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Scott Udell

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Everything posted by Scott Udell

  1. Hubert explained to me the details behind how the AI performs amphbious invasions; I don't have his note here, but basically its a mixture of hard-coded invasions and invasions-of-opportunity. Perhaps he can explain in more detail.
  2. The Western Allies did eventually stop those "Dieppe" like raids (good analogy, that), but by the time they did it was too late--I was too strong all over Western Europe to make an invasion easy. Now, to be fair to the AI, I was playing at fog-of-war, so it likely couldn't "see" into the interior too well, and may not have seen the traps set. Hmm, come to think of it the invasions stopped about the time the Americans got a decent level of plane development (must've been 13 or so, based on the jet sound)--it seems like the higher your various air-related techs, the longer your "viewing range" behind enemy lines? I'm not sure what tech does this, but by the end of my game I coudl see well into the UK. The AI's problem, in this case, was starting its invasion too early (I should know about this, as I did the same thing against the AI, and got trounced much more thorougly than the I beat the AI this time--the danger of not reading the docs and *fully* understanding what HQs do!). As for screenshots, I don't have any place to host them (the "Image" code down below wants a URL), so won't be able to provide any... (actually, haven't taken any yet--just lots of save games).
  3. Oh, yeah--I also use Italian corps to garrison my cities in the rear; because the Italians have a full five points of industrial tech, but nothing yet in tank/AT tech (I've been pumping up their jet rating), these garrison corps are cheap.
  4. I've been playing a full war scenario (I'm reviewing the game), and in my current game I let Italy take France, pumping up their research after they did so. Doing so slowed me up a bit, though, so my attempts to Sea Lion were for naught, and I wasn't quite prepared for the Soviets' entry. But things are going alright now (March '44)--I may not have made it as far as the Germans did historically, but then again I'm still in the game... Also, the Western Allies foolishly tried to kick off an invasion early, in '42 (understandable, as I hadn't really garrisoned the coast yet), but I was able to fight them off, more or less. Now I've got a large force of Italians in France (with a few German units), fending off the continous attempts by the Americans and British to land (I've adopted the strategy of leaving an undefended beach hex next to an invasion fleet, but surrounding that hex with units--keeps the Allies from building up a huge fleet, as the AI is a sucker and will always land in the pocket). I took Vichy down, and now am marching with an Italian force on Alexandria, and the Italians hold the southern end of my line in the USSR. So, I'd say this is a reasonable strategy!
  5. TacOps doesn't model morale (or command & control) in the engine, although I think you can simulate it in a multiplayer game with an umpire (who could tweak your orders to your units to simulate weakened morale or breakdowns in C&C).
  6. Okay, then it would be pretty easy to run through some loops, then. I'm not a spreadsheet modeler, but maybe I can give it a whirl.
  7. The CG Online site has been turned into just a blurb for the next issue (at least for now). The old CDMAG site (where the forums were still located) is still up, but will probably go down soon. We're trying to see if we can get the data files to move them to anothe WebX site. For more info, follow: http://www.cdmag.com/cgi-bin/WebX Go to the "Open" section, and check out the thread that will default at the top of the list. As for research I too don't necessarily feel that an investment *must* result in an ever-increasing chance of results each turn--that was only a suggestion, and, depending on how the dice rolls may be weighted, may be a bad idea. I guess we'll just need to see how it plays out over a series of games. Hmm... Perhas someone could run a model, over and over, on the probabilities of increasing a point in a particular area. To do this, though, we'd need some idea on whether or not any one particular avenue of research is weighted or not (the manual doesn't mention one way or the other).
  8. In my one full game ('39-'46) that I've completed so far, research "felt" too slow to me as well (note the quotes--I haven't done any statistical analysis on this yet). I did manage to get the Americans to 5 points in industrial tech, and fairly quickly, but only with five research points applied. Other techs advanced only very slowly, and one (for the Americans--anti-tank) not at all. Now, unless I'm misunderstanding things (or have just been really unlucky), then I think a change might be in order: keep your random chance each turn, but each turn you dedicate a point you get that point's worth of percentage (or half, or one third, or one quarter) as a starting point next turn. So, one turn, one point, 5% chance; next turn, one point, you get 2.5% of "groundwork" chance, then 5% for the point, for a 7% chance. Then next turn 5% groundwork, 5% for the point, for a 10% chance. If you take your all your points away, research stops, but if you apply it again later, your "groundwork" is still there. I don't know if this would make sense across the board, and maybe one side should be better in one area than another (although I think the mechanic of giving sides research levels at the start of a scenario to reflect advantage works too).
  9. This is actually a pretty good score from Tom Chick, who's a tough reviewer (and definitely a wargamer, although he also plays/reviews lots of genres). I'm reviewing the game for Computer Games Magazine (because of a shipping problem, I only just got my review copy). I've played one full game ('39) as the Allies, and got whupped by the AI (including France getting taken out more-or-less historically). I made several mistakes early on (it really is a good idea to read the manual), and had some very bad luck with technology research. It did take the AI a very long time to decide to invade England.
  10. Off topic, but what Atomic games covered the Civil War on the Mac? I was only aware of their V for Victory games, flavors of Harpoon, and the ill-fated Pacific Theater game. (I've got a Mac now, so I'm interested!
  11. "Diamond symbols suck" Heh... one of our senior programmers would agree, especially after he had to add them to our GIS map software (*especially* since he had to do all the OPFOR icons by hand). They make little sense for our system, because our (Army) customer wanted 2525B symbology, but still wanted strength thermometers (not a 2525B as far as I know), and it's very hard to tell if a unit is "almost-but-not-quite 'full strength'" or "almost-but-not-quite wiped-out". And those "Unknown" symbols--whew! (I call 'em "puffy clouds," but clover leaf is a better comparison.) And now I've heard something about a 2525 "C" revision?
  12. "Drat ... your question has already caused me to remember several significant features that have been added since the user guide was rewritten in January." That's me, trouble maker! 'nother question I forgot to ask: will TacOps4 have both Mac & Windows versions on the same CD (like TacOps3)? I got one of the new iMacs a couple of months ago, and it would be nice if I could play the game on it but also on my Windows laptop. Also, how happy will 4 be with OS X?
  13. Question on the docs: are they basically the same as those in TacOpsCav? I have access to that through work, but as I plan on buying TacOps4 too I thought I'd try to jump the gun by taking the doc files down to the local Kinkos clone for printing and binding. I don't want to do that, though, if there are going to be changes between Cav and 4.
  14. "Subs appear to be really really weak. No 'Happy Days' for the German U-Boats?" One thing that I noticed is that sub presence can have an effect on abstract shipping (supplies, resources, what have you), resulting in a loss of set numbers of resource points for the next turn. I really like the abstraction, as it doesn't require the specific modeling of either supply convoys or U-boat operations against them. It's been a long time since I read anything about the U-Boat compaign in the Atlantic, but I would think that U-Boat weakness against some major surface combat vessels is actually somewhat realistic? (Brings up a related question: when we have a "ship" counter for something like a battleship or carrier, I assume that really includes such things as small escort/screen vessels like destroyers? Subs wouldn't usually try to avoid such things if possible, no? Especially if caught by surprise?)
  15. I too had the problem with my desktop icons being moved about; I run in 1152x800(something like that), and it appears the game changes the desktop resolution to 1024x768 before executing; it does change it back to what I had set before, but the icons were shifted in the first mode. It also reset the refresh rate on my system (a GeForce3-based card) from "optimal" to "default" (which seemed to be very low), but I only noticed this on exit. Otherwise, no problems for me at all.
  16. "I was surprised by a German naval attack on a British fleet in port - more surprised that such an attack is permitted. The Germans were ineffective and lost their fleet next turn. Not a good move for the AI." Heh--I tried the same thing myself for kicks and grins, and had about as much luck! Really, really enjoyed the hour+ I spent with the demo last night--I don't think a demo has ever absorbed me this much (although both CMBO and AA demos were close). It was a good thing it was time limited, else I too would've played late into the night (and the hour+ of play was much more than I expected to get). I really like the balance here--not too detailed, not too simplistic. Very slick, can't wait to try it PBEM as it should be near perfect (no spending an hour + plotting one turn). Great job!
  17. Kleist, you apparently didn't read the earlier threads. The 1939-1944 dates are *starting* dates for scenarios, not the only years they occur in. So you'll get a scenario that's '39 to end of war (whenever that may be), '40 to end of war (when ever that may be), and so on until '44 to end of war. Battlefront guys, you may consider re-wording the text on the web site, as this seems to be confusing some folks.
  18. Since this is programed in Eiffel (http://www.eiffel.com), I rather expect you won't see a Mac version (as far as I can tell there is no Mac version of Eiffel, although perhaps the Linux or Unix versions could be ported to OS X? Of course, the only Unix version costs something like $7000 just for the development suite).
  19. This is just a guess, but I assume that the six scenarios covering until '44 mean that the scenarios start anywhere from '39 to '44 (with the historical situation as it was in that year?), but that they run through until whenever.
  20. Acutally, they are considering the Internet as a marketing/distribution method for wargames, and the release of TAO is something of a test to gauge gamer interest.
  21. "I was wondering when we'd start seeing stuff about this game in te trade mags." Heh... no one seems to notice that I've covered the game before, both in print and on the web, several times. Part of the problem on the web is our search engine: you have to put "Combat Mission" in quotes to find the previous articles (if you do it without quotes it seems to grab every article with the word "Combat" first... and you can image what that means!). - Scott
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