Jump to content

One scripted event too much for my taste


Recommended Posts

Axis AI against human Allies, 1939 campaign.

In 1941 Singapore surrendered simply by choice in front of the japanese AI, even though not a single japanese shot fired and not a single japanese soldier set his foot on the singapore peninsula. edit: great, the japanese convoy lines from the just "to the AI granted" former UK territories start immediately as well.

Scripted victories shouldn't be in the game. You can't defend against a scripted invasion.

"Arrived" units should suddenly appear on the map. Either i, the player, send a unit, or no one. How can the Royal Sovereign "arrive" in India, if the Royal Sovereign wasn't send away to India? I couldn't use the ship in Europe, in Africa, and nowhere else before the magic arrival.

You rob me of the fun to divide my forces the way i feel fit.

I can't say how dissapointed i am, the longer i play the game, the more.

What good does it do to release a global conquest game

- without a globe (!)

- without the ability to manage your global forces (the UK is forbidden to even SEE its "minor" garrisson in Singapore or anywhere else until Japan declares war on the UK

- pop up messages that don't tell the player everything (like the one where the US isolanists demand that the fleet -on its way to Pearl Harbor- returns to the West Coast bases, not telling the player what happens if he refuses to do so), while on the very next turn an US fleet magically appears in Hawaii, so that the Japanese still can perform the Pearl Harbor raid

- Italian wonderfighters in Abessinia (even with a 5 or 6:1 ratio it is nearly impossible to win a flower pott against the fascist blackshirts, which get reinforcements even though there is no more axis port, and disregarding the not existing port still there is a german motorcorps oviously beaming down from subspace onto the east african soil (sigh, OH BOY!). Not to forget that the AI got a free Italian HQ, which makes it so hard to do anything against the italian corps.

- way too many movement limitations to keep a smal map somehow challenging. Best example would be the chinese theater of operations, but of course these no movement restriction occur everywhere else as well.

-the axis subs, now swarming the north sea, trying to kill the Royal Navy instead of merchant fleets, turning the north sea more or less into a killing ground for the royal navy.

-next important step would be to allow all naval units to move much, much greater distances within one turn. In my current game, the Japanese AI parked her amphibs for one or two turns right in front of Singapore, Batavia, the Phillipinese.

Even when i, the ALLIED PLAYER, saw them, there was no way to react, as MY "british" minors were sleeping and considered NEUTRAL.

Why are my british garissons neutral? Well, because the game designers needed to bend history to keep the play balance. Just great.

NO WAY to reinforce singapore, no way even to use its harbors.

"Sorry Mr. Chruchill, the Royal Navy is not welcome here anymore, as we, the independend UK of Singapore, only exist to become invaded by the Japanese. After that, feel free to free us. PLEASE."

All amphips (and, of course, other navy units) should be able to move a GREAT distances from their homebase and than be able to invade the neutral or other attack victim within the same turn. If this would be possible, than ONE "not so bright" game design (= parking japanese vessels in front of a "neutral" country without a negative reaction from the "neutral" country) wouldn't have been nescessary.

Nevertheless, if i play a global game and a global power, than i should be able to USE my global powers. Neutralize Hong Kong, just to guarantee that the Japanes get this city presented on a silver platter?

In Europe, this would mean to place the BEF and most parts of the French in Belgium, simply to allow Germany to get the victory in the West on the silver platter. Here the game designer choose not to do this, as no player should be forced to make the same mistake as they took place in history.

While this may good and true, the very same thought was wiped away in Asia. As a player you can't avoid but to learn that the game designer have no uniform rules. Here they decide "no", but at a different place, about the very same question, they suddenly decide "yes".

I know that Hubert & Co. worked hard to release this game, and i know that they listened to their followship. And i had to learn that there are obviously many, many customers where they hit the gaming spot of these players, but with this release, they missed mine, and this for the very first time, but nevertheless hey missed the spot, major.

Too often they bended the map and the game concepts, at least in my eyes, at least in the current version of Global Conquest.

Right now I couldn't recommend this game to friends or colleagues who share my love for strategic, turn based games, contrary to SC, SC2, WaW, PDE, PT.

Sorry for these lines, and i guess, that you probably knew all this before.

Please try to understand why i wrote it:

because i want this game to become better, because i loved those games you released before this one, because i feel so sad about the fact that i can't "feel" the way i should be feeling with so many more good ideas, so much more map compared to the older SC games.

It is not that GC is a bad game, this wouldn't be true at all.

But it is about what you didn't achieve with this release, even though it might have been possible (seeing with layman eyes) without too much more efforts.

Sigh.

edit:

Now i reached early 1942, and i can't help but to feel that you scripted this game to death.

Something appears here, some other thing arrives there.

What good is a global map with hundreds of tiles if i'm not allowed to use this map?

Australian troops "arrive" in the near east. Hello, guess what, i don't want them there. If i want them in Egypt, than i want to ship them there on my own.

Why am i not allowed to decide where i want to use my troops?

I could understand these arrivals in the single theater maps of SC2 and PT, but for heavens sake, not (N O T !) on the global map!

I'm truly disappointed, so dissapointed. Only short cuts in this games, nowhere i can play out a turn the way i was able to in SC to PT.

You take away so much with all those unnescessary short cuts, free units, restrictions.

I simply don't understand why you did this to this game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 70
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Don't fret X, I'm sure Big Al and Nupremal will get these things right and rest assured that eventually we'll get someone doing a "Days of Decision" campaign where we write our own WW2 history with the hindsight we enjoy.

In the meantime just keep posting your aspirations for improvement, I mean heck, that's how we got this far in the first place, I'm sure it will still work, just make notes and present your case in detail.

I've never been disappointed at the receptive nature of HC and / or the betas, just remember some folks like a more historical unfolding when they play and that's OK but like you, I want to make my own history. Maybe you should try the AoE scenario for a contrasting experience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of good input and a lot to comment on here; Let me address the Singapore item, as that was a milestone for me when we were testing the game.

My first Singapore surrenders experience was a shock; I blinked twice, swallowed, paused and laughed out loud – it was just too cool for me. To a fault I enjoy the historical aspects of SC. I’ve always enjoyed reading the history and then playing the simulation. What the automatic surrender did was shock me; I thought this is how the British people and their Government must have felt. Betrayed, disgusted, not wanting to admit the reality of it. No, I did not like the surrender script, but I noticed the reaction that I had was what I perceived the British had in 1942.

Any ways, this is just me. I am aware there are many other gamers with differing perceptions. I just wanted to share that with you.

Robert

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't fret X,

I've never been disappointed at the receptive nature of HC ... Maybe you should try the AoE scenario for a contrasting experience.

This is true, HC has a receptive nature.

But i'm somewhat "angry" that obviously the betas never felt the same way as i.

In my opinion it should have been their job to question design decissions / and or to send (more) hints for improvements. As to free units, they could have asked for a descission event like "do you want so send the Royal Sovereign to India? If yes, she will apear on march 1st 1942 at Calcutta, if no, she will appear at Glasgow on November 1941" or

"there is the chance for mass produce of Subs. If you pay now and the following 3 turns x amount of money, you could benefit from 3 subs at date y."

I'll try the AoE campaign, thanks for reminding me of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of good input and a lot to comment on here; Let me address the Singapore item, as that was a milestone for me when we were testing the game.

My first Singapore surrenders experience was a shock; I blinked twice, swallowed, paused and laughed out loud – it was just too cool for me. To a fault I enjoy the historical aspects of SC. I’ve always enjoyed reading the history and then playing the simulation. What the automatic surrender did was shock me; I thought this is how the British people and their Government must have felt. Betrayed, disgusted, not wanting to admit the reality of it. No, I did not like the surrender script, but I noticed the reaction that I had was what I perceived the British had in 1942.

Any ways, this is just me. I am aware there are many other gamers with differing perceptions. I just wanted to share that with you.

Robert

Thanks Robert, your insight is appreciated!

I'm sure that the British felt betrayed in 1942, and yes, i felt it too.

But in a global Game which follows the superb PT expansion i felt again downgraded. And than i saw how poorly the Japanese AI conducted against me in China, and i thought to myself: "well, this AI conducts so poorly on this map which obviously hurts the AI much more than me, that the game designer had no other solution as to cheat the human player with this one".

And with this "hey, got ya!" feeling of being cheated out of a good pacific campaign i left the game and wrote this thread, as this drop was the one too much. At least at this moment.

I feel obliged to say it once more: GC is a great game in all its parts,

but in my opinion the parts weren't connected as well as it would have been possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Xwormwood

With respect to the scripts, early on in the beta testing stage we found that if too much freedom were given then players would be complaining that they were unable to recreate history, let alone change it. The problem being that we all have the benefit of hindsight and Allied players played accordingly, smashing up the Japanese invasion forces and, better still, pre-empting their invasions of neutrals like the Dutch East Indies with ones of their own. Such activities could be, and were, real game killers.

Obviously we couldn't allow this too much, because the game would have seemed ridiculous if the best moves were always to act in a totally unhistorical manner.

Another reason for the scripts is that the bigger the campaign, and the more countries involved, the more complex the scenario and the harder it is to design. There are so many variables too in such a scenario that some constraints are needed because ultimately too much freedom would really make programming the AI impossible.

The reason why some countries are neutral before Japan strikes is that they pretty much were that. The British hardly invested a thing in the Far East prior to December 1941, they couldn't afford to and their focus wasn't on these areas. Given the hindsight that we all have, allowing them to be active from 1939 would enable the Allies to make any Japanese offensive impossible. In early playtesting this was the case and we quickly realised that this didn't work.

The same applies to Hawaii where the US Pacific fleet is stationed and until the US is at war it cannot be moved. This is in line with the political reality in the US prior to Pearl Harbor, and any moves to strengthen their forces in the area would have met with political opposition due to the strength of isolationism.

Having said the above, we certainly do think about all feedback and where possible will implement changes. I also second SeaMonkey's suggestion that you try the Alliance of Evil scenario, or either of the 1942 or 1943 scenarios because most of what you've mentioned only applies in the 1939 scenario.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Xwormwood, I mean what had you expected.

For me SC global, pacific, pde, waw, sc2 is all the same game with some extras. I think they took it way too far, it should have stopped with one or two of these expansions and then moved on. Frankly I'm surprised that not more people cried out for sc3, guess it's because the old gang is long gone. But I'm pretty sure that milking this cow can't continue for ever, sooner or later even the new crowd will want to have something completly different.

The good thing is during these years a good dev-team emerged ready to take on bigger challenges.

What we need is SC 3, that corrects some of the things lost when the game transformed into the sc 2 engine. The sooner we move on the better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the British move half of their fleet to Pacific ports pre-Dec '41, I certainly think there could be sufficient penalties to punish such moves (big boost in Spain's readiness towards the Axis, or, by the same token, a reduction in US readiness. Morale hit for the remaining British ships in the Atlantic. Possibilities are endless.). Let the punishment fit the crime; right now, you don't even have that choice at all. Yeah, I can't commit armed robbery because I'm locked up back home with a ball and chain and a straitjacket! Free will-what a concept. Okay, sorry for the snark, couldn't resist. :)

And, while I'm on the subject, I dislike scripted reinforcements because there's no way to know beforehand, short of going into the editor and laboriously searching thru the scripts, to know you are getting unit X on date Y. Regular reinforcements are visible in the (ahem) reinforcement screen-just put everything there, and if a popup message is needed to tell the player why he's getting them, then that can be easily scripted. When I was playing Japan, I didn't know I'd get a crapload of special forces, so I was hurriedly building a bunch of them for my invasions, only to be given a bunch of "free" ones on top of that, such that my hard limit was like -3 after they all showed up.

I'll note that tweaking the default scenario was a given at this stage of the game, just like it was for the other editions of the game, so no sweat off of my brow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Bill101.

Thanks for your insights.

I see reason in most of what you wrote, but i feel the urge to state that you still took the easy way out of the problems.

I hope that you would agree with me that it might have been a better solution to balance the game (with all the options GC offers) so well, that some ot the scripted events wouldn't have been nescessary.

Example: if the UK shouldn't invest too much money to improve the Far East prior to Pearl Harbor you could make improvements in the far east EXPENSIVE or LIMIT the UK cashflow so much, that it would hurt the UK in Europe and Africa to spend too much in the Far East.

Unhistoricals moves were in nearly all SC releases punished (minors getting nervous etc). In my opinion you should have thought more about ways to punish unhistorical practices instead of reducing gameplay.

If i think about my example of the Royal Sovereign it could have been such an idea: either the player sends her on its way to india (offer the player to move her protected straight to india or allow the player to move the strength 5 BB on his own risk all the was for himself), or he has to place her in the UK or Africa in 1939, with a high chance that "U 47" appears at one of the placing harbors, damaging her pretty good (Royal Oak at Scapa Flow).

This way THE PLAYER could choose what to do.

I don't know nothing about programming, but i feel sure that something like

"calculate how many BBs are in the North Atlantic part of the Map, if amount is larger than X, allow 60% chance of german sub attack of BB in Harbor 1, 2 or 3" could be programmed. Or if fleet placing ratio larger than 3:1, offer the Axis player random event bonus 1 (like higher morale for subs due to the U47 event)

In many decision events players already get the opportunity to choose.

At least let me choose if singapore should remain neutral (stay neutral or pay amount x for y turns to activate singapore earlier).

Slip this very information to the axis player, and this way he will know that the UK Isles herself will be much more vulnerable for the next several turns. And he knows that he has to react somehow in the Far East, as well.

When it comes to the US fleet in Pearl Harbor, than allow me to see this fleet, or to change ships between the West Coast and Pearl.

If i place a carrier in Pearl Harbor, than warn me that the japenese would get one surprise attack granted in which my carriers won't be able to retaliate. Than program such a routine. The japanese player won't mind, i presume.

This way it would feel like MY fleet lies at Pearl, this way my fleet WOULD lie at Pearl, this way i would be commander in command of my fleet.

And offer me to withdraw my fleet if i absolutly want to. Punish the abscene of my fleet with diplomatic losses, with lowered productions values.

Punish the allied player it he declares war on a neutral country.

example: calculate how much the political status of the country was.

20 towards the allies = 120 points

75 toward the axis = 25 points

Allies lose x amount of money or y amount of industry for every z points he collected due to declaring war on a neutral.

If total ever reach XXX points, than the allied player lose the war as he showed the world that he is nothing better than the axis (warmonger, capitalist, whatever).

Subtract from the collected amount of points ZZZ points if the axis players declare war on a neutral.

If the allied player had already a very high amount of points right at the beginning of the game, than he might lose the war by declaring war against "his" neutrals to soon.

Here we could imagine even some kind of "bonus" points for getting beaten by the axis player. A friendly neutral surrenders toward the axis: allies "gain" points because they weren't able to protect the neutral or ally. Call it war wearyness.

I think you get my point.

LET ME play the game, don't let the game play itself just because this is the short cut to avoid the problems, the easy way out of a problem, the hush-hush method to take the next step.

Philippines:

if the Allied player withdraws preemptive his forces, let them declare true independence, let them invite japanese "military and economic advisors" on the islands.

if the Allied player sends too many troops, anxious for japanese attacks: let the chickens get restless, starting to sabotage the imperialist devils,

let other neutrals and the maybe even the russians tend away from the allies.

Let neutral fincancial moguls invest in axis nations as they fear about their capital getting swallowed by the strangers or get plundered by axis victors. Let the locals help a japanese invasions by giving them the positions of the allied armies or ships, let them sabotage units or cities or fortresses in case of a japanese landing attampts.

Let them misinform the allies, reducing effectivity or sight of allied units.

The historical hindsights we all have, well, they have never hindered us from accepting that the French couldn't be condemned to run into the dunkirk trap -like they did- again in SC. So this NEVER happens in any SC game.

But here in GC (and only GC) we have to see history repeat itself. We are forced to let it happen.

Sorry for writing this, one could get the feeling that, while the PT campaign had a good solution for the AI Singapore campaign, the GC AI isn't capable of doing the invasion anymore, as land units are harder to kill, new movement limitations were introduced, and the map hasn't enough room for the nescessary manoeuveres.

Of course, this is an unjust accusation. Sorry, i probably totaly missed the point.

I will reduce myself now for possible implenent change request.

But maybe you could take the one or the other out of my lines above.

If not, well, here i have two other ones:

How about a contest or an open forum for additional decision events?

How about optional decision events (like pay to get one, pay even more to get a BAD one for your opponent or to REMOVE a good one from your enemy)?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Xwormwood, I mean what had you expected.

For me SC global, pacific, pde, waw, sc2 is all the same game with some extras. I think they took it way too far, it should have stopped with one or two of these expansions and then moved on. Frankly I'm surprised that not more people cried out for sc3, guess it's because the old gang is long gone. But I'm pretty sure that milking this cow can't continue for ever, sooner or later even the new crowd will want to have something completly different.

The good thing is during these years a good dev-team emerged ready to take on bigger challenges.

What we need is SC 3, that corrects some of the things lost when the game transformed into the sc 2 engine. The sooner we move on the better.

I don't feel like the Game engine of SC2 was already "milked out".

To achieve SC3, you have first to learn what there is next to do. and how to do it the proper way.

For this, you have to have an European and a Paciifc and yes, a global game with the engine you already have, which you know. You have to learn what can and can't be done, and finaly, you have to make a living out of the process.

I nether feel like a milked customer, nore like i would have bought a redundant extension. I like them all, SC2, WAW, PDE and PT.

I even think that the GC engine deserves one or maybe two expansions.

First: there is plenty of room for GC improvements

Second: there is plenty of room for more what ifs

Third: only with a steady stream of income Hubert will ever have the freedom to rethink the game engine, to start mostly fresh, on new terrain.

The cry for SC3 will grow loud the moment you feel like the current game engine has reached its limits.

Partly it has (limitations in major powers, no peace after war declared), on other frontlines the limit still hasn't been reached.

I will happily cry "SC3! SC3!" after Hubert mastered his current game engine to its limits. Right now i fell like this point hasn't been reached, even though the time might not be so far away anymore.

Always, of course, if there will be a SC3 at all.

What had i expected: not the "perfect" game, but the crown of SC2.

As it looks right now, the crown is still in the hands of the goldsmith, but still not on the head of the SC comunity.

Till the crowning ceremony, i humbly wait till this glorious day and swallow down any SC3 desires.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm just glad that with the SC2 series of games--if you don't like something, you can change it. And I'm sure the devs take the comments of the veteran players to heart. I also hope someone will do something to make xwormwood smile again!

It will be interesting to see how Making History II will play out. There's no way I'd buy it without a scenario editor, though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't feel like the Game engine of SC2 was already "milked out".

To achieve SC3, you have first to learn what there is next to do. and how to do it the proper way.

For this, you have to have an European and a Paciifc and yes, a global game with the engine you already have, which you know. You have to learn what can and can't be done, and finaly, you have to make a living out of the process.

I nether feel like a milked customer, nore like i would have bought a redundant extension. I like them all, SC2, WAW, PDE and PT.

I even think that the GC engine deserves one or maybe two expansions.

First: there is plenty of room for GC improvements

Second: there is plenty of room for more what ifs

Third: only with a steady stream of income Hubert will ever have the freedom to rethink the game engine, to start mostly fresh, on new terrain.

The cry for SC3 will grow loud the moment you feel like the current game engine has reached its limits.

Partly it has (limitations in major powers, no peace after war declared), on other frontlines the limit still hasn't been reached.

I will happily cry "SC3! SC3!" after Hubert mastered his current game engine to its limits. Right now i fell like this point hasn't been reached, even though the time might not be so far away anymore.

Always, of course, if there will be a SC3 at all.

What had i expected: not the "perfect" game, but the crown of SC2.

As it looks right now, the crown is still in the hands of the goldsmith, but still not on the head of the SC comunity.

Till the crowning ceremony, i humbly wait till this glorious day and swallow down any SC3 desires.

Dear xwormwood your words of woe are tough on this old almost senile gamer could you please let the gaming community know how you really feel in laymans terms:confused:

Bo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dear xwormwood your words of woe are tough on this old almost senile gamer could you please let the gaming community know how you really feel in laymans terms:confused:

Bo

I feel like i didn't get what was possible.

I feel like the game designers didn't wasted to much thoughts into how this release compares to its predecessors.

I feel like SC GC in the current version is an unfullfiled promise.

I feel like SC GC can be so much more if adjusted here and there and maybe even there as well.

I feel angry when i see how much i'm not able to do anymore in GC.

I feel anxious to get all those new and fantastic additions in GC presented in a more harmonized way

I feel like i want to kill when the game denies me my movements ("you can go there. No, there you can't go as well. Sorry, off limits for you. Yes, there you could go if this tile wouldn't be blocked by your air unit")

i feel cut down when i stumble about things which were already better in PDE / PT but worse in GC.

I feel good to know that Hubert always listen, and often made things better.

I feel sympathetic for Hubert when it comes to ignoring SC3 as long as the SC2 game engine hasn't provided enough income to leave the game engine behind for a new start.

I feel empty because i have not much joy playing GC in the current version as i stumble everywhere about or against something that i would have decided or designed different, or at least NOT different than in former SC releases.

I feel obliged to state that even though i am absolutly unlucky about the current GC release it still isn't a "bad" game.

I feel like i wrote way too much in this thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel like i didn't get what was possible.

I feel like the game designers didn't wasted to much thoughts into how this release compares to its predecessors.

I feel like SC GC in the current version is an unfullfiled promise.

I feel like SC GC can be so much more if adjusted here and there and maybe even there as well.

I feel angry when i see how much i'm not able to do anymore in GC.

I feel anxious to get all those new and fantastic additions in GC presented in a more harmonized way

I feel like i want to kill when the game denies me my movements ("you can go there. No, there you can't go as well. Sorry, off limits for you. Yes, there you could go if this tile wouldn't be blocked by your air unit")

i feel cut down when i stumble about things which were already better in PDE / PT but worse in GC.

I feel good to know that Hubert always listen, and often made things better.

I feel sympathetic for Hubert when it comes to ignoring SC3 as long as the SC2 game engine hasn't provided enough income to leave the game engine behind for a new start.

I feel empty because i have not much joy playing GC in the current version as i stumble everywhere about or against something that i would have decided or designed different, or at least NOT different than in former SC releases.

I feel obliged to state that even though i am absolutly unlucky about the current GC release it still isn't a "bad" game.

I feel like i wrote way too much in this thread.

Ok thats thirteen reasons good enough but I only agree with twelve of them:D

Bo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

XW (and others),

I said this earlier, and I'll say it again:

Most (if not all) of these issues I'm sure can be resolved by changes in scripts or clicking off/on some scripts once a patch is created. In this way those who don't like the scripts can change them if they wish (in the editor most likely), those who don't can leave them alone. So keep voicing these issues wherever you find them (I've been finding a few as well), perhaps many of them can be fixed soon.....I hope....;)

And XW, the Alliance of Evil campaign is definitely one you'll find much more satisfying, just as Sea Monkey indicated earlier, although it's got it's own issues too....:eek:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Look X I understand your frustration and in a manner I agree with you that the SC2 engine is getting a little long in the tooth, remember I've already been chastised about suggesting that this is the culmination of this program, but its hard to deny "the writing on the wall".

I was here when SC1 came out and it was beautifully simple and we clamored for more and we got more. Hubert has been more than accomodating but obviously, as with anything, you can always fine fault with imperfection. Don't forget how this forum was ripe with impatience for GC, you just can't have it all, let us take the engine a bit further, this is the public beta...you know that...surely, I know you've been here long enough have faith, it will get better.

As with anything again, you add dimensions, you complicate issues....my God Xwood look at our World, can you believe the complications and the effort that is required to get anything done competently and in an expeditious manner, its almost impossible with all the rules and regulations. Its the same with the scripts, they have to be thought out thoroughly, examined from lot's of perspective and still someone will be dissatified. You just can't please everyone, exactly that axiom drove Hubert to make a highly flexible editor and I was one that shouted very adamantly for that editor.

Because of that editor this game can be sculpted into a scenario that will please a majority of the patrons, again I know you know that, patience my dear xwormwood, it will come to pass. Guard against a level of frustration that precludes your involvement, know it will take some time, some experimentation, we've only scratched the surface.:cool:

Don't forget, when the Palace is built, its nice to enjoy its amenities, but the real fun was in building it!:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now let us contemplate some of the issues, Singapore, PH, and the Japanese dramatic expansion early and how do we recreate it when playing with the component of hindsight. It ain't easy, but the initial surprise was just that, catching your opponent off guard, a first strike bonus...does that replicate history?

You need intelligence for that, you need to know the dispositions of your opponents forces, you need to plan according to his reactive military level of competency or so you conclude, perhaps erroneously, and still there are intangibles. Going to pretty tough for a game platform to capture all this. So...as I've said before...open it up, I love freedom......but loving and dealing with the consequences of the decisions you make....for some people are a little hard to accept....they like to deflect fault, can't fathom their inadequacies, and they exist as imperfect animals, what a paradox.

So if you open GC up, it will not play historically, it will enter another dimension, 5th, 6th, or maybe seventh, can you handle that? Be careful what you wish for!;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Look X ...I know you know that, patience my dear xwormwood, it will come to pass. Guard against a level of frustration that precludes your involvement, know it will take some time, some experimentation, we've only scratched the surface.:cool:

Don't forget, when the Palace is built, its nice to enjoy its amenities, but the real fun was in building it!:)

True, SeaMonkey, and honey on my nerves, and thanks for calming me down a bit.

:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

True, SeaMonkey, and honey on my nerves, and thanks for calming me down a bit.

:)

Glad your calming down, frustration is not worth it, and with SeaMonkey's new philosphy you will have to calm down or he will do 10 more posts on you,:rolleyes: and if you think your frustrated take a little trip over to the Matrix's forums on MWIF and your frustrations will pale in their anguish waiting for a game that may never come to fruitation.

Bo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In my opinion it should have been their job to question design decissions / and or to send (more) hints for improvements.

As always we certainly appreciate feedback, and while I rarely take exception to a particular comment, I really couldn't let this one slide. Not for me mind you, but completely out of respect for the designers and testers that were involved in the development of this game.

I can't even begin to tell you how many volunteer hours and discussions were put into this game and while I can understand and accept any disagreement with the design, in fairness to them what you have described as points of contention does not mean they did not do exactly what you've described above, rather we may have just come to different conclusions.

Remember we had play tested this one quite heavily and much of what you have outlined in your posts was actually addressed many times as the game evolved, i.e. as Bill has already alluded to in his response post. I guess the major point here is that as mentioned we simply came to differing conclusions which I will attempt to describe further below.

As to free units, they could have asked for a descision event like "do you want so send the Royal Sovereign to India? If yes, she will apear on march 1st 1942 at Calcutta, if no, she will appear at Glasgow on November 1941"

The problem with this is that from very near to the beginning of development these free units were never 'either or' in intention. All this means was that in order to maintain balance these units were never considered for any other theater except for the ones they are scripted to arrive.

For example, you mention the Australian units showing up in Egypt and the fact of the matter is that these units were never included until play balance needed addressing, i.e. Australia already had her full complement of units but after finding in Multiplayer that Egypt was still too easy to take we decided to include these units in a similar manner as they were included in the original European Theater campaigns.

Again, why not then include these units in Australia's OOB if we are just going to add them to Egypt? Why not let the player decide where they go etc.?

Well the catch is in attempting to balance both theaters and maintain playability as well as somewhat of a historical context. All this means is that Australia was found to already be balanced in the Pacific Theater so if we add these extra units to Australia then we have one of two situations.

1) The human player sends them to Egypt and balance is maintained or

2) They use these new free units in the Pacific potentially throwing off the balance.

Remember some of the free units that Egypt receives, including the Australian ones, only arrive if the situation warrants it so even here they will not necessarily arrive in every game and there is a lot of this throughout the campaign. For example, the US only receives some additional units if it is invaded directly and again we don't have these units otherwise arrive on the map in order to maintain play balance.

In the Pacific portion of GC we found quite a few exploits if the Allied player does play in hindsight and they were game killers, much as Bill alluded to in his post, and while some may not like that we kept the Allied minors in the Pacific neutral it at least allowed us to keep this theater playable.

This is again no different than what we found we had to do in earlier versions of SC and one example was in encouraging Allied players to maintain their North African Garrisons so as to not upset Italy and not throw off the balance in France and so on. Essentially we've had to do this many times over throughout the Global Campaign, and unfortunately sometimes in stronger terms.

Some of the other items such as the automatically scripted Fall of Singapore were just AI helpers, this is really no different then how we handle Norway with Germany, and while we discussed it quite a bit the overall reaction in testing was much like how Robert described, shocking and as a result felt it was acceptable in terms of the historical context. But this, much like the free HQ and German Corps in Abyssinia are simply scripted and can easily be disabled as desired.

As for the Amphibs sitting offshore, a part of this is the AI scripting as it was incredibly hard with the game mechanics to even get the Japanese AI to pull off all of the simultaneous invasions and attacks and sometimes the AI unfortunately drops an Amphib in a spotted location which of course a human player would never do. Again it is not perfect but considering that the scripts for the Pacific Theater release were much easier to implement as the Op Z campaign there starts with all the invasion units already in position, I can live with this one fault as the AI in Global not only has to ensure enough units are produced, but build up their Fleet and Transports and get into position in about 10 different places on the map and simultaneously launch an effective result. As good as I wanted it to be it just never handled Singapore to my satisfaction and as mentioned above the helper was added to simply move things along.

I think most of the feedback pretty much falls into some of what I've described above and while it may not change anyone's mind I just felt that some background on the decisions might paint a better picture or at least provide some more context.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the British move half of their fleet to Pacific ports pre-Dec '41, I certainly think there could be sufficient penalties to punish such moves (big boost in Spain's readiness towards the Axis, or, by the same token, a reduction in US readiness. Morale hit for the remaining British ships in the Atlantic. Possibilities are endless.).

Right now the British can move their Fleet to the Pacific and there are no penalties so what you've described above is certainly possible, although granted not right to their ports that are still Neutral, but India, Australia and New Zealand are all options. I should add that if we did enable these minors, such as Singapore instead of leaving them Neutral there are also issues, beyond what Bill alluded to, such as losing play balance in the European Theater if the UK has access to these early MPPs and a few potential biggies such as the UK having the ability to pre-emptively attack Japan which we found to be a game killer. Once you figured out the formula it was a no brainer and we discussed this heavily without finding a better solution. Cat out of the bag is essentially the DEI and if the UK can take it before Japan can it is game over. It is still possible but it is very risky, very difficult and now comes at a cost of either the UK itself or Africa etc. and even then only if you can pull it off. Even if you penalize the UK it didn't make a difference and even if you seriously delayed the US arrival it made no difference. Once Japan loses the DEI and the US oil convoys and has little MPP there is not much for it to do as eventually the US will join and finish her off. Believe me we went through a lot of permutations before finalizing what we have now.

Now on the other hand, if we are talking about giving the British the bulk of their naval OOB instead of breaking it up into arrivals for the Pacific or European Theaters as xwormwood suggests and then adding in penalties to compensate for unbalancing movement with pros and cons there are also quite a few issues.

For arguments sake, let's say we do just this, the UK has a more significant fleet and can then decide where it wants to send their units, stay in the Pacific or go to the European Theater. Problem right off the bat is that if they stay in Europe then the European Theater is immediately imbalanced. No chance for a Battle of the Atlantic, no threat of Sea Lion etc. and immediately an entire naval theater is rendered inept. Again this is more than possible as Japan is not really in much of a position to do anything until 1941 so the UK has 2 years to harrass German coastlines and build up experience before sailing off to completely dominate Japan in the Pacific.

By maintaining the current implementation, despite what might feel like a straight jacket, we have balance in both theaters and they both remain interesting, i.e. the UK can still send their Fleet off to the Pacific with the consequence of abandoning the Atlantic and the potential fallout that would go with that. Essentially we felt the current implementation, even though it might feel it is in stronger terms than in previous releases, would play closer to the historical context and ultimately player decisions would be closer to reflecting the tough reality the UK Navy needed to endure.

And, while I'm on the subject, I dislike scripted reinforcements because there's no way to know beforehand, short of going into the editor and laboriously searching thru the scripts, to know you are getting unit X on date Y. Regular reinforcements are visible in the (ahem) reinforcement screen-just put everything there, and if a popup message is needed to tell the player why he's getting them, then that can be easily scripted. When I was playing Japan, I didn't know I'd get a crapload of special forces, so I was hurriedly building a bunch of them for my invasions, only to be given a bunch of "free" ones on top of that, such that my hard limit was like -3 after they all showed up.

There is a good point here in that we could have added an additional popup informing the Japanese player of the future unit arrivals for Op Z or simply added them to the P/Q, my mistake as this was added late in development to help Japan, but in many cases the scripted reinforcements are needed as they arrive in a specific location and again to maintain play balance as described in my earlier post.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now let us contemplate some of the issues, Singapore, PH, and the Japanese dramatic expansion early and how do we recreate it when playing with the component of hindsight. It ain't easy, but the initial surprise was just that, catching your opponent off guard, a first strike bonus...does that replicate history?

You need intelligence for that, you need to know the dispositions of your opponents forces, you need to plan according to his reactive military level of competency or so you conclude, perhaps erroneously, and still there are intangibles. Going to pretty tough for a game platform to capture all this. So...as I've said before...open it up, I love freedom......but loving and dealing with the consequences of the decisions you make....for some people are a little hard to accept....they like to deflect fault, can't fathom their inadequacies, and they exist as imperfect animals, what a paradox.

So if you open GC up, it will not play historically, it will enter another dimension, 5th, 6th, or maybe seventh, can you handle that? Be careful what you wish for!;)

Very true SeaMonkey and I hope that some of our responses convey the idea that while it may feel that the design is hampering too much, for us overall game play was definitely the ultimate goal... well here's hoping ;)

Hubert

Link to comment
Share on other sites


×
×
  • Create New...