SeaMonkey

Hubert...the extent of your integrity and customer service is an example of the bygone days of honor and pride in your product. Thanks

I like your drift dhucul, glad to hear that perhaps....a loosely used term.....Hubert is considering something akin to your post. History is profuse with examples of belligerents becoming allied or neutral, agreeing to cease-fires/treaties at moments where their huevos need to extracted from the fire. The same can be said with allies that later have falling outs to the extreme of "ultimate diplomacy"...warfare. Look at present day feuds with Hamas/Hezbollah vs Israel, recently the US and Sadam, OBL and the CIA, and on and on. Will it ever end? So...SC needs the flexibility if we're to stray from the Blashy Syndrome of only historically defined transgressions. Its necessary to examine the full extent of "what ifs" and guarantees longevity for SC. "We want the world and we want it ......NOWWWWW!",,,,J.Morrison, the Doors (ehh??/JJR)

Thanks Scott..I feel much better now....I do get a little carried away at times, close to becoming unhinged...but I've got my meds now. You know this happens everytime....I play the Nazis.:mad: Well let that be a lesson to your attentiveness to detail Scott, the fact that I only found one mistake.....err...the other about the Zuikaku being in the build Q and not with the Kido Butai. Did I fail to mention that?

Scott ...are you referring to my ever present hypocritical position? Moi? How dare you point out my human frailties! I thought this was the age of understanding? Of humility,..and compassion..economic bail outs. We have to subsidize bad behavior, so we contribute to dishonesty and so enable criminality......ohhh the humanity!!! OK scott you got me, I don't want to be a part of all that CRAP!!!! in the above paragraph. I promise to try to do better.........friends???:confused:

Transparency....=.. I'll telegraph my moves, if I really knew what I was doing. To tell you the truth, the campaign is a little confusing about the defined belligerents, but the war map helps with the diplomatic orientations. Yeah, I noticed that too, maybe Japan will have better flexibility without being embroiled in China from the start. Its obviously not an historical start.... No problem. I'm trying to find my way....the hallway is dark...no light..after this first turn, this will be a different playing SC. OK..... Der Fuehrer... has summoned me, Feld Marshal Schneider, to begin immediate hostilities leading to the collapse and occupation of Poland. General Bock in command of Army Group North has overrun Poznan with a brilliant envelopment by the 4th Army in conjunction with the treacherous ruse of the Brandenbergers. 2nd Panzer group has surrounded and reduced the Lodz garrison and abteilung patrols are in sight of Warsaw. 3rd Army sealed off Pomorze and the Luftwaffe was based forward for future strikes on Warsaw. Meanwhile Rundstedt's Army Group South ran into a minor setback in attacking Krakow, casualties were acceptable and the necessary provisions(infiltration of XXII Gebrigs w/Slovak AT support)were positioned for a seige if the garrison fails to surrender. Spearheads of both 1st & 3rd Panzer groups have threatened the Polish HQ of General Stachiewicz, but were unable to attack the Polish airfields as the Luftwaffe failed to neutralize them with a first strike, there could be trouble if the ME 109s supporting are unable to provide aircover.:eek: I have assured Der Fuehrer, Poland will surrender in the next week's actions as we consolidate our gains. Elsewhere, Wehrmacht forces eye their French counterparts across the Alsace-Lorraine fortifications in a sitzkrieg deployment. Il Duce has been notified of impending operations directed at the French of which he should consider joining in. The Japanese have been practicing their Bushido code so that they won't crack under USN interrogations. All is well...OMMMMM....

" I am all for concrete historical possibilities... what if type possibilities, no." I guess you are the decider of reality, tangibles and intangibles, please Blashy, I would like a copy of your crystal ball. And of course everyone has an opinion of what is intolerable or not, we all have our thresholds. So you prefer the alternatives.......be careful what you wish for! Sorry there is no perfect World only choices (sometimes that's the lesser of the evils).:cool: Anyway Ludi and Colin have a decent handle on the the possibilities existing in the Asian sphere, IMO. As for the ETO, I believe you need to start earlier, before the political alignments were established by Germany's aggression. In this context there is a greater degree of variability and then of course things will play out quite differently.....sorry again Blashy. If you approach the diplomatic arena of WW2 with hindsight you'll be hopelessly entrenched into its tunnel vision of unfolding, you've got to allow for Murphy's Law...unless...you're in denial. No one here like that....I know! ;-)

Way to go Nupremal! Excellent use of loop arrows to navigate the map, wonderful focus on the regions of WW2 interest. Happycat and I will be starting a game this evening......anyone interested in seeing a transparent AAR?

Blashy, don't so blatantly show your misinformed side, the USA was not at all comfortable with the existance of the British Empire. Greed.....??? American greed? I think your getting a bit mixed up with current events. Churchill could have been easily replaced with a "No Confidence" vote from Parliament, especially after a number of UK failings on the battlefield ...ala North Africa....Greece....the Balkans. There is plenty of basis for decision events, don't forget the inhumanity going on in China. The world campaign is where its at.....PTO is just a diversion...a test of new mechanics.:cool: We need more trials, more tests, more modding....Nupremal's mod looks like a good starting point......all aboard???

Colin has got it, doesn't seem to be much variation for Z, not to take anything away from Bill, he did a good job. But its China first, and then roll up and defend against the Hell that follows, OK for an AI game a few times, but not much fun for H to H. We need Global SC, work hard you Betas!

Just looked at Nupremal World campaign and I must say it begs to be played. So....a very patient opponent would seem the order of the day. I warn you, sometimes.... no.... most times my play can be slow, but I won't quit. I don't look at the scripts, I like to wing it, face the unknown without any prior knowledge other than the experience of the mechanics. Don't care which side. Nupremal says to use the hard build limits and of course we must have FoW, other than that, I'm open to suggestions. You are challenged Sir! Pick your weapons! bradtap@aol

Hmmm, you are using the war map to select(their flag) a DoW on them and then confirming it when prompted "Do you want to DoW Denmark"?

If you want a chance, then don't play on the expert+2 setting as Japan, I've been drummed like a stepchild 3 times. I surrender!:eek:

Nupremal, I'll have some time in the next couple of days, email me the campaign and I'll fire it up, bradtap@aol.com. How do you want me to play it? Hotseat against myself or one side against the AI?

You got my email addresses, send it on when you're ready for some additional input. Looking forward to the test.

Ditto what scotts said Bill. I just finished your Z campaign with the "stalemate" message and I must say, for an AI game it was the best ever although I'm sure a human opponent would have cleaned my clock. I thought the game captured a lot of essence of the Pacific WW2 theater. One gamey aspect I did take advantage of was when faced with Allied landings I usually degraded their strength down to 4 or less and leave them in place. Without supply or support they were no real threat and they kept other stronger, new amphibs from landing. I was thinking the smart thing would have been to disband them and then land the new amphibs, but the AI didn't follow through. Not sure if this can be addressed but I thought I would reveal such blatant abuse of the system I embarked upon. Just upgraded with the new patches and I'm wondering...what's next? Been thinking about an H to H game or possibly testing someones custom world campaign or scotts' Midway, but maybe there's another challenging AI campaign in the scenario folder? Anyone got suggestions??? Maybe a Z test against myself playing both sides, the Allies trying for the island evading big push directly at Japan, and the Japs going for an island defense strategy while containing the Asian belligerents, not going for the China knockout. Hmmmm???

I understand Mithel. To tell you from my experience as a modder way back in the SC1 days there are many idiosyncracies involved under the hood in the editor. Hubert has given us the tools to do things that probably he didn't even fathom at the moment of creation with the introduction and evolution of the SC2 editor. That makes experimentation and dedication paramount to getting a feel for the game features and like I did, I suggest you set up different models and try things out. Yes its time consuming, but its a lot a fun especially when you unfold your creation to all these players that appreciate it. We will all try to help you, but its a pretty complicated endeavor. Wishing you all the best and good luck with your customizations.

Excellent idea Kman, the combining of the AA, AT, Art into a single unit as an attached asset has lots of possibilities. You could still leave it as a stand alone counter and just select the mode from the menu you wish to initiate. Research could likewise be applicable to the selected mode and in this way each player can customize their "asset" unit. Remember I did suggest a reduction in the effectiveness of strength losses due to TAC attacks to a realistic loss of mobility, morale, supply and subsequent efficiency where land units could more easily remove them. A good point on the fighter intercept quandary Bill, but it seems to me our programmer could code the "auto" mode for just one intercept, and the "intercept" selection designates the unit sorties until a certain strength value, say 5(?), where the fighters would discontinue the action. The basic idea here is to create a situation, applicable to Global SC also, where land based air is more effective vs island garrisons(in a less numerous circumstance then CVs) and deadly to naval units in a likewise capacity. I'm not advocating the replacement of CVs, just more parity where 4 CVs would equal one TAC unit. This makes the islands more attractive to basing.

I believe an IC is for enhanced supply and MPP production and yes you can customize to a certain extent all urban representations.

No to Baron's inquiry. Mithel, you want to "know for sure"???? Excuse me...??? There is also a + - 1 combat variable. You do realize that to represent a real world simulation of combat, you'll never "know for sure", Murphy's Law is always in effect. Just do what I do and most other SC players, use the prediction numbers at the top of the map screen and know that they are imprecise. If you'll examine the combat target values and get a handle on target type definitions you'll gain an intuitive ability at prediction, but you'll never "know for sure".

Well, as I remember from the CAGs in the Midway battle, take the Enterprise for instance, Torpedo 6 has about 15 TBDs and Bombing 6 had about 40 SBDs, so say about 55 attack aircraft and another 30 fighters in Fighting 6. If each CV counter is 2 carriers, then you have approximately 170 aircraft of which 110 are attack types. Japanese carriers didn't have the capacity to operate as many planes as USN CVs, so maybe 90 for them of the attack variety. I would expect a TAC or SAC group would be about a couple hundred, equal to four carriers' attack groups and a land based fighter counter, maybe 6 carrier compliments of fighter types. I'm not at home currently or I could confirm that, but still you see where I'm going how a single island group(the Marshalls for example) with numerous airfields could support hundreds of aircraft making them comparable to 8 to 10 CVs. You come close to one of these island groups and they're going to put a hurting on you, see how important they can be? CVs are much too valuable to risk, better to use land based to soften them up?

Thanks scotts, you know this brings up an interesting thought. Since we can choose different modes for the CAGs, wouldn't it be nice to get back to our old SC AFs? There would only be a need for a single air counter, like an airwing, luftflotte, fleigerkorps, etc. You would choose its mode, fighter, TAC, or SAC and of course each selection would be subject to enhancement through research. Advanced Air for fighters, Ground Attack for TAC, and Heavy Bombers for SAC. The Long Range option would be included automatically in costs and the range feature upon each advancement in tech level, no need to actually select it. This would help with air deployments vs land units usage of map tiles and be a great addition for Global SC.

I'm curious Mithel, in an H to H game (I'm of the same sentiment, AI doesn't count), how long do you think it should take the players to finish a game? Keep in mind that the next installment of SC will be global.

Bill, since OpZ is your baby, if I did a redesign of the Pacific, leaving Asia and the immediate waters alone, would there need to be a lot of script adjustments for position changes of the islands? And....what are your thoughts at reducing the CAGs to a more effective single naval strike vs the current double strike capability(is this possible in the editor)? Mainly I'm thinking that TAC and Fighter landbased groups would get the double strikes with a subsequent reduction in their build limits, ie. fewer units available. Did you do any experimentation with a change like this?

That's a generalization at best, there are a lot of modifiers, based on supply, readiness, experience, morale, terrain, HQ support/experience.

Mithel you understand that every layer of complexity is a detriment to AI play? Also, the lack of micro-management is what makes SC so attractive to a lot of people, myself included. If you've played SC1, the original, then you'll realize how far the design has come. Its very important to go slowly and assess how each change enables a more engrossing game without the addition of tedious mechanics.