With Clusters

OK, sounds great. So what's the US Army's beef then?

Took this from that Jane's article: "However, US Army doctrine appears to be opposed to considering a bullpup rifle, which rules out that approach to improving effectiveness." What doctrine is that? What about it is so incompatible with a bullpup rifle? Just to make sure I'm not totally confusing myself, bullpup is where the magazine is loaded in the rear of the weapon (like the bad guys in Die Hard;), right? Um, if you can't tell, my knowledge of guns is puny, and my military experience zilch :cool:

This wouldn't happen to be anywhere near that Enumclaw place, would it? "Search and Sensitive Site Exploitation" sounds a little scary, if you know what I mean! :eek: Just hope those soldier boys know enough not to, uh, 'interact' with any horses!

Or if France abandones the Maginot early (whatever that means), Italian readiness goes way up?

So how does the opening set up work out? What are the "fixed" deployments, if any? Are there penalties for moving some such units before certain dates/events (like the early Italian DOW for moving units in the Med in SC1)?

Sounds good. But how will the point system in SC2 work? If I recall, in SC1, you got one point for every enemy unit destroyed (whether it was a corps, and army, or a carrier, all were one point), and that was it. This led to some unusual outcomes, such as the victor being able to score more points the longer he took to achieve final conquest. Look at it this way, a defender is not killing many (or any) attacking units, he's merely throwing more potential "points" in the enemy's face, trying to hold him off. I hope the new scoring system has more to do with time (in terms of when victory is achieved) and space (what territory has been conquered, including minors and colonies and such), than in the number of enemy units killed. If a person lost a game, he should be a bit more proud if he's forced the opponent to eliminate a lot more of his units, than if he was quickly mowed down with only pathetic resistance.

I would like to see a "level of victory" somehow included too, with more detail than the old SC1 point system (where you could actually rack up more points by delaying the final victory, allowing you to kill more enemy units - the only way points were scored). Speed of conquest and/or territory controlled should play a major part in that. It would encourage people to continue a losing game, if only to achieve a more tolerable level of defeat. In a tournament, for example, a victor might get, say, 3 points for "total victory", but only 1 point for a "minor victory". Or something along those lines.

Which is similar to the "When/If would Russia declare war on Germany if Germany was tardy with its own invasion?" I think, though, in a game, that issues of play balance might need to take precedence over any likely perceived historical outcome (which of course will always be open to debate since such an outcome never happened in reality). It would be an awfully boring and predictable game if the Axis could go about conquering everything and anything EXCEPT Russia and the USA, and get away with it. Even if one believes that neither the USA or USSR would've gone to war without being directly provoked.

And, I suppose: "Would the US have still entered the war (in Europe) if Germany hadn't declared war first?"

Wow, apparently, God's a major league asshole (and a bloody minded bugger to boot, if you believe that rot)!

I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark, where God personally melted the faces off those evil Uber-nazis. Just who's side do you think he was on then, eh? I mean, it was based on a true story, right...? I guess it just means God really hated Jews, Gypsies, gays, and German left wingers, to let the Nazis kill so many of them, before he put the kybosh on Adolf. :confused:

Of course, I hated it when I got a buch of dudes waving shovels or mine sweapers, as opposed to waving guns. They were always the first to suffer casualties from TNT (aka a firecracker squeazed between the legs) or flame throwers (aka matches)!

I had plastic "army men" when I was a kid too!

I think he meant "what happened to their army?" quite literally, as in, where did all those men and materials go to after the swift defeat by the Germans. I know the Germans took a lot of stuff (plunder), but what about the men? Just sent home to cause trouble? Another thing, if France goes full Axis, how about instead of "starting the Soviet clock", how about just ratcheting up Russia's pre-war war readiness? So when the Germans do finally invade, the Russians are much better prepared...

Or perhaps an alternate surrender rule for (some?) major powers? If I recall, the French packed it in well before the Germans entered Paris? How about a rule that if a major power capitol is isolated (surrounded, or can't trace supply to another city/resource) for a certain amount of time, the country surrenders or relocates the capitol (in the case of the English and Russians)? Oh, and my favorite color is blue.