Creation of Missions

[Kriegsspieler]

One of the odd things about mission creation is that the human player does not have a chance to use the same menu of missoins that seems to be available to the a.i.-controlled 2IC. So the mission labels such as "Reconaissance" and "rapid reaction" are not available to us. Is there any way of reconciling this?

[tony_glazebrook]

One of the odd things about mission creation is that the human player does not have a chance to use the same menu of missoins that seems to be available to the a.i.-controlled 2IC. So the mission labels such as "Reconaissance" and "rapid reaction" are not available to us. Is there any way of reconciling this?

KS - the concept of the 'mission' came about as a way of organising things for the AI opponent and then, by extension, became the way your 2IC does things for you. Eg - a reconnaissance mission is set up rather like a patrol but by default is given different RoE.

When you manually create missions, you have more flexibility - eg you could combine in the one fleet orders to patrol as well as to bombard and/or blockade. The controls on the theatre map give you much flexibility to set routes up with as many way points as you want, varying the fleet speed on certain legs, etc. And you can also vary the RoE in more flexible ways than your 2IC can.

By the time you are ready to start manually creating your own missions, it seemed to me pointless and restrictive to force on you the more limiting idea of one mission objective per fleet that your less intelligent 2IC has to work with. He is good at the heavy lifting; but you can be better at the fine control.

But the ability to edit what the 2IC has done also gives you a half-way house - you can accept his missions, or some of them, and add or subtract ships; or you can give him hex objectives, and so on.

In this way I figured I had covered all bases. Setting up fleets and giving them operational orders can be done with one mouse click; or it can be done all manully, or in any number of intermediate ways.

[Kriegsspieler]

KS - the concept of the 'mission' came about as a way of organising things for the AI opponent and then, by extension, became the way your 2IC does things for you. Eg - a reconnaissance mission is set up rather like a patrol but by default is given different RoE.

When you manually create missions, you have more flexibility - eg you could combine in the one fleet orders to patrol as well as to bombard and/or blockade. The controls on the theatre map give you much flexibility to set routes up with as many way points as you want, varying the fleet speed on certain legs, etc. And you can also vary the RoE in more flexible ways than your 2IC can.

By the time you are ready to start manually creating your own missions, it seemed to me pointless and restrictive to force on you the more limiting idea of one mission objective per fleet that your less intelligent 2IC has to work with. He is good at the heavy lifting; but you can be better at the fine control.

But the ability to edit what the 2IC has done also gives you a half-way house - you can accept his missions, or some of them, and add or subtract ships; or you can give him hex objectives, and so on.

In this way I figured I had covered all bases. Setting up fleets and giving them operational orders can be done with one mouse click; or it can be done all manully, or in any number of intermediate ways.
Tony, most of what you say is spot on. I, for one, have no interest in creating convoy missions, for example. I restrict myself to tweaking the composition of thir escorts.
The one mission I wish I had more control over is the rapid response, because I want to set different responses of this type than the 2IC does. Or maybe I do have the ability to make these -- Is that just a mission with an aggressive attack stance that has the berthing port as a target hex? :D

[tony_glazebrook]

Tony, most of what you say is spot on. I, for one, have no interest in creating convoy missions, for example. I restrict myself to tweaking the composition of thir escorts.
The one mission I wish I had more control over is the rapid response, because I want to set different responses of this type than the 2IC does. Or maybe I do have the ability to make these -- Is that just a mission with an aggressive attack stance that has the berthing port as a target hex? :D

Kriegsspieler - Ready Reaction fleets are simply active (ie non-reserve) fleets, at a port, with no definite movement orders, but with some RoE to help determine when they should sail out to intercept enemy in range.

You can set these fleets up yourself, just by creating a fleet at a port with some ships, and giving it RoE but no movement orders. The concept is very similar to the ready response fleets (I think that's what they are called) in Witp, except that you set RoE, not an intercept range. A ready reaction fleet does not burn fuel unless and until it needs to sail out.

Ready reaction missions are the way that the 2IC organises ready reaction fleets for you.

The 2IC always puts a proportion of spare ships not used on other missions into ready reaction fleets - the left-overs if you like. But you can give these fleets a higher priority in his thinking if you want, and control certain things like the minimum number of certain types of ship, by having the ready reaction mission as one of the approved mission types in your list. When this mission type is in your approved mission list, your 2IC will try to create ready reaction fleets at your ports as soon as he has finished doing higher priority missions. As you lift the priority of a ready reaction mission, so do you increase the chances that these fleets will get the number and type of ships that you want. This is how the whole mission priority thing works.

Of course, you can then go in and cancel or amend any or all of the ready reaction missions he creates.

And, as I said before, you can manually set them up as well.

[Kriegsspieler]

Kriegsspieler - Ready Reaction fleets are simply active (ie non-reserve) fleets, at a port, with no definite movement orders, but with some RoE to help determine when they should sail out to intercept enemy in range.

You can set these fleets up yourself, just by creating a fleet at a port with some ships, and giving it RoE but no movement orders. The concept is very similar to the ready response fleets (I think that's what they are called) in Witp, except that you set RoE, not an intercept range. A ready reaction fleet does not burn fuel unless and until it needs to sail out.
Excellent -- thanks.

[Yolo911]

I select Deploy Fleets from the Blackboard and Chose NO when the 2IC asks if I want his help in creating missions, but I still get his unwanted help. The ships and subs are all assigned patrols. THis is the Atlantic campaign, German player. Is this normal or is there a way to start with No missions created and do it myself instead of horsing around and canceling missions the 2IC created, eventhough I fired him? I really have no patience and my over-all frustration meter is approaching the red zone. I'm afraid this is another purchase(of many, many purchases) that will end up on my bookshelf.

[PDF]

I select Deploy Fleets from the Blackboard and Chose NO when the 2IC asks if I want his help in creating missions, but I still get his unwanted help. The ships and subs are all assigned patrols. THis is the Atlantic campaign, German player. Is this normal or is there a way to start with No missions created and do it myself instead of horsing around and canceling missions the 2IC created, eventhough I fired him? I really have no patience and my over-all frustration meter is approaching the red zone. I'm afraid this is another purchase(of many, many purchases) that will end up on my bookshelf.
You can all cancel the missions straight from the "mission board". But I didn't experience the "zzealous 2IC" issue, he doesn't plan when I ask him not to, but I've not tried the Atlantic (too cold :D)

[Scott Chisholm]

I select Deploy Fleets from the Blackboard and Chose NO when the 2IC asks if I want his help in creating missions, but I still get his unwanted help. The ships and subs are all assigned patrols. THis is the Atlantic campaign, German player. Is this normal or is there a way to start with No missions created and do it myself instead of horsing around and canceling missions the 2IC created, eventhough I fired him? I really have no patience and my over-all frustration meter is approaching the red zone. I'm afraid this is another purchase(of many, many purchases) that will end up on my bookshelf.

Yolo,

I'm sorry to hear your frustration; the 2IC was intended to make the game easier to play....

The View Missions List shows the missions created by your 2IC; they stay on the View Missions List until completed. When a mission is added to the list, it is followed by the word "New". If your 2IC creates a 5-week mission in June, it will be listed and followed by "New". It will still be ongoing in July. If you start the July turn and decline the 2IC's assistance in generating missions, when you go to the View Missions List, that 5-week mission will still be there, but it will not be followed by "New".

I'm not sitting at the game right now, so I might be a bit vague and inaccurate on what I write. Perhaps this might work for you: load the Atlantic campaign. After choosing your side, there should be in the lower right hand corner an option to restart the game from the first turn. That should start you with a clean slate.

Build you fleet and aircraft and troops, and make your infrastructure and R&D decisions. Then, open the theater map. If you click on the View Missions button, it should take you to a blank screen as the 2IC has not been told to do anything.

Exit out of that screen, and select "Form Fleets Manually". Without the game in front of me, it's difficult for me to walk you through this screen. The help files do a really good job explaining it. In any event, form you fleets as you see fit. When you're done, exit out of this screen and you should be back at the Theater map. If not, go back to the Theater map.

From here, you can select a fleet and assign it its orders. When you're done, open the View Missions List: it should still be blank as I believe it only reflects missions created by the 2IC.

I think that should accomplish what you desire. Let me know how it works.

[FAdmiral]

After reading all of these reports, I am inclined to completely turn the 2IC OFF !!!
I had to do that in my play of WITP too as the AI always used assets for some off
the wall adventure and I was left in frustration in having to reverse everything...
I would rather take more time in micro-management of my forces than to be frustrated
all the time with what the AI has done in my behalf. I just like to take charge and win
or lose on my own volition .....;)

JIM

[PDF]

FAdmiral
I've not yet much experience with SaS (and none with WitP), but from what I saw you should try the 2IC before discarding it altogether : "he" makes consistent plans, and it is very easy to tweak them.

[FAdmiral]

Yes, when I get the game I will definately try the 2IC just to see how it works.
Hopefully, better in SAS than in WITP. Even if I don't like it, I may get an insight
into just how my AI opponent will move & react !!

JIM

[Scott Chisholm]

After reading all of these reports, I am inclined to completely turn the 2IC OFF !!!
I had to do that in my play of WITP too as the AI always used assets for some off
the wall adventure and I was left in frustration in having to reverse everything...
I would rather take more time in micro-management of my forces than to be frustrated
all the time with what the AI has done in my behalf. I just like to take charge and win
or lose on my own volition .....;)

JIM

Jim,

I think that would qualify as "throwing the baby out with the bath water". :p

Seriously, the 2IC does it job very well, especially with convoy creation. It was extensively tweaked during play testing, so it doesn't really make any truly stupid mistakes.

I think of the 2IC as just that: my second in command. Like any good Executive Officer, he concerns himself with all of the nuts and bolts of the day-to-day drudgery while I pontificate on Grand Things. I let him create missions for my review and approval, just as I would a real XO. Sometimes I cancel missions that aren't really high on my To-Do list and reassign the assets to other fleets. Other times, I cancel missions to free up assets for something I have in mind that the 2IC would not have known about.

The 2IC was intended to scale the amount of micromanagement a Player wants until everyone achieves their happy medium. Sometimes, I find it fun to let the computer play itself while I alternate sides each turn. Other times, I Lone Wolf it and do it all myself (long turns!). Mostly, I modify what the 2IC concocts - I use him as a point of departure for my plans.

If you want to tone down the 2IC, reduce the aggressiveness of your strategy. That will reduce the probablility of your seeing Japanese task forces cruising the California coast....

But most of all, have fun! :D

[Yolo911]

Scott,

I wiped out each mission(no missions created at all when I started the turn) and I wanted to see if I could just get the one week turn choice to work ) and ran the turn with all of the TAC checked so that I could monitor the 2IC. Every couple of minutes, and I mean for 30 days(one week turn failed again) the 2IC tried to send out assets in non-existant missions(a ghost of what he had created but I had deleted) constantly. I kept selecting IGNORE to keep the ships in port. This went on for 30 days. But somehow the 2IC slipped one past me and sent a task force formed around the Bismark out to engage a British uber-force of 50+ ships(which is a little extreme at the beginning of the war). They Germans(me) got our clock cleaned. Sank almost every ship in the 2IC's task force.
I have a difficult enough time waging war without fighting my own staff too. I think I will shelve this until some future date. I appreciate your time and assistance but I don't have the disposition for this kind of headache. The game is based a good concept and I wish it had worked for me. Doesn't mean that it isn't a good fit for other players, I'm sure it is.

[FAdmiral]

Seeing that, as the player, I am the CIC and my assistant is the 2IC, I would like to
find that all the 2IC recommendations be presented to me (CHIEF) as suggestions
that would yea or nay (tic or not) be my choice to make. Like in a high-level staff
meeting when I listened and then made the FINAL decision. If the 2IC would override
me on ANYTHING, he (it) would be immediately FIRED !!! Lets go with some REALITY
here folks....

JIM

[tony_glazebrook]

I select Deploy Fleets from the Blackboard and Chose NO when the 2IC asks if I want his help in creating missions, but I still get his unwanted help. The ships and subs are all assigned patrols. THis is the Atlantic campaign, German player. Is this normal or is there a way to start with No missions created and do it myself instead of horsing around and canceling missions the 2IC created, eventhough I fired him? I really have no patience and my over-all frustration meter is approaching the red zone. I'm afraid this is another purchase(of many, many purchases) that will end up on my bookshelf.

Yolo - the reason you are seeing the missions there, despite saying 'No', is that I created these out-of-the box scenarios as ready to GO for turn 1, so the missions have already been set up. You can easily cancel all of them if you want - just click the cancel all button.

[Warship NWS]

To Fadmiral and Yolo,

Remember that you can have the 2IC run it all.. or not run anything at all, or somewhere in between. You can also edit any orders they implement before going to the next turn. Its all a matter of the level of assistance a player is comfortable with.

Now.. could an option be implemented where the 2IC *suggests* a course of action? We can talk about that possibility with Tony.

This is where the *constructive* feedback comes in. We are not here telling you - this is the game and take it or leave it and obviously so one size fits all in terms of gaming. We are listening intently as we developed the game to be played by as many players as possible, not just sit on a shelf.

Remember.. this is v1.0 of the engine and we have no intentions of stopping here. Before we even begin with the WW1 edition we will be working on upgrades for the SAS engine based on player feedback and the players that bought the game will obviously be given the highest priority in terms of who we listen to the most.

Thanks.

[tony_glazebrook]

Seeing that, as the player, I am the CIC and my assistant is the 2IC, I would like to
find that all the 2IC recommendations be presented to me (CHIEF) as suggestions
that would yea or nay (tic or not) be my choice to make. Like in a high-level staff
meeting when I listened and then made the FINAL decision. If the 2IC would override
me on ANYTHING, he (it) would be immediately FIRED !!! Lets go with some REALITY
here folks....

JIM

Jim - the way it works is the same as what you are asking except that instead of having to tick each one, you simply cancel the ones you don't want. You can also lock the ones you do want and then cancel all of the others with one mouse click. I don't think things could be much easier than that?.

[tony_glazebrook]

Seeing that, as the player, I am the CIC and my assistant is the 2IC, I would like to
find that all the 2IC recommendations be presented to me (CHIEF) as suggestions
that would yea or nay (tic or not) be my choice to make. Like in a high-level staff
meeting when I listened and then made the FINAL decision. If the 2IC would override
me on ANYTHING, he (it) would be immediately FIRED !!! Lets go with some REALITY
here folks....

JIM

Jim - one more point - the 2IC only works on approved missions. If you only want him to set up say convoys and minelaying missions, then remove the others from the approved missions list. You are pretty much in complete control of what he can do.

[Philbill]

I noticed that the 2IC does a reasonable job with mines and subs so i only edit those a little and then lock them, I then cancel all the unlocked ones :D. Remember also that some 2IC missions carry over from one turn to the next especially if you have lowered the turn time.
Phil

[FAdmiral]

Well, seeing that I have not played the game yet (should arrive next week), I am
only commenting on posts here about the game. I should be much better informed
when I (at last) sit down & play the actual game. Sometimes reading all these posts
is like getting second-hand information. I will reserve my opinions till I finally get
solid information about the game (playing it myself). Only then will I know for sure !!

JIM