Semper Fi + For the Motherland with whatever the latest version is - 3.05 I think?



For the Motherland (FTM) went a long ways to fixing some of these really annoying and long-standing bugs, like the supply sink in Korean ports that could ruin Japan. Naval engagements are abstracted as usual, but the balancing seems a bit more appropriate now. Ships are hard to sink, but quite possible to 'mission kill:' that is to say, ships can often be knocked down to low strength and will then continuously flee, but they then pose no risk to your own forces. One annoyance that persists for me is lack of sensible control over ship positioning during engagements. You can't assign capital ships (CAs, BBs, etc) to a carrier fleet because, even though the carriers are maintaining distance and letting the CAGs slam the enemy, the capital ships will rush in and try to duke it out at close range. So, in previous games, my cruisers would wind up trying to go toe-to-toe with enemy battleships and invariably get sunk in huge numbers. Hence, I am organizing my carrier fleets into small task groups, usually comprised of two carriers plus about four light cruisers or destroyer flotillas for screening.

But, as it stands, the game is pretty enjoyable. I ran a campaign as Japan a couple of months ago and it was relatively bug-free. By not attacking Pearl and essentially staying out of war with America, I was able to conquer Australia and a large portion of mainland Asia. I played up to 1944 and didn't really notice any oddities at all.

I hope to fast forward up to the opening salvos of the war, and should have an update on or before the weekend.

Near the end of the month of September, delegates from major European powers gather in Munich to negotiate the German annexation of the Czechoslovakian Sudetenland. As a last hope for peace, we comply with Hitler and the Germans occupy the Sudetenland. Chamberlain returns to England declaring 'peace in our time.'





The next few months are relatively uneventful. I commission a few new carriers and a light cruiser, freeing up a good chunk of my industrial capacity to redistribute into badly-needed upgrades for my army. Once my divisions are relatively caught up in upgrades, I will shift back into production and focus on pumping out new units.
In March, there are several important developments:

• The Spanish Republican government crushes the Nationalist uprising. Spain is re-united under the leadership of the Republicans.
• Despite Hitler’s assurances that the concession of the Sudetenland would satiate Germany’s desire for lebensraum, Axis expansionism continues: Italy occupies Albania, and Germany seizes the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Hungary also enters into the Axis.
• The Allies draw a line in the sand and guarantee the independence of Poland.

The summer is fairly uneventful – conscription is introduced to help bolster British manpower, and I create a new carrier task group headed up by the newly-commissioned HM ships Formidable and Illustrious.

But in late in August, the storm clouds of war finally break. Secret negotiations between Germany and the Soviet Union solidify into the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The pact paves the way for a German invasion of Poland through the demarcation of eastern Europe into spheres of influence divided between the Germans and the Soviets.



On 1 September, German troops cross into Polish territory, shattering the peace towards which we had conceded so much at Munich. Britain rises to its obligations to Poland and enters into a state of war with Germany.





I immediately raise Britain’s entire armed forces to high alert. France adheres to its commitments as well, and also declares war. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are not far behind. Full military service by requirement is instituted in the United Kingdom, along with a total economic mobilization. These initiatives dramatically increase the industrial capacity and manpower available to devout to the war effort, and will soon allow me to start raising new divisions.

Immediate military tasking is for several naval task groups to sortie and attempt to deny the Germans the use of the sea for any means against Poland. 1 Carrier Group, Rear-Admiral Sommerville commanding, sails for the Baltic and encounters a cruiser group – including Scharnhorst and Gneisenau – in Øresund on 4 September. The Fleet Air Arm pounds the German ships, and my task group emerges victorious and unscathed. Unfortunately, no German ships are sunk, but I can rest assured that those cruisers will be heading for port with tails between legs, and will be in repair for the next few weeks.



Opening moves in Poland’s defence constitute victories by German armour in the northwest against the Polish 17th division. Polish infantry make a few slight gains in the north, advancing towards Konigsberg and face no real opposition there.



In the south, however, a large tract of land on Poland’s southwest border is completely undefended. German infantry advance effortlessly and unopposed. Lodz and Warsaw are both exposed, forcing the Poles to hurriedly shuffle a few infantry divisions down from the central area to defend.



I am withholding deploying expeditionary land forces until there is any indication of how the Poles can stand against the Germans; there won’t be any sense throwing away an expeditionary force if the front begins collapsing before they get there. For now, it’s not looking good.

A lot of fun to read. Screenshots are superb!

I'll be watching this, should become interesting.

Btw: Once WW2 is over, will you attack the Soviet Union?

Thanks to Kramer for the heads up...get HOI3 for cheap - only a few more hours left on the sale!

Hearts of Iron 3 Collection - $8.99: http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-HOI3C/hearts-of-iron-3-collection

Thanks man - hopefully they're clear enough to follow. HoI3 throws a lot of information at you, so I imagine they can be a bit hard to understand if you've not played the game before. Now that the land war is heating up, I want to start marking up the maps a bit more to illustrate axes of advance and that sort of thing.



I'll definitely be thinking about it

That would have definitely made for a different World order the following 50 years.


Wheels

fatty,

Can you give us some screenshots of a few of your divisions or brigades? I'd like to see the TO&E of the division if that is possible in the game. What are your forces made up of?

Excellent. :>

Sure, I will feature a few divisions in my next write-up, hopefully to be posted tonight.