

Ned

[johndmuller]

If the Japanese hadn't surprise-attacked us into fighting them, the Pacific theater might have been quite different. Had the Japanese studiously left us alone (including the Phillipines), we might have stayed out and left the fighting in that part of the world to the overextended or in some cases already defeated European colonialist nations. As it was, it was extremely difficult to root out the Japanese from many of the South Pacific locations - if they had more time to get established, then ....

With a bit of tinkering with the starting conditions, a lot of stuff can be made highly likely to occur. For example, if you want to replicate the underground bases, create the corresponding bases, but load them up with enough drone problems that it will take the requisite number of turns to deal with them; bases could be stressed by starting in a bad state of food shortage or even facing imminent pop growth. I suppose that some of this would look awfully contrived and hardly realistic though. OTOH, if we tie it down so much that it always duplicates the way it was, where will the fun be?

[Fitz]

I like the idea of faction mods, SE mods, and map mods (maybe even as a scenario) without trying to contrive it more than that. IF you can agree on 7 decently created factions, some SE choices, and possibly a starting point (single base each), I say run it from there. It won't necessarily be historically accurate, but I think it would be fun.

[Blake]

Originally posted by johndmuller
OTOH, if we tie it down so much that it always duplicates the way it was, where will the fun be?

Exactly. I want to play WW2 my own way. And scenerios for different stages / nations / theatres of combat could work very well too. You could start at some point during the war and play it out to the end how you want to, for example you could have a scenerio with a super-germany AI, or a scenerio as germany where you are surronded and pounded and have to try and fight off the Allies invasion. Just because it wont be a perfect simulation of WWII doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Simulations are boring anyway.


The other factor is the course of WW2 was changed by pratically random events, such as the weather, luck and the temperment of one man. It would be unrealistic to assume even a good (non-SMAX) scenerio would turn out the same way.

[Ned]

Blake, Civ II had a really good European Theater WWII scenario. IIRC, Russian and America entered the war later giving the Germans a window to take England, if it could.

Obviously, one German strategy might want to try to buy peace with Churchill, and then focus all energy in an attack on Russia. However, we should arrange it that if Germany just plays it the way they actually conducted WWII, they cannot win.

To make this really work, we need to set the dynamics up accordingly. Perhaps Russia could initially start as a German ally, but the victory conditions for Germany require taking Moscow. This will eventually force the German players hand.

Ned