micromanagement....

[scout1]

I got a copy of BTR thinking that I would really enjoy i, as I enjoy WitP.... They do share some common heritage .....

Anyways, BTR is a live micromanagement game, meaning you have to actively watch the turn run so you can react, unlike witp. witp, you issue orders and let the turn run, undisturbed.


I wwas wondering if the players actually prefer the BTR model compared to the witp model......

[USSMaine]

I think it depends on your mood for the day - hands on or hands off . The beauty of it was that you have both

[Nikademus]

I feel that in terms of a2a combat and even more substantially, 'flak' representation, BTR has the more accurate model. That said i have to admit i like WitP's combat resolution phase better as it's more enjoyable to watch. BTR's combat resolution phase is lengthy, boarding at times on tedious and the combat is often depressingly linear....."group x bounces group y......result 98% of the time is either 1 damaged or 1 killed plane. Things get exaserbated as the combat continues with smaller and smaller elements engaging till you are litterally going sequencially through a bunch of messages that say 1 plane bounceing 1 plane....result either or damaged or destroyed. There's also the little problem Speedy highlighted about escorts on the return run with their charges just sitting there passively allowing German interceptors to take shots at them. At times i find myself skipping the combat replay entirely and just going to the action reports. Kind of defeats the purpose of enjoying "the game" but some of the resolutions take forever to resolve and as said, you can pretty much predict how each air combat will resolve without seeing it.

As already mentioned by me , i find the recon element extremely tedious. To really be a good Allied player you have to submit yourself to assigning dozens of recon missions and somehow try to keep track of whats being photo'd. I'd prefer this element to either be more automated or abstracted. I guess there's also an exploit there too in that a ruthless German player can intercept and play havoc with recon missions. My current game has a house rule where the recon missions are left alone.

outside of that.....would like to see some UI improvements. I have a hard time navigating to various OOB screens.

[Hard Sarge]

Hi Nik
thanks for mentioning the replay fuction

I had forgotten about that, that needs to be reworked if possiable, Sweeps don't show as doing anything, if you send out a lot of sweeps, it is really HARD to tell which ones did any good

hmmm, which speaking of Sweeps, Sweeps should also count as Recon

Recon ?

hmmm, I normally, just let the staff take care of it, unless it is something I just got to know

I don't like the Med Recon force, a lot of times, it will plot a lot of raids to combat units, so I will go back and delete those

[Nikademus]

just discovered this using BoB...yup, let the damn staff plot it. I'm a busy Reichsmarshall!!!! Time for dinner!

[steveh11Matrix]

It's the micromanagement required during the play of the turn that put me off BTR, coupled with it's sheer scale I found it too much. BoB, being smaller, is a better fit for me.

Steve.

[Hard Sarge]

Hi Nik
watch the staff in BoB, they will get your Recon slaughtered, in fact, for BoB, you may be better off in planning them yourself

[Speedysteve]

My take on recon is thus -

If you leave the AI to it in BoB or BTR it will plot missions to a set of targets and quite often will never plot to certain sites of that target type. It also has a tendancy to plot at low level (especially in BTR over Italian front troops = heavy flak losses).

If you wish to leave the AI to it due to the scale of plotting involved then go for it in BTR.

As HS says in BoB there is relatively little to recon (compared to BTR) and as such the little bit of extra time spent on it it yourself will be worth it.

BTR -

I personally always plot recon myself no matter what.

I have 2 general policies. 1 early game. The other mid-late game.

1. During the early game I plot recon on any clear day upto the maximum number of missions (after plotting ALL bombing raids for the day). Target wise I will choose everything. Especially sites where you have NO recon info. I will literally plot methodically down the list target type by target type until I have months worth of relatively upto date info.

2. Once I have enough strength (in my mind) to launch a sustained attack on a target type I change my recon. I will specifically recon the targetted industry day after day after day weather permitting. To prevent info on other target types diminishing I still plot to these aswell EXCEPT only 1 other target type each day.

E.G. If i'm going after Rubber I will plot recon to every Rubber site on every possible day. I will also plot to all Chemical sites one day, BB sites the next day.

The above is just my preference.

I also never fly below 20K. Once more just my preference. At this height your recon won't detect any LAA but will also suffer lower losses. My reason for not bothering with LAA is that i'm not a big fan of sweeps and as such LAA has less relevance to me.

Regards,

Steven

[wernerpruckner]

in a BoB, with well planed recce, you will have all targets with pictures less than 5 days old after two weeks of game.
In BTR you will never be able to to that.