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Every single PBEM game I have had as Allies, the Siberians do not arrive until April 27th, 1942, and arrive at the end of my turn, and so are not available to actually be moved until late May. By the time you operate them, it is June. I understand that there are triggers for this, but in my latest game, the Germans are less than 10 hexes from Moscow, and have been for several turns. And STILL, April 27th. Really? What does it take? The designers of this game do realize that, historically, they were deployed and saw combat in December 1941, right? How is it that over an over again, they arrive at the latest possible date allowed by the scripts?
I think the scripts need to be adjusted. It is not right the the Soviets are denied the Siberians with such consistency when they are in such desperate straights. Don't the Germans have enough advantages? The Siberians are not available for actual combat until at least 6 months later than historical, every time, and the effect is devastating.
Am I just having bad luck, or have other people noticed this?

Every single PBEM game

Your opponent knows the triggers better than you ??

I had them arrive 'early', and miss out on getting Inf Weapons 2 because of it.

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Every single PBEM game

Your opponent knows the triggers better than you ??

ouch

sPz spreading the holiday cheer

I thought that was a rather nice response, compared to my other thoughts on the matter.

This does sound like your opponents might be studying the scripts and acting accordingly.

If there is a consensus that this is the case then I can make things a bit more variable, as although Taxman66 makes a fair point that the USSR can actually benefit from them being delayed, I'm not really a fan of having things where someone who digs deep into the scripts can use that knowledge to their advantage against someone who doesn't know the game so well, or who doesn't have time to adopt the same approach.

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre
... I'm not really a fan of having things where someone who digs deep into the scripts can use that knowledge to their advantage against someone who doesn't know the game so well ...

From what I've read on here, I think that most of the best players know the scripts like the back of their hands.

In which case spicing it up a bit might not be a bad thing. [;)]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Every single PBEM game

Your opponent knows the triggers better than you ??

The point was that if the Germans can get that close to Moscow in fall 1941 without triggering the arrival of the Siberians, the triggers should be adjusted.
I am sure that they do know the triggers better than I do, but the Siberians still come under the circumstances stated.
Thanks for the nastiness, it always makes my day. [8|]
Merry Christmas.

I don't take what I said as being nasty, the same way that you weren't being nasty with this comment [although some could interpret it that way]:

The designers of this game do realize that, historically, they were deployed and saw combat in December 1941, right?

But don't get yourself upset over nothing, I saw your post and looked at the scripts in order to figure out why the Siberians would not arrive consistently until the Failsafe Date. It seemed that the best possibility might be that your opponent knew the script and was playing in a way to delay the Siberians on you. So I asked if that might be the answer to your question, that is all.
Your opponent should answer if such is true, after all he is doing nothing wrong, he is simply reading the 'fine print' that comes with the game.

Agreed (on both points). As long as that info is available to both players, there's nothing wrong with using it. A good commander uses all available information when planning. And feel free to ridicule my blunders (it's the only way I'll learn... [:(])

You are still missing the point completely, perhaps I am not making myself clear. I will try one last time.
First, I will lay some ground work, please do not take this the wrong way.
One side of this war game is referred to as "Allies", and the other side "Axis", and the year "1939" is given as a starting point. This means that the game takes place in a historical context, and it should be more than just a collection of rules and scripts.

If you wanted to be completely free of historical restraints, the game could have been set on the planet Zirkon between the Zirkon Collective and the Tarkalean Alliance. Then you could make whatever rules you wanted, and it would be the players fault for not learning them intimately.
Do you know why it not set on Zirkon? Because you would not sell very many games.

The game has been made to appeal to history buffs, and I am willing to bet that they make up the vast majority of people who buy the game, like myself. I want to be able to play the game through my knowledge of history, not through reading code and counting units and hexes. When I see see something ahistorical happen in the game, like, say, if the Germans advance near Moscow in December 1939 and, through some quirk in the rules, the Siberians do not show up, I see a problem with the game, not with my understanding of the rules. I have no interest in learning rules that do not reflect history. If that makes me a "bad commander", so be it.

I understand that when you are involved in the design of a game, it is easy to get lost in rules and script details, and have the trees block your view of the forest. I also understand that when someone criticizes the game you helped make, is is easy to get insulted (Bill is a saint).

Especially when that criticism is inartfully expressed, as was mine, for which I humbly apologize.
As for how you meant your original comment, you second comment leaves little doubt as of the spirit in which it was given, as does the reaction of the other posters. Never the less, I should not have reacted the way I did, and should have just let it go. But I did not, for which I apologize again.

I will endeavor to express myself more artfully in the future, and be less thin-skinned.
Please understand that I am only trying to make the game better, and that I respect and appreciate your contributions.

Maybe a compromise?
As you said we start in 1939... everything went historical up to this point. Austria and Czechoslovakia are a part of the Third Reich and the military is stron again and ready to strike.

But from this point things do not have to take the historical way. And the longer the game runs the more we usually drift away. Why? That is clear. We know the history. We know that using carriers for scouting subs is no good idea. We know that France will have no chance. We know that taking Malta might be a really important thing. We know that taking Egypt is vital for winning the war. We know that the economical power of the USA an the millions of soldiers in the USSR might be a problem sometime. Knowing all that it would be very very strange to follow the historical path. At least when you play the Axis.

What the developers did was giving the game a chance to follow that path but also try something else. Both works, for both sides. If you do it the right way. At the moment I couldn't even tell what side has a little advantage.

Making the changes you suggest might be interesting as well... in fact I can't know. But it will definitely require a new balancing. And to be honest, I like the scripts as they are. Sure, there could be room to improve but your initial example is a very good one. The Sibiians arrived too late. In one of my games GB was conquered and North Africa about to fall. The result was that the USA joined very early. And that also gives you some advantages. If your opponent is not advancing far enough you gain more MPPs anyway and you have more time to recover, your western Allies have more time to prepare and so on.

I also might add that the latest beta patch (waiting for the final version) will bring some important changes too. Now GB was almost uncapable of sinking any subs. You really needed luck, 5 - 6 destroyers (at least) and 5 - 10 turns to sink ONE sub. With the new changes GB won't have such a hard time defending against the Kriegsmarine. It may be a little change but I think it will have a huge impact on the game.

btw, really looking forward to playing against you. Please have some capacities to start a new game soon

You can sink subs before these changes. You just have to invest in ASW (level 1 at least and preferably level 3), and building the CVLs and Maritime Bombers helps a ton.

sure... you can. But even with ASW 1 it takes ages and they dive and dive and dive...
you won't have any chance before mid 1941.

And the worst case is several subs at one spot diving like crazy and while you try to hunt them the large surface ships kill your destroyers. But I am more than happy with the changes that have been made so there is no problem anymore.

According to the manual, “The USSR will transfer forces from Siberia to Kazan from the 1st December 1941 if there are Axis units within the proximity of Archangelsk, Vologda, Moscow, Voronezh, Rostov, Tbilisi, Stalingrad, or Perm.” Are you saying that the rule is bad, or that it is not firing correctly? I will admit, I've never toyed with the conditions to verify that it always fires correctly. And I'm not savvy enough to deduce from the scripts what "proximity" means in terms of hexes.

If it is a bug, then by all means fix it. But if you just aren't happy with that particular design decision, I'd say "get in line". We all have our gripes, but nothing will ever satisfy everyone. Nothing is perfect.

And the worst case is several subs at one spot diving like crazy and while you try to hunt them the large surface ships kill your destroyers. But I am more than happy with the changes that have been made so there is no problem anymore.

This is a function of the problem of the naval system as a whole, where ships can't support each other.

It gets rather expensive, but it does help to give the capital ships ASW as well to protect them from the subs while they are there to protect the Destroyers.
CVL's, particularly with Long Range upgrades, help a ton in this issue as well.

ORIGINAL: bfcj

If it is a bug, then by all means fix it. But if you just aren't happy with that particular design decision, I'd say "get in line". We all have our gripes, but nothing will ever satisfy everyone. Nothing is perfect.

Hi

Just to explain that I think the issue here with the Siberians is that a player who knows how the scripts work and takes the time to look at them, could tell from the relevant script how to avoid it happening before they want it to.

I don't really like the idea of people being able to control events too much by having a great in-depth knowledge of the scripts, at least not beyond a certain point, so if I make the trigger for the Siberians slightly more variable then it should fix this, without really changing any details in game.

According to the manual, “The USSR will transfer forces from Siberia to Kazan from the 1st December 1941 if there are Axis units within the proximity of Archangelsk, Vologda, Moscow, Voronezh, Rostov, Tbilisi, Stalingrad, or Perm.”

This was deliberately vague. [;)]

Firstly, for the reason specified above, and secondly so that if we tweak it we don't need to amend the Manual. [:)]

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre


Just to explain that I think the issue here with the Siberians is that a player who knows how the scripts work and takes the time to look at them, could tell from the relevant script how to avoid it happening before they want it to.

I don't really like the idea of people being able to control events too much by having a great in-depth knowledge of the scripts, at least not beyond a certain point, so if I make the trigger for the Siberians slightly more variable then it should fix this, without really changing any details in game.

Don't the people who spend the time to research the game the most deserve an advantage? It would be nice if there was an easy manual that would describe all of these things.

It's all in the Strategy Guide, if someone fails to read it and takes on a PBEM game and gets surprised it's on them, it's not the fault of the game and the game should not be changed to accommodate such things. The laugh is that if the other player actually is playing the scripts [I asked but he hasn't answered] then he has halted his advance, and that is to the advantage of the complainer. That again has nothing to do with the game. Learn the rules, find a different opponent, don't PBEM. These are appropriate responses, blaming the game is not.