Desert Dave

I would go for the adjacent hex spotting. Or at least, spotting reduced by one across the board. This seems like a very good idea that could be implemented sooner rather than later. Until we get a larger map, this is a very problematical area. Many excellent suggestions along the way, and I have long campaigned for a more detailed Battle of the Atlantic, since this was vital -- CRITICAL to Britain's war effort. So. Reduce spotting range, and I would also argue for less damage to subs by Air Fleets and Strat Bombers. It just wasn't that easy to spot and search out and destroy U-boats, given the typically wild North Atlantic weather and the extremely weak Allied ASW in the early years.

Have these mods been updated yet? Which of the many great mods can we still use? JMB -- do your excellent unit icons need to be updated or somehow altered to fit the new schematic? Inquiring minds need to know!

Quite interesting analysis of Germany's apparent and collective "personality traits." The first sentence in the above statement sounds very much like some of the commentary provided by the "Beat" writers of the late '40s and 1950s. I could just as easily imagine Kerouac or Ginsberg saying exactly that about the truly normalized and dutiful Americans of the time. Empirical Sociology is fairly easy to do, especially for a past time (as opposed to "instant analyses" of the present) but individual traits which somehow are supposed to "add up" to a whole nation's psyche are not so easy. Given that Germany was in a terrible economic crisis during most of the years 1920 to 1939 (... early on, a wheelbarrow of Deutschmarks required just to purchase a loaf of bread), there weren't many places for young men to go, so to allow an outlet for youthful exuberance. As we suspect, every group of every time and place needed some outlet, or cathartic purge for the "baser emotions." In ancient Greece they had the Dionysus cult; now we have football and such watered down role-reversal rites as Halloween. In any event Jung's "Shadow side" is ever just below the "normal" surface... of EACH of us. Freud wrote a book entitled Civilization and Its Discontents wherein he worried that we were sacrificing instinctual and innate impulses at the altar of conventional, normalized life. Hence, the many so-called "neuroses." Your assessment could just as easily apply to any of many "imperialistic" nations of this era, with each government utilizing a unique appeal to the natural chauvanism, or In-group thinking -- Us versus Them, of its Folk. It could apply to Israel's military service for ALL able-bodied citizens, now. Studies have shown that -- BY FAR -- the greatest cohesive factor in war-time is the peer pressure. Not only fighting for one's own survival, but for the fox-hole buddy. Also, Zambrano in his famous "prisoners and guards" Stanford Univ study discovered to what extent ANY (... in this case, normal American college students, circa late 60s) individual would go if merely TOLD by an authority figure to exercise strict, even abusive tactics against an... OTHER. Other experiments indicate that everyday, whistle-the-day-away Americans WOULD apply electrical shocks to another citizen if TOLD to do so by an "authority" in a white lab coat. They would apply this shock penalty EVEN IF the other was screaming, crying, and begging for relief. Much has been made of the "good German" syndrome, supposing somehow that it is ONLY Germans who would mindlessly follow authoritarian commands. Well, sorry, but ANYBODY -- anywhere, at any time is susceptible to this kind of manipulation. That being said, I would also remind all that behavior modification (aka: brainwashing) is NOT a permanent state of mind. "Extinction" always happens, wherein the learned behavior gradually and eventually dies out. Not to mention the greatly under-rated power of "free will," or even instinctual/intuitive responses. However, Psychology is leery of admitting ANY such autonomous impetus, for fear of being less of a "hard science." To sum up, I would suggest that Germany's exuberant youth weren't really all that different from yesterday's, or today's youth in any given country. The symbols and icons and majesterial trappings may differ, but the essential nature of each human has not changed. We are ALL liable to be seduced by nationalistic, or in-group appeals. I lived in and among Germany's post-war citizens for almost 4 years. They did not strike me as significantly different than the Americans I was familiar with. One needs be careful of applying the broad brush, even allowing for specific "historical" assertions.

It is not only you, but several of us have asked for toggles. But... in an ABSURD universe... :eek: Here, dressed to the nines and whistling a fluted silver tune -- comes the MAGIC -- Toggle Man! Like ol' Johnny Appleseed, he wanders thither & yon, sewing -- little seedling toggles! Here, there, and everywhere! See the toggles sprout and arise majestically! And when they reach the exact right size, you can toggle anything you want! For instance, there is a toggle for the sky: you can order it blue or grey or full of descending Greek gods or rain-clouds! A toggle for the birds: flick the red toggle and you can have robins singing! The blue one brings Jays yammering jam all over the place! But... since there are no natural enemies, the toggles flourish and soon are everywhere, like kudzu! It would take Hercules and Sisyphus and a whole regiment of marines -- just to flick -- the one increasing toggle! And then! bigger than telephone poles, and bigger yet! As big as towering skyscrapers! ... and, somewhere in there... down in that mass of seething toggle, you can here a lone, plaintive moan... "what blooming idiot asked for toggles in the first place!" :eek:

Here is a man -- dgaad is who I am speaking of just now, who it is! surely savors a story. :cool: Ah and thankful that it is so -- the temperature at which books burn is 451 degrees Fahrenheit, and so the oral history needs be preserved. Passed along to equally ardent and faithful adherents, no, no, these tales can NEVER be obliterated. But... it's only a game, you say? :confused: Well, perhaps -- in a deep and rarely-touched and utterly unfathomable portion of his soul... he knows... it is... practice. Yes, but... O... I see, it is -- only practice.

The story I'd like to read -- and I mean the REAL DEAL, brush off the fairy-dust story, is Gorbachev's rise & fall and eventual ouster. To accomplish what he did -- betraying a bitterly entrenched Institutional mind-set by agreeing to the blowing down of the Berlin Wall, surely suggests some other-worldly attributes, as though he saw it all in epiphany or dream -- USSR's bane and salvation as one and the same... the great fauvist bear, curled in a bedraggled ball, chewing at its paws... (... I was fortunate enough, if that is the proper word, to have seen this jagged, barb-infested monstrosity -- this angry, pustular wall! -- the very rusty red gate of Hell itself could never look so offensive! so, idiotly... pitiful... and the ONLY time I felt a similar sort of feeling, a kind of dreadful, atavistic frisson that turned Then & Never inside out and... shriveled, was while standing in Dallas' Dealey Plaza -- 'round about midnight, under a squalid, pale yellow moon, 1966 it was, mea culpa, returning from leave and driving to North Fort Polk, La... ) I am thinking that his final, excruciating decision MUST have taken immense courage and extreme powers of steel-girded nerves. To me, it deserves mention right along with such out-of-time, out-of-bounds almost-avatars as Thoreau, Ghandi, MLK, and any others blessed with a terrific constitution and an ALL-encompassing Universe Vision. At least I see it that way for now. Future documents may alter my opinion. Anyway, I would wonder why a modern-era Russian would not PREFER to hold dear -- such heroic deeds as Mr Gorbachev's?

Yes, you surely would think so. Why it hasn't been done remains a mystery to me as well. But then, we who prefer these kinds of games do not make up enough of an audience, at least in sheer numbers, to interest very many bootstrap entrepeneurs. What are the odds that a dedicated game player would also have requisite computer software design skills -- or, be in a position to influence those who do? Apparently, pretty small, else we'd have seen an SC type game before now. Except, we DO have SC and Hubert, which is more than we had a year ago, yes? :cool: And, this particular game designer seems to be actively interested in our opinions and suggestions, which in itself is astonishing to me. Perhaps it shouldn't be, but I am grateful nonetheless. I enjoyed reading your post; at the least, it suggests a true and lasting passion. It largely reflects my own experience with those prior games, which were flawed but... until now, all we had in the turn-based WW2 genre. Thank the stars (and, Hubert) that the genuine dearth in grand-strategy gaming has, at least for now, come to an end.

Then, you have not had great occasion to meet, and actually know very many Americans. There surely are those who will mistrust Russia since it was the officially designated Creep-Show Ghost for lo these many long and tedious decades. It is commonly understood that a power seeking Group requires its bellicose bogeys and simpering scapegoats. If not Russian, then China; or Iraq; or North Korea; or... O gosh almighty, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. Having come of age in the 50s and 60s, I was, as many of my generation, whipsawed between two mutually opposing views: 1) Red Menace will eat all and sundry, and not bother to apologize for the belch; and 2) Mao and Fidel and Che and others of revolutionary ilk were fighting the good fight for oppressed peoples everywhere. Well, I personally have learned that NEITHER view has much lasting credence, though there are stalwart holdouts in each camp, no doubt. For myself, I as American can associate with and care for whomever I please. This is NEVER a given -- we always, and then once again, need be alert to phony, rights-denying tyrants (these are not so helpful to incipient democracy, as the original Greek ones were), but reckon this my friend -- we will -- O yea indeed, we surely will. You are welcome here there or anywhere, as far as I am concerned. Further, it is my ongoing respect for Russian artists that causes me to feel... ahem -- comradely in the first place. Dostoevsky (there are various spellings, I appreciate, but I prefer this one) is without any doubt one of the 3 greatest writers who ever lived. There has been no dancer as scintillant and imaginative as Nijinsky. The Russian poets are underappreciated and may yet gain more world renown. The ballet has been brilliant. And what makes all this elegant and artistic endeavor possible -- in my mind, the Russian people MUST have large and ALL encompassing souls, else the former Art could not have been accomplished. So. Do not be so awful surprised that Russia (the folks, NOT the provisional governments... and, I by this I mean to say that EVERYTHING is provisional, from the quark in the attic to the steamer trunk in the basement) is held in high esteem by myself, and many others.... I won't speak for a single one of them, that would be reckless and arrogant. Instead I myself being of clear and easy mind, say this: the World has grown infinitely smaller and terribly more vulnerable... it seems to me to be LONG past time to put away tribal defense-mechanisms and knee-jerk chauvanisms and commence the incredibly difficult task of making of our poor old Earth a decently livable place for -- each and every and all, yes?

Absolutely, and no doubt that some of the very best tactical maneuvers have happened under quite dire circumstances. Yet I agree with SeaMonkey in that a "victory" entails more than merely troop or material losses, it involves also the loss of prestige, not only from those you directly command, but from the higher levels of military and political government, not to mention -- how the "yellow press" will treat such a failure. The public knows little of muddy, bloody details; rather, it is usually left with looking at a large map that has pins stuck in it, indicating the grand scheme of things. As is said, all the world loves a Winner, and while I personally do not always see the outcomes of Life's real or metaphorical battles as cut & dried "losses," the painful realization that a valued military objective is no longer controlled tends to overwhem any positive feelings for a "job well done." In game terms, one thing that I try to do is keep a stronger strike force so to accumulate a few victories here and there, which keeps the HQ from dropping too low in experience value. This also tends to encourage some offensive moves so that all will not degenerate into merely a defensive, attrition sort of warfare.

A young Roman soldier saunters into a bar. He approaches the bartender, then raises his right hand and extends the first two fingers in the "V" sign. 4 older veterans at a nearby table see this and one leaps up and yells: "Why you young whippersnapper! These 3 others and me take offense! We have fought the battles brave -- and here you are, coming into OUR bar and insulting us! What are you, some kind of cowardly whelp, making that ridiculous "peace-sign?" The young man is startled, then smiles. "Easy, old friend. I was merely ordering 5 beers. One for me, and a round for you and your legionaire buddies." (... Roman numeral "V" = 5... ) To make a larger point, extensive research (and common sense) has shown that ~90% of communication is body language and facial expression. We each "read" the small but telling clues in another's face or posture. For hundreds of thousands of years, this was the ONLY way to determine where we stood in the grand or tribal scheme of thngs (not discounting mono-syllables or music). On a forum, it is usually impossible, truly, to KNOW what another person is ACTUALLY intending simply by reading a two-dimensional series of words. Sure you can add one of those "smile or anger" faces, but that is pretty vague. Besides, you may exhibit one, when you actually mean to disguise a truer emotion. And, there are those moments when personal stress will cause us to say something other than what we intended. Sometimes it is really hard to "take back" an impolite sentence, especially if we are immediately attacked. So. I propose that if anyone has a "problem" with any another's statement or opinion or APPARENT criticism... just... ask. ASK. What do you mean? Or, would you clarify? Or, could you elaborate? Etc, etc. Does that "V" sign mean that you foolishly refuse to "fit in" with the rest of us war (game) veterans? Or, is it a well meaning and highly personalized -- we each have a unique style, and there is absolutely not a "better" method of expression -- attempt to share information or even be communal? This is no knitting-club O hell no, where we all need to be pretty please polite, and so I will always advocate free thinking, free expression, and freewheeling debate. But, and I remind myself most especially, that it is damn near IMPOSSIBLE to know another person just from scanning a few lines on a computer screen. Sometimes it's true that you can get a good idea of who/what/why that person is, or was, but the old expression still rings true: "Don't criticize someone until you've walked a mile in their moccasins." (... or, legionaire's sandals)

"A3R" was surely superior to "3R" in that strategic warfare was more detailed, and the naval and air battles were more realistic, with better casualty rates. Also, the map was about as perfect as you can get in a WW2 GS board-game. The computer game was a cipher (... plenty of zeros, but designer somehow forgot to include the other half of the equation, the "ones") and was my second greatest disappointment thus far, after realizing that -- Life just wasn't very fair. Got it for a Christmas gift and was never more excited to try something out (... well, after another wonderful thing) BUT could not believe the horrid AI! WAITING FOR USER INPUT!! :eek: Very fair, I think, to now & then refer to a "benchmark game" and admire its gradual improvement. Not as fair to compare it to computer games of the same genre, though. Especially those in the first edition.

Alongside Apocalypse Now, one of the two best war movies ever made -- IMHO, but of course. In both cases, the absolute pschological storm & stress is quite artfully re-created. Watching Das Boot, you cannot help but feel stricken and claustrophobic, as well as somehow pulling for the crew to come through all that depth-charge battering (... nix-nein! this does NOT mean that I wanted the Germans to win the war; yet, the U-boat service WAS the most independent and least likely to salute the political regime... this was clearly established in the movie). <... as a side note, there were a great number of psyche-casualties in WW2, and this is where the brand new category -- PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, first began... previously termed: "shell shock"; nowadays this category of persistent Pysche damage is applied -- at times perhaps too readily, to survivors of almost any personal disaster... particularly for sudden and debilitating disruptions due to accidents such as a train wreck, or natural phenomena, as hurricanes or earthquakes, etc...> As for the proposed tweaks, I truly believe that adjusting "the battle forumula" for effectiveness -- BOTH ways -- between subs and hunters, would make for a tense and exciting game. Even if it requires a separate category on the unit strength board. Sub attack, and sub defense.

And I second that emotion. It would also force strategists to keep a mobile reserve to immediately bolster the threatened front line troops. You would have to plan ahead and try to estimate where the opponent MIGHT launch that counter-offensive. If someone tries to get by with merely the one thin red line, then they would pay the price in terms of a steady retreat, and losing one critical hex could mean losing a city or resource icon. Let's do it! :cool:

Haven't seen this idea in 6 months on the board, so bravo! for thinking this through so that those of us who really like the Atlantic campaign (as I surely do) might see some changes enacted. Along with North Afrikan campaign this is the one strategic area that could use some immediate help. In the fervent hopes that we will get a patch on sub-war before SC2, here are a few more thoughts (some of which have already been proposed, by myself and others). 1) Increase dive % by 10, and -- BEGIN at 50% against all attacks, naval or air. 2) Reduce BB sonar detection by one-half. I appreciate that the BB unit represents a fleet with SOME anti-sub detection, but NOT to the extent of a DD flotilla deployment with specificly designed doctrine and capabilities. 3) Leave Cruisers as is and eventually create the DD flotilla which will have higher detection. **4) Also have the capability to toggle Royal Navy -- committed to sub chasing or not. If they choose to hunt U-boats, then their attack versus surface ships is reduced accordingly, say by one half. This would represent the complete commitment in terms of ships and over-riding fleet orders. If fully implemented, these changes would allow a "sub-game" within the larger ocean-going game (making up for the smaller ocean hexes), thereby making each encounter somewhat mysterious... which ships are fully loaded for which kind of encounter? It would also force the Allies to reconsider tech strategy and buying plans. Cruisers would be needed, and sonar advised if playing an opponent who will likely deploy the wolfpacks. And best, this would add a new dimension for naval tactics, in that you would have to decide between merchant attack (or defense by the opposing surface ships) and trying to find and damage supply transports or surface fleets. :cool:

This was discussed quite some time ago, and one line of consensus focused on this very idea. Some sort of expenditure required to repair damaged cities -- or NOT -- you could let them wither (someone also proposed a damaged city icon, showing various levels of destruction). In line with other comments, I agree that the damage could occur even if occupied by a unit, and could even be increased slightly so to make the expense of buying the bombers worthwhile. Strategic Bombing per se does need some fixing, but Strategic Bombers in and of themselves are actually quite valuable offensive weapons. Not only for reducing entrenchment levels, which can make a huge difference in casualties to the attacker, and ultimate success in taking the target city, but also in anti-ship warfare (posited to be naval torpedo types, since there are not many differentiated units). However, there remains great and ongoing debate as to whether Allied bombing actually made a lot of difference in the outcome of WW2. I am ambivalent about this topic, and will leave it to others to supply so called "historical facts." My feeling is that Strat Bombing shouldn't be a DECISIVE factor in this or any WW2 game.

Gee Hank, wherever did this "rule the nest" jive come from? I know most of the old-timers, so called, and they are just like everybody else, yes? Someone made a good point however. Merely because you are new on the forum doesn't mean that you also do not have great & grand gaming experience, and a lot to offer in any discussion. Besides, it is not for each member to act as though they are providing object lessons for all the others. If the monitors object to something they will take care of it. If someone objects to a SPECIFIC part of a post, then let them stand up and say so, with supporting quotes, and not hide behind the skirts of generalities. As for CvM, hey, he was being a bit linguistic precocious, but meant well. I'd reckon that sometimes folks just take things a bit too seriously.

O say sogard, sure there is -- those who disguise their whine in the sunshine sublime!

I shall not encumber you with such cautionary tales as: History is written by the winners, nor with a frivolous-serious rejoinder, such as: How many teeny tiny misperceptions does it take to make just ONE un-trustworthy fact? However, I agree that there are certain historical references that I trust over and beyond others, which implies that somewhere inside me there is a s**t-detector (... as Hemingway claimed to be blessed with) that is finely discriminating, and, presumably this is true for you as well. But each and every day that I am eye-blinking alive, I read of some prior research, theory, tract, tome, or Gadzooks! phenomenon that is NOW determined defunct. Or anyway is modified in some new fangled fashion. :eek: Given that, I am conceding that there can be a more trustworthy STORY (... become common parlance, become myth, become legend, and now epic or ode told by Meistersingers and Troubadours in a future Golden Age) and there can be more rousing, or poetic or fanciful versions, as you darn well please. I am troubled that close-as-we-can-get History is "dallied with" everyday in every way, most especially in Hollywood and usually for the sake of establishing power-grabbing Ideologies -- left right and center stage. And so, mea culpa, you are right to expose my weak flank, and I hereby enthusiastically encourage: Everyone! Read! Read History. And Philosophy. And Anthropology. And old and faithful religious psalms & songs and encomiums. But, please I implore -- do not imagine that Mass Media Inc is telling it like it is. It ain't. Not a prayer.

Sure it was so! since they much preferred down home harmony & grits in Peach Blossom, Georgia than bitter-root and scum out of the witching pots out in The Gulag, ya?

Ah so, and not to mention, 1) The Heisenberg Effect, wherein the viewer changes the thing being viewed. There is no such thing as a world unfolding beneath a Bell Jar (... in a vacuum). 2) Reconstructed Memory: Vast amounts of research (but of course! -- itself! suspect) have suggested as possibility that anyone -- being interviewed or bewaxing autobiographical, does not exactly, or even closely remember -- even very recent events. To test the latter, tell yourself what happened yesterday between 3:30 and 4:00 PM. Tell it again next week. And again next month (... you are writing this down on separate papers, not reviewed) and finally, 3 months from now. Take a good long look at those papers, arranged side by side. There are cultural accomodations (fitting in, or faux fauve, out). There are narcissistic enhancements. There are mistakes of form, focus, fact. There are legends, myths, heroic ideals that inter-weave in the gullible mind, subconscious mostly. There is not -- History. There is just... story-telling, as we ALL are doing now, and -- at first only an oral tradition... BUT certainly NOT more factual simply because the story has been bound between fancy covers and harumph, ahem, adjudged scholarly by those who will just as easily be fooled by such confounding factors as -- Heisenberg and Reconstructed Memory -- as will you and I.

Very odd to me when a self-annointed group decides what is relevant, and what is acceptable, and what is righteous and what is fair or foul. In America we have had and always will have -- some great and never! diminishing difficulty with these kinds of folks. Personally, I do not find this forum "vicious" in the least; to the contrary, it can, and has been quite stimulating. Toughen up the stoic soul, my friend. My experience tells me that those who moan about "whiners" are often trying to dominate or otherwise manipulate the conversation, making of it a charmless soliloquy. Heark to this fellows & femmes: if I were a game designer I would THRILL to hear all of these comments and suggestions... somewhere in there is that flash!! of alchemical fire!! which will make the next version of SC a veritable work of genius... :cool:

Well, there is actually no way to know what Hubert's inspiration is, or was, or will be, unless he tells us. Even then, creators tend to the mythic and marvelous -- as devout or loutish or simply impish as Frank Lloyd Wright was once, yes? We each may speculate, and I have some ideas of my own; however, Western pop-culture provides nearly infinite images & icons, harmless Warholian or no, and so let's then suppose that Hubert didn't mimic any single one or two or none nor many, but drew upon the whole handsome and awfully garish panopticon, yes?

Because everyone would then focus deliberate attention on wherever the black gold is glittering-gushing! (... hmmm, as... now) and there would be ad hoc, helter-skelter strategies in these very FEW areas, yes? Britain would be bereft since Venezualian oil is not available (... may be in SC2?) unless you provide provisions where Russian & USA might ship it over seas. But, then you'd have to make the oceans a little larger for a more realistic U-boat V.S. Convoys campaign. And, no way to disperse known 1940-era oil fields over a wide enough area, as with Civ-type games. So. Though an interesting idea, it seems there are too many obstacles to overcome just now.

Yet another thoughtful suggestion by -- Mr Bill! . Keeping some sort of proportion or ratio seems a simple yet effective solution for -- it's just TOO MUCH -- what the OTHER guy's got! This would allow larger armies with momemtum to expand their Air and Armor and would also prevent them from overloading on these kinds of units. They would still be offensive, but a more realistic offensive. How would the prevention mechanism work? Presumably the computer would know, and grey out selections which are ineligible. Something along the lines of a reasonable % based on historical norms AND (+/-) for research accomplishment. Sounds good to me. :cool:

Wondering is a fabulous adventure, and so too is mindless banter, and surmising and supposing and juxtaposing and also counting sheep jumping over a meadow rail -- backwards, when it is you are trying to sleep. Everyone! should indulge in it often, else we would yet be slogging about in primaevel bogs. As for toes and trodding-on or toting up those, no need to apologize -- each CHOOSES their own footwear, and some will lark about in Jesus sandals, and some will stride forth briskly in jump-boots, and some will kick the day away in high-top tennies, and, some will trip the light fantastic while wearing scintillant slippers with bells on the toes! And some have long toes, and some have short ones, and, some are bent and some are classicly composed, and well, It doesn't much matter what you change in SC, because whatever it is WILL end up someway altering the play balance. Which is why Hubert is very slow and very careful about changing anything. It is a daunting task, no doubt. As is -- selecting which particular footwear -- or going about without! -- fits the foot the sublimely finest.