Bromley

xwornwood. I wish I could like HoI, because then I'd have the perfect game . I can even handle the dopey AI, but actual game play drove me mad. Still, that's my ideal - a TB majors game with AI minors (USSR as a minor). Back to my OP - ignoring all the detail. What's the latest turn/time in PvP games where the Allies still hold Poland? Terif, I know you've done it .

I'm still not sure what the surprise rules are meant to be, so forgive me if I get something wrong. The exploit comes from the use of surprise rules to hit unspotted units in defensive positions. Using them you can bypass any defensive bonuses that might otherwise be enjoyed. LAND: I'm sure that this would work for other units, it's just more obvious with tanks: Advancing a panzer on Paris. You know that the DCR is in Paris, so as long as Paris is unspotted you can force the DCR out of it's carefully prepared defenses. It will initiate an attack even if it's strength 5 and you're strength 10 (and this is before it has had a chance to upgrade). SEA: Spain is the perfect example. An Allied Spanish CA can move towards Marseilles/Italy and surprise units stationed in port. Ones at sea would be fair enough --> a normal encounter. But the ones in port, even though you might not want them to sortie, will do so. Not a huge problem against the RN, as in that case there's a like-for-like loss of its strength. But against a suicide fleet, such as the Spanish or French, there's a problem.

I've always liked something like this. It's been pointed out to me that, at least in the Axis camp, there was little tech sharing. But then IRL the Soviets tried to defend their front line rather than forming up further back. One tech level behind and the (consequential) low production tech of minors will make upgrades relatively expensive compared to German units. As you still need garrison units, you may well opt to not upgrade the minors anyway. But it gives you a choice and a better chance if the tide turns in the East. Of course, Empire/Commonwealth forces should be the same tech level. It also seems a little unfair that your researchers (via Intel) benefit more from an enemy being further advanced in a field than a friend. [ February 03, 2007, 02:12 PM: Message edited by: Bromley ]

1. Concentrate firepower. You're going to die, but you may well be able to kill one unit. 2. Sortie from the Maginot. You might get a chance to destroy bits of the Siegfried line, to hit a rear air unit (even in a fort), to participate in the one-unit-that-you-get-to-kill attack or to hit an exposed HQ. Don't leave the Maginot on a whim, but you might deem it worth it for one of the above. 3. If you see him operating a large force west from Poland on the first turn, operate into position if you have to. The key thing is to get those entrenchments up ASAP. EDIT: Should have said that TaoJah & Konigs said it all. Paris line is what seems to work. [ February 03, 2007, 05:40 PM: Message edited by: Bromley ]

Arrgh. Just lost a big reply :'( . Suffice to say, there's no practical way to have a meaninful/useful USSR attack into Poland within SC2.

In MP games, has anyone still held Poland in T11 (the first turn that would generate a Soviet readiniess increase)? [EDIT: My notation has the first Axis turn as T0] I've often held on until T10. Unfortunately that Axis turn starts on 31.12.39, so as the datepoint is 31.12 it doesn't trigger the event. By that time, you're usually down to a couple of units, so there's almost no chance of the Poles holding on after Warsaw falls. The Axis have already had 5 turns to take Warsaw and the only reason that they haven't by then is operating units away to grab Denmark, the Low Countries and start the France attack. Anyone else think that the event date should be a couple of days earlier? It'd give you an incentive to take out Poland in 3-4 Axis turns. Although you'd technically have 5 turns to do it in you run the risk of increased Soviet readiness if Poland holds out after its capital has been taken. RL Wiki datepoints: Soviets invade & Polish gov flee to Romania 17.09.39 (T3), Warsaw surrenders 28.09.39 (T4), occupied 01.10.39 (T4), last operational unit of Polish Army surrenders 06.10.39 (T4), final division of Poland 12.10.39 (T5), Polish army units fight until "well into October" (T5). ; Event for increased USSR activation: { #NAME= USSR->Allies #1 (1940) #POPUP= #FLAG= 1 #TYPE= 2 #AI= 0 #COUNTRY_ID= 4 #TRIGGER= 100 #DATE= 1940/01/01 ;3-7% activation increase towards Allies #ACTIVATION= [3,7] [2] ;Set variable conditions: ;1st Line - Poland politically aligned with Allies and not surrendered #VARIABLE_CONDITION= 33 [2] [100] [0] [ February 01, 2007, 10:18 AM: Message edited by: Bromley ]

It's support@furysoftware.com .

This may be WAD, but I'm not certain. When you right click and get details on a unit that you can see but are not adjacent to, you can see its actual tech levels. So, although my Russians have never been sniffing near the border, from air spotting I know that the corps in Warsaw is not upgraded, whereas the one east of Warsaw is lvl 1 in all three fields. As I said, this may be what you wanted to achieve. I can see arguments both ways. EDIT: This is under 1.05a. I didn't notice it under 1.04. [ January 30, 2007, 01:05 PM: Message edited by: Bromley ]

Bombardment by naval units appears to be halved if a river is in the way. That doesn't seem logical to me as rivers impede land attacks but not indirect fire like air strikes. The specific case was in eastern Spain. A German army at [62,26], my Spanish CA at [64,26]. The expected damage was 0:0. When I moved to [63,26] it changed to the anticipated expected damage of 0:1. Talking of indirect fire, presumably there's a logical argument for rocket attacks not being reduced by rivers (that may already be the case, I don't use rockets often enough to know ).

Excepting the increase in volume of tactical ground attacks over the course of the war, was there any real change in the deadliness? So although an individual attack in 1939 was probably nothing compared to one in 1944, the defences of the target units presumably increased. I wouldn't want to have to spend turns making small upgrades that would, IRL, filter down to the units rather than require a massive refit.

There's a counter in the game to that (unless the UK is being very forward with it's navy in the Med) - see below. You lose one CV, but the UK gains their Lend-Lease earlier and the US gets 100-200 MMPs per year. That's always assuming that the CV is in the med and not in the Red Sea . Regarding the Russians, Germany can always take Denmark. With three exits, your fleet can move out of the Baltic (if you want it to). The biggest gamey manoeuvre still in the game is the use of fleet units to block land movement over a canal. I don't mind the blocking, but land units should be able to engage fleet units in narrow waterways like Suez/Kiel/Danish. ; Italian naval units in vicinity of UK North Africa Holdings ; 5-10% increase in US activation towards Axis { #NAME= Italian Naval Aggression in the Mediterranean (USA->Allies) #POPUP= US Alarmed Over Italian Naval Activity In The Mediterranean #FLAG= 1 #TYPE= 1 #AI= 0 #COUNTRY_ID= 3 #TRIGGER= 50 #DATE= 1939/09/03 ; 5-10% activation increase towards Allies #ACTIVATION= [5,10] [2] ; Set variable conditions: ; 1st Line - Italy politically aligned with Axis (not fully active) and not surrendered #VARIABLE_CONDITION= 6 [1] [0] [0] ; Italy has 1 naval unit within 5 tile range of Gibraltar port OR #CONDITION_POSITION= 56,30 [5,5] [1,1] [1] [6] ; Italy has 1 naval unit within 3 tile range of Alexandria port #CONDITION_POSITION= 108,32 [3,3] [1,1] [1] [6]

Apparently Pfeiffer had connection issues back in November. That doesn't excuse his not notifying you of his final situation, but he's also O/S on games with myself and Konigs as well (where he wasn't necessarily losing). Room for a MIA in your header?

Nope. Far too early. I tried doing it just after an early French campaign (i.e. Barbarossa starts May 1940 - if you're very lucky just in time to take the Baltic States). That's a better start date than Nov 1939 as you'll have more experience. More importantly, no second front and another >500 MMP. It worked under 1.02 (with its tougher corps), but only if your opponent defended his cities (so you could trap and kill units). If he pulled back you were really stuck. You also have to be pretty accurate, especially with not triggering the Siberians until you're ready for them. Two of the three times that I tried it under later versions, I died. The third opponent isn't able to play, so that's still looking good, but then it always does at first . Works a treat against the AI though. [ January 27, 2007, 01:20 PM: Message edited by: Bromley ]

Perhaps it's Brest-Litovsk?

Nice tips on allowing some partisans to form. They've always been an anathema to me, but I like the Yugo idea. Obviously to each their own, but why Hamburg rather than Essen? Also, if you have a damaged ship spare to watch Malta, is there any reason to garrison Rome? Perhaps in case of a very sneaky amphib hidden in the Med? Likewise do you advise keeping the Finnish unit in case of Soviet para landings.

Chris Crawford, not Sid. I loved the game, but it helped playing it on a Mac and not a PC given the relative levels of GUI at the time.

Where can units be blocked &/or sniff now? The US can't do it anywhere without severe consequences and is easy to house rule. The USSR can't do much, although the triggers are too limited range-wise IMO. Anyway, I had someone come sniffing and trapped his CA ready for a zero supply kill. The Italians in the Med can still mess around blocking and spotting. Not a huge problem IME and not necessarily unfair. [ January 19, 2007, 05:59 AM: Message edited by: Bromley ]

Not sure whether it's amusing or frightening that that apocalyptic belief is also prevalent in other countries and possibly their leaders. Pretty sure it's frightening actually.

You might want to take a look at Voice of Reason's guide to SC2 combat. The best thing about it, for me, was the clarification of exactly how damage is calculated. No longer do you have to expect a unit to do 4 only to find when it closes with the enemy that it does 1. Even if you're not an equation person, there's some easy reading there too. http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=34;t=002077#000001 My top tip is to use the Auto-Assist feature with your HQs. Attaching a unit to an HQ gives it a sizable readiness bonus. If you leave it to the AI to manage, you'll end up with a load of corps and damaged units attached. Right click on the HQ. Select Set Mode. Choose Auto-Assist. Then, when you have an HQ selected, you can right click on any attached units and unattach and likewise, if you have any slots left, right click on unattached units and attach them. The reason why you use Auto-Assist and not Manual is that A-A will attach units up to the maximum if you forget to, whereas with Manual you have to check every turn that the HQs are being used correctly. EDIT: BTW, I believe that the sub thing is the only AI "cheat". If the AI or a human raid convoys, you just get a report on which convoy was raided. AFAIK, if you raid vs. the AI, it knows exactly which tile your sub was in. It doesn't know where you move to, and if you put your sub on silent it shouldn't know where you are even if you park on the convoy lanes. Nevertheless, you can see how knowing the exact position of a sub when it raids can help track it down even a turn later. There have been a load of new scripts added to help the AI (i.e. Spain joins the AI Axis without diplo sometimes, human neutral Italy invades Greece, free UK AI enginees in Egypt etc.). I haven't checked, but I'd guess that these largely kick in if the AI is in trouble. [ January 18, 2007, 02:02 AM: Message edited by: Bromley ]

My first Golden Geek . Thanks Hubert. I'll go back to the saves to confirm, but if I understood you correctly the construction time starts from the first day of your turn (i.e. the date showing at the bottom of the screen when you're moving your units). If so, I suspect there's something unusual happening in this particular case. A suggestion for SC3 would be to change the build times to weeks to fit better with the turns. TaoJah. They just shift by a day/couple of days each year, so you can look at the 1940/1 dates and find the nearest fit. Not sure how well that holds up in the later game though or whether the main seasons follow the turn lengths rather than particular dates.

Short story: Anyone know exactly how fort build times work? Rather than just building L-shaped forts everywhere, I've decided to now try to build forts to make use of the turn interval. For example, why build a 30 day fort if you can build a 50 day fort before your next turn (i.e. over winter)? For the most part I seem to be getting it right. I've just had a wierd one though. Looking at my log, I moved into place and started building a Russian fort in T47. It was a 40 day (straight line). I expected it to finish at the end of T50. It actually finished at the end of T53 (after I clicked End Turn). So, time spent building (time points at beginning of months) T47 01.06 Start T48 15.06 14 days T49 29.06 28 days T50 06.07 35 days T51 13.07 42 days Expected finished by start T51 T52 20.07 49 days T53 27.07 56 days T54 03.08 63 days Actual finish before 03.08 I've always assumed that the engineers start from the first day of the turn that you select Fortify. In that case, the engineers took between 56 and 63 days to complete a 40 day fortification. If I'm wong on that and they start at the end of your turn (or at some random point between the start and the end), then the beginning of T53 was still 42 days after the latest start, so it should have been completed before the beginning of T53 (rather than after the end of it). Any ideas? Terrain wise, it was next to a river and a mine, as well as a 50 day L-shaped fort. Weather wise it waas clear. There were no enemy units nearby and the USSR was not activated. [ January 17, 2007, 02:55 AM: Message edited by: Bromley ]

The UK gets about double the MMPs that you mention and I doubt anyone has said to max out UK research if you're diploing.

In case you didn't know, you can copy and paste your SC2 folder and install 1.05a over one of them. I've still got a 1.02 o/s, although I've pretty much given up on that one .

Thanks Hubert. I'm not sure what the original problem was, but it's now morphed into something that I can understand. I can't remember what the new message is, but it's happening because I've installed on two PCs, one of which is dead . I'll try the email option.

Hijacking my own thread as there's no pm. TaoJah, would you mind looking at the Tech Support forum when you have a chance. I'm having the same licence problem that you had 6 months ago. Thanks.