Orange Devil

I won't be able to do anything but PBEM this week as i've got tentams (representing a part of my exams) at school this week, and then this weekend I gotta finish a bookreport and a rather long paper. Next week however I should be good for both TCPIP as well as PBEM.

I'm still playing Kurt by email (right?) and I still have to start a game against Kuni, which will be TCPIP probably so as soon as we can play we will.

You lose experience in % whenever you reinforce your units. I'll come back on that later. If you want to start strat-bombing you gotta find an empty city or a port in your reach. Since these facilities have AA defenses you will need to use your strategic bomber first because it deals most damage. As soon as the facility is damaged enough (the number turns black and orange I think) you can use airfleets with low risk of them getting damaged (unless interepted ofcourse) You can even use ships to bombard ports or citys at a low risk now. Basically what's important is that you get .25 exp every time your unit I attack (unless I got the numbers wrong). And as said, when you reinforce a unit with a max strenght of 10 by 1 then it loses 10% experience. So you need to balance reinforcing and attacking. You can have a 3 bar 6 strenght airfleet, or a 1.5 bar 12 strenght airfleet. You gotta balance unit strenght and experience loss, there is no real system for it, it depends on the game situation. In the long run you should gain experience though, if not you are doing something wrong (probably attacking non-weakened targets with normal airfleets)

orangedevil@home.nl Both my email and MSN.

Ermmm exactly how do I contact kuniworth?

How about also being able to alter the increase in unit costs when they get teched up? Right now no naval units nor bombers are affordable as soon as you reach 3+ tech levels, sometimes even much earlier then that. I find it quite hard for the UK to buy more AF after the jet tech (and maybe LR) combined get around 4, the jets just get inaffordable for the UK, even though Axis can still pump out plenty of em.

So if there is an LC gambit with a UK unit taking Brussels, then both French and UK units and later maybe even US units will all get the UK AA bonus?

I'd play but I really doubt I can play 1 game a week... I mean TCP IP takes a big chunk out of my weekends, and I neeeed my weekends.

Well... that was one fast win, im not sure about rookies mistakes, you did get 1 ok counter attack, killing my tank group and all. Your other counter attack cost you Leningrad though. Anyways, I'd post a mini-AAR about this game but since some of my strategies seem to work I dont want to give them away for free just yet. I must say that Currys counter-attacks scared the living **** out of me at first though, i havent played in Russia alot yet and I've never seen such organized counter-attacks (using 2 air and 4 or 5 units to cut off and/or destroy some of my units) I thought I was prepared playing 2 games against the AI with me being both sides once but I guess I was wrong. Anyways I wouldve liked to continue this game, even if it was just for some experience with the scenario, but since it is a tournament game I'll be more then happy to accept the win.

Hmmm I gave up on looks long ago (in the games area that is). I mean honestly, look at SC, then look at another (completely different I know, but still same genre, being strategy) game like C&C Generals. SC looks like it was made 10 or more years ago. Ofcourse, SC is just a map with counters on it but even a game like Risk 2 had 'combat animations'. So basically SC looks crap, especially compared to whats possible. But it's still a really great game. Now i'm not calling SS and Blitzkrieg great games, I couldn't stand Blitzkrieg for longer then 1 hour max, and the SS single player campaigns were more fun to imagine how your perfect plan was going to wax the enemy then actually proceeding to execut said perfect plan (and yes, making a perfect plan in SS was quite easy, only problem was that if you made 1 small error by sending a tank in late or anything like that and you'd get waisted) I'm just saying that the potential for those game was in multiplayer, just like SC's main potential is. WW2 RTS games still have a long ways to go before they get anywhere near realism, but SS and later Blitzkrieg was the best out there, and better then any predecessors. The Blitzkrieg 2 thing they are making now should be more realistic, I hope they changed their supply sytem and AI, if they did i'm definately getting it. About the banging away bit... exactly what are we doing in SC multiplayer? We get an opponent to play against and we bang away at each others units... hmmm sounds familiar. Only difference is that units in SC resemble armies and corps instead of single units. Personally I agree that controlling single units one by one in a WW2 setting is to much micromanagement, either you need to make the game on an extremely small scale or give lots and lots of units. Sudden Strike went with the second option, people complained that they lost control and overview in big battles. So in Blitzkrieg infantry were only selectable in groups of about 10. Also they made the scale a bit smaller and they fixed most issues with that. What I'm trying to say is is that WW2 RTS gaming is evolving, and im really hoping something truely great is going to come out of it one day, since I overall like real-time games better then turn-based games. If you dont like real-time games in general then that is your opinion and your right to have and express, but IMO its not very fair to bash just about any game just because its real time; my dad has the same phenomemen (sp?), he cant stand anything real time because he doesnt get the time he wants to think. On the other hand he plays Jagged Alliance 2 (great game) so much that it makes me want to pull my hair out.

Well it would certainly simulate the war last 6 years... then again I dont know if I want to play 1 game against the same opponent for 6 years.

I've actually got the entire SS (Gotta hate the abreviation, especially in relation to a wargame) series as well as Blitzkrieg. I think SS was ok in single player. Its the most realistic real time WW2 RTS ive seen and the missions are a challenge (just because youre outnumbered 10:1 or worse doesnt mean you cant win). Blitzkrieg I didnt like at all. Theres 2 types of missions, the historical ones (quite detailed, interesting objectives and challenging (among others because you are outnumbered)) and the stupid fodder missions you have to play countless times to gain 'experience' and new core units (get enough experience and you get an extra tank and/or artillery unit for all further missions). Basically those fodder missions could usually be ended by simply using 1 scout and 3 or more artillery pieces and blasting away, sometimes literally plowing the whole map. Make sure you've got 1 or 2 AA guns set up and maybe a small line of defence (some entrenched infantry and 2 tanks are usually enough) and you can kill all the enemies right from the starting position, they wont return fire because they usually dont have artillery and they wont launch any serious assault to shut your artillery up. On top of that the maps are randomly generated which gives bland maps that usually resemble each other quite alot (basically its just a few hundred puzzle pieces matched together in a different way everytime). The strenght of both games lies in multiplayer though. If you've ever played a 4v4 Sudden Strike 2, or worse/better yet a Sudden Strike Forever (expansion to 1) game you will know what a slugging fest means. Basically at the start of the game you rush all your units to the best defendable positions as near to the middle of the map as possible. Then you quickly deploy and creat a small line with infantry and some AT guns. Then wait for your tanks and artillery to arrive, set up more AT guns, infantry and tanks. Maybe some mines and tank blockades and then fire away those artillery pieces at each other for literally hours. Sometimes a small commando infantry team will attack to spot enemy tanks, sometimes some tanks will attack to attempt to conquer a ridge or otherwise slightly defendable position and once in a while an airstrike can be called in. After several hours of slugging (if played properly) you can finally launch a decent offensive and maybe capture another strategic position (marked with zeppelins), if you have enough of said positions you get new reinforcements. But usually the maps are build so that the further one team gets driven back, the better their defensive positions become. In short, my longest SS 2 match was 4v4 and lasted 9 hours, no pauses or breaks of any kind. Basically we were constantly firing artillery and maneuvring tanks out of harms way. At the end everyone ran out of artillery ammo and we wun because we had hidden 2 Elephant tanks as a strategic reserve very deeply in the back of our territory and in a forest to prevent spotting. When we used those 2 tanks the enemy realised they didnt have any artillery heavy enough left to injure those tanks and they got pounded to hell. Blitzkrieg is about the same only on a smaller level. Games of 1 hour and up are considered quite long and usually you get alot less units and smaller maps then in SS series. The thing I dont like about Blitzkrieg though is the fact you get unlimited ammo. In SS if you could find out where an enemy had a supply stash and you bombed it then that made a huge difference. In Blitzkrieg its not about the supply stashes but about the trucks delivering the supplies, once you run out of trucks you cant get the supplies. Unrealistic and alot less fun IMO.

Just to make sure everyone knows. I can be contacted at orangedevil@home.nl I can play PBEM all week, usually getting in multiple turns a day or TCP IP in the weekends. I can't host TCP IP though because of my router.

Ermm just a thought here. If you bid lower then maybe there is less pressure to do everything perfectly?

Im up for it. Is this going to be TCP/IP or PBEM though? I dont mind either but prefer the latter.