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Indeed it is. This doesn't preclude having some specialized units in the mix, such as artillery and special forces. Back in the SC1 days, some argued strenuously not to have paratroops at all, even though they did in fact perform several corps-level vertical insertion operations with strategic significance. I'll offer some comments about my A3R. At first I did not include any of these specialized units. Later I tried them and assessed results. I didn't notice any problems, and in some respects things worked pretty well. Artillery, for example, with a strike range of 2 tiles being equal to about 60 miles is absurd on its face for WWII artillery, but represents some additional army group firepower that can be brought in for reducing fortifications and/or defensive fires. Special Forces operated in small teams and not at the division/corps scale, for sure, but allowing a couple of these weak (and expensive) units to perform coastal raids with ability to withdraw without a port presents a modest threat. In game terms, these units cannot significantly alter anything unless a defending player leaves himself wide open. IMHO, the grand strategy implications are acceptable. I'll emphasize again, as I often have, that this game is an abstraction and cannot be thought of as a simulation. Folks that argue against an air unit being able to destroy a land unit, or a special forces unit being wrong for this scale, miss the point. Do not scrutinize in too much detail what happens in a single tile during a single turn by any one unit type against another. The no-stacking and sequential attack game mechanics defy comparison with traditional wargames. Step back and review the overall results of multiple units over multiple turns. Do the overall results make sense? Just a thought.

Uh, I did in fact have to do this for all the new global variables and decision event links in the SC2-PDE scripts. What a pain! But I'll say it was worth it. Y'all may want to wait until PDE gets released. I would like to emphasize that the map scale and OOB I used are not exactly mine at all, just adapted from what John Prados developed back in the 1970s. He redid the game for Avalanche several years ago and kept the same scale but made some adjustments to the OOB. Nothing major. Prados is a sharp guy and his designer notes are excellent. I trust his judgement, which has been validated over many years of playing the game. Honch, you and others are welcome to build upon what I have done with my A3R mod. I deliberately did not use roads, railroads and other terrain; these could be added by others. Some implementation of WiF or Totaler Krieg features could be considered too. I would even encourage hardcore modders to try making their own adaptation of these other games. Starting from scratch is a nobel thought, but it's tough enough just getting a known model to work.

Well, I'd be curious to know what the right scale might be for a corps-level WWII ETO game. Third Reich had 60-mile hexes and quarterly turns. Totaler Krieg! had 60-mile hexes and 30-60 day turns. World in Flames (Europe) had 100km hexes and 60-day turns. Seems all three benchmark games had about 60-mile hexes with unit stacking allowed. With no stacking allowed in SC2, I chose to simply double the size of the Third Reich map and use 30-mile tiles. Honch started this topic to get some discussion going. I'm not trying to hijack it, just get folks to clarify what exactly they want and understand some of the pros and cons involved. So what follows is more generic. You can make any map you want, whatever scale. You want something 1.5 times bigger? Fine. What are you going to put on it?? It's one thing to take one of these benchmark games and adapt it to SC2 like I've done, but you need to keep things relative. Are you going to make the OOBs and economics 1.5x bigger too? Or are you going to start from scratch and disregard all the work that has gone on before? Again, you can do anything you want. How about playability? I know there are lots of players who love monster games like War in the Pacific that take months and months to complete. But like I mentioned earlier, bigger maps and bigger OOBs mean longer and longer games. At what point does the game stop being fun to play??

Marty, there are a bunch of SC2 mods at cmmods.com. Log in, download a file, and unzip it into the \Campaigns directory. There should be a campaign.cgn file and _campaign sub-directory for each mod, just like you see for the default campaigns.

Alright, and what might this smaller scale FALL WEISS with corps units have that my A3R mod for SC2-WaW doesn't already have now? Even so, the major comment I often hear is how much longer it takes to play and how much slower the AI is. More map plus more units means more to do. Division level scale for entire ETO would be worse. I welcome players to try out my mod. Offer comments and suggestions for improvement. Take my mod and make your own adjustments, I don't care. I realize many players may prefer more research options; go for it. Anyways, it's out there right now for anyone interested. I am currently updating A3R to SC2-PDE. The new decision events, global variables and improved AI are nice. So rather than start from scratch, what could be done with A3R to pump up the excitement level a notch or two??

Let's put free AI units in perspective. I'll speak of my A3R mod scripting since I'm most familiar with what I've done and why. Reason #1 is to offset the randomness of the purchase scripts and other scripts. For example, Germany needs to build some tanks after Poland but not too many. Scripting a tank helps ensure some additional tanks are available for taking on France. Axis needs to get some firepower to North Africa, so scripting a few units for Libya doesn't hurt. Allies already have scripted arrivals for ANZAC and South Africans. Reason #2 is to offset those occassional stupid things the AI still does. The AI is pretty aggressive and often sends units on suicidal penetrations which results in unnecessary losses that a human player generally wouldn't risk. Also, things like transport scripts don't scrutinize unit types for missions. So I've seen German panzers sent to Norway where they sit idle for an entire game. For me, I am not giving the AI "free" units just to be impossible. I see it as a handicap to compensate for observed AI weaknesses, and hopefully result in better balance. Even so, something like Intermediate +1 difficulty is needed for a fairly balanced game, and higher difficulty levels should result in a much tougher game. The default campaigns provide AI handicaps for the same reasons. It has to be done, since it is impossible to program the AI to "think" and be brilliant. Regardless, the point of the game - any game - is to compete under given conditions and ideally each side has a 50-50 chance of winning or losing. Every player is different, so they each have to find the difficulty level right for them.

This does prompt a question. The AI has definitely been improving over the years, despite the hoard of AI naysayers who cannot possibly imagine a challenging computer opponent. The AI in SC2-PDE has some additional upgrades to improve performance, so watch out. New Event and AI scripting, plus experience gained by scenario developers for writing clever and complex scripts, means that the SC2 series is reaching an important milestone where the AI is in fact "competent." Fine-tuned to be a modest challenge on default difficulty levels, it could actually become nearly impossible to beat on the highest difficulty levels. So. Should the AI be beatable at even the highest difficulty levels, just to satisfy some need to beat a dumb machine?

They do. As a unique unit type, carriers have their own CTVs. If these need some adjustments for more realism, historical accuracy or play balance, then make some specific suggestions for improvement. Or edit them yourself. Unless and until a game design change is made to allow unit stacking with separate carrier ships and carrier air groups, we'll have to deal with the current abstraction. I don't think it's so terrible for the ETO; it may be more of an issue for a PTO campaign. Regardless, that unit strength value is an abstraction of TOTAL combat effectiveness of the carrier. If unit cost should be reduced to make the carrier more reasonable, then maybe that can be adjusted. Again, at this level a strategic game like SC2 is an abstraction. It's not like a tank attack has no infantry support, or infantry attacks have no tank support. And because of the orchestration required for single sequential attacks, it's unfair to think of individual attacks as happening in isolation. What you have are groups of units operating over an abstract time period and applying their collective combat power to achieve results. Over a period of several turns, those overall results appear more believable. So watching an air or naval unit get in a kill shot on a land unit isn't a big deal.

Everyone should spend some time with the editor if for nothing else to appreciate just how complex scenario design can be, and how difficult AI development is. It is a humbling experience and puts a lot of things into perspective. Game developers deal with all this already, plus code development, graphics, interface and connectivity issues, etc. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

The Campaign Data dialog has an Advanced Game Play Options dialog. Use that to select Consummable Research chits. Main reason I selected non-consummable research was to ensure AI would keep up with economic growth and strategic warfare techs. And to compensate for all this, research is more expensive.

Yes the AI is slow in A3R, primarily because of the larger map and additional units. This is pushing the limits of the game. I can only imagine how WiF is going to play out when Matrix releases that one! Thing is, players should see this for themselves whenever they start asking for bigger maps and more units. I like the A3R scale and I generally like how the game plays out, slow or not. It's not that terribly slow, at least on my dual-core. In retrospect, a pure army level game at higher scale would definitely play out much faster than the corps level game, but you'd lose so much of the operational flavor that makes it worth playing. I question how easy this would have been in practice. Certainly there were some prototype models flying and more of these could have been produced and made operational. But converting production lines, developing training and doctrine for pilots and mechanics, and generally upgrading all the Luftflottes to jets would have taken years. In game terms, it's simply too easy to get rapid advances and then "poof" upgrade your whole fleet to the latest wonder weapon. And in play balance terms, it just doesn't feel right. But it's fun, I'll grant that. I still vividly recall one game of SC where Axis AI attacked USSR in 1941 with L5 tanks! I was scrambling, lemme tell ya.

Angus, I didn't exactly address your issues for their own sake. For my A3R mod, I adapted the old Third Reich game to SC2-WaW as best I could. Anyone who played and enjoyed the board game has some bias toward how an ETO grand strategy game should play out. Hubert's decisions for the SC series are based on a different perspective, and he's been successful with his balance between fun and playability. Those coming into SC with a 3R or WiF background, or perhaps Totaler Krieg or other games, are generally looking for more realism and historical accuracy. Seeing Germans getting L5 jets in 1942 and such may be "fun" for many, but its downright annoying for others. Third Reich was never a perfected game system to begin with, hence all of its evolutions through Advanced Third Reich and now A World At War with multiple editions. But the basic 3R OOBs, map, and economics retain their charm and that's what I used. All I can say is check it out at cmmods.com, review my pdf designer notes, play it some, and come to your own conclusions.

Unit types, their unique abilities, and their specific research areas are hardcoded. You can edit names, bitmaps and CTV values, but you just cannot make apples into oranges.

Who's "standard"? What you may want, somebody else may not. Hubert has defined a pretty good standard with the default campaigns. There have been some adjustments over the years since SC first appeared. Still, the default campaigns have retained a nice balance for both fun and playability. Have you tried my A3R mod by chance? The standard unit is the corps, but there are nationality differences and costs are scaled accordingly. German 3-3 infantry versus Russian 2-3 infantry, etc. Cheap replacement corps of 1-3 infantry are also available. Much of what you are asking for is already available...

The game already provides corps, army, paratroop, anti-tank, and engineer unit types which can all be customized as various infantry types. You can futher customize any unit as elite by providing it tech upgrades, elite reinforcements and HQ support. Another tank unit type for either light armor, mech infantry or armored cav would be urgent than another infantry slot.

Most all of the scripts have evolved through patches to SC2 and for SC2-WaW. The manual that came with SC2 summarized all the event scripts for the release version. Most of these are still the same, but some have been adjusted and some new ones added for WaW. It's just a royal pain to try to keep up with all these for documentation, believe me.

It is correct. The build limits can be temporarily exceeded by arrivals per unit event script.

Most all of the event scripts are described in the SC2 manual. Some of these have been adjusted in the various patches, and SC2-WaW has added some new ones.

Beer "gebraut nach dem deutschen Reinheitsgebot" is better.

Beer is proof that God wants us to be happy.

I don't think of it as the British crown moving to Cairo. In game terms, it represents the continued resistance of the Commonwealth with emphasis on defense of the Middle East. Cairo was the base of operations. By moving the "capital" to Cairo, UK/Commonwealth remains in the game, supply is enhanced for defenders there, and reinforcements arrive directly rather than have to be transported in from Canada. If Allied player cannot hold on despite these advantages, then Allied cause is pretty well sunk. I'm not sure if a second surrender event would work to move the UK government to Ottawa if Cairo falls. That would keep the Commonwealth in the game even if Europe is lost.

No, the idea was simply to restrict units from the full auto function. Intercept really means no escort, and escort means no intercept. Grounded of course means don't do either. The game considers all eligible units for intercepts and escorts and selects one according to an algorithm. Players have no control here. In retrospect, it might make sense to give priority to units specifically assigned to intercept or escort rather than all eligible units. But really the issue boils down to YOU deciding if you want particular air units eligible or intercept/escort or not, not knowing exactly what air battles they may be engaged in, and restricting them as desired.

This is for the default strategic campaigns, 1939 Fall Weiss, etc. The smaller operational campaigns assume smaller map scales. This stuff is all relative for a scenario designer. The Editor allows users to set time scales, map scales, unit sizes, etc. appropriate to whatever is being represented. That was part of the idea.

There is an editable parameter for combat variability. You can increase the current +/-1 to something higher. This applies to all combats though. It would have been nice to have a separate variable for land and naval combats, where naval engagements could have higher uncertainty.

I did the A3R mod. Powergmbh's global mod is different. Apples and oranges.