Slitherine

Playing from US perspective. Different events, dynamic flow, command point and supply restrictions. Attacks that shift in weight and direction, simply excellent.

My first defeat so far and I am so excited to play it again! Lost at around turn 27. Couple of comments and observations on it:

In zoomed out mode I mistaken village for an airfield. After that I had "genius" idea to lay minefields on only airfield. This prevented me from landing because no land units can be on the hex if aircrafts are to land.

I went with an aircraft to map edge where green upside arrow markers are. Not knowing what they represent but hopping it is an exit zone. Fighter hovered there until crashed because it was low on fuel.

It took me some time to clear the mines so other aircrafts could land. Enemy breached the line while they were in hangar and attacked it. One aircraft suffered damage while other was destroyed. Did not notice any visual indicator informing on aircraft loss while in hangar. It would be nice to have some visuals like when unit takes damage or repairs.

I did notice negative naval points and find it weird at first but got the picture soon. Naval command points were reset to zero than game calculated how many vessels are on the map and gave negative command points equal to current supply requirement of the ships. So lost ships or the one leaving the map would again reach zero naval command points as desired by the designer.

Attempting to buy Marines gave me notification I could revive such dead unit which confused me because only Engineers were dead but I assume this is because of possible upgrade path. Screenshot bellow:



If unit is idle it will claim adjacent hexes and expand its supply lines but if this does not happen like shown on the screen bellow it means enemy is close although not seen. Very useful intelligence!

If unit is idle it will claim adjacent hexes and expand its supply lines but if this does not happen like shown on the screen bellow it means enemy is close although not seen. Very useful intelligence!

Interesting effect. I don't think there is an elegant solution to this?

adherbal wrote:

If unit is idle it will claim adjacent hexes and expand its supply lines but if this does not happen like shown on the screen bellow it means enemy is close although not seen. Very useful intelligence!

Interesting effect. I don't think there is an elegant solution to this?

No elegant solution on sight. Supply system is awesome as it is, situations like this one or when paras drop behind the lines or cut of enemy unit tries to advance in FoW on previously players territory or simply enemy advance on unguarded part of frontline showing territorial changes are trade offs of the system. The only direction where brainstorming about upgrade of the system leads is to consider supply outlines as informative if in FoW and updating them ONLY if change on the ground makes significant change affecting the gameplay. For example enemy is advancing in players territory but in FoW. Change of line is not visible yet. Enemy cuts player off supply and now updated supply lines related to this two separate territories are shown. Something like locally updated situational awareness. Intelligence about it would be justified by logistical troops trying to find a gap to establish a proper supply lines. Or if we take situation on screenshot above. Supply outline would be showing in perimeter around unit but if some friendly cut of supply unit would try to connect itself to the territory trough, actually contested, hex its real situation would be shown explaining why this didn't succeed and as I said info on it would be justified by logistic troops being aware someone is blocking their pass (shooting on them from unknown position). So practically putting info on supply lines partially into Fog of War. Only those hexes seen by the player and in the case of line of demarcation itself, only line where player sees beyond possible ZOC are certain. Everything else is a guess based on how it was previously until something significant happens like being cut of.

Continuing to comment and observe scenario. Second time went much better. Captured 3 out of 5 secondary objectives. One aircraft short from downing 5 of them but in this case I didn't had sense of urgency but apparently Japanese do not have airfield on the island and last aircraft went of map probably. Destroy two battleships objective made me to expose bombers and waste several turns searching for them to realize they appear on the map at later scripted event. It would be more convenient objectives are updated at that same time but not sure is this possible. Reward given for destroying battleships will probably go on replacements of damage sustained by trying to achieve it but keeping enemy navy at bay from coast needed to be accomplished anyway so not everything can be measured trough Resource Points.

During play couple of situations occurred worth noting.

When structure is spotted it will be visible on the map even if in FoW. Units can move trough enemy ZOC but at higher movement points cost. And here goes the situation...
I have a selected unit and its allowed movement is showing it can go deep in FoW but path is traversed adjacent to enemy structure siting in FoW as well. Movement is confirmed to most distant location but when unit reaches ZOC of a structure (bunker) it is stopped. Since the unit was infantry no other enemy infantry in jungle or such invisible event could be blamed for it. Sorry don't have a screen on this one.

In second situation what appears to happen is the following. AI unit moves on mined location but suddenly it is stopped by ZOC of one of my previously unseen unit to the enemy. But animations like unit was ambushed by mines is played and both, enemy unit and minefield have lowered strength due to damage. Units are pointed with red arrows on screenshoot bellow.



Last situation requires explanation why one of landed units has no supply support although supply ship is adjacent to it? Situation pointed by green triangle on the screensoot bellow.

uran21 wrote:
Last situation requires explanation why one of landed units has no supply support although supply ship is adjacent to it? Situation pointed by green triangle on the screensoot bellow.

The way the black boundary line curls top and bottom might be a factor, or perhaps the river plays a part. Nothing like a bit of uncertainty in war

Brenmusik wrote:
The way the black boundary line curls top and bottom might be a factor...

Hmm, it doesn't affect the other supply ship though.

To me it looks like two beachheads, not connected to eachother, because you do not own the land hex in between (river) yet. Both ships supply the southern one (with arty there) - this seems the main prob here.

My wild guess would be that the "northern" supply ship would supply the other unit (inf?) if it would be moved onto the hex that has the green arrow marker right now.

But it is certainly not ideal - maybe the behaviour of those supply ships should be changed a bit for such cases. I don't think supply ships should be able to supply +20 to separate beachheads (since this would essentially multiply their output), but maybe the +20 should be halved so each of the two beachheads would get +10 here.

But I guess Lukas can answer better if that makes sense.

Nice scenario indeed.

It looks like two beachheads to me. You need to occupy the full land next in between to connect them. The hex where the river meets the coast in impassable to land units so it doesn't count.

The supply ship is touching both beachheads though. It would make sense to me that there is an offloading terrain preference hierarchy, with a beach taking precedence to the grass coloured terrain because it is easier to unload supplies.

I am looking forward to playing the scenario.

The supply dropoff hexes are picked sort of randomly (first hex it finds) and in this situation both ships are supplying the same hex, rather than each supporting another hex.

It's an algoritm that can probably be improved so it always tries to divide the available supply as evenly as possible.