Posts made by HolKann

It’s always the same with those “why isn’t this or that country in the game”-threads: someone lives in a nation not represented, and starts nagging why their country should be in the game. I remember the good old revised days: only 5 countries, each of which had a different playstyle all the while obeying to exactly the same rules of warfare. Having 9+ (!) nations with different rules for each of them isn’t an improvement to me. So although I’m Belgian and my native tongue is Dutch, I oppose adding those to the game. Moreover, the Dutch colonies should have simply been pro-axis neutrals, with 1-2 inf on each of them. Congo is fine as it is. And at least the low countries, the ports of Europe, have got a bigger IPC-count than Spain and Greece now 8-)

@hewhoisnickel:

The Dutch roundels in the Dutch East Indies show that they are separate from the UK to start. They are not controlled by anybody. The Netherlands doesn’t have a Dutch roundel because there is no need to represent them as separate to the Nazis, as they weren’t. The Canadian roundels in Canada are meant to be representative of their contribution to and significance in the war, and that they were an independent nation at the time, not to show that they are a separate in the game itself.

As for the Belgian Congo, it does not have a roundel due to the fact that it does not need to be shown as separate to the UK.

Belgium small, Canada friend of big USA, stop looking for excuses. Plus the fact that the Belgian government was in exile in London (“Belgian Congo, administered from London” ;) ), so it’ll probably have been the British who pulled the strings of what happened with the Congo. Uranium export to fuel the Manhattan project for instance. A roundel to signify independence and significance in the war, LOL  :roll:

Another question, what’s up with the Dutch in the global game? And what happens to the French colonies after France has been completely conquered?

@Zhukov44:

So you are proposing 1 bb 1C, followed by 2 bb on turn 2.  So you’ve got 3 bb sitting up in alaska…well, that force won’t fare too well if the Jap fleet attacks.  The Japs can deadzone that sea zone pretty effectively and you would need 2 dd blockers to stop em.

Japan keeps its fleet in Japan? Then the complex has proven its worth… Apart from that, you don’t have to buy it on A1, I was just giving an example how with IC could be faster than without. If you buy it at the right time, when you know Japan doesn’t want to / isn’t able to prevent you building 2 BB’s next turn there, then it’s a good idea, because you get 1 extra BB threatening Japanese waters. Ofcourse, the BB-strafing idea doesn’t need the IC, but it can be a boost at the right moment.

I can’t get behind the Alaska IC idea–too inefficient.

Lol, the hole Alaska-IC + BB’s isn’t about being efficient, it’s about a cool game. If you want efficiency, go KGF :roll:

@Keredrex:

with cost of buying a complex in alaska you could just buy the units of of california in the 1st round and keep the flow going… it works the same (actually its faster, cause more units are in play on the board) and your not worried about giving japan a possible complex in alaska (even if they dont hold it, it will interrupt the build process)…

Alaska complex costs 15, is cheaper than ONE BB. The next turn, it allows you to build TWO BB’s each turn. Skipping the IC will give you 3 BB in Alaska by turn 2 (1 from the start, and 2 you built in turn 1 in Western US), building the IC will give you 4 BB in Alaska by turn 2 (1 from the start, 1 built in turn 1 in Western US, 2 built in turn 2 in Alaska). Who’s threatening Japan faster?

Edit: I’m not saying this is ideal, but considering aggressiveness, it’s faster with the IC. Hell, it’s just a fun strat, it’s not trying to break the game, just providing a fun alternative to KGF or sub+ftr war in the Pacific.

If you want to try something completely different, I remember that the Caspian Sub proposed to build an IC in Alaska to build 2 BB’s out every round. Since BB’s are a bit cheaper, this might still be an interesting idea. The funny thing is, if Japan’s fleet is within reach, and it is only a little larger than the USA one (which contains at least 5 BB’s), USA can decide to attack the Japanese fleet, only to retreat when all the free hits of the BB’s have been used. This way, USA can nibble away at the Japanese fleet at no cost. This only works once though  :-D

The point of the Alaska IC is that it can reach the Japanese Outer Sea, severely limiting the Japanese building and mobility options (taking the strafe tactic into account).

Update!

Any thoughts on this.

Yes.

You’re confusing “average” and “expected”. The average amount of hits for 6 inf attacking is 1 hit. The expected percentage you’ll get an amount of hits equal or greater to 1 is 67% (=1-(5/6)^6). The difference is in “or greater”. There is a possibility you get 6 hits with 6 inf attacking, but it is very small (1/6^6). Likewise, there is a possibility you get 5 hits, which is a bit bigger, and a possibility you get 4 hits, and so on. On average, with 6 inf attacking, you will get as much hits extra (so greater than 1), as you will get no hits. That’s why it averages out to 1.

The only time “expected” and “average” are the same, is when you’re rolling with 1 unit: then there is only the chance of scoring one hit and the chance of scoring no hits, so no “averaging out”. Hence your experiences: the more units, the less “average == expected”.

Wooha, man, you’re fast!
I just saw it too, edited previous post. Your “impassable” got contaminated by “impossible” ;) And you’ve made me curious about your neutral rules…

For those who like a little less big file (~9MB): .gif of the map with neutrals (created with the Gimp :-D, the .png was about 20 MB )

Great map! One little correction: it’s “impassable” instead of “impassaible”…

Owkey, I really shouldn’t do this, but… Cruisers suck. And even Larry and his crew turned to “I still think it is balanced” when I presented them the irrationality behind cruisers.

Let’s go for a warship roundup and usability. I’ll start of with the uncontroversial ones:
sub: cheap hit, good for sneaking, can’t attack air => very useful for disrupting enemy waters
DD: counter of sub, cheap hit, can attack air => basic sea unit
Carrier: expensive, but allows excess of fighters to fight sea battles => flexible and certainly useful with fighters already purchased

I think everyone agrees with the above.
Battleship: expensive, has double hit, high attack, and, most importantly, auto-repair. Auto-repair is the reason why a Cru and DD aren’t the equal of a BB. After taking a hit in sea battle, with DD + Cru, you end up with only Cru. With BB, you end up with a fully repaired BB. Net gain: 8 ipc’s. Which one is better now? Shore bombard is a nice extra, but without it, the BB would still be a decent buy. I remember Caspian Sub used to describe a strategy with the USA to kill Japan: Build IC in Alaska, build a fleet of BB’s. Use the BB’s to hit-and-run the Japanese navy, using auto-repair to soak up losses, while Japan keeps sacrificing subs. This was back in the days when a BB was 24 (!) IPC’s, and was an interesting idea. In 1942, the idea gets only more interesting, maybe to the point it is a viable strategy  :evil: So in short: BB’s have their use thanks to auto-repair. Think about it ;)

Now, why are Cru’s bad?
Cru: expensive, no double hit, only plus is their shore bombardment => overpriced. Shore bombardment isn’t what it used to be (you have to send an inf every time, and the opponent still gets to shoot back!). Compared to other units, a Cru sucks. Which would you like best, a bmr or a Cru? A bmr is the better offensive piece: much greater range, better attack, can strategically bombard (which is at least as good as shore bombard). One can argue that the Cru is better at sea defense than a bmr. Which is true, but a Cru is MUCH worse than a DD at sea defense: at sea defense, the number of hits one can take is essential. A DD takes a hit at 8 IPC’s, a Cru at 12 IPC’s. An increase of 50%! The meager shore bombardment doesn’t equalise, and the damage/IPC count is equal between Cru and DD, which also has sub detection. Not to mention you can buy two sea hits (=two subs) for the price of one Cru. So at defense, Cru is also not a good choice. But is it an “all round” unit then, not particularly good at anything, but decent at everything? Maybe, I say. If they were priced at 10, they would be. Or if they had the sub detection instead of DD. Or an AA to counter those overpowered bombers at sea. But alas, a rational mind is hard to find. So any time my opponent purchases a Cru, I silently smile, because he just flushed 2 IPC’s down the drain. Litteraly 8-)

Pretending you get that hit, and way to ensure that only 1 fighter dies would dramatically increase the odds of bombers and tactical bombers dieing.

I disagree, you forget to take into account the chances of an extra hit are minimal. Let’s redo the example, but with assuring maximum one type of aircraft survives, for instance, simply remove the fighters/bmrs from the pool after you assign the first hit.

So redoing the example with 999 fighters + 3 bmrs. First assume no extra hit: you allocate the sure hit by rolling a 1002 sided die, if it’s <1000, a fighter dies, if it’s >=1000, a bmr dies. With extra hit: a fighter and bomber dies (this follows from rolling a 1002 sided die for the sure hit first, remove the type of casualty, and roll another die for the other type, which by then is the only type left, so will for sure be hit). Now let’s analyze chances:

The chance you hit a fighter is: the chance the sure hit is a fighter + the chance the sure hit isn’t a fighter (which removes the bmrs from the group) and the extra hit hits. Mathematically: 999/1002 + 3/10022/1000 = 99,7%. The chance you hit a bmr is the chance the first hit is a bmr + the chance the first hit is not a bmr and the extra hit hits. Mathematically: 3/1002 + 999/10022/1000 = 0,5%. (Note these chances do not amount to 1 since on average more than one unit is hit. Moreover, on average, 1,002 units are hit, which is exactly the sum of the chances ;) ) So in almost all battles, a fighter will be killed, but never more than one, and almost never a bomber, and never more than one. So no dramatical increases of bombers dieing with this approach, a very slight increase at best. Very much within the margins of LL imho  8-)

This reminds me of a method of handling AA I invented before, struggling with the same problem in AAR LL. I forgot it in my previous post  :roll: It’s fairly elegant, but has (in little cases) a chance of “both bmrs dieing”. Here’s how it goes:

So, 9 fighters, 5 bombers, 7 tacs, 8 lancasters, 1 zeppelin and 3 ufo’s are being attacked by an AA. First remove groups of 6’s and remove these sure hits, just like you said. Then line them up on one long row. So 3 ftr, 5 bmr, 1 tac, 2 lnc, 1 zep, 3 ufo. Now divide them in ordered groups of 6: 3 ftr + 3 bmr, 2 bmr + 1 tac + 2 lnc + 1 zep, 3 ufo (= rest), and roll a die for each group, with the number of the die appointing the aircraft hit. For instance, you roll 4, 3, 4. So in the first group a bmr (the 4th aircraft) is hit, in the second a tac (3rd), and in the third nothing (you needed a 3- to hit, the 4th aircraft is “empty”). This is my preferred way of solving LL AA: no more hits than needed, no deep calculations, easy way of handling the extra hits. Actually, it’s a generalization of the “groups of 6 are sure hits”-rule: a group of 6 is nothing more than 6 aircraft for which a die is thrown, but since all the aircraft are of the same type, and since the group is exactly 6 large, the number on the die will always point to an aircraft of the type of which the group consists.

However, there is a problem with this approach: suppose the second die in the example was a 1, then two bmrs would have been hit, which you want to avoid. My advice: order the groups as good as possible (with as little types in two groups as possible). In the example: 5 bmr + 1 zep, 3 ftr + 3 ufo, 1 tac + 2 lnc. As you can see, no aircraft type is in danger of getting two hits. This however is not always possible, but even in those rare cases, the type to split will contain at least 4 members (always split the largest type), so it is acceptable that 2 of those group can die instead of one. I deem this also very much within the approximative margin of LL to ADS.

For instance, applying this method to your example (999 ftr + 3 bmr): divide in 2 groups, with the ftrs split (they are the largest type). So 3 bmr + 997 ftr, 2 ftr. Now the chances of a bmr being hit are 3/1000 = 0,3% , the chances of (minimum) one ftr being hit are 997/1000 + 2/1000 = 99,9% These are actually the exact average chances of ADS! And compared to your method (which has the advantage of no double bmrs hit), it’s pretty close I think.

To summarize, use my method, with the “split only if needed, split to never more than two, and split the largest types first”-rule, and you won’t need to worry about chances or double bombers. Happy rule crunching :mrgreen:

Hmm, it depends. Both ways are LL, but one is with less luck than the other. It also depends on the complexity you want to add in the rules.

version 1: you roll for fighters and bombers separately. This means 1 fighter and 1 bomber attacking an AA would be the same as ADS => this is the “high” LL variant, but it’s also the most simple one.

version 2: you roll a “to hit” die for fighters and bombers separately, and roll another die to determine if the casualty is a bomber or fighter. This is “real” low luck, but it’s very complicated. For instance, 5 fighters and 4 bombers are attacking a territory, what dice to roll? 5+4 = 9, so this is one sure hit and one die @3. Suppose no extra hit. It’s clear it’s very complicated deciding which aircraft is hit. One solution is: roll 5 dice for the fighters, 4 for the bombers, and keep the die with the highest score (make sure to remember which dice were what aircraft!). In case of a tie, reroll the dice with the tie scores. Keep doing this untill there are as many dice with a highest score as there are casualties to make. To keep in touch with our example: 5 dice for fighters, rolled at 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, and 4 dice for bombers, rolled at 1, 3, 3, 4. Reroll the 4’s: ftr: 1, 6, bmr: 6. Reroll again: ftr 3, bmr 2. Conclusion: the fighter is the one casualty to take. This would get even more complicated if the die @3 from the beginning was also a hit!

So in my opionion, version 1 is to be preferred. If your friend opposes this view, ask him how he would handle the 5ftr+4bmr attack ;)

How about compressing it with for instance winrar, and then uploading it in chunks of say 200MB? Then upload those 4 chunks to mediafire, and everyone can get it. Or use megaupload, it allows uploads of up to 1024MB I think…

Have you tried saving it as a .png? If so, how many MB’s did the file take then? It can’t be more than the 750MB you currently have  :|

@Stoney229:

Is anyone else having trouble?

Yep, I am. The .zip file is corrupted :( I think the problem is with the site uploader and using a .txt extension: try Map.zip.JPG instead, .jpg used to work better ;)

@P@nther:

So, as I see, you lightened up the Seazones a bit. What did you do with the .pdn to do this? Did you only modify the “Layer 25” or is there anything else behind it?
I am just asking because you did not update the .pdn.
:-)

Hmm, I don’t really remember… Tinkering with the brightness of the sea zones and the sea shade layers. And changing the blending options of the sea shade layers (overlay or normal instead of multiply, or adjusting the opacity)… Tried a few things 'till it looked right  :-D

@P@nther:

What I found out comparing the modules with older ones is, that in some of the scenario.gim folders the file “Toolpieces.txt” is missing (for example in A50.gim and A51.gim).
Bug or feature?

Bug I guess, but it’s not one I’m getting. I downloaded and installed everything in D:\Test\ABattleMap, and all modules worked fine. The Toolpieces.txt in A50.gim and A51.gim were present, so something went different on our respective computers… Using Vista basic by the way, but normally the version of Windows shouldn’t matter (dunnow if it also works on OSX or Linux though).

@P@nther:

I’m going to edit my first post in this thread so it will be easier to find your post where you provide the files.

Tnx! Though I’m afraid you’ll have to edit again, I’ve finally made the self installer, and included a whole bunch of modules, including the AA42 one, and put it in the AA50 modules thread (that one’s stickied :p ). Ow, also found out I had fixed that AAR map SZ numbering in the Pacific already a year ago 8-) , iirc, you we’re looking for it not so long ago. Anyways, it’s also in the AModulesPack.