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Been enjoying the video reviews and it is definitely priming the pump for release...and part 9 is up

I have been following all these videos, and they are excellent thank you.

But the Naval game still needs a bit of tweaking, because the damaged caused per attack, is excessive, I'm really glad these games come with a superb editor, because it sure is needed to toughen up the Battleships in game.


I think all the ships especially the Battleships, are either made of Glass or wood, because their 13" thick armour is certainly not working right. As Admiral Beatty famously said during the battle of Jutland, their seems to something wrong with our **** ships today. Its still only 1940 in game time and yet Britain has already lost more Battleships,than she lost during the entire second world war.

It is now up to video No 15 in Paradogs Gamer excellent AAR. For the past 4 game turns,German bombers have been attacking 2 British Aircraft Carriers,in the ports of Southampton and Bristol. Can anyone tell me why, the naval AI did not think about moving these vital units,before both were destroyed needlessly? Both these Carriers could easily have been saved,the AI needs to learn how to protect its forces better![&:]

Video link: 1 min 30 sec into the video you can see the Bombers attacking these Carriers.Then the AI has a turn,and it still did not think to move the Carriers,so on the players turn 19 minutes in to the video,both Carriers get wiped out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da5cMBM ... paFTGQ_o4e

ORIGINAL: kirk23

It is now up to video No 15 in Paradogs Gamer excellent AAR. For the past 3 game turns,German bombers have been attacking 2 British Aircraft Carriers,in the ports of Southampton and Bristol. Can anyone tell me why, the naval AI did not think about moving these vital units,before both were destroyed needlessly? Both these Carriers could easily have been saved,the AI needs to learn how to protect its forces better![&:]

That's a good question. I noticed however that these bombing runs costed a fortune (approx. 10 bomber steps per turn) so not sure if taking down the two carrier was worth the cost.

ORIGINAL: kirk23

It is now up to video No 15 in Paradogs Gamer excellent AAR. For the past 4 game turns,German bombers have been attacking 2 British Aircraft Carriers,in the ports of Southampton and Bristol. Can anyone tell me why, the naval AI did not think about moving these vital units,before both were destroyed needlessly? Both these Carriers could easily have been saved,the AI needs to learn how to protect its forces better![&:]

Video link: 1 min 30 sec into the video you can see the Bombers attacking these Carriers.Then the AI has a turn,and it still did not think to move the Carriers,so on the players turn 19 minutes in to the video,both Carriers get wiped out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da5cMBM ... paFTGQ_o4e

I agree. The fact that the AI is not taking steps to preserve such vital units as it's carriers, does indeed raise questions regarding the competency of the AI. It's one thing to lose 1 or 2 carriers in a naval action were they were committed to fight, but just sitting around like ducks waiting to be pounced on, does seem a little odd indeed. Maybe the port protection values need a little tweaking and/or the carriers should consider moving to get out of harms way.

C

Thanks gentlemen, this is already fixed on our end [:)]

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

Thanks gentlemen, this is already fixed on our end [:)]

Excellent news![:)]


Waiting for games release is going to be torture,can't wait to get playing,will just have to be patient for another Month I suppose.[;)]

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

Thanks gentlemen, this is already fixed on our end [:)]

Great! Can you let us know how this was fixed and will this also impact the fact that the UK CV (under AI control) in the Med also hung around at Malta turn after turn until it was finally sunk after being relentlessly attacked by bombers and the Regia Marina - see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da5cMBM ... e&index=15 from 11:07 to 11:58 for its final moments.

The CV was attacked over multiple turns which included the UK navy taking a pounding as well. It would seem that at this point (and knowing the threat and impending doom that lay ahead), the UK AI would pack it in and retreat the damaged CV to safer waters. It could also be rationalized, as Rasputitsa has interestingly pointed out in tm.asp?m=4163954&mpage=1&#4166471 that the CV could have suffered a critical hit such that it could not be moved, but this would have to be by design (so the player is also affected) to make it more palpable...

C

An interesting Preview + Gameplay article by our friend Joselillo (in Spanish)
tm.asp?m=4166266

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

Thanks gentlemen, this is already fixed on our end [:)]

Hi Hubert, as I have said earlier,I have been watching all Paradogs Gamer AAR video's, and as far as I can see, during the players turn, the game is now seriously unbalanced! With the combination of the new movement,combined attacks,and the extremely high percentage of successful attacks on units,it appears to easy to completely destroy units. Units that will have to be replaced,I really fear that the MPPs available,will not be enough to build these needed new units,to replace the losses,which can only result in a fatal hemorrhage.

To counter this advantage,more attacks have to fail,this can easily be remedied by using the EVADE option,this in combination with maybe reduced damage per attack,will make the game much more challenging.[&:]


UPDATE


I have to say I'm amazed,that everyone appears to think that the gamey attack combinations are ok? So the target unit is just going to do nothing, but take damage,from a procession of attacking units,who are moving from 4 or more hexes away,I don't know what the game scale per hex is,but I'm assuming 20 - 25 miles.Attacking units move in attack,and move away again,only to let another unit move in and attack,and move away again,does no one think that this is gamey and nuts?[&:]


On land this type of combat is maybe perfectly ok,because land units are protecting Cities etc,naval units don't have that to concern them,they are free to move about when and where they want.

This is where the naval game is completely different from the land combat.On land its feasible to assume, that a unit will defend one hex,be that a Town,City whatever. At sea,naval units don't have that,when naval units get attacked,they are both aggressive and defensive, they are moving targets,at 20 Knots or more in most cases,firing at a target thousands of yards away,while at the same time always changing course to evade being hit by the enemy.If they are undamaged and winning nothing changes,but when they start to take serious damage,then they revert to all out defence,by using a smoke screen to hide their position,while at the same time repeatedly altering course,in an all out effort to escape.



Don't get me wrong I think the game is great I do,but their are things that need highlighting,and this is one of them..

I also know that the game is abstracted,but this is taking it out of the realms of probability,and as soon as I get my copy of the game, I will as usual go straight to the editor and fix the combat aspect.

Video 17 Paradogs Gamer.

NAVAL COMBAT.

1 = Destroyer attacks sub,and the sub dives and evades,attack failed,and the player is disappointed.


2 = Attack 2 begins, uboat targets British Battlecruiser Renown strength 7,and does 2 points of damage,the player then moves in a second submarine from 4 hexes away,and does another 1 point of damage to Renown.Now the attack gets far fetched,a third sub races to the scene of the carnage,from 9 hexes away,and inflicts 3 more points of damage to the doomed Battlecruiser Renown,now for the clincher,the player moves a fourth sub in from 16 hexes away,and sinks the RENOWN.While this has been going on,all the time,the battleship Tirpitz and the Battlecruiser Scharnhorst,only 1 hex from Renown are just spectators as all this unfolds before them. RULE BRITANNIA ( not in this game ) why why why,is there no evade for surface ships in the game? Come on game designers,fix this now,this naval warfare is beyond a joke,and goes way beyond being wrong.Attacks do not succeed every time,just as the destroyer against Sub proved,the sub evades and escapes.Surely Renown who can do 32 Knots,can zig zag and evade torpedoes from Uboats.By the end of the players turn,Britain had lost,1 Aircraft Carrier,1 Battlecruiser,1 Light Cruiser and a Destroyer all in the English Channel. Game time its July 1941,if Britain has any navy left,my advice is sail to America to escape the slaughter.

If any veterans off the British Royal Navy are reading this,please don't watch any of these video's because they should be advertised as a horror film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKu6xKP ... e&index=17


Game scale question? Does individual capital ships represent,just the ship IE: Battlecruiser Renown for example,or the capital ship plus destroyer screen? If there is a destroyer screen,then where were they while the Uboats were running amuck?

Same scale question,is a Destroyer unit 1 ship or a Flotilla?

ORIGINAL: CC1

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

Thanks gentlemen, this is already fixed on our end [:)]

Great! Can you let us know how this was fixed and will this also impact the fact that the UK CV (under AI control) in the Med also hung around at Malta turn after turn until it was finally sunk after being relentlessly attacked by bombers and the Regia Marina - see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da5cMBM ... e&index=15 from 11:07 to 11:58 for its final moments.

The CV was attacked over multiple turns which included the UK navy taking a pounding as well. It would seem that at this point (and knowing the threat and impending doom that lay ahead), the UK AI would pack it in and retreat the damaged CV to safer waters. It could also be rationalized, as Rasputitsa has interestingly pointed out in tm.asp?m=4163954&mpage=1� that the CV could have suffered a critical hit such that it could not be moved, but this would have to be by design (so the player is also affected) to make it more palpable...

C

Hi CC1,

One thing to keep in mind is that while the AI has scripted logic to its behavior, i.e. how and when to organize its fleet movements for the naval side, where to build up and attack (declarations of war) for the land side and son on, it also has a general logic side to it (one that universally handles all campaign and scenario types) such as general combat, retreat, protective movements and other basic behavior elements.

There are, let's just say a lot of coded routines for this, and in the set of protective movement routines that handle identifying when a unit should retreat, the specific one for naval units was not checking for when a naval unit was in port and sufficiently threatened. This is a single line of code probably representing near 0.001% of the AI code overall and a quick fix on my end. Essentially if a naval unit, as seen in the videos, is in harms way while in port, it will now move on to a safer location. [:)]

Sometimes behavioral issues such as this simply don't come to my attention at the level of detail as shown in the videos, and until they do, they remain in need of correction... but I wouldn't suggest that this is a reflection of the AI as a whole, especially when it does most other things very well, and more importantly, correctly or as suggested the type of behavior you'd expect.

The good thing here is that the AI is pretty easy to fine tune at the moment, due to the depth and robustness of the design, and corrections like this are constant and should be expected from our end as well.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

ORIGINAL: kirk23

Hi Hubert, as I have said earlier,I have been watching all Paradogs Gamer AAR video's, and as far as I can see, during the players turn, the game is now seriously unbalanced! With the combination of the new movement,combined attacks,and the extremely high percentage of successful attacks on units,it appears to easy to completely destroy units. Units that will have to be replaced,I really fear that the MPPs available,will not be enough to build these needed new units,to replace the losses,which can only result in a fatal hemorrhage.

To counter this advantage,more attacks have to fail,this can easily be remedied by using the EVADE option,this in combination with maybe reduced damage per attack,will make the game much more challenging.[&:]

Hi Kirk,

Thanks for the feedback and the only thing I can suggest at this point is that the concerns here are indeed non issues on our end and that the game plays quite well and is very well balanced from start to finish.

A few things to keep in mind is that the game might be perhaps a bit different from what you are used to, again not sure here just throwing that out in case it applies, but on our end this is a system that we've used for almost 15 years and this new game simply builds upon the established foundation of the previous games. Additionally the game system is designed on the idea of destruction of units, and less so on constant evasion and survival, and as a result it has an arc of higher successes (and more destruction of Allied units) in the early years, followed by a slow but steady build up and push back and counter destruction by the Allies in the later years. Essentially the game plays well from 1939-1945 and summarizing the game simply on what happens from 1939-1941 does not necessarily paint the whole picture as the bulk of the war is still to be fought.

Remember, there will be an eventual juggernaut on the Soviet and US sides, that despite all these early successes by the Axis, will have to be dealt with and by mid to late 1943 this could be a very different looking game, especially as the Axis has spent a lot of MPP and capital against the Royal Navy and on places like Malta and so on. Eventually those redirected efforts will have to be accounted for [:)]

Honestly, the best feel you'll have for the game is after a few games and after playing it from both sides, and once you do you'll find that the game does, as mentioned, play quite well from start to finish.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

ORIGINAL: kirk23

Hi Hubert, as I have said earlier,I have been watching all Paradogs Gamer AAR video's, and as far as I can see, during the players turn, the game is now seriously unbalanced! With the combination of the new movement,combined attacks,and the extremely high percentage of successful attacks on units,it appears to easy to completely destroy units. Units that will have to be replaced,I really fear that the MPPs available,will not be enough to build these needed new units,to replace the losses,which can only result in a fatal hemorrhage.

To counter this advantage,more attacks have to fail,this can easily be remedied by using the EVADE option,this in combination with maybe reduced damage per attack,will make the game much more challenging.[&:]

Hi Kirk,

Thanks for the feedback and the only thing I can suggest at this point is that the concerns here are indeed non issues on our end and that the game plays quite well and is very well balanced from start to finish.

A few things to keep in mind is that the game might be perhaps a bit different from what you are used to, again not sure here just throwing that out in case it applies, but on our end this is a system that we've used for almost 15 years and this new game simply builds upon the established foundation of the previous games. Additionally the game system is designed on the idea of destruction of units, and less so on constant evasion and survival, and as a result it has an arc of higher successes (and more destruction of Allied units) in the early years, followed by a slow but steady build up and push back and counter destruction by the Allies in the later years. Essentially the game plays well from 1939-1945 and summarizing the game simply on what happens from 1939-1941 does not necessarily paint the whole picture as the bulk of the war is still to be fought.

Remember, there will be an eventual juggernaut on the Soviet and US sides, that despite all these early successes by the Axis, will have to be dealt with and by mid to late 1943 this could be a very different looking game, especially as the Axis has spent a lot of MPP and capital against the Royal Navy and on places like Malta and so on. Eventually those redirected efforts will have to be accounted for [:)]

Honestly, the best feel you'll have for the game is after a few games and after playing it from both sides, and once you do you'll find that the game does, as mentioned, play quite well from start to finish.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

Hi Hubert, I must say I really do like all the Strategic Command games,because I have them all. If you are happy with the naval game,I can't change that,but what I can change is what I don't like via the editor,which is exactly what I will do. I agree the game otherwise is very very good,and flows from start to end.We will just agree to differ,on naval units and their survivability in game or lack of it in most cases. I think Battleships etc should evade and resist much more than they do.

Hi Kirk,

Absolutely and I was only commenting on the game as a whole and not necessarily on the naval aspect alone. Agreed though, and that is one of the nice things about the game series which is the fact that players will have access to the same Editor that we use to design the games, so not only can players design their own campaigns, but as you've mentioned, they can also adjust the game as they see fit.

That being said, Bill and I have been observing and taking in the feedback and are bouncing around some ideas to further tweak the naval model... which is the nice thing about still being in Beta, nothing is yet set in stone and there have already been some changes and improvements made for the final release [:)]

Hubert

Cheers![:)]

What is the game scale you base naval units to be? Capital ships being individual units,or Capital ship + destroyer screen.

I'm modding a game using editor 1.05 version that comes with Breakthrough, that uses the premise that Naval units are all Squadron and Flotilla sized.[;)]

Each capital ship normally represents 2-3 ships of that class. They have minimal sub protection so that has to be provided either by upgrading with Anti-Submarine Warfare (representing the addition of Destroyers) or by using Destroyers to sweep ahead of the Battleships when they move.

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

ORIGINAL: CC1

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

Thanks gentlemen, this is already fixed on our end [:)]

Great! Can you let us know how this was fixed and will this also impact the fact that the UK CV (under AI control) in the Med also hung around at Malta turn after turn until it was finally sunk after being relentlessly attacked by bombers and the Regia Marina - see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da5cMBM ... e&index=15 from 11:07 to 11:58 for its final moments.

The CV was attacked over multiple turns which included the UK navy taking a pounding as well. It would seem that at this point (and knowing the threat and impending doom that lay ahead), the UK AI would pack it in and retreat the damaged CV to safer waters. It could also be rationalized, as Rasputitsa has interestingly pointed out in tm.asp?m=4163954&mpage=1� that the CV could have suffered a critical hit such that it could not be moved, but this would have to be by design (so the player is also affected) to make it more palpable...

C

Hi CC1,

One thing to keep in mind is that while the AI has scripted logic to its behavior, i.e. how and when to organize its fleet movements for the naval side, where to build up and attack (declarations of war) for the land side and son on, it also has a general logic side to it (one that universally handles all campaign and scenario types) such as general combat, retreat, protective movements and other basic behavior elements.

There are, let's just say a lot of coded routines for this, and in the set of protective movement routines that handle identifying when a unit should retreat, the specific one for naval units was not checking for when a naval unit was in port and sufficiently threatened. This is a single line of code probably representing near 0.001% of the AI code overall and a quick fix on my end. Essentially if a naval unit, as seen in the videos, is in harms way while in port, it will now move on to a safer location. [:)]

Sometimes behavioral issues such as this simply don't come to my attention at the level of detail as shown in the videos, and until they do, they remain in need of correction... but I wouldn't suggest that this is a reflection of the AI as a whole, especially when it does most other things very well, and more importantly, correctly or as suggested the type of behavior you'd expect.

The good thing here is that the AI is pretty easy to fine tune at the moment, due to the depth and robustness of the design, and corrections like this are constant and should be expected from our end as well.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

Hi Hubert,

Once again, thank you very much for this very detailed and illuminating explanation, and of course, for the fix as well.[:)]

Cheers,

C

Hello and thank you again for watching the beta videos

Just a quick note about the naval situation. Please remember that I deliberately kept all the subs at home and waiting for the opportunity to strike a fatal blow to the RN. Had my subs been used in the Atlantic or already been sunk, this would not have been possible.
This does not excuse the AI behavior or the game mechanics, but just to say that this was indeed all planned for and I was able to reap the reward of having my entire sub fleet in the channel.

Cheers
ParadogsGamer

Video AARs are superb many many thanks for doing these,very much appreciated.[:)]