Wolfe

Yeah, I think I was wrong about this one. Thanks for the correction! - Chris

Ok. A few relationships I've noticed. As Axis (on default settings in the '39 campaign): * Some success in France will bring the Italians into the Axis camp. * Declaring war on Vichy France annoys the US more than the Soviets. * Declare war on USA, Baltics, or Turkey and Russia will throw a tizzy fit (30 or more points added to war readiness). * Declare war on Russia and the USA throws a tizzy fit (same 30 or so points). * Declaring war on Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, or Bulgaria will hike the USA's war readiness by ~10-15 points. * Invading Yugoslavia and having Axis troops nearby helps encourage Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania to sign up to the Axis cause. * Setting one foot onto Russian soil seems to bring in the Finns most of the time. * Declaring war on Spain will all but guarantee Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Finland will not join the Axis voluntarily. And vice-versa. * Invade England with some success and Russia will increase its war readiness rapidly. USA too, I believe. - Chris [ August 18, 2002, 08:59 PM: Message edited by: Wolfe ]

Or maybe the game can be tweaked from what it is now: allow MPPs to continue to flow so long as one or more of the potential capitals can trace paths to the various resources. So the USSR would have Moscow, Leningrad, and the Urals as MPP trade routes. If one is cut-off, the others keep on going. I think this could have a similar effect as tracing it to the Urals, but may work better in the current engine? Same for England: they would get London and Manchester. [Edit:] Is Stalingrad a potential capital in the game? If not, maybe Stalingrad should also be an MPP route to prevent the German player simply going south of Moscow and cutting off all 3 Capitals. - Chris [ August 18, 2002, 12:58 PM: Message edited by: Wolfe ]

More new info and a few new screenies: Infantry Sounds Optics in CMBB: How are They Better? CDV Screenshots CMBB: Is there an End-Turn randomizer? - Chris

:cool: Thanks Hubert. The feature requests and suggestions never end, do they? - Chris

Does anyone know what Eastern Poland in the Editor does? I can never seem to get it to do anything. Is this solely part of the game's mechanics and can't be adjusted? Any hope of a patch that doesn't require Germany/Poland/England to be active at the start of a campaign? Is there anyway to undo an activation? Setting Neutral tiles only seem to be there to prevent units from moving onto them. Is this correct? I tried activating Poland, deleting all the units and making it neutral, but at the beginning of the game Poland simply surrendered to 'Neutral'. Which is a bit odd. And this prevents anyone from declaring war on them since they're already at war, so you can't move through those hexes. If I set a unit's entrenchment value, then move the unit in the editor to another location it keeps its former entrenchment value. When playing the game I'm seeing AI landing craft that, when sitting next to one of my subs, always runs directly into the sub, damaging or destroying itself. (It gets the Surprise Enemy Contact even though it was right next to the sub). Is this supposed to happen? Also, the Save Campaign before Exiting dialogue always pops up when I quit the editor even when I've just saved the file. Any chance of changing this? Thanks! - Chris

And the clouds parted, the Earth trembled, the animals cowered, and a BONE Emerged!!!! - Chris

New screenshots! Computer and Video Games Interview CDV Screenies - Chris

If you can't see the larger pics, try these links: T-34/76D (hex turret) PaK38 AT gun Brummbaer early Romanian 35R 731(f) and PzJaeger I (4.7cm PaK(t) auf Pzkfw IB) sIG33 - Chris

Some good suggestions for victory conditions by Bill Macon: Victory Conditions for Germany - Chris [ August 02, 2002, 10:25 PM: Message edited by: Wolfe ]

What I meant was you've got to be sick to take this on. Hmmm. Guess that didn't go over like I thought. Sorry 'bout that. YGM. - Chris

Me too, especially if the General loses all his experience points once he goes back into the pool. I also like the idea suggested in another thread of not knowing what General you will get when you buy one. So you would buy a General at a set price and the game will randomly assign one to you. You might end up with Manstein or you might end up with Leeb. Life is like a box of Generals ... you never know what you're gonna get. [Monty Python]Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.[/Monty Python] - Chris

As the guy who created the original Mods list (and gave it to Manx 'cause I didn't wanna have to keep up with it), all I have to say is: [Ren and Stimpy]You sick little monkey!!![/Ren and Stimpy] But we love you for it anyway. Many thanks for a job well done! - Chris

That's a possibility: releasing a series of campaigns, but I'm not sure how much replay value each would have. One of the strongest draws of SC is the multitude of strategies you can choose to try to reduce your opponent's MPPs while building your own up. Do I attack Yugo and Sweden or go straight into Russia? What about the Med first? Or maybe England instead? I don't know if a stand-alone scenario (if that's what you were suggesting) or series of them would sell. Yeah, I think that 50km might be about the smallest hex you would want. I originally tried making a map at 25km. Yikes! :eek: Talk about huge. Another suggestion for a new game: When a major enters the war, it's production shouldn't necessarily be at max. Start the cities and ports at -say- half their max value, and build up from there. - Chris

I really do love the current game. Honest. But aside from the reasons I listed above, one of the main reasons I think that resizing the hexes is important for a future SC engine is the Eastern Front seems, well, small at this scale. I really don't get a feel for its vastness. Going from Leningrad down to Odessa is 14 hexes. At 50km/hex it would be ~30 hexes. A map I played around with a couple weeks ago: England USSR Map 50km (500KB) Sorry for the large size. It's ~1500km from Leningrad to Odessa. At 50km per hex the true size of Russia really starts to come into focus. As it is now, you march into western Russia with one large force instead of distinct Army Groups with different objectives. Invading Russia with a couple dozen units doesn't fully reflect the enormous undertaking that Barbarossa was, IMO. Also, naval movement in SC is very close-quarter. The ocean is a vast empty space. But it's much too easy to encounter enemy vessels on the high seas in the game. More hexes would significantly reduce the numbers of these encounters. I do realize the danger of making the game too "big" with too many units to have to deal with (or too groggy with details). But for an invasion of the SU, I usually go at it with about 25~30 units total. If this were to -say- double, I don't think this will become unmanageable. Even if you were fighting on multiple continents simultaneously. Besides, the fighting on the Eastern front is the worst case in terms of number of units. Other theaters would be much smaller. Though I do concede that Bill and others are right: the play-a-war-in-one-evening would probably be lost with a smaller hex scale. But I do believe the added detail would provide a great deal of richness and replayability to the game. Including allowing smaller regional wars to be constructed (e.g. a Russo-Japanese only conflict). Which could be done in an evening. BTW, unfortunately I don't believe that a PTO theater is really possible with the current engine; the distances are simply too large to fit onto the current map. My $0.02 - Chris

Yeah, Im definitely in the more detailed camp. Though the simple gameplay really does suck you in to the game. I'm not sure if Hubert really wants to take suggestions for a newer version of SC right at this time, but ... A few humble suggestions for a great game. * Consistent 1-week or even 5-day turns per year. Winter can be simulated by changing the tiles, and wouldn't affect every hex on the map. * 50km hexes. This would allow more freedom of movement as well as the inclusion of more cities and ports, but not get so small that infantry divisions would be required. * If hex size shrinks substantially, make max size Inf unit a Corps and armored unit a Tank Corps. If this happens, HQs would have to be able to command more than 5 units, however. * Supply and readiness values displayed on the unit chit as a colored dot (green=good, red=bad) TOAW-style. * Full world map with the Earth displayed as a cool 3D hex globe. * New, more subtle terrain features: hills which don't kill movement like mountains and provide a decent defensive value. Desert: allows a bit more movement. Plains (US, USSR): allows easier movement like the desert. * More control over unit movement; be able to move units multiple times per turn until movement points are exhausted. Though I'm not sure how to fix spotting if this is changed (you would be able to move slowly, one hex at a time, eliminating surprise encounters). But I would like to be able to have more control over the movement path in some circumstances. One idea may be to allow you to set one (and only one) waypoint in the middle of the movement path so you would have better control. * Disconnect city population from production. It's population could have an impact on its production, but having two separate numbers for each city/port would allow for more variety (e.g. the production centers could be badly damaged in continuing bombing raids, but the population could be left relatively unhurt, and vice-versa). The City's population could also have a small role in its defensive value (add -say- 10% to the defensive value of a city). So larger cities would be slightly better defended. * Cities that have more varied MPP values. Every city isn't a '10'. Some are much larger, and some smaller. More variety can remove a lot of gaminess as it complicates the "Perfect Strategy" that so many strive for in a strategic game like this. Even have cities which have a population, but no production value. * FOW for MPP values for cities/ports. You might have some idea that Stalingrad is a large industrialized city, but wouldn't necessarily know what its MPP value really is. * Slower recovery of production for cities/ports that are bombed severely. * Cities/ports which are bombed back to 0 must have an influx of MPPs to get them started again. * The ability to re-locate industry from one city to another. Would only be allowed for a part of the city's industry (say 50% max) and would be very inefficient (large part of the industrial capacity would be lost in the transfer, especially if moving from a large city to a small one), but could save some industry in larger cities from being totally eliminated. * Disconnect attack and defend values for units from its size, especially for naval units. So you could have a carrier that, when attacking an enemy can lose all its offensive capabilities (all it's planes lost), but still be in fine shape defensive-wise (you would have a toothless, but still usable unit). The carrier would return to port (or a hex near to one) to be re-planed. This would also be pertinent for battleships as their guns could be destroyed in battle, but the ship still be in good shape. If it's defensive value is hurt, however, it would have to dock in a port to be re-fit. A naval unit that has fallen below a certain level (say half), would have to spend even more time in port (multiple turns) to be refit. Having different attack and defend values also allows technology upgrades (like jet aircraft) to only affect the offensive side of the unit, so a carrier wouldn't gain defensive strength from an upgrade in Long Range Aircraft tech. * Ability to see (and cycle through) different attack/defend numbers for all units. So if I hit 'Shift-N' (or something), both the attack and defend numbers for all units is displayed on the unit at the bottom left (attack) and right (defend) hand corners of the unit graphic. Cycle through infantry, tank, air, and naval attack/defend values. * Different size units. Subs don't need to be a '10', and larger battleships (Yamato, etc.) could have more substantial values. Russian vs. German infantry corps had different strengths and weaknesses. German old division format was different than new division. And Soviet Rifles division vs. Guards division too. * Allow pocket battleships and smaller, less powerful carriers. * All battleships and carriers have to have historical names (like HQs currently), limiting their maximum number. * Reduce spotting abilities for fighters, bombers, and carriers. They can see too far into enemy territory, IMO. But give carriers the ability to do two reconnaissance sorties every turn to scout for enemy units. * Concerning subs, I'd really like to see it used less as a combat unit. So surface ships without tech upgrades would only have -say- a 5% chance of detecting the sub when it moved next to one (and if the game engine allows enemy units to stack, only a ~10% chance of detection if it strays into a sub's hex). And not all movement should result in a 'surprise' because this gives away the position of the unit that isn't moving. For the most part, for a sub to become engaged in combat it should have to be directed to attack by the player. I'd also like to see the amount of damage a sub can do reduced significantly, but allow it occasionally to completely annihilate an enemy naval combat unit in one shot, simulating a good shot against the capital ship. * The ability to retreat when attacked, but with the chance of evaporating when it happens. Not trying to turn this into TOAW, but units die a bit quickly, IMO. * Chance the attacker may move forward into the attacked hex. * Units completely surrounded that actually surrender (under certain circumstances) rather than having to be beaten down to nothing. * Enemy ground units that are destroyed when attacked could add a small amount of MPPs to the attacking side to emulate captured stuff. * Stacking of naval units (up to 6 or so) to allow more freedom of movement in ports and the creation of task forces. Could have Carrier, Battleship, and Escort task forces where the "lead" vessel(s) of the task force is better protected from attack by the other units. Once the units are stacked and formed into a task force, they would still be able to move individually or as a task force (so two types of movement). * Automatic coastal defense which will lightly attack landing craft/naval units moving along the coast. Would not be an actual unit, but just attempt to hit the defensive value of an enemy vessel next to a land hex. Could be higher for some countries (Sweden) than others. * Likewise, an automatic attack on ships moving within range of an enemy air unit. Doesn't generally do much damage, but will tend to keep enemy navys at a distance. This attack would not hurt the air unit, but it would "encourage" an attacking player to deal with enemy air power before attempting a landing. Or generally avoid getting too close to some coastlines. * Except for tank/mechanized units, attacking after movement imparts a penalty on the attacker for disorganization. (Not sure if this doesn't happen already) * When moving a ground unit that has previously attacked/been-attacked-by an adjacent enemy unit, there could be a chance the moving unit takes a small disengagement hit or loses movement points. * Why do only moving units get surprised? Shouldn't sometimes the defending unit be on the short end of the surprised stick? * Ships that have the ability to flee (move one hex away from) an attack from a ground unit. * Ability of naval and air units to attack multiple times per turn depending on amount of movement left. * Ability to slowly decommission ships. Would take a number of turns; more for larger units (battleships/carriers). * Ability to play German, Japanese, or British (Allied) active participants as well as Soviet, American, Italian, or Chinese passive participants. Passive participants can slowly direct their small amount of MPPs into whatever area they choose and move units around, but they cannot attack. And they must wait to be attacked before achieving full production and being able to participate in the fighting. Could make for interesting multi-multi-player games. * Partisans should stick to their own country. And if a city is captured by Partisans, other undefended cities within the same country may revolt, forming more Partisan units, not just ones in the mountains. * When first created, Partisans could get an entrenchment bonus. * Individual hexes that change to frozen (Russian winter) or muddy (SE Asian rainy season) during different times of year that severely impedes movement (only 1 hex at a time). Or even helps movement (a frozen river hex). Light winter could slightly impede movement; heavy winter could almost eliminate it. * Ports and shallow water inlet hexes near land that can freeze during severe winter months, preventing naval movement. This would obviously have a bad effect on supply for those units. Don't get your landing craft caught in an ice flow. * Air units sitting on a winter hex would not be able to fly. * Units that don't have very high supply levels and are sitting on a "winter" hex cannot move or attack. * Have a randomization that allows winter/rainy season to be early or late so you can't exactly predict the day when your attack will stall due to weather (or begin when it breaks). Not sure if this isn't already in the game; it may be. * Heavy troop carriers (e.g. Liberty ships) that have to be built to move units across the ocean, can only dock in ports, and cannot navigate on shallow water hexes. You load infantry and tank units on the troop carrier at a port and then move the troop carrier with its new cargo to its destination. Troops can either disembark the troop carrier at a friendly port or turn into Landing Craft for a beach landing. Landing craft would still act as in SC now, but could only travel in 'Sea' or 'Shallow Water' hexes, not on 'Ocean' tiles. Makes crossing an ocean and attacking more realistic. Once the Ocean troop carriers cross the ocean and reach 'Sea' hexes, onboard units can be converted to landing craft for landing on enemy soil. * Ability to see supply levels of all friendly hexes (Shift-S or something toggles). * When click on unit, should not only be able to see max movement, but also target range (displayed as a thin black or red crosshair on the hexes within range). * Ability to create minor fortifications (e.g. Atlantic wall) that drain MPPs and is slowly constructed over time. It shouldn't be able to reach the same defensive level as normal fortifications in the game, however. And it can't be manned (doesn't give an extra defensive value) until it reaches a certain point of construction. Certain tiles (marsh, etc.) can't be built on. * Allow active and passive majors to annex some oft-disputed territories. Annexation would be different from actually declaring war. Annexation may cause fighting between two separate parties, unrelated to the overall Allied/Axis conflict. So Soviets could try to annex the Balkans or Sakhalin island causing a regional conflict between only those two nations involved. Annexation (such as German annexation of Balkans or Japanese annexation of Alaska or Sakhalin Is.) could also have a chance of bringing the parties involved into the full war, however. Also, allow Japanese annexation of Manchuria and German annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia. If a major who is involved in an annexation fight is not yet at war, it can only fight with -say- 10% of its MPPs. So if Russia is not yet in the overall conflict, the Russian player (if multiplayer) or Allied player (if 2-player or solo game) can choose to annex all of Sakhalin island, and may have to fight for it against that one adversary (if the computer decides the two sides have to fight over it) with only part of its MPPs. But it may be worth the risk for the Soviets if the Annexation works without any conflict erupting. This would make the game more complex (maybe too complex), but I think it could add some nice spice (e.g. Soviet-Finnish Winter War). The default for this option, however, should be off; not everyone will want to play with this all the time. * Also, units from passive and active majors should not be able to see each other until they are actually fighting a war. So if the Soviets are trying to annex Finland, the Japanese player would not be able to see enemy units until the two countries are involved in their own conflict or both have formally joined the wider war. And if there is only one Axis player, he/she would be able to control the Finnish troops to fight the Soviets, but his Japanese and German troops would not be able to spot enemy movement because they're not yet involved vs the Soviets themselves. * Rivers that take more movement points to cross. They don't seem as much of an obstacle right now, IMO. * Tech upgrades to military units shouldn't be announced to both sides. I'd prefer it fall under FOW. * And if FOW applies to tech research, then you could have Intelligence Reports that can sometimes report on what tech upgrades an enemy has achieved (perhaps even report incorrectly). This would add a 'spy' component to the game. * Equally, spies could also report massing of enemy troops. If, say, 5 or more enemy units are on or next to a certain city hex, spies would have a chance of reporting this fact (e.g. "Enemy troops are reported to be massing near Timbuktu."). This could have the effect (if you get a good "dice roll" on the spy report) of warning you about an impending enemy invasion. Also, spies could report on an enemy naval task force ("An enemy carrier task force was seen sailing out of Pearl Harbor") as well as report on the whereabouts of HQ units when they go into or next to a city hex ("Rommel's Headquarters was sighted near Tobruk"). It would also be cool if the spies would be wrong some of the time (e.g. report an enemy HQ near the wrong city). If there are these spy reports, a running list of what was reported would need to be kept so the player could refer back to them. I don't know that the AI would be able to use the spy reports though; it probably would be very difficult to get it to respond appropriately to them (in many cases the AI would likely over-respond), so the spy reports should probably not influence the AI's behaviour even though this would give the human player an advantage. * A running count of MPP damage inflicted by scorched earth, regular fighting (cities/mines losing MPPs when invaded), and strategic bombing. * Ability to create regional conflicts between just a few countries in the editor. So you could have a Russo-Japanese war only. All others countries would be completely neutral. Would make for some nice what-ifs and allow players to create an almost endless number of different scenarios. * Time-limited campaigns that don't necessarily end on the common Summer '46 date, so certain objectives have to be met by the new time limit. * Ability to create introductory text to give a setting for the campaign. Would need a general one, one for each side, and an end text screen so a scenario author can write in the end result of the battle (or whatever he wishes) to allow the player to compare how they did with their historic counterpart. And that's just the short version. Just kidding! - Chris

Caught me on vacation. Certainly, feel free to change my mod anyway you like. And you really didn't need to ask, atleast not me. Mods are meant to be modded, IMO. And I gave permission in the text file anyway. But thanks for asking. Politeness never goes out of style. - Chris

Caught me on vacation. Certainly, feel free to change my mod anyway you like. And you really didn't need to ask, atleast not me. Mods are meant to be modded, IMO. And I gave permission in the text file anyway. But thanks for asking. Politeness never goes out of style. - Chris

How do the fronts differ in CMBB? - Chris

The KV-1 with infantry in snow and Ferdinand are new (though they were shown by another online mag recently), but the red brick building is definitely new. Is that a damaged factory building on the left? - Chris

Games Domain Screens Ingaming Screens 5 New Screenies Percentage of Gun Hits Seems High Results of the So Cal Preview Lets Talk about Optics! QB Generator in CMBB Arty improvements in CMBB Different sub-groupings of Soviet Troops in CMBB Cavalry for CMBB? Aviation CMBB: Interview about details of European Release London Sneak Preview part Deux CMBB: Exploding T-34 Tanks? - Chris

AFV fighting and the new "Death Clock": CMBB Question about that Death Clock Improvements in sound in CMBB: Sound Effects in CMBB - Chris

Yeah, that's one of the few things I'm NOT looking forward to with the new game. 300+ vehicles! 600+ infantry and support units!!! :eek: And new categories in optics, turret crew, and cupola. Dunno how I'm gonna fit all that info in the charts. Folks may have to use a microscope to read them. - Chris

Purty new Bones! Yeah ok,, the CMBB graphics rock but umm, what's it got under the hood? Bones Thrown! - Chris

I think that there are two extreme FOW issues that can happen with killing units. One is with AFVs, you get the so-called 'Death Clock' where the AI can continue to fire at a vehicle until it sees the crew bail. Once the crew bails, it knows the enemy vehicle is dead, and switches to another target. The second is with infantry units: when their last surviving member is killed, the Dead Body graphic doesn't automatically show up unless you can confirm the kill with a nearby friendly unit. An enemy unit that has lost its last man, but hasn't been confirmed yet will give you the Last Seen icon representing the enemy unit's last known location. Either way, the TacAI will stop firing when the enemy infantry unit disappears. Atleast I believe that's how it works. Currently in CMBO when you kill a tank, it's immediately known and your tank can begin traversing it's turret even before the shell impacts the enemy vehicle! The Death Clock will stop this behavior. So the TacAI will waste some ammo at times. Sounds good to me! I love CM's various built-in quirks and occasional instances of both good and bad luck that try to emulate real-life uncertainties on battlefields. They give the game great flavor. - Chris