Hubert Cater

Just to clarify I have no issue with the discussion or your contributions to the discussion idea itself, but if I find a poster is becoming openly hostile, disrespectful to other opinions or generally belligerent I will unfortunately have to step in and ask them to step back. This is the same for everybody and if you can add to the discussion without attacking the messenger, i.e. rather the idea, please feel free to do so.

For the first point this has already been discussed a bit in the other threads and I just mentioned that I will look to make this Editable down the road as I can understand why not everyone may like it. As to its inclusion there were a few points addressing this as well such as the abstraction of contesting enemy territory with or without units etc. For the ranges of naval units, well honestly I couldn't tell you just how far each ship type should actually go in real life, we just picked what we felt were appropriate ranges in game play terms and just went from there, i.e. some of these work out well for the turn lengths and some perhaps not so much but overall we felt the game play abstractions were reasonable enough sort of thing. Nice thing is that this can all be editable as desired Hope this helps, Hubert

It doesn't slow down enemy research but it can cancel any potential gains it might receive if your intelligence is higher. If the US only invests in intelligence then it is likely to be the only one to gain a bonus for research while your other Allies may not, that may or may not be a good thing I guess depending on what type of strategy you are after.

Thanks for the feedback again and just looking at the suggested stats, and here mostly just at the values for SA/SD and TA/TD as well as the general AD/BD values (the other values rarely come into play for a unit of this type game wise) it really is not going to be much different than a Corps when it comes to the combat calculations, i.e. 0-1 in values unfortunately don't make much difference with the attacker/defender losses, especially when you start adding in research upgrades as we already have players that opt to simply build super Corps rather than Armies once the applicable research levels are maxed out. Again, this is just my gut reaction here but after thinking some more once you start to create too many similar units where the gaps can be bridged via research upgrades then all it really comes down to is simply having that extra unit on the map to cover areas you are not able to cover with the current build limits and in that case we are sort of back to square one when it comes to original issue of are there not enough units on the map? For example, with an upgraded division it will be as strong as a Corps and it can then be used in replacement of an actual Corps to provide a strong defence in critical position such as a city or fortification etc. Costs have to be examined as well because if you make Divisions too cheap then you can basically have super Corps (when upgraded) at a savings, but make them too expensive and then they don't become worth it for purchase. With your suggested stats above, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on upgrades as well as the suggested cost of the unit relative to other units. I think you mentioned you had Weapons and Warfare, correct? If so you can easily crack open the Editor and experiment with let's say the Special Forces unit and create a hypothetical Division unit for testing purposes. It can probably give you a much better idea on how combat will look as well as what might be the appropriate costs etc.

Actually intelligence does influence research and it basically works by giving you a bonus for your research if your intelligence level is greater than any of your opponents intelligence level, i.e. if you are Allied and looking at the US it has Level-2 intelligence but let's say Germany has Level-3 then you will not have any bonus. but if you are looking at the UK and it has Level-4 and the highest Axis intelligence level is still only 3 then you get an extra 1% towards your research calculation. Hopefully this makes sense, Hubert

Hey Dave, I think you've made your point here and let's try and remember that not everyone will necessarily agree. In the end this is still a game for many players who might want this type of option and in fairness, we did include the simulation of the A-Bomb in the Pacific Theater release so it is not entirely without foundation. Hubert

Hey Paul, I'd say to look at the stats for the upcoming Global Conflict release as that would probably make the most sense. You can find them here if you jump to page 158: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_flippingbook&book_id=15&Itemid=388 What would hypothetically be created is really the question here. I think this depends on the stats, functionality and overall purpose so I really can't say if it will be a division or garrison, I think this is more in your court as you are looking to add a new unit, correct? But to confirm, if you wanted attack and defense values of 0 this is not a problem as the fact that an HQ and Transport cannot attack is not due to their low stats, rather I have just coded them this way, i.e. their stats could hypothetically be of any value and it still wouldn't change their inability to attack. Hope this helps, Hubert

Game is only being sold in English right now

I can confirm that there will be no German localization for now. Hubert

We are still finalizing it and likely it will be available at the time of purchasable downloads as we always allow players to test before they buy. Hope this helps, Hubert

Paul, Great to hear back from you and please feel free to use the statistics from either Patton Drives East or Weapons and Warfare since this is all academic right now so in reality as long as what we discuss is within the same relative context it should be applicable. I think a 3:1 or even 2:1 ratio could make sense, I'd still have some concern about having too many units on the map, but that aside I'd have to see the proposed stats in order to understand the applicability more, i.e. to have a better idea the proposed attack and defense values for the Garrision would paint a better picture so we can see how it will relate to the other existing units on the map. For example, Corps already have quite low Soft Attack and Defense values of 1/1 etc., so my inclination would have to be SA/SD of pretty much 0/0 for it to make sense strength wise. However feel free to of course suggest as you see fit! Thanks, Hubert

Hi Bo, Great question and nice to see you've got your tactical and strategic thinking caps on This is one we had to address very carefully, although if I did my math right it is closer to 27 months from Sep 1939 to Dec 1941, but we came up with some pretty creative solutions that handle it very well and it hasn't been an issue with any of our beta games, i.e. a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor will always be an option (amongst others) if desired. I'd like to say more but as I already mentioned in another thread, some items we'd like to keep a surprise for once the game is released... but that being said I can safely say that this one has been addressed. Hubert

No apologies necessary, I think I've just been looking at code too much

I think I understand now, you meant that during the game play if an HQ moves to this spot it then becomes stuck, correct? I was looking for it in the initial setup of the campaign. I think this is going to be a problem due to the movement rules unless I eliminate the desert or add more roads which I think is not desirable either way. I believe in the Pacific release, and now for Global Conflict that this is no longer an issue as we introduced the new minimum movement rule of at least 1 AP if a unit gets stuck.

Great! Thanks everyone

I can't find this in Shattered Alliance, are you sure this is not another campaign?

Thanks SeaMonkey and let's just say we might still have a few surprises left in us for future development. Hopefully SC Global sells well enough so that these ideas will eventually come to fruition... so in that vein, definitely don't hesitate to spread the word

Paul, No problem and I can understand if the game will not meet your expectations. Reality is, and no matter how much we try, we cannot satisfy every demand and this is primarily due to the fact that development time is always limited and some options are not easy to implement as others or it might be as simple as us not feeling it warrants the change, i.e. stacking comes to mind. Now, none of this may be the case regarding Garrison units but it does look like I might be missing just how important this unit is so I'd be willing to discuss it further if you are equally inclined. Key is of course not to just add new features but to make sure we add them correctly. In that regard I encourage your friends to participate as well in the discussion as well as anyone else that might feel like contributing. We have had similar discussions in our Beta Forums and it is always healthy (when the crunch is not on) to contemplate new ideas and/or different points of views. * * * I might as well get the ball rolling and say the biggest problem I see in game is (as previously mentioned) that I'd like to maintain the notion that a player will in game have to make the tough decisions as to what he can reasonably cover with his units throughout the map, and of course this includes vulnerable cities, invasion areas and front lines. For example in Weapons and Warfare Germany normally uses its Corps for this task and if I were to introduce Garrison units I would then prefer to lower their Corps builds to compensate, i.e. in Fall Weiss Germany can build 20 Corps and if let's say it could build 5 Garrison units then I would lower the Corps build to 15. This of course is just a general example of how I would prefer the math to be but it could also be something like 10 Garrison units and then only 10 Corps and so on. I guess my question to you is how you feel about the above type of adjustment if we were to introduce Garrison units and if you would approach it differently? Again, I'm just trying to flesh out how a Garrison unit implementation would look in game from a development point of view. Thanks, Hubert

Correct, you need to upgrade to v1.06a as only it is backwards compatible with v1.06. Hubert

Just a quick FYI that we've sent the hotfix EXE to Kalypso (for the German version) as well and hopefully it will be available soon enough on their end. Hubert

I can always look to add a Garrison unit type for future mods as you are right for much larger maps it can certainly make sense. As mentioned before, once this game is released I think everyone will have a better idea of how it still may not be appropriate for the current scale, but if the option exists then players can certainly change it as they see fit.

Good catch, which campaign is this for?

To be honest I haven't done it in a while but there should be a README file in there with a pretty good explanation. See if it helps and I think it goes something like you cut out a portion of the map you want to use, then run the MapGen.exe on that new bitmap file and then import the indexes into the Editor using the Import Map Indexes function. After that you have a basic tile map that you can start working from etc., hope that helps!

Good question and I can't really say just yet, or even an SC3 with any absolute certainty. On the other hand, if sales of Global are pretty good, then that improves the odds significantly

For the most part I'd say no as we are still not lowering the casualties below the base defaults. For example, since the base values are already set appropriately, i.e. think of Germany at the beginning of the game where it only has a slight edge in tech yet is still able to gain victory through Poland, the Low Countries and France with relative ease, the game should still play out as expected. What this really does is lower the mutual knock out punches that you start to see near the end game where a Level 5 tank versus Level 5 tank both pretty much destroy each other in combat. Now only the lower researched unit suffers the greatest casualties in an exchange and equally researched units may live to fight another day without having to reinforce immediately. However, if let's say two Level 5 tanks engage in combat and the attacker has the edge where they can then throw additional units into the fight to finish off the defender, it actually gives the attacker the edge because like I said, that level 5 tank attacker likely did not suffer as much damage as it would have in previous releases and as a result is likely to be ready to either defend or attack on its next turn. Hubert