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Milage and such


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I am not trying to be negative but I do like the thoughts of the programmers about game related events, I am trully curious about several things and what can be done in the editors to change them. I just played over and over Japanese landings on coasts with no oppisition, and the losses range in the army category from 0% to 60% with an average of 40% losses. Assuming an army is about 160,000 men, [read that somewhere] it means 64,000 troops were killed or wounded or missing in action in a very small area whether there is a vanguard or partisans or pill boxes or rough terrain or an army defending the beach or a typhoon, that number is way out of line, I know this was discussed earlier but it is stuck in my craw and I cannot get rid of it, if the programmers insist on this okay its their game but I would like to know how to change it. This one is not okay with me either but I will except any explanation you give me as being what you feel is correct and I will let it go. From Tokyo to Okinawa is appx. 840 miles, in the game when I sent my destroyer squadron from Tokyo to the Malay penninsula to protect the shipping lanes there it took 10 days game time just to get to Okinawa, well now if a destroyer can maintain its medium speed of 35kts an hour it should be far beyond Okinawa in ten days from Tokyo to Malay is appx 3,000 miles, actually it should arrive in Malay in that length of time. If there are any reasons that it cant go that far please show me why such as refitting, resupply, rough seas, anything. I know you strive for realism as best you can and this series plays pretty good in that area and I know its just a game BUT! If this seems like I am being picayune I apoligize but some things annoy me sorry. Last post my math was bad and maybe it is again please help!

Bo

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For the first point this has already been discussed a bit in the other threads and I just mentioned that I will look to make this Editable down the road as I can understand why not everyone may like it. As to its inclusion there were a few points addressing this as well such as the abstraction of contesting enemy territory with or without units etc.

For the ranges of naval units, well honestly I couldn't tell you just how far each ship type should actually go in real life, we just picked what we felt were appropriate ranges in game play terms and just went from there, i.e. some of these work out well for the turn lengths and some perhaps not so much but overall we felt the game play abstractions were reasonable enough sort of thing.

Nice thing is that this can all be editable as desired :)

Hope this helps,

Hubert

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For the first point this has already been discussed a bit in the other threads and I just mentioned that I will look to make this Editable down the road as I can understand why not everyone may like it. As to its inclusion there were a few points addressing this as well such as the abstraction of contesting enemy territory with or without units etc.

For the ranges of naval units, well honestly I couldn't tell you just how far each ship type should actually go in real life, we just picked what we felt were appropriate ranges in game play terms and just went from there, i.e. some of these work out well for the turn lengths and some perhaps not so much but overall we felt the game play abstractions were reasonable enough sort of thing.

Nice thing is that this can all be editable as desired :)

Hope this helps,

Hubert

Thank you Hubert for your opinion appreciate it, and as you say all editable unless you have no idea how to do these edits without screwing the game up:confused:

Bo

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Bo,

Changing the mileage (or action points per turn) for any unit is easy.

Just go into the Editor, open "Country Data", highlight the country in question, then open "Combat Target Data", highlight the naval unit, go to "General" on the right side of the screen and change the action points for it up or down as desired. Then save your data under a different scenario name to preserve the original scenario in the Editor. Hope that helps. :)

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One issue with having naval units that can travel for miles and miles in a single turn is that it really changes the dynamics of naval strategy, especially in the Pacific, taking away the need to carefully plan your deployments with a view to future areas of operations.

For example, if the Japanese send a large number of ships to operate off Guadalcanal, then it is an opportunity for the US to carry out some landings and naval operations in the Marianas. But this opportunity would not exist if all ships were able to move significantly much faster than they can in the game. Therefore, at the strategic level the options open to the players are pretty realistic, which ultimately is the result we're aiming at.

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One issue with having naval units that can travel for miles and miles in a single turn is that it really changes the dynamics of naval strategy, especially in the Pacific, taking away the need to carefully plan your deployments with a view to future areas of operations.

For example, if the Japanese send a large number of ships to operate off Guadalcanal, then it is an opportunity for the US to carry out some landings and naval operations in the Marianas. But this opportunity would not exist if all ships were able to move significantly much faster than they can in the game. Therefore, at the strategic level the options open to the players are pretty realistic, which ultimately is the result we're aiming at.

Thank you Bill makes perfect sense when you present it that way, I did not take into consideration the time to react to something like steaming all over the Pacific in one move to thwart an enemy threst in any one area.

Bo

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Bo,

Changing the mileage (or action points per turn) for any unit is easy.

Just go into the Editor, open "Country Data", highlight the country in question, then open "Combat Target Data", highlight the naval unit, go to "General" on the right side of the screen and change the action points for it up or down as desired. Then save your data under a different scenario name to preserve the original scenario in the Editor. Hope that helps. :)

Thanks Snow can the % of landing losses on enemy territory without fighting units nearby be changed?

Bo

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Mileage etc

The original comment that sparked this thread was actually quite misleading in that it is extremely difficult for destroyers to maintain maximum speed for any length of time. I am not stating this just to be a wiseacre – there is an important point. That is that operational (or strategic speeds) are generally closer to optimal cruise speeds for vessel class. The arbitrariness that Hubert alludes to in his comment is actually pretty clear when SC PT speeds are looked at, for example – they bear no real relation to the actual operational or strategic speeds of most vessels. The cruise speed for most destroyers is about 11 or 12 knots, which is actually about the same as submarines transiting between ports or en route to a patrol area. However, most submarines have a MUCH greater cruising range at that speed than most destroyers, so even this apparently equal speed is misleading, and in a strategic game submarines really should travel rather faster than destroyers. It is only in a TACTICAL situation that destroyers can have significantly higher speeds than submarines (for the Second World War – nuclear attack boats can often maintain higher speeds than modern destroyers, especially if the destroyers are dealing with a moderate, or worse, sea state). Yet the game speed for a destroyer in PT, as an example is somewhere between 3 and 4 knots speed made good – a VERY slow pace of advance. If you look at submarine speed it is a little over 2 knots when not silent, and less than 2 knots when silent. These speeds are clearly so low as to have no basis in reality.

Bill101 keeps arguing that the naval dynamics in SC force strategic choices and are therefore, to paraphrase his point, ‘good enough’. There is some validity to his point, but there is at least one significant problem – while it may force a strategic choice, it really only has to deal with one aspect of naval warfare, and badly skews many aspects of how naval platforms really operated in the war. The one strategic choice being forced is primarily that of scarcity – there are only so many types of platforms, and by forcing these platforms to move slowly we FORCE players to choose where to put them. However, since the speed choices employed in SC are somewhere between arbitrary and tactical, the relationship between player actions in the game and naval actions in the war is generally pretty remote.

The other factor that has been all but removed from SC is naval supply. There is a form of naval supply in both the ETO and PT, but neither works very well. There are two reasons why destroyers almost never operate at maximum speed for long periods. The first, and most obvious one, is that ships travelling at that speed go through their fuel at an incredible rate. The second reason is that maximum speed is rather stressful for machinery, and maintaining that speed is something of a calculated risk. There are certainly tactical situations where maximum speed will be used, but it is pretty much impossible to think of a ten day period that would require maximum speed – especially a ten day period at maximum speed without something going sproing.

The overall choices for speeds of naval units in SC result in a naval war that is broadly strategic in the same way that RISK is broadly strategic (which supports Bill101’s basic point). But overall the speeds are so low and so badly matched to actual platform capabilities that the true dynamic nature of naval strategy is almost completely obscured by the game engine.

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Ludi 1867 trust me I was not trying to mislead anyone or even quite mislead them, I saw something that bothered me and wondered how they the programmers came to that conclusion of 12 action points for a destroyer and Bill101 explained it to my satisfaction, where I might like to differ with you is if I am having convoy trouble 2000 miles away I dont think I would be traveling at 11 or 12 knots to rescue my sinking convoys, could be wrong though.

Bo

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