Compassion

yipes... sorry. I misread that point. No, you should take a turn every 28 days in winter, you're right on that one... Unfortunately, I do not see this when playing solo and didn't pay attention during the beta demo when playing pbem (though the total number of turns felt right). Perhaps that can be adjusted by agreement by the combatants. You're right, you would assume a level of experience for the Finns in 41 A year and a half, I think.... Wasn't he releived in late 41 after getting stuck in the russian winter? He didn't get his job rebuilding the Panzerwaffe until march '43... and then spent lots of time argueing with Hitler until he finally got fired again in early '45. Supposedly he and Speer did wonders for German armor production and modernization, so he was probably well used in his position. But I would agree with you. Sure would be nice if he could get a command.

thats not exactly true he command army group center during the russian campaing and later in the war he commanded another attack in russia. Also in the 30's he was only at the rank of col. and commanded a brigade</font>

Unemployed?!?!?!? OF course not. There's a bunch of tech workers slacking off with high speed internet access at their workstations.... NOt saying that I am... er... quit peeking at my profile!

This is not a bug. Seeing your turn 28 days after the previous one during the winter sounds right. Also, turn length is dependant upon season, so some turns are only 1 week in length and some 2. I think it's probable that the fleet would have gone with the Royals to Canada and from there to other interests in the world... I do not think that they would be under any but the loosest control by the US (as parts of a task force, perhaps, but the ships would have kept their crew, I would think). WOUld assume that the editor would allwo you to adjust the size of an army. As to qualtiy? Perhaps Hubert or Super Ted can answer that one. DOn't loose sight of the fact that you are not seeing *A* vessel whan you see a ship, even a named ship, but rather the capital ship in the center of a task force. So when you see a nice fat carrier or Battlewagon stuble into your wolfpack, remember that there are probably a few destroyers, frigates and cruisers to conduct ASW ops. Achtung Panzer was widely influential, but Guderian wasn't until later (and not as a leader of men). He never made Fieldmarshal so shouldn't be included in the game. In fact, he was releived of command of Panzer-Army 2 by von Kluge in Russia. That army was the biggest unit he commanded, so not being listed as an HQ in the game is quite correct. Since he worked with Speer to increase Panzer production after losing his command, I guess you could dedicate one of your industrial tech points to him... [ July 31, 2002, 09:33 PM: Message edited by: Compassion ]

Since there is distribution coming OUT of Ireland, why not just order it to be delivered there?

Well... THing is that you don't have to start with the Fall Gelb, there's a series of sceanrios to play out... they all run to war's end... but you can start at Fall Weiss and maybe do things a bit differnetly if you want... You can also start from later in the war and see if you can give the masterful withdrawl from the east yet a little more bite to maybe stabilize the front long enough to throw the western allies back off the continent becasue, as you say, German victory conditions are to make it to the end of the game... I am getting this game primarily to play against others and I think that the demo gives a skewed vision of what it takes for hte allies to win. hang on in France? Sure you could cost Germany time, but only at the expense of emptying britian and Canada. The smart German player would use that fact to his advantage (keeping an eye on the Soviet war clock, of course). Let's see what happens with your delay strategy with the calendar running past spring '41... [ July 23, 2002, 01:18 AM: Message edited by: Compassion ]

I call your VIC 20 and raise you an Apple ][ and day after day of COmputer Ambush (since it practically took a day to process the damn turn) and Cosmic Balance.

Athlon chipsets can be twitchy. Makesure you have whatever the latest and greatest drivers installed(and be prepared for some regression as needed). Also, you might have a cooling issue depnding on how heavy a load the prcessor is put under... I'm not sure if that's really an issue with this game, though. Only real knowlege I have of the load the game puts the proc on is delay finishing a turn and it doesn't seem too bad. The setting was green, with no increase to computer experience (hey, sue us, we're n00bs to the hardcore wargaming scene - we are used to conventional RTS and games like Red Alert 2 and starcraft and others like Axis and Allies and junk). Please don't take this the wrong way, but this isn't an RTS and the balance isn't weighted as heavily on destructive power. As to you point... I'm of two minds. I can see where you are coming from, but I had a problem with the tidal wave that the Germans could deliver if they can kick off in the East before September or so. THe roughshod over runs were a little much. You should be able to advance easily, perhaps, but it does take times to reduce large formations of troops and to take well defended cities. I was a bit concerned that I could blitz to Smolensk in 2 turns and crush Odessa in one. This is a bit better balanced, I think. On the other hand, there've always been a couple balance problems with the game in that it was difficult to recreate the 1940 experience of Tearing through France in about 6 weeks... Still tough to do, but it doesn't take much more time... just forces the attacker to recognize an use combined arms tactics a little more than previously. AS Hubert pointed out, though, it's more because the AI plays smarter and a reduction in the way air uses (it was a replacement for combat units in the beta... this is totally incorrect, it's a force multiplier in the right circumstances, but it's surely not a repalcement for men and guns). You have to use a little more skill in the attack, but at the end of the day, the advantages of pushing the game a little closer to reality (though not perfect, of course) far outwiegh any drawbacks. In this case the balance remains (as well as the drawbacks) without adding any new ones and the game give a little more realistic results (though there is always room to improve). [ July 20, 2002, 01:14 AM: Message edited by: Compassion ]

DOH! First double post... [ July 20, 2002, 02:00 AM: Message edited by: Compassion ]

About 175k from home about an hour ago and over 200k this afternoon about 20 minutes after it was uploaded.

77859 Decent score.... NOt too low, though I'm not in refresh monkey shape anymore. I'm still worn out from the night of the CM Gold Demo. [ July 19, 2002, 11:17 PM: Message edited by: Compassion ]

Are there dll's in the windows dir or somefink that would cause problems if we installed the gold demo into a seperate dir as the beta? I have a couple pbm games going using full gamey tactics with the old version that my opponents and myself would like to finish... but at the same time we'd like to try the new hotness as well.

Clear your cache.

Gunny Bunny? Is that you?

No way, if your planning is so laughably bad that... say... as the Germans you can't take down Yogoslavia, I see no reason for Yugoslavia not to go on the offensive. [ July 12, 2002, 03:16 PM: Message edited by: Compassion ]

The end result is that Finland goes Axis. I think that Hubert has spiced the game up a bit by using some variation of "CountryX Joins the Axis" type messages. The Yugoslavia joining the Allies message is exciting and evocative, but at the end of the day, the game found that the conditions for Yugoslavia to go Allied had been met and it was changed from a Neutral. Same with teh Finland neutrality change, I think.

Suprise attacks aren't gamey, but there are some problems with the idea of moving fleets off the shore of a neutral country and then attacking from sea. SOunds like a perfectly natural idea, but what can be gamey is the idea of having a floating army right off a neutral's shore (with no way to spot that army) for weeks while troops are moved long distances... and the neutral has no opprotunity organize a coastal defense. It's gamey because it exploits a weakness in the game engine.

Might want to take a look at the combat again... if you have a well supplied, experienced corps at a high state of readiness I'd say it would do fine against an army group that has been on the move for a while, perhaps low on supplies and at a lowered level of cohesion. One of the nice details of the game I've found is that unit cohesion (in the form of readiness state) and plannign (in the form of leadership bonus') are reflected in combat. Armeegruppen don't move on a dime. IF you organize a wounded army sized unit to move in a week you are doing well... I think it's quite realistic not to have these (up to) quarter million man counters pingponging around europe as a result of an enemy move. Because some other game did things one way and this one doesn't doesn't make this one unrealistic... As a pair of games that can both be called Super-Sized Panzer General I don't especially think that hard realism has much to do with either. One thing I'd like to see (other than paratroopers)is the availalability of a 3 (or 4) player version. That the Bear might do things a little differently than you might want to sitting at SHEAF... Both playing to the destruction of the Reich... BUt both also having slightly differing victory conditions... [ June 24, 2002, 05:55 PM: Message edited by: Compassion ]

Both are excellent for reducing enemy entrenchment & cohesiveness... Handy when trying to 'open up' a line. Both must have friendly air cover to have any hope. Also have had great luck with bombers with depleted enemies that just need that one more point to damage to force into incoherancy. Both have their uses (I suspect that rocket's uses will increase with tech upgrades, as it is they are still too close to the front) and cautions. Of the two, I have more experience with bombers and find that help in blitz warfare quite a bit so long as local air superiority can be retained. [ June 06, 2002, 12:14 PM: Message edited by: Compassion ]

WIll do. Im on the west coast of the US, so it'll be late for you by the time I get my forst turn out. After that, things should be pretty smooth. I play some of your countryment regularly and we can usually exchange a turn or two a day.

HAve a game yet? I'll play ya... Your conditions are about how I play. Have to start this evening as I can't really play at work. Let me know if you're up to it here of by email (mail in profile is right). [ June 05, 2002, 12:20 PM: Message edited by: Compassion ]

Soccer? Hockey? Bah.... GO KINGS!

You may be right. I thikn that you needto be caredful on a couple points, though... Is this becasue of relative combat prowess or becasue of doctrine on both sides? I tend to think of the latter rather then the former. Again, this is becasue of he enforced use of subs as an extension of the surface fleet (with a couple nifty special attributes)... a use that runs counter to doctrine.... as well as cap ship task forces doing ASW duty. Agreed in spades.

But the IRA has (at least in the 20th Cenutry) operated with lots of outside support. If Ireland is an Axis minor (as would alomst certainly happen if England falls) there's no way that English partisans get that kind of support.... No way that fundraisers in Boston and New York get to England if under the German boot.

I've said it before but no one thougth much of my idea, but I think it works. Convoys are abstracted and I think that strategic use of subs (and bombers too for that matter) shouldb e too. THere should be a force pool allocation for startegic weapons that happens off board. Subs that are assigned to surface fleet suppression work fine as they are. Wolfpacks that attack fleets directly do the proper amount of damage and are properly fragile. But those that are destined to hunt the convoys should be handled differently as should fleets given over specifically to convoy escort/ASW duty. THis is similar tothe way that 3r handles things and it would make the game more 3r like, but it DOES make a kind of sense and would work well in that system.