Tazo
Posts: 85
Joined: 7/29/2009
From: Toulouse, France
Status: offline
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Thank you Briny, I missed this important thread. 
I have exactly the troubles listed there so I'll use the fix. Hope that suppressing these files there is no impact when playing the jap side.
A word on my Guadalcanal experience, not the bugs but since this scenario is an important step to the GC I find important to promote it and to debug it
quickly and to help building a sharper AI for it later.
I'm starting a fourth Guadal' with the Jap after three played as US up to october for various tests, indeed very concluding in favour to an impressive realism.
What I questioned in these tests was night surface combats, convoy interception, reco, FOW and the long trend killing ratios in air to air. Finally I'm very happy :
(1) a lot of tactical variety (local, sensitive to circumstances and to each side slightly weaker points)
AND
(2) a good operational stability (global, sensitive to bad choices and poor planification/coordination).
Both are very constistent at the monthly scale, and interact since tactical events ask to really adapt the short and mid term planning. Very interestingly, the short
term is never managed with the rigth information in hand since the FOW is well designed at all levels!
(1) Given the circumstances the game parameters don't lie. Green squadrons or lone bombers have not a chance in front of experienced fighters of any side.
The same in waters with convoys. What becomes a trouble and a mistake is to insist on our own weak points or to believe that a first outcome is the rule.
Analyzing the circumstances is important either. However restarting a turn with same orders in both sides and waiting for similar weather conditions then...
fighting results are most often very close, and almost identical in situations with clear advantage. I like this conditional stability. This "predictable part" is what
we have to learn to keep well organized, not easy because the various "circumstances" (the very nice combat dynamics) are very noisy.
(2) At the monthly scale operational stability is even more clear. I mean that given an amount of agressivness and density of operations the killing ratios are
extremely stable (advantage to the Zero and the US naval escorts, not decisive but among the operational factors to deal with). Operational achievements or
fiascos are reproductible if both sides plans are the same. The weak points of both sides are nicely modeled, yet discretly at the tactical scale but natural
adaptation to them in conducting operations make the players behave in such a way that the overall losses are historicaly consistent. For instance the
"zero bonus" is not clear after a few dogfights and I was initialy desappointed, however it becomes obvious after three times "two months of dogfights" that the
zero has an advantage, a little less than 3/2 killing factor in air to air in my games (less if it encounters big escorts of cats too often), simply because even
when outnumbered zeros escape the shots at short range just more often than others and almost always score a kill in small size engagements. Of course
by misusing the units or overfighting under tireness may lead to different ratios. Or simply playing differently - but can we act so differently if a quick and
precise strategic goal is imposed and the oponent strategy too ?
(1+2) This was important for me to deeply experience the Guadal' campaign fightings to catch more accurate tactical and mid term operational feelings (including
front line supply) before the GC. This makes me feel that AE is far more subtle than a casual question of "intrinsic" tactical factors since the real balance are monthly
or yearly scaled effects. Hence a 0.1 in a key A/C characteristic or 10 points of average experience make no difference in the few first battles with specific other
circumstaces but REALLY has some impact after 60 days of figthings and playing in some way corresponding to our strategy. These long range factors are better
learned from the scenarii since they can be played quickly and iteratively (several in two weeks !). Useful to avoid a few mistakes in GC.
Whence once again the high importance of DEBUGING all the scenarios and their specific scripts/environments in the forthcoming patches. For newbies they are
the very sensitive entry point to the fabulous AE. And I now understand why for WitP veterans they are more than a good preparation to the deep changes at
the tactical and, consequently, operational levels. Also they allow various instructive tests.
TZ
_____________________________
There is only two kinds of operational plans, good ones and bad ones.
The good ones almost always fail under unexpected circumstances that often make the bad ones succeed.
-- Napoléon.
With AE immortality is no more a curse.
-- A lucky man.
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