Steve C

Rudy, I have a PBEM opponent who just tried this on me. It took me by surprise too, and I think my reaction could have been better. The crux of the matter is, do you let Italy shift for itself and concentrate on taking the Low Countries, or fight back strongly in Italy ? Initially I tried both, but it was soon obvious that this early, the Axis doesn't have the resources to fight hard on two fronts. Based on my limited experience, I think it has to be the latter. Keep enough Germans up north to hold the frontier, and operate a German HQ, armor, army and your air units to Italy. He gets the drop on the Italian navy, but keep your remaining ships in port to protect them, smash the British invading corps and then if his navy hangs around too long to give the Italian fleet the coup de gras, pound the Allied ships with your air units. Anyhow, those invading corps came from where ? Most likely Gibraltar and Alexandria, so maybe the Italians can retaliate there. I agree, it seems bad for the Axis. Even if you punish the Italian thing, it buys time for Allied entrenchment in Low Countries / France, wastes MPP on operating units and throws you off schedule. I'd like to hear other opinions on this Italian thing.

Hah, I am the PBEM butt of his creative rescue of the French Fleet! LOL, I'm okay on land, but Jersey John is a much better admiral than I, even without several extra ships at his disposal. Now this is an interesting thing, I had no idea that HQ could have any impact whatsoever on naval units. However, unless it's a huge fluke, the cause and effect seem to be more than coincidental. All it would take is one more playtest to see if the effect repeats itself. Out of curiousity, maybe I'll try it against the AI and see what happens. The MPP instead of Free French would work, but the Free French do come in handy for garrison duty here and there. As long as this quirk doesn't get turned into a gamey artifice - "The French Navy Gambit", it's probably okay to let it ride as is.

Interesing question, Gaylord, though I'm not sure what CMBB has to do with Hints for New Players in SC, unless you're recruiting fresh cannon fodder for the CMBB forum. Why not start a new thread ? Anyhow, to answer your question, I have CMBB and haven't touched it since I bought SC. About the only thing the two games have in common is the general subject matter, WWII. My brain tells me that CMBB is a great game, but for some reason, it doesn't work for me on a deeper level. I also have Beyond Overlord and never play that either.

Interesing question, Gaylord, though I'm not sure what CMBB has to do with Hints for New Players in SC, unless you're recruiting fresh cannon fodder for the CMBB forum. Why not start a new thread ? Anyhow, to answer your question, I have CMBB and haven't touched it since I bought SC. About the only thing the two games have in common is the general subject matter, WWII. My brain tells me that CMBB is a great game, but for some reason, it doesn't work for me on a deeper level. I also have Beyond Overlord and never play that either.

Well, given the simplified nature of naval combat in SC, there are no destroyers, either singular or flotillas, so what other recourse do you have ? I don't think two sea warfare maps is going to mesh well with the simple style that we enjoy in this game. "I strongly agree with the comments made above re: submarine warfare on making them harder to find and increasing their diving percentage." "In fact, I would allow surface warfare ships to see subs only if they bumb into them (aka FOW for land units). Thus making it much harder to locate them. This would be realistic as the ocean hexes cover hundreds of square miles." Quoted from Edwin P. Yes, I think this is more in keeping with the spirit of the game. It has the same effect as increasing the size of the ocean. Certainly it would make more difficult that farcical Allied sub hunt and slam-dunk elimination of the two Atlantic u-boats at the beginning of every game. Perhaps the increased range effect of upgraded air units could allow better sub spotting, reflecting the actual shrinking safe haven for u-boats as the Allies gradually perfected using air power in anti-submarine warfare. I don't have a problem with SC's abstraction of reducing MPP as the effect of submarines sinking merchant shipping. But I think that subs are too expensive in SC. One submarine costs not so much less than an airfleet with 1,000 planes. They get more reasonable later in the game as Industrial Research kicks in, and I have used them to good effect (at least against the AI), keeping several lurking around the French Atlantic ports to wreak havoc on transports, but generally they're a luxury you can't afford when fighting for your life on the Eastern Front as Axis. [ March 18, 2003, 12:43 AM: Message edited by: Steve C ]

Heheh, I had this happen to me also, my first game as Allies against the AI. What a rude shock to see my British HQ and armor unit vanish with a poof. :eek: There's two ways to treat invading Iraq as Allies. You can do it after the US enters so as not to antagonize them and delay readiness. Of course, this runs the risk that the Axis might beat you to it. Then, there's the option of attacking it as soon as you have sufficient forces to take the city. This tees off Uncle Sam, but you get the MPP earlier and better supply through Beirut/Syria (providing France is still alive and kicking) just have to be careful with the timing on the fall of France so as not to lose any units. One of my current PBEM opponents pulled off a novel low-budget attack strategy against me there. He declared war on Iraq but only attacked with one British corps. He circled around Baghdad, stealing the two oil well MPP's and then camped within reach of the city. If I went out with my Iraqi Baghdad corps to reclaim the oil, he was ready to pounce and occupy the city. This state of affairs lasted until I was able to land Italians in the Sinai and go recover oil well MPPs. So far as I know, losing troops to Vichy conversion is unique in the game. Agreed, it seems a tad harsh, but once you're aware of it, just stay the heck out of South of France / Algeria / Syria with France on the ropes. [ March 17, 2003, 08:39 PM: Message edited by: Steve C ]

Yeah, I wonder what is the combination of units which wakens the Russian bear from his hibernation early ? In a current PBEM game, I'm playing Allies and I was shocked and delighted to see the Russians come into it in November '40 ! The Balkans were still neutral. When I attacked Poland, he had two German tank units, one or two air further back and had some Italians there, but certainly nothing approaching the massive build-up for Barbarossa we take for granted in '41. He was hard-pressed to cobble together a defense, though the Hungarians and Romanians have now joined the Axis. Thank you for your excellent information, Terif. It's great to hear from der Weltmeister. That's another thing I really appreciate about this board, the openness of everyone in sharing their knowledge of the game: very, very helpful to us new players. [ March 14, 2003, 03:09 AM: Message edited by: Steve C ]

Yeah, I wonder what is the combination of units which wakens the Russian bear from his hibernation early ? In a current PBEM game, I'm playing Allies and I was shocked and delighted to see the Russians come into it in November '40 ! The Balkans were still neutral. When I attacked Poland, he had two German tank units, one or two air further back and had some Italians there, but certainly nothing approaching the massive build-up for Barbarossa we take for granted in '41. He was hard-pressed to cobble together a defense, though the Hungarians and Romanians have now joined the Axis. Thank you for your excellent information, Terif. It's great to hear from der Weltmeister. That's another thing I really appreciate about this board, the openness of everyone in sharing their knowledge of the game: very, very helpful to us new players. [ March 14, 2003, 03:09 AM: Message edited by: Steve C ]

Yes. Think of poor supreme Allied commander Eisenhower who can't control the British in SC. Or the uncommanded Italians in Rommel's Afrika Korps (assuming that one would want to use a German HQ in for that role in this game). I think most of us like SC without extra complexity, but it's a shame the computer won't even assign allied forces to the HQ when there's not even enough of its own country's units within command range. Re: the speed of HQ units from the other thread - I agree with that as well. It's irritating to see them creeping along at two hexes per turn and not keeping pace with your offensive without a costly operation move, and that's assuming there's a captured city close enough to make the op move worthwhile. I'm just wondering what was the rationale for making them so slow ? Certainly your commanders are zipping around in jeeps, kubelwagons or specially equipped tracked vehicles ?! Was it to simulate large supply trains / depots as part of the HQ or something of that nature ?

Yes, now that's what I want ! Good thread, Jersey John. Think the AI can cope with all those added possibilities though ? Sorta reminds me of 3-D chess, remember that ? Damn, the game was hard enough with only one board. Your ideas are thought-provoking and would provide a real shot in the arm for human players, my only concern is that the AI would be further outclassed. Real good stuff on the wife topic here as well.

Twiddle - this is a bit silly. Lemme see, you bluntly title a thread "Cheating..." state that a guy fishily could only host, loaded up an old file and sicced way too many air units on you. What's your point then, if not "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck", etc. ? You can't have it both ways, either you had sufficient evidence to accuse your opponent of cheating or you didn't. If you didn't, better not to make the insinuation in the first place. Ya wanna know what the problem is ? It's that insipid nom de guerre of yours. No one thinks twice about trifling with a man named Twiddle. Try logging back in with a more bellicose handle, such as Dark Lord of Panzer Doom and you will be given the full measure of fear and respect you deserve. [ March 12, 2003, 08:11 PM: Message edited by: Steve C ]

Hey, xwormwood. Here is another thread on this topic. http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=18;t=002051#000000

The SC system of modeling weather: 2-week turns and in the spring and fall, 4-week turns in the winter is a simple solution, but flawed in one respect. Apparently nothing else changes, so a winter turn feels exactly like a turn in the summer. Anyone else find it amusing that your ships are consequently reduced to 1/2 speed in spring/fall and 1/4 speed in the winter ?

Interesting take on the '44 scenario, guys. Maybe I'll try it on +0. '43 may be a better pick then, in terms of Axis playability, though I don't have confidence in the AI making a good Overlord if it isn't scripted for the first turn, as is the case with '44. Only scratched the surface on this one, looking at the opening set-ups. Though it's titled "Kursk", I was hard-pressed to identify the Russian salient or the associated German assault forces, given the grand scale of SC.

Just curious, the '39 scenario seems to be the most popular by far - do you use any of the others ? I can understand the popularity of '39 as it creates the broadest canvas for strategic planning and research management. However, the others ones would seem to have some advantages as well. For human vs. human you could start later if time was a constraint or if you want to avoid the Dutch Gambit and the like. Playing the '39 scenario against the AI, seemingly any player worth his salt should be able to outwit the AI when it comes to crafting a coherent grand strategy, however the other ones might allow the AI to close the gap a little against the devious human mind. Take the '44 Overlord campaign. I haven't had time to play it at any length yet, but booted it up today to watch the initial AI move against my Axis forces. The AI has plenty of tough units and air fleets on the Eastern Front and launched a fairly strong Overlord invasion on the Western side. It looks to me like it might be a good challenge to take the Axis side of the '44 scenario at Expert / +1 or 2 and see if things can be turned around. Any thoughts on playing these later campaign scenarios ? [ February 26, 2003, 06:12 PM: Message edited by: Steve C ]

Liam, I agree, ships in port are tough nuts in SC. One thing you can do is attack some other target in Britain, forcing the carrier planes to fly interception and start attacking the carrier once it's knocked down. You can keep a sub or a cruiser lurking off the coast of Denmark to apply the coup de grace.

LOL, it's the Novgorod . Circular hulled Russian 19th century battleship designed for duty in the Black Sea. They built two of these, actually 10 were on the drawing boards but the Russians came to their senses and cancelled the balance of the program when they found out that despite multiple screws, the darn thing wouldn't steam in a straight line. Here's a link to a model of it. http://www.steelnavy.com/Modelkrak%20NovgorodJB.htm

I recently got a fascinating book, The World's Worst Warships by Anthony Preston. The Hood has its own chapter. As stated well above, though it had the displacement of a battleship, the Hood was essentially WW1 battlecruiser technology and the thin deck armor was vulnerable to the plunging fire occuring at long ranges. Here's a link to the book. The German Graf Spee class and the Bismarck are in it too. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1557500045/qid=1046190902/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-1577660-8752621?v=glance&s=books

Right you are, Les the Sarge. I thought you opened up the PC game topic by talking about Steel Panthers, and wasn't aware of the East Front board game. Sorry to have muddied the waters....Ah, my comments were only "possibly" relevant to the games I mentioned :confused: Good god, man - what an embarrassment, not only off topic but inaccurate to boot. But hey, thanks for the link to the Columbia games version of it ! I will definitely try out the demo. [ February 25, 2003, 12:14 AM: Message edited by: Steve C ]

Jergan, I have East Front 1& 2 and one of the scenario packs. There's a lot to like about this series, with a few reservations. 1) The AI is mediocre. 2) The campaign mode is weak. This is seemingly pretty cool because you have to husband your core units - but the battles become monotonous after a while. Despite the accumulated losses and your guy getting promoted occasionally, you never get the feeling that you're fighting a coherent campaign. 3) The smaller scenarios are often the best, the big ones which you think would be awesome, such as the monster with all of Stalingrad modeled, are unwieldy because both you and the AI move and fire platoon by platoon (there are some group moves but these help only a little). That said, I like the John Tiller games and he has continued to refine the system. I recommend the Panzer Campaigns series. I just got Smolensk '41 and I love it. The level is operational, hex = 1km and basic unit is the battalion. You can play anything from 7 turn quickies to the huge 175 turn main scenario with a 75,000 square km map, controlling two Panzer Armees, wow ! The AI in this series is better than East Front and there's a "fast AI" option which speeds things up a lot. You can also play PBEM or hot seat. The 2D maps are a thing of beauty and there's some very cool downloadable artwork for your units on the web. The Squad Battles series is more like East Front in that you're controlling animated individual tanks and squads of infantry. Looks promising but I haven't played it. You can play in 3D or conventional top-down 2D with counters. It's similar to Combat Mission in scale, but conventional turn-based, as opposed to the more novel system in CM. Anyway, here's a link: http://www.hpssims.com/Pages/products/Squad_battles/EagStrk/EagStrk.html [ February 24, 2003, 08:16 PM: Message edited by: Steve C ]

Some good advice here to be sure. Thanks, guys. LOL, that is my problem. I get ants in my pants to be doing something, usually turns out to be losing ships in the Med. Like my PBEM with Woodman. He surrounded my corps on Malta witht the whole Italian navy and I knew he was getting ready to bombard. I stealthily moved in ships from East and West and attacked after he started taking down my entrenchment. Sunk an Italian battleship, he congratulated me on my smooth move, he hung another weak one out there as bait. I bit, sunk it, only to get plastered next turn by three Luftwaffe air fleets he operated down there plus he built an Italian air. Brittania does not rule the seas after that mess. :eek:

Dang, zappsweden. How'd you rate getting the 1.09 patch when most of us are still stuck with 1.06 ?

NOOb question here: I'm playing Allies in 3 PBEM games, one is at the point in the game where you have the "lull" between the fall of France and Barbarossa and aside from harrassing the Axis in small ways, I'm wondering what's the best course of action. Conquering Irag seems well worth antagonizing the US to get the MPP from the two oil wells and Baghdad. How about pissant countries like Ireland and Portugal ? It's frustrating not to be striking back somehow, but the meager MPP from these latter two countries don't seem to make it worthwhile to risk delaying US readiness even by a turn (-180 MPP). Am I missing something here or is taking these two countries completely counterproductive ? How about Spain, historically a drain on whoever got involved there ?

And that's only if you can drag them away from the PS2. I have a PS2 and an X-box myself, so I enjoy them for their strengths - primarily shooters and driving games. And nothing like lounging on the couch, pop in the disc and the games run without crashing to the desktop, fiddling with the graphics settings to get it to run okay, sound card conflict, etc. But wargaming is for dorks as far as a lot of kids are concerned these days (well, perhaps that's always been the case ). I think I have my work cut out for me convincing my kids that SC is worthy of their attention, when they can be boosting fast cars in Vice City. :eek:

I don't have anything like Rambo's knowledge of the game, but based on my limited experience, I second his comments about subs. They really come in handy fending off the Allied warships and transports in the West, in conjunction with a couple of air units - leaving you more of a free hand on the Eastern Front. Even if you haven't leveled them up too far, at industrial level 4-5 they are cheap to build as well. It seems that any of the tech improvements are excellent at the highest levels. Even rockets. They're not much good for anything besides entrenchment reduction at level 1 or 2, but take 'em up to level 4-5 and they can dish out some punishment from several hexes out. And they gain experience like crazy because you're racking up the points from behind the front, safe from anything except for air attacks or a breakthrough. One or two rocket units are great for helping reduce those pesky cities such as Sebastapol which you can only attack on a limited frontage. The big drawback is they're too slow, and there always seems to be some other category more essential for your MPP investment.