Gavrok

With the possible advent of SC2 thought I'd throw this thread up again. Any other new games out there capturing the SC flavour to be recommended. Thanks all G

I've had Germans and allies once under the old rules. Had the germans in the latest scenario. Will check the board start of next week but having major hassles on the house front with one side just pulling out. Will have a better idea next week as to my commitments Bye G

Hi Jersey Thanks for your efforts hereMust admit that I'm not in a hurry though. Probably need a break from SC and it comes at a good time. In the midst of planning a house move during the next month and any next round would suffer as a consequence. Will continue to view the site for updates, and will commence battle as needed, if perhaps a little sporadically Thanks for a great scenario G

Ah Terry is being very modest I did get off to a blinder.. with Terry getting out of stride when he lost a fighter unnecessarily in the battle for France (thought 5 strength wouldn't intercept) However I have now put my foot in it somewhat by dallying for a while and not keeping the pressure on post-France. I have now proceeded to throw the entire Italian navy away disastrously for the loss of 2 allied fighters. Brits are in a very strong position in North Africa and have been able to build up forces. Personally would put the game in the balance with slight allied! advantage----game on but slowly!

I decided on one turn as I thought it would be easy to manage in the game system. The best thing about sc is the lack of micromanagement. Also the USA has to be exempt under some context otherwise |Germany would always do a sealion and USA could not land in Europe. The option of very expensive amphibious units penalises USA even more as it does have limited resources in this game The above idea would stop floating amphibious units strolling about for months and give a modicum of reality without affecting gameplay. Ports would also become of a higher strategic value. Agree that in reality just a few hexed would be more realistic but would make it too easy to defend then

This reminds me of a suggestion made earlier re imporovements Transports should only be able to invade within 1 turns rage of ports......if beyond that then they must land in a friendly port/ land.......with the exception of US troop. This would limit the scope for naval invasions and put more thought into defending and capturing key ports as springboards

JJ Got the revised scenario...thanks for all the effort here. Must admit that I just opened up the initial scenario sent and just done my turn and sent off. Perhaps it was because i was the guys in grey that I didnt think the French were overstrong.......personally I think there are too many French.......and Brits and Yanks......and whilst I'm at it someone has overestimated the red army. As for the French army location everyone knows it started in North Africa and the Maginot did not exist......but these are the penalties I must work under for reclaiming parts of Poland giving away in 1918 And since JJ has not reduced these allied forces I guess it falls upon me to do the job! Good luck all, and thanks JJ/ Disorder for the tournament effort.

Think the Xediel - Gavrok game will be in for the Terif treatment as well. Be curious to see his view on this as it has petered out in late 1940.....bit of an early point to adjudicate on G

poots there should be a time limit so you dont get too overwhelming a force. Knowing there is a limit means you must act within it's constraints. Think there should be a time limit in tcpip.......for the time it takes to do each turn......lets hurry everyone up,,including me

I think the bigger risk is me missing glaring opportunities rather than spectators 'helpfully' pointing these out. The way I see it is as follows; 1) people are too generous to critically analyse my errors 2) If there are people out there like that I plan to overload them with the wonderful tactic of committing so many error they'll get rsi with all the typing 3) forthcoming opponents will underestimate me and be very generous in the bidding phase. Therefore there is no issue letting all view these battles despite the posibble erros I mai mace.

No problem with the posting of turns if it's possible.....as long as any spectators dont helpfully point out the glaring opportunities missed by me

PS Xediel quoted "i can see the italians got something cooking in the background.. trying to take tobruk but still no luck" Well I can honestly say Mussolini couldn't cook ready made pasta...and the only thing being cooked is Italian bums on sand as they haven't got off their a**es and done anything. Any thoughts on Italian plans welcome....however I think we'll just sit in harbour for another couple of months.......or 5 years!

Gavrok-Xediel game After a regroup the Germans launched forward again into France. 2 allied armies died alongside 2 damaged aircraft. Whilst being greedy and conserving other air for other tasks Luftwaffe lauched a str 2 axis biplane fighter at a 1 str corp and lost it! Allied counter attack destroyed a panzer and brought front line army strength down to 50%. However this reduced allied effectiveness and 4 armies/corps died subsequently. 2 very weakened German armies now out on a limb but hopefully there are not enough allies to eliminate them. France has chewed up a lot more resources than I've ever seen. Didn't realise I can now buy rather nice Australian wine instead of the French plonk!

2 non-paranoid reasons may be responsible for this. 1) Zipping and unzipping into locations then copying into sc 2) renaming files I have noted this phenomenom in some of my saved files, however believe it is due to one of the 2 above. This is all guesswork of course. There's no point worrying about things like that as theres nothing that can be done. TCPIP is the preferred solution but not always possible. Like Laser squad nemesis whereby both players send moves to a server. Once both e-mails received the turn is processed. The only other solution is as per CMBB but that ends up slowing the process down even more. Enjoy the game, note that luck can be uneven in the short term, and remember that they're not all after you. I always recognise unusual luck when I'm suspicous however maybe it's only because I am being suspicous, and not noticing the opponents bad luck as well.

Quck summary of the Gavrok (Axis)- Xediel game Turn 1 invasion of Poland, and slow slogging match into Greece commenced. The RN begain pounding on Italian positions at Tobruk Turn 2 saw the war expand as Brussels, and Denmark fell to the blitzkrieg. Front line Greek troops remained unaffected however a surprise Italian corps landed behind the Greek lines to take elastic bands out of the French planes. The allies responded by destroying german corps in Belgium. Turn 3/4 Greece remains at standstill as the Italians batter themselves on the solid Spartans. An Italian sub strays too far out and is killed by Med RN. A AeroItalie counterattack sinks a RN battleship at a cost of 1 kamikaze fighter. Meanwhile in the West 1 more French army is lost, however a German panzer and army fall foul of French armour. Expected airsupport did not materialise as the whole Luftwaffe and Strategic rocket/ bomber elements took out 2 carriers, who had earlier provided air support. Poland realises the futility of it all and sides with axis. Turn 5 - All German air grounded for whole period to celebrate loss of carriers. Good time to have holiday since they all had to wait for their planes to be rebuilt. Without aircover the German army cant get into France and lose another army in equal exchange. Generals already looking at manpower shortage as Luftwaffe took them all! Useless scientists are now being reeducated to be more useful members of society....front line trench warfare in France or iventions...their choice in a pseudo-democratic society!

To make matters more complicated the carrier that was bombed had earlier intercepted another axis fighter attack (Str 12) on a ground unit so couldn't intercept again. The carrier was then attacked by another german fighter , and no allies could intercept as they'd already intercepted another battle. Dont think the carrier could intercept this. The coup de grace was delivered by the strategic bomber which I thought got through again without interception. Dont quote me on any of the above but I think that's the jest of it.

I know...fell into the same trap as everyone else...but couldn't resist that web page! However back on trap think it's great with the random nature re Poland. Would prefer unit placement on war declaration however this goes some ways to throwing in an unplanned element, Wish France 40 had the same sort of random feature whereby it didn't surrender immediately upon loss of Paris but carried on the fight with the (high) chance of surrendering each turn. This would reenact history whereby France DID continue to fight ferociously in the south of France, after all looked lost. The French units earned great respect from their German counterparts here. This would also stop the current gamey French dash across the channel as it is just when Paris falls that often German units are weak, overstretched and susceptivle to counterattack. The French would have a choice to flee or have a last gasp attack. Would remove a comfort zone from the Germans Hope thats back on track G

Come on all , lets get back on topic. None of this old Europe/ New world stuff please. The French are great, but their leader just put them into a corner with some bad diplomacy. The Americans are OK too, but again have some dodgy leaders currently (Paul W. whatever!). Us Brits aren't too bad either you know, but unlike other leaders ours was actually stupid enough to believe in what he was doing, and is now in a fine mess We sek him here, we seek hime there, where is the scarlet WMD? PS The following web site is great http://www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ or go to google uk and type weapons of mass destruction then say I'm feeling lucky. Particuliarly like where the 'bomb' icon takes you. Now lets get back to games.....politics suck these days G

Come on everyone. This aar is very interesting......but who's ripped out the ending? Curious for resolution due to the terms and limits agreed Gavrok

Looks interesting.. 3 questions on this 1) how long does a game take 2) does it ebb and flow...and feel like a realistic East Front 3)how good's the solitaire play. Would be good to know since I may have to import this. Thanks G

I'm easy re the scenario being used....if we stick with the same one then all and good. Willing to put to vote with absolute majority required however fully expect to use the same scenario. I'm sure that after just one sitting of this we can all wring out a few more surprises on this one. JJ's houserules jumped out at me as those sort of rules that I'd have loved incorporated within the game. Agree that there are always difficulties re houserules and again I'm easy to play without any. My liking for them is based upon real-life thoughts rather than particular game-balancing. Anyway no game can be perfectly balanced......and balance itself will swing depending upon experience levels of the players.

JJ Good house rule suggestions with your above note. Whole-heartedly agree with all of them, and although I think the duscussions above mentioned keeping the tourney the same for the next round I'd prefer to use Panzer's adjusted scenario, if there were to be no house rules. Hope this would give the Axis less time. Waiting to a fresh tournament would take too long ...and I'm sure that by that point there'd be fresh scenarios out there. Give a new element of freshness, and may partially offset the axis steamroller of results.

Rambo I remember that Civil War game.....didnt it have all the generals that could be placed with each army etc.....got totally smashed at it as a) unlucky..... played against a better opponent......c) he was into that period of history and I wasn't (UK based).....well maybe (a) is false. At the time I didnt like the General ratings though as it pretty much decided the contest. Would love to have the time to try it again....or see it on pc.......although my defintion of simple is a bit different from yours! Anyone got any pc suggestions for the Russian Camapaign classic. Gavrok

Good to see a few suggestions out there. Thought Uncommon Valour was a complex game though. I'm really looking for a Russian campaign (as in the AH board wargame)type game, or American civil war (was it called 'The North and South'...or 'The Blue and the Grey' for that easy board war game that had boxes for areas throughout USA), or even Napoleonic game. All these slightly steps up from the beer and pretzels type game....but doesn't have 100+unit types, and a 250 page rule book. Playable in 4-10hrs with the SC level of detail...any further suggestions welcome......or how do we hassle developers? Gavrok (too old and busy to devote life solely to working out games now.......unfortunately...or fortunately according to the missus)

Hope this isn't too off topic....but SC really hits the nail on the head with a great balance between playability and complexity. I always view the suggestions re SC2/ new patches with a little trepidation as I dont want SC2 to go down the 'detailed' operational route...eg. parachute divisions. There are a few enhancements such as ; Russian winter, fighter/tank balance/ amphibious range restrictions close to owned ports, and time lags in building units.....but I always temper these wish lists in line with the current playability of the existing game. Getting back on the subject however I just found an old Avalon Hill game called Russian Campaign which similarly gets the balance spot on, a bit like 'The North and the South' american civil war board game. I wonder if there are any other games of this nature out there for the humble pc that fellow sc devotees would willingly recommend........at least until SC2 comes out. I'm thinking of the same ilk as those listed above.....with strategy, playability, and not at-all time-consuming as part of the recipe. I'm sure this is the game type that would appeal to myself......those old wargamers who no longer have the time or brain-power to deal with every last detail. Look forward to any suggestions Gavrok