Hubert Cater

corday, very glad to hear you got it working

targul, thanks for the replay and I'm sorry to hear it did not work out as well as originally hoped. Oddly enough I've heard these stories all too often and in general it is a reminder of how difficult this business is and how, for me, I really have to be careful with each business/development decision I make.

targul, I think you will like the changes and additions to SC2 Weapons and Warfare. For one the AI is much better as I have corrected many generic AI defaults as well as improved upon some of the existing framework. Additionaly the new script additions/flexibility has allowed for much more depth to the AI planning and game play. Essentially this version should play noticably much better straight out of the box than any previous version of Strategic Command as it is probably the only release that I have spent more time developing/tweaking the AI than I have working on the new features. Additionally the AI game has received a whole new set of AI ONLY scripts that not only improve game play, i.e. historical events occuring depending on the current game situation, but they also add much more atmosphere to the game... long story short I think there will be quite a few surprises here that AI players will really enjoy

Sorry to hear about the trouble. This seems to be an odd error on Vista for some reason and even here not on every computer. This is essentially a response I posted for a similar issue a while back: To resolve the issue I would try a couple of things... first make sure that the file 'dx7vb.dll' is in fact located in your SC2 installation directory as that will tell us if you have the latest version installed. If not you will have to either download the latest patch and apply it to the game. At this point, if you do in fact have the 'dx7vb.dll' file in the SC2 installation directory I would ask you to launch the game under an Administrator log in (for the first run) or at least "Run as an Administrator" by right clicking the EXE or shortcut to the game and selecting the "Run As an Administrator" option. Note, if you are not currently logged in as an Administrator it will ask you for the appropriate Administrator Username and Password. After that the game should register the 'dx7vb.dll' file and it will run smoothly after that. I just wanted to add, please disable the User Access Control (UAC) when running the game for the first time and if it launches successfully then you can re-enable it as required. Let me know if this helps, Hubert

targul, not sure why players seem so interested in Sweden as mentioned before it does not generally give you much benefit as the collected MPP is the same occupied or not but we do have a few scripts in place that affect the US, Finland and Switzerland (I believe). Actually this is already in place for many of the minors, i.e. if you invade Spain as Axis it will have a negative effect on Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania as you've mentioned. Often it is just the timing, i.e. some players will wait until these 3 are on board and/or the US is in and then go for Spain. At that point it is difficult to impose a penalty but there are some things you can do like beefing up Spain just slightly as previously mentioned. I agree and that is probably the best solution. At the moment I am asking the testers to give me exactly this kind of feedback so we can adjust the problem areas as needed Thank you and I'm positive you will even enjoy the next one more as I've made a few key improvements and not to mention script adjustments that have so far greatly enhanced the AI experience in SC2 WaW... well that is what the testers keep telling me and I'm inclined to believe them Two small items though with the AI. It very rarely invades Algeria and in about the 2 dozens games I have played against it so far only once did it invade Italy. I appears if the AI has not captured Tipolli by mid 42 that it ignores the med and invades either Portugal or France. There maybe good reason the AI acts this way but I do miss my Italian campaign and the battles in Africa. If that date where the AI appears to be redirect its movement could be moved to late 42 with an invasion of Algeria planned in mid 42 it would perform more in line. Thanks and good points... I've addressed some of this already and will continue to make adjustments as even testing has brought up some similar areas.

Initially SC1 was a little project I wanted to do before I went out looking for a real job. I started coding it when I was 26 right when I finished university and figured even if it didn't sell it might look good on a resume. That was the time to plunge in and take the risk because I figured after that life would get too busy and much riskier especially when you buy a house, get married and have kids... first one on the way btw so I am pretty excited about that. Inspiration of course came from Panzer General, Clash of Steel and Axis and Allies. My main focus was to sort of create a cross between the three, streamline the game play and of course the interface. Nowadays this sort of sounds like a familiar story but of course this was the first game to do this so I'll let it speak for itself That and a few unique features such as having HQs work as supply wagons etc., give and gain experience bonuses and a few others and the game was born. Truth is it was very low budget, first game all the code, layout and graphics were done by myself... with sounds, and a few touch ups to the look before it was published so I never really expected it to do well but it seemed to have hit a nerve within the community and lucky for me just enough to hide in my office and work on SC2. For surprises, generally it was the length of the project... being my first game I never expected it to take quite as long as it did and even now I am still learning that things often take much longer than you expect them to. That and having players enjoy the game so much is always a nice surprise Well I am equally impressed by both you and targul, you never know when you are surrounded by so many "brothers in arms" so to speak.

Btw, what is the link to your game? I'd be interested to check it out when I have a chance.

Barely mind you and I'm sure with your experience you can relate... many don't realize just how tough it is to sell in this market and to make a living and in the end if I had a regular job I'd probably be making more especially when you factor in the development time and loss of revenue between projects. Luckily I love what I do and make just enough to get by, that and having a supportive wife who helps to pay the bills between games is a definite plus

targul, this would be ideal and I think everyone would very much enjoy debates such as these, especially within the context of the game... I think the problem is it usually quickly deteriorates into unpleasantries and that is when I usually step in to try and remind everyone why we are all here. As you point out and as I've often mentioned before, if it is kept civilized there is never any issue.

borsook, interesting idea but unfortunately probably not for initial release... once things settle down a bit I can think about adding in more features as needed.

ev, I can't promise any changes to the map as we are pretty far along but I'd still be interested in seeing what you've got, send to info@furysoftware.com Hubert

John, Actually the US/Canada is rendered to the map at probably 75% it's full size relative to Europe so that is why it is simply centered as a best fit in game. Off hand though I thought about enlarging the US but since the focus is still mostly on Europe it is just left as is... but maybe for another game a larger US map would be more justified

I believe the current PDF manual is up to date, it is with the latest patch IIRC at v1.05 but that is only because the changes for v1.06 did not warrant an update as it was mostly bug fixes and/or AI enhancements. For SC2 WaW there will of course be updated documentation.

The plan for rail is that if selected as the primary Operation method via the Editor setting, then it will also affect supply between cities as you have outlined. No plan for a repair mechanism but in some cases it won't be necessary since each city is a rail hub, and in Russia for example, under Scorched Earth the Germans will have to wait for the city to return to strength >= 5 before they have any use of it. Should play out quite nicely

We have been adding in more sound effects and with the new #IMAGE and #SOUND tags you can essentially add images and sounds to any of the scripted events, which by the way is a nice feature for adding atmosphere to the game

Minty, just enough to etch out a living but of course in terms of overall numbers, never enough

Thanks guys, I'm glad you like the game

Just wanted to add while I can appreciate healthy debates, can everyone, and I mean everyone , leave the political and religious stuff out of this forum. Please no more anti-USA, pro-USA, anti-Europe, pro-Europe or whatever, has no place here and never will. Take it outside

Thanks for the feedback targul and I just wanted to give a slightly better follow up as I have a few free moments. What we tried to do with SC2 was take into account as many variations of game play as possible and couple this with penalties/consequences that in the end force the player to strike a balance between strategy vs. penalty all within a historical context... well as close as possible For example an overly aggressive Axis player prior to US and Soviet entry is penalized by an increase in US/Soviet activation and as a result this can cause these countries to enter early and/or have an increase in available MPP (and in turn increased production etc.) during their neutrality that usually counterbalances the earlier Axis gains. Granted after the US and Soviet Union enter the war these types of penalties no longer apply but there are of course other considerations. Using Sweden for example, an Axis player may invade Sweden but this has to balanced out with the cost of invasion, i.e. Amphibious Transport in and Transport or Operational Movement out, plus replacement of combat losses for any plundering gains. In terms of extra MPP after invasion in most cases this is non-existant as this was taken into account via the convoy system, i.e. an Axis occupied Sweden does not give the Axis player any more MPP than what he would normally gain through convoy. If you connect Sweden to Germany via Finland you will increase the convoy slightly but only 60% of 80% efficiency rather than 60% of 50% efficiency so again the pros vs. cons need to be weighed out. For countries like Spain, while Germany never did invade historically there were many reasons why it may have wanted to and mostly to simply get at Gibraltar. For SC2 WaW we have beefed up Spain just slightly to make it a bit more difficult for the Axis player but I think the option to leave it there is still preferable. There are suggestions to throw certain countries automatically into the opposing players camp and it is something I am thinking about but even here we need to be careful. Using the Portual example, is it a good idea to always throw Spain towards the Axis 100% if the Allies invade Lisbon? Maybe yes, maybe no but as a result it might limit these types of strategies if players know what will happen, exactly mind you, each time they try a particular manouver. If on the other hand Spain will join 50% of the time what is stopping someone from repeating the invasion until they get the favourable result? The system I would lean towards is to simply increase the activation the right amount that perhaps further diplomacy is all that is needed to throw a country one way or the other. In the end who is to say really what is exactly historical and what is not, sure there are extremes but for example in the real war Germany didn' have to invade Sweden, but perhaps in game there might be a reason to, i.e. Allies successfully pre-empt Norway leaving the Axis little choice in order to protect their convoys. I agree in some cases there might be extremes during gameplay (we are working on these) but I will defer to Terif (the master himself) and others that indicate this usually happens because an opponent is able to take advantage of certain weaknesses due to how the game has played out, i.e. if they were too busy battling in Russia or North Afrika then perhaps they wouldn't be able to have side adventures outside of the usual historical path. As mentioned before, is the system perfect? Probably never will be but rest assured we've taken much of this sort of criticism into account and are fairly confident the current system is much more preferable to a strict limitation of what you can and cannot do. In general one way to do it is via historical timelines and completely historical alliances, but if the game play has varied slightly from what actually happened in history then in my opinion so too, very carefully though, should the timeline and/or the alliances What SC2 provides is a pretty dynamic set of circumstances for game play with pros and cons for almost every move and strategic decision and with SC2 WaW it will only get better Hope this helps, Hubert

Targul, I understand your concerns and it really comes down to a tricky balance wrt what happened historically, what could have happened and balancing all of that out with the appropriate penalties so as to not skew the game in the other extreme. For example if we make it to restrictive in penalties then it will eliminate much of the what-ifs and dynamic strategies that multiplayers so much seem to enjoy. Now all that being said I won't suggest that the current system is perfect and in fact I am open to suggestions on any key problem areas anyone would like to discuss before we finalize SC2 WaW.

Hey Honch, good to hear and welcome back Glad you like what we have planned for WaW and I really don't think it will dissapoint as it will have much more depth and a much improved AI... also a greatly improved Editor, spread the word

AZGungHo, glad you like it The blue and red text was added in by Mattia after putting together the screenshot... but this could also easily be done now with the Editor but of course the text will naturally not follow unit movements as the game progresses. Hyazinth von Strachwitz, I can't say with 100% certainty but we are working on making it happen.

Just a quick update on one of the new campaigns that will be available, Operation Uranus otherwise known as the Battle for Stalingrad. This has been designed by Mattia Fiorentini and is a very highly detailed and historically accurate campaign including many of the new features to be found in SC2 Weapons and Warfare, including Tactical Bombers, Artillery, a modded Cavalry unit, Rail, Villages, and of course Rain and Snow which will have an effect on spotting and Air unit operations. The campaign covers the critical period from November 19, 1942 to March 31, 1943 and plays quite well with objectives set for both sides, i.e. for the USSR to clear the Germans from Stalingrad and the surrounding area and for Germany to capture Stalingrad and drive on to the Caucases. Here is reduced image of the full map: This is a link to the full sized image ~20MB: Uranus-Battle_for_Stalingrad.zip An in game screenshot of the Germans/Romanians holding the line on turn 2:

The expansion is simply an add-on to the original game and will not affect how the original game plays once installed. But of course you will only be able to play the new and updated Expansion campaigns with the Expansion EXEs and the older campaigns with the original SC2 Blitzkrieg EXEs. As for the A3R mod I heard a rumour that it is being re-developed with the new Expansion in mind... but of course this cannot be confirmed or denied

Not to worry vveedd, the map size was changed first