urgrue

oh dear. i must've missed or unread (read in a spaced-out manner) dougmangin's post, cause he suggests almost the exact same thing as me....

i agree the game is not meant to be strictly historical, but provide also the possibility to play "what if" scenarios. but i don't like the idea that tech is blindly shared. this would remove a lot of strategic fun, the challenge of tech spending, and historical realism. having them shared blindly, you might as well remove the different flags from research altogether, and just have "axis" and "allies". i dont really like this idea. maybe this could be an option? but i think a compromise can be found, see my suggestion below. i also agree this should only be done if tech development speed is slowed down. its a bit fast as is, this would make that worse. so definitely slow it down to compensate. someone once suggested decreasing the % chance of development success with each tech level. i think that's a good idea. how about this for sharing: -US can share with UK their own tech -1. and vice versa. -US/UK can share with USSR their own tech -2. and vice versa. -BUT only if the receiver country has invested at least the giver's level's worth into research of that tech. -AND this doesn't just "happen", but has a certain chance of happening. -Germany can share with Italy their own tech -3 (or -2, i was thinking -3 because of italy's historical lack of technical capability) for example: let's say UK has L5 jets, and US has L2 jets. US has invested 2 research points into jets. no special "sharing" happens. usual rules apply. another: UK has L5 jets, US has L2. if US has 3 points invested in jet research, they get a 30% chance each turn of raising their own jets to L3. this is a separate roll of the die, ie this 30% is not added on top of the normal research success probability. US will not raise to L4 unless they invest one more point (4 total) into jet research (via sharing. they can still get to L4 by normal means). they will not raise to L5 except by normal means. nevertheless i think something along these lines should be done. it's not believable that (especially) US and UK wouldn't share with each other. especially since both have such limited resources that investing in spending is pretty costly. and particularly because everyone agrees the game is a bit unbalanced in the favor of the axis, i think this would be a good way to help solve that problem too.

just a little idea i had for helping play balance and realism. share techs between allied countries. especially between brits and US, if brits have L5 jets/tanks then i would assume it logical and historical that these improvements should help the US as well. but not have them totally shared of course. maybe for example, if a certain tech level is 2 or more higher than the other's, the other gets a 25% chance of gaining a level in that field each turn. or something like that. obviously tech sharing between US and brits should be higher than between both of them and russia, though i do know that the russian's at least shared their tank chassis knowledge with the americans. i dont think the germans need to share with the italians, both for reasons of play balance and realism (afaik there wasnt any sharing going on).

I dream of this too, sometimes even literally. Even better, larger SC battles open up CM, smaller ones open up a ww2-modded Operation Flashpoint! (i risk being flamed for mentioning an "action" game in this forum...but there is quite a bit of strategy in that game after all...) anyway ever since Microprose promised us the EBS (electronic battlefield simulator), i've been dreaming about a grand, on-line war game, where thousands of players fight it out, and you can rise in rank and gain more players under your command, etc. its a dream...which ww2 online is sorta-kinda trying to do but i dont think the time is ripe for this yet...too many bugs, internet connections too slow, and worst of all, much too action-oriented... how about any SC battle automatically spawns a CM (or SPWaW) pre-generated battle to load up. hehe...not likely to happen but probably not actually that hard to do, at least not if SC and SPWaw/CM were open source....

Not me but I would love to hear tips on how to combat this! Building up an air fleet is too costly, and you don't have all the experience his units have. It has always been a disaster for me. The only way I know how to deal with this is to make it hard for him to know what to do with his planes. Simply put, avoid them. If his planes are in the east, I try and shrink away (or maneuver through a position out of his immediate range), while going more aggressive with the UK/USA. If he sends them west, likewise I do the opposite. Building up a good UK/US air fleet is important, but difficult because you can only build one every 3 turns or so. So needless to say you must try and gain experience with places like malta and norway, while taking minimal damage. It's tough. An axis player with a big fleet of experienced L4+ jets is very frightening.

i'm happy to hear comments from experienced players. i'm also happy to hear criticism of my strategy. but i'm really not convinced of the defensive line strategy. i haven't had that much experience, but it doesn't usually work too well for me. inevitably the germans punch through pretty easily, and then it's a royal mess, as i'm forced to move troops from other parts of the line to prevent him from completely encircling my troops. then it just ends up as one big happy family of enemies duking it out. i usually lose. what do you all do, when germany breaks through the straight defensive line? anyway, in the defensive line, a unit can be attack by two enemy land units (until he breaks through, and then he's attacking with much more). assuming a rather medium-sized cluster that just has the immediate hexes around the city covered, your units can be hit by three enemy land units. but i find that any vaguely decent axis player relies quite a bit on air fleets anyway. this renders that difference pretty insignificant, in my humble opinion. however the reason i like the clusters is not because of any immediate tactical advantage, but because of a grander strategic advantage (that i might only be imagining, newbie that i am). the way i see it, if you are the axis player and you are facing a straight line, you have a pretty clear vision of the russian forces, in terms of both location and size. now if i'm the axis player, and i'm facing a cluster strategy, i don't really know what to do. i don't know where the russian armies are, and i don't know what strategy he's planning. are all his units defending cities? or does he have his armies in the black sea, in the urals, near st.petersburg? how much does he have and what's he going to do with them? if i don't know how big, and where, russia's army is, i don't know how many troops i have to leave behind to defend my already-conquered territory. the idea is, if he doesn't know, he will likely assume wrong. if he assumes you don't have much left, he will drive deep into your (mostly undefended) land, stretching his supply lines and giving you an opportunity to cut him off. if he assumes you have a lot left, he will be overly cautious, and spend valuable time taking your clusters. i like to build the clusters mostly with corps. in my current game i can build about 5 per turn. if he comes close to taking the city, then i'll send in a part of my main army (that i am building up behind the lines). he won't be bothering much about killing your corps when there are level 3+ tanks attacking him. as soon as his siege of your city has loosened, i send my tanks away again, to reinforce and admire their medals, and in the meantime i've bought a full load of corps to surround said city again. i think this strategy is weakest against a german opponent who keeps his head cool and thinks long-term, even willing to sacrifice in the short-term, and maintains a clear strategic plan throughout. but, fortunately for me, most of my pbem opponents aren't that patient and level-headed.

I like to live by one of Sun-Tzu's important lessons: never let the enemy know your strength. Generally, I start with a rather wimpy defensive line just to slow the germs down. While he's working on that, I try to build clusters of units around each city. These are a pain to conquer, and he'll have a hard time deciding which way to go, cause most area is empty ground. He won't know where your armies lie. I don't really believe in the straight defensive line, because although its true that only two units can attack any one unit, it eats up a lot of units to make that long line, and also he only needs a few planes to be able to punch a hole in any given spot in one single turn. Spreading your units along a long line also allows him to get at them all one by one, whereas having them in clusters forces him to concentrate his attack in one location for a longer period of time, allowing you to maneuver around him. I also build these defended clusters in the better terrains, like forests and behind rivers. All of these naturally should be built asap and left alone, to gain entrenchment bonuses. I mainly research industrial tech first, then tanks. This way you can easily buy two tanks per turn, until tank tech raises the price (and upgrades all existing tanks, woohoo!). Get em while they're cheap, and keep them alive long enough to get upgraded. The main tactic here is to build up a massive tank army somewhere safe, and don't let him know how many tanks you have, or where they are. If your enemy penetrates to this tank army, operate them all away and let his amassed armies attack empty space. But trick him. If he saw your tanks, leave a few there and let him kill them. This way he won't know how much damage he did to you, and how much you have left. Leave "fake" defensive lines in place (made up of cheap corps and weak units) just to slow him down and confuse him more. The ideal situation is one where his main attack force is deep in your territory, facing some fake defensive line, thinking, like Hitler did, that the red army was finished. Then, when the time is ripe, use your built-up defense force to chop through. The aim is to trap his main attack force inside your territory. It's most important to destroy his supply lines. So use cheap troops to find the less-defended areas, and get your cities back. If you manage that, then head west, instead of confronting his main army to the east. Going east you'll at best end up with a weakened force far in the east, with little or no defense in place and the germs will just build up a new invasion force. Heading west will also cause him to panic. He doesn't know how strong a force you have, so he will have a hard time deciding whether to head back west himself, or continue east, or split his forces. The more confused he is, the more likely it is that he won't have a clear strategic response. One more important point. He may not see your units, but he does see the frontline move (the color change) when you move your units. So send units into his grey territory regularly, and retreat them back, just to create confusion. Do this a lot especially before you attack for real, otherwise he will see you coming much too early. I'm quite a newbie, but this tactic has worked for me.

Interesting. I don't really have this problem. If a front like that develops, I realize I need to build enough air fleets and/or rockets to be able to punch a hole in that front line. In expending MPPs on that build-up, the situation already loses stability, and either he punches through before I succeed, or I manage to hold on and punch through myself. Either way, a permanent stagnant front-line has never developed for me. However, i'm just a lame n00b, who has never even succeeded in conquering the UK, so...I couldn't even dream of a front-line "many units" thick on the eastern front. Is there some kinda "triple MPP bonus" option I've missed? But regardless, the question is, is this unrealistic? Like WW1? I don't really know, but in my n00bie limited playing experiences, i've not experienced much that i find blatantly unrealistic. Except maybe, when i have three carriers, a battleship, and four units endlessly pounding one corps in a city and they can never get through. I think I would be happy enough simply if the amount of reinforcements a cut-off, fully-surrounded city gets was lowered. Or lowered over time, maybe (as local able-bodied youngsters ran out)?

i think the reinforcement system is okay. not great, but adequate. maybe i'm just good at suspending disbelief, but when i see a stalemate develop, i see it as a lack of me having sufficient air power, and/or tactical/numerical superiority. from that perspective its realistic enough, for me. was WW1 one big fat stalemate? didnt the combatants in WW2 avoid this situation precisely with superior tactics/numbers/technology? (this is not a rhetorical question, im actually sincerely asking) there were plenty of occasions in WW2 where even short advances were gained only after long, hard battles, on every front. im no expert, but after all the game is very large-scale and abstract. what i see a lot is a case where 3 or 4 of my units cannot ever take a city held by one corps. it can hang on indefinitely, until i "get lucky" and am able to knock it out in one go. but given the sort of city-fighting that took place in russia for example, it doesnt break my suspension of disbelief. i just take it as a sign that i need to bring in a couple air fleets... it is simplistic, but given the scale of the game, well, this isnt third reich after all. regardless, one idea for a "solution" i had was, what if reinforcements were units? you could buy a "ghost image" of any unit for the same price as a full stock of reinforcements of said unit. youd have to build it like any other unit, and have to walk it over (or operate, transport, etc) to where you want it to go, and "merge" it into a depleted unit. this might bring about interesting strategic challenges, where you'd have a second line behind your front-line, of reinforcements, and you'd have to try and manage them into the best locations from where they can best reach the most depleted units. whether or not they would be visible to the enemy, capable of attacking/defending, is another topic. i would say yes to the first and no to the second. yet one should be able to call up reinforcements when in/near your own city, cut-off or not (to simulate drafting locals). personally, i think this goes a bit too far beyong the scope of the game, so i vote no. but its a just an idea since everyone's tossing ideas...

in the demo, there were a few occasions when vichy france didnt appear. it only happened twice, and never since, and never in the full game. was this a bug in the demo, or is there something you can do or some random factor that will prevent vichy france from being created? (or was i just dreaming?)

does SC support any command-line parameters? specifically, i would love for SC to be able to directly start up a PBEM game from a save file using command-line parameters. this would make it possible for PBEM (the wonderful front-end program for managing PBEM games) to seamlessly support SC. i asked this of CMBO too but i guess they dont care about me...sniff... the indispensable PBEM can be found at www.saunalahti.fi/fuerte/pbem.htm

this is what i meant. its a bit of unnecessary clicking to select multiplayer, load email, select the email file, then enter the password... i would assume implementing this feature would be quite simple.

i meant: -l pbem_game_name -p pbem_game_password silly parser thought it was html...

it would be nice if CM supported some command line parameters, like: combatmission.exe -l <pbem game name> -p <pbem game password> this would make using the indispensable PBEM program much spiffier.

I personally think localizing would gain customers who wouldn't otherwise buy the game. But there are also those of us who speak english well enough that we'd prefer the english version. So, I wonder, why couldn't you have both? In-game, I mean. Finnish manual and english pdf on the cd (or vice versa) should keep most people happy. But seriously, you don't even need to code in anything new. Just include the english language as a patch (a simple diff even) that people can install which overwrites the boxed finnish localized files (or vice versa). Or even, cd space permitting, just include both versions, complete (CMBO wasnt that big, especially if you exclude the files that dont change (graphics and sounds, etc). I doubt it would be any real trouble to do this. So why not just have both? Let the buyer choose. I can't think of a better solution given the fact that figuring out the customers gained vs customers lost in other cases is pretty much guess-work.