Ya heard this before..right?

[madgamer]

Ok I will admit to speanding long hours playing War in the Pacific (WitP) and trying to convince myself that I loved it and it was a great navel game......we.....perhaps for others but for me and my old brain it was just to much to handle and the AE upgrade is going to make it even more complex with more to do and try to remember.
It will not fix the basic problems I have which are with the way you interact with it and the already large number of things to do. As nearly as I can tell the forum for WitP is dominated by a large number of control and micro manager type of players. AE is a sort of comunity design effort which uses a large number oif changes asked for by the players on the for Now this is well and good but because they can't change any code from the basic WitP engine and the trend seems to be adding more things and more complexlty I am afraid that I will have to be content in playing the current version......

till I found this game and this forum. I will download the manual but have some questions about the game in general

1. no mention is made of the land combat and land air unit part of the game except that it is part of the game. Ist very abstract? do you research techs that improve land units?

2. After speanding so many hours at WitP for a few turns does it play like it is advertised to play? Having a kind of programable difficulty almost seems to good to be true. Does it really work?

3. It is possible to play a long game in all three theaters at once, right?

4. Many of the players on the WitP forum tend to put this game down but that is why I am writing this here. Even if it does't quite play as good as it is advertised to do, for me any kind of smooth interface where the computer can do a reasonable good job in a 2 In Com. situation would be great for me. So what do most of you think about a guy who loves navel strategic level games but wants something a little less cumbersome than WitP. It sounds from the features list that this game does much of what WitP does but in a different and I hope easier way.


Comments would be great

Madgamer

[tony_glazebrook]

Madgamer - welcome to the fold ;)

First, in answer to your questions:
1.
a. Re troops (both normal ground troops as well as troops trained for amphibious assaults) - they start with levels of training, experience, equipment, mechanisation and morale that you can specify. There are historical default levels but these can be changed. During the game, you can spend more on raising equipment and training levels. Troops gain experience as they fight. Compbat is resolved on an hourly basis and the factors included are: equipment, mechanisation and training levels, experience, entrenchment, morale and supply.
Troops assaulting from the sea also have their combat power affeeed by the current amphibious assault technology rating. (This can be improved during the game). This rating is meant to model, in a simplified way, the improvements in doctrine, training and assault vehicles that occurred during the war. Ports can be attacked in a combined arms way - in a coordinated attack by trooops moviing on land, from the sea and with bombardment and aerial bombardment support. Your 2IC can set these missions up for you, to take the pain out of coordination. The land combat aspect of SAS will be enhanced further in future releases.

b. Land-based airpower - is handled in quite a detailed way - in exactly the same way actually as carrier-based airpower. There are over 400 aircraft types. Their availability depends on the historical date of produuction but can be brought forward through investment in aircraft technologies. Aircraft factors modelled in combat include max and crusing speed, endurance at light, medium and keavy loads, ruggedness, maneuverability, attack factor against fighters/interceptors, bombloads carried at light, medium and heavy load, special abilities such as dive-bomb capable or night-equipped and any special ASW caoabilities - both for searching and attacking. Aircraft are produced as resources permit. (The player can adjust resource levels). The types selected will be those most capable for the variety of roles needed but with player-prioritisations and restrictions being possible. Aircraft are deployed automatically by your 2IC to airfields and carriers based on the number and type of aircraft each can support. (Airfields have infrstaructure levels that determine the max number and types that can be operated). You can modify these deployments if you want to. AIrcarft from carriers or land-based airfields can attack fleets at sea, enemy ports, enemy ships and installations at the port. You can modify the number and type of aircraft in any stri8ke, as well as the bombloads carried and the bombing height - if you want to. (You don't have to).

2. It should do! We have extensively beta tested it. We will be closely monitoring early feedback for any reported bugs, which we will of course fix.

3. The length of a game is almost entirely up to you.

The most time consuming way to play would be to:
a. have weekly strategic and operational turns
b. make all decisions yourself
c. enable all emergency tactical responses

At this level, it would probably take you an evening to complete one turn - which would be one week of 'real time'. From all accounts, I would estimate this would be a bit faster than Witp played on 3 day turns.

At the other end, you could play very quickly:
a. set the strategic time to say 3 months and the operational turn to one month
b. Let most of the decision making be handled by your 2IC
c. Have no or very few emergency tac responses enabled.

With these setting, you could easily get through a number of turns in an evening, representing perhaps a year of real time.

4. Some finer points,
i. SAS allows you to do what I regard as proper planning - looking up to a month ahead
ii SAS allows you to adjust your plans in a realistic and fine-grained way - as you get hour-by-hour resoluition of events in the execution phase, and with tac responses enabled can modify fleet responses and control every airstrike launced if you want to, every hour
iii. You can set rules of engagement for every fleet so that they can react to the enemy in ways that you really want; not just in genericised ways.
uiv. SAS covers all 3 theatres
iv. SAS has modifiable ship designs and a very flexible scenario creator
v. The 2IC feature allows you to simplify decision-making on a functional not geographic basis. You still get a full view of the big picture.

[Warship NWS]

Many of the players on the WitP forum tend to put this game down but that is why I am writing this here.

To MadGamer, do not take this reply as anything against your post.. this is a general response to all reading this thread.

As the director of NWS, and of all of our productions, I will be quite clear on this point.. we will not engage in direct comparisons between SAS-WW2 and WitP in regards to any attempts to "put down" one or the other as even though both designs cover similiar historical topics they both have entirely different design objectives. We do not consider this a direct competition and this niche market is too too damned small to allow for any unprofessional opinions to be flying around - and as such they will not be tolerated on our forums. Everyone has a right to pick what game works best for them and to have their own opinion but on these forums any comments about either design will stay constructive and professional.

At NWS we have a very good respect for Matrix Games designs and I have even had the chance to have some cross chat with some of the design/beta team that have, or are, working on the WitP engine and there is nothing but very professional mutual respect on both sides - as it should be.

Simple policies on our forums.. keep it professional and constructive. We are all supposed to be intelligent and mature wargamers.. not kids trying to find out who the bigger bully is on the market. At NWS we have professional relations with quite a few independent and mainstream publishers -- and that is exactly where it will stay -- and we expect the same from all of our forum members.

Thank you.

[Scott Chisholm]

Amigo!

Take a deep, cleansing breath and let me try to answer your questions.

First, welcome to the fourm. Second, I'm one of the Beta Testers for Supremacy at Sea, otherwise known as SAS, so hopefully that lends my comments some credibility that might be lacking on other fourms.

This is sort of a "quick and dirty" overview of the game, so if I leave out something in the manual, it's due to my trying to condense a lot into a reasonably-sized post. Hang on!

SAS is a compreshensive operational level naval campaign game that can be won in either of two ways: (1) militarily defeat your enemy by capturing his home port, or (2) improve your economy better than your opponent's. It is primarily a naval game, but there is a level of land warfare included. You won't be fighting the ground war in Europe, but you will be conducting amphibious assaults on enemy ports/bases. On the naval side, you build individual ships and purchase individual aircraft; on the ground side, you train regimental (I think that's the proper term - career Naval Officer here!) sized units. You will not be purchasing individual tanks and guns for your land units.

When talking SAS, a game/campaign/scenario are all the same thing; those terms sometimes get tossed around in the same paragraphs here on the forum, but for our purposes, they mean the same thing. At present, the release version (ver 1.0) of the game comes with three campaigns: Atlantic, Pacific, and Med. There is a built in campaign editor, but those are presently the only three maps with which you can create campaigns.

The "currency" of the game is "Resource Points". You create these by moving raw materials form their port of origin to a port with the industrial capacity to convert them to usable RPs. You simply must successfully run convoys in SAS or you'll lose. Anyway, once you have RPs in hand, you can build ships, purchase aircraft, train ground units, improve your infrastructure, refuel/rearm you ships, and improve your port defenses.

Or, you can let your Second in Command (2IC) do it for you. More on him in a moment.

When you start a campaign, you are provided a bunch of RPs to play with. With that initial allocation of RPs, you build your fleet, train ground units...etc. The amount of RPs you start with, and the ports available to you are a function of the campaign. You cannot change the starting arrangement.

There are no "difficulty" levels in SAS. You are pitted against a very clever AI (or actual Player in PBEM) that really has it out for you. This is a huge game, and if you try to do it all by yourself, right out of the box, you'll most likely get clobbered in a most humiliating fashion. Think kittens v. Pit Bulls, and you'll get the idea.

Enter the 2IC....

The 2IC and some settings in the Run Turn portion of the game is how you determine how difficult the game is for you. Your 2IC, if you let him, will design and build your fleet; purchase aircraft and troops; build your infrastructure and defenses; and create your missions (convoys, bombardments, amphibious assaults, etc) - all in accordance with the overall grand strategy you establish (from very aggressive to very cautious). You have veto authority over all if the 2IC's decisions. If you're interested in building ships, but not so keen on setting up missions, fine. Scrap the 2IC's shipbuilding program and design and build your own ships. Let him worry about what to do with them after their built.

I mentioned that this is an operational level game, and it is. Your goal is to destroy your enemy's ability to wage war by shutting down his economy. Very operationally oriented. However, there is a lot of opportunity for you to get tactically involved.

Earlier, I mentioned some settings in the Run Turn portion of the game. After you make all of your decisions for the turn (shipbuilding, missions, etc), you "run" the turn. During the turn, you can toggle three "Tactical Response" options: Fleet, Land Based Air, and Carrier Based Air. During the run of the turn, if something interesting happens (such as an enemy fleet being detected), the game will halt and give you the opportunity to respond tactically by diverting you fleets/aircraft to respond to whatever happened. Enabling Fleet Tactical Response allows you to tactically control your ships and subs by directing them to intercept/shadow/avoid/ignore enemy ships/subs; Land Based Air Tactical Response lets you launch land-based air strikes; and, Carrier Based Air Tactical Response lets you launch carrier-based air strikes. Your options for air strikes include determining the composition of your air strike and their targets.

Once an engagement begins, you do not have any control over the outcome - remember: you're the Admiral in charge of the Big Picture. It's up to your unit Commanding Officers to actually execute your grand plans.

Air strikes result in an after action report that lists losses for each side, bomb/torpedo hit/misses - pretty much the usual stuff. There is no animation involved with air strikes. Surface battles on the other hand...

... result in an animated replay in addition to the "written" report. The replay is a second-by-second, shell/torpedo-by-shell/torpedo animated replay of the entire engagement. Each hit is time stamped and animated with a shell splash/explosion. Surface battles frequently span several hours, so what may start as an engagement of cruiser forces may expand to include some late-arriving battle ships, and toss in an air strike or two for good measure. During playtesting of a Med campaign, one of my Gibraltar-Alexandria convoys came under continuous surface/air/submarine attack for something close to 26 hours.

I did mention the AI has it out for you, didn't I? :D

If the tactical decisions seem a little daunting, no sweat. Simply disable the tactical responses you don't feel like dealing with, and let your 2IC do it all for you. I mentioned in another post that if you want, you can set your overall/grand strategy, and let your 2IC do it all.

Not so quick, and hopefully not too dirty.... To your specific questions:

1. Yes, the land aspect of the game is somewhat abstract, but you do get to raise troops and conduct amphibious assaults. Other than setting the target, you don't really control the actual land battles.

I forgot to mention it earlier, but you also expend RPs on research and development. You don't research items; instead, you apply research in different areas (propulsion, radar, aircraft, etc) that go toward improving your overall ability in the different areas.

2. Establish your strategy, disable all Tactical Responses, and simply rubber stamp your 2IC's decision, and all you need to do is kick back, drink a soda and munch on chips while the computer fights against itself. I call that the "easy" setting. Or, enable all Tactical Responses and tell your 2IC to sit in the corner and do it all yourself. That's the "manly" micromanager setting and makes for a very long, very detailed, and - to me - very satisfying experience.

Does it work? Yes, actually, it does. Quite well. Until you see the game in action in a big campaign, you simply can't imagine all of the information that is thrown at you - especially if you play with the Operational and Tactical turn lengths each set to one month as is my preference. Different colored pop-up boxes, fleet icons, weather icons, the Turn Briefing Report, the Turn Replay, the Ship Builder, the Mission Builder. But, it makes sense. And, if you aren't interested in being told about Convoy CF1's unloading raw materials at some port, turn off that particular pop-up box and you won't be bothered again.

3. Right now, you are limited to playing on the three maps provided with the game. They cannot be linked to where you fight a "global" war. Knowing Tony (the game's programmer), he probably has that on his to-do list, but I don't know that for fact.

Setting up your own campaign is really easy. Select the map, select the sides, select the ports, establish the beginning infrastructure, and determine the starting RPs (which drives how big the starting fleets are), and you're pretty much done.

Designing ships is a matter of setting values for different attributes. Or, if you don't want to design your own ship from the keel up, modify one of the ship designs that comes with the game. Or, let the 2IC design and build your fleet while you play the back 9....

4. I really don't understand how the guys on the other forum can be speaking ill of SAS - there are probably less than a dozen people on the planet who have seen the game operate in it's final form, so unless some of that select group are putting the game down (probablity: 0), those who are have absolutely no idea of what they are talking about.

I am not a paid employee of NWS, and I'm known for my somewhat brutal honesty. From your self-description, I honestly think you would enjoy this game a great deal. The myriad of game settings will allow you to make the game as "hands on" as you like, so if you don't like getting bogged down with the details, no problem. Tony's 2IC does a very good job.

Anyway, I hope this very long post helps!

[goodwood]

G'day Scott,
very well put, the Queen's English was OK as well. :D:D

I am regular lurker on a couple of war game Forums, and very new to this one. I found out about SAS by pure accident, lurking on the Matrix general discussion board just before Christmas. This is lucky on two accounts, First, I found out about a game that really appeals to my taste, and secondly I just found out about a week before its release, fantastic, no pining over a game for 12,18 months or longer as for some other games in my arsenal.
I have been buying PC games for years in fact further back to the old c64 and Amiga games, probably 100s of them. In the early days I bought games whether they were good or bad, like many in this industry looking for the perfect war game. 90% of them were crap and I wasted many dollars on unplayable games. Today I not much smarter, but I'm a lot tighter with my money, rarely buy games on release normally wait for reviews, manuals to be released, demos or comments in forums such as this. for example FOF was out 18 months before I bought it, and it's one the most entertaining games I've played.
Back to SAS, I check the forum comments and read the game's release notes, and they certainly aroused my interest. I had no intentions of buying this game until well after it was released andonly after I had read a few comments about the game from other purchasers. The other reservation I have, is that I prefer the Digital download method of purchase to save money. All this was turned up side down by the release of the game manual. IMHO this is one the best manuals ever produced my a game publisher. It is a well written 500 page manual, that is simplistic and methodical in the manner is presents the info to the reader. The instructions are so well conveyed, I think I'm ready to play the game and I am still wating for it to arrive. Some might say the game must be simplistic if it is that easy to pickup, no this game appears to have great depth, and if it is only half as good as the manual, it will be a great game. For those who haven't D/L the manual, do yourself a favour an d read the entire manual a couple of times and digest it well. Then make a decision whether its for you or not.
Ron

[Stratos]

Scott I not played the game yet, but I believe this is the best description of a game ever. Like Madgammer I will use my 2IC to handle some boring aspects like convoys or patrols, but will control myself all the tactical decisions and ship construction.

[Christian Schwietzke]

I´ve played WitP for over two years, and comparing it to what I´ve seen of SAS, I´d say there is no real point in trying to figure out which is better, anyway.

WitP - leaving aside that it deals with ONE theater, not three - gives you a historical or quasi-historical setup and lets you run with that. Even as the Japanese you have relatively little influence on what kind of forces you have available for your war. However, the execution of said war is simulated in a fairly extreme amount of details - both allowing and to a considerable degree forcing you to pay attention to these details.

SAS on the other hand lets you do almost everything - but doesn´t force you to do anything specific. The land war, in particular, is simulated in comparatively abstract turns, at least right now, but you can´t have everything - yet. It´s impossible to tell without a closer look, but it may well be that SAS simulates surface battles, and damage models, to even greater detail than WitP.

So, in total, as I said, it´s really pointless comparing the games to find out which is better. Is a limousine better than a pickup, because it is more luxurious, or is the pickup better because it is more rugged and more versatile? It really depends on what you want from a car - or in this case, from a game. Me, I´m detail freak enough to enjoy WitP, and creative enough (and SAS is still more than detailed enough, only in a different way) that I´m going to enjoy SAS just as much. Other people have other priorities, and will derive more or les enjoyment from either game, but that doesn´t say anything about the games.

[Warship NWS]

Well put Chaos. Your online nickname, "Chaos", does not match your organized and well thought out responses BTW. ;)

If a game flips your skirt play it.. if it doesn't find something that does -- simple math and everyone stays happy. Gamers bitching over a bunch of silly electrons is nothing more then a waste of a time slice of anyones short life on this planet and its bad enough our lives are little more then short farts in the wind when compared to the overall scheme of the universe. Playing a game that is enjoyable is far better use of anyones time and noone is forced to buy anything in terms of wargaming that they don't want.

Thanks.

[Crocky]

I too have played WitP and its precursor Uncommon Valor (was a beta tester for that, a well done to all those involved in testing this it can be a thankless task a times) really enjoyed both but I am really looking forward to SAS and the flexibility it looks like it provides as to the way you wish to play the game another plus is the design flexibility .....that is design your own ships and decide when they get built. Also having the 2IC handle the onourous tasks looks like a great feature ....

I think if I get half the time out of it that I suspect Im going to its money well spent and cheap entertainment and a great way to meet new friends around the world. I know the Band of Brothers club I belong to that plays Combat Mission has many people who now regularly meet and theres an annual event in the states where people from around the world go to and catch up, would love to see this develop the same way

Of course once it arrives in the mailbox I will have a much better idea :)

[Christian Schwietzke]

Well put Chaos. Your online nickname, "Chaos", does not match your organized and well thought out responses BTW. ;)

Overall, it does match my nature. When I joined my first forum, I needed a short, easily remembered name, preferably one that is the same in German and English, and preferably also one that describes me. "Chaos" fits all the requirements.


If a game flips your skirt play it.. if it doesn't find something that does -- simple math and everyone stays happy. Gamers bitching over a bunch of silly electrons is nothing more then a waste of a time slice of anyones short life on this planet and its bad enough our lives are little more then short farts in the wind when compared to the overall scheme of the universe. Playing a game that is enjoyable is far better use of anyones time and noone is forced to buy anything in terms of wargaming that they don't want.

Thanks.

I can understand a certain degree of "the game I play is better than the game you play" bickering, as an intellectual descendant of "my daddy is better than your daddy" schoolyard arguments; however I can also understand why you don´t like it. I´ve seen plenty of the same going between, say, D&D players and GURPS players - to say nothing of Rolemaster players.
And there are always people who NEED to find something they do not like, and to then bitch about it obsessively. I could tell you some stories... :o

[Saffron]

If a game flips your skirt play it..

I should point out that having one's skirt flipped is not necessarily a good thing ... especially in public. :D


I was very very skeptical of SAS for quite some time. For one thing, the lack of a 3D environment put me off for a time ... FC and FS spoiled me in that regard. Plus, as much as I'm interested in naval combat, I don't know enough about the details to truly appreciate all of the calculations that go on under the hood (or bonnet as the case may be). I really can't get excited seeing a 16 inch shell penetrate X amount of belt armor at Y range because that's how it would've happened in the real world. I don't know those kinds of statistics. I have to take it on faith that the guys at NWS know their stuff (both in coding and in naval warfare).

However, not only is the NWS crew good at both those endeavors, they're also good salesmen since they sold me on the game. I would have to say that the biggest selling point with me is replayability. Scenario-based games like FC and FS appealed to me because of the sheer number of ships available to play with, resulting in a virtually infinite combination of ships and aircraft to pit against each other. And while I find creating my own scenarios fun, the lack of campaign-based games was very much in evidence.

All the campaign games I've played focus only on a single theater which limits its replayability, IMO. Only historical ships were represented, only the major sea powers had units involved, only the 5 standard WWII types were available (CV, BB, CA, CL, and DD), and what's worse, the AI tended to carry out it's strategy no matter how the player influenced events. The AI for PTO II even cheated by being able to calculate precisely how fast its fleets needed to sail to have enough fuel to reach a specific destination so that a Yamato BB could creep across the pacific at 5 knots to reach Hawaii from Japan (the player had no ability to make those calculations since the data needed wasn't readily available ... it was under the hood). The diplomacy aspect of PTO II was a bit shakey, too. I had a friend, through massive investment in diplomacy, manage to convince the British to enter the war on the Japanese side even though "off screen" events assumed that the US and the UK were still allies in Europe.

SAS seems to solve almost all of these problems. When even individual submarines have names, you know there's going to be a good selection of ships, and the builder makes it even better (though I wish the AI could build custom ships). Since one can build a campaign like one can build a scenario in other games, some very interesting battles can be created. This ensures limitless replayability ... a big selling point for me. I also have faith that NWS won't design an AI that will pull cheesy tactics like sending a Yamato all the way to Hawaii at 5 knots to attack an undefended base just because all of my assets are assaulting the Japanese home islands.

I also think one of the least appreciated aspects of SAS is the support it will receive ... it won't be released, given a few patches, then an expansion for another $30, then be abandoned by NWS. In addition, unlike mainstream companies, we at this forum have direct communication with the game designers. Our feedback really does make a difference here, our posts are read and, even if our ideas are shot down, we're told precisely why. If we want something added to the game, we can rest in the knowledge that our desires will be taken into consideration by the staff, and often, those ideas will be implemented. I've been on countless game forums where there are thousands of "suggestion" posts and not a peep from anyone who actually works on the game. Not so here. I think this line of communication is as equally important to the quality of the game as the coding itself.

And while we're on that subject (;)) .... would it be possible sometime in the future to construct our own ports (Mulberrys and such like) ... or to spend resource points to build up port infrastructure in a city that may not be listed as having port faciliites?

Thanks for all the hard work on this game, and if I fail to get my master's degree (this is my last semester), I'll know just who to blame. :)

[RSGodfrey]

Great post Scott, I have ordered this game and the more I learn about it the more excited I become.
I am entrigued by the potential of the mission builder; is it currently limited to constructing scenario for the WW2 theatre or does it/ will it have the potential to explore other periods of naval history?

Thanks

Richard

[madgamer]

It was not my intent to sling mud at WitP as i di love it even if I have many problems playing it which are my fault rather than the game itself. This game speaks for its own merit. I find SaS to be a refreshing aproach to navel warfare in WW2. I wish I could play WitP much better than I do. For me the gamehas shortcomings anda difficulty level in the general flow of a single turn. It is designed I feel for players who enjoy lots of hands on control to a very low level and find challange in dealing with longistics at a base level, which I do not.
Because of my interest in WW2 navel history it was the only game I found that came close to giving me what I wanted but after trying toplay it from the release date till about a week ago I can't even seem to give the AI a run for its money, and it takes a long time for a turn for me even playing single turn days.
Please accept my apology if I have over stepped the boundry of forum rules.

Madgamer

[madgamer]

Thanks Scott,
I have the rather strange combination of loving large grand strategic level games but do not deal well with economic/building parts of these games. I have tried starting the day WitP was released till last week to master the many and for me difficult choices one has to make.
I also have problems understanding why certain things happen within the game., in particular combat and supply. This problem of not understanding makes me feel like I am not in touch with the game itself. So many things happen that i do not understand that I have got to the point where, despite of my love for the game it has become impossible for me to gon on playing it. I feel the AE expansion is going to make it even harder for me to play. Heck I have a hard time keeping from being beat by the AI. The way the interface is designed makes it hard for me and unless changes are made to the game engine (not in the AE update) I will have to stop playing it.
I feel that SaS will at least allow me to just play certain parts of the game till I get more familiet with it. I have great hopes for SaS. I would think that the only way you could link say the atlantic with the Med or the Med with the Pacific would be to create a network version which my at some point be possible.
I need a game where I do not have to deal with the detail level such as WitP. I wish I could play that game better but after all the years of trying I can hardly hold my own against the Ai as the Allies, I can't play the Jap side because I have not a clue as to how the production works or does not work.
So in the end I am not saying WitP is a bad game but it seems to me to be for micro manager and control everything types of players who want and will most likely get even more of the same from the AE update, It just is not a game for me

I do find that reading the WitP forum interesting as to what some of those players want to have simulated in AE. I thank you all for taking time to answer my post and I did not mean to cause a problem with my comments on WitP vs. SaS Hope to see yoi all soon.

Madgamer

[Christian Schwietzke]

I should point out that having one's skirt flipped is not necessarily a good thing ... especially in public. :D

Not good for you. But good for those of us watching. :p


I was very very skeptical of SAS for quite some time. For one thing, the lack of a 3D environment put me off for a time ... FC and FS spoiled me in that regard. Plus, as much as I'm interested in naval combat, I don't know enough about the details to truly appreciate all of the calculations that go on under the hood (or bonnet as the case may be). I really can't get excited seeing a 16 inch shell penetrate X amount of belt armor at Y range because that's how it would've happened in the real world. I don't know those kinds of statistics. I have to take it on faith that the guys at NWS know their stuff (both in coding and in naval warfare).

I treat games like SAS - and WitP and Great Naval Battles before it, and the various Harpoon games for modern naval combat - as an opportunity to learn. Sure, I won´t ever become an expert at any of this, but I did feel very good last year when I could identify the ship shown on a photo of the Russian naval blockade of Georgia, for example.


However, not only is the NWS crew good at both those endeavors, they're also good salesmen since they sold me on the game. I would have to say that the biggest selling point with me is replayability. Scenario-based games like FC and FS appealed to me because of the sheer number of ships available to play with, resulting in a virtually infinite combination of ships and aircraft to pit against each other. And while I find creating my own scenarios fun, the lack of campaign-based games was very much in evidence.

Me, too. Squashing your enemies and stomping them into the dirt satisfying, but being able to build on that success is even better. Hell, even trying to recover from a defeat is an interesting experience.


All the campaign games I've played focus only on a single theater which limits its replayability, IMO. Only historical ships were represented, only the major sea powers had units involved, only the 5 standard WWII types were available (CV, BB, CA, CL, and DD), and what's worse, the AI tended to carry out it's strategy no matter how the player influenced events. The AI for PTO II even cheated by being able to calculate precisely how fast its fleets needed to sail to have enough fuel to reach a specific destination so that a Yamato BB could creep across the pacific at 5 knots to reach Hawaii from Japan (the player had no ability to make those calculations since the data needed wasn't readily available ... it was under the hood). The diplomacy aspect of PTO II was a bit shakey, too. I had a friend, through massive investment in diplomacy, manage to convince the British to enter the war on the Japanese side even though "off screen" events assumed that the US and the UK were still allies in Europe.

Have you ever played Pacific Storm: Allies? Such craziness happened there all the time. US and Germany versus Japan, UK and Netherlands? Been there, done that.


SAS seems to solve almost all of these problems. When even individual submarines have names, you know there's going to be a good selection of ships, and the builder makes it even better (though I wish the AI could build custom ships). Since one can build a campaign like one can build a scenario in other games, some very interesting battles can be created. This ensures limitless replayability ... a big selling point for me. I also have faith that NWS won't design an AI that will pull cheesy tactics like sending a Yamato all the way to Hawaii at 5 knots to attack an undefended base just because all of my assets are assaulting the Japanese home islands.

I´ve read many WitP AARs. Some human players pull comparably crazy stunts on their opponents... such as, sending their remaining IJN carriers on a one-way trip to raid Allied supply lines instead of sending them to die gloriously against the US carriers.


I also think one of the least appreciated aspects of SAS is the support it will receive ... it won't be released, given a few patches, then an expansion for another $30, then be abandoned by NWS. In addition, unlike mainstream companies, we at this forum have direct communication with the game designers. Our feedback really does make a difference here, our posts are read and, even if our ideas are shot down, we're told precisely why. If we want something added to the game, we can rest in the knowledge that our desires will be taken into consideration by the staff, and often, those ideas will be implemented. I've been on countless game forums where there are thousands of "suggestion" posts and not a peep from anyone who actually works on the game. Not so here. I think this line of communication is as equally important to the quality of the game as the coding itself.

Amen. Boy, (or Girl, as the case may be) I could tell you stories...


And while we're on that subject (;)) .... would it be possible sometime in the future to construct our own ports (Mulberrys and such like) ... or to spend resource points to build up port infrastructure in a city that may not be listed as having port faciliites?

Maybe "potential" ports, which start with all their values (port, airfield etc) at 0? That´s how WitP handles such things, and it works pretty well.


Thanks for all the hard work on this game, and if I fail to get my master's degree (this is my last semester), I'll know just who to blame. :)

Degree in what, if I may ask?

And you wouldn´t be the only one. Exams for this semester will start in about 6 weeks, and I´ll have to resist the temptation to play instead of preparing for that.

[Saffron]

Degree in what, if I may ask?

I'm getting mine in public library administration. I teach social studies right now to 9-12th graders ... I enjoy what I do right now, but the teacher shortage is going to force me to teach other subjects like economics and sociology (all considered "social studies"), and I'm simply not qualified for those subjects. I don't want to get into a political rant here, so I'll just say that the public educational system is a mess in large part due to their penchant of thinking a person is qualified to teach economics after taking 2 college courses in it. Ludicrous!

So I'm going to learn how to run a library instead and get my buttinsky out of teaching. I sure will miss the vacation time, though.

[Warship NWS]

Please accept my apology if I have over stepped the boundry of forum rules.

Madgamer


You did nothing wrong MadGamer, like I said in the start of my notice to everyone it was nothing against your post - just a general set of ground rules so everyone knew up front what we allow for on our forums. I am a firm believer in prevention over cures.

Thanks.

[tony_glazebrook]

And while we're on that subject (;)) .... would it be possible sometime in the future to construct our own ports (Mulberrys and such like) ... or to spend resource points to build up port infrastructure in a city that may not be listed as having port faciliites?



Saffron - you can do the second already - ports can start with docks level anywhere from 0 to 10. The level can get degraded from enemy attack and upgraded through RP expenditure.

The idea of having mulberrys is something we may well think about. When the registered forum is up, we'll be monitoring all posts very closely and making decisions as we go about what next to do by way of enhancements.

[Warship NWS]

Great post Scott, I have ordered this game and the more I learn about it the more excited I become.
I am entrigued by the potential of the mission builder; is it currently limited to constructing scenario for the WW2 theatre or does it/ will it have the potential to explore other periods of naval history?

Thanks

Richard

WW1 is due out later this year.. the next options will be one of the following - ironclads, wooden ships, or WW3.

[Warship NWS]

To Saffron, as always, we thank you - and everyone else here - for your supportive comments. At NWS we take what we do here quite seriously and the future of SAS upgrades will be VERY much driven by not just our team ideas but also the constructive feedback from all of you who are buying the game. A full registered player section will be setup for rapid fire tech support, suggestion threads, and downloadable free content. I should have that section up and running within the next day or so. Keep watch for the news.

Thanks.

[Scott Chisholm]

Great post Scott, I have ordered this game and the more I learn about it the more excited I become.
I am entrigued by the potential of the mission builder; is it currently limited to constructing scenario for the WW2 theatre or does it/ will it have the potential to explore other periods of naval history?

Thanks

Richard

Richard,

Right now, SAS is limited to WW2. I believe Chris (also known as "Our Glorious Leader") has his sights set on a WW1 version in the next year or so, but we mere Beta Testers are not in the Inner Circle of those decisions. OGL says "Go forth and Test!", and we do. ;)

Just a little tease of what you can expect. I've been playing around with the Atlantic campaign that comes with the game: in the first month there were three surface battles, one airstrike, and 25 submarine encounters. I think I succeeded in sending BISMARK back to the yards for a few months after sinking five of her escorts and crippling HIPPER; but, a flock of German dive bombers put a whole lot of hurt on FURIOUS.... Meanwhile, my 2IC has been busy laying defensive mines in the approaches to Liverpool and Gibraltar, so hopefully I can curtail some of the U-boats efforts....

[madgamer]

Richard,

Right now, SAS is limited to WW2. I believe Chris (also known as "Our Glorious Leader") has his sights set on a WW1 version in the next year or so, but we mere Beta Testers are not in the Inner Circle of those decisions. OGL says "Go forth and Test!", and we do. ;)

Just a little tease of what you can expect. I've been playing around with the Atlantic campaign that comes with the game: in the first month there were three surface battles, one airstrike, and 25 submarine encounters. I think I succeeded in sending BISMARK back to the yards for a few months after sinking five of her escorts and crippling HIPPER; but, a flock of German dive bombers put a whole lot of hurt on FURIOUS.... Meanwhile, my 2IC has been busy laying defensive mines in the approaches to Liverpool and Gibraltar, so hopefully I can curtail some of the U-boats efforts....

You have read what I had to say about WitP and that it IS a great game but my problem is I love the Grand Strategic level games but have no head for any economic/build parts of such games. I played WitP for so long I had hoped to be able to do well at it based on the amount of time I had spent( LOL).
SaS seems to be what I need in that it is a true strategic game but the player has the option of using his 2IC for help. I will order the game because I think I found a navel game i can play at a true strategic level and still get involved with the operational&tactical parts as well. I am still a bit in awe of the game and its scope even with the 2IC being used but I want to try it anyway. There are a few things I thought of that are most likely in the area of "not possible"

1. Would it be possible to create a network version so as to link 2 or all of the theatre's into one grand game.
2, to somehow add a little more of the ground game in particular in Europe and the Med.
3. I need some ideas as to how to set up the game. One player likes to have both the strat&Oper. levels at 1 month each. or the same at any rate. For a rank beginner like me would 2weeks each be more difficult? Would you advise a beginner not to have say 1 month Strat and 2 week Oper.?
4. I gather you can have the 2IC handle the tactical parts of the battle as well as the oper. parts and then replay the turns and study the way they play out.

I have seen only one other Strategic game (Gary Grigsby's Civil War) that used luck and chance to influence the game. The strategic level game like SaS SHOULD change if even 1 thing is changed in the game. That is like you said if I play a second game with the same game choices but change something then the whole game will be changed. I have seen few games that said they were strategic or grand strategic that, unlike SaS, were not. This one looks and by reading feels like a true Strategic level game. I can't wait to get going on it.

Madgamer

[Scott Chisholm]

1. Would it be possible to create a network version so as to link 2 or all of the theatre's into one grand game.

MG,

That's beyond my knowledge and expertise. I have to defer that question to Tony.


2, to somehow add a little more of the ground game in particular in Europe and the Med.

I believe there are plans to make the land porton of the game more robust, but again, we lowly Beta Testers are not in the Inner Circle of Those Who Make The Important Decisions. That's Chris and Tony's department.


3. I need some ideas as to how to set up the game. One player likes to have both the strat&Oper. levels at 1 month each. or the same at any rate. For a rank beginner like me would 2weeks each be more difficult? Would you advise a beginner not to have say 1 month Strat and 2 week Oper.?

Hmmm.... It all depends on how much you want to deal with at one time. The length of a Strategic turn can be one week, two weeks, one month, two months, three months, six months or a year. The Operational Turn can be one, two or four weeks long (sidebar: an early iteration of the game had the "turns" called Operational and Tactical, or Strategic and Tactical, and I sometimes confuse the terms. Strategic and Operational are the proper terms. :o ) The Strategic Turn length must be at least as long as the Operational Turn length.

In any event, the Strategic Turn length determinse how many turns are in a game. The Operational turn length determines how much of the Strategic Turn you "see". For instance, if you set the Strategic Turn length to one year and the Operational Turn length to one week, when you run a turn, a year of game time flies by, but you only see a week of it during the Turn Replay.

Tony will set me straight if I misspeak here....

The Briefing Report you receive at the end of each turn is dated the first of the month. If you set the Strategic Turn length to something less than one month, the turn calculations crunches through that much time and calls it a month. Since less things happen during that time, you are presented less information, so the game becomes a bit less daunting, if you will.

I prefer to play with the Strategic and Operational Turn lengths both set to one month as it makes my world nice and orderly. I would recommend starting with that while you learn the ropes.


4. I gather you can have the 2IC handle the tactical parts of the battle as well as the oper. parts and then replay the turns and study the way they play out.

Yep. If you wanted, you could let the game play itself by going with the scenario default overall strategy and disabling all of the Tactical Response options. The 2IC will do everything after that. All you would need to do each turn is click "Go!" on the Admiral's Office blackboard and watch the war unfold. That's actually probably worth doing the first time just to see what happens during a game.


have seen only one other Strategic game (Gary Grigsby's Civil War) that used luck and chance to influence the game. The strategic level game like SaS SHOULD change if even 1 thing is changed in the game. That is like you said if I play a second game with the same game choices but change something then the whole game will be changed. I have seen few games that said they were strategic or grand strategic that, unlike SaS, were not. This one looks and by reading feels like a true Strategic level game. I can't wait to get going on it.

Probablility plays out throughout the game, especially in combat. Changing your strategy will change the mix of ships your 2IC builds and the missions he generates. Changing the Rules of Engagement (Extremely Aggressive, Aggressive, Cautious, and Timid) for your ship types will affect how they react in battle. Extremely Aggressive escorts will charge battleships ala the destroyers at Samar Island, while timid merchants will run away from anything with a gun. Timid battleships? Extremely Aggressive merchants? Why not?

You can change your overall strategy any time you want throughout the game. If you want to play it very cautious at first and try to build up your economy and fleet, then go medieval on your opponent with a very aggressive strategy later in the game, go right ahead. Or, if you over extended yourself early in the game and need to cool your heels and lick your wounds, you can do that too.

I will say that an Very Aggressive Japan with Extremely Aggressive battleships will try its best to bombard San Francisco. That was a shock during Beta Testing. :eek:

[tony_glazebrook]

1. Would it be possible to create a network version so as to link 2 or all of the theatre's into one grand game.


Going to a multi-theatre campaign involves some non-trivial issues; networking is not really one of them though as we would continue to support the same modes of player (single player/hot seat/PBEM). I can say that although I would love to go mult-theatre, and we will be looking at this closely, I know from the amount of work involved that it would not be in the first batch of updates.

[tony_glazebrook]

I am still a bit in awe of the game and its scope even with the 2IC being used but I want to try it anyway.

..

MG - there is a tutorial (separate pdf on the web site as well as in-game) that takes through a whole turn. You'll find it a great way to get an overview of what to do. By using your 2IC, you really can play a whole turn in a matter of minutes.

[Warship NWS]

2, to somehow add a little more of the ground game in particular in Europe and the Med.


This question has been added to our SAS-WW2 FAQ.
http://forums.navalwarfare.org//showthread.php?t=753

Thanks.

[Warship NWS]

And there are always people who NEED to find something they do not like, and to then bitch about it obsessively. I could tell you some stories... http://forums.navalwarfare.org//images/smilies/redface.gif


Absolutely.. as to the stories, that could go both ways.. been on the internet since the 2400 baud modems came out. ;)

[Christian Schwietzke]

..

MG - there is a tutorial (separate pdf on the web site as well as in-game) that takes through a whole turn. You'll find it a great way to get an overview of what to do. By using your 2IC, you really can play a whole turn in a matter of minutes.

As for a tutorial... it occurred to that there is a nice way for a new player to get into the game.

Start a new game with two human players, and as both players, simply let the 2iC do everything for you. You´ll have the AI basically play against itself, but since both sides are nominally human, you can examine everything the AI does in any detail you like, to see how it operates.
This is, of course, operating from the assumption that the AI is at least competent, which, knowing you fine people here and the time it took you to playtest everything, I´ll simply take for granted.
Then, as you watch the AI play, over time you can modify its plans when you think you have a better idea. Do all this once with both 2iC set to "very cautious", and once with both set to "very aggressive", and perhaps once with one set to one extreme and one to the other - that will give you an idea of what kind of difference that setting makes.

[FAdmiral]

I too have played the original Pacific War (1995) many, many times back in the 90's.
I loved it when many players said it was too hard to play. Then I did the beta testing
for "Uncommon Valor" and I liked the newer version of the game but this part of it was
too confining after playing with the entire Pacific Theatre. Then along came WITP and
because of the high price tag, I did not get it untill they had a sale on the game. I have
played WITP for the past 2 years now (off & on) using the day by day progression of
turns. I really enjoyed it playing as the USA but I do think the AI playing the Japanese
side was weak in how it played. It is now May 1943 and I have not lost a carrier while
Japan has lost all but 2 of theirs. Most of them were sunk by land-based air when their
air fleets came much too close to my bases and hung around till they went down. The
AI did not regard repairing ships as a high priority as I did. I am buying SAS because I
love strategic games. I was hoping to play as the USA on both sides of the ocean in
one game but I guess the Atlantic & Pacific sides are set into 2 games. Setting goals
for building and deploying for both campaigns has been a wish of mine for quite awhile
now. Hearts of Iron 2 Doomsday came close but was a little too generic for a nitty-gritty player like myself....

JIM

[Christian Schwietzke]

I too have played the original Pacific War (1995) many, many times back in the 90's.

I played it through three times... twice as the Allies, once as Japanese. That second Allied campaign was in ´05, finished shortly before I found WitP. What a game...


I loved it when many players said it was too hard to play. Then I did the beta testing
for "Uncommon Valor" and I liked the newer version of the game but this part of it was
too confining after playing with the entire Pacific Theatre. Then along came WITP and
because of the high price tag, I did not get it untill they had a sale on the game. I have
played WITP for the past 2 years now (off & on) using the day by day progression of
turns. I really enjoyed it playing as the USA but I do think the AI playing the Japanese
side was weak in how it played. It is now May 1943 and I have not lost a carrier while
Japan has lost all but 2 of theirs.

My game as Allies is now in October ´43, I have lost nothing bigger than a DD or a submarine (5 or 6 each, I think), sunk half the Japanese carriers and battleships and about 2/3 of their cruisers, retaken Rangoon and Malaya (I never lost Mandalay), and have just captured Saipan, Guam and Ulithi. The WitP AI is really just a warm-up exercise to prepare for PBEM.

The Pacific War AI was a lot better than that, so I guess it is the extreme attention to detail in the game that is doing this. The AI in SAS, on the other hand, seems to competent enough, from what we´ve seen so far.

[madgamer]

I too have played the original Pacific War (1995) many, many times back in the 90's.
I loved it when many players said it was too hard to play. Then I did the beta testing
for "Uncommon Valor" and I liked the newer version of the game but this part of it was
too confining after playing with the entire Pacific Theatre. Then along came WITP and
because of the high price tag, I did not get it untill they had a sale on the game. I have
played WITP for the past 2 years now (off & on) using the day by day progression of
turns. I really enjoyed it playing as the USA but I do think the AI playing the Japanese
side was weak in how it played. It is now May 1943 and I have not lost a carrier while
Japan has lost all but 2 of theirs. Most of them were sunk by land-based air when their
air fleets came much too close to my bases and hung around till they went down. The
AI did not regard repairing ships as a high priority as I did. I am buying SAS because I
love strategic games. I was hoping to play as the USA on both sides of the ocean in
one game but I guess the Atlantic & Pacific sides are set into 2 games. Setting goals
for building and deploying for both campaigns has been a wish of mine for quite awhile
now. Hearts of Iron 2 Doomsday came close but was a little too generic for a nitty-gritty player like myself....

JIM

Hi Jim,
I agree with all you said about WitP. It really is a great game but not for me. Due to a kind of information recognition problem, I have trouble dealing with information overload which for my old brain is just to much. Now lets assume that the AI in the AE expansion is better but the overall interface remains the same It would not help me much.
I need too have information presented in a better way than WitP is currently and to my best knowledge the interface will not change that much. In fact the game will become even more of a miro manager or control player type of game with the stuff they are adding. I am of the opinion that a game like WitP is not a ture Strategic level game but more of a grand Operational/Tactical game. A game like SaS is a true Grand Strategic level game. Things like more than one theater and a better ground game esspecially for Europe, and other things may be added in the future. They are even talking about a WW! module. I will buy the AE expansion and give the game one more try because I do love it.

Madgamer

[FAdmiral]

As for the old brain, mine will be 70 this coming March. I still love the big strategic
game where I see & control everything. Turning stuff over to an AI helper has
always been, up to now, an absolute disaster. Daily turns would probably be mostly
operational & tactical since in WITP more control is used more often. I shudder to think
of a month going by with no input from the player. I will also buy the expansion to WITP.
Chaos, I also never lost the Java area and in keeping with my PacWar type of play, let
the AI have the ground they wanted but kept the high oil/resources areas from them.
In that game, (maybe in SAS too) you have to know when to hold and when to fold.
(Kenny Rogers had it right on) AS for PBEM, I would have liked to have done it but not on a one vs. one basis. 3 vs. 3 would be to my liking because interaction between players on your own side is more towards reality (more FUN too) Maybe SAS will permit
a good 3 vs. 3 style of play, hope so.....

JIM