Your first game of GGWAW will be...

[Paul Vebber]

Sounds like I could benefit from seeing some good human German play!

Game for a Germany vs Russia pbem?

[Becket]

ORIGINAL: Paul Vebber

Sounds like I could benefit from seeing some good human German play!

Game for a Germany vs Russia pbem?

Dem's fighting words!

I'll send you a setup tonight.

[ioticus]

Does the AI get cheats at higher difficult levels or does it play better or or both? Also, at what difficulty level is the AI on even footing with you?

[Paul Vebber]

Dem's fighting words!

LOL, You'll likely clean my clock - but I've always found playing the best players is teh best way to learn - and so often in these games you think one way until

Then you go OH, SO THAT IS how you do it.....

The Dificultyy levels balance the game with modifiers to the attack dice, supply, and transport capabilit. Combat is resolved by rolling N dice (N=the combat capability of the attacking unit in the particular domain - land, AA, ASW, Anti ship etc which you can improve with research granting "extra dice") and if the total is equalt or greater than the product of evasion (which you an research and improve) and durability (which is fixed) you get a "hit". 1 hit destroys militia and damages other units, tleporting them back t factory where appear "half built" in the production track. A second hit destroys a non militia unit. An attack roll double or greater the targets evasion*durabilty and it takes two hits with one shot.

Theare are modifiers to defenders evasion rating for things and to the Attack dice roll.

On easy the AI has a -2 DRM On Hard +2 and on Impossible +4

The other help difficulty gives the AI is "bonus" supply points (50 on Challenging and higher I think) and transport modifier (200% nrmal capcity on Challenging and higher).

I don't think th AI plays any differently, Its just how deadly it is in combat and how much flexibility it has to fight and move stuff around.

[Joel Billings]

There are 5 play levels. The only change in the AI other than the cheating (which I will describe below) is that at the more difficult play levels the AI has a larger number of strategies it will choose from (including more ahistorical and risky strategies). Normal is the play level that is most even up. Here's how the play levels shape up:

Play Level Supply Help Attack Help Transport Level
Easy 0 -2 100%
Normal 0 0 200%
Challenging 50 0 200%
Hard 75 +2 200%
Impossible 100 +2 200%


Supply Help is the number of supplies each of the AI World Powers will get for free each turn.
Attack Help is the die roll modifier in combat. A -2 means that the AI will have 2 subtracted from each of its units that fires in combat, and its human opponent will have 2 added when each human unit fires in combat (there are some limitations that reduce modifiers in some combat situations).
Transport Level is the modifier for strategic capacity for the AI players.


Any of these values may be changed for any of the World Powers, creating a "Custom" setting game. They can be made to help or hurt either AI or human players. A totally "fair" game has settings of 0, 0, and 100%.

Players can use the custom settings to bid for side. One method would be to have players bid for the Axis by choosing a supply help level for Germany. The player with the lowest supply help would get Germany. A negative bid would give supplies to the Western Allies.

[ioticus]

Thanks for the detailed answer, Joel! Does this mean I could play a custom game on impossible with 0 0 100% settings and therefore get an AI that uses all the strategies but doesn't cheat?

[Becket]

ORIGINAL: Paul Vebber

Dem's fighting words!

LOL, You'll likely clean my clock.

Heh, nah. I'm rusty. [:)] But it did remind me of my favorite all time testing moment when paullus and I were playbalancing the German/Soviet conflict. Here follows the results of one invasion turn (NOTE TO FORUM READERS: THESE ARE REALLY, REALLY OLD GRAPHICS, SEE RECENT SCREENSHOTS.[:)])



This is probably no longer possible due to changes in the Murmansk garrison...or at least, a lot harder than it was back then.

[Joel Billings]

ORIGINAL: ioticus

Thanks for the detailed answer, Joel! Does this mean I could play a custom game on impossible with 0 0 100% settings and therefore get an AI that uses all the strategies but doesn't cheat?

Don't think so. I think Gary reads the cheats before allowing the strategies. Don't know what he looks at for sure, so you'll just have to try it out and see.

[Rik81]

ORIGINAL: CPTBrown

I'm a Pacific War buff, too. I'll play China first, as they seem to be a pretty simple first game. That way, I can watch the other powers play with the fog of war turned off. I'm also one of those people who reads every letter of every page of the manual, especially when I get engrossed in a game. If it's not going to be printed, I'll just print it off myself a little at a time and read it when I have time.

CPT B
FLY ARMY!

This pretty well sums up my thinking also.

[invernomuto]

Side: Japan, of course. Simply love using it in every WW2 related game I played so far, A&A, HOI (also UK here), WITP.
Game: against the AI
Manual: read it first.

BYE

[Rubblestone]

128 page printed manual... almost brings a tear to my eyes

I have been reminising about the good old days of computer game manuals. Remember the old Micrprose manuals? Some of those bad boys where 200+, large sized manuals with tons of info and illustraions. My favorite parts were always the reference chapters at the end detailing things such as the diferent type of tanks (M1 tank platoon) with all their relevant information.

[coregames]

My first will be as Germany vs. AI... largely to get a feeling for how the Italians' role in GWaW compares to their role in World in Flames.

[Kampferzähn]

Being of German descent, I play Germany exclusively in any game with it as a country to play, GGWaW won't change that habit.

I'll probably just jump right in at the hardest difficulty settings just to see how long I can hold out, then I'll read the manual for anything I didn't understand and tone it down to more reasonable settings.

[mavraam]

First China just to get my feet wet.
Second Russia, to help learn the combat and supply system for a land based power.
Third Germany, still mostly land based but I'll get an itro into some limited naval.
Fourth Japan, jumping into the naval aspect with both feet.
Fifth WA, they seem to me to be the most difficult to manage because you are virtually fighting everywhere in the wolrd.