mcaryf1

I have been using national morale as a mechanism for recognising a continuing impact for the loss of things such as an original capital (e.g. Moscow) or important oil resources (Baku, Iraq). Whilst doing this I checked the current Morale file in AOD and found that several entries relating to Japan and one to USA have a duration of zero turns for the morale impact of certain resource losses. I do not know whether duration zero defaults to 1 but I suspect it does not and therefore these are minor bugs. I do have a question about National Morale and that is whether it has any impact on game play, e.g. does it ever change unit morale, or is it just for national surrender events? It would make sense if it was a multiplier for newly formed unit morale. I discovered the anomaly when I made an error in my scenario design and gave two Decision Events the same number. As far as I can tell this worked except of course the original decision's answer would have been overwritten with whatever was the answer to the second event with the same number. I am not sure if it is intended that a "single use" DE can effectively be offered again in changed circumstances but it might be quite useful if it could be. Could someone please confirm that this is how AOD does work and whether it will continue to do so now that I have pointed it out? The surprise came when I used small value convoys from USSR and China to the USA to represent returning empty ships or reverse lend lease so that there were two more supply routes to be interdicted. I should mention that to do this I created a new port near Calcutta, called it China Dock and placed the port resource in Chinese ownership. Calcutta was of course the main port used as a route for US aid to China that went on over the hump. The convoy from the USSR to the USA is via the North Pacific. That was the route through which most US Lend Lease actually reached the USSR and is normally not represented in standard AOD. My surprise was that the US Convoy income graph took a huge negative dive right off the visible chart. I had not previously realised that the convoy graph must show a net value of imports less exports. It seems there might be an exception when the imports are zero, as is usually the case with USA, then the chart defaults to showing zero volume. Regards

Hi Bill Thank you for your reply. For The Tonnage War I am using the presence of more than a certain number of raiders to cause morale and supply hits in countries such as the UK, USSR, China, Italy and Japan. What I would really like to do is to recognise a cumulative effect particularly in 2 key areas the N Atlantic for the UK and the S China Sea for Japan. Ideally I would like there to be a counter in the system somewhere that continues between turns and which I could increment each time the Axis or Allies raiders had major successes in the tonnage war and decrement each time the raiders had a poor turn. Then I would use this counter to increase or decrease the severity of the supply etc hits. This would effectively model the increasing impact of shipping losses but also recognise that if there was a quiet month the relevant side would have increased its effective pool of merchant shipping. I am playing around with having some triggers based on changing the nationality of tiles of territory in the bottom RHS of the map but it is fairly cumbersome to create a sensible number of them covering both the UK and Japan. The availability of more data about the current game situation for use by the scenario designer will no doubt be an important part of the SC3 requirement's list. For example if oil is to play a significant part then it might be necessary for a scenario designer to create options or penalties based on the extent to which one side or another is deploying oil intensive assets such as naval or aircraft or tank units. I have done some very small scale things such as allowing the Italians to have an extra BB unit if the Axis captures the Iraqi oilfield. This is historically reasonable as the Italians did have a BB that they did not bother to complete/repair as they knew they would not have enough oil to deploy it. However, I have not yet worked out a way to stop a country using specifically oil intensive assets if they lose their access to oil apart from the sledgehammer approach of deleting HQ's I outlined in my initial post. By the way one positive impact of making the Southern Caucuses a separate USSR minor country is that I can allow it to be cooperative. The AI has a previously distressing habit of sending UK and other Allied units into that territory from the Middle East theatre where they were fairly useless since they had no supply. At least this way those units can be useful. It is not in any case entirely accurate to say that the USSR never allowed other Allies to operate from their territory. For the period August to October 1941 the air defence of Murmansk was provided by RAF fighter units and ground crew shipped in the first Arctic convoy. They made over 300 sorties against Axis units operating out of Finland and Norway before the personnel returned to the UK leaving their planes and equipment to be operated by the Soviets. Regards

I have been thinking about the real Axis Strategies with which they tried to win the war and what impact they would have in AOD. Sadly the answer is that even if they were implemented successfully they would not contribute much to a win in AOD. Versus the UK and US the Axis strategy was "The Tonnage War". By sinking MS and Tankers faster than the Allies could replace them they would prevent the US from deploying its strength in Europe whilst they brought the UK and its Empire to their knees through shortages of critical materials. The AOD convoy system recognises the losses of goods in transit but not the long term impact of capacity loss. Versus the USSR in 1941 the Axis initially attempted to destroy the Soviet field armies but belatedly switched to an all out attempt to take Moscow which they thought/hoped would promote a collapse of the Soviet government. This was a huge risk as it exposed the German armies to the ravages of winter much more than would have been the case if they had switched to a more defensive posture. We shall never know whether Hitler's belated gamble to take Moscow might have succeeded in toppling Stalin but we know for sure in playing AOD that the only result will be a smooth transfer of the administration to Sverdlovsk and a miserly 25 MPP booty with the sure and certain knowledge that Winter havoc will be wrought on Axis forces regardless of the outcome at Moscow. Having failed to take Moscow in 1941 the Axis strategy in 1942 was to go for the Soviet oilfields as being another way to knock the USSR out of the war as well as easing the oil shortage in Axis countries. The grand plan was to conquer the Soviet Union up to what they called the AA Line running from Archangel to Astrkhan. In AOD the Soviet oilfields are represented by one field at Maikop and another at Baku. In fact the Soviet oil field at Maikop provided about 1/3 of the output compared to the field at Grozny which in turn provided about 1/3 of the fields at Baku. The total Soviet output from all 3 fields would have been approximately 4 times that of the Romanian fields at Ploesti. As it is in AOD the loss of two oilfields giving a reduction of 60 MPP per turn is distressing but not game changing. Even if there were four fields the loss of 120 MPP would be a hard blow but not quite catastrophic because the impact of oil shortages on many military aspects is not well modelled in Strategic Command. I have written this post partly because I am keen that SC3 does recognise what might have been war winning strategies and provides appropriate rewards for players who successfully execute them although of course the Allies too should have opportunities to counter them. The second reason is because I am currently working on modifications for AOD scenarios that will address some of these issues and I am interested in comments on my possible approach. First I am providing an option for players to include The Tonnage War. I have not found any very good way to account for results between turns so I cannot accumulate Tonnage War losses between turns or even within turns and present a summary bill. Thus during each turn the Allied player might be presented with 3 or 4 bills by way of Decision Events to pay for MS and Tankers assumed sunk in the different oceans of the world. A key feature of Doenitz's strategy was that it did not matter where ships were sunk as it was the total capacity he was reducing. In my implementation if the Axis (or Allies in Japanese waters) has more than a certain number of raiders the other player gets both financial and supply penalties. There is also a sanction of strength point and morale losses if the player fails to accept the DE cost. If anybody has a better idea as to how to represent the Tonnage War with a real opportunity for the Axis (or Allies v Japan) to win via it I would be interested to hear of it. With respect to taking Moscow I would like to make that a more significant benefit for the Axis but I do not want to cause the fight with the USSR to effectively finish then. I am currently considering whether to make the Axis Winter losses dependent on whether Moscow has fallen or not. Thus if it has fallen before the losses would be triggered then the trigger fails. The logic is that the Soviets would be so disrupted and disheartened by the fall of Moscow that the Axis has enough time and energy to counter the effects of Winter. This approach recognises the gamble the Axis really made and rewards or punishes the player depending on their success or failure in pulling it off. With respect to the oilfields, first I am including 2 extra fields to match reality and these are what the USSR gets to pay for its contribution to Tonnage War losses if the Allies perform at average levels. However, I would also like to create an additional impact on the general supply net for the USSR if the fields are all lost. I am currently testing the impact of creating a separate country to represent several of the Republics in the USSR. In particular the Ukraine and all those in the Southern Caucuses such as modern day Chechnya and Azerbaijan which encompass Grozny and Baku. I then allocate those HQ's to this new country which were actually Marshalls or Generals born in these areas e.g. Voroshilov who came from The Ukraine. I then have the USSR start with 8 x HQ on the map or in production of which 4 are from the new country. The effect of this will be that these HQs and their supply nets will disappear if the Axis captures Baku which is the capital. This way of disrupting Soviet supply is not ideal because it also disrupts the general working of HQs since the new country ones cannot enhance normal Soviet units although they do contribute to the supply net. I would be interested to know of any other suggestions for increasing the impact of oil shortages in the current game. Having oil as a discrete resource is one of the things I am looking forward to in SC3 but I am hoping to at least improve the current situation before then. Regards

Hi Hubert Thank you - that has indeed fixed the target type to be bomber rather than sub. It still seems however that Maritime Patrol cannot raid so I will use minor country bomber units in that capacity. Regards Mike

I have downloaded the patch and tried it with a test scenario of mine and it seems that the Maritime Bomber still has target type sub. I am not sure if this means that the patch has not fixed that or whether I have to recompile the unit in the editor or some such. The main effect of this target typing is that if you have a Maritime Bomber on a coastal tile and attack it with a BB unit you will typically achieve 1 damage whilst if you attack it with a DD you will get damage 5. Clearly this is not a great problem requiring an instant fix, but I presume the same damage disparity will occur if the Maritime Bomber attacks ships at sea. Its main role should be recce but it really ought to be able to Raid convoys as well and it still cannot do that. Unless the unchanged status is something to do with my existing scenario I will continue with my work around which is just to use a suitable minor country Bomber to serve as a Maritime/Bomber/Patrol so no need to rush to fix it on my report. Regards Mike

Hi TaoJah You can see the victory conditions from the scenario select screen by pressing the "victory" button and it does not appear that any of them include a "decisive" victory for the Allies so you appear to have done as well as you possibly could. If you want to see how they are actually set and change them you can use the editor to open the "Victory" event file. The major script is this and you can see a list of which cities you need to hold which I have put in bold: ; Allied Major Victory { #NAME= Allied Major Victory #POPUP= ALLIED MAJOR VICTORY %N%NThe Allies Dictate Terms To The Axis Powers #IMAGE= axis_surrender_1.png, axis_surrender_2.png, axis_surrender_3.png, axis_surrender_4.png, axis_surrender_5.png #SOUND= #FLAG= 1 #TYPE= 1 #AI= 0 #LEVEL= 0 #GV= 1[1,100] #LINK= 0[0] #TRIGGER= 100 #ALIGNMENT= 2 #DATE= 1939/09/01 ; Allies control -> Berlin, Rome, Paris, London, Moscow, Washington D.C., Tokyo, Seoul, Chungking, Delhi #MAP_POSITION= 173,69 #MAP_POSITION= 173,83 #MAP_POSITION= 159,75 #MAP_POSITION= 155,71 #MAP_POSITION= 208,64 #MAP_POSITION= 44,87 #MAP_POSITION= 362,88 #MAP_POSITION= 342,85 #MAP_POSITION= 318,102 #MAP_POSITION= 272,103 ;Set National Morale Trigger (dummy value) #NATIONAL_MORALE_TRIGGER= 0 [0] [0] } As this is set to be for players on difficulty level "0" (= GREEN) you can assume you did better because you were playing on a higher difficulty level. Regards Mike

This is just a comment about a slight anomaly rather than a request for a change and it is not just Spring but all the seasons. When the game is set to have simultaneous turn dates it seems that the actual date change is implemented at the end of the Allied turn but before events etc are processed. The effect of this is that the Axis convoys for a turn are evaluated for example at winter levels whilst those for the Allies can be evaluated for spring. It does not matter too much as things will even themselves out as the year moves on. It does, however, make slightly more difference if Decision Events are set to be evaluated at the beginning or end of a turn. Thus an Allied DE set for 1st March operating at the end of a turn might be triggered before an Axis DE set for the same date. This will not happen if the DEs are set to be run at the start of each turn. I am not suggesting it should be changed but modders should be aware that in some cases Allied DEs might somewhat unexpectedly occur before Axis ones depending on the date cycle. Regards Mike

Hi Hubert Thanks for the answer. That is quite a useful way to handle minors as majors typically have several dated scripts but minors might only have one. The minor's one script could be ahead of some dated major scripts but behind others so the minor gets a brief period of priority but thereafter just gets the left overs. Thus the Axis European minors could enjoy a small period of priorty say in early 1942 to produce some cannon fodder but be superceded by further German purchases soon afterwards. SC really does have some subtle features that can allow finely tuned results. Regards Mike

Hi Hubert What I have tried in my own development is to set Archangel first and Murmansk second with Archangel having a bigger transfer capacity as it should have. I then make the Archangel route subject to a DE which itself depends on the ownership of some territory at the bottom RHS of the map area. This area switches between USSR and Axis ownership with a series of dated teritory events coinciding with the start and finish of winter for each year of the war. This effectively switches off the availability of Archangel during the winter months. Of course if Archangel falls to the Axis then the convoy route would also revert to Murmansk with its lower handling capacity unless that too was captured. In the standard scenario Archangel is reduced to zero in its winter seasonal reduction so if Murmansk is lost the convoys still cannot get through the ice to Archangel. Which is what my scenario should achieve but hopefully if I have coded it right the convoys can use Archangel as their first choice for 9 months of the year regardless of the situation at Murmansk. Regards Mike

Hi Bill Well I see 3 people have downloaded SeaWays, hopefully one of those might have been from the development team. I think the concept does help improve a few aspects relating to naval movement and interception. Regards Mike

Hi Hubert Thanks for the answers. I have definitely seen the USA fail to build anything for 2 turns in succession which surely must mean it had built up twice its normal per turn collection. Of course it would depend whether the collection was calculated before any convoy transfers. I was interested in your minor country answer. Certainly the Germans significantly ramped up their use of minor country forces in 1942 after their winter losses. I guess in your standard scenario this means that the forces have to be on the map or in the production queue if you do not have minor coubtry purchase scripts. Is a minor script treated with equal weight to that of a major? Regards Mike

Hi Bill Do you mean that convoys can pass through ice without any problems? I have not checked it but I have the impression that the Archangel route assumes that it is Summer and the convoy can take a more Northerly route without hitting the ice whereas the Murmansk route is the Winter route and has to hug the Norway coast. If that is the case then you are making the convoys more hazardous than they should be for most of the year. You could I suppose create 5 Archangel convoys each of which starts a year after the other at the end of the previous winter and each of which gets switched off by a DE linked to the start of the next winter. The Murmansk Convoy just sits at the bottom sweeping up all the failed convoys. Regards Mike

Hi Bill The ship was in the right place but I was only half looking at the screen whilst the intelligence reports were flashing up so it gave me a double take when an IJN CV was reported near UK. I investigated the editor and found how I could change the names of weather zones and I have called that zone (2) "UK and or Japan" so I hope that will prevent me from being confused again. One thing I have noticed with AOD, which is my variant scenario but still largely you guys' AI, is that the Japanese send aircraft to help the Germans in Europe in 1942. It is probably because I have given the Japanese too many fighters but I never noticed it do that in the same scenario I created in Gold. I should explain that I give Allied fighters two strikes and Japanese only one so the Japanese can effectively have more but weaker units to deploy round their island empire whilst still letting the Allies develop the much greater strength in effective numbers of planes they eventually had. Regards Mike

The Arctic convoy scripts in AOD are in the wrong sequence. Thus they are going first to Murmansk rather than Archangel so they do not need to switch when Archangel is iced up. Murmansk was really a very unsuitable destination - too close to German airfields and with inadequate dockyard facilities. Regards Mike

Hi Al I am not sure about the routines cycling through the chances again if no build is picked because I have this situation in my test scenario where the US has a surplus of funds although there are things it could have built. I have found this text as an aid in the purchases script: ; Note: Even if the % chance is successful the #COUNTRY_ID in question needs sufficient funds to make the ; final purchase. If no unit type is successfully determined to be purchased then the AI will make no ; purchases for that particular event. Also it is possible for a major country to have additional purchase scripts for its minors so it would need to check those and finally if it spent all the MPP how would it ever do any research? I must admit I do not really understand when minor purchase scripts are required because most of the time there aren't any included but I presume the AI is still building some units for its minors. Until I saw the script for Canada in the AOD 1939 scenario I assumed that the major built its own units first and then switched to building minor units of that type. That would make sense because minor units are typically more expensive because they do not get the production bonus. I suppose building Canadian units would be sensible if the UK had been overrun. Regards Mike

Hi Al Thank you for the answer. Can I just confirm that the command I used means the AI will build 2 units if its die roll is successful but will it still build one if it has only enough MPP for that or will it result in a failure. Really I am asking if including multiple numbers of units effectively increases or decreases the chance of at least one being built. I had thought that it might mean that the AI rolls its dice twice and will build 0, 1 or 2 depending on the success or failures of the two rolls. Regards Mike

I have been testing a scenario and found that the US seemed to have more MPPs than I expected after running the game AI v AI for about 8 turns. As far as I can tell it was because the AI has not been purchasing all the units that it could. I had preloaded quite a lot of purchases such as BBs for later years into the production queue - is it likely that this is what has confused it although there is room left in the build limits? For example if I have this as the purchase script #DIVISION= 50 [2] and there are already 2 Division units in the queue for delivery next year does the [2] mean that the AI will only ever have a max of 2 Division units in the build queue at any point in time even if the ones in the queue are for delivery, say, a year later and the build chance at 50% is pretty high and it has MPPs available? One other question about purchasing - does the AI apply any priority between minor and major country purchases? For example if Canada has a script for purchasing divisions as well as the UK will the AI buy UK ones first because they are cheaper due to production bonuses or are the chances effectively equal that the AI might build UK or Canadian units if both are available? Regards Mike

I do not know if this is a related issue but when I use the Maritime Patrol aircraft in my scenario I find it is classified as unit type "sub". I do not think it is anything I have done and as far as I can see the standard 1939 scenario does not have Maritime Patrol in the build list. Mike

I will post this explanation of the SeaWays concept in this forum, the Gold forum and the SC 3 forum. It will be essentially the same post in each so you do not need to read it over again. The link to the SeaWays scenario download is from the Gold forum repository post. The SeaWays concept is based on the fact that WW2 warships and transports were capable of travelling pretty well anywhere in the world in the elapsed time represented by the interval between a player’s turns in the standard AOD 1939 scenario. The SeaWays themselves consist of 9 standard 9 x 5 grids of loop entrances that provide gateways between the major oceans of the world. Each SeaWay provides 8 sets of 5 portals leading to each of the other 8 SeaWays. The 9th set of 5 portals leads back to the SeaWay the ships are starting from – this is so that each of the 9 SeaWays looks identical in terms of the positions of the portals available. In addition to the 9 SeaWays a number of countries have their own specific loops that can be used for attack or just to move to a friendly possession. Thus Japan has a set of loops to take its forces to attack Pearl Harbor whilst the UK has a portal from the vicinity of the UK to Ceylon which only operates whilst a belligerent Ally (India) owns Ceylon and would for example allow Prince of Wales and Repulse to travel to the Far East meet their fate at the hands of the Japanese (similarly the Singapore loop will not operate until Malaya is a belligerent). There are some additional loops that any country’s naval units can use. One such loop is to enable any one naval unit to pass from the Med to the Atlantic past Gibraltar and vice versa. The problem in using this for a belligerent country that does not own Gibraltar is that the loop entrance comes out under the guns of Gibraltar on the opposing player’s turn. A submarine might get away with it, as in fact German and Italian submarines did, but any surface vessel will be liable to damage and interception. The attack loops are linked to Decision Events so players can build up forces over the loop entrance. The loop will not fire until the player has accepted a DE that will be offered on each turn that the player has 4 or more units located on the loops. This linkage is to allow the AI to be more easily programmed to make sensible use of the loops by sending a number of units together. Clearly SeaWays will enable players to move a naval unit very considerable distances without fear of interception. I have, however, positioned the SeaWays so that players will still need to move again to reach a potentially important area and this provides an opportunity for opponents to intercept them. Thus for example the Allied player will need to move from the Indian Ocean SeaWay to the Red Sea and then to Cairo in order to transport reinforcements to the Middle East Theatre from the UK or Australia. Units moving from one SeaWay to another will land on the destination SeaWay grid itself. Each move takes place during the opposing players turn. Thus it will be the turn of the player using the SeaWay when the units appear on the destination SeaWay. They cannot normally be intercepted on the SeaWay itself as any opposing units that had been on that SeaWay would themselves have already been transported away from it. The player can choose whether to stay on the SeaWay itself and be transported again or to move off it and potentially be intercepted or initiate an attack if the player happens to have already detected enemy units nearby. Note a player might only decide to stay on a SeaWay if their priorities have changed as I must emphasise that units can travel directly from any SeaWay to any other one regardless of where they are relative to each other in the world – WW2 warships literally could steam to the other side of the world in the time available between player turns. In some cases where the Japanese are using an attack loop (e.g. to Midway) their units will actually appear on the opposing player’s turn and will therefore be at risk of the ambush that the Americans achieved in real life. All SeaWay loops, loops to friendly bases and some labelled attack loops will deliver units on the player’s own turn rather than that of the opponent. Thus the loop user may be able to achieve surprise but the opponent may also do so by setting an unspotted ambush on likely routes from or to a SeaWay. Some labelled loops only operate during specific time intervals. For example the Germans can get naval units from the Baltic to the North Atlantic up until the beginning of 1941. This recognises the fact that in real life their surface raiders up until Bismark did successfully evade the British patrols. After this the improvement in British radar made evasion much more difficult. This scenario is intended to be a demonstration of the SeaWays concept rather than a fully developed new scenario in its own right. In particular it merely superimposes the SeaWay loops onto the standard 1939 AOD scenario but the AI has NOT been changed to understand the new loop system. The AI might move units about apparently reasonably but it is not aware of the new loops and it will think that some standard loops exist which have in fact been removed. The scenario should be OK for player v player but I have not tested it exhaustively as my efforts are going into a 1942 scenario that will use SeaWays plus a load of other innovations. I am publishing it now as a contribution to a discussion about naval movement in SC 3 and I would welcome any comments from those who read this post and especially those that try the scenario itself. Regards Mike

I will post this explanation of the SeaWays concept in this forum, the AOD forum and the SC 3 forum. It will be essentially the same post in each so you do not need to read it over again. The link to the SeaWays scenario download is from this forum above. The SeaWays concept is based on the fact that WW2 warships and transports were capable of travelling pretty well anywhere in the world in the elapsed time represented by the interval between a player’s turns in the standard AOD 1939 scenario. The SeaWays themselves consist of 9 standard 9 x 5 grids of loop entrances that provide gateways between the major oceans of the world. Each SeaWay provides 8 sets of 5 portals leading to each of the other 8 SeaWays. The 9th set of 5 portals leads back to the SeaWay the ships are starting from – this is so that each of the 9 SeaWays looks identical in terms of the positions of the portals available. In addition to the 9 SeaWays a number of countries have their own specific loops that can be used for attack or just to move to a friendly possession. Thus Japan has a set of loops to take its forces to attack Pearl Harbor whilst the UK has a portal from the vicinity of the UK to Ceylon which only operates whilst a belligerent Ally (India) owns Ceylon and would for example allow Prince of Wales and Repulse to travel to the Far East meet their fate at the hands of the Japanese (similarly the Singapore loop will not operate until Malaya is a belligerent). There are some additional loops that any country’s naval units can use. One such loop is to enable any one naval unit to pass from the Med to the Atlantic past Gibraltar and vice versa. The problem in using this for a belligerent country that does not own Gibraltar is that the loop entrance comes out under the guns of Gibraltar on the opposing player’s turn. A submarine might get away with it, as in fact German and Italian submarines did, but any surface vessel will be liable to damage and interception. The attack loops are linked to Decision Events so players can build up forces over the loop entrance. The loop will not fire until the player has accepted a DE that will be offered on each turn that the player has 4 or more units located on the loops. This linkage is to allow the AI to be more easily programmed to make sensible use of the loops by sending a number of units together. Clearly SeaWays will enable players to move a naval unit very considerable distances without fear of interception. I have, however, positioned the SeaWays so that players will still need to move again to reach a potentially important area and this provides an opportunity for opponents to intercept them. Thus for example the Allied player will need to move from the Indian Ocean SeaWay to the Red Sea and then to Cairo in order to transport reinforcements to the Middle East Theatre from the UK or Australia. Units moving from one SeaWay to another will land on the destination SeaWay grid itself. Each move takes place during the opposing players turn. Thus it will be the turn of the player using the SeaWay when the units appear on the destination SeaWay. They cannot normally be intercepted on the SeaWay itself as any opposing units that had been on that SeaWay would themselves have already been transported away from it. The player can choose whether to stay on the SeaWay itself and be transported again or to move off it and potentially be intercepted or initiate an attack if the player happens to have already detected enemy units nearby. Note a player might only decide to stay on a SeaWay if their priorities have changed as I must emphasise that units can travel directly from any SeaWay to any other one regardless of where they are relative to each other in the world – WW2 warships literally could steam to the other side of the world in the time available between player turns. In some cases where the Japanese are using an attack loop (e.g. to Midway) their units will actually appear on the opposing player’s turn and will therefore be at risk of the ambush that the Americans achieved in real life. All SeaWay loops, loops to friendly bases and some labelled attack loops will deliver units on the player’s own turn rather than that of the opponent. Thus the loop user may be able to achieve surprise but the opponent may also do so by setting an unspotted ambush on likely routes from or to a SeaWay. Some labelled loops only operate during specific time intervals. For example the Germans can get naval units from the Baltic to the North Atlantic up until the beginning of 1941. This recognises the fact that in real life their surface raiders up until Bismark did successfully evade the British patrols. After this the improvement in British radar made evasion much more difficult. This scenario is intended to be a demonstration of the SeaWays concept rather than a fully developed new scenario in its own right. In particular it merely superimposes the SeaWay loops onto the standard 1939 AOD scenario but the AI has NOT been changed to understand the new loop system. The AI might move units about apparently reasonably but it is not aware of the new loops and it will think that some standard loops exist which have in fact been removed. The scenario should be OK for player v player but I have not tested it exhaustively as my efforts are going into a 1942 scenario that will use SeaWays plus a load of other innovations. I am publishing it now as a contribution to a discussion about naval movement in SC 3 and I would welcome any comments from those who read this post and especially those that try the scenario itself. Regards Mike

Hi Numdydar I did not say that the IJN would not shoot at an MS if it encountered one but rather that deployment for raiding lines of communications was not a priority for them. The only major action they undertook against Merchant Shipping was the Indian Ocean Raid but that was coupled with an attempt to lure the Royal Navy into a fleet action so could be seen as part of that objective rather than commerce raiding. There is a good article on IJN Strategic doctrine at the link below but as it is quite long I will give 3 quotes from it to summarise the flavour: Our navy has lost the war by ‘battling’ instead of ‘warring.’” Commander Chihaya Masataka, IJN[47] Staff Officer 1949 New technology and tactical capabilities were restricted to improving the existing doctrine. The use of submarines against enemy lines of communication was ignored, despite the success of Germany during the First World War. Conclusion: The Japanese way of war envisioned by Akiyama, validated at Tsushima, codified by Sato, and instilled in the IJN by the Naval Staff College, was an amalgamation of Western and Eastern thought combined with the samurai traditions of Japan. By ignoring the complete lessons of the outsiders, the IJN created a doctrine that was limited to a single mode of war. Absent was the basis of Mahan’s strategy that “Control of Maritime commerce through command of the sea is the primary function of navies.”[ http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/strategiccultureijn1.aspx Regards Mike

Hi SeaMonkey I have looked at the other places but it is a case of so much to do - so little time to do it in! I guess Hubert etc read what I post here so that is some input to SC3 but what I post about mainly relates to how the game currently works e.g. the implementation of raiding so it seems most appropriate to post here when it is more about AOD. At present I am trying to get my 1942 scenario for AOD ready to publish and I am using that as a test bed for all my ideas not just naval ones. It includes my Seaways system to improve naval mobility but its major feature is the introduction of evasion in land combat to provide proper differentiation between different sized land units. It is going to take a lot of testing to fine tune land evasion so my 1942 scenario is some way off, however, the Seaways part already seems to work well to me. I would have liked to publish Seaways just as a straight variant of AOD 1939 - it includes sets of loops between all the oceans going right round the world and a few country specific options so naval TFs can actually travel historic distances in appropriate timescales but still be subject to interception. However I have put publishing that on hold untill 1.02 is published but then there might be a 1.03.... As I said too little time.... Regards Mike

Hi Numdydar It is not historical accuracy that is of interest to me but historical possibility. For historical accuracy it would be necessary to say that Japanese naval doctrine did not include attacking merchant shipping as a priority so IJN subs should not have a raid capability. My own interest is historical possibility so I like to see what might have happened if the various powers adopted different strategies and tactics but within the bounds of their historic capabilities. This is why I point out game constraints such as the lack of raid capability in some aircraft types which do not represent an actual restriction that the powers faced. There are some situations which are difficult to model with respect to historical possibility such as amphibious warfare. I do not like the current costing of 30% every time a unit converts to amphibious because the actual model should be that once a certain amount of amphibious shipping capability had been built it should not cost so much to deploy it on different occasions. However the game mechanic cannot currently restrict the in use amphibious capability so making every use arbitrarily expensive is an attempt to match the historic capacity constraint. I hope in SC3 the historic possibility will be more appropriately modelled for raiding, amphibious and various other aspects. In my opinion the goal for games like SC set in specific eras is to match the capabilities and potential not always the historic events although naturally many similar events will occur. Regards Mike

Hi Jackson8 You make some reasonable arguments about the actual use of TAC bombers, which I will cover below, but you did not really address the original point of the post which related to Maritime Aircraft. I am thinking here of the Condor in the German context. Strategic Command deals quite heavily in abstraction with respect to convoys. The Condor and other Axis patrol aircraft could attack merchant shipping themselves but also acted as scouts for U Boats and other aircraft operating against the Arctic route so they contributed to the effectiveness of general raiding against convoys thus should have a raid value of their own. With respect to TAC bombers it does partly depend on what you think that type of plane is. In the case of the Allies it would probably include Fighter Bombers of various types. Certainly in the late stages of the war these decimated Axis cargo shipping in the Baltic which is represented to some extent in the game by convoys from Sweden. You agreed that Stukas played a part in the initial stages, they were also active against Allied supply convoys to Malta. I think it would be reasonable to assume that if TAC type planes were within range of an active convoy route then it ought to be possible to deploy them as raiders against that convoy. Thus it would be historically accurate to give TAC planes a raid capability but they would be less often used in that role because of their range limitations. Regards Mike

Hi Al I guess Maritime Patrol also relates to the Pacific where float planes were often used. My comment about airships as raiders was meant to mean that they would have probably attacked merchant ships in WW1 if they had encountered one but clearly an airship would not have been an ideal design for the task. In the context of medium bombers also being able to raid, actually the Dauntless sank more Axis shipping than any other Allied plane and the Stuka was used against convoys so perhaps any type of plane other than a fighter should be capable of raiding. I notice by the way that the anti-sub tech gives Maritime Patrol a defence value against subs although I have not tried whether a sub can actually attack a plane in a coastal tile. Another anomaly with Maritme Patrol planes is that their long distance upgrade is 15% whereas strategic bombers are only 5%. In fact a long distance upgrade to a strat bomber should be horrendously expensive as it sometimes meant going to 4 engines rather than 2 and the fuel cost of the strat bomber going further would be just as significant a cost factor. Regards Mike