Brian Rock

I also liked it. Yes it was flawed, but I find the alternative of instant-response is also flawed. For all of the pain-in-the-assness when it did weird things it still did a much better job of making plans fall apart under fire, which is normally absent in most wargames. Still, I can see why it was dropped. I appreciate I've always been a minority on this sort of issue.

As one might expect, coming into this on page 11 means most of the good ideas have been posted, and re-posted. The upside of this is that I basically agree with all the recurring suggestions. I only have three ideas on my wish list that I don't believe have been posted (although I may have missed them), 1) Asymetrical victory conditions: I'd like to able to set one set of flags for one side, and a different set of flats, or different values on the flags, or exit conditions, or whatever for the other side. 2) Friendly AI to control complete units - eg a company defending on my right flank that I have no control over. This adds another level of frustration that I find appealing ("those morons in Company D are pulling out already?!?!?") 3) The ability to create buildings at odd angles, like you'd find in European cities. The buildings are always too orderly with overlarge gaps to properly simulate WWII urban warfare. I'll still chuck in five things on my "keep" list: 1) QBs. I don't play very often anymore, but when I do 95% of my games are against the AI, and I prefer QBs to scenarios because I like the unpredictability. 2) UI: Another vote to keep it simple. 3) Realism: gameplay balance as per the later games. 4) Fuzzy logic: have the guys do dumb things (although the modeling of those dumb things can be refined). 5) Mac OSX as well as PC versions: last month I added an iBook to my computer inventory, and it'd be great to have a decent game for business trips.

Movement change: 1) I would like infantry to be able to attack it is adjacent to and then be able to move one hex. 2) I would dearly love for armor to either be able to attack and then move it's full movement. This would allow ground units to punch through defences without the need for massive air fleets. It would also add an additional strategic element of needing to concentrate the offensive forces, while trying not to tip off to the defender where the attack will occur.

From a game tactics/balance point of view Terif's right. But for those of us who like the aesthetics of trying to game WWII we'd still like to see air power weakened a bit and armor upgraded. It's one of those "both sides are right" discussions - it just depends on your perspective.

Particularly nice idea for coping with one of my complaints.

Just a reminder that the visual representation of an infantry unit doesn't exactly correspond to its in-game location. Think of the figures as representing the centre of the "real" unit's footprint, with the men in the unit spread over a larger area. So while on average your men are 100 meters away, some of them will be further and others closer. That's not to say there isn't a bug - just that there may not be a bug. The only way to be sure is to send a turn file with a 100m hurl to BTS for checking. [ February 20, 2003, 05:13 PM: Message edited by: Brian Rock ]

Old Man - it's not that you are penalised for being further along in research. It's that it is easier for others who aren't as advanced to copy/reverse engineer/steal ideas after somebody else has done the groundwork. JerseyJohn, I agree with tac aircraft being better ship killers than bombers. A lot more ships were sunk by dive bombers and torpedo bombers than by their bigger brothers.

I'm guessing this has something to do with research. If I'm right do I win a Kewpie Doll?

I'm disappointed. With that subject line I expected Ninjas flying the Henschels. Then, after they killed everybody, to wail away on guitars. That would be awesome, and by awesome I mean totally sweet.

This should be ported to the General Forum as it really has nothing to do with SC. Since it's here I'll pitch in briefly. Mind you, I don't believe the poster is being sincere at all. I smell troll. Are you perchance the former Stalinist poster putting on another persona? You and everybody else. What made the Germans special? Perhaps the French should use their Napoleonic heritage to justify stomping Germany flat all over again. Perhaps the Germans didn't notice somebody else was living there, living in caves as they were, without televisions or newspapers or anything. I guess all those people shooting back from the supposedly unlived in parts of Europe surprised the hell out of the invading army. Versaille was a bad peace. This bit I won't even argue with. Yeah, taking back former glory should be all the rage I figure. Let's bring back the Pharoahs and Chinese Emperors while we're at it. Anyone else figure the Incas should stage a comeback? And I can't even begin to tell you how much I miss the Mongol Empire. I did enjoy the "ours for the taking" comment - if you can take something you are entitled to it. Elevating thievery to a philosophy is such a simple alternative to civilisation. Uh, right. Sure. And "damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead" or "Tippicanoe and Tyler too" to you. Or whatever. I hope you get a good mark on your psych experiment.

I think the closest thing to Conquistadore (which I agree was a classic) I can think of is EU and EU2. There was some other game called "Conquest of the New World" or somesuch but I believe it wasn't very good, nor quite early enough to compare with Conquistadore.

More Aussie trivia: "The Russian Campaign" was designed by John Edwards in Melbourne and originally published by his company Jedco. I played the original version with Mace (from the CM boards) back in the 1970s. He kicked my ass in TRC then as easily as he does in other wargames now.

I haven't had any use for bombers either. While it may be true that they pick up in effectiveness at level 2, I always have plenty of other stuff higher on the research priority list. Maybe I'll mod the game to give everybody +1 to their bombers to see if that makes a difference.

Panther Games is still in business. They did Airborne Assault, also sold by Battlefront. AA is a great game, by the way, with a use of real-time that works very well with the concept.

While I understand your frustration, your maths are out. Look at it like this: a 25% chance of breakthrough is a 75% chance of no breakthrough. The chance of getting no breakthroughs after two turns is 75% (odd for failing turn 1) x 75% (odds for failing turn 2) = 56.3% chance of no breakthroughs. After three turns it's 75% x 75% x 75% = 42.2% (rounded). After four turns it's 31.6% of no breakthroughs. QED by turn 4 the chance of at least one breakthrough is 100%-31.6% = 68.4%, or about two out of three. Not bad, but not 100%.