guachi

The first time I played, it was REALLY disorienting. I started playing Last Defense as the Germans and I must have spent an hour setting up my troops and learning the interface. Luckily, nothing much happened the first couple of turns. After two games, I've got the interface down. When I watch from one of the top-down levels I look at traces and listen for sounds (mostly MG fire). Sometimes I'll look over things several times like unit ID, artillery barrages, or tank fire. But overall, I've really found that sound is the best conveyer of information. (Of course, it helps that I've got cool speakers) Playing as Germans- Canvas ripping = Good (MG42) Wham-Wham-Wham = Bad (American MGs) "They're coming straight for us!" = Good (It also reminds me of South Park) I don't know German, but the only phrase I can decipher is the one that basically means 'Move Out!' Basically, if my units didn't run away and ocassionly fired at the enemy, I'm happy. On my K6-2 350, turns take a total of 10-15 seconds to process. One strange thing, though. I hear sounds while the turn is processing. Jason [This message has been edited by guachi (edited 10-31-99).]

I have no conflicts and I have the following system: (except for the visual artifacts at the edge of the screen) K6-2 350 Matrox MGA-200 AGP 8MB SDRAM Driver version 4.11.01.1000 DirectX 6.0 Soundblaster Live! Value Driver version 4.05.1026 Jason

Playing 'Last Defense' as the Germans I had 1 StuG left and the Tiger with its main gun knocked out. There was one Hellcat left. I was assaulting the houses near the river. Tiger was on the left acting as a mobile pillbox. The StuG was also on the left of the road but was moving slowly towards the road to try and catch the remaning Hellcat across the river. My StuG rounds the corner but before it can fire, the Hellcat reversed itself behind the house that is on the hill, turned around, and came around the other side to shoot at my Tiger. I was impressed. And those Hellcats are fast little buggers. Ended up getting a simultaneous kill on the Hellcat with the StuG a couple of turns later. Jason

I like solution two best. Although it's highly unlikely that I'm ever going to find someone else to play against on my own computer other than against myself. Jason

I like when the artillery starts falling and you watch the three man squad icon totally vanish when a shell lands right on its position. Jason

Apocal, Do a search on this board for ranks. I posted a message a few months ago with ranks of Germans, Americans, and British. The formatting isn't great, but I think you will be able to decipher it. Jason

I had one if my Hellcats destroy a 1/2track with MG fire. It happened so fast (the first two seconds of the turn) that it took me a few replays to figure it out. But that was at a range of about 70m so I guess that isn't surprising. Jason

My Hellcat story: I had already taken out one StuG with a bazooka. I had raced a bazooka, 44 Rifle squad, and an HQ into the small stone house that sits outside of the US setup zone by the paved road. By turn 6 or so, the units in the house were under severe fire, but with one shot and one man left, the bazooka team made a great flank shot and killed the StuG. It died next turn, but he is definitely getting a posthumous medal. The other StuG was at the edge of the dirt road and the Tiger was placed way in the back corner behind the StuG. My Hellcats appeared. I checked kill chances. Good against the StuG, nil against the Tiger. I had all three Hellcats target the StuG and ordered fast movement for all three down the road and hopefully out of view of the Tiger. It worked. It took 18 seconds for the Hellcats to start moving. In the first 10 seconds the StuG was destroyed and my Hellcats raced out of view of the Tiger. The Tiger then resorted to shooting up the Rifle platoon that also arrives as reinforcements, pinning two squads. The Hellcats raced down the road and turned left as soon as they crossed the bridge. The idea was to scoot around the edge of the map way away from the Tiger and drive down the ridge near the wall. The Germans had some 1/2-tracks in the trees on the German right flank as well as a platoon of infantry on the edges of the forest. I was moving the three Hellcats along the edge of the map and I was hunting two of them towards the only visible 1/2-track (one had already been killed by mortar fire). I was riding along in the lead Hellcat when I noticed that it had stopped, reversed, and pivoted to its right. The Tiger had moved out of its hiding place. Then the turn ended. Next turn I targeted the Tiger with all three Hellcats and gave movement orders to position them better. I was only 600m away instead of 1000m so I actually had a chance. A furious gun duel ensued. The Tiger was still moving into place. 34 seconds into the turn a shell whizzes by a Hellcat. I had to stop and replay that several times to get a great screenshot of the shell about 2 feet from the tank. And, I swear, the crew members are looking right at the shell as it goes by their tank. I think that spurred them on because 9 seconds later they had killed the Tiger with a front hull hit. I punched the lead Hellcat into high gear and raced it after the 1/2-track. The second moved down slope a little to provide support for the beleagured infantry defending the wall. The third I hunted all the way across the map to provide assitance to the troops defending the lone objective house by the dirt road whose defending platoon was down to about 12 guys. The second Hellcat killed the 1/2-track before harassing the infantry. The third Hellcat staved off a potential assault of the house. It caused a squad to think twice and forced it to race back into the cover of the forest. (The reinforcement platoon was heading there as fast as it could). The first Hellcat was sent around the Germans in the forest and down the paved road the attempt to catch another 1/2-track that had positioned itself on the road between the forest. I had completely forgotten about a fourth halftrack that had kept itself hidden in the German rear. The Hellcat surprised it and the halftrack tried to make a hasty retreat. It doesn't go far before it dies. The halftrack on the road was knocked out from a final burst from the Hellcat's .50 cal MG. It then had fun shooting up two MG teams at close range. The other two Hellcats quicky ran out of MG and HE ammo so I resorted to shooting AP ammo at infantry. I don't know how effective it is, but their mere presence made me feel better. The Germands surrendered on turn 26 with 14 guys left. One cute thing I noticed with the Hellcat. It was rotating its turret tracking an unknown infantry team and when it wsa identified as an FO, the Hellcat rotated away looking for more threatening targets. Jason Oh, the first time I played this scenario as the Americans, all three Hellcats were destroyed in 15 seconds.

The V4V games Velikiye Luki and Gold, Juno, Sword were the first wargames I played extensively (mostly because I finally had an opponent, the computer). As the Germans, thinking in terms of multiple lines of defense was a must because your forces were way too weak to hold the initial line. I was in for a rude shock when I tried to do this the first time in Velikiye Luki. Sure, those games are on a completely different scale, but it did get me thinking about setting up multiple lines of defense. Jason Actually, I should say that the first game that got me thinking in terms of multiple lines of defense was Stratego.

At school, I have a class where we are learning some of the more advanced functions in Excel (statistical analysis and such). I'll start my spreadsheet up and also log in to this site. When the professor walks by, it's a quick ALT-TAB back to my spreadsheet. I've even shopped online while in class, too. Jason

When I play a game like one of the Talonsoft Battleground series of games, or TAO, or one of the V4V games, I use what I call the amoeba attack. Which basically means engage the enemy and then slowly encircle him. I try my damndest not to let units escape. I do this for several reasons. If encircled or flanked, I'm in a great position to inflict casualities. And if the unit is destroyed I don't have to worry about it later. If it retreats and then returns to combat, I will have to identify it all over again. And I don't want to spend precious time and resources wondering if the unit is a full strength reinforcement or not. Once I've made contact I try to keep contact with those units. Another thing I like to do is use whatever will give me an advantage in combat that doesn't involve extra troops. Things like '-2 for firing on a units flank', '+50% defensinve strength for being in a forest hex', or 'my unit has an advantage when firing at range X so I will try not to get too far/too close to the enemy unit'. Sometimes, I don't even have any hard information to go on. In Jagged Alliance, which I am playing right now, There is no hard data on how proficient my men are, what the ranges on the weapons are, or how much damage they cause. But now that most of my squad has scoped rifles I logically try to engage at longer ranges than when my guys were all armed with pistols. The other thing I try to do is make the opponent react to my actions. There is far less to worry about if the opponent is reacting to you rather than the other way around. Capitalize on the opponent's mistakes. I am a cautious player so doing this is an important tactic for me. Of course, I have to recognize his mistake first. Jason

I was thinking that when the demo comes out none of us should post anything because, hey, we don't want to bog the server down anymore than we have to. Jason

Thanks. I'm guessing that reserves are one of the many things that will take some playing to figure out what works best for each of us. Keeping reserves isn't something I have had to do much in other games. Jason

'John, starts with a "D" Steve' I know that you've said that working with MS APIs is a pain, but do you really think it will be decades until the game is released? Or were you thinking of some other time part that begins with 'D'? Jason

Much of the talk has focused around how the pretty vehicles are modeled. There has also been discussion of the larger squad weapons like bazookas and MGs. What I haven't seen is how the more basic rifles and SMGs are modeled. From what I gather from the AARs, squad weapons have some kind of firepower rating based on range. For instance, an M1 Rifle is listed as: 40m-14.0 100m-7.0 250m-3.0 500m-1.0. I assume this number is modified by a bunch of situation specific things. How is this number used in the game? Does the game keep track of how much firepower is being directed at a spot per unit time? The other question about modeling of squad weapons is which ones are actually in the game. Here is my guess as to which weapons are already included: German- Gewehr 98 Gewehr 43 Fallschirmjagergewehr 42 Sturmgewehr 44 Pistol (generic) MG 34 MG 42 MP 40 American- Springfield 1903 M1 Garand M1 & M1A1 carbine Pistol (generic) BAR M1919A4 MG M1919A6 MG Browning M2 HMG M3 SMG Thompson M1 SMG British- Lee-Enfield No.4 Pistol (generic) Vickers MG Bren LMG Sten SMG If someone in the know would correct my list, I would appreciate it. Jason

Speaking of reserves. Is there any good place to keep them so as to be most useful when finally committed? Should I hide them from the enemy? Should I keep them close to the lines? What amount should I keep in reserve? Jason

Actually, this seems like my wait for Star Wars:The Phantom Menace. I would cruise over to theForce.net every day for news articles and discussion, just like I do here. But with Star Wars, at least I knew when that was coming out. Jason

Just think, our (Americans) idea of Brits comes form Monty Python. Or whatever show ends up on PBS. And our vison of Australians is Crocodile Dundee. And Canadians it's, uh, beer drinkn' hockey fans, I guess. And Europeans are fans of 'weird' sports like soccer (strangely renamed football) and rugby (football with an oddly shaped ball) I admit, though, that considering the kind of media America produces, it must baffle foreigners that America can still fucntion as a country (and a mighty powerful one, no less) Jason Should I add more smileys or was it evident that I was being tongue in cheek.

I just watched Tora Tora Tora on AMC. No grainy b&w here. It was in widescreen, color, and stereo. I think I liked it most because the Japanese characters didn't speak in accented English. At first, when I channel surfed to it, I thought it was a Japanese film because the scene was of the Japanese officers. I don't know how much the movie cost to make but, my goodness, there was an awful lot of equipment shown. I had fun identifying all of the vehicles and guns shown. I was especially proud that I could spot several Dodge T214 trucks, all of which were blown up. I also think I liked the movie because it was one of those rare WWII movies from Hollywood that doesn't show Americans to be great heros. Quite the contrary, actually. Jason

When I first got X-Wing, my roommates and I found ourselves dodging out of the way of incoming TIE fighters. Man I loved that game. I bought a joystick and a soundcard just to play that game. We even rigged up a costume like in the movies with helmet and gloves and stuff. (Okay, the costume didn't really look anything like the real thing) Hey, that gives me an idea. Maybe for Christmas I'll try to get some WWII uniforms... I have a book on SS uniforms and they look REALLY cool. Although that might be getting a little too immersed in the game. Jason

The Gospel according to CooColJ. LOL There is no wargame but Combat Mission and Steve is its prophet. Jason 'And thus spaketh Steve, 'There shall be no smoke trails on panzerfausts for the faithful have shown them to be ahistorical. And to be ahistorical is a sin.'

'[Y]ou have parachuted into wargamer heaven and the harps are just about to be passed out.' If there was a box for this game, this would be the perfect quote to put on it. Speaking of heaven. Waiting for the demo reminds me of people who do things like predict the end of the world or the return of Jesus. We just keep repeating the mantra 'Any day now... Any day now.' Only I'm a little more confident of the demo coming out in the next week than the end of the world. Jason

I bought a book at Barnes & Noble called The Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II. It's 540 pages long and has lots and lots and lots of pictures. Easily over 1000 pictures. And not some dinky little b&w illustration, either. Best of all, it was only $25. I have a couple tank books by George Forty who was curator at the Bovington Tank Museum so his books have wonderful color pictures in them. And I second the recommendation on The Handbook of German Military Forces. This book is massive in scope and, if nothing else, is great for its historical value. Jason

One way, obviously, to have multiple players per side is to get all the players on one side playing off of the same computer. At least this requires no extra programming and no saving in the middle of turns. If I had any friends here who played wargames I would probably try something like this. Although I think I'd be more interested in an uber-campaign with multiple people controlling each controlling an entire scenario. Jason

Ambient sounds like the mooing cow in CC2? I don't think I am the only one that wanted to be able to kill that cow. Jason