John DiFool the 2nd

Having a few games under my belt now (both ways) I'd thought I'd discuss tech strategy. I'll preface this with what I believe was a mistake I made playing the Russians. Knowing that my corps and armies would get slaughtered without help I put some chits into infantry and anti-tank tech. I also put a few into the 3 industrial techs but kind of forgot about those once Barbarossa started and my other chits started to pay off. Well my thinking was to form a killer reserve (partly based around the Siberian troops) consisting of some very tough, maxed out infantry armies, plus a few tanks, and spring it on the Jerries at precisely the right moment. Well Summer of '42 rolled around, I started taking serious casualties, and I had to commit my reserves, some of which then bought it. Imagine the shock I got when I wanted to rebuild them-with 3 levels of infantry, A-T, and 1 of Motorization, build cost was almost doubled! Sure I could rebuild them with no upgrades, but then they would just get killed again. I then realized that by neglecting IT (both kinds) I had seriously hosed myself-the troops I needed to stem the time were too expensive! Build the wimpy ones instead and I'm still dead. Manage to stop the Germans eventually but my losses were horrendous. I'd have to say then that the ITs are the tail which wags the tech dog-all those nice but expensive techs aren't worth much if the units are too expensive!

Hmm I think I would have preferred a third air unit instead: Coastal Scouts or somefink...

In my 2 games yesterday (once from each side), I noticed that you can move, supply, and even operate through diagonals, despite the fact that the enemy city/unit in question is completely surrounded! During the enemy turn the diagonally-oriented squares I had flipped (after my units surrounded the city) somehow flipped back to enemy control, thus allowing the enemy to both reinforce his garrison to full strength (w/ full supply) AND operate units out of (to save them) or into the newly-flipped enemy squares ("Where the &^%* did those buggers come from?!?"). Units were constantly infiltrating my lines through the diagonals too (the fact that I usually killed them is beside the point). In SC1 of course if I surrounded a unit like that he had no chance to escape his fate. I would have sworn that we had a discussion long ago, when the use of squares was confirmed, where someone pointed out that, "Hey-you can bypass the enemy line by sneaking through the corners!" and Hubert was like, "No, no that kind of movement won't be allowed." My solution would be that such diagonal movement (of whatever kind) would be disallowed if it had to go through TWO enemy zones of control (squares wouldn't flip either unless the zones of control outnumber the enemy). Otherwise it is kind of silly to require 2-4 extra units to completely seal off a city and/or unit. P.s. Contrary to the manual I lost a CV (damaged) when it attacked a BB 2 squares away-damage did not stop at one. I still think the ship and air group should be decoupled from each other (5 points each).

Well as promised I'm going to be doing some tinkering this weekend to get the Atlantic battle to where I think it should be. First I'll need a cheat code to observe the Allies so I can see what kind of "doctrine" (termed used loosely) the AI employs when going after the U-boats. My preliminary observations/remedies, bullet by bullet: 1. Subs, if found and attacked en masse by 2 or more CAs (in the base game), will die, very quickly. Problem is at the beginning of the war the British simply were not using their cruiser groups as sub hunters, not by a long shot: they were not equipped to do so, their doctrine was not set up in favor of sub hunting, etc. Most subs sunk were sunk by convoy escorts. 2. Thus, the high (5) vs. sub ratings for CAs will likely be lowered. 2a. Sub attack vs. capital ships will also be lowered a bit (tho they only seem to do damage when attacking or when surprised). 3. CAs will also be subsumed into BB groups, or several of them will be renamed BCs (battlecruisers) as Britain had several of them still around at war's begin (Hood, Renown, Repulse), with appropriate ratings (good attack, not so good defense, cheaper than a regular BB). 4. I will assume when reconstructing the fleets that each BB/BC counter will represent 2 capital ships each (Rodney/Nelson, Bismarck/Tirpitz, etc.). This will actually allow a few MORE capital ships at the start of the war per side (most notably the missing German pocket BBs). 5. In conjunction with the above, a new unit will be made: the Sub Hunter (or CL, if you like). THIS unit will be the one responsible for hunting subs. In terms of pure realism the RN should NOT start the war with ANY of these, but for playability purposes I'll likely give them one. Attack vs. subs likely a 4. 6. Sub dive percentages will likely have a wider range, if possible (I'd like 25-75%). In Silent Hunter 3 I've seen what one lone (and slightly nerfed by Ubisoft) Type XXI can do- the Allies should be afraid, very afraid, if the Germans get tech that high. :eek: 7. I also hope I can talk Hubert into subsuming Radar/anti-Radar tech into both bombers and subs. 8. A script to inflict small random damage to subs raiding actively in the convoy lanes will also be added; this was a war of attrition not a war of a few big Jutland-like setpiece battles, and this will help reflect that. A month tinkering in the dungeon, refining the scripts, etc. etc. and I should have a workable prototype. :cool: John DiFool P.s. The raiding routine seems wonky-sometimes my subs sink tons of MPPs, othertimes none at all, and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it all.

Hear hear!

I got it! Setup ran fine, now to do a quick turn... and go to bed.

Was halfway done, it went dead, tried restarting, but DAP says BF's server "does not support resume". WTF? I've seen several messages here (including Wolfpack's above) which indicate they WERE able to resume. Again WTF? :confused:

Thanks. DL speed is now 3x4 what it was before (~22 vs. 6-8), so I might actually get to try it before midnight rolls around. :cool:

DAP doesn't get along with Firefox-someone have an idea how to get it to recognize the game key in DAP so that DAP starts downloading it not Firefox?

I ordered it today @ 1:45 pm EDT, got email @ 7:57 pm EDT, FWIW...downloading now.

Oh what happened to diagonal moves costing more? If a straight move costs one move point then a diagonal move would be: the square root of 1 squared + 1 squared, or square root of 2 = 1.414 move points, which you could round up to to 1.5 for playability purposes. [i teach this stuff all the time as I'm a math teacher] I can see some gamey moves being made which take advantage of this, esp. in the Atlantic since you can choose your route square by square if you like...

But by then [1946] the Germans might have hit back with V-weapons and worse. Or the Russians would have been sitting pretty in Berlin for almost a year by then...

Well, at the other extreme there should be a winning Sea Lion strategy for the Germans, otherwise we lose what should be a viable (marginally or not) alternate strategy...

Kind of like the newfangled sonar they have now which can detect a sub by detecting the "hole" it occupies in the water...

Speaking of paras, can you move them by air from one friendly base to another, without dropping? I.e. all troops just get in their C-47s, fly along and then land in the plane? I ask because of the chance of losing strength points when they use their chutes...

Still early-I'm not making premature judgements just some observations.

Well if balance is the key then German radar research would beget them radar detectors like Metox, right? Thus balance between air units hunting subs with radar and subs evading them would be nice and symmetrical. :cool: Oh and can surface ships raid convoy routes?

Have a few more questions guys (after reading the effin' manual...): 1. Shouldn't Sub tech increase MPP loss for attacks on a convoy route? Think a Type XXI rampaging through the lanes in 1944... 2. Motorization tech for tanks? Aren't tanks already motorized? Thus this tech should allow the infantry to keep up with the armor? 3. Radar Tech increasing attack % for planes vs. subs? This was a key development in the convoy battles, probably moreso than tech improvements for escorts (Hedgehogs, better sonar, RDF, etc.). It would then allow the Allies to choose whether to help the planes when they hunt for subs (researching Radar and Long Range) or the escorts (your current Anti-Sub tech).

Interesting, I found just the opposite playing against the Allied AI. In three quick games (2 with FOW on, 1 with FOW off) I sunk 4 to 6 allied surface ships in the Atlantic before the demo ended. Axis losses were 0 to 2 fleets. </font>

I'm a tad disappointed in the Battle of the Atlantic. Just like in SC1 my 2 subs out there didn't survive very long-and the third one, which got knocked down to one strength point, mysteriously vanished off the map during my opponent's turn (after I had sailed it back into the safety of the Baltic). I think I'll have to tweak the dive percentage in favor of the U-boats else they will just get slaughtered, or at best suffer a severe negative MPP deficit.

[Remember what today's date is]

:mad: As far as I know, this (SC2) kind of resource/convoy system has never been implemented in a strategic- level game before. I dislike (ahem) seazones because it's all binary: in-the-zone/out-of-the-zone, sink-or-survive. You don't get any of the stuff you'll see in SC2, with uboats sneaking around trying to find "juicy" hunting spots while the enemy tries to locate them. You really can't (?) do fog-of-war with seazones-in COS I knew whether the enemy had subs in box X or not and could move assets there to try to sink them (at which point the random number degenerator replaces strategy). Seazones just greatly simplify things to the point of ennui. Plus I'm planning to do a Battle of the Atlantic mod once this Puppy (tm JJR) is out the door, so don't even HINT that you're trying to ruin my fun! :cool:

Okay no problem really. Will there be Mulberries?

I dunno-at the risk of suffering the wrath of the dreaded "M" word, I'm not sure adding supply convoys in addition to resource convoys would be that bad. Both would work analogously, both would then be subject to interdiction in identical ways. Say the base supply of a port is 5-then a sub, raider, or air unit may "damage" the supply route all the way down to zero. In some cases the relevant port may be out of range of being damaged itself while the route would easily be subject to interdiction. But if the will of the designer(s) is against this then I won't quibble too much...

No, they do not HAVE to be scripted. By default you get 50% of overseas production for controlled resources, just like SC1. The convoy scripts allow for greater percentages, perhaps affected by seasonal weather. They also allow for majors to get some production from neutral minors at some activation level, like the Swedish Iron Ore scripts for Germany. And they allow for lend lease exchange of MPPs between friendly majors, which offers considerable flexibility for the Allied player now. </font>