Terif

Like with all minors there is only a percentage chance each turn that Finland enters the war. When either USA are not in the war or Axis have a unit adjacent to Leningrad there is a 40% chance each turn that Finland joins Axis (with Russia at war). So Finland doesnt have to join at the first opportunity (only a chance of 40%), often it takes some turns until they join - when they actually join depends on your luck .

Zapp: You cant really think that if you say indirectly that I would cheat - or make it look like this - I would not react. But I guess that was the purpose after your other provocations didnt work. Therefore I posted what Hombre Plin really said, and he said clearly that he didnt mention me. You said he did, so it was a lie. This part of the story came from you - not from Hombre and the reason is obvious since it was in the middle of our argument. [ May 05, 2004, 05:20 PM: Message edited by: Terif ]

Back to the topic: First, I dont think Zapp or Avatar cheated. I played some games vs Avatar with him Allies. He plays very aggressive and likes to use amphibious landings to kill german units. Against me he even landed a UK-army to kill my german one. Landing transports start with full supply and readiness of 100% when at full strength. I.e. Korps make up to 3 damage and armies up to 5 damage. French armies supported by HQ also can make up to 5 damage (with some experience even 6, but thats unlikely). Often people dont know how much damage well lead units can do and cant believe it - so they think their opponent would cheat. At least in my games against Avatar I couldnt see extraordinary results. He killed a lot of my units, but that was simply because he used everything to crush me in France (and he always surrendered when I got Paris despite this ). He obviously trained the french campaign and now has an excellent offensive defence of France that can easily kill a lot of players - as his record shows. [ May 05, 2004, 05:06 PM: Message edited by: Terif ]

And you are asking me what I mean with hidden accusations...(ok, here it is simply a lie...) Just to clarify things: Hombre only accused Zappsweden - and nobody else than Zappsweden and never mentioned me in this context. Hombres accusations against Zappsweden - and ONLY vs Zappsweden after Zapp brought it to the forum: http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=18;t=003033#000000 Hombres explaination what he really said - not what Zapp tried to make everyone thinking: Full Story: http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=18;t=003090#000007

Hi Blashy, Bid 350 is ~9000 mpps in total... I never would give UK so much mpp (together with US/russian mpp), since then it becomes possible to crush Germany in France. But we can play a high bonus game with 10.000 mpp for Russia only if you want to try it (I already did it sometimes... ).

If it is possible to win as Allies without a bid, fully depends on the experience of both players - especially the axis player. The main advantage of Allies is the surprise effect and their mobility. Unexperienced players dont know how to counter allied strategies (depends also on allied players experience), they make mistakes in conquering neutrals and concerning russian readiness. Therefore if new players play a game, no bid is necessary. In this case even Allies are usually in the advantage and will win the game. After some games they will have learned the basics, so chances are 50/50 who will win. Then balance shifts towards axis and the more experience the Axis player has the bigger axis advantage will be (can be reduced by the allied players experience). Thats the reason why the size of the bid highly depends on the experience of both players since axis only has an advantage when the axis player knows how to play his side and the advantage increases with the experience. Some average values (Mai 2004): -new vs new: no bid necessary (Allies even can be in the advantage here) -intermediate vs intermediate: bid 200 system 1:8 or 1:10 (or ~100 in 1:5:20) -veteran vs veteran: bid 200 system 1:5:20 Summary: Every veteran player should have no problem to win as Allies against a new player without any bid. Even in new vs new games, allies have a slight advantage without additional mpp.

Yes Jersey John there can be a reason that this happens more often : Since you see before an attack the expected outcome of a battle (the result varies only +-1 to the expected one), you can see in advance if you have enough firepower to kill an enemy unit. After the first combat results you can check again if you have enough left for the kill. If you had bad luck with your first attacks, you can abort your attack and use your remaining units for an easier/better target, reinforce or reposition them. This is better possible if you use the correct attack sequence: first ground units, then the more flexible airfleets. Also against unentrenched units it is usually better to attack with your strongest units first, because then the defenders strength(=readiness) is reduced, so that the next attacker can reach better combat results. If the defender is entrenched, then it can be bettter to use weak units first (since the first attacks make no damage anyway, so its better not to waste strong units to reduce entrenchment). So in the end: If you only attack units that you can destroy, then you need bad luck that it survives at 1 (small chance for units ending at str 1) But if you attack all units no matter if you can destroy it, then you can have bad luck that it survives (like above), or aditionally you can have good luck that you made more damage than normal so that it has only 1 point left (instead of e.g. 3 or 4). (higher chance for units ending at str 1)

Bidding: In Human vs Human games it is common practice to use bonus mpps for Allies("bid") to decide who plays which side in the Fall Weiss campaign. The one with the highest bid plays Axis. With some experience Axis has a huge advantage, therefore Allies need extra mpps to even out this advantage. The first system was a 1:1:1 system (=mpps x bid for UK,USA,Russia), i.e. if someone bids e.g. 150, then UK gets 150mpp, USA 150mpp and Russia 150mpp. This is an old (obsolete)system, but can still be used by new players. In the meantime the most common systems are 1:8 (1xUK, 8xRussia), 1:10 (1xUK, 10xRussia) and the newest system: 1:5:20 (1xUK, 5x USA, 20x Russia). E.g. a bid of 200 means in the 1:5:20 system: 200 mpp for UK, 1000 USA, 4000 Russia (in 1:10=200UK, 2000Russia). The host adds the bonus mpp in the scenario editor to the fall weiss scenario, saves it under a new name and then can load it for the game. The size of the bid highly depends on the experience of both players since axis only has an advantage when the axis player knows how to play his side and the advantage increases with the experience. Here some average values (March 2004): -new vs new: no bid necessary (Allies even can be in the advantage here) -intermediate vs intermediate: bid 200 system 1:8 or 1:10 (or ~100 in 1:5:20) -veteran vs veteran: bid 200 system 1:5:20 You can read the full strategy guide (for new/intermedate players) at: http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=18;t=002198

hehe Only doing my duty...training new warriors to fight against the dark side

- air defence (AD)increases the damage for the attacking air. So air attacking mines and oilfields (with AD = 0) take no damage. - You can place units on these ressources to protect them. The units take the hits instead, i.e. no damage at the ressource. - the air defence bonus (ADB) protects units placed on the terrain/ressource and reduces the damage for the defender (e.g. fortresses have ADB of 4, i.e. units in fortresses are very good protected against air attacks and take nearly no damage - depending on their readiness level) - with anti-aircraft (AA) research you can increase the damage for attacking air. But AA doesn NOT decrease the damage for the defender. - each level of AA increases the air defence value of each ressource (port, city, mine, oilfield) and fortress itself - so attacking air takes more damage even when the terrain is empty. - and each lv of AA also increases the air defence (= increases damage for attacking air) of every unit placed on a ressource or fortress. So the answers to your questions are: 1) yes, the ADB is a bonus for units stationed on these terrains (=reduces damage) 2) AA increases only the air defence value (= increases damage for the attacker) 3)yes, you should place units on weak ressources like mines and oilfields, since they take the blows - usually corps are the most cost effective units to protect them. 4)Lv 1 AA is enough to make it cost ineffective to attack even an empty mine/oilfield. Lv 2 if you want to be sure the enemy will not attack any more... 5) AA makes it more costly for air to kill units in cities. So it changes warfare and tactics: if possible ground units should now attack cities/ressources, AFs still can kill the units around the ressources. So it is a cost effective way to make an enemy offensive more difficult and he cant kill your units in the cities with air only - at least this will be very expensive for him. But if the enemy has the right mix of ground units and AFs, it doesnt change much since then he can avoid attacking cities with air. 6)Jet research does not increase the ground attack values of airfleets. Jets only affects air to air combat. So Jets even make AA a bit more valuable, since with jets it costs more to reinforce AFs (10%/jet lv) and they still take the same strength point amount of additional damage from AA research (= higher mpp damage).

Fireheart has the same E-mail adress as the joke identity. But if it is a one time joke, no problem with me.

Seems a wannabee wanted to make a joke and signed up under my name.

Zapp: I think you pretty well know the issue is not about a single expression ("I bid 100.000...") you posted. Its the sum off all your postings in several threads and at different websites, where you ask me in various ways to play you - spiced up with alternating "nice" remarks... The reason I posted my comment HERE was simply because it was fitting to the topic. You really dont need to explain your joke here... I really tried to ignore you like other people proposed, but thats not possible when you follow me even in my - german ! - AARs to post crap and other stuff in between to get my attention. Now you act like an innocent who did nothing. In THIS thread you really did not much. It alone could have been even funny - and perhaps was - but not if you read ALL your stuff and see the whole puzzle. BTW: I will not search for them, post URLs, make a lot of quotes out of context and similar stuff - like you love to do it. I have better things to do with my time. Until now my last comment produced 6 posts from you only in this thread - not to mention the other ones - analyzing every word and sentence of my post... I know you will respond with a new flood of postings to this one. This is one lesson I learned during our dispute: you never know when to stop. But I will try my best to ignore you in the future...

Zapp, did you really want peace ? Or why do you continue spamming me with requests for a game - and mostly with hidden accusations between the lines ? Do you really think you would get a game by bugging me and starting one thread after the other, post in others and even follow me in my AARs at Panzerliga...? To make it clear once and forever: I will NOT play you at SC 1 ever again - your latest actions just confirmed me in this decission once again. You lost nearly 50 times against me. I even never had to use advanced strategies against you and - what I read from AARs and hear from others - it seems you didnt improve your gameplay. So the result if I would play you would be pretty clear. But the most important: It doesnt make fun playing against you - it was no fun any more in our last games (every game was exactly the same...) and after all that happened between us, it is guaranteed for sure to be no fun. I play games to have a good time and fun in my spare time - and SC is a game. It is not a duty and you simply have no claim to play a certain person. You cant force me to play you, at least this lesson you should have learned in the last months... In this thread it fits better, I had too much choice where to put it into...

Zapp, did you really want peace ? Or why do you continue spamming me with requests for a game - and mostly with hidden accusations between the lines ? Do you really think you would get a game by bugging me and starting one thread after the other, post in others and even follow me in my AARs at Panzerliga...? To make it clear once and forever: I will NOT play you at SC 1 ever again - your latest actions just confirmed me in this decission once again. You lost nearly 50 times against me. I even never had to use advanced strategies against you and - what I read from AARs and hear from others - it seems you didnt improve your gameplay. So the result if I would play you would be pretty clear. But the most important: It doesnt make fun playing against you - it was no fun any more in our last games (every game was exactly the same...) and after all that happened between us, it is guaranteed for sure to be no fun. I play games to have a good time and fun in my spare time - and SC is a game. It is not a duty and you simply have no claim to play a certain person. You cant force me to play you, at least this lesson you should have learned in the last months...

Time for some new warriors - the next generation ...I am too busy in the Panzerliga too.

Depends on when SC2 comes out...

Your welcome

Hello Col.Kurtz, these are good questions . - air units located in Swamps get their attack strength halved. So if they attack a ground unit, they only do 50% damage. Same if they intercept an enemy AF: then they also do only 50% damage. In case they will be intercepted, they are the defenders and therefore defend with 100% effectiveness. - all other Terrain (Mountains, Swamp, Forest etc) has no effect concerning the attack strength of an AF located there - Terrain effects for the defender when attacked directly - thats a different story - are listed for each unit/terrain type in the manual. - AFs can benefit from Anti-Air tech when placed on a ressource (city, mine, oilfield) or in a fortress. Both when they are attacked directly or when they force an enemy AF to intercept, they receive the Anti-Air bonus. - ground units attacking from a river get their attack value halved. The defender has no disadvantage except they cant entrench. Summary: Dont place your AFs in Swamps, its the only terrain with disadvantages for AFs located there ! So the answers to your questions are: 1 + 2)in Swamps: yes all other terrain: no 3 + 4) no (no effect when your AF from the city intercepts, but if you attack something and force an enemy AF to intercept, your defence value will be increased by the AA Bonus) 5)yes, for the attack strength it doesnt matter where the defender is.

I am a non smoker, but in this case I will make an exception - lets smoke the peace pipe . I also made mistakes and should have handled our dispute differently. I hereby apology for any harsh and rude behaviour. Most probably we can and will play SC2, but I dont think it would be a good idea to play SC1 again together - we obviously played too many games against each other and there is too much possible cause for conflict when we would do it. Peace in the forum will be a good step forward in the right direction .

Yep, only two different ways to describe the same (mathematical). So you can choose which formula to use - the result is the same. As far as I can see (Pzgndr´s described test didn´t say something else) in the end the official formula is correct - no hidden feature or bug . Since the official formula is pretty clear, I also dont think Hubert intended the catch-up to be lower, obviously it is how he wanted it to be. And personally I think it is good to have a relativly high chance to catch-up. This way luck is not that important as it would be if the opponent had no chance to reach the same tech level within a reasonable amount of time. 1-2 lucky breaktroughs would mean nearly game over for the enemy if he would not have the possibility to catch-up. But with catch-up he has only to retreat for some turns, reorganize, research and then come back to the battlefield... For the game it is better to have only a small luck factor, how it is now - my personal opinion, others may see it different . [ April 03, 2004, 10:24 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

- You cant test/check it in SC since you dont see the research percentages. It is only possible to look at the formulas and Huberts comments. - Normalization (5-4-3-2-1) only applies at normal research. When the enemy is ahead in research, then it doesnt apply. Now you have a base chance of 5 % + 1% per each tech level difference. Therefore your chance from Lv 1 -> Lv2 (with the enemy already at Lv2) is: 5 % (base chance) + 2-1 (highest enemy lv - your current lv) = 5 + 1 = 6 The result is the same as in your example but calculated with the official formula . - so there is no bug or hidden feature . The catch up effect speeds up your research a lot - compared to normal research - expecially at higher levels (normal research: only 1 % ; 2 %... But with catch up you have a minimum chance of 6 % and higher).

If you have a look at the "User Manual Updates and Errata.txt": Then you can see: Pzgndr is right in the first part: If the enemy is at the same or lower level, then research is 5,4,3,2,1 % per chit. E.g. from Lv4 to Lv5 each chit provides a 1% chance/turn to reach Lv5. With the second part Feldtrompeter is right: If the enemy has a higher level, then you get a huge research bonus. You now have a base chance of 5 % (instead of 5,4,3,2,1) + 1% for each level difference (even from Lv 4 to 5 !). At low tech levels it makes not much difference, but at high tech levels it greatly increases your chances to reach the next advance. E.g. With the enemy already at Lv5: - Level 4 -> 5 you have now a chance of 5 + 1 = 6 % per chit. (instead of only 1 % when the other one is not more advanced than you !) - Level 3 -> 4 chance is 5 + 2 = 7 %/chit etc. This is the "catch-up effect". If your enemy is more advanced, you can be sure to reach the same tech level within only a couple of turns while your opponent has only a small chance to reach the next level. You dont need to invest much, 3 chits are usually enough to catch up very soon (minimum chance is 18%/turn in this case). So you dont need to fear to fall too much behind in research - your enemy can only reach a temporary advantage until you will catch up. [ April 02, 2004, 11:15 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

There are always exceptions but in general: 1. Attack with your strongest unit with the best attack value against an unentrenched target -> attack with the unit that makes the most damage (army/tank)- which also depends on the terrain where the defender is placed (this weakens the enemy, decreases its defensive abilities and increases the amount of damage weaker attackers/air can do in the following attacks). 2. Airfleets should be the last units to attack. They are the most flexible and can choose which target to attack. So after the ground combat you can see where (which enemy unit) it makes sense to attack with air. Goal is always to destroy an enemy unit. If you can expect it to survive (you see the expected results before the attack), then it is often better to reposition or reinforce the airfleet instead of attacking. Airfleet vs ground unit is costly and not always useful - when a ground unit can do the job instead, then its better to let them do it. 3. If the enemy is highly entrenched, attacking units often make no damage (no matter how strong the attacker is). Here your weakest ground units (+ships/carriers) should attack first to reduce entrenchment before the strong units move forward.

Since siberians didnt trigger with 25+2 russian units, it seems there is no static number where it triggers or not - this confirms what Hubert said. It seems to be really only the relative strength russian vs germans relevant. In my games when it triggered with around 50 units, Germany was very strong too. Since you have only 27 russian units, then Germany is probably also very weak - and your tanks count probably more than corps... BTW: like Liam said: the Axis player decides when siberians trigger, so he usually only trigger them when he is ready to do so. Another reason why it normally doesnt happen that Russia is too strong to receive siberians . But to be ready means axis main forces arrived at the front = after 2-3 turns preparing. To wait a year or two and to build up is only possible if Axis has already won the game...but when Allies are still fighting Axis has not the time to do so or they will loose the fight at another front.