Bill101

Great to see you're enjoying it. Good luck in trying to change the course of history!

I'd rather have my air units just a little bit behind the front line, otherwise they would be in range of the enemy's artillery. I see your point about maximising range but a difference of one tile surely isn't worth changing the game engine for? In the normal scheme of things I think it would really be too risky to put them in the front line, even though I occasionally do when carrying out a Blitzkrieg type operation - but that's the risk I take!

Could the file name be spelt differently, only I notice that you've got it as Zukov rather than Zhukov?

I find the thought of stacking a little frightening. I know that SC is not the most realistic possible game, but it very neatly combines a strategic challenge with ease of play. Adding stacking would likely change the nature of the game a great deal, making it far closer to a serious, brain stretching, time consuming game. At the moment it is fun and no turn takes me more than 5 minutes to do, generally a lot less. I'd hate to have a turn take much longer, and I fear that stacking would have that effect. Stacking wouldn't be unrealistic, but it would add an extra dimension that could for me be a game killer.

If used passively they will just be taken out by enemy infantry and aircraft. Either put them on a place that he's aiming for with his tanks, or use them in the counter-attack role. They are virtually suicide weapons, but they can be pretty effective for counter attacks against weakened tanks, and as they are less than half the price of a Panzer it can be well worth it!

I feel a bit like that. The map looks bare without them now! It's amazing how our perceptions change as we are given more features.

I play it in 20mm, I just love all the armoured lorries and the colour and variety of all the units. The Fields of Barcelona is one of my favourite vehicles because of its smooth rounded hull, though sometimes I bring my Republican militia onto the table in a red double decker bus suitably attired with Republican slogans!

They actually were civilian lorries with machine guns and bolted-on armoured plating! It was barely bullet proof and most of them had real trouble moving off road, with break downs being rather common. The ones in the game were based on some models in my collection: The King Kong was the first armoured vehicle fitted with a revolving 360 degree turret to be produced and sent to the Durruti Column on the Aragon front in August 1936. I don't know how many of this model were actually built, I've a picture somewhere of three of them together, so it was at least more than a one-off! A little way into the war the Anarchists did produce a proper tankette type vehicle in some numbers (about 80) called the Sadurni de Noya after the factory where they were made. There were two types, one with a machine gun and another which was an artillery tractor. Pictures of both can be found here: http://www.sbhac.net/Republica/Fuerzas/Armas/Carros/Carros.htm I did consider having this as their level 1 armour but didn't have time to create a nice image based on these pictures - so opted for the T-26 and capping armour at level 1.

Hi Roger SC2 is the same as SC2 Blitzkrieg, but with this patch there's a new scenario, though I'm afraid that I can't help with your missing dll file problem. Bill

Hi Philippe Glad to see your idea for the Falangists and Carlists looks really good! Having the Falangist graphic look similar to the Carlists (apart from the background colour) would probably have any surviving Falangists spitting feathers (they detested the Carlists almost as much as the enemy) but I like it and think it works. Thanks!

It's hard to advise what diplomacy scripts you should use as it is a very difficult question. How does it play out without any? The Makhnovists are an interesting phenomenon. They did fight the Ukrainian Nationalists without any prompting from the Red Army, so I would be more inclined to have them triggered by events around them, i.e. if White forces move to point X then they will be more likely to take up arms. A place like Ekaterinberg (have I spelt that right?) could be a trigger point as they did capture that at one point. I'm looking forward to seeing this!

Do you mean to say that when you reinforce from (say) strength 10 to 11 you are actually seeing a reduction in the unit's experience level? I've not noticed that before, but if so it sounds like a wee bug. I'd suggest sending Hubert evidence of it if it is the case.

It was actually a close run thing as to who moved into/invaded Norway the first - that's why allied troops were so quick to reach Norway after the Germans invaded. Whether what you've experienced was intended or not I really don't know, but it's certainly quite funny!

In the folder for the new campaign you've made, you'll need to copy 2 files over from the Global scenario's folder. They are: campaign.ini localization.txt This should fix it for you. You'll also need to copy over these two folders as they contain the images specifically used by the Global Scenario: Bitmaps Interface [ December 11, 2007, 01:34 PM: Message edited by: Bill101 ]

No, you're (probably) perfectly sane! There's a % chance of a weather event each turn and as your turns are covering a different time period to the AI's, so you get a chance for different weather from theirs. Sometimes it can be a little frustrating, sometimes it can be great! All you can do is hope for good weather on your turns and rain on theirs.

Yes, if there's not one there then you might want to try doing it again.

I agree about China needing to be stronger. In my game against a human opponent I spent a lot of the UK's precious MPPs trying to stop the Japanese attack in China, and ended up losing both China and the UK very quickly! I still think that China should be a major in its own right, as it shouldn't be such an income drag on the UK. Or China should be worth more MPPs itself so that the UK can afford to invest in Chinese units as well as their own. One small thing I did notice is that when naval units proceed west from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean the message that pops up says that naval units are sailing to the Atlantic. Otherwise it's a great scenario!

As long as it has limited use in a game it should be ok. I think that it will partly depend on the scenarios, and partly on how sensible the players are. If victory can be brought a lot nearer by building one railroad using one engineer unit then it shouldn't be any more complicated than our current use of engineers, but if multiple railroads are required all over the map then it could be a different matter. The bridge on the river Kwai is a perfect example of a railway built for a strategic purpose - to connect Burma to Thailand.

I'm glad you like it and thanks very much for your thoughts! Funnily enough everything you've described fits fairly well with what historically happened (apart from Oviedo and the Alcazar falling, they didn't fall but were both very heavily besieged). The Nationalists actually linked up the south-west with the north in the middle of August 1936, whereas in the game they cannot do so quite as quickly unless the Republican garrisons vacate the three western cities. It does have some strategic importance, but in one of my games that was negated by my (admittedly human) opponent cutting off the eastern side of Nationalist Spain from the remainder. I will have a look at the supply situation at Saragossa (I think that's the city you mentioned), but overall it looks as though the Republican AI just needs a bit of help to co-ordinate some better offensives. A bit like in the real war!

It is possible in the editor to allow destroyed naval units to be repurchased at less than 100% cost. Land and air units are set to be repurchased at 60% of their initial cost providing their supply value was at least 5 when destroyed, perhaps destroyed naval units could be repurchased at 80%? As they do represent a whole flotilla it would be extremely unlikely for them all to be sunk, and this way it would still cost quite a large amount of MPPs to prepare them for battle again.

The thought of a battleship with level 3 or higher AA is quite frightening, and despite the existence of dedicated Anti-Aircraft cruisers and the increase in AA armaments on many types of ships throughout the war, I find it hard to believe that such a level of AA would be realistic. If it were possible to allow level 1 AA as an upgrade to all naval units (why stop at battleships?) then I'd be keener, but anything more than that seems to be overkill. Another thing is that the best defense against air attack on shipping was always having fighters of your own on hand. Although AA did do really well on occasions it also failed abysmally on others, so not too much weight should be assigned to it (same goes for fighters but air superiority or supremacy is a much better defense than more AA). On a technical note, would it be possible to allow ships to have AA level 1 while resources and AA batteries on land could have higher limits? I don't think that the engine currently allows it, but it would make me feel happier about this idea. I do like the carrier spotting idea, and I can't think of any problems with it offhand. [ December 01, 2007, 04:02 AM: Message edited by: Bill101 ]

I wouldn't worry too much about the difficulty of making a unit achieve a strength of 15, although I have done it a few times. If a player wants to keep a unit out of action for some time to reinforce it up to that level then they can, but they will have to go without using that unit for some time, so the choice is theirs. Even if at a lower strength a unit with good experience will still fight much better than a stronger unit with no experience. A 15 strong unit is indeed very strong, but 12-13 are more common and easier to achieve, particularly with air units. I actually like how things currently work as to achieve higher strength without losing quality the unit needs to have a good period of rest and extra training in the rear. Is that not accurate?

You can amend the increases that research gives. In the editor, go to: Campaign Edit Country Data Edit Research There should be a button marked "advanced" in the bottom right. Here you can amend the effect of research to a significant degree, and hopefully you'll be able to tweak it to achieve the result you're after!

Thanks, I hope you enjoy playing it as much as we did creating it! Matthew is to be congratulated for the flags, he did a grand job on them.

No, your memory serves you well! It's in the Extras folder, where there should also be a file with notes on how to use it.