[Update: I am now naming villages, for ease of convenience, in order of any Grogs who comment on the thread!]
[Note: Something my AAR cannot accurately convey, by its nature, is that a whole campaign can be played in about an hour and a half: 45 turns, maybe two minutes a turn on average. It naturally takes me much longer because I'm writing text and putting together screenshots; but on the occasional turns when 'nothing much' happens you may notice how little time I'm spending between one post and the next -- and that's still with me composing a turn's posting!]
I promise. No singing.
I have to make that promise because I have a feeling I may be inventing little songs to praise this game as a way of encouraging people to buy it whenever it goes on sale. Or even when it's not on sale.
This is not light praise. I only do that for one other game: Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves.
This game, unfortunately, does not contain werewolves.
But it might as well: the basic concept involves fighting against a vicious unseen enemy which knows the terrain a lot better than I do, and which can hide easily either among villagers or in the woods, preparing to ambush me if I go out, especially at night.
So... sure, let's say we're fighting werewolves! Vietnamese werewolves.
The creepiness starts early when I click on a main-screen button labeled "uniform" and I find that somehow the game already knows my preferred gaming nickname is Sabreman, and has stitched that on my uniform hanging in its closet. I feel like the werewolves may be taunting me by showing they already know about me and can get into my home. Whenever they want. And leave. Without me noticing. Except when they want me to notice.
You are taunting me, werewolves. We'll see about that.
As I tab out of the game to create a new screenshot folder at Imageshack, one of the werewolves squints back at me in its wolf form in a gauzy photo. Its human form nibbles an ice cream cone in another photo above it. This has nothing at all to do with the game, but doesn't make me feel any better.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F633%2FNDepIs.png&hash=87eddd9de651b8b09d1228372b7831e1a1e5cddb)
Pictured: a screenshot of my screenshot library without any screenshots yet. Also pictured: werewolves. Not pictured: any screenshots of the game I'm AARing yet. The screenshot's codename assigned by Imageshack is NDepIs, by the way. Which sounds Vietnamese to me.
Conclusion: werewolves.
(New readers can skip past my relatively brief overview of the game mechanics, and go straight to the opening sitrep, if you like. (http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=13072.msg340257#msg340257) The werewolves won't mind at all.)
(Yes, whenever I talk about werewolves in this AAR, you should MOST DEFINITELY be hearing Christopher Walken's voice.)
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FwCLUgRJ.jpg&hash=3aa006c4bcb032a3a59751f8c4aa623b26cd0d62)
i love it when your tablets stop working :P
I'll take a break for a moment from my, um, chosen route of talking about this game, to mention more seriously in passing: my father, Ed Pratt, served in Vietnam from summer 1964-1965, as a Navy helicopter mechanic chief for the escort of a carrier group. The admiral running the carrier group actually offered to send him to officer's school if he'd stay enlisted, but he had promised Mom he'd come back home and marry her since they were engaged, so that happened, and a few years later in 1970 I happened. :)
What we didn't know at the time, was that Dad had often crewed helicopters supporting special force operations in-country -- ones the US wasn't technically supposed to be doing yet, so the records were kept secret. And then lost later. By the warehouse catching on fire. And being drowned in a hurricane. (Both explanations are the official explanations. ::) )
This became a problem when the Agent Orange he had been exposed to during those trips, affected his heart -- though to be fair, so did his radical smoking habit since he was a boy. ;) Consequently, he turned out to be due quite a bit of medical backpay and support, but because he had been serving on quasi-illegal special forces operations there were no surviving records.
We learned this is not an uncommon problem: a lot of veterans came back with developing heart problems aggravated by exposure to defoliants we were using, and have been having trouble getting the medical support promised by the Veterans Administration, even when their records aren't partially missing. After fighting for three years and thinking we probably wouldn't win, we suddenly managed to get through at the last ditch and now he's on full disability after 20 years of heart attacks and several major heart operations. Including a period of months toward the end of that ordeal when according to the doctor (evaluating the situation afterward) he was having three or more small heart attacks EVERY DAY FOR A COUPLE OF MONTHS.
But Dad comes from a family of pirates (more or less ;) ) based on the southern Florida coast, and someone who used to poach alligators as a boy back when they were still technically endangered kind of slaps heart attacks around. Even though medically he has only 25 to 27% of his heart left, he still goes out and plays golf regularly, and does other things of that sort for the past 20 years since the first big one, though naturally he's getting more brittle as he goes on. New doctors are always amazed and sure the file must be wrong: someone with so little heart left ought to be bed-ridden all day except for crawling to the bath once a night!
Dad has a lot of heart. :)
I'm hoping I can get his opinion on this game and its mechanics, though I can't promise that (and come to think of it I'm not sure it wouldn't trigger a little more stress than is good for him anymore, just by topical association).
But I wanted to take a minute to mention that, despite my joking about how the game is going to go, I have a high regard for the men who struggled in such terrible local and political conditions to help people who didn't appreciate it much (sometimes for good reasons -- we Americans ended up doing a lot of terrible damage in the area, too).
Right then. Back to the game discussion.
This is a game about strategic operational paranoia, if I haven't made that sufficiently clear yet. ;)
Though the game tutorial says it takes place in the Ia Drang valley in 1965, near the Cambodia border, really it could take place at about any time in a relatively small operational area in the region -- as some players have already noted, Cobra helicopters sure weren't out supporting troops in Ia Drang at the time. :P But for "Cobra" you could substitute "Huey gunships" and get the same effect, really. It just looks sharper and it's easier to tell them apart from support Hueys at a glance.
This anytime-in-Vietnam effect is heightened by the randomness of the operational maps, which by the way are at an odd scale in relation to each other -- I mean the game 'board' compared to the 'overview' map. Technically they line up with each other, but visually positions on one map aren't lined up with visual positions on the other map. I'll try to drop a screeny showing what I mean later; it's far from a game-breaking problem, mostly an aesthetic one, and could be interpreted as a differential between what the 'official' map says and what's out there in reality, I guess.
Anyway, as with looking at any strategy game, the first key question is: how do I win? (The advanced tutorial is certainly the way to go here; but the basic tutorial is good at showing directly how things 'work' in the game.)
Answer: if my Heart and Mind score is over 50 50 or over when the game ends. That's midway, it runs from 0 to 100. The game starts with my HAM score at 50.
When does the game end?
After 45 turns, or maybe if my political capital runs out first (I'm not sure about that yet).
How do I get or lose H&M score?
H&M is the average point value of ten villages in the operational area. They all start out at 50, and will go up or down based on the success or failure of opposing sides in actions near the villages.
Who is my opponent?
The computer AI (no multiplayer, which may not be possible but which would be interesting if possible). The AI is running two kinds of forces, Viet Cong and NVA, which may be regarded as weaker and stronger infantry respectively.
How does my opponent act near villages to reduce my score?
The enemy infantry appears randomly (or by AI choice? -- from a limited random selection of options?) at invisible points scattered randomly across the map before game start, then is moved by the AI. Enemy infantry can build forward bases near villages, and send troops to enter villages, both of which affect the village's score in various ways. If US troops get into losing fights nearby, or otherwise act incompetently (like by running out of supplies and ceasing to exist), that reduces village scores, too.
UPDATED TO CORRECT: the missions are only generated semi-randomly, and spawn at the ingress point closest to the target mission hex.
I'm not sure yet how random the scatter of entry points is, but it isn't just along the western map border, it seems to be pretty much all over -- what I can't tell yet is how far east the random ingress scatter goes.
UPDATED TO ADD: if the tutorial maps are any indication, the scatter dispersion is extreme. The ingress points won't be just sitting right next to each other, but one could easily be right next to the American HQ. Or, not. The game is fair, and will show the VC ingress points eventually after turn 45.
UPDATED IN HINDSIGHT TO CORRECT: the scatter dispersion can be pretty extreme after all, but I won't realize this until the end of the game.
Stronger infantry forces can also enter the map (from random points? unsure yet) along the western map border. Those are NVA forces coming in from Cambodia. Well, technically the Viet Cong is coming in west from Cambodia, too, but they pop into existence on the map at the salted points.
UPDATED TO CORRECT: although the rules clearly suggest the VC are ingressing from "the Ho Chi Mihn trail", the actual behavior is more like real life with insurgents congregating at pre-designated gathering points to go on a mission and then scattering back home undetectably afterward whether the mission succeeds or not.
How do I act near villages to increase my score?
Basically the same way: create forward bases near villages, send troops into villages, win fights near villages. I have more specific options on how to effectively do that, but there are more werewolves than I have troops. ;)
A lot more werewolves.
And usually I can't see them, until it's too late.
Putting it another way...
Weaker werewolves: can appear at discretely set invisible random spots all over the map; mainly exist to terrorize villages, and to set up ambushes; disappear after any fight, win or lose.
Stronger werewolves: are generated on the western map edge whenever any village's score drops below 40 (not sure if their position along that vertical line is random or in line with the village horizontally); will go set up a hidden base near that village; and will otherwise act like weaker werewolves except they don't go away after a fight, they just retreat westward a little and then go about their business again. Their secret bases will strike indirectly at any of my troops in range, each turn, and continually erode my political score if they still exist at the end of a turn. And if I kill any of the stronger werewolves, even though I'll pick up some political score, it helps my H&M score exactly nothing.
These werewolves are one hundred percent invisible on the map, usually.
Unless I bump into them at one or zero hex distance (almost every unit can only see one or NO hexes away). Or get villagers to talk about them, the chance of which is based on how well the village thinks of me or them. Or unless I send out weak infantry scouts to look for them, but still the range is only three hexes.
So I can have tanks and gunships and artillery to fight the werewolves, and the werewolves can't really fight back all that effectively, great. But the tanks and gunships and arty can't usually see the werewolves either, and the werewolves don't have to be entirely effective attacking them to start cutting off the money with which I get the tanks and gunships and arty.
Or the werewolves can run my crunchy armor around in the rocks and the jungle (and hit them with mines on the ground, and the occasional RPG), until my armor runs out of supply/fuel/ammo and dies helplessly from a soft-kill.
Presumably the werewolves eat the chewy insides at that point. >:D
To summarize then (in game terms, not werewolf terms. Mostly. ;) ):
To win, my H&M score must be 50 or greater at the end of turn 45.
To pay for literally anything I do, including moving a single unit one hex (plus having units exist on the board at the end of the turn even if they haven't done anything), I must spend political support. I start with a budget of 12,500 ps. I can increase it as much as I can, but I can only increase it one way: win fights against the Viet Cong or the North Vietnamese Army. Either one of those nets me 1000 ps, regardless of how easy or strong they are. (Did I mention the werewolves can eventually bring their own armor if I'm losing the game? I still only earn 1000 ps for killing werewolf tanks.)
I think (not sure yet) it's possible for me to have negative ps, a political support so low that I enter a death spiral where I can't pay to even move troops around and resupply them, which eventually soft-kills my troops if the werewolves don't directly kill them first, which loses me more ps. Because I'll lose ps by: moving any troop even one hex; having any troop on the board at the end of the turn; having any secret NVA firebase on the board at the end of the turn, whether I know it's there or not; healing wounded troops; supplying troops (including emergency airdrops); repairing troops; losing troops altogether; and bringing in any troops (except ARVN, South Vietnamese infantry, but I still have to pay a lot to get there). Oh, and troop types increase in cost the more I bring in. Incidentally, there doesn't seem to be a mechanic for me to send troops home, much less to recoup some ps by doing so.
But ps doesn't directly count for winning the game. Only the Hearts and Minds score does that. And I can only score H&M by clearing mines (assuming I can find them before I set them off!); by entering Vietnamese villages (but only when their fire is burning, and I can't stay there, unlike the VC); and by winning fights against VC near a village (but not by beating ANY NVA UNIT -- not their infantry, not their firebases, not their tanks if they start bringing those).
Note, I didn't say by destroying VC. They can't be destroyed. They disband, temporarily, whenever I fight them, whether they hurt the American unit or not. They disband and come back later, the next night.
They
can't
be
destroyed.
Conclusion: werewolves.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fold.wargamer.com%2Fforums%2Fsmiley%2Fvampire3.gif&hash=a45458b5a38a1ad6f323b043d896df7c1fed93a3)
...sigh. Close enough.
Next up, welcome to werewolf country.
Welcome to werewolf country, son.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F540%2FRXivOH.png&hash=0a15bb4a492f8fc014097795710fb7ca8ffde158)
Oh, you want a map? Sure, you can have a map.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F913%2F4kFtoE.png&hash=804489c0fe8792349f961001eb5052a012019011)
That... is a lot of trees. And rocks. And rice paddies. And the ten villages (flying yellow ARVN flags) we're tasked with trying to keep safe from the werewolves. Helicopters can drop off supplies just about anywhere, but can only drop off troops on clear grassland (and US bases). Not in trees, not in rocks, not in the river, no not in rice paddies either. Not in villages either. Or on top of enemy bases, should those start showing up.
What will start showing up, tonight, are werewolves. Assuming they aren't out there already. We have no way of knowing. Yet.
Somewhere out there are five or six warps in the fabric of reality. We can't see them; we'll never be able to see them, only extrapolate their positions by theoretical math. There could easily be one right outside our HQ.
Out of those holes, every night, werewolves will come forth to sow terror in the land. And they'll stay until they bloody us or until we bloody them. Then they'll run away.
And come back the next night.
Until they can start bringing in stronger werewolves. With werewolf cannons. And werewolf tanks.
And we won't be able to see any of it. Unless we go looking for them, and get right up next to them.
But the people in the villages could know. And they might tell us.
If we can prove to them, that we can protect them from the werewolves.
And the villagers are touchy. They don't really want us there, and may not help us find the werewolves, especially if the werewolves have been scaring them with threats about what will happen if they tell us. And if the stronger werewolves arrive, the villagers will regard that as a disaster: we can't earn their trust back by killing those werewolves, because we shouldn't have let them get into this area at all.
But neither can we permanently kill the weaker werewolves.
But that's our job.
To fight, and win, what can't be won against.
Let's get to it.
Currently in our HQ, we have:
Three Hueys squads: no combat power, just for transport and supply.
One engineering company. (I'm assuming this is basically company level for most ground forces -- the game doesn't specify, but I can't imagine it would be much more than that at this scale.) They have armored personnel carriers, but suck at fighting.
One Green Beret platoon. GBs are of course awesome, but in this game they're weaker than just about anything, which indicates the difference in unit size. But they can see three hexes out, which nothing else can do, and they can do a few special things like train mediocre ARVN troops once some other things are in place.
Three infantry companies. These are great at fighting, better than any other soft unit on either side. But they can only see one hex away, and unless I put them on helicopters, one company per copter squad (I doubt squad's the right word but I'm too lazy to look up the proper term), they don't travel fast.
One howitzer. This can launch strong attacks at range, but can't move except by chopper, and can't be placed anywhere except an American base. And we only have one base. Yet.
Fortunately, whoever sited our HQ had enough sense to plop it about equidistantly near four of the ten villages we're supposed to protect; and a fifth one isn't too far down the road.
Unfortunately, one of those four is this one, arguably the closest one, to our south.
And it is doomed.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F661%2FL2lyfW.png&hash=7464b40e77f9b0196340efc1b31832abfeb211ae)
It's sitting across a river, with jungle running up to the river's edge, completely surrounded by jungle and fields as far as could ever be feasibly approached. We can't drop troops nearby, they'd have to be marched in. I have no idea yet if the engineers can get there, possibly not. Any engineering company will have a chore getting there if so; and clearing a place for a forward base to hold some troops. Very probably the company would be murdered by the VC before we could protect it.
At best, securing this one little corner will be a job for one Green Beret (for scout detecting early threats), at least one infantry maybe two, a dedicated engineering company for quite a while, and then parking the GB permanently at the forward base where it can train ARVN with a metric ton of arty support flown in to camp there. And the US infantry will have to stay there until enough ARVN troops are based nearby to feasibly repel any VC.
In fact, for proper detection we'll probably have to have two forward bases set up there, capable of local and self-defense: one east and one west.
That's a lot of political points spent on securing one village.
Wait, did I mention two more of the remaining six villages are in about the same crappy defensive position, except on the southwestern corner of the map?
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F910%2FUrFhrs.png&hash=299d2db60becb152ee4c772274930dafa26d694c)
Because they totally are.
And one more in the northwestern corner, though at least it's on our side of the river.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F901%2FwKR0Ll.png&hash=2c606a223e66cca395ee620684fe13bef981437d)
That's four of our six assigned villages.
We only have to live here forty-five weeks. Not even a year.
They have to live here always.
Welcome to werewolf country.
(Yes, whenever I talk about werewolves in this AAR, you should MOST DEFINITELY be hearing Christopher Walken's voice.)
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FwCLUgRJ.jpg&hash=3aa006c4bcb032a3a59751f8c4aa623b26cd0d62)
Before I continue, let me note that there are some pretty major scoring discrepancies between the tutorial information and the manual. The tutorial seems to indicate that killing NVA units, even bases, does not affect the H&M score at all. The 'printed' instructions (on pdf) not only say killing NVA units helps, but that killing a base helps even more as it positively affects the H&M score of all villages on the map, not just the closest one.
I'll be able to confirm which is which as I play.
Thanks for doing this. This game mystifies me almost as much as Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer is mystified by our technology and smart phones. Then again I haven't put a lot of time into it, but I'll keep an eye here to see what works and what doesn't work for you.
(B_C, I am definitely learning as I go. The rules as stated seem to contradict each other sometimes, which doesn't help. Some patches for clarification would be nice.)
The other six villages aren't quite so bad.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F661%2F6rz7NJ.png&hash=168d59c4aa683b7c7dfe161530277c8976cd662a)
This one, for example, even though it's almost in Cambodia, and on the other side of the river, is surrounded by lots of grassland. (Engineers, unfortunately, can't build bridges for some reason.)
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F901%2FZ1AKFt.png&hash=ac0002c6951a334f7609a4740abb156d1fcbc340)
And these three are already part of a road network...
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F538%2FU1X264.png&hash=912aedbfab2ab2efd32b0800ce1a2f4b5cf66549)
Which connects to one of our closest assigned villages.
Granted, that village up in the northeast is buried in jungle, but at least it's on this side of the river.
The bad news is that grassland doesn't help us spot werewolves any better. It's just easier for us to move on -- but them, too.
One bit of good news is that our HQ is invulnerable. We can leave it completely undefended, or rather it has inherent and impregnable defenses which stay there all the time to repel attacks. In practice this means the enemy will never attack it, and so also never be damaged by it. Except for any artillery we have sitting inside.
That sets up our initial situation. Next time, week one.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day one
(Note: some notions of the game, like air cav movement and troop movements generally, seem to be on a day scale; others seem to be on a week scale, like healing and building a firebase and training ARVN for three weeks and making roads and cutting down jungle. I finally gave up and called it a day per turn, since then I can have werewolves coming out at night from their spatial anomalies and infiltrating villages unstoppably.)
Ideally, I suppose we ought to start by trying to secure these three villages as well as we can...
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F673%2FYxss9I.png&hash=d194a4ae7e9a2f28392f0296189b66c92e3d938e)
...while trying to secure that village south across the river in the jungle next.
I could run an infantry company out to each of them today on helicopters; and I'll end up doing something kind of like that. But plopping them straight inside the villages would be a waste of intel opportunities (even if I could drop them off directly in the villages, which I can't) since there can't be many VC around yet.
Theoretically, I'd move each of them into a village once per day thereafter, picking up a new intel chance as I go; but there isn't much reason to camp the infantry in the villages: they can still only see one hex, and (this is important) THEY CAN'T STOP THE WEREWOLVES FROM INFILTRATING THE VILLAGES AT NIGHT! The VC can walk straight in, from outside our detection range, without initiating combat; and they reduce score doing so faster than we gain score for going in.
(If I understand the rules correctly. That may not seem to make much intrinsic sense, but it keeps the US team from being too overpowered too quickly by just buying relatively cheap but powerful infantry and plopping them on defense in the villages. Once the VC enter a village, I think they disappear from the board afterward, having accomplished their mission. We'll see.)
(This is a good time to mention that, according to the written rules, the opponent AI doesn't just make do with whatever VC pop out of the Trail holes randomly. It has something like a political point budget per week, based on how well it's doing, and assigns new missions with that budget. Each mission generates a new VC unit which spawns at the ingress point closest to the mission objective; so the placement of units on the board isn't random, it's efficient.)
Setting an ambush in the villages would make tons of sense; but that still wouldn't stop the werewolves infiltrating at night (for some reason).
Setting an ambush outside the villages would make some sense; but we aren't allowed to set ambushes in or near villages (within two hexes).
This limits our possibilities quite a bit. Still, patrolling the infantry around the villages is better than nothing. (In this sense we're going the Australian route: long term meticulous patrols outside the wire rather than going out to trip contact and then coming back.) As we start building up a history of contact reports, we should eventually be able to determine where the werewolf spawn points are, and camp infantry around them on ambush.
A forbase (not to be confused with a firebase!) could be built around here, with GB and arty support -- once we earn enough cash headhunting werewolves.
And here.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F540%2FMc7lHk.png&hash=4a0468cec78438d1d877f455d9090437bd9f2e78)
Which one first?!
Ideally I'd send out two engineer APC companies with security and scouts, but that would cost way too much p-sup at first.
At the moment then I'll try going for building a firebase FORBASE!! to house some arty to protect the village across the river, while my infantry (supplied by copters) patrol the other three near villages.
For that I'll send along my GB squad to scout for the engineers; and I'll buy an extra infantry for security escort.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F540%2FodRVVq.png&hash=2098b53d1aca5a5bf51f5f1578cfa6ccc4520686)
Hopefully by the time Forebase-1 is built, we'll have picked up enough political support to stock it with a GB scout, at least 1 arty (though I can move the one from HQ if necessary), an infantry for defense and reserve, and an extra GB to go camp near that village over the river scouting for incoming VC.
Then the engineers can move along to build Forbase-2, same deal. Meanwhile the troops stay out in the field picking up xp, and being stagger-supplied. I'll go ahead and buy another infantry for reserve at the HQ in case one of them lucks bad and has to be evac'd to heal at HQ, so the patrols can continue meanwhile.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F540%2FOIHjsI.png&hash=a357adceb1be64cd8db264c8937673f909d1efdf)
I slightly over-extended my copter drop for the farthest deposit, so they didn't quite get there today -- should have dropped them off a hex back. But probably not a big deal.
Since I think the VC have as much trouble moving in woods as I do, I may indeed park my northern infantry in that jungle village, waiting not on ambush of course, but to smack any VC who show up a day outside it. We'll see. It'll be an experiment.
Thus ends day one in werewolf country.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day two
(Incidentally, despite what the rules said in print, I can in fact set up an ambush two hexes away from villages, just not one hex adjacent to it. I noticed my northern infantry company, still two hexes out from their location, had that option, before their day's move.)
Last night, a pack of werewolves arose through their nether hole.
But we can't see them, yet. We don't know where they are, or what they're doing.
Fortunately, the augers at headquarters can sense their presence, even if we can't see them: they tell us reliably that 1 VC cadre is now on the map.
Unfortunately, I can see that I'm going to need to clear an edge of forest to make a decent trail to access Forbase-1.
Fortunately, I was able to go ahead and build Forbase-1 where I wanted today. A chopper already back at HQ picked up my arty company and prepared to deliver it to its new home tomorrow; but the jungle was slowing down my GB and infantry company trying to get there today.
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At this point I prrrroobbbably have enough support remaining to buy one more big purchase (in the 4000 range) and still have enough to operate for a few weeks. After that, I'll need to fight VC enough to earn some more credibility before I make any more big purchases. Or even any small ones.
But what should I buy? Another arty? Can't really use it yet. Armor? Ditto. A Chinook? Might as well spend another 1000 and get two Hueys instead, for the ranges involved right now. Four more infantries? Two and another Huey? One more GB?
My original plan was to put a Green Beret down in (or near) that jungle village across the river, to act as a spotter for the nearby arty. Another option would be to buy infantry, or an infantry/Huey mix, and try to provide security for another village or two along the road.
Security here, or security there?
One of those involves less fiddling around for a while.
Security here it is, then.
One GB summoned. The remaining chopper at HQ picks them up and plans to drop them off between the river and Forbase-1: I can't drop them off in the jungle, or on the river, or in the village, or in the rice, so they'll have to walk in from there over the next few days.
6408 p-sup remaining, about half what I started with (12,500).
Thus ends day two in werewolf country.
With villagers unwilling to tell us where the werewolves are...
JP this atmosphere you have created, claustrophobia tinged with a Lovecraftian fear of the dark, is not so far from reality.
The VC had the sense to rarely attack a firebase, but morning SOP was to check the claymore mines. As a joke, they would turn them around to face the base defenders. Could ruin your whole day.
If you have some engineers, and get an idea of where the NVA will attack, we had a unit that made very striking uber-flamethrowers called foux-gas.
It was fashioned using an empty 50 gallon drum, gasoline, and Ivory Snow flakes. You could use other soaps, but Ivory Snow was preferred.
Also, don't let your troops play with the Stone Monkeys.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day three
I realize I'm going to need to name these villages something for ease of reference. (Which village did I enter and they didn't want to tell me where wolf, there wolf? That one. That one there. {pointing})
I could be horribly unimaginative and name them after military phonetics: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie; or maybe backward, Zulu, Yankee, Xray.
Or I could name them after Grogheads who comment on the thread.
I shall name them as I visit them.
The people in UGeek didn't want to talk.
The people in Banzaicat, however...
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...HOLY BLEEP WEREWOLVES RIGHT THERE, RIGHT THERE IN THE RICE FIELDS OUTSIDE TOWN CAN'T YOU SEE THEM, YOU ROUND-EYES!?!
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Oh. Yes, we can see them.
71% chance of winning the fight; about the best we can do, since they're outside artillery range (I've already dropped off my arty at Forbase-1; also the new GBs; and sent my choppers back to refuel overnight.) And in this game, there is no terrain or flanking or rear or other similar advantages. Ambush gives a 25% advantage to attack, but I couldn't ambush here anyway.
This is why we're here. To fight what cannot be beaten.
They beat us. And run away.
We aren't dead yet (and have left the village, now in the rice). Like a board game, one loss just means we flip the 'card' over to the 'wounded' side. It doesn't affect us otherwise, but we didn't score any p-sup or H&M for fighting this time, and we're going to lose some p-sup to heal this company back at HQ. Assuming they survive to get back there.
At least the werewolves are gone now.
Until whenever they come back.
This loss does tell us something very important, though:
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Assuming the VC move as straight toward their target as possible from their ingress -- which is kind of a big assumption, but we're up near the north edge of the map so they couldn't have maneuvered far -- and assuming they were trying to get to the village -- which is another big assumption, since their mission might have been to mine the rice paddy or set up an RPG ambush on the rice paddy...
...but allowing the first assumption as a working hypothesis unless events (or intel from other players, or the dev ;) prove me wrong...
There's at least a 33% chance the first nether hole must be along that red line at no great distance.
Consequently, my new mission for that area, if possible, is to get some infantry out into the jungle along that line, past the rice paddy, and set up a permanently supplied ambush camp.
Unfortunately, my engineers didn't get the memo (I forgot the plan) and drove their APCs toward the position for FirebaseFORBASE-2 today, rather than going back to work on that forest edge. I shall try to remember that tomorrow.
Thus ends day three. Werewolves 1, us 0. One werewolf still on the board, unseen.
And stalking its prey.
Village #3 will be named after you, Bes!
Quote from: besilarius on March 21, 2015, 04:05:47 PM
JP this atmosphere you have created, claustrophobia tinged with a Lovecraftian fear of the dark, is not so far from reality.
Great to have a vet on board the thread, btw! {bowing} Yeah, of course I'm not being insulting to the VC/NVA. Werewolves are
awesome; it's a big compliment to think of them like that. Terrible, but awesome.
Fortunately not something my Dad ever had to worry about; he just helped resupply spec-ops observers in the field occasionally.
Quote from: besilarius on March 21, 2015, 04:05:47 PMIvory Snow was preferred.
99-1/4% pure!
Quote from: besilarius on March 21, 2015, 04:05:47 PMAlso, don't let your troops play with the Stone Monkeys.
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O0
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day four
Dear diary,
Today I learned that even though Green Berets are so in synch with the locals that they can train local infantry companies (which one of them is currently doing in Forbase-1), they aren't so in synch that they can question locals for information.
This... frankly, this is so silly it must be a bug or a design oversight. If anything they ought to be better at it than standard infantry, if not so good as an ARVN company. I can't explain this by some kind of story jugglry. Blah.
Still, GB platoon 2 has gotten to THE VILLAGE THAT SHALL THUS NOT BE NAMED FOR A WHILE BECAUSE NOTHING HAPPENED WHEN I GOT THERE! -- the village south of HQ across the river in the jungle. Good job, guys, good hustle!
Company 4 was ferried out near Banzaicat village, as near as I can get, and the wounded company assigned to BC-V was resupplied as they retreated, even though I can't pick them up yet. Those two companies will end up getting in each other's way a bit, adding another day to C4's travel in-country.
Forbase-1 is now fully garrisoned with a GB, an infantry for security, and an artillery. (I could add more but probably won't for a while; and if so, it'll be arty.) As noted, the GB is on their second day pulling together a new company of ARVN. I think the rules say I can only do two this way, but I don't know what that means yet: two in a row? Two from this forbase but two more from any other forbases and firebase? Only two from this GB ever? We'll see.
Thus ends Day 4 with two werewolf packs on the map somewhere doing something wolfy. (A new one gets generated every day apparently, without one on the map day one. We've had three nights, three packs, one won a fight and went home.)
At least we're winning. By the slightest amount possible.
For now.
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IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day five
A quiet day as various previous plans continued.
Except that the augurs said two werewolf packs emerged last night.
Now there are four in the region.
Somewhere.
Doing something.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day six
Apparently due to a bug or misdesign, I cannot train an ARVN unit one day, then click the "continue mission" for that Green Beret next day and still count that as another day's training. Despite having apparently "trained" thus for three days, I had to train again today, and that popped forth the ARVN unit immediately.
Go forth, little unit.
The first wounded company has been picked up and is on the way back to HQ.
The engineers shaved off the forest blocking the route from HQ to Forbase-1, and can be up near Banzaicat village, despite the jungle, in four days; so I'm going to send them up there to clear out a patch along the probable werewolf route so my infantry can be immediately evac'd and replaced in the event of a fight.
The 'oldest' two werewolf packs on the map should be pretty close to doing whatever it is they were planning to do, by now...
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day seven, end of first week
Now five packs on the map somewhere. Maybe with two having been sent out to replace one, since our H&M score just dropped a tick back to 50.
O hai!
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This time the Ugeek village is willing to talk about its wolfy problems, and we learn another pack is approaching Banzaicat village again -- this time from exactly the opposite direction!
This also means there's a good chance the second nether portal is somewhere in that red circle (possibly under the pack if they've only just spawned and haven't moved, not sure how that works). And not any farther away in that direction or the pack would have been moving toward Ugeek instead.
This however is troubling in another way. Either one of those two packs didn't have a mission to go after the village, or there are two portals equidistant to the village, so a pack can spawn from either one.
If so -- which isn't sure, since I don't know their mission and thus their target hexes -- that would imply the other portal is here, assuming the village is dead center on an odd-numbered hex line.
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Fortunately, Company 4 hasn't moved yet, so I can redirect them to intercept and fight.
However, I won't have them fight just yet. I want to confirm (a) just how fast the VC can move in the jungle; and (b) if they're actually coming this way.
(b) would confirm a vector for their origin (assuming they go in a straight line from ingress to target, which might be wrong in practice, and might also be wrong in that the ingress could be off-line and yet still closer to this village than another one.)
(a) would confirm that I can use the jungle as a buffer for interception, so long as I can see them coming.
So I park my 4th Company in Banzaicat village for the night. If they show up outside tomorrow, I'll see them, and I'll know their travel vector and so I'll have a better confirmation of the origin vector. If they don't show up but my H&M ticks down a bit, that means they moved two hexes through the jungle and got in overnight.
This will also test whether a community eating-fire will relight (allowing questions) if I'm sitting in the village; and if that automatically results in an interrogation if so.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day eight, start of second week
Huh.
Well, the wolves didn't show up, so either they're waiting outside on an RPG mission, or they were going another way after all, or they planted mines somewhere and went home.
Who did show up was a pack outside Besilarius. Which ran into one of my first three companies coming out of the jungle, and got promptly shot in the face!
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Werewolves 1, us 1.
Now, even more interestingly, the intel map for today shows that the pack we spotted yesterday DID approach the village. If it was still there, we'd see it (according to the rules of the game). So either it dropped off mines and went home, or it went two hexes through the jungle into the village over night.
I can test that by doing a mine sweep, which has a 100% chance of finding any mines out to at least a two (maybe three? can't recall what the rules said) hex radius.
Well, the minesweep didn't seem to work -- though in doing so I discovered that the fire does light if I'm in the village, but it doesn't automatically interrogate. It does however trigger if I do an action in the village like sweeping for mines. So there's my interrogation for the day. (They were uncooperative, btw. I can do more than one a day by entering another village where the central firepit is active, but I won't.)
That seems to indicate they came in. But my overall score went back up to 51, probably due to catching the VC incoming down at Belisarius! Incidentally, this also means I should probably aim to park a BG in every village for scouting at a distance, since the VC seem capable of going two hexes through the jungle at a time. (Which is reasonable, they're the VC.)
Even more interesting, intel now says an NVA unit has entered the map!!!
Now... this is weird. According to every rule I recall reading, in the tutorials and in the manual, an NVA incursion only triggers two ways:
1.) If the H&M score goes under 40. Which has certainly not happened.
2.) If the H&M score drops three times in a row. Well, it was up at 51, then to 50... it could have dropped again to 49 and then come back, but that wouldn't be three days in a row, unless I had gone up to 52 between days and the VC dropped me back to 51 somehow over that night.
But that's the only theory that seems to fit, and lends strength to the idea that the werewolves got into town last night (going two hexes through the jungle). Worse, that kind of incursion triggers a tank! -- at least, maybe also some infantry! It'll take a while to find out, but if I see a tank show up that'll be direct confirmation of what happened here.
The good news is that I can get a tank myself for only 1500.
The better news is that I'm saving up an airstrike, too, so I'll hold my money until I know for sure there's a problem.
Meanwhile, the incursion at Besilarius suggests there's a portal somewhere out in this wedge.
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Any further out, and it would have been going toward Banzaicat instead.
I decide to send them out there to set up an ambush, and move my reserve company from Forbase-1 to keep scouting around Bes for now. But that reminds me, I should really buy another reserve infantry back at HQ.
Since the original BC company has healed now, but I need to save my choppers for a lot of resupplying tomorrow, they start marching back to BC to help set up ambushes later on that axis I detected.
Thus starts our second week in werewolf country.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day nine
Oh crap, there are now two NVA units on the map somewhere. And four VC.
I really need to ping the dev over in the relevant thread, and ask him what the hell the rules ended up finally being for NVA activity. They shouldn't be activating so quickly, according to the rules, should they??
I did end the turn up another H&M point to 52; and I confirmed that (despite how the rules said it) I could set up an ambush two hexes out from the village (just not next to it or in it, "not adjacent"). So Belisarius should be protected from that threat vector now. I'll still need tomorrow before Banzai cat can be protected with an ambush from the southwest, but I assigned a chopper to give the original BC Company a lift to the jungle's edge; and the engineers will be in position to dig a clear area by tomorrow. Also, everyone in the village south across the river (still not named!) got resupplied.
So a good day, not getting murdered by werewolves. Or their werewolf tank, or whatever it is. Yet.
Thanks for the AAR, JP. I'm getting closer to coming down off the fence about this one.
AND BEHOLD THE FOURTH VILLAGE SHALL BE NAMED "UBERCAT"!
And there shall be much rejoicing. Which in Vietnam may involve frying cats, I'm not sure. Dad has stories, but they're from being based in Okinawa...
Cool. That amazing beast deserves whatever immortality he can manage to achieve.
Quote from: JasonPratt on March 21, 2015, 06:48:34 PM
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day nine
Oh crap, there are now two NVA units on the map somewhere. And four VC.
I really need to ping the dev over in the relevant thread, and ask him what the hell the rules ended up finally being for NVA activity. They shouldn't be activating so quickly, according to the rules, should they??
I did end the turn up another H&M point to 52; and I confirmed that (despite how the rules said it) I could set up an ambush two hexes out from the village (just not next to it or in it, "not adjacent"). So Belisarius should be protected from that threat vector now. I'll still need tomorrow before Banzai cat can be protected with an ambush from the southwest, but I assigned a chopper to give the original BC Company a lift to the jungle's edge; and the engineers will be in position to dig a clear area by tomorrow. Also, everyone in the village south across the river (still not named!) got resupplied.
So a good day, not getting murdered by werewolves. Or their werewolf tank, or whatever it is. Yet.
Can I see your strat map with intel marks?
Great thread JasonPratt , I am sure you will be happy about naming villages in the upcoming update... :)
BTW can you name the next village 'Johan' , if there are any available.... ;)
ALL HAIL JOHAN! ALL HAIL JOHAN!!
Also, "Jomni" and "Johan" will indeed be the names of the next two villages visited.
Can we name our units, too, someday, or is that code element two different? Presumably the computer differentiates them somehow...
Also, do you have a diagnosis for why NVA units are activating without (apparently) three consecutive H&M drop days? much less without the score dropping to/below 40? And if it's the former (which seems slightly more in the realm of possibility), what can be expected for unit generation as a result? I've had an NVA unit a day for two days now; is that a tank and an infantry?
Jomni,
Strat maps with intel as requested.
The first shows my units only, for comparison, and the whole map. The other maps will remove my units to show enemy tracks more clearly, and zoom into the eastern half where the only activity I've detected is.
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The second shows "enemies", which is a 3 day running contact trail. I think.
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That dot in BC Village couldn't be seen earlier, so I think my units overlap it -- but I'm not sure because there ought to be a 3-day track contact dot for the unit that attacked me outside Bel, shouldn't there?
The third map shows VC contacts (there are no NVA contacts yet, I've double-checked).
I accidentally trimmed off a bit of the eastern portion of the previous map, but it didn't matter there were no dots. This shows out properly to the north, south, and eastern edges.
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It and the previous map seem to confirm very solidly that the VC moved two hexes through the jungle overnight and into the village while I was there.
On the other hand, that happened the same time I had a fight with the VC farther south, where the lone contact dot is. So why is one dot still remaining in Banzaicat's town, but no dot remaining north of Belisarius' village? ???
The only guess I can make is that the southern VC unit didn't exist long enough as a contact to be registered on the "enemy" tracking map afterward, or that it registered but then was removed after the fight because we destroyed it (in contrast to the "enemy" contact from the first fight, up in the rice paddy northeast of Banzaicat, which we fought and lost against -- that dot stayed on the enemy track a while. It can still be seen on the third VC history map.) That way we don't freak chasing false contacts already destroyed. But then again the VC are never there anymore after a fight, so it isn't like we can go looking for the winners.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day nine epilogue
At the very tail end of Day nine, my 1st GB finished training the second ARVN unit for Forbase-1. This is... weird. I mean, I'm glad the game remembers to continue an ongoing mission for me if I forget, but I specifically clicked "continue mission" once back during the training of the 1st ARVN company, and it seemed to take four days not three as a result.
Oh well. I plan put them on patrol near Belsarius (the closest town to Forbase-1), and start leapfrogging my American infantry companies up the road to the next town.
This however leads to the question of overextension. I'm already down to 3950 p-sup at the end of Day Nine, and could already stand to have a fourth Huey (one per village area). It's probably time for me to look at building my one and only allowed "firebase", more centrally in the map, so my copters can reach new areas better, but THAT's going to take some cost because even though the firebase is free (unlike forward bases) it's also vulnerable to attack, like forbases, so I'll need to spend p-sup to secure it. ESPECIALLY if somehow the VC have managed to trigger a tank on the way, or could fairly easily do so even if the H&M score isn't down below 40.
Ideally, I would be able to send American troops home and recoup at least some (if not all?) of their p-sup. That was pretty much the point, in terms of this game, to train ARVN units in real life! But the game (currently??) doesn't allow this, even as an option.
Oh well. Come forth werewolves, so that I may nip your ears and sell them back to my masters for the bounty!
(Okay, that was a terrible reference to something that often happened in real life -- but it fits the game scenario, too. :P )
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Situation and leapfrog plan at the end of Day 9.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day ten
This map is still from end-of-day-9.
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I wanted to clarify where I need to think about putting my firebase soon.
My engineers reached and cleared the jungle one hex northeast of the Banzaicat rice paddies today, so when 4th Co gets there we can set up a rotating ambush position. Come to think of it, though, I need to do the same for 1st Co to the southwest of the village.
I didn't move 3rd Co. up the road because they're going to need resupply soon and I figured it would be better to get that done closer than farther away. Being able to trade in Hueys for Chinooks (or any unit for unit), at the cost difference in p-sup, WOULD BE REALLY REALLY NICE! But maybe a little too game unbalancing. Would be nice as an option, though. Just saying, Johan.
My H&M score dropped back to 51 despite the ARVN actually moving Belisarius village to a score over 75 -- that village isn't just allied to the ARVN now, it's allied to the US. USA! USA! They still didn't want to tell their own people where the werewolves are, however.
There are still 5 VC and 2 NVA on the map, somewhere.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day eleven
Day eleven. Still no sign of the werewolves, but the augurs say another NVA unit has arrived. Seeing as how I was at 52 and now am at 50, and seeing as how the augurs say the new unit isn't a base, I'm going to guess that's a tank and an infantry company on the way -- tomorrow it'll be four NVA, then.
At this point I think I can safely say the enemy would be best advised to ignore the eastern half of the map, start making bases to whittle me down in the west by another 250 p-sup every night, and terrorize the western half. I can only pick up more p-sup if I win fights against units, and I can't feasibly go forward yet, so if they just leave me alone I'm going to lose eventually.
This sucks but there isn't much I can do about it. I'm already feeling a hard pinch from only having three copters to service a large number of troops in four areas; and they have to get fuel every once in a while, too. Which necessarily eats p-sup in itself.
Oh, and I can be pretty sure there are two werewolf tanks out there (or will be by tomorrow). Plus two strong packs (by tomorrow) and five weaker ones rotating in and out.
Werewolf. Tanks. Plural.
Unit and base naming included in upcoming update :)
Based on the average HM across the village, NVA has a % chance of spawning a base attack or ambush mission. Higher average HM lower the chance and vice versa...
When a village reaches below 40 HM a NVA unit is dispatched to setup a support base close to that village.
If Average HM score drops three consecutive turns an NVA offensive in the form of NVA armor enters the fray.
Hope this helps ....
Thanks for the village .... :D
Ah, okay, I was missing the third rule then! -- chance of spawning an NVA mission based on average H&M. It seems likely a tank was spawned at least once, though: I do think my H&M score dropped three times consecutively at least once. Does that spawn only one armor, or multiple units?
(Note: at this rate we may not ever reach Village Johan. ;) We'll see.)
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twelve
Couldn't get a snapshot, but 3rd Company, patrolling the road northwest of UGeek, got attacked last night, and won their fight. So that helps my p-sup score, and my H&M score!
Even better, we must have successfully questioned survivors, or something because we got word of an RPG unit parked southwest of Jomni!
I know it had to be that, because the only unit in a village at the start of the day were the GBs down across the river in the jungle village of Ubercat; and not only could they not question villagers before, and not only didn't I think it's time for that village to light up again, and not only did questioning in a village have to follow an action in a village such as minesweeping which hasn't happened yet {inhale} -- but UGeek's village fire lit up, and I only do one village a day, so it couldn't have been UCat's village. Thus I got the intel from the fight.
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I honestly don't know how to interpret that contact, in terms of looking for a netherhole. The augurs (and my brief visual of them) showed them as VC, so they couldn't have had a mission of fighting me directly, but I can't see how they could have had a mission to terrorize a village and run into me out there. Consequently they were either setting up an RPG trap (like those other rocketwolves to my west I got intel from them on), or they meant to lay mines but attacked me instead. Either way, the netherhole could have been anywhere generally west to north of my position: the holes are spaced out, not clustered, and had they popped out of the one southwest of 1st Co... well, okay, I might not have seen that yet, they only just got in position yesterday (and need to move out of the way today so the engineers can clear a copter landing).
Anyway. More p-sup, thank God!
Soon to be taken away, since the augurs say yep a base was generated last night, so there's 250 a night down the toilet until when-if-ever I find and zorch it. On the other hand, a second NVA didn't show up. I don't know if that'll be tonight (because the base was built last night), or not at all and if not why. Also, I don't know whether the tank did or didn't show up.
I couldn't get 3rd Company close enough to launch an attack on the rocketwolves today, and I didn't think it would be a good idea to park them next door where I might provoke an attack! (I couldn't have choppered them in, as the rockets would have instantly ambushed the copter had I tried to drop off even one hex closer.) So I stood off a hex; we'll test how that works tomorrow.
I did however risk buying another Huey (at 2500 p-sup), since I badly need the extra supply lift. I also decided the ARVN across the river near UCat should go home to resupply when not needed for interrogation. That probably won't completely work, since the Forbase only resupplies one tick a day, but it'll give me more time to maneuver my supplies around. Ditto for the ARVN assigned to scout near Bel: I've probably garrisoned off the VC hole there anyway.
Further note to Johan: really, Green Berets can't question villagers?? Is that supposed to be an actual rule (for balancing purposes), or a bug, or what???
NVA armor only appears if your net HM drops three turns in a row. C:-)
Only one is spawned and the counter is set to 0 , waiting for the next three consecutive turns.
GB's gather Intel covertly (greater detection range) , infantry gather Intel overtly (village patrol)
All about balance, can't have any one unit a super unit ???
Eh, I wouldn't call the GBs superunits even if they could get local intel. They can't fight worth a hoot, and it's weird that they can train ARVN and yet not get local intel.
Still, okay, they're getting A DIFFERENT KIND OF local intel -- you could call it very local intel, within three hexes, all the time not just once every five days. :coolsmiley:
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day thirteen
Either the rocketwolves didn't see me last night, two hexes away, or they can't shoot infantry at a distance and they didn't want to close and shoot.
Time to see if they're even still there...
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Oh yes they were. USA! USA! WHATCHA GONNA DO WHEN THEY COME FOR YOU-OU!!
(The psup score went up afterward by 1000, btw.)
Time to start marching 3rd Co back down the road, so I can resupply them in a day or two.
Oh and we got intel from the fight. Hai sneaky werewolves!!
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This is a bit of a puzzle. Neither of my two closest infantry can get next to them and still have energy to fight. Nor can I chopper someone close enough, even if I had the copter range to do it which I probably don't -- but it doesn't matter because I'd still have to walk into the jungle and that would take too much energy to fight afterward until tomorrow. Ideally I'd like to cover that hex between them and UGeek village, but putting a team in the village won't keep them out tonight and I've already established the VC can march in at that range. Nor can I move... whoever those are, 5th Co I think... up a hex and set an ambush to cover the jungle between the wolves and the village, because the Viets don't like people setting ambushes in or near their villages. (Which kind of makes sense in the milieu, and I understand the game balancing behind the rule.)
Lastly, they're two hexes outside Forbase-1's artillery range. I could call in an air-strike, but I'm saving that for their arty base or tank whichever I find first.
At the end of the day, all I can do is move 5th up to block and hope for the best.
I did take a loitering copter out to pick up the now-very-experienced 3rd Co; the plan is to ferry them more quickly back to somewhere they can be supplied tomorrow (though they aren't in danger of problems yet). Worst case, an RPG shows up tonight and shoots the copter for damage.
Score at end of day: still 50 HM (the least possible win), 2411 psup (-250 for the NVA base overnight). Nine werewolves (including three strong packs -- can't be a tank per Johan, as I'm pretty sure the net never dropped three times consecutively) and a werewolf base still on the board.
That village on the far left edge of the screenshot will be "Johan" someday, btw, or that's naturally the plan anyway. All three other villages are much farther off than that.
Twill be a delay for real-world lunch.
Okay, back from lunch with an experimental observation and another question for Johan.
Question: when I click the engineer option to clear a hex of terrain within range of the company, any village in range lights up as a potential target. What happens if I try to bulldoze a village??!
EDITED TO CORRECT BY HINDSIGHT: nothing, it was an optical illusion from being surrounded by trees. Villages and rice paddies cannot be cleared.
However, there might be some interesting tactical possibilities in clearing them -- for example, doing so gives a general drop to the H&M score but a 'bad' village would no longer be affecting the overall average and the penalty could be recovered at ten percent a day. That won't be coming in the first big update, and the engine may not allow it anyway, but I'll suggest it as a possibility later.
Oh, uh... I forgot the experimental observation. :crazy2:
I saved the game and then put the computer to sleep, to see if being asleep affected the game and if so how/much.
At the moment, the only affect seems to be that the sound hasn't come back. But it's a problem, because continuing the game into the next turn didn't return the sound; nor did loading from the save. I had to quit completely to the desktop and restart to reset the sound.
So: don't put the game to sleep (on the PC anyway), unless you aren't playing with sound to begin with.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day fourteen, end of week 2
Hm. The VC didn't attack me, so they must not have been trying to get to UGeek village from a portal between it and Banzaicat village. Or they changed their mind to another mission... can that happen in the game? Or they decided to try going around a longer way... can that happen in the game?
At any rate, they ran off to the southeast, in the general direction of Belisarius.
And then a new VC appeared to the northwest of 5th Company. So they'll certainly have someone to fight, but... what does the tracking mean? Neither one looked to be carrying RPGs, but (in game terms) do VC change into that when they reach their position, if they have that mission, or do they spawn as RPG? (Hopefully Johan can answer that.)
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(Opps, mislabeled Bel's town, sorry.)
Based on their travel, the running VC should be two hexes away along that red line-x, or possibly one hex that way and then one hex south. I know there has to be at least one portal northeast of Banzaicat village, so it isn't likely that the closest portal to the mission area would pass through the hex I saw them at and then turn north (though I can't strictly rule that out yet).
The appearance of the new contact to the NW suggests that the portal SW of Banzaicat Village may be farther away than I was thinking... no, that can't be true. Whatever mission my very first contact had (whom I lost against), that second contact coming up from the SW to BCvillage definitely had the mission of going into the village because that's what it did instead of attacking me (since it could fulfil its mission without risking a fight). And (per the written manual anyway) the code doesn't spawn the VC randomly from portals, they're assigned to spawn at the portal closest to their intended mission objective. And there HAS TO BE a portal pretty close to BC Village somewhere to the north of it in one direction or another, and not too far away because that happened early in the game.
So there must be a portal somewhere between UGeek village and Banzaicat village.
And all visual evidence I've seen of portal placement when the map is generated, indicates they don't cluster. So for operations near UGeek village to the north of it, that portal must be the closest. There can't be another portal even closer which would be spawning werewolves; and they wouldn't be spawning from farther away in order to operate here, much less southeast of here.
That by the way suggests there are no portals in the yellow areas shown below.
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Now, I didn't see anyone show up and run away from the hex 1st Company is camping in for ambush -- much less did any ambush trigger -- so the portal can't be there. Nor can the portal be south of them to any significant degree; the werewolves don't run back to a portal (so far as I know?) and any portal there would be closer to their mission compared to whence they were moving. Also, I didn't see those current werewolves coming into range, but then I'm not sure there's a graphic effect for that (and I might have just missed it, being distracted by what was happening with the VC I thought might be fighting) so I can't take that as evidence they're sitting on the portal though they might be.
But if they aren't sitting on the portal itself, they must be near it; and considering that the VC who entered Banzaicat to the north had to have come from it, and also had to have come from a portal no farther distant than wherever the VC had come from the north (or they'd have spawned from there instead, to get to the village more quickly), that suggests the P? directly north of the current contact is the spawn point!
(Note to Johan -- being able to write notes on the game map would be nice!)
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My VC contact history tends to bear this out. Note that it confirms the line of travel of the VC who disappeared; the pack is either one hex southeast of that, or one hex east. (I just checked, the game hexes are oriented e/w like my paint graphic, not n/s.) Assuming they only run two hexes at a time in the jungle, not three, but that feels pretty safe as an assumption.
It could of course be a hex farther west or northwest. Theoretically it might be under the contact, but I don't know the rule on how close a portal can be to a village: that's would only be two hexes out. I'll have to test it by moving my ambushing infantry over to scout it.
I haven't actually done any actions yet on this game day, so I'll post here and continue.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day 14 conclusion
The first thing I did was bring 3rd Company by chopper down to where they could be more easily resupplied in the next few days; but I figured I could try dropping them off next to the hex where the werewolves might have gone...
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Oh hai! Did you think you could get away? We have helicopters now. Ho. Ho. Ho. (Wait my copter is flying off! Well, it badly needs to refuel...)
Note that I don't recall clearly whether the chopper saw them, but I don't think it did. The map isn't to scale; the company sends out scouts to check in a one hex radius around it. Still, copters often saw the enemy, even in the jungle (at night anyway when moving with lights which couldn't be seen horizontally), at some distance, so a rule adjustment letting air cav scout at least one hex around itself in flight, at least in clear areas, would be nice.
The... uh, 2nd Company which has been sitting in ambush along the other projected trail for a while, could use some experience; so I set the 3rd Company in ambush, too. Unless the werewolves turn around and run away completely, they'll walk into an ambush one way or another, and we'll get a major bonus to winning.
Or... OMG THEY WALKED INTO MY ARTY RANGE FINALLY! Arty gets on the board.
5th Company shoots its werewolves -- got to remember on an attack like that the unit moves into the defending hex at the end, that could be a problem later... and I bag some more score. Tomorrow I'll put them on ambush to watch for anyone exiting a portal nearby.
I could technically order a new Huey now -- I still need at least one more to service the area better, maybe two, especially if I'm going to reach up to Jomni village. But that would be 2750 out of 3915, and that enemy base is still sucking 250 political points every day, so that doesn't seem like a very good idea. Wait until I shoot a few more werewolf packs I guess.
Thus ends our second week. HM score, 52. Political points, 3915 (-250 overnight for the enemy base). Three strong packs still on the board, five weak ones. But 5 weaker packs shot with only one American injury so far.
r... OMG THEY WALKED INTO MY ARTY RANGE FINALLY! Arty gets on the board.
Red Leg, Red Leg, check-your-fire! :D
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day fifteen (start of week 3)
More werewolves popped out of wherever that portal is I'm sure I've found nearby; and attacked 5th Company. That didn't go so well.
FOR THEM! :D
(But it happened so fast I couldn't get a screenshot.)
I am definitely putting 5th Co on ambush today. Since I moved into a hex, and they didn't start off in my hex... not sure how that works: need to ask Johan, what happens if I'm occupying a portal hex, or is the portal at a junction between hexes and so can go in various directions?
For now I'll infer that since we weren't in the same hex during the fight, this isn't the portal hex. But it could be where the enemy appeared, or might be up and to the left a little. Not likely any further left, since the southern attack on BC's village had to have come from here.
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I mean from one of those two red hexes (not any closer to my 1st Company or they would have seen them leaving -- 1st Co is moving into position and not ready to ambush last night). Maybe the orange one.
The orange circle is my attempt (flattening it a bit to match the projection distortion on the map which as you can see isn't shown from directly above but an an angle) to give an equidistant range of the portal northeast of Banzaicat. That's shown as red marker on the edge of the circle.
I also shaded in an equally equidistant portal suggestion on the lower right hand side, but on second thought that doesn't seem right: if a portal was there, it would be closer to the target of that pack I artilleried, and they would have originated from there. Yet a pack did come from that direction! But it could have come from the portal tracked up in the right hand corner.
Since the known portal area (within that little cluster) was the closest to whatever target those arty-shot werewolves were headed, though, that means wherever those VC came from that I killed a while back north of Belisarius, it couldn't be farther away than the known portal area, or they'd've popped in from there and come southeast instead of coming south-southwest!
Wait... pondering...
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Keeping in mind, I don't know where that pack was traveling from in any kind of vector, or what its target really was. There might be a portal somewhere in that red circle, closer or nor more than equidistant from the contact than the known portal location, and definitely closer to the Belisarius village area (it has the little US flag in the middle of the second orange circle) than the far northeast portal, but not so far north or west that it would be closer to Banzaicat Village (the center of the first orange circle). At most it could only be equidistantly close to Banzaicat village as the other two portals, and that seems unlikely.
Or, there are only two portals, northeast and southwest of Banzaicat; that would explain everything, too, since the contact I shot north of Belisarius might still have been going somewhere closer to the UGeek portal than to the far northeast portal (though the mission area couldn't have been too much farther east I suppose).
Well, I'm not moving 2nd company out of its long-running ambush spot there. It's demonstrably on at least one, maybe two portal tracks into the local area.
Meanwhile, guess what we learned from intel after the fight; and who just walked into range of the Green Berets in Ubercat village!
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Some werewolves on a terror mission, and some NVA ROCKETWOLVES!
I'm pretty sure this means there aren't any portals in the two yellow areas; or if there are they're somehow too far away from much of anything to worry about the enemy sending troops through it. Much more likely the portal is somewhere west -- but not much northwest.
In fact, not any northwest! The NVA didn't come from a portal, they came from the border, no doubt in a straight line to wherever they're going. (Well, I don't know for sure the code doesn't spawn them randomly on the border, but it doesn't spawn VC from portals randomly, it spawns them closest to the target, or randomly from two equally distant portals perhaps. It would make no sense for Johan to write the game so that the NVA spawned randomly on the west border with specific mission areas to reach -- but he might have done that to simulate something else or for balancing purposes.)
And the VC couldn't have come from anywhere northwest unless that's where they're trying to reach for a mining mission, which would be weird. I can't rule that out, admittedly, but more likely they're headed for Ubercat village or for somewhere nearby.
Assuming that, means they're either already traveling on the east/west line they intend to stay on -- in which case the portal could be quite a bit farther west -- or they're planning to move north to get where they're going but haven't moved any farther north yet! That would be significant because they're at the map edge; you can't go or start farther south than that. On this hypothesis, the portal can't be much farther west than where they started -- maybe not even more than one or two hexes west -- or they'd already be moving north. Maybe. Maybe not, if the portal is on the bottom map edge but way west.
At any rate, I might as well do a bit of scouting to the west with my GBs, making room for my ARVN to go into the village tomorrow for intel. I can't stop weaker werewolves from getting into the village anyway except by putting my GBs in the way and that would be stupid: they can't fight worth a hoot, and so long as the enemy doesn't stumble on them by accident they'll be invisible. And my ARVN can't even get to the village before tomorrow.
So either my arty shoots them or they get into the village.
My arty shoots them. :)
I just realized the Rocketwolves might have come in the 3 hex detection radius of my GBs guarding Forbase-1. I really don't know what those rockets are after. Are they planning to shoot the base? Or setting up to shoot copters on a resupply run? (My Ubercat GBs do need resupply tomorrow at the latest; but this way if something weird happens maybe they can get into the Forbase.)
No... if they were after the Forbase, they wouldn't be coming up along the river or through the jungle from the western edge in ANY case. That wouldn't be effective travel from the north, or even really from the west. They're more likely looking to set up an ambush near the base. Fine, I can shoot them tomorrow then (instead of sending ARVN out now, who aren't good except against maybe VC).
I could buy some more things now, but I think I'll save up to send defenses for a central firebase soon.
Note to self -- if I ever manage to get farther west, Endfire is the next name on the village list.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day sixteen
Whoops, I guess I was wrong. The rocketwolves walked up to Forbase-1 and attacked it!
That's... odd. I know they can shoot air units at least two hexes out. Can they not shoot ground targets two hexes out? And if that was their target, why didn't they go straight for it from the western map edge? Maybe they hid in the jungle south of the river to avoid detection as long as possible?
Oh well. Fortunately my resupplying ARVN were in the base on ambush duty -- YES I CAN SET AMBUSHES INSIDE MY OWN BASES THANK GOD!! The ARVN kicked ass, and helped our score; giving my artillery a rest.
3rd Company, having been resupplied, visited UGeek village today and got a tip from the locals (who now love the US) that another NVA rocket team has set up an ambush, or is on the way, just outside Jomni village. We'll see about that later.
For all the time that the VC and the NVA have had on the board, largely unmolested until recently, no village flag is flying VC colors yet, so their loyalty couldn't be under 50 yet. That's... odd. I should check the loyalty level flag switches.
Day 16 ends with only 2 VC but still 3 NVA on the map, plus the base. And I know where one of the NVA already is.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day seventeen
No new trouble during the night, although the augurs say a strong pack came into the region somewhere. The BetterRocketwolves outside Jomni village either stayed there on ambush duty, or else I'm looking at an old contact. Hard to tell yet, I don't know quite how the engine works when dealing with distant intel like this.
Wait, wait. Huh. They're shown on the map, but not in the game. And now they're not shown on the map either, except as a previous contact.
Anyway. 3rd Company heads off west of UGeek village as security for the engineers following behind; by tomorrow we should be setting up our first and only Firebase (trademark) (registered). Not to be confused with Forward bases, which can also hold artillery.
I did send 6th Company out yesterday from HQ to park a while in ambush (starting today) in case there's a portal nearby. Can't hurt.
Some ARVN from Forbase-1 talked to people in UCat village, but we didn't learn anything. They left to march back to Forbase for the week, and the GBs took up station in UCat to watch for incoming trouble.
Apparently forward bases, though they resupply infantry one tick a day, do not resupply artillery ammo. That's... understandable I guess. At least the arty isn't running out. I'll have to assign a copter to them when I get a chance.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day eighteen
All quiet last night, but the augurs say a new VC showed up somewhere. We now have 8 packs of some kind total on the map, plus a base.
I did learn that my 1st Company, helping stand watch on the suspected portal location north of UGeek village, was one tick too far away to get resupplied; that was almost a big problem, and they had to leave their position, breaking that side of the ambush trap. Oy. They won't be able to be back in ambush until the day after tomorrow. I'll have to make sure they get assigned a resupply two days out instead of one from now on.
Since 3rd Company as well as several others are already at the three day mark on being out of supply, and since they're so far out and getting farther... I don't know. I guess it'll be okay, the Firebase will supply them instantly once I build it. Kind of pushing that, though.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day nineteen
Still quiet in werewolf country, despite the augurs going goofy with two NVA bases (-500 political points a day!) and seven werewolves somewhere on the map.
I wasn't quite able to build my Firebase where I wanted, due to somewhat obscure placement rules (my guess is something to do with the position I wanted being still three hexes out between two villages -- well, no the manual says two hexes, and I'm sure the spot I wanted was at least 3... weird...) but I having to make a choice between where future artillery would be able to shoot, I chose a bit south instead of a bit north.
Unfortunately, I won't be able to launch resupply missions with helicopters from here, so that's a real problem. Arty apparently won't resupply automatically here either, so copters will have to bring it!
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Again, the AI would be well advised to just build bases on the western half of the map and bleed me dry, terrorizing the villages there until I run out of psup.
Oh, and I didn't realize when I was plotting for 3rd Company to go to the base tomorrow, that would take them out of ambush and not be able to put them back. So if they get attacked, they'll be more vulnerable. :P
Things don't exactly suck yet, but the suck appears to be coming. I'd need 4000 just to get another arty out there, and very possibly another copter. Without the arty and maybe another GB for spotting (now 4500 for a total of 8500 points not counting a copter to get them there while my others are resupplying people), how useful will this be?
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty...
That's... somewhat helpful maybe. My APC got refueled in the Firebase. (Nothing new on the map, augurs say 10 werewolves out there now plus the two wolf-bases.)
I have a copter nearby that just dropped off some supplies; it still has three days of fuel. I'll send it over to the Firebase to test out whether it can at least refuel. Worst that can happen is that it can't and I'll spend two days getting back to HQ. Well, worst that can happen is that by losing more "hexes" of time-travel I won't be able to resupply someone and they'll die, but...
...what's this?
I CAN LAUNCH SUPPLY MISSIONS FROM THE FIREBASE!!?
Exxxcellent... {insert Mr. Burns jpg here}
Also, my engineers finished a road linking the firebase to the main leg of the road network. Probably the next thing will be for them to road up the area from the HQ to Belisarius and Forbase-1.
Also, I moved fourth company out of its ambush position to go check on village intel, but only found the same rocket crew waiting in ambush near Jomni. At least that means they'll be there when I'm ready to go get them. Or when I copter the artillery out to Firebase. Though I'll still have to 'spot' them again... somehow....
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-one
If I lose, it may be because of a choice I made at the end of yesterday.
I can't safely afford artillery.
But I could safely afford one of three other things.
More infantry at 1750?
A real APC platoon at 1000? Cheaper and stronger and faster than infantry, and survives slightly longer out in the field. But needs spotting to attack without running into the enemy.
How about a tank? At only 1500? Cheaper than infantry now (for my first tank anyway; second will be 2000), and faster, and survives slightly longer out in the field, and the strongest unit in the game -- and able to attack at some distance! Still really needs a spotter to work well, but I might be able to send one of my GBs and still park the other nearby between Forbase-1 and Ubercat to watch for trouble.
I bought a tank.
Fear me, werewolves. I have a tank now. Tanks are cool.
That night, the Firebase was attacked.
The game called it an "ambush" but technically I don't think that can be true, can it? They came up and attacked my base.
Fortunately from the intel (3rd Company won again, and will damn sure be putting itself on ambush for tonight), we spotted the NVA rocketeers again. I think I see a flaw in my tank plan -- I may have to get in their range to attack them, triggering their ambush. Oh well, maybe I'll park it in the Firebase and let sad things try to kill it while I send out 3rd Company to deal with the problem. That's for later this week.
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Not shown: the Ubercat area across the river to the south; one dead pack of werewolves. Except with an X to mark their spot. >:D
It occurs to me that I really need to bring 6th Company forward -- I doubt they're really able to watch for the portal that may or may not be just a little farther off beyond their area {eyeroll}, and I can use them to at least help guard Forbase-1. One ARVN there can go back and forth to Ubercat village to get intel and resupply at Forbase (if necessary); the other can work the road for information up to Jomni and back. I make arrangements to put that plan into action. To help facilitate this, I also make arrangements for the engineers to do the southern leg of the new roadwork first, including anything to help the UCat ARVN get to that village and back. (Sadly, no bridges possible in this game, which is silly.)
It also occurs to me that with the central Firebase able to lend copter supply and refueling support, I could assign one copter to take the arty from Forbase-1 to the Firebase and then sit there (unless it's an emergency) ready to ferry it to Forbase-1 in case of necessary defense. The other copters might be able to keep supply up for everyone by themselves now. It's worth an experiment anyway. I won't be able to work on that until tomorrow.
11 werewolf packs out in the field and still those two bases; but one of them is almost certainly going to get shot by 3rd Company tonight, and I'm making arrangements to work on that Rocketwolf pack soon.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-two (start of fourth week)
It occurs to me that one day when I get back to the States, I could make a game about slow heavily armored and armed soldiers tactically maneuvering against many kinds of more numerous enemies. Only, it wouldn't be about werewolves. It would be about, oh, Tolkien's creatures, orcs and elves and maybe something like that Alien from "X THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE".
That would make all the money. :)
(Matrix/Slitherine. I know you have some of the Warhammer40K license. You converted Panzer General Corps to that milieu pretty successfully. Consider. Consider the moneys. That is all. I know you will do the right thing.)
Meanwhile... wait, my crew was on ambush, my highly experienced crew, versus VC, and we fought them on ambush as they walked by the Firebase, AND WE STILL LOST?? That... that seems unprobable.
Oh well. Not dead yet. Will have to evac them though and get some replacements there asap.
Oh and there are three bases on the board now somewhere. Drinking 750 political points a day. Blankety blank blanking... GIVE ME SOMETHING TO AIRSTRIKE Y'ALL!!
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-three
Fortunately I was able to drop off 6th Company and let them get on ambush duty at the Firebase; and then even resupply 5th Company nearby. (Thank the Lord I had enough sense to resupply some of my other troops at 3 units the past couple of days when I had the wherewithal to do so.)
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get 3rd Company all the way back to HQ today. But I choppered them most of the way, and they won't die from wounds, that's not how this game works.
Fortunately, I was able to airlift my artillery company to the Firebase from Forbase-1.
Unfortunately, I didn't think to do this after my ARVN visited Ubercat village; and as it happens we got some intel of an incoming VC pack (along that previous route to Ubercat village I mean). So I couldn't arty shoot them.
Fortunately, my tank can shoot out three hexes, and was able to run back to within three hexes to whomp them. Level up little tanky!
Unfortunately, that'll delay me getting to the RPGs, so the points I earned won't count much, even though on the balance it should be 250 ahead of where I would have otherwise been (minus various operational costs meanwhile.)
Fortunately, this (probably?) confirms that as long as I have a forward spotter I can hit the RPG squad with the tank outside their ambush radius.
Unfortunately, as Johan confirmed, moving my GB up the road without my tank still doesn't mean I can question people in UGeek village.
Fortunately, I didn't want to question anyone else today anyway (I'd rather keep that a running once-per-day thing so that the villages will trigger somewhere once a day).
Unfortunately, the frogurt delivered to HQ today from California was cursed.
Fortunately, my arty will be in place to shoot those dang RPGs and whoever else my GB spots in the next few days. I won't even need the tank! Though I'll bring it along to catch up eventually anyway, just in case.
Unfortunately, three NVA bases eating away 750 points a day will be hard to overcome until I can find and whomp them.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-four
Weirdly, my contact map for NVA track history shows there was some kind of contact two hexes west of the Firebase at some time in the past. And that wasn't the VC 3rd Company killed one hex west of it either. I don't recall ever seeing it. I wonder if it's still there, and what it is. Hm. It's between me and Johan village, if so. And not an RPG ambusher apparently. Or maybe. How long has it been there? Why didn't I see it before?
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I don't want to waste time sending the GB over to check it if it's nothing; but I'm not real happy about the idea of sending my rookie 6th company out to look for it either instead of keeping them on a comfortable ambush. But I'm also not happy about the idea of risking my copters. Argh.
Well, war is risk. I send 6 Co out, one hex, to see whassup.
Apparently it's nothing; or they find nothing anyway. Just to be safe, and to guard the approach to the firebase that I know at least two VC have tried (and maybe whatever that NVA dot is/was), I put them on Ambush. They can go back tomorrow on ambush again inside the base.
We didn't get any actionable intel from the locals today, but the 1st GBs moved up the road toward Jomni and spotted the RPG squad for our arty, who turned them into a black smoky hole. Everyone got basically resupplied who needed it, and we'll only be a little behind by tomorrow (with 3rd costing us p-sup to heal and the usual 750 deficit from NVA bases.) Maybe we'll be lucky and the werewolves will send someone into a successful ambush or two tonight!
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-five
Oh, hey! Last night I realized my GBs hadn't finished moving -- much like Panzer general, if you have segmented movement (and everyone does in this game, but even in FantasyWars/ElvenLegacy you should always move one hex at a time to be safe and then undo and move farther along your chosen path, just to be safe) you should go one hex at a time and see what pops up.
As it happened, I hadn't arty'd the RPG squad yesterday, or there were two squads. The GBs picked up another one!
Rather than get one hex closer and risk problems, I decided to camp them for the night; which since they can't go into ambush mode means clearing mines: and I blew a set in front of Jomni!
Odd... I thought mines were supposed to score me some kind of points, but they don't seem to have done so... Oh, it's an HM score uptick for the nearest village; right now that might not count much. Got it.
And then, during the night, another NVA troop runs right up to the GBs from the west!
Now, I got two different impressions from the rules, and I don't know which is true. One is that the GBs can never be attacked, because they're always invisible to the enemy, which would make them able to block movement. (They can attack but not be attacked. And should only attack really weak things if any such things exist, not even VC infantry.) The other is that the enemy could run into them by accident triggering a fight. I don't know which impression is right. But the NVA certainly didn't hit them last night, just stopped next door.
I also clarified by the way that I must have seen an optical illusion much earlier when my engineers were up in the jungle around Banzaicat: I can't use them to clear villages or even rice. So, uh, yeah just ignore that question, Johan, nevermind. :)
Engineers also can't clear rocks, which makes me have to go around them for a road, but that's okay. Would have been shorter but whatever.
My tank ran up and shot the incoming NVA; and the arty got the next the GBs had spotted near Jomni! Amazingly, the GBs as they advanced found yet another but it might be outside arty range (and it can only shoot one a day anyway.)
Also, my tank is about out of gas, and I can't think of any way to supply it today. I hope it doesn't disappear tomorrow (but I saved the game before the move, just in case I didn't understand the rules right. The engineer APC can carry gas to it, so I told it to forget the road now and be ready to help it tomorrow if it survives.
I've decided to risk Forbase-1 being hit by incoming problems from that portal to the north (wherever it is), in order to move my 2nd GBs westward three hexes up from the southern border. I'd like to know where the portal is down there, if I can find it.
All things considered, it was a pretty good day today, although the augurs say 11 packs are still in the area (after I wiped out two of them!) I know where one is, though; we'll see if he's still there tomorrow.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-six
Oh, good, my tank didn't disappear! The engineers refueled it; and are slated to go back in the Firebase tomorrow; so it's all good.
I kind of forgot the point to the 2nd squad of ARVN was to patrol the villages on the road for information, now that the Firebase is nearby enough to easily keep them supplied. This has now been rectified. (I'll show the setup on that soon.)
The next NVAs, who are definitely set to shoot tanks at a 3 hex range by the way (I checked with some save scumming because I don't know the rules and wanted to make sure ;) ), are also outside the range of my arty. This could be a problem; but I have my 3rd Asskickers on the way back from HQ and they'll be of some help I think. I'm also running an ammo supply mission for the cannons, though in the nature of things that takes pretty much four days at least (maybe more for the chopper to refuel). In effect I'm tying up two copters to keep it running ideally, in case I need to fly it back to Forbase for protecting that area there. Not great. But still doable, I think. Neither GB squad found anything else today, but I have hope this strategy will be good.
The most interesting thing happened last night, however. (Oh, and I discovered villagers will tell me about werewolves I already know the location of myself, which is annoying.)
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4th Company was attacked by VC while waiting in ambush northeast of Banzaicat. JUST LIKE I HOPED THEY WOULD EVENTUALLY!
And the attack came from directly east. This, combined with the equidistant range to the village from the other portal (haven't seen any activity there since setting up shop by the way), tells me there's an extremely good chance the portal in the NE corner of the map is somewhere at or just beyond that red line/circle interception -- otherwise the two contacts up there wouldn't have had the approaches they did! Worth noting: that's almost a direct diagonal line to the Belisarius village fight long ago!
We'll be moving off that direction for ambushing if we can, soon.
Not a bad day at all: no one got hurt (once I figured out the RPG team and I have equal ranges after they set up ambush anyway), and we shaved a few more werewolves. If I could just find and whack those bases, we'd really be making hay!
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-seven
Nothing evident happened last night, though the augurs say there are fourteen werewolf teams in the region (in a 9VC 5NVA mix). They must be laying out rocketwolf ambush teams like crazy.
The southern GBs found a VC pack running along the southern map border. We'll need to track them for destruction later -- the arty can't reach them where it is.
Unfortunately, one of our copters coming into the firebase for resupply took an RPG from what was probably a VC squad three hexes to the west. Nothing really could be done about that; I just need more Green Berets really. And more arty to take more shots per round. And more copters to keep the arty in supply. Also, ponies. The copter, fortunately, could be repaired by the engineers coming in to the Firebase for their own supply; so it picked up its supply, and dropped it off on the way home to HQ for arty ammo (a mission I had to scupper today since a bunch of people got down to 2 supplies). But the repairs cost us 200 pre-sup.
Still could have been a much worse day.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-eight
The good news is that during the night 5th Company was attacked by VC and won. The bad news was that it was coming in from the east, off the road, and I can't figure out whether that means I've got the portal miscalculated or if it bobbed and weaved down from the northwest somehow (yet didn't come from the nearest portal for its mission??) or what exactly.
The other bad news is that we now have four NVA bases on the board and they're sucking 1000 political points a day. At this rate, keeping operational costs in mind, we have four days at best before we hit an economic death spiral.
I honestly don't know what to try other than to push my GB / tank crew west on clear ground and hope for the best. Clearly the villagers are going to keep telling me about the RPG team I can already see until I get rid of it. I go ahead and move the 5th Company up toward it, too; it and my 3rd (also on the way) are my elites right now, maybe they can keep pushing off that way once they take care of business. My 1st Company moves down and east a bit to try to make up the difference waiting in ambush near the portal. Maybe the local ARVN unit can help with that come to think of it... he doesn't have to go north anymore, I have American units doing that already.
6th Company (I think) resupplied last night at the Firebase, and so is pushing west slowly, too; not as fast as the GB and tank of course (he couldn't possibly even go as fast, much less catch up to them), but just to get far enough out to establish a perimeter eventually for catching RPGs on the way to snipe my copters three hexes out.
Last but not least, a copter is carrying my arty back to Forbase-1 in order to deal with the incoming werewolvies, whom my GBs are shadowing back in that direction so I can keep an eye on them. I have an ARVN unit nearby who is already waiting in ambush at Forbase in case things don't work out; we can't really stop the VC from entering Ubercat village without bombing them anyway. A copter is ready to ammo the arty up tomorrow, probably.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-nine
After doing my minor movements (closing in on the two portal areas for ambushing again), it's time to get serious.
First, these clowns.
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Land the arty, it takes its shot... and misses. But they run away, so they're gone. Not good for the score. That miss right there could cost me the game later because I'm bleeding 1000 points a day.
The chopper (not so great on fuel itself) picks up the arty again and heads for Firebase. Another copter at HQ grabs some ammo and follows behind. (A third at HQ starts a supply run on my northeast portal hunters before problems can develop later.) The ARVN at Forbase-1, since things look clear, optimistically starts his trek to Ubercat Village for questioning the folks there later this week.
The elite fireteam moves up to Jomni, but not close enough to see the RPG (much less fight them). That'll be tomorrow.
The tank/GB team has found an NVA pack across the river, or rather they walked into the GB scouting range.
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The tank comes south a bit -- I test to see if distance makes an accuracy difference, and it doesn't -- and wins the shot. That'll help a little. The GBs move farther west and spot more NVA. That's for tomorrow, God willing. I go ahead and set the engineers up to carry fuel out for the tank as it'll be dry in another three days.
Man, with the p-sup score coming down to the wire like this, I'm definitely in one-more-day mode... But I've got to quit for the night. More tomorrow after work.
NOTE! IF YOU WANT TO SKIP PAST ABOUT HALF A THREAD OF ME RANT-ANALYZING THE CURRENTLY BROKEN NVA BASE MECHANICS, CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE THE AAR! (http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=13072.msg341494#msg341494)
I doubt, due to my schedule today, I'll be able to do anything further on the game tonight (certainly not this afternoon), thus not until sometime late tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.
I will however take a few minutes to make a prediction: I'm going to lose. And lose bad.
And it won't be my fault. And it won't be because the AI outplayed me -- on the contrary, the only reason the AI hasn't won hard back around day 15 is because it doesn't understand the rules and also is forcibly hampered from accidentally playing a winning game too soon. And it won't even be because I got worse dice rolls by accident this time than the enemy did on the average to a degree that I couldn't overcome it this time.
I'm going to lose because the game managed to finally implement the omnipotent game-winning strategy for its side by accident. Or, if by some statistical (or actual?) miracle I pull off a win in the next few turns, that's what I'll have managed to defeat: an omnipotent win which only lost because by accident of the timing of its implementation I had made it just far enough (this time) to have a slim chance to undermine it. Maybe.
I was thinking about this last night before bed; and this morning in the shower; and off and on at work (mostly at lunch when trying to read The Ten Thousand Day War). And having seen the issues involved, or so I think (I'm trying to qualify myself here, I'd love to learn I'm wrong on this, I swear), as much as I truly love this game, I just don't think I'd bother playing it again.
To put it somewhat oversimply, I'm (most likely) about to lose, for one and only one reason. Because something exists on the map.
And the only reason I haven't lost hard already is because the fatal thing(s) on the map happened, by random chance, not to be on the map earlier. Had they been, I would have been even less able (if that's possible) to do anything about it. The end. Period.
The fact of the matter is that there is one omnipotent enemy strategy which, as the rules stand, would win one hundred percent of the time, and it wouldn't even ever be close.
Night 1: the NVA sends an infantry one hex over into the western edge of the map and builds a base.
Night 2: the NVA repeats.
Night 3: the NVA repeats.
Night 4: the NVA repeats.
Literally at that point the enemy could quit and be, for all practical purposes, assured of victory; and an utterly mangling victory, like being paralyzed by wasps and left in its nest to die over time by its larvae eating your still living body. But of course if the NVA kept doing that every night the end would come quicker.
By day 5, maybe earlier, the game would be won every single time.
The only reason that doesn't happen, is because the AI wasn't taught to do that the moment it gets a chance and also because the AI is hampered, both by rules and random chance, from doing it too early by accident. Logically however it should do that from day one, and then once the American side is paralyzed and dying off, then send in the VC to bake the cake thoroughly by terrorizing the villages into a Hearts and Minds winning score, meanwhile staying away from any American units until they are thoroughly dead.
I would love to be wrong about this. But as far as I can see, those are the facts.
Have to go now; may come back tonight with more thoughts/details.
I've looked at this game a few times, but I just know there is no way I could bring it alive the way you have, Jason. Very gripping.
I have to say, Bob, I think the game design has turned out to be fundamentally broken. I think it can be fixed, but I do think it does need fixing.
(I didn't have to go do the thing tonight after all, and though I may not have much time to play I can natter some more about it. ;) But I don't have more than a minor interest now in seeing if I manage to luck into a win after all in the next few turns.)
I hate to say that because I love this game. It isn't the deepest thing in the world, but it's a great little limited resource efficiency strategy manager with hidden subtleties, and it makes a real stab at covering a difficult realworld situation which has been rarely if ever covered, and does so with nuance and complexity. AND it does so in a way that presents legitimately different versions of the same challenges on each playthrough. I have almost nothing but praise for it except in this matter (some relatively minor niggles aside).
But this matter is currently deadly to the gameplay.
But like I said, I do think it can be fixed, using gameplay elements either already in the game or which (as far as I can tell) wouldn't be overly hard to implement in a patch, though some parts of the tutorial(s) and the printed rules would have to be rewritten of course. (Which seems to have happened anyway, ba-dump-tish. ;) )
I don't have time to write an essay on it right now, but will try to do so later tonight.
The devs answered your questions in the main thread. Keeps Hearts and Minds per village up and the NVA won't be buidling their bases. The enemy are magical teleporters. And your feelings pretty much matches history. Based on your AAR, you might have neglected a load of villages but I'm not entirely sure.
I also thought your other base was too near the main base. Could have paced it in the middle of an area with easy access to a lot of villages (roads). improve infrastructure like building roads. Build a base near the suspected HCM trail (spawn points) and defend it to death. The more you kill the attackers, the more points you get to buy troops and toys.
Funny that I never thought the game was broken. I never read the manual and just played. Not minding details to see if they are what was documented. And it all feels real to me.
Okay, back now for a few minutes before bed.
The fundamental problem, Johan, is that NVA bases are too brokenly powerful.
They also happen to be brokenly powerful in a way that could not possibly be true in any imaginable world, but that's sort of beside the point... sort of. I think the way to fix them would be to make them a worthy potentially game-winning threat in a way that fits much closer to their realworld application, and fits better with the basic game-progression logic. (Because right now the game progression has to do backflip contortions to keep them from unstoppably securing a win by turn 5.)
My initial suggestion after a day of thinking about it is: create a radius within which they constantly (though slowly, with tested tweaking perhaps) deteriorate H&M for any village within that radius, presumably at least equal to their artillery range (whatever that is). And/or also each base adds a small percentage buff to any VC effectiveness on affecting H&M after reaching a village, maybe a small percentage buff on anything the VC or NVA manage to do effectively against the Americans, too.
Each has a few pros and cons.
The mere percentage buff would explain why the NVA doesn't just start by securing and continually harassing villages with bases: the bases, if this is the only effect, can't do anything without VC (except add defensive firepower of course). But that wouldn't explain why the NVA doesn't game-y build them in the far western corners as far as possible from the approaching Americans and as close as possible (thus in play as soon as possible) to NVA infantry spawns. (Also, presuming they start with arty in place, they'd have better supporting fire overlap there and so be harder to take out, especially with two completely protected map sides at each corner.)
A direct continual effect on any village(s) in their cannon range, on the other hand, would nicely encapsulate their oppression threat (and help protect those villages from casual American/ARVN reclamation), and would also explain why the NVA march across the map to choose tactically useful but less mutually reinforcing and secure (and quickly activated) spots for them to serve their primary purpose. But it wouldn't explain why the NVA doesn't lead with those at the start of the game, since after all the VC don't do much to secure the area against American advance (which to be fair they can't).
Combining the two effects together would at least disguise the small conceptual problems either way, and the effects could be balanced down to keep the combined effect from being too overwhelming.
Those are much smaller conceptual problems, though, than bases being Pure Victory Witchcraft Generators which the American side can only win against by the NVA side being retarded enough (in more than one sense of that phrase!) not to use properly.
I do see the point of having a steady and sure drain on American political fuel (so to speak), since by the time the bases are expected to start coming out the American player may be shotgunning the enemy regularly enough to make a decent profit in scalps. And I do like the way the only way (currently) for America to earn political fuel is to produce a body count: that goes well with the real-life problem that because strategic goals like real area control couldn't be seriously reached for, "operational tactics became strategy" as one early critical analyst liked to say, and so the body count became the only clearly quantifiable means of judging success (and thus a reason to stay).
(This is aside from the observation that the game is designed to encourage and somewhat support/allow the American player to do what the Allied forces in real life could never quite manage to do for several different reasons: take and control territory in a progressing fashion.)
However, if the NVA must affect American political support directly, I recommend it be a SMALL side effect of their bases' primary purpose of buffing the HM score (which also helps activate more NVA units of course), perhaps every percentage point below 50 deducts 5 points a day from the American political budget (regardless of how the VC/NVA achieve that score). Or maybe more points per point (so to speak) than that at first, but as the score drops farther the increase in political capital lost isn't as strong (i.e. law of diminishing returns). Or it could go the other way, I suppose, a stronger effect the farther down it goes (i.e. the dominoes are starting to fall). But either way it's tied to and reinforces the actual Viet score improvement being earned by the AI for playing the game well.
Also, to help counterbalance the potential snowballing there, I recommend a mechanic be put in place where the human player (or the American if multiplay is ever put in) can trade American units back in for political support. The boys are coming home, after all; it's time for the ARVN to step up and defend their country, right? It need not be for the full cost of deploying them, but considering the ongoing operational costs are considerable it might be pretty close to full cost. Or the cost for allowing them to go home might vary up and down semi-randomly, adding a nice extra opportunity cost for the American player: send some units home now or wait until later when you might not earn as much support back for doing so.
I'm also (somewhat but not entirely relatedly) trying to think of more things for the VC to do, near the start of the game; because right now, strategically it makes less than no good sense for the North player to send VC units on oppression missions to any towns near where Americans might possibly shoot them. The same effects can be achieved (at influence rates which I think I've understood to be greater than what the Americans can achieve by visiting villages, right?), in perfect safety to the west beyond American interference. The only (current) intrinsic reason for VC units to be east in the first 10 or even 20 days, is to set mines and RPG traps. MAYBE to make a run at any forward bases around, but early in the game the American will have his limited resources more concentrated, making that a more dangerous approach by proportion, compared to later when the strings are pulling tight (if the VC and NVA are keeping units out of bounty-scoring range as much as possible). Deny the Americans the wins needed for political fuel.
The problem of course is that this makes the early half of the game duller for the Americans as they look for trouble while constantly eating political fuel. Maybe a mission setting up close-range ambushes? I don't think the VC do that right now. Heck, even the NVA don't seem to do close-range ambushes. True, making that worth the opportunity cost for the VC player by increasing their unit power to be on par with the Americans (which is feasible, they were masters of their terrain etc.), could overbalance them a bit but on the other hand it adds a real choice to tie up the Viet's own limited assets on ambush missions which might have less chance of triggering (due to the range factors involved) than RPG missions. (Also if ambushing units are detected first it would make sense for their buffs to be at least somewhat neutralized. Thus the American player has to consider buying more GB scouts. But then he might be able to afford a few more, too.)
I'm iffier about this but I think it's something to consider because right now the only reason the VC would go to eastern villages early is to give the American team more chances to earn back some political capital (and the player to feel a little more satisfied about accomplishing something early in the game he's playing rather than some other game), and that's a nonsense reason from the enemy's perspective.
(Going for east villages later would be a nice way to screw over the strung out American player. So would be sending out VC from eastern portals to set up RPG traps on probable routes between the HQ, which the enemy should always know the location of, and any Forbases or the Firebase. I haven't seen that happen yet, and the computer has had plenty of opportunity since I haven't quite found the northeastern portal and so haven't sealed it off sufficiently with guards yet.)
I kinda agree about the powerful part. Once they start popping up in great numbers, it's the end. Only way to win now is to prevent them form happening. But it would be nice if there was a chance to bounce back when the avalanche happens.
And youre right the early encounters only give point to the player. but dont they help change the village'a side if left unchecked?
I'll check out your other post and reply accordingly. ...
Quote from: jomni on March 23, 2015, 10:35:05 PM
The devs answered your questions in the main thread. Keeps Hearts and Minds per village up and the NVA won't be buidling their bases.
That is demonstrably untrue. I have four bases sucking 1000 psup a day, and my score has never once been below 50. Last time I checked, although that was a few game days ago, it was near 60. Probably still is.
Even if it was true, the logic would still be fundamentally broken: the only reason the NVA doesn't win immediately using that method in the most efficient way possible, is by hampering them in several ways from doing so until it happens more-or-less by accident.
Quote from: jomni on March 23, 2015, 10:35:05 PMThe enemy are magical teleporters.
I have no (real) problems with their movements in game despite calling their spawn places portals. In fact they aren't Ho Chi Min trail exit points at all (thus not portals even in that sense); they're staging areas for local VC companies to gather and go on missions, from which they scatter at the first sign of real resistance and come back later. That is perfectly in line with historical operations. Once the units are on the board they don't teleport around, except for an animation dispersing the VC units after the bullets start flying (if they survive long enough).
Quote from: jomni on March 23, 2015, 10:35:05 PMAnd your feelings pretty much matches history.
So far as the "werewolves from magic portals" feeling goes, sure.
So far as the "Magic Victory Generators we can't reach because Washington is offended by their existence thus actively preventing us from reaching them and leaving us to die eventually unsupported in the field" feeling goes, sure -- if I was playing
Rambo: First Blood Part II. But I'm not. And if I were, we'd cut ties with Washington and start shooting explosive arrows and living off the land until we cleared them out. Those GBs have to be good for something like that, right? ;)
Quote from: jomni on March 23, 2015, 10:35:05 PMBased on your AAR, you might have neglected a load of villages but I'm not entirely sure.
I have neglected zero villages on the way. On the contrary, I have done my best to secure each village up to the middle of the map more-or-less permanently with the resources I was given and the few additions I've been able to earn (though that hasn't been easy).
I could arguably have gone too slowly, but supposing for practical purposes that I'm not really expected to reach the final five or six hexes to the west, I got to the (adjusted) 'middle' of my expected advance range, maybe a touch farther, back in the middle of my tour. That seems like good progress to me for securing the area.
Admittedly had I completely ignored the villages (and most opportunities to shoot the enemy early, by the way, which is the only way currently in the game to earn back political capital from operational expenses) and made a beeline west with a narrow supply trail by helicopter, I could have set up a Firebase mid-map sooner allowing me to somewhat supply a further and broader set of scouting missions to the west, hopefully to preempt any NVA bases or to eliminate ones triggered while I was ignoring the villages. But my H&M score would have been tanking regularly, triggering NVA tanks, and more generally random NVA missions (thus more bases sooner by proportion), and more steady NVA missions once the HAM score dipped below 40. I don't see that really improving my overall situation by comparison!
Quote from: jomni on March 23, 2015, 10:35:05 PMI also thought your other base was too near the main base. Could have paced it in the middle of an area with easy access to a lot of villages (roads).
I placed it in an area with the most access to protecting the most villages by arty (which is the chief purpose of a Forward base as its supply is very limited in effect and only affects infantry even then). That would have worked out better for earning more bounty kills early had the portals ended up being positioned to generate VC missions in range, but it turned out they weren't. Mostly that position ended up helping guard access to Ubercat village down south across the river, from a long-distance VC mission spawn point heading in that direction; but I set up a scout detection in case there were closer portals down there. And then moved them along when I was sure there weren't.
I'll post maps tomorrow afternoon. I'm not ignoring the villages, and I did start initially working on some roads around my only forward base so far. (The Firebase is different of course, and I promptly connected it to the road network; not that that has made any significant difference yet.) But enemy activity from the portals ended up somewhere else and my engineers had to go help deal with that. Just one of those things, and I'm not complaining about it. (I actually had the engineers back down to work on the roads around the original forward base recently, but had to recall them because there's no other way to get fuel to my tank.)
But it doesn't matter because (a) I didn't need roads, the base was for my arty not my infantry who were out securing the villages, and I had copters nearby for supply purposes; and (b) no amount of roads or firebases would have prevented an early crippling win by the NVA spawning its own bases asap (except for rules hobbling it from doing so), and would not have prevented this midway crippling win by the NVA finally randomly spawning its Victory Generators.
That's the point.
Everything else right now is an extended sideshow until when-if-ever three or four bases come out, or more, far beyond the ability of the player to even find them much less kill them efficiently in time to make a difference. The only feasible way to be in position to slow that down is to ignore the villages completely to focus my supply advance narrowly down a (probably center) line east to west -- but then the process which randomly results in Ultimate Victory Generators speeds up! (And speeds up hampering my advance and my supply line, for that matter.)
Quote from: jomni on March 23, 2015, 10:35:05 PMBuild a base near the suspected HCM trail (spawn points) and defend it to death. The more you kill the attackers, the more points you get to buy troops and toys.
Which matters nothing if once enough Victory Generators come out. I found two spawn points pretty quickly, or trails from points rather, and promptly set up defenses to kill things coming out of them. By then I was losing 500 a day in psup, and the enemy wasn't feeding that back to me through those points (rather wisely! --- the AI should really avoid all usage of points near American control until late in the game when things are spread out.) A week later I was losing 1000 points a day. And here we are.
Could I have built another Forbase near the two suspected points once I established kind of where they were? No, actually, they were too far away to cover both of them, and until enough time had passed under sufficient observation I couldn't know for sure there weren't others actually in the coverage of the arty base I did already have. By the time I was in a position to do something more than plop relatively cheap infantry on ambush near the points, I couldn't afford a new forward base. I could barely afford to secure a Firebase near one of those points (possibly two, can't tell how many more yet because I haven't been in the mid map long enough, it's only a little more than halfway through the game) -- and the Firebase is free! I'm having to shuttle my one arty (because I can't afford any more, largely because the NVA keep dropping new Victory Generators where I can't reach them yet) out to it, and back to protect the original forward base from incursion, and keep a copter running ammo for it.
Again, this would be just the usual fun of dealing efficiently with limited resources (which has been most of the game so far), except for the Nuclear Victory Vampires sucking out west. :P
And again, the only reason the computer hasn't won with them by turn 5, is because it's hampered several ways from doing so. Yet here we are midgame.
Quote from: jomni on March 23, 2015, 10:35:05 PMFunny that I never thought the game was broken. I never read the manual and just played. Not minding details to see if they are what was documented. And it all feels real to me.
Out of curiosity, how did you deal with having 1000 points being sucked off your political fuel by midgame, and more being added on a regular basis, before you could reach them?
ah so that political capital drain is your concern. Your H&M score is under control.
I did have a time where I was losing 1000 pts a turn in mid game but I eventually overcame it because the NVA kept attacking my forward base and I scored lots of kills. I then saved the capital to have a buffer for slow turns. The base was near the western villages. And the attacks happen very frequently that i kept extracting injured and sending fresh troops.
As you say, the relentless money generating attacks actually saved me and is a stupid AI strategy given the game mechanics. If the Commies were to just sit there and suck our money dry and attacked precisely when I have no money, then it would be a very cunning move. this then forces the player to go "whack the invisible mole" with great difficulty. The "cheap" winning strategy in the game is to "stir the Hornet's nest" and just hunker down and wait for the attacks. This passive strategy is something different from the more interesting active mole whackin. But it still takes a lot of effort to maintain the position.
It occurred to me this morning that a much quicker way to 'fix' the problem (than what I suggested), though it still amounts to adding one more hobble to a broken win generator, would be to simply tweak the code so that no base mission can be generated until the HAM score is under 40. Or maybe under what the NVA win-score is, if it isn't that (I'm not where I can check for a while) -- I mean where the enemy winning HAM has moved into NVA flag territory not just VC flag. Then start sending out Victory Generators to finish off the Americans. Though that assumes there's some kind of game-over-early state at zero political support or maybe some negative number not far under that.
The downside is that then the supposed primary purpose of the bases, for artillery support, would at best be delayed until the computer is already solidly winning.
Going back a minute, to the question of what would be necessary "to prevent them from happening", since strictly speaking the only way to win is to prevent them from happening or at least prevent them from being a serious problem.
I thought of three stages of prevention this morning in the shower (insert completely untopical pun/jokes here. ;) ) Prevention; immediate neutralization; and neutralizing before dangerous effect (or minimal safe neutralization).
1.1.) Prevention. The way the game rules work, there is literally only one way to prevent base generation: plop x-number of American units (presumably infantry in ambush mode) along the western map edge, where 'x' equals the height of the game map in hexes, and have them supplied by a sufficient number of Chinooks or an equivalently effective number of Hueys from a secure Firebase somewhere in the center of the map. Plus a one or two more infantry ready at the Firebase to immediately replace any infantry wounded by an attempt to penetrate the ambush line (assuming the NVAs can at least arrive on the hex and fight once, resulting possibly in a wounded infantry and that with nowhere to retreat west they simply vanish.)
That's because technically the computer can generate a base mission that involves an infantry walking one hex onto the map and plopping down a base overnight, and the computer can technically generate such a mission at any time though less probably so with a higher HAM score. The only way to stop that is to shut down all access to the map from the western map edge. By which time you'd also need one or two more GBs to patrol the area behind the sealed line for a while to detect for extermination any bases already down, plus enough firepower already on the board to kill the bases reliably. Or come to think of it...
1.2.) ...achieve a HAM score of 100 percent, assuming that makes a proportionate zero chance of generating NVA missions, and keeping it there constantly. Plus enough GBs and mobile firepower (Cobras) to detect and kill any remaining bases already on the board by then.
Obviously either option involves dominating the map so hugely that the American side has won with effective or actual omnipotent strength already. It may not even be literally possible; it is certainly impossible any time before the very late game.
2.) Immediate neutralization. This assumes the western border is porous enough that an NVA unit can at least walk one hex onto the map and throw down a base overnight, but that the American player can certainly see it and crush it the next day. For that, the American side would need at a minimum enough Green Berets to camp out along the western line (or maybe one hex out, so long as their detection ranges keep a solid look on the whole western map edge) for total scouting purposes... maybe five? six?.... plus enough chopper support from a secure centrally located Firebase to keep them alive in supply (which is their only threat since the enemy can't target GBs and they wouldn't be initiating combat), plus enough Cobras at the Firebase to fly out the next turn and surely kill any base that got plopped. Plus at least one more GB, maybe, two, to scout up and down behind the detection line for a couple of weeks to catch any bases that managed to get plopped before reaching that point. Plus enough chopper support to keep them supplied.
That might be less expensive and quicker to set up than shutting down the western map border completely, but it's still so prohibitively expensive that it would be impossible to set up until late game, and then only if American is already dominating the map.
3.) Minimum safe neutralization. This requires the same GB screen as immediate neutralization for immediate detection, plus at least one more similar GB screen behind them, maybe two such screens, to keep track of the infantry until they or the base they throw down can be killed by a sufficient number of Cobras staging from that secured central Firebase. Plus enough chopper support to keep all two or three screens in supply.
Even though that would require fewer Cobras, the extra number of GBs (which increase in cost progressively) and supply choppers for them (also increasing in cost progressively) means this might technically cost more per day in operation than option two! And might take more time to reach and set up, too!
Another way to even more quickly and easily 'fix' the problem, while still allowing the enemy bases to serve their primary (supposed) function of artillery support in a (somewhat) timely fashion, would be to find the code that tells the computer how much each base deducts from American political support per day, and then tick that number down to 100 or maybe even 66 instead of 250.
Heck, I might be able to mod that myself if the relevant code is in a text file somewhere!
It still only fixes the problem by adding one more hobble to a game-winning factor, of course. Ideally the solution would be something more like what I described above: affecting the HAM score better not the P-sup score.
Hm. After poking around the game folders everywhere I can think of to poke around, I never even found any files I could text-edit (plenty of files, just not that kind). So the p-sup deduction amount for NVA bases doesn't seem to be anywhere I can tweak myself for testing. Drat.
Not anyone's fault, of course, but not the result I was hoping for.
(It did occur to me to wonder for the first time if the title of the Unity of Command series was a pun for being written in the Unity engine. ;) Not that I know that it is, but Matrixlitherine has been promoting games on the Unity engine as a feature recently. Just a trivial bit of curiosity there.)
I have a roaring sinus headache tonight -- West Tennessee, home of all allergies -- so I won't play out the almost-certain-final-turns yet. ("Not tonight, I have a headache"??! :o ^-^ ) But I wasn't able to look for a possible 'coding' solution last night, so I wanted to take a stab at finding and testing it tonight.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day thirty
Might as well get it over with.
First things first (on the improbable assumption I can keep going a few more turns): I finished bringing my arty back to the Firebase and also its ammo run. No one close enough to shoot yet, but at least I'm ready in case. Moved that ambushing infantry at the Firebase further west one more notch to watch for RPGs setting up, parked him there permanently on ambush.
I realized I was leaving pretty horribly huge holes in my screen for any werewolves to slip through to attack my Firebase eventually -- not complaining, though it couldn't be helped since I have to try a rush west to stomp some NVA bases. This realization was partly induced by watching a VC pop out of nowhere in range of my northern GB scouting for the tank squad, and then running south! Portal spotted! I'll try to drop an infantry on ambushing there as soon as feasibly possible. But anyway, just to be safe I really ought to bring some infantry into the Firebase and set for ambushing; the closest feasible candidate is one of the ARVN, who was helping try to track and nail down that portal a little way north-northwest of UGeek village. I'll just have to hope my infantry company there is on ambush close enough to cover the portal; they march in to save some fuel, and a copter ferries them in the rest of the way.
Worryingly, the map not only shows the brief enemy contact indicating the portal south of my GB/tank team, but also that an enemy must have appeared briefly overnight right on top of Belisarius village! Far away from any of my troops! They're still flying an American flag, but this makes me worried that I haven't closed a line of approach from enough portals near it yet.
Moved the southern GB squad back west again a couple of notches, didn't find anything. Finished half my supply run for the two infantries hunting that far northeast portal, east of Banzaicat Village.
Last night some NVA or VC (from my amazingly lucky screensnap it looks like an NVA RPG ambusher) attacked my two most elite companies approaching Jomni; so that'll certainly help keep me going another day. I didn't want to risk sending a copter up to supply until I was sure I had gotten the VC RPG trap I knew about; and that turned out to be wise because though one company entered Jomni for information (helping them raise a US flag which is good) they didn't get any; yet 3rd (I think, it's been a few nights and the renaming update isn't out yet) did find that trap moving up a little farther. Scratch one more VC, and add maybe another day to the tally. Searched for mines around Jomni, didn't find any.
Last but far from least, the GB/tank team. With the tank on only two more days' gas (man, this game engine would be interesting for a Bulge game, wouldn't it?), I assign the engineer APC platoon to rush out toward it for refueling. Should be fairly safe, but the tank can't feasibly go forward any farther for a day or two.
Fortunately, it doesn't have to move at all to shoot the NVA my GBs detected at the end of yesterday's move; and great, added another day's operation to offset the Victory Generators. So I won't be wiped out in only two more days, but still, I'm almost certainly going to have to buy one more engineer APC just to ferry fuel (who won't be able to get in range to do so for a weekish); and probably one more American infantry to plug that portal hole I found asap.
Except that would cost 5750, and I only have 5658 minus whatever the Victory Generators suck off tonight.
Then for my final move, my GBs with the tank edge forward...
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F661%2FwlJZXK.png&hash=02e237d52a733beabafceb138cde973173430872)
AND THERE'S ONE OF THE FOUR BASES!
I pray to God.
He says, "Use the chain of command."
I use the chain of command. That's the chain I use to beat Victory Generators with.
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Target. Eliminated.
In a satisfying blast that leaves a glowing scar temporarily upon the earth. (Sadly not screenied, sorry.)
I can't use that again for another five days. (That time will decrease as I play campaigns more often and 'rank up'. Don't know what other benefits I'll get, if any.) But that's exactly what I've been saving it for.
Having forward spotted, the GBs take a bit of a southwest tack across the tank platoon's path, and spot two more VC companies, one of which is certainly an RPG trap (though I don't know yet if it's reach its position) and the other being the company who portal'd in last night. They're almost in my Firebase's arty range, but not quite. Too bad.
Score at the end of the day: HAM, 61. PSUP, 6656 - 750 for remaining bases. The augurs say ten werewolves are currently on the map, only one of which is NVA and since I can see one I know he must be the one: an RPG unit, so he won't be replacing that base; thus the NVA won't be making this up anytime soon.
I might still pull victory out of the jaws of werewolves yet.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day thirty-one
As a reminder, this is the tip of the spear as night comes on Day 30.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F800x600q90%2F673%2FxCxvLi.png&hash=1e968a9e7c5b19ae4c8cf56045e9d9ce495bf344)
Those rocketwolves to the immediate west on the other side of... uh, I guess that's Endfire village... are the only NVA units on the map right now, so even though I'm still losing 750 psup a day they won't be able to replace the dead base soon.
(Incidentally, based on what Johan is saying elsewhere, I can't tell if we'll be able to rename villages, soon; but villages will soon be assigned names from a pool of legitimate Viet terms.)
However, unless I'm really lucky, and they're meant to park there or nearby in ambush, they must mean to travel eastward along their hexline to find a place for ambush -- and that line could be my base.
The problem here is my tank is in their way, though they can't know this yet. I don't know how much the computer 'sees and remembers' from being shot by units. Nor whether it can reassign missions, so that the RPG team goes after the tank on purpose. But it could easily stumble into it tonight, even with my GBs blocking. We'll see.
That VC squad to the south popped out of a portal somewhere south of the tank. Come to think of it, I ought to snapshot that now while I have a chance...
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If I can get an infantry to camp on that spot in ambush, I should seal off the werewolf portal.
The glowy border line in the first screenshot for this post, is my arty range, by the way, from the Firebase. Ideally, those VC will run east or east-southeast, and be picked up by my southern GB squad coming west, allowing my arty to either score or at least disperse them.
Since I'm using all my infantry right now to hunt for bases or portals (or both) or to secure bases in case of leaks, I risk splurging a little on a new infantry company at 1750 psup. I won't be able to chopper it out immediately from HQ, but they can start the long walk anyway and save a little fuel and time.
The night is certainly busy for Team Werewolf! As far as I can tell (since the game doesn't always zip to show me moving contacts detected), the VC south of the tank team entered that village in the jungle, and another werewolf company popped out of that portal to do the same thing tonight. I can't do anything about that yet, but as long as they're doing that I can survive.
My northeast trackers picked up a werewolf squad heading south from that portal, but unfortunately can't tell me which direction they came from. Inferentially, based on past evidence, I'm pretty sure it had to be from the north, and their path might zigzag some since this hexmap isn't oriented north-south.
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That's a lesser rocketwolf squad, so I don't dare get my helicopter over to supply whichever-company-that-is. (Not the 4th, they're up on ambush duty along a path from the portal to Banzaicat village. Fortunately, being low on supply doesn't affect combat strength (yet -- this may be coming in an update!) They fight, and win, giving me another day(ish) to fight at least; then are resupplied by the copter which goes back to HQ, while they return to their northern hunt.
In the northern central part of the map, 1st Company caught a portalling werewolf company in ambush last night, north of Ugeek Village, and that's a good thing, though I can't be sure I'm enough on top of the portal to catch any ingress. I want the elite 3rd and 5th companies, to start plodding west, but one (I forget which) is running low on supplies and frankly I could use another Huey, or rather two, for all the spread-out supply roles. I save some fuel by having them hike down to where a copter is waiting and it ferries them to the Firebase, but this means my sweep west from there will be hampered for a day or so.
Fortunately I get all the infantry supplied today; tomorrow is another story -- I don't feel like I can dare risk buying even one more Huey yet (at 2750 now) with so many NVA bases still unfound, much less unstomped.
At least the NVA Rocketwolves didn't go anywhere last night, which means they're already on point. Unfortunately, they have the same attack range as my tank, and will trigger an initiative if I close. Probably better to leave them where they are; which means I should move Tank Team southish after those VC -- once I refuel! Which I (barely) manage to do; then the elite tank rolls south a little and splats the wolvies from long-distance.
Feeling pretty nervous about being near a portal -- if the VC generate a rocket hunt mission for that tank, I won't be able to avoid a damage-flip -- I decide to risk moving my... whateveritis company (7th?) currently camping along the ambush path west of my Firebase, in toward the portal location. I might be able to reach it tomorrow, and set up an ambush afterward.
GBs move southwest, but don't detect anything new.
End of day score: HAM, 63. Support, 6895 -- if I bought a helicopter I'd only have 3 more days before being out of support, so I had better wait. Augurs say there are 8 werewolf packs still in the area, plus those NVA rocketwolves. Naturally no new bases until after more NVA arrive, whenever that might happen.
Jason, you should request an NGLO (Naval Gunfire Liason Ofc). The New Jersey and Newport News (8in heavy cruiser) had enough range for your needs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK2bY7ul9xA
(Everyone talks about New Jersey but those automatic 8inchers were great. When they were prepped, on a "John Wayne" shoot, they could easily do five rounds a minute per barrel.)
Hey, maybe Johan will add that in an update! O0 8)
Hope to get some more turns done this afternoon or tonight. I installed a Steam copy on my new Surface pad this morning to show my brother sometime, for what it's worth. (As critical as I am about the Victory Generators, I love the game dearly. :smitten: )
Worth noting: the footprint for this game is insanely small by modern standards. I'm almost certain the Steam program itself is larger.
I'm think I'm about to pull the trigger on this for £6.99. I'm very much inspired by your AAR, Jason - warts and all O0
.....and, I did pull the trigger :)
I'm sure you'll enjoy it Bob!
(Also, the next village I enter will be named Bob, apparently. O0 :coolsmiley:)
Okay, I've been talking with Johan on Steam, and here is his clarification of the NVA base rule.
Quote from: JohanOk let me explain the NVA base mechanic, the NVA only dispatch a unit to setup a base when the HM of a individual village drops to 40 or below. It is not random. The NVA base will also be setup close to that specific village.
So, if you neglect to visit certain villages or only visit them late in the game you will most definitely have bases on the map. The way to prevent/ mitigate base is to visit them all as often as you can and should you find a NVA flag flying above a village, immediately conduct a search and destroy mission to eliminate it.
Hope this helps
Yes, I appreciate the rules clarity there. (Finally.)
But then there is at least a serious bug, because at no time has any village flag ever dropped below 40 into the NVA flag. In fact, at no time has any flag dropped below 50 apparently; they've all been flying the ARVN flag since turn one. I check on this religiously.
I've got saved games for most (or all) turns throughout the game. I could post screenies of the flags.
Nor does this clarification really change the fact that the computer should be able to easily win every game by using its own rules correctly.
Step 1.) Every time a VC squad is generated, assign it a village mission, aimed at the village fourth-farthest away from the western map edge. (Or if there's a tie, pick one village and stick with it.)
Step 2.) Keep doing that until that village has dropped below 40. Don't go give the Americans any chance at shooting you and earning political points. They have almost no chance (allowing for semi-random village and portal positioning, and random terrain) of getting supplied troops out far enough to guard that village this early in the game without ignoring all other villages.
Step 3.) When an NVA spawn is allowed, assign it a base-building mission one hex onto the map, preferably in one of the corners.
Step 4.) Repeat steps 1, 2, and 3, in sequence for the third, second, and closest western villages. Each will be that much farther away from an American reach being steadily drained by operational costs and the bases.
Step 5.) If VC missions simply have to be generated, keep sending them to the closest western village, perhaps as RPG traps or minelayers just to be safe.
Step 6.) Profit.
Step 7.) Wait for the Americans to be fully paralyzed and impotently half-dead, assuming the game just doesn't end prematurely with a total NVA victory once the political points run out.
Step 8.) Reacquire any southern villages at leisure for however much longer the game lasts.
Alternately, start with the farthest western village so that by the time the NVA has expanded to the fourth-closest one the US, who might theoretically be there by then, will be hemoraghing 750 points a day plus operational costs without having possibly had any return.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day thirty-two
At the end of yesterday, I realized I hadn't moved my tank as far south as I could have. I sure didn't want to move any closer to that RPG trap! -- but I didn't realize I was moving into an area my GB team really hadn't scouted yet.
This turned out to almost be a problem, since doing so triggered a rocket attack against the tank...
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...the next hidden NVA base!
Fortunately the rocket attack missed. What happens tonight I'll know in a minute when I end the turn.
Note however that there is no reason (especially in regard to the NVA base rule which was explained to me by Johan yesterday on the Steam thread) why either of those two southern villages in that screenshot, nor the farthest northwest one (offscreen) nor even Endfire in the central west, should not be totally NVA flagged. At worst (from the werewolf perspective) two of those villages should now be only VC, since I've shot a few troops nearby.
Overnight no one shot at the tank again from the base (for whatever reason; I have no idea what the base mechanics are, but I'm assuming for now that the tank triggered an RPG trap standing in the base). But 1st Company smacked another werewolf company trying to portal in north of UGeek village.
I moved... nth Company a little farther westward from the Firebase and put them on ambush to guard the probable spawn location; and sent copters around to resupply everyone (plus to ferry the elite 3rd Company back up to help 5th Co.)
Then I took a shot at the base with my tank, and yay! Since my GB will need resupplying soon I moved them back east (and a little south) of my tank, near Bob48 Village, and lo they saw a (VC) RPG ambush. So no getting any closer with the tank in that direction. (Also, it's parked JUST OUTSIDE my arty, which is annoying.)
At this point, with over 7000 psup and a drain of only 500 a day (for now), I wondered if it was time to buy something else. Another chopper to ferry supplies around? That wouldn't cost a whole lot, and I sure could use one (or maybe two, but I couldn't afford that yet.) A Cobra perhaps? Kind of pricey. Even pricier a third GB squad, but I sort of need that for helping the northern elite companies hunt bases in the northwest. I could build a new Forbase (I only have one at the moment), which wouldn't cost much, and try to get the arty in range of the western map, but it might run out of ammo quickly and I'm not entirely sure I've got the center of the map sufficiently locked down enough to protect my Firebase which (unlike a Forbase) can fuel choppers and bring all infantry and vehicles up to full overnight.
Pondering over the Cobra, I decided to go back and look at the difference between its firepower and the tank's...
...and accidentally clicked to buy the tank. Not the (i)nformation button.
Yay. I have a second tank. And only one (much pricier) engineering squad to fill it with.
Sigh.
At least it didn't cost even quite as much as a new Huey at this point. It'll be at the Firebase in three days, maybe four, and I can think of something to do with it then, maybe.
Score at the end of day: HAM 65, PSUP 6077 - 500 overnight (the next time I send the engineers out to fill the tank, I'm definitely plopping a Forbase mid-west on the map afterward). Augurs say 9 werewolves on the map, only one of which is NVA (that being the Rocketwolves near Endfire village), and two remaining bases, woot!
I'm starting to hate PT-76's
Yeek, are they running those out on you already? How did that happen?? (Those are the NVA tanks, right?)
Theoretically, that should only happen if your net HAM score average drops three nights in a row.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day thirty-three
Overnight 1st Company shot more werewolves popping out of their portal again; but then a couple of odd things happened. Useful, I guess, but odd.
First, a new VC unit came south(westish) from that far northeast portal, and man it must be farther east than I gave it credit for??
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Note that those bleepers must have run like the wind the moment they got past me and left the forest. I have no idea if I can catch them this turn in some way. I'll try scouting with the copter, but air scouting in this game reeks hard.
Much to my not-surprise, that doesn't work at all; but I had enough sense to march my ambushing 4th company (I think) back into my LZ northeast of Banzaicat village, where my nearby copter could easily pick them up. So failing to detect them from the air, the copter dropped them ahead of the apparent line of advance, where (having one more move) the infantry could go into ambush mode. Meanwhile 6th company (I think) moved closer to the probable portal position, ready to drop a permanent ambush on top of it next turn. I hope.
Next up on the weird-shit-o-meter, a VC suddenly traipses into view at least two hexes southwest of Banzaicat village, and I just happened to see them coming diagonally from the northwest.
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First, not that I don't appreciate it, but why am I even able to see those clowns? Villages don't give me a spot, so far as I've ever been able to tell, and certainly not that far out. That flag isn't even American (anymore?? -- have others been doing this to get into Banzaicat village that I haven't seen?? And if so, why I can see them now!?!)
Second, where the Hong Kong Phooey are those werewolves coming from!? A portal off in that direction!? -- how can that count as just as close as the portal off to the northeast!? Three portals equidistant to a town seems wildly improbable. Maybe they're on a mission to plant mines nearby but still... Or, did they pop out of the portal near 1st Company, northward without triggering the ambush somehow (I'm not right on the portal I think), and then loop back around from far to the northwest of Banzaicat? -- can the AI plot moves that loopy in order to avoid detected problems??
Wherever they're going, I don't think I have a snowball's chance in hell of catching them.
...wait. Maybe I do. Wait... Make sure everyone's supplied who needs it first. Okay my tank's GBs need resupply but I'll probably have to kill that base or otherwise wait until next turn anyway to make sure the copter doesn't take RPG fire. And I have a copter waiting in the Firebase to refuel tonight, so that should be safe.
Okay. I can probably do this safely. Just barely.
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The concept is that I walk... um, 3rd I think, one hex into the nongrassland where they can be picked up (5th would be more likely to win, but they can't reach the clear area, and 3rd could use a little more exp anyway); the copter picks them up, drops them off, they have one more move (you can see their two hex range if they go east into the clear land) and they attack the pack. (I checked, they aren't on RPG ambush, so the copter should be safe. Unless another has been posted already.)
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CAV SURPRISE WOLFLICKERS!
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately sometimes) surprise and flanking means nothing in this game (yet, unless someone walks into an ambush, which this wasn't), and the wolves tooth-up and bite our guys before running safely away. Well done for them; but at least we disrupted whatever nefarious plan they had.
Before you ask, no the enemy was JUST OUTSIDE my arty range again.
Who isn't outside my arty range are these guys, found by my southern GB squad.
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See those rocketwolves waiting around down there? Worst case scenario, I miss and they run away....
...oh.
Oh wait.
Never. The. Hell. Mind.
I just realized
THEIR BASE IS IN RANGE OF MY ARTY!!
I've got plenty of time to bomb those RPGs later; they're either already on guard, or are hiking eastward and will be in spotting range of the GBs for a while.
Base. Vs. Base.
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Base wins.
I decide I had better buy another Huey since I'm over 7000 again, and I'm floundering around a bit trying to keep everyone from starving to death in the jungle.
End of day score: HAM 66; PSUP 4762 - 250 overnight. Augurs say... still 9 werewolves on the map?? Huh. But no new NVA, so still that rocketguy near Endfire Village; and one last base somewhere (and no new base likely to pop up soon, or so one would suppose. Then again, according to the rules there should have been no bases at all, since no village ever even got into "VC Flag" loyalty, much less "NVA Flag".)
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day thirty-four
My plan to intercept those VC from the most northeast portal, heading southwest, worked like a charm -- except for them managing to beat my ambush and then running away. That's twice now in half a day. Crap. And both my companies were pretty experienced, too! (Well, okay, that one wasn't, I think they're 4th company; they've been on ambush duty almost all game, and have run into barely anyone.)
This... may lead to some problems. Most of today is spent ferrying wounded troops around and supplying others; but the end result is that most of my helicopters are either far back east at HQ or need to stop off there another day tomorrow. But tomorrow I have some people who are going to be getting awfully hungry. Not dangerously so, I think; but I'm a bit worried the day after is going to find them down to 1 supply, and not enough copters in place enough to feed them. Or (worse??) I'll end up losing copters feeing them one last time but unable to get back for their own fuel and crashing in forest or somewhere they can't land.
But that's for the next few days. I've done the best I can.
Well... the best I can would probably be to bomb those rocketwolves I saw yesterday, and use the extra cash to give myself a bit more leeway by buying yet another Huey. Which I do. ;)
Anyway, I think I've got the northeastern portal nailed down for ambush now, as well as the two main paths out of it. And it's time to send my engineers out to feed my western tank, as tank platoon two arrives at the Firebase. In the next few days I hope to build a centrally western Forbase and chopper my arty there, even though this will mean putting it even farther out of range for ammo supply. Anticipating this, I put the new Huey on an ammo run (since it needs to get central for supply missions in the next few days anyway.)
The southern GBs move forward (westward), and even though I feel a bit hinky leaving Ubercat Village completely unguarded from whatever portal was down there spawning VC missions in its direction, at this point I really need to split my two scout groups into better western map coverage to find that last base. (And to find any new bases if a village manages to drop below 40 without me realizing it a Victory Generator mission is randomly generated.)
I swear on a Bible, though, I didn't run over a mine and reload the game! I thought to myself -- this village I'm walking near, out in the jungle, has had exposure to VC all game without anything nearby; and I know from past experience the VC like to put mines near villages. I'd better check: boom! But wasn't that supposed to improve HAM or Psump?? Oh well, I don't have wounded GBs trying to crawl five days out of the jungle to an extraction point I guess.
End of day score: 68 HAM; 2429 Psup - 250 for the remaining base overnight (that's nine turns left minus operational costs, which should be doable). Augurs say we still have a steady 8 packs plus that NVA plus the last base.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day thirty-five
I'm starting to think I've found a bug in how the game counts enemy squads. After last night (when the portal north of Ugeek village spawned a pack which beat 1st Company's ambush and ran away -- are the VC getting better as the game goes on!? -- the augurs still say 8 VC, 1 NVA, 1 base. That 8VC doesn't seem to be right, but I'll keep track if I shoot any today.
Unfortunately, today I didn't shoot any. I only moved various people around, got them resupplied, prepared to evacuate them.
End of day, back down to 67 HAM, 1699 PSUP. Naturally still 8 VC (supposedly) on the map, since I didn't strike at any.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day thirty-six
Ten days left in the campaign.
Yep, the northeast portal is good and locked down, for now. Could be trouble if the company there gets wounded, since they have no easy way to evac (or to get reinforcements to plug the portal.) Nothing I can do about that right now, though, without more engineers, which aren't forthcoming.
Augurs start the day with the same 8 VC and 1 NVA, but maybe one VC spawned last night and I shot it. Only I know that isn't exactly true because the tracking indicates one zipped past my southern GBs into that currently-unnamed village they're outside! And I thought I had plugged that hole, too! Argh! Will have to reposition.
So it's another day of moving people around, preparing for better things later. I desperately wish I could send that 2nd tank platoon home for a recoup of political supply; it's just sucking psup right now in the Firebase, and I have no real need of it.
Since I'm about to create a new Forbase and move my arty there, thus ticking up their target package, I preemptively send a copter back to HQ on the start of a new ammo run. Quite probably he'll need to stay on that run permanently now.
67 HAM, 1985 Psup, same 8 and 1 (and 1).
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day thirty-seven
Nine days left in the campaign.
Augurs confirm a new VC pack spawned last night, somewhere we didn't catch immediately; so if we kill one a day presumably they can spawn one a day and there's the constant 8. (Perhaps.) Anyway, nothing else new last night.
But oh, son.
You know I know what time it is now.
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It's Davy Crockett time.
First, some of those Rocketwolves to the west have to go, because I need to move my scouts north-er looking for that last base, and I can't until they're done spotting.
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Score another for the Gibson County Tennessee Pioneers, Long Distance Sniping Company! (Last home of Davy Crockett, before the Alamo.)
It's a good thing, too. My Psup was getting low.
I should probably send the tank home now, as it's getting out of range of resupply itself. We'll see.
With a new supply of infantry congregating at the Firebase, I'm wondering if it might be a good idea to start ferrying at least one unit around the various towns every day by chopper, getting intel. I'll put that idea into play tomorrow.
End of day score: HAM 68, Psup 1651, 8 VC, 1 NVA, 1 base still in the area.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day thirty-eight
Eight days left in the campaign. (Or seven. Something like that. Time does funny things out here. One of our patrols returning to camp last night swore they saw a naked bat-woman flying overhead. Glowing. True story.)
(Not in the game, unfortunately. ;) Actually happened in real life.)
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In-game, the northern scouts saw this pack pop out of nowhere and make a run for that village.
I'll be putting someone on that pronto. First I have to make sure the area is secure for a chopper to visit. And take care of some other housekeeping.
During that housekeeping, a copter got shot by an RPG rocketwolf ambush between Forbase-1 and UGeek village, attempting to drop off a rookie infantry so that the local ARVN could go question villagers better. That copter will have to go back for repairs now (and carry a wounded troop there, too), and try not to get ambushed again. No one's fault but mine: I chose to leave at least one hole getting to that area, and the computer exploited it well.
Still, those VC heading to the far northwestern village, barely on the range of my guns? They don't make it.
Around this time I realize the copter I sent on an ammo run, actually brought back supplies. I assume this is my fault somehow and not a bug, and send out another copter. My guns will be silent a couple of days soon.
Since I don't want to move my northern GBs any farther right now, I spend their turn checking for mines (always a good idea for GBs to do that since they can't ambush), and amazingly find some! Huh. Apparently placed on a trail from the Firebase to that far northwestern village. I feel pretty sure the last base is up there, too.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day thirty-nine
Busted a spawning scout up at the far northeast hole; and my southern GBs seem to have found another portal.
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That little wiggly VC track at the bottom was making a run for the village (and still is; I really need to shoot something else today, he'll probably make it.) He couldn't have come from the portal my infantry is camping an ambush one third up from the left side bottom of that screenshot; he might have come from an area near where a rocket ambush shot a copter a few weeks back. Or, did he wiggle his way down from somewhere far to the north? -- there was evidence a while ago of a final portal up there somewhere.
How many portals will the game generate? Every map I've seen on the tutorials and the manual seems to suggest six. Could it be seven? Am I misremembering or is six not a set number? There was strong evidence a portal was down somewhere south along my GB's trail westward, too, though I never saw direct evidence of it.
Known portals and their precise or general areas:
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Red hexes are portals; red question marks are suspected portal locations. The end of the game should be in about a week, and I'll compare information then (unless I get better info of course.)
Notice that last night an NVA unit showed up somewhere (unknown yet). Now, I hadn't dropped my net HAM score three mornings in a row, to say the least; very much less than the least is my score down to 40; nor is any village on the map down below 40. So this has to be a mere random NVA spawn, right? According to Johan, it shouldn't be able to create a new base, right?
We'll see. We'll see.
I decide I can (and do) Crock-shot those VC down near that village after all; and save my intended target one more day. But only one; my northern GBs need some resupply in the next few days.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day forty
Dear diary. Today I experimented to see if a helicopter would be repaired at HQ overnight without engineers. It can!
I can't wait any longer; my northern GBs must be supplied tomorrow or die. Fortunately as I send them back east to get into supply range, they don't pick up any problems in the path of the chopper. The Crockets Crock-shot the RPG squad down south near my other GBs, and they hike back eastward, too, for resupplying, soon. I'm parking another infantry on ambush up near that portal north of UGeek village; I don't feel confident I've even located it precisely yet, much less properly ambushed it. Hopefully soon I'll get more definite info. I have a suspicion, based on a lack of enemy action down on that portal west of the Firebase, that if I plop a unit directly on the portal that will seal it off permanently (so long as my unit can stay there.)
Also, I have a suspicion I should park at least one of my tanks in Forbase-2. And maybe another infantry on ambush, if I can spare one somewhere.
Also, I have a suspicion I should park an infantry out where that RPG sniped my copter many weeks ago, west of the Firebase. If that isn't near on a portal, it pretty much has to be on the path of one.
Also, talking to myself like I'm a diary tells me my tour of duty on this campaign had better be coming to an end this week.
Love, me.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day forty-one
Another day, another Rocketwolf squad Crocketed, thanks to my ammo train running across the map to Forebase-2. I still really need more scouts, and probably a chopper or two.
Still, even if that second NVA unit wherever it is (I never did arty the first one, on RPG ambush duty outside Endfire Village) drops a base down -- which it shouldn't -- I've probably got this game in the bag. 74 HAM, with almost 5000 political support - 250 for the remaining base to go.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day forty-twothree
Nothing much happened on Day 42 (other than the usual upkeep things); but on the night leading into Day 43, an NVA rocketwolf squad ran up and shot Forbase-2.
My engineers can deal with that, but still. My tank wasn't in place to fight back; nothing was. I should get some more things out there pronto.
Unfortunately, the next two units I found (a VC cadre and some NVA infantry) were too far south to Crockett them. I suppose I had better keep track of that NVA if I can, with my southern scouts; just in case they throw up a base. I should also probably resign myself to never finding that last base; I'm running my northern scouts back down south, having looked around the limits of my arty shots up there (and finding another VC on rocketduty just outside my range.)
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day forty-four
Hah! -- those NVA rocketwolves came back (they don't disperse after a fight, just retreat to think about what they've done), and this time the tank was ready for them at the Forbase!
The NVA infantry way down south didn't move a lick, which is weird. They don't read as RPGs (though they carry one). The VC presumably went into the village, or maybe laid mines, which is also weird either way since I can't figure out what portal they came from. The first portal I staked out on the western third of the map threw up a VC which my ambushing infantry caught, though, so that's okay.
That and a visit by my ARVN troops to a village opened up some new intel, one of which was the other NVA company which seems to be hanging out near the northwestern village -- just out of arty range, argh! The other was a cadre not too far from my Firebase (which has no arty in it at the moment), so I was able to chopper some infantry out there to deal with them, woot!
Best of all, though, as my northern GBs were working their way back down the western edge of the map, they just happened to move west far enough to see...
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More Rocketwolves.
And Wolfbase One.
JUST OUTSIDE ARTILLERY RANGE! (Which has to be by accident, as that base was one of the four pestering me. But the computer did the right thing, it's plopped one hex into the map on the far western edge, kind of near a corner.)
But not outside range of the Chain.
The chain... apparently misses. One hex east.
Dammit, Chain, you had one job. ONE JOB!
Fine. The base gets to surely survive. This campaign. Fine.
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day forty-five
Somehow a set of VC managed to run into my southern Green Berets after all. Somehow, my GBs managed to roll a 1 on a four sided die, and ruined them; picking up some intel which will be of no real use to me whatever. But never mind, there's no way for me to lose by now.
The NVA near Wolfbase One must not have noticed my arty range, because they walked right into it overnight. This becomes their undoing, and that's the final shot of the Gibson County Volunteers.
At this point the only thing I have to do is make sure no one dies from unsupply tonight, which no one will.
And that's the game; after one more night of wolfery, where an NVA spawns from the northwestern portal I discovered in that clearing (east of Wolfbase One), and runs east for some purpose.
Final score, 77 HAM. Psup is irrelevant to the final score of course, but I'm sure I was over 7000 at the end.
We took seven casualties (but no fatalities). The VC and NVA lost 32 + 9 companies respectively. (I can't recall clearly if bases count as an NVA casualty; probably so, I doubt I shot that many NVA companies.) MacNamara would be pretty pleased with that. ;)
There were still 6 VC on the map (with one having spawned at the end), one NVA unit remaining (that weird glowing one standing around on the southwest edge of the map), and one NVA base (which the Chain of Command managed to miss. One job guys. One.)
Did I figure out where the portals were?
Yes. And no.
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Jesus. I sure didn't remember there being TEN PORTALS when looking at previous maps.
Blue hexes show ones I detected and pretty much locked down with ambushes.
The red hex shows the one in the clearing I had pretty well located but couldn't lock down.
The yellow hexes show ones I suspected -- kind of; I sure wasn't suspecting the river. {eyeroll} But I was suspecting one kind of near there, and I had it locked down temporarily, though not at the end of the campaign.
The black hexes I never even got close on. I thought I had found the only one to the northeast, so once I tagged it I didn't think there was a further one! And while I suspected there might be one kind of northcentral on the map (the big yellow question marks), my guess was not really near where TWO OF THEM were set.
Worth noting: the portals really do seem randomly scattered. The distribution wasn't even, and at least two were sitting right next to each other, with some others being maybe only three or four hexes apart.
Quote from: JasonPratt on March 28, 2015, 07:42:55 PM
Yeek, are they running those out on you already? How did that happen?? (Those are the NVA tanks, right?)
Theoretically, that should only happen if your net HAM score average drops three nights in a row.
Eek! No, this is just me getting it all wrong. I obviously have much to learn........It was my first full game and I got kicked very hard.
I want to do a post-mortem later today: I was up until midnight finishing my campaign, and desperately needed to hit the sack. I learned a lot -- I mean a lot that wasn't clearly explained, or even contradictorily explained, in the tutorials and/or printed rules -- but aside from griping about the (possibly buggy but still ridiculous) NVA base rules, what I learned can probably be succinctly summarized as this:
play the game the way the Australians fought. Not the way the US fought.
I might have done that anyway without realizing it, but I have Unheralded Victory to thank for introducing me to the difference in doctrine a couple of weeks ago. So when I started the game, I could already see that fighting it the US way would probably lead to disaster and that (especially given how the supply rules worked) I ought to try it the Australian way out of the gate. And I wasn't disappointed.
And I can see why it's tempting to add the weird Victory Generator rules (which then have to be wildly nerfed to keep them from overwhelming the game). As close as the AI came to randomly winning the game about midway through, had it not lucked up and instituted its only real winning strategy that soon, I would have demonstrably dominated the game even harder in the second half of the campaign.
I think this points to a need to revise AI strategy so that it doesn't need gamey Hail Marys which have to be nerfed into being random Hail Marys to keep from wildly overwhelming the game the other way around. But I'm not the designer, so... :-\
Just won a minor victory, which was very satisfying indeed. Air supply saved my bacon a couple of times! This really is a neat little game for the price. O0
Something my AAR, by its nature, cannot accurately convey, is that a whole campaign can be played in maybe an hour and a half. I should add that to my notes at the beginning. (Now done.)
IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- post-mortem epilogue
Aside from getting a better idea of what the rules actually are (currently) and how the game is played, what did I learn about the game from this first campaign?
1.) FIGHT LIKE AN AUSTRALIAN!
This needs a little unpacking. US military strength was consistently decisive at the larger scale fighting of the Vietnam War; but routine day-to-day operations, on which this game is sort-of based (more on the sort-of soon), typically involved setting up a well-defended central base within a four hour round-trip march of areas to be defended, including villages, and then sending out patrols nominally to find, fix, and finish enemy groups (flanking wasn't much necessary with accurate artillery and air support) -- but due to the tactical idea of going out and back every day in different directions, the speed involved meant in practice that the patrols were bait to lure enemy groups into ambushing them, after which support could be called onto their position.
The Australian method was different, though by its nature not widely used (since ANZAC could only send relatively few troops). Patrols were meant to be long-range meticulous hunter groups, going out for days at a time to sanitize an area, ideally by finding where the Viet Cong were congregating before operations and then catching them at the group point with a concentrated ambush and fire support. At first this meant traveling with a light ammo load, though after a few near disasters ANZAC changed its policies to about twice the load -- though still shy of the heavy typical American loads. After all, the American policy was to send out one day round trip patrols, so they could carry a larger firepower load hoping to be able to stand and fight better in surviving an ambush.
It should be noted that while the Australian patrol strategy still didn't focus much on taking and securing territory (it couldn't, due to the severe manpower limitations), the American policy was practically antithetical to securing territory. But this fit the overall political position that the US was not there to colonize South Vietnam (like the French) but only to support South Vietnam in its own rule of the area. The ARVN was intended to secure and hold the territory.
This game, by its design and (to be blunt) wonky scale which combines, in effect, multiple scale-level issues, doesn't favor the American approach at all. So far as the map looks, the player ought to start by setting up a Firebase in the middle of the map, with plenty of arty support capable of multiple fire missions a day over a period of days (and ditto for off-map air support), and then having to manage the occasional chopper resupply to the central Firebase and also to any secondary Forbases (to coin a term) set up around the region. Troops would then march out to surrounding villages once a day, perhaps even several in an orbit, and come back at night. There would be no intention or need to supply troops in the field, except at the secondary Forbases naturally.
That strategy is altogether impossible in this game. It can easily take half the game to get a Firebase safely set up in the middle of the region, not even counting secondary Forbases, and even Green Berets can only cover two map hexes of forest a day, regular infantry one, then scaled upward for effect in clear and road areas. A regular infantry unit would starve to death over a period of day/turns marching out from the starting HQ to visit even one village and then marching back. A GB might feasibly make it, but would be unable to effectively fight any enemy units it finds, and the in-game cost would be prohibitive -- and most of the week would still be spent marching out to a village and back again, leaving the village free to be terrorized the rest of the time.
So the game forces the player to implement an Australian patrol strategy, except upgraded to an operational level: send troops out to discreet areas to watch and if possible ambush the enemy, calling in arty and airstrikes when possible (but there's never anywhere near enough of that); and looking for the congregation points where otherwise indistinguishable (and thus invisible) villagers 'become' VC units temporarily for an assigned mission that week.
Then project that effect westward progressively, supporting infantry units (which at the scale of movement must be company sized or larger perhaps) semi-permanently out in the field. PRACTICALLY NEVER BACK AT ANY BASES, except to help secure those bases against attack (or to recover from wounds).
Alternate strategies could be proposed, but due to the weird scales involved, and their limitations on troop movement, I think they would be necessarily variations on this theme. And proportionately more risky the more they deviate from this conservatively careful strategy; not least in creation and support costs verses subsequent gains in destroying the enemy. After all, early in the game -- when the player can kind-of afford to set up an alternate strategy, the enemy has a whole map range to play in without much or even any risk in giving the human player any return on the invested cost.
Naturally, next time I play (before the coming update anyway, which could change things around in unexpected ways, for better and/or for worse), I do want to try an alternate strategy. But my prediction is that it probably isn't going to work as well.
2.) YOU ARE NOT PARANOID ENOUGH
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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.
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.
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!
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.
Some more helpful clarifications from Johan at the Steam boards.
Quote from: JohanSabreman, 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.
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.
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):
Quote from: JohanIf 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. ::)
Quote from: JohanIn 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.)
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.
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(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. :coolsmiley: O0
And here was the final map for that campaign.
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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.)
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).