Shaka of Carthage

ChinaWins999 If you want to "enhance your experience of the game", you need to play other people. The AI can only take you so far. I suggest you try playing PBEM. Even if you and your opponent can play TCP, once the TCP session is over (though the game won't be over), you can convert it to PBEM and continue. I would think that almost everyone should be able to find the time to do at least one turn a day.

If you want to see an example of a nation that used thier submarines to hunt capital ships, just look at the Japanese. And its a major critizism of the Japanese war effort, that they used thier subs that way. I suspect that if the Germans used them the same way, it would turn out just as bad.

Let me point out the obvious... you can play TCP games in the PBEM league. And you can play mixed PBEM/TCP games.

Panzer39 Now here I'm going to have to disagree with you. My point here was that if the North Atlantic was the size of the current map now, I'd get exactly the same result using the current "adjacent" concept because there are so many more hexes. And with a Canada/UK "merchant zone" that is equivalent in range from Gibralter to Finland, the Allies would not have enough ships to tell where in that zone the subs are. This statement confuses me, since its exactly what would happen with a larger map. There historically was a "black zone" (?) that merchant ships had to travel thru that put them outside of coverage by Allied air units. One of the ways that the US helped win the Battle of the Atlantic, was because it had long range aircraft that eventually reduced that "black zone" to nothing. It also forces the Allies to invest in LONG RANGE tech to gain the ability to cover a wider and wider area of the North Atlantic. Not to mention placing strategic importance on certain areas that provided the airbases for that air coverage. This is relative to the scale of the game you are playing. While each hex is 50 miles across, we just have to use our imagination to assume that the ships in that battle group are engaging each other within a 5 to 20 mile range, centered along that hex edge. Please don't let me get started about the SC carrier strikes. [ November 16, 2003, 08:28 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

Panzer39 The land combat in the same hex... What is the difference in attacking an enemy from an adjacent hex versus being in the same hex? I ask this, because you mentioned that if you were in the same hex, the attacker would suffer more casualties. What it sounds like you are asking for, is really the ability to advance after combat, into the hex that you just won. You are also asking for a defender retreat option as well. Defender retreat option ... This always leads to someone bringing up how COS does it. While the actual target goes away, if it was in supply it could be rebuilt for roughly 50% cost, versus an out of supply unit which has to be reformed for 100% cost. SC does the exact same thing, just that it doesn't call it that. A totally destroyed unit in SC costs you 100% to reform. A unit that is down to one (1) str point, cost roughly 48% to rebuild. Because its a turn based system, the retreat option is upto the player when its his turn. The problem is, in SC, no one retreats, they simply pour MPPs into the damaged unit. Thats what defeats the "retreat" option in SC. If SC simply didn't allow a unit to be reinforced if it was adjacent to an enemy unit, you would know have to retreat that unit to give it a chance to get MPPs to build it back up. Thats alot better than forcing a retreat option as a result of the combat. Advance after combat Here I agree with you. If a unit still has action points after it attacks, it should be able to move. Wheter it moves into the hex it just won or another hex is upto the player. Now motorized units have the ability to blitz. I don't like the concept of a overrun option, because that is more of a tactical or operational type attack. At a strategic level, it would be foolish to "run over" a enemy unit and leave it in place in your rear, since you have just cut yourself off from supply. But for a unit to have the ability to attack then move, one other thing has to change. The current Corps and Armies have to have a reduction in action points by one (1) and we need a new unit type for motorized Corps and Armies (which have the current action points). That would allow me to represent the horse-drawn transports that almost everyone had and the highly motorized US, UK and later year Russians. [ November 16, 2003, 08:11 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

Panzer39 Lets say we go ahead with the stacking idea (for naval), especially since you want combat to occur if units are in the same hex, not adjacent hexes. What would the stacking limit be? And how does the stacking give me a better way of detection than the existing ability to dive? I think the stacking idea for naval is doing nothing more than trying to increase the number of hexes. What we need in a proper representation of the North Atlantic. I did some calcs in the past, and if you want to represent the North Atlantic using 50 mile hexes, just in the area we currently see on our map, the North Atlantic would be as large as the current map. And if you assume that we are going extend the current map by a few hexes south in North Africa, and a few hexes or more in the North, now that map of the North Atlantic is closer to 1.25 or 1.5 times the current map. Bearing in mind, that the naval war is really a sideshow to the land war, do you think the majority of us want to move naval ships around in an area that large? Wouldn't it be simpler to just abstract it out by using arrow hexes to represent "sea zones" that you move ships into and then thru the reports, get the results of the naval action in those "sea zones"? [ November 16, 2003, 07:46 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

If Gibralter has fallen, then North Africa should be out of reach of the Allies. The only port left to the Allies in that part of the Atlantic, would be Dakar, in colonial French West Africa. And since its not on the map, its a non-issue.

Panzer39 The problem that Les is trying to point out, is that strategic naval combat and submarine warfare against merchant shipping were two different things. While having ocean hexes allows us to have naval combat, that same combat system is a very poor way of representing the submarine war. While your idea is an interesting one, as a means of a short term fix of the existing system, you in effect are trying to represent the fact that submarines were not easily detected by surface ships. Suggestions were made in the past on how to "fix" the sub problem, the main one being either by changing the current percentages, or by giving a higher tech level, increase the probablity of submarines diving to avoid surface ship attacks. The problem though, is if that becomes the case, the other side will simply surround all hexes with ships until its eventually able to sink the sub. Another common suggestion was to lower the prices of the subs. So even though the Allies find and sink them, unless it commits enough resources to the job, the subs can win thru quantity, since you have enough to layer an area (kinda like a ocean minefield). That gets back to the problem of how to represent the sub war easily. Why go thru the effort of moving your subs into the enemy merchant lanes, when as soon as they strike, chances are that you'll be quickly hunted down? You can solve that problem if the Atlantic was expanded. But thats not possible in SC. By now, everyone is frustrated and says forget it, we'll have to live with what we have. There have been so many long topics about these items, that currently, most of the regulars are burnt out talking about it. Hence, you'll get very little response to your idea. But back to your idea, since thats what you wanted comments on. Take away the restriction on having to be in supply and not next to enemy ships. If you do that, you now have a better abstract method of trying to represent the sub war using the existing combat system. If the Allies can't sink the sub when its found (either thru too few ships or a high submarine tech), then it runs a very good risk that the Axis will operate it back to port. Now, the Allied ships have a naval mission that will occupy them for the whole game, not just the first few turns.

Bill101 made the point I wanted to make. This is Anti-Aircraft Radar. This may not be the intended effect that Mr H wanted, so in that case it could be considered a bug. But just as strong an argument can be made for why its a good idea, which is a good thing, especially since there is little chance of it being changed. Zapp and Rambo have done a good thing in working out what happened. Thank you. Zapp and Terif, its disappointing that the bad blood between the two of you can't be handled in a different way. Just like there is no point in asking for the two of you to patch it up between you, there is no point in asking for the two of you to stop being so sensitive when the other one says something, turning a discussion into an argument. There is a old movie about two French officers, during the Napelonic era, who have a slight disagreement, and over the next few years, every time they meet, they have a duel. I think the name of the movie is called The Duel. Its a shame that dueling isn't legal anymore. [ November 16, 2003, 05:05 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

I'm confused by this statement. How can this be true, if the Allies still hold Gibralter and/or Malta?

I used the range of four, based on the actual ranges that Amphib ships had and the doctrine they used. I'll briefly explain how the Amphib ships are organized in the US Navy. There are two basic amphib ship categories, landing ships (LSnn) and landing craft (LCnn). As any squid will tell you, a ship is designed to travel the ocean. A craft is designed to travel over water. Up until 1941, you had LST's (landing ship tanks) and LCI's (landing craft infantry). LSTs unloaded using smaller craft topside. Landing boats if you will. While LCI's had a front ramp, they were never intended to assault a beach. The ramp was there for quick loading and unloading of the infantry. The British were lend-leased quite a few of both types. The LCI's had quite a few variations, as in gunboats LCI(G), mortars LCI(M), and rockets LCI®. While the Navy (specifically the Marines) had done work on amphib assault ships before WWII, because of WWII, the money started to flow in. One of the end results, were landing ships that could be flooded, allowing the smaller landing craft to leave the landing ship under thier own power. So starting in 1943, that gave us landing ship docks (LSD). In 1944, you got landing ship vehicles (LSV) and landing ship mediums (LSM). This lead to a development of smaller landing craft and even smaller landing vehicles. This is where the Higgins boats comes in, as its a LCVP (landing craft vehicle personnel) and the DUKW (amphib truck). So now, as long as you had enough LSV, LSD, LST and LSM's you could load your forces up on them, go where you needed to go, flood the bottom of the ships and have the smaller LCM, LCP, LCV, LCVP, LVT, DUKW, LCT swarm the beach and do an amphib assault. But there was a problem. The guys who operated these amphib ships, who called themselves the 'Gator Navy (because they were not considered true "blue water" sailors), were easy targets. They referred to thier ships as "large slow targets". So while it was possible to do, it was highly unlikely that any targeted beach would be far from support. Especially since you had to constantly bring supplies ashore to sustain and expand any beachead you obtained. Thats why I limit the range to four. If I had control of the software code, I would restrict the range even further and expand it based on when the US entered and what year it was (to represent amphib ship development).

Thats one of the reasons I limit the Amphib range to four (4).

Good answer Mr H. :cool:

Edwin P Mr H should not answer your question. Of course, he is free to do as he wishes, but if it was me, I wouldn't answer. Edwin P, you should know better. I read in your profile that you are an ERP Software Consultant. Then you should realize, that you have to be very careful how you answer a question like that, because of all it implies. If he answers yes to the "random events/decision trees", he's either telling you he has already designed the feature or he has committed himself to doing it. Nows he's locked in, to something that during the coding or alpha testing process he may want to discard. And that doesn't even begin to address the issue of how he implements the concept, which would lead to comparisons with other designs, which you are doing already by your comparisons to HoI. If he says no, because he has designed some alternative, he would have to give some idea of what his alternative is, again, committing himself to a specific design. It would be the equivalent of one of your clients, asking you to committ yourself to a fixed bid on a project where you are not aware of all of the project details.

Everything you say is true, once you limit the Amphib range. As you know, I limit the range to four (4) hexes of a port. I'm not clear on the range you are suggesting, unless you are saying the range is 11 (10 str port +1). If so, thats way too much. One thing I have been considering myself, is to increase the range for the Western Allies (UK/US), once the US has entered the war. Anyway, this is a subject I'm very interested in hearing peoples opinions, since its something I've struggled with for the last six (6) months and have not been able to come up with a good solution.

Historical accuracy in the units, otherwise the game might as well be Fantasy General II. Unit types and research areas can be balanced while staying within reality. If this is done properly, you'll end up with a game that is faithfull to WWII, but almost impossible for the Axis to win. That is where the "what-ifs" come into play. The almost endless "what ifs" are how you obtain a balanced game. "What if" ... Moscow had fallen; France had mobilized earlier; Germany had liberated, not occupied Ukraine; Spain had joined Axis; Turkey had joined Axis; Turkey had joined Allies; US had not entered the war; Japan had fought Russia; UK had fallen; German manpower was not mismanaged; Malta was assaulted, not Crete; etc, etc, etc. And finally, a Unit and Terrain editor, that allows us to deal with "why nots" and the creative bursts when we want to go beyond WWII or Europe or disagree with the game designer.

Friendly Fire Exactly correct. Some of the more obvious problems can be fixed in SC by changing or using a different campaign, as well as House Rules. The Med should be a critical area, for consquences on either side. I'll briefly describe what I've done in the '39 HistResp campaign. Iraq is given to the Axis, but has no units in it. Two turns away, there is a 5 str UK unit, intended to take Iraq. In effect, its the '41 Axis coup in Iraq that was crushed by the UK, except it takes place in '39. In addition, UK Wavell HQ is placed in Egypt, the UK 8th Army is "en route" to Egypt and an additional naval unit is added to the Egyptian squadron (Gibralter squadron is also increased by one naval unit). The additional UK ground units are understrength, to represent the Commonwealth units that have not arrived in the Egyptian theater yet. So while the UK will get "plunder" from Iraq, it also has to decide where it invests that plunder, especially since it has quite a few understrength units. Hence, both the Axis and Allies would benefit from holding the Med. End result being, as soon as Italy enters the war, the Axis/Allies almost always come to blows in North Africa.

Jon Patrick Agree, both games show thier age. I doubt seriously that you will see games like that in the near future, there isn't much of a market for them. For something like that to succeed, you would have to have multiple players, each player assuming one of those roles, and process your "orders" and have player interaction thru the internet or PC programs. But its tough to do, since not enough people are willing to pay for a game like that to make it worthwhile for someone to develop it. Develop as a "labor of love", then you won't be disappointed by the lack of income. And it wouldn't hurt to learn how to program, since the greatest benefit is that it sharpens your thinking process. [ November 09, 2003, 03:48 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

Limit the air, and you will solve your problems with the tech being "luck based". All of the other techs have a counter to them, so if your opponent gains an advantage there, you can counter it.

Jon Patrick In the past there were a couple of games exactly like you requested. One was called Hidden Agenda and the other I believe ?Shadow President?. I may have the names confused, but the best one was the one that dealt with Latin America. You were the new leader of a Latin America nation, and had to deal with your cabinet, your military, the US and possible Guerrillas. I'm kinda sure thats Hidden Agenda. Its still being used today in some schools to give HS and College students an idea of what the political realities are like.

What am I looking for? I'm looking for any warm body that is willing to play '39 Historically Responsible Campaign and Limit House Rules. I'd even be willing to help any other set of players that are willing to play it among themselves by making myself available for answering any questions.

Alot depends on the definition you want to give "uprising". And again, I think you're losing sight of the scale of SC. While uprisings, revolts, etc may have had some effects on a localized area, I don't see that it would concern us at the scale SC represents. But let me get back to the original point I was trying to make. Between your suggestions and Edwin P's percentages, your uprising effect was allowing partisan units to be formed because Allied units had entered that country. I believe that is the wrong cause and effect relationship.

Edwin P No one likes the idea of any nation having a Industrial Tech Level of 5, because based on the "catch up" feature, those who invested in Industrial Tech would achieve TL5 themselves much faster. So eventually that advantange would be lost to the US.

As any old timer will tell you, the whole "beer and pretzels" terminology came about, because certain boardgames had rules written as if they were a legal document. Most wargaming magazines that supported those games really were nothing more than a "Dummies Guide on What the Rules Really Mean". Third Reich, even in its latest reincarnation as World at War, is a good example. B&P games were those that had simple rules and more importantly, rules that you remembered after you were drunk or stoned. The problem is, after a few plays, there was nothing left. But even back in the old days, certain games had well written rules that were easy to learn and remember. Since they usually required multiple players, the designers took care to make sure that even a beginner could play the game well the first time. While computers have changed some of the concepts (since the rules are now hidden from us), it still hasn't changed the fact that a poorly designed game, once mastered, has no replayability value. So while Chess and SC are both easy to learn, because of the infinite varity of moves that the different units can take, as well as the unpredictable effects of combat and tech in SC (not to mention supply), they are both games that you can easily teach someone, but can never truly say you have mastered. [ November 02, 2003, 05:06 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

Bill101 Lets not overlook the fact, that conquered nations do have occupying forces in them, its just that the units are too small to represent in SC. And the fact that its a occupied nation (implying less than full cooperation), is also why those nations only generate, at best, 80% of thier MPP income. The idea about resistance funding, along with it incorporating Commando raids, would give the opportunity for those occupied nations to even further reduce the MPP income. Assuming its successful, when you get your nation reports, it can simply state that such and such a city or port or mine was sabatouged and suffered so many points of damage. You could even have a PBEM replay show a small "explosion" to represent that act. Damage could also be inflicted on ships in ports as well as the supply levels, which would represent damage to the railroads. The Axis counter to the above could be labelled Security & Anti-Partisan Operations. And like the above would represent Commandos (including US Rangers), this would represent the German Brandenburg Regiment, SS Fallsehirmjager Bn 500 and even the Landesschutzen Battalions. Yugo and Russia actually raised the resistance to a higher level (something France never did), where Partisan units (today we would call them guerrillas) actually took the field for combat operations against conventional units. While we are still in the realm of units that are too small to properly represent at the SC level, the SC partisan units are a simple effective compromise. In that respect, you now have to counter them with actual SC units. Of course, I'd hope that SCII would use a different method of generating those Partisans, since any veteran SC player will simply plop a unit on the "partisan hex" to stop Partisans from generating. Hence, I don't agree that we need to have units in occupied nations to stop uprisings. Nor do I think that any invasion should cause a "uprising". Since this topic is about Ultra, let me add one point about Intelligence. Intelligence never has 100% accuracy, even with broken codes. Some of the reasons were given above, as well as there being others. So any game reflection should reflect the ability to uncover more than normal, but in no way should have 100% accuracy. I'd also like to say I agree with JerseyJohn, in that High Command had the best method in any Strategy or Grand Strategy game to date. SCII would be off to a fine start if it used those concepts.