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Just Starting - 1/2/2021 12:28:09 AM

MPHopcroft1

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From: Portland, OR
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I just got this game on Steam (which may be a bit sinful in these circles) and I'm a little bit overwhelmed. The Tutorial Manual is nice but I really need it to be more available to me -- I'd like to put it on my tablet but I'm not sure how.

This certainly isn't a game you can pik up instantly! It will definitely be a learning experience.

I own so many strategic/operational WWII games it isn't funny...

So I'm curious to hear how some of you learned this game and what to completely avoid.

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Post #: 1

RE: Just Starting - 1/2/2021 2:55:21 AM

cfulbright

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1 Do the Sicily tutorial to start. Maybe do it several times as you learn from your mistakes.
2. Do the 1944-45 Normandy campaign so you have a bigger land game and also have to deal with strategic air war.
3. After that the 1943-45 AAHQ campaign that has extra air HQ's so you can fly more air directives.

Cary

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Post #: 2

RE: Just Starting - 1/2/2021 5:01:48 PM

MPHopcroft1

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I wonder if I'm in an RTFM situation (don't ask me to spell it out if you don't know, because I don't like using that kind of language). And I have, in fact, been attempting to read at least the Handbook. Ideally I would put the books on my tablet where I have a lot of other gaming-related PDF books, but I'm having trouble doing that. And my printer insists the paper I just put in doesn't exist, so that's out too.

I can still read them on my PC, of course. In fact, that would be what I was doing if I had two monitors, but I don't. But wishing for what I don't have will do me no good.

But enough lamenting the death of paper.

I've had a couple of abortive starts on Husky, but haven't really gotten past the Air phase. Knowing what I want my air to do (put heavy emphasis on air superiority and on supporting the amphibious assault -- I hoped to hold back on paratroops until I actually need them). Indeed, it's a case of knowing what I want to do, but not having figured out ho in the system to do it.

I've also been watching tutorials, one of which has taught me what not to do with the airborne. In that tutorial, I also noticed that the Allies were losing needed ground units to the sinking of their transports and I was wondering how to avoid that fate. )Why did I immediately think of the Private Snafu short about spies? The weird thing was that by all appearances the guy streaming the tutorial was a developer and, presumably, a skilled player.

The struggle is real.

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Post #: 3

RE: Just Starting - 1/2/2021 6:29:01 PM

loki100

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some good news (imho), you can actually get up and running just using Red Lancer's One Page Guides. Everything you really need are in that pack - I printed them (and only them) when I first got the game and still have them to my side when playing).

Paratroops are tricky to use well. Also remember that Husky was the first real combat drops and at least one US formation was shot down by Allied AA. If you drop brigades (broken down divisions) or regiments they are very prone to scatter and can easily end up on top of something nasty or in the sea. Over the longer games I use them more often as air transported formations - they are great landed on a recently taken air field to secure it.

So your set Husky drops are (in game turns) not that great but they weren't historically (& the Husky set up starts with the Allied plan).

The other thing is sub-divisional drops don't generate much interdiction, a division sets up a block of heavy interdiction.

If you are crying 'what is interediction' ... well, it adds to the movement cost and possibly causes losses for any enemy units moving in that area. If you combine a divisional para drop with air interdiction you can create a real barrier for the Axis.

So what can you do? Well the drops as planned will give you some good things - interdiction, pinned enemy units etc but also losses. The whole game (as the Allies) works on precisely that trade off - what price will you pay for the nice things?

As to getting into the game. I'd go at slower than Cary suggests.

Sicily is good, its a closed situation, it brings all the game elements together but I personally don't think its the greatest place to start (precisely due to all this going on).

Other starting variants:

a) the 1944 Break out scenario, ok there are more units to fuss over but the key here is to learn tactical airpower. That is the allies' wonder weapon (well that and artillery) and a decent grasp of it really pays off. Have a few goes at the first few turns, even play it left hand/right hand (that helps in grasping the feedback routines)

b) either of Westwall or Arnhem, here the focus falls on the logistics model. See if you can manipulate the depot and HQ supply priority systems to your advantage, explore the historical Allied broad front model with really pushing supply to a few selected formations

c) any of the strategic air war scenarios, again get used to, play around with options, tactics, targetting etc.

I personally have never found the purely Italy scenarios much fun, the long one has too much scripted withdrawals (historical but frustrating) which in the Grand Campaign you can phase better.

If you have the Torch expansion - the N African scenarios are gems, low unit density, supply problems, unit placement is important, and if you over-extend it can all collapse horribly.

Then think of starting a campaign. Be prepared to bail out and restart. Big things are the phasing of your Italian campaign, when to land on the mainland/where, how to take Sardinia and Corsica, when to pull down Italy for France, where to land in France, integrade bombing with land operations - there are a lot of AARs in this respect and most try to explain why people are making choices.

Roger

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Post #: 4

RE: Just Starting - 1/2/2021 6:34:49 PM

cfulbright

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MP,

All the manuals are PDF's. Can you email them to yourself or put them in a Box, Dropbox, or Google Drive, then read them on your tablet that way?

On losing transports and troops: the tutorial says you should naval load the second wave units and then leave them offshore in Turn 1. This is BAD advice. They take losses that way. What's better is to naval load them, but then put them back in friendly ports in Turn 1, then move them to Sicily and unload them in Turn 2. The reason to do this is that you incur the movement cost of the naval embarkation in Turn 1, so you are much more likely to be able to unload them in Turn 2.

Loki probably has much better advice than I do about what scenario to start with. I learned seven years ago when the advice was to start with Husky and just assumed it's still valid.

Cary

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Post #: 5

RE: Just Starting - 1/2/2021 9:39:15 PM

MPHopcroft1

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I have a lot of storage on OneDrive. I'm going to see if my tablet responds to it. OneDrive instead of Google was because I simply have a lot more space there through Office 365.

I have a whole bunch of other manuals I should do the same way.

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Post #: 6

RE: Just Starting - 1/2/2021 10:38:41 PM

IslandInland

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Read this stuff. All of it.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3964247

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3778468

Some of it might be out of date but the flavour is still there.

Oh, and, welcome to the game.

IMO it's the greatest wargame ever made.

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Post #: 7

RE: Just Starting - 1/3/2021 3:28:29 PM

MPHopcroft1

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I'm trying Husky right now, but have appointments today and will come back to it. I still don't understand moving units and headquarters by sea, though -- I know why you do it, but not how in terms of actually pushing around the counters. Which is very silly that I haven't picked up already, but apparently I can't find it in the Player Handbook, which is no end of embarrassing.

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Post #: 8

RE: Just Starting - 1/3/2021 3:42:52 PM

loki100

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there is a difference between your invasion moves (ie the units that hit the target beach) and naval move.

The first, click invade on the relevant TF and it'll sail off to adjacent to the target with its stacked units. Next turn it does its landing etc

The second, shift your movement mode to naval transport (not amphib), any units in a port hex, that still has spare loading capacity, can then go off to the sea. They move as normal, ie right click on the target (for naval moves in contested regions make these moves relatively short). The target can be another port (if it has MP left the unit can also disembark) or a sea hex (the unit then sits at sea).

actually there are a lot of these slightly odd conventions across the wiTx series and after a while you forget you ever had to learn them ... but they are not always intuitive

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Post #: 9

RE: Just Starting - 1/4/2021 2:34:10 AM

MPHopcroft1

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I having this weird deja vu experience of having somehow seen or played this game before even though I've only had it for two days.

And I finally got the manuals onto my tablet. It took me actually taking out the MicroSD card, inserting it into a USB card reader, connecting that to my PC, and copy/pasting the files. I then put the card back in the tablet and there they were. I keep a lot of my OPDFs and Kindle books on that tablet.

How I got the game is itself a weird story. The sale at Steam was going full-bore and I picked up War in the East and thought I'd probably like to have War in the West too. The bizarre thing is that a friend had exactly the same idea and gent me a gift copy. Problem? Five minutes later, not knowing about his generosity, I had purchased a copy with my own money. It all worked out with the retailer, so now I have a nice little $24 credit to spend on another game. I've been looking at options. So I came out of it still having the game, and with a nice little "war story" to go with it.

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Post #: 10

RE: Just Starting - 1/5/2021 3:42:23 AM

MPHopcroft1

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I played Husky to completion tonight and achieved a draw in a scenario the Allied player should easily win. And if I had figured out how to make a determined attack (I still don't know the command for that) I probably would have performed a lot better. I got four of the five major Sicilian ports, but Axis resistance stiffened to the south and west of Messina. And through that I was still a bit lost. I would have hoped I would be able to bring in some reinforcements, but few were to be found.

It had "my first game" written all over it.

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Post #: 11

RE: Just Starting - 1/5/2021 3:43:44 AM

cfulbright

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quote:

And if I had figured out how to make a determined attack (I still don't know the command for that)

Select the units you want to participate in the attack - if you want units in more than one hex, hold down the shift key while you left click on them. Then hold down the shift key and then right-click on the target hex.

Cary

< Message edited by cfulbright -- 1/5/2021 3:45:43 AM >

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Post #: 12

RE: Just Starting - 1/5/2021 4:09:24 AM

MPHopcroft1

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Got it! Another RTFM moment.

So are the troops you start with on the map all you get?

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Post #: 13

RE: Just Starting - 1/5/2021 4:40:06 AM

cfulbright

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The way to see reinforcements is to hit the "i" key and you'll see ground. There's also an Air tab.

There aren't any reinforcements in the Husky campaign, at least ground reinforcements (I didn't check air).

Cary

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Post #: 14

RE: Just Starting - 1/5/2021 8:37:11 AM

loki100

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MPHopcroft1

...

So are the troops you start with on the map all you get?

think so, but some of those have more than one use.

So lets discuss your naval task forces. They have 2 obv roles, they transfer your assault formations to Sicily and, when you keep them off-shore, they keep open your temporary invasion sites as ports till you have captured and repaired some real ports.

Now, they ensure the latter by being in such a hex at the end of the turn. In your movement phase they can do 3 really useful things:

a) as they move, they leave behind a trail of interdiction in the sea hexes (4 pts if I recall), so if they sail across the communications links of the E Sicily ports you have a good chance to isolate them (esp if you add in some naval air interdiction). That weakens places like Palermo as the defenders can't resupply and start to acquire the morale maluses that come from being 'isolated'
b) if one is adjacent to a hex where you think the enemy reserves are - those units can't reserve react into combat - very useful to weaken the likely German defensive lines around Etna;
c) even better - if the taskforce is adjacent to the defenders you are going to attack, their artillery joins in the attack (and those big naval guns make a mess of even well dug in defenders) - just look at the detailed combat report after such a battle.

So there you are - more artillery, more blocks on enemy reserve reactions and more interdiction ... all out of existing counters.

Now they can do one more thing. If they are in (or adjacent to) a level 1 or 2 port at the end of your move phase, that port automatically repairs. So you now have more freight flowing in (these small ports aren't going to supply a large army but they all help).

so artillery, better logistics for you, a logistics headache for the enemy and less reserves to worry over

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Post #: 15

RE: Just Starting - 1/5/2021 2:48:14 PM

cfulbright

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Loki,

quote:

a) as they move, they leave behind a trail of interdiction in the sea hexes (4 pts if I recall), so if they sail across the communications links of the E Sicily ports you have a good chance to isolate them (esp if you add in some naval air interdiction). That weakens places like Palermo as the defenders can't resupply and start to acquire the morale maluses that come from being 'isolated'

I didn't know about this. Not only would it come in handily for the Sicily invasion scenarios after Turn 1, but also when I'm playing the 1943-45 campaign I can send the extra Med TF's to the UK the turn before I launch the invasion of Northern Europe, and interdict the sea lanes my invasion TF's are most likely to use, which should reduce attrition on those TF's.

Cary

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Post #: 16

RE: Just Starting - 1/8/2021 3:44:25 PM

MPHopcroft1

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I am still having trouble with launching the invasion of Sicily. I don't seem to be getting good o=use out of the paratroops, and most of them do not seem to be ready to drop. This is weird because they look like they can be helpful at first but are weaker infantry afterward. I guess I just don't know what the interface is telling me. So I guess this understanding -- where I would find out if they are ready to jump, and when the jump would take place, is the openest of open questions.

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Post #: 17

RE: Just Starting - 1/8/2021 5:23:09 PM

cfulbright

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Have you set the Status/Mode of the transport air groups to "Day/Night"? Do they all have Travel of 0%? If they're set to do training if any pilots are below a certain level of Experience, then that will cause some travel in the group, and the entire group won't be able to participate in an airdrop.

If on the unit counter it indicates they have at least 50% Prep, they can drop.

If it's any consolation, I don't use the airborne troops in the Sicily invasion. Because only one brigade/regiment of each division is ready, they're much more likely to scatter and be destroyed, and as you noted, when they land they're weaker than when they started.

Cary

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Post #: 18

RE: Just Starting - 1/8/2021 5:27:13 PM

cfulbright

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To explain what I meant about the training, go to the Air Doctrine screen (press "d"). Click on the Pilots tab. Set all the Train Exp column on the right and set them all to zero. That's what I do. Training is as likely to lose a plane and kill the pilot as combat is. I never Training my air groups.

Cary

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Post #: 19

RE: Just Starting - 1/8/2021 8:19:46 PM

MPHopcroft1

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quote:

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

Have you set the Status/Mode of the transport air groups to "Day/Night"? Do they all have Travel of 0%? If they're set to do training if any pilots are below a certain level of Experience, then that will cause some travel in the group, and the entire group won't be able to participate in an airdrop.

If on the unit counter it indicates they have at least 50% Prep, they can drop.

If it's any consolation, I don't use the airborne troops in the Sicily invasion. Because only one brigade/regiment of each division is ready, they're much more likely to scatter and be destroyed, and as you noted, when they land they're weaker than when they started.
ge]

So it's mot just me who can only use one paratroop regiment! How do I make them useful in a way that makes s sense?

I must have underestimated the depth of the game. So many layers. And t think all I wanted to do was liberate Sicily.

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Post #: 20

RE: Just Starting - 1/8/2021 9:38:53 PM

loki100

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its worth bearing in mind that the historical use of paras at Sicily was a disaster.

I suspect if the Allies hadn't invested so much they would have given up (as the Soviets did after the Kanev operation). What they learnt was you either drop small (=partisans) or big (=divisions) and that is the message from WiTW.

In the campaign, I merge the brigades into divisions and give them targets on the mainland depending on where I am going to invade next. Purely in a Sicily context, I'd use them as highly mobile infantry, fly them to a captured airbase and they can secure it and your tanks can risk a deeper exploitation.

Come France, I keep a couple of divisions (+ the British airlanding force) and the regiments in the UK. While I constantly reset targets their most likely use is for the regiments to grab an airbase here and there and the divisions land on one which I can't actually move onto - I've got bridgeheads over the Rhine with this trick.

My personnel view was that airborne operations in WW2 were mostly badly flawed. The exception might be D-Day but for eg Varsity was a slaughter of the British paras and that was deemed a success as it secured the objectives. On balance the game captures this - they are high risk/high cost/marginal reward operations but that margin can make a critical difference

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Post #: 21

RE: Just Starting - 1/8/2021 9:43:57 PM

cfulbright

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Historically only one regiment brigade from each of the two airborne divisions was dropped in Sicily, and they both scattered badly and were shot up by Allied ships. That's why I don't use them in turn one.

If you combine the subunits into divisions, you lose all your prep points. If you want, you can use the editor to combine the units into divisions and reset their prep points. You might need to do some of that in exported CSV that you reimport, but it's not that hard.

My advice for this scenario:

1. Set the target for one of the AB divisions at the hex that contains the Barcellona air base. When you get a unit within a hex of that base, you can airdrop the AB division onto it, it only takes two turns to get enough AB prep points.

2. If you take control of a hex with a division's zone of control, but it didn't quite have enough MP to move into the hex itself, you can air transport one of the AB units into that hex to occupy it. You don't need prep points for that.

Cary

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Post #: 22

RE: Just Starting - 1/8/2021 9:45:11 PM

cfulbright

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Yes, what Loki said!

Cary

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Post #: 23

RE: Just Starting - 1/8/2021 11:13:30 PM

MPHopcroft1

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Historical question: Has there ever been a significant airborne invasion since Arnhem?

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Post #: 24

RE: Just Starting - 1/8/2021 11:32:56 PM

cfulbright

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Yes, see Operation Varsity, March 1945 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Varsity

Cary

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Post #: 25

RE: Just Starting - 1/9/2021 10:23:51 AM

loki100

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As Cary says, Varsity was the last divisional operation with a conventional mix of paradrops and glider landings. Losses to 6 Br Airborne were horrific due to flak.

In effect by 1945 everyone had learnt the hard way that a then conventional paratroop operation was flawed. The Germans had the experience of Crete and the Soviets the Kanev operation. What they had all learnt was that what we'd now call Special Operations missions using Paras were potentially very successful. The widespread use of helicopters from the early 1950s then changed the options for how you actually delivered behind the lines insertion of airborne/air mobile formations.

Roger

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Post #: 26

RE: Just Starting - 1/11/2021 10:38:55 PM

MPHopcroft1

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OK, getting back to the game in question, my progress has been a bit limited. I'm going to try Sicily again tonight and see if my play is improving. I got in no practice this weekend, so I would say not.

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Post #: 27

RE: Just Starting - 1/13/2021 3:44:03 AM

Novaliz

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quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

some good news (imho), you can actually get up and running just using Red Lancer's One Page Guides. Everything you really need are in that pack - I printed them (and only them) when I first got the game and still have them to my side when playing).

Where can I find the Red Lancers Guides?

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Post #: 28

RE: Just Starting - 1/13/2021 8:51:03 AM

loki100

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Novaliz

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

some good news (imho), you can actually get up and running just using Red Lancer's One Page Guides. Everything you really need are in that pack - I printed them (and only them) when I first got the game and still have them to my side when playing).

Where can I find the Red Lancers Guides?

in the back of the Player's Manual for the original set. If you have the Torch expansion, then the extra ones should be in the folder with the rest of your manuals.

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Post #: 29

RE: Just Starting - 1/13/2021 5:01:51 PM

MPHopcroft1

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quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

quote:

ORIGINAL: Novaliz

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

some good news (imho), you can actually get up and running just using Red Lancer's One Page Guides. Everything you really need are in that pack - I printed them (and only them) when I first got the game and still have them to my side when playing).

Where can I find the Red Lancers Guides?

in the back of the Player's Manual for the original set. If you have the Torch expansion, then the extra ones should be in the folder with the rest of your manuals.

I printed those out, but I seem to have misplaced them -- that I really wanted them laminated (but I can't get them punched because the margins are to slim).

I had another go at Husky yesterday and ran into an issue strategically -- those Panzers in the mountains are taking disproportionate forces just to contain, and they are very hard to destroy. I'm also thinking I should shift into planning my own it initiatives if possible. The ones the AI are making are somehow not covering it -- even though they do take a lot of work out of my hands. And if this is of Easy, I can't imagine what Impossible looks like!

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Post #: 30