gorber

a simple screenshot for the masses would not be to much to ask for, would it Hubert?

Shaka, I would appretiate if you could find it! Basically i would like to have this: (yes i am repeating myself and possibly others) A simple system where three different resources are needed to keep the war industry going at full speed: - Factorys - Oil - Mines/ore By this we could have a driver that simulate the need to hold key sites instead of just holding cities that all have 10 MPP. It would also boost the need for diplomacy (trade with neutral and allied countries) and the importance of Scandinavia and other areas. - Citys produce and have different production values depending on their "industrial strenght" - Oil and ore is needed to keep producing - Producing cant go faster than the resources allow. (Bottleneck factor) - Production takes time (unit production cost / factory strenght) - Lost cities loose their production (the partially built) If one would like to keep it really simple there could be a system of having just an "nationwide efficiency factor" depending on the resource sites under control. For example if Germany had a total production capacity of 500 in one particular turn, but the oil is a bottleneck having a value of 400 making the production go at a lower rate of 80%. All factorys goes at a speed of 80%. If the "ore bottleneck" would have been say 450 it would not have an impact as the oil is the main problem. Furthermore we could then add the importance of having open supplylines to conqured areas. Also the enemy could concentrate on one resource for example oil to crumble production wich would make AA and defence a more importance factor (read leave defending units in conqured citys) Instead of reducing cost for producing units as today, industrial research could instead raise production capacity. A techtree for refining ore and oil would then also have to be implemented. /Gorber

My brother have this mini-portable laptop with a 200 mhz cyrix processor and a small color plasma screen... Teriffic for running HICOM at work... must call him right away! brb... /Gorber

Well, what can i say... HICOM had it... Agree on many things in this thread and would like to add another factor to the weather conditions: Hexes with rivers in Scandinavia and Russia should loose part or all of their entrenchment bonus factors in mid winter to simulate the effect of thick ice. Troops (especially armour) should have their mobility reduced even more when trying to pass mountains in wintertime. An icy North Atlantic could have limitations on the US supplies going Russias way (MPP loss if the MPP system is kept in SC2) I loved the idea of having a tech tree for winter equipment! /gorberdude

what about a system where the maximum capacity of the airfleets had different starting positions? US air could start on 10 like today with max 15 polish on oh say 6-7 with max 11-12 (like they ever are going to last that long right! hehe) Anyway it could work for the other countries like Italy, France, Britain, germany... But hell that would possibly be an overkill. Havent seen that solution in any other game either (not even hicom )

I actually think it could be kept quite simple. What do you mean by throwing in manpower? a limit in manpower like in HOI? well yes why not: manpower decrease depending on what unit you build and increase when you conquer countries. If all things are kept as simple as possible (for example no need to allocate exact oil and material resources to be able to build like in hicom) we could have a system that simulates the real deal of having to conquer and control key sites to be able to suceed. What i would like to have is something that is a little more close to reality than just the MPP system. But.. yes it would take som work im sure to implement. Would be nice to know Huberts plans for SC2... is it posted somewhere? /Gorber

Shaka, Maybe we could get Ryan in here and he can provide us with his contacts? Would be great if more people could start asking for the promised update. I dont know if you played it but if you visit Ryans site (link above) you can download hicom from there (I actually believe he has got permission to host it) Otherwise i got it on my ftp. Beware: it wont run on anything newer than Win 98se or possible Me. Despite the simulation capacity of XP it cant handle this bugger because of its drainage of basic memory (640kb). Or perhaps you want to try and get it running - i would be kissing the ground you walk if you did! /gorberdude

Jersey, Yes, i think we can get him interrested in the patch work since he left and the SC2 coming up.. You do it when you get time.. /gorberdude

Solution in SC2 should be simple: Implement the AA factor for all units and also inplement stacking. Stacking should be restrained to say 3-4 units max including airunits. This makes you able to defend your valuables with a number of high AA units stacked on the same hex. Also drop the idea of automatic air intervention to prevent the enemy from crumbling your airfleets without you having any control about it. This will make airfleets a little less attractive as they cannot have the double hit factor any longer (both hit the unit its attacking and any defending airunit. This will lower the advantage of the one with the most airfleets indeed.)

So Jersey... Why dont we lure him back here? /Gorberdude [ April 29, 2003, 06:23 AM: Message edited by: gorber ]

Regarding Poland you should calculate with 2 turns. Take denmark next (takes two turns) and also use these turns to redeploy your armies to the west. Think it can be done in one of you use both tank units an all warships to bombarde plus one or two air units. But they take one turn to redeploy so you end up with two turns from Taking Poland anyway. It should be possible to redeploy the tank units to the Danish borders after taking Warsaw and let the armies do the sweep-up of the rest of the polish units. I always hit one of the center polish units first with armies to make a hole for the tank units to hit Warsaw directly on first turn together with all air units. Low countries takes one turn, two if you are unlucky with the airstrikes. After this you have the MPP:s to buy two more airfleets and you can take down those frensh and english airmen with an advantage of 5 to 2 (if he doesnt move forward his carriers but then it will just take 1-2 turns longer and he will loose them as well). In the 1.07beta patch i noticed that the AI will retreat to Paris of you punch a serious hole in his northern defences (always leave the maginot untouched). Now if i push beyond Paris with my tanks he will start to become undecisive and it usually takes not that long time to kill Paris and he then will surrender. Think the AI shouls stick to defending Paris to make it last longer. [ April 29, 2003, 06:52 AM: Message edited by: gorber ]

Let each city/factory produce one thing at a time and let the production take a number of turns. Let the city have a certain value/production points to simulate the Ruhr or any other area. If the enemy take the city production is aborted and can be used by him to produce his units. Ofcause he would have to wait until production points was built up again, oh say by 5MPP each turn or so. Air attacks/sea bombardments would snatch MPP:s from the factorys/shipyards. This implies scrapping of the MPP idea or rather a breakdown of the MPP idea into having each factory to have its own MPP value and not a nation wide MPP system. Produced units would be embarked on the factory that produced it and not free to place within any city limits as now. It would take one or two turns to allocate it into the battlefields far away depending on distance. Only seaside factorys can produce warships and maybe only certain factorys can produce tanks? (All factorys could produce army units but not all could produce tank detachments?) Example: a certain city has 50 MPP each turn to use for production. If an army takes 200 MPP to produce it would take unntil the fifth turn before the unit could be introduced (Unless the enemy as bombing the factory and snatching a number of MPP:s each turn making the production take 1-2 turns longer depending on AA protection and values) Then have mines and oilfields that has to be controlled in order to have those MPP:s roll in each turn. If an oilfield is lost MPP:s would be lowered evenly across the production lines. Sonds like Hicom? It is pretty much so... /Gorberdude

Shaka, "The code is just laying there" was written with the knowledge in mind that Hicom has been laying in someones drawer och been shuffeled between peoples drawers since three-sixty and Colorado computer creations "seased to be" back in the early 90:s. The people who according to Ryan had the rights to the code (and apparently have been trying to rewrite it to windows environment for like 5 years (read havent done anything about it)) are maybe not letting it go for free, and its pretty much unusable since it was written in some ancient code or something. It was just a remark that aimed at getting someone to have a look at the solutions that was so geniously implemented in Hicom Jersey, Ive been in contact with Ryan a few times and even played som PBEM games with him (he rushed to take Italy on the first turn while playing allies and i got panic and tried to invade England hehe...) I even tipped him about this fine game but i havent seen him around here. It seems hes got other occupations nowadays besides wargames. And i dont defend myself i defend hicom.

YES, YES, YES! I believe Ryan still has his ol page up... yes there it is! Ryans HICOM page still going strong! Hail to Ryan for being one of the only friendly dudes out there to keep the old HICOM spirit flying. I am not worthy of kissing his ugly King Cobra ! /Gorberdude

Ok, guys lets get a few things straighted out about my opinion on HICOM: I love HICOM. I want to, and i have the right to, even if i agree it had major flaws especially the AI and politics system (apart from the ordinary bugs like units in the ocean aso). What it DID have (notice the italics there...) was a key factor that ALL wars are about: resources. You had to get BOTH that oil and iron to succeed and furthermore you had to have the supplyline to provide it to your factorys/shipyards. MPP:s is just a substitute for this. The stacking and unit combining really rocked even if you anti-micro-managers dont agree. Period. And furthermore it was just an an option. Furthermore: you could let the computer AI do some of your work if you didnt have the time as most of you guys here doesnt seam to have (ok this feature wasnt brilliant i agree, but it worked to some satisfaction at least). MAJOR (bold AND italics there...) advantage in HICOM also: Building your units took time wich means you had to plan ahead more for your campaigns. Building airfleets didnt take one turn for example. In Hicom one factory built one thing at a time, which also meant that you had to keep that factory supplied. You could also transfer material from factories to another to speed up manufacturing. Re-allocations took time as i mentioned earlier, just as in real life. The auto-retreat system worked just fine and simulated the realism on the battlefield. You had to persue the retreating unit and kill it to prevent it from beeing built up. Where is the realism in assuming the army commander wouldnt retreat if he was hit by a superior unit? (And by the way they didnt ALWAYS retreat only during special curcumstanses) Same goes for the option of air intervention. Worked as a charm. You could keep your smashed unit on the ground to be rebuilt later instead of beeing anihilated beyond your control. (And btw believe me i know much of the arguments against all these stuff as these have been posted here over a year now in reruns over and over again) I could even agree that HICOM is too specialised but, hey... its still what I want. Are you really trying to convince me that i doesnt want what i want? I am perfectly clear on the fact that Hubert wont make another Hicom - i am just trying to influence him and the rest of you.. But if he would make all feature we post in here he would have to hire some serious floorspace and personnell, and the game would be very, very unplayable As Hubert is one of the few people out there that really tries to build a grand strategy wargames i would never try to imply that his game is not good enough - its on my top 10 list of most played games so he has done some things right!. Its just that i am a demanding customer and i wish for more! yesterday already! /Gorberdude