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Peterk

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Everything posted by Peterk

  1. I've also been paying a little bit more attention to the CV thing since I started all of this. I did see the reaction fire happening in some of my latest turns and I'm glad about that. Didn't think it was happening at all. I don't know though ...would be more realistic if the CV reacted at a longer range to approaching enemy BBs - that would increase the chance of multiple CVs reacting to the same enemy and/or give a lone target CV a chance to completely wipe out the attacker by attacking him more than once. Adjacent seems to be too late. No big deal though. I realize there's no other unit behavior already in the game that behaves this way.
  2. Hi Guys, Thanks for playing. UFC, take Axis and start it up - my e-mail's a little further up in this thread. De Natt, I'll try to get our game going later today. I'll be Axis in that one. ....and I think 4 games going at once will be plenty!
  3. Found this while reading about Leyte Gulf earlier this evening. Bear in mind that in GC, Okinawa and Japan are about only 2-3 tiles distant IIRC. In April 1945, the Japanese battleship Yamato (the largest battleship in the world)—along with nine other Japanese warships—embarked from Japan on a deliberate suicide attack upon Allied forces engaged in the Battle of Okinawa. The Japanese force was attacked, stopped, and almost completely destroyed by United States carrier-borne aircraft before reaching Okinawa. Yamato and five other Japanese warships were sunk. The battle demonstrated U.S. air supremacy in the Pacific theater by this stage in the war and the vulnerability of surface ships without air cover to aerial attack
  4. Wow. One of the players in the legendary AAR. Thanks for the game. First file coming in shortly.
  5. The Leyte battles were a bit of an oddity. Japanese were desperate and it was an all out gamble and they were also starting to use kamikazes for the first time. Go back to 1942-43 through and carrier fleets always faced off from a distance in the more typical engagements - BB's could only move in after the losers left or to finish off the cripples.
  6. But you're vulnerable to the big guns whether you have planes or not. I send out some cheap stuff to look for your CVs, I find one and then I swarm it with my BBs. Doesn't matter if you have planes or not. That scenario above shouldn't happen as often as it does if we're trying to stay close to what happened in the real event. But the one's that did happen, where the two fleets did find one another and did decide to duke it out were suspenseful and momentous and usually decisive. Ever play an old game called Guadalcanal campaign by Gary Grigsby? Every time the US and Japanese carriers were in the water at the same time was an adventure and you NEVER wanted to get caught out with a BB task force during the daytime when the enemy had CVs in the area and you didn't. I'm not getting that same sense of importance from the CV battles here. When it's the enemy's turn though and he has a BB 10 tiles away from you, he's out of range of your planes. If you don't have a big shield of other units around you, he can move adjacent and shoot at your CV and your guy can't react at all. This is what is ahistoric. Maybe it's as simple as allowing planes reaction fire against ships. Land fighters can react automatically to enemy planes attacking, why shouldn't naval fighters react to enemy ships coming into range? That would be cool...seeing an enemy BB get torn to pieces by a CV task force once he approaches within 3-4 tiles of a CV. I'll get killed. But you know, this game is fun even when you get clobbered.
  7. Did a quick search on this topic and didn't come up with anything. Still a newbie at the game, but my impressions on aircraft carriers seem to be that they're far more fragile at sea than they should be...in fact I think BBs are a way better buy in most cases. In the actual pacific war, I think there was only one instance in which a BB ever fired shots at a carrier. By far, the most likely way to sink a carrier should be air attack, however in the game I'm finding that BB's have a very easy time closing with a lone CV unit due to their high movement allowance compared to the CVs strike range. It also shouldn't be necessary to always have to surround those guys with a very expensive screen of 6-8 other BBs and CA units to protect them. If I understand correctly, the units represent the capital ship as well as all of the surrounding support vessels (CAs and DDs). I'm wondering if CVs should have a defense mechanism where they have a very good chance of retreating out of range of a BB (but still within airstrike range if possible) when an enemy moves adjacent or attacks, similar to the SS's diving and moving. It might lead to more pure carrier vs carrier action in the sea battles and would encourage other types of ships to stay away from them. In real life, the CVs search planes would probably spot the BB approaching long before it got to where it could cause damage and they would get first strike and retreat if necessary. ================================= Another little somewhat related suggestion, how about a reaction move for Tac Air / Fighters against AVs performing an Amphib Assault or Transports landing in a nearby enemy port. You have to imagine that defending against an amphibious assault would be a high priority for air units, but in game, it is very possible for the ships to sneak in before the air can hit them at sea where they are most vulnerable. I just had a game where I did a Sealion invasion. I didn't have enough boats available to blockade the British ports completely and the US was managing to sneak units in to the port off Manchester even though I had 4 air units stationed in the south that were in range of the port and the sea between England/Ireland.
  8. Alright I'm getting hooked on playing this game by e-mail. I have a very fun game going as Allies right now, anyone want to take the Allies against me?
  9. Did you turn the raider mode on for your cruisers? I'm still trying to get a handle on this part of the game myself. I'm not sure if they do any shipping damage next to the port if the raider mode isn't on.
  10. Great question. I'm curious too and if not, why not? Adds a nice little layer of complexity to the game and tests one's patience and discipline.
  11. July 1942: After 12 months of slogging it out and numerous points where I decided I wouldn't throw any more units in, London has finally fallen. Axis has supply in UK in the southwest corner out of Bristol and von Rundstedt is in charge. Two tac bombers are providing support. UK almost entirely defended by Canadian troops. Looks like this may actually work after all! Russian attack in the east stalled completely at the border and I haven't lost any territory at all yet - even though they are at armor 4 and I'm still at 1. Gibraltar came close to falling on two consecutive turns early on but now has become solid and is unmovable. I would love to see the economic situation for the UK in this game. After repairing damage, he probably has very little left over for new builds. Question: London is a pre-requisite for minor Axis victory. If most players don't go for Sealion, does that mean that there are very few Axis victories in head to head games? I can't see a Russia first then England plan working.
  12. Just wondering what the drawback/penalty is to keeping the Raider flag turned on for DD/CA/BBs. For subs I can see, that their travel distance is affected, but for surface ships it isn't. Is there some sort of combat penalty?
  13. I'm just playing my first game against the AI as the Axis and instead of invading Russia, decided to see what a Sealion strategy played out like. I hid my Italian and German navies in port until France had fallen and I was ready to start. Battle Of France finished a little late and poor weather set in and I had to postpone until spring 41 so I could bring my airforce into play. Played a strong diplomatic card against Spain with all 3 Axis countries trying to push her in. Hoping to get Gibraltar out so I could unify Italian ships with German. British navy was drawn out by the first few amphib transports and I jumped on every capital ship I could. Within 2-3 turns British navy was not active any more and I appeared to have obtained naval superiority. German tac air also not being challenged but range is a problem - I can reach London but no further with my planes. London came close to falling early in the operation but held. Germans managed to get a hold of Bristol on the west coat but the port is not yet controlled. Focus has chnaged from trying to take London to trying to set up a front around Bristol, however Bristol is currently out of range of Brussels and my transports take 2 turns to reach England. Fighting raged through all of 1941 but Russians declared war in summer and is having a slow offensive in the east. Currently am causing major problems for the British but have a feeling I will have to stop soon. http://webhome.idirect.com/~fkxcmrbn/sealion.JPG Very exciting, but I have a feeling I screwed up somewhere. What do people think are the pre-requisites for a good operation Sealion? Is it a must to start in 1940 or is spring 41 too late? I went with Naval = 2 but my Long range Air is currently 0 and it's hurting, so I guess it's a must. My amphib warfare is currently 0, but I don't feel that 1 would have helped that much. Infantry Warfare is 2 but Armored is only 1 (Russia is already at 3, yikes)
  14. Sounds excellent. Go for it. Send the first file to peterk@look.ca
  15. I just finished my first play against the AI in this little gem of a game. Got it out of boredom a few weeks ago to kill a few hours in the evenings after work...definitely did not expect it to be one of the best wargames I've ever played. Wow. I have to go back 10-12 years for the last computer game release that grabbed me like this one. Anyways, anyone want to try an e-mail game against me? New players preferred because I'm really green (the world's lucky I wasn't in charge of things back then), but I'll play anyone any side really.
  16. I just had my first Pearl Harbor yesterday and that didn't happen to me. I even bagged a Japanese aircraft carrier by moving quickly from the West Coast. Look on the bright side...you'll have a fun early fight to get it back!
  17. I'm playing the default. I have the answer for #2 after tonight's session. I play the Pacific zoomed out and didn't notice the island port close to the silhouettes. I kind of have the answer for #1 too. The convoy routes are so dense around Japan it wouldn't really make sense to put markings around some of those ports. Amazing how addictive this game is...and it's also sent me to my books to see if the thinking of the leaders back then match my own for some decisions. Truly imerssive.
  18. Still playing my first game and am loving it so far. I very rarely get my butt kicked by an AI in games and even though this one is far from over, right now it still feels like I'm losing badly. Couple of questions about raiding via the areas that have a merchant ship silhouette on the map: 1. In Europe most of the big ports have those markings but in Japan there aren't any that I've seen so far. Just wondering about that. US subs in the Pacific can't park off Japan but have to go after the routes instead? 2. There's a group of those silhouettes in the middle of the Pacific far from any major port. It's not really clear who those belong to. Which side can raid by attacking attacking those. I'm guessing both sides can go after that area but I'm not sure how that would work.
  19. Just wanted to pop in to say that the game runs perfectly on older 64M graphic cards, and it is a total blast. I never got hooked by SC before, but this one has me. Very suspenseful and exciting. I'm playing a campaign as the Allies just to see how the AI handles the Axis before trying it myself and I was worried there would be a lot of waiting and turns without much to do, but it's the opposite. Tons of decisions to make even with no US or Russia in the game yet. It's truly magical to see the whole planet start out so quiet (well...except for the bloodbath that is China) with so few pieces on board and to slowly see countries wake up one by one and take their place on the stage. Also educational to see how one action leads to a consequence a little bit further down the line (I interdicted Norway's shipping to Germany and they joined the Axis very soon afterwards and the shipping path moved to a new location....beautiful!). You can read about stuff like that in the history books, but it's so much more memorable when it happens to you.
  20. Just took a second look at SC GOLD (haven't tried SC since the very first version) and I must say the demo is absolutely incredible. Lots of fun and it's really obvious how far this game has come in the last decade. I didn't bite years ago, but now it's a no-brainer. A couple of questions though before I take the plunge for the full game, hopefully tonight. My computer currently has a 64M graphics card on it and I've been hunting around specifically for a WWII Grand strategy game that'll run on it. I'll be updating the computer in a year or so, so I'm not particularly interested in getting a new card for this one. The specs say 128M is required, but the GOLD demo ran flawlessly. Is there anything in the full version that'll change that? Anyone else playing with an older card? The manual for the Gold demo has lots of advice and handholding for the German side through the early turns, but only a tiny bit on the Japanese. Just wondering if the manual has been updated a bit since release to improve the tutorial in that respect. If not, can anyone recommend a doc or thread on here that has some help for new players. Managing 3 Axis countries right off the bat on the big map is a bit overwhelming. Are there any smaller campaigns in the full game that don't use the whole map and all of the countries?
  21. If you are thinking about jumping in and having a go, please don't let my results or statements in that other thread deter you. There are so many possible reasons for those particular input files that I chose not working properly that it is not worth drawing any conclusions from at this point. Personally, I won't start making more confident statements until I can start passing my own files in and I can test all the fields in that format one by one in isolation. This is a programming adventure where not much is certain. If you're feeling adventurous, go for it regardless of what I posted in the other thread. If you need certainty, then wait for the explorers to come up with better answers.
  22. Very sorry to hear about this. And it's a shame it took such a personal toll on Hunter. Thanks for letting me into the beta-test team all those months ago...it was frustrating, but you know, there were some very exciting moments in there when it felt close to prime time. Just one technical question though...is there any place in the source code where the API for transferring between CMBB and CMC (or CMC2) is specified? Maybe in a code comment or some sort of text file that was received from Charles? I don't really have the patience to work on a UI right now (especially not in a language I am unfamiliar with), but I am sorely tempted to see if anything can be done via simple XML transfers. That way, you could almost use a simple spreadsheet to drive a linked set of battles.
  23. Amazon is a bargain. It's 14,000$ at Indigo/Chapters. http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Chemical-Shifts-Coupling-Constants-Silicon-R-R-Gupta/9783540452775-item.html?pticket=rw4o2bajrwreihigajpq22veSeXwTxyP0Q05OxszwS6HYVmsTfY%3d Ah....Canadian dollars. Still cheaper at Amazon even with the exchange. And you can get the 10 bucks off at Amazon because you're spending 50$ or more. Review from the new place... "My kid probably will have to skrimp on some college costs due to my great buy but i will leave him this book in my will and if my wife has anything to do with it, he will get it shortly." It pays to shop around! There's tons of used copies available for under 4000$ http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Chemical+Shifts+and+Coupling&x=0&y=0 Maybe not...those are for different elements and not Silicon. Christ, this guy must be raking it in . He's written like 6 books and they're all like 5-6 frikking thousand dollars each!!!
  24. I've been having a lot of fun the last few months playtesting solitaire rules for a campaign game in central Stalingrad (Valor of The Guards). Awesome! German attacking during the day, Russians counterattacking at night....buildings changing hands over and over, German commander being very nervous about having enough guys to hold the line. It's a lot of rules to learn (basic ASL + the CG rules + the solitaire rules) but very, very immersive... and when the "AI" attacks, it's actually quite deadly depending on how it gets rolled up.
  25. Isn't a 2 year-old also perfectly capable of destroying a PC (including erasing all CM save files). Doesn't seem all THAT much safer.
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