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Dr Matt Lamb

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Everything posted by Dr Matt Lamb

  1. It wasnt on the list but I would still like to see rivers added in somewhere along the line. As for the options I feel that the AI plays a much better game and is now pretty formidable on the high levels. It still doesnt use some units (paras, carriers, etc) and it does leave its cities sometimes undefended. The AI also doesnt escort its transports that well so whilst the AI will launch waves of (unescorted) invasion craft (which is great to see) it is sometimes easy to destroy them with artillery and ships before they get near. I feel this might be a an issue with the combat model which I mentioned a few months ago. I still believe where you have a stack of battleships, destroyers and transports, the 'fighting' ships should have to be destroyed before you can get at the transports; in real life escorts are there to shield more vulnerable ships. The same with stacks of artillery, tanks and infantry or stacks of bombers and fighters. You have to physically put your tanks between your artillery and the enemy to protect them. The AI isnt good at that and so perhaps the combat model should be tweaked to allow this. Any improvements would be good. My priority would be to get the AI to offer trades, offer (and accept alliances and break them!), set up teams and even demand or offer cities, resources and units. That would give the game a whole added dimension. I realise some people dont want that as they believe a wily human player could use the system to manipulate the AI and construct an alliance to win the game. However, that would be part of the fun and if you dont want that just have an option to switch off the diplomacy. I also still think that there is a bug on the trade screen where, for example, Russia wants to buy 50 oil at $1.7. If you sell them 50 oil I would expect my oil to go down by 50 but my money to go up by $85 but whilst my oil does go down my money doesnt go up. If it is a 'gift' (like lend lease) it should be called that rather than a trade- however, why then state what price the computer is willing to buy at? The games continue to improve in leaps and bounds- carry on the good work!
  2. Yes, I had a play. It works ok with the default rule-set. You can double click on them in the bar at the top and re-name them. However, do the same with my custom ruleset and it crashes.
  3. I am using a custom rule set. I have tried selecting the unit in the editor and then clicking 'properties' (in the same way that you would rename a city) but it crashes. The same when you click the unit so that it comes up in the bar at the top of the screen- I double click that and it crashes there too.
  4. Either there is an issue with the editor (or I am just being slightly slow here)! I am trying to design a unit set which uses NATO symbols and has a different coloured infantry, tank, etc symbol for the major nations (brown for us Brits, Green for the US, Red for the Russians, etc- I know the flag indicates the nation but I would like different coloured counters as well). So I have messed around the with the rules editor and created sub-rule groups of British forces, German forces and so on. However, when I go into the editor (or the game set up) and try to get the British to use sub-set 1 and the US sub-set 2 and the Germans sub-set 3, etc it doesnt work. You select the US as subset 2 but when you go to the Germans and try to select 3 it sets that at 2 and re-sets the US as 1. I am sorry if I havent explained that well but is this a problem or am I missing something. Also on the editor how do you change the name of units you have created (not in the game but in the editor)? If I am doing a Battle of the Bulge scenario and I want to rename a unit the 1st SS Panzer Division how do I do it? If I go to properties and click on a unit to change it the game crashes. I am also trying to develop a unit set where the units take much longer to build but which are much more durable. What I find is that the human and the AI churns out dozens of differerent units (and you sometimes see an AI player with dozens of units just lined up in the middle of nowhere whilst leaving key cities unguarded or guarded by fighters) which then leads to micro-management whilst I feel that fewer, stronger, more durable units would work better. So, an infantry with a strength of 10 rather than 2. From playing around with this combat lasts much longer and seems more realistic. It also gives the player time to retreat units for repairs. However, the AI doesnt seem to repair (or indeed upgrade in some cases) its units. Therefore, to make this unit set not give the human a greater unfair advantage over the AI, the AI has got to start repairing its units. Finally, could you introduce and autoname function for groups as well as units. It would be nice to gather together your 3 infantry units and that group be called "3rd Army" or whatever automatically.
  5. This looks excellent. You could do scenarios based on the Ardennes, Barbarrossa, etc. I like the idea about HQ and supply units and it will be interesting to see how those would work. I have often thought when you had a stack of units how good it would be to add a 'general' (Rommel, etc) or 'HQ' unit to give them a boost in their movement/attack/defence ratings. I guess if you are giving more tactical scale scenarios you do need rivers and bridges and with that comes engineers, etc.
  6. What I great idea! I really like that as it helps give a bit of 'personality' to those units.
  7. Just keeps on coming up 'bad validation'.
  8. I think that would be a nice option to have if you wanted- your first city would be your capital and that would need to be defended against sneaky attacks. The AI would have to understand that capitals needs to be defended fiercely otherwise it would be a gamey tactic to sneak a small force into enemy territory and take his capital.
  9. Sorry- posted twice. I just thought- my point about stacks would also apply to aircraft and ships. If you have a stack of bombers and fighters the fighter escorts should be tackled by enemy planes first. If you have a stack of battleships and transports the battleships should be tackled first or a stack of aircraft carriers and destroyers the aircraft carriers would be shielded by the destroyers. You wouldnt get aircraft carriers crusing into battle to take on enemy capital ships directly. I realise that you could put them in seperate stacks but the scale makes sense that a stack of ships is already covering a lot of ocean.
  10. Hello! Good to see another update and I am looking forward to seeing those rivers soon! I do see to be having some stability issues with this new update whereas previously it has been very stable. I tried to load a game started under the previous update and whilst it loaded it crashed as soon as I tried to do anything with my units. I also tried to start a new game with a scenario I had designed under the previous update (the world map enhanced) and that too crashed. Therefore, I started just a regular map and that played happily along until about turn 100 when a pop up anounced the Americans had been defeated and the programme crashed. Can I also ask a question about combat? How does it work in terms of which units attack which units in which order? What I mean is that if you have a stack of units (armour, infantry, artillery) in one spot on the map (which depending on the scale could be 100s of square miles in area) do all the units get involved in combat at the same time? In real life the tanks and infantry would be at the front and the artillery behind being shielded. Only once the defending tanks and artillery were brushed aside would the artillery be vulnerable to attack. However, and correct me if I am wrong, the combat model in EOS seems to throw all units equally into a battle making artillery particularly vulnerable against tanks. Shouldnt there be a hierarchy that tanks and infantry are tackled first with artillery only being hit once the covering forces are defeared. It is also odd that infantry and tanks can fight across the English Channel, the straits of Gibraltar or any other sea lane- artillery fine but not infantry or tanks. On another issue, I find it frustrating that you build up a stack of entrenched infantry in a city and then when a column of enemy tanks approaches they negate their advantage by rushing out to attack. I realise that this is because the default is aggression but I take it that 'no field orders' is actually defend. It would be useful if 'no field' orders would be relabled 'defend' or 'hold position' or something clearer. I know that you can define your own orders but I am not sure how that works. I think it would be really useful to have a 'retreat' order or an order that tells a wounded unit to retreat to the nearest barrack once its strength falls below 25% for example. The way point order for new units to march to a particular point is great but doesnt seem to always work. If I set up a way point from Cape Town to Alexandria the infantry unit which is then produced sets off but then often seems to just stop half way up Africa and entrench. Any idea why? When I am trading with the computer and the AI says that he wants 100 oil for $1.8 each (or whatever) I find that I agree to that trade and he gets the oil (my oil total goes down) but I dont get the money!! If it is a free gift it should be relabled as 'lend lease' or 'foreign aid' because it doesnt seem much of a trade to me! I also still have occassions when I set up an ongoing trade with the market and it works for a few turns before abruptly terminating it.
  11. I am playing my beloved world map with the latest patch and there are some comments which I feel are worth making. 1. I really like the borders- they really work for me. 2. Diplomacy with the AI is still rather frustrating. I got the Germans up to 88% (very friendly but it took me ages) but couldnt push it any further than that despite additional sales of oil, food, sharing technology, etc. After I stopped showering them with gifts their attitude slowly declined again (for no discernable reason) and it now down to 71%. I was trying to get it high enough that they would share maps or sign an alliance but they just wouldnt have it. Is there a certain % you need (more than 90%? 95? 99?) before the AI will play ball in terms of alliances and so on? 3. The AI still seems rather inert. Germany is fighting China across the Urals and I have a satellite above the battlefield. There are two huge armies facing each other but they are not attacking at all- just sitting there and have done for dozens of turns (is it a shortage of oil??). Furthermore, following an initial flurry of declarations of war, battles and peace treaties at the start of the game the AI seems to have gone to sleep happy just to build up huge armies and do nothing with them. I suspect this stockpiling of troops is one reason the game really slows up after about 100 turns. 4. Still not much use of planes. The Americans have them but are just sat there in the USA being isolationist. The Spanish attacked one of my battleships with a lone dive bomber which was a first but neither the Chinese, Turks or Germans have bothered with them at all leaving me master of the skies! However, seeing my expensive and painstakingly massed tactical bombers being shot down by crippled Japanese tanks makes me wonder whether the AI is being smarter than I think not wasting its time on them. 5. The AI is now subject to the same rules as the human on food, steel and oil (which is fine) but what now happens is that if an AI empire is short of food their cities shrink to nothing (Tokyo was down to 0 by the time I occupied it). The AI doesnt seem to do what the human does- play the world market to sell oil and buy food for example. It certainly doesnt invest in the new technologies or buildings which boost its food production. It seems as it the food enhancements (fisheries, etc) were added but the AI was not updated to use them. As a result the AI empires grind to a halt. I know that tanks stop with no oil but I would have thought that food shortages would lead to land units being disbanded. The Turkish Empire has very small cities but still hundreds of infantry units. I would have thought that shortage of food should reduce your forces in some way. 6. When I set up ongoing trade agreements with the market it sometimes terminates them abruptly for no reason meaning you have to start them again. 7. Hope that rivers are still on the cards.
  12. I have to say that on balance the borders are a really positive introduction and again pays tribute to Brits responsiveness to suggestions. It just feels more realistic than before when you could basically have one of your units wandering round another countries sovereign territory. A real improvement in my opinion. If you want to find out what is going on in another country you have to invest in plane techology to do so which seems sound. The AI still seems rather sluggish (I am on turn 188 on the world map and none of the AI players has declared war for ages) and doesnt seem to invest in some of the technologies (fisheries, etc) which it now needs being subject to the same restrictions in terms of food, oil and steel as the human players (this was another good improvement as previously the AI was able to build huge armies at no maintainance cost making the game one of rather dull attrition). The AI also doesnt seem to build the improvements in cities such as robot factories which gives the human player a real edge. However, overall, this is a really enjoyable game which is just getting better and better with every improvement.
  13. Yep, I have got this too. I am playing the world map with 10 players and on the diplomacy screen I cannot see the USA although I can see the USA on the trade screen. Can I also comment that as well as not being very active and not engaging in diplomacy the AI also tends to let you off the hook- I invaded Chinese occupied Australia and managed to capture Sydney and Melbourne. However, a Chinese counter-blow destroyed my forces leaving the two cities defenceless but still notionally under my control. Then the AI offered a peace treaty which not surprisingly I accepted. I am now building up my forces in the two cities awaiting the right moment to strike again. I know the AI cannot 'see' the screen as a human would and make a decision based on their position in relation to an enemy but I would have though the AI would be able to assess when to offer peace (on the ropes) and when not (when I was on the ropes!).
  14. Whilst this is primarily a war game the diplomatic model is very important in fighting global wars. I thought that Advanced Tactics was really good at recreating tactical and even strategic battles but what it lacked was a decent diplomacy mode against the AI. I think that Steel Empires has a potentially excellent diplomacy model but one which simply isnt used by the AI. Potentially the model could allow you to recreate the Treaty of Versailles, lend lease, wars by client states and effectively creating puppet states but at the moment the AI doesnt engage with you at all (or indeed with other AI players). For example, if I have an enemy country on the ropes the AI should act like a rational nation. If it is a choice between destruction and national survival a nation would make peace at almost any price- look at Germany in 1918. So using the diplomacy model in SE you could push Germany back, capture most of its cities and then offer peace (perhaps you are worried, as the Allies were in 1918, at creating a power vacuum in central Europe which other nations such as Russia might exploit and want to keep Germany as a bastion against Communism or whatever). You could offer Germany peace (or even an alliance) and perhaps return the German cities you have taken in exchange for money each term (like reparations). A rational nation would jump at the chance. Of course, that nation might later break the agreement (as Germany effectively did) but that would harm its 'reputation'. Coming back to my earlier post- all nations should have a reputation which effects how other players (including the AI) act towards it- attacking others or breaking treaties makes your repuation go down. Trading peacefully and helping allies and the sheer passage of time (1945 is a long time ago and Germany is a peaceful democratic nation) makes reputation go up. The AIs stance never seems to change either- I can give units, money, cities and so on and the AI stance remains at neutral- 50. You should be able to charm another nation until they want to sign an agreement with you. There was a much underrated RTS game called Arsenal: Extended Power which was a kind of real time SE and that had factions and AI personalities (as well as trading and research) that you could randomise and different factions would be more friendly towards you than others. The AI certainly needs to be more interesting in its diplomatic actions. I have signed a trade agreement with the Americans in my latest game selling them oil every turn- however, I dont seem to be getting the money and it is difficult to see how I can tell whether I am. Furthermore, I tried to break the agreement by using the appropriate button but it didnt work. The AI also seems rather slugging- everyone ganged up on the French (as they do) and crushed them but since then the AI has done nout so I have just declared war on the Chinese to make things interesting. Also just had a cruiser get stuck in land and I had to disband it- I am running the latest version. Good game though- really enjoying it!
  15. I think that this model is a good idea- certainly something needs to be done to ensure that we can't just exploit the AIs willingness to let us build up forces next to cities and then attack. Another question- can it be confirmed how many AI or human players can be in each game?
  16. As others have said it is too easy to transport lots of troops onto another players 'territory' camp them outside an enemy city and then wait for the right moment before attacking with overwhelming force, seizing it, making peace and then repeating ad infinitum. It would be like Russia transporting troops into Kent or East Anglia in the UK and sitting them outside Norwich - I doubt the British government would stand for it any more if the UK landed troops near St Petersburg. I feel that cities and resources (both land and sea) should project a zone of national territory around them into which other forces (unless they are your allies) cannot enter unless they declare war. That would represent the sovereign national territory of that nation and perhaps have it marked out by a border that expands and contracts with your empire. I also agree that the AI builds up huge armies then doesnt do anything with them. Literally dozens of paras, tanks, infantry, battleships just sit there. The AI does conduct invasions by sea by they are never escorted and a battleship or two guarding the key sea lanes deals with those. It would be nice to see the AI using planes and paratroops, etc. Also, can you explain (sorry if it is in the manual) the difference between declaring war and a sneak attack. I assume the latter gives you some kind of surprise bonus but I feel it should really hurt your reputation if you do so- look at Pearl Harbour. I also agree that when you build up an army and give it a name (6th SS Panzer Army or whatever) it would be nice if you could transport the whole army (perhaps with a stack of transports) without losing the name. I do like the new combat system- the units feel a lot more durable than before when they were like cannon fodder just being chucked into the meat grinder. It is actually possible (and worth it) to retreat a unit from combat and repair its strength. Adding experience would really add to things and enable the creation of crack, battleharded corps and armies at least as long as the AI also repaired its units to keep it fair. Air power is still underpowered but its really moving forward.
  17. Just wanted to thank the team for responding to suggestions about amphibious warfare. The ability to attack from amphibious craft and improve this ability through research is excellent news and, for me, overcomes one of the glaring issues with the system. Looking forward to this one. Just placed my order for Empires of Steel and just waiting to order Global Conflict!
  18. First thing is that this is a great game with enormous potential. A few questions/observations from playing so far. Sorry if these have been rectified in the new update but I havent had a chance to look at this year: 1. Map labels would definitely add flavour and atmosphere so I am keen on that. 2. Rivers? Why can we not have a river tool in the same way we have a road tool. I realise that at some scales rivers would not be appropriate but on a Europe scale map or tactical map they would be vital. The Ardennes without the Meuse? Germany without the Rhine? The UK without the Thames? Russia without the Volga? Etc. I have played with the map editor (which crashes) by using the finest 'pen' to draw sea areas as rivers but they are too wide. Can we have an even finer pen to draw rivers or a river tool? Also, do roads allow a land unit to travel across a sea area (Copehagen to Malmo?) or a river? Rivers would be good. 3. I ageee about some of the strange combat results. A transport sinking a battleship? Hmm! Doesnt feel right to me. Airpower is also still underpowered in my opinion. You spend ages building up an airwing of tactical bombers and they all get shot down even though there is not flak gun in sight. 4. The diplomacy model has huge potential but the AI simply doesnt use it. I know we are supposed to play on line with other humans but the fact is that a conquer the world map is so time consuming that you are realistically only going to play it against the AI. The AI should be tweeked so it does make alliances, trades, etc and that if you are nice and trustworthy and generous their mood lightens towards you. That brings me to another thing. It is too easy to make war and the make peace when it suits you. You can batter an enemy and then make peace and the start another war when it suits you. There needs to be a concept of 'reputation'. Nobody trusted Germany after 1939 because its actions. I feel that if you are completely aggressive and break peace after peace the AI will adopt a fight to the death approach. I am not sure what is going on under the bonnet (fender? is that what you Yanks call it?) when it comes to AI. Do your actions influence how it acts towards you? Reputation should recover over time if you are nice/generous long enough or join your allies if they are attacked. 5. As the AI rarely uses aircraft I am not sure about this one? Do fighters automatically intercept bombers and other aircraft if they fly within range on a bombing or recon mission? If not, they should. 6. As the demo map is a 'island hopping' type map it is giving me a flavour of naval and, sort of, air warfare in the game. However, I am not sure I can get a feel for how good sustained land warfare is going to be. With the demo map you tend to bombard garrisons into dust and the send the troops in to occupy the shell of an empty city. On a world or European map with lots of land away from the sea land units will come more into their own. What I would like a few for is whether an eastern front type slog is going to happen or whether it will be case of spending ages building up competing land armies which then clash in a quick 'to the death fight' which then leads to a another arms race and then another clash etc. Land warfare should sometimes be inconclusive otherwise land armies will be destroyed too quickly. If you could give us access to the European (or world!!) map we can see! Hint, hint!! Overall, brilliant game- I am looking forward to the full release and all the variations imaginative people are going to come up with.
  19. Hello! Long time reader and player and really felt I needed to sign up and make a couple of comments on this thread. Firstly, I am really glad that land arrows are planned. It will really expand the possibilities of new scenarios and make a workable world map more possible. The way in which the trans-siberian railway is handled in the global scenario is very clever but looks rather gamey so the inclusion of land arrow will hopefully make that look and feel a bit more realistic. The land arrow will also allow the creation of land boxes(as well as sea boxes) to recreate off map areas. Secondly, I really support the ability of special forces to make amphibious attacks straight from transports. At the moment they are not really that special and if you are going to enable the recreation of the Pacific war you are going to need proper marine units that can attack one square islands straight from transports. I know that you could bombard and shell a Japanese unit holding an island into nothing and then land a unit in the empty space but it doesnt feel right and that isnt what happened in reality. The same with Malta. You should be able to launch seaborne attacks on the island. As someone else mentioned this would make the amphibious warfare tech much more desirable. It shouldnt only increase the range of amphibious attacks but their effectiveness. Look at the amateur nature of the German seaborne attacks in Norway and Crete (ad hoc transports, etc) and compare them with the efficient Allied landing craft and amphibious transports and tanks of Italy and Normandy. The final point is this. The global campaign is great fun and I look forward to the W and W version. The main problem is that it does stretch the diplomatic model beyond breaking point. To the credit of the designer he has found imaginative ways round these problems but it feels very gamey. The problem is this. There are effectively two sides- axis and allies. If you are on the allied side you are at war with the axis and vice versa. What this leads to is that once Germany attacks Russia, Russia is at war with Japan. This, as we know, didnt happen. Japan didnt attack Russia. The same with China. Because in the game China is a UK minor, Japan is at war with the UK from 1939 which again is not true. I know that the designer used the East Commonwealth/West Commonwealth design to effectively shield the UK from fighting Japan before the historical date of 1941 but when the UK declared war in the whole of the directly ruled colonial empire (India, Malaya, African colonies) should join the UK war effort. Whilst the dominions could have stayed out (like Eire) Australia, NZ, Canada and SA all joined almost immediately. I guess what I am asking is whether something can be tweeked in the diplomatic status model to allow the UK to fight Germany but not Japan (at least not immediately), China to fight Japan (but not to pull the UK in) and Russia to fight Germany but not Japan. I am not sure what but some kind of non-belligerant status- not neutral but not actively belligerant either. Still, love the game- great fun!!
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