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One scripted event too much for my taste


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Hubert - nice replies. I have to admit I've campaigned against scripted reinforcements too. My copy of the game is in transit so cannot comment in detail yet. As others have indicated some decision events (as with PT) as to where to deploy reinforcements would be nice.

One of the complexities is that human players make choices both with fore knowledge and ignore politics. ANZAC sending forces to support UK in Middle East was a political necessity too (ex-colonies could not be seen to abandon UK). Ultimately I would hope to see diplomacy system include political decisions - e.g. it costs diplomatic chits or similar to make politically unpopular decisions.

On the whole I like the design decisions made (especially belligerence, improved naval and convoy and simplifying unit types down from WaW model) in this version but kind of hope you will develop the no-choice scripts (based on PT and PDE) too.

Having said that greatly looking forwards to new version and open for PBEM (ideally experienced player - having played all versions).

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...still there is a german motorcorps oviously beaming down from subspace onto the east african soil ...

Well this is "my" fault as i urged Hubert to introduce this unit. Just to mention the historic background, and explain that there's no beaming necessary:D:

This "German Motorized Company" was simply an amalgame of more or less volunteer Civils of german origin that lived before in this region ( flown from earlier Germ. East Africa and also living in Abyssinia ) as Farmers, Industrials, Capitalists, Spys or whatever, so no need of beaming.

These poor settlers and individuals where given some "armaments" slightly better than highstracks, and where more or less forced to join Axis in Abyssinia ( yes, they only could choose to be interned in british commonwealth prisons in africa, or try to defend "their" "farm"land, well a lot preferd the prisons, but quite some thougt that there my be a "way home" somehow.... ).

Aditionally an immense propaganda campaign was lauched to increase Allies fears of Axis dominance and interest in East Africa. Ridiculus but true is, that Allies inicially belived the propaganda and increased their efforts into this theatre, so finally this was the wanted effect: divert forces from other theatres.

So the idea behind this is, that you as allies are "shocked" about German Axis presence in Abyssinia ( so you reacted correcty:rolleyes: ), and that you follow exactly the expected wish: to increase your efforts there, and not concentrate on taking i.e. Tobruk or march into Rome.

Normally the engine doesn't let this unit reinforce more than Strength 4, so this is a sort of nobrainer for an Indian Commando ;).

Aditionally you can turn this script off if the settlers ther are too much of a headache. it would maybe be an idea to leave this also for higher levels only.

Aditional detail on this: Allies as well get such a "spicy" unit in form of the "Long Range Desert Group" a commando poping up in Siwa. similarly this unit never reached an important size as to be called Commando, and was poorly eauipped with some older Ford's Cars that would bareley make it through the desert, but caused quite some disgrace in Axis plannings. In this case also the "size" may be a little ahistoric, but after some debates we found if taking out both there are killed more and more "spicy - events" that make the show somehow stale.

Hope this helps and is no funkiller for players, as it was one of my dear wishes for this Campaign to have this one...

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Thanks Colin and I just want to reiterate that we are of course always open to suggestions and since this thread has many ideas and many proposals, what would be great is if anyone would like to list their main objections in order with suggested alternatives, I'd be willing to provide further context for our implementation and provide feedback on any of the new ideas. As it is now it is a little difficult to do so as the thread is a bit all over the place.

PowerGmbH also makes a good point on the units such as the German Motorized Company and we can always add this to the higher difficulty levels as needed.

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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.

Thanks for the explanation of the design process HC-there are few devs who would even deign to do what you've done in this thread, to come along and justify your design philosophy. My only remaining point on the above quoted issue is that it would be helpful to get a popup at the beginning of the game which outlines all the free units you will get, and when and where.

[Devil's Advocate mode]

On these gambits and such, which Hubert has attempted to justify-if Terif were still here he'd undoubtedly point out that taking half of the RN out of the Atlantic is an open invitation to a Sealion. We've seen this before (remember the Belgian Gambit? The Egyptian Adventure? Even the Italian Preemption?), and in each case the gambit in question came with big risks. Aside from the Sealion risk, what would really happen if the British did decide to take the Dutch oil pre Dec '41? In addition to the big hit in war entry for the US, they'd likely see a number of their colonies revolt, thus losing a lot of their overseas MPPs. Yeah it might suck for the Japanese, but the Germans would certainly benefit. Why didn't the British do this, once European Holland fell to German invaders? Were they "too nice" to think of it, or did they realize (correctly) that the cost would outweigh the benefit? Churchill's most fervent hope was to get the US fully in the war on his side, and I can't imagine him doing anything to prevent that, thus potentially hosing his country in the process under either a Sealion or a u-boat strangulation. Hell he'd probably see a vote of no-confidence and have his government fall if he did that.

I've been on the other side of the "deterministic history" thing before (oddly enough vis a vis the "automatic" Yugoslavian revolt, which I now notice isn't a given, since they came in on the Axis side in my last game). So, when I see stuff like "They use these new free [Australian] units in the Pacific potentially throwing off the balance", well, that's the risk, allowing Rommel to take Egypt, right? Again it would annoy Tojo, but them's the breaks. I guess it gets down to precisely how deterministic you consider history to be-but on numerous occasions things hinged for "want of a nail." I'd just prefer that the players make these sorts of decisions, living with the consequences, rather than have them forced on them. That's why I like panzer's 3R scenario-the variants throw some changeups to the players, forcing them to live with the unexpected.

[/DAM]

In any event we'll have a chance to see how other design philosophies play out when Al & Nupremal release their babies-I hope they are lurking here and paying attention. Perhaps Hubert's philosophy will be vindicated-perhaps not.

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Gentlemen, thank you for all your detailed answers!

These infos help (me) to understand your thought and motivations.

Even though i wouldn't agree with each and everyone, i can surely live with them.

Somehow.

Greetings from Germany

Claus

PS:

i still hope for updates, new approaches and less restrictions

;)

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Well this is "my" fault as i urged Hubert to introduce this unit. Just to mention the historic background, and explain that there's no beaming necessary:D:

This "German Motorized Company" was simply an amalgame of more or less volunteer Civils of german origin that lived before in this region ( flown from earlier Germ. East Africa and also living in Abyssinia ) as Farmers, Industrials, Capitalists, Spys or whatever, so no need of beaming.

These poor settlers and individuals where given some "armaments" slightly better than highstracks, and where more or less forced to join Axis in Abyssinia ( yes, they only could choose to be interned in british commonwealth prisons in africa, or try to defend "their" "farm"land, well a lot preferd the prisons, but quite some thougt that there my be a "way home" somehow.... ).

Aditionally an immense propaganda campaign was lauched to increase Allies fears of Axis dominance and interest in East Africa. Ridiculus but true is, that Allies inicially belived the propaganda and increased their efforts into this theatre, so finally this was the wanted effect: divert forces from other theatres.

So the idea behind this is, that you as allies are "shocked" about German Axis presence in Abyssinia ( so you reacted correcty:rolleyes: ), and that you follow exactly the expected wish: to increase your efforts there, and not concentrate on taking i.e. Tobruk or march into Rome.

Normally the engine doesn't let this unit reinforce more than Strength 4, so this is a sort of nobrainer for an Indian Commando ;).

Aditionally you can turn this script off if the settlers ther are too much of a headache. it would maybe be an idea to leave this also for higher levels only.

Aditional detail on this: Allies as well get such a "spicy" unit in form of the "Long Range Desert Group" a commando poping up in Siwa. similarly this unit never reached an important size as to be called Commando, and was poorly eauipped with some older Ford's Cars that would bareley make it through the desert, but caused quite some disgrace in Axis plannings. In this case also the "size" may be a little ahistoric, but after some debates we found if taking out both there are killed more and more "spicy - events" that make the show somehow stale.

Hope this helps and is no funkiller for players, as it was one of my dear wishes for this Campaign to have this one...

This helped a lot, and i welcome the addition, of course.

If those new movement restrictions weren't in the game, i would have simply enjoyed the additional units, as i welcome all good and new ideas.

Due to the in GC new invented movement limitations it takes so much longer to bring in troops. Anywhere. And when you reach your target, every AI unit has been brought to maximum strength. That is simply the way the AI works. I think that the smaler map, combined with the new movement limitations and restrictions rub my hair the wrong way, so that my mood is already completly down in the dumps when anything unexpected happens.

But again: i don't give up the hope that some good spirit will find somehwere time and motivation to brush GC up, let it shine the way it simply deserves it (at least in my humble eyes).

Back to PDE / PT map sizes, to hell with the new movement restrictions,

more choices, more possibilities, less rail shooter behaviour.

:)

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Got to agree with you John, if the correct force dispositions are enumerated for each power then it is up to the player to allocate them to the theaters of his choice and the consequences be damned.

Everytime I fire up a game as the Axis, you better bet I'm planning for Sealion and Barbarossa from the initial turn, scouring the map with my bombers spotting for any weakness in my opponent's deployments.

One thing about WW2, which I find a lot of people don't appreciate, is the very fine precipice the USA was perched upon about going to war and the Americans were very concerned about the use of their military to further the British Empire's territorial posessions.

Since in SC I'm considered as the supreme commander, I should have to walk a very delicate tightrope to make sure the USA eventually enters on my side, cause if they don't enter the war in a timely manner I think we all can see what a nasty opponent the Axis will present, they were bad enough as it was.

In retrospect, again me being the dictator of the country, if I was to make a few concessions in China as the Japanese, I probably could have continued receiving my oil and steel contracts from the USA for a time to really build a better military complex. Who knows, since I'm the cooperative commander, it could be a very viable strategy to double team USSR as the Axis and share in some of the German's technological advancements and concepts.

Sure its not the WW2 in the history books, but this is SC, it ain't history, its me, I'm the boss, I make the decisions and I'll live and die with the consequences....the way it should be in real life....except...for........:rolleyes:

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Crap xwood, you can't be basing your opinion of SC on the AI, of course its frustrating, its the damn AI with every conceivable advantage the designer can give to it, it cheats, expotentially, otherwise you wouldn't have an opponent.

You know if you play another person he will have to deal with the same restrictions you do. Hell, I'm constantly getting ground units blown away by CV strikes, why, because I gave the AI +2, you would never encounter a CV controlled by a human with that much experience and capability in the first three years of an SC campaign, likely never, seeing as how much damage the air component takes conducting attacks.

So far, I've really not seen anything a major drawback to the current design, just some minor things, and as I've said before, I'm sure there are adjustments coming our way

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SeaMonkey,

problem with games against real persons is that these person don't dwell within my computer.

It is complicated to play against humans. When, where, who, how long.

The AI is only and alway one doubleclick away.

The whole reason for the AI is to make a human opponent unnescessary.

As much as i would love to play only against my own brother,

he doesn't even OWN the game.

Those who own the game live often enough in a different time zone.

Sorry, but i can't judge a game only considering its multiplayer values.

In fact, those values are only a "nice to have", while no AI is an absolut showstopper.

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...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....

Coastlines can be harrassed because GC doesn't knows sea mines (even though an early axis pop up info suggest to the player to mine the enemy harbors).

quick help:

Introduce seamines, and limit with it coastal bombardements.

problem:

too many BBs and CAs fighting subs = no atlantic war.

quick help:

reduce the damage BBs and CAs can inflict on subs, or better: reduce it to zero

reduce the damage SS can do to BBs and CAs and CVs

Let SS be a weapon against convoy lines, and let DDs be the SS hunters.

If you miss the rare SS attacks against BBs, CAs and CVs: introduce optional decision events.

If the player wants one, he has to pay amount x.

If he is lucky he can decide if he wants to send a special attack sub against an enemy vessel.

If he pays, and if the odds are right (x %), he sinks vessel y.

Create tons of these decisions. Fill in blanks. Let the player buy them or ignore them. EVERYTHING GOES IF YOU WANT IT.

suggestion:

Enlarge the "neutral sea zone" concept. A neutral leaning toward the axis allows axis ships within its neutral zone, and the neutral could supply the axis ship if the neutral is leaning more than x percent toward the axis alliance. Deny the opposite alliance the neutral zone (or let her suffer the consequences).

Combine this with some kind of "malta" effect.

If singapore harbor is without a UK BB, than diplomatic shift of one or more surrounding neutral countries toward the axis.

If the UK shifts all its ships away from the north atlantic, than make the convoy lines more important toward the UK.

No convoy supplies for longer than x game turns: not enough food to feed the UK, let something BAD happen to the allied player, like UK (British Isles) begging for peace talks.

Why did i wrote all this? Because i'm sure there are more than enough ways to solve the puzzles of a true global game.

You could even rethink the whole naval concept of SC.

A solution could be to introduce strength points and task forces (container for the strenght points). isntead of the current units.

For this you would need to find a way to park strength points in a harbor until the player decides to from a new task force, to restrenght an existing task force, to dismiss a task force, or to reduce the strength of a task force.

Well, mabye this is alltogether something for SC3.

Kuuu - niiiii!

;)

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And.....crap...how am I supposed to bring a sub in and repair and upgrade? I mean with a couple of RN CV task forces off the French coast it will take 4 fighters to intercept their double attacks.

Throw in a UK bomber and now I need six...count them.... six, the whole Luftwaffe potential build Q to intercept strikes at Brest. What were those MPPs for that I allocated to upgrading Brest for a sub harbor......some safe F...ing harbor that is.:mad:

Don't go to Brest, Blackbeard, the Limeys will have you sodomized and hung up in the Harbor to starve to death, your galley will become firewood for the wenches to warm their buns on. :eek:

I want double strike air components, that means fighters and TAC, or I want an anti-air upgrade...WTF!!!.... OK...maybe this is for SC3.......KUNI!!!!:D

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I think BB/CA/CV units already are task forces-representing (kinda sorta) 2 capital ships of the corresponding type (cruiser flotilla probably half a dozen of them).

I'd love, love, a chance, as the IJN, to fight the RN while the US remains a spectator until say 1944. It will take, rough guess, about a year for Britain to get its forces in place to take the DEI. It won't have enough ground units to hold them, and the Japanese CVs would chew through their navy like crap through a goose (the British invariably got their asses kicked any time their major fleet units faced IJN ones, at least before 1944), and probably get the oil back in 6 months or so. Meanwhile Hitler, with the RN AWOL, has his way in Europe too? While it might hurt the Japanese a bit at first (remember they lose the oil anyway by mid-'41 or so), they'll be running roughshod for 2 years through the Pacific until the US finally decides (is allowed) to show up. That kind of alternate scenario would really get my blood pumping, and frankly is one of the major reasons I am attracted to these kinds of grand strategy games in the first place.

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Well John we're starting the "Open War" Block. Give us the forces of the era, the technology, the diplomatic events with the chits and the decision scripts, let the tree branch and we'll pick the fruits where they ripen.

I detest restrictions, they stifle innovation and improvisation, but that is what "they" want, for all of us to be good, equal little sheople, nobody has to deal with the anxiety of failure, remove the motivation to excel and the consequences of bad decision making, they want "Stepford" humans, the kind that are easy to control, so we won't hurt one another's feelings.

The trouble with being an "Eloi" is there's always Morlocks about.:eek:

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I've got to say. Criticism is good, but not if it's all critical....

So far, i like. I like what was before, and i like what is now.

Is this a poor release? is this a bad game?

hmmm,

I won't answer that answer that. I am not a critic. But i will say my opinion..

I have always wanted the true World War event. This is it. And I think it's good. Some of it may seem a bit WW1, at times, but no, it's not that way. It's just a smaller planet, so the tiles are tight.

I'm only into 41, having restarted three times for not getting it near right.

If you want some criticism, I will find it, but so far i haven't found cause.

They don't pay me to say this (would be kind of nice). I got what i wanted, and like it.

Global War World Two, all connected...

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I enjoy the scripted events as they bring some historical flavor to the game. It reminds me of the dual Mongol invasions that occur in the game Crusader Kings. I definitely prefer to play with scripted events on.

The unit scripted events are a bit bothersome because it does hinder strategic planning. I think a simple fix for the scripted events of extra units appearing would be to just have them be in the production queue.

I understand that there's some units that this doesn't make sense for like the invasion triggered units (e.g. British Home Guard). But for the Japanese it'd be nice to see the expeditionary units in the queue just from a planning perspective.

I know that some of these scripted units are meant to make you feel surprised and maybe mimic the historical surprise of an actual event but after I play the game once I won't really be surprised anymore and then it's just a pain to remember "Oh, in the Spring of '41 I'll get like 3 inf. units that aren't in my queue."

Putting units in the production queue that aren't dynamically event triggered for me would make everything cool with the scripted events.

This game is totally worth $45.00 is my opinion. SC2 (only discovered it in 2009) was my first Battlefront experience but I'm a customer for life now.

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Is this a poor release? is this a bad game?

Of course not, and i hope i never said anything like this here or anywhere else.

Everyone feels different, has his own opinion about anything, and a good thing that is.

I'm writing only about my perspective, my feelings, my hopes.

I hope that i wrote this as well already.

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SeaMonkey,

problem with games against real persons is that these person don't dwell within my computer.

It is complicated to play against humans. When, where, who, how long.

The AI is only and alway one doubleclick away.

The whole reason for the AI is to make a human opponent unnescessary.

As much as i would love to play only against my own brother,

he doesn't even OWN the game.

Those who own the game live often enough in a different time zone.

Sorry, but i can't judge a game only considering its multiplayer values.

In fact, those values are only a "nice to have", while no AI is an absolut showstopper.

Right on xwormwood about the AI, this may be wrong but playing the AI is the only way I have ever played, tried PBEM once with GW playing Matrix's TOW and it was just alright, not great too long between moves and that causes loss of concentration. If you are familiar with the construction of MWIF at Matrix you would know that they had a vote by all posters on whether to have an AI or not and I think about 75% of the posters said no AI no sale. This sort of astounded the programmers because most of the posters were board game players, and because they play in their living rooms or dining rooms with each other they of course never had the need for an AI.

So this set the construction back for a year or two. The AI here is just adequate in my estimation, what irks me to no end is the AI sending units into combat with no hope of beating the human opponet time after time after time. Hopefully Hubert will beef up the AI but I doubt it because I dont believe that in my lifetime there will ever be a breakthrough with the AI, nothing against Hubert I just feel it is an impossible task.

Bo

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Bo, i agree.

And i have no problem if the AI gets some help to offer at least some kind of challenge against the human player.

It would be nice though if the game would tell me more about this help, something like "Due to your cunning warfare, Hitler seems it nescessary to send Rommel toward africa. Our local spies at Benghazi indicate that he brought a panzer unit, a tac air and two corps with him. "

This way i would know that

a) these reinforcements won't be there for me if I would play the axis, as they were only sent as a direct result of MY cunning (cough, cough) actions

B) i need to REACT somehow against this REAL thread (often infos pop up just to give me some historical or cultural background information, which i absolutly love, btw.)

The game could even ask me now (this would be a brilliant moment to do so) if i want to put those australian reinforcement aside as a strategic reserve (now i would know and understand why they arrive in africa, i wouldn't felt cheated out of a decision).

Those little adjustments wouldn't be an impossible task, correct?

;)

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Yes, this was true until the Admiral Graf Spee, a single CA, hit GC as a strength 8 Naval Unit.

Well i admit that a Strength 8 seems a little stong, like Darth Vader's Death-Star, but i don't know if the general public would have been happy with the other Options:

1) Skip

2) Strength 1 Unit

so you simply must belive that Graf Spee with the Altmark where a (small) "group"...

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Thanks for the explanation of the design process HC-there are few devs who would even deign to do what you've done in this thread, to come along and justify your design philosophy. My only remaining point on the above quoted issue is that it would be helpful to get a popup at the beginning of the game which outlines all the free units you will get, and when and where.

Thank you and regarding the free units it is unfortunately a little unpractical. Don't get me wrong I can understand the feeling but there are simply too many of these to have popups warning you of their future arrivals. This is really no different then what we had in previous releases, i.e. there are just more of them in this release but one thing I could possibly add are some notes in future releases in the manual describing these free units a bit more in detail. Even still this is a slippery slope as the same could be said for many of the other game events that only trigger depending on player action and so on. For example, in earlier releases we had the Siberian reserves for the USSR and again these only triggered if the Axis player advanced far enough into Russia and so on. My guess is that after a few games these will not be as surprising and more or less expected much like the Siberian reserves were in the older games.

On these gambits and such, which Hubert has attempted to justify-if Terif were still here he'd undoubtedly point out that taking half of the RN out of the Atlantic is an open invitation to a Sealion. We've seen this before (remember the Belgian Gambit? The Egyptian Adventure? Even the Italian Preemption?), and in each case the gambit in question came with big risks.

Actually I agree and that was my entire point. As it stands now, i.e. with the current setup those are exactly the risks you run if you decide as the British to aggressively move your naval units towards the Pacific in the early game.

If on the other hand we simply gave the UK player all their naval units, as xwormwood suggested, whether it was on the map or on the P/Q (remember P/Q units arrive at the UK in the Atlantic) and let them decide where to send them, then you potentially have one of three situations.

1) They split their forces accordingly between the Atlantic and Pacific

2) They keep them all in the Atlantic throwing off the balance there

3) They send them all to the Pacific throwing off the balance in the Pacific

True there are pros and cons to any of these decisions but like I mentioned numbers 2 and 3 just had too many exploitations because a player could easily dominate in the Atlantic and once Germany is dealt with shift their focus to the Pacific which is entirely possible because the UK is not at war in the Pacific until late 1941 in most cases. Then if you have active minors in the Pacific why not just DoW Japan as the UK in the early game because it is really easy to do so and then the game just doesn't play well at all at that point. It is essentially unbalanced and not historical anymore. Like I said we tried many of these setups and none of them worked which is why we settled with the current setup.

Aside from the Sealion risk, what would really happen if the British did decide to take the Dutch oil pre Dec '41? In addition to the big hit in war entry for the US, they'd likely see a number of their colonies revolt, thus losing a lot of their overseas MPPs. Yeah it might suck for the Japanese, but the Germans would certainly benefit. Why didn't the British do this, once European Holland fell to German invaders? Were they "too nice" to think of it, or did they realize (correctly) that the cost would outweigh the benefit? Churchill's most fervent hope was to get the US fully in the war on his side, and I can't imagine him doing anything to prevent that, thus potentially hosing his country in the process under either a Sealion or a u-boat strangulation. Hell he'd probably see a vote of no-confidence and have his government fall if he did that.

I'd say you are not too far off at all with this assessment and keeping in mind game mechanics and what we can and cannot do, much of what you have outlined above is what we actually have in place.

As it stands now and as mentioned previously, taking the DEI before Japan can take it REALLY hurts Japan and it is in most cases game over for Japan. Remember we are balancing the game for the AI and Multiplayer and by having Neutral Pacific minors for the UK it allows us to control their entry and penalize the UK for aggressive action in the Pacific prior to Japan waging all out war there. We also lower the US entry into the war as well as provide a longer oil trade from the US to Japan than what happened historically. These elements combined with the increased difficulty factor for the UK to take the DEI, i.e. if it doesn't have access to their additional minor units in the Pacific thus risking the Home Island and North Africa really balance it out. Now it is a gambit as otherwise it would not have been. We were just waiting for players to figure this one out but since the discussion started on the implementation of the Pacific we unfortunately felt the need to describe this fully (much of the design revolves around this gambit and any other a-historical strikes by the UK in this theater) and that is a bit too bad but it would have come to this eventually.

Remember a part of the big problem is that while Japan is at war only with China the UK is at war with Germany and there is nothing rules wise from it pre-emptively attacking Japan because it has the option to do so. We really needed to make sure that if it did, there were true pros and cons and while that might not immediately be apparent in the initial setup, I suspect the more you look at the map and the potential strategies that would have existed if we set it up any differently you would soon enough come to the same conlcusion that active UK minors in the Pacific or the option to fully control your fleet simply wouldn't work balance wise.

I've been on the other side of the "deterministic history" thing before (oddly enough vis a vis the "automatic" Yugoslavian revolt, which I now notice isn't a given, since they came in on the Axis side in my last game). So, when I see stuff like "They use these new free [Australian] units in the Pacific potentially throwing off the balance", well, that's the risk, allowing Rommel to take Egypt, right? Again it would annoy Tojo, but them's the breaks. I guess it gets down to precisely how deterministic you consider history to be-but on numerous occasions things hinged for "want of a nail." I'd just prefer that the players make these sorts of decisions, living with the consequences, rather than have them forced on them. That's why I like panzer's 3R scenario-the variants throw some changeups to the players, forcing them to live with the unexpected.

I guess I would just say that a single theater is much easier to balance but like I said above when you have active combatants that can declare war on each other at any time you really need to think about the pros and cons much more carefully. All this is saying is that just like Germany that can declare war on the USSR at any time, the UK in the Global game has the same power regarding Japan even if it never happened historically.

Again, the problem with the Australian units is not so much as to remove control or to annoy Tojo, but more about not killing the game because with those additional units the UK can take the DEI risk free... now there is a risk and those Australian units only appear if Rommel presses hard enough etc.

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I've got to say. Criticism is good, but not if it's all critical....

So far, i like. I like what was before, and i like what is now.

Is this a poor release? is this a bad game?

hmmm,

I won't answer that answer that. I am not a critic. But i will say my opinion..

I have always wanted the true World War event. This is it. And I think it's good. Some of it may seem a bit WW1, at times, but no, it's not that way. It's just a smaller planet, so the tiles are tight.

I'm only into 41, having restarted three times for not getting it near right.

If you want some criticism, I will find it, but so far i haven't found cause.

They don't pay me to say this (would be kind of nice). I got what i wanted, and like it.

Global War World Two, all connected...

Thanks Brian, much appreciated :)

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Well i admit that a Strength 8 seems a little stong, like Darth Vader's Death-Star, but i don't know if the general public would have been happy with the other Options:

1) Skip

2) Strength 1 Unit

so you simply must belive that Graf Spee with the Altmark where a (small) "group"...

Skipping wouldn't have been my choice as well, no, i am truly glad that the Graf Spee was in the game. I would have cried out loud if i wouldn't have had the ship in the game, i know myself. ;)

But instead of strength 1, what about a 3, a 4, or a 5?

With strength 4 or 5, you could alway still explain that a strength 10 unit is a group out of 2 or 3 CAs with escorts. That would be fitting better within the game design, the previous explained numbers.

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