Matrix Games Forums

I'm finding it very hard to continue playing UV. The AI is awful, but PBM is so screwed up.

My opponent openly sails his starting CV,CV, CVL task force up and down the cost of Aulstraila. I get frustrated and put almost every plane into brisbane and plaster him (more than once). His combat reports by text show my airforce slaughtered, no hits and none of his aircraft damaged. Of course my combat replay shows an occasional hit on his carriers and I even shoot down a few planes (maybe 1 for each 5-10 I lose).

Now my task force out of harms way suddenly finds his CVs returning home (I don't think my sighting reports even give the correct locations!).

In the combat he sends me MY SBDs, TBDs, and Wildcats are slaughtered and get no hits. Of course in my combat replay I get 4 hits on each CV and sink the CVL while losing one 1 CV. Of course in real game life I got no hits and lost both my carriers.

I'm tired of getting sinking reports on my combat replay on his ships and seeing my ships sunk in the Intellegence list but not in the replay.

HOW CAN THIS BE?????? Is it possible that I'm sending a combat seed or random number that is biased or bugged to consistently give me bad combat results????

Maybe you are having technical problems joliverlay but more likely your tactics might need some tweaking.

The IJN can be beaten early in PBEM games, ie the Shokaku, Zuikaku and Shoho can be beaten in May.
I've done in in all my PBEM games so far. You won't beat his CV's with land based air but they will tire his aircrews out and your CV's can then finish the job.

Rest your crews early, get their morale up to 99.

Don't take on his CV's until you reinforce one of your carriers with VMF-221.

Give your CV taskforce a good commander, F.C. Sherman , Mitscher and Spruance are all good.
I've been using only Spruance so far but checking the scenario editor I can see there are better leaders.

Time your approach with your CV's towards his CV's so that he has been engaged sinking rubbish for a few turns...let his CV's eat their fill and then pounce.
His CV's roaming up and down the Australian coastline sinking Ap's etc is exactly what you want.
All the while he will have his CAP at high levels because he doesn't know where your CV's are at.
When your CV's finally clash his crews will be tired and dispirited and you can pretty much guarantee an allied carrier victory.

Set your CAP to only 10% when close to friendly bases as even if there is a battle your Dauntlesses will get through and cripple his ships a long way from home. Raise the CAP when you approach his CV's to something like 40-50%.

I've had the same exact problem in my two PBMs with Yamamoto. For some reason his replay and mine are almost never in synch, with the replay I see as the Allies always being much kinder to the Allies than the one Yamamoto saw (which is also, unfortunately for me, the 'real' one). There's a thread somewhere in this forum about this bug, but it's a tough one for Matrix to track down. With this bug there does seem to be a propensity for the Allies to get spanked (I had a AC TF under a no fly cloud and they got hit, and of course refused to strike back in return) much worse than I would normally expect. My guys would never hit anything, almost all IJN plane losses were to flak or ops losses, since my guys were incapable of shooting his down. This condition does make PBM pretty impossible, as you are correct, even spotting reports don't 'match'. Good news is that all my other PBMs this condition does not exist. So, in order to reduce your frustration, start another PBM with a different player.

Thanks for the reply. I am indeed playing a player named Yamato though perhaps not the same one (how did you know.)

I followed all of the tips you suggested (not by design). Let him bomb transports for three days a few hexes from brisbane. I bombed him every day with my entire australian air force. I got no hits on the "real" combat report and did note even down planes with AA or my Fighters. Of course my combat replay showed something entirely different.

After this I inadvertantly jumped him (4 hexes away) on his way back home with 2 fresh carriers with very high morale and very rested. His combat report showed no hits to his carriers whereas mine showed Shoho sunk and 4 hits each on Zuk and Suk. My cap limited him to hits only on one carrier damaged on my report whereas in reality he sunk both.

It is as one computer was set to maximim advantage for the Japanese Player and the other on historical.

Over and over.

I've been playing quite alot of PBEM lately as either side and have not experienced this yet. The replays pretty much coincide with the actual results, with the replays being somewhat optimistic on occasion. Seems fine to me.

Curious Ron, what version of Windows you running on?

On my Windows 2000 machines, I'm lucky to go 20 days without troops/ships vanishing

Much as I'd like to chuck Windows 2k for XP, I have too many machines to upgrade for my pocketbook to absorb.


Can we get some kind of numbers out of folks when reporting bugs, might be more helpful ...

I'm running Win 2k w/512Megs and Win XP w/768Megs here. UV doesn't really seem to like Win 2k from a data integrity standpoint...

For the record my problems are occurring on an athalon xp-1700 equipped with 250MB (mabe 500MB?) DDR memory operating with windows 98 SE.

Originally posted by Mr.Frag
Curious Ron, what version of Windows you running on?

On my Windows 2000 machines, I'm lucky to go 20 days without troops/ships vanishing

Much as I'd like to chuck Windows 2k for XP, I have too many machines to upgrade for my pocketbook to absorb.


Can we get some kind of numbers out of folks when reporting bugs, might be more helpful ...

I'm running Win 2k w/512Megs and Win XP w/768Megs here. UV doesn't really seem to like Win 2k from a data integrity standpoint...

Good old Win 98SE

Originally posted by Mr.Frag
Curious Ron, what version of Windows you running on?

On my Windows 2000 machines, I'm lucky to go 20 days without troops/ships vanishing

Much as I'd like to chuck Windows 2k for XP, I have too many machines to upgrade for my pocketbook to absorb.


Can we get some kind of numbers out of folks when reporting bugs, might be more helpful ...

I'm running Win 2k w/512Megs and Win XP w/768Megs here. UV doesn't really seem to like Win 2k from a data integrity standpoint...

The wanishing troop problem is something I've been send by many customers but this replay problem that most of us are no longer having seems to be related to something with an opponents hardware or software...I've heard too many times how someone is having a problemwith one opponent but in the other games everything is fine replay wise...strange. Anyway he will send me saves which I hope will help

Originally posted by Mike_B20
The IJN can be beaten early in PBEM games, ie the Shokaku, Zuikaku and Shoho can be beaten in May. I've done in in all my PBEM games so far. You won't beat his CV's with land based air but they will tire his aircrews out and your CV's can then finish the job.

I think not! Since version 2.30, land-based air won't attack air combat TF's, except under the most extreme conditions--like when the TF is in a base hex, possibly even docked. I think this is a "bug" that was introduced when Matrix over tweaked the game to prevent "suicidal" attacks on CAP protected ships. Has anyone else noticed this? Or have another explanation?

Originally posted by dpstafford
I think not! Since version 2.30, land-based air won't attack air combat TF's, except under the most extreme conditions--like when the TF is in a base hex, possibly even docked. I think this is a "bug" that was introduced when Matrix over tweaked the game to prevent "suicidal" attacks on CAP protected ships. Has anyone else noticed this? Or have another explanation?

Well, I haven't seen any land based level bomber attack CV's in my games.
Some P39's attacked the carriers escorts when my opponent was resting his CAP but joliverlay reports hitting his opponents carriers from Brisbane with everything he had.
I would expect Aircobras and Dauntlesses to attack carriers if escorted.

Joliverlay, what did you have in Brisbane at the time?

If you transferred your carrier aircraft into Brisbane then it's to be expected they would be slaughtered in combat as their fatigue would have been very high if they didn't have a few turns to recover.

I too have experienced the irregularities re combat save replays.
One thing I don't understand...the allies have no combat save file and rely on their IJN opponent to send it to them to see what happened the previous turn.
When I have copied this file from my opponents email to the UV save directory and deleted all others, the first time I play it I see no differences to what happened when my opponent processed the turn but If I replay it, sometimes I see completely different events, as if the combat save file is being interpreted differently each time or a new on is created.

I just had this bug hit too. As allies, mid May 1942, CV battle around PM. My combat report shows 4 bomb hits on Shoho, 3 on a DD and 1 on a CA. The Japan combat report doesn't even show any attacks by me. BUT, all my F4 and SBD groups landed at PM, so they flew. My CVs got creamed. What gives? Is there something that is wipping out the Allied attacks?

If this continues, why play this game?

I have save game files for this.

Originally posted by BillBrown
If this continues, why play this game?

I have save game files for this.

Please send them to

dpalb02@student.vxu.se

...oh both passwords too please

For Mike B-20.

In response to your question. My attack against Japanese naval targets involved all of my LAND Based aircraft in SW Pacific area. I moved P40s, P39s, A20s, B26s, B25, Bouforts, etc. to Brisbane after two rounds of attacks against Brisbane bound convoys. Then I got off two consecutive attacks using fighters for escort (not naval attack). One of my attacks showed a hit on a CVL and we both lost aircraft. On my opponents combat (the real one) I was creamed both turns.

Only then after thee rounds of airstrikes against my transports and two rounds of attacks by me (with LBA) against the Japanese did he retreat directly into the path of my 2 fresh rested well led (Mitschner) CVs. In response to your comment about fatigue....my naval bombers fatigue was ZERO and morale was 90+. My ships were docked for 3 about 3 weeks prior with only 2 turns at sea. With 60% of fighters on both carriers attacking (38? fighters + 72? SBD +32? TBDs YES they attacked to) I destroyed him on my combat replay. Sunk CVL and crippled to CVs with 4 1000lb? bomb hits each........Of course on the real replay my fresh aircrews were slaughtered by his fatigued zeros (already 4 rounds of conscutive combat escorting attacks on transports or defending against land based air). Moreover in my combat report my fresh cap minimized his hits to a few with significant damage to only one carrier. In his attack his fatigued bombers got 100% and 97% against my fresh rested high morale CAP!

It is as if his aircraft are getting the advantage of the handicap setting. If I cant even get a hit with two fresh air groups in a suprise attack against a fatigued returning Japanese Fleet that has been fighting the entire USAF and AuAF forces at brisbane then I can't win no matter what I do.

joliverlay, that does sound VERY strange.
Your carriers should have easily defeated his by the sound of things.
His aircrews should have been exhausted.
Maybe you should send some saves to U2...somethings wacky for sure.

I've never played as IJN but have wondered if there is a way to multisolution combat results.
How does the random seeding routine work?
Is it possible as IJN to try different methods of turn resolution until one gets a favourable result?

The vanishing troop problem is something I've been send by many customers

Dan, it's not just troops, I was zooming around with a bunch of CA/DD/DD TF's doing fast transports to snag dot bases (cleanup duties) so we are talking about 20 odd naval TF's on various missions, with about 6 separate groups of Fast Transport (mostly CL/DD/DD).

The CA/DD/DD TF had both DD's simply vanish from the TF. This kind of thing is quite common in my experience. I can cause it fairly quickly in an H2H game within 10 days of game start just by making lots of TF's and running them around.

I have always figured that this is a problem with Windows 2000 on my end as the sheer level of frustration this would cause others in PBEM with units simply vanishing all the time would have masses of people up in arms. Since I don't see many posts of this nature, I've assumed it is at my end, but you tend to indicate that you have lots of them.

This is obviously a major index corruption problem within the game if it is widespread ... please STRESS TEST and get some BETA testers who are more interesting in breaking the game instead of playing the game

If I can reproduce this corruption just by creating lots of small TF's and running them around, there is really no reason it should have gotten past beta

Originally posted by Mr.Frag
Dan, it's not just troops, I was zooming around with a bunch of CA/DD/DD TF's doing fast transports to snag dot bases (cleanup duties) so we are talking about 20 odd naval TF's on various missions, with about 6 separate groups of Fast Transport (mostly CL/DD/DD).


I. Since I don't see many posts of this nature, I've assumed it is at my end, but you tend to indicate that you have lots of them.


If I can reproduce this corruption just by creating lots of small TF's and running them around, there is really no reason it should have gotten past beta

I've had three customers with ground units dissapearing...so it's not that many. Anyway I have never had surface ships wanish so PLEASE reproduce it and send it to me.

My save games, password, system specs, and explanation of problem are on the way now.

I have asked my opponent to send you his password and system specs.

I doubt disappearing units has anything to do with system specs.
Much more likely people not reporting the problem because a lot of casual players not bothering to report it or not noticing.

Also, some players may try a way of moving troops/units about that other players don't try and stumbling on the bugs, eg moving troops by ship and air transport simultaneously or in Mr Frags case, using heaps of small taskforces.

Originally posted by Mike_B20
I doubt disappearing units has anything to do with system specs.

I agree. However system specs might explain how some are having replay problems which is also not happening very often anymore. The strange part is that someone can have four games and only experience the problem in one.