Matrix Games Forums

Hi Gang,
This is my 1st post so apologies if this has been answered before. I used to play a fair bit of Steel Panthers but I can't get it work any longer with Windows XP (thanks a lot Mr Gates!) so SPWAW it is for me.

My open question is - how does scoring work in Lost Victories?
I've got as far as the Pripet Marshes area, previously I often seemed to get a draw and a 'ticking off' from the debriefing despite taking all objectives and (I thought) decisively giving the Russkies a good kicking. So for the Pripet Marshes scenario I started to add up the hex scores - I held most hexes for most of the game, killed all the pesky Cossacks and what happens in the debrief , I get another draw and a 'not very good Hauptmann Weber' from the debrief. I reckon I must had had at least 3 times as many points as the Russians, easily earning a MV.

Am I missing something?

I have patched up to 7.1 but didn't restart the campaign. maybe that has something to do with it?

Despite these oddities I think its a great game and well worth the money , despite the import costs.

cheers,

Al

Not everything in a Mega is so cut and dry. You have to pay very close attention to the objectives given prior to the battle. It's not always destroy everything and caputre all victory hexes. It could be something a simple as not allowing a certain unit of yours to be killed or you must kill a certain unit of the enemy. Or another option could be that you should take something (a bridge maybe) quickly and the have your forces retreat through retreat hexes and off the map quickly. At this point it's hard to say not knowing the exact path you have choosen. As for the scoring in victories I'll post the ratio below but you'll notice a slight overlap in a draw vs a MV. Have you applied the LV patches. I understand that it appears that you started LV under SPWAW 7.0 and then patched to 7.1 without restarting, usually a big no no as it's always recommended to restart any battle from scratch when the game engine changes to keep the saved game constant with the game itself. If you haven't applied the LV patches you should and if you did without restarting the battle from scratch, this is a big problem as all the *.dat files were redone and they won't coincided with the old save. If you have done this I'm very surprised you hadn't had any very unusual circumstances within LV to this point.

Human vs computer
More than 1-3 Decisive Loss
1-3 to 3-1 Draw
3-1 to 7-1 Minor victory
7-1 Higher Major victory

The odds vs human player are a little lower. This is due to the predictable action of the AI in computer generated battles.

Human vs. Human
More than 1-2 Decisive Loss
1-2 to 2-1 Draw
2-1 to 6-1 Minor victory
6-1 Higher Major victory

Thanks for the explanation - I must admit I don't want to restart again but it looks like I'll have to.
I can't face having to battle those KV2's again with 37MM guns!

Al

You can always try an alternate path the next time through, that way you can experience different parts of LV. Unfortunatley restarting after all patches and upgrades is the only way to ensure a complete successful flow of the game.

The battle is an ambush and you are being testing in an adverse situation. If your losses were too high your performance is unnacceptable to General Henrici, but the result does take into account some of this is out of your hands. You are being judged by your choices as well as your performance

"Hauptmann Vebber, Your advance to Malin was not well handled. It is apparent from the reports that it is not all your fault, but your decisions were inadequate considering the enemy situation around Malin and Korosten."

Hello fans and great matrix people,

I just finished the "No Escape" scenario (near Lubny area, maybo node 30 or so not too sure, sorry) and encountered a very weird scoring situation. I'm running v7.1. I really hope someone from matrix or this forum and shed some light on the situation, thanks in advance!

This scenario is about 16 turns long, with only 2 victory hexes on the whole map, both of which are worth 10 points per turn. Since they started out in german hands and never changed side during the whole battle, I ought to get all 320 points out of them at the end of battle right?

Well, at around turn 11 I've destroyed all russian units, including around a dozen tanks/ACs plus a company or 2 of mot infantry w/ trucks, while losing a stug plus 2 or 3 half-tracks. Over the course of the battle I saved game several times by select quit and then reload the saved game to continue (in order to avoid losing turns due to potential program crash). The last time I saved was around turn 11. At the end of each of the next few turns the computer reports morale broken for the russian side, and there's no enemy activity at all, but the game does not end (even though I control both of the VO hexes). It finally ends after turn 16 and then thinking that I should have a DV, needless to say I was shocked to receive the following scores:

me: 100 points
AI: 119 points

A Draw.

I was baffled to no end and kept thinking about how this could have happened. The only "plausible" explanation I could come up with, no knowing much about the internal game mechanics, is that the game somehow "forgot" about the per turn scores I received as well as all the kill scores prior to the last time I saved and quitted the game (around turn 11). That seems to be the only reason I'd have gotten a neat 100 points score:

2 (VO hexes) x 10 (points per turn each) x 5 (turns since I last saved) = 100 points?

The following is a ton of questions I have regarding this scoring situation and I appreciate any answers anyone can offer

- Does anyone recall similar experience where the final score seems way lower than what you expect, especially in situation where you saved/quitted game late in the battle and when per turn VO hexes present?

- Could my assumption be correct in that the computer actually accumulates "kill" scores each turn instead of at the end of the battle? I guess only the programmer at matrix can give a definitive answer to this?

- Even if my assumption is correct in that the computer has somehow "forgotten" my accumulated scored up to turn 11 (including the per turn VO scores and all the russian units I killed prior to quitting the game), that still cannot explain what the 119 points awarded to the AI represents. Since my last save there was absolutely no battle activities at all and I didn't suffer any causulty during that last 5 turns. At the same time, it does not look like the total scores the AI would have gotten if all my loses (from the beginning of the battle) are calculated, as it'd have been much highter than 119 points. Just that Stug alone would cost me over 119 points I think, not to mention the half tracks and a scout unit or 2. Therefore, I have no idea where that 119 points come from?

It'd look like the safest thing to do, unless someone can offer a good fix to this, is that I just play a battle from start to finish without saving/quitting in the middle -- program crashes be damned

Sorry for rambling on for so long, but if you made it this far, then PLEASE, give me your intellectual guesses to this.

Your fellow "armchair general" in arms,
Ivan the Terrible

This is something that I have noticed before my self. The trick is that in some of the senarios the victory hexes do not show up until you actually move over them!!! I know this because in one senario when you are persueing Ivan it happened to me and I could not figure out why I got such a dismal score. Well anyway I think that when you take the victory hexes and how soon you do it in the senario makes a difference also.