Lars

When I return, that dog better not back out of a room every time you come in. Better not be eating all the cat food again, either. Meanwhile, I shall be floating down the Mississippi River and Lake Pepin. Hmm, should I be Huck Finn this time? Or just drink the whole bottle and be like his dad, as usual?

How kind. Stop by sometime, I'll let you exult in my essence. </font>

Preaching to the choir there.

How do you know what Noba screams during sex, Lars? Lars, is there something you haven't told us? Would you care to share it with the rest of the group? p.s. If Noba were Spanish and he screamed his name during sex, he'd be screaming, "Won't go! Won't go!!!", which is amusing and is sure to produce very loud denials on his part. That's OK Noba... we understand. </font>

NobaaaNobaaaNobaaa... You usually don't find someone so egotistical that they scream their own name during sex. Aussies...

Well, lutefisk served with a good rice pudding would be pretty dang close.

Did you know that when going to a sushi bar, it's a really, really bad idea to accidentally pick up the flying fish roe/wasabi roll and add even more wasabi? Give it a try if you don't believe me...

See Job, Book of.

Ooh, Theology Tech...I like it...

Sucks for the Brits though, there's no German/Italian convey routes in the game for them to attack. A oversight in the game. The Germans and Italians get a free ride. With a larger map, maybe we should have one added for Norway/Baltic and the Med?

To play devil's advocate for a bit here.... If you look at the development of the torpedo, they come from mines. Remember Admiral Farragut's famous quote? All a torpedo really is, when you get right down to it, is a moveable mine to hurry the process up of sinking ships. Put them on subs, you get a moveable minefield. With the added bonus of picking the exact target you want. In game play terms however, there's really no difference between placing a string of subs out there to catch transports coming along and laying a minefield. You're only shooting a torpedo in your mind's eye. So in effect, we already have mines. Just the extremely expensive version. So should we just make subs cheaper, call them sub/mine, and leave it at that?

Well, the distance to the horizon standing on a sub's bridge is about 4.5 miles. Good ol' pie are square gives you an area of 63 miles covered (in perfect weather). One sub unit totally covers a tile of 2500 square miles (We'll not worry that a sub covers a circle, not a square ). So does a sub unit really have 39 subs in it? If it does, Germany is starting with way too many, cuz that's about total U-boat strength for September, 1939. Or should subs be changed to let you run right through them too? Look, don't let it bother you to much. The ocean is a big place, but things still run into each other out there. And all we're interested in modeling is the effect, not the nitty, gritty details.

Much like I wonder how you got past the parole board... </font>

Er, you were there? Look waltero, both sides believed in God. So he really couldn't lose, now could he?

Well, that's because they lost. What did you think all those German Army Chaplains were busy doing, anyway?

Look, this was THE most effective weapon used in WWII, excepting the Bomb. To not model it is a little like saying, "Yeah, tanks were great, but god are they boring. Who wants to waste the time chasing them down..." If you're worried about the tedium of clearing mines, doesn't the bug hunt for U-boats amount to about the same thing?

Well, when each hex represents a large area, you're not laying just one. But good point, there should be a random chance you can drive right through the field without hitting anything, although I'd press for better than 5%. Also John, I know you don't want the tedium of clearing mines hex by hex. That's why I think its key that they disappear after a certain amount of time. Or maybe have their effectiveness decrease turn by turn. Look, if I lay a mine that might not be there when you get there, and you have no intention of going there anyway, and might not even know there's one there even if you do go there, where's the tedium? But think of the excitement when you hit one

Here's a good abstract for further reading. Not surprisingly, it's put out by the Air Force. Told you Navies don't like mines. No fun being the Admiral of a 120' minelayer. Skip to chapter 2 for the European portion. Mines Away! Sorry, the pdf didn't load, so I posted the html version. In brief, Axis losses due to mines – 1,590 British losses due to mines– 576 And good ol' Goering screws it up again.

Wow, you're even worse off than Dorosh! </font>

Not at all. Laying a minefield, in many ways, is one of the most strategic things you can do.

btw, found a great quote on mines from the Korean War That had to hurt.

I was toying with the idea of giving each country a starting number of mines to place (after all, it was the very first thing both sides did), so I wouldn't throw that idea out. And maybe placing them at the beginning and just forgetting about it for the rest of the game is the way to go. Certainly would be simpler. But what I'm looking for is to add some real depth to the naval side of the game. You never know (or at least shouldn't know, if the game is any good) where the important theater is going to be at the start of a game. A guy is going to need to adjust based on circumstance. I really think Hubert needs to model this somehow, and I think it would make SC2 really stand out. Can't think of too many other games that include naval mining. btw, many times in SC1 did you just use your subs as the functional equivalent of minefield? You just set them up two hexes apart, and wait for the transports to die. In SC2 this isn't going to be possible, due to scale and cost of subs (not that I'm pressing for the same thing with mines, as I think the scale would prevent it).

Anybody else? Edwin?

Now waltero, I hate to burst your bubble, but the Germans, Italians, Romanians, Hungarians, Bulgarians and Finns all had a Christian God too. Heck, the Italians even had the Pope. Think it would have at least bought them a victory over the godless commies.

I've read 'Sergeant Slaughter'... a fascinating novel it was too... something about a ghost Stuart Tank as I recall... very Neitchze.. </font>