Fubarno

Oh,... and a timer option would be good too, and probably not too dificult to code. Don't let any replay feature slow down the release of the game. This can be released in a patch just as TCP/IP was in SC1.

How about just a game record feature? Important and high level games could be recorded and posted online for download and replayed ad nauseum for those that are interested. If you only had 30 minutes of free time before you go back to monitoring your put options, load up the latest grudge match between the two top dogs and watch a couple years worth of moves with no lag time for the players to think. One would watch the turns transpire from the birds eye view of each alternating player so that one can only see what the player saw on his turn. Get your popcorn and pop a brew. Kick up your feet and watch the latest stars of SC2 Blitkrieg write their name in lights. Fame awaits.

Demo! hehhahhehehaha. He said demo. That's cool!

Yes, projected release in Q4, but will there be another demo/beta released that alows 1 year of a campaign to be played? If I remeber correctly, the demo/beta stage resulted in so much fabulous feedback that contributed greatly to the discussion and resulted in some excellent suggestions being implemented in the full release by Hubert/battlefront. Also, to satisfy the impatient (like myself), can beta testers do some of the great AAR's (with pictures)that scratched the itch for news on how the development of the game is proceeding? Initial screen shots look realy intriguing and the info released so far confirms that Battlefront is cutting edge strategy/wargame company. Looking forward.....

Just read in my latest PC gamer mag in the desktop general section about a new Grigsby/Billings game coming out purportedly in the late spring early summer of 2004. It's to be called "World At War" and according to the article, begins in April 1940, is a grand strategic simulation of the entire world at the time, has pbem up to 5 players, and is a beer and pretzels type wargame for the masses whith advanced settings under the hood that should please those more on the groggier side of wargaming. We'll see about that, but the developers do have a platinum reputation in the computer wargame field. I emailed the articles author, William Trotter, to get a website, which wasn't listed in the article. If I get a response I will list it here. This is something that all you GS WW2 buffs can hang some hope on for the near future. That's what I'm doing.

Both

Here is my perspective from the Axis side: 1939 Captured Warsaw and Poland falls in two turns. Operational movement to the west to counter expected LC gambit. 1940 LC gambit performed flawlessly and an imposing river defence set up with a British corp in the river hex protecting the flank of Antwerp while the French army entrenches. First attempt to gain a bridgehead fails miserably with extreme air losses from heavy air battles over Belgium and Holand. Looking at my weak economy, depleted forces and relative minor damage done to the river defence and I am feeling a bit of frustration and humiliation. Take Dennmark overland style with help of air. Allied navies have destroyed my Atlantic uboat fleet and are sortied into the Baltic to harrass my meager navy. Air force repaired to full strength just in time to attack a French tank corps that moved into front line to replace heavily damaged French army. Lack of entrenchment and experience allows me to destry it and gain my first toehold over the river. Meanwhile the allied fleets have destroyed the Kriegsmarine as the Luftwaffe too occupied with supporting the land battle to lend support. Iron Ranger quite pleased with the sea war as his losses, especially to the British navy, are quite lite. Slowly now the wermacht grinds forward, never pressing in too far to be out of supply and never attacking if the counterattack would cause destruction. A breakthrough here and the supporting air attacks manage to extoll a heavy price in British air corps destroyed in France and England. Eventually, near the end of '40 I believe, Italy throws in with the axis. They contribute by capturing Marseilles. One Italian corps embarks on transports and slips out to sea to perform a secret (gamey) mission. They are lucky and are not intercepted. I eventually capture Paris and defeat France, but not before Bilote, a corps or two, 2 armies and the French air corps escape to England. 1941 My timetable is all screwed up but I have time, I think, because of the anger Russia and the US feel over the invasion of LC's by France and Britain. I begin my whirlwind campaign of defeating minors, building my economy and plundering. Sweden, Norway minus the north western town, Yugoslavia and then the Italians take Greece. Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria have all joined the victory train. Meanwhile the Allies have been busy in the Med. Landings and assaults have taken place against my Tobruk garison. The Italian Army is defeated but I operate an airfleet in followed by the Albanian corp to save the day. The Italian fleet sorties to support. One Brit battleship group sunk and others wounded but the Brit bomber in malta turns the tide and my two barely surviving battle ship groups are severly depleted and retreat. One hiding for months at 1 pt in the Aegean sea and the other with three points ported in the Adriatic. Italian mpp's are spent on a HQ and two air to defend her coast. With the sea lanes unprotected, Brit aircraft carrier supports the second round of attacks against Tobruk which falls. My preperatins for Barbarossa have been going well and a huge force now lines the Russian border from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The Italians even have two armies and a tank corps suported by HQ. I have managed to squeze purchase four points of tech investment, 1 in jets, 1 in long range air, one in tanks, and one in anti tanks. I have recieved one upgrade in tanks. Relations with Russia rapidly degrade and I get the message that USSR prepares for war. I attack although I am exactly one turn from being completely prepared. The frontier is blitzed and much destruction is exacted on the red army. 1942 Lines of Russian corps are formed up north and south of the pripet marshes. As I attack and threaten breakthrough the red army retreats to the next line. Using this tactic they are able to avoid taking much in the way of permanent losses. I must say that Iron Rangers organized retreat was perfect and may have been the difference in the game. The US prepares for for war and the Italian corp, emmerging from a fog bank in the Atlantic, lands in Canada and forces the government to sue for peace. Surely this has disrupted the attack on Iraq as the Canadian corps and army have been busy in African operations. My opponent seems somewhat demoralized. I am quite pleased. The Russians have backed up to a jagged line using rivers and strong points coming down from the front in Finnland through Lenningrad, Moscow and down to Stalingrad and swinging across to Rostov and the Crimean peninsula. Manstein, a tank group, corp and air corp are in Finnland to support. IR (Iron Ranger) has made this front a priority defence with Eremenko in support of armies, corps tanks and air. After initial probes my forces lay back to reload and refit. Air forces, 2 Italian and 6 German are concentrated in front of the moscow front and Zhukov HQ can be seen behind the lines. Zhukov is the first target and then Moscow which are taken in succession. I refit again. The rest of the line is in defensive mode with small skirmishes here and there. I lose a couple of tank corps. All of Italian N Africa is in Aliied hands with American support and I know an attack on Iraq is imminent. The Free French invade Iraq and slowly pound on the Iraqi's gaining valuable experience. I eventually give it to IR's forces. My 2 surviving Italian battle ships are repaired with Canadian plunder but are wasted on stupid moves. Allied ships pounce. They will be sorely missed later. My next push in Russia goes well as an army and a tank corp push across the river north of Moscow. This is the Axis high water mark. The Free French are supporting the Russian defence and now the American air have appeared and decimate my own tecnologically inferior air with level three and then level 4 tech. I get a level 1 upgrade just in time for me to reinforce. Very costly! Soon after level 2. My bridgedead is cutoff and decimated. Goring couldn't resuply by air. Norway is proving to be a thorne with a Brit HQ tank corp, army and 2 corps forcing me to bring my own army and HQ to support 2 corps. Stalemate. Allies are costantly feinting with corps on transport. Romania, Bulgaria, Bremen, Sweden, northern Italy are all places where corps land and draw my dwindling resources. Partisans in Russia and Yugo are a problem because I have pulled rear gaurds to fill gaps and meet threats. I fall back on defensive positions in Russia, transfer all air west as well as a crack pair of HQ's and prepare for a 43' Sea Lion. Unfortunately my air was spotted and he was able to reinforce and thwart my invasion. The transports disgourged the invasion force back to France. I had a short lived attempt to head for the US with the embarked forces but one interception and fear of a trap made me think better. My air force is again obliterated in air battles over the channel. Americans have captured Sicily and are pressing onto the boot. I managed to destroy one American army. Russia is a war of attrition, exposed points getting attacked and exploited by Red army and my rapid reaction forces responding and plugging the line. IR has the initiative and is dealing out more damage. Brits in Norway fall back and leave a 3 corp garisson. One corps tries to land north of Berlin but is thwarted. End of 43' brings an early invasion by Brits in both Belgium and Brittany/Normandy. I am able to form a line from Marsielles through the countryside outside Paris to Antwerp. 1944 My air is obliterated in France again and retreats to lick wounds and refit. A war of attrition goes on for a bit in France as neither side can punch a hole. I know IR will get those jets going again soon and punch through. Finnland falls. Russia turns my flanks in the far north and the far south. I retraet to form a new line that twists from the southern swamps, past the pripet marshes and around Minsk and up to the Baltic city. Italy is sorely pressed. Americans from the south and massed Russians landing north of Rome. The Italian defence around Rome is 1 HQ, three corps and an army. They are surrounded. Two Italian armies, an HQ and a tank corp still fight on the Russian front. My hopes of victory are nil but a stalemate is still a possibility. I must protect the fatherland. Note: I'm not going to proofread so appologies for typo's and run-ons up front. It's been a fun game IR.

I tried the Polish air force move as a test and it disapears after Poland falls. A waist of mpp's for the operational move cost.

Come on! When the Axis has that much air, the only thing to do is put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye. I actually haven't seen this too much since the final patch decreased the ratios on industrial tech and the prolifference of the Dutch gambit in HtoH play retarding the Axis ability to invest in tech early in the game.

Shaka: Just trying to keep it simple and programable within the current SC framework, I suggest that only the Axis forces on the eastern/Russian front suffer from lowered reddiness and supply during the winter months. Perhaps only the first winter of the invasion of Russia will the Axis suffer severe effects. The effects could be modeled back to represent better experience, preperation and supply for the Axis troops on the Russian front in the later years of the war, in regard to winter turns. JerseyJohn: I agree with you that CoS portrayed the winter months as well as the rainy months quite satisfactorily and that a system such as this in SC2 will be mandatory improvement/upgrade in the game play. [ February 07, 2003, 11:35 PM: Message edited by: Fubarno ]

I recall someone suggest that Axis reddiness and supply could be lowered in the winter months, particularily in the earlier part of the war. I don't take credit for this suggestion but it surely is something that would work within the current programming and be a credible recreation of the severe winter effects on the unprepared Axis forces in the early part of the war in the east. It maintains the simple ellegance of the game system and models the practical effects of "general winter" that will have the Axis players truly dreading the winter turns and the allies thoughroughly looking forward to them. The seasons will actually have a feeling to them as the Russians will be planning offensives while the Axis rush to finish up operations before the winter. Thoughts?

In a head to head game I had an Italian corps sitting off the coast of Canada and when the USA prepared for war I landed the corps, took Ottawa and knocked Canada out of the war. When my opponent, IronEagle, recieved his turn he noticed some strange things had happened and I will try and relate them to you, second hand from his descriptions. Swatches of North Africa, possibley where the Canadian army had moved through, but not Tripoli or Tobruk, which were allied occupied, switched to Italian control. Not too wierd, but it didn't seem right. Then my opponent claimed that some British units that were near the Canadian army, preparing to jump off and attack Iraq, had disapeared. Finally, and the wierdest of all, IronEagle said that if he moved more British units into the evacuated positions near Iraq, they too would disapear. We stopped the game and I have my 'auto save' ready to send to you if you should desire. We are hoping you can help us as this was a ladder match and I would like to continue. Not sure what to do. Email me and I will send you the save file and I'll have IronEagle send you his password. Regards, Fubarno rutbeer@earthlink.net

I agree that Italy should have an air fleet at start as historically they had one of the larger air forces at the beginning of the war.The only explanation for it being left out was play balance. I'll try adding an Italian air corp in the editor and see how it plays out. I like the sugestion made earlier for modable AI routines for SC2. This could really add life to the game with players developing these routines and offering them up for other players to download and try. It would be revolutionary but I don't know if it is in the realm of reality and be user friendly too.

If you choose 'no war in Siberia', you are choosing a historical setting that gave assurance to to the USSR that Japan would not attack in the far east. The practical effect is it allowed Stalin to pull some crack troops guarding the east to defend against the Germans. In game terms, when any German units get too close to Moscow, these reinforcemets will appear. I believe you get a tank corp, a air corp, a couple army's and a couple infantry corp plus some HQ,s. If you choose war in Siberia 'on' it would be ahistorical and represent a ground war in the far east that denies these reinforcements to the battle against the Germans. For some other SC stuff including graphic mods and user created campaigns go to www.ww2n.com/schq

Sign me up please.

Hit the "T" on your keyboard to chat. I have also heard that "0" works too, but I haven't played a game since I heard that so I have yet to try.

Regardless of port spotting range, which I thought was 2 anyway, one must subtract one from spotting range for subs. It then does appear to be a bug. :eek:

Hi Jim, Here are some strategies that I employ when attacking any target that has a high entrenchment level. Whenever possible I will use my corps first to soften up the position even if they are attacking an army or tank corps. I find that corps tend to take a few points of damage and may even get a lucky shot in that reduces the strength of ones target. Exceptions to this are when the target has a very high experience level. Each successive attack reduces entrenchment by one (bombers reduce 2 entrench points). The losses of the corps are much cheaper to replace. Then I bring in my heavies, my army's and armor corps and air corps to really start dealing some damage to the target. This tends to reduce the ammount of damage that these more expensive units take and also contribute to their experience growth. Try to use units that are under HQ control whenever possible, of course. As far as surrounding the hex, the effects are greatest when the city hex is completely surrounded and the defender, if it has survived, can only reinforce to 5 max. If the city is not completely surrounded but cut off from its capital, reinforcement inside will be to 8 and no troops can be built or operationally moved there. Finally, from your post I see you are using your forces to sometimes push far in front of the main battle lines. When playing a human opponent this can be very risky, even when a HQ accompanies these pieces. I look specifically for my opponent to do these things, cut them off from their supply and begin their destruction starting with their HQ. Units out of suply are incredibly vulnerable with degraded readiness levels. You will find a more patient and less frenetic advance to be more successful and less costly. Hope this helps. [ January 06, 2003, 08:42 PM: Message edited by: Fubarno ]

Rambo - Your Sarcasm is really quite lame and has again trailed off into non-Strategic Comand debate. The way you portray yourself as the self proclaimed captain of team U.S.A. makes it seem like your stereotyped and cliche'd opinions are held nation wide. Lay off the stereotyping rhetoric. You seem ill qualified for such things. The political opinions you throw about seem to be very confrontational rather than insightful. I would rather hear what individual opinions from European players are regarding certain issues such as Bosnia, Israel, war on terror, political systems, etc., rather than hearing your blubbering. And finally, until Battlefront addresses the issue in some way regarding the growing mistrust over cheating, one must choose ones opponents wisely. What Battlefront's opinion on this subject is, would be a great topic for a thread. For now, my advise would be to play people who have a healthy competitiveness, people who only have a healthy obsession for winning. If one suspects cheating, don't play that person again. If we had a ladder, a players 'honor' could be one of the ratings that opponents would input a score or medal, and be purely subjective. If there was no question of dishonor, of course they would get the highest score. The average would be a part of that players profile. Take a deep breath Rambo and keep the fun stuff coming, and stay away from Rambo the sour-puss.

I need to download the demo for Airborne Aussault. Sounds interesting, almost like Close Combat but on the grand tactical scale you described. Close Combat is an old favorite. As far as Strategic Command, if you ever played and liked Clash of Steel, you will like this game (only $25 man, nice deal). It is a modern version with some of the elements, such as weather, production and diplomacy simplified. These diferences have been over hashed out here many times by a revolving crew of wargaming characters. Sometimes it is quite funny when the competitiveness and egos show their faces. Probably the reason for the high number of posts. I for one was looking for a tight game on this scale and with the 6th patch it has only gotten better.

Yeah, I have been a little perturbed by the innability to get much past the battle for France in the four IP games I have done. If one starts a game, one should feel obligated to continue on even when things are not going great. I have learned my meager skills by actually finishing the games I started, even when my opponent has 13 level 4 jets with level 5 long range and they are trouncing me in Russia. These were PBEM games too. :eek: I did play two PBEM Barbarossa games and I found them to be quite enjoyable as did my opponent. The settings are historical from that point so it provides another window of history in which to jump into and try and change or perpetuate or improve upon the actual results. I recomend it. As far as the other campaigns, I have only played versus the ai. I find that a Stalingrad or a Kursk campaign against the ai with highest settings is very challenging and fun.

I didn't say Rambo cheated either. I only said that some recent posts regarding him smell fishy and that he is innocent until proven otherwise. My main point was that SC can be cracked in a way that may not arouse suspicion if that was the cheaters intent. I had it demonstrated to me. Maybe if Planet reads this he can explain how it was done, but logically all one would need to do is save ones turn and somehow go into that save file, add the mpp's or whatever and reload and play.

I have experienced how easy is to cheat at this game. I was playing a person with the handle of 'Planet' and he was axis. He was somewhat of a beginner it seemed and I was giving him some real problems in France. He couldn't take Paris and I was eliminating all of his armor and some air. The funny thing was he asked me a couple of times if I was cheating and where did I get all those fleets and that French HQ unit, etc,... I asked him if he had ever even played as the allies and the answer was no so I told him how I sold my French air to buy the HQ and that the allies start with lots of fleets. He had the historical settings for the Soviets so it took them a while to enter but they eventually did a turn or two before he captured Paris. He said he would play out the game to the bitter end which I appreciated. At no time do I suspect or accuse him of cheating. He had literally no defence in the east and within 4-5 turns or so of the Soviets invading Poland and Germany, they are poised to capture Berlin and I tell him he has one turn to live. He responds that will not be the case. His turn takes just a little longer than usual but nothing suspicious. Then I get the turn back and he says, "now you will taste German Steel." Surounding Berlin are a many new panzer corps and he has close to 10,000 mpp's. Now, I know planet played an honest game up until the end when I had to laugh and accuse him of robbing all the banks of Switzerland, but it just goes to show how easy it is to do something like this to try to win. Obviously if a player wanted to sneakily add some key units and a few extra mpp's to tip the balance, it doesn't appear to be hard. I guess it wouldn't be too hard to adjust some of the unit formulas too. I pesonally don't know how to do so but, I remeber someone a while back in this forum had used a hexidecimal editor to do some of this type of game cracking. (Let me reiterate, I don't think Planet cheated, but he knows how to.) What satisfaction one could derive from doing something so stupid as cheating to insure victory in a friendly game is beyond me. Is the bragging really that satisfying? Anyway, it seems that the capability to cheat is out there. I have not played Rambo but some of the posts regarding his play do seem to smell fishy. Of course he will say he is innocent until proven guilty and that is the way it should be. But, some harm has been done. Whatever is said and done, nothing will entirely wipe away from the back of my mind the thought that an opponent has the potential to cheat in a head to head game. This is a stain on this great and fun game. And, it looks like it has turned a very active player off from competing in a game he enjoyed and that is sad. To all cheaters - you have got to be one of the lowest forms of life. Cheaters have sucked a big chunk of fun from this game. Go get some therapy because there are some issues you need to work out. It's probably hopeless though so just sterilize yourself so that your bloodline will end when you do.

A "sticky" thread that stays at the top of the page would be a good thing for some recurring forum topics. Ten or twelve sticky threads might be a little excessive and crowd the first page but a range of 3-6 might be Optimal. [ December 23, 2002, 01:18 AM: Message edited by: Fubarno ]

I haven't done one yet but I think it goes something like this. Start up the game and choose tcp/ip game - host tcp/ip game - choose your options, campaign and side. If you choose to be axis then it will ask for your password and once this is entered it will give you your IP address and wait for your opponent to connect. Alt Tab to go to window mode and email your waiting opponent your ip address so that he can connect. Alt Tab back to full screen and wait for the connection to be established. I have heard that one can put an email game into the tcp/ip folder and it is playable. Can someone confirm this?