Versus Vietnamese Verewolves (A Vietnam '65 AAR) (COMPLETE)

[JasonPratt]

2.) YOU ARE NOT PARANOID ENOUGH



I made an operational mis-guess early on, by choosing one of two early Forbase sites intended to protect an area in the jungle over a river that I was sure (correctly) I wouldn't be able to post much infantry to help with.

The problem was that, since I couldn't know in advance where the gathering points were, there could and probably would be one down there somewhere -- because I was working on a mistaken impression fostered (perhaps inadvertently) by the tutorial and manual material, that the 'portals' (as I call them) would be spaced pretty evenly out. And that there would only be a handful of them, so that even if I was wrong that would allow me to concentrate efforts more effectively elsewhere.

Well, I did turn out to be wrong about worrying there might be a portal down there. The whole southeastern quarter of the map had no portal at all. The closest portal to that area was a good three days away, maybe four, even by the rapid jungle-speed of VC units. Had I set my first Forward Base up the road a little (not much past where the road network started, coincidentally), I would have had a lot more opportunities to Davy Crockett enemies by long-distance arty attacks early in the game. I didn't and couldn't have known that at the start of the game, and that's okay -- knowing things about the map now I couldn't have known then, and won't be able to know next time, I would have done things differently, but at the time I still think in hindsight with the information I had, that was the best move.

What I got grossly wrong, which caused me a lot of problems (if not quite near-disasters), was that there were twice as many portals on the map than I was expecting, and they weren't evenly distributed for strategic efficiency, but were randomly distributed. Consequently, up near Banzaicat village, I looked originally for one 'nearest' portal, and soon was looking for two at roughly equal distances from each other in diametric directions. Which turned out to be correct, but only by a sort of lucky accident.  Because it turned out there were no less than FIVE PORTALS near Banzaicat village, three of them east to northeast (where there were no other villages to harass -- even Ubercat Village to the far southeast was so far away a portal near the middle of the southern half of the map was more closely convenient to generate missions down there), and I never did even clearly suspect the existence of the two nearest ones.

That's half the portals ON THE WHOLE MAP scattered around one village. Only two portals of which (at the north and south sides of the western side of that distribution range) could generate missions somewhere else, and only one of those (far to the southwest, north of UGeek village) could do so very feasibly for other purposes.

So in a wackily backhanded way, my original mis-guess turned out to be effectively right after all: most of the map was serviced by a handful of five or six portals, not by ten. But that won't necessarily be true next time! Nor will the portals be evenly distributed (except maybe roughly so by accident), so that by detecting one and getting a bead on another one nearby, I can feel reasonably sure of shutting down operations in the area around and between them by hunting those two. For all I know there could literally be another two or even three holes nearby throwing units out I can't see and ambush. Though as it happens, the computer doesn't seem to have used four of that cluster of five portals very much. Which makes sense: the computer gets a VC spawn opportunity, chooses a mission for it (somewhat randomly), and then spawns the unit at the portal closest to the mission point (or chooses between two or more equidistant portals, either randomly or based on nearby American activity). Most of the mission targets would have been out of range of most of those portals, so they rarely got used.

[JasonPratt]

3.) YOU LIVE AND DIE BY HELICOPTERS

I could already tell this from what the tutorials and the manual (and the game marketing) told me about the game design. And I made efforts not to underestimate this by buying plenty of Hueys early.

And I still routinely came close to underestimating it.

A countervailing corollary to this which, to be fair, I think the manual and (advanced) tutorial did spell out, but which I didn't even notice a little (because it makes no damn sense), is that while engineers can be resupplied with helicopters, tanks can only be resupplied by engineers -- and by the one Firebase and the one HQ, but tanks don't have the fuel to go out far from those without turning around and coming back. That means, to patrol effectively with a tank, at least one GB unit and one engineer unit (maybe two engineers, depending on how far out the tank/GB team goes), plus an occasional chopper, has to be detailed to the tank. Which is grossly prohibitive since out of that crew only the tank can fight anyone effectively (or at all), and only with one attack per day. And the tank would be, aside from the occasional chopper support for the GB, by far the least expensive piece of that crew!

Nor can I currently imagine this being offset by using an APC platoon instead, since it fights more weakly than the tank and unlike the tank can't fight at range. Sure it's half as expensive as the tank, but that's only 1000 instead of 2000 (plus upscales for multiples) whereas the GB and engineer start at 4000 each. And go up quickly from there.

On the other hand, tanks are godly in power, much moreso than their cost compared to infantry; their cost-to-power ratio is probably better than artillery, too. I have a suspicion they'd be better used as secondary artillery guarding the Firebase and each Forbase, never going anywhere. I don't recall clearly whether they run out of fuel every day doing that (at a Forbase I mean; they'd be refueled every day at the Firebase), or only when they have to fight (if then). Something worth checking and/or testing...

But anyway. Hueys. Ideally there should be one per infantry unit in the field, maybe more (since GBs and engineers need supplies, too), and I suspect never less than 2/3s that ratio. I thought I could get away with a 1:2 ratio or even less, and I was very nearly wrong several times. Then again, copters do cost, and I couldn't safely afford more so long as the NVA Victory Generators were winning the game. It's possible that buying more than you think you need early in the game, is the better way to go there; but then that's money not being spent on units capable of earning a political 'income' back.

I also have a suspicion that there is some sort of Cobra/GB combination which would be much more cost effective than a tank/GB/engineer (+ occasional Huey) combo.

I also currently have not the slightest clue how a Chinook could be useful for anything even in the late game, unless I'm already dominating so hard I'm winning without one. If I could trade in (or upgrade) a Huey squad at the cost difference, or even at twice the cost difference, that would make Chinooks at least a debatable choice. I'm glad there's an option to try testing strategies with, but eh...

Relatedly, I can't imagine yet how APCs could be feasibly and cost-effectively useful for this kind of mission. I can't ferry troops around in them, and they can't see worth a squat, and don't fight much better than regular infantry (and can't set an ambush so actually fight worse!) Maybe there's an ARVN strategy that makes sense with them. More likely, the Chinook should be replaced with a mechanized scouting platoon.

[JasonPratt]

THE END -- FOR NOW

That I think summarizes my thoughts on the game, pro and con. Aside from further discussion and questions by thread readers, this ends my AAR.

Thanks for reading!

[bob48]

Excellent AAR and thought provoking commentary, Jason. I did buy a Chinook in my last game, although to be honest, I'm not sure what the advantage is or if it is really cost effective.

[JasonPratt]

Some more helpful clarifications from Johan at the Steam boards.

Sabreman, village flags are only updated when an infantry unit enters the village, so if you have villages on the map with ARVN flags and you have NVA bases, then you should visit villages to understand which have NVA flags and this will point to the proximity of the bases. Flags remain as they were on last infantry visit and then only updated upon an infantry visit.

Well, that at least explains that. Basically, the flags are useless except in an area you're already well in control of -- in which case they're basically useless again. ;)

But at least there's a definite mechanic involved; and it does make sense in-game in its own way: the villages fly the South Viet flag, but really they're VC or even NVA, and until you visit to check around you can't really know.

[JasonPratt]

I suppose the flags are useful for tracking one's own progress in the area, so long as steady operations are happening around a village; just not useful for tracking enemy progress.

[JasonPratt]

In regard to what would happen if the computer played smart (assuming NVA base missions are only spawned when a particular village goes down to NVA flag):

If your cycled was followed I don't think the US would actually wind more than 20% of the time.

Which, yes, leads to the in-game question of why the computer doesn't follow that strategy every time.  ::)

In V65 where on the HCM trail the VC spawn is based on the point closest to the mission objective which in turn is randomly selected from the 10 villages every time a new mission is originated.

I... think this means the mission is chosen first and then the village is chosen randomly; then the portal nearest the village (or a random selection if equidistant?) is chosen. Where for "village" read "target hex" since a mission might not be about a village at all? Or missions might be generated on a line between points Americans care about (such as between the Firebase and a village.)

[JasonPratt]

I'm still two weeks out (31 out of 45) from winning my second campaign, but I feel pretty confident I'm going to win.



(Note: the villages with yellow circles have been recently visited and truly are ARVN. Note the village in the upper left; it had a base outside it, and its communist star was revealed when my Viet troops visited. I suspect the remaining ones south of the river will be the same. The enemy did somehow manage to drop my net score, I suppose (???) three days in a row; at least, a tank was generated. The Cobra ate it.  >:D )

My HQ is roughly center map-right, of course; the US unit just west of it is my engineer platoon, building a road so that I can run reinforcements (maybe) out to that guy plopped in the field if he gets hurt.

(I'm not sure if enemy units get better as the game goes on; my impression last time and this time are both 'yes', but I can't recall if I'm mis-remembering something from a manual or tutorial about this.)

I was certainly lucky that I had a nice round of villages on my side of the map with easy helicopter access (mostly); and with a clearing already ready already(!) in the middle of the forest amidst the villages. I just had to roll my engineers out there at the start of the game, making sure it wasn't beyond helicopter resupply, and drop Forbase-1 -- then chopper my arty out there pronto. Bam, quite a few villages immediately covered, assuming I could detect the enemy.

I was also fortunate that between my two GBs (I bought a 2nd one on day 1) I managed to detect and track back two portals in the first week, allowing me to plant infantry nearby on ambush and effectively shutting those two entry points down. (The red hexes on the map show all three detected and ambushed portals so far.) I have a suspicion from the eventual results that several of the portals are inefficiently sprinkled in places that don't help with the spawning, handicapping the computer (again, possibly more than before).

I also bought a Cobra on Day one, which has worked actually better than artillery, though I've used plenty of both. It was less expensive than a second artillery, too, though I bought one of those for the ability to hit from a distance safely. If I feel a need to buy more gun support in the next two weeks, I'll likely go for a Cobra again as its range, in a way, is actually a little more than the arty! -- I can fly out to at least artillery range (maybe farther, and then shoot another two hexes beyond that, with a better chance of destroying the target!

My other initial strategy was to keep most of my troops in base as much as possible (except for the two out on portal duty), and let the choppers ferry (and supply) one infantry around the ring of villages day after day. Once I set up Forbase1, I let a GB take a few days to create an ARVN unit and then parked my wandering infantry in a base for a while as the ARVN took over visiting villages (and more effectively.)

Eventually I started working the engineer toward the middle of the map, plopping down Forbase2 and moving my arty there to sanitize the area while my expedition rested and got a chopper resupply.

Then it was pretty much directly westward again into the western third of the map, in order to drop the Firebase -- right next to a portal I had detected, too! With American infantry on ambush duty securing the bases (though the Firebase has proven to be hard on wounds), and GBs making more ARVN to scout the villages around, and a 2nd arty plus the Cobra hanging around to take first shots at things... well, here I am, two weeks to go, and NO enemy units on the map. They did (randomly) get down two Victory Generators, one coming the day after I destroyed the first one, but unlike my first game that didn't happen until around mid-game; so they couldn't hurt my points much (though they did get a little close, under 700 points one day -- until they fed me more points.  ::) )

So I was able to modify the Australian Strategem for this map quite successfully.  O0

[JasonPratt]

And here was the final map for that campaign.



Despite a costly mis-purchase, I still won it handily, following out my plan for this campaign as described above. Which might not have worked on a different map, of course.

Toward the end, I did notice the computer dropping bases pretty close to the western map edge, although by then that was to be expected I guess. I know at least one unit walked onto the map and plopped out a base, so the computer does kind-of know it can do that.

I watched that listed NVA unit walk onto the map, and would have nuked it with a Cobra, by the way. Or with two Cobras if necessary. Or with three. (I ended up with five, including one bought on turn 44 just to zorch an NVA unit I had gotten word about hanging around the most southwestern town.)

[JasonPratt]

Johan's new update is coming soon; he has posted screenshots here: http://www.vietnam65.com/news--update.html

The confirmed update list is mostly bling and UI, but it affects American playstyle quite importantly in one way. (More updates could be coming either with this patch or later -- this is only the confirmed list so far.)

1. Fog of war , map tiles out of detection ranges will be 'greyed out' -- not sure if this will be optional. I would be grateful for the option, since on one hand the FOW could be very useful and on the other hand the lack of being able to visually verify it helps with the paranoia.  :D

2. Weather , rain will effect combat and Airstrike availability , three day weather forecast -- this could be a potentially huge game changer (and looks sharp!), and not in favor of the Americans! But I can't really complain about it because it makes good sense (and looks sharp!)

3. Villages will have names
4. Player can name US bases and units -- bling, but nice bling. I would like an option to name the villages, too, but I understand for flavor why that still isn't possible. (Even though American units did have nicknames for the villages.)

5. Combat modifiers to include weather, supply status, proximity to friendly units -- another potentially huge game changer. The modifier for supply status is so huge I kind of wish/hope it's an option. There are just too many times when my infantries are on the ragged edge of 2 or 1 supplies remaining and yet are expected to win fights. I do understand the point, it makes sense, but I think it would make better sense if units were hit with combat penalties for being three days out of supply instead: technically even with one day's supply left they are still in supply and well fed. (That the units simply die in the field one day out of supply has never made sense though I grudgingly understand the gamey reasons why. )

6. Custom game option , player can set variables for custom game incl. victory conditions -- this would be quite nice

7. Hex overlays on both maps -- not only will this be nice, but it will hugely help fix the perspective slants between the main game map and the overmap, the latter of which doesn't always line up visually.

8. UI improvements - upgrade on deselect function, Action buttons for selected unit to move to bottom of screen as opposed to being clustered around the unit. -- hugely appreciated. The first especially because there remains no undo function (which i understand, it's a game mainly about detection and a clever player can exploit the way Panzer General games allow limited undos before detection.) And the second because the action buttons obscured the hexes I wanted to use about one time in ten or twenty (which in this game is a lot).