Eidolad

thanks folks. I will use separate groups when I need separate behaviors. That last part from Brit about "units ignore their own orders, when inside a group" is important as well.

I took out a group of four AI subs using my fighter for sighting and my tac bombers for shooting...I'm happy/sad I mentioned it:)..thx for fixing tho. ____ This Veteran game is playing out as a mirror image of the last... My neighbor on my side declares war on his neighbor. And eventually, on my terms entirely, I attack mine. One Veteran AI is not enough against a human who has a clue *and* has had the time to prepare. First AI empire is crushed. And again, I get to prepare and choose my next victim...without a dog pile. I start on the second AI empire of my choosing. Unless Mr. Rommel decides to turn on me...this will be handily won. However I keep forgetting about this all-seeing AI...today I moved an arty, mlauncher, and tank on an island across the water from an enemy city...but just within my range (and out of their "sight" range) and instructed them to bombard. I had an air patrol risk their lives to give my mlauncher the range. The AI pummeled them as they moved to position....without benefit of any units for ranging purposes. The damaged tank tried to slink back away...and almost died as well. The AI is often too bullishly aggressive with it's great map vision. He will send individual subs to their doom against my screen. I don't use individual ships any longer because I cannot keep them alive due to the traitor in my high command:( My ship teams almost always win their individual fights this way...my shipyards are always busy repairing them. Phew, it's a good thing Brit doesn't read the forum:)...otherwise he would be informed that a) IMHO two mlaunchers and an arty are not enough for an AI front line shore garrison. The battleship2+ teams can soak up their fire for only a few hits (they bring along 16 or more to spare) without concern and then shred them and anything else still around in that base. That even with the extra ranging the AI vision gives them. Then if the AI also adds a flak that makes bombers pay a price to take out that strong ranged unit group that is keep away the battleships...makes breaking into that city more difficult. I'm not saying every city has to be like this...but the ones that border a warring empire....absolutely. c) Or perhaps pen a 2-3 unit sub team in that garrison on aggressive orders...they will land a bunch of hits *only when something gets really close like a transport group or over-confident BB stack*....when it counts for the city. d) not every border city has chew up so much food in it's garrison defense...but what's the point of a key garrison if they cannot handle a serious threat? edit: those two ranged units can handle the lone transport invader so are not completely useless...a good minimum setting... ...and no human player will send just one BB once they see what those defender launcher/artillery units can do... I think also I've may have figured out a pretty simple rule of diplomacy about two-front wars: avoid them by having a strong force deployed on a war footing. Well, duh. In my first games as I fumbled around without a navy...the AI empires jumped all over me. In the last two...my navy was ready almost before anyone was fighting anyone....and no one wanted a piece of me.

Testing a concept here...we'll see what happened the next time I sail them across the water: I created an "empty" group containing two groups: 1. Group "Invaders" with "no orders" for field orders. No units inside this group. Just contains two groups below. a. inside is a "Protectors" group of cruisers and DD with aggressive orders (i.e. like them to go kill those planes, subs, and ships if they get near) but stay with the group otherwise b. the second group inside is the "Transports" group and is passive field orders. No attacking...just get you and your tanks to the shoreline. ...I give movement orders to the "Invaders" group only...and split off "Protecters only when necessary...and rejoin them as needed with "join group" movement command. So some questions: 1. which level of field orders, group or sub-group, takes precedence? ...now, does it matter what field orders the "Invaders" group inside has? I'm just now playing with this "nested group" config. I'm using "no field orders" on the "meta-group" to keep it safe and fight defensively only. Said another way: *if* an individual group has field orders...are these overriden by the group that contains it? 2. On a related note: Let's say a Destroyer is within a group with a transport. If I keep the transport "passive" orders and then keep the Destroyer "aggressive" orders...and the Group does NOT have field orders. Does that Destroyer's own field orders override the group level? Or vice versa? 3. Will a sub-group, like "Protectors" above really use their aggressive field orders and then return to the group (i.e. split off and attack incoming subs they see rather than wait for them to come into range of the transports?) Or sit there and just defend (i.e. when it is too late for those transports) Not much point then in putting shooters in the same group as the transports...other than damage spreading then... 4. By NOT having any units in the same group as the transports...did I just give away a crucial "damage soak" ability...of say...a few DD to help spread the damage around? I only made the mistake of having "aggressive orders" with a group containing transports....once. Boy did that hurt. So "no field orders" makes sense but I want to organize the convoy in the most effective fashion.

How about tweaks to that 100% AI radar sight...limit the AI sight range to that AI empire's current tech jet fighter patrol range (and place a colored "border" show the human player how far the AI sees)? Or limit the AI to "radar flashes" every few turns...and let the player sometimes know when these flashes occur? Except on elite level where the grognards want to play where it is rough, I suppose. And slowly wean Mr. AI away from 100% radar: The new AI will have to take to the skies and have effective air patrolling to "see". I've never seen a computer wargame where the AI has effective patrolling. There would seem to be a great deal of coding. a) if AI really doesn't know where to put his patrols...he would have to maintain a very expensive air force just for patrolling. Single planes that are easy meat for even basic ground forces..so the air patrols will have to avoid flying over enemy and neutral cities or: use spy planes primarily...hard to kill and low priority for enemies otherwise? c) When a patrol plane gets damaged...where to go to repair? Currently the AI doesn't seem to build many airforce bases for repairing. d) Then there's the coding for the "response to enemy contact". The AI, upon spotting an enemy force of transports...needs to vector in, and launch, a successful air attack to destroy *just* the priority threat Or send a naval/ground group into the area to engage them...but if the player has a screening force..that AI "response" will just go off and either waste themselves attacking...or go do something else. I.e. once a group of player transports is located, it is "tagged" as a primary bad guy by the AI. If the AI "response" fails to find that "tagged" group, it should stay there and begin patrolling?...make the enemy move somewhere else. e) could I argue that a patrolling fighter plane is more valuable than some other ground unit to defend? Yes, most especially for an AI island city. Even a single fighter has a chance to sink a transport... edit: a poor example of AI "response" is in Civ4...where a group of air units will be moved by the AI into a threatened city...oops they seem to not notice my stack of ground units who take that city in the very next turn...

Yes, now I see everyone gets to shoot at everyone when they clash...I say goodbye to infantry as soon as a tech up to tanks. A mixed stack is only good if each unit can take the distributed dose of pounding...which pretty much favors the big brawny tank. So far, the rule in single player seems to be: the AI empties his garrison the minute I show up. Okay then...I don't land unless I can disembark and strike first...invasions are pretty much settled on the first turn on these small islands I've been playing on. I'm going to try for medium sized islands and see if there is any change to this invasion dynamic...as well as see if the random map has...random sized islands. If not, then I wish there was a "mixed island size" map generator option...I'm not going to give up on mixed force operations...I think taking/holding larger islands will need them...let's see if that is true...

Turn 230. Things are looking dire here at the War Department. We now have a two front war plus an additional hostile empire over the horizon. Yamamoto, the new opponent, has a very small front in which to operate and has an incredible navy concentrated there. He's pushed me off all facing shores and shot down most patrolling aircraft...even a spy plane. Turn 247. Mr. Rommel is a tiger pushed into a corner, and is now taking back is sea resources and eliminated all but my main fleet. My invasion of seven infantry5s into a mountain square, supporting a nice group of artillery and mlaunchers and flak, is utterly crushed by the garrison of just three tank7s and two artillery5s sitting *outside* immediate unit view who rush around the road network on the first turn I land. Tried this sort of "equal force land/bombard" tactic twice....there seems no way to land a force, dig in and bombard when the AI can see....all. A major humie production island with three cities, smothered when Yamamoto lands four transports unopposed. Even when I collapsed all infantry5, artillery5 and mlauncher3s into a single city (and attempt to place the launchers behind the city. The tank7s just roll over all without stopping. I think I killed three of the attacking tanks. Turn 254. Woe is me and I head for the exits in game #2: My neighboring AI opponents both outnumber me and have out-tech'ed me consistently and without fail since the beginning. The land unit tech lead (existing throughout the game, for all enemy empires by at least one level) of the AIs is proving to be fatal. Research has been zero investment for @20 turns. I cannot afford unit upgrades to bring my infantry to level six in the current turn. My oil resources went from 700 at the beginning of the two-front war to 375 and I am at a -10.3 at the moment. I will not have tank7 tech for 10 more turns...land attack is therefore out of the question...unless I want to watch paratroop3's die messily. I would rather my people speak German than allow this. The final straw is when four Yamamoto cruisers show up on the other side from our borders and sacrifice themselves to sink my newly built battleship, and sink half the flotilla I guess they were evidently chasing. Of course, I had no idea they were there...my remnant air force was busy elsewhere. I am NOT going to suffer through waiting for the end of the overall technology advancement and catch up...simply because the AI has nothing more to research. Some final notes: 1. I really dig the field orders...and especially the custom field orders. I can tell planes to "attack transports and subs"...and ensure they always have these orders. So when Mr. AI sub rolls up to my city (whose radar spots it) to munch on my transport...incoming aircraft instead of landing, fly out over the city, kill the sub, and return. Impressive. 2. Transports as magnets for Mr. See-all AI? Maybe with enough resources: In one turn, two AI subs come sailing right up into two different city waters. One city has a CA/DD/BB/BB group sitting there being repaired and an idle empty transport. The other has patrolling aircraft and an idle transport. Ah, so...well too bad there aren't enough food resources to support this sort of unit-bait tactic. 3. The see-all AI is really getting annoying. a. My newly build battleship leaves port in a backfield city and is met by two incoming cruisers. All three char and die (sorry, an old Dungeons and Dragons reference that I couldn't resist). b. It is too easy to forget that the AI knows everything. The AI 100% radar advantage is huge and the AI really kicked my naval butt with it. It is worse with near-parity landings. I forget that the AI clearly sees my transport land troops outside the immediate view of those garrison units. The garrison's single tank rides way down the road and trashes them in one round. I had planned to set up an artillery/flak group (with a single grunt riding along) to use aircraft spotting to pound that city's tank and artillery buddies without reply. The plan depended on a near total lack on air force patrolling by the AI empire. Mr. see-all AI doesn't require a patrolling air force...I had done my planning against a humie and paid cash for the lesson. All in all...a solid wargaming experience! I'm back for more. ______ The weekend starts with a completely different approach. Tanks, balanced naval groups and battleships. Quickly, I set up for a 4-player, 1400x1400 free for-all Novice difficulty game, a smaller map to avoid some of the slow-downs I was seeing on a medium-sized map. I began playing and utterly romped on them one at a time. While I was crushing the first opponent, I expected the other two to stop fighting and dog pile on me, like in the Veteran difficulty game before...not so. In fact they kept on fighting...while I sat on half the map and was retooling to munch on one of them. Was that a result of the difficulty level? My tech advantage (which I read elsewhere is supposed to come with "Novice" difficulty) actually felt like more of a resource advantage...my economy was humming from the beginning. I reloaded and checked the amount of food available to each starting area. About even. Hmmm. Maybe I'm getting this? Well let's not count the victory until V is or Veteran. Or E is for Elite. Well, there are things to learn even from a Novice game. My first dancing partner covered his key food island (two cities) with 6 artillery and two tanks. Tactical bombers and dreadnoughts paid them a visit. The next game will be Veteran or Elite (see how I feel after a snooze) and have an odd number of opponents to avoid this sort of two-on-two scenario. Got a rock for your scissors, Mr. AI. A patrol for your radar, I should say.

Hi Brit, I did a standard game setup with 1 Rommel and 4-4 Random players (five player game). Two of them ended up "Yamamoto" with the same Rising Sun style red flag...for both the foreign relations and map flags. They played as entirely different empires.

Reproduced it! Emailed a save game. The AI stack of five subs is very pretty, and pretty much means that Mr. Yamamoto owns that area. Total suppositions: In both cases (I think) it is the return leg where the fighter (a jet fighter in case 2) sees the sub. Or Perhaps it is when the sub finishes movement that the sub becomes visible.

If there are two of the same empire instances in the same game, suggest to have their their icons be different color or other indication. Upon resuming a game, I looked at the game map and freaked out for a minute until I remembered that I was playing against two Yamamoto empires, unrelated by blood:).

cool! sorry I overwrote it my save rotation. I recall it being a literally straight out-and-back flight to the very max range. The diamond contact icon was literally under the flight path at the mid-point.

I'm completely digging this game...was up until 4am and was getting cramped fingers...I'm losing it! ____ from last night: Turns history up to 184 1. Fighter2, flies out and back at max range...lo and behold, he appears to spot a submarine. Now how did he do that? Way outside of a city radar sub detection range. Did he literally run over the sub (zero range?) 2. My fleet of 2xBB2, 2xCA3, 1xDD3. 2xTr3 with nine ground units, encounters a single SU3. This one sub damages *four* ships before being sunk. It's like this one ship gets to go one-on-one with each and every ship until the sub runs out of hit points. Holy anti-stack batman! Impressive and very sub-like. I look at the sub attack vs. defense values...if the same calculation is used if my entire stack had attacked that one sub...then those surface ships, even the DD3, are always at a disadvantage. And if that is true...no point in fleets attacking lone Subs. Time to look for a nice bomber or two and outrun that sub.. I *hope* if my fleet had spotted the sub and attacked it, that things would have gone better. Time to go subhunting with one or two of DD or subs I guess. 3. Mr. Rommel stays at least one tech level ahead, on all units, until finally I identify the key island of his empire: 14 food in wheaties. I land 9 units and take the island. I hope this is turning point. My tech4 navy units are slugging it out with his tech4 navy..while I look at his islands and their tech5 land defenders. I have no land units at tech5. Looking for another key strike to stay in this. 4. My attack bombers seem to be die-food against anything that can shoot back (except transports and subs example). They are my #1 attrition unit and am building them constantly or they are combat-lossed while repairing. When I send a squadron of three Tactical Bomber3s against a single BB3 and they all die...I cut them back to anti-transport duty. I create a custom field order for them: attack subs and transports or use in emergencies. 5. I do find jet fighters to be useful against transports...huzzah! Thank the Lords of Kobol that the AI doesn't escort his trannys. Hopefully Brit didn't see me write that:) 6. Starving enemy cities by taking their resources. Better than Civ or other games, this gem of a wargame is proving for me a fascinating and brilliant hands-on application of a basic dynamic of war. I chose to leave two producing enemy cities in my middle while I pounced on that major food island. A size 21 and a size 15 city producing invasions and within bomber range of mine...and I could take both. Are they less important than that 14 total food island? *** Yes *** I am now stronger in the sea and air than Rommel...but my goodness can he pump out/sustain land units. Every city as between 4-7 land units. I can see all his resources....I don't know how on earth he manages to out tech me will all those units to maintain. Perhaps I'm still missing something about the economy heyah...I would have been toast on a land-only map I suspect. We'll try that for the next game. Anyway on to the mid-game phase where I either attempt to take the core Rommel islands: two size 21-cities, and size 19 city. Or cut them off from the sea which has the bulk of their oil and food....

I thought about that bug report (email) that you are referring to and think I have a simpler way to represent the two minor issues: In short: if a friendly city is outside one-way flight range...the skull should show up. 1. Fuel range violation (skull symbol) is NOT displayed, or removed, when a player right-clicks, or ctrl-right-clicks to route to a friendly city, *even* if that route is outside the plane's range. The plane doesn't fly there so no big deal. This also affects subsequent waypoints: A player can also a) right-click to route a plan to a one-way death (skull symbol) shows up, to some point on the map then ctrl-right-click on a friendly city. Voila: the skull goes away from waypoint one. Visually: it appears that the whole flight plan is ok. Nope: that plane will die on waypoint one. 2. (from my email). I created a single scenario in which I can get the skull symbol to show up during a multi-point flight plan between friendly cities. I haven't duplicate this one...but have save game showing it. It appears to require the first waypoint city to be out of one-way flight range. ______ ...ah I think I got the fix for this: a) set the unit "sentry until repaired, as Brit said *also* clear the field orders. I really really like that a BB will leave port to attack if something gets into range instead of just sitting there...but NOT when it has 1/8 hitpoints! Also...I think I'm getting off thread topic with unit suggestions/etc...should we move these sorts of things into another thread or would we rather that this thread continue to expand into (what I think it has become): "(any)thing you think the game needs in the future thread".

yup good one Boris...perhaps reset field orders if the player sit's "sentry until repaired button" would do it? But...maybe then we need dialog to remind us about units with no field orders once that repair is done and before we send it out again?

add-on to previous list: 7. game options: a. warning dialog if research not active/selected if the player presses end turn (with a check box to allow player to disable this warning for the rest of this game) b. disable plane flights if the human chooses a one-way death ride (skull and crossbones)...as a player setup option, perhaps. c. Perhaps an option to move the left panel to the top or bottom of the window, and the unit info to the left or right side. 8. View ranges against subs for early DD and CA = zero is rather important for newbies. a. suggest to edit the text description for destroyer1 and cruiser1 to be very clear: this unit is blind to submarines. I assume that with a submarine1 in the same stack they can attack... b. then in DD2 and CA2 description: edit the text and let the customer know: "can see submarines". c. for SU1: he's cool: he can see submarines and his text description should indicate this My destroyer1 was attacked by an "unknown" while sentried on an oil resource..mr. AI parked a sub on top of it before we were ever at war. This also happened to a group comprised of: cruiser1, destroyer1, destroyer2, destroyer2. The destroyer1 was attacked by "unknown" attacker. I told the destroyer2 officers to leave out the dessert in that night's meal. 9. Tiny little bug: a. If I select, then relocate units from an idle group, which effectively deletes that idle group... ...then in that same turn, press Z (select idle units)...the interface appears to highlight where that group used to be.

More ridiculously long posts! Double posting! Well, I just make notes as I play... 1. How to pick up troops from a city using a transport, and continue to other destinations. On woe is me, how many times in my first few games did a send a transport to a city to try to pick up troops...only to see the troops still sitting there while the transport leaves empty? One solution: a. select the transport, right-lick on the city and choose "pick up troop #1" b. ctrl-right-click on the city and choose, "pick up troop #2" c. ctrl-right click on where you want the transport to go, say to a yellow dot right outside an enemy city d. select both troops #1 and #2 and ctrl-click on the yellow dot outside that enemy city (step c above) e. ctrl-right-click on the enemy city. Voila. In one order, I tell my transport to pick up two troops, and land them to attack an enemy city. Sometimes, I am successful in ctrl-right-clicking just on the enemy city once the transport's waypoints are established to get the troops to attack that city. Sometimes not, though. 2. Dude, i'm like Farmer/Fisher John in the early game. a. From Lt. Belenko's recommendation I am going early for this Fertilizer factory if I hold any wheaties (land food). b. sea food bonus tech? Yeah I'm up for that. 3. Empire management a. well look at that, no idle units anywhere. b. planes with limited field orders. c. not being jabbered at to fix things and knowing what unit should be doing what...at least in peacetime. d. Humie is in control. 3. The accidental war. a. Oh look there is an unclaimed wheatie for me to grab so I give my infantry orders to leave a ship and claim it. b. Mr. Rommel sends an infantry to take the wheatie at the same time (didn't see him in fog of war). He claims it first and is sitting on the resource. c. My infantry, with default "aggressive" field orders, attacks him. d. The next turns starts and there's no war declaration, but I am thinking that taking a hit point from an infantry is probably considered impolite. e. Yep, Rommel hates me and we're at war. It turns out his great nephew was in that troop. 4. Followed by the faux war dog pile. a. Two other empires, one of which i cannot even see any of their territory, declared war on me two turns after my infantry's faux pas. b. Both of these dudes sit on my chest for two turns then offer peace. 4. You want search and destroy for a particular unit? a. Create custom field order, say "attack transports" b. assign to a unit, say a Tactical Bomber c. Set up a patrol route that does not use all of the fuel (not sure about this part but I would want the unit to be able to attack more than once in the same turn if fuel allows?) This can be used also to fly close to an enemy city and tell the unit to attack if it sees one of whatever you want to attack. I use this to extract some artillery from Mr. Rommel. 4. Reality check on economy a. I'm in turn 74 and at war with my nearet enemy. Everyone is on level1/2 tech. I am making $60 surplus cash, 20 surplus iron, losing 16 oil, losing 16 food. b. So I make trades to equalize while adding $4 to research. Left with -.9 dollars and -2.2 iron. ...Is this "good" or am I fubared? I will have to fight with the units I have I claim more resources basically. ...am I going about this EOS resource war the right way? I seem to have been was wrong at the start...this is not a war for cities...but a war for resources. 5. I tried to offer peace in an email reply to the AI...but nada. The AI did offer peace and I accepted. So does that mean I can only reply to a peace offer to an AI? 6. Mr. Rommel my accidental war buddy, at Veteran level on turn 107: a. just now pops out level 2 missile launchers, level 3 infantry, and level 3 artillery. Just after I captured an 8-unit wheatie...I can now push $65 per turn into research...so I'm still owned by the AI in the economic/research department. That's right...one single food resource is a complete turnaround due to the fertilizer multiplier (thanks be to the vets who posted replies here) b. The two AI cities that I can scout, I see *six* ground units (all artillery, launchers and infantry, interestingly enough). In other words, I'm about to be swamped again. My front line defensive positions have...three units each. ?! How in the world does the AI research so fast...and maintain sooo many units. This is beyond my computational unit at this time. c. Well at least I've held him at bay and traded sea resources back and forth while gaining just two cities. Killed more units than I've lost overall. Looks like the humies would have been in real trouble had I chosen a largely land-based map.... I will not stop...I will play this Rommel bloke until my empire breaks...well or I'm three tech levels down.

Oh sorry, I thought I read in an earlier post that "Veteran" gets a tiny resource bonus. Back to Veteran for me! Some unit enhancements for later consideration: 4. Enhancing Carriers for AI (and human) Carriers are cool. Anyone still play The Grandest Fleet (which I still play every now and again) and those AWESOME super ships? The Super Carrier was amazing but still countered by Super Subs (even though the AI had 100% radar as well). Artillery needs a naval counter...carriers sounds good to me. However I read in some other posts that the AI doesn't use them (well, or at all, can't recall which). I haven't seen them yet as I haven't played a game long enough to see the deeper middle game where bigger fleets really start showing up. So...perhaps the problem is that the AI carrier is not synced with planes...so let us give the AI some planes to deal with those sentry artillery us newbie humans are putting into our bases. A built-in squadron or of fighter-bombers (dual role, fairly good at both like the righteous F-18)...that has to be "repaired" if damaged. Two squadrons for light carriers. Four for heavies. Perhaps the AI carrier should always have one built in fighter patrolling (attack planes only) in a circle around the ship...or give the AI carrier really good air defense to simulate a patrol squadron. The player should have full control of those squadrons. As the carrier techs up, so the on-board fighter-bombers tech up. I would suggest the carrier to be more expensive than even a battleship due to this capability. The WWII heavy carrier should be the dominant, expensive, floating airbase that makes unprotected arty (and anything else except entrenched infantry in a city) nervous . That will dominate an area if left unchallenged. That needs protection against anything other than, say, a single destroyer attack. Battle of Midway began, and ended, with the number of carriers involved, right? Unfortunately sneaking a sub in on an AI carrier with 100% radar would be...impossible? But at least the sub could chase it away! A heavy carrier should cost 50% more than the equivalent battleship...or more. I don't want to create a carrier-focus particularly but think they should be the capital ship to fear. The thing about the grandest fleet that was a good balance was that carrier planes could be damaged...so the carrier would have to repair to "repair" the planes at the nearest airfield. This was a good mechanic to keep the carriers from being too powerful. 5. Capital ship yard To build those heavy carriers, there needs to be a single huge, expensive shipyard that can turn them out. That takes an extra special facility. When carriers are researched, THEN a player gets access to researching and building the Capital Ship yard. This building costs 10 iron/turn just sitting there. Heavy carriers cannot be built without one. Light carriers can be built anywhere (but cost 50% more without this building). You get two of these per empire max...and they are destroyed if the city is captured. 6. Repair ship Large slow and vulnerable. Can repair up to the first 30% damage of ships in same square (leaving target ship with 70% health). Costs the repair ship 1 health for every ship repaired (or perhaps one point for every ship point repaired) to keep the thing balanced and simulate a "limited repair supply". Repair ship has 10 hit points or something along those lines and costs plenty of cash and iron to build. A human player would loiter them likely just outside of plane/combat range....but how would an AI figure out the "safe nearby by useful location". The nearest empire border, perhaps? Not sure if the AI would use them well, however. So not really a highly sought after item feel free to shoot it down.

Lots of great feedback thx! Class 2 cruisers see subs...I want the precious. Thx for the resource advice this will be a huge help... Sounds like there is no arty party on turn1 off a ship. I dream of the day when I can afford missile launchers...in such numbers on defense. With carrier being a counter for such a thing that gives me an idea for an enhancement: help the AI with using carriers by giving them a built-in squadron or of fighter-bombers (dual role)...that has to be "repaired" if damaged. Two squadrons for light carriers. Four for heavies. The WWII heavy carrier should be the dominant, expensive, floating airbase that makes unprotected arty nervous that will dominate an area if left unchallenged. Unfortunately sneaking a sub in on one with 100% radar would be...impossible? But at least the sub could chase it away! Going to post this over on the "suggestions" thread and/or maybe once I figure this extremely cool game out...do a mod that has this. I'm finding the arty to be really prominent...we need the AI to have a sea-based counter (I've yet to see carriers and read some posts that indicate AI needs some juice with them). 100% radar for the AI...that is fine with me..a better AI player, the better. Some things for me that it will change big time are: sub behavior ("Hans, I *know* there is an AI DD headed my way if I sail into their waters...can't loiter without some air scouting or such. But you know, that means that mr. AI transport will NOT be coming my way if I'm playing defense...I can be an even better anti-invasion guard since he won't get within my 1-turn strike range. The thing I really fear is aircraft, I'm telling you" --quoted from a braggart submarine captain yet to set sail on first mission "sneak attacks"...nope, I'm breathing AI has nano-video-robots and he is seeing up my nose. I don't think I'll be sneaking unguarded sneak-attack invaders on the AI...it will only work if the AI hasn't gone anything there at the time.

Regarding my #4 bad: I think I was not invading with groups of units...going to try that during game #3 and see if this helps.

I vote smarter AI as well, in a big way. Numero uno. Some additional minor wish-list items: edited 1. Have the dotted track showing unit paths to be colored for each turn it take that unit to move, or some other indications of how many turns that portion movement will take. 2. AI "personalities": i.e. AI player emphasis on particular units: plane happy, ship happy, tank happy, etc. 3. A "normal" difficulty setting: no advantage/disadvantage. I.e. for those that are "too proud" to play novice and not ready to be at a disadvantage... it's fantastic to see feedback/changes actually happening as a game develops...huzzah!

Well now here's some more from the Newbie School of Honest Oopsies: (note: sorry for long post. Also, I'm brand new to the forum so have some reading to do on the other posts as well, I hope I'm not retreading old ground too much) medium sized map, 7 opponents, veteran diff, 50% water I start by committing to Operational spending strategy: 50% cash surplus spent on research, the other 50% on food (units) This worked fine in the expansion phase...I felt that I was at tech parity and expanded to a nice chunk of my region, mostly had strong ground units (2-3 per transport) and an array of transports doing the expanding. Border cities with at least one defender. Fair sized air force to patrol/scout. No cash for an "attack stack" or "navy" to speak of yet. Things went south when war came to town. The "bad" stuff: Then the two neighbors declared war within 1-3 turns of each other, on me. 1. Escort those ships once borders begin to established, thou fool! Lost two loaded transports with units en route on the first turns of the war...now, how did the AI know where these ships were? (they were in my territory but headed to the borders...I don't recall ever seen the AI scouting my waters. Hmmm I don't suppose Mr. AI has 100% radar coverage or anything sinister like that? My (former?) favorite naval game The Grandest Fleet used 100% radar coverage but I didnt mind....it played a fairly good random map game. 2. Limit Field orders to hold back my frisky planes. Initially, lost most of my air farce, which I had in patrol with default "aggressive" orders...as they decided to try their luck on destroyers and cruisers in the next 5-10 turns before I realized that the odds were horrible for these (early?) planes against ships. So learned about the "field orders"...another basic, huge deal for the newbie to learn. Set my fighters to "attack only planes" to try to keep them alive and bombers to attack transports only (or no field orders) etc. Hugely freaking important. 3. Ships with guns...ya, important. I basically had no fighting navy to speak of during my expansion...this really really hurt when the balloon went up. Most sea-based resources gobbled along with their sight radius. Also found out how cruisers *cannot* see subs?!...being attacked by "unknown" and couldn't fight back...at least I *think* they were subs. So lesson learned: destroyers are important to have around with any naval group. I should learn to luv the little "tin cans" (borrowing from David Weber for the moment) 4. Artillery in sea invasion stacks...just along for the ride? I couldn't figure out how to coordinate 2xTank and 1xArtillery sea invasion very well though. Say there was a single infantry guarding the city. I roll up with a transport and drop two tanks to attack, and the artillery to "bombard the garrison to death". I just want one shot from the artillery while the tanks then go mop up...in a single round after landing. Result? The infantry attacks and destroys the artillery, and the tanks destroy the infantry and take the town. Or else the tanks attack alone while the artillery chills out on shore...didn't want to trade that artillery. So I adapted by simply keeping artillery in the transport until the tanks were done. 5. The economic model is still killing me: declared war = end of research. While I expanded, I had @20 dollars per turn boosted into extra Research. When war was declared, I literally had to shut down all extra research spending...not one extra dime while I just managed to keep my cities and take a few. 6. The war was pretty much other when Mr. Rommel just begins showing up with dozens of navy ships. I threw towel in when my cruiser/transport/tank/tank, ventured into enemy water (which I had just scouted with a plane and saw was empty all way to the city shoreline), ran into about a eight surface ships all moving towards it? It was almost if the defending navy had stayed out of my plane scout range, then pounced. That is way spooky dude. Had to stare down my pc after that. 7. While my research was in stasis, mr. AI was tech'ing up just fine. ..threw in towel when I saw that the AI was still tech'ing upwards and hadn't seemingly had to freeze their research....like I had to with mine...and Erwin had just showed an unstoppable huge navy just in one region to halt one transport. In hindsight: the loss of those sea resources was a big deal...perhaps was the root cause of my tech stagnation as the war progressed. Perhaps more than the difficulty level? In fact, I'm going to start another thread to ask about the specifics of the difficulty level. edit: searched found out about difficulty levels The good stuff from my side of the war: 1. AI builds a destroyer/sub based navy and attempts to blockade with it...very good initially. However those loitering ships should sidle to the exits before a newly built artillery begins pounding on them...*especially* when they hang around long enough for a 2nd artillery to be built. To rephrase what hoolaman said in a different post: naval units are more difficult to repair (being so far from seaports) that damage renders them a combat loss (Part of that attrition concept the game manual talks about eh?). 2. The AI uses singleton ship formations unless they have a transport, for the most part. So I deploy pairs of units to counter. 3. Two units to defend threatened cities: one infantry, and one artillery, served me well. Entrenched infantry in cities. with a buddy big gun to shoot ships and landed units. Buff, and quite nice. 4. Two tanks was enough to take invade most AI cities in this early war phase. 5. The AI likes to invade with single units...this is not enough. Two at a minimum should the AI rule of practice IMHO. Except that one time when a pair of artillery had the gall to land and take a shot at my infantry3. He took no damage, then butchered them the next round. 6. Artillery is really is really kick ass at general defense..and served as my naval defense (forts, sort of) for the cities. My vote for favorite unit thus far. ...backing down to Novice difficulty and trying again...basically an econo-loss. 7. Is there a "unit to city build ratio" that works? Two units of any type, generally, per city or something along those lines? Or does the resources I'm holding the real deal here? and I should stop gobbling up cities and focus on those wheat and fishies? I'm constantly tweaking via "open market trade" to keep things balanced...think I'm missing something basic here. I.e. if I want to adequately defend all threatened cities with one Infantry and one Artillery...that appears to leave nada, nothing for attack. I had to uncover several cities to muster up attack and patrol units. border cities: one infantry and one artillery middle cities: one infantry core/rear cities: nothing, can't afford (we offer discount to incoming paratroopers!) 8. Regale me some other EOS newbie blunders you had fun experiencing...like assuming the pilot would refuse to let my fighter from taking a one-way scouting trip (I overlooked the skull and crossbones and then wondered where he was:) Have to stop...this post is in the TLDR zone. 9. Having a great time playing the game! Next game: I will expand with a fighting navy along the way and will patrol my sea resource fields.

Basically I've run my first empire like an expansionist billionaire. $5,477 in the bank, but level1/level2 units and zero food surplus. 1. Trade you fool! Note to self: trading resources is a really really big deal! I found this out when I had +250 money surplus but only 2.5 food surplus. So I just stopped making units until I could find more food resources and prepared my sneak attack. Made bad assumption that this was a "unit cap" of sorts. I found out when my three transports shipped nine units to attack two bases...and found themselves about to attack *fifteen* units that the AI had in just those TWO BASES. Yikes. My sneak attackers announced "err, this was a training exercise" and slunk back home. 2. Spend extra $$ on research may be even more important. Another note to self: Spend $$ on "research funding" Just noticed that little "research fund" option at the bottom of the research window. *Now* I believe I see why my poor tank2s, artillery1s were about to land and face twice their number of artillery3s, tank3, infantry3, and paratroopers. The Veteran AI, even with an empire about half my size, could have blitzed me easily...and should have attacked...most of my cities are empty. I should have traded $$ surplus every turn for more food production. Had I traded that $$ income for food I could have fielded @40 extra units and had a serious attack with better or at least parity tech. Got a ton more to learn. I suppose the best this little thread can do is supply feedback for an "intermediate" or "part II tutorial: mid-level empire management" or something of that sort.

scratch my last...i cannot seem to get "produce money" queued before anything...double doh

hmm, I think you are saying: a) whoops I see i have too much queued and am running out of food (or other resource) I will then need to go into each city queue (from the A city list seems fastest) and insert "produce money" at the *beginning* of the queue, in front of the other stuff I have already queued up c) then when I think i have enough resources, just remove "produce money" ...now need figure out rally points along with the other cool options lying around there

answered #3 for myself: just hit "ctrl" and then either "sentry 1 turn" or "sentry 5 turns" doh.

found prefs button and see the hotkeys, new using z button to walk through idle units, etc.