SeaMonkey

Uhhh, No! Come on JP it's Christmas Eve, when all through the house, not a program was stirring, no chance of HoI ever occurring. SC could never be the fiasco HoI is, we've got Hubert and Bill! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

All I can say is it sure is nice to have someone else beat this drum about "pass through" and evasion, of which long have I been an advocate. It would seem that with the new recon ability of SC air units, especially carriers, and a greater disparity in fast and slow naval unit movement capabilities, "the search" naval mechanism should gain greater prominence in future SC editions. And as Bill(pzgndr) reflected upon, the seazones and patrol features of naval/air units assigned to them needs to be hashed out so that they reach a state of auto-control after initial settings by the players. Continue on Mike, I'm firmly entrenched in your encampment!

Right you are Mr. Cater, probably take a couple of years to balance a scenario of this length, so I have a suggestion. Develop SC3 with one appropriate campaign, semi balanced, so that all the new features can be tweaked through its play from the many patrons of the SC series. Make sure this one campaign is thoroughly tested before release so that the potential SCers of the future will have a gauge for what is coming and of course the past releases will define the excellence and commitment of the developers. Obviously SC3 will be the platform for the culmination of Kuni's idea and the developers can slowly expand this with downloadable content(read: revenue stream) that the SC community can balance through normal play and forum feedback. In other words, Kuni's campaign idea will be a Beta upon release and will be exposed to community development with play balancing, content releases and feature tweaking until??????

Here's a website that might give you some ideas, called "From War to War, 1931-1939". I believe it is www.euronet.nl/users/wilfried/ww2/tot-1939.htm. I know of some others if this is what you want.

One other thing about multi-task units, the ability to perform numerous missions should also be based upon the strength, morale, readiness and of course supply status of said unit(s). The players should have the ability to build units at certain strength levels, to not only economize on MPPs, but to also customize them to be task specific. Think of it as a sizing allocation, bigger, stronger units are capable of more tasks, but also have a denser footprint and their evasion characteristics are not as high as a smaller organization that is more agile and able to disperse.

If you want to protect your bombarding naval vessels just be sure they have air support. Fighter intercepts can take a decent toll on attacking planes but with CAGs being able to strike twice the capability to soak off LB air intercepts is skewed. I would much rather see air units able to provide multiple sorties until they reach a minimum strength level set by the owning player in the case of auto intercepts and of course the only limit to the number of attacks is decided on by the phasing player. Just like IRL, if you continue to send your attacking planes out they start to suffer fatigue as well as casualties which will sap their efficiency and morale. Multiple sorties would work well with recon missions where air units could not only disclose enemy locations but also attack in the same turn. Multiple use units will diminish the unit density and provide more flexibility in the limiting deployments that is a characteristic of SC maps and help offset the inability to stack. What does it matter if you attack with 5 units once or one unit five times?

The reason you're probably not getting much reaction is because most of us agree with your variants and there's a lot more we hope will be incorporated into SC3 so that we don't have to resort to these manipulations. You've already brought up one of my pet peeves, which is the disparity between CAGs and LB air groups. One of the big revelations of WW2 was the ability of LB air to trump naval units and islands were a primary projector of this reality, something that SC has not yet been able to capture to the historical degree.

I'm wondering if there should be a special provision for capital ships which sustain a surprise contact with DDs. Normally, DDs would have a tough time closing range to units like CAs and BBs to be effective with their torpedo armaments, but in the case of a night or surprise(inclement weather, smoke screen, narrow waterways) condition shouldn't they have a first shot opportunity at crippling a capital ship TF?

Excellent AAR, I love the personal touch added by both combatants. A great read and thanks Ivanov and Bill, looking forward to the rematch.

I wanted to post an additional consideration to Mike's CA escort suggestion that would simulate a task force configuration. If the escorting vessels were adjacent to the central TF unit(BB, CV, or trans/amphib) the action would continue in echelons where the DDs would intercept first and then the CAs. If the attackers push through the screening vessels, sending the DDs/CAs in retreat much like land units do, then subsequent attacks could finally reach the center of the TF if the attacker possesses greater numbers/firepower.

A well thought out post Mike, some excellent suggestions and very thought provoking, I'll need to re-read this a number of times before I can comment with regards to the AI. One thing I would also like to see is seazones in SC3 with an intraposed hex grid and the ability of naval units to have a movement capability expressed in terms of traversing seazones as well as patrol settings for an occupied seazone. Big Al has some interesting features in BF with his auto-patrol function and of course the evasion settings which you have expanded on. Hubert and Bill, in essence SC is a masterpiece of land combat and the air functions are also well entrenched in reality. If SC needs anything it is an expanded naval concept and if I may be so bold, my suggestion would be to concentrate on this arena for SC3 and only tweak the other features to fit the new naval model. Obviously, Mike should become one of the SC3 beta-testers with emphasis on the naval model and in fact there are many very valuable long term SC players here that have strong suits in the other areas. Perhaps a team leader should be assigned for each model to co-ordinate the evolution of what will be the definitive strategic WW2 game that SC3 will offer.

An unattractive alternative at the best Mike, but I like your thinking "outside the box", unlike Mr. JonS' rigidity. Actually, I'm quite fine with the results delivered by SC bombers, it's the losses they sustain when they attack naval targets that borders on pure fantasy. The conversation escalated as I had hoped to include some possibilities for SC3 and expanding the features for future campaign designers, that was my secondary agenda. So we can lock this thread up unless someone has additional WW2 hypotheses in this arena.

You said it JonS, "weren't organized, trained, or equipped", doesn't mean they couldn't have been, the capability was present. Yes, the powers that be decided that there was a better platform for the role. Problem is in SC, no stacking = limited deployment options, especially islands where in real life fighters, TAC, and bombers, as well as recon elements were all deployed on multiple airfields. IE. an island group had all the air elements. The only way to accomplish that reality, coupled with the "what if" aspects of SC is give the units multiple capabilities, the ability for the the player to customize his military strategy. You can still have differences of specializing, but there should be an overlap of one specie to the other displaying characteristics of all in different degrees of effectiveness. Isn't that kind of how "nature" works?:cool:

Exactly how I have always envisioned the various units in SC, a conglomeration of different platforms joined together to perform certain missions. The tech upgrades are more representative of a greater leaning towards a combined arm approach as you add capabilities to the units. So...my original point, bombers being used through an expansion of capability to better initiate the naval attack. In the beginning success is fleeting, but as the training, doctrine, platforms improve so does the success rate. Be that as it may, but the losses now sustained by bombers at any tech level in the naval attack role is totally ludicrous.

I think it may be awhile, obviously our creation team is still involved with TGW and its expansions, so maybe by 2014 we'll see something. Besides, I have plenty to keep me busy with Gold and its many campaigns. Now if I could just get a decent internet connection, we could get some AARs going with some H vs H action. I'm thinking about cutting down my trees!:eek:

Hey Mike, to continue the discussion, according to my sources the US was the first nation to deploy guided munitions, the Mark 24 Mine. Actually a homing torpedo dropped from a Liberator bomber and said to be responsible for the demise of about a dozen uboats. Another weapon by the US known as the "Bat" was an anti-ship missile dropped from a PBY which used its special radar to home the ordinance into the target. You mentioned the Fritz, the USAAF developed a similar munition, codenamed AZON, that also scored accurate hits on a number of targets. Funny, that the German devised Henschel 293 glider bomb was the first "guided" ordinance to be credited with sinking a ship, the "Egret, a RN sloop off northern Spain. Anyway, I could go on with others, but you see there is an historical premise for including the tech upgrade into the game. I mean we do have things like jets and missiles, not to mention rail guns.

I trust you guys to get it right, I just wanted to bring it to the design gods' attention. Could there be a consideration to allow anti-air tech upgrades to affect all three classes of air units? I always prefer the upgrade counter, R-P-S effect.

I'm sick of these limited deployment options in SC, especially the island type settings, even land peninsulas are crowded. SC3 hexes don't need to be occupied by the addition of the HQ unit. It's time to make HQs and their resulting supply enhancements attachable to combat units and just give them a range of influence.

How about some "literal" offensive thinking for bomber upgrades for naval attack, anyone? Would we consider weapon systems delivered by PBYs, Do 217, He 177, B 24, the aforementioned "Bettys" as bomber type attacks? Read up gang, remember this is a WW2 setting and we're talking tech upgrades, the key word here is "guided" munitions.

A rational explanation, I can see your point. So for my average of 2 to 3 strength loss steps for each attack, I normally see (this is without an intercept) 40 to 60 % losses for the one turn time period, equating to 100 to 150 MPPs for the non upgraded bomber unit. Now, anyone tell me, and be convincing, offer rationale, critical thinking, that this is indicative of reality?

Hey Mike, any word on the "operational losses"?

Anybody besides me notice how unrealistic this model is as it exists in SC? OK, I can rationalize that a cruiser or destroyer force can bombard the airfields and cause losses, night bombardment most likely, right? But when bombers tend to return the favor they are met with abnormally high "operational" losses and rarely gain a "hit". Come on, Bill...Hubert, really??? I can warm up to the model being modified by a campaign creator, but please, give us the naval warfare upgrade to bombers, so that at least bombers can get some pay back. Do you want me to cite the many times "bombers" of all classes were used in the naval attack mode in WW2? Just give us the option. I can swallow a lot of miss possibilities, but the operational losses are well overstated.

Of course, there are a plethora of ideas! Pick easy targets, the ones that can be vanquished with the aircraft attack. Look for low AD in the CVTs along with diminished M & R. Always helps to interdict supply in the preceding turns.

Right on crispy! The effectiveness of any unit is greatly dependent upon high percentages of M & R, and don't forget the experience factor. Even greater than research upgrades, these parameters are the key to successful attacks and defense.

Wow! What a brilliantly executed overrun tactic Karhu. While your two units pinned down and diverted the Red unit, your maneuver unit simply overcame the Red resistance with a flanking attack and occupied the city as the enemy unit melted away under the heavy pressure. Excellent experimentation Hubert, what a great feature to add to SC3. Ha! I bet you thought we wouldn't notice....... oh..oh...yeah..it's a bug!