Straha

Great job! :cool: Straha

We mustn't forget that people also want to have a challenging game as the Allies. That's why I'm for house rules, but against any further changes in the actual game which favor the Allies even more. Given standard settings, it's far easier to win the game playing the Allied side. (At least that's what I can say based on my experience with the demo,but think this will be even more pronounced given the full time period.) Straha

"Wargamer" reviews are almost always high standard, and this one is very good, too. I think this review will help sales of SC very much. I want to highlight one point of his criticism, namely that air units defend too strongly against ground attacks. If my memory is not distorted (which I concede may very well be the case), then I think this was handled better in the first demo where air units defended weaker. But then we had some pretty strange discussion where people argued that in case of an attack the air units would "simply fly away", and then - I guess - Hubert gave the air units a higher defense value against ground attacks.(?) But, of course, the player should relocate his air units ("fly away") *before* an imminent ground attack in that hex occurrs. There's no way that the airfleet would endure (and defend the hex!) if actually being overrun. In this case it would just be too late, and only the player is to blame for not anticipating the situation early enough ... Straha [ August 12, 2002, 01:43 PM: Message edited by: Straha ]

So you acknowledge that Para ops will be wiped out if a link up does not occur with the main force, accept that it should be abstracted, yet will not accept that it HAS been abstracted already? - you just want to add complexity. Nope, I, too, do not want complexity for complexity's sake. But I think this adds to gameplay. For if we had the feature, we would have to decide where to employ our limited resources of paras. Now that it is abstractly factored in, it is the same on every section of the front. Let me put it like this: if Hubert had wanted, he could have left out the tac-bombing aspect of the airfleets and only have strategic bombers bombing cities and fighters countering them. The tac-bombers were then to be considered abstractly factored into the ground combat (maybe by a value depending on historical tac-bomber output/year). Why would this subtract gameplay value? Because it deprives you of the possibility to decide where to employ and concentrate your airfleets (when they are used as tac-bombers). Given that your goal appears to be simply to add complexity, why not buy HoI on release? one of the big strengths of SC is that it is simple - you played the demo and knew that, why are you complaining now? Why do you conclude I'm complaining? We were discussing aspects of SC and suggestions for improvements etc since the beginning of this board. Until now, this was considered welcome. In any case, I see this issue rather as a suggestion for a possible SCII, than something to be implemented in a patch for SC. Regarding HoI: I sure will buy it, but not "instead" of SC. I expect HoI to be a completely different kind of game which can hardly be compared to SC at all. You are going to have to explain that one, the explaination doesn't make sense to me. I thought of the capturing of Eben Emael, an example where gliders were used in the capturing of a fortress. A counter may have a parachute on it, but it could be seen as comprising parachute as well as glider operations. Btw in my original comment about how things were handled in COS, I actually meant "fortified position" in the broad sense, anyway, and not "fortress" in the narrow sense. Straha

I hope the manual fits on a floppy? Otherwise, I really *don't* like it when the manual is only accessible from the HD once you installed the program, and not as a separate file directly from the CD itself. In such a case, if you do not have a printer at home, you can't take the CD somewhere to print out the manual. For you usually can't or mustn't install the game where that printer is. Straha [ August 10, 2002, 05:56 PM: Message edited by: Straha ]

This somehow did not catch my attention yet, but this territory should be Lebanon, then (if it is at all separately treated from Syria). Palestine hexes OTOH should belong to Transjordan, and therefore to the UK. Straha

SNIP Paras don't 'distract/surprise/disorganize', they seize objectives (that do not exist on this scale).SNIP SNIP Paras were seldom used against fortresses and certainly not on the massive scale that a Corp drop in this game would imply.SNIP One last thing before I drop this: the paracorps in COS was not dropped on the objective. What is the airborne corps counter has to be seen as the paras plus all their supply units etc. When the corps (some hexes away from the target) prepared and then participated in an attack, it did not move on the map. I always rationalized this as the abstraction that paras belonging to that corps (but not a corps!) dropped on the target and seized certain objectives which made the main attack coming from other units (without which no paradrop was even possible) easier. It was probably misleading to describe this as "surprise, disorganize" etc. The paracorps counter then took losses (accounting for the men lost in that operation). I think the fact that the corps counter itself was not physically moved (in the attack) was supposed to take your concern into account that there were no corps drops on this scale, but instead operations which, though having an effect, would not be visible on the map. Regarding the fortresses, I would see this as an abstract way of representing glider operations, too. Of course, in a game on such a scale there have to be abstractions, and things always have to be rationalized to make sense. My favorite example for this is that in many games, one can do a limited amount of reserve movements each turn, where whole corps can be taken from the map and reemployed somewhere else. This may look weird. But once one rationalizes this as an abstracted factoring in of railways, it begins to makes perfect sense, and it even explains why one has to drop of the corps next to a (connected) city. So, in a way railways are incorporated without them actually being there on the map. Paratroopers can be integrated in a similar way. What has to be avoided on this scale is only the oversimplistic (and wrong) approach where really a corps-counter is somehow magically moved behind enemy lines. Straha [ August 09, 2002, 03:01 PM: Message edited by: Straha ]

Amazing. Straha

double double posts by me this time. [ August 08, 2002, 08:36 PM: Message edited by: Straha ]

nt [ August 08, 2002, 08:34 PM: Message edited by: Straha ]

Yes, the (single) paraunit in COS could not only be attacked and overrun normally on ground (it was very vulnerable, especially if attacked in the preparation phase), it also could be used to attack like a normal (weak) corps (without the preparation turn). But, of course, this amounted to wasting a precious unit, so one would do this only in very special circumstances (like an almost destroyed enemy armygroup standing nearby which would recover if not eliminated *now* at all costs). Straha

This too, is a bad idea - historically Paras are very vulnerable to bad terrain (see the drops in Normandy as one example) and do little to negate enemy terrain (see Market Garden as a classic example). SNIP</font>

I don't think so. The other Otto is just "Otto". Straha

So what? That's not really germane to Augustas' point, is it? He's talking about using some kind of airborne abstraction as a force multiplier which at this scale is exactly what airborne is. I think that he has an interesting idea, though I would say that there should be a cost for buying one of these chits.</font>

If you - as a player - do not yourself cheat in COS (that is, if you accept even desastrous outcomes battles etc.), you may very well loose on normal settings. I remember that I had one game where everything went awry as the Axis: - Norway failed (units didn't take Oslo soon enough, the supply ensuring ship in the North Sea was destroyed). - France didn't want to offer Vichy until the last city was taken ... - I had transferred all Italian units to Africa even before Italy entered the war. So I had to use German troops later to garrison the Italian cities. The Italians almost conquered Alexandria, but then the navy could not hold its own in the East Mediterranean, Malta suppressed the supply, and *all* Italian units were out of supply and eliminated in front of Alexandria soon. - Franco did *almost* join the Axis, but I then wasted all my diplomacy points on him. I had heavily invested in ships early, and wanted to pull off a Gibraltar plan. So I attacked Spain. But while my units were occupied in Bilbao, Stalin declared preemptive war on me even though I had met the garrison requirements in Poland. In short: I was doomed already at the end of 41. Straha PS: O well, and in another game as the Allies, I transferred two British armies (BEF) with a transport to France, and the heavily guarded transport was sunk by a lone German sub, while my 4 carriers and battleships in the same seazone seemed to have missed to attend the party. Of course, I had bought De Gaulle, but before he arrived, France was lost ... [ August 08, 2002, 05:22 PM: Message edited by: Straha ]

I won't even deny that. But then, do our naval units really cover a 50 miles hex? Many (if not all) features in a game involve a kind of trade off between realism and gameplay, and all I can say is that IMO a cautious implementation of a (limited) airborne feature would add to SC, and that's indeed why I want it. COS, for example, has shown how this can be done, even at this scale. Straha

That's disturbing news. Straha

ROFLMAO! As praise had no effect - let's see whether this strategy will motivate him. Straha

I think we could make an exception to the "at least corps-sized"- rule with respect to paratroopers, though, as long as every country may only maintain *one* (multi division) airborne unit at any given time. This would, on the one hand, prevent ridiculous amassing of airborne units, and on the other hand allow for a new type of "special" operation in the game, adding even more depths (and fun) to it. Straha

Actually, the jets even used to kick in one stage earlier in the beta demo. Maybe things would be better with only the very last step having jet sound? (Though this would mess up the most beautiful unit mod for SC). Straha

It's a mixed bag. He begins very good and then somewhat blows it at the end with his own suggestions. I like that he explicitly points out how fun the game is. I more and more tend to agree that the research model should be overhauled, and his comment that *sustained* research in an area should bring the most benefit is surely something to be considered (even if I do not know exactly how to implement this). Other suggestions of his would have catastrophic consequences,though: for example the Allies sharing technology and the proposed boosting of the US economy would simply unbalance the game in an unbearable way (apart from that the initial 180mpps for the US can also very well be rationalized: it is not the *whole* economic potential, but just what is initially *used* for the West yadayadayada ...). Maybe with "unless you let the AI cheat" he just means that the higher difficulty levels give the AI more mpps, though his comment unfortunately is really quite misleading here. Straha

Someone suggested in another thread that low level rocketry be considered railguns and change the graphics to match. Not a bad idea, I think. You could rename an early rocket and call it K5, 'Dora,' 'Karl," etc. and then when you hit tech level 4 rename them all to V1 and level 5's can be V2 (with corresponding graphics to match).</font>

Gracie a lei. Straha

Good point. Actually, the only thing where I would change something is rockets. I mean instead of starting out with "feeble" rockets, I would make rockets purchaseable only when a certain research level is achieved (maybe 4). If this should turn out to make them too unattractive, they could be made somewhat stronger to compensate. Straha

No, I meant there should be no pop-up point for partisans in Riga. That's different from the crossing borders issue. Straha