Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: MPHopcroft
This may seem an obvious questions, but are you playing against an AI?

Yes I am. There's no PO however, so I have to do some fancy footwork for
the Allied side if and when it ever comes about. I posted something in
the Opponents Wanted section but so far no nibbles. I'm tempted to ask
Thomas Harvey since he's the designer of this scenario and always beats
me and he knows more about this game than I do evidently. Playing
either side he always beats me. Lemme send an email and see what
happens.

EDIT: Emails sent to Thomas Harvey and Brian ( General Patton ).

EDIT2: Thomas Says HE Will. Okay, we're in business.

I've got some fighters in the Hanoi area to deal with the AVG up in Kunming. The AVG are good pilots in late model
P-40's. Yeah, I know they are supposed to be P-40B's or the equivalent but that's what we have in the game, is the
late model planes instead. We work with what we have. At any rate, the squadron in the image is barely adequate
to participate. Oscar 1's and Nates's which is not a good thing right off the bat. And there's so few of them.
I'll leave them there for now just in case can't find a better squadron with more planes to replace them.

Here's a bomber unit that has two different kinds of planes and so what I do is figure which one of them has the
shorter range and set the unit range to that. UNLESS there are mitigating reasons. There's only one Sally and
a bunch of Lilly's so it makes sense to use the range of the Lilly's. This unit will support the landings on
the east coast of Malaya and Sumatra.

I think I've found a replacement for that squadron at Hanoi that I need to replace. This is a Zero squadron and flies
the Zero. These guys will do nicely. So the proficiency is 68% which is respectable and there's lots of planes.
I'll fly these guys to Hanoi to deal with the AVG.

There I was fat, dumb, and happy and I'm moving my aircraft and I get an email from Thomas Harvey
my opponent. He says nope, the hot-seat game isn't what is called for. It's got to be a proper
PBEM++ game and I thought about it and I think he's right. So I created a PAW challenge
and Thomas, bless his heart, accepted it right away, and now we're in business again. So I'm
going to move everything like I did before and we'll just carry on like we know what we're
doing.

Here's me logging on to get online. I'm sure my password is known by somebody by now. It's about 5 years old.

And I choose PAW out of the gaggle of them. Holy Maceral, they are starting to pile up. I've been workshopping
for so long I'm getting behind in getting my turns out. D'oh.

And then I get that message that means "I'm not so sure I should let you in just yet. Lemme ask you one more
question, and this time it counts." dialog. And I click yes.

And about 30 seconds later we're IN. And then I did my moves, etc. That's about it.

I can't recall if I said something before about changing the range of an aircraft unit or not. Anyway, THIS aircraft
unit has only a single plane in it and I didn't want it flying yet so I flew it to the home islands for safety and gave
it a range of zero, thinking that it won't fly if it doesn't have a range. It's got no crop circle. I think. I'll
have to check that out and get back to you on that.

EDIT: Now that I've gotten it safely posted I can take my time editing it. Um...I was going to say the list with the
aircraft on it tells me that most of them, perhaps almost all of them are on rest status and need to be examined and
the appropriate action should be undertaken for them. For example this unit with a single aircraft I flew to the home
islands but I put it on AS missions???? Why in the world would you do that you ask. Well, I close all my dialogs
so I'm looking at the game map and press the 'a' key and the air report is presented and see what I mean about all of
them being on rest? So um...if I put this one unit that I've already "disposed of" properly and now I don't need to
visit that unit any longer so I need a way to distinguish it on the list and so far it's the only AS mission because
everybody ELSE is on rest status and they still need a quick peek by the doctor.

The only thlng worse than a Nate is a Claude from the 1930's followed by a biplane from the
1920's. And I've run into a group of them. They can't protect themselves in combat. They are
a liability and I need them in a quiet place instead of near Rangoon or Singapore or Manila
or the east coast of Malaya ( shortly ) so I think I'll move these bad boys to NE China,
Pieking or Shanghi and let them train and fly CAP and then if they are actually needed in a
pinch, I suppose I'd fly them into the Rabaul area to supplement the Zero's and Oscar's.

The more I've thought about it the more I'd like to see a picture of the major aircraft in the unit.
To give me some idea what I can expect from the unit. Two engines means heavy, low performer
in dogfights. And that means that ordinarily you probably shouldn't use it as a dogfighter but it
will probably be able to defend itself should it come under attack. It's own escort so to speak.
I'm thinking I'll use this bad boy in ground support and recon and training. And I'll split one of
them off to be the squadron commander's private liason plane. To take him to meetings, etc.

Here's that same unit in Hong Chon where I'm stationing him. He's supposed to cover the landings that take place
within his range, which I see in the mini-map covers Rangoon as well. I'm impressed. He's going to need some
fighters to keep the Allied fighters off his back. I'll see if I can't find a suitable AS fighter unit for his
hex.

I think I've found our fighter unit for the Malaya coast. This unit has Oscar II's in it's mix and they are currently
stationed in far NE China. A waste of talent I think. So I'm moving this unit to the hex where the Dinah's are
currently sitting awaiting a CAP.

So when that fighter unit reaches the destination hex I do a right click on him and ask for him to do AS missions and
another right click to ask for a group composition. The result is in the next post below.

And here's the Group Composition. As you can see I'm starting to mix formations in the same hex and I need to correct
that by deciding who stays and then finding the parts of his formation that aren't there and move them there. So they
can all be together as a unit. With their HQ unit in their hex would be ideal.

Here's the formation for that fighter unit and as you can see it's got bombers and fighters that are unemployed. I'm
in the process now of getting these guys together in the Saigon-Hong Chon area so they can work as a unit. The tired
ones, the yellow ones I'll move to the home islands for rest and refit.

Have I mentioned this before, when you have a mixed-type unit you have to determine the range of the unit based on
some logical criteria. In this case there's more Sonia's than Sally's so I go with the range of the Sonia. Clicking
on the label for the range of the unit you'll get a dialog to change the range. I made this one 21. The range
indicator still has the old range in it to indicate to you that there are other aircraft in the unit with a greater
range than you have it set for.

I think I've got them all together now, almost all of them. I was disappointed to find out that the formation had no
HQ unit to cheer up the flying squadrons. So it's not so important that they all be together anymore. I can use them
independently, where they are needed at the moment. They don't know it yet but they are in for a lot of furballs over
Singapore.

I found a unit of Emily's and that's the long-range recon planes that can scour lots of ocean area. It was in the
home islands but I think it's going to be a while before this unit's services are going to be needed that close to
home, knock on wood. So I flew them out to Saipan and look what he can see now. He's going to need some fighters
to CAP for him. I'll work on that next.