Desert Dave

Off topic I appreciate, but, what the hey. Yah jjr, the Lake Erie Clown Parade NEEDS a big bopper, bad. Losing to twerpish Tampa? Crimeney! :eek: That's like... tooling down the hi-way In yer '65 raked & nitro-jaked GTO And... being passed by some kid on a tryke, Who has the unabashed temerity! To ring that little handle-bar bell - twice! As he... passes you by. Pity the double-clutching Road King. BTW: I've done it a lot, mostly @ the Track, But... ONLY bet on what you KNOW. I mean, really, REALLY know. Like it's tucked in yer hip pocket. If you ain't studyin' them "form sheets," And if you ain't got a hands on "feel," Well, Keep them wagers - way down low.

Ah, LOLOLOLOLOL! waltero, I swear, When you are... NOT hardly trying To make enny sense, You make pretty great sense! When you TRY to make sense, O alackaday, what's the use, I can't grok a word of it. :eek: In my experience, This is damn hard to do. Turn the Gestalt - inside out, I mean, or Return the due cents when handed A yo-yo, some pocket-lint, or a dollar, Yea, it's like when that acrobat rabbit Comes bustling backwards outta that hole And smooches ol' Alice - smack! On inside 'er cheek. This is rarely accomplished, Once every other decade or so I'd guess, Yet, You've somehow managed. Nope, I ain't seen much a' the tangerine Dream, the quick-silver swelling The wishing well, well Not many... can do it. Almost NOBODY can be bothered... to try. And reckon some sense when There just... ain't enny. Yer one of the few. My Cleveland Indian ball hat's Off, and doffed - to you. LOLOLOLOLOLOL! :cool:

LOL. Well, We've had a lot of sound, Down on the ground - where them Sherman tracks Stretch so straight and true, So, Let's do... a bird's eye view? Were Patton around now, He'd be apologizin' all over the place! Ayup, 'til 'e was red, white, And blue, in the face. As 'e labors over the stove, sure! He'd be... some sort of scullery Chef, yep, On this here modern-day Ship of State, Barefoot in that kitchen mess, Cookin' up a batch Right from... cut, scat & scratch, O a veritable scalding! cauldron Of... chicken-hawk stew. And that stew - mmm, mmm O Boy! Served on blood red plates, Made in... bloodless red states, With wry little pictures adorned All around - the edge, why - it's! Some biblical Lion! Jaws a'prised wide! Wit' these fleecy hind-quarters A'hangin' from - lip & ledge Of... ancient fangs, glistened in grease! And, As you sup Polo Pat's patented blend, You'll have somethin' to do O Lord yes! You can scratch them lion & lamb emblems Wit' yer fingernail, Should you choose, and stir the debris Right in with the... poor-boy gravy! (... hey Joe! Where you goin' with that gun in yer hand?, say, hey Joe, ain't this new day - sloppy-crazy, man!) Yep, were Patton around these parts now, Sure enough, ol' Joe, he'd be a'goin strong! Cookin' up fresh, and endless Batches of... chicken-hawk stew, All the long night long! (... hey you Joe! What these... entrails mean? I mean, jeeez, it's indicatin' somethin'... kinda strange, ain't it... man?)

LOLOL! Ah, Sombra, no! Eco-Apocalypse here! (... what a most verbose, and proverbial verbal Generation... O yea hooray, we had lyre-like lyrics you could - UNDERSTAND, then... ) Well, anyhow, you might just as well SUBTRACT exactly 520 years from yer estimate, As I YET reckon it.

Right you are rleete, for these small, truly unobtrusive "trade-offs" will make the game deeper and you'll have to "think on it" a bit more. However, having played 5 or 6 games now, I can tell you that this process becomes "second nature" and hardly interferes with your fun & frolic factor. There are MANY of these sorts of "balancing acts," as for example: Do I, as GErman OKW Commander, build up more anti-aircraft in Brest and the port there, so UK cannot bomb it into such a ruinous state that I might not be able to - at that critical invasive juncture, Op move vital units there? Or, do I spend the MPP's and have my Engineer construct more fortifications along the north coast, making it... a true "Fortress Europa?" Well, I could do both, but then... you won't have that one extra "anti-tank enhanced" Corps that might prevent the T-34s from running rough-shod all over the stand-fast place! It's gonna be VERY interesting, these new games and tournaments, because there are SO MANY ways to play it. Each person on this board will have a UNIQUE style and set of preferences. No need for board names ennymore... we'll know the Cat by his... Strat & Tactical predilictions, LOL! Hey! There goes Joe... no, I mean to say... The assault-you Dude who uses massed artillery to get what he wants! May not be what he NEEDS, but, OK, to each their own. :cool:

Well, if you should do that in this version, You'll receive LESS plunder. Plunder is now partially based on Units still standing, and, What is yet to arrive from the build-delay queu. Similar to late nite chatter, It can be a delicate matter. How many, and which units do I kill off? How many should I let alone. How important is gained experience? Eventually you'll sort of intuit What these things should be.

Ah, LOL! Bo, Do you still churn yer butter With milk - weaned from a cow? Do you yet and yet confuse Zen with - back when Or, back then with - right now? Yo, EVERYTHING is... derivative, Don't you know, There's little that's... truly new Under this old cindering Sun. Do you confuse - peering through a Window Oh, Some rain-on-the-pane window, With being - freaking far - out there! Running & leaping - just having fun? LOL, It's alright, I'll "hoard clunkers" too, Like my 1927 Smith-Corona typewriter, yep, She's a crooked-key beaut! But, If you ain't got enny Window, Well, you ain't gonna appreciate Some thing - amazing! And new! SC-2! :cool:

Just one aspect... among several. Hubert is yet mulling over what else "intel" might accomplish, or, deny. Could be he's already decided, but, it's not yet known. Perhaps a glimpse of wily Foe's Diplomatic action of late? His latest research venture? And, your idea of Intel having some effect on partisans is a good one. Well, Retributar, it is far, far better, IMHO, to be an emotional kind of Dance Cat, than A... stick in the mud. Although, if the sign at the top of that stick Stuck there in the mud Indicates which direction to go So to finally find, Valhalla, or Shangri La, or Nirvana, Well, In that case you'd be revered by billions, And have rare, just-cut flower petals Thrown down wherever you might tread. :cool:

You can actually get rid of ALL disbanding if that is how you'd like to play it. In the Editor, under "advanced settings" you can UN-CHECK "disbanding." Then, in any game you play using your uniquely designed scenario (... obviously, for head to head play, as agreed upon with opponent) you will NOT be able to disband Land, Air or Sea units. Same is true for many other features, such as "rail-heads" or "re-basing." You may NOT want an Air Fleet to be able to move AND conduct air Ops on the same turn, albeit, at a lesser state of readiness. Amazing, but true... in regard to many of these cool features... you choose. :cool: Noted. You make good sense here. A couple of stray comments: 1) Surely the Desert Rats captured an AA used as A/T 88 by early 1942. Did they ever manage to re-create anything remotely as deadly? 2) How long did it take Russia to reverse-engineer one of Doolittle's B-25's that had to land in Vladivostok after bombing Tokyo in late February 1942? In general, we don't want to have a complementary feature that takes up TOO MUCH time, or makes things TOO complex. The idea is to have a default game that re-presents MOST of the important aspects of WW-2 GS game play, without making it over-burdened. In truth, with this new "counter-intel" we are really only talking about a few percentage points of difference in the random chance of research achievement. If the amazed farmer in the field sees the strange new plane jetting across the sky, and cranks the phone to call Scotland Yard, well, the British War Planners will surely want to invest in more research into "aircraft technology." Regardless of specific knowledge. Spies and agents and maybe even James Bond himself... are part of the "flavor" of the game, and not THE deciding factor.

Valid point, Lars, And you can make a strong argument, no doubt. But I would argue it this way: How many times did any Nation capture a piece of equipment as large as a tank, And then... make a carbon copy? Once the GErmans were startled by the appearance of the T-34, they didn't make another T-34 in response. They made (... or were making) Panther, Tiger and King Tiger. For the simple reason that assembly lines and detailed machineries take some good while to set up. Not to mention... pride. Each group of scientists/engineers/politicians would no doubt believe they could IMPROVE on any existing item. I really can't think of an instance where any one Nation... within a small time frame like our 6 years of WW-2, deliberately copied, nut for bolt, another Nation's captured equipment. Jets? Yep, there was an arms race there, surely. But, EACH jet finally turned out quite different, yes?

We are just now getting 'round to some PBEM games, so we'll let you know how some of that daring over & under sea faring goes, oh, here in a couple 3 weeks or so. Hotseat doesn't give you much true indication of hidden maneuvers and running silent and gliding through certain convoy lanes in order to gang up on another. There are many convoys to pick & choose from. Britain is VERY vulnerable. :eek: They'd better invest in sonar, is my guess, unless GErman player elects to go ahistorical, And NOT buy the boats. I guess it depends... if the particular game player wants to invest in U-boots to the extent that the Wolfpacks can swarm and strike like the scaly Sea Serpents of old. :cool:

Not necessarily. You have enough time to purchase an HQ unit, The low-rated ones don't cost as much. You have a half-strength Armor unit on board, To build up or melt down, as you choose. In the last game I played, I bought 3 Corps, and they all arrived In time to help defend Paris. If you want to disband something, to gain another something at X-treme cost in the trade-off, there's always the Air Fleet, though, I have found it to be a fairly effective unit. Bath-tub Navies? Did anyone voluntarily scrap/disband one of their OWN major Capital Ships during WW-2? I mean, one already afloat? No doubt some naval vessels were captured and converted. The defense of France is hardly predictable, although, it's true, they ain't got many big guns to bravely wave around. A little, not a lot. Just like the rest of us, vveedd, most of the time. Here, and... everywhere. 1) If you are behind in a research category you do have a "catch-up" bonus. UNLESS your opponent has invested, and succeeded in "counter-intelligence," IE, agents and spies and various security measures and the like. Then, no help. 2) There is the possibility of "storms" in any given sea area. Some more dangerous than others, and depending on the season. Your ship is liable to random damage during storms (... unless you are in port or near land). Which is to be expected, and happened frequently during the war. So, you may want to try and time your ASW sorties so to keep the wear & tear to masts & spar and parts of superstructure to a minimun.

Ah, LOL, Lars, it ain't gonna arrive Such as that, oh, nix-nix, not a prayer. Although... you MAY discover something near To Divine, Such as this: _______________________ You have entered the frame, You are crossing an old bridge, and No 3-headed dogs, nor any one-eyed Daemons Are chasing you, anymore. For that, you are grateful. On the other side, you notice - can't help it, A young lady, rolling 'n strolling along In a just arisen mist. You stop. You are stunned! You've NEVER seen such Beauty - not anywhere, Not in any magazine nor movie or where-ever It was that you've already went. She sashays along, softly swaying, as if Hearing faint fey harpsichord Melodies in her head. She stumbles!... you awaken! and race across To offer a hand, a rough & ready War-gamer sort of hand. She raises sleight misted lashes, And looks you full in the eyes. Yes, she seems to say... "Yes." You can hardly think, but eventually stammer: "Uh, how about some latte over at the Bistro?" She takes a while to consider. She stares, approves, in hues of electric bleu Through & through... only now, a different you. You stumble, it is all too much. At long last, You take her hand, a bit wet from brushing The mist from 'er face, and hair, And so... you stroll on along, at first, To the Bistro - ah, and perhaps? "A hot-fresh croissant as well, mon Cheri?" _________________________________________ Well, Something such as That you MIGHT find secreted in SC-2 Blitzkrieg, But yer gonna hav ta really LOOK for it, LOLOLOLOLOLOL! Yep, you are feeling right fine. The mist is now rain, but you don't care. Life, O she has become... gorgeous and fair. _______________________ Now, you may find that other puerile stuff In some of them less Classy war-games merely taking up shelf space Out there somewhere. Here, It's plain and simple... Romantic, And you'll have to search, and search, Some long feverish time... before You'll find... a trace, Of the lady on a bridge With wild glistenings of... mist In 'er 'air.

Welcome, CS, I suspect you'll discover that the folks on this board are as knowledgable about military matters in general, and WW-2 in specific, as you'll find anywhere, anytime... least, that's what I've discovered. :cool: 1) Each unit is autonomous, standing alone, so, NO, you cannot combine units. Though, you COULD disband units elsewhere and use those MPP's to beef up your depleted unit. Except Navy, which you are no longer allowed to disband, at all. 2) Each nation's Air Fleet can be set in the following manner: a) AUTO (... will perform first available task) INTERCEPT c) ESCORT d) GROUND (... will do nothing that turn, or until turned loose) 3) Originally planned, and under active consideration, but not yet implemented... so, we'll see, I guess. 4) You didn't ask about this next "cool feature," but I'll rap on it a bit, just the same. I don't think former SC-1 gamers are fully aware of just how different "weather effects" will make the new! game. For instance: you have mauled poor old Poland and her tradition-proud horse-soldiers. Now, as though the Gods were miffed with yer awesome clanking machineries, MUD has arrived in October. :eek: And so, you aren't going very far, very fast. New solution? For instances such as this, you may well decide to invest in "infrastructure" research... so that you might move units around the game board/screen a bit faster, and, at lower cost.

As VERY many SC-1 war-gamers here & elsewhere will attest, the price for the original game is one hell of a bargain. :cool: As for replayablility, #95, ad infinitum, I STILL play SC-1 after 3 years, even though I am privileged to play... what is now a very polished and... gradually, and surely coming to completion... game of SC-2, Blitzkrieg! They are different enough that you can enjoy each one for its unique style.

Infrastructure research gains will indeed REDUCE costs for operational movement. To include - cost of transport, since, after all, improved Port facilities are a significant part of a Nation's infrastructure, true? There will also be a % loss of unit morale, and weather will determine if and when a unit might Op move. Interesting new! feature being seriously considered... an OPTION to only allow Op moves using a "rail-head." IE, the unit must be on or next to a city tile in order to Op move. :cool: Or, you could dispense with this altogether, as is true with MANY other optional game-play items (... simple pre-game check-off), each of which may suit some certain packaged or modded scenarios, but not others.

All the way From Alaska you will show how? That's a pret' fur piece, ayuh! LOL! Perhaps, waltero, you could drop Little leaflets by way of Air Alaska? On... Tacoma, and Boise, and Santa Fe? These ether-tattered scraps could essay: "Man alive, it's gettin' TOO HOT down there In them lower 48 - come! Someone! To our vast icy tundra And cool off, you - half Mad Cats!" LOLOLOLOL. Well, Been lookin' over the landscape since the 50's, And I can say this: Like Van Morrison sings it out While standing 'midst the rubble Of a torn-down Wall, "Oh, the tide... the tide is turning." Now, that Wall - has these Gargoyles atop Moaning out ersatz Rock & Roll, and so, It ain't so easy to know. Just how. It's... stealing, sealing-away All of the brother love starved Soul.

I am quite confident You'll have more fun with this game than The last time you and Clint Eastwood Tee'd it up on the 18th green At Pebble Beach, Making wild-crazy wagers as to who Would end up in the ocean-washed rocks Along the Pacific shore line. Seriously, as Bill has said, Think... BIG. There really ain't much you can't do, And you needn't be Anything more than a casual gamer With some patience, in order to "get" The gist of it. :cool:

Well, SeaMonkey, it now & then happens Like that. Only thing to do is hitch the broken Levis, Spit a bit, and hike on along. It's just that Archibald has the best Sig line I've ever seen on a forum board, And so, I'm always tempted to ask him 60's stuff. Apocalyptic sorts of stuff. I ever assumed that Coppola meant to model The Dennis Hopper character on a composite Of... Page AND Flynn. Maybe a few others not so known. Sean Flynn was the son of the famed actor Errol Flynn, In case anyone is curious. And yes, and unfortunately, he was a casualty Of that crazy mistaken war. Lots of us were, some not so dire, And each a mite differently. IMO, Coppola & Herr both got it down... tight. ________________ To answer yer questions, Archibald, 1, 2, 3, lickety split: The figures are original works of Art By a guy I only know as Fernando, Who is very patient, what With all the endless requests & suggestions, And also very good. :cool:

Yep, Archibald, You know yer stuff when it comes to Biplanes and the apt Crown of Royalty, But, Just for fun, Do you happen to know? 1) Which real-life photo-journalist the character on the left (... in the pic above) is based on? 2) What writer, who wrote the only best book on VN, and served as advisor on the film that provides your "sig line," was a very good friend of that photo-journalist? 3) What happened to the photo-journalist, finally? _________________________ Oooops, the topic is... "tired?" OK, I can say this, Having played the game Up to date, for awhile now, Boy o Boy! NONE of those old tried And true strategies just ain't gonna work So good anymore! Now, nobody will be "tired" UNLESS It's from... TRYING to figure out how to BEST Enjoy! the employ & deploy All those old and new SC-2 units! It's... at once - and at the same time, Simple AND complex. How can you beat that? :cool: [ June 07, 2005, 08:40 PM: Message edited by: Desert Dave ]

Spotting for Bombers (... now supposed as Strategic and Naval) is only 5 tiles out. Range is 8, so essentially you could bomb that distant target, say a Capital... BUT you wouldn't necessarily know dispositions of any interceptors. Air Fleets is only 3. FOW takes on a whole new meaning in SC-2 Blitzkrieg! What you'll have to do, since there is a limit to how many bombers you might purchase (... though, you could exceed that number @ a premium price) Is mostly do it the old-fashioned way... RECON. (... and/or invest in long-range research, post haste! ) You'll likely have a spare L-0 tank, OR a Corps that has been L-2 Motorized specifically for this thankless task, and so you'll "probe" into enemy territory to see what's back there. Let's hope you don't run into a couple full tilt L-2 anti-tank units just waiting, nay - praying for the chance to make a cauldron of melting, smoking metal. :eek: As for the other, doubt very much you'll see any "theatre" or "tactical" commanders. SOME detail is fine & sublime. Too much detail... merely devours your time. ________________________________ One great advantage to limiting the spotting of bombers in this way... no longer can the UK player place a bomber in far northern England or Scotland and be able to see EVERY SINGLE ship and sub that travels 'round into the Atlantic. Now, the UK player will need some fairly constant "picket" of ships if he wants to intercept those GErman sorties. Of course, then he must worry whether there will be SUDDEN! storms, which may damage his ships. :eek: Yep, it's gonna be real different in this game than it was in last one. [ May 26, 2005, 07:33 AM: Message edited by: Desert Dave ]

Lars, This is certainly possible. In fact, ~120,000 French soldiers escaped to Britain along with the BEF at the Dunkirk evacuation. So. You could have a scripted event where a Corps would have a random chance to appear in Britain, oh, approximately 3-6 months from May of 1940. Assumption being it would take that long to outfit and prepare them for combat since they'd left all their equipment behind. Next, you could a have the Suffren Free French Cruiser appear at Gibraltar or a USA port sometime in Summer of 1942, or even later. Historically, that ship was involved in ASW duties in Mid to South Atlantic. Also, say - Summer of 1943 or so, another Corps and perhaps, HQ DeGaulle could be placed in USA. Or any combination you would like. All of that is possible with the "unit script," which can also be used for such other historical military reinforcement events as... "free Ukraine" or "Polish and/or Canadian armor" or "ANZAC in Egypt" or "Nationalist units" in Europe for the GErmans. Alternately (or, in addition to) you could modify the existing "Free French script" by lowering the trigger percentage... so that there is a VERY small possibility of ANY French ground or sea units surviving. [... or, you could simply omit this event script when you start the game, as with SC1; ANY of the new scripts can be left "un-checked" in this way] Set it low enough, and very few game players would risk sending French Corps hither & yon, or choose to disband any units. How this will finally appear in SC2-Blitzkrieg! is not absolutely estabished as yet, so you may well have - in the default game, precisely the "Free French" event that you'd prefer. [ May 05, 2005, 07:10 AM: Message edited by: Desert Dave ]

Well, believing - I mean REALLY believing That you are "superior" Is... half the battle, eh? Nothing wrong with that - it's what separates The Olympic Class athletes From the weekend warriors, trotting Round & round the neighborhood park. Right after taking Sudetenland, GErman "Volk" should have had a collective Epiphany - another "Night of the Long Knives," Only this time... each dagger stuck true To the heart of each and every Nazi leader - Hitler first, then Goering And Himmler and Bormann and ALL the rest. Then you'd have seen a strong and vital Nation... exactly powerful enough To be left alone to pursue peaceful economies. Like that Olympic class runner, Adopting a philosphy something like this: ______________________________ Run hard, Land easy, Kick butt - just, if You must. And embrace a grace-full trick - save The punishing kick - when you need Leave... (mis)perceived enemy, or, the setting sun In the dust. _________________________________ You do have to fight for what's right; hard Sometimes to know just what that is, And, as now, as then, as ever, folks will differ In their martial opinions. Hemingway borrowed Gertrude Stein's passing remark About the survivors of WW-1, and said: "You are all a lost generation." WW-2? More like... "an annihilated generation." Let's count the cost: GErman soldiers killed - 2,000,000 GErman soldiers "missing" - 1.5 million GErman civilians killed In air attacks - 1,000,000 [... worth noting that this was the FIRST time in history that mass-scaled attacks were conducted on "innocent" civilians; well, since the Genii was let out of the bottle, now it is ACCEPTED oh, ho hum, as part of all out warfare; VERY odd notion, contra-opposed by EVERY single religious tradition] United States, Poland and Austria - 300,000 killed for each Britain & France - 400,000 killed for each Russia - 7.5 million soldiers killed About 10 million civilians killed Grand total? ~17 million soldiers killed ~18 million "civilians" killed Yep, some somebody should have got out Them pre-emptive "long knives" Oh, 'round about summer of 1939. A hard-learned lesson for now, and in future. And, So that I won't be accused of advocating Violence, may God forbid, we might say That "knives" come in many sorts and sizes, As for instance - (almost) imaginary ones Shaped like... the kind That Archangel Michael carried around, and etc. [ April 18, 2005, 08:35 AM: Message edited by: Desert Dave ]

LOL, fine advice vveedd! You cool. We cool. Chilling-out is usually better by far Than getting all hot & wrought. :cool: [... unless you need some X-treme speed so to over-take that fender-flamed '63 'Vette that just nitro-fired past you (in an eco-friendly Minor Mini) going 120 MPH + ]

Nope, vveedd, it ain't... much. But, It's the way - the West invests. You get some thing cool, :cool: And then a bunch Will huddle and wonder? HOW? To "capitalize" on a hot market? :confused: Then aggregate and engage in "group think," And viola! Another! worthless dreg of dross! You want to see some thing so creative It'll take your very first breath away? Put a "schizophrenic" (... well, so designated by the "official" controllers, them... Psycho-illogic flunkies) In a large room with clean, white Washed walls, And hand him a box of plain old... Crayons, And give 'im a day or two, And then! You'll see some thing That even van Gogh would admire. :cool: Or, A new! game that would allow you To get from - Black Hills, S Dakota, Clear out to that hidden grotto On the dark side of Alpha Centauri, IF only! You'd roll out... double-ought "9's" On yer 6-sided dice. IOW, The finest creations oft Arrive from out of... commonly Mistrusted, if not Despised - minds. How does this relate to WW-2 you ask? Well, one of the major reasons GErmany lost the war, and, Why - ANY Nation begins to Spoil and fester and degenerate (... examples abound, even today, just look around you), Them strutting dunce Nazis ran off, or Incarcerated or murdered MOST of their creative And supposed... "crazy" folks. Mostly, The West got great benefit. [... then, the question you gotta ask, as is very appropriate - just now, Why? did the everyday ordinary Volk think that Hitler & his cronies were... "sane enough" to be allowed ANY power?] [ April 17, 2005, 09:01 AM: Message edited by: Desert Dave ]