mcaryf1

Hi Big Al Of course the game is for fun but in my case I get more fun the more real it is and the more I learn about it the more real it seems it could potentially be. It is a great game. Hi SeaMonkey I do have John Ellis' book but he does have some errors in the Naval sections (e.g. no Shokaku or Zuikaku in the IJN CVs). I do know more about naval warfare and OOB's in WW2 than, for example, the detailed OOB's for land armies so when I see some obvious errors in the Naval material it worries me whether the the other sections are totally accurate. Regards Mike

A comment Big Al made earlier in this thread about the concept of units in SC has helped me to a better insight with respect to possibilities within the SC engine for improving naval combat, which is currently rather too catastrophic in the standard scenarios. I am thinking in particular about the total loss of naval units compared with the fact that they can represent large numbers of vessels particularly in the case of SS and DD units. If for example an SS unit represented 50 x U-Boats, then that might be the the entire fleet that Doenitz had chosen to deploy in the North Atlantic (that would actually be the right sort of number in 1940). You then have to ask yourself what might it mean if that unit is destroyed during the course of one turn - should Germany suddenly have no U Boats? Well the reality of U Boat deployment was that the number actually on station represented about 25% of the number allocated. Broadly speaking about 25% would be travelling to the Mid-Atlantic, 25% returning after a mission and 25% indulging in RnR or training whilst their boat was refitted and resupplied. Thus if a U Boat unit on station or travelling is destroyed it should only represent a 25% loss of the force deployed. We cannot create 4 times as many U Boat units as we would run out of space on the map for them particularly if the Axis player built the historic fleet. The solution I would offer is that the Axis player should be allowed to rebuild his sub unit at a production cost of 30% and zero delay thus the supply level restriction on rebuilds for subs should be set at at 0 (perhaps Hubert or someone else could tell me if it will still work if it is set at zero - although I guess a value of one would probably serve my purpose). A value of 25% rebuild cost is not actually available in the game (increments are in 10's) but the extra 5% probably compensates for the zero rebuild delay when theoretically the SS unit should be at 75% strength for a period. Conceptually this is speeding up some boats already in production, after all U Boats were not actually built in batches of 50 before they were deployed! The same consideration could apply to CA and DD units where these too represent ships allocated to a theatre rather than actual ships all deployed in a specific operation at the same time. BB and CV units would be handled differently as these really are representative of a ship or 2 or 3 ships that might well be deployed together and therefore all be sunk at the same time. However, I would allow these units to be rebuilt at a cheaper cost and smaller delay if they were sunk in or near a port. As port space can be restricted, particularly round the UK, I would probably make the supply criteria for BB or CV units to be rebuilt set at eight (conceptually this is raising them from the harbour floor). The rebuild cost might be 30% and the delay 50% (on average Pearl Harbor, Taranto and Alexandria victims were refloated and repaired in about 9 months). I would be interested in comments on this suggestion about using rebuild to make multiple ship units a more realistic concept but I have to repeat a comment I made in an earlier post - the more I look at it the better this game is in terms of its potential to model the reality of WW2. My congratulations to Hubert and the team. Regards Mike

Hi Big Al I have been thinking some more about units in SC especially naval ones. It seems to me that the best approach might be to look at the displacements of the actual warships involved. For example Yamato displaced around 70,000 tons whereas Andrea Doria was only around 25,000. Thus you might need 3 Andrea Dorias to make one Yamato but all were regarded as capital ships. Also the largest US warships, the Iowas, were only around 45,000 tons so they too should not be strictly comparable. The IJN deliberately built monster BBs to gain an advantage because they knew the US were limiting themselves to ships which could pass through the Panama Canal. Unfortunately for them the rise of airpower did for the Battleship monster or otherwise. I have not finished with my analysis yet but I am working on an idea that it might be possible to cluster warships into 3 groups one which contains 90,000 tons of shipping, one at 45,000 tons and one at 20,000 tons. The 90k and 45k groups would be rated as BB and CA respectively and should be populated by units that were historically, BBs, BCs and CAs plus an integral DD escort for each to count as their ASW protection. The 20,000 group would be populated by light cruisers and destroyers. Thus Yamato might notionally be herself plus a heavy cruiser plus DDs, whereas 2 x Iowa might be needed or 2 x RN KGVs plus CAs or even 3 x Andrea Doria. The designer could choose to make the Iowas single ship CAs or combined to be a BB - I guess those from the US might be offended if the CA option were taken and anyway the US had plenty of ships so better to group them up whereas the Axis player might prefer the flexibility of Scharnhorst and Gneisnau (really 30,000 ton Battle Cruisers designed to be convertible to 15" guns) being in the CA group. I am also looking at the equivalence of investing in tank units as compared with naval ones. Thus the Yamato BB unit would contain about 90,000 tons of materiel and 4-5,000 crew members whereas a Tank Group is equivalent to about 3 Tank Divisions with 800 or so tanks plus many other vehicles and therefore would have consumed 30 - 35,000 tons of materiel and 40-50,000 men. If you apply a notional cost of 2 MPP to each batch of 1,000 highly trained men and 3 x MPP for each ton of materiel this would result in the tank group being around half the cost of a BB unit. Note a corps consists of about 100,000 not so highly trained men but with some materiel hence their cost is right in this model at about 100 MPP. There is a bit of a problem with tank unit sizes in SC because the standard unit seems to be about 3 Divisions but the Germans did not deploy as many as 3 Panzer Divisions in North Africa until after the Allied landings. Thus there really ought to be a smaller tank unit perhaps one might be a Panzer Corps equivalent to one/two Divisions whereas the Tank Group becomes a Panzer Army with 3 - 4 Divisions. Minor countries such as Rumania could have their Tank units which would be typically smaller than a Tank Corps catered for in their combat stats. I do realise that SC is not meant to be a direct simulation of WW2 but it is an interesting exercise to see how actual units and production could be made to map onto SC units and to try out different Axis strategies. For example how many U-Boats ought to be equivalent to one of my CA units (e.g. Bismark). In terms of materiel/displacement you could have 40 - 50 and in terms of crew numbers it would be about half. Giving costs of a CA of 225 and for a sub unit of 50 subs of about 150. Your use of 25 x subs would mean a cost in my model of 75. However, they did build well over 1,000 of them for WW2 so at that scale you could have over 40 units, historically about half got sunk but that would not necessarily happen in the game and you have a build limit of 7! Regards Mike

The other way to think about it is that the actual Marine garrisons deployed on Wake or Guam in 1941 would not really show up as units in the scale of SC. Thus the islands were virtually undefended except of course they were but not with sufficient force to hold out against the eventual numbers against them. Regards Mike

Hi Big Al The version I downloaded is called 3.81 and was submitted in Feb 2011 which I assumed would make it the 1.07 version. Certainly I can load it in 1.07 and look at the maps, units etc but I do get the error messages I mentioned. There is a separate repository area for Gold scenarios but that currently seems to be empty. The numbers of equivalent units you quoted to me does not make a lot of sense in an historical context - I am not aware of a single operation in WW2 with the exception of the battles around Leyte where 50 x DD were deployed by any side. Giving a BB unit any sort of ASW capability can only be conceptualised by assuming that the BB unit has integral DD escorts. Scharnhorst and Gneisnau are treated in SC as CAs although they were really BCs (Battle Cruisers) which would leave the historic German Navy with no BB units if the scale for SC is 3 capital ships per unit. The resources consumed in constructing Bismark were equivalent to more than 50 x U-Boats and the scale for subs seems to be 1 for 50 since you start the Italians with 2 x subs and they actually had 115 and the Germans with 1 and they had just over 50. Thus I guess there is an argument that each BB deserves to be represented in the game's scale, however, as I found in my trial game it can be tough to deal with both the RN and the IJN if they have their full complement of BBs. I shall have to think about this a bit more but your really good way of creating a larger map might help to sort out the massing of BBs around the UK which I encountered in my own game. Regards Mike

Hi Big Al Now that I have finished my first SC game I have had a look at your Brute Force scenario although not actually played it yet. I very much like what you have done with creating more space on the map although Midway is still very much oversized. It is a pity that you cannot rename Italy and China as that did initially confuse me - I had forgotten that you wanted Italy as a major. I see that you have preserved the interpretation of standard SC in making DDs have more action points than other ship types. In my view this is not right - DD's were fast but actually short ranged so, for example, German DDs could not make it into the Atlantic and hope to return without refuelling somehow. I am not sure why you have created fictional names for some of your ships - there are plenty of real WW2 warship names. For example Vanguard was not built by 1939 whereas you could have used Valiant which was. You have also chosen to use a lot of Japanese admirals amongst your HQ units where they are not really appropriate, again there are more than enough Japanese generals from which to choose. I guess I might be being a bit picky in pointing this out and it will not bother a lot of people but my own enjoyment of a wargame/simulation comes from my knowledge of what the real people or units actually achieved. I wanted to open it within the editor to see fairly quickly what changes you might have made to combat characteristics, pricing etc as I have spotted some just looking at units. Unfortunately my editor refuses to open the scenario as it says the convoy.txt is missing. I also noted a comment when I loaded the scenario that the campaign.ini file was missing and it will not give me the Victory conditions. I guess this is a mistake I have made in downloading and placing the files? Regards Mike

I have only just completed my first game against the AI using a modified version of the Axis High Tide scenario. This has prompted a few questions for which I would appreciate answers. The current Victory Conditions are couched entirely in territorial ownership terms. I am not suggesting that these should be changed but has anybody looked at what sort of MPP or unit destroyed disparity might also be considered in terms of house rules? As an example my modified game included giving the Germans an extra BB (Tirpitz) and the Japanese extra BB's and CV's to match their actual supremacy in the Pacific in June 1942. In the interests of game balance I added extra USN ships in the production pipeline and extra UK BBs and CVs. Whilst the Japanese managed to retain supremacy in the Pacific my Axis forces had no chance of obtaining naval supremacy in the vicinity of the UK so an invasion and capture of London was not feasible at least I did not feel I could usefully attempt it. Despite this my Axis forces had many successes conquering Russia, China, Turkey, India and Australia and amassed a huge ending MPP total of over 9,000 whilst the combined Allied MPPs were under 2500. The unit destroyed total also favoured the Axis by more than 2 - 1 being 300 to 130. Has anybody used house rules' victory conditions by setting targets for MPPs and units destroyed? Part of the problem I had in amassing such a huge volume of MPPs was because I was playing with build limits on. I am interested to know whether the build limit rule is intended to keep the game closer to historic outcomes or whether it is aimed at playability. Finally I noted that my number of allowable new armies for Japan went significantly negative. This happened after a US warship approached the home islands and a load of defensive forces were automatically created. I cannot now remember whether I created a lot of additional armies for Japan but I do not think I did and certainly not to match the "-5" build number showing at the end of the game. Does this minus number have any effect, for example does it make repairs/replacements cost more for the units in the field? Regards Mike

Hi SeaMonkey You are right about the AI. I noted you rated reconnaissance as a big plus in Gold. In fact you could already do it in 1.07 by taking a minor power such as Canada and giving their bombers extra long range and spotting ability and calling them PBY Catalinas. You put one of those on Midway and if the Japanese Navy comes calling then you know about it soon enough to react. Unfortunately whilst the AI will benefit from the spotting, it does not realise that this is now a recon aircraft and will continue to try to use it as a bomber out of range of any fighter escort rather than keeping it out of harms way as a useful asset. I cannot give it 0 x APs as obviously a player would want to move it about. I do not yet know enough about writing AI scripts to see if it might be possible to give it a methodology for using a changed unit type properly. PS just had a battle in which a DD as a defender evaded damage 3 times in succession. Unfortunately I have messed about with my test scenario so much that I cannot be certain what evasion I had given it in this game and the properties screens do not include this value but I think it was only 10%. I wonder if tech improvements also increase the evasion factor - perhaps Big Al knows. Regards Mike

Hi Big Al The naval battle with cruisers to which you referred was the Battle of Savo Island where events were actually the reverse of the typical SC implementation. In the real case the IJN cruisers travelling from Rabaul achieved complete tactical surprise in a night engagement against a mixed US Australian cruiser and destroyer TF who were covering the marine landings. The SC equivalent would probably have the IJN TF surprised when it found the Allied TF as it was the arriving force. I must admit that your evasion might work there but would be random. In truth the advantage should be given by a higher IJN Naval Warfare rating. Just as an aside the IJN practised night-time gunnery illuminated by flares whilst the inter-war USN practice was to engage in inter-ship gunnery competitions, so they waited for good weather conditions and sunshine so the competition was fair to both sides! Your second example battle was Surigao Strait where Yamashiro and Fuso plus cruisers ran into a battle line of 6 old US BBs plus masses of DDs and were shot and torpedoed to pieces. This was essentially a suicide distraction mission by the Japanese and it was not surprising that they were obliterated without inflicting significant loss on the USN. One of the other battles at Leyte, (Samar) actually might be a better example for you when the Taffy task forces consisting of slow CVEs and DDs managed to get away without being annihilated by a force including Yamato, other BBs and cruisers. They did suffer losses but inflicted more than they lost on the giants attacking them. I do not disagree that there has to be a significant random element in naval warfare and the Battle of Samar is proof of that but there are also lots of examples of battles where one side withdrew when blessed with superior speed against a stronger enemy. For Italians versus RN where the RN withdrew see the 2nd Battle of Sirte and for the Italians withdrawing against the RN see The Battle of Punta Stilo (I should note that the Italians claimed that their BBs were not withdrawing when they sailed off behind a smokescreen but were actually trying to lure the RN into a torpedo ambush). In any case I think my suggestion of allocating 10 evasion points between attacking and defending based on naval doctrine 5,5; 0,10; 10,0 could work quite well. I will let you know how it plays out in my trial games. With respect to damage impacting action points it was usually the case that one damaged major ship would cause a whole TF to slow down. Clearly the mechanism exists in SC as ships lose APs in the somewhat more abstracted case of ships running out of supply (what situation does that map onto in the real world other than stopping players running their ships all over the world?) . Perhaps a ship damaged to 5 or below could have its supply reduced to zero so it has to crawl home. Regards Mike

I have not examined the game mechanics with respect to Italy but considering real history it would have been far better for Hitler if Italy had not joined when they did. With Italy as an Axis friendly "neutral" useful for trade purposes and Vichy established, Hitler's Southern flank would have been entirely secure as the British could not have attacked him across neutral territory. This gives him a free hand to concentrate on either Barbarossa or Sealion with no distractions in the desert but the Brits would still have had to maintain forces in the Middle East just in case Italy joined in. regards Mike

Hi Big Al Yours is an interesting argument but not one I completely agree with. I do accept that naval warfare can be one of extremes where one "lucky" hit on a single ship determined a battle (e.g Hood), however, as SC abstracts ships so they represent multiple units the idea of one hit being decisive is less relevant and of course Bismark did actually suffer important damage that led eventually to her destruction. It is a pity by the way that naval damage does not impact action points but I suppose we need to keep the game's complexity down. Your example of Midway does not entirely prove your point, that one side should avoid damage altogether, because the US did in fact suffer severe losses to its aircrew in particular the torpedo bombers. I would probably agree with you that the degree of damage to either side in a naval battle could ideally have a higher random element but I would still like to have been able to use evasion for a defender to mean that they effectively ran away to fight another day. Still, if it is hard to implement evasion meaning that, I might have to think about your solution of all naval units having some level of evasion. I am experimenting with giving BB's two hits so it might not turn out too badly, thus in an unequal fight BB or CV v DD, the big battalions should still come out on top. I could also regard BB's having evasion as the BB's dodging a mass of torpedos fired by the DD flotilla. One further observation, in the game it is slightly unfair that a defending unit does effectively get multiple return hits when it is responding to multiple attackers albeit maybe in a weakened state. It would be desirable if the chances of multiple evasions by one unit in succession in such an engagement were somehow minimised. I have seen it occur with evasion set at 10% which should, I presume, only be one in a hundred cases but of course rises to one in ten after the initial successful evasion. Thank you anyway for your comments. PS A subsequent edit: When modifying my trial scenario a thought came to me that I would typically allocate 10 points of evasion for naval units which would be split 5 points when attacking and 5 points when defending but for some situations e.g. the Italians and DD's I would bias it and make more of the 10 points of evasion apply when defending and less to attacking. Regards Mike

Hi Hubert Thanks for the update re the Repository. By the way the name I use on the web is Mcaryf rather than Mcarfy as Cary is my middle name but I would be equally happy if you want to call me Mike. Regards Mike

Hi Hubert Thanks for the answer. I think I will use the loss evasion option rather more sparingly than I had first thought as my intention was to give weaker units the chance to flee rather than to have a free hit! Regards Mike

I have noted in 1.07, and I think it is probably true in the demo version of Gold as well, that, using P to highlight potential Partisan areas, defaults to showing risk of supply disruption rather than the risk of formation of Partisan units where both threats exist. You can see this at location 160,27 Foochow in 1.07. It seems to me that the greater threat is the formation of a unit so if a particular location is subject to both types of threat then the report should highlight the risk of a unit being created rather than the other way around. Regards Mike

One of the most impressive features of SC is the editor and the opportunity for game users to create their own scenarios. However, as a recently returned SC gamer could I put in a plea that the SC GC custom scenarios in the Repository should identify clearly what version of the game engine they use for example are they Gold based, 1.07 or possibly earlier. As currently a 1.07 user, who does expect to move to Gold, I would be pleased if custom scenarios that have been ported to Gold still kept their earlier version in the Repository. There are now nearly 50 pages of posts in this forum so it would also be helpful if all the items in the Repository contained a reasonable description of what the scenario offers rather than a reference back to this forum. Regards Mike

I have been experimenting with setting a small evasion percentage for some countries and for some classes of warship. For example the Italians specialised in developing faster ships so they could withdraw if confronted with superior Royal Navy numbers and DDs might typically hide behind smoke screens and withdraw if faced with slower but more heavily armed capital ships. I have, however, found that the implementation of evasion has not worked quite as I expected. In particular I find that DDs under attack can get in a good hit on an opponent whilst evading any damage themselves. I can just about imagine a fleeing DD getting a lucky torpedo strike but this would be a very rare situation and the standard ought to be that neither party to the combat should suffer any damage if evasion is successful. I realise that this might cause a problem to change if the program uses the same coding for both defender and attacker evasion. however, if it is easy to do can I suggest that this implementation might be changed. Regards Mike

Hi Bill I do mean Nanjing - it appears as a neutral country when I look in the editor list but it has no cities. Regards Mike

Hi Bill As I was not sure about multiple scripts I have started experimenting with two convoy areas one to the East and one to the West of Malta representing convoys from Alexandria and Gibraltar respectively. The Alexandria one reduces the supply in the port area on Malta and the Gibraltar one the land area. Thus the Axis will have to interdict both to keep supply on Malta minimal. I have made the Gibraltar convoy area 5 hexes and the Alexandria one 4 hexes. The Allied player will need to keep all hexes free of Axis warships in order for supplies to get through. I have retired my earlier idea of starting with an HQ unit (Keith Park) on Malta as HQ units do not suffer from supply shortages in the same way as ordinary units. In reality the Allies had to mount the Pedestal Convoy from Gib with 3 CV's, battleships, cruisers and destroyers in order to get urgently needed supplies through in 1942. I think that having to clear Axis warships from 5 hexes will require a force of this magnitude (my BB's can hit twice so that gives them a better chance of succeeding). You are right that in the game it will require Operation Hercules to rid the Axis of the supply impact. In reality of course the Axis did succeed in suppressing Malta's impact on their supplies for a while with just an air bombardment. I am rather pleased that potentially the impact of Ultra intelligence may be important to the fate of Malta as it will help the Allies considerably if they can be sure which convoy hexes are being interdicted. However, I need to check out whether my supply reduction on Malta actually makes it sensible for the Axis to try to capture it. One other thing, I have given the Italians some additional subs to help with their interdiction efforts - at the commencement of WW2 the Italians actually possessed the largest sub fleet of any nation having over 100 of them. I have also created two areas in the Indian Ocean where the IJN or Germans can reduce supplies for the Allies in the Middle East by interdiction. One area of 4 hexes near Aden has a more devastating impact as it represents a convoy choke point, however, the Allies can respond there with land based air if they wish. My next project will be to consider how to represent the Allied Lend lease route via Persia which of course shipped rather more aid than went via the Arctic. This is of course related to my Middle East supply interdiction concept as it is all in the same area of ocean. My thought is that I would like to create a factory city owned by a Soviet minor (Nanjing?) on an island near North America with the ability to produce low cost tanks and motorised infantry. It is then the task of the player to get them either to Murmansk (difficult passing Norway) or to Persia (very long route). I am not sure what Nanjing is used for in the standard game - can anybody tell me? Regards Mike

Hi Winti I am very grateful that you have pointed me in the direction of looking at Supply Event Scripts which I had not previously considered in any detail. It really is a great feature of this game and has helped to impress me more and more with the ability to make this a pretty good simulation of WW2. For a long time I have been looking for a game that models the entire globe for WW2 so I could try out my theory for IJN strategy that they should have gone into the Indian Ocean rather than attempt to take Midway. The theory is that they would then interdict Allied supplies to the Middle East causing Rommel to win in Africa. This in turn lets him move to take the Russian oil wells in Baku and block the Lend Lease through Persia. This could have led to the defeat of the SU and probably a stalemate in WW2. Fear of this is what caused the Allies to mount their operation (Ironclad) to capture Madagascar. When I first started to play SC GC I thought that the supply route to the Middle East was abstracted with Cairo acting as their supply source. I still loved the game but was disappointed that I could not create supply convoy warfare in the Indian Ocean. I now realise that I can create ocean tiles that could result in the Allies Middle Eastern supply sources being degraded. I can also make the Allies actual concern about a threat from Madagascar a reality by giving the Diego Suarez tile the same power. I have one further query about this - can supply effects be cumulative? Thus if I have the Japanese in Diego Suarez and occupying a significant ocean tile e.g. near Aden, might both of these Supply Events trigger to cause an even larger loss to Allied Middle Eastern supply sources? I can see further potential for these Supply Events with an ability for the Axis to blockade Malta so as to reduce readiness of the garrison and for the Allies to implement MacArthur's Operation Cartwheel which left isolated Japanese garrisons impotent to cause any mischief as they had no supplies. My only slight niggle about this is that I wish I had known about it earlier but perhaps it is in the documentation somewhere and I have not spotted it. In my current test game against the Allied AI I have reached 1945 but I owned Midway since late 1942 and had not known to locate a bomber there, mind you I have made Midway one tile so I might have to think again about that!! Perhaps mere ownership of Midway should have the same impact after all if a player put a corps on the real Midway it would be standing room only! I have also been losing Axis BB strength points by bombarding Malta as I thought this might stop the Malta supply events on my North African ports. Hmmmm... I wonder if you can make events dependent on supply levels at specific locations? Mike

I would be grateful if someone could tell me how blockade works. In the editor I have added 4 blockade symbols around Malta and tried putting both Axis subs and surface ships on those tiles but nothing happens. In contrast if I put Allied warships outside Brest I get a report Allies blockade Brest and the supply of the port is reduced. What am I doing wrong here? Regards Mike

Thank you for your responses. I think the enemy contact engendering experience idea is a good one recognising that troops who have been in the front line are different to those that have not. However, see my example below which illustrates that the best current way for a land unit to get substantial experience points is by picking on a weak enemy unit in the line opposite. To illustrate my general argument I have been playing a scenario I created as the Axis based on High Tide with a number of mods such as rebuilds for ships sunk in port, two hits for a BB but at a slightly reduced attack strength, rockets as Kamikazes, reduced map size for Midway etc. I mention these just to show that they are not so outlandish that they change the whole game method. I had played it through to Autumn 1944 and left it to run overnight as AI versus AI with the Allies having a 0.5 experience benefit. It ended in a stalemate with the Allies retaking Paris but stuck on the German border whilst the SU had surrendered and Japan was keeping the USN at bay around most of its island perimeter. Both sides had plenty of units that appear to have survived the war many with long lists of Honours. I guess a few of them could have been re-builds but the Honours indicate most were not. When I scanned around the units the vast majority of them had experience levels of 1 or less. Notable exceptions being rocket type units as plainly they do not suffer any losses when attacking. Other high experience units were those in the Chinese theatre which had plainly just sat in a fortified position next to a relatively poorer enemy unit just banging away and occasionally taking an enemy strength point. It just seems wrong to me that units could have plainly been involved in a tremendous volume of successful fighting, apparently survived through to the end and yet be judged as on the low side for experience based on a 5 point scale. I do not think my suggestions add a great deal to the game's complexity. Experience is something a player needs to monitor, albeit, as it stands, in many situations they cannot avoid losing it if they want to do serious fighting. By the way SeaMonkey I think there is a reasonable argument to make elite replacements cheaper for warships than even ordinary replacements. A more expert crew could be better at damage control and work arounds for disabled equipment. Thus the main penalty would be time rather than cost to rebuild your elite ships. This is important in the scenario I am developing because I have addressed the problem of "old" versus "new" battleships and CVLs versus CVs by giving the modernised or larger ones initial experience levels of 3 or 4 with commensurate strength point improvements. Plainly I cannot change the normal production routines to make all newly constructed warships have experience but I have addressed this to some extent, mainly for the USN, by putting a lot of their historical new BBs and CVs into the production queue with loaded experience. It does mean there are more units for the US that do not have to be paid for but I counter this by allowing the IJN to have more of the starting BB's and CV's that they actually had. It seems to be making a realistic game and a good challenge as the Axis start off a fair bit stronger but that will definitely turn round if the Allies survive without taking too much damage. Regards Mike

I am thinking about acquiring Gold and I am wondering whether it treats experience gain and loss any differently to the previous version as I feel there are some useful improvements that could be made. There are two areas that I think could be looked at to improve realism. First as far as I can tell all units are treated alike in terms of loss of experience when reinforcing using the argument that new recruits/replacements are not experienced. This argument falls down in most cases where the unit has a high content of equipment (the possible exception being aircraft). Thus a damaged tank group or warship ought to be able to replenish its equipment with relatively minor losses in experience. For example in the Goodwood Offensive the British Armoured Divisions lost a lot of tanks but in many cases the crews survived and walked back to be re-equipped from the vast stocks the Allies had landed, sadder but wiser as a result of their experience. The second area I would like to have been addressed is with respect to how experience is gained. There are two aspects - first I would suggest that every newly formed unit or unit from a country not at war should start with no experience but automatically gain 0.1 of an experience point for every game turn until they have reached 1.0. This would introduce the concept of green units with which care should be taken - a good example being the US troops deployed in North Africa. The second point I would make is that you learn as much if not more from your defeats than your victories so I would like any sort of combat win or lose to boost experience by an amount likely to outweigh any loss from replenishments. Thus the majority of units that have survived to the end of a game and which are not "green" should be reasonably experienced. Even in the case of aircraft, where experienced crews were often lost, the unit as a whole learned and adapted e.g. the RAF fighter pilots moved from their initial V formation in the Battle of Britain because their losses had proved it less effective than the looser German formation. It is possible to address some aspects of the issues I have identified via the editor e.g. elite reinforcements can be made cheaper for tank groups. However, as far as I am aware the experience routines are hard wired in the 1.07 game engine so I do not think a modder can do other than play with starting and production queue values. Is there any possibility that Gold could or might already have addressed this area? Regards Mike

I have been playing around with ideas to make the Allied and Axis options with respect to Malta in a 1942 scenario more interesting. I have not had much success as the Axis in destroying the Malta garrison as my BB's seem to spend all their effort in attacking resources and I cannot land paratroops whilst there is still a unit there. I guess that a Tac Bomber might be most successful but not if the entrenchment is too high. Ideally I would like to persuade a human Allied player that they need to mount something like the Pedestal convoy. I have a theory outlined below on which I would welcome comments but I would also like to know if any of you have tried to make Malta more interesting. My theory is to replace the Malta garrison with a weak but expensive HQ unit so the Allied player runs a risk that it will be destroyed unless a convoy is organised both to replace and recover the HQ but it is uneconomic to just reinforce it. As Keith Park a New Zealander commanded the air force units on Malta, I have created him as an NZ HQ unit. I have made him particularly expensive to reinforce (purchase 450 equal to a BB) to reflect that reinforcements would need to be fought through. I am currently experimenting with him being strength 2 to give a real risk of destruction and I have placed the old Malta garrison in a Transport at Gib with some ships to comprise the beginnings of an escort and to prevent it being picked off there by a sub. I have reduced the UK transport range so that the unit cannot get through to Malta in one turn. I have also moved Axis land units away from nearby ports so they cannot conquer Malta with an amphibious assault in the first Axis turn of the scenario. I find that a weakened Tac bomber based in Italy can typically reduce the Park HQ by 1 strength point and hence make it hard for the Allied player to just ignore Malta as the Axis can reinforce the TAC Bomber and try on the second turn. I would welcome any comments on this or other experiences with Malta. Regards Mike

Hi Big Al If you are looking at a 1942 scenario for Gold I have a few comments for you. In historical terms it was almost impossible for the Axis to win by 1942 therefore to make an even game you probably have to veer on the side of helping the Axis in the OOB. In the standard 1.07 game in many ways the reverse of this has been done. In June 1942 the IJN actually had something like 11 ships capable of carrying aircraft, virtually all of which could carry similar or more (and better) aircraft than the typical UK carriers and 6 of which were pretty well comparable to the US carriers although one of these was damaged (Shokaku) and another (Zuikaku) had lost most of its airwing. In contrast the US had just 5 carriers of which one was returning from damage (Saratoga) and one was in the Atlantic (Wasp). The IJN had a new fleet carrier Unryu available in August 1942 (which is omitted from the scenario) whilst the next US carriers Essex and Bunker Hill arrive in line with their historic availability. In the standard scenario the IJN has 6 carriers whilst the USN has 4 and the RN has 3. Thus the Allies are already given a superiority which did not exist before Midway and this gets more pronounced as the US new carriers arrive on schedule whilst IJN ones do not. In the standard scenario Midway has a Bomber unit and a Tac Fighter unit. In game terms this is equivalent to around 500 aircraft in real life there were less than half that number of planes on Midway. The situation with respect to Battleships in the Med is even more unbalanced. The RN had no battleworthy BBs in the Eastern Med in June 1942 as the QE was still damaged from the Italian frogmen's attack as was the Valiant which does not figure in the scenario. The Vittorio Veneto is omitted from the Italian Navy OOB making the true imbalance actually operate in reverse with the British having superior Naval resources in the Med with a carrier (which was not actually there in June 1942) and 2 x BB versus 3 Italian BB's. The Brits had another damaged Battleship omitted from the OOB in Ramillies, which had been subjected to underwater attack by the IJN at Diego Suarez. The USN also had ships recovering from Pearl but the absent battleworthy IJN Battleships such as the Kongos seem to be offset against these damaged Allied absentees. The RN also had the issue of deploying BBs to escort convoys but this is abstracted in game terms. Tirpitz is another absentee which is understandable for the AI as it does not make very clever use of lone Raiders but surely some more RN warships should be counted out to reflect their being held in reserve agaist Tirpitz. In fact the Axis had a brief period when it had superior Naval resources counted across the globe in the first half of 1942 and this should be reflected in scenarios of this period to give players an opportunity to try to exploit the superiority in ways that the Axis did not e.g. by the IJN dominating the Indian Ocean and cutting off reinforcements to the Middle East or India. Regards Mike

Thanks Bill. mike