Date: Sun Jun 20 17:24:50 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
Having had a chance to play through the France 1940 playtest scenario, here are
some issues that came up...
1. Maybe I'm lazy, but I felt like I spent too much time making change when
armies (xxxx) took one piece of damage (which requires replacing them with an
undamaged corps and a damaged corps). Seeing as it's corps that are taking
most of the damage in the 1940 scenario, I can only imagine how hideous it must
be to play a 1944 scenario. So I'd like to propose changing the way armies
take damage so that it's all-or-nothing. I see two ways of doing this.
A. Treat armies like something more than just two corps. Only the major
countries have armies, so maybe build something more into that advantage by
requiring that one 'damage' against an army has no effect. This would probably
also require that armies not be converted back and forth when on the map since
a player could theoretically regroup his units in ways that would produce
highly unrealistic results.
B. Put + and - results on the combat results table, so that a 1- rounds down
to zero against an army and a 1+ rounds up to two (likewise for 3- and 3+).
This basically keeps an army equalling exactly two corps.
I guess I prefer "A", since the alternative is more obviously a kluge.
2. This will come out in playtesting, but I'm thinking defending units need a
1-column shift in their favor when being attacked. It seems to easy to beat up
on them, even with the restrictions against attacks from multiple hexes.
3. An oversight when designing the ground system is that I neglected to worry
about inverted/uninverted units. Basically uninverted should mean "ready to
mount an attack" and inverted should mean "tired, regrouping, etc." I suppose
that units should be inverted when they are sufficiently stressed during
combat; perhaps this suggests inverting all ground units damaged in combat, as
well as an equal number of units that escaped damage. Naturally once inverted,
further 'inversion' results have no effect, since it's more an issue of
readiness than casualties.
Date: Mon Jun 21 19:00:25 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
A few more notes...
1 (cont'd). I'll probably adopt the +/- system in the combat table, since it
has the nice feature of allowing battles involving only armies to be resolved
identically to those involving only corps. In other words, 2 corps attacking 1
(4 to 2 in strength) should have the same functionality as 2 armies attacking 1
(8 to 4).
3 (cont'd). After playing through this, I realized that this proposed change
puts the attacker at an enormous disadvantage. Defending units are still able
to fight when inverted, so inverting the attacker and taking them out of battle
saps the attacking strength very quickly.
I would propose that ground units inverted (or damaged) while attacking a
specific hex be allowed to continue attacking that hex.
4. Bombing runs seemed to work out pretty realistically, but the way air losses
are divided makes it virtually impossible to make an airdrop. I think the
airdrop needs to take two points before it is damaged; otherwise intercepting
units need to get only one damage point and the mission is aborted.
4b. As an aside, I'll be filling out the airborne drop rules (in the Air
System) later today. There will be a new section titled "Airborne" with the
new material; those who have read everything else don't need to reread the
whole page. I'll also add some extra notes regarding minor units operating
outside their country or surrendering to the scenario notes.
Date: Mon Jun 21 19:01:38 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
one other... Please let me know if you have any problems installing vassal, or
if you have any questions/comments/suggestions about the rules.
Date: Wed Jun 23 04:00:48 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
Having run through the scenario again, two more quick changes...
1. I will go ahead and make the "attacker one left" shift for ground attacks.
2. Looking ahead to our second playtest scenario (invasion of Russia), it's
clear that there have to be more German units on the map. At the height of the
invasion (Kursk), Germany needs to have some 2.1 million men holding a 16-hex
line (plus 0.9 million in 4 hexes), which is 131,000 per hex. By reducing a
corps to 75,000 men (from 100,000), this means that the Germans can put one
army in each hex, plus the concentration of units used for the offensive. I'll
start making these changes throughout the game system, which will result in
more units in France 1940 as well. I'm loathe to go too much smaller;
otherwise we'll have enormous piles of units everywhere...
Date: Thu Jun 24 10:46:18 2004
Sender: Phil Bradley
Andy, have you gotten any response on playtest yet? I've not been able check
it out myself (though I want to). I've been hammered with work recently and it
doesn't look like its going to let up anytime soon.
Date: Thu Jun 24 12:20:43 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
no, I haven't. I'm actually getting a bit concerned - I haven't even gotten
installation questions, or any indication that anyone has yet to play it.
Date: Thu Jun 24 12:58:46 2004
Sender: Karim Cheaib
Hey Andy, Just so you know. I am planning on doing the testing, but my laptop
is being repaired right now, and it's taking longer then it should. Hoppefully
i will get it back by tuesday, and comments by wednesday :)
Date: Thu Jun 24 21:05:47 2004
Sender: Phil Bradley
I hear ya Andy, its just bad timing for me as I'm up against several deadlines
for the beginning and latter parts of July. Then I got to prepare for BPA
gaming convention in early Aug, which will require learning 2 new games from
scratch and relearning several others in order to be competitive in the
tournaments. I might be able to squeeze in some gaming 4th of July weekend but
that is largely dependent on my work load and obligatory spousal duty. Anyhow
I hope to be able to commit more time in the fall. (I figure playtesting the
whole system is going to prove the most difficult anyways). I do wish I could
playtest on your development schedule in order to keep up though. I'll still
read the posts here on occasion and attempt to contribute to the discussion.
Date: Fri Jun 25 10:38:46 2004
Sender: Jesse Erdmann
I've installed it and connected to a game, but that's all. I didn't have time
to look for documentation on how to actually run a turn, etc. Haven't gotten
back to it yet.
Date: Sun Jun 27 21:15:21 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
Guys, I understand that there are time constraints, and am not trying to
pressure anyone in specific to get more done. It was just a little
disappointing that every person on the list seems to be in a time crunch at the
same time... Anyway, we'll test at whatever speed we can; the game has
simmered on the backburner long enough that I'm certainly not in a position to
rush it...
Date: Tue Jun 29 08:18:19 2004
Sender: Stephen Thompson
Andy, I did try running the app and it all started well enough, but I don't see
where to tell Vassal to end my turn. Is there something I'm missing?
And do I have to actually specify for a unit to "damage" or do I just move the
unit onto the same square and the game does the rest. The "damage" term is
confusing - I would expect "Attack".
Date: Tue Jun 29 10:46:03 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
Well, VASSAL is just a program to make playing the game easier. It doesn't
know the Axis Tide rules; it's up to you to count up the attacking and
defending forces, roll the virtual die, consult the combat results table
(online in the Axis Tide rules) to see what the damage is, and distribute the
damage among the units. Units would only be "moved" from one hex to another if
they are actually being moved.
I would strongly encourage folks to download the "France 1940 demo" to see how
this all looks. When you load it, the "step" button becomes available and you
can step through my playing of it (with somewhat out-of-date rules, but close
enough to get the idea).
Date: Wed Jun 30 22:00:40 2004
Sender: Karim Cheaib
Andy, am unable to make the demo run, the french mission. It opense a window
with all kinda of symbol in it. What am i doing wrong?
Date: Thu Jul 1 16:38:29 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
Karim, I'll try to find you on Yahoo messenger...
Date: Thu Jul 1 22:30:13 2004
Sender: Karim Cheaib
i`ll be on tomorrow around 4pm your time.
Date: Thu Jul 1 22:30:36 2004
Sender: Karim Cheaib
i`ll be on tomorrow around 4pm your time.
Date: Fri Jul 2 00:06:32 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
OK, just in case anyone else has Karim's problem...
Make sure you "save to disk" when you are downloading the Axis Tide module.
Some web browsers seem to think that "axistide.mod" is the name of a plain text
file, and attempt to display it on your screen...
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