Any news on the Battle for the Atlantic?

[Edwin P.]

Any news on the naval war?

How does it play out?

Do the playtesters see an incentive for the Axis to battle for the Atlantic?

[Desert Dave]

We are just now getting 'round to some PBEM games, so we'll let you know how some of that daring over & under sea faring goes, oh, here in a couple 3 weeks or so.

Hotseat doesn't give you much true indication of hidden maneuvers and running silent and gliding through certain convoy lanes in order to gang up on another.

There are many convoys to pick & choose from.

Britain is VERY vulnerable. :eek:

They'd better invest in sonar, is my guess, unless

GErman player elects to go ahistorical,

And NOT buy the boats.

I guess it depends... if the particular game player wants to invest in U-boots to the extent that the Wolfpacks can swarm and strike like the scaly Sea Serpents of old. :cool:

[Edwin P.]

Thanks for the update.

I wonder if the Axis AI will use different naval production strategies? ( Not buy the boats or buy some boats or buy a ton of boats)

[pzgndr]

We owe you guys an update. Desert Dave and I played a PBEM game through early 1942. First head-to-head so far. Some things are still rough but it was a good exercise.

I played Allies and must say that the Atlantic is more water than one can cover. For a while I was wondering if I would ever find a U-boat. But of course I did eventually. And later found more, plus a cruiser, which had broken out from the North Sea - which you CAN do now.

Surprise encounters and occassional storm damage at sea really hurt. These effects probably need to be reduced. It cost a lot of MPPs to get the Royal Navy back in action at one point. And chalk it up to bad luck, but I never did get an ASW tech advance the whole game. So I struggled. Towards the end, the Italian navy decided to come out in the Med, in full force. It got pretty depressing at the end.

Overall, the naval war is much more interesting now. I made some mistakes and had some bad luck, but there are definitely some decent naval options now.

There is a very interesting new feature for the land war. Units may now attack and then move with a -1 AP penalty. Units that attack first also get a +25% readiness bonus. Also air units now inflict morale losses moreso than strength point losses, which means they're more valuable hitting targets early rather than killing them at the end. Altogether, these changes seem to create a better blitzkrieg feel. We're still getting used to it.

[Blashy]

Yummy.

NOTE: I'm still "gameless" with plenty of time to give to SC2 testing.

Really sad how nothing of interest is out there with all these tons of games.

[SeaMonkey]

Thanks Bill, that tidbit was quite revealing, especially the land combat actions and of course the naval scenario.

I'm wondering what DD's perspective was?

Dave?

[Desert Dave]

SeaMonkey, Blashy, Edwin P,

And all others interested in the new "naval war,"

Get Ready!

You are going to be challenged, whichever side you play.

I won't offer an awful lot right now, since there are still some features that are being tweaked, AND you will likely see some AAR's in the not too distant future, but I will say this much:

... I didn't like how that chopped '56 Merc had beaten my '57 Chev 283 CID w/3 speed Hurst synchro shift... off the line - well, he jumped the light, what can I say, so I ran 'er into the shop and up the pneumatic lift and put on some BFG T/A Radials and Posi-trac diff with reversed stabilizer bars and then let 'er down and bolted on this AFB-quad with ports so huge you could stick yer thumb in there... OOOOOPS! Wrong Gestalt, sorry, LOLOL!

______________________________

As Axis player you now have a good and sufficient reason to hard CONSIDER incorporating the U-boots into your over-all S&T.

There is only one U-boot out in the Atlantic at game start, with another due to splash down in early 1940.

I decided to preserve the one U-boot UNTIL France was out of the war. Why waste MPP's on a fleet that is soon enough to be... eventually scuttled or (... as at Mers el Kebir) put out of action by the big guns of the Royal Navy?

Anyway, and so, I ran the boat in "silent mode" and easily evaded Bill's ASW in that HUGE Atlantic ocean, EXCEPT!

My own error - of impatience. :eek:

I was trying to get the sub into Bordeaux for refit and resupply, BUT... I neglected to plan far enough ahead (... due to the new feature of "build delay") and order a bomber to station on France's west coast, supported by one of the GErman HQ's. Air Fleets are only HALF as effective as bombers (... now posited as naval and strategic) in naval attacks.

That way I could have nailed the Battleship that was guarding the Spanish coastline. Bill would have preferred to deploy his Cruisers since they have TWICE the effectiveness VS U-boots, but they'd been damaged, and as he mentioned, he hadn't achieved any breakthroughs with sonar research. Too bad, but them's the breaks.

The Naval Bomber so sorely needed? Say, like the infamous "Fleigerkorps X" with its Junkers-88s and HE-111's and dive-bombing Stukas, which had MAULED the astonished RN when they were trying to evacuate Crete?

Like I said, you gotta plan ahead. It takes about 9 months to get one of these off the assembly lines. I needed to order one, say, late 1939. Even though I would spend so much that I couldn't buy another AF or HQ or Tank.

Well, those are individual game player decisions of course.

But, the way I like to play it is to have LOTS of U-boots on the way so to attack those VERY lucrative convoy lines.

For instance, by the time USA begins allotting Lend Lease, you can have 40, 50, 60, 70+ MPP's on that convoy alone (... the USA player decides what % to send), not to mention the Arctic Convoy to Russia, or the one from the Mid-East, or the OIL from Iraq ... assuming UK player has also planned ahead, and gotten enough Commonwealth forces in position to take Iraq once the Axis coup has occurred.

Well, there'll be plenty more to discuss once Hubert indicates that he is fully satisfied that SC2-Blitzkrieg! is ready for more public exposure. :cool:

I CAN tell you that you DO need to be thinking ahead a bit more than with SC-1.

As in chess, where you "visualize" your opponent's moves 2 or 3 or 4 turns down the road, as well as your OWN planning, since you NOW have to imagine what forces you might need 3-6 months in advance.

No longer can you say - well, next turn I need a tank and presto! There she is!

**(... though, you COULD disable this feature at the beginning of each game in the "advanced" options menu if you'd prefer to have it play out like SC-1).

All in all, VERY interesting, VERY challenging, and a whole lot of FUN!

[ August 17, 2005, 06:35 AM: Message edited by: Desert Dave ]

[Edwin P.]

Many thanks for the update. Most interesting. It was also interesting to read about the Italian fleet was sent into the Atlantic.

It will be interesting to see how the AI handles these options, as the game's complexity (from an AI perspective) has increased by a factor of 10.

[pzgndr]

I said the Italian fleet came out in the Med, not out of the Med into the Atlantic. Gibralter will still block passage unless controlled. After one minor skirmish early in the war, they kept a very low profile. I started to get uppity toward the end and pushing toward the Libya border to see what was out there. So I stuck my nose out too far and ended up being surrounded by Italian fleets. It wasn't pretty.

[Blashy]

This is excellent information by both of you.

It seems more and more that SC2 might have the options for different strats and people will keep coming up with good ones.

Bombers for attacking naval units, I like that.

The queue system, I'm not too sure about that one. Just in terms of micro managing, but I'll have to see how the rest of the game plays out before I say I don't like it. Kudos to HC for putting it as an options... I love options

[Lars]

Are the convoy routes shaded a different color?

With so many of them it would be nice this time if they were shown instead of having to go on a hunt for the sweet spots.

[pzgndr]

You'll definitely have a lot of options in SC2. The production delay is not exactly micromanaging anything. You go to a production screen to buy something just like you do in SC1, customize your unit for whatever tech you can give it, and then it shows up x months later. You need to check the production queue screen to see what's arriving when, and when it does you get to place it wherever you normally would. You just need to plan ahead a bit more carefully now.

For convoys, there's a convoy map like the war map that shows the routes. It's not too specific, but gives you an idea where the routes are. In the convoy scripts, you can designate waypoints. So obviously the more you have the smoother the convoy route looks on the map. I'm still not sure just how closely the actual path follows what you see, so there's still some guesswork involved. Here's a screenshot, and a good view of the much larger water area you have to deal with:

[ August 17, 2005, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: pzgndr ]

[SeaMonkey]

Thanks guys,

by the sophistication of these posts it seems our AARs are close at hand and not far behind the release of SC2.

Uhhhh that is if the community doesn't come up with a very good feature to incorporate, in which case we will of course be willing to wait.....right guys????

Now about those scripted convoy routes, if you are able to comment, is there any in game flexibility for route variance? If so, how long(game turns) does it take to make a course adjustment?

[Desert Dave]

... is there any in game flexibility for route variance? If so, how long(game turns) does it take to make a course adjustment?

SM,

You set the routes and way-points in a script, using that most amazing Editor, so

Though once discussed, there are no in-game changes, just the game to game variations.

[... if you search in among the leaves & debris @ the corner of Maple and Main Street, USA, you'll find a little winged-Mercury ornament... used to be attached to the hood of a black, chopped down '56 Merc... :cool: ah, ahem, cut & scratch, the Cat in the '57 Chev is over to Mel's Drive In chatting up the lass leaning in the window, wearing them hi-top roller skates... or, is it low and away... roller blades, these days? LOLOL!]

[SeaMonkey]

Thanks Dave, sorry I had forgotten that previous disclosure.

By the way, funny you should mention a 56 Mercury as it was the first car I remember, I was 5. It was my Mom's later and my primary transportation, a yellow body with a brown hardtop. For along time I thought all cars were twotones, it was rare to see a single color. Was my Dad's until he got the boss' 58 Bel Air, for a company car. Another twotone, black with a white top. I won a bet from my best friend's brother(teenager) when he didn't believe that it had three deuces. I didn't even know what that meant back then, but that dollar sure came in handy.

Now back to SC. Again assuming you have the freedom of discussion, I'm very eager to hear about the "combat then movement" feature Bill alluded to in his earlier post. Any experience in its incorporation? Any changes in ZOC features, ability of mech units to ignore, etc.?

[Blashy]

Something for HC to take into account, although I'm fairly confident he and his testers are already aware.

At the height of the u-boats destruction of merchant shipping only SIX u-boats were out at a time in a wolfpack. Yep, just six u-boats at a time managed to do all that damage.

I don't know how you have it now but I hope that is something to be reflected in SC2.

I don't know if 1 u-boat in SC2 represents a wolfpack, if it does it should be VERY damaging to merchant shipping.

Another matter is the running silent or in "attack" mode. The boats ran silent during the day and went active at night which was pretty much running silent as well since the ASDIC sonar was inefective on a surface ship.

Consider a few modes of operations: running silent (hiding 100%), night operations (hiding during the day, active at night) and active hunting.

The active at night should not make it easier to spot at night, but just that it can do merchant shipping damage and in doing so would display an area this occured, allied naval forces could then converge on the area for a chance at night spotting the boats which would be less likely than "active".

My biggest point is the merchant shipping damage to MPPs, remember that only one wolfpack was out at a time and it managed to almost cripple UK to submission.

NOTE: The only 6 u-boats (out of 57) is during the 1st phase of the boat attacks, before the 1st breaking of the enigma code when u-110's box was captured.

[ August 18, 2005, 01:30 AM: Message edited by: Blashy ]

[pzgndr]

The new attack-move feature is pretty much just as I described it. A readiness bonus for deliberate attack and a movement penalty of -1 AP as compensation. On the flip side, you still have the blitz attack where units move-attack as they do now. No other significant changes to terrain MC or ZOC, except the new tile structure creates some different movement options. You still have the +1 MC for moving between enemy units. What I have found to be very useful with the new attack-move is that now you can attack on a narrow front and move that attacker backwards out of the way so another unit can move in for a second attack.

As for the U-boats, no matter what we do it's going to be an abstraction. There's no way to accurately simulate the day-to-day operations. Over the course of a campaign, hopefully the relative costs of building and repairing your U-boat fleet results in comparable or greater convoy losses. All the run silent does is allow you to position your subs farther out before they start hunting, and being hunted once their presence is known.

[Blashy]

As I said, I just hope the MPP losses to uboats is increased. Being an ex submariner myself I was quite disapointed with the uboats effectiveness in SC, knowing full well their potential and of course history showing their destructive powers.

Churchill and Admiralty have said the uboat crisis was the most dangerous threat of the war and it came very close to succeeding. Lets give a big thanks to Hitler's stupidity once again

[Sombra]

@ pzgndr and Dessert Dave .

Thank you very much for the update.

[Lars]

Thanks for the screenshot! Looks great. Nice to see that German/Sweden run.

The only niggle is there's still no Convoy route in the Med for the Italian run to North Africa or the Brit run to Malta and the rest of the Med. These still to be added?

[Desert Dave]

The only niggle is there's still no Convoy route in the Med for the Italian run to North Africa or the Brit run to Malta and the rest of the Med. These still to be added?

Lars,

As you likely know from your own readings, the Med convoy war was quite different than the "Battle of the Atlantic."

Not so much submarines attacking convoys and troop transports, as it was... naval bombers and small patrol craft and destroyers and the like. Though, surely, the GErmans DID send some U-boots to the Med later in the war.

Thus, we have the "Malta Effect" (... another abstraction akin to the larger conflict in the Atlantic) where an Air Fleet... or, better a Bomber, which has a higher success rate due to the "naval" component, will reduce supply to the cities controlled by Italy in North Africa.

There MAY also be a similar effect for the Axis, IE, having an AF/Bomber stationed in Sicily interdicting supply in the Med.

Well, however the "convoy/supply" effects appear in the default game - and they WILL replicate the over-all effects of the "Med War," you CAN also alter this aspect according to your own tastes.

For instance, should it not be included (... Hubert HAS considered this possibility before) you can draw in a convoy from Libya to Italy using the Editor. It's very easy, merely a few lines to type in using a clear and concise model.

What you CAN do is have a convoy running from a minor country to a Major Power, but as of now, not vice versa. Well, that's hardly a problem because in a certain real sense, HOWEVER you knock out MPP's - going out or coming in, you are doing convoy damage, true?

Or, for another example, you could designate a tile location on Crete and have occupation of that unique locale interdict supply in Eastern Med. Which might require the GErmans to unleash Student's Airborne in order to secure Crete?

MANY possibilites, but understand that Hubert is YET making critical decisions about certain aspects of this, so there is NOT always any final answer to some of the questions posed in this thread.

Bill and I are providing "highlights" and a few particulars that are firmly established - LOL, and even then! Hubert may "tweak" them & those even further!

I'd best guess... once the AAR's commence, you'll have more clear and concise answers to some of your questions. :cool:

[Desert Dave]

As I said, I just hope the MPP losses to uboats is increased. Being an ex submariner myself I was quite disapointed with the uboats effectiveness in SC, knowing full well their potential and of course history showing their destructive powers.

Well, Blashy, I was never any submariner - congratulations, that must have been a fabulous experience... though I very nearly signed up for the Navy (... long tradition in my distant family of Naval service) instead of the Army in 1966, well, that's neither here nor there and anyway

You can rest assured that I am EVERY BIT as concerned as YOU are about the whole "naval game."

As a kid I loved to play (... and modify with special rules) that old Avalon Hill game... "War at Sea," and later the companion game, "Victory in the Pacific."

So. I agree. The GErmans very nearly strangled poor old bedraggled British Lion with them deadly sleek, moon-limned U-boots.

WHATEVER advice, comments, suggestions that I personally can make to insure that we BEST replicate the whole naval aspect of SC-2, whether in Atlantic or Med, yep, I have done, and will continue to do so.

ALL similar kinds of suggestions on this board are very helpful and seriously considered. Keep 'em coming! :cool:

[rleete]

Originally posted by Desert Dave:

As a kid I loved to play (... and modify with special rules) that old Avalon Hill game... "War at Sea," and later the companion game, "Victory in the Pacific."

Not to hijack or anything (this is some of the best info we've had in months), but I recently picked up a used copy of that in very good condition at a garage sale for 2 bucks. Can't find an opponent, yet.

If I spend 1/10 the time playing SC2 that I did any one of the AH games, it will be a bargain at any price.

[Lars]

Originally posted by Desert Dave:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />The only niggle is there's still no Convoy route in the Med for the Italian run to North Africa or the Brit run to Malta and the rest of the Med. These still to be added?

Lars,

As you likely know from your own readings, the Med convoy war was quite different than the "Battle of the Atlantic."

Not so much submarines attacking convoys and troop transports, as it was... naval bombers and small patrol craft and destroyers and the like. Though, surely, the GErmans DID send some U-boots to the Med later in the war.</font>

[rleete]

Swim?