Straha

Hey Straha, is your location "exile", anywhere that a fellow lerker could reach with a CD? Maybe you are close to a fellow lerker, who might burn a copy for you and get it to you. Besides, London's falling (forget about Paris... that's old news!!!) Aloid</font>

Use CTL+ALT+DEL, when the task window opens select any programs running and click End Task. Leave Explorer and Systray running those two should be the only entries in the window. Then run scandisk.</font>

Very interesting! The only obvious strategical error on your side was to invade the baltics (this IS a quite cocky move ). It still seems that not doing that would only have delayed things, though, as the Russians seem unstoppable. And the US did not even come into play really! :eek: I'm eager to try that out myself. Straha

Jeff, too, posted a list just one minute after me which contained additional points. I support his suggestions, especially - show the strike ranges for selected units, as well as consider different shadings for units with respect to action points (full,points left, moved) - organize reinforcements through a single screen. - let the subs *at least* not be surprised by transports. Others also restated our old desire to have - more distinctive graphics for units and cities of different nations. Straha [ May 21, 2002, 03:45 PM: Message edited by: Straha ]

... I took the time to sift through the posts so far to find out about what people think would constitute a "most wanted" list: - Make subs a bit cheaper, a bit more effective against transports, and reduce the effect of "surprise" against them. - Reduce or remove the effect of automatic supply for surrounded fortifications. - Maybe the airfleet at Malta should be replaced (possible alternative: having an allied Malta reduce the supply for Italian possessions in Africa, just like the subs do.) - purchase screen should stay open as long as one does not actively close it. (Not sure whether I understood that correctly, but it seems one has to open it for every unit?) - The move-and-attack system seems to be like the one in Panzer General (the first game). You have to move and to attack immediately. So you can't position your forces first, and attack in a last phase (so to speak). Because players requested this, SSI changed it for Pacific General: now you could move, deselect, move another unit etc., and then attack with the units who had only moved but not attacked yet later in the turn. I have to say that this improved gameplay greatly. That's why I suggest to implement it in SC, too. (Note that this is not the same request as having combined attacks, though it clearly would open the door for it.) I left out the technical problems, but the "Alt-Tab" issue seems worth stressing. Of course on top of the most wanted list for me is to have the game itself. I'm glad to hear that people already love it. :cool: Straha [ May 21, 2002, 03:33 PM: Message edited by: Straha ]

I will order the full game anyway. The reason I would like to play the demo would be more to give Hubert some feedback. (As we all know by now, he has always an open ear for our suggestions, as long as they are sensible and feasible. ) Because what happened to me recently, I'm really paranoid with respect to my system at the moment. Even though I got everything up and running again, (reinstalled everything etc.) I have some strange problems left. Especially, scandisk does refuse to work telling me that some application prevents it from starting. I could not figure out why this is (anyone has an idea?), but the effect is that after a bluescreen occurrs, any file-errors will not be fixed at restart. But if the reports of system errors stop, then I will surely reconsider to start the two hours download. Still, there's also the problem that for some reason my download manager does not respond when clicking on the link. This means that if anything goes wrong (connection time out etc.) I would have to start from scratch. And I know that - within 2 hours - this WILL happen! Straha

Almost broken-hearted, but after pondering things back and forth, I decided to pass with the demo for now. My modem is too slow for 26MB, and also the Download Accelerator seems to refuse to work with this one (yes, I still tried... ). Lastly, I just read the two posts reporting problems with system crashes, and I can not afford any problems with something like this right now, even if the chances are ever so slim: I lost a lot of important data just a few weeks ago, and had to work overtime to get things back on track. Straha

Sounds like the demo is soon on, indeed. Straha

That's it exactly. Stalin moved his spare divisions from Siberia to the front "last minute" so to say, and only when he was sure the Japanes would sit still. War in Siberia is the hypothetical assumption that Japan attacks the USSR after Germany declares war to the US (like Hitler had hoped). This option is implemented in many wargames, and makes the USSR in 42 somewhat weaker than it historically was. Straha

I guess that the problem with the current fortifications maybe is that they are too effective to have them in more places than they already are. Furthermore, the Westwall only makes sense in games with a finer hex grid. Together with the Maginot line, we would end up with two rows of fortifications more or less directly bordering each other. Keeping the Maginot line after occupying it makes not really sense either as the forts face in the wrong direction. I'd say the "vanishing" of them is a good abstraction with respect to this. Straha

Sounds great, guys. I will give EA a try (if and when I can afford the time, that is). Straha

Thanks, Hubert, for that in-depth reply. Your concept for difficulty adjustments is convincing, and I like it independently of the playing-strength of the AI. Any additional tweaks which make it still more "cunning" (for the release version) are welcomed, though, of course. Straha [ May 15, 2002, 01:00 PM: Message edited by: Straha ]

ROTFL

*Straha feels loved.*

George: once you have started SlowDown, push the sliders to the far end (just to be sure, if it works you can adjust that later). Don´t touch the program then (don´t close it or the effect will be lost). Don´t click on "future.exe", for this will give back an error. Instead, open the dosbox manually (NOT dosmode, else SlowDown will stop working. Therefore, you will have to set the real ems ram in your config.sys, not in "properties". 1024K are enough.) In the dosbox, change the dir to the dir with future edition. Start the proggy by typing "future.exe" (and pressing "return"). Should work now. Straha

Is that setting possible? I think it would not only be nice, but we could also use it for checking the balance of user scenarios. Straha

That does not sound very encouraging. I have the following suggestions for making life harder for the human Allies vs. AI Axis : 1.) Add "axis liberation politics" option (like in COS: gives Germany certain corps for free once they capture certain cities, e.g. Riga and Kiev.) 2.) Add the option to upgrade (selected?) enemy research levels somewhat (or even generalized: while having a default, let the player configure research at the start. We can then e.g. decide to upgrade the German subs or planes somewhat). This, together with switching off the partisans, and boasting the experience may help. I don´t like "cheating" on the MPPs that much, but it is still much much better than tampering with the success probabilities of battles. I downright hate *this* kind of AI boasting, and never use such settings in any games (I rather stop playing). Straha [ May 15, 2002, 01:48 AM: Message edited by: Straha ]

StugIII: The patch does not work with the future edition, though. Suvorov: get yourself the program SlowDown (search with google). Run it before opening the dosbox. Btw: while COS needs ems, 1024k are more than enough. BB: the autoexec.bat is in the rootdirectory C:\. It can be edited with notepad, wordpad or the "edit" command in DOS. Straha [ May 15, 2002, 01:28 AM: Message edited by: Straha ]

Yes, it's a bit quiet lately. Not even SuperTed dropped by today. The absence of Hubert hopefully has to do with him preparing the demo. If the game does not come out this summer, there will maybe be a problem for me with ordering because it's more and more likely that I'm leaving the country in fall. Straha

LOL, nice one! Straha

Although I love SuperTed's AAR, another one can't be bad. Also, seeing things form the allied side is a very good thing, for then we could see early on how good the AI really is. What I'm anxious about is this: if the human player has an easy time to hold France against the AI, then the 1939 scenario is uninteresting to play from the allied side, which would be a pity, of course. Straha

BB: I use a dosbox now, too. Have sound and can save. I know of the "no sound" problem, though, from other computers. Put the command SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T1 into your autoexe.bat. Should help (as long as you have a SB compatible card). Do you have a folder "save"? What happens when you try to save? Straha

Future edition is totally overhauled, but you will not "see" it outright (have a look at the files, though). There ARE many bugs in 1.1., somewhere on the net (I think at the grognards) you can find a file where they are all listed. The AI is better, too. To not use it is a big mistake, but do whatever you please, gentlemen. I give you just one reason why the FE is better, but this alone should be enough: In 1.1. the feature was added that the USSR and the Allies can be played separately. Well, this doesn´t work, because if you take the Allies and let the AI take over the USSR, the USSR will never produce anything. Future edition fixes this. The runtime patch only works with the old game, though. Doesn´t matter. You don´t need that patch. What you need is a good slowdown program. Please note that most of the freebies like moslo etc. do not work with very fast computers and COS. What works is the program SlowDown. I use it with a PIII700, no problems. A search with google should lead you to download links. Straha [ May 14, 2002, 12:31 AM: Message edited by: Straha ]

Well, that bump just above my post ... now I'm confused, too. :confused: Straha [ May 13, 2002, 06:04 PM: Message edited by: Straha ]

I did not play this one. But I already found playing "Fall Gelb" in TOAW more a chore than fun, and more a war of attrition than of blitzing, too. And let's not forget that TOAW is on the operational level. So ... is Europe Aflame not simply too huge in the end? Straha