dougmangin

My experience has been the same. And I sympathise with whoever started this string - I have had the same thing happen to me. In a recent game I had a british hq, tank, corp, and air fleet in syria ready to attack iraq. france surrendered and instead of moving those units outside syria - they simply were destroyed. I dont understand under the same circumstances the same thing does not happen to axis units. For example if you have an italian unit in areas to be controlled by vichy france, when france falls those units are moved outside the borders of vichy - they arent lost. If british units are in areas to be controlled by vichy france when france falls - they are destroyed. Neither are german units in italy eliminated when italy falls. Really except this one quirk with france no units are ever lost when a nation is conquered, except the units of that nation.

I TOLD YOU IT WAS SCREWY!!!! http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=18;t=001531 Since the post above I have changed the setups I was running to include only german and british units of the same tech level, same hq level, same experience level and running the setup one way with germans attacking and british intercepting and then start another game the other way. In running a total of more than 100 attacks - all with the same tech level - all with the same hq level - all supplied - the german attacking units lost a total of 178 strength points, the interceptor 264. I had not yet forwarded the results to hubert but if you have run enough similar tests that have found the same results that I have found - then I would say the proof is there. You however were smart enough to do more than try to quantify what was happening, but also WHY. And your thinking is nothing I would have ever come up with - but it makes total and complete sense. Entrenchment or terrain effects can have a tremendous impact on the outcome of any engagement. If Hubert can check on this and let us know if this is really the case my biggest gripe with the game will be solved. Now I am not one to gloat - but......

Bill thanks for the insight, and you are right - this may very well add a degree of complexity that just wont work with pbem and/or tcp/ip. I do like the idea of say verses AI you can choose, intercept yes or no - but in playing a human you can disable it, or set up a threshold - either in terms of unit strength or in terms of expected losses. Perhaps you say no unit with a strength less than 7 will intercept - and no unit will intercept if expected losses are more than 2 - something like that. Pheasible, I dont know I am as far from computer programming literate as you can get. But one question I still have that I dont know what, or IF there is an answer to is how can you choose where an intercept occours - which one, some are obviously more critical than others. Germany attacking a wounded naval unit that may be completely destroyed or a full strength army just to weaken it. It just seems so unfair to watch an interception occour and then watch another attack while you are sitting there thinking to yourself - that is NOT what I wanted. And I am sure there is an element to war where commanders made a choice based on bad information - they later realized was the wrong one. So blunders happen - I just dont like them happening not because of my incompetence (which there is a substantial amount of at times) or choice - rather it is because the machine arbitrarily chooses for you. I just cannot think of another aspect of this game where you are not in control of where and when your units attack. If I attack an air fleet on the ground, sure they should not have a choice. But if an air unit is going to be sortied - I should have the choice of where and when it goes. I dont know how that can be accomplished - it seems it might be more difficult than I realized. Still I can whine and pout about it - may not fix it but makes me feel better

I am thinking that the next patch will address that issue. Better research development and achievement will tame that unruly Air beast. While I can understand the desire for more control over air units, and more detail in terms of specific activities, my feeling is that SC models the Air war pretty well. :cool: These good ideas can be debated for SC2. After all, this is a GRAND strategy game, and some finer aspects must be generalized, as is done with Anit-Tank and otherwise improved unit categories. One thing you do have to pay attention to -- the placement (or, removal -- out of range) of Air Units. This can be an "art" in itself, paying strict attention to which HQs are where. Given the parameters that have been installed, it then becomes necessary to adapt your strategies to the particular game at hand, and, as is mostly the case in this instance -- or indeed any real-life situation... not the other way around. </font>

This is not a bad strategy if you are playing against the AI - and more importantly if your politics are set to historical. If they are set to random then massive offensives will come back to haunt you. The US and Russia come into the war earlier than usual, you wont get your axis minor allies to become active, and you may stretch yourself too thin. It all depends on the situation and what you are trying to do. Personally I prefer the politics set to random, it makes the game more fair just for this reason - it creates a negative consequence for overly agressive behavour. Dont get me wrong, some attacking is good - poland, denmark, the low countries are almost always attacked. But if you have politics set to random then watch how quickly russia and the us come into the war when you take norway, sweden, spain, portugal, yugoslavia, etc.... it will make you think twice!

I have recently played a few games where I tried both strategies vs AI - which I realize isnt the best standard - but what I have found is that if I conquer poland, denmark, defeat france, and perhaps norway - then I stand a better chance if I let the axis minors join. The breaking point seems to be if I proceed on into spain/portugal or sometimes if I take yugoslavia too soon. What it seems to come down to is if you are going all out for as much conquest as soon as possible, then the axis minors are simply more fodder for the fire. However it seems if your plan is to halt after the nations above - dont attack spain or yugoslavia - sit, build up forces, pay your scientists to do their thing - play the uboat game, and prepare to attack britain or ussr - then it is a bad idea to attack your friendly neighbors. One big reason being that while you are decreasing the value of those resources to yourself, you are at the same time increasing the production to britain - even if only for a few turns. I have often wondered about that - how should or could the full benefit of polish or other far flung minor nations industrial production GET to the UK? Shouldnt there be some limit - say the mpps generated in that nation can only be spent in that nation? Anyway that is a side point - but one I would like to hear others opinions on. One change that would cause me to never attack potential allied nations is if there were some way you can allow minor nations to benefit - albeit at a reduced rate - from hq's. I dont see any reason why my beloved canadian friends cannot serve under and get the readiness bonus from british hq's. Anyway - what I have found over the last few games is that if you dont have to - or if they are going to join you anyway then go ahead and beat up on the little kids on the block. But if they are going to come and play with you then let them - you deny any production to the allies and you get a greater benefit in the long run.

They are useful for squashing partisans (either killing them outright or preventing outbreaks), letting your good units do the frontline fighting. I'd always take some freebie garrison units any day! JD</font>

You have a very valid point there - the economic difference is noticable. However, although this is not a real world economics problem - there is an element of time value of money here. Not to say that in this game you earn interest. But as in real life a dollar today is worth more than a dollar a year from now. The reason in real life is inflation. We dont have that in this game. But what we do have is the reality that money now is more valuable than money later. So if you take that plunder and buy two or three units - over the course of three years you have increased the value of those units by gaining experience to such a degree that the same amount of plunder later would not be able to buy the same quality units. Plus in this game no matter what you spend you cannot buy experience, you can only earn it. So if you wait over time to gain the funds, and over time it is better to wait, but you have to wait 25 turns (80 - 64/400) to have the mpps equal. Over 25 turns two or three extra units can do a lot of good - and after 25 turns if you waited and bought you would have the same number of units - only mine would be worth more due to experience. Or lets say you stuck that plunder into research - that is 25 turns at an increase of 5% chance per turn. Id be willing to bet that over that time you would get at least one tech out of your investement. And a tech now is worth a heck of a lot more than a tech later. OK I am not an economics prof - I just deal with this kind of thing in engineering work I do. And the conclusion of the matter is - it is better to have now and use it - than to wait over time. Ask yourself this, would you rather be magically given 1000 mpps on your first turn or in 1943? It could do you a whole lot more in terms of units, research, and effective use of resources to have it now. Plus I really dont like minor nations units. You have to pay for their reinforcing, operationaly moving, transporting, etc... just like they were yours - only they dont perform as well as yours because they cannot be attached to a hq. All things considered I would rather take the plunder now, research, buy some units, and have assets I can use now rather than wait. Of course then you get into the whole issue of brining ussr and us into the war earlier. Which is why I usually only do this if the minors ARENT going to join, are delaying in joining, if the ussr is about to delare war anyway, if they are already at war, or if I am already prepared for the ussr war. Anyway that is just my two cents. I think you are right, there are definate disadvantages - but so far I seem to like taking this risk when it seems appropriate.

I would be all for allowing some sharing of tech advances - but there seems to be a healthy degree of tech advances already. I dont know if I would want it to be sped up in the current system. Given the randomness of tech and no increase in cost as you invest more you can easily have startling advances made in a very short time. Say britain gets incredibly luck and gets industrial tech 4 or jets 4 - when the us or ussr enters with that the game may as well be over. One nation getting incredibly lucky is bad enough - sharing the luck that one might, or might not have with all the other children is a bit unbalancing in my view. How about this - a nation can only share tech with an ally if that ally is invested in that catagory of tech. I dont see a reason the us should get level 4 tanks with no research on their part just because britain got lucky. Perhaps if two nations are both researching an area and one gets an advance, then the other gets a research "bonus". Say if the US has tech level 3 and has 3 factors of research in that area - if britain is investing in industrial tech then every level of research up to 3 (matching but not exceeding the us) would get a bonus - so instead of a 15% chance of making an advancement you have say a 30%. I think that might more accurately reflect an ally "helping" another along with their research. I dont think an ally should just automatically get research advances without having any research going on themselves - that would be free tech. In that case britain could sit back and let the us do all the research and use its mpps to buy units. Not fair. I also agree with the other ideas that an ally cannot "assist" another in bringing tech advances all the way up to their level. Say between the US and UK a 1 point difference, between the US/UK and USSR/FRANCE or between GERMANY/ITALY a 2 or 3 point difference. Again that way one country does not put in token effort and entirely reaps the benefits of allies.

I was playing a pbem game recently (as the axis) and I was a bit overly agressive - I attacked a number of minor nations, poland, denmark, norway, low countries, spain, sweded - yeah I was greedy. Anyway due to my actions there were consequences, one being the axis minor nations never did become active. So I ended up conquering them instead. I dont know if this has been discussed before - but after finding myself in the above situation I began to wonder whether it wasnt better to attack minor nations anyway. Certainally not for the allies - not a number of them anyway - they need the us and ussr in the war asap. But for germany I began to wonder which is better - having axis minors join the axis, or just conquering them outright. Here is what my experience showed in a few cases - if you dont attack the minor nations (here I am talking primarily about bulgaria, hungary, and romania) then they eventually join the axis. Doing so you get the benefit of their mpps, as well as their free units. With armies costing 250 and corps 125, those free units are worth a good bit of cash. So there are advantages - but.... I found that in many cases it was better to conquer those axis minors. My reason being, one you still get the mpp production every turn after you conquer them, two you get plunder - resources you can spend on what you want. With the three nations mentioned above you can get somewhere around 800 to 1200 mpps total. That is quite a number of corps, armies, or a few air units. But it does not buy the same number of units that you would have gotten for free. But that isnt necessarily a bad thing. You may not want or need the same kind of units they come with - perhaps you would do better to add tanks, or air units, or hq's. plunder lets you decide. Plus those axis minors do not ever seem to play a significant factor in my games. For one they have no experience, and by that point in the game many of your units are already seasoned veterans. Secondly and perhaps more important - they cannot be attached to a hq - receiving the bonus that german units would. So even if you are able to buy fewer units with the plunder than you would have received from those nations joining you - I find the units you do buy are more valuable to you. AND in the process of attacking those minors I would usually use units that I had recently purchased - that way I can get more experience to my newer units before they trek on into russia. So in my experience I usually do attack those nations. You do have to consider how that affects the ussr and usa entry into the war - but if you can afford to speed their entry up, if they are about to declare war anyway, or if they have ALREADY declared war - I have found in most cases it was better for me to attack rather than annex those minors. I dont know if this is a good idea or if anyone else has ever run through a few campaigns to see how this affected them - any ideas or comments?

I tried this same thing a while back and quicky decided it was not a good idea. I have never, either under this setup or any other seen the AI EVER purchase naval units, other than uboats - and even those rarely. When you consider the number of battleships, carriers, and cruisers Britain has - and the staggering cost of those units, 500-700 EACH. In the two or three times I started a game like this Britain and France bought no naval or strategic bombers, but filled their nations with corps, armies, HQ's and some air units. Given you can buy 2-6 ground units for each naval unit it turned into a nightmare - no matter what happened the game just ended up in a trench war that did not go anywhere. I thought it would be a fun "what if" to be in control of the assets of a nation and set it up as you would wish - tailor the armed forces to your own particular style or play. However France cannot build units at the magion line, so by the second turn germany has pushed through that - but there are so many ground units any offensive gains quickly grind to a halt facing line after line of hq supported armies and corps. There were just huge problems with this and I wouldnt recommend it to anyone - it just didnt turn out to be any fun, from either side.

I hope this is something that gets fixed in the last patch. I think there has to be some way to have control over what units are assigned to what hq. I may not be attacking with any ground units on a specific turn, perhaps just air and strategic attacks - why shouldnt I be able to have my best hq controlling the air units. Here is a question for everyone though - should you be able to indiscriminately change what units are attached to what hq every turn. Should there be some kind of limit or restrictions on changing.

Russ I totally agree with many of the points you made here. The only way I see to have any kind of offensive sucess is to provide overwhelming superiority of numbers, experience, and strength. Although this can happen in attacking minor nations, this is very rarely the possible in major v major fights. Given the limitations of no staking, no retreating, and the bizarre absence of the ability to have coordnated simultaneously attacks on a unit - there are few circumstances where you can destroy a unit, unless you are able to surround it or border it on several fronts. So I agree with you that the ONLY way to sucessfully advance against a major nation is to overwhelm an area with air power - and use ground units to mop up the damage and seize control of the hex. While I dont want to diminsh the role of air power in the game - I do think there should be a better system of allowing ground gains primarily using ground units. Lets say there are no air units - none at all for any side. What would this game be? Nothing other than trench warefare - and I think that can be improved upon. I agree TOTALLY that tanks are undervalued in the game. I think your suggestion is a great one - to increase the attacking strenght of tanks against infantry - and allowing tech advances to improve that attacking strength. I would also make this suggestion - allow for multiple units to attack a single target. There are so many reasons for this - many have been discussed in other forums. But I think doing this will put a greater emphasis on the role and value of ground units - couple that with the improvements in the role of armour - and the ability to retreat - and I think you will create a more playable, more enjoyable game. And ultimately that is what this is all about.

You can - play a hotseat game. That is setup for two people to play at once, on the same machine. All you have to do is play for each side. This is a good way to find out what tactics may or may not work. When I first bought the game I played a few of these.

That is about the same conclusion I have come to. Naval units are so very expensive and germany starts out with so little that it is not really cost effective to pour a lot of resources into it - at least I have not found it to be so. Think about it you can buy an air fleet and two corps for the cost of a battleship. And air units can be used to attack land, air, or naval units. naval units are limited to attacking other naval units, land units adjacent to water, or if you are really stupid ports. I never give out as much damage as I take and MY damage costs 20 - 30 mpps per POINT to repair. How does doing 3 MPPS of damage justify that? What I HAVE tried is if my industrial tech research has been productive and the costs are lowered I will buy air carriers - as the have a wider range or applications, and keep this in mind - air carriers are the only unit that can attack land units and NEVER take damage. If I do this I buy just enough cruisers to defend the carriers - coupled with land based bombers and air units you can do a lot of damage to britains fleet and give a nice platform to attack britain itself. But in answer I have never created a vast german armada to outright challenge the british control of all seas. But coupled with the italians you can do some damage - plus if you take gibralter you can get the italians into the atlantic and you dont need german battleships