email about downloading turns multiple times...

[Brynog]

The way to trash them is to move as part of a concerted effort.

That is, you have a couple Infantry unmoved (or vehicles or whatever) which are ready to fire. Mortars and artillery are really good for this.
You have your options ready (heal a man, bugle rally and promotion are all important).
Advance with the unit. Ideally in hunt mode.
You then find an enemy unit and get pounded once (or twice or whatever).

If you have the ability to pull more forces into position where they can hit the opposing unit while not being hit back then you will smash them.
Don't fire back with the unit on point until the other units have pounded the opposing unit. The lower the enemy morale, the less damage it can do. Also, you can heal your guy (more guys = more damage per shot) as well as increase morale (bugle knocks it up above 50, if you can promote a unit, this adds I think 25, which may be enough to get the unit back into the fight).

If you get into the habit of fighting this way, moving forward when your special actions are replenished and/or you have heavy support available, you can do a lot of damage with very few units. I was playing Arnhem scenario as Germans, my Flammpanzer escorted my scout from building to building. I would get in a fight, get shot, heal the scout then the panzer would apply devastating flame attacks on the enemy from 2 hexes away (too far for satchel charges). This worked repeatedly and this scout unit was feared because he couldn't be stopped.

Remember also, have reaction INF loaded onto your halftracks (load them last turn, not this turn). That way halftrack moves forward in hunt mode, strafes the enemy (2 shots from a heavy machine gun at 2 hexes can often suppress an enemy). Once they are below 50 morale, disembark your INF right next to them (because loaded last turn, they can disembark and attack this turn).

There are other variations but all are same, you scout with a few units while all the others support them and are able to quickly move in and react once the opponent reveals himself.

Regards,
Brynog

[Brynog]

Hey Pip,

One idea about encryption would be to use something relatively low-tech. Forex, DES-40 (and I think DES-56 as well) is an exportable encryption algorithm. No limitations and no special licensing. And it should probably be more than sufficient for game needs (you're stopping wannabe hackers, not multinational corporations or hostile nation states). I wouldn't be surprised if available packages on your game platforms already support this (or you can write your own DES, plenty of source code on web).

Regards,
Brynog

[pipfromslitherine]

I would need to look into the specifics of the Apple requirements. The toggle is basically "do you use encryption or not". But you are correct, I could look into algorithms classified as non-munitions.

Cheers

Pip

[Brynog]

Hey Pip,

Yeah I used to have that problem at the airport. They'd ask you if you are carrying any munitions, firearms, etc. And I kept thinking, well I have this source code in my laptop...so I started putting my laptop in a gun carry bag. Problem solved.

Regards,
Bryce

[Brynog]

Hey Pip,

I have another question. Some scenarios I seem to have no problem on my iPad1. I am playing the small VITAL VILLAGE and no crashes.

OTOH, at same time & same opponent am playing TOWN FIGHT and it has crashed a lot. But this scenario has numerous units in it.

At one point it even crashed in the middle of playback of the opponent's turn. When it did that, system would not log me in, said I had an invalid account, etc., none of my games were listed. After about 10 minutes I tried logging on and everything was normal.

The other crashes were similar to the ones described in my earlier email.

One final question: is there a way for us to get a replay option so we can watch the opponent's turn multiple times? I'd like that ability, to remind me of what I saw of his movements on his turn.

Regards,
Brynog

[Brynog]

Hey Pip,

A followup to the above post...when I save on this TOWN FIGHT, it doesn't necessarily take! I just saved so I wouldn't lose my place (again). App said I had saved successfully, blah blah blah. When I opened up app, went to Multiplayer and loaded the game again, it came up with the save previous to this. So all my play has been lost. Very annoying because I was doing well.

What can cause this problem? Is there a log somewhere that shows I tried to save, and possibly why it failed?

TOWN FIGHT versus Buzzard. My last save this evening (prior to 6:40pm PST).

Regards,
Brynog

[pipfromslitherine]

I've heard of that happen before. I will get the server guys to check into it. If it says everything was fine, then it means the server has saved the file successfully and reported back as much. If you could leave the game alone for a few days that might help us get a handle on it more.

If you're seeing crashes they are almost certainly memory kills from the OS. Very annoying I know. Hopefully they will all be sorted out in the next update. I can only suggest killing off as many other apps as possible before starting the turn.

Thanks for the detailed report.

Cheers

Pip

[Darion]

I received the same email. I am unable to send a tern that is in "my turn" box. The program freezes and the turn can never be sent out. The Game is "A Christmas Surprise, 2012 1218.

Cordially,

Darion

[Dancer]

Mr Pip,
me again. I figured out a way to do a take back. I always do something wrong and figured out i can leave the system and then go back in and my mistake is gone. I was using my dads ipad playing my friend on moms and i got this message about an error and the need to lock down the system. why, it was working fine, i was just taking back my move. can't i do that? it is such a way cool feature having the take back. i can see if people cheat but heck, let them both do take backs. don't tell my dad i messed his machine up, maybe not

[IainMcNeil]

No you can't take back a move - it is considered cheating and that is why you get a warning. If you don't stop you get banned from multiplayer! I would stop!

[Dancer]

Hello IainMcNeil, most interesting that you get banned for cheating (whatever that is). Have I missed something, is there prize money or trophies for playing the game? If the person I play cheats and I get tired of losing then I stop playing that person, it is my decision, I am the player/buyer. It becomes a bit obvious if someone is cheating. My friend says he has been banned and now I no longer have anyone to play with. We are friends and enjoy chatting about the game. So you destroyed my ability to make a decision on playing because you think a feature of the game design is cheating. Seems like you would want to eliminate that feature rather than being judge and jury for people that like to use all features. Is there a way I can get my money back because you banned my friend? Why not have something that is posted on the game if a player does a cheating move. In that manner the opponent can make a decision if they want to keep playing or reboot? Strange, seems like you would want to expand your market base. I say post on line how people can cheat and let everyone make their own decision.

[GottaLove88s]

Hi Dancer, I think we played each other once and had a great game together. Thanks... In Iain & Slitherine's defence, most of us prefer to play against opponents who don't play each turn many times so that they can decide to submit only their best move. BA (heck, Life even) is about planning and taking risks... and has a huge element of luck... What happens, happens. To both sides... Maybe you earned it. Maybe you were really, really lucky or unlucky... If you restart all of your "bad move" games, you'll never get a chance to learn how to recover from problems... When you play some of the aces (say Paultank, Blathergut or Enric, sorry to make you guys blush! ) you shouldn't expect to win everything all of the time because they're going to make you work for it... But win some/lose some/learn some is more fun than winning all of the time, right?... There is one slightly different issue, which all of us do sometimes, the curse of the "fat finger" (like when some dude at Goldman's sells 100 billion Apple shares instead of 100 million and loses everyone a lot of money and himself a job), or in my case when I intend to check out the cover rating of a certain square and accidentally double click, making a Sherman fire or go there... at which point a hidden Tiger is revealed and my Sherman is toast... We've all done it and it's annoying as hell... You'll see loads of comments on "take back" turns and there are times when we'd all want it... But it's impossible to implement because there are times when I really do want to push my Sherman forwards and then I stumble into a well prepared Tiger ambush and just plain die, and there's no way for a computer to know which was dumb/unlucky and which was a genuine mistake... It's only a game... Keep with it. I'm sure you'll come to enjoy BA without reloading

[IainMcNeil]

Cheating is very destructive to the community and is prohibited. There are warnings to players who are doing it and if you ignore them you get banned.

[joelq]

Hey Pip,
blah blah..
4) After the turn, if I hit the backspace key a lot in the comments window (erasing a sentence for example) then the game freezes as above.
blah blah..

Hi Pip, i just had this occur in the updated ipad1 version. I mistyped and had to delete a whole sentence to get back to my typo then bam! Somethings fishy with spamming the delete key in the comments after a turn.

It would also be helpful if i could insert the cursor in the middle of a sentence by touching it. It would negate the need to press delete so many times to get back to an editing point.

[pipfromslitherine]

Thanks for the report. I don't think that the keyboard really likes being used with OpenGL, but I will see if I can replicate the problem here.

Cheers

Pip

[airdrop]

I just got the same email. I've never once cheated. I've had some crashes on the iPad 3 but not many recently. Anyway, just an FYI. I did also get an in game message that said my opponent's data, on two ongoing games, didn't match mine and I should "report this at the forums." Frankly, I just played to my turn and surrendered the game because I figured whoever I was playing was cheating and i didn't want to waste my time.

[pipfromslitherine]

The latest update should solve all crash issues when sending turns. If you are still seeing them then details would be very useful. If the new update means you don't see crashing on upload then you should have nothing to worry about.

With regard to the mismatched data, sometimes it is useful to find out from the other player whether they have changed anything - it could be a subtle bug that we need to track down. Or sometimes people tinker with the data, not realising it can affect MP games.

Cheers

Pip

[zego]

I face the same problem.
I usually have Connection 3G that sometimes go down. When i submit my game it appears with soldier counter that usually espired in 20/30 seconds. Sometimes it continues to a minute then appears an X and the game is not submit (according to my opinion) infact if i press the X (under the soldier) the map reappears but if i touch the map it becomes grey and it's impossible to do anything else but only turn off the game and restart it.
I nave noted that this does not happen ( only one time i remember) when i have a wifi Connection so i think that's this is my problem.

Thank you for every istruction to eliminate the problem. Best reguards.

[zego]

I face the same problem.
I usually have Connection 3G that sometimes go down. When i submit my game it appears with soldier counter that usually espired in 20/30 seconds. Sometimes it continues to a minute then appears an X and the game is not submit (according to my opinion) infact if i press the X (under the soldier) the map reappears but if i touch the map it becomes grey and it's impossible to do anything else but only turn off the game and restart it.
I nave noted that this does not happen ( only one time i remember) when i have a wifi Connection so i think that's this is my problem.

Thank you for every istruction to eliminate the problem. Best reguards.

[pipfromslitherine]

You should just be able to keep retrying to send the game until your connection comes back up. That is, you can cancel and they just hit end turn again - is this not what is happening for you?

Cheers

Pip