Hubert Cater

Ideally this is the case and it depends on your security settings for Windows 7 as some settings will place the files in the Virtual folder instead.

Glad to hear you are enjoying the game

If you navigate there in the Windows Explorer, look for a button near the top left hand corner of Windows Explorer and it should say 'Compatibility Files'. Click on this button and it will take you to the virtual folder holding the saved game files within the Program Files directory. This is unfortunately how Windows 7/Vista handle files created within the Program Files folder and is a bit beyond our control.

The WWI release does include a bonus WWII European Theater campaign using the large map and it seems to be quite popular so far. Of course it is only the European Theater and if you would like to play the whole world then Global GOLD would be the way to go. In terms of SC3, this is something we'll be working on but I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. For example, the last time we came out with a brand new version of the SC series it was as a result of 2 years of work... but of course we hope it won't take quite that long this time around as we have a few more people on board for the development. Happy gaming Hubert

1) Saved games are not tied to the license so the answer would be yes. 2) If you would like to inquire about resetting a license key then yes the Helpdesk is your best option. 3) Yes it should be playable, you just need to copy paste and it should be fine.

If it is mentioned as the F4 key in the manual then this has been updated as it is now the F3 key for DEBUGAI.

In this case can you send me the saved game as perhaps it is something different then what we already resolved. Send to support@furysoftware.com. Thanks!

The manual that does come with the game is the base manual which covers well over 90% of the game with the difference being made up by the Expansion Notes guide in the GOLD release. However I'll try and add more details for the forced march section as I agree it was a bit sparse on how it works. Hubert

Thanks Ludi, this is an error we've since caught and should be fixed for the first patch. To get around it for now, please load your PBEM game without viewing the replay and it should be fine after that and you'll be able to continue to view replays on subsequent turns.

It is like you guys are reading our minds or sitting in on our development strategy sessions

I'll be honest in that I suspect this is something that was never considered much in detail... for example I believe earlier maps of the European Theater always had Malta as a single tile and Midway in the Pacific release was likely larger. When the maps were referenced to create a larger Global map this is likely just how the combination turned out. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I disagree with your assessment, rather just trying to highlight that there is always so much to consider in the design and that there will always be parts of the campaigns that we either overlook and not necessarily purposefully so.

Yes it will

Fantastic, great stuff

I can say this much, this will be the year we work on it full time

Just wanted to say thanks a million for all the comments and feedback and after quite a bit of discussion our end over the last few days, I think we've got something in mind for a new supply system based on this thread that should hopefully address all of the major concerns

Thanks for your input and to answer your questions regarding Algiers and Tunis I would just say that the reason they are without capitals is really secondary to the discussion as I would argue this is just an example of what could happen on the map, i.e. there may be areas on the map that do not have a connection to any type of capital or other primary supply source, such as what we see in North Africa or on islands in Global and so on. The idea is that this type of situation would have to be addressed one way or the other in supply terms/rules. Beyond that, the reason they were changed from Blitzkrieg was only to better model the idea that once they became independent they would gain capitals etc. Also, countries can be set to have more than one supply source, it doesn't just have to be the capital and countries like Germany and the USSR have more than one supply and industrial production source on the map, I just wanted to keep the idea of supply in my posts at its most basic level to better understand what happens for the various cutoff areas before we address the issues with additional special rules and/or secondary supply sources. For example, secondary supply sources would not solve the problem in French North Africa under the current supply system as secondary supply sources are always at 10. Bill's suggestion of having minor secondary supply sources could be used to solve the French North Africa problem without having to create a special rule for ports and so on. Regarding the drop back to 5 for occupational efficiency in the USSR, we did try it but with towns maxing out at 5 and the combination of the bigger map as well as Partisans the supply problem made it severely limiting for the Axis invader. Essentially movement stalled very quickly as soon as you were 4 tiles past an occupied city, which is not much in the SOE campaign, and all supply could get quickly knocked down with Partisan strikes. Unfortunately it just didn't feel right under testing and so we had to use the higher value of 80%.

If we were to exclude the minor capitals portion for now, and I only ask this to better understand your proposal, is this not what we pretty much have in place right now, i.e. if the primary supply is cut or bombed then it would ripple throughout the supply chain? If the secondary supply sources, which we do have in game, are still in effect then it would not cause the supply chain ripple as is already the case in game. I'm just not 100% sure what is different here other than in game currently it just drops the supply chain to 5 and your proposal would have it drop to 0?

Thanks for the input as well here Seamonkey and I was wondering if you would be up to elaborate a bit more by using the issues I listed in the last post in order to describe how your proposal would handle those situations and what the expected values would be and so on. It will really help me to better understand what I would be looking at here.

Thanks Bill and I like 2) and 3) quite a bit as I think there are elements there to build upon which reminded me of some other thoughts I had regarding supply as well which was to possibly restrict supply from ports for land units whenever an enemy naval unit is adjacent the supply port being relied upon. There are a few others but I want to think about them some more and send you some thoughts later today by email.

It's a full installer package that installs v1.07 as well as GOLD. You can always down patch and install v1.06. I'm not sure if Battlefront carries v1.06 but many of the affiliate sites carry the older patches.

Sorry to hear about the trouble Sharkman and to confirm GOLD can be installed without having to patch up to v1.07.

Hi CBD, Just some more feedback on the issue of the campaign not showing up properly, it looks like there might be an issue with the Editor as we are seeing this now in Beta as well. I've got a version on my end that does not have this problem so it will be fixed for the first patch. Sorry about the trouble, Hubert

Thanks for the thoughts and I can safely say that we hear you DrunkenLuftwaffe

Gentlemen, thanks for all the feedback and especially the detailed thoughts. That being said I do think however that the idea of supply needs to be brought back to its most simplest form in order to fully appreciate the potential consequences as well as additional complexities that will arise if we will be able to solve the problem of how to deal with a cut off unit/resource. Again forgive me for starting this all over again but I think it is necessary and hopefully with my description below you'll understand why. * * * PROBLEM I think it is safe to say that this discussion was primarily inspired by the problem of how to deal with German cavalry units that were running around behind the lines in Russia in let's say the 1914 Call to Arms campaign. Similar to that it leads to the same idea of how to deal with a surrounded resource such as Minsk by the Germans during the initial stages of Barbarossa. DISCUSSION What I'd suggest at this point then is for me to lay out exactly how supply currently works and then with that foundation demonstrate how even just a small change to the current model, i.e. in order to deal with the idea of what to do with a unit/resource caught behind enemy lines, will require quite a few new supply rules and/or solutions that currently do not exist. CURRENT SUPPLY MODEL The way supply is currently calculated, and let's just use capitals for this discussion for now to keep things simple, is that it will start with each Major's capital as a primary supply source and then search out from there for all connected resources via rail tiles. Those that are connected to a capital will receive their maximum strength values and in turn their maximum supply. For example, if we look at France at the start of the 1939 Storm Over Europe campaign all connected cities to France via rail will have a strength of 10 and all connected towns will have a strength of 5 (this is the max for towns). Now because the colony of Algeria is not connected to Paris and/or cannot trace a line to any other major capital those resources are considered 'cutoff'. They are then given the default minimum of 5 for any city/town/port. In terms of cutting supply off to connected cities/towns such as those that are in France, all you have to do is to bomb any of the relaying hubs/resources to a value < 5 and if a resource cannot trace a better line of supply then it to will considered 'cutoff' and drop to the default minimum which is 5. Occupied resources can also have a lowered default value which is set by the occupational efficiency value. For example, when German occupies France the maximum occupational efficiency for resources will be 8. In previous releases of European Theater campaigns, the maximum occupational efficiency of the USSR would have been 5. * * * PROPOSAL Forgetting about HQs and rules of attrition or supply by air and so on for now, the most basic supply model change on the table right now is to have resources that are 'cutoff' from the supply line drop to a value of 0. RESULTS/POTENTIAL PROBLEMS While on the surface the following may initially appear to be unique and very different situations, the consequences of just this one change will result in the following, i.e. assuming we maintain the rest of the current supply model described above. Again some of these will be desired but some will not but to the game engine each situation would be considered indistinguishable and essentially viewed as cutoff resources. 1) Verdun is completely surrounded. This would result in Verdun now having a resource strength of 0. 2) Verdun is not surrounded, i.e. a line of tiles could be traced back to Paris, but all relay hubs to Verdun are < 5. This would result in Verdun being considered cutoff by the game engine and now having a resource strength of 0. 3) All cities, towns and ports in French controlled Algeria and Tunis would be considered cutoff. This would result in all of them having a strength of 0. 4) A surrendered France is occupied by the Germans and the Allies have just landed at Caen. Caen would be considered cutoff. This would result in Caen having a strength of 0. 5) UK control of Gibraltar and Malta would be considered cutoff. This would result in them having a strength of 0. 6) UK control of Egypt would be considered cutoff. This would result in them having a strength of 0. POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS 1) This is desired. 2) This could be the desired effect but if not then we would need a special rule in place to handle this type of situation. 3) The simplest solution would be as previously suggested to add a new rule where control of a port provides supply to the adjacent city/town. I would then suggest to keep the default value for ports that are considered cutoff at 5 and this would result in the neighbouring city/town also having a supply value of 5. This could handle Algiers nicely but then what to do with Orleansville 3 tiles away. Does Algiers relay supply to Orleansville because of the port at Algiers? If so does it only relay because of the road? If it is because of the road then any town that sits on its own without a connection via rail or road would be considered cutoff and set to 0. This may or may not be desirable but this will come up as even just looking at the GOLD maps, Fort Lamay is on its own in Africa. Also, if we consider relaying via roads then the idea that resources can be cutoff by the destruction of railhubs may no longer apply. In this case it might not be desirable but if so then we might perhaps need maximum relaying values via road, let's say 5, and maximum via rail, keep the current 10, and so on. Essentially a new set of rules will be required to deal with this issue #3. 4) This could be desirable and the idea of gaining control of a port as described in #3 above is more critical. Again relaying rules would have to be in place and it could benefit from how we handle HQs but I'd prefer to leave HQs out of the discussion for now just so we can get a better handle on how to deal with resources first. 5) Control of ports would resolve this if it is introduced as a new rule. 6) My solution for this one would be to have minor capitals that are cutoff act as a primary supply source but instead of starting at strength 10, they start at strength 5. Then the regular search out from there would apply. However, we'd still need to resolve the relay rule of how roads and rail are to be handled since if it was to be handled by rail alone then Sidi Barrani would be considered cutoff and have a value of 0. If everyone is for the most part in agreement with the above or after some further discussion, I'd then move on to how to handle HQs as well as any additional potential rules. Thoughts?

Thanks for playing along Glabro and I agree if anyone else has some thoughts of their own please don't hesitate to add them in I appreciate the responses, clear and concise, and this helps to make things easier to examine as we go along. That being said what I always try and do on my end before I include any change is to look at the pros and cons and to weigh that against what we already have in place and if it makes it 1) any better/realistic and 2) significantly different than what currently exists. Also I always try and keep it as simple as possible whenever applicable. Just off the top of my head I would say that when looking at the proposed solutions I would argue that it immediately adds a bit of complexity on top of the existing rules. For example, Solution 1 requires a new unit that needs to be placed/maneuvered into position. This might not be that big a deal in some parts of the game map but may be more difficult to achieve in others and adds an additional task to an amphibious landing that could be problematic when the map is cluttered enough to begin with. Then thinking about Solution 2 and 3 begs me to ask why not just keep HQs as they are with a minimum supply value of 5? Don't get me wrong they are realistic suggestions but with the idea of looking for an improvement over the current model I would argue it pretty much achieve the same end result without any extra tasks for the player as it is all automatically handled by the game engine. Granted, keeping the default HQ value at 5 would not be desired if you wanted all units in let's say a Minsk pocket to be at 0, i.e. including an HQ, but at the same time there are likely to be situations in game for when an HQ is just out of reach of a low valued resource where it would be preferable to have them at supply 5 rather than 0 as suggested. For some examples of that, consider a German advance from Smolensk to Bryansk, or from Gomel to Bryansk. Just a little half way from either Smolensk or Gomel and an HQ would be reduced to 0 supply as it is more than 4 tiles away from either of those supply sources. This could also be a problem for some of the smaller mini campaigns where having an HQ at a default minimum level of 5 immediately solves many of the different scale issues for pretty much any sized map. I guess in the end for me, what I could see as an option would be to keep the default level of supply for HQs at 5, seems to be the simplest solution for quite a few potential issues as described above but continuing to work with the idea that recently captured towns like Caen or a cutoff pocket like Minsk would have those resources reduced to 0. In the case of Caen, it could be argued that it would regain supply as soon as it can be connected to a port, i.e. such as the D-Day landings having been expanded to include Cherbourg. But then it could be argued that the port at Cherbourg would have to include a friendly line of tiles back to UK ports in England. Is this something to consider as well? It makes a lot of sense but then it requires a whole new level of supply consideration which will now include zones of control at sea and so on. This might be desired or not but it is something to consider as well. Thoughts?