Desert Dave

Atom bomb research will NOT be included. Thus far, there are eighteen (18) different categories, and this is definitely not one of them. On the bright side... You can research Infrastructure for instance, which will have some certain effect on your Op Moves. Kind of like keeping your road & rail in good working order. I have been campaigning for this latter category for some long, dedicated time, and I am very glad that Hubert has decided to include it! :cool:

Long, long before anyone ever even thought about playing "computer games," folks in other times and places were earnestly playing with miniatures. And they still do. "Tiny soldiers" are merely... and only, "in your mind." Whether you are staring at a computer screen, or moving them around quite diligently in a sand box. I like these new icons, and I REALLY like that... when it is the Winter Season, You can be immersed in the proper atmosphere, primarily by the snow dusting appearing on the men and equipment. Now that is really truly kool. :cool: When a Desert Rat in the vast and unforgiving desert, you will be outfit in appropriate Camo gear... and that is atmosphere also. If I didn't like the tiny soldiers, I could switch to "military symbols" or I could import one of the 100s of mods that will SOON! be available after release. As could you. So, keep an open mind and give it good and faithful... try out, first?

Oh yes, now you can have "specialty" units to handle very specific tasks. :cool: For instance, and likely one of my own favorites... put a research chit into "naval bombers" right away, say, if you are playing Italy. Hope for some quick research discovery. (... if you don't get it right away, that's all right, you can mix it up with the Desert Rats using your Infantry Weapons advantage... which you DID get... save those Amazing! new! torpedo bombers for later... l) Build an AF or 2 that is maxxed out at whatever level you have achieved. Presto Chango! :cool: NOW, you have those Naval Bombers that can help you compete in the Med with the RN. Or, as Bill has suggested, keep some of your achievements... secret! Wait for that exactly right moment to spring! On your unsuspecting Foe... the surprise of his war gaming Life! The potential possible game variations are now damn near endless! No longer will one person be able to dominate the field... EVERYONE will have a particular favorite GAMBIT or OOB to employ. So, in this far, far better Realm... you might say something like: "Hey, you gotta play So-and-so... you should just see his secret battle Ops and sudden surprise deployments! :eek: Essentially, you have MANY new units, not MERELY those that are obviously included. Heck, you could probably play around with the new! Engineer unit, or the Rockets and actually make them something else entirely. Given that you CAN mod from here to Kingdom Come, no end to the possiblities! Hubert deserves one hell of a long and sustained... standing applause! for allowing all of this!

The kind that light up all the Heavens into reverential smiles, and for miles all around! And, charm the Kandinsky mood music from out of the Spheres! Other than that, no, can't say as I have had the pleasure!

And just in case some of you missed the late night scores: 109 to 106. 7 to 3. 3 to 2 in OT. 98 to 97... an exciting one, a last second shot! 12 to 5. And, for rambo, 2 under par (... the lights were shut off to save Municiple monies, but they were using a Neon golf ball) :cool:

And that's they way MOST WW2 GS games do it, whether you are talking a "golden oldie" board-games like 3rd Reich, or a newer iteration like Total Krieg! USA is mostly always an "off-map" box used as a staging area and a Fort Knox-like repository for the economic treasure. Now, Hubert has his OWN way of doing, which is good for all of us who like accomplished war games that have elan and savoir faire. Besides, like Moon has reminded, you CAN make a map that has all of the USA... from Big LA to old Santa Fe to bluesy Chi-Town - following fabled Route 66 where you can get yer Corvette kicks... all the way over to Boston Harbor, true? :cool:

And that is what you have! Infantry Weapons takes the place of anti-tank as the primary defining factor of Corps and Armies. IOW, achievements in this research field will indicate what particular level your infantry is at. A/T advances are "hidden" and gained and applied in the same way that long-range air is for Air Fleets. Thus, you could have the VERY interesting possibility of a Panzer unit stumbling into a small group of Russian Corps, all of whom have some level of anti-tank advances, oh 1 or 2 or 3, with each being different... but you wouldn't know that until they suddenly blew your tracks off! :eek: A kind of realistic, and very exciting... FoW. So. This category could be posited to include: Artillery and mortars, HMGs and all sorts of explosive devices, as might be used by ground pounders or... the combat engineers, such as the extremely nasty Flammenpanzerwagen!. At this scale you probably don't need an artillery unit taking up a whole square, true? If you did that for all the possible units, there would hardly be any room to maneuver.

Brief, but nice little Intro write-up over at this site... Wargamer Interesting group of expanded screenshots as well! :cool:

Disappointing? No way. Think of it like this... The girl you dated all through High School went away to college and you missed her but went on with your life and then, Years later... she came back! :cool: A little older. Bigger here and there. Wiser in all the very best ways. In ways that you used to dream about but Never thought... could happen. No more pony-tail or misty-pink lipstick. NOW! She is like a Tiger on the prowl! :eek: And, Asking around, At all the neighbors' houses, and Politely, but very determined... Just for... you! :cool:

FWIW, and it probably ain't much, but I have been campaigning for this as well. :cool: Be truly cool for SBs to impede the reinforcement of France during Overlord. There ARE some other variations quite possible on the usual Op Move routine that was used in SC1.

Could be, but... when you defend Finland you'll be able to do so with an HQ... a Finnish HQ! You know what that means! To all the distant relatives! :cool:

Shoot, this is so easy, even I can answer this one! :cool: Yes. All the way off, or part-way off - you'd see just a "halo-type" circle beneath, or those solidly rounded unit-bases. What a grand game! What a grand old time... just ahead!

Couldn't you have searched around a little longer and found a bigger picture? Oh, that's right. It's Kuni Most Unusual, I forgot.

Most likely the hapless AI would merely throw up its atom-smashed hands and say: "YOU! Are the Candadian Mountie on a fire-snorting, renegade Horse! And I... just and only... the dust whirled-around by a whole Earth shearing wind. You win!" Then again, one soon-to-come day, the AI will more closely resemble... Hurryin' Heinz Guderian ... laughing like some ever immortal Icon as he rides his fire-snorting Pz IV into heretofore unconquered Realms! :eek: You'll just have to feed manna & wild-honey to yer faithful great Horse... while you wait.

Happy Easter! To all who care, And to those who don't? Well, keep in mind, The thought impossible IS Ever immanent. For instance, I can feel it in my light-as-air bones, SC2 is on the way! Any day! :cool:

In post-modern Trans America, ICONS are more important, and considered much more valuable, than... rodents, prey animals or people. Disney says so. Andy Warhol sealed the deal. Hasbro is a junior league nobody when it comes to batting around in the Big Leagues. You guys think it's hard to get some old board game made for computer? LOL! Try this. Try making a board game based on Major League Baseball. Just try it. The Major League Baseball Player's Union, without doubt the most selfish avaracious bunch of goofball Clowns who ever swaggered to stumble into PT Barnum Center Ring, Wants... not a reasonable fee, oh no, They want... an arm and a leg. Literally. Yours. And your child's. And your doting old grandmother's. And your heart and soul thrown in while yer at it. :eek: LOL! ICONS are... precious, ... like Honor and common everyday dignity used to be.

Yes, JJ, you have hit upon a truly Doom consequential aspect of WW2 in Germany, especially in the falling-to-sinew years of 1944-45. The prevailing ZeitGeist was one of Evil unleashed, when Die Welt went... Wahnsinnig. ... or simply, quite insane. Desperate and earth-scorching mentality, is, many say, who have never... been there, a rare and thank the indifferent Stars, an... almost impossible event. However, good to appreciate, even now, and perhaps especially NOW, that this revolting reversion could indeed happen... again. One wonders why WW2 GS games are so continuously popular, time and next time? Without apparent end? Not so very strange... it was surely and truly that one last gasp... for love and land and gold-hordes and... also glory, only, THIS time... that ever lingering, dumb loveless Deamon was... in the fight. :eek:

As well it should, since there WAS... and, IS an ongoing, never EVER ending case to be made. :eek: For ANY facet of the story. Those who say: "There aren't any conspiracies! " Usually mean to say, keep yer intrusive Self the hell! out of Big-Time Business. MY lucrative and power enhancing business! I prefer that you NOT discover TRUTH, rather, believe all of what I say (... akin to Goebbels' BIG LIE manipulations). Those who say: "There are conspiracies EVERYWHERE!" Usually mean to say, I am trying to perceive, amidst ALL of the competing Gestalt, data, media-flow, research materiel, and available anecdotes, some small and simple... TRUTH. For me. What else is there? You should live yer short and hopefully happy life based on... SOMEBODY ELSE's opinions? IF you ignore... or, worse... PRETEND that the World is merely "black & white," then you shall suck yer last ragged breath as... an ignorant man, and perhaps, that is indeed... a kind of bountiful bliss. IF you ACTIVELY seek and search and turn the rocks and flowers and concrete foundations over and upside down in your avid and determined effort to discover some very TINY truth, little "t"... THEN you are... on the side of the omnipresent but posited by logico-rational sorts as impossible! because THEY themselves have never SEEN it... Angels. World War 2 was so very IMMENSE and complicated and seen from so very many different kaleidoscope angles and directions, that there... IS NO Gospel TRUTH. Folks will quote so & so, supposedly a trusted and exactly academic fellow, in jolly good standing with some arbitrary validation group. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! Well, and there are those who SWEAR! by the truth as exposed by such (... trusted, faithful, objective LOL!) writers as... Ernie Pyle or Bill Mauldin or Ernest Hemingway and etc, etc, etc. WAS! Patton a GREAT General? Maybe, and probably, at several times. Other times he was likely a VERY vain former Polo player from Southern California Who UNECESSARILY risked the lives Of the men under his command. So to enhance HIS OWN standing among Possible potential election voters And/or Historians, who would easily See him as... Roman God-like, The master of all he surveys. WAS! There some certain and nefarious "conspiracy" to oust him from a position of potential political power. Probably. But, as with ALL else having to do with... ANYTHING... we will NEVER fully know for surely sure. This is called... really lived Life. Now, about JFK. There WAS all that first-hand, eye-witness testimony that was TOTALLY IGNORED by the Warren Commission Report. And on and on... whee! we go! :cool: [ April 05, 2004, 12:26 PM: Message edited by: Immer Etwas ]

Great idea!! For a Tournament Curry, I am only somewhat surprised that no-one thought of this kind of match-play before now. Short, quick, bloody but decisive... using what can be a tough and terrible slugging match in France. And this way, you can have fairly fast results, without having to play all the way through. Kudos to you. :cool:

Good point zapp, and perhaps this will be solved if we get some sort of editable "cap" on just how far each nation migh go in EACH researched area. For example, USA (... with those "tin-can" Shermans... as the Germans dryly described them) might ONLY be able to achieve L2 or maybe L3 (earlier introduction of those later US models which WERE quite potent) tanks... maximum. Germany could be allowed (... again, as an editable feature) to achieve L5. Italy L1, France L3, Russia L4, etc, as per each game-table warrior's perceived military history. Then you would NEVER have the admittedly strange situation where American tanks could slug it out on a comparable basis with those clanking "monster" tanks that Germany built.

But, this seems MORE realistic, given that Scientific sorts do not keep secrets so well. They do the dreaming and theoretical research, and usually share it around the wide World with other Scientists, EVEN in times of war. (Their rationale often is... KNOWLEDGE does not only belong to a particular "State" among many; rather, it belongs to ALL of Humankind, for good or ill... IE, "progress" is sterile & neutral in and of itself, and requires whimsical humans to choose when and how it is actualized and utilized, presumabaly to improve Civilization in all manner of ways, etc, etc.) Which is why the Military took charge of the atomic testing down here in Los Alamos, New Mexico... in hopes of putting a lid on the excited activities there. Not to say Scientists aren't ALSO Nation-patriotic, merely that their kind of work is generally known for quite some time... long BEFORE a war breaks out, and all scientists know what to do, and where to go next in almost every researched area. **Another way to do this, as has been suggested by many, is to introduce "intelligence" so that it is more VARIABLE when you ARE trying to catch up to another Power's research achievements.

The red and blue lobster Awoke And arose from out of the murkey deep depths, And soughed a patient old sigh. My, my, The red side and the blue side Are at it, Tooth toward the claw, Again? Sheesh, What a sleepy old lobster's... got to do! I've been divided since birth, So I can provide Something of worth, With my wise and vast Red Tooth & Blue Claw experience... Snick-Snack! The contest In this roiled old Ocean, Is closed. And now, The one side and Those're opposing, Will have to... find something Not so... hot red, And not so... cold blue, To do. If I can live with a divided body And soul, well, snick-snack, So can these actual brothers Of mostly... the one and the same... SC color!

This isn't QUITE correct. SOME of the soldiers, Officers and Politicians mostly (... ah so, grasshopper, as is EVER the case), did assume this unyielding Sepaku stance. To extrapolate and suggest that a majority of the soldiers also adhered MERELY and ONLY... to a "suicidal Samurai spirit" would be in error. And, to further suggest that MOST of the civilians would go so far as to sacrifice their homes and family... BECAUSE the warrior encoded Officers might ask or even order them to... belies everyday ordinary common sense. Sure, IF the home islands were invaded, even women and avid youngsters WOULD defend themselves ... but, this strange notion that MANY Japanese would volunteer to swim out into the seething Sea with a Samurai sword clenched between their teeth is simply an exaggeration. In the first place, there just weren't that many Samurai swords (... or fully functioning kamikaze planes) available. Then, I think you would have realized a very basic and simple truth... common to ALL peoples. Why die a death for somebody else's lost cause, when you can wait a little while, and live to fight another day, if necessary? Especially when no one is invading or directly assaulting... YOU, personally.

Well, the principle failing for HoI's research diorama was that the achievements were... automatic. There was no random element, thus & so, no excitement or surprise. You could pick & choose from among the many categories (... which is ALWAYS good, more CHOICES I mean) BUT you would receive them in due time regardless. IMHO, you could have a somewhat larger and more detailed tech tree, though NOT so very unwieldy that it would be TOO cumbersome for each game player's unique selections... how much time does it actually take to look over your CHOICES and make a selection or two? For one instance, I would favor some kind of Infantry Weapons category where the soft attack & defense could be improved slightly. This might take the form of a smaller or reduced (... and therefore, LESS espensive... say, 100-150 MPPs to purchase each chit) category that might only have 2 or 3 levels of achievement. Some other suggestions, such as Intel and Infrastructure and Amphibious could easily fit into our "lesser categories," yes? :cool: HoI was an unholy mess in about 4,376 separate areas, but their research tree was at least intriguing, if not in exacting accord with the rest of that... prematurely released (... in ALPHA state :eek: ) and X-tremely ill-conceived and (re, re, re-) designed game.

Yes! It's Phoenix Tweety!! Chirping up a sufferin' succotash song! About... soon to come... SC2!!!