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

[JasonPratt]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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.




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.




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!

[JasonPratt]

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.

[bob48]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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.

[jomni]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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.)

[jomni]

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. ...

[JasonPratt]

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.

The 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).

And 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? ;)

Based 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!

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).

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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?

[jomni]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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!

[JasonPratt]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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.