Friendly Fire

interesting echo Curry, what's the bid??

You are right Rambo, I hate that goofy landing bonus! But I find that most of the time France falls in July or August against a basic corps defense. But I haven't played with 0 MPP for Allies in a long time, maybe you are right and France will fall in June typically. In any case the whole French campaign feels pretty accurate in SC, probably the result of good playtesting.

Hi, I was thinking it would be cool to have a thread where players in the PBEM league post details about finished games, i.e. who played, what was the bid, and if anything unusual happened. e.g. Rommel defeated Gorgon, bid 100 at 1-5:20. Axis wins by Sealion invasion, takes Manchester in 5 turns, Allies resign... Curry moves up 2 spots to #3 or whatever. We have a lot of games going on, I think it would be nice to hear about them. I find the myleague site pretty useless except to keep track of the wins and losses... what do you think, would that be interesting? Would it liven up the forum? If you like the idea, post your game result here as well as on the league site.

I have hacked all the sound files so I do not have any annoying clicks. In fact my SC is totally silent, so I can have MP3s running. (Although I always forget to turn em on) Send requests to friendlyfire@fastmail.fm along with paypal payment of $10. just kidding about the $10.

Hi, I think that isn't very popular because with a good defense it is very easy to delay Axis past the historical fall of France (Paris captured June 14) even at a zero bid.

I have never launched the Italian gambit but I have had it played twice on me. The Allied player sent the carriers down to the med as well, which is a huge mistake. I won a quick victory both times (UK falls before USA or USSR enter). Clearly the response in my games was to kill France fast, feint Norway, and land with guns blazing on the east coast of the green and pleasant lands! But in these games the Gambit was performed with far more assets than Oblio describes... both allied players left themselves absolutely defenseless. It seems to me there is some value in the strategy if properly played, especially against an unprepared Axis player... I also choke a bit on the plausbiity of the whole thing. I mean come on, would the Italians really sit idle while England sends the whole damn navy into the Med? Shouldn't this trigger Italian entry into the war?

I think the 42 game is great but I wore it out a while back... Von Pawlow, I think it best just to email a section of the PBEM league mailing list asking for a game against either a new player or an experience guy willing to take allies at a low bid and give you tips. The mail list is posted on the sticky topic at the top of the forum. let me know how it works out for you!

Curry, the league is really excellent. I have 8-9 games on the go with players from all around the globe. Thanks to you and Kurt for launching it. FF

hi dude, welcome to the virtual neigborhood. the way the standings work in the PBEM league is a bit bizzare so having the #1 spot really isn't that much of a claim to fame. if you want to get together for a beer I am open to that idea... I can even bring my laptop. Anyone else from Vancouver on the forum??

grumble. YOu guys hijacked this topic. I was hoping to see a discussion about SC tactics... but, at least there is some activity on the forum! :cool:

Hi, Welcome to the forum. if you are interested in PBEM play sign up for the PBEM league. Then send out an email to part of the mail list (the entire mail list is too large) and ask for a game with a new player. You will also find that many of the experienced players don't mind taking some time to play tutorial games with new players. I would offer, but right now I have about eight games on the go so I really don't want to take on another one. If you email me in 3-4 weeks I can probably start one up with ya! cheers FF p.s. hey Comrade Trapp, I betcha like the way this guy makes his first posting, he is so nice!

Hey Roosevelt45, glad you liked the post. I thought of a couple more that fit the theme... #6 Leaderless RAF in Combat Once in a while a new player will engage in air battles over the channel before the purchase an HQ. Bad idea! Without the HQ your airfleets lose badly in combat. Keep the your airfleet out of harms way unit you can buy Monty. #7 Inviting Italians to the Party Keep the Italians out of the war as long as possible. This means not moving units out of the med. The common mistake is to operate the Malta air to the UK. If you replace it with a corps it is okay but if you leave Malta open then Italy joins in a few turns. Fleet movements are okay... [ September 17, 2004, 06:53 PM: Message edited by: Friendly Fire ]

John, thanks for the kudos. It can work to send everything to Poland and still crush the gambit but it is a dangerous strategy for new players. Rambo, I agree the game is a lot like chess. But FYI I have played a number of very good opponents, including Terif and Dragonheart. And there are a lot of very good players who you don't know about, maybe because unlike you they do not make constant posts here proclaiming how good they are! Maybe they aren't interested in becoming a "big name player" Does it pay well, by the way? The purpose of the posting was not to explore all the opening variations but to help new players avoid making common mistakes. I made the post not to brag about my own abilities (I still can improve my game a lot) but because I really enjoy helping new players!

Hi guys, I have played quite a few games with new players over the past few months and I've noticed a few common mistakes during the opening turns. Nothing here is new, there are lots of excellent posts by Terif and others that explain this stuff. But since the mistakes seem common I may as well write something. Here we go, top 5 rookie mistakes in the early war, in no particular order. #1 Turn 1 Low Country Gambit. Yikes, this is a terrible idea against an experienced player! During his first turn the experienced Axis player will be preparing to invade the LC. Even if you can take Brussels (not a high probability) there is a strong risk the Axis will punch a hole through your front. You simply don’t have enough time to get units in place to properly defend the whole frontier. Wait till turn 2, if Axis commits everything to Poland then seizing Brussels and all the hexes adjacent to the Rhine then the LC gambit can be very effective. #2 Carriers against the Luftwaffe Carriers are pretty weak in 1939, but with training and tech they will become the most powerful units on the board. The axis player will be happy to see the planes from the carrier fight his land based aircraft; the MPP exchange favors Axis heavily. This means that want to keep them safe and out of harms way in the early part of the game. It will be tempting at times to use your carriers to take out damaged Axis units but consider the risks carefully. This doesn’t mean that you should leave them in port, in the first few turns they are good for finding and sinking subs. Ireland is a perfect carrier target, and any Axis unit that strays out of air cover present an excellent opportunity for further training! Once France falls the Allies play should be on the lookout for opportunities to further train the carriers. #3 Missed Allied Opportunities. What I mean here is that during the game the Allies have a few freebies. But often my opponents have been letting these pass by. First is Brest, there is no need to evacuate Brest until Axis forces you to do so. Depending on how the French campaign went the Axis player may not want to divert resources to get it back right away. It is worth 10 MPP to Allies and 16 MPP for axis, or a 26 MPP swing. If you can hold it for ten turns it could mean one less German army invading Russia. Similarly don’t let Axis have Bergen and Beruit without any kind of fight. You need to be ready to occupy those cities as soon as Norway or Vichy falls. Remember, if the Allies sit back and let Axis do everything they want to then the game is lost. #4 Air Raids on the Royal Navy. I like to dangle a few Royal Navy ships out in the channel in the hopes that the Axis player will waste his air resources trying to sink them. Don’t fall for this! The Allies have lots of ships and we are happy to see you use valuable air strike instead of taking out a land unit (or re-enforcing, or moving the air closer to Paris). But keep in mind #2 above, if the opportunity arises, sink a carrier! If you need to trade an air unit for the carrier do it, this is like trading a rook for a queen on the chessboard! #5 No plan in Poland. Another common mistake is when the Axis player takes all his units and tries to destroy as many Polish units as possible. The result is typically a bunch of damaged but in supply Polish units. One turn 1 the Allied player will fall back to Warsaw or try to cut your units out of supply. A far more effective strategy is to force a breakthrough so you can get three units adjacent to Poland in turn 2. All these units need to be in good supply. If you can do this then most of the Polish units will be out of supply. Then in turn 2 you can take Warsaw and with a bit of luck Poland will fall in turn 2. Sometimes you need the help of one air unit to force the breakthrough. But remember to prepare to invade the LC at the same time unless you want to fight across the Rhine! (Most players use an HQ, 3 air, 2 army/tank and 1-2 corps on the western front.) I hope this post was helpful. Best of luck to anyone who is just starting out with SC! [ September 16, 2004, 05:37 PM: Message edited by: Friendly Fire ]

Hey Les, today I started a new PBEM game, played turn 1, hit done... was about the save the file.. but then all the Allied units started moving. Yikes! But then I realized I started a game against the AI.... duh...

I have ordered 4 battlefront games into Vancouver. (the good Vancouver, not that suburb of Portland). Each arrived in about 1 week. If you want the games just order them.

I play a lot of PBEM games in SC and feel that the program could include a few simple enhancements to ease the task of sending and receiving these files I'd like to see some simple integration to email. When I create a new game let me enter the email address of the opponent. Include my email address in the turn file also. When I am finished my turn auto increment the turn number and mail it to my opponent (assuming I turned on the option). Move the turn I just responded to into a "played" folder (assuming I turned on that option). oh, it would be nice to have the option to zip the file, am I asking for the sky? thx FF [ September 05, 2004, 11:55 PM: Message edited by: Friendly Fire ]

oops, duplicate [ September 06, 2004, 09:42 AM: Message edited by: Friendly Fire ]

Hi fischkopf, I don't think a 256 bit key fits into 4 bytes. Still, your idea is pretty good, takes out 90+ percent of the cheaters. I think I could hack it by attacking the PBEM file, even if the key is split up into a bunch of locations I would look for parts of the file that are constant within a game but vary from game to game. With enough samples I can track down all the key bytes. Once I get a good list of these locations I would mod them to match a game file I just generated and then I get a free reload. (Or a corrupted game file if I made a mistake) of course you can add another twist to make this harder, the cat and mouse game can go on and on... but I still think the game should make it less easy to play turns over and over, and your concept makes it hard, or at least a bloody nuisance. Good thinking!

hey, cool AAR! Half a turn played! The suspense is killing me!

what a bunch of whining in this AAR!

Bill101 and I are playing a fun variant where Turkey starts allied (also Allies get some a bid of 200:500:1600 or something like that) There is lots of action in the Med, he (Allies) took Iraq early and doing everything he can to keep it. But I am about to take Alexandria and am rolling into Turkey (Spain neutral). :cool: oh ya, his carriers are busy trashing the north coast of France (attacking empty cities without losses, this never works for me!)

are you asking me? I'm a bit confused by the AAR, sounds like you are Axis and you are facing LC gambit, and you have invaded Norway? against LC gambit you need to build enough air to kill off more units than the Allies can build. Use land units across river to take down entrenchment then air to kill. Repeat. You have some extra time to take Paris because of delayed USA entry. I think Terif has a good posting about this, see the stratagy thread at the top of the forum, I put some links there.

I'm playing a fun game (for me) at the moment Allies took LC on turn 1 but left open the south maginot to do so. Naturally I grabbed those nice hexes on the far side of the Rhine and now it is a straight line to Paris, far out of the reach of the Royal Navy - albeit with a 500+ MPP swing against Axis (he got LC plunder, not me) I'm with Rambo, if you are prepared to invade LC on turn 2 then you should be in good shape to counter turn 1 LC gambit...

And the verdict on these rules? From the AAR there is a long period with nothing going on, even worse than the usual games... I take it Avatar did not try to defend Egypt by sending an HQ via Suez? If not then for sure it will fall eventually even with the restrictions on Axis units in the Med. The middle game would be more interesting if Allies try to hold Egypt. (not saying it is the best strategic choise, just makes a better mid game) FF