xwormwood

lol

sounds good to me, even though i think that the current map is simply to small for minor country HQs. And the leadership levels should be discussed as well. - ham: maybe this helps: in german the name is "Feldmarschal Carl Gustaf Emil Freiherr von Mannerheim". Maybe the Finns don't speak german (lol) or don't need a "von" to show the aristocracy roots of a person [ March 14, 2003, 11:54 AM: Message edited by: xwormwood ]

I want to know what you people out here think about a chit pull procedure as improvement to the excisiting game system. This could introduce such special rules like a Norway invasion for the german player or some kind of Dolittle raid for the US or one-man torpedo attack for the italian or damm-busting for the brits and even polit officer who freighten their troops so much that they attack without fear for the enemy (higher losses in one attack for both sides) for the russian player? Every player gets depending of the year and or his research levels 20-30 chits. Let five of the chits be blank (if pulled they get always replaced), let 5 chits be bad ones (example: due to an excentric order of the fuehrer a random unit has to march on april 20th in berlin, pulling this unit away from its current place into berlin) and 20 good ones (example: due to new tactics a unit gets one more star experience). Put all the chits into a virtual mug and allow each player to pull out one chit each round if he pays the amount of xxx productionpoints from his income. If the active player refuse to pull a chit on his turn, allow his enemy players to pay for him and pull out the chit. If it is a "bad" one, it gets instantly in effect. If it is a blank one, it come back in the mug, if it is a good one, it is removed permanently out of the game. I learned to love this system in a board game about the WW1, called "the great war in europe /the great war in the near east", and it is a lot of fun because there is always some room for suprises and your are alway anxious for excitement what you will draw out of the mug. So, enough scribbling, i am really curious about your opinions now.

Konstatin V. Kotelnikov: You are absolutly right, partisan units in any other country would be a bad joke. By the way: the french resistance wasn't that important as many think. After their liberation it were the french (that should tell a lot ...) who told everybody how brave and important for the liberation of france the resistance was... If there should be a new partisan rule at all i could imagine something like a randomly occuring event where a HQ-leader get assisinated by local patriots (this did happend indeed), maybe a little percentage chance that p.e. Manstein get killed and is replaced by the program by a less experienced commander with a worse command rating, just for fun let us call him Paulus...).

Last time i have seen this "surprise contact" in a pbem game against my brother: i fought as the german player north of Paris when his turn arrived. From England (where he got his English Air Unit and the French Air Unit) he attacked first with his english air unit one of my land units. This attack was intercepted by one of my 3 german air units in this area. So he attacked again with his french air unit, but this time his attack ended in a turkey shot, because his attack wasn't "intercepted", he suffered under a miracelous "surprise contact": all his french pilots went down in flames (literaly spoken) because they obviously were "surprised" by one of my remaining germany air units. Well, even though i was very excited about seeing that this infamous french insects were blasted out of the further struggle it was a strange experience as well, because i have seen such a surprise contact only once before in a game against the AI (in russia) with nearly the same end for the unlucky virtual fellow. So i wonder if it is a bug (because it happens only twice in appr. 30 games) or is it a "special feature" like a lucky shot or a rare attack out of the sun? Duenkirchen was a far as i can remember before the french surrendered. And maybe i have played a little to often Clash of Steel... [ March 12, 2003, 06:00 PM: Message edited by: xwormwood ]

--> When and why are there "surprise contacts" with AIR UNITS? Normaly the enemy air unit simply intercepts, even if i didn't knew, that there would be an enemy unit around. But sometimes a "surprise contact" happens, with terrible losses for the attacker. --> How can British units survive the fall of France? In my opinion all British units in France should dissapear after the french surrender.

try this link, works fine as far as i can see: ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/pc/games/gamesdomain/shareware/SPWaWComplete-v7-1.zip

Tigleth Pilisar: Einstein left because of Hitler and the brown scum who followed him. In WorldWar 1 many many many Jews served in the german army, and it were jewish scientist who invented many improvements for the Kaisers army (even gas as weapon, tragic but true). So i don't see why they should have ignored their fatherlands call in WW2 (let us ignoring for this viewpoint the nazis, let us think it would have been a monarchist germany or the weimar republic). I disagree at all that Hitler was a good general. There were many highly capable military minds in germany, but Hitler only used them (the time germany won many battles) and laterly ignored their opinion, only accepting a general staff of admirer and yes-sayer (Keitel p.e.), what ended (fortunatly) in the utter and complete destruction of fascist germany. Rommel wasn't killed, he was "invited" to commit suicide. Reason for this "invitation" was Rommels knowledge about the attemp to kill Hitler (10th July 1944). Rommel didn't participated in the coup, but showed his will to serve the new government. He commited suicide to protect his family, but again: what would have happened if Rommel WOULD have participated in the coup? Or what would have happened if he had ignored Hitlers will (suicide) and would have been brought before the "Volksgerichtshof"? He was so very popular, what would have been the reaction of the soldiers in the Wehrmacht? What would the german people have said? At least it would have shattered their trust in Hitler alot. Anyway, i can understand Rommels descision, who wouldn't try to protect his family... http://www.rommel.stw.uni-erlangen.de/wohnanlage/erwin.en.html http://www.worldwar2database.com/html/julyplot.htm

santabear: yes, the won stalingrad, but just because the "grofaz" (groesster Feldherr aller Zeiten = greatest military commander of all times). If Hitler wouldn't have splitted his army again and again in his try to get everything instantly with very limited armed forces the Soviets wouldn't have been able to win this big point. If Hitler wouldn't have wanted to push the soviets out of Kursk there wouldn't have been the destruction of the east fron in 1943 - 1944 because germany would have had reserves. After all, germany without Hitler would have been MUCH more effective (but than it wouldn't have launched the war at all...).

Tigleth Pilisar I wonder what would have happened if the nazis would have thrown away their unbelievable mad jew-hate. If all these people would have been integrated in their war machine (many many highly educated, Einstein & Co. would have probably stayed in germany...), what would have happend? Maybe a european union like nowaday under a strong german leaderhip? First the whole manpower what would have been spared for important things, than the spared railtransports used for a better industrial system und supply duties. And if they also would have ignored this stupid "herrenmensch"-religion the USSR would have ended in 1942 (no partisans and and and) But as you quoted: Hitler and most of his bloodhounds were simply ignorant, mad maniacs, filled with hatred and foolish ideas. Their "luck" were the german people after the outcome and "peace"-treaty of WW1, the newly installed radiostations (propaganda at its finest) and weak democrats all over the world (US: "Roosevelt keeps us out of the war", UK & France: "Peace for our time"). Oh yes, before i forget it: SC is not a historic game. If the french army would have marched in 1939 the 3rd Reich would have fallen instantly, because their ammounition reserve was so small, that it just was enough for poland, but never enough for a 2-front war. And the german general staff planned a coup in case of a french attack, which would have been probably accepted by the the germans. But the free world favored the "dying of poland? No thanks!"-spirit which brought us as well 50 million dead people after 6 long years of war.In SC it is in september 1939 pure suicide to attack germany over the rhine. The french got hammered to dust. But even controlling the rhine area would have brought Hitler surely in BIG troubles ... [ March 08, 2003, 07:25 AM: Message edited by: xwormwood ]

Ever played STORM ACROSS EUROPE? Looks like this game had your economic system...

Just found another nice link about the GUSTAV railgun (english, in german there are tons more of them): http://www.cix.co.uk/~nrobinson/railgun/Railwayguns/German/Dora%20index.htm :cool:

Often when is finished my PBEM move (game is saved) my screen freeze an doesn't shows the main screen from where you can start a new game or load another pbem game or just quit the game. I see only the last screen (map and the window which asked the new pbem-savegame-name). I can click "blind" at the buttons (even though i can't see them), so i just can't see the correct screen even though it is there. I have installed the last patch. Operating system is WIN ME, Athlon 2000+, 512 MB RAM, Geforce 4200 Ti. Any suggestions what to do? It happens in appr. 5 from 10 attemps. Thanks for any help.

I am not sure if anybody already posted this before, but i want if possible more reports. First of all i loved the CLASH OF STEEL option where the complete war was shown in a quick clip (excuse my limited english knowledge, everyone who played COS should know what i mean...) And i would really love a timetable, where everything what has happend should be listed (losses, new units, conquered cities / nations). Maybe the overwiev informations should be listed permantly somewhere.

JerseyJohn Again: Thank you for your link. It is always interesting to look at your posts, only just not to miss another link. Keep up your good work. In SC i would never try to conquer Sevastopol, it is a waste of time and troops. Better securing the bottleneck north of the city. The nescessary units for the storm on Sevastopol stay this way free for the real front (appr. 1 HQ, 1 Army, 2 Corps and an air unit). Nice that this part of the game is quite historical. If von Mansteins Army would have been used against Stalingrad or Moscow or Leningrad instead of the FORTRESS Sevastopol, who knows what would have happend? Maybe no Kessel von Stalingrad and the loss of the 6th army...

Unfortunatly SC comes without the diplomatic system of Clash of Steel, where you were rewarded with diplomatic points for conquering a nation. With these points it was possible to press a nation into your alliance. Some countries (like Iraq) were easily bribed by you diplomatic attemps. In SC you only choice is the declaration of war against the Iraq. Maybe an early landing at Suez (normaly undefended) and you got a harbor and an invasion of Iraq becomes possible.

JerseyJohn "Even before the war the U. S., Japan and Britain would have been the only three major powers with amphibious landing experience." Japan maybe (to be honest: i just don't know), but are you sure that in 1939 the US or the Brits were able to do a mayor landing like Morocco 1943 / Normandy 1944? As far as i know the US were in 1939 not at all prepared for war, and even in 1942 they hadn't installed a simple coastal convoy system. They learned bloody lessons and developed solutions for open questions. A large scale landing was finaly made in 1944, nearly three years after the US entered the war. In my opinion Germany would have been able to do a large scale Sealion-landing in 1943 as well(of course only without Barbarossa in 1941 and no declaration of war against the US). You only need time. All you've learned before the war is mostly useless when the reality of the war has reached you. Example: Maginot/Fort Eben Emael: Useless; the french ("best army in europe") army: no match for the newly trained and equiped Wehrmacht; Battleships: easy prey for airplanes. Infantry-Tanks a la Word War I: obsolete. So i wouldn't give too much account for the British or American pre-war landing abillities. Couldn't have been much more like the landing abillities of the Kriegsmarine in 1939 (tactics, not equipment). Maybe an invasion on a smal island or a landing in a friendly harbor or some kind of Norway-style invasions... In my little eyes not enough for a special experience-bonus. At least not in 1939. I like your entrys and links (or better: all the work you do here) very much, but i am just a tiny bit to lazy to work out some kind of Fortress Europe topic, so i beg you pardon.

Bill Macon: Why should the US and British get some enhanced capability, like a combat bonus for the amphibious assaults? Is see no reason. Should the germans get a bonus for building fortifications, just because the US and the Brits didn't build them because only the 3rd Reich had to defend a "Festung Europa"? In my eyes there should be no bonus (and no LC research levels as well). And why not bring back the good old Mulberry-System from Clash of Steel? Pay for it, get it, plant it and finaly look with tears in your eyes while it get hammered by your enemy. Or something like that.

"During the historical action Britain lost an aircraft carrier and some escort ships mainly to land based aircraft". But Britain would have lost much more ships if the Germans wouldn't have had this terrible torpedo problem...

Shaka of Carthage: You asked for the total number of german subs in the atlantic. Here we go: between 19. - 23.08.39 the total number of 16 (in words: sixteen!) german subs entered their positions in the atlantic. In September 1939 the Kriegsmarine owned 57 U-Boote, but only 26 had the capability to do duty in the atlantic, the other subs were only able to sail in the north sea or the baltic sea. That's all. So each sub (there are 2 atlantic subs in SC 1939 scenario) represents eight subs. Great, really. Conclusion: In a 1941 scenario the german play should have at least 10 (!!!) subs in the atlantic, some in the baltic sea and some more in ports (norway, france, germany).

Shaka of Carthage: No, not more subs are needed in 1939 (compared to the fleets there actually too many subs on the board, esp. in the atlantic. There shouldn`t be more than one sub in the atlantic in 1939). Subs should be able to dive more often than 25%. Look at clash of steel, where it was already difficult to find them (maybe 50% chance) and then the subs got a chance to dive or escape. In SC there are no ways against a normal human player to keep you subs alive in 1939 (ok, the sub in the baltic sea can hide). U-Boot problem solved by the mighty allies in 1939 is not very historic, isn't it? By the way, subs should always and anywhere be able to sink enemy vessels. Only the amount of industrial losses should be different in different seazones. [ February 27, 2003, 07:43 PM: Message edited by: xwormwood ]

I don't like the way the U-Boot-War is handled. Better the COS or maybe the STORM ACROSS EUROPE-System than the SC1-Handling of Subwarfare. And I hate these "sorry, you invaded a prison without exit" countries (Ireland or Portugal). Plundering capitals is in my opinion ok, because the 3.Reich plundered everything (Goldreserves etc.) it could grab...

Why should British Ships gain an advantage in experience? Show me one example where British Ships fought better than their german counterparts in a 1:1 situation. They won because they've got more ships, not better training (same situation in WW1).