Some issues?

[snake]

1. On the first mission of a campaign, almost all my units had smoke. On the second and all subsequent missions none of my units have had any smoke and I've been in a defend, delay, assault, advance and river cross battles. Is this some sort of campaign bug that smoke never gets reloaded between missions?
2. In the river cross battle, I could not find any barges to buy and none of my vehicles could even try to cross the river. Didn't I read in the manual that barges were provided free in river crossings? You should at least be able to buy them.
3. Why do my units gets supression when they fire at units at '0' range? Are they really shooting themselves? I understand if a 'outside unit' fires in but do all gunners blow their toes off shooting at 50 meters? 50 meters is still lots bigger than a tank. I can accept SOME supression for friendly fire near fellow squad members spread over 50 meters but single armor vehicles?
4. BTW, how does an armor vehicle overrun infantry? Infantry in the same hex seem to be make a close assault after direct fire (and hence get suppression but never a casualty - both sides should take losses - their bayonets don't work?) but the tanks don't do anything but suppress themselves and sometimes kill a guy with direct fire.
5. Speaking of the ground pounders, infantry seem to close assualt infantry almost all the time at range '0.' Shouldn't there be an option to engage in close assault like hitting a button? And shouldn't both sides take some casualties or prisoners? (which is why you should be careful of getting too close.....unless you mean it!)
6. Back to tanks......My armor seems very ineffectual against infantry. Rifle fire from supporting troops do a great deal of damage but I've had my tanks blaze away with main guns and machine guns at all ranges from '0' to 'long range' without much effect. Also, the infantry is rarely frightened by the tanks rumbling near them. Only when the 'enemy side' infantry is routing away do the tanks do any real damage.
7. I got a few commanders with a '0' rally rating who are platoon cmdrs - nobody should be a zero in a regular, veteran or elite unit. Maybe a militia unit.....
8. I've never had the AI buy any mines, traps, trenches, etc. in any defend/delay mission. But man, does the AI buy artillery! 15-20 75mms is not unusual in a 2500 point buy.
9. Great game and great work, don't get me wrong - I love it. I just think the armor is getting blown up way too much from artillery and don't seem to work very well against infantry.

[DRG]

snake said:
1. On the first mission of a campaign, almost all my units had smoke. On the second and all subsequent missions none of my units have had any smoke and I've been in a defend, delay, assault, advance and river cross battles. Is this some sort of campaign bug that smoke never gets reloaded between missions?

******* I'll look into this. I know this had been brought up before and I'm certain it's been fixed at least once before

snake said:
2. In the river cross battle, I could not find any barges to buy and none of my vehicles could even try to cross the river. Didn't I read in the manual that barges were provided free in river crossings? You should at least be able to buy them.

*****They are called Barge Carriers and they are found in the MISC section. It would be helpful when dealing with issues like this to know what nation you are playing.

snake said:
3. Why do my units gets supression when they fire at units at '0' range? Are they really shooting themselves? I understand if a 'outside unit' fires in but do all gunners blow their toes off shooting at 50 meters? 50 meters is still lots bigger than a tank. I can accept SOME supression for friendly fire near fellow squad members spread over 50 meters but single armor vehicles?

******Becasue they are very close to the enemy and that's stressful. A saved example would be nice as you are the first to mention this as an issue

snake said:
4. BTW, how does an armor vehicle overrun infantry? Infantry in the same hex seem to be make a close assault after direct fire (and hence get suppression but never a casualty - both sides should take losses - their bayonets don't work?) but the tanks don't do anything but suppress themselves and sometimes kill a guy with direct fire.

*****You "overrun" infantry the way it was really done....by getting close and opening fire with all your weapons and creating a panic. We have "tank panic" in the code applied ( in some cases, not all. You cannot assume it will happen ) to the infantry being overrun. What we do not have ( and some other games do have ) is a separate "tank overrun" bit of code that gives the tank mystical powers to shock and awe when it's close.

snake said:
5. Speaking of the ground pounders, infantry seem to close assualt infantry almost all the time at range '0.' Shouldn't there be an option to engage in close assault like hitting a button? And shouldn't both sides take some casualties or prisoners? (which is why you should be careful of getting too close.....unless you mean it!)

**** There is code for a melee where both sides battle it out but if you enter a hex with a highly surpressed enemy that's not a melee and will tend to be one sided

snake said:
6. Back to tanks......My armor seems very ineffectual against infantry. Rifle fire from supporting troops do a great deal of damage but I've had my tanks blaze away with main guns and machine guns at all ranges from '0' to 'long range' without much effect. Also, the infantry is rarely frightened by the tanks rumbling near them. Only when the 'enemy side' infantry is routing away do the tanks do any real damage.

********* We've playtested this for months and nobody mentioned it. Everyone has their own ideas about what is "right". That's what the preferences screen is for.

snake said:
7. I got a few commanders with a '0' rally rating who are platoon cmdrs - nobody should be a zero in a regular, veteran or elite unit. Maybe a militia unit.....

***A save game would be useful. I've never seen it and it's never been mentioned in playtesting. This is not to say it doesn't exist. Just that you are the first to mention it. I assume this is in a campaign? Are these replacements?

snake said:
8. I've never had the AI buy any mines, traps, trenches, etc. in any defend/delay mission. But man, does the AI buy artillery! 15-20 75mms is not unusual in a 2500 point buy.

********* How big a map, how many points, what nations were you playing..... ( I need info...) I just fired up a standard battle with German vs Russia with Russia defending against an assault with the Russians as Player 2 ( the traditional "AI" side ) and with purchase set to computer ( 9000 points for Germany and XXX for Russia on a 80 x 80 map )and deploy set to HUMAN you can see what the AI bought for the Russians and if you AUTO DEPLOY when given the option of manual or automatic deployment you will see what the AI bought and where it would typically be deployed ( pressing the = key while in the deployment screen will give you more versions of an typical AI deployement in defence ) It will also show mines..lots of mines and some barbed wire as well.

So who were you playing and who where you playing against and what year?

snake said:
9. Great game and great work, don't get me wrong - I love it. I just think the armor is getting blown up way too much from artillery and don't seem to work very well against infantry.

*****We are looking into the arty vs tank issue and running futher tests. It looks as if the code that handles damage to from shrapnel etc is affecting the wrong armour but that may or may not be the real problem. The code is not simple and requires more testing

Don

[snake]

DRG,
I apologize. Let me add some info.
2. I did look for barge carriers and couldn't find any. I am familiar with them. I was Germany playing in a campaign and this was the first battle chosen against the French after several with the Poles. It was a river crossing (about 10 hexes wide, no bridges.) Since I couldn't buy any barge carriers (and I looked under every catagory except "allies."), I thought they might be provided like a beach assault. My men would reach the river and get into boats but the tanks just stopped. I wasn't surprised and just went back to the original save and got a different battle.
3. Well, my German guys suppressed very heavily (usually 5 with each shot.) That's quite a bit even for stress especially when the enemy is routed and not returning fire. Again, it was a campaign and has occurred any time I do it in any mission - easy to duplicate.
4. Fair enough but I've only seen it 2 or 3 times in about 6 missions. These were '39 missions against Poles in a campaign - I was German. In one mission, I moved about 15 armored vehicles against unsupported and pinned to routed infantry. I fired and fired and fired and just killed a few. So I moved into the hexes the next turn and fired and fired (now I was all suppressed and the Poles lost a few guys.) Next turn I moved back a hex or two and fired and fired and fired. Not much happening. Finally, about turn 6, the Polish Army hit it's morale and everybody started running. So I moved up and fired and fired and fired - no panic, some casualties and even some return fire. Finally, the next turn a few units began to surrender so I stopped firing altogether and just drove into the hexes each turn and let more and more surrender.
Sorry, but this doesn't seem realistic.
Note that throughout the mission my infantry fire, even at several hexes, was way more devestating killing 3 or 4 at a time while tanks firing every 6 shots of all weapons at 1 hex might match one long range rifle burst. This persisted until the Polish Army routed.
5. Even highly surpressed men will fight when cornered if they don't surrender. This 'event' seems to indicate that everyone in every squad surrenders and never fights back or kills an attacker. Close combat, surpressed or not, is not that one sided. IMHO.
6. I know the preference screen options but if you set an option like infantry easier to kill then EVERTHING kills them easily and I believe the artillery vrs infantry and infantry vrs infantry is about right at 100%. Only tanks can't seem to kill them and at range one blazing away as you said I should see effect.
7. I checked this and indeed it was a zero leader who had failed a check. Next turn he had a value.
8. Campaign game of Germans in '39. At least ten missions against Poles, French and Brits. The AI bought mines on one river crossing (I checked later) I couldn't play without barges. 3 other assaults and not a single obstacle. My campaign buy was 2500 points (later about 2800 with core increases) on a medium map about 80 by 80.
Twice the Poles had over 20 75mm howitzers (not counting several mortars) and never less than 15 total indirect fire weapons in even the non-defend missions. The other assault against France had them with 12 75mms, 8 81mm mortars, 6 105's and 6 attack aircraft.
The balance of forces seemd correct except for zero obstacles and a preponderance of artillery. Oddly, almost all the purchased art was on-board. Off-board amount seemed right with 3-6 batteries - what I am normally able to buy as the German if I spend 75% of my support points on art.
9. I would suggest that the skewed art vrs tank results are from way too many top hits which would kill a tank but I'm sure the majority of shells land around AFV's which would cause suppression. Don't get me wrong - AFV's should suffer lots of suppression in a barrage but the kill #'s are way too high. Immobilizations are about right, suppression seems correct. It's the outright top hit kills. It's so bad that if art lands near my formations, I always expect a kill with every barrage and I usually see it.
I actually think that the art vrs infantry routine is correct. I rarely see a lot of kills even moving in the open but I see lots of suppression which is good!

[DRG]

2- you need to look for "Lastkahn-Transp"

3- closing with the enemy to range zero is not something done lightly. There is extra surpression.

4- Sometimes the enemy doesn't like to be killed. They find cover and hide sometimes the shoot back. I know some people expect more kills in the game. That's what the preferences are for. I can assure you if we cranked up the kills and it started to play like an arcade game LOTS of people would complain. Get a few hundred people to back you up that it's way too hard to kill infantry with tanks and we'll look at the issue. Maybe we can hear from a few infantrymen and they will explain that not getting killed by tanks is a top priority even if the tankers think thats the nature order of things

5- There IS surrender code it just doesn't kick in according to a script and it doesn't kick in every time and if we increased the surrender ratio people would complain about that too

6- "I believe the artillery vrs infantry and infantry vrs infantry is about right at 100%. " Me too. Others disagree. That's what makes the workd go 'round. Me, I don't think people should pull up to infantry in a 50 yard area in a buttoned up metal box and blaze away killing everything in sight and we have made numeous tweaks to the code while playtesting and nobody at the end said " I still don't think this is right" Im not saying you are wrong or your point isn't valid but we have encounted a WIDE range of opinions over the years as to what is "right"

7-OK

8- As Andy said.. they don't alway buy mines but they do generally. Your 2800 point core gives the AI defender around 1100 points to defend against your assault on a 80x80 map that's not much. If you want to see what that's like from the AI POV set up an assault with 2800 points and XXX for the AI then set player one to human play but computer buy and deploy and set player 2 to computer play and computer buy but HUMAN deploy then auto deploy them and take a look and you will see that even when the AI does buy mines ( usually ) there is a lot of real estate that you could cover and not find one

9- As I said, we are looking into the arty vs armour issue and there is more to that code than just a couple of simple lines


And please......NEXT TIME you have comments keep them one or two at a time because trying to answer and counter answer a 9 point essay is a bit of a PITA.

Don

[Charles22]

DRG: On the tanks suppressing themselves whilst in the hex with an enemy; it is very much going on and i've seen it several times. We're talking about units that aren't able to fire back in the same hex. Perhaps this will make things clearer:

1. You have a routed infantry in one hex.
2. Unsuppressed tank enters that hex and stays unsuppressed.
3. The tank fires with no reponse and gets suppressed.

This did not occur on the previous version of SPWW2. We understand that if you have two units of your own in the above example,that the 'other' unit will get suppressed, but not a single unit on it's own. BTW, there's no chance that any other unit fires into that hex, because the enemy unit is non-responsive and there was no fire even from any units whatsoever other than described above.

I was playing Germany against Poland in the LC.

[Charles22]

DRG: On the infantry getting killed issue. I'm sorry to disagree with snake, but it's working VERY well as far as I'm concerned. It was the prior version of SPWW2 that had practically invincible infantry. Snake has to get used to either/and the infantry being tougher in cover or dug in, and also for the increased difficulty of anything being hit when the targeting unit has moved the same turn.

Snake: Don't worry, it really is fine, and when your infantry is in cover and dug in you will benefit from that. Get them in the open against stationary gunners, and they're dead or falling back real quick. You don't know invincible infantry until you played the prior version of SPWW2.

[DRG]

Charles22 said:
DRG: On the tanks suppressing themselves whilst in the hex with an enemy; it is very much going on and i've seen it several times. We're talking about units that aren't able to fire back in the same hex. Perhaps this will make things clearer:

1. You have a routed infantry in one hex.
2. Unsuppressed tank enters that hex and stays unsuppressed.
3. The tank fires with no reponse and gets suppressed.

This did not occur on the previous version of SPWW2. We understand that if you have two units of your own in the above example,that the 'other' unit will get suppressed, but not a single unit on it's own. BTW, there's no chance that any other unit fires into that hex, because the enemy unit is non-responsive and there was no fire even from any units whatsoever other than described above.

I was playing Germany against Poland in the LC.

We'll dig around and build some tests and see what we can see. Save games for issues like this are always helpful as it saves us trying to guess about who's doing what while recreating what you saw

Don

[Nick_Hyle]

DRG said:

******* I'll look into this. I know this had been brought up before and I'm certain it's been fixed at least once before


Don

Don, Andy, I know (think?) we had this licked once, but it was broken in the last (couple?) SPWW2 releases, and it's Broken here.

I've tried to do some poking around. The units that "lose" their smoke in a campaign game are armor units. Infantry and and artillery that start a campaign with smoke keep it through the campaign; armor that have it in the first battle, never have it again. This includes tanks, armored cars, tank destroyers.

As a hopefully-useful clue, the ONLY armor units I have seen NOT lose their smoke in a campaign are units with a "parent" artillery-class unit.

For instance, there is a unit available as an "OrPo Panzer" formation, the Geshtzwagn B2, a 105mm cannon on an ex-French carriage. It appears (the "parent") first as an SP arty unit, then later as an OrPo panzer. This sort of oddball keeps its smoke in a campaign; Panzer IV, VI, 75mm armored cars, etc, have smoke in the first game of a campaign, and then never again.

If you have trouble replicating this let me know and I'll generate some some campaigns and send you first and subsequent game saves to illustrate. But I think you see it as soon as you look.

Caveat; I am mostly playing German Long or Generated campaigns, if that matters.

[snake]

Nick said:
I've tried to do some poking around. The units that "lose" their smoke in a campaign game are armor units. Infantry and and artillery that start a campaign with smoke keep it through the campaign; armor that have it in the first battle, never have it again. This includes tanks, armored cars, tank destroyers.

I have done so as well. I restarted my long campaign as Germany twice. On the second mission of each game, all of the armor units have lost all smoke. Infantry, newly purchased units and any new core units are fine (for one turn if armor). All the 'vehicles' are without smoke as far as I can tell.

Here is a save of a long campaign, second mission after pruchase as Germany.

[Mobhack]

It may be by unit class, with some not being added to the list for smoke replenishment in the code?.

The smoke rounds are credited as a random amount, and it may well be that this allows zero rounds to be allocated for some units in some circumstances.

On the to-be-investigated pile.

Andy