Scorpion_sk

Would you please shut yer trap about that already. We do not care.

"SG", did you see what he wrote in the other thread? And if you did indeed escape from a losing battle..... Well what can I say.....

The new patch is a major step forward and the game can now be classified as "releaseable". Frankly , I am surprised of how much those two swedes in such a short time..... The next patch ought to fine-tune the game, this one was a major emergency patch. Not to mention that the community has gone above and beyond the call of duty in modifying the game to be better already.... Clearly this is an example for SC2.....MAKE IT EASILY EDITABLE!!!

Frankly, I don´t see why we should "wait until SC2" to try out this house rule. The only reason could be that the AI wouldn´t comply with your rules, but like mr. Rambo said: the AI doesn´t count!

No, no and no. 5 times out of 6 I´ve been the one handling out the devastation with the airfleet, 4 times as the germans and once as the russians (I got reaaaally lucky with tech) It bores me to hell. Frankly, I don´t want to play another game like those again. All the games have been the same : the side that gets the air superiority keep on buying airfleets (and let me tell you, dozen is a little figure when we´re speaking of the airfleet massing, usually I´ve had closer to or over two dozen of them). With some intelligent target selection, you can easily rack up the experience for the airfleets by tactical bombing and ensure that the enemy will NEVER return to the skies in a meaningful way, no matter his MPPs. That´s one of the major problems, I think. You just can´t counteract the opponent´s massed airfleets when they get rolling and start gaining exp. THAT´S why you can´t just build up your own airfleets to "counteract" his : it´d be an expensive exercise in futility. The only salvation for the opponent is to "get lucky" with the tech, and gain a superiority of 2 levels or more...but at this point in the war, the tech is usually at level 5 already. I don´t want the course of the war to follow history, but I want the gameplay to be historically plausible!!! Limiting units would not limit your options in this case, but rather bring entirely new options to you instead of the current overwhelmingly powerful and ridiculous air tactic. I don´t know what Hubert´s plans are, but I do hope that if he decides not to implement some of these fundamental changes we´ve been discussed in these forums to SC, I do hope that he´s bookmarking threads and making notes in order to incorporate the changes to a new, much improved SC2..... After all, that´s the only logical way to make a sequel to SC : or what would people think of an even more simplified SC2? The key is to still retain the fun and relatively quick gameplay of SC.... Done like this, the current SC wouldn´t be redundant if there was an "advanced" SC2 : there´d be one great entry-level and "simple gameplay"-game, and one for the grogs and those who want to move on to the next level. As for the unit limits..... If they will not be implemented (which I believe is very unlikely, unfortunately) shouldn´t we start discussing...(drum roll)...house rules? This sort of thing simple enough to address with house rules - however it´d add a certain level of "complexity" to the game (keeping track of the unit counts) but at least I wouldn´t mind.... (As a side note, if the limits were hard-coded into the game, it wouldn´t add to the complexity one bit imho).

Les: Well, you said that A3R is the best Grand Strategic Wargame.... (By the way, shouldn´t "A World at War" be out sometime in the near future, making A3R/ERS obsolete?) We´d need to get something like that for the computer too, as it stands we have just SC for our grand strategic needs. It´s great fun to play, but the fun stops as soon as the airfleets start zipping around en masse. How anyone can could call something which totally wrecks the balance of the game and brings campaigns to a premature conclusion "fun" is beyond me (I´m not saying that anyone has said it yet...but.... ) As for the topic at hand, I too want great gameplay, great fun and great realism. However, I don´t think that fixing the gameplay and improving realism are detrimental to fun. Complexity starts degrading from the fun at a point that is way above SC for me. (I thought Grigsby´s WiR was well above that point). And there are a lot of ways to improve the realism and gameplay without adding any complexity at all.

I do At present, I don´t think some more complexity and detail wouldn´t hurt. I think SC is a wonderful "educational" entry level game, but in this case I simply would like some additional features. (Note that I would still be happy with only fixing the gameplay issues) The thing is, there aren´t any games like SC out there at the moment for the computer, are there? (With PBEM / TCP/IP and Win9x / nt support) I did try Gary Grigsby´s WiR, but that was too much to handle at once, unfortunately.

Whoah! Well, now I can tell everyone that at least I´ve accomplished something....

Well, I didn´t say that it´s wrong for air fleets to be able to attack ground units in principle... The point was that if air fleets contain a mix of fighters and bombers then the effects should be according to that mix. Having, say 50 fighters and 50 bombers does not mean you contest the skies as effectively as you would with 100 fighters , the way it is modelled into the game now is that all the aircraft in the air fleets are 100% effective fighters and 100% effective bombers.

Les, here I will yield to superior knowledge, if you have it : I do admit that I know little about the naval warfare in WW2. I guess it´s not been a favorite topic of mine. So, I guess bombing subs should be ok, then. They have their chance to evade, after all. Another addition to the rules, thanks to Bill Macon: No building is possible in occupied territories. You can only build units at the home front.

Bill Macon, thanks for pointing the issue of building units in occupied countries. I´ll add another restriction to my house rules from now on

And therein lies the problem, I think : as it stands you are getting two units at the price of one with airfleets, and to top it off they support each other well: Your air fleet fights in the air at full effectiveness ( all strength points) as if it only consisted of fighters, and bombs with full effectiveness. Now I would understand this "mix of fighters and bombers" if only 5 half of the air fleets strength points could fight in the air and half could bomb effectively. At the moment you´re doing both, and to make it all the sweeter you can rack up huge levels of experience by bombing which you can use to ensure your opponent will never contest the skies again. Ridiculous, says I. That´s why there needs to be one strictly fighter unit, and one strictly bomber unit. It´s a small wonder few have ever purchased heavy bombers before this......

Heh, sorry for that, I forgot that some people play against the computer. Well, so did I for my first game - it serves as a great tutorial. I´m only really interested in wargaming against people - as for my single player gaming, there are tons of more interesting games out there for me. And with that said, I´m heading back to Icewind Dale.

For a long time we´ve just discussed about what should be done to the game to make it represent WW2 and history better. Well, I decided that everything relevant has been said, Hubert is in the know now and either will or will not do something about it. Meanwhile, I have devised my own set of house rules, with which I am going to start my next game of SC with my regular opponent. 1. The U.S. start the game with level 5 industrial tech to compensate somewhat for its ludicrous 180 MPP (and to balance the game a bit) Some of the other U.S. tech levels are up too (but just a bit) and they start out with 3 research chits. 2. The Finns are active at the start of the game because they now have 2 experience each. This should be good enough estimate although they still don´t have a HQ. The extra MPPs from Helsinki should be compensated for by the stronger U.S. 3. Subs start out at tech level 3 for Germany (to make them a bit more feasible option from the start) and level 2 for the others. 4. Research: Chits can not be swapped around. If you reach the maximum of 10 chits and want to re-invest, you must "reclaim" the chit twice (thus you won´t get any MPP out of it). To prevent level 5 tech from springing up too early, the maximum investment to a tech should be 3 chits. 5. Air power. To make the massive air fleets that are the norm on the Russian front these days not so feasible AND to represent the fact that re-basing entire air fleets is not a cheap proposition, only operational moves are allowed for air units. Operating aircraft is not cheap. 6. Air power 2. To introduce a whole new element to the gameplay, only "bomber" units are allowed ground attacks. For our purposes, we will assume that the bomber units include all the attacks made by tactical bombers and ground attacking fighters, and the "air fleets" include all fighters dedicated to air superiority missions. This means that you must now maintain a balance between fighters and bombers, instead of buying massive numbers of "fighters" that doubled up as (more effective than the strat bombers) bombers. Additionally, you cannot rack up huge levels of experience for your fighters to clear the skies with just by bombing weak ground units. I honestly believe that my house rules will provide a much better experience FOR ME and my opponent (I know the guy well enough). I´m not saying that these rules would work for you or that they´re inherently superior, just that personally I might enjoy the game more with these rules. This post is meant to give you ideas about developing your own set of house rules to enhance your games. Furthermore, any hostile arguments started in this thread will simply be ignored by me

Guys, I don´t believe how common these egotistic over-patriotic know-it-all trolls seem to be. Regardless, perhaps we really should call this case closed. Ï think the troll in this thread has already said enough for everyone to make an opinion on him and his views, now and in the future. As for my take, here I agree on one of the basic american principles : Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, REGARDLESS of whether he knew what was going on, and even regardless of whether one bought into the nazi propaganda by some degree. You simply cannot judge an individual based on his nationality. True, Wittman was a member of the SS - but probably so because of his elite status, and the fact that the equipment and personnel (ie. crews) were very good in there. Wittmann deserves respect regardless of his nationality or organization. What´d you do if you were a german soldier during WW2? Decide that "your cause if not just because of the atrocities" and report for court martial followed by an execution? Most of those that knew about the atrocities did not support them, but rather, fought for their homeland. It´s an altogether different thing to be a fanatic and a true war criminal, though. You could say that I´m biased because I live in the one country Germany helped to save (from communism and the fate of the Baltic Countries).

Thanks for your support, guys. I feel a lot better now I didn´t even bother to read the troll´s last reply to me, I just skipped over it. And I do think that just giving the A-A Radar research benefit to all units would be the simplest and most effective fix we could hope for. The point would be to make the massive scale airfleet ground attacks costly indeed against a prepared opponent....the airfleets couldn´t get to high levels of experience by bombing weaker units so easily, either. However, they would still retain a great tactical advantage. Perhaps strategic bombers could be made more resistant against ground unit AA firepower....?That way there´d be a point to those units as well. And....no matter how many times you´d bomb with the strat bombers, you couldn´t contest the skies any more effectively... I think a stop-gap measure we could do try for now before Hubert implements any fixes would be to try using only the bombers for ground attacks as a house rule. Yes...it sounds harsh....but it would open up another element to the gameplay. (Instead of the norm of buying zillions of airfleets right now). Yes....I know that tactical bombing is a very real threat, but we could assume that in this case its effects are not too great, and/or their contribution is included in the damage the bomber unit does.

Thanks for your support, guys. I feel a lot better now I didn´t even bother to read the troll´s last reply to me, I just skipped over it. And I do think that just giving the A-A Radar research benefit to all units would be the simplest and most effective fix we could hope for. The point would be to make the massive scale airfleet ground attacks costly indeed against a prepared opponent....the airfleets couldn´t get to high levels of experience by bombing weaker units so easily, either. However, they would still retain a great tactical advantage. Perhaps strategic bombers could be made more resistant against ground unit AA firepower....?That way there´d be a point to those units as well. And....no matter how many times you´d bomb with the strat bombers, you couldn´t contest the skies any more effectively... I think a stop-gap measure we could do try for now before Hubert implements any fixes would be to try using only the bombers for ground attacks as a house rule. Yes...it sounds harsh....but it would open up another element to the gameplay. (Instead of the norm of buying zillions of airfleets right now). Yes....I know that tactical bombing is a very real threat, but we could assume that in this case its effects are not too great, and/or their contribution is included in the damage the bomber unit does.

Ah yes, in my opinion, operational movement should be the one way to "re-base" the aircraft....

Bleh. Totally ignored, unlike the others, it seems. Well, I´ll know better in the future. I guess you people weren´t even interested in reading through the damn thing, when I see people suggesting the same things as I did. Oh well.

SeaMonkey, this is the way it´s been with 5 of the six games I played, (again in the one exception the opponent did very very gross mistakes especially with Sea Lion), and both me and my opponent have both agreed that the situation is hopeless (no matter which side had the air power) and called the game quits (usually in late 1942-early 1943). Air supremacy has happened to the Axis 5 times in these games, and once (for me) with the Russians, where I totally lucked out on research, and was able to trounce the experienced Luftwaffe by virtue of numbers and technology.....(Of course I did what Immer Etwas suggested here then : used the budding air forces against the Finns and the Iraqi, and even the Italians at Tobruk to gain some experience) and unleashed them at an opportune time when the Luftwaffe was at level 1 and I at level 4.....though he got l 2 soon after it was too little too late. So it was a case of extreme luck for me and bad luck for him (I even got industrial tech from 2 to 5 before I boosted my jets, and during all this his planes didn´t improve!) Experience is a MAJOR factor.

At a certain point of the war, of course. However, in this game the air power is so strong that the american industrial output (which, of course, is quite pathetic : in my games the U.S. always starts with L5 Ind. Tech. to compensate) and the russian hordes do not matter.....

Immer Etwas, we think alike. (Not unlike great minds, What I meant by that "defensive" posture is that usually when someone loves the game despite its flaws, and feels that it is the best it can be just as it is (a mild form of conservatism, which I don´t say is a bad thing here) their "neck-hair rises up" when they see someone complaining on the forums. Then they either largely ignore whatever point the complainer made and "defend the game" with something like "it is a game so it shouldn´t be realistic" or "it´s not realistic anyway so why bother" So, people should try to bring express their ideas as diplomatically as possible , and not complain (and people do not like complaining in general, just like I don´t). And, your suggestion of not reinforcing to the max is indeed a very good and valid strategy and for me applies to all units. Much better to be 9 and 1 exp than 10 and 0 exp.....

Damn it all, I guess I have no choice but to type it all over again. I guess much of that last hour was spent thinking and not typing. Anyways, I don´t see how the proposed tech engine would change the fact that one side can get very lucky while the other spends the rest of the game waiting for the same miracle to happen. This has larger consequences in especially jets, the rest can be dealt with...altough having high industrial tech is a great big advantage if the other side does not have it. I do think that this would make things easier for the allies, but I guess that can be described as a good thing, so if none of my suggestions can be considered, I do not oppose the suggestion. However, here are mine, considerably less well argumented and explained than the last time, though.... 1. Diminishing returns for each chit spent on a category - 1 pt invested =7% 2 pts = 13% 3 pts = 18% 4 pts = 22% 5 pts = 25% You could still reduce these numbers by a fifth for each level already achieved, should you wish. This would make investing 1-2 chits more lucrative and is admittedly (if I say so myself) realistic. You can´t expect twice the chance of success (or research speed) with twice the funding. 2. Modifiers according to date - Each tech level would belong to its corresponding 1940 year (note that as it is I think it´d be best to make it universal, instead of bickering about the individual historic dates....) Ie. level 1 would belong to 1941 level 2 to 1942 etc.... (which would conveniently mean that Me-262´s, ie. level 4 jets, belong to 1944, and level 5 tanks, ie Maus tanks belong to 1945 (yes yes, I know that 1946 might have been more realistic for the Maus ). Then, each year you would get either a positive or negative modifier for your research depending on the level you are trying to achieve. Trying to invent level 2 technology in 1942 would be at the standard success rate, but for each year you are trying to "cheat history" you get a 1% penalty per chit in the subject. ´Likewise, if you were coming up with "old" technology, you´d get an equivalent bonus. For example, with 5 chits, you are trying to invent level 5 jets in 1942. The modified chance of success would be 25-(3*(5*1))=10 % Trying to come up with level 4 tanks in 1942 with just one chit would be at 10%-(2*(2*1)) =6% Of course the % would be different with my suggested diminished returns, but let´s not get too optimistic here Of course you might argue that research is not at all dependent on dates - fair enough, I have another suggestion : how about hitting the category with a dramatic penalty every time a new level is gained, but one which disappears over time? So, immediately upon achieving a new level, the success % for the category drops to, say, a fifth of what it would normally be (and of course it would still stay ay a fifth regardless of changing the number of chits in the category), and this penalty would slowly erode over time! You could even make the rate of the penalty disappearing dependent on the number of chits still in the subject (if you didn´t want people just emptying the category of chits and waiting until the penalty lifts), or perhaps just depending on time (ie. after x turns or x weeks, the penalty is reduced by a fifth of the original number) . I think these might work well, but would require more programming work compared to the tech suggestion that is now under consideration.... But wait, there´s more.... 3. You could gain a bonus to your research % if your opponent has an advantage in that category over you. This would represent espionage and the fact that captured enemy units (even destroyed ones) are understandably a huge boost to the research effort..... Perhaps 1% per chit per level of difference, again? So, if your enemy has a 2-level advantage and you are researching with 5 chits, the chance of success would be 35%. I´d love to see this implemented in some form, since it would even out the odds a bit if the other one should get lucky, and that´s what we all want I think! 4. Finally, I don´t think you should be able to switch between the research subjects as easily as you can now. It´s the norm now to develop level 5 i.t. (hehe) first, then switch it all to jets. Think about it: if say Germany had invested heavily in avionics and rocketry, and had lots of avionics and rocketry research centres and scientists, could you just at some point go and tell them "Ok guys, I want you to start developing the Panzer V now. Forget about the jets for awhile". No, and you couldn´t really "cash in" on one subject and invest it in another easily (are you just going to sell all those research centres and rocket scientists? . So, maybe you could only "cash in" the chits already in place on one subject, not transfer them to another. You´d have to buy a new chit for that, ie. to spend 125 mpp for it. This would be only fair and realistic, and, especially when combined with some of my suggestions above which further encourage you to "spread yourself around", would really encourage people to spread their research chits around in a reasonable and more realistic manner! This is a historical reason why nations didn´t dump all of their research capability to one area..... So, whaddyall think? Am I on the right tracks at all? Eagerly waiting to see if doing this TWICE was worth it at all....

OH NO!!!!!!!! What happened!!!! I spent an hour composing a response with multiple research engine suggestions etc. And now it is all gone somehow when I accidentally pressed one button??? Now I guess the game will never see the enhancements I hoped it would get.... I can´t believe it.

Yes, this is an unfortunate feature, not being able to bomb strategic resources when there are troops on top of it.... If no check box is added, perhaps the heavy bombers could be made to always prioritize strategic resources? It would add a need for these kinds of units. PLUS what about rockets?