One way to neutralize the Interdiction aircraft

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

..so give us aircraft that have a flight path...

A lot of coding work, and might even slow the game down. Besides, aircraft on interdiction don't follow direct line routes. They potter about until they find a target.

I don't think this is the best solution at all. Allowing the player to give each air unit an area of operations would be a better approach.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

..i thought this was the real world...

Nope, you're just hallucinating again, Richard.

..otherwise, ever dragged brushwood behind cavalry on the other side of the hill to fool those damned romans ?

This would be an argument for simulating dummy tanks- not for the way AA interact with aircraft on interdiction.

[a white rabbit]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

..so give us aircraft that have a flight path...

A lot of coding work, and might even slow the game down. Besides, aircraft on interdiction don't follow direct line routes. They potter about until they find a target.

I don't think this is the best solution at all. Giving each air unit an area of operations would be a better approach.

..fine by me, anything that lets me guess where they(bombers) are going, and how they're getting there

[a white rabbit]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

..i thought this was the real world...

Nope, you're just hallucinating again, Richard.

..otherwise, ever dragged brushwood behind cavalry on the other side of the hill to fool those damned romans ?

This would be an argument for simulating dummy tanks- not for the way AA interact with aircraft on interdiction.

..????.brushwood, dust, opponent masses to destroy or at least meet, you swing round the left flank, horses sweating, into side and rear and cut him to gobbets

..same with interdicting aircraft, just not as romantic

[Chuck2]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious


ecause the air unit doesn't move in one monolithic block but rather splits up into smaller groups to make lots of attacks throughout the turn.

Nonsense. I see the same B-25 unit participating in fighting all over the map in a single turn.

The movement of the AA unit is taking advantage of the abstraction- these units are not actually moving before all the others, but rather at the same time.

I argue that being able moving AA units fixes a flaw in the abstraction.

So it's ridiculous to have the interdiction all being "used up" before any of the other units move.

This won't happen unless you have a huge amount of AA assets compared to aircraft on interdiction - then it isn't ridiculous. Especially if it is motorized and can move along quickly to other areas.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

..same with interdicting aircraft, just not as romantic

No, not even remotely related. HOW do you justify the aircraft being drawn to the AA units in particular when in reality everything is moving at the same time? It is utterly ridiculous for ALL the effort of interdiction to target the AA units. So ridiculous that I wouldn't be able to believe you're attempting to rationalise it, were it not for the fact that I am used to this kind of thing from you.

An interesting possibility would be if the game kept track of how many hexes each unit had moved in a round, and only made interdiction attacks at the end of the round, prioritising the units which had moved the most.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Chuck2

Nonsense. I see the same B-25 unit participating in fighting all over the map in a single turn.

How many B-25s are there in the unit?

I argue that being able moving AA units fixes a flaw in the abstraction.

The way things are now, I'd be inclined not to put AA units in at all. Perhaps if they weren't so excessively effective against ground targets, one could get good results by parcelling them out amongst the rest of the OOB. But as it stands, it sounds like they break interdiction.

This won't happen unless you have a huge amount of AA assets compared to aircraft on interdiction - then it isn't ridiculous. Especially if it is motorized and can move along quickly to other areas.

So WHY are the other units- which are moving at the same time as the AA- receiving ZERO hits from interdiction? This doesn't make any sense at all.

[Chuck2]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: Chuck2

Nonsense. I see the same B-25 unit participating in fighting all over the map in a single turn.

How many B-25s are there in the unit?

I don't know. It depends on the scenario.

I argue that being able moving AA units fixes a flaw in the abstraction.

The way things are now, I'd be inclined not to put AA units in at all. Perhaps if they weren't so excessively effective against ground targets, one could get good results by parcelling them out amongst the rest of the OOB. But as it stands, it sounds like they break interdiction.

Interdiction is a bit more effective in TOAW 3 at knocking units into reorg status. Obviously, this is fine if there is a way to protect them with AA. With no AA, it is a difficult situation.

This won't happen unless you have a huge amount of AA assets compared to aircraft on interdiction - then it isn't ridiculous. Especially if it is motorized and can move along quickly to other areas.

So WHY are the other units- which are moving at the same time as the AA- receiving ZERO hits from interdiction? This doesn't make any sense at all.

No, that doesn't make much more sense, just more sense than having AA do nothing at all. If you have a bag of lemons, make lemonaide.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Chuck2

I don't know. It depends on the scenario.

Well if there is more than one, the unit can be considered to be splitting up and attacking multiple targets.

Interdiction is a bit more effective in TOAW 3 at knocking units into reorg status. Obviously, this is fine if there is a way to protect them with AA. With no AA, it is a difficult situation.

You could just move units less.

No, that doesn't make much more sense, just more sense than having AA do nothing at all.

See JAMiAM's remark- interdicting aircraft take AA fire from the whole stack. So move the AA units with the stack.

[Chuck2]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

Interdiction is a bit more effective in TOAW 3 at knocking units into reorg status. Obviously, this is fine if there is a way to protect them with AA. With no AA, it is a difficult situation.

You could just move units less.

Nah. You haven't played TOAW 3 enough at this point to really know what is going on here.

No, that doesn't make much more sense, just more sense than having AA do nothing at all.

See JAMiAM's remark- interdicting aircraft take AA fire from the whole stack. So move the AA units with the stack.

Stacks move one unit at a time. They are only actually in the same hex at the beginning and end of their trip. Interdiction hits won't happen at those points, IIRC.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Chuck2

Stacks move one unit at a time. They are only actually in the same hex at the beginning and end of their trip. Interdiction hits won't happen at those points, IIRC.

Then have the AA unit always move first, and move the whole stack one hex at a time.

[Chuck2]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: Chuck2

Stacks move one unit at a time. They are only actually in the same hex at the beginning and end of their trip. Interdiction hits won't happen at those points, IIRC.

Then have the AA unit always move first, and move the whole stack one hex at a time.

Perhaps that would work, but perhaps it wouldn't.

[a white rabbit]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

..same with interdicting aircraft, just not as romantic

No, not even remotely related. HOW do you justify the aircraft being drawn to the AA units in particular when in reality everything is moving at the same time? It is utterly ridiculous for ALL the effort of interdiction to target the AA units. So ridiculous that I wouldn't be able to believe you're attempting to rationalise it, were it not for the fact that I am used to this kind of thing from you.

An interesting possibility would be if the game kept track of how many hexes each unit had moved in a round, and only made interdiction attacks at the end of the round, prioritising the units which had moved the most.

..Ben, interdiction is shoot anything that moves and maybe call in your friends to join the fun, so ok maybe cavalry wasn't the best analogy, try "throwing meat into a river, watching the piranhas gather then dropping a grenade on them"[:)]

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

..Ben, interdiction is shoot anything that moves and maybe call in your friends to join the fun, so ok maybe cavalry wasn't the best analogy, try "throwing meat into a river, watching the piranhas gather then dropping a grenade on them"[:)]

Actually the closer analogy would be simultaneously throwing meat in all along the length of the river, and then adding a grenade at one point. You'll kill some piranhas- but most of them will be elsewhere.

[Industrial]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

So WHY are the other units- which are moving at the same time as the AA- receiving ZERO hits from interdiction? This doesn't make any sense at all.

Because the AA shot them all down/drove them off? [:'(]

The current system isn't perfect, as as long as my own fighters have no real means of countering interdiction (only a chance to interfear when the attack already happens), and as my AA can't set up a protecting umbrella because again interdiction ignores AAs it 'overflies' (because it doesnt, it simply teleports to the target) I see no real problem with using AA as described as a mean to counter these unjustified advantages of interdiction.
Sometime in the future the system might be corrected, until than, we just have to take what we get and live with it

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Industrial

Because the AA shot them all down/drove them off? [:'(]

So all the other units just waited patiently in place whilst the AA rushed around the map? Rubbish. If these units used anything approaching their full move, they should have drawn interdiction attacks.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Chuck2

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: Chuck2

Stacks move one unit at a time. They are only actually in the same hex at the beginning and end of their trip. Interdiction hits won't happen at those points, IIRC.

Then have the AA unit always move first, and move the whole stack one hex at a time.

Perhaps that would work, but perhaps it wouldn't.

I think that what you would need to do, is to first move the AAA units "into position" along the route that you will likely be taking with your moving reinforcements. Then, hope that they will be in the hexes when the other moving units enter, and draw fire. In that way, they will be able to help fire at the planes.

However, we come full circle, in that the AAA units move first, and draw a disproportionate amount of interdiction fire.[:D]

Not that I see that as a problem, per se. Rather than being "gamey" I feel that it is an inelegant and tedious exercise, to achieve the effect. We'll give it some thought, but without a substantial rewrite, I'm not seeing any elegant ways to recreate an appropriate effect, without causing more problems in gameplay.

[Catch21]

The whole interdiction system is abstracted. And it can cut both ways, though in some scenarios not since one side or the other has no or little air. Possibly it will get fixed in the future, but until then hopefully designers will try to find creative ways to compensate and players creative tactics to avoid or minimize the effects of interdiction.

Personally as a player (and I'm usually playing the Axis late in WWII) I've learnt to recognize it as a necessary evil and try to 'live' with it by adjusting tactics to compensate.

Maybe we should start another thread- if there isn't one already- on how to improve the interdiction system either here (so more players might see and comment) or in the scenario design section.

[hank]

Mensch's suggestion about picking an enemy held hex for an interdiction mission sounds interesting.  Another MGames title does a similar thing:  Flashpoint Germany allows you to pick a hex (in that game its not hexes ... they're square grids) ... then you tell the air unit it has a specific number of hexes (hexes in TOAW - squares in FG) ... and it will attack any enemy unit within that area ... If I remember right, in FG the player can select up to a 2-grid area around the specified target grid which means you would have a 5x5 grid area for potential interdiction.  In TOAW of course that would be a 5-hex "diameter" area.  ... for lack of a better description
 
more food for thought

[Anthropoid]

I can understand Golden Delicious'es viewing the AA-decoy ploy as being gamey, but I can also understand the other guys retort that, it is simply a way to correct for battle outcome code that does not satisfactorily reflect reality. I'm a newcomer to TOAW, and fairly new to wargames, but have played a lot of turn based strategy. There are innumberable "unrealities" in games that are a result of it being a lot more difficult to simulate reality in a two-dimensional computer-screen interface working with binary code!

So, I tend to lean more toward "doing whatever is most realistic" or at least whatever is most fun.

The pro-AA-decoy-ploy guys are saying "it is not realistic that my AA has virtually zero effect on interdiction, and it is not realistic that interdiction is so effective.

The anti-AA-decoy-ploy guy(s) is saying "it is not realistic that you move an AA unit around on the map, and this causes finite interdiction resources to be expended against this relatively strong opponent.

I like the targeted interdiction assignment solution. It seems to strive to reality even better, though who knows if it is possible in a patch?

One last comment in defense of the AA-decoy-ploy; feints, and decoys have always been a big part of warfare. I recall hearing about an American Navy SEAL unit (probably battalion size, so maybe a couple hundred guys max), who, during the First Gulf War, managed to decoy an entire Iraqi Division-esque sized unit by carrying out a amphibious feint on the coast of Kuwait. Thousands of guys, and machines were moved from where they really needed to be for hours, and in concert with other activities contributed substantially to a more favorable battle outcome for the Americans. I'm sure there are tons of such stories throughout history, and not the least of which are fake communications, which in itself could be used to rationalize/legitimate the AA-decoy ploy. Send out a few fake messages that you anticipate the enemy will intercept indicating that "Large Sitting Duck" unit will be moving into hex 37,54 . . . when the enemy interdictors arrive, they find to their surpise that a well-prepared AA unit is waiting there for them instead . . .