**Weapons and Warfare** Expansion Pack announced!!!

[Armuss]

Meybe in "W&W Pack"...

..."Doomsday" (HoI_II_D) conflict:

Allies vs USSR !!!

?

[n0kn0k]

Originally posted by targul:

Reason is people tend to play only to win. They do not recognize there is suppose to be a history related to their actions. That maybe fun for some but when I want to play a fantasy game I play Civ.

The only improvement I would like to see would be reprecussions for ahistorical behavior so that those who do wish to avoid history must face some consequence for their actions.

The problem with historical play is that, well euhm..., you know already when an attack will come. So you can already start digging in way ahead.

Let's for example take D-day. If you as my opponent are playing allies, then I would focus all my naval, air and panzer units on tiny little Normandy. And it would be a very short D-day in that case, because I knew you were coming

The fun out of hypothetical histories comes from the element of surprise New opportunities and the need to keep track of your opponent.

If that's not the way to play for you, then you can always agree on some historical "houserules" with your opponent.

[Desert Dave]

Better to do that

With "scripted variants,"

Which has increased dramatically

Due to new!

Opportunities soon to come

To a theatre near you.

O/W, as Targul has said several times,

With the current a-historical exploits,

You may as well be playing

Nazi Space Rangers meet Godzilla.

[vveedd]

Originally posted by Desert Dave:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Guys are working hard but they made same mistake as Hubert did; they didn’t include gamer population soon enough in development.

Where've you been the last 5 years vveedd?

Parsing out the stems & seeds?

Folks on this here forum have been expressing

Quite explicitly,

Many and multiform requests all along!

What did you miss?

Worse, does that worry you? :eek:

[/QB]</font>

[Blashy]

vveedd you can not include a gamer population when you are a one man operation, just having 5 beta testers is plenty of work reading and responding and even there if he responded to everything beta testers post in the beta forums he would spend half his day in discussions.

What he CAN do is what he IS doing, have a game ready for some testing and THEN include beta testers.

What he DID do in between SC1 and SC2 was read and at often reply in the public forums and try to implement as much player requested features as possible and this is the key here WITHIN his timetable... the man has to start making money at some point.

[Desert Dave]

Originally posted by vveedd:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Desert Dave:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Guys are working hard but they made same mistake as Hubert did; they didn’t include gamer population soon enough in development.

Where've you been the last 5 years vveedd?

Parsing out the stems & seeds?

Folks on this here forum have been expressing

Quite explicitly,

Many and multiform requests all along!

What did you miss?

Worse, does that worry you? :eek:

</font>

[Hubert Cater]

Originally posted by mustang96:

Excellent news Mr. Cater, i have played SC2 so much that with out a doubt, this has been the best money spent on a computer game for me! I will gladly put my money down for this expansion pack! I think i read that there will be commando's, what exactly will there role be? I can wait for the release but any hints on how soon?

Thanks

Mustang

Thanks guys as the kudos is always appreciated

While things are still busy over here development is proceeding nicely and I think everyone is in for a nice treat with the expansion.

For a brief update, the new weather dynamic has worked out really well and by separating the ground and air effects for weather we can now have units that slog along in the mud while no longer limiting air attacks... unless of course there is also rain/fog, snow, or sandstorms in the area which now ground aircraft.

The FoW mechanism has also been updated to take into account this secondary weather effect which essentially prevents air unit spotting to and from

rain/fog, snow and sandstorm tiles. Air unit combat is also similarly updated.

There is of course MUCH more as well as a few surprises not mentioned in the original announcement, including an improved AI that, for example, now takes into account possible return fire damage on subsueqent turns as well as a new concentrated fire algorithm that prioritizes the targeting of units that have been previously attacked by other units.

For one example of how this has already improved the AI, with my latest build that the testers will receive later today, the Axis AI took Poland in 2 turns (default difficulty) which was the first I've ever seen

In terms of a general update, hopefully by sometime next week I'll be able to put together a new screenshot pack for SC2 Weapons and Warfare as well as detailed list of changes, new campaigns, as well as what to expect in terms of how some of the new features will play out.

Until then here is a screehshot highlighting some of the changes to be found in the expansion:

[borsook]

Looks very promising! And great thanx for not forgetting the AI. A question though - will we see some more improvement in AI turn length? The larger modder made maps run very very slow with 1.06

[Hubert Cater]

That's a tricky question as most usual improvements to AI turn length, i.e. if the algorithms are already optimized, come at the cost of the AI itself.

At the moment the AI is optimized for the current map size and number of units etc., i.e. it balances out speed vs quality and perhaps this is something I could add as a toggle down the road for those very large campaigns... more speed but less quality.

[borsook]

Originally posted by Hubert Cater:

That's a tricky question as most usual improvements to AI turn length, i.e. if the algorithms are already optimized, come at the cost of the AI itself.

At the moment the AI is optimized for the current map size and number of units etc., i.e. it balances out speed vs quality and perhaps this is something I could add as a toggle down the road for those very large campaigns... more speed but less quality.

Definitely the loss of quality is worse than slow speed. But a making it changeable would be a great addition.

[targul]

New map looks very crowded. I kinda like the clean look of the present one compared to the mess shown in this preview.

Guess it is necessary for some of the new features but it might be better with a larger map to avoid the crowded look.

Jim

[Blashy]

targul that is an illusion, they are no more units than now but what makes you feel as if it is more crowded is probably the rails and roads, they did that to me the first 30 minutes I was playing and now I just do not see them anymore .

I basically had the same immediate reaction you did.

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

Will there be a bigger map in the final version?

[Terif]

Hmm, I hope this is not the final map of the Fall Weiss campaign - all those additional ports and cities in France, Germany and UK would otherwise make amphibious invasions extremely easy and risk free (too many places to start from, defenders can´t man all entry points, supply is no problem for the invader any more and evacuations will also be easy so even if beaten in the interior, the invasion force always can evacuate without problems instead of beeing destroyed). Neither historical nor too good for gameplay I would say, so I hope this will be changed till the final version .

[Blashy]

So far the extra ports don't really add much of a problem.

Calais is the only one that is hard to defend, the rest are easy to block. But Calais can also be defended with fortifications in front of Paris. This way if the enemy lands he faces entrenched troops and they can be pushed back to sea or die.

It is not risk free, a bomber ready to hit the port can easily keep those units stuck with no exit.

Just requires more tactical play.

I'm sure you'll figure it out .

[Terif]

It may be fun the first few times and against the AI or unexperienced players that will have no problems now any more to do an invasion. But longterm and for multiplayer it is IMHO not a good idea, so at least for the standard Fall Weiss campaign they better should be removed.

Just play it a few times in multiplayer against an experienced opponent when it is out (or read some of my AARs then if it really comes... ) and you will see that these extra ports and cities WILL certainly cause problems and unbalance it .

[Retributar]

I see only IMPROVEMENT here!.

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

@ Terif:

I agree to your concerns.. Germany is way easier to invade. In the original Announcement for the Expansion Pack Hubert said there will be a revised map (slightly bigger 140x46 tiles).

Therefore I think the new game will be somewhat different from the one we know right now.. a bigger map needs more ports and cities anyway.

What do you think will change on the bigger map in comparison to the old 1.06 Fall Weiss? More coastline to protect, isn`t it?

[Liam]

I am not sure how Destroyers, how many there will be for each nation? How many tactical strategic bombers will be included? Generally in Fall Weiss Scenarios you'll find it rare for a nation like Germany to afford a Heavy Bomber.. That is fantasy.. unless of course the ultimate goal is use it as a strategy, but regardless she is fairly limited in protecting her Ports in France or elsewhere, only the Mighty Royal Navy and the Allied Bombers tend to dictate that...

I can see Terif's Fear here, amphibious invasion is easy as pie. Especially for an adept Player!

Though there may be some solutions too, like pillboxes?? Quick cheap fortifications, that an Engineer can build in less turns but provides less return... As air will decimate defenders near a coast now. BTW: Interesting Rails and Roads

[Iron Ranger]

Mines were the std defence for ports, its not like the coast of eroupe is a wasteland. Plenty of ports... few that could take HUGE influx of supplys that a army group would need. So mine the little one so raids were limited, and defend the larger ports...... So will we be seeing the ablity to mine coastal sea lanes? Destroyers to clear mines?

[vveedd]

Map size looks the same. Hope this is not final version of the map. I am hoping that we will have map like in Advanced Third Reich mod for SC2.

[targul]

I agree vveedd this map is the same size and with the same size map all the extra's are just too much. I certainly hope this map goes to the size of A3R. Wouldn't distrub me if it actually went to that map and then added the rails etc.

I feel that concern for invasion with the additional port. I already find it easy for invasion at Brest adding an additional port will add to that problem unless map size is increased significantly.

Anyway change is interesting and if it is not what I like I will simply go back to 1.06. But I am sure I will be delighted once I get a chance to play it.

Jim

[Blashy]

Map size is different, look at the distance between UK and France .

[targul]

Sorry Blashy I dont see it. There are 4 squares at top of France and 3 squares at bottom of France to defend that is identical. Only diffence is more stuff.

Also if they do make the difference greater betwee Britan and France what about range of rockets? Rockets are rare for me to use now with more distance they would be become non-existant.

Jim

[jon_j_rambo]

I'm going to have to agree with Yodl & that badass Von Strauss dude. Why? Because Yodl is right. There so much supply & ports for the Allies, you can land anywhere & retreat back out anywhere. Not historical & certainly not made for Legends. Might as well build that underground railroad subway that you Euros got now...or a bridge.

I veto this, send it back to congress,

-Legend