Some Thoughts

[Ron]

Just played through the first year, it ended much too soon! Great fun little game, congratulations to the designer. Only one play through and no manual but here goes:

1- Don't know if this is intentional but while trying to give reinforcements to a unit I hit 'OK' without actual giving it any and that 'used up' its action points for the turn. I wasn't able to reinforce or move it afterwards until next turn.

2- Subs appear to be really really weak. No 'Happy Days' for the German U-Boats? I had positioned one in the N.Atlantic which suprised an Allied battleship, results: 8 damage to the sub and only 4 to the battleship. I moved a sub adjacent(not into) to an unseen Allied transport and suffered a 'suprise' equalling 4 damage to the sub and none to the transport.

3- How come just moving adjacent or by an unseen ship will cause a sub to stop and suffer a 'suprise' result? Right now the subs have little freedom to manuever, especially north of England.

4- Again maybe something intentional but when moving a unit without attacking then clicking elsewhere I can't attack with that unit until next turn?

5- I tried to capture Malta but wasn't able to unload the transport while the fighter group existed. I guess it's a limitation of the game regards stacking but seemed odd.

That's all for now, will give it another go

Ron

[Hubert Cater]

1- Don't know if this is intentional but while trying to give reinforcements to a unit I hit 'OK' without actual giving it any and that 'used up' its action points for the turn. I wasn't able to reinforce or move it afterwards until next turn.

Thanks I just fixed this one

2- Subs appear to be really really weak. No 'Happy Days' for the German U-Boats? I had positioned one in the N.Atlantic which suprised an Allied battleship, results: 8 damage to the sub and only 4 to the battleship. I moved a sub adjacent(not into) to an unseen Allied transport and suffered a 'suprise' equalling 4 damage to the sub and none to the transport.

In FoW, surprise encounters during your turn are generally at your disadvantage, so it is actually your unit that has been surprised and why you suffer the greatest amount of damage

3- How come just moving adjacent or by an unseen ship will cause a sub to stop and suffer a 'suprise' result? Right now the subs have little freedom to manuever, especially north of England.

Just a design decision for FoW

4- Again maybe something intentional but when moving a unit without attacking then clicking elsewhere I can't attack with that unit until next turn?

Yeah it's either move or move and attack and then your turn is up for that unit

5- I tried to capture Malta but wasn't able to unload the transport while the fighter group existed. I guess it's a limitation of the game regards stacking but seemed odd.

Correct, best way to avoid cheating and due to the design, you will have to knock out the defenders first before you can unload. This is the same everywhere, where you can only unload in empty spaces

[Scott Udell]

"Subs appear to be really really weak. No 'Happy Days' for the German U-Boats?"

One thing that I noticed is that sub presence can have an effect on abstract shipping (supplies, resources, what have you), resulting in a loss of set numbers of resource points for the next turn. I really like the abstraction, as it doesn't require the specific modeling of either supply convoys or U-boat operations against them. It's been a long time since I read anything about the U-Boat compaign in the Atlantic, but I would think that U-Boat weakness against some major surface combat vessels is actually somewhat realistic? (Brings up a related question: when we have a "ship" counter for something like a battleship or carrier, I assume that really includes such things as small escort/screen vessels like destroyers? Subs wouldn't usually try to avoid such things if possible, no? Especially if caught by surprise?)

[pzgndr]

The U-boat war will be very difficult to model in SC. Contact with fleets was usually avoided, but that's the only contact you have in SC and it's unrealistic. Since the entire Atlantic isn't portrayed, an abstract convoy box for subs and ASW fleets (like 3R/A3R) may be preferable. Time will tell how the convoy disruptions play out in this game, and Hubert's not likely to change things for now anyway. As it is, contact during the early years could probably be much less likely unless U-boats choose to engage fleets, changing later as a result of research. It would be nice to have a default game parameter file to edit so we could tinker with stuff like this. (Hint!)

Also reading some posts about performing Sealion has me wondering about air/naval interceptions. These should be included somehow. Maybe have a reaction range and prompt for whether to engage or not. Something.