Taking Norway. Worth it?

[Champagne]

If you are Germany against the AI, is it worth it to take Norway?

Norway won't surrender for me, anyway, even though I have taken Oslo. I'll need to spend more PPs on more Amphib landings and Sea Trans in order to build up a ground force inside Norway.

This is expensive! How many PPs is a conquered Norway worth?

It might not be better for Germany to leave Norway alone.

[willgamer]

Norway will surrender as soon as both its victory point cities are controlled.

You need to go North to Narvik either by land or by sea.

It's easy to figure which the harder way. [:D]

[PitifulGrunt]

Well, is it worth it? I'm in January 40 and sort of in preperation for Norway.

[carnifex]

If you use four divisions you'll spend over 200PP for amphs alone, and this doesn't include any air losses. Then add more PP to replace the invasion casualties, and if you keep 4-6 divs as garrison that's another 30 or so PP you won't be using elsewhere. If you take any fleet losses those probably won't be replaced but if you like the navy count some PPs there as well. Let's say you spend 300PPs and you keep Norway until mid-1945 or about 300 turns. So if Norway brings in more than 1PP a week, you should take it if you intend to keep it for the term.

[PitifulGrunt]

Thanks Carnifex. I ended up going with Sealion anyhow. I figure if I need to spend zillions to get across the water, I might as well stop Churchill.

[swatter555]

I ended up in a long and bloody campaign in Norway. The Brits sent several corps and turned it into a nightmate. On the positive side, I have majorly worn down the British army that way.

[Joram]

I didn't realize that I had to take Narvik as well and foolishly expended my amphibious invasion near Oslo when I already had two airborne divisions there. If I had landed it near Narvik then probably would have Norway fall but as it is am slowly slogging my way through the mountains.

Britain didn't make a move to land troops though possibly because I took good care of my navy and have a very strong force in the north atlantic preventing them from landing troops.

[doomtrader]

I'll think what to do to make Norway worth to be taken for Germans

[dooya]

ORIGINAL: doomtrader

I'll think what to do to make Norway worth to be taken for Germans

How about reducing lend&lease effectiveness as soon as Germany controls Norway?

Or the other way around: how about making German Tank armies and naval units more expensive as soon as the Allies control Norway (no more Iron from Sweden for Germany)?

[Joram]

Hmm, I was reading up on this. A lot of the reason Germany initially wanted to invade was directly related to Russia's invasion of Finland. If they hadn't done that, Germany may have left them neutral. However, they still made the argument it would help their navy so who knows. Not much of it seems to be economic except for the significant ore contributions that Sweden shipped to Germany. Yet this isn't really modelled in the game though is it?

I could propose a few events
1) Sweden supplies germany with ore: +x PPs (if not already starting with this)
2) Russia invades Finland (sure already happens?). Norway/Sweden/Denmark go +x towards allies? Or just Norway/Denmark if not possible to do sweden. If Russia led by player, is it possible to auto-trigger this if Russia attacks Finland?
3) If Russia invade Finland event, then event, Britain intervenes in Norway, Norway goes +x more towards allies, Germany loses Sweden PPs given
4) If Germany evades Norway before Russia invades Finland, then much greater chance of #2 happening.

I don't know, just brainstorming. The idea is if no one did anything, then most likely the best thing would be to not go in. But if certain things happen, then it leads to a cascading affect strongly incenting Germany to invade Denmark/Norway as they did.

[carnifex]

ORIGINAL: doomtrader

I'll think what to do to make Norway worth to be taken for Germans

Norway is already worth it because it's a fire and forget country - once you take it there's no upkeep. What I mean is there's no need to run any convoys. Historically the Germans needed Norwegian ports to run the iron ore shipments, but in this game the Norwegian PPs are added to the German pool without any need for convoys and the Swedish iron ore shipments don't exist. So once you take it, that's it. That makes it worth it for me at least

[Uxbridge]

ORIGINAL: Joram

Hmm, I was reading up on this. A lot of the reason Germany initially wanted to invade was directly related to Russia's invasion of Finland. If they hadn't done that, Germany may have left them neutral. However, they still made the argument it would help their navy so who knows. Not much of it seems to be economic except for the significant ore contributions that Sweden shipped to Germany. Yet this isn't really modelled in the game though is it?

I could propose a few events
1) Sweden supplies germany with ore: +x PPs (if not already starting with this)
2) Russia invades Finland (sure already happens?). Norway/Sweden/Denmark go +x towards allies? Or just Norway/Denmark if not possible to do sweden. If Russia led by player, is it possible to auto-trigger this if Russia attacks Finland?
3) If Russia invade Finland event, then event, Britain intervenes in Norway, Norway goes +x more towards allies, Germany loses Sweden PPs given
4) If Germany evades Norway before Russia invades Finland, then much greater chance of #2 happening.

I don't know, just brainstorming. The idea is if no one did anything, then most likely the best thing would be to not go in. But if certain things happen, then it leads to a cascading affect strongly incenting Germany to invade Denmark/Norway as they did.

I have been a little dissatisfied with the low importance of Norway as well, not to mention other nations vital to the German war potential.

My solution to this was to place a number of German PP's, roughly half of them, outside of Germany. Thus 19 PP's went to Norway, reflecting the fact that half of Germany's iron came from Sweden and was shipped from Norway; 4 PP's went to Finland, representing the very important nickel imports; 5 PP's was located in Yugoslavia, portraying imports from Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia itself, which could only be transported through the railway net crossing this country; and, lastly and most importantly, no less than 36 PP's went to Romania, being the oil imports, without which the Wehrmacht had to walk and German subs would have been all but idle in the ports.

Since these PP's mentioned, albeit still part of the German economy, are now placed in regions where the German player is initially incapable to protect them, I think that the situation becomes more natural than if the economy hade been simulated through events. Now "Hitler" have to keep a watchful eye on these countries, not to have them invaded or aquired by other nations via diplomacy.

Even the British economy is re-worked like this, with one third of their PP's in Iraq, Palestine and Persia. This gives the Axis player a better incentive for a campaign in North Africa.

Hope this might give you further ideas for your brainstorming. [:)]

[Tordenskiold]

I agree very much on focusing on PP to make the game more strategic and also correct according to history. A little note about Narvik, 60% of the Iron Germany importet at the war beginnen was from Kiruna in Sweeden and about 60% of this iron was shipped via Narvik. The rest went via the Baltic see , Luleå, which was icefree only half of the year.

[Uxbridge]

You're quite right. And even the British imported iron from Sweden via Narvik.

[Tordenskiold]

Being absent for a while. What do you think we can do to get the devs attention to this? I am now playing Allies with patch 1.7 and the PP of Narvik is 2!!! Next to nothing, and definitely not enough to make Norway an important strategic target...

[micheljq]

ORIGINAL: Tordenskiold

Being absent for a while. What do you think we can do to get the devs attention to this? I am now playing Allies with patch 1.7 and the PP of Narvik is 2!!! Next to nothing, and definitely not enough to make Norway an important strategic target...

Well i know that if the allies would control Narvik they would cut off the supplies of swedish iron ore to Germany in Winter. If I am correct, I mean in real life in WW2. Narvik was enough important so that the french and british did fight there in 1940. I was surprised to hear that first, it's so remote. They should have sent the canadians, accustomed to cold, help the norvegians against the nazz Germany war machine. [:)]

In summer they could trace the supply of swedish iron ore from the northern part of Sweden inland to a railroad and then to the Baltic Sea to Germany via a swedish port. In Winter they could not, the only way was through the Narvik port, and then using transports which were following the norwegian coastline to avoid if possible the RAF and Royal Navy and on and on to Germany. Which made Narvik an important strategic point.

[Tordenskiold]

We agree on the facts and talking to one of the developers by mail I got this response:

"I don`t remember ATM but aren`t there in ToW any resources next to Narwik? If not still there is a place for an event - for example one to increase amount of PP give by Narvik when it is taken by Germans. Just an idea - if you like just post it in the thread and we will add such script in the next patch
Regards, Artur"

I like it[:)] My suggestion would anyway be that the resource next to Narvik is increased to a place between 6 and 10 since it symbolize the shipment of about 40% of the total iron supply to Germany. Since Norway do not benifit from this directly it is a good idea to script an event that raise the PP number when the city is occupied by Germany. Or else Norway would get a non realistic boost in production.

A challenge might be how to inform players about this fact...

[PrinceBolkonsky]

The Germans and the Allies only 'thought' Norway was important strategically, when it turned out it really was not. Before the campaign in in the West everyone on both sides thought the war in France would probably take much longer, maybe even years. The conservative German general staff was not responsible for planning the invasion of Norway in any way and generally scoffed at the idea. It was only ineptitude on the part of the Brits and denial on the part of the Norwegians that allowed the Germans to fully exploit the surprise of this first truly combined arms operation. Strategically, the Iron Ore of Sweden was easily replaced from resources in France and good ports from which to conduct u-boat raids were found there too. Hitler kept something like 13 divisions in Norway, badly needed elsewhere, until the war was over. Hindsight is 20-20.

Despite this, in games that make the campaign interesting, I love to take Norway. Norway is very uninteresting in this game so I would only take it if there was a pp gain or something to protect. It does not seem that either is the case.

[dodd1]

There is an event which I have seen in a number of games against the AI that gives Germany control of Denmark and Norway. It occurs I think in April 1940. The only problem then is getting toops to Norway to garrison it properly