The V2 Thread

[mcaryf]

As Lebatron was justifiably unhappy about my boarding his train thread I thought I had better start another.

One of the fun things about playing games is that it makes you learn new IT stuff, so now I know a bit about .tga files that I did not know before and I have a V2 icon that at least I can include as a starter for my mod!

Unfotunately I have also discovered that there are several different places where GGWAW stores different versions of its icons but I am not yet clever enough to know how to make them transparent to the relevant background - perhaps someone can help me. I end up with my V2 icon sitting in its white box in the middle of Germany or in the production spiral blocking what is happening behind.

Returning to the V2 mod itself - I gave it evasion 12 and land damage 12 and had it appear about 1944. It was promptly shot down by an Allied fighter with an 8 attack - plainly 12 evasion is not enough so I have increased it to 20! It certainly causes consternation in the Allied airforce and now they all try to shoot it down to no avail!

The problem is that it blasts through only to destroy/damage a measly train - the Fuhrer is very disappointed with my mod as I am sure he was irl!! You can, if you wish, be sure of destroying one land or air unit but that may not be a good enough return when the Allies have landed 40 of them!

The V2 is in fact a modified CAG - it does become effectively indestructible unless its base is overrun (pretty much as happened irl). Thus I am quite pleased with it as a match for reality.

For those who would want to still have a Graf Zeppelin CV, I am afraid you would need to settle for it as a Cruise Missile Launcher, which could I suppose be useful, as the V2 will still link to it.

If anybody can advise me how to fully integrate my V2 icon then I will publish my Kamikaze and V2 data files under the generic title of "The revenge weapons' mod".

mike

[JanSorensen]

I am not at all a graphics person - so this may be a crude and inaccurate explanation.

I am using a trial version of Adobe Photoshop 7. When I open for example the AlliedTank.tga there is a layer called Alpha 1. That exact layer is what determines which parts of the tga will be shown and which are transparent. I have no real idea how to make that from scratch - but I am sure its pretty easy to take an existing tga and modify it to your needs. Thus you should avoid the white box.

[Lebatron]

Boarding my train. Thats funny, good one. Anyway when you send in V2's and you select infrastucture attack you make it sound like only trains get damaged. Is that the case every time? Or were you just unhappy that trains sometime end up being the target? If its the latter I think that is fine as I don't think V2's should be anymore accurate than bombers. BTW when you select ground attack it generally hits an artillery right? I would assume so, since your not really changing the combat function of the carrier air group(aka V2).

I think what you did with its evasion is fine. Make it tough to shoot down. I'm not totally sure about this, but wasn't there a few times a V2 got shot down? If it did happen, then maybe you should bring the evasion down so thats its at least possible. Say if the allies have fighters up to air attack 9 make it so that there is a 5-10% chance of a hit.

Your V2 ground attack is so high that it always gets 2 hits on infrastucture and units, right? I would prefer them to only damage, ie generally get one hit in. Of coarse this would make them weaker but you could compensate by making them cheaper to build. Of coarse then manpower would get burned up on V2's. Perhaps you already considered this and found a lower ground attack to be lacking. BTW what is there cost now?

Send me the V2 image and I'll see if I can get it to work for you. Email me at jesse_lebreton @ yahoo.com (remove the spaces)

[mcaryf]

Hi Jesse

Thanks for offer, my actual icon is little more than the attachment squashed down a bit but I will mail it anyway.

Actually it was not possible for the Allies to intercept the V2 as it was supersonic and they only knew it had arrived when it exploded! You may be thinking of the earlier V1 which travelled at about 400mph and could be hit by FLAK or intercepted by some planes if they were in the right place at the right time.

I was somewhat overstating the Fuhrer's displeasure to make the point that it is not a pancea for the German's problems although it would be a nasty shock for the Allies if they were not ready to invade. As it happened the first time I tried it, it did hit a train but it has also hit resources and factories. Since these can only be damaged it does not really make much difference what the attack power is.

To be fair I think it should be allowed to annihilate any land or air unit that it encounters. The unit as I have made it can be used once each turn as it is indestructible unless overrun. You should think of it as a capability to launch 2 or 3,00 missiles per turn rather than the missiles themselves. The Germans made about 5,000 of these missiles of which just over 1,000 hit the UK. It is not expensive in terms of population points as it is re-used - the actual German launching unit was not large so that is fair. I have thought of giving it a very long production cycle e.g. somewhere between 8 and 12 turns so it would be expensive and time consuming to produce. Plainly players could cheat a bit and R&D its other attributes such as torpedo or air attack. However, I am relaxed about that as the Germans did develop a guided missile anti-ship weapon (Fritx-X) with which they sank the Italian BB Roma and damaged Warspite and they also developed AA Rockets so the technology was used in those other areas. The problem for the player would be the long and high production cost so I am happy if they get good value in the end in annihilating land, air or sea attacks.

Mike

[mcaryf]

I have been experimenting with the AI to judge how much it really knows about the units it uses.

My two special units are obviously somewhat different to their normal role - my TAC AIR Kamikaze is best used against ships whilst my V2 CAG is best used against land targets. My observations so far are inconclusive and I would be interested if anybody knows (and is prepared to say) how the AI decides what to do.

For the purpose of this evaluation I gave the V2 a range of 3 so that the AI would have some flexibility in choice of target. Until the Allies invaded Europe the AI most commonly used the V2 to attack air fields/units in Scotland, typically destroying the bomber the Allies seemed to base there. Once the Allies were in Europe then it would attack Western France and so on. I have seen the AI use the Scottish attack strategy with conventional air before and it makes some sense as Scotland is often less heavily defended against air units. I guess the AI cannot be expected to work out that the V2 is actually invulnerable. It does not seem to want to use it against ships or infrastructure. My guess is that it is just following a fairly set pattern and I suspect it probably would not attack what it thinks are impossible odds unless it was desperate i.e. the Allies in Europe.

With respect to the Kamikaze TAC AIR, it does seem that the AI will use it pretty conventionally for both land and sea attacks although its land attack value was set pretty low. It is harder to judge as the Japanese do have a variety of targets on offer. The best actual strategy would be to mass the Kamikaze's for big attacks on large concentrations of transports or CV's (what the Japanese did attempt irl). In practice this sort of happens but it is almost by default as the Allies present just such a target in the waters off Japan. Up to the final moments the AI does tend to disperse the Kamikaze's somewhat and hence reduces their impact but by then it has fewer choices as to where to base them so most do stay in and around Japan.

My general conclusion is that the AI does not seem to pay 100% attention to the actual attributes of its units but it may have some understanding as the German CAG V2 is not typically used versus planes. I may be giving it too much credit here as the AI files do tell it not to build CAGs so it may just not know that a CAG is supposed to attack ships!

I do enjoy the game feature that shows the AI considering possible attacks and rejecting them but does anybody actually know whether the possibilities it considers for attack in the first place are influenced by unit characteristics? I rather suspect that certain regions (e.g. off Gibraltar) are hard coded as hot spots that the AI attempts to control with whatever units it has to hand. The fact that these are often WALLY transports usually leads to a disastrous slaughter if the Axis has developed enough U-Boat capability.

Mike

[Daykeras]

The AI will send units into a country and if the percentage of winning is too low or it cannot create enough casualties without losing too many it will retreat. Or something similar to that. I know it does matter what units I have, because when I have 10 10 everything and the AI does not they will send units into my province and then pull them out without a fight.

[mdh1204]

While not an expert on the issue, I don't believe the V2 had target ranging past a movement of 2, irl. Northern England was likely its limit. Also, note that the V2 didn't have any practical function past bombing infrastructure. It wouldn't have been effective against armies/fleet, etc. (although I'm sure it was tested).

As a side note, an interesting concept might prove in the ability of bombers and rockets to reduce population.

[Daykeras]

Oh... population destruction. Like the Dresden or Tokyo firebombing...

Edit!!:

There was someone a while back (my memory fails me, and I'm too lazy to search it:P) who changed just about all the images in the game (at least as near as I could tell) and it actually looked pretty good, if a bit out of place. He may be able to help you. He did a really good job of it.

[mcaryf]

The V2 (and V1) were area effect weapons - ie unguided rather like the initial British bombing raids. However, they could target a city like Antwerp or London. If the V-weapon offensives had started prior to D-Day, then they might have had a military impact, the Allied reources were very tightly packed into all the port areas of Southern England so the V-weapons were quite likely to hit an actual military target or important dock installation.

I did know that range/speed 3 was too much for the 1944 V2 but I wanted to give the AI some choice in its target to see what it would do. As I posted it tended to choose Scotland which was less well defended which I suppose is quite reasonable. It selected airfield attack obviously with the intention of using its ground attack on its target (a heavy bomber). Again thinking about it, a heavy bomber is a better target than artillery in terms of the value destroyed so quite a good choice really.

Given that the Russians were not exactly naval super powers in WW2, I have been wondering about an alternative use for their CAG. The only thought so far is a short range armoured TAC (the Stormavik) - any other idea?

For the WALLIES the obvious change would be to try to introduce the concept of motorised infantry with move 2 and cost 3 - this might need the Militia to be upgraded to cost 2, but I have not tried the effect of that yet. If it works it might help to slow down the Allies development of super infantry and it would get rid of the anomaly that destroying/damaging Militia loses more pop points when the only real example in WW2, the Volksturm, were deployed in relatively smaller units than standard divisions. Perhaps the Russians might still have the Militia unit as in the early days they did send units into battle with 1 rifle between 2 men so they could pick up weapons from those who fell!

BTW does anyone know if it is possible to change the name of unit types? I really do not like the name Militia as, apart from the Russians, it is really intended to be just standard as opposed to elite infantry.

Mike

[mdh1204]

There is no such thing as gaming balance, IMO. The playability of a war-game reside in its ability to recreate the actual depicted environment.

One thing that is missing is Ultra. Germany was at a disadvantage from 1940 on, I believe, because the Allies held much of their strategic communication. Ultra could be depicted in a combat modifier, such as a +2 on their die roll.

[mcaryf]

Hi Mdh1204

For Ultra just play the Allies without FOW. A lot of the value of Ultra was just knowing enemy strengths and locations - FOW gives you that. When you play as the Axis put FOW on.

Regards

Mike

[mdh1204]

I was thinking that. Along those lines, it would work if the games default was FOW for both sides of the European Theatre, and when WA earned Ultra (however that might be), then FOW would be turned off for WA only, and unbeknownst to Germany.

An interesting concept would be to make FOW standard for all nations, and likewise give all nations the capacity to break the enemy's communication code and clandestinely turn their FOW off.

[GOOSESTEPPER]

hers some figures i got from an article from an issue of air war europe on sale right now about the v1 , v2s-
6725 v1s crossed the english coast during sum 1944, 75000 homes & buildings destroyed 5500 civ killed 40,000 injured, a total of 3900 v1s were destoyed by raf fighters flak and barrage balloons. 1771 v1s were shot down by fighters alone so i dunno maybe it wasnt as hard as you think for the raf to hit em. i figure just from june 13 44 (the first v1 launch) and sept 5 44, its more like a 26.3 % chance. about 3174 v2s were launched it doesnt say exactly how many of em got intercepted. top speed that could be reached was 4827 km/h and its impact speed was btween 3200 n 3600 klicks. check these sites out www.flyingbombsandrockets.com and another good one www.v2rocket.com. and as response to the guy who said there is no balance in these games thats hooey theres balance in everything, why do you think the patches are made like the prussian gambit and wally amphy capacity? cause theres no balance, play a game against a a skilled player and he'll tip the balance by knowing how to play the game. this aint war buddy its a turn based war game thats it thats all.

[mcaryf]

Hi Goosestepper

There was a major difference between the V1 and the V2 - the V1 could be intercepted the V2 could not, it travelled at over 2,000 mph so there was nothing the Allies had that could even know it was coming. Their only defence against them was to mislead the Germans about where they were landing by sending back fake reports from double agents. This meant the Germans thought they were overshooting London and so reduced the range and in fact many V2s landed pretty much where I live now in Southern England which has more open space than London.

With respect to balance I was mainly talking about the ability to construct a game where the AI makes a decent opponent. The wider the scope of the game, and GGWAW is pretty wide, the harder it is to do it as the AI cannot cope with the complexity of all the options. Of course a good player versus a poor player is quite likely to win unless the odds are impossibly stacked and the AI is effectively a poor player. My idea is to try to construct versions of wargames where the odds are heavily stacked in the AI's favour but mainly by having some surprising additional but historic features rather than making all the AI units unrealistically powerful.

mike

[GOOSESTEPPER]

hi mike,
i see what your meaning 100% and thanks for the tid bit about the v2 i think i seen that in a doc anout the wunder waffen lol.
it was the other guy who said " There is no such thing as gaming balance, IMO. The playability of a war-game reside in its ability to recreate the actual depicted environment." that made me winc a little. dude take a heavy fleet and a carrier group from the wallies n give em to germany thatll unbalance it a bit. or no? i think any mod as long as it is in accurate scale to everything else in the game is cool. Like Jan says its all about peronal taste. I dont think this other dude has a tongue. not referring to you mike, i think your all your there.lol.

[mdh1204]

Yes, a WARGAME simulates the actual war it depicts. And, its a WARGAME, not a CHEAT game. Good players are far and few between.

(Personally, I can't stand people who CHEAT - manipulate files, use codes, do reloads and the like. And, on top of it, sneak around trying to convince everyone and themselves they are a real fan of the game. With fans like that, who needs games. Hacks are not real players, but spend their time wasting everyone elses time playing their own twisted game called "how can I screw this game up?" In short, learn how to play the GAME by the RULES, and not by the thief mentality of "how can I get an edge since I'm too lazy to learn real strategy?")

[Daykeras]

Who's been cheating? Or is this in reference to other games you've encountered in the past?

[GOOSESTEPPER]

hey mdh1204,
dude id like to know to cheat so i can beat the ai on the super hard level lol. ive played a bunch of games wether its shooters or rts's and theres tonsl ofways of beating human opponents by taking advantage of the disadvantages the game provides. i read all the forums and tried some of the stuff i could figure out. havent played a pbem game but i have beaten the ai as axis with advanced supply, foggy, fuely etc. i know in call of duty guys can camp in certain spots and get you when you respawn racking up 100 kills i do it but in a tank lol. thats not cheating its just the balance of the game. by the way daykeras and i are looking for another player in a 4 way match interested? japans open but i could be japan also, but dont cheat lol.

[Lebatron]

Oh God!! He's ranting about my mod again. Stuff it dude.

[Daykeras]

Rofl. If you want a real cheater I suppose I could, just this once, play a 1v1 game with you and edit the files beforehand without telling you to cheat.

Reloading isn't so much cheating as unethical. It was built into the game... but if you're gonna reload over and over and over, you're gonna get bored and stop playing anywho. So I don't see it as a huge deal.

V2 rocket baby, yea!