Hubert Cater

The resource icon has been moved, and the three German cities in the west are Hamburg, Essen and Frankfurt. The city in the Low Countries is Brussles and that port is Antwerp. The layout has been done to the best effect considering the hex system and not every port/resource/city has been included for a variety of reasons, balancing total MPP, game play, supply rules etc. Hope this helps, Hubert

The raiding model reflects only what MPP's the UK actually gets outside the island. So since there is no lend lease a raiding penalty for subs active off the coast of the US would be beyond the UK's actual income and be a little unfair

Nope, sorry but you're going to be stuck with this model

It's still up in the air, but the good news is that all these ideas have been considered as potential future projects

Damaged unit's can be brought up to strength during your turn by right clicking on the unit and selecting 'reinforce' A small window pops up telling you what the maximum reinforcement value will be (depends on supply and available MPP) and what the cost and experience losses will be as a result. This will end the movement of that particular unit if it is 'reinforced' Disbanding is also possible, but it will have to be in a good supply and not next to any enemy units to limit abuse. Plus only Axis/Allied majors can be disbanded. Hubert

Can't be done with this game, all moves are fluid and not done in stages, i.e. plan first and then the actual execution of the plans. ] It's a different style but works very well (I think) for this game, and the only place it could be a problem is with PBEM

I think everyone realizes the problem with this because of the fluid turn based system of this game, but let me clarify a bit more... PBEM games are password protected, so if and when you finish your turn it will be saved, so then if the player decides to load that same game they can't because it will be asking for your opponents password. The only way around this is as you've said is to copy the file and reload the copy (which was what I originally meant), and there is really nothing that can be done to prevent this. Multiple stages of save and send for a single turn doesn't really work for this game and even if feasible could be way too much since you are looking at possibly 100 turns for a game that starts in 1939. I am thinking that there could be an extra one of two options. Once playing your PBEM turn there are 3 options now that would be of concern: - Done - Save - Quit Done is used to finish your turn, Save is disabled, and Quit is used to kill the turn and return you to the main menu. Option 1) I am thinking that Quit could be disabled as well for a PBEM game or Option 2) Keep track of how many times a game is Quit and reloaded during PBEM Either option is circumventable by just having a copy of the original file and reloading that whenever things go bad, but it might be one extra layer of annoyance to lessen the impact or possibility of cheating. What do you guys think? Hubert

The Battle of the Atlantic has arrived!! OK I've added this aspect to the game now and the beta group is busy at work testing this new functionality out. The basic framework is as follows: - works on the proximity of Axis subs to the main UK convoy routes, so this would be in areas of the North Atlantic between St. John's and Liverpool and in the Mediterranean in and around the ports of Gibraltar, Malta and Alexandria. - raiding of convoys can result in UK losses that are relative to the strength of the ports and the value of attached resources to these ports. So in the N. Atlantic, it will max out at 30 MPP (from Canada) and in the Med. to 20 MPP. This could result in a sizable chunk of income for the UK since their basic total is 130 MPP per turn. - raiding capabilites of subs is relative to the number in the area, and the overall strength of the surface raiders. Subs that are presently engaged, i.e. next to Allied surface units will not be considered raiders for that turn. Preliminary testing shows that this seems to have worked out well and I will shortly give the go-ahead to Ted to use the latest Beta to continue his AAR Other changes include: - addition of Silesia with the necessary adjustments to the Oder and initial unit positions - extension of the Danube up and around Budapest

There are no weather effects in the game as you've described, but there is some consideration for Russian winter as there is an increase in partisan activity and the probablility of a Soviet transfer of their Siberian Armny if the 'War In Siberia' option is left unchecked.

One thing you won't be able to do is save your turn during a PBEM game. Your turn is automatically saved only when you finish. I guess at that point you could always reload your turn and play again so this does open the option of cheating somewhat... while early on this may seem attractive, but later in the war as you've got everybody involved that would be a lot of replaying to do. I know that it is not a perfect system, and it seemed reasonable considering the style of play, but as always I am open to suggestions if I've overlooked something. Hubert

Exactly, and in using this design it does then by default allow an invasion of the USA and/or Canada, but it's not to say that it would be very easy to do so.

Historically I believe it was on the 10th, so about 99% of the time whenever the Axis player finishes their first turn Canada will join

1) Not right now, and the game play I think is pretty good to live without this option, but it is something I have been seriously thinking about adding for the longest time, just keeps getting placed on the backburner unfortunatly 2) Nope Italy will have a strong navy, and could be in a good position depending upon how the UK player deals with the positioning of their own navy, i.e. spread out and defend in and around Gibraltar, Matla, Alexandria, or just two or just one kind of thing. I think the option to ship around Cape Horn would be a nice one and I am working out the details to see if it can be added in effectively, but otherwise as the game plays now it's still very balanced, and it does make running the Mediterranean gauntlet very intersting for the UK player

Nope

No promises and still working out a few things, but I imagine very soon. I know everyone is getting tired of that word, but it really is the best answer I can give

Bill, That's exactly how the time scale was modelled and why it was done this way Hubert

Exactly!

Ports and factory strength can affect reinforcement as well as what can be built. In order to build new units in a port or a factory, they must be able to draw a line to the capital as stated before, and the factory or port must have an operational efficiency of at least 50%. So if you damage all British ports it will not only affect their readiness and supply, but also their ability to build new units. In terms of reinforcement of existing damaged naval units, the maximum reinforcement values are scaled by the current efficiency of the port being used to reinforce/repair naval units. So strategic bombing could play a vital role in an invasion of England if that becomes part of your strategy! [ May 01, 2002, 10:22 AM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

OK, so everyone understands why this is so, the actuall reason why there is only a limited amount of space in Northern Europe and in North Africa was due to limitations in Windows of how much information could be held in 'memory device context' at any one time. By me adding in the east coast of North America I reached that limitation and had to work the map out as best as I could to include all the items I wanted. Trust me I would have loved to have been able to allow players to recreate convoy PQ-17 or the encirclements in North Africa, but I just couldn't do it. Sorry about that guys. There are ways around this, but it would have meant either really slow scrolling, a much smaller viewable play area, or a messy manipulation of bitmapped memory that would have been a real headache. All in all I think that the benefits of the current map outweigh the few shortcomings.

They do for air or naval bombardment, and they also have defence bonuses for any unit that is defending from that particular hex. But leave a city open and it can be captured by an enemy unit by just moving in there.

Major countries are not limited in what they can purchase, wrt minors like Canada you are limited by what units they start the game with and if they are destroyed you will not be able to rebuild them.

This was something I thought about including as well, but decided against it and modelled it instead on game play. One of the main reasons for this was to avoid cheating, which I know was done in other games by saving and replaying turns, and at least this way it is still included but depends on how successful or unsuccessfully you conduct your campaigns. So countries like Spain and Turkey have also been included (as well as the regular ones) as hypotheticals to join the Axis under the right conditions.

Minor correction here: Italy, USSR and the US are considered majors and will only join their historical respective alliances as Ted has stated. OTOH Countries like Finland, Yugoslavia etc are minors and can be declared war upon by any side, so in this case Finland could join the Allies if Germany declares war on them, or Yugoslavia could join the Axis if the Allies declared war on them. But if the 'Axis / Allied Minor Random' option is selected and these minor countries have not been declared war upon, or have not entered the war yet, then they will join their historical alliances if the right play conditions have been met and if they are left untouched by either side

I understand the concern, it makes perfect sense and it was kept into consideration with the design. In this game and in most cases air units cannot be destroyed by a single ground unit attacker, would probably take at least 2 to 3 hits depending on the attacking units/experience etc, and also air units do have a strike range, so this can be used to keep them a safe distance from the front lines. If you want to take the chance and strike deep, that is your option but you run the risk of exposure (as you should) and this I would safely guess is keeping it somewhat realistic. The good news is that the current implementation has never come up as an issue during beta testing (which I hope is a good sign), and I worked the AI to really take care of their air units in this respect as well

They do