With Clusters

Hubert: "I think you would be surprised with some of the things that did actually happen during the war... for one instance, and I can't remember the exact details but I do remember watching a documentary where they mentioned the Allies capturing what looked like Mongolians or Far East Soviet-Asian troops in German uniform in Normandy. IIRC correctly they ended up being something like Tibetan shepards or something like that." and, "For another example in the final days of Berlin, many historians note that there were probably just as many foreign volunteers, French, Finnish, Swedes etc. fighting in the streets as there were Germans right before capitulation." Those are good examples, but I do think there should be a difference between those who volunteer to go fight for a different country, vs those who fight under their own nation's flag. So I have no problem w/ SS fanatics fighting to the death in Berlin (rather than face whatever unpleasantries the Soviets had awaiting them if captured), or Osttruppen (sp?) fighting in France, for example. These are people who chose to put on a German uniform, so of course the German player should be able to send them anywhere he pleases (if indeed such units will even be represented in SC2). I have no problem w/ Finnish SS volunteers winding up in N. Africa. But I think it ludicrous to think that Finnish regular army units (fighting under the flag of Finnland, not Germany) would ever find their way to N. Africa (except in Bizzaro world), considering the Finnish war aims and such. Seems like there are several intertwined ideas here: 1) Volunteers who (for idealogical reasons or whatever) join with their occupying power (which would be mostly Axis, I presume), and fight under the flag and uniform of the occupying power. Should these get their own units in the game? If so, how many, and for what countries? Or should there just be bumps to "allowable builds" or "total manpower" given to an occupying power to reflect such volunteers (different from every country, depending on its native politics, and who the conqueror is?). Of course, they should be able to deploy anywhere their master sees fit. 2) "Free" forces, who have chosen to join with an enemy of whoever occupies their homeland. In a sense, these are also volunteers, of a different sort. They depend on their "patron" (or patrons) for supplies, support, and often for orders. There is a whole other thread on this topic, so I suppose I can save my comments (regarding how they are 'created' and such) for there except to say that their "patron" should also be able to send them anywhere. 3) Minor Allies. These countries have joined the war for their own reasons, and fight under their own flag and political leadership. Although allied w/ a major power, they may not share the exact same goals and war aims (as in the case of Finnland, which in a sense was fighting its own private war w/ Russia, and was allied w/ Germany in a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" way). They may have inherent national and/or political situations that may restrict where thier units could be deployed. Unless we want to "what if" the whole national and political situation as it existed in Europe prior to September 1939 (in which case, one must ask if it is a true WWII game any more), these realities should be respected for historical accuracy. With Dipolomacy taking a greater role in the game, there could be some "flux" in all of this. For one example, say if the German player spends a chit on Finnland, maybe the Finns could adapt a more "pro-Nazi" philosophy (rather than looking out for number one - Finnland), and thus the German player could make broader use of the Finns. But some situations (like the dislike between the Hungarians and Rummanians, which I'm going to guess is a very old issue) might not be able to be "tweaked" with Diplomacy.

The topic on "Free" units got me thinking. Perhaps the game needs to have limits on where units from certain countries are allowed to operate. This would certainly make the game more historically accurate, and help deal with some problems that existed in SC1 (like the necessity for an automatic French surrender), and issues being discussed for SC2 (the "free" troops, for example). For starters, we should forbid activity in certain areas due to national rivalry/animosity (such as existed between supposed allies Hungary and Rummania). Also, crazily unrealistic deployments should be forbidden (Finnish troops defending the beaches of Italy or France, possible Scandinavian allies operating in N. Africa, minor allied Turkish troops participating in an attack on Spain, etc., etc.). I know people want to explore the potentials in numerous "what if" situations, but some of these "what ifs" would never have happened under any circumstance, at least in the 'real' world. Of course, hopefully all this would be editable, for all the modders who want to create non-WWII games, or those who want to make really fantastic WWII games (of course, they might not truely be 'WWII' at that point). The game just needs a little common sense in that regard. It would put the kybosh on unrealistic movements, like the Poles flying their entire airforce to the UK while Warsaw still holds out (and this brings up another possibility - that these 'limits' could change under dire circumstances, such as when a capitol falls to the enemy), while not expressely forbidding 'evacuations' and such. Anyhow, that's my opinion. Comment and critisize, please!

I do hope in SC2 that France gets at least one turn to try to retake Paris (or perhaps evacuate some units). Of course in SC1, a country's surrender depended not just upon the capitol being captured, but also upon how many units were still in existance. That's why France surrendered immediately, to avoid the Allied player from evacuating all French units to the safety of the UK right from the get go (say, while the Germans are still occupied w/ Poland), making it impossible to knock France out of the game (until the Germans pulled a SeaLion in the face of a combined French/UK defense of England!). I think a solution to all these problems would be to have deployment limits - no French units should be allowed to move to English territory until Paris falls. And perhaps have a time limit (one or two turns, say) on how long the French have to re-take Paris before a surrender (to avoid the French evacuating to their colonies, and forcing the Axis player to hunt them down there, even when all the rest of France is occupied!). I think I'll start a new thread on 'depolyment limits'...

Looks like there is a nasty shot trap in the lower front turret!

That's why there needs to be limits on where a country's units are even allowed to deploy. French units should not be allowed to go into any English territory as long as Paris is still Allied (I would say that after that, if there are still unsurrendered French units in existance when Paris falls, only then would they be able to move into UK territory, and thus 'evacuate'). Polish units should not be allowed to leave the Eastern Front until Warsaw has fallen (again, units existing 'post Warsaw' could be allowed to 'evacuate'). To allow countries to move their units wholesale to 'foreign parts' while thier country is still fighting for its life is not historical fiction, its historical fantasy! That is above and beyond any historical animosities that may have been between supposed 'allies' (like the Hungarians and Rummanians as previously mentioned). IIRC, while the UK and France were allies, there was still a lot of distrust and rivalry between them. I just can't immagine that in any other but the most flighty 'alternate reality' (where the world is square and Superman goes by the name of Bizzaro) would the French (or the Poles, or any other self respecting country) send loads of troops to the UK (or any other foreign nation) while still trying to honestly defend their nation! Its not just a matter of "I'm the boss of the Allies (or Axis) now, and they will obey my orders like they were the word of God!". If we want to chuck history totally out the window, we might as well be playing "Nazi Space Rangers vs Super Space Geeks" (or whatever that brilliant Desert Dave quote was!).

Damn, that's interesting. First time I ever heard of that. Cool, if somewhat sinister/disturbing (way to go, psycho Nazis!) name for the automatic rifle guys too ("Vampir", right?!). Not sure you learn something every day , but I sure learned something new this one. Thanks!

OK, time for some realistic "deployment" limits. Designate where units from different minor countries are allowed to operate, while their nation is still independant (not talking about "free" units that might come into existance after their contry has been occupied). Time for my olbigitory 3R reference again. In 3R, most minor countries had limits as to where they could move to. One such consequence was the irritation of not being able to move German allied Hungarian units through Rummania (that hatred thing Panzeh mentioned), so you either had to move them the long way around, or strategically redeploy them (think 'operate' in SC terms) to get them to the front in Russia. If we think of it that way, that there are some places a nation's units wont go (its hard to immagine any Polish governement ordering or even allowing its entire airforce to fly off to London while it was still in Warsaw fighting for its life), under any circumstances, re-writing history aside (unless we want to go completely alternate reality - "In my universe, the Hungarians and Rummanians are total buddies!"). So no, I don't think 'evacuations' should be allowed, at least not until say the capitol has fallen. That might be reasonable. So if Warsaw has fallen, and by some miracle, its airforce is still in the field, maybe then (and only then) it could be evacuated.

I thought the English had pretty good counter-intelligence (remember all those 'turned' German agents - "yep, its gonna be Calais"). Hmm, maybe we need a 4th intel tech - "double agent tech"! The higher the level, the more chances the enemy has of seeing fictitious, nonexistant units! Oh, the mind boggles! OK, settling down now. At some point, there's gonna be a limit on the number of 'techs'. Time to decide on which one's are really important...

I believe it is that little jewel looking thingy in the palm of your hand. When you turn 35, it will turn red. Then you must go to Carousell and 'Renew'. If you don't, the Sandmen will come looking for you... Sorry, couldn't resist it (the beer, that is)

IR, as in 'infra-red'? I know there were lots of tech advances (rockets, guided missles, etc.) in WWII, but wow, they came up with that in WWII too?

Um, I'm sure this has been covered somewhere (but I'm too lazy to look), but does a squad's firepower drop off when 'advancing' or 'assaulting' vs fireing from a stationary position? If so, does it depend on the kind of squads (say, an SMG squad's fire would drop of hardly at all, at least compared to a squad armed mostly w/ rifles)? If it does, perhaps part of the drop off would be due to the MG not being able to fire as accurately and/or rapidly while on the move (whether that means firing from 'the hip', or having to take time for getting it ready again at every 'dive' for cover)? Perhaps LMGs (and some other crew weapons perhaps) should be allowed to advance, but with a drop off in firepower (how much of a drop off depending on type of weapon, I would immagine)? Would this kind of 'split the difference' in your various arguements?

Nothing, 'cept that's a lot o' tech. Maybe they'll include it all in the next game w/ 'multiple unit combined attack' and other such things that will make the game (perhaps) more 'realistic', yet more 'complex'. Maybe its time to debate "complexity" (limited stacking, combined multi-unit actions, etc.) vs "simplicity" (whatever gets you a fast turn around in TCP/IP games, or so the argument seems)? Not to get me wrong, I'm totally looking forward to this, whatever Mr. Cater decides. I just think there should (IMO) come a time where games are not based on what's 'best' for TCP. Yes, its nice to be able to play someone 'real time', but perhaps there comes a point where that is not the best format to base a game upon? Perhaps a slower, more thought out (more time for planning, etc.) regimene is more appropriate for this sort of 'Grand Strategy' game? Allright, I was gonna go off on how it was to play old board games and such, but I doubt you all would want to hear it. Plus, I realize I've been drinking beer for the last several hours, so I may be 'not in one's right mind'. Pardon the rant. Just my feelings after reading lots of posts regarding 'good ideas' that I know just wont be included because of certain ideas that I feel are probably already 'set in stone' for SC2. Gah, when I wake up tomorrow (blinding headache!), I'm certain to regret posting this. But as the Persians once thought, it helps to get drunk when pondering important issues...

I'm kind of partial to: "This totally sucks!"

That's hillarious, in a horrible sort of way...

OK, I've heard this story about Cobra too, so perhaps overwhelming airpower can be devestating to a ground unit (although I still think at least one offensive ground unit shoul make at least a token attack, to mop up the broken rabble). But this can bring us back to ev's point #3. Think of an air attack as a flanking type maneuver - the key is that the enemy must be 'fixed' in position by a ground unit for the air attack to be most effective, otherwise the attacked unit has the option to disperse or hide. It seemed unfair (and unrealistic) in SC1 that air units could repeatedly pound rear area ground units (especially those precious HQs) into oblivion. To bring up 3R again (yeah, I know, sorry ) you could only use air units to attack ground units if it was in conjunction with a ground attack, and the amount of air 'factors' that could attack was limited by the number of ground 'factors' (I think it was capped at 3x as many air as ground factors - the idea being that you couldn't just use some puny ground unit supported by tons of air). Since I doubt we'll be seeing 'simultanious' attacks (as mentioned above), we should at least require a ground unit to be next to the target unit (thus 'fixing' its position) for there to be 'strength point' damage. After all, I think air units were most effecting in attacking enemy ground units in co-operation with friendly ground units (even in Cobra).

I recently watched a documentary on the famous charge, where historians and scientists did a more thurough examination of events, including visiting and studying the battlefield (discovering exactly who could see what from where - apparently the officer immediately in charge could not see the intended gun battery to target from his position, and thus attacked the wrong one), along with going over written eye witness acounts (including those of survivors of the charge). Apparently, only light casualties were suffered during the charge itself - the charge was to swift for the Russians to get off more than a few volleys at the English. The majority occured after the English had reached the guns, often in bloody dismounted hand to hand combat, and then in the retreat after they were driven off. One thing they also noted was that the casualities were greatly over reported (I forget the exact number, but perhaps less than a third, and certainly less than half). It seemed that the English had a wierd propensity to romantisize 'glorious disasters', and thus talked up the battle into an even more bloody and doomed (and thus more heroic, I suppose) affair than it actually was. Way off topic, sorry!

Here's another alternative (sorry if someone has already come up with this): Make air to ground damage a percentage based on the strenght of the enemy unit, with fractions being rounded down, potentially to zero. This means that an air unit would be able to inflict more damage on full or nearly full strength units (consider them a 'target rich' environment), than against already weakened units. When a defending unit reaches one or two strength points left, it should be impossible to cause any more appreciable (at least in game terms) strength damage (consider that the defending unit is being very careful to protect/hide its remaining assets from air attack). This would force an attacker to use at least one ground unit to 'finnish off' the defending unit. No longer could a player with massive air superiority simply blow tunnels right thrugh the enemy's lines, allowing his ground units to dash through completely unoposed and unengaged.

It would be nice if you could stage 'simultaneous' attacks, meaning, you could select several units to attack a single enemy unit at the same time, with the hope that the sum of all attacking forces would be greater than several individual attacks. But I'm assuming that SC2 will still have the 'one at a time' movement and attacking feature of SC1. If it did have this 'simultaneous' feature though, it would solve a good part of this air vs ground problem - you could have it that an air unit could only cause 'physical' damage (as opposed to 'readiness' damage and such) if it attacked in conjunction with a ground unit. This would be a more realistic implementation of ev's idea # 3 above. Maybe an idea for the next game...

And there is something a bit unrealistic with the Poles flying off their entire airforce to England while still in the fight back home. I'd be interested to know where the bulk of Allied 'free' fighters came from. Someone mentioned Dunkirk as a source for Free French. But what about others, such as the Poles? Were these units made up from intact Polish (or whatever nation) regular units that somehow managed to get to the UK as an cohesive entity(that seems unlikely), or made up of volunteers who managed to flee their home country (individually or in small groups, I immagine)? As far as Axis 'free' fighters, they were a different matter. You hear much of foreign SS men fighting to the death inside Germany (mainly because they were likely to be executed anyhow, especially if they came from countries now under Soviet control). How many of these 'bitter enders' were there in reality? What about pro-Axis 'volunteers'? I remember something about Spannish fascist 'volunteers' going to fight in the East. How were they equiped? Who paid for that equipment? Were any there fascists from other countries 'volunteering' in sizeable numbers?

Perhaps there needs to be a sense of what the 'average' score for generals should be (or has that been stated earlier? If so, sorry for wasting space). The range in SC1 ran from 3 (for the crappy French and Italian HQs, right?) to nine (for Manstein and such). Does that make 6 the median? Perhaps HQs need a wider range, from 1 to 10, w/ 5 being regarded as an 'average' general? I know there where some negatives attached with lower ranking generals in SC1 (or I think I know, is that correct?), making them risky to use commanding combat units. In any event, every general should give some bennefit to the units in his command, even if it is only supply (otherwise, why buy the sorry sack in the first place). So perhaps there can be more variation to the advantages HQs lend to units under their command, and thus more variabilities in their scores, and there wont be such a need to quible over whether such and such general was really a 7 or an 8? Just my beer addled cents

Wont the 'diplomatic chits', or whatever they are called, be used for just that? Perhaps one might be able to purchase extra (beyond what each major power will get per turn?)'diplomatic chits'? There should be some limit though, other than emptying the coffers for a massive bribe...

Any thoughts on having the force pool limits change over time, a'la 3R?

One thing it sounds like SC2 will have is 'build' limits (editable I presume, of course), meaning, each power will only have so many units of any given type to build and deploy. This would prevent a player from clogging up the battlefield with endless corps, or buying a massive airfleet. Should keep things more fluid. Certainly will make the Axis player assign his given assets carefully, and make full use of his minor allied units, despite their lower quality. And if done right, should keep the Russians stretched thin (especially if the 'build' limits change with time, as I previously suggested) trying to defend their massive territory. Am I correct in this understanding?

There's some practical advice I can use! Arigato, YD!

Giving every tile a point value seems somewhat complicated. What about sea tiles? Heck, some of them might have been very good fishing grounds ("Ach, U-boats have deprived me of my sardine harvest! Minus 5 MPPs...") To borrow another idea from 3R, how about having variable available force limmits, based on time? Meaning, until say 42, the Russians would have only a small (relatively speaking) number of available units for purchase and deployment (and mostly weak corps-strenght units, only a handfull of stronger army and armor strenght ones). They can choose to deploy them near the border, and hope to slow the Germans down there, or deploy them further back, at which point, the Germans might be able to drive deap into Russia right off the get go, and be able to isolate and destroy a number of units before the Russians had access to their 'full' deployment potential.