Rise Of Nations game

[springer]

The Salò Republic's GLD unit looks intimidating (I hear their training is USMC quality!). But be careful with that poison gas.  You never know which way the wind blows!

[Arditi]

ORIGINAL: springer

The Salò Republic's GLD unit looks intimidating (I hear their training is USMC quality!). But be careful with that poison gas.  You never know which way the wind blows!

hahahhahahaha... I think the "chicks' will dig playing AT with the "GLD" unit available. They'll always pick that sft type for their random games.[;)] ha

[tweber]

Turn sent.  In the North, traded shots with the WT and recaptured the factory I lost.  My GS pushed back the LL a hex or two.  Terrain and wx was tough. 
 
In the south, sunk a bunch of cruisers and got a few hexes with artillery strikes.

[seille]

@Tom

Pls never ever use that trick with empty sea units to surrender my ships !
This is bug abuse at its best [:@]
I suggest you install hotfix 1.22 (as i did). Then this kind of fun is over.
Not funny to see my cruisers going down to such unfair tricks. Move real fleets to these
points and not these dummy units.
Why you can´t do normal attacks with giving my ships the chance to retreat ?
Just the normal way to play the game. Encircle them with real units and not with these dummy
unit shells.

@All
Why i´m so annoyed ?
Tom moved empty unit shells (not longer possible with 1.22) to surround my ship units,
then he attacked with the only strong ship unit he had there. My ships weren´t able to retreat
due to this trick and surrendered. Anyone here who call this fair play ??

[george1972]

That's pretty weak...

[british exil]

Reading this I remember in WWII the Allied's used dummy units to fool the Germans that the invasion was not in the Normandy but still to come in the Pas De Calais.

Forced the Axis to deploy Divisions in the area badly needed on the real front.

The Allied forces even sed phoney radio signals to give the deciet more effect.


But that was not a game but real life. War!!

Now some may feel that it is a grey zone in the game and I have often thought about using that tactic to give the impression I have a massive army defending a section of my front, but always felt it was unfair or to use the other word cheating.

Or as George said :pretty weak.

I was enjoying the AAR until the last few threads, the game seems to have a sour taste attached to it now. Which is a shame.

I hope you can fix things out and carry on playing the game in a decent way.

I do not wish to intend to insult anyone with my post.

[seille]

Dummy units was a the wrong term. I talked about empty NAVAL UNITS. This is a bug which was abused
for making retreat for my cruisers impossible. Legal ways to destroy my forces are ok,
but this must be a bad joke.

[george1972]

Yep, indeed pretty weak...

I vote Tom must scuttle that fleet on his next turn and refrain from using this tactic in the remainder of this game. Any seconds?

[british exil]

Is there a difference between dummy units and empty units?
They both cost pp's.

Ok dummy units can't move. So if I build them into defensive positions would not hold an attack but maybe thwart an attack.

Seeing the screenshot, does look a bit unfair to say the least, but I will not push the subject as I am only a spectator.

[seille]

In this case Tom simply disbanded the empty units after the attack and got his PP´s back.
 
Turn to George. Missed my cruisers a lot [:(]

[george1972]

Turn to Arditi. Not a good turn. Scouting is becoming very costly with massive fighter groups patrolling GS territory... And Flak everywhere makes my small air force useless unless executing mass attacks, but these mass attacks limit my options each turn...

[tweber]

Hi Seille,
 
I do not think this tactic was previously used or commented on.  If you want to make a house rule where this is prohibited, that is fine.  If you think I took an unfair advantage and should elimate some ships to even things up as well, that is fine as well.
 
I played around with the hotfix and I am not sure I like the approach taken.  As far as I can tell, empty shells still prevent naval retreat.  However, you cannot move whole units via strategic transfer at sea.  So, a fleet could not divide and surround an opposing fleet.  Also, a fleet could not split at sea and go after a couple of objectives.  In general, this limits naval movement quite a bit.

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: seille

@Tom

Pls never ever use that trick with empty sea units to surrender my ships !
This is bug abuse at its best [:@]
I suggest you install hotfix 1.22 (as i did). Then this kind of fun is over.
Not funny to see my cruisers going down to such unfair tricks. Move real fleets to these
points and not these dummy units.
Why you can´t do normal attacks with giving my ships the chance to retreat ?
Just the normal way to play the game. Encircle them with real units and not with these dummy
unit shells.

@All
Why i´m so annoyed ?
Tom moved empty unit shells (not longer possible with 1.22) to surround my ship units,
then he attacked with the only strong ship unit he had there. My ships weren´t able to retreat
due to this trick and surrendered. Anyone here who call this fair play ??

I'd have to call it an exploit. A step beyond 'gamey'.

OTOH, it shows he's really having to dig deeply against you. Almost a sign of desparation.

[seille]

I take it for granted tactics like this are not used in a PBEM game.
We play for fun, but the game should still be fair.
 
Using this exploit was a big mistake, Tom.
Think i won´t forget this for a long time [:(]
 
Strat transferring empty units over sea is not longer possible with 1.22.
Just tried it again.

[springer]

(My unsolicited Kibitz comment:)

I've really been enjoying this game.

But I have to agree that the use of empty units is very "gamey".
 

Imagine the analagous strategy done on the land.  To make a breakthrough, an attacker blocks the retreat routes of a sound defensive line with dummy counters.  That would clearly be an exploit.

And when launching an attack, one can't break up one's divisions into regiments then move them. The offensive would have to be planned a turn before. That's when the units would have to be broken up for flexible maneuvering. In other words, an extra turn would be needed before an offense with subunits could be launched.

I agree that the command control of naval units makes these planned break ups more difficult (they must be done in port) by that just makes the game more strategic.  It creates a nice negative side-effect of creating mega-fleets: they lack the flexibility to surround and destroy units and limit tactical choices when deployed far from a friendly port.

For the sake of this great game, which challenges all the players, I hope that all the Seille/Tweber come to an equitable agreement on the solution of this.  (And I hope that the need to seek vengence will result in future rematches!)

[Arditi]

  Ok Guys,
  Let's get back on track.  Tom won't use it again and we can finish up the game.  I am not discounting anybodies concerns, on the tactic used...let's forgive and move on.  We have some good people here and we are all competitive and passionate for the game.
  Best To All, Arditi[:)]

[Arditi]

...turn sent.
   Best Regards, Russ[:)]

[tweber]

Turn sent to Juergen,
 
South was relatively quite.  Launched a air raid against a base with high casualties on my side.  It openned the attack for the GS.
 
The GS attacked a large air base in the original LL capital.  I was able to inflict a high casualty level.  In the end, the plane losses were pretty high for both sides.  It was an interesting turn. 
 
The WT has a tough unit mix. 

[tweber]

Looks like this game is over. It went 60 rounds and still felt undecided at the end. Here is my pre turn 60 OOB.

The GS had a larger but less advanced fighter corps. The big difference was in dive bombers and artillery. Most of this was deployed on a single front so I was able to be quite aggressive.

The GS also had more mortars and SMG. The terrain of the GS had lots of urban and woods so SMG was appropriate.

On a ship standpoint. The GS had a large cargo flt but most of this was far north trying to keep my operational fleets in supply. I had very little cargo capacity along the GS / LL front and would have had a serious problem once I had to launch a large invasion in the south. The GS also had a large DD corps but this was due to losing a big fleet battle to the WT than by design.

The JI had a balance fleet that was very effective. Even a fleet of this size was very difficult to keep in supply over the long haul. With current supply rules, mega stacks of ships are not practical if the scenario goes more than 20 rounds.

[tweber]

Here is the kill and loss picture for both regimes.

In the air, I was getting killed by the WT and the LL on a regular basis.

I also lost more artillery. My GS losses were due to the fact that I had so much artillery and played it pretty aggressively. Most of my JI artillery losses were due to the fact that I often lost control of the skies in the vital front.

Infantry loses were pretty consistent.

The tally for ships was strongly in my favor. Most of my big naval victories came after large LL or JI naval stacks ran out of supply.

In the end, Seille was ahead in the air and I was ahead at sea.