mcaryf1

I hope someone can advise me what to do about an apparent but unreal licence problem. Unfortunately I had something leaning on the enter button on my keyboard whilst the cursor was over the shortcut to SC Gold editor. By the time I noticed what had happened my system was attempting to load 29 copies of the editor and not surprisingly it ended up hanging. I tried to unscramble it but eventually told it to shut down and it eventually did so describing the editor as not responding. I now find that both the editor and the main SC program throw me into the licence routines. I do not really understand what has happened but when I try to get the licence routines to validate this hangs as well. Any suggestions? Mike

Hi SeaMonkey The North African campaign had lots of movement but there is a distinction between retreating in game terms and withdrawing. I would argue that Rommel chose to withdraw his mobile units when he knew the battle of Alamein was lost and effectively abandonned his Italian infantry - thus in SC terms it was his turn and he withdrew. If your suggested retreat option had been in effect then the Italian infantry might well have retreated back 2 or 3 squares during the Allied turn and blocked to road for the mobile units. My main objection to the retreat option as I experienced it in SC Gold was that some retreat movements on occasion seemed more like advances to me. It is of a piece with the game allowing units to wander about without supply for considerable periods of time which I also do not much like. Most wargames I have experienced start to attrit the strength of out of supply units until they eventually disappear and I think that would be a better approach. I should confirm, however, that I do still regard SC as an outstanding wargame series but not quite perfect! Regards Mike

I might have to think again given the scale in the two new maps but personally I do not like the idea of any retreat in the old scale of SC and I switch the facility off. A unit that falls back 60 miles or so might as well be regarded as destroyed. I allow fairly widespread rebuilding of units which I think is a more accurate representation of what would have happened. You also find that some retreats are outrageous as the retreating unit ends up in a position to capture useful terrain after some apparently random choice about the direction of retreat. I cannot agree with the idea of a unit retreating 2 or even 3 hexes - that has to be a rebuild. Regards Mike

Hi Ivanov I am pleased to hear that there are facilities to vary the production rate of cities, however, I wonder even so whether the effect would be sufficient. The Stalingrad factory produced 40% of the output of T34's in the first half of 1942. This might have represented an annual rate of over 1500 units or sufficient tanks to supply 3 Tank Group units. I do not know what MPP cost per unit is applied or even the turn interval in AOC but looking at SC Gold standard scenarios a tank costs 250 MPP and there are 13 turns per year. Thus at 20 MPP per turn an undamaged major city yields 260 MPP in a year or approximately 1/3 of the actual output rate of the Stalingrad tank factory in Tank Group cost terms. Of course the costs associated with a Tank Group are a lot more than just the individual tanks but one might assume that Stalingrad as a city was contributing more than just tanks to the war effort - it did for example have a major oil refinery as well as a substantial manpower pool which must be a component of MPP's. I think there is certainly a case for recognising the production potential of specific cities by awarding actual units to the original owner. There is a weaker argument for considering whether a conqueror should at a future date also get some production from a captured city but that might be appropriate to offset the looted equipment and supplies which undoubtedly played a part in WW2 and which hardly features in SC. Regards Mike

Hi Ivanov There is an interesting issue concerning manpower availability which is not fully handled in SC. Thus all cities are treated pretty much the same in terms of the MPP that they provide and some at least in SC Gold such as Kukum in the Solomons should not be cities at all! I think there is some opportunity for distinguishing cities which historically had important factories or large populations by means of events to deliver additional units to whomsoever owns those cities. Typically I might have Stalingrad generate a tank unit annually to the owner. I am more generous with these extra units if it is the AI that is the player. After all real tanks were coming stright off the production line to meet the Axis forces attacking the city. The loss of that factory in reality would have cost the USSR more than the equivalent of 10 MPP per turn. Regards Mike

Hi SeaMonkey I cannot comment on how easy or difficult your suggestions might be to implement with respect to enginners building ports etc. However, I have experimented with giving engineers one additional capability and that is the ability to clear mined ports and that works fine. I use zero AP DD units from minor countries with quite high evasion factors to simulate minefields. I also somewhat reduce the attack values of land units versus naval with the exception of engineers whose attack I increase. I also give engineers a two strike capability to offset the high evasion of the minefield but I somewhat reduce their attacks against other land units to offset the extra strike. I have found that this works quite well although of course the AI does not understand it. As a work around for the AI, I sometimes give it a free or low cost engineer unit in an area where the AI might find a lot of mines such as the Axis capturing Alexandria or the Allies capturing Nantes. Regards Mike

That is a neat solution Al. In fact if anything the troops from minor countries should be cheaper as I bet the German infantry men were paid more than the Romanians. I know for sure that USN men got about 20% more pay than the RN equivalent. Regards Mike

Hi SeaMonkey I think you also have to consider the scale used in SC. There are for example far too few ports on the British Southern coast even in larger scale versions of the map because they would block a lot of the English Channel if they were represented. Thus it is reasonable to allow SC units to embark as amphibious units even when there are no indicated ports. In my usual games I convert SC to Division size so of course they would in reality need a port but in my view it can be a virtual port just not represented on the scale. Regards Mike

In my 1942 scenario, a variant on Axis High Tide which I am hoping to publish soon, I allow Malta to provide interdiction if it has either suitable ship in its port or suitable aircraft on its land. I have 3 sea squares leading into Malta from the direction Alexandria. If an Axis warship is sitting on any of those squares at the end of an Allied turn then the port of Valletta takes a supply hit. I have 3 more sea squares leading from Malta to Gibraltar and again if any are occupied Malta takes a supply hit but this time on its land square. Once the Axis has captured Egypt any Allied ship or plane based on Malta will take random strength hits to simulate strong Axis air raids and the supply effect of Malta on Axis N African ports no longer operates. I have done my best to persuade the AI code to attack Malta but I have failed (still learning the AI!). I have discovered that the strength hits will not totally eliminate any plane on Malta. The maximum reduction is down to one. So I regret I have failed to completely eliminate Malta but at least the Axis supply reduction does not apply once the Axis own Egypt and the major port of Alexandria. What I hope to achieve with this series of events is that there should be Naval battles around Malta as the Allies attempt to keep Malta supplied or to be more accurate to prevent it from taking supply hits. Once my scenario is released I hope humans will take advantage of the capture opportunity and who knows I might even find a way to get the AI to do it! Regards Mike

I do not wish to hijack the AAR so I will move my comments on artillery to a new thread. Apart from the historical objection to artillery being allowed to fire without risk of counter-battery there is the issue of game mechanics. In SC units which enjoy continued success without losses become very powerful via experience gain. This is doubly true with artillery because they do not even lose a turn by reinforcing rather than attacking because their bullets are preserved for another occasion e.g. defence. Incidently I do not recall having seen an artillery unit take losses when supplying indirect defensive fire - how is that actually handled by the game engine? I do like to include artillery units in my scenarios because they are effective in dislodging dug in units in cities and fortifications. however, I do not give them 100% evasion but something much less than that. The same concept is true with AA units which I also utilise. Regards Mike

I have to say that I do not like units which will not take losses when attacking as I think this is very artificial. All significant military formations from division upwards had integral artillery units available for counter battery fire. To allow a specific "artillery only" unit to act as an invulnerable attacker is not in my view correct and the "evasion" factor should be set at 50% maximum. The fact that the artillery unit is apparently many miles from the front line is a pure game convention because SC does not allow stacking. I would also suggest that a good way to distinguish between corps and army sized units on the same side is by giving an army sized unit the opportunity to attack twice but with the same offensive stats as the corps sized units. They should have better defensive stats as you cannot in game terms defend twice! My thinking is that a corps and an army are both using similar weapon systems in an attempt to defeat an enemy but the army ought to be able to sustain the attack for longer (i.e. attack the same unit twice) or attack on two axes in the same turn which they could do if they were represented as two corps units in the same square. For minor countries I allocate weaker offensive values for corps but their armies come up to major country offensive standards but can in most cases only attack once. It is quite useful to use the concept of multiple attacks to get round the lack of stacking in SC and I also use it for US and British fighters and bombers which were so prolific in the latter war stages that they would otherwise occupy virtually all the UK land mass. Regards Mike

Hi Bill That has fixed it - many thanks. It was previously rather strange because the territory was described as occupied by the Axis but Axis troops could not enter it whilst SU ones could. I am still not sure what situation that was meant to represent but anyway it is now doing what I want which is to have the possibility of a separate peace if the Western Allies refuse to risk convoying enough aid to the USSR. Thanks again Mike

Hi Bill The armistice is triggered if the US or UK refuses an opportunity to assist USSR with a DE providing various types of extra aid but at a cost after a location (Moscow or Severdlovsk) has fallen to the Axis. ; If USa refuses to help USSR then USSR will offer Germany an armistice DE 109. { #NAME= DE 109 YES USSR Withdraws from war #POPUP= USSR and Axis agree an armistice #IMAGE= #SOUND= #FLAG= 1 #TYPE= 1 #AI= 0 #LEVEL= 0 ;Set global variable condition to always trigger (dummy value) #GV= 1[1,100] ; Set link value to always trigger (dummy value) #LINK= 109[1] #COUNTRY_ID= 4 #TRANSFER_ID= 6 #ARMISTICE= 1 #TRIGGER= 100 #DATE= 1942/07/11 ; Set variable conditions: ; 1st Line - USSR aligned with Allies and not surrendered #VARIABLE_CONDITION= 4 [2] [100] [0] ; dummy condition position #CONDITION_POSITION= 0,0 [0,0] [0,0] [0] [0] }

I did in fact use a territory event and just transferred a stack of the USSR to Germany including a narrow corridor to Moscow from Leningrad. Once the USSR is back to fully mobilised the Allied player will want her to declare war on the Axis as Moscow is part of the victory conditions and can be easily recaptured. The effect was as if the territory event fired after the armistice because all Axis forces were pulled out of the old USSR and then the territory changed hands. I guess if the territory event fired first then the Axis forces would have stayed in some places but it is not a big deal. One effect I was not expecting was that everywhere in the USSR became Axis occupied except where there were Soviet units. This even applied to cities which had never been Axis occupied. Thus the Allied player will need to walk USSR troops all over the country to get back ownership of the areas the USSR retained - this is a bit of a pain as operate will not work where parts of the railway is Axis occupied. I am guessing that the Axis player might get credits for the supposedly occupied cities and resources but I am not sure about that. I do not understand the logic for this "Axis Occupation" happening - when would it be a sensible interpretation for an armistice? Regards Mike

A quick update. No other Axis country can declare war on USSR. My next step but not today will be to set up a mobilisation event for USSR that repeats i.e. a type 2 and increases mobilisation by an average of 5% each time . This should move USSR from 0 to 100% in about 20 turns i.e. around 1 year. Regards Mike

I raised the issue of the ARMISTICE facility in Gold as part of a a previous post. I have experimented with it now and this has raised some questions. The situation I set up was that the Soviet Union would agree a separate peace if the Allied player attempted to renege on some inter-locking DEs to simulate the US sending aid via Pacific Convoys to the USSR. It would be possible for the Allied Player to get credits started for the USSR but not then agree the related DE that had the USA pay for them. If this happened I gave Germany a DE that would decide whether or not Germany wanted an armistice. When Germany said yes all her troops pulled back out of the parts of Russia she had occupied and USSR pulled back from Persia which was liberated. The unoccupied parts of USSR were described as USSR occupied by Axis but USSR troops could move in and "liberate" them whilst Axis troops could not enter them. Neither the USSR nor the Axis could declare war on each other. One slight anomaly was that the Axis troops stayed in the Baltic States but the tiles were defined as Soviet territory occupied by Axis. Clearly I wanted to engineer a situation favourable to the Axis and this really was not ver favourable. I think that the Axis may well have earned income from the cities described as USSR occupied by the Axis but I was not 100% sure about that. I did have a DE paying some money from USA to USSR which continued but apart from that the USSR income seemed to drop to zero and all convoys to her stopped. Moving on from here, what I want to achieve is that Germany gets to keep some parts of the USSR that she had occupied. I presume I can do that with a territory event. In addition I would want the USSR to have some income - not sure how I can get that going other than with a DE - suggestions anybody? Also at some stage I would like either USSR or Axis to be able to go to war again. USSR belligerence had dropped to zero. So I presume I just create a few mobilisation events with a random element built in but how long will the Axis be stopped from attacking the USSR because of the Armistice restriction? I suppose I could make the territory transferred include isolated oil wells and mines and Moscow which would give the Allies a big incentive to declare war as soon as possible to get them back but it would be strange if the Axis could not resume the war. Can someone advise how long the "armistice" will apply given that the mechanism has to be Germany asking for it? I have not tried another Axis power e.g. Italy declaring war - I will experiment with that. Regards Mike

I am very pleased to report that my PC crashing issue is clarified if not yet resolved. It seems that some extra RAM I installed a couple of months ago has enabled my SC to go even faster than before really thrashing the CPU. This has resulted in my PSU overheating because it has a dodgy fan. Thus when the Mk 1 brain is engaged thinking about a turn my PSU had time to cool down but when I had Ai v AI the CPU draw on the PSU just kept on until it cut out. I encouraged the fan to work by means of judicious pokes with a biro and the system continued for about 90 minutes running AI v AI. Thus I am convinced this is the cause and will not bother you anymore whilst I get myself a replacement PSU. Thank you for your interest Mike

Considering unit types I would have liked to see 2 or 3 more naval types as naval aspects seem to have missed out. The first of these would be to represent the older BBs that many navies had and which could not realistically be upgraded to be equivalent to the new modern battleships. The second would be a unit to represent a deployable minefield as mines were used extensively in WW2. I have experimented with a zero AP minor country DD unit that seems to work OK but the AI does tend to block up its own harbours with these so they would need some extra intelligence routines for the AI to tell it not to do that except in desperate circumstances such as a port being about to fall into enemy hands. If it is too difficult to code the AI to understand how to handle minefields and ports then perhaps the unloading routine for transports could be modified so they could unload when adjacent to rather than actually in a port location in the same way as happens for loading. The third category of new naval unit would be a lower strength and much cheaper and quicker to build CV to represent a CVL or CVE - perhaps this could be like a garrison unit that could not have its strength increased beyond 6 but which could still provide air capability for defence against subs (e.g. on convoy routes) or for weakening land targets as done by the IJN in its early conquests and the USN during its island hopping campaign. Regards Mike

I should have added in my last email that the distinction between types of goods (e.g. weapons or not) transmitted to the USSR by the various routes was fairly meaningless in real terms. The fact that the US sent trucks enabled the Soviets to motorise their army, the fact that the US sent masses of railway equipment (trains, track etc) allowed the USSR to concentrate its own heavy industry production on tanks and guns. Regards Mike

I assume that when these are released they will come with new versions of the editor and game engine to handle the extra unit types. I also assume that these new versions will not work with any existing standard or modded scenarios. Can we therefore expect any further bug clearance releases of SC Gold to tidy up various minor problems that have been reported? Regards Mike

Hi Numdydar My point was that if you previously had any subs, air or surface ships interdicting the Arctic convoy route then they would be stopping up to 100% of the Lend Lease Aid so actually considerably too much as that route should represent less than one quarter. Thus the effect probably evens out over the game. In some ways it can be an advantage to the Axis if the UK continues to hazard a significant proportion of its MPP in trying to ship it to a doomed USSR over a route that can be sujected to losses. In some games as the Axis I choose to leave that convoy route functioning when I could close it off as I get the opportunity to weaken the UK financially. That is not too a-historic as the UK Government realised that the Arctic Convoys were not cost effective but they had to continue them to keep Stalin from considering a separate peace with Hitler. In fact Murmansk is rated as an Industrial Centre in the standard game so units can be constructed there without need for a rail line to Moscow. If you are playing a human you could think about a house rule which required 25% of the "lend lease" MPPs to be spent on units orginating at Murmansk. If you are playing the AI then it needs all the help it can get anyway. Regards Mike

Hi Al I understand why you have done what you have done re the Arctic theatre but I would not say the convoys had no effect especially at the moment in the UK when the Govt has just got round to awarding the men who fought in appalling conditions a campaign medal. The early Arctic convoys were actually the most important in terms of weapon systems carried which were used in the battles for Leningrad and Moscow. The later convoys by other routes were important in the context of trucks, trains, rolling stock and explosives but less so for weapon systems as the Soviets were producing their own superior tanks etc by then. Regards Mike

This is getting better and better!! What might I ask is the airship unit likely to really be - might that be a spare aircraft slot? I see there is also a research slot for shell production - does that have an effect on rocket artillery in terms of numbers of shells or is it an attack modifier on artillery type weapons? You have not previously used the AA unit in standard scenarios. Personally I find it quite useful for the AI to use as otherwise its Fighters can get squandered particularly if it plays the USSR. Regards Mike

Hi Numdydar Just a comment about Lend Lease. Most of it reached the USSR via Vladivostoke with the next highest volume being via Persia (note initially most Lend Lease was via the Arctic but only for first months of deliveries) . The game simulates it all via convoys to Murmansk because major countries can only operate one convoy. Thus the problem is not so much the rail lines from Murmansk to Moscow but rather too much of Lend Lease is put at risk on the Arctic convoy route. You can mod the percentage going on that route and have a DE to just give the USSR some MPPs from USA and you can create a backward convoy from Vladivostok to USA which the Axis can interdict which could notionally be empty ships returning or some of the reverse Lend Lease which were goods shipped from USSR to pay for elements of Lend Lease. In practice the Japanese did not interfere with the Lend Lease going via Vladivostok so Brute Force and the standard game are not being unrealistic in letting it get through even when the Arctic ports are isolated. Regards Mike

Hi Al Just a small hobbyhorse of mine - even if the scale is 5 times the previous Strategic Command map Midway should still be a single tile in AOD! That gives some problems in what you can base there but I have experimented with a fighter bomber unit that has anti-ship attributes of a bomber but is actually a fighter in terms of intercepts. My intention is to simulate an airbase that includes both true fighters and bombers but of course Fighter Bombers were an important later war capability. In current SC I had to play around with using minor country Fighter units to create a Fighter Bomber whilst still having specialist fighters for the major countries. I guess a true Fighter Bomber unit might have been an alternative to the new Medium Bomber but would possibly be more relevant to the Western Allies than the Eastern campaign. Regards Mike