Getting the Stragglers Out

[Patine]

Sure thing civ2units!

[Patine]

Edit: Sorry for the demanding, snappy post.

[Patine]

Again, sorry, I was in a bad mood this morning. I'd just like to politely and humbly ask for a status report on this playtest. Hey, no rush. I know everyone's busy, myself included. Just post here when you get a chance. Thanks in advance!

[civ2units]

Hello Patine,

first of all, a very great scenario from you.
I´ve played a game with the Japanese on difficult level King.
It´s a short playtest, i will make a larger one when i have some more time.

The US fleet on Pearl Harbor was very fast destroyed but i concentrated my conquest on China.
Luckely I had many troops, the communists are not a easy enemy.
After two turns the Philipines were under Japanese rule. Same goes to Borneo and Kuala Lumpur.

During the game i didn´t look at the city production and the improvements.
I think I should have a look at the units (attack, defense, etc...) for using them carefully. I´ve lost many units by attacking the communists.

I hope this will help you, it´s my first playtest.

[AGRICOLA]

@Patine
Sorry, I'm not ignoring EOTRS but I'm full time on Werd100's WWII Europa, partly as a playtest and partly as a vehicle for determining when the AI starts to build units as it loses cities and units as well as when the AI stops building units as an AI civ expands. WWII is the only scen that I know of where both things happen.

There is also Boco's El Awrens which I have been itching to try for a very long time. As curtsibling says, this forum has suddenly become a beehive of activity and excellent scens are rolling off designers' computers at a very rapid rate.

[Michael Daumen]

Just a quick first note; did you realize that by making all spaces stackable, all the planes on board a carrier will survive its destruction?

[techumseh]

Also any ground units being transported. I leave ocean squares unstackable for that reason.

Btw, Merc's CivStack program allows you to add either forts or airbases to the specific terrain types of your choice.

[Patine]

@Civ2Units: Thanks for the start of a playtest! I really appreciate the help, even if it is your first. Your first impressions show you're a bit better at actually playing than I. Didn't you get Hong Kong first turn, though? Let me know when you have more, if you don't mind.

@AGRICOLA: No problem! Please give it a try when you have the time.

@Michael Daumen and Techumseh: There's no other way to avoid unrealistically huge fleet casualties. Do you have another solution?

[Michael Daumen]

Don't stack?

I'm not saying it's a poor idea, just that you might get annoyed with straggling planes and land units strewn across the ocean....

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Patine
@Michael Daumen and Techumseh: There's no other way to avoid unrealistically huge fleet casualties. Do you have another solution?

Not really. It's up to you - higher casualties or piles of sleeping tanks sitting in the middle of the ocean.

One technique you might try is to have somewhat higher defense strengths on ships, so that an entire stack is not sunk on the first attack. It doesn't reduce fleet casualties, but it does even them out a bit.

[civ2units]

Originally posted by Patine
@Civ2Units: Thanks for the start of a playtest! I really appreciate the help, even if it is your first. Your first impressions show you're a bit better at actually playing than I. Didn't you get Hong Kong first turn, though? Let me know when you have more, if you don't mind.

Unfortunately my units are all in China, some lost by attacking the communists. So it would be hard to
conquest Hong Kong.

Also the British won´t give up Singapore , but there are new troops on the way to South Malaysia .

In the King level I´ve many problems to conquest the cities, my units loosing many points, the enemy only a few. The Japanese Units have a strong attack but a weakly defense.

I prefer the Hohei Butai unit for land attacking, especially the communists units. The Howitzer is very good for attacking the cities.
I´ve lost many Zeros by attacking ground units.

Nearly everything is finished for my AWI scenario, so I hope that i can give you a larger feedback in the next weeks, if it is ok for you.

[Patine]

Great stuff, Civ2Units! Give me feedback whenever you have the time. BTW, that high attack, low defense thing was deliberate, to simulate WW2 Japanese fighting style.

[Patine]

@techumseh: Is there a fast way to un-stack all ocean squares (without editing each and every one or starting the map over)?

[Boco]

Sticking my nose in...

Try Mercator's CivEngineer, but make sure you save a backup copy before starting. Otherwise, hexing might be faster than fixing it in game.

[AGRICOLA]

I wouldn't worry about unstacking ocean squares. It really comes down to a question of which is the lesser of two evils:

A. Losing a stack of naval units as well as any ground and air units they are carrying if just one unit in the stack is killed. BTW, on an unstacked ocean square, if a stack of ships, ground units and planes contains just one naval unit that is homed to a city that is captured by the enemy, the whole stack disappears beneath the waves.

B. Losing just the defeated unit and, only in case of a sunken transport, have ground units left floating in the ocean. I have no idea what happens if the unit sunk is a carrier with a/c aboard. The planes can probably fly off afterwards.

I would vote for B as being more realistic. I've seen, and benefitted from, too many instances where 10-15 AI naval units, especially subs which tend to gather in packs, get sunk by a single attacker. Heck, in Red Front it's a lot of fun to anchor a high value stack of mixed ground and naval units in a Soviet minefield, wait till the U-boats come nosing around and swat the whole lot with one blow. Subsequent convoys tend to have very safe voyages.