Back in the game after 10 years, forgot everything lol

[rustysi]

At a size 3 port a Carrier TF will not replenish its sorties (bomb and torpedo stocks) unless you have an AE/AKE present or much naval support.

Sorties at such a port may be restocked with 94 naval support, not too difficult to do. Torps are a bit more challenging to accomplish, needing 292 nav supp.

[Platoonist]

ORIGINAL: scottj63
Second question which isn't as important is that my Chinese aircraft at Changsa won't fly their mission.....I have a flight of the AVG there and they are running their sweeps, but the Chinese birds stay on the ground....My other Chinese base with planes is doing their mission...Changsa has plenty of Air support also.

Regarding this issue, you may want to check the Inspiration/Air Skill/Leadership/Aggression numbers of whoever is commanding your Chinese air groups in Changsa. If those numbers are mediocre they may not be exactly inspiring their boys to fly offensive missions.

[scottj63]

I had forgotten that everything has a commander who's "personality" (stats) dictate whether they listen to my orders or not....which is one of the great things about this game.....last night I had a very important convoy heading to an island.....and they retreated do to a surface threat.....I was like "where in the hell is this surface threat"...but they turned around based on what the commander thought was a threat...delayed my plan a couple turns....Japanese took Baker Island from me which I can't let happen as that is my shipping lanes...so sending a big bombardment force to hit them escorted by one of my carriers....don't have enough shipping to get an invasion force going.....so trying to get some ships together to get Baker back....lost a couple auto convoys already do to surface ships hanging around there.....Singapore fell.....in only 4 days....that was surprising....when they shock attacked and the odds were 1-1 I saw the writing on the wall....Got all of my planes out except a brand new 16 plane Hurricane squadron and I got out 2 of the ENG battalions for the air support for other places. Lost 19702 troops there. It appears the Japanese move faster than I do...

Thanks for the advice about upgrading ships....because ASW is horrible now...My ASW patrols have lost 7 ships and I have sank 1 sub with them...but also thank you guys for the Patrol advice....much easier to manage the ASW now.

I could have sworn when I played 10 yrs ago there was a button I could hit to make Home Port same as Destination instead of having to go across the screen twice.....Even with the EXE switches I saw you guys use in posts the game still runs slow across the map. Like if I have a convoy highligted with its route, I have to click off of it or the map scrolls like molasses.

Loving the fun I am having as the Japanese are raiding Midway AGAIN and my carrier for that area is on it's way to Bakers Island....good thing I have 100 fighters on Midway, they decimated the first wave of the attack.

Scott in the PHilippines

[BBfanboy]

See the thread in the Tech section on slow performance. It will tell you all about switches that you need to set to make the old game engine run with modern hardware and newer Windows OS. Also pay attention to advice about turning off continuous displays of things like ranges, search arcs, hex details, roads, etc.

[scottj63]

Thank you Bbfanboy, got the lag taken care off.....Fighting around Palembang is intense, about 50 ships from both sides down, but I got 3 BB's and have a couple carriers based at Surabaya which are giving them hell as their Cv's are in the Central Pacific and also raiding Midway a lot.....about 100 planes dead there in the last week, have 60 more fighters heading there on ships as the attrition is killing me there (laughing). Took Baker back and destroyed their invasion at Batavia. Thank god for rail lines to move troops. Rangoon should fall soon, but making them pay heavily in planes there with some AVG and 24 Hurricanes. Best pilot is at 14 kills now, second best is in a Buffalo with 11 kills. I bet he is looking forward to an upgrade.

Scott in the Philippines

[scottj63]

Guys,

Still major fighting around Batavia...they have invaded 3 times and I have beat them back 3 times.....Issue I am having now is my 2 carrier force based out of Surabaya isn't completely rearming both carriers.....one is at full sorties and the other is at 0 of 345 or something like that....It says can't rearm due to not enough OPS points.....is that the TF ops points or the ports? Don't want to send them back out without both carriers ready to rock and roll. And certain planes are awesome against ships.....Swordfish, Albacores and Vildebeests are doing a great job for me around the Batavia front. What is killing me is a lack of fighters..........everywhere (laughing). I have about 300 fighters in the states that I can't touch yet. End of Feb 42 and I am still holding Clark Field (which is good seeing I live there 79 years later) and Battaan.

Scott in the Philippines

[BBfanboy]

The Ops points for rearming issue could apply to the port, the individual ships (not the TF as a whole) and the availability of supply. If one carrier replenished sorties and there is enough supply, the second carrier should replenish next day/turn.

I have seen some players make good use of the Demon fighters in Java, and fly down some of the P-40s from the Philippines. British Hurricanes are fairly plentiful but short-ranged, even with drop tanks. You could fly some in through Sumatra if you still have bases there or you could sneak some in by ship. You do need to change some bases to ABDA command to get Allied aircraft to fly in.

[scottj63]

BBfanboy,

Thank you for the reply Sir, saved the game then hit next turn to see what happened with the carrier and you are absolutely correct, next turn the Saratoga rearmed. So that question is answered.....Clark fell on 1 Mar 42, so the version of me from 79 yrs ago would be no interned by the Japanese.

Can I ask what exactly are "extended maps"?

Scott in the Philippines

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: scottj63

BBfanboy,

Thank you for the reply Sir, saved the game then hit next turn to see what happened with the carrier and you are absolutely correct, next turn the Saratoga rearmed. So that question is answered.....Clark fell on 1 Mar 42, so the version of me from 79 yrs ago would be no interned by the Japanese.

Can I ask what exactly are "extended maps"?

Scott in the Philippines

Extended maps include other bases and separate some things like Subic Bay from Clark AFB. That is, if you are familiar [;)] with that area.[8|]

[BBfanboy]

The ones I have seen are from the "Da Big Babes" mod site: https://sites.google.com/site/dababeswitpae/

The last page offers three new map versions:
Stock Map with stacking limits in every land hex
Extended map with stacking limits as in stock map
Extended map with stacking limits in every land hex

The "extensions" to the map are a few new bases around Singapore and a new land mass between Aden and Abadan that blocks the direct off-map path between them, forcing the Allied player to send his convoys from Aden on-map much further away from the safety of Karachi, and send fuel tankers to Aden on-map for a couple of turns before they can go off-map again. This gives Japanese subs and raiders a chance to intercept them before they get to safety. There may be a few additional bases here and there that I don't know about.

You can change the map digital features by downloading the Zip file for the one you want, unzipping it and moving the three digital files to the map folder of the game to replace the existing ones. It is best to save the stock map versions of these files in a clearly named folder first before replacing them with the new ones.

Note that none of the Art .bmp files the map uses are changed. The Art files are for your eyes. The computer only sees and uses the digital ones.

There were also some changes to the stock map when Andy Mac created a new, less predictable AI for a few of the stock scenarios. I am not using these yet so I am unsure how they work. Look for recent discussions on the forum.

[RangerJoe]

The new maps so graciously done by Andy Mac have more small bases to help the AI. But humans can take advantage of them as well . . . [:'(]

[scottj63]

Thank you BBfanboy, so if you get extended maps you have to get scenarios that will work on the game...Less predictable AI is always a good thing....

Scott in the Philippines

[Platoonist]

The extended maps work best with human players or with the Japanese AI. Since pretty much all the new added locations are in Allied territory the Allied AI wouldn't be able to use them because they weren't part of the game at the time the AI was originally coded and it doesn't even know they are there.

[scottj63]

Guys,

Couple questions again.....put my Air Combat TF in Darwin, port still 3.....let it sit a day and the Saratoga won't get any sorites (0/400 or so). The Enterprise still has 300/400 so I sent it out to patrol....The next 2 days it won't attack any convoys and the Saratoga is still not getting any sorties while in port at Darwin....Secondly, a lot of fighting around Batavia, have an AS in port in Batavia, but none of the subs I am sending there are rearming....Isn't that what AS is supposed to do?

Japanese ASW ships are doing much better than me...have about 10 subs in port repairing and the Tuna was sunk last turn near Japan....my ASW is horrible on the IJN subs.

Scott in the Philippines

[scottj63]

Platoonist, that is great for me as I only play AI and as the Allies.

Will download an extended map. What scenarios should I get for the entire war?

Scott in the Philippines

[Torplexed]

ORIGINAL: scottj63

have an AS in port in Batavia, but none of the subs I am sending there are rearming....Isn't that what AS is supposed to do?

Does your sub tender (AS) have supplies aboard? Without supply at a certain level it can't rearm subs.

[btd64]

ORIGINAL: scottj63

Guys,

Couple questions again.....put my Air Combat TF in Darwin, port still 3.....let it sit a day and the Saratoga won't get any sorites (0/400 or so). The Enterprise still has 300/400 so I sent it out to patrol....The next 2 days it won't attack any convoys and the Saratoga is still not getting any sorties while in port at Darwin....Secondly, a lot of fighting around Batavia, have an AS in port in Batavia, but none of the subs I am sending there are rearming....Isn't that what AS is supposed to do?

Japanese ASW ships are doing much better than me...have about 10 subs in port repairing and the Tuna was sunk last turn near Japan....my ASW is horrible on the IJN subs.

Scott in the Philippines

Hi, first thing is Darwin at level 3 doesn't have a high enough realm level. Or you need a replenishment ship like a AKE or an AE with supplies loaded and docked.

Also your AS ships need to have supplies loaded and be disbanded in port.

There is a chart in the manual for this port information. Hope this helps....GP

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: scottj63

Thank you BBfanboy, so if you get extended maps you have to get scenarios that will work on the game...Less predictable AI is always a good thing....

Scott in the Philippines

The AI is not less predictable in the more recent Andy Mac updates.

Time after time, people keep on making the quite incorrect statements that Andy Mac has updated the AI. He has done no such thing.

Andy Mac only writes the scripts. More than 12 years after AE was released, the only person who has written and publicly released new scripts is Andy Mac. The entire AE community owes him an immense debt for his work on scripts, both the original at release and subsequent product. But this is not the AI. The scripts merely set out the strategic plans to be pursued by the computer opponent. They do not change the criteria employed in choosing ships to populate a task force, nor which air targets individual air units will choose, nor the weighting to be accorded to what gets targeted, nor how upgrades are done, nor change the logistical flows to reflect dynamic changes to mention just some of the actual tactical AI.

The more recent Andy Mac scripts are neither better nor worse than the original scripts released in mid 2009. They are simply different and represent Andy Mac responding to human players becoming familiar with the original scripts. It follows that if a new player has never played the original scripts, for which there were usually produced up to 13 for each scenario, and instead has only played the most recent scripts (for which only a single one per scenario has been produced), they will be surprised and challenged by the original scripts should they subsequently play them.

A new player is not going to have a better AE experience merely by playing with the latest script. In fact probably worse for the replayability is much less as familiarity is quicker. With the original scripts, restart the scenario and the player will probably be confronted with a different script which has different plans to the previous game.

Alfred

[scottj63]

Thanks Guys for the reply.

My AS don't have supplies on board which explains that issue.

So I need an AKE or AE docked and loaded with supplies to get the sorties back.....Will get an AE (only have 2 left I think) to Darwin.

A couple more questions as I am playing....I set up a mine laying mission to mine Midway (my base still) but the mine layers go to Midway with 100 mines and go back to Pearl Harbor with 100 mines....Am I missing something here, or you can't lay mines in your own base?

How big of a shipyard do I need to repair BB's? Sent a the PoW to Sydney to repair and it is size 40....On the repair section of the ship it has an x No Repair on it but I still have 22 FLT damage.

I have 2 squadrons of Vildebeests that are not flying mission now....They were go to planes for hitting convoys in the DEI....I have change command to the local Dutch and still nothing....in the "get pilot" area it is now greyed out also. I still have one squadron of them that are still flying missions. Everything looks the same in the squadron description screen.

Still haven't figured out why the Enterprise TF won't do air combat missions even with 300+ sorties available. When it was teamed with the Saratoga it would do missions, but once the Sara was out of sorties the Enterprise stopped flying also and alone in the TF it is doing nothing still. The Hornet is coming into play now and boy do I need it. Will have 2 CV's around DEI, one around Guadacanal/Port Moresby area and one in the Central Pacific. 2 British CV's will be hanging around Rangoon area. Sure could use some replacement planes on one of the British CV's. I take it I have to be in a port to hope for replacements.

Another very frustrating thing is seeing hundreds of fighters in the US that I can't touch. And about 60 B-17's that are just sitting on their bases training that I can't ship to the war zone.

Alfred, thank you so much Sir for the explanation on the extended map and scripts....I imagine my campaign I am playing now will take months so I can check them out later.

Scott in the Philippines

[Platoonist]

There is an option within the the minelaying mission menu to lay mines or not lay mines. The default is to not lay mines so you have to change it or your mine laying task force will just sail to it's destination and back without dropping any mines.