Fraudulent PayPal E-Mail Kevin: You wanted to see one of these notices I get from time to time. I am assuming it's a fraud since I have no Paypal account. I started getting them After I ordered 7 Days from you. John Loy ----- Original Message ----- From: service@paypal.com Subject: PayPal Account Verification Your Security is PayPal's Top Priority Dear PayPal member, >With the industry's most-advanced encryption, fraud prevention, and Buyer and Seller Protection Policies, PayPal is dedicated to keeping your account safe and secure. Due to increase of the internet fraud, we need to verify your account. Please enter the credit card number and details you used when you signed up for your PayPal account. That increases security in the PayPal network, lowers our risk! You must click the link below and enter your credit card number and details you used when you signed up for your PayPal account. Click here to verify your account ... John: That letter is indeed a fake! It is tricky, since they use actual boilerplate and the real address of the paypal website. Assume any such message is spam. Never enter info except at the paypal site (you type the url). Ratisbon Dear Kevin The upcoming publication of your new game on the Ratisbon campaign represents a great opportunity to write you about a subject I have long wanted to discuss with you. My favorite game in the NAB series has always been 1809, and my favorite scenario in all the games has always been the so called Alternate Campaigne. This game really needs a serious upgrade to bring it in line with the more recent games. I'm not talking about a new release, there are already many new games in the pipeline that need to be published (though a series 5x game called ROAD TO VIENNA covering the 1805 and 1809 campaigns isn't a bad idea). Actually the upgrade that I'm talking about could take place in your wargame journal. Most of what's needed to bring the game up to date can be done by gamers like myself but the game has always had certain structural problems that only an official upgrade could deal with. The basic problem with the game lies with the Austrian LOC. The primary Austrian supply source is at the north edge in the first quarter of the center map. The Austrian forces lined up at the Bavarian border at the beginning of the game are almost at the end of their loc at the beginning of the game. They start the game with plenty of admin. points but given their low initiative ratings and the fact that they have to march across the whole western map to reach their objectives means that these admin. points get eaten up rather quickly. A bit less than half way across the map the Austrians will outrun their loc and will solely have to depend on their dispatch distance to advance which they will eventually also overrun. The main reason for this problem is the Bavarian fortress of Passau which blocks the Austrians from using the shorter line along the Danube and forces them to cross the Inn at Braunau forcing them to run their loc along the maps south edge and through Landshut. This is a problem you were clearly aware of but did nothing to solve. I say this because you clearly fudged what you call the main Historical Scenario, which covers the same campaign that your upcoming game simulates. You show Passau in Austrian hands which allows you to run the Austrian loc by the shorter route along the Danube. You know as well as I do that Passau remained in Bavarian hands throughout the campaign and prevented the Austrians from running their loc along the Danube. You know as well as I do that the real Austrian loc ran along the maps south edge and through Landshut. This is why Charles was so sensitive about this area and why Napoleon directed Massena to attack Landshut. Now you are too good a historian and designer to solve a problem by fudging it in this way. By today's standards Passau would be considered a citadel which means it could not be taken in the time span of these early scenarios. Even if you kept it as a fortified town the time constraints and the initial disposition of the major Austrian forces make it difficult to commit a corp to attack and take Passau. Time constraints force the main Austrian forces to cross the Inn at Braunau and advance along the south edge of the map. The only forces close enough to assault Passau are the various landwehr and Vecsay's division. Given their low ratings this means that you have to waste precious admin. points to move the forces in place to assault the town. And that's only if you consider it a fortified town. If you look at it as a citadel, as it was, there is nothing you can do but what the Austrians did historically which is run their loc along the maps south edge. Another loc problem bedeviling the Austrians deals with the corp or Bellegarde and Kollowratt that arrive on the north edge of the map. The moment they arrive they are off the loc and given their low initiative ratings it's very difficult to move them as far as Ratisbon. This is another problem that needs to be addressed. Even with these problems this is still my favorite scenario and game. Given that their are still some old grognards like me who play and love this game I really think you should really think about doing something to solve these problems with a great game. --Joseph Key Highway to Madrid 4-Hope that the Highway to Madrid will be still 1808 to 1814 and not reduced. so there will be a need of 'strategic' options played by the 'english', send money to raise spanish or troops as weel as external theaters events to deal with for the French. But a really good point for this game would be the 'political' rules, in the sense of cooperation between marshals. For instance a bad modifier for initiative when subordinate (this when there is a French player only) or different French players and they have different victory conditions (as well as gaining points when minimizing losses, or gain of points when occupying a province so that they cannot afford to detach too much troops to Massena for instance. Of course when Napy is here it is different ! Another great subject is the guerrila model. An idea would be to superimpose on the hexgrid zone limits that the 'Allied' player assign its guerrilla units or points (preferably). There would be in the same idea the French assigning troops or points to counter (or even destroy when in good odds or methods (see suchet or colonel Hugo (the writer's father) counter-guerrilas). Effects of guerrilla would be penalties on movement (add a random part or modifier when moving in such zones), penalties on supplies gathering or movements, attacks on depots, and so on. Maybe a level of pacification must be portrayed. Presence of troops, leader factors, success on battles, treatments of cities, victories of English player should act on it. The pacification level maybe a victory condition or something that inhibit a victory. Well many things may be said about the Peninsular campaign. Hope this will be a great game anyway it is the greated scope in time for a Highway-like or NaB-like game ! Thanks and keep on Napoleon good games. --Reda Mimoune Back to OSG News May 2004 Table of Contents Back to OSG News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by Operational Studies Group This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com