Camp's

[Bing]

The other thing is: Shoot everything that moves, I do mean everything, bailed out crews, no matter, snow no mercy. Break the enemy morale and you are very much on your way to a decisive.

Pound the living stuffing out of them with arty, I always go for as much onboard arty as I can purchase, minimum 80mm mortars and up. I like mortars quite the best due to their accuracy and higher rate of fire.

Basically, in a campagin it is very much a proposition of: Never give a sucker an even break. Pound and pound and then pound some more. I'm mean, I will chase a retreating squad down a road and cut down the last man.

War is not meant to be nice, not from what I have observed.

Bing

[bigjim]

heheh that would be nice Bing but the designers conviently only give ya half the points needed to purchase the right stuff and half the time required to do a proper assualt (just quit the stalingrad camp after the designer used a totally unreal senario to soak off all my armour (25 elite aa guns plus infantry in 2 to 1 odds while I am in the attack) then gives me NO repair points so I just quit the damn camp it is just too dumb for words :{

[Bing]

Don't gve up, Jim. SPW@W sometimes is like hitting your thumb with a hammer: You get used to it. I went through what sounds to be a lot what is happening to you now, when I was getting started with W@W. Why don't you try a different campaign, say the Utah to the Rhine. Plenty of points, you can buy rocket units and hammer the Germans into sawdust.

Adjust the settings in the preference screen, that may help. I figure elite troops - usually I play with elite units - can see better than average, so I crank up the searching % and it does help. Try lots of different stuff.

Mostly, just keep coming back, after a time the game will grow on you. Promise.

Bing

[BryanMelvin]

Originally posted by bigjim:
OK tried Stalingrad, here the problem with this one. ALL the Russian troops are set to ELITE (sorry not historical). Numbers are fine but unroutable troops is not correct, the Russian troops in many cases were ordered into battle at gun point (hardly elite troopers).

[ August 06, 2001: Message edited by: bigjim ]

This is the point - setting the USSR to Green status in SPwaw Terms would make the Stalingrad Cmp a bit unplayable. First, The USSR units were not set to elite status. What you see in campaign is how game engine incorporates national characteristics into game scenarios. USSR troops are set up in good terrain where they fight better. Next, in order to have the AI even move USSR units in an attack - one must up the experience rates in the 65 to 75 range and Leader Rally in the 60 ranges - hardly elite status. All I can say is this - design a scenario and balance it to be able to be played from both sides and you'll soon discover what is involved in game mechanics.

[m10bob]

Military intel????????O.K....how 'bout this......the poor troops going into Normandy were never even told about those hedgerows!!!NO plans for them whatsoever and everybody knows what happened there....Oh yes!.let's not forget we then bombed the 29th inf division as soon as we were ready to assault St Lo!!!!!SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH WILD BILL!!!!!!!!!!!!

[A_B]

Military intel????????O.K....how 'bout this......the poor troops going into Normandy were never even told about those hedgerows!!!NO plans for them whatsoever and everybody knows what happened there....

You know i've read this before (I beleive in an Amrose book), but this comment doesn't pass the smell test. How could the Brits not know about Normandy hedgerows. They spent all of WW1 in France, and i'm sure had logistical facilities, etc. in Normandy. Many of the Brit royal families are originally from Normandy (Norman invasion of england), and the brits spent 100 years fighting for the same area some time in the past.

I think the whole 'we didn't know how hard the hedgerows would be' thing is a huge excuse made up to feed to the press, to explain why progress was so slow after Normandy. It sounded a lot better to say, "this country is just so defensable," rather than saying, "these germans are tough veterans, and most of the american troops are still green." I'm not denying that it was tough terrain. But England has it's share of hedgerows, as does a lot of the rest of europe (certain locations anyway).

I admit i'm specualting on this, but as much planning as the US did before the invasion, i find it impossible to believe that a lot of though wasn't put into the expansion of the beachhead. Terrain analysis would have been a HUGE part of this planning.

my two cents.

[bigjim]

Well examples of "friendly fire" or in this example "bombing short" had NOTHING to do with military intel and ALL to do with incompetent implimentation of orders (hardly the things we were discussing in this thread)

Not to mention that it was not intended to be a "pissing contest" of WB's abilities in fact just the opposite, Bill does such a great job at this that I just wanted to point out the "over use" of some tactics, NOT to discourage him in any way.

[RockinHarry]

Some months ago I also muttered a little bit about scenario designers not giving enough "intel", at least in prepared "assault" scenarios. In these assault scenarios I expect at least a "few" enemy positions and minefields to be known. (..do you know HPS "Tigers on the prowl"?)
In delay or advance scenarios things may be different, although they´re not completely fought without a minimum of "pre-game" intelligence. Some designers replied the SPWAW recon units are there for this purpose but I think that misses the point.
I think you can combine both, recon units AND pregame intelligence without disturbing each other! And...intelligence don´t always need to be reliable! In assault scenarios you can place some "fake" map text, indicating wrong enemy positions or minefields, something you might expect in scenarios/campaigns to come in the near future.

Sure,...you have to work around the incapabilities of the AI, but that does not completely exclude this kind of "intelligence".

For example in WBW Huertgen campaign you see in the first scenario some US minefields in front of the to be reached objective areas. What´s that? ...WBW placed them there to simulate "known" german minefields. Good idea I think!

_________
Harry

[Bing]

RockinHarry - I feel the same way. There are sometimes situations in W@W where the commander is denied basic information which probably any local resident would automatically be aware of. (OK, the middle of the Steppes doesn't have many locals, but I think most will know what I mean here.)

I work around it as best I can, not letting it get in the way of enjoying this great game. If something happens where I think it was simply not credible I'll replay - others will disagree and that is what makes a horserace, a difference of opinion. Same applies here.

Bing

[Wild Bill]

Excellent point on the intel, some true, some erroneous would be nice..and realistic.

A commander yes, should have knowledge of his mission. That should be clear. Possible dangers real or unreal (panzers lurking, observers saw troop movements to your north, etc) and some fake stuff is nice.
"All reports indicate no tanks in your area.." BOOM!

I like it...Wild Bill

[panda124c]

My two cents. There is intel and then there is intel, Divisional intel is of very little use to the company commander(hey guys your are facing the 129th PanzerGrenedier Division), Regimental should be better, Battalion should be even better but you can gather additional intel during a battle, with your own recon units, that's what they are for. They should be better but you can't have everything. I use Recon as trip wire for a mobile reaction force covering the most likley approches or as point units particularly in Wild Bill's games. Bill seem to assume that we are better than the units on our flanks and always outrun them. :rolleyes: