Catacol Highlander

Ha - you certainly enjoy D-Day. :-)

Post any questions you may have on the ladder below and I will try and resolve as soon as possible. Remember - we play because we enjoy playing. So let's enjoy the challenge and spend more time playing, less time questioning!

OK - here we go. The idea is to keep this ladder as simple as possible. Rules are as simple as I can make them; ladder table will be updated as we go along. Please post any questions or issues into the alternative questions and issues thread. Thanks.

All settings to default, so soft builds off.

Ok - I've been on a break for a week, but home tomorrow and over the weekend I will get stuff together to start the ladder. In the meantime it would help me a great deal to have all player names and email addresses. In addition I need each player to tell me how many matches they want to play starting next week. So please can all players email me at ama1970@hotmail.co.uk with their player name and the number of matches they want to start off with. I'll take it from there.

Hello all While Amadeus' excellent knock out tournament progress to the last 8, it is time to announce another forthcoming competition for players who wish to participate. Both Bill and Hubert have agreed to the concept of a Competition Ladder for AoD. The basic outline will be: 1. The Ladder will run from Xmas 2013 to Xmas 2014 at which point an overall ladder winner will be announced. 2. Players who take part can play as many matches as they like, but to qualify for a ladder position at least 4 matches must be completed. 3. Each victory will earn the winner ladder points, but a loss will mean that points are taken away. Further details on points will follow later. 4. The only game that may be played is the full length scenario for AoD. 5. Players may have as many games on the go at one time as they want, but to try and make the matches fair and varied the administrator (that's me...) will set each match up. Every player will play as close to an equal number of axis and allied games as possible and as wide a range of opponents too. 6. Players that enter the ladder must commit to a decent turn speed. On average a game should not last longer than 3 months unless real world factors unavoidably intervene. If you cannot manage that kind of turn rate then please dont enter the ladder. So.... how great an interest would there be in a ladder set up like this? If you think you would like to take part then please reply to this thread. Ideally I would like a hardcore group of about 10 - 12 players.

Any news on group E?? Slowing us all down. Some of the QF games are nearly over already!

I have one observation after thinking these new rules through. 130 turns takes the game up to the autumn of 1944. A good axis player will be guaranteed to hang on to those major cities at that point. The ones under most threat will be Paris and Rome, but with the bigger maps and fortifications these two can easily be defended up until autumn 1944. The pacific cities are under little threat by autumn 1944. If I was axis, and desperate to win, I slow my turn rate down so that 130 turns finishes on day 130 and I hold all the cities. There is no incentive to play beyond turn 130 because if I do I will probably lose Paris or Rome by 1946 and then lose the game. In other words to play fast as axis increases the chances of losing. I am guaranteed the win if I play slow. Surely this is a problem? The only solution I can think of is to make it a rule that all games from round 2 onwards must be mirror. Then if one player plays slow as axis he is also playing slow as allies and damaging his allied chances. This ought to remove the attraction of slow play. And as round 2 is just 1 player v 1 player a mirror match should be possible.

Agreed. No need to change something that doesnt need changing.

I think it is a mistake to mess with the standard victory conditions. The game has been designed to end in May 47 and not in 1944 or 1945... and any attempt to try and balance new victory conditions with early finish dates is likely to come apart. It also makes it possible for players deliberately to play slowly if it suits their position. That is simply wrong. The game must finish when it supposed to finish - May 1947 - or earlier in the event of a surrender. All players in the tournament are in it because they enjoy playing, and they will take a turn every day and often more than once in a day and the game will move fast. The outcome of many games will be obvious by 1944 anyway. I do not agree that victory conditions have only been created for matches against the AI - the global balance favours the allies but the victory conditions favour axis tactical victory. That is a perfect problem to try and work out, and good players will find a way to win as either axis or allies. And to make it perfectly balanced every match should be a mirror match. In that way there can be no complaints and everyone knows where they stand. In the event of a mirror tie then Amadeus decides who wins using the standard victory conditions using the listed cities. In the very unlikely event of both players having exactly the same number of victory cities in their possession at the end of the mirror then Amadeus makes a judgement of the winner based upon the global position and also taking into account NM. This is not complicated. Leave the game alone - dont make up rules just for a tournament and let players learn to play the game as they will have to play it in any other non-tournament match.

Just to try and be helpful. Jolly - I have had this issue before myself and I ran some tests. The results are very significant: 1. Once Gold is installed it is no longer sensitive to the location of the original SC Global. I have no idea why... Hubert might know - but it means that you may well be able to run Gold quite happily but have Global in a different location to its initial installation. This is the case at least on my system - I just tested it. 2. HOWEVER - AoD is instantly sensitive to it. I was able instantly to replicate your error simply by changing the name of my Global installation directory. AoD could not find it... and got the error you have. But Gold was absolutely fine. 3. Hubert is the God of SC... and he knows his stuff of course because he built the game... but being a bit of a rebel here i have not been able to get my machine to "forget" the initial installation position of Global by doing an uninstall as Hubert describes. Maybe it is a windows thing... or maybe a different peculiarity that might be related to permissions or virus software or who knows what. So - what's my solution? You need to wrack your brains over and over and put your global installation back into the drive with the same letter and same folder name as your original SC global game was installed into many moons ago. That should get AoD working instantly. If it doesnt then Hubert - surely it must be possible to discover WHERE AoD THINKS that Global is? Is it recorded in a data file somewhere in windows? Alternatively you need to get someone over with some computer knowledge and do a really really clean uninstall of the original global and start again. As I said before - and no insult intended hubert - I have not had the described correct wiping of the game using the uninstall in the game directory, but there are some power uninstall packages out there that might do it properly without having to do manual registry editing. Jolly - hope you can get it working. If you can remember the original install location of SCG and put it back there then I am convinced your problem will go away. Have you installed new HD at some point or reorganised your folders and directories since you first installed global?

Thanks Amadeus - got it.

Amadeus - my browser wont let me read the draw and I have just managed to check my email and have not received anything. My email address is ama1970@hotmail.co.uk and my real world name is Alastair Anderson. Can you get details to me? Thanks.

You are correct... and yet one of slightly weird things about SC is that so few players bother to do Sealion. Fact of the matter is that Sealion costs time and units... and in every game that I have seen it done it dooms the Germans to defeat in Russia. I think it would be good if Sealion was a more possible option in the game - as it stands it just doesnt get tried.

1. Press "P" 2. No 3. No - pretty much it increases Russian mobilisation and that makes a later Barbarossa impossible and increases Russian production. 4. Syria and Iraq are fickle. Without going into the editor I am not sure of the triggers and the probabilities, but basically the better you do in Africa the more likely they are to go with the Axis. The Iraqis are quite capable of changing sides! 5. Sweden no. Norway with paras is the standard way. From there a land attack on Sweden... or perhaps a diplomatic offensive. 6. If you want to invade Spain do it from land via France - as the axis. As the allies I have seen successful amphib landings against Portugal in Gold and would imagine they are still possible in AoD. 7. Research is much slower in AoC. In AoD the % look to increase about the same speed, but the threshold for advance has been raised so that you HAVE to get your % up to a higher number before there is any chance of a tech. I think Bill has made it 35 now but that is from memory. 8. Dont know. In Gold the IJN was no match for the USN at any stage without land based bombers and fighters in support. Too early in the life cycle of AoD to know if it is still the same, but bearing in mind AoD was created from roughly the same OOBs as Gold I would say 95% certain that it would be really tough for the IJN to manage it without ground air. 9. You mean East of the mountains. Counter attack always possible if you havent reduced them or conquered completely. 10. In a game with the AI? I have no idea - never play the AI - but in a pbem most Russian players will look at Manchuria eventually by 1944 because Russian armour will mince the Japanese. However much of that depends on what is going on against Germany. You need to balance things out. 11. No idea. Sounds risky with US anger likely? 12. That is a choice. The pbem games I have played so far - not many of them - have all seen Vichy form.

Hi Amadeus Looking forward to the tourney, but just to say that I go away this coming Saturday for 2 weeks. Internet access in that time will be limited - 1 week is a rugby tour where I wont have any net access at all... so I will be out of action until Sat 24th August. I apologies for this - I will get fast turns going the moment I get back, but my opponents will need to know I am away.

You are right - I'll try prodding a few players.

Count me in...

Feels like trolling to me. The comments here dont stack up - AoC is definitely a fight to the death and AoD has a massive campaign that is far from an operational scenario. 95% of map useless? Give me a pbem game pal and I'll show you just how significant the map is. The only perhaps "useless" bits might be South America and parts of southern Africa - - - but then again isnt this supposed to be a WW2 simulation based on history? Go read a book. New units? Just open up the purchase folder and take a look. I wouldnt give the guy a penny. If he really spent the money without any research at all into the game then he gets all he deserves if you ask me. If this is trolling then ban, delete and move on.

Ah... so it requires a proper uninstall first rather than just a delete folder. That may well be my problem from ages ago then. Having said that Windows seems to do a not very good job of uninstalling stuff at the best of times, but I'll give that a go myself! Hubert - presumably a full uninstall and reinstall uses up another license key slot though?

I have had this problem before, and reinstalling the base game does not always fix it. There seems to be some residual information lying around somewhere that logs where you initially installed the base game. If you then MOVE that base game somewhere else it messes up the installation of an upgrade like AoD. Maybe Hubert's work around will work for you. It didnt for me with Gold and I had to put my SCGC base game back into the same drive letter and directory as I had first installed it many moons ago. Cheers Al

Sedan falls, the US army coils for the strike... and the Entente Powers offer terms to the German Army. From this strong position I offer Michael surrender terms to avoid further bloodshed. Will the Kaiser fight on??

My French assault on Mulhouse is nearly ready to go. Artillery and fresh units moved to the area. Note that Michael's detachment that advanced one square last turn actually led to a morale drop for France as it got close to Belfort! Always worth learning the scripts - and that is one I will remember... Elsewhere the US juggernaut is already ready to take Sedan and advance on Verdun: ... and further to the West the British relief operation sustained quite big casualties but is closing the gap nonetheless, and 3 more German corps were destroyed on the edge of the main pocket: There is no coherence to the German lines now, and Entente advance will come swiftly from here.

Bloody fighting and swapping of units continues in the British pocket, around Strasbourg and also in the fast east around Colmar and Mulhouse. All are objective areas for me now. However to make them happen more swiftly and with fewer casualties I need to be a little more creative on a strategic level, and I have made my mind up now. First to the west. A trickle of British reinforcements will continue to enter the pocket to keep it alive and kicking, but the main British effort has now been transferred to the south of the pocket, and to the relief operation that will liberate the hard pressed British enclave and then push on to retake Belgium. Troop numbers here are not high, and the Italians are not great quality, but this force is growing and it stretched the German defence line on the river further, with a corps destroyed and German HQ and artillery coming under attack: In the centre I have decided now to swing the main operational focus to the East, and to liberate the forts of Verdun and push on to Luxembourg. For this I will use my very strong US army, with French units taking up a more defensive position on the North and Western flank of the US attack. In essence, having broken through, I am now swinging my main effort in a 90 degree pivot, and German units around Verdun will soon be under massive pressure. This graphic shows it well I think, with US forces driving east: All going well at present.

OK - some questions to answer. Given another game I would not use the US to plug holes - I would gather them as a reserve to strike. In terms of numbers it seems to me that a US led counter attack is possible in early/mid July. Depends a bit on whether research is invested in early or not - I have not bothered to upgrade to level 2 artillery or level 2 armour for instance. Do that and it would be delayed by a couple of turns. Likely targets I am not sure. The victory objectives are either NW or NE. I havent played enough yet to know where the biggest NM gains might be, and it would depend on where the German player had massed his greatest strength. I would always choose to counter away from that main thrust... though it must be pointed out that it is much harder for the German player to get reinforcements to the Belgian sector so that is attractive. To the East Strasbourg and Colmar are also very close to the border and definitely attainable. And speaking of Strasbourg the valiant German defence of the city came to an end. Michael had counter attacked me viciously in this area last turn, and my casualties were heavy, but the city fell. The French got a good NM bonus from this and the Germans a decent NM hit. However the main picture to throw your way is the central front. Here the German Army has quite literally melted away. I destroyed several straggler units and have one last pocket virtually surrounded, but this is very very bad news for Germany now. My US units have broken through and can now roam at will. And to the West? The British continue to hold. It is a bloody battle, but I am now certain I will hold after all. Michael has thrown so much at me here that the rest of his line has fallen apart. The US and French will have the glory of rampaging into Germany, but the British Army has won this scenario now: its constant counter attacks and ability to absorb such huge pressure has been impressive: I think the game will run away from the Germans swiftly from here. My thoughts are turning to my own interpretation of how to fight this scenario. I am hoping for a rematch the other way around with Michael whether as an AAR or just an ordinary PBEM game, but I must admit this is a fascinating scenario. Well worth playing - give it a go.