mcaryf1

This thread is not actually about the incessant rain in the UK since Spring or the heatwave in the US but rather pointing out some minor anomalies in the way SC handles weather. These are minor so I am not requesting that SC is changed but players and scenario designers might like to be aware of them. First anomaly - if you have a scenario which has simultaneous rather than alternate turns the date does not change but the weather might. Thus if you are playing Axis and you place a ship in a convenient rain squall to avoid air attack you cannot be sure that the squall will still be there for the Allied players turn despite it being the same date. Personally I think this is quite reasonable as otherwise it gives an advantage to the player going first, however, it is not necessarily what you might expect. Second anomaly - it seems that the check as to whether the weather is such that air action is possible is conducted just in the start and finish squares. I have observed the flight line from airport to target pass right over my own fighter which was not allowed to intercept due to rain. This was despite there being sufficient rainy areas in the way so that the target could not be reached. I have seen this type of effect manifest itself in a different way when an IJN CV in the Med was able to attack one of my ships in the Bay of Biscay despite neutral Spain, Vichy France and Switzerland being in the way. I guess the lack of weather interdiction might be fair on the basis that once a plane is in the air it could possibly fly over the top of bad weather. That would not appease the irate neutrals but I think neutrality was occasionally abused in WW2 so I am not arguing for a change! Third Anomaly - seasonal turns which cover longer periods in winter are based on the seasons in the Northern hemisphere. Personally I think they are a good facility as they give both players a chance to consolidate and rebuild their forces. However, there are some consequences with respect to those countries/areas where the Northern winter dates are actually the best period for campaigning. An example is Burma where "winter" months are normally the driest part of their year, for the rest of the time aircraft are quietly rusting in their hangars! I am not sure what would be the best way to address this but it might be reasonable to examine the various weather zones where this would be true and see if it might be possible to tweak the weather values in Spring and Autumn to recognise the "winter" campaigning time that had been lost. Regards Mike

Hi SeaMonkey The problem with more HQ's is that HQ's serve two functions providing both supply and additional readiness/experience. Extra HQ's equals extra supplies and that should be one of the important limiting factors in the China Theatre. I am experimenting with just two Chinese HQ's and 3 Japanese ones. Regards Mike

Hi Pzgndr Thank you for the steer to use waypoints for naval loops. I am not sure whether this technique would work for land based loops as "goal" positions there seem to be just the real goal of an offensive etc. Returning to the issue of Transports I have been thinking about these whilst away on holiday and come to the conclusion that Transports ought to have a relatively high evasion factor. The number of major Transports lost with troops aboard was pretty small in WW2 and almost always associated with an evacuation e.g. the sinking of The Lancastrian in a French port during the evacuation of British troops from France (post Dunkirk). That was the biggest loss ever of Allied troops at sea with something in excess of of 4,000 lives lost. However, compare this with the loss of any SC troop unit and the effective numbers would be hugely greater. Vast numbers of troops were transported across the Atlantic and virtually none of them were lost. They were generally in fast liners that the U Boats could not typically intercept. Thus an appropriate solution would be to give them a high evasion rating but when I tried to do this I found that the editor will not give Transports such a rating although they can have defensive values. My next thought was that troop transports ought to be able to cross the Atlantic in one turn (Queen Mary could certainly cross in less than 1 week)but then I found that the maximum action points is 25 so Transports have to spend at least one turn as sitting ducks! I will need to experiment with Naval Loops and Waypoints to see if this solves the problem, I will need to check if an astute opponent could set an ambush on a known Loop entry or exit. One other aspect of this is that troops might be effectively out of action for a substantial period. If it takes two turns to travel normally or by Loop then the unit has effectively lost 2 months if the turns are alternate 14 day ones. I can understand that it might be a sensible game restriction to make 25 x AP an upper limit as the AI would have more potential moves to evaluate, however, giving Transports the opportunity for an evasion rating would be historically accurate. Regards Mike

Hi PowerGmBh Thank you for your interesting answer. I agree with you that the AI is pretty clever for a machine based intelligence although of course has difficulty in seeing the big picture that would be obvious to a human. I have observed the AI happily sending its troops aboard transports to almost certain destruction whilst a human of course would attempt to provide an escort or skip from port to port on a long trip. The only solution to this in my view is to design scenarios where one side is to be played by the AI and it is given advantages such as transports with defense values and AV's with attack values so that it does not need to know that it should provide escorts etc. With respect to loops I might experiment with some land based loops e.g. between the UK and a notional Mulberry Harbour disembarkation point near Nantes and see how the AI reacts as I guess at least some land units might just fall through the loop to France and, as space is at a premium in the UK, the AI might just keep moving land units to the loop entrance! I should say I will be away from my PC for a few days so may not be able to respond unless I find an internet cafe. Regards Mike

Hi PowerGmbH Thank you for your helpful reply. How about the existence of a LOOP. I presume the AI is aware in the standard map that it can move from the Pacific to the Atlantic although I do not think I have observed it doing that. So if I create other loops (clearly Brute Force has a lot of different loops due to its map structure) will the AI have a mechanism that it uses to check the shortest effective distance between two points including the existence of loops? I have observed the AI blockading an enemy port, where supply events have been created, but whether this was done by chance or deliberately I do not know. Regards Mike

I am interested to understand what the AI knows. For example would the AI realise if new loops had been created to make it possible for US troops to move to the UK or N Africa in the space of one turn, which they actually could using liners such as Queen Mary? Would it make a difference if these loops were located on land or at sea? Does the AI check all "supply" events to see where it might be advantageous to blockade ports by placing units on specific squares? Is the AI aware if a unit has had its characteristics changed fairly radically to make it simulate another unit type? For example if a Rocket is given anti-shipping capabilities to simulate Japanese Kamikazes. I have observed the AI utilising multiple strikes where a unit, such as a bomber has them. In my test scenario I have also given other units multiple strikes e.g. BBs, because they had primary and secondary guns to deal with multiple threats, and US fighters, because there were just too many of them to represent with single units. The AI does use these multiple strikes but I am not sure how much it understands about the potential of these units. The AI guide indicates that the AI tries to add up the striking capabilities of all its units but does it count twice for units with multiple strikes? Regards Mike

Hi Hubert I will await your deliberations with interest. Thank you for reminding me about the AI guide. I had looked at it briefly when I first got Gold but I probably need to read it more deeply now that I have some familiarity with what the AI seems to be doing in practice. I do have another question of detail - I am trying to understand the difference between a Type 1 and a Type 0 Supply event. This is what the file guide says: ; #TYPE= With all other factors satisfied will this be a (values range [0, 2]): ; A) Single check regardless if trigger is satisfied= 0 ; Multiple check until trigger is satisfied= 1 ; C) Reoccuring check until end of game= 2 I had assumed that "trigger" in statement (A) meant the first time the date and Trigger % allowed the event to fire and it would permanently fail if the other conditions such as "link" and "variable" were not satisfied. However, in practice it seems that it will actually wait until "link" is satified as well so does it only fail permanently if " variable" is wrong or does trigger actually mean the TRIGGER command? My revised attempt at a raider process had monthly supply events waiting to fire if the DE detecting raiders was answered No rather than Yes (pay for more merchant ships). What I found was that if a player had answered Yes for 4 months and then NO or if raiders were not actually present then all the previous 4 months' penalties would fire on that turn. It is not a disaster as it just ensures that the selected locations are well and truly zapped but it looks a bit strange to see a whole set of triggered supply events happening on one turn. I should note that it is quite useful that the National Morale event has its own CONDITIONAL_POSITION Statement like DEs so I can throw in a few of those events if there are, say, 3 or more raiders in a sea area and that should help to keep the opposing player guessing as to what is causing his problems. It would be helpful if that condition was also available in Supply Events as it is rather more powerful than SOURCE_POSITION. Regards Mike

Hi Hubert I can certainly see why you would leave a DE set if it was a Type 0 or a Type 1. The Shinano decision is clearly one where the results of a decision taken in 1942 actually do not take place until 1944. Taken in isolation the best way to treat Type 2 decisions would probably have been to go for reverting to Null between decisions but I guess coding the decision process would be more complex if the various types diverged too much so I presume that tipped it in favour of your actual approach which is useful in some situations. With respect to Trigger you said it was one of the conditions that must be true. That implies an AND relationship which is what I intended when I said it would take precedence although I admit I lacked clarity in expressing it that way. I started this thread by asking if there was any additional documentation that might be used by scenario designers. I am particularly interested in the AI aspects as I guess there may well be interpretation issues there rather like those discussed above re handling DE Type 2. Regards Mike

Hi Strategiclayabout I guess I am usually quite careful with HQ's so I do not have much experience of their suffering combat losses. Also with my longer radius of control they do not need to be too near the front line. WRT forced marches for ships I can only make my scenarios within the standard rules of the game thus forced marches for ships would be a question for Hubert. I am not really sure what it would simulate in the real world. Over time all WW2 ships needed refits to deal with general wear and tear but those were not usually related to one specific trip at "high" speed although I suppose that would not have helped an already tired ship. I suppose it might be possible to crank up the storm damage risk to penalise ships which spend all their time at sea. Regards Mike

Hi Hubert Thank you for confirming that DE type 2 does not return to a null state with respect to the answer provided after it has first been triggered. I have to say that I find it quite difficult to come up with many situations where it would be preferable to leave the DE set at Yes or No rather than reverting to Null but if that is the way it is meant to be I will just have to think of another way to give players choices between two bad events - paying for new merchant ships or supply/morale hits. I guess the most likely approach will be for me to look at some sort of Quarterly penalty with a limited number of one off (Type 1) supply events spread out to match Quarter days triggered if a player has declined a purchase option in the previous 3 months. In fact this is an example where I could possibly use the DE remaining set at No as a mechanism - if I add a degree of randomness via a Trigger setting then that would make it hard for the players to try to take different decisions near the end of a Quarter to avoid the 3 monthly penalty. Am I right in thinking that Trigger will take precedence over other criteria for a decision becoming active? Regards Mike

I have tried the suggested solution in various ways but I am sorry to say it just does not work. The basic problem is that once a DE has been triggered by having its conditions satified it will not return to a null state. Thereafter it has to be passing on that it is either YES or NO. This means in my situation even if I have nested DE statements they are either picking up a YES or NO from earlier statement and will therefore be active whether or not the original trigger is still true. This is also true for Supply statements that depend on a DE to be triggered. This effectively means that Type 2 DE's cannot function effectively if a genuine decision is involved that relates to specific conditions. The original problem was that a triggered DE to which the player had replied No would continue to send a No value even when the original trigger had stopped being true and would no longer give the player an option to change their answer to Yes until the trigger activated the DE again. When I switched this so that a second DE was triggered by the First DE having a No and using that to trigger the supply event without it also having the original condition for the first DE, it would now give the player the option of paying the cost or the supply penalty but would continue to give that option every turn until the original DE got switched back on by its conditions being satisfied. This seems to happen regardless of whether there is any text or not associated with the DE. This is a step forward of sorts in that the player can at least choose between a supply or MPP penalty but is still wrong when actually no penalty should apply! The only way I can think to do this is to have a series of Type 1 DE's linked to specific Type 1 supply events so that each one can only be triggered once. This is going to be rather tedious to code so I will think further about it but I do feel that Type 2 DE's are effectively bugged at the moment. Regards Mike

Hi Strategiclaybout I think both your suggestions have merit particularly in the context of the standard game. My own view about HQ's is that their number should be very restricted and their price very high. This is in their context of providing supply rather than acting as a manager of battles. I think that supply is a little too painless in the standard scenarios and players do not generally have to think too hard about where to conduct offensives. In a test scenario I have created I only allow the Axis to have more HQ's if they capture additional sources of oil. The Allies were less burdened by oil limitations. Because HQ's have a dual function in SC I have to give the Axis ones a longer command radius and the ability to control a few more units. I have been quite pleased with the result as it does give the Axis the dilemna of whether to attack in the South or in the North of Russia in 1942 which was one they really faced. One side effect is that HQ's do build up experience very rapidly as they are controlling more units. I am not entirely sure if HQ's actually lose experience if their units are defeated but I suspect not. Anyway this was a long way of saying that HQ's controlling more units over a longer range is a good proposal from my perspective. With respect to naval ranges the standard games really are rather a nonsense. Given that the time period covered is effectively 28 days most naval vessels of the era could probably have travelled half way round the world. For example cruising speed 15knts, 24 hours per day times 28 days = more than 6,000 nautical miles which is 100 odd SC squares. In my test bed scenario using the standard map I use simultaneous time (i.e. 14 days elapsed between players' turns rather than 28) and I use a range of 20 squares for BBs (cf standard 9) but rather less for DD's which were of course fast but with shorter endurance. I have found this works extremely well. I do other things to make naval conflict less catastrophic such as allowing evasion factors and quite a lot of rebuild potential (always instantaneous at 1/3 cost for DDs and subs on the basis that only part of the flotilla was at sea which was certainly the case for U Boats). Thus again a long answer but I do support the idea of longer ranges for warships but more as a general availability rather than a rearched item - I am not sure that individual ships ranges were greatly increased in WW2 but refuelling at sea which was developed in WW2 certainly gave DD's a much wider radius and the US fleet train was a spectacular success. Regards Mike

Hi Bill My experience is that Type 2 decision events are not returned to dormant state. In case I am doing something wrong here are a couple of examples of the events I am using. In the first case if raiders are off the Persian Gulf then Russia has to pay for replacement ships or suffer supply penalties. In a multiplayer game I put an IJN sub in position and had Russia refuse to pay. She got penalised with supply events. Next Axis turn I moved the IJN sub away, in the Allied turn there was no DE for the Russians but they were supply penalised and again for every succeeding turn. In the IJN case I assembled 3 Allied raiders in the area and had Japan refuse to pay. She was penalised with the two supply events triggered. I moved the US raiders away. Then there was a gap (I use 14 day simultaneous turns) but after second turn Japan was penalised again so the DE was still set to NO and triggering the next month's supply events. Here is my coding it is using a map that for these locations is the same as Axis High Tide: Example - simple Russian repeating DE { #NAME= DE 12 - USSR: Shall we build more Merchant Ships For Lend Lease Shipments #POPUP= Should we spend 20 MPP to replace Merchant Ships which have been sunk bringing Lend Lease to Persia #IMAGE= #SOUND= #FLAG= 1 #TYPE= 2 #AI= 0 #LEVEL= 0 #COUNTRY_ID= 4 #TRIGGER= 75 #DISPLAY_ORDER= 1 ; Set global variable condition to always trigger (dummy value) #GV= 1[1,100] ; Set link value to always trigger (dummy value) #LINK= 0[0] ; Set decision value #DECISION= 12 ; Set how many MPPs should be collected over X turns if player selects 'yes' #MPP_UPDOWN= -20 #MPP_TURNS= 1 #MPP_TEXT= Building more Merchant Ships for Lend Lease ; Set AI acceptance % (AI will accept 100% of the time) #AI_RESPONSE= 100 #AI_RESPONSE_POPUP= #DATE= 1939/09/01 #TEXT_RGB= 0,0,0 #SHADOW_RGB= 228,221,198 #NATIONAL_MORALE_TRIGGER= 0 [0] #FRIENDLY_POSITION= 17,23 ; Set variable conditions: ; 2nd and 3rd lines - US still fighting #VARIABLE_CONDITION= 3 [2] [100] [0] ; One or more raiders in Indian Ocean #CONDITION_POSITION= 116,32 [3,2] [1,1] [1] [0] } Supply Event { #NAME= USSR Lend Lease losses off Persian Gulf #POPUP= Lend Lease Aid interdicted Persian Gulf #IMAGE= #SOUND= convoy.wav #FLAG= 1 #TYPE= 2 #AI= 0 #LEVEL= 0 #GV= 1[1,100] #LINK= 12[0] #COUNTRY_ID= 6 #FLAG_ID= 4 #TRIGGER= 100 #SEASON_FLAG= 0 #DATE= 1939/09/01 #SOURCE_POSITION= #DESTINATION_RESOURCE= 109,15 [3,5] #DESTINATION_RESOURCE= 119,10 [2,4] #DESTINATION_RESOURCE= 111,20 [2,3] ; US at war and not surrendered #VARIABLE_CONDITION= 3 [2] [100] [0] } Example Japanese DE’s with non-repeating supply events each month { #NAME= DE 13 - Japan: Shall we build more Tankers to replace losses #POPUP= Should we spend 30 MPP to replace Tankers sunk bringing oil to Japan #IMAGE= #SOUND= #FLAG= 1 #TYPE= 2 #AI= 0 #LEVEL= 0 #COUNTRY_ID= 8 #TRIGGER= 100 #DISPLAY_ORDER= 1 ; Set global variable condition to always trigger (dummy value) #GV= 1[1,100] ; Set link value to always trigger (dummy value) #LINK= 0[0] ; Set decision value #DECISION= 13 ; Set how many MPPs should be collected over X turns if player selects 'yes' #MPP_UPDOWN= -30 #MPP_TURNS= 1 #MPP_TEXT= Building more Tankers 1 or 2 raiders ; Set AI acceptance % (AI will accept 100% of the time) #AI_RESPONSE= 100 #AI_RESPONSE_POPUP= #DATE= 1939/09/01 #TEXT_RGB= 0,0,0 #SHADOW_RGB= 228,221,198 #NATIONAL_MORALE_TRIGGER= 0 [0] ;Manila still controlled #FRIENDLY_POSITION= 162,32 ; Set variable conditions: ; 2nd and 3rd lines - US still fighting #VARIABLE_CONDITION= 3 [2] [100] [0] ; One or more raiders in South China Sea #CONDITION_POSITION= 165,31 [11,3] [1,1] [2] [0] } { #NAME= DE 29 - Japan: Shall we build more Tankers to replace losses #POPUP= Three or more raiders should we spend another 40 MPP to replace Tankers sunk bringing oil to Japan #IMAGE= #SOUND= #FLAG= 1 #TYPE= 2 #AI= 0 #LEVEL= 0 #COUNTRY_ID= 8 #TRIGGER= 100 #DISPLAY_ORDER= 1 ; Set global variable condition to always trigger (dummy value) #GV= 1[1,100] ; Set link value to always trigger (dummy value) #LINK= 0[0] ; Set decision value #DECISION= 29 ; Set how many MPPs should be collected over X turns if player selects 'yes' #MPP_UPDOWN= -40 #MPP_TURNS= 1 #MPP_TEXT= Building more Tankers - 3 raiders ; Set AI acceptance % (AI will accept 100% of the time) #AI_RESPONSE= 100 #AI_RESPONSE_POPUP= #DATE= 1939/09/01 #TEXT_RGB= 0,0,0 #SHADOW_RGB= 228,221,198 #NATIONAL_MORALE_TRIGGER= 0 [0] ;Manila still controlled #FRIENDLY_POSITION= 162,32 ; Set variable conditions: ; 2nd and 3rd lines - US still fighting #VARIABLE_CONDITION= 3 [2] [100] [0] ; Three or more raiders in South China Sea #CONDITION_POSITION= 165,31 [11,3] [3,3] [2] [0] } Supply events { #NAME= Japanese Tanker losses S China Sea #POPUP= Oil shipments interdicted S China Sea #IMAGE= #SOUND= convoy.wav #FLAG= 1 #TYPE= 1 #AI= 0 #LEVEL= 0 #GV= 1[1,100] #LINK= 13[0] #COUNTRY_ID= 3 #FLAG_ID= 8 #TRIGGER= 100 #SEASON_FLAG= 0 #DATE= 1942/06/01 #SOURCE_POSITION= #DESTINATION_RESOURCE= 170,23 [3,5] #DESTINATION_RESOURCE= 173,23 [2,4] ; Japan at war and not surrendered #VARIABLE_CONDITION= 8 [1] [100] [0] } { #NAME= Japanese Tanker losses S China Sea #POPUP= Oil shipments interdicted S China Sea #IMAGE= #SOUND= convoy.wav #FLAG= 1 #TYPE= 1 #AI= 0 #LEVEL= 0 #GV= 1[1,100] #LINK= 29[0] #COUNTRY_ID= 3 #FLAG_ID= 8 #TRIGGER= 100 #SEASON_FLAG= 0 #DATE= 1942/06/01 #SOURCE_POSITION= #DESTINATION_RESOURCE= 170,23 [8,8] #DESTINATION_RESOURCE= 173,23 [8,8] #DESTINATION_RESOURCE= 165,22 [8,8] ; Japan at war and not surrendered #VARIABLE_CONDITION= 8 [1] [100] [0] } { #NAME= Japanese Tanker losses S China Sea #POPUP= Oil shipments interdicted S China Sea #IMAGE= #SOUND= convoy.wav #FLAG= 1 #TYPE= 1 #AI= 0 #LEVEL= 0 #GV= 1[1,100] #LINK= 13[0] #COUNTRY_ID= 3 #FLAG_ID= 8 #TRIGGER= 100 #SEASON_FLAG= 0 #DATE= 1942/07/01 #SOURCE_POSITION= #DESTINATION_RESOURCE= 170,23 [3,5] #DESTINATION_RESOURCE= 173,23 [2,4] ; Japan at war and not surrendered #VARIABLE_CONDITION= 8 [1] [100] [0] } { #NAME= Japanese Tanker losses S China Sea #POPUP= Oil shipments interdicted S China Sea #IMAGE= #SOUND= convoy.wav #FLAG= 1 #TYPE= 1 #AI= 0 #LEVEL= 0 #GV= 1[1,100] #LINK= 29[0] #COUNTRY_ID= 3 #FLAG_ID= 8 #TRIGGER= 100 #SEASON_FLAG= 0 #DATE= 1942/07/01 #SOURCE_POSITION= #DESTINATION_RESOURCE= 170,23 [8,8] #DESTINATION_RESOURCE= 173,23 [8,8] #DESTINATION_RESOURCE= 165,22 [8,8] ; Japan at war and not surrendered #VARIABLE_CONDITION= 8 [1] [100] [0] } Hopefully you may spot something I am doing that is wrong otherwise, if you think it should go back to dormant then I suppose it is a bug in the DE mechanism. Regards Mike

I do not know if Hubert and his team are thinking about how to use the spare research slots but here is a suggestion that would be a relevant upgrade to a number of units but in some aspects addresses an unusual unit characteristic. My suggestion is for the research to be into "Night Capability". The unusual characteristic to be modified would be offensive and defensive evasion. The British strategic bombing offensive relied on night time raids and gradually became more effective as research produced better aids such as GEE and OBOE. The Germans also had this night time guidance technology with the beams they used to direct bombers to Coventry. The counter weapons to night time bombing were radar equipped night fighters, searchlights and AA guns. Thus the reduction in losses caused by a night ops capability would be negated if the defending force had reached and implemented the same technical level. I note that both Bombers and Fighters only have two researchable characteristics so could utilise an extra one and resource targets only have a single anti-aircraft characteristic. Bombers could be set to have a mode of Night Ops similar to Subs having silent or hunting. Night Ops mode might halve their bombing effectiveness but increase their evasion. Increasing levels of research would build back their bombing effectiveness whilst any night ops capability for the opponents reduces the evasion rather than the bombing effectiveness except in so far as the bombers might suffer more losses before bombing (if it is calculated like that). Night Ops could also be a characteristic for Special Forces and I would suggest that it would be applied instead of motorisation which was not really relevant on many special operations apart from the Long Range Desert Group. Perhaps Special Forces could be given a reasonable number of Action Points without needing motorisation. Where the Special Forces were in Night Ops mode their AP would be reduced but their evasion increased. A defending Special Force with similar night ops capability might negate the evasion factor. In the case of Special Forces the night ops capability is effectively developed by training rather than research but it is the same principle. Night Capability was extremely important for ships as exploited by the Royal Navy at the Battle of Cape Matapan - this of course was supplied by RADAR. The IJN did not initially have RADAR but had mounted extensive training programmes and this lead to their great victory at Savo Island. It could be that Night Ops has 3 levels of ships with the Italians starting at 0, the Germans, British and US starting at 1 and the IJN at 2. The IJN, Germans and Italians would be limited to 2 but with suitable research the RN and USN might get to 3. As for bombers night ops would increase evasion levels. In order to get a free slot for ships I would build anti-aircraft capabililty into Naval Warfare. Interestingly the reason why Night Ops became more important in WW2 was to avoid the threat of aircraft. Unfortunately carriers do not use an anti-aircraft slot and there was one very famous raid (Taranto) where night capability was critical. It was also a factor in the attempt by Admiral Somerville to counter the IJN Indian Ocean raid. He attempted to manoevre his carriers, which were much weaker than those of the IJN, so they could strike at night as he knew the IJN did not have night capability. In fact he did not succeed and the two fleets missed each other. Clearly it would have been a very difficult manoevre to pull off so perhaps we do not need to allow for it in SC. My suggestion for ships v carriers with respect to night ops is that ships set to night ops mode would only have half their normal action points and carriers could only attack them at half strength and would suffer double their normal aircraft losses to take account of those planes that did not find their way back to their carriers. Players should be able to see that ships are in night ops mode and they would have to decide (as did several CV TF commanders) whether to launch a strike and risk heavy losses. Land based air without night ops capability would not be able to attack ships in night mode. However a mechanism would be needed to prevent ships operating in night mode for two successive turns and just sitting off shore bombarding land targets. Ships remaining for a whole turn in port should also not be allowed to remain in night mode. I hope that this suggestion would not be too onerous to implement and might allow players to add a degree of subtlety to some of their operations. I have already experimented with allocating different evasion factors to various navies to represent capabilities such as night operations and I have been pleased with the results. Regards Mike

Thanks for quick reply Hubert - that is a relief as many man hours have been invested! Regards mike

I note that you warn saved games should be finished before switching to 1.02. Is there any significant risk to partially developed scenarios apart from their not having any of your own new scenario features? Regards Mike

Hi Bill Thank you for the suggestions unfortunately I am not sure they would get round my main difficulty or give the right playability. For playability the players really need to know that raiding has occurred before the end of their turn otherwise they might not take action to find and deal with the raiders. I have tried out a scenario having triggers in all the major oceans and it is not too onerous to give 4 or 5 quick decisions. The main issue would still not be resolved - it is this. If a condition such as 4 raiders triggers a DE then that DE becomes active - I presume it is previously set to some sort of dormant state. The player then responds to the DE with a YES or NO answer. If, in the next turn, the conditions are no longer satified e.g. one raider has been destroyed the DE is not triggered so no decision is available to the player, however, it seems that the DE is not put back to a dormant state but rather it remains set at whatever decision the player took. I am not 100% sure if this is true for a Yes response because usually I use a one-off payment to replace sunk MS but I am pretty sure that it is the case for a NO as I have seen repeated losses of morale or supplies even though the original condition no longer applies. If I am right, it effectively means that you cannot use a DE with a type 2 setting because it would continue to trigger whatever happens if the player has said No for as long as the original trigger is not satisfied again. Regards Mike

This is a question aimed at those familiar with developing scenarios. If you are not into doing that I suggest you do not bother to read this post. I would be grateful to know if there is a detailed explanation over and above the comments in the various files as to how the AI and the AI and Decision Events actually work. I have been struggling a bit with a scenario when attempting to create a repeated pattern of events that have various consequences for the player. One example is that I have established an area in the North Atlantic where Axis raiders can cause trouble for the Allies in addition to standard convoy routes. In practice many ships sailed independently from convoys and U- Boats took a toll of these. I have used DE's that vary depending on how many raiders are in area e.g. for one raider the UK might have to pay 25 MPP in replacement shipping cost, for 4 or more raiders there will be supply impacts as well as costs. Things work reasonably well if the player accepts the charge required by the DE but there are problems if the charge is refused and one of my supply or morale events is triggered. What seems to occur is that the DE remains set at the refusal to pay for subsequent turns even if all the raiders have left the area. Essentially the DE is not triggered so it stays set at NO. Unfortunately my supply and morale sanctions then kick in and the Allied player does not get an opportunity to change his response to the DE until that number of raiders are in the N Atlantic again. I have considered making a different supply or morale event for every month to operate on a single occasion. However, that is both a lot of work and I am not sure it would be effective. It seems that timed supply events are sometimes stored up, if not triggered on their due date and all those from earlier dates happen in one go once the event satifies its other criteria. Finally I experimented with putting both a conditional statement in the supply event along with a link to the Decision the player took. Thus I include in the Supply event a condition that there should be so many raiders in the area as well as a link to the DE where the Allied player refused to buy more ships to replace those sunk. My impression here is that the supply event is triggered by the decision link and it ignores the condition that there should be so many raiders. Thus am I right in thinking that Supply Events in this case are triggered by either criteria (OR) rather than both criteria (AND)? Sorry this is rather rambling but if you have a users guide to writing AI and DE I would be happy to read that rather than you answering the detailed points. Regards Mike

Hi Bill I rather wish our Governments could do that now! Regards mike

I notice in the High Tide scenarion that Afghanistan is just identified as neutral rather than a country in its own right. Is there any way to pass through this area? Mike

Infantry warfare tech does not always have to refer to heavy weapons. For example assault rifles and panzerfaust would be one manifestation as would lighter weight artillery that could be dismantled and carried by a mule for mountain troops. Regards Mike

This only applies to those using the editor and may have been mentioned before but I personally have only just noticed it. There is an error in the expansion notes manual with Gold in that the Tank Group is not included. This means for example if you are counting down to discover the unit number for a cruiser you will be one short at 16 and will get a battleship instead. Regards Mike

Hi Bill Thanks for the National Morale answer. Actually that explains a lot. I have set the production costs for Armies very high as I did not want them to be used for amphibious assaults (biggest actual landing in WW2 was just about Corps sized) to offset this I have allowed quite a few to be in the build queue at the game start. However, their high cost will cause big morale hits especially as again I allow rebuilds at a cheaper rate but I guess the morale hit will be at the standard price not the rebuild price. The logic for subs is that typically only 1/3 of a U Boat flotilla was on station at any one time. The remainder were either having R&R or travelling to and from their operational area e.g. the Mid-Atlantic. Thus the unit in the actual fight is only 1/3 of the full strength so re-building it for 1/3 cost is fine. It can also be rebuilt instantly because effectively most of the flotilla still exists so logically it is equivalent to a reinforcement rather than a replacement. Using this methodology I can represent 200 or so U Boats by having just 6 x U Boat units. Having got that idea for U Boats it was a logical extension to apply it to DDs as well. There were many hundreds of DDs in the USN and RN so again a single counter has to represent a large number e.g. 30 or so. There was no engagement in WW2 where 30 DD's were sunk so again I treat the unit as a flotilla of which only 1/3 were deployed and hence only 1/3 are at risk of being sunk. In contrast the other naval units can be totally destroyed although I do allow rebuilds for those with high supply on the grounds that they were sunk in or near port and raised as the USN ships were at Pearl. This approach has worked well in my test scenarios and allows DDs to be used in their traditional fleet scouting role as they are cheap to repair/rebuild. It is a more elegant solution than the rather gamey approach some players use of having some cheap transport unit out in front of a fleet to find the enemy. Regards Mike

Just as an update to this, it seems that the AI is capable of transporting Rockets as I handed over a game to the AI with rockets stranded in the USA and I subsequently found them in France! Regards Mike

Hi Bill Thank you for the suggestion. Is there any information on what the loss in National Morale would typically be for each type of unit? For the Russians I have made the Garrison unit only cost 50 MPP and they are instantly rebuildable at 60% cost if destroyed with supply anything other than zero. I feel this gives some feeling of the way the Soviets seemed to keep on coming no matter how many the Axis killed. However, it has had some impact on Soviet morale so I will use your suggestion. Another idea I am trialling, that is working really well, is to treat both Subs and DDs as if the units only represent a part of a flotilla based in the area. Thus if a sub or DD is totally destroyed it can be re-built instantly for 30% of the full purchase price. It gives some real battles in the Atlantic without the risk of catastrophic loss of all capability that is normally the case. I find this models the presence of 3 or 400 subs and a similar number of escorts without cluttering the map with too many units. However, it does give me the same National Morale issues outlined above. Regards Mike