General Discussion:

- Since this mod doesn't include a massively oversized map (that was created using a non-standard tool, in a Vanilla Civ5 version - before BNW drastically reduced map sizes to improve stability), the scenario is quite stable. I have tested it through 20+ complete games and the only 3 times it crashed were due to that typical Civ5 "DX11 Error" that pops up from time to time for no good reason. Hopefully, you'll also enjoy a more stable WW2 gaming experience.

- Speaking of maps, I've found the one I liked the best is the "Small Continents" map. Playing maps with massively-large continents largely eliminates the naval aspect of WW2 from the game, which isn't as much fun for me. The "Large Islands" and "Archipelago" maps are also fun, but they - on the other hand - largely remove the "combined arms" aspects of the war. Meaning, the ground component is largely reduced to taking/securing cities, while the ships do all the heavy lifting. The "Small Continents" map seems to balance things much better between the various arms of the services.

- Resources on the map have been "adjusted" to provide a more interesting challenge. Oil no longer appears in quantities of either 7 (for land) or 4 (for sea). Basically, any oil tile can have up to 10 such resources available. This creates some rather interesting clumps of oil tiles that might drastically alter your war plans. In most test games I've noticed that a lack of oil can be severely limiting to your strategic options.

- In 96 turns, there is only so much you can accomplish until the people of the world are so utterly sick of war they make their governments stop. So, scope your strategic ambitions accordingly. There may only be time for major wars against 2-3 opponents, depending on the layout of the map. Many times, when the AI declares war against you, they're on opposite sides of the map and will never mount a serious challenge against you. The scenario management engine takes this into consideration and has methods it uses to try and force civs closer to you to declare war if you've been lurking in the background too long.

- Please note: city growth has been drastically reduced, almost to the point you can't expect your cities to grow more than 1 or so population during the entire war. So, if a city is heavily-contested and changes hands several times, the population will likely hover near 1 for the entire game. On a positive note, many of the buildings that would have been destroyed when a city is capture will now have a decent chance of surviving. Which means captured cities can be expected to provide at least a little support to the war effort. Eventually...

Warfighting Tips:

- The aggressive nature of the modified AI, along with all the bonuses those civs get, means sustaining an offensive requires much more planning than before. The concept of "combined arms" is more important now than ever.

For example, the AI uses large numbers of air units, so you will definitely need some kind of air defense to protect your attacking land units. Early Air Defense Artillery (ADA) is not especially effective against more modern planes, although it's almost adequate against WW1-vintage air frames. The best air defense comes from fighter units set to the "intercept" mission. The more you have nearby (either in border cities or on carrier units), the better. The range of protection of land-based ADA units means they can only protect 1 or 2 tiles around them. Fighters have a much wider range that they can protect.

- Speaking of ADA units, I haven't quite decided whether it's a good idea to upgrade the FLaK Units to Self-Propelled Anti-Air Units. The latter units definitely provide better air defense, but the loss of an oil resource for the unit is quite hard to justify. In the latter game, the FLaK units don't provide much protection against latter attacking aircraft. But, oil scarceness is almost always a difficult issue as you try to grow an effective military. Using it for ADA might be hard to justify.

Bottom line: if you don't provide a huge amount of air defense, your ground units will get their a** shot off...

BTW: late-WW2 Era ships have much improved air defenses (Heavy Battleships and Heavy Destroyers). They can provide very good protection to the fleet against air attacks, one of the reasons they were designed in the first place. Don't assume you can attack them with a fighter or two and expect to win. Or even survive...

Another combined arms feature is using large numbers of artillery units to support city attacks. If you're using a lot of your precious oil to support large numbers of fighters (and you should), there won't be nearly as much oil available to support bomber units. Using a large number of artillery units is quite helpful, especially if you can promote them to where they move 3 tiles and can fire twice in a turn.

- Believe me, you'll be a believer in Artillery after a few games. Historically, artillery caused 70% of the casualties in WW2. When massed and trained enough, it can be remarkably effective both against units and cities.

- If you can't declare war on a civ, even after you're sure the "perma-peace" restrictions have been lifted, more than likely you've issued (or the scenario did it for you) a declaration of friendship in the past. You'll need to denounce that civ first and wait a turn or so (I think this works), or get them to denounce you and wait a turn or two (I'm sure this works), and then you'll be able to declare war on your previous allies.

- A note about diplomacy: attacking over civs and city states will definitely get the AI mad at you. Normally, this isn't a huge problem, however, it does make it more likely that other civs will seek to embargo your civ in the League of Nations, which can dramatically reduce available gold income due to the loss of trade routes. Aggressors beware...

- One of my largest complaints about the AI in this scenario, is if you're playing on a large water map (e.g. Archipelago, Large Islands, or Small Continents), they will often send large numbers of units to watery graves as they transport them across the seas with no kind of protection of any kind. It can make it a simulated "Marianas Turkey Shoot..." The AI simply doesn't protect units, and will often send wave after wave along the same path. It's a great way for a human player to really improve their navy, but still, I can't believe a "thinking" leader would waste so much combat power in this manner.

- If you are using the "End in the WW2 Era" mod, beware: this is no Bomb Shelter available. Your cities are completely vulnerable to nuclear attack. This is especially true for air units in cities attacked with nuclear weapons: they will all be destroyed! So, you need to plan ahead if you're thinking about conducting war with a nuclear-capable civ, and where to scatter your forces to limit the damage of an attack. In this case, the old adage is completely true: the best defense is a strong offense...

Events:

There are several events to help drive the scenario forward. They also serve to give the scenario the historical "flavor" it needs to help the immersive qualities of the mod.

- There are more than a few "anomalies" required to set up the scenario properly on an unknown map type - mainly by trying to start on game turn 0 with civs that have supposedly been active for centuries or longer. To overcome these initial problems, certain things happen early on that may look odd. For example, the entire map has been revealed when the game starts. In Earth history, by 1938, the world had been thoroughly explored and fairly well-known to all of the countries on the planet.

Scripted Events:

- Game Turn 0: Initial unit spawn.

- Game Turn 2: the scenario creates the 3 "religions" (aka doctrines) and converts all the citizens of each country to their appropriate doctrine. On turns 10 and 15, all citizens are again converted, in case you've built any cities after turn 2. If you're using a non-"World at War On Any Map" civilization (that came with this mod), you won't have a defined doctrine, so you'll be able to choose which one you'd prefer. In most test games, I've seen the "Democracy" doctrine tend to take over, due to the larger number of civs that traditionally support this doctrine.

- Game Turn 4: the scenario adds the "traditional" wonders to their appropriate civ. The Eiffel Tower simply must go to France, n'est pas?

Game Turn 5: you officially get to meet all the major (i.e. non-City State) civs in the game. This gives everyone a chance to found at least a couple of cities by then, so most of the game's internal diplomatic methods work properly and won't crash the game. Over the next few turns, there will be a significant amount of diplomatic interactions, but these will subside fairly soon.

Spies have a much larger field of vision around the cities they're stationed in. So, if you want to keep an eye on potential enemies, Spies can be quite useful. Since you're meeting all the civs on the map on turn 5, it's a good time to place Spies around the world. They won't steal any techs in 96 turns, unfortunately, but at least you'll have some visibility around key areas of interest.

Game Turn 8: you should receive a "surge" of reinforcements, largely consisting of air and sea units which really can't be placed until your civ has at least a city or two. There's no use in awarding a few free ships if your civ is completely land-locked, in the middle of a massive continent. Also, air units require a city to base.

Game Turn 15-21: The main war begins.

Game Turn War Start + 6 (and every 3 turns) until Turn War Start + 35:

Game Turn War Start + 36 Turns: "People Begin to Doubt the Wisdom of War" - at this point, some of the Minor Combatants in the war will be allowed to pursue peace, meaning the "permanent" flag is removed from any wars they are fighting. Every 3 turns until the War Start + 71, it is possible for a random, Minor Combatant to change their permanent wars to normal wars, meaning they can make peace if they desire.

Game Turn War Start + 48 Turns: "Support for Total War Begins to Wane" - the "permanence" flags for all Minor Combatants is set off, meaning they can make peace or declare war at will. This doesn't remove the permanence flag from Major Combatants, however, as they are still locked in total, existential war.

Game Turn War Start + 60 Turns: "The People Grow Weary of Permanent War" - this event is the same as the +48 event, allowing any Minor Combatants involved in a new permanent war the chance to make peace.

Game Turn War Start + 72 Turns: "Permanent Wars a Thing of the Past" - from this point on, the mod will declare no more permanent wars.

Game Turn War Start + x Turns:


Routine Non-Scripted Events: Generally speaking, these events can occur on every 3rd turn, depending on various criteria/random chances.

- Savings Bonds: amounts vary, generally higher if at war than at peace. Also, if you're treasury is quite low, the people tend to be more generous... ;)

- Industrial Espionage
- Allied Tech Sharing
- Allied Map Sharing
- Suits for Peace
- Revolts
- Special Unit Spawn
- Home Guard Spawn
- AI Tech Upgrades


Event-Driven Non-Scripted Events:
- Partisans Spawn on City Capture
- Early City Improvements


Civ-Specific Events:
- USA Preps for War
- USA Enters War
- Spain and Turkey:

Game Turn 0 Activities:

- You start the game with a major boost in gold and culture. This is provided to allow you to customize your civ in a way that you would have done if you had been playing the scenario 100 turns prior to the start of the war. It might be tempting to immediately begin buying Factories, Armories, etc.

While, you can start spending right away, it might be better to wait until the next game turn (#1), after you've chosen an ideology. For example, if you select the "Order" ideology, you can choose "Skyscrapers," which cuts the cost of buildings 33% - a massive savings if you're trying to unload a lot of cash. If you then select the "Commerce" branch, then "Privatization" and "Mercantilism" policies, the latter policies reduce spending in cities an additional 25%. This means a Factory now costs 420 gold, instead of 750 gold at game start. Your initial tranche of funds will go much further by using your initial culture bonus wisely.

Another potentially good use of culture points is to complete the "Honor" tree early. The main reason for this is that you generate gold when killing enemy units. In a game where conflict is literally baked into the design, this will be a great way of generating gold - especially if you've been blockaded by the League of Nations and can't generate funds from Trade Routes.

I also try to adopt the "Liberty" tree, with the "Republic" and "Collective Rule" policies, in order to get the free Settler unit. This helps expand the empire early, especially since the AI civs get a significantly larger number of starting Settlers.

If any culture points are still available at this point, I generally next adopt "Rationalism" and the "Secularism" policies. This gives my early science output a well-needed boost. After that, I usually adopt "Tradition" and "Oligarchy" to cut costs and help my cities defend themselves better.


- Your initial research output is quite dreadful at game start. It is often helpful to "buy" Universities in your early cities. I generally buy a Factory and a University in all my initial cities - AFTER I've set my social policies up for maximum savings.

For example, in a recent game, my initial science output was 28 beakers per turn, which would require my 86 turns to research Penicillin. In a 96 turn game, this is quite a problem... After I settled my initial 5 cities, my research was up to 150 beakers per turn, and the turns to research Penicillin dropped to 15 turns. Early on, it is critical to get at least some science going. You don't want to fall too far behind your rivals, and the AI gets a lot of free "help" in this area.


- You start off with a small amount of free Oil. This is crucial if you're not located close to any Oil due to bad luck from the map generation Gods. However, this initial amount will quickly be allocated, so the search for Oil should dominate your early planning when deciding where to place cities, or where to start wars to find more.

Sometimes, if you're near the poles, it might be advantageous to locate a well-placed island near the ice, that can have a lot of Oil nearby and then place a city there. Generally speaking, the AI doesn't tend to go after them directly, and it doesn't take too many resources to set up a good defense of the city while the major civs are pursuing wars in the middle of the map.

Civilizations:

Major Combatants:

- Germany: Axis member.
- Italy: Axis member.
- Japan: Axis member.

- UK: Allies member.

- France: Allies member. UA: "Esprit de Corps" - Birth rate of Great Generals is increased by 25%. Great Generals provide +25% combat bonus (instead of the normal +15%). Artist specialists provide +2 Culture.

* USA: Neutral/Allies leaning.
- UA: "The New Deal" - Golden Ages +50% longer. Specialists provide +1 Production. Worked Strategic Resources provide +1 Gold and +1 Production.
- National Promotion: "E Pluribus Unum" - +15% Combat Strength, +15% Defense, +15% Defense against Ranged Attacks. Naval melee units (Destroyers, etc.), receive +2 movement. Note: USA WW2 Infantry is a bit weaker than other civs, reflecting their overall poor performance during the war, while most of their other type units are quite powerful.

- USSR: Neutral.

Minor Combatants:

- Bulgaria: Axis leaning.
- China: Allies leaning
- Czechoslovakia:
- Finland: Axis leaning.
- Greece: Allies leaning
- Hungary: Axis leaning.
- Norway: Allies leaning
- Poland: Allies member.
- Romania: Axis leaning.
- Spain: Axis leaning.
- Turkey: Neutral.
- Yugoslavia Allies leaning