Slitherine

After many months enjoying PC, I've been enjoying the multi-player these past 3 weeks. It's a great way to play "big-boy" chess for a few hours each evening. I've been heavy into the steamroller against steel scenario. I love the symmetrical map giving players no real terrain advantage with either side. An even match other than a general's wits and/or luck. And what a way to learn some finer points of the game when you get totally surprised by the sudden appearance of, for example, cavalry in 1944. I laughed at my opponents desperation until 2 more appeared and decimated my forested infantry. Nice lesson learned.

Or who would have thought that a couple of Panzer II's could be the core of a quick hitting cadre that would drive opponent generals bat-crazy.

I have learned many, many things from some very talented players that this PG veteran would not have ever thought of. If I had a nickle for every time I uttered the words, "Wow, nice move dude!" I could work part-time.

Is there a forum where multi-players lurk and discuss different strategies for the various scenarios? I've searched around and don't see anything quasi-permanent.

Thanks

Welcome eggmanrc.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the MP experience - it is certainly a challenging environment in which to play PzC.

Currently, there is no dedicated MP forum - questions and ideas just get posted on the main forum. Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing a specifically MP list of things like Tips 'n' Tricks and that sort of thing. It would be useful to get some of those from the seasoned MP vets in the interests of promoting better play. Of course, they may want to keep a few tricks up their sleeves!

Perhaps this thread could become the germ of something bigger? It has the right title...

My thinking exactly.

The forums are so well laid out, I guess I was assuming I'd find something like a Multiplayer Forum, subforums on each scenario.

My 2 cents worth on the reasoning behind such a forum: PC is very much 2 games.

Playing the AI is learning the basics, having some fun, and building those big, bad units to maximum values with lots of unit traits through the campaigns. That's PC Home Edition.

Then there's PC Pro. The multiplayer is where the real meat of the game comes to the top. There's no worrying about saving core units. Both sides usually have the same experience on balanced scenarios so prestige expenditures REALLY come into play. Give the Elephant a full load of experienced replacements, or go cheap and pick up that badly needed new unit in the south where a good Stug artillery piece will stop him in his tracks.

Seriously, the first time I got my tail handed to me because the guy was killing me with a couple of units I had never given a second look, I had the PC unit cost/attack/defense spreadsheet up and running. Trying to find that special piece that's perfect for that special situation to catch an unwary opponent off guard.

How cool would dedicated sub-forums be? I have a tendency not to chat much, I guess because I don't get chatted with a lot so I go with the flow. However, a "Nice move across the river," discussion after the match would be fun. You sure don't want the other general knowing when he pulled off a nice combination that he just sent you reeling. No no. We save that intel for later.

We can easily add a multiplayer sub forum but we don't like fragmenting the community if we can avoid it. However if enough people really want it we can try it out.

Speaking of multiplayer......

Last night I had two players while playing 3 different games, from what my screen said, surrender between turns 4 and 6. I've played these fellows a couple of times and it was strange for a game to end that abruptly. No notice. No message. Nothing. What seemed strange was on 1 of the three games the player was kicking my butt and I knew he knew it. The other 2 were close.

I'm just wondering if the server can make an error or something and mark a game as surrendered incorrectly. Or maybe something strange on the upload where the server thought the game was surrendered? I dunno. I'm only bringing it up because being new here, I'm unaware of any past problems in the multiplayer realm or someone else may have had a similar problem and failed to mention it.

Now, I'm assuming something was amiss 'puter wise. On the other hand. If it was intentional, is that normal etiquette to abandon a game 1/5th of the way through without even a "cya, nice game," or "Gotta go" or "Dude, my barns on fire!" After hours invested in a game, if you're going to bail because you're trying a new opening one can say something on the first turn.

I hope it was the former, not the latter.

Maybe it's just me.....

Ending a game, whether at the last turn or prior, is a communication issue - there is no way to leave a message. You can contact the player via their PM address on this board but otherwise, it's either email if you have their address or nothing. The guys I play against have supplied their email address and so we communicate via it before and after games, using the in-game messaging otherwise. If the guys you played against surrendered for whatever reason they won't be able to communicate the reason other than email or PM. Did you receive emails to say they had surrendered? If you have the settings on this board done that way you should get an email to that effect.

I understand what you're saying. However, rather than surrender before the last turn (or when you want to end the game), don't move anything, write your in-game message as to your intent, or good-byes and you're all set. The other player opens the game, nothing moves, and it should go right to his final message. I then surrender the game to get it off my board.

I've learned this from other players. It seemed to work very well and I know I appreciated those that completed a game in that matter. Just my two cents worth.

Speaking of multiplayer...... What is the consensus, if any, on the use of recon units to probe? Way back in the old days (PG days) one learned quickly that multi-moving a recon unit was considered "bad form" by some, "cheating" by others. By multi-move I mean the recon would probe, say, 3 hexes forward. Running into nothing, the player returns the recon to the original hex. He then moves the same path, adding one more hex, then returning. Doing this until he either encountered an opposing unit, or was placed where the player was attempting to get to. Fair or gamey? I have no opinion either way but it seems most do it here.

Every time you interrupt a recon units move it losses some MP's so the game is designed to cover this. You move in steps you move more slowly. You can't "Cheat" this way any more

Got it. Appreciate the guidance, sir.

Roughly how many matches are you guys usually playing simultaneously? I find that I enjoy spending about 3 hours nightly playing. Sometimes more. That comfortably works out to 8 or so paired matches. I'm just curious.

I find that the more matches going simultaneously, the more conservative I have to think. Unless you're lucky enough to have a window where your opponent is on-line, you can't remember where units a couple or more hexes from the front are lurking from turn to turn. Heck, that was 24 hours ago. Therefor, I've started doing myself a favor on strategical plans. Never make big, grandiose 2 or 3 turn plans where it's not obvious. It seems like when it's your turn, the board is a bit foreign for the first 10 seconds while his move is playing out and you're trying to remember what was going on in this game and what the heck were you thinking placing that SU-122 there 'cause it just got killed. Hope your previous attack was worth the sacrifice. (Hence, the log feature listing losses turn by turn).

You guys too?

IainMcNeil wrote:Every time you interrupt a recon units move it losses some MP's so the game is designed to cover this. You move in steps you move more slowly. You can't "Cheat" this way any more

I think eggmanrc was asking about using the undo button to return the Recon unit to its original position and probe again in a different direction or further out.
Not being a multiplayer I can't answer him, but I believe I have seen a thread discussing the same issue regarding probing with destroyers.
Most people were of the opinion that the undo button should not be available on multiplayer or, at most, have a limit of one use per unit per turn.

eggmanrc: If that was not your question please disregard.

You nailed it exactly. You feel like an idiot when a unit gets ambushed because so many players use the "undo" feature so much. While not cheating, it does seem rather gamey.

On the other hand I think you only get to see the enemy units on your Recon Unit's, or any other unit's, visibility radius after you unselect the unit, in which case you can still move your Recon its remaining movement points but I believe you can no longer undo the move.
In this case multi-probe will only let you find out if there are any units in your unit's path, but if there are you will be ambushed. No undo available...

You're right, to a certain degree. Let's say you want to take a town called hex "D", with hexes A, B and C being the path to hex D. Move recon to Hex A, undo. Move to hex B, undo, C, undo then D. No ambush. If there is a unit in your path, it will be discovered when the unit moves next to it. Technically, this can work with any unit. There are many times where I've considered doing this with air units if I have a weak one that I don't plan on reinforcing in any particular move. I can scan my entire backfield for paras or other sneakiness my opponent is up to.

I don't lose sleep over it, but I tend to wait until I see my opponent probe before using the tactic myself.

Just thought of what I think may be an easily cod-able feature for 1.06. During opponent turn playback in MP, each move playback centers on the unit to move, and pauses until the space bar is hit. The move executes. Battles are preformed if applicable. Screen centers on next moving unit then pauses again.

I find it hard to follow the action sometimes in MP and there's no help in identifying units during battle (another improvement btw) so it would be nice to give a fella a chance to get his eyes focused on the unit, identify what units are around and such, then hit space and turn lose the dogs of war.

I like this idea...it would even be nice if it worked that way in a single player game when the AI is moving and attacking. I would see this as a option though, like playing with weather and supplies and such.

An optional setting. Yup yup. There ya' go.

Sometimes the action goes by pretty fast In both MP, some sort of recap would be good. I used to notice when playing Sea lion that your naval transports would get sunk and there was no way of finding out what unit was in them, short of doing a stock take of your whole force and trying to remember which guys were missing from the list. Some more info in the casualty list could help show what happened when during a battle. Comparison graphs, killed and wounded (not just destroyed), losses by turn or scenario, where and when cities fell, numbers of towns held by turn etc etc. So much of Panzer Corps recap is dependant on your memory.

Civilisation and Paradox games used to show this sort of stuff at the end of a scenario and i used to like looking back where things wen't wrong or right. Weather other players (or the developers) think this sort of stuff is worth having in this game is up for debate but I'd see it as an improvement both for MP and SP.