Bruce70

Thanks for clearing that up. I understand the technical and design reasons for it being the way it is. "I just could not visualize why two people would want to participate in a networked game with both of them using the same computer" Neither can I, but thats not quite what I mean. An example would be a LAN session where 4 people bring along a computer and everyone wants to play. A scenario would be chosen and all 4 people would decide how the umpire would be set up (time limit, FOW etc) and after that the umpire would do nothing for the rest of the game. This would allow all 4 people to play an active role. When time and computers are limited its not going to be easy to find someone who wants to be umpire. If you can set up a game with no umpire then its not a problem (except for the 2 player limit) Mostly I will only be playing 2 player games anyway so it's not a big problem.

Here's an incredibly gamey tactic that may or may not work. (I haven't tried it because I have never done badly enough to need to) It would be used in a situation like the Allies defending against Sea Lion or some similar situation. What you do is put most of your units in transports and position them just out of range of the German air fleets on the British coast. Then you let Germany invade southern England and waste their surprise bonus on nothing except maybe a corps in London. Then when its your turn you land your troops and use their surprise bonus (I assume they will get one but I could be wrong) against the German troops that have already taken damage from their landing. You lose your entrenchment bonus and probably only a couple of units will be able to attack but, just maybe, it might work. Hopefully it isn't a successful tactic either currently or in the final version but its something that should be checked I think. Maybe I'll play a hotseat game with myself (hmmm that sounds bad doesn't it?) tonight to check it.

I suspect you would need a HQ to take Iraq (or 3 German tank units ). The only way quick/easy victories have been achieved with the demo is by utilizing(abusing?) the surprise attack feature (in Italy, Sweden, Denmark, the Baltic states and to a lesser extent Norway and probably others that I have not thought of). You can't do that for Iraq and so you need either overwhelming force (3 tank units for example) and take it in 1 turn or a HQ unit so you have enough supply to wear it down.

Is it a strict requirement that the host application be run on a dedicated computer? Could the umpire and one player share one computer. As I understand it the umpire only does something between turns so could you just switch between app's on one computer to let the umpire do his stuff and then switch back so that the player can make his turn? I am asking this question more out of curiosity than any perceived need - it would just allow one extra player for a given number of computers. I have not played TacOps (Putting off buying it until TacOps 4 is available) and I don't have a solid understanding of the game mechanics, which is why I am probably asking a dumb question.

I agree with you on that point but I think an astute German player will be able to take advantage of your tactic. It might make some sense to reduce the strength of Vichy France's units if they were previously removed. Or perhaps the units to garrison Vichy could be taken from active French units before any decision/calculation concerning free-French armies/navies. This would seem to make sense but it is not important to me since I don't think you can gain much from this tactic anyway. You are simply wasting MPPs transporting units (that will be of little value later in the game) instead of using the MPPs to reinforce the front line. The only time I remove the garrison from Algiers, for example, is when I am moving it to the front line.

Thankyou for your reply, I was a little worried about that. Silly of me really. Could somebody please tell me if the "Umpire" and "Client" can be run on the same computer in the case where there are more than two players?

As I said, it was successful once against an inexperienced player who wasn't expecting it, but in general I agree with you. However, if you are playing the Germans against a human player and you assume your opponent wont land British or Canadian units behind the French/German line you will be taking a considerable risk. Once again this is something I would try very rarely, OTOH reinforcing the French line is something that I do quite regularly. Every turn that France can hold is very valuable for a number of reasons. As a minimum I reinforce with the Canadian army even if I don't replace losses in that army. (That is assuming I don't take Norway which is also a good strategy since few German players will waste the time recapturing it I think.)

I personally think that the best way to defeat sea lion is to delay it as long as possible. It takes considerable longer to take France against a human opponent than it does against the computer. In one PBEM game I invaded Denmark and managed to fight Germany to a draw (without losing France). I don't think that would work twice (or against a more experienced player) and I agree that in general it would be foolish to conduct a major operation as the allies early in the war. But IMO withdrawing forces from France is just begging your opponent to conduct sea lion. You will also be giving them a huge leg up in technology since they will be able to spend their points from France several turns earlier.

Is there any way to play a multiplayer game with only two people (and two computers)? ie. Can the "umpire" be computer controlled (or simply do nothing)? And must the umpire be on a separate physical computer or could one computer run both the umpire application and the client application?

Since all of you "mainlanders" can drive to either Melbourne or Sydney, I think it's only fair to have one demo on the mainland and one in Tassie.

I hate having too many rules that are specific to a particular situation or unit. As I'm sure Hubert does. But if I were going to implement a special carrier rule then to keep it as simple as possible it might go something like this: The attack strength of the carrier aircraft is equal to the carrier strength minus 5. The damage inflicted during an air attack by the carrier cannot take the strength of the carrier below 5. Attacks on the carrier are as the same as they are now. ie to sink the carrier you have to attack it but you can render it ineffective without actually attacking it by reducing its strength to 5. Obviously a carrier with strength below 5 could not attack. However I am happy just to have the slight tweak Hubert mentioned.

Yeah, I routinely move the air fleet from Malta to Britain and have had German air fleets in North Africa on many occasions.

If it was a game that started in 1939 there has been ample time for things to turn out quite a bit different to history.

Does anyone else find the 2 US airfleets in France with hardly any support a little odd?

I would not like to see an actual spy unit (or any other small unit for that matter). It raises a whole bunch of issues with stacking for starters. I think it is a good thing that this game has no stacking and I'd like it to stay that way.

I have tried this and have found it hard to get very far (within the time-frame of the demo)although the oil-wells are nice, and I am pretty sure you do get there MPPs even without Alexandria. You can put a lot more pressure of Russia if you attack Turkey (you don't need to take the captial). You can then land troops anywhere along the southern coast of Russia and take all the mines there in a couple of turns. I've only tried this once and used tanks and a HQ when a few corps would have done the job but was very successful anyway. A refined approach would easily see Russia fall in the demo and it is arguably a less gamey approach than the surround Moscow one. Of course since you only need a few corps you could easily combine this with an attack on Moscow. [ July 10, 2002, 09:08 PM: Message edited by: Bruce70 ]

There certainly isn't enough intel in the game ATM IMO. For example the Germans can mass a huge invasion force a couple of hexes off the channel (in France) without the UK having any idea that it's there. But I think I would abstract intel ops a bit more than suggested above. Perhaps there could be a % chance that the location of any unit will be known to the enemy regardless of spotting. This percentage could increase with research up to whatever seems reasonable. You could add a counter-intel tech to reduce the % but it would probably be simpler to use the relative intel tech of both sides to calc the %. So for example, 10% if both at same intel level, 15% for the side with better intel, 5% for the side with worse. BTW I'm talking SC2 here, if you should be working on SC1 (H&BBs) then what are you even doing here! [ July 10, 2002, 08:42 PM: Message edited by: Bruce70 ]

Would it be reasonable for Egypt to revert to being a neutral after the UK falls?

Re: Surprise Attacks As a middle ground you could allow neutral countries to communicate visible troop movements to both sides. So you would be able to see the transports off the coast but not be able to do anything about it. This would at least tell you that your opponent was busy elsewhere and you could start planning a counter attack.