Couple of questions

[Ridcully70]

I've recently been playing this quite a lot. Great game, very versatile and flexible system, and detailed without too much unnecessary detail.

Anyhoo, I do have the manual in PDF format and have read most of it. Like many people my learning method is to briefly skim the rules and then dive into the game and try things out, referring to the manual only when I get really confused. After about 2 weeks of that I feel very comfortable with the system.

However there are still a couple of questions I have

Supply System- How is supply transferred from HQs to units? Logically I would think that they are transferred by transport such as rail, trucks etc. However the game I'm currently playing has the Supreme HQ on a small island, yet the other appear to get their full supplies, and I don't even have any ships yet! That really confused me. Is supply done on a more abstract level then? Ie physical transports are not needed to move supplies to units? If so it might save me from building an armada of cargo ships to move supplies overwater!

Horses- The way I use them is to make an artillery unit and then transfer an equal number of horses into to get the artillery up to foot speed., ie if I have 10 AT guns and 5 infantry guns in a formation I'll put 15 horses into the formation to get them moving faster. Is there any other way of using horses?

At game start there is a button for "cards". yet so far I see no way of activating them.

And lastly is there any way of having an AI allied with you at the very start? And can you offer alliances to AI nations?

Oh and I might add that I first registered here a long time ago, but just logged in today after about 10 years after recalling my username *and* password! Ling time no see Matrix Forums! [:D]

[ernieschwitz]

ORIGINAL: Ridcully70

I've recently been playing this quite a lot. Great game, very versatile and flexible system, and detailed without too much unnecessary detail.

Anyhoo, I do have the manual in PDF format and have read most of it. Like many people my learning method is to briefly skim the rules and then dive into the game and try things out, referring to the manual only when I get really confused. After about 2 weeks of that I feel very comfortable with the system.

However there are still a couple of questions I have

Supply System- How is supply transferred from HQs to units? Logically I would think that they are transferred by transport such as rail, trucks etc. However the game I'm currently playing has the Supreme HQ on a small island, yet the other appear to get their full supplies, and I don't even have any ships yet! That really confused me. Is supply done on a more abstract level then? Ie physical transports are not needed to move supplies to units? If so it might save me from building an armada of cargo ships to move supplies overwater!

Horses- The way I use them is to make an artillery unit and then transfer an equal number of horses into to get the artillery up to foot speed., ie if I have 10 AT guns and 5 infantry guns in a formation I'll put 15 horses into the formation to get them moving faster. Is there any other way of using horses?

At game start there is a button for "cards". yet so far I see no way of activating them.

And lastly is there any way of having an AI allied with you at the very start? And can you offer alliances to AI nations?

Oh and I might add that I first registered here a long time ago, but just logged in today after recalling my username *and* password! Ling time no see Matrix Forums! [:D]

Welcome to the forums!

A few quick answers. Supplies are assumed to be transported by other means than your units. So no need to build cargoships for transferring supplies (in most cases)...

As for horses, I believe they can make artillery types move as fast as foot, and that is it. Nothing more to it.

When it comes to Cards they are only present in games where they have been programmed as part of the scenario. Cards can pretty much do anything you want, when programming them. The editor is very flexible. Some scenarios have them, others do not.

The AI does not understand the concept of being in an Alliance with you (nor with anyone else, i think), so the answer to that question would have to be a no. Although you can set them to be your ally with the editor. I don't think it wise to try.

Hope you enjoy it here

[Ridcully70]

thanks! that's cleared things up some. I find the manual pretty clear in some places but almost inpenetrable in other areas

As it happens i do have Decisive Campaigns Case Blue (another game with cards) somewhere but haven't got round to playing it. I didn't know it was by the same developers

If it's not too much trouble I'm currently struggling with a couple more things

Firstly I sometimes suffer Anti Supply damage, but it would be a huge help to actually know what's causing it. Is it submarines, airpower etc? Or is not knowing what causes part of the gameplay~ I just find it kind of annoying being notified that I lost 600 supply due to anti supply without knowing what's doing it.

Secondly in the random map I'm currently playing i've decided to go for airpower in a big way. How do I make sure my bombers don't get toasted? The logical answer would be to send in some fighters as escort but how is this done? Simply by making them part of the bomber force? I understand that there is a stacking penalty with airpower so as bombers cost 10 stack points you could make a bomber force of 10 without going over the limit , but adding more fighters will simply make you less effective. I have sent something like 5 bombers escorted by 10 fighters on an air raid , but it seems that often the enemy has about 30 fighters as part of the defensive force or so just ripping my squadrons to shreds in exchange for maybe 10 rifle destroyed, not a good trade.

[Twotribes]

Anti supply is done at sea by enemy combatant ships being in range of your supply line. Usually this is submarines but be aware it includes all combatants. On land anti supply if enabled would be air craft in range of your front lines and back. I believe guerrillas have anti supply to but I don't thing they exist anymore.




As for air power watch you oil usage if you use oil. Basically one way to deal with interceptors is to fly fighter aircraft in on raids BEFORE you fly the bombers. I have never had a problem with stacking OVER target just the actual airfield.

[Ridcully70]

cheers!

I find that flying a recon mission with fighters to a prospective target is a good way of gauging enemy strength as well as whittling down his fighter force, if you outweigh him in quality or quantity.

i'v been playing this game a lot lately. Mostly any questions that occurred to me can be cleared up by trial and error but there is still one thing that puzzles me. Often I will have one non capital town which shows production far outweighing the others. It will be a standard 8000 production town, yet if the political point bar is set to, say, 5 bars, it will show something like 20 political points produced. Is this a bug?

And this is purely subjective, but what do you feel is the maximum map limit of "playability"? I started on small maps, and I've gone up to XL maps. But the XXL and "unplayably large" maps I'm not sure about, they strike me as being potentially needlessly long and drawn out. And what about number of players, again what is the maximum for an enjoyable game in your opinion? And is there any point in playing the "classic" version of the game if you already have the gold version?

[Twotribes]

Actually are you sure it shows producing 20 or accumulated 20? It may be out side your range of the Headquarters assigned it. Causing the production to stack up.

[Ridcully70]

that might explain it. Obviously if no-one else has noticed it, it's likely I misunderstood the situation. Is there a way of checking precisely the supply range between town and HQ? I know there is the supply layer function and you can right click to see a supply path but I don't know if that can be used for that. I just tend to use common sense in estimating supply ranges.

[Twotribes]

Yes supply range is the method it will show what cities are in what range of said HQs.

[ernieschwitz]

...And what about number of players, again what is the maximum for an enjoyable game in your opinion? And is there any point in playing the "classic" version of the game if you already have the gold version?

my two cents says that 2 or 4 players is the sweet spot for enjoyable games. Any more and you get people dropping out of games too often for it to be fun, and also the time between getting a turn from players takes that much longer.

As for AT:WW2 (Classic) and AT:Gold, I'd say that there is no problem playing only the AT:Gold version.

[Twotribes]

For AI remember unless they are set to all ally against you they will fight each other too.