Oh the shame and how to take screen shots?

[Horseman]

Weel thats my 1st game completed, axis (no advantage to either side) and it finished a draw......

It started so well, Poland was conquered in 3 turns with Denmark falling at the same time. Norway fell soon after but with Holland, Belgium and France came my 1st mistake....the DOW on Holand came 1st then the next turn I attacked Belgium as I thought Holland was about to fall....no such luck they actually managed to hold on for a couple of turns and by attacking Belgium I allowed the French army to add their weight to the fight.....still wasn't major and France still fell in June 1940 so hit the historical date and what I expect is probably par at this stage. When the Italians entered the war I sent the bulk of thier forces to Africa with the intent ot take the Iraqi oil fields.

Then came my biggest mistake.....a some what botched Sealion! although I managed to take England (and destroyed the British fleet into the bargain) as Russia's entry date edged ever closer I suddenly became aware that aside for the 2 inf corps and the 1 panzer corp I'd sent to africa to help the Italians the bulk of my land armies were still in England and I hadn't actually built up any more.....que several turns of frantic building and troop redeployment (and the taking of Greece and Yugoslvaia) yielded a very late (and very disorganised) barbarossa that stalled as winter hit early....several years of hard fighting in the east finally went against me and in 1945 the game ended with the battered remnants of the German army holding just east of Berlin!

In the west the Americans and British (having consolidated in Canada) had launched thier own offensive and with only Garrison units in France and 2 infantry corps in England were easily over run..I'd relied on my greatly reinforced fleet to hold back the invasion force...another big mistake. 2 BB, 1 CV 1DD and 6 u-boats were never going to be enough against the US Navy and the rebuilt RN! The Western allies never crossed into Germany though..my plucky garrison units stalled them long enough for some proper troops to redeploy from the east (obviously not helping the eastern campaign against the Russians)

On the positive the "Africa Korp" along with the Italians did manage to take and hold Iraq until the end.

Well I'm preparing for my 2nd go now and this time I wont stall Sealion by waiting for my fleet to get built...as long as I can block of the English channel with subs I launch...and if I cant do it in a timely manner then I dont do it at all to ensure barbarossa goes off without a hitch!

And finnaly a question - how do you take screen shots in this game?

Mike

[rkr1958]

Weel thats my 1st game completed, axis (no advantage to either side) and it finished a draw......

It started so well, Poland was conquered in 3 turns with Denmark falling at the same time. Norway fell soon after but with Holland, Belgium and France came my 1st mistake....the DOW on Holand came 1st then the next turn I attacked Belgium as I thought Holland was about to fall....no such luck they actually managed to hold on for a couple of turns and by attacking Belgium I allowed the French army to add their weight to the fight.....still wasn't major and France still fell in June 1940 so hit the historical date and what I expect is probably par at this stage. When the Italians entered the war I sent the bulk of thier forces to Africa with the intent ot take the Iraqi oil fields.

Then came my biggest mistake.....a some what botched Sealion! although I managed to take England (and destroyed the British fleet into the bargain) as Russia's entry date edged ever closer I suddenly became aware that aside for the 2 inf corps and the 1 panzer corp I'd sent to africa to help the Italians the bulk of my land armies were still in England and I hadn't actually built up any more.....que several turns of frantic building and troop redeployment (and the taking of Greece and Yugoslvaia) yielded a very late (and very disorganised) barbarossa that stalled as winter hit early....several years of hard fighting in the east finally went against me and in 1945 the game ended with the battered remnants of the German army holding just east of Berlin!

In the west the Americans and British (having consolidated in Canada) had launched thier own offensive and with only Garrison units in France and 2 infantry corps in England were easily over run..I'd relied on my greatly reinforced fleet to hold back the invasion force...another big mistake. 2 BB, 1 CV 1DD and 6 u-boats were never going to be enough against the US Navy and the rebuilt RN! The Western allies never crossed into Germany though..my plucky garrison units stalled them long enough for some proper troops to redeploy from the east (obviously not helping the eastern campaign against the Russians)

On the positive the "Africa Korp" along with the Italians did manage to take and hold Iraq until the end.

Well I'm preparing for my 2nd go now and this time I wont stall Sealion by waiting for my fleet to get built...as long as I can block of the English channel with subs I launch...and if I cant do it in a timely manner then I dont do it at all to ensure barbarossa goes off without a hitch!

Sounds like you enjoyed your games.

And finnaly a question - how do you take screen shots in this game?

Mike

Assuming you're on a PC hit the "Print Scrn" key and then save that in some photo editor (e.g., Paint).

[Horseman]

Sounds like you enjoyed your games.

Oh yes the 1st game was a blast.....I will admit is been a long time since I played a strat game and didn't manage to beat it 1st time round! Infact I think the last game to beat me was Spartan! So kudos to Sliterine for challenging me!

Assuming you're on a PC hit the "Print Scrn" key and then save that in some photo editor (e.g., Paint).

Ah I feared as much, was hoping there was an ingame screenshot feature that didn't require you to come out of the game evertime you took 1.

Thanks for the quick answer

[OzHawkeye2]

You'll find the AI pretty easy to beat I think once you pick out its weaknesses, which is not to be overly critical of Slitherine, I don't think anyone has come up with an AI in the "semi-indie" sort of development space in WW2 hex-based games that was challenging long term.

I was going to list what I think are easy strategies for defeating the AI on even-games but (unless asked otherwise) I'll leave that for your enjoyable discovery.

[Horseman]

Yeh its best to work these things out for yourself - so thanks for holding back so far!

Well game number 2 is underway and I've decided to do an aar on it as that'll a) help me focus so I dont put in too poor of a showing and b) make it easier for others to offer suggestions on any mistakes I make!

1st game was bit of a clickfest without much forethought, 2nd game will be better planned (i hope)

[nats]

You'll find the AI pretty easy to beat I think once you pick out its weaknesses, which is not to be overly critical of Slitherine, I don't think anyone has come up with an AI in the "semi-indie" sort of development space in WW2 hex-based games that was challenging long term.

I was going to list what I think are easy strategies for defeating the AI on even-games but (unless asked otherwise) I'll leave that for your enjoyable discovery.

Well you know every game has its weakness AI wise, I dont think I have ever played a game where I thought wow that was an extremely intelligent game the PC played there. It isnt just wargames but also First person shooters, flight sims, space sims, and real time strategy games all suffer from the same limitations. This is why multiplayer has taken off so much.

But I dont want to beat the game AI in a gamey way. I want to play a game as I would if I was doing it in real life. And if the PC beats me then I am happy. And if I win I am happier. At the moment I am beeing beateen back as the Germans playing the Allies almost back to Berlin and its only 1943! I am enjoying fighting for my life without knowing how I could possibly turn it around in a gamey way. I have no interest in playing a game like that. In fact as soon as I read about all these gamey strategies such as are all overthe HOI2 website and CIV4 website I just get fed up playing the game and pack in. It ruins the immersion for me knowing that there are ways to play and beat the game every time. And even more than that I hate talking numbers and ratios.

At the moment I am enjoying the game which I consider quite realistic and quite a challenge. Thats all I need from a game.

[OzHawkeye2]

Actually I found the AI in Galactic Civilisations II to be extremely competent, indeed even taunting. When I played my first game of it and hobbled the AI to help learn the game (the tutorial are one of its weak points), I'd get a messages from the computer players like "I know what you're about to do, I've seen all those ships building up over there, but since I'm supposed to be dumb in this game, I'm not going to do anything about it. I just wanted you to know, that I know."

Sure enough, I'd been (trying) to secretly build up a massive invasion fleet.

The problem for semi-"indie" developers such as have produced CEAW and its many similar WW2-hex-based games, is that producing a really outstanding AI would take more time/effort than they're able to spend I guess.

As I said, I'm not trying to be overly-critical here, the AI is competent enough for me to enjoy games against it still by also setting a little or medium disadvantage against myself in the game setup.

[Horseman]

Actually I found the AI in Galactic Civilisations II to be extremely competent, indeed even taunting. When I played my first game of it and hobbled the AI to help learn the game (the tutorial are one of its weak points), I'd get a messages from the computer players like "I know what you're about to do, I've seen all those ships building up over there, but since I'm supposed to be dumb in this game, I'm not going to do anything about it. I just wanted you to know, that I know."

Sure enough, I'd been (trying) to secretly build up a massive invasion fleet.

The problem for semi-"indie" developers such as have produced CEAW and its many similar WW2-hex-based games, is that producing a really outstanding AI would take more time/effort than they're able to spend I guess.

As I said, I'm not trying to be overly-critical here, the AI is competent enough for me to enjoy games against it still by also setting a little or medium disadvantage against myself in the game setup.

I'm glad I'm not alone in actually being happy when I'm losing a game....which is good because we play games to have fun and if you're having fun even when losing then in the end you're actually winning!!!!

In fairness its not just the small indie companys that struggle to make a good ai, it is actually very very difficult to do because ultimately what the ai lacks that we have is creativity and imagination.....it can only react to what it sees and only in a way that its been programmed to, whilst we can plan long term. We're also a lot better at adapting!