HW alliances

[Babbo]

Please allow to cite from a message, I posted at HWA: Searched a lot, including RBs and manuals, but didn't find any clear explanation: how can two humans in HW multiplayer (TCP/IP) play as a team against, say, two CPUs?

I know there's an 'allied victory button' in the win conditions in HW, but I don't understand its usage. The manual only says "Checking this box will ensure that players who are allied can win a game together when they defeat players not in their alliance.", but it hides how to build an alliance.

P.S.: Are there differences in HWC and/or HW2?

(Accept apologies if this was the wrong forum to post my request.)

[kaskara]

Well, to build an alliance:

Turn on the Tactical Overlay
[CAPS LOCK] and then click
the right mouse button on the
name of the player you wish
to ally with.
Select <FORM ALLIANCE>
from the menu that appears.

I'm not quite sure how alliances between CPUs work... I don't remember there being an explicit way to set them on teams. I think the closest approximation to what you want (people vs. cpus) would be to set the aggression-against-humans slider to "always attack humans".

HW:C worked a bit differently... you could set the CPUs to be independent, on small teams or all on one team, IIRC.

HW2 works differently again, but I think it has the most straightforward system. Each player (human or not) gets assigned a team explicitely during game set up.

[Babbo]

That's very good news, thank you, kaskara! May I add a question: then, after forming that alliance, my team partner (also) will appear in green ... but, how to distinguish his ships from my ships ... or even in HWC's lightblue? (Only, if you have it in mind. Of course, I'll can figure it out - hopefully - on my own.)

[kaskara]

Allied ships should appear in yellow. At least, that's how I remember things working. It has been a while since I played the original.

[Fiirks]

On sensors and in "tactical overlay" (aka pressing caps lock) allied ships appear as yellow or with yellow boxes. There's not much you can do about making the ships themselves turn yellow!

That little box, if you check it the teams win and you dont have to turn on your allies. if left unchecked, at the end of killing the other team, you'll have to kill your ally.

[Babbo]

Many thanks to you both and: if green and yellow play against the CPU, then 'the' CPU will be of corresponding strength, regardless of the fact that the green-yellow-alliance plays against 1 or 2 (or even more) CPUs? (What I mean is, if there are, all in all, e.g. three teams, i.e. two in the green-yellow-alliance and a third one which is the CPU, then the 'lonely' CPU is not automatically put under the two teams of the alliance, isn't it?)