Armageddon 2015 Russia (Larry) vs. NATO (Roger)

[toawfan]

Proof of how a veteran (Larry) plays against a rookie:

[toawfan]

Apologies to Mark. Maybe this game is not so unbalanced: Greater problem might be how poorly the rookie is playing against a veteran like Larry. Look at how dramatically different NATO losses are at the same point in games 1 and 2 after switching sides.

[larryfulkerson]

My bid to re-take Beirut fizzled. The troops in Turkey and Iraq are pulling back rather than get surrounded. Now that Serbia is surrendered all those sieging units are streaming to the NE. I expanded my bridgehead in North Africa a little. I sunk some more WP ships north of Norway. I attempted to straighten my lines a little near Warsaw and couldn't pull back far enough so that kind of fizzled. I sent some SF troops deep into Russia to break some bridges and maybe capture a capital or two if possible. The air war is highly in my favor so I launched a couple of rounds of air attacks all over the map. I gutted an air unit in Bengazi with my airfield attack(s). Roger wanted to know how come he lost 11,000 troops etc. by this time in our first game and I haven't yet. I think maybe it has something to do with the fact that by this time in our first game I had already surrounded the Poles and were besiege-ing them to death. Or maybe by this time in our first game they had already surrendered. I don't remember which. Roger is on the verge of invading Spain I think. He's in a good position to march north from Sicily toward Rome. He's taking over in Turkey and Iraq. Isreal isn't in a very good spot being surrounded on all sides like that. Maybe in real life they ought to move to Brooklyn and give up on this "holy land" thing. Warsaw isn't that far from the fighting so it could fall on one of these turns soon. Norway is slowly being invaded from the north and looks like it might dissolve into bitter fighting soon. I think maybe Roger's main effort is still the mainland ( eastern europe ). Maybe I can hold him off for another turn or two but my dudes are already tired and worn out. I'm running low on fresh divisions to thrust into the front line. If Roger pushed hard enough he could be in France in about 10 turns.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the NATO losses as of the end of turn 5:
[ EDIT: those equipment types not shown had no losses so far]

[Odenathus]

Said it before and probably will again, but Larry is a very experienced player. Given that the Russians are going to get an initial shock bonus that probably magnified his earlier successes in the other game. I'm not claiming that it's a balanced scenario, but you do need to consider the relative strengths of the two players in addition to the actual hardware on the ground, supply levels, etc.

NATO's air superiority should start having an increasing effect as the war goes on, and it will limit the Russian's use of airmobile forces to the first few turns, whereas NATO will still be able to use these assets all throughout the scenario.

Still trying to work out how to install a second version of TOAW that I can upgrade to 3.4 separately from my existing file. Bob kindly posted a screenshot of his TOAW files with some renamed, but I'm too stupid to understand what he's done, goddamnit.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a screenshot of my directory where opart300.exe is supposed to be stored. This arrangement works for me.

[larryfulkerson]

I've put together a rough and ready AAR for turn 5 and I've already sent it to everybody I know who might possibly be interested maybe but then I thought maybe I'll just publish it too.........so you guys can find it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/j094na10y ... rn%205.zip

I put it together in about an hour so it's rough and crude and probably not worth looking at.  Besides it's about 7M bytes big.  Maybe you should skip it.

[1_Lzard]

Looks good to me, Larry!

[toawfan]

"You will give me Larry's secret battle plans, even if it's an AAR in a zip file 7 MB long." -- A "conversation" that my NATO special forces had just outside the presidential palace in Baghdad when Larry dropped his briefcase and ran for cover.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: toawfan
"You will give me Larry's secret battle plans, even if it's an AAR in a zip file 7 MB long." -- A "conversation" that my NATO special forces had just outside the presidential palace in Baghdad when Larry dropped his briefcase and ran for cover.

What you don't see in the picture above is the guy in the black outfit ( you can see part of his belly in the far right edge of the picture ) who is the one who does the water boarding of the prisoniers to get them to coff up the answers. The dude being interrogated in the picture is a plant. I gave him false information so that when he got captured he would squeal like a pig that the secret plans are such and so and thereby lead the US and their allies astray. Just ask him. He'll tell you.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: 1_Lzard
Looks good to me, Larry!

Why thank you very berry much 1_Lzard dude. But then you could be one of those guys who's easily impressed.

[Telumar]

ORIGINAL: Odenathus

Said it before and probably will again, but Larry is a very experienced player. Given that the Russians are going to get an initial shock bonus that probably magnified his earlier successes in the other game. I'm not claiming that it's a balanced scenario, but you do need to consider the relative strengths of the two players in addition to the actual hardware on the ground, supply levels, etc.

NATO's air superiority should start having an increasing effect as the war goes on, and it will limit the Russian's use of airmobile forces to the first few turns, whereas NATO will still be able to use these assets all throughout the scenario.

Still trying to work out how to install a second version of TOAW that I can upgrade to 3.4 separately from my existing file. Bob kindly posted a screenshot of his TOAW files with some renamed, but I'm too stupid to understand what he's done, goddamnit.

You just need to rename your current Opart 3.exe to Opart 3.2.exe or anything you like. Then install the patch. After that you will have two opart 3.exe in your game folder. One, named opart 3.exe (this would be the applied patch, 3.4.something) and the other one named Opart 3.2.exe or whatever name you've chosen).

[toawfan]

Is there a stacking penalty in this scenario? I no longer see the light to the left of some pretty large stacks. Is that a bug in the new patch or by design by Mark in this scenario?

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: toawfan
Is there a stacking penalty in this scenario? I no longer see the light to the left of some pretty large stacks. Is that a bug in the new patch or by design by Mark in this scenario?

Um....these are 50 km hexes. You can stack a lot of stuff in 50 square km's. Maybe your pretty large stacks aren't getting dense enough to set off the colored lights. Just my guess.

[toawfan]

Geesh. I'm always learning something the hard way. I'm not putting anywhere near enough in the front lines. Maybe that's why I got so clobbered as NATO and you rolled all over me.

I'm so used to trying to avoid the penalty that I never knew anything about the scale of the hex affecting this.

[toawfan]

I'm sorry, guys, but I'm gonna go on a major rant here after my third consecutive turn of really getting screwed on this combat planner, turn burn or whatever you want to call it. I've never studied a learning curve as hard as I have on this game, even reading the manual three times, to be so snakebit by arbitrary "rules" that nobody seems able to explain in a simple fashion.

Here's the rant I just sent to Larry after turn 7:

I really, really, really, really got screwed in this round. Only got one turn. Definitely had a whole lot of turn that should have been left. Didn't even finish my other combats. Air is completely hung out to dry with almost nothing set for air superiority. I'm screwed royally now. Nothing was set on ignore losses; nobody attacked who was short on movement points; not a single battle lit up more than one icon in the planner.

And the sad thing is that I'm making decent gains; I have the right ideas on strategy; some risky experiments are working and will spread you thinly in Turkey.

I just don't understand at all how you are able to move so deeply into enemy territory. I tried three airborne missions and they were all shot dead before they even got halfway to their destination. I don't understand how to play this part of the game, I guess. Unless it is due to having zero air superiority because I never get the chance to set my air when a turn ends in just one combat. Is that how you can waltz in deep behind my lines and why I get shot down before they've even closed the airplane door?

I still want to keep going. I feel like the turn burn is a cheat. I don't even know how to prevent it. I didn't even set any attacks that lit up more than one icon in the battle planner.

You will punish me so badly by leaving units hanging defenseless for three turns in a row and having zero air superiority for three rounds that I think I'm toast in about a dozen turns. You killed all 75 jets at one airport that was surrounded by defenders and you did it strictly by air and not with ground forces because of no AS.

I'm angry at rules that I don't understand and that no one seems able to explain. Bob Cross has posted all kinds of stuff trying to help others in the past; the manual talks all about it -- and none of those teachings is accurately reflecting what is happening with this turn burn. I'm hoping it's just something about this scenario because if this kind of arbitrary stuff happens all the time in games, then I will probably shelve TOAW. Please assure me that it seems to just be this particular scenario because I know you've been burned the same way in the past few rounds.

I don't know what all the point is about showing you how much turn is left, having stars to show you how much combat is planned, having an attack planner that shows only 1 icon lit -- and none of it means a thing. This was so bad that I didn't even get to make all my combat moves. I wanted to resolve a few minor battles and see if I could push farther, knowing there was no possible way that my entire turn would end.

I'm putting this rant on the AAR and let the flame wars begin. I may be very new at this game, but I've paid my dues on the learning curve. I've read everything on the forums that I possibly can. You've given me all kinds of tips. I've read the manual all the way through three times and I read the "What's new" for the second time.

Let's see how long I can last and how much farther I can go because I still pushed you back and made progress even with all this stacked against me -- another reason to believe the scenario gives too much juice to Russia.

[toawfan]

This is about the sixth or eighth scenario that I've played in my short time. I think this is the fourth one against Larry. Nothing like this has remotely happened with turns in any of the other scenarios.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: toawfan
I'm sorry, guys, but I'm gonna go on a major rant here after my third consecutive turn of really getting screwed on this combat planner, turn burn or whatever you want to call it. I've never studied a learning curve as hard as I have on this game, even reading the manual three times, to be so snakebit by arbitrary "rules" that nobody seems able to explain in a simple fashion.

Here's the rant I just sent to Larry after turn 7:

I really, really, really, really got screwed in this round. Only got one turn. Definitely had a whole lot of turn that should have been left. Didn't even finish my other combats. Air is completely hung out to dry with almost nothing set for air superiority. I'm screwed royally now. Nothing was set on ignore losses; nobody attacked who was short on movement points; not a single battle lit up more than one icon in the planner.

And the sad thing is that I'm making decent gains; I have the right ideas on strategy; some risky experiments are working and will spread you thinly in Turkey.

I just don't understand at all how you are able to move so deeply into enemy territory. I tried three airborne missions and they were all shot dead before they even got halfway to their destination. I don't understand how to play this part of the game, I guess. Unless it is due to having zero air superiority because I never get the chance to set my air when a turn ends in just one combat. Is that how you can waltz in deep behind my lines and why I get shot down before they've even closed the airplane door?

yes.

ORIGINAL: toawfan
I still want to keep going. I feel like the turn burn is a cheat. I don't even know how to prevent it. I didn't even set any attacks that lit up more than one icon in the battle planner.

You will punish me so badly by leaving units hanging defenseless for three turns in a row and having zero air superiority for three rounds that I think I'm toast in about a dozen turns. You killed all 75 jets at one airport that was surrounded by defenders and you did it strictly by air and not with ground forces because of no AS.

I'm angry at rules that I don't understand and that no one seems able to explain. Bob Cross has posted all kinds of stuff trying to help others in the past; the manual talks all about it -- and none of those teachings is accurately reflecting what is happening with this turn burn. I'm hoping it's just something about this scenario because if this kind of arbitrary stuff happens all the time in games, then I will probably shelve TOAW. Please assure me that it seems to just be this particular scenario because I know you've been burned the same way in the past few rounds.

I don't know what all the point is about showing you how much turn is left, having stars to show you how much combat is planned, having an attack planner that shows only 1 icon lit -- and none of it means a thing. This was so bad that I didn't even get to make all my combat moves. I wanted to resolve a few minor battles and see if I could push farther, knowing there was no possible way that my entire turn would end.

I'm putting this rant on the AAR and let the flame wars begin. I may be very new at this game, but I've paid my dues on the learning curve. I've read everything on the forums that I possibly can. You've given me all kinds of tips. I've read the manual all the way through three times and I read the "What's new" for the second time.

Let's see how long I can last and how much farther I can go because I still pushed you back and made progress even with all this stacked against me -- another reason to believe the scenario gives too much juice to Russia.

Let's get Mark to fix the scenario by changing the MRPB switch to '1' or something like that. And then start over.

[toawfan]

I have no idea what MRPB is, but I want to continue playing. I've got way too many hours invested in these seven turns and want to see how this turns out.

You're playing under the same "rules" and conditions.

Russia is so overpowered that three rounds of unfair or undocumented turn burns still have not made my situation hopeless. This game will shift quite a bit once Warsaw falls and I think I'm only a turn or two away from making that happen.

I also want to see how my experiment goes in Turkey. I also want to see if I can push you out of North Africa, once I'm actually allowed to move, attack or get both of my arms untied from behind my back with these turn burns.

I am probably doomed because I'll have to play Russia without an Air Force, compared to when you had Russia, thanks to three consecutive turns of being unable to switch from virtually zero air superiority because the turn ended in round 1. In your upcoming turn, my air superiority is only 29 and you will have a 4:1 edge. That will pretty much finish off any chance of an air defense from me for the remainder of the game.

[larryfulkerson]

Hey Mark:

I found another instance of lumping fighters together with bombers. And the other American carrier aircraft group has the same problem.