Hubert Cater

Can't say just yet, but the wheels in my head are turning Hubert

Correct, the units in SC were chosen to be generic with the weighted factor between nations a result of leadership ratings for HQ's. The majors will have HQ's while the minors will not etc., and some HQ's are better than others especially between nations like Germany and France. While the added value of having units under an HQ seemed to work well wrt combat formulas in creating some of the difference between nations, it is not to say that this area may or may not be revisited in future versions. (I also chose to use Experience as a variable for units to reflect for example early experiences in Poland for the German army to make a difference in the upcoming battle for France and so on) One way to look at all this is perhaps understanding that often "necessity IS the mother of all inventions". For me the necessity was to create a game that would not take half a life time to achieve while at the same time try and be worth the one shot type deal I took in taking 2 years out to make a game like SC. Long story short it was honestly a pretty big undertaking for one person to see thru and so often during the process it came down to asking myself what do I want in the game while at the same time eliminating much of the unnecessary fluff (of course in my opinion at the time ). In the end, and understanding the software development cycle, you often have to make many decisions early on and stick with them to get the project done properly. So for me there were many decisions made to simplify effects/options while at the same time maintaining depth with the result being what SC is today. Some of this does end up being a double edged sword where at one time SC may be lauded for a streamlined easy to use interface while at the same time criticised for not having enough of this or that etc. Now, looking back I think it may have really been a coin toss as to whether or not SC would have been an interesting game if I had the extra time to do everything I wanted but either way I think the experience from this project and much of the feedback from players like yourself will make any future versions that much better. Hubert

It's interesting for me as well since although I am Canadian, my background is Slovenian (both parents). It always fascinated me to hear the many accounts from relatives at that time in the war and what a difficult time it really was just to survive. Just to put some of the events into perspective and just how long they reach in time, my father just received a few years ago a notice from the Slovenian government that they finally updated their official files to reflect the proper spelling of his name in Slovenian from the official birth record which was done in German in '43 during the occupation. Hubert

Yugoslavia had about 6 armies made up of 16 divisions plus one division of Royal Guards. The divisions were named for the territories in which they were based and these were some of the names used for the Corps in the game. So that's a division for 16 different territories and as far as I could tell from my research this was part of the problem for the Yugoslav army, especially if it was to be of any great effect in countering a blitzkreiged invasion. Most of the forces were spread out to protect much of the border instead of being concentrated in a sort of hedgehog or stronghold defence. Although still unclear officially, according to General Simovic, the Prime Minister "only about 5 infantry divisions and some cavalry regiments managed to engage the enemy", and this will probably explain why Yugoslavia surrendered in only 11 days. Hubert

Just wanted to say that I've found both Shaka's economic discussion and this thread are very interesting Hubert

The at start MPP values are calculated by the game engine and depend upon the number of resources each country has and the amount of supply/efficiency each resource will be running at for the beginning of the campaign. This is only calculated "in game" when the campaign starts and not by the campaign editor since this value is always changing depending upon how you assign resources etc. CvM is correct in that the bonus MPP's can be set in the campaign editor only. Hubert

If you haven't yet tried the demo it plays out for 1 year of game time starting in 1940 and might give you an indication of just how long games can last, and most it seems last until around 1944/45/46 with a few going the distance to 47. The demo can be found here: http://www.battlefront.com/downloads.html Hubert

Ok just took a look at the saved files you sent me, in answer to the last message here from Iron Ranger: 2) Not sure what you bid but the US does normally start with 0 MPP's unless it is declared war upon by the Axis where in this case it will start with 180 MPP, i.e. it's per turn start MPP's 4) Not sure if you did move a FF or British unit over the last controlled Canadian territories in North Africa, just tested this on my end by landing a Canadian unit followed by a British and all hexes went to the British master control as expected with a Canadian surrender. My guess is that you did not follow up the Canadian hexes with British regulars. Not sure if the FF would have the same effect, chances are they are treated as a minor as well but I did not test this, and this could be easily verified by yourself with a quick test as well. 5) I ran the saved game you sent me and I could not recreate this situation of units going missing, if you can do this and send me a detailed and sure fired example of how to reproduce this I will take another look. Hope this helps, Hubert

Sure, send me whatever I will need to reproduce it as well and I'll take a look at it. Send to hcater@furysoftware.com Thanks, Hubert

I'm guessing when you say to place units you mean from purchases etc., this is still not possible under the three capital supply system. The three cities do not act as regular capitals per se, but rather as 3 central supply locations. What this did is to ensure that once a capital is surrounded that all remaining cities drop in half in terms of supply/efficiency value. This was supposed to help in giving the USSR a bit of a better fighting chance so that it would maintain most of it's remaining MPP's and units would be in good supply for counter attacks etc. In order to still be able to place units you will have to reconnect or smash the encirclement. The idea was to help the USSR a bit in this situation but to still maintain a slight penalty for having your capital cutoff etc. Hubert

In general what the 192.x.x means is that you cannot host unless you can forward the socket port that SC is using, but you can still join an opponent if they are able to properly host the game. Hubert [ January 28, 2003, 11:43 AM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

Sorry, trade secret Hubert

As stated in the TCP/IP guide that configuration will not work meaning you are most likely on a LAN or using a Router with a Cable/DSL connection. This is not a limitation of SC but more of a fact of life in regards to TCP/IP configurations in general. If you are using a router there is information contained in the guide that should enable you to play SC by forwarding port 6530 to the router forwarding table. Hope this helps, Hubert

There are a few reasons for this and could in fact be because of your ISP, but I would suggest taking a look at the TCP/IP Quick How To Guide.txt found in your SC installation directory as it should answer this and similar questions. Hubert [ January 27, 2003, 07:02 PM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

To be honest, I thought it was pretty funny Hubert

Hi HDboy, Download and apply the latest patch as it resolves this known issue. The latest patch can be found here: http://www.battlefront.com/products/stratcom/download.html If applied properly it should read v1.06 in the bottom right hand corner of the MAIN MENU screen Hubert

Ouch!

From one lurker to recent lurker (myself) I just had to respond to this post and say thanks, a very refreshing read and brought back a lot of memories of the design phase/decisions I went through when working on SC. I'll add that it's probably no coincidence that your own experiences in designing software gave you an appreciation of some of the design decisions and choices I made in developing SC. This was exactly it, and while I know the current system is not perfect you've essentially nailed down what I was trying to achieve. It has also been brought up that the Partisan units should not be able to leave their home countries, and while this may or may not be accurate, the choice was made to not include this restriction. Why? Basically with the current implementation there would really be no fear of rear guarding or even the requirement to use Axis resources to deal with the partisan problems. I know I might be opening a can of worms here, but another one that comes up often is the implementation of subs, not a true recreation I agree but again without overcomplicating the question I asked myself was what was the best way to include this feature in the current game? Again the decision was made to generally accept an abstraction whereby Allied capital ships represent fleets lead by the named ship, and subs represented wolf-packs. Then the abstraction expands into various strategies including economics and overall grand strategy: - Does Germany commit to the building of subs or even a navy for that matter? if it does then resources for an attack on Russia should suffer, so a balanced approach may be necessary etc. - Do the Allies commit their naval and air resources to fighting the sub threat? (as represented by their naval units and air units in the game). If so does this weaken their resources for homeland defence against a possible Sea Lion etc., or long term strategy for an eventual D-Day etc. - And so on... This was also the reason for the current price of subs, if you lower the price then you will have more subs on the board, if you have more subs then you have to lower their combat ratings or increase the number of Allied naval units, if you have more subs then you have to lower the values of sunk shipping and subsequent lost MPP's for the Allies. I have also resisted the requests for higher dive percentages as well primarily since I am using the above abstraction. Why? Well Germany lost a lot of subs (~70% casualties in the sub arm) and since each sub represents a wolf-pack, it should remain costly and not easy to win the battle of the Atlantic (as Germany never did), unless you decide to commit the resources, i.e. purchasing more subs or investing in research to advance the sub design etc., but at the same time have the probability of suffering in other areas of the war machine if you choose to do so. In fairness though, there have been suggestions since the original release that I feel would make things a bit more realistic without overcomplicating things, but due to a variety of reasons will have to wait... Ok this part of my rambling was a bit longer than I intended, but again while nothing may initially appear to be perfect the key was to try and come up with something basic enough that would as you eloquently put it "capture the flavour of the strategic problems" without overcomplicating the game. Actually this was always in the game (pre-beta demo) but never intended to be a gambit. It was included if the Axis player decided to dilly daddle a bit too much and ignore the French, under the right conditions I wanted to have the Allied AI try and pull a reverse Shleiffen (sp?) and give the Axis player a bit of a surprise which it seems to have done in a few cases Hubert [ January 24, 2003, 09:55 AM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

Yeah I understand and I am not about to say that I am an expert on ISP's etc., but it could be possible that they recognize the secure socket the game is using and give it a boot during prolonged inactivity, might just be for their own security issues etc., can't say with full certainty. I originally ran tests over my LAN and never had a connection get terminated with prolonged inactivity periods (i.e. +6 hours), basically me running the game and leaving for half a day sort of thing. I recreated the situation you described above today just to make sure, for about 4 hours and when I came back and maximized the window it replayed the opponent's turn including an end turn sequence without a hitch. My guess relating to ISP's is simply due to this being the only variable as LAN and Internet type connections are virtually identical. Hope this helps, Hubert [ January 24, 2003, 10:04 AM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

Sounds like it might be that your ISP is booting you from the connection after prolonged periods of inactivity. Not all ISP's do this but some are known to. Hope this helps, Hubert

Just thought I would pop in and congradulate everyone on the ladder system in play here :cool: I remembered (a while back now it seems) that there was an earlier suggestion for a ladder and that one was even setup for SC. Here is the original thread: http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=18;t=000540 Not sure what happened to it, and just throwing out this suggestion, but the MyLeague website looks like it might help automate some of the tasks and make record keeping for this type of ladder easier. Hubert

Speaking for XP, there is a default pseudo-firewall setting that may have been set when you set up your original networking capability with your ISP. If you are running XP you can check this by going to My Network Places and Viewing Your Network Connections. From there you should see an icon that represents your ISP network connection. If you right-click on it and select properties and then the advanced tab, you should see if the Internet Connection Firewall has been set. I don't believe that other flavours of Windows have this additional security, so in this case the only firewalls I am aware of are ones that you download and install on your system yourself, i.e. ZoneAlarm etc. Now if you are on a shared connection like at work or a University etc. that's a whole other story and you would have to contact your network administrator for more details. I am not sure if ISP's set up a default firewall, never heard of this but you could always try and contact them to find out, or even check their webpages for more info. Hope this helps, Hubert

Looks like you have done the correct procedure to forward the port 6530, not sure about the socket expired error though, it appears that your computers have connected properly but that somewhere along the lines data packets could not be sent, there is a default timeout of 20 seconds whereby if either side does not receive any data packets upon connection then you will receive a socket expired error. Either way sounds like you have it working now and glad to hear about that! Hubert

There are generally a few ways to uninstall SC, the first way you have already correctly done, through the uninstall icon provided in the Programs/Strategic Command menu. You can also use the Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs (although it won't show up there if you have already used the above uninstall icon). The only thing the uninstaller does not do is remove any files that were created after SC was installed, i.e. like saved game files and subsequent folders etc. In this case you are safe to delete the Strategic Command folder after you have uninstalled using any of the above methods first. Hope this helps, Hubert

Thanks! Yes, North Africa through Gibraltar and Spain has the same effect, so long as a continuous line of supply can be drawn from a major capital etc. Hubert