Hubert Cater

It will be automatically in your alliance, you will also be able to build troops again if it is a major like France otherwise it refalls under either Axis or Allied minor control where you will gain control over the resources but won't be able to rebuild units for this minor country.

Sounds good to me and I think you'll find a captive audience here Hubert [ April 23, 2002, 02:53 AM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

Reinforcement of units is through manual replacements with full control over how many replacements you want to put to each unit (i.e. +1, +2... to the max) with visual feedback on how this will effect experience per number of replacements and overall cost prior to finalization. Edit: The maximum reinforcement value will be dependant on supply though, so if in good supply your situation is good in terms of getting full replacements, but in bad supply and you might be in trouble [ April 22, 2002, 07:45 PM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

Hehe... well other than the fantastic help that I have received in terms of artwork, sound, and beta testing etc., you are primarily looking at a development team of 1, so this may answer part of your question Honest answer is I guess I am the victim of at least of being bound to miss a few things but I think the color coordinated hexes may give you the look and feel you want. To use your example, imagine what it looks like when the Allies start to overrun the the Third Reich and that German 'grey' territory starts to get smaller and smaller. Personally having routed the Germans on many an occasion... I really like that feeling when there is a sea of Soviet 'red', US 'green' and UK 'tan' knocking on Berlin's front door

Hi Straha, The best and honest answer I can give to this is that even though sometimes small changes like this may seem insignificant in terms of code change, you would be surprised. Sometimes the code changes are not as easy as initially thought, and often these types of changes may throw off the balance (even with only the addition of 1 new unit type) for all campaigns and all modes of play, whereby each situation would have to be extensively retested to make sure things will work out as planned. What I can definitly say is this, the game as is has been thoroughly tested for a LONG time now and everything seems to be in order to ensure maximum enjoyment for game play. I will seriously take a look at these suggestions and see what I can do, but I unfortunatly can't promise anything But this also not to say that they will be discounted for any future versions Hubert

Just wanted to add my apologies if I haven't been able to get to everyone's questions out there but I hope this FAQ will help, and it should at least give you a better idea of some of the game play/mechanics. Hubert

Oops missed that one, no there are no names on the map but you will be able to see some detailed info on map locations from the information bar at the top of the game screen whenever you move the mouse over a hex. This information will include the type of terrain, the country that controls that hex (and whether it is occupied or friendly), the name of resources as well as map positions. If you click on cities or other resources you will also get slightly more detailed information at the bottom of the screen such as the current operational efficiency etc. [ April 22, 2002, 05:45 PM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

There is currently no "time machine" implemented for the game, but you will be able to undo moves and at least replay a given turn as each turn is 'autosaved' before any moves are played. Graphic and sound mods will be possible. All bitmaps and sounds for the game are dynamically loaded at run time so all you would have to do is make sure you use the same names and formats (i.e. sizes of bitmaps etc) to custom design your own look and sound.

Sorry for the delay on that one, I've been looking into various options. The code was written in ISE Eiffel and currently they only support Windows, Linux, Unix and Vms so it looks like for now the official word would have to be against a MAC version. Although this will not be entirely discounted for the future as there are other flavours of Eiffel out there that do support the MAC. Hope this helps, Hubert

Yeah I understood these types of concerns when designing the AI and in a way took them to heart (as much as I could ) So as part of the design, I only allowed user initiated *cheating* for games played against the AI. Specifically, what I mean by this is where the player is allowed to set the overall difficulty and adjusts the computer experience bonuses for AI units, whereby in this case they know exactly what to expect and aren't surprised by any hidden AI mechanisms etc. As a plus, the AI does play truly blind during FoW! So expect it to be surprised by enemy troops that it thought were not in it's offensive paths and could not see.

As of right now, the plans are for only 2 player TCP/IP (as with PBEM) but this could change depending upon time and feasibility

Yes the random mode for Axis and Allied Minors does resemble the historical context and includes those that participated in the war, i.e. Canada, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania etc with the special addition of Spain and Turkey as *possibilities* for joining the Axis, (of course if you play your cards right ). So expect to see things like Hungary and/or even Romania second guess joining the Axis if Germany decides to invade it's facist ally Spain to get at Gibraltar; or perhaps Yugoslavia having an earlier Allied coup if surrounding countries like Hungary, Romania or Bulgaria are attacked by the Axis sort of thing. Random, historical and neutral options will play out as expected for the Axis and Allied majors like the USSR, USA, Italy etc., and while still neutral, Italy and the USSR will not be able to purchase and place units since they are not controlled, but for countries like the USSR they do collect a small percentage of their overall production capacity each turn that will be cumulatively available to them once they enter the war. Also the USSR will have a historical compliment of units available to them depending upon when they enter the war. So attack early and it may be to your advantage (but you may be left with an undesirably early 2 front war), while on the other hand the longer you wait to attack the USSR the further along in their preparations they likely will be. A third option might even be to keep them out of the war long enough that you have an overwhelming force prepared to wipe them out regardless of date and time blitzkrieg style!

Thanks for the extra detail Matt! I knew I missed something Yes there are also advantages of unloading in friendly ports (which can be done on the same turn, i.e. load -> move -> unload) and if you decide to unload in enemy territory then there is a chance that you will suffer random landing casualties which translate into strength losses for that unit

Russia does not have a historical mode since they never declared war, while the US and Italy do... and no you cannot control the Soviet or Italian forces prior to their entry to the war.

Having played many of these games and having also been consistently disapointed by various AI's , this was a primary goal for this development from the outset. The best way that I saw to avoid cheating was to balance the campaigns and game design for PBEM and Hotseat FIRST and then the AI. In fact, this is exactly what was done. What this means is that there was LOT of time spent to ensure a flexible and challenging AI since I was not left with the standard cheats that many AI's employ, i.e. give one side an enormous advantage in units or production capacity etc So not only does this mean a balanced game play for all the different play modes but more importantly a balanced game play when playing as either the Axis or Allies against the AI! More specifically the AI was developed using Fuzzy Logic, and this allows for great flexibility as normal decision making will not be of the 0 or 1 type, but of varying degrees from 0 to 10 (this is just a simple analogy of how the AI has been developed). In this way nothing is absolute and the AI assess each situation and makes the best decisions based on a variety of factors. Besides the overall grand strategy, nothing is concrete, there are no fixed AI mechanisms like the stand and die (for the USSR) on the eastern front while completely ignoring an assault through the southern Caucases. In this case you will see the AI assess both threats and attempt to balance out these areas with either strategic purchases and/or troop movement from one front to the other so long as both fronts maintain the best balance of attack and defence possible. For combat, the AI will exploit the weakest areas, and target the weakest units for maximum return. You will see it properly begin either interdictions, shore bombardments, strategic bombing, rocket attacks etc to soften up defences and then follow with land combat etc. I know that the "proof is in the pudding" as they say, and safely standing by what I have just described, I know the game will not leave you dissapointed.

In FoW mode the location of your air units, i.e. on coastal areas will increase the chance of spotting enemy naval activity for sure. U-boats can roam as far as the North American coast, and they as well as other naval units can pass through Gibraltar under the right conditions. If the Allied player decides to leave Gibraltar undefended and the port has been sufficiently reduced this may be possible. But keeping in mind the historical situation, Gibraltar will be a tough nut to crack!

Not a problem at all, you can set the Soviet Union to play as neutral until you decide to declare war on them, but in random mode if you decide to leave your borders unprotected or even decide to commit all your troops to another offensive the AI will recognize this as a possible opportunity and may choose to strike! The key will be to keep an eye of the Soviet Union's preparadeness for war, (a percentage displayed in the War Map), and balance out your game play so as to not let them think you are ripe for the picking

Not to worry... it is!

Units have been modelled to certain characteristics. So soft units like corps/armies will have different attack and defence values for tanks, air units, naval units etc., and these will be different from other units like tank groups. This will also mean that tank groups will not do as well assaulting units defending in cities as they would in open spaces and so on. Each unit type has it's own values for: Soft Attack Tank Attack Air Attack Naval Attack Strategic Attack (i.e. resources) Soft Defence Tank Defence Air Defence Naval Defence Terrain also gives bonuses to these values in attack and defence value calculations as well as unit readiness, experinece, entrenchment etc. FoW is not as detailed as you've outlined, but does provide limited information for spotted units in some cases. Basically you have to be next to a unit to see it's total strength, otherwise if a unit falls within spotting range, it will be identified but you will not know it's strength so this could be used to mislead your opponents, especially if a unit can only be spotted by air, like Patton's army group!

Sea lion is more than possible. There are no limited transport points etc. Transport and even operational movements are cost dependant (% of cost of each unit type), so you could perform as many of these operations as you would like per turn provided you have the resources to do so. This allows for greater flexibility and the only thing that you have to worry about is mananging your production points to have enough to transport your units when you are finally ready to invade england! Knocking out France in 6 weeks or at least very close to that (depending how many times you've played, for me it is really too many times to count )is certainly possible and that actually made me realize that there is a typo on the product page that should change shortly. Turns last anywhere from 1 week to 1 month as follows: Summer -> 1 week Spring, Fall -> 2 weeks Winter -> 1 month [ April 21, 2002, 02:26 AM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

The best and most honest answer I can give is this summer and a demo should be available VERY soon!

Special rules for russian winter are an increase in chance of Partisan activity as well as the chance that Moscow might decide to transfer portions of it's Siberian army to fight on the eastern front. This has been limited to the right conditions of course, as well as only within the first couple years of fighting in the USSR. Also the option for 'War in Siberia' would have to be left unselected. Vichy is installed after the fall of France and acts as a neutral nation. It can then be declared war on by either the Axis or Allied sides if they choose to do so!

Good question, technically you could chain your supply with HQ's since they act as supply wagons on top of their other influences (very helpful when playing against scorched earth strategies on the russian front ). But as you've guessed, an HQ will not always be in 100% supply itself, the further you move away from any other supply source it's supply giving value drops as well. A quick note: units that are cutoff will have supply = 0, but a unit that is cutoff with an HQ in it's immediate vicinity may have some supply since the minimum supply value of an HQ is I believe 3, what this does is simulate airborne supply to cutoff HQ's and their subsequently attached units.

This type of diplomacy is modelled mostly by your actions and or success on the field. Two hypothetical situations that have been included are the inclusion of either Spain or even Turkey joining the Axis. Without giving all the secrets away , these types of automatic alliances will depend on how you deal with their areas of influence as well as the major powers that threaten them. Bring certain countries to their knees quickly and you may have some friends you never realized you had! Of course this is only possible with the Axis/Allied Minors political option set to 'Random' Sorry about the airborne guys, unfortunatly there is always something missed but I have been taking note and listed all of these suggestions for a possible SC2 HQ's automatically influence the nearest units up to their limit(5) and up to their range(5 hexes). Also when you click on an HQ it automatically highlights the attached units. Edit: Here's a link for a screen shot that shows this relationship, it was a little too big (160K) to embed :eek: http://www.battlefront.com/products/worldwar/stratcom/images/hq.gif [ April 22, 2002, 12:35 AM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

You're right about the Rhine, and this is also the case for a couple of other rivers and mountain ranges... they might be short here and there, but the major terrain obstacles are in there for the most part Yes the borders are redrawn for when Poland surrenders as well as for the surrender of France, i.e. Vichy.