game Preferences settings
 

We are doing a study of what players are setting game preferences to if they reguarly deviate from the stock 100%.

So......if you play with hitting set to 150% and infantry toughness to 80% we'd like to know. We don't want to ASSUME everyone plays as we do.......with all setting to default 100%

I will be away for a week and I will check these over when I get back and the more people who take a few minutes to answer gives us better data to work with and if you do keep the player and realism preferences set to the "stock" settings we'd like to know that as well...........we don't want to hear only from the people who change them and if you DO change them could you please tell us why

Thanks

Don

Re: game Preferences settings
 

I play mostly with the default stock settings (Realism & Player preferences).

The only time I change them (which is very rare) is to simulate weather effects such as heavy rain at night without moonlight, etc etc... as described in this doc (Attached. I don't remember where I found it, maybe from theBlitz.org, and it's not specifically for Camo's SP but it gives a good guideline on simulating weather effects).

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Normally use default settings.
Similar to Right Deve will sometimes adjust for bad weather or night operations.
Not as major changes just spotting to 70-80% & very rarely hitting to 90%.
Low global visibility already seems to add its own penalties so not drastic changes just meant for extreme cases.

I have played around in WWII with increasing to hit as I feel first round accuracy from tanks is a bit lacking. Use default though as it effects all weapons.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Always default. Can't remember anytime it wasn't.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

I also use the standard other than for weather/time of day adjustments.

I never saw the document you attached, but it's very useful. Thanks.

Tom

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Almost always 100% everything (default).

I will, and do, play with settings to simulate greater or lesser training than the "standard" for the OoB - especially with modded / non-standard countries.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

I only ever changed the map size and the number of points until I tried to eliminate air strikes. I am not familiar enough with the game, or good enough, to go changing any other settings. The defaults give me a good challenge.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

My settings are as follows...

1.GENERAL and REALISM Preferences are all on.

2. PLAYER Preferences all at 100% with the following exceptions...

A. TROOP QUALITY- both sides XXX.

B. BATTLE POINTS - USA 6500 RUSSIA 1000. I might be looking at this wrong but, I see this as increasing the "ratio" of points for the AI, then by adding the 1000 points, as a further bonus to the AI spend account. Most campaigns I play run from around 17 to 27 battles. I will find a competitive AI equipped with the latest armor etc. (Such as I reported on the AI using the T-72B3 right from the first battle/campaign I played after the Patch was released that included that tank.) and as the campaign develops outnumbered.

C. MAP - Height 80/Width 100, Can't remember if that's default or not but it works for me.

D. ARTY EFFECTIVENESS - Set to 90% because I felt at 100% it seemed like a 100% when it came to AI arty and mine just didn't seem as accurate (But not by much.), though I understand I can make the numbers go beyond 100%, it simply doesn't allow for "Fog of War" if you will. I've at times gone down to 80% if my campaign is anywhere from 1946 - ~1965/1970.

The AI is the only way I've played the game before even joining the community.

Regards,
Pat
:capt:

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Is it the AI side only that you set to 90% arty effectivness or both ?

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Your Point B will simply not work as you think.

In a campaign, the player 1 points setting is only ever used for the humans initial core buy, as the maximum initial core force value allowed (unless he uses the max points setting).

P2 will always be XXX in a campaign, i.e. the correct ratio of points for the human P1's core troops (as experience values them) plus any support points the human bought in the battle set-up. Note that only the current value of troops is used - so if you bought 1000 points (out of the max 6500) plus 1000 supports, your value is 2000 in battle 1, any unspent points of the initial core buy or current supports points get "dropped on the floor".

In addition, in campaigns the air strike value is determined by the internal campaign code and not the preferences settings. So its effectively XXX.

If you want the AI to have say 105% of your force then set the AI advantage percent value on the misc tab of the game options launcher to 105, 110 for 110%, etc. That is what that is for (works for battle generator as well, for P2).

The setting you have there would only work for a random single battle made in the battle generator, and it completely devalues the Russian buy there if say it was a meeter - instead of getting 6500 points of Russians, you are giving it a mere 1000.

Its not an addition - if not XXX its an absolute value. The P2 value is therefore best left at XXX unless you know exactly what you are trying to achieve.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

I too, set the player preference settings to their default levels. The only time change them is when I want to simulate some type of strategical situation, like air superiority, "green" or elite troops.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Well now this is another fine mess I've gotten myself into :eek:, so Andy thank you for "squaring me away" on my AI assistance theory, I have taken the lesson onboard, and have applied them. Thank You!

Ooh Don, since Andy has "squared me away" I have this feeling you're about to "round me off", I assumed, and we've seen thus far how that's worked out for me to this point :rolleyes:, that the "Arty Effectiveness" on lower right bottom of the Preferences page doesn't control both the AI and my effectiveness?

Well I've been playing for how long now? :doh: But the important thing here is "You're never to old to learn something new" and maybe this will help someone else now or in the future and that would be well...:cool:!

I'm at flank speed, hard to port, noisemakers launched to evade the dreaded MK-48D(on) torpedo with DC parties standing by fore and aft. Yeah like I was going to say "Standing by for incoming" - :p

Anyway thanks again for the help and a belated Happy Fathers Day to all it applies to!

Regards,
Pat
:capt:

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Doesn't seem like days off are just like work days anymore?

Anyway this from my previous post needs to be clarified "that the "Arty Effectiveness" on lower right bottom of the Preferences page doesn't control both the AI and my effectiveness?", better to have said, I thought by adjusting the "Arty Effectiveness" to 90% on the Preferences page, that both the AI's and my artillery accuracy would be set to 90%.

As a side note, for WinSPWW2 I set the accuracy even lower to something in the area of 80% - 90% depending if I'm campaigning in the beginning, middle or last year or two of the war. During the "Battle of the Bulge" the USA was using what can only be described in modern terms, as the "Excalibur" round of the time very successfully and in numbers. I posted on this in the SPA/SPAA thread I believe within the last couple of years.

Sorry for any confusion this might have caused but, "Conklinese" can be harder than Chinese to master.

Regards,
Pat
:capt:

Re: game Preferences settings
 

That was my understanding too..

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Arty effectiveness is just the one setting, and it affects both sides.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Thanks again Andy! One out of two doesn't seem so bad now. Anyway now I'm "rightly" playing the way I thought I was for all these years. This is good.

Regards,
Pat
:capt:

Re: game Preferences settings
 

My preferences are generally default with a few tweaks. The two links below to other threads should illustrate how I set things and why.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...6&postcount=15

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=38939

Attachment 14343

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Mostly use default, but I tend to make the artillery rather more effective and I will adjust stuff when using Western armies against Third world forces.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Okay that's interesting, why or do you play with training off?

Re: game Preferences settings
 

(http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...10&postcount=6)

I'll expound a little. In one scenario (Vietnam 1950s) it is night time (vis. 5), the moon is not visible but flares are in use. It is raining. So spotting is set to 35, hitting is set to 55, rout-rally to 65 (for both sides with maybe a deviation of one or two points on the rout-rally scale to account for better knowledge of the local area etc). The changes always apply to both sides. Training / morale etc is always taken into account.

Attached Files

Re: game Preferences settings
 

I play with mostly so called "Low Carnal Settings" (if I remember right, I found it from Matrix's SPWAW forum, so I tried it with SPWAW at first).

Searching:80% (sometimes 90%)
Hitting:90%
Rout/Rally:100%
Troop Quality:70
Tank Toughness:110%
Inf Toughness:150% (sometimes 140%)

Battle Points & Air sorties vary almost daily;)...

Warhero

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Oops I forgot this:

Arty Effectiveness:130%

Re: game Preferences settings
 

The only change is setting tank toughness to 140%. RPGs have a very high probability of knocking out a tank IMHO.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

These responses are good, please keep them coming. I was curious whether ( for example ) people were running one or two of the Player preferences a little "hotter" or "colder" than the default but that so far does not ( generally ) seem to be the case but please keep reporting what your using...all info is valuable.

Thanks

Don

Re: game Preferences settings
 

About the only setting I regularly change is "Infantry Toughness" which I set at 150%. I find them too fragile at default settings.

Tho I occasionally set "Searching" to 150-200% (for say US forces when dealing with less sophisticated opponents) because of the overwhelming advantage in battlefield surveillance one side has via satellites/high-altitude drones/etc.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Artillery effectiveness 250 - 300%. In my RL-experience a 100 meter kill radius means just that - a 155mm landing within your comfort area will cancel your future appoinments.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

I play with the default settings at 100 for nearly at everything.

I do turn down the graphics delay 5 miliseconds, in order to speed up the shooting and artillery. Don't have to use fast arty anymore. Usually don't play with hexgrid, battle fx, sound fx or AI tank heavy active.

Tend to play larger games on max size maps.

Used to prefer full screen but since switching to windows 10 I had too start using windowed...

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Never thought of adjusting search to cover drones GL cameras etc.
Out of interest have you tried playing from the opposing side to get an idea of the advantage. Standard settings a difference of 20 in troop exp makes a notable difference to spotting ability already.

Similar question regarding toughness which side do you find to fragile the low or high exp one?
High exp guys like rangers at 90+ are far harder to hurt than 60 exp troops in my view.
100 exp & the combination of superior spotting, shots etc means they could be Captain Americas sidekicks.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

When making scenarios I normally play them from both sides several times when tweaking so yes I've seen the difference troop quality can make. That's one reason I don't increase the "Search" rating by default for post 2000 US.

As to my opinion on infantry fragility, it's generic, why I make it 150% across the board. Yeah the tough get even tougher, but I very rarely see troops with 100 exp (other then maybe a SEAL team) outside a long campaign so I can easily live with it.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

I usually use the default settings, unless I am doing SF units, then I bump the troop quality up by ten or twenty.

troopie

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Currently I'm playing with default settings, although for quite some time I was playing with artillery effectiveness set to 120, 130%.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

I was wondering about loweing the morale of both sies to about 40-50. In that case, infantry teams will get pinned and retreat from contact much easier, firefights will last longer, casualties from infantry firegights will be more realistic.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Obviously I tend to think they take more casualties then is reasonable. I rather wish increasing toughness didn't also result in them being harder to pin/retreat but frankly it doesn't seem to have near as much effect on that (and I may be wrong) as it does on casualties.

Infantry is pretty hard to kill these days. Long gone are the days of lines of infantry blazing away at each other from point blank range or charging out of trenches into massed machineguns. Look at things such as the total casualties taken on D-Day, or the grand total taken during the entire Vietnam war.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Always Default for me. The only change is Adjust AI in Generated Campaigns.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Lowering morale could possibly give the player a big advantage over the AI.
Easier to get units to run & I am guessing rallying would be more difficult.
A platoon & preferably a machine gun will wipe out a routing Company in 2-3 turns on standard settings if covering the avenues of retreat. MG just handy if they are grouped to keep them running.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

The problem with using setting designed for another game is the code is different between the two games. We already use what amounts to "Low Carnal Settings" as default. One "complaint" I've seen from players of WaW about our games is they think infantry is too tough to kill in winSPWW2-winSPMBT so I would only suggest using setting for that game applied to ours as an experiment.........BUT it you are happy with the way it plays....well....that's why there are preferences settings

Don

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Interesting.
I guess some folks really do believe the old "cannon fodder" adage.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Well the only notable exception where WinSP series may produce less casualties than reality is if you want to simulate a Japanese banzai charge. Otherwise the casualties are way higher, especially if we consider the time limit for the average battle.

Generally saying, I estimate casualties at a 40-60% of the casualties that are produced in the game. So I multiply the end results by a random number between 0.4 and 0.6. Vehicle casualties remain the same though.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

I tend to see something like 80% infantry casualties. Even assuming half those are wounded that's still 40% dead in the course of a couple hours.

Also, since I don't play "Tank Heavy AI" there are a lot more infantry units in these games.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Speaking of which there's something I wanted to test but was too lazy to do it. Do the remaining men in a broken squad that get dispersed count in total casualties in the end? For example, if I have a 10-man squad that suffers 8 casualties and the other 2 guys get dispersed, will I see 10 casualties in the final screen or 8?

Re: game Preferences settings
 

If your taking time into account that has been discussed elsewhere.
We can react & hence bring over whelming firepower to bear far quicker than in real life.
If you wanted to do a test on something like that try pairing off single squads vs each other & see how long the fight lasts.
If they are both in cover like rough or a building that fight will probably last awhile at mid range.
Probably cant keep both stationary as one may well lose sight of the other so probably have to play both sides.

Re: game Preferences settings
 

Default settings always for me.