Multiplayer - Gary G

well this mod is no big deal, but it adjusted some things in a better way.

see the read me below:

Franco’s Alliance v2.3 compatible with patch 1.087 or newer.
By Jesse LeBreton aka "Lebatron"

INTRODUCTION:
I developed Franco’s Alliance to make the game feel more historic and play better. In doing so, some major changes have taken place. Borders and territories in Europe have been adjusted, and new ones have been added in Siberia to slow a Japanese advance through Russia. In both the European and Pacific theaters, I have introduced solutions to stop the metagaming. What is metagaming? Making your decisions based on how to exploit the games' rules and mechanics, rather than on what would be the likely decision the nation would really make. The old Prussian gambit is a perfect example of this. In real life, there would have been zero chance the British would have invaded Prussia, but in the game a player would be tempted to do so because it would unfreeze Russia. An unrealistic outcome for sure, so I did away with the garrison reqirement in Prussia many versions ago to stop this exploit. Two other huge examples of metagaming is Germany's conquest of Spain to take Gibraltar the easy way and the US avoiding the South Pacific. These two flaws are brought about from the lack of a political system that would punish such abuses in some way. To keep players honest, I have made Spain a frozen ally of Germany, and addressed the Pacific theator's fundamental flaw by introducing simple house rules. These additions make both the European and Pacific theaters more interesting and fun to play.

I had originally modded WAW to solve one problem. To make Spain a tougher conquest. If you felt no guilt in metagaming, then it was a no-brainer to attack Spain then Gibraltar. So I made Spain stronger than it was historically, for game balance. Then later I dropped it when I had a better idea for Spain which became Franco's Alliance. Anyway, since 2by3 has now officially made Spain tougher, I have decided to bring back my old offering. This scenario will have all my improvements, minus the frozen Spain, for those who wish to play with a 'closed' Med. For those who wish to play an 'open' Med, select the Franco scenario. In my opinion, the 'open' Med game is more fun to play, but to each his own:)

Highlights of Franco's Alliance
Added new territories to the Soviet Far East.
A more historical Pacific and European theater.
Resources in South America and Africa are now collected realistically.
Introduced new VC conditions in India and Australia.
Improved AI for solo play.
Added usefull zoom levels that show more map rather than less.

WHAT'S CHANGED:
Here's the list of changes I made. Some ideas are borrowed, so I give credit when it’s due.

1: Spain strangely, is the only neutral in the game that needs special attention. Norway, Sweden, Greece, etc. all have no gamey effects on game play. You either take them or you don't. It's no big deal. What makes Spain unique is its position on the map, and because of that problems arise. Since there is no political system in the game to encourage honest play, I have designed a nice solution that does. In it, Spain is now a frozen ally of Germany, much like Finland. This stops a gamey strategy that German players will usually employ. Since Germany does not have much to do after the fall of France while waiting for Barbarossa, many players will use this time to conquer Spain and Gibraltar. While that may make sense if your playing RISK, it does not if your playing WW2. You would be ignoring political reality and be guilty of metagaming. Spain was a fellow fascist country and enjoyed good relations with Germany. By making Spain a frozen ally, Germany can't easily cast aside a good relation with Spain just to meet a certain game goal. This solution I engineered keeps Spain neutral most of the time, as it should be. The only times it would enter the war would be when Franco decided it was in their best interest. That could be when Germany wins great victories. Depending on the victories, Franco may join the Axis. The triggers that would set this off are: Spain will unfreeze IF Gibraltar, London, or Moscow falls. Spain will also unfreeze if the WA’s attack Portugal, or any of Spain's territories. Note: Because of this change, the WA’s will receive interdiction points from Spain. To solve this, just duck into the port of Gibraltar and back out when you wish to enter the Med and you'll avoid those extra interdiction points.

2: Portugal gains 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 flak, and 1 population. Reason: So the WA's don't get a free pass to the mainland. Now that Portugal has troops, other issues needed to be addressed. I removed the Portuguese nationality from the Azores. They are now true neutral. This was done so Germany does not automatically gain Portugal if the Azores are taken by the WA's. This is better than everything Portuguese turning German just because the Allies borrow the Azores for an air base. Historically the Allies got to use the islands when some political pressure was applied. You could say that the 10 supply you pay to use the Azores is the cost of that political deal.

3: Land access from Gibraltar to Spain is now one way. Spain, if its unfrozen, can invade Gibraltar but the reverse is not true. Reason: So the WA's can no longer use a gamey strategy that involved them placing an unrealistically large stack in Gibraltar and invading Europe from there. This change forces the Allies to play honestly and amphibious assault somewhere else to gain a foothold in Europe. mcaryf's idea, thanks! Note: In the standard scenario I left everything stock.

4. Added 2MP borders to England and Italy on their western sides, and removed the 2MP border in Algeria. Reason: To increase the flight range to 3 when flying to/from England and Spain, and to do the same from Gibraltar and other North African zones to Northern Italy. In addition to fixing this range oddity, this change can make Sealion a little harder to pull off as it removes the question of which sea zone the Germans are going to fly through. In the Med the goal was to eliminate air with a range of 2 from reaching Northern Italy. This will shift the Allied focus to Southern Italy where it should be, and increase the incentive for the Allies to take other parts of North Africa to get air within range of Italy.

5. The flight range to Finland is now a little farther by the addition of a 2MP border along their northern coast. Reason: To fix an oddity. Norway and Finland were both the same distance from Britain. Now Finland is 4 from Scotland while Norway is 3.

6: Added 1 tactical air in West Germany and removed 1 fighter in Finland. Reason: Germany just needs more Stukas. And Finland didn't have that much airpower. Oleg's idea. Thanks.

7: Hungary gains a factory, and can now make militia. Reason: Hungary contributed. Germany will need a few extra militia down the road because it's going to be much hotter in the Mediterranean due to the fact that the Med will most likely be open. Oleg's idea. Thanks.

8. Adjusted infrastructure so that fighters won't find it so easy to hit damaged infrastructure. The problem now is that after being hit, infrastructure defense drops from 12 to six. This drop is to drastic. At a 6 defense, an escorting fighter can easily get the second hit. Fighters are getting to play a dual role in this case. One, they protect bombers from geting hit. Two, after protecting the bombers they then go on to bomb and get the second hit on infrastructure. This is a case of having your cake and eating it too. Now its been changed to only drop to 9 after taking a hit. A fighter would have to get lucky to get a hit now. Only dedicated bombers should be a threat to infrastructure.

9. Axis auto victory has been adjusted. Its now 70+Moscow, 71+Leningrad and Stalingrad, 71+London. Taking London and reaching 70 is in my opinion easier than doing the same via Moscow, hence the 1 point increase to win via London. Leningrad and Stalingrad are similarly easier than taking Moscow. In addition, there are also new ones I added to give the Japanese a shot at AV. They are, 70+Eastern India and Chungking, 70+Victoria and New South Wales. With these, there is now a better reason to play a more tradition Jap campaign.

10. Made some new territories in the Russian far east. Mongolia, Yakutsk, and Irkutsk have each been divided into two parts. The new double borders were placed strategically so that if Japan choose to attack, its advance through Russia will be slowed.

11. Removed one Russian factory at Kazan. Reason: They just have to much production. With the map changes they just became an even tougher nut to crack, so it was necessary. You A&A players will crack a smile when you see that Russia gets 24 productions points a turn:) To compensate for the approximate 10 production points Russia will lose before Barbarossa, I gave them some more free research points in several areas. A tip for playing Russia. It might be a good idea to build an extra factory right away.

12. The Russian Tac Air now has a 4 durability. Reason: This will make spending research on them more favorable since the payoff will be a little greater with each level of evasion researched. Perhaps in some games we may actually see Russia's Tac Air be worthy of being called flying tanks.

13. The regions Western and Eastern Kazakhstan plus the Caspian Sea are now frozen with the western block of Russia. Reason: To fix an exploit that involved Russia attacking Persia or Afghan to deliberately unfreeze themselves. Here's how it might play out. Say Japan attacks Russia while Germany does not. Unorthodox but still possible. This allows Russia to attack Northern Persia, then the next turn Southern Persia, which is now German. Russia is then unfroze. If the British on a turn before had attacked Southern Persia, even better, because now Northern Persia would be German. If the Russians attacked there, same result but sooner. I prevent this exploit by making it impossible for Russia to attack Persia or Afghan in this manner.

14. The latest patch changed it so that if Southern Persia is attacked by Axis the Soviets will unfreeze. I suspect the change was made to curb the runaway land grab the Axis will attempt after Sealion is successful. Since I made it a bit harder to win via Sealion, I'm sticking with the original rule since this change hurts a perfectly good Axis strategy.

15: China gains 3 resources. Most regions of China now have 1 resource. Since Paotow gained a resource I bumped its pop to 2 which is in line with other Chinese territories that have resources. The capital now has two resources to make the victory sweeter, and to make it a little harder to hit the factory there by chance. The new resources also end the gamey Jap avoidance of Chinese territories with no value.

South America and Africa:
16. I changed it so that in some places of South America and Africa the resources will stay where they are unless a transport sits off coast. In South America all areas have been isolated in this way and will require a transport. In Africa I isolated the southern tip. South Africa and Rhodesia send their 4 resources to Cape Town port. By doing this the UN player can't get all of Africa's resources with one transport off the west coast. He will need to have a link all the way to the southern port. Reason: A problem with this game design is that the UN player can pull almost all his transports from around the world and still collect resources from South America and Africa. It's unrealistic to not even need a single transport for all of South America. Its resources can flow back to the US by land. In Africa, only one transport is needed off French West Africa and magically all resources there are collected too. That's streching reality to far. Most things produced for the war effort were shipped from ports, not sent through thousands of miles of jungle and rough terrain by mule train . Oil tankers from South America come to mind. Given the lack of any need to use many transports to collect resources they will be pulled and placed neatly into nice shipping lines. This is contrary to the setup. The designers placed transports around South America with the impression they were there to collect that continents resources. When I first began to play I believed that was necessary. It seems like they had some intent to make it necessary to move resource production by transport, but in the end didn't do the code. The game was left to allow resources to trace any distance over land resulting in a diminished need to assign transports for that function. They are then available to do other things. This has created the problem of what many have said to be an overly large amphibious capability early in the game. If resource collection was interrupted from pulling transports for amphibious assaults, some of this problem would resolve itself.
Patch 1.070 moved some transports away from South America. Because of my changes, the original setup works better. I also took 2 transports from the Irish sea and put them on the west coast of South America to collect the resource production from Chile. I also removed 1 resource from French West Africa and put it in Madagascar. I also fixed the port in South Africa so that it connects to both sea zones.

Pacific theator: The Hop List
17. In the Pacific WAW's game mechanics kind of flop. This is no incentive for the US to fight a traditional Pacific war, and because of that Japan has no reason to take islands like the Solomon or Gilbert's. Doing so would be a waste of Japan's resources. These islands are supposed to act as an outer ring of defense that buys them time but can't when the US doesn't have to obey strategic and political realities. There is no way to prevent a US player from metagaming once they realize the South Pacific doesn't matter. That's not that much fun and gets old fast, so I created a 'Hop List' to guide the US into playing the game honestly. When its followed, both players will enjoy a much more fun and interesting Pacific theater. The basic idea is that an area like Austrailia needs to be protected and liberated first, as it would have been in the real world. Then gradually push the Japs out of the area so that the US's Pacific ally is safe from invasion and shipping raids.

Islands in this hop list fall into categories marked A to I. These letters are on the map to assist you. Those marked A are the US's highest priority and must be secured first. Islands marked B are the next priority and so on. Within a category, the US may attempt to capture in any order he chooses. That means the order of the 'B' islands, for instance, is not a sequence you must follow. Rule 1 is that no surface ships may enter the next category until all conditions are met. This is to keep the US from raiding to deeply into enemy held territory. Note: Air and subs are not bond by these rules, but remember surface ships are. Example: The US has recovered everything in category A so he is free to enter sea zones that are part of category B. He may not sail any surface ships into C or greater until all of B is secured. Rule 2 Generally sea zones located next to a lettered island are considered to be a part of that letter category. Example: The Philippine Sea is adjacent to F, so its considered an F sea zone, and therefore can't be entered until E is secured. All sea zones surrounding the Philippines are considered F except the one next to E which is obviously considered an E. All sea zones surrounding Australia are considered A. All sea zones surrounding Borneo/Sarawak are considered category I, except the ones next to the Philippines which have already been assigned to the Philippines. This may seem complicated, but it's not. Once you see it on the map it will immediately be obvious.
Here's the Hop List.

A: Midway, Papua(Port Moresby), New Caledonia, Any part of Australia. Once all under A are secured the US may go to B.
B: Solomon, Gilbert, Bismarch Arch. Once all under B are secured the US may go to C
C: Marshall, Wake, Territory of New Guinea, Caroline*(this one is optional because historically it was skipped after being bombed clear) Once all under.....
D: Mariana, Guam. Once both are secured.........
E: Palau, Dutch New Guinea. Once both are secured........
F: Philippines. Once all 3 parts are secured........
G: Bonin. Once its secured.......
H: Ryukya. Once its secured.......
I: Borneo and Sarawak. Once both are secured the US may invade the Jap home island.
X: Sea zones 205,206,211 are adjacent to the Jap home island and are off limits to surface ships until Borneo and Sarawak are secured.

18. Forts have been added to several of the Pacific islands. Putting forts in these areas is a good way to simulate Japan digging in and fighting to the last man. It will also help to offset the tech difference between the UN and Jap infantry. To help you identify which islands have forts, I have placed an * after the name of each island that is fortified.

19. Added 3 ships to Japans fleet. A transport and light fleet was added to the Sea of Japan, and a light fleet was added to sea zone 191. A tank was added in Honshu.

20. Adjusted the starting tech of some units. Jap carrier air AA was increased to 5 to reflect the advantage they had over American's early carrier air. UN subs were changed from 1/2 to 2/1. UN tanks were changed from 7/7 to 7/6. Since the UN has zero of them, research is as cheap as it gets. This offsets that to make it a bit more costly to create super tanks. There were a few other changes, mostly for flavor, in other areas that have no impact on gameplay.

21. An old patch added a declare war cost to Germany to try and address the neutral land grab which was a common method to win by AV. This fix was latter replaced by the current AV rules and is now obsolete. Since AV can only be achieved when certain victory cities are controlled, the need to penalize Germany for taking neutrals is no longer needed, so I have returned the game to its original state. Germany loses the 15 bonus supply added to Eastern Germany and no longer has to pay a 5 point supply fee to declare war on a neutral.

22. Shrunk the train icon so it doesn't stand out as much.

23. Adjusted Germany's frozen color a little to make it easier to see the difference.

24. Fixed the effect winter was having on the new Afghan double border. It will no longer be covered in snow during winter turns.

25. Adjusted the zoom so it zooms out. If you prefer zooming in???? follow the instructions below under extras to change it back.

26. I removed all the original scenarios since they are not compatible with the map changes. There are now 3 of my own. Two of the scenarios are intended for PBEM or hotseat. As I explained in the intro, picking between the two is a matter of preference. The third is intended for solo play, or specifically when you have the AI playing the UN. In this solo scenario, I needed to leave some of my game improvements out, because the UN AI does not play well with them in place. For instance, adjustments had to be made to Spain to prevent the UN AI from always attacking Spanish Morocco. This would unfreeze Spain which I'm sure would not be the AI's intent if it knew any better. Also the South American and African resource collection changes I made could not be used in this scenario since the UN AI will always abondon these coastlines. This would cripple the UN's production, so I left it stock.