bloodstar

I guess the way I look at retreat is an automatic realignment of forces. perhaps on this scale, consider it to be a moderate breakthrough forcing the unit in the hex to reposition themselves further back to prevent dissolution. I do agree that only low strength units should have a chance to retreat. A unit that hasn't taken losses won't be retreating unless they get the order. I suppose the way I look at it, think of retreat as an alternative to destroying the corps/army/army group. The rules can be as simple as the following: a) when strength is less than 4 and readiness is below a certain level a unit has a chance of retreating if it would otherwise take enough damage to be destroyed. if a units readiness drops below say, 0, then the unit is destroyed anyways, and make retreat take a big hit out of readiness. so a unit can only retreat once (or maybe twice) in a turn. not knowing any real details about the combat model, I'm presuming that each attack takes a certain amount of readiness from a unit. so one big massive attack can do a lot of damage and yet not drop readiness too far. Hence, to simulate a massive strike, if readiness is high, the unit won't retreat right away. I would also say a unit with an entrenchment above say... 2 won't retreat, instead preferring to hunker down. this should solve the question of holding cities and mountains, etc. heck, if you want to be really fancy, you could have a 'no retreat' order (which under this concept would be counterproductive, as a unit won't ever try to retreat unless it would be destroyed anyways...but might be useful in a nicer retreat system). So that a unit is much less likely to try to retreat when attacked. But such an order should only be a global order. (don't want to have the players spending time clicking on units and deciding to retreat or not). ok, with that in mind, which direction would a unit retreat? Make it a simple sequence, if it's surrounded by enemy ZOC, it can't retreat, even with other units adjacent. it simply dies. if it can retreat, it will retreat in the most opposite direction that the attack came from allowable. if it can retreat directly back, it will. otherwise if it still has a direction to retreat, it will go in the most opposite direction permitted. In a case where 2 directions are equally viable, simply go 50/50. if you want to go a step further, subract the units mps so they have less the next turn. (and if you want to be really nasty, let a unit that has been retreated only be able to move and not attack.) The image of the formula I have in my mind is: unit has taken enough damage to be destroyed, check retreat percent chance to retreat = 1 + UXP + URDY * 10 + LMECH + 5(if ARMOR TRUE) UXP = Unit Experience URDY = Percent unit readiness LMECH = Level of Mechanization tech on unit and a generic 5% bonus to retreat if it's an armor unit. (you could also have other tech levels affect a units chance to retreat. and perhaps even have a negative chance factored in if the units involved are high mech, high experienced armor units. Creating a formula to determine when a unit retreats isn't difficult... the difficult part is making the formula reasonable.) so a inf with 4levels of experience and a readiness of 40% with 5 levels of Mechanization would have a: 1 + 4 + 4 + 5 = 14% chance to retreat. Not a great chance, but that's a chance that an otherwise destroyed unit lives to fight one more battle. Retreat is not a game breaking issue to me, but I do feel it adds a feel of verisimilitude to any wargame. Thoughts? Comments? thanks! Mark

Yes, I know I have a barrage of thoughts/questions and suggestions... none of which are critical to the game, IMHO, but would be nice/interesting to see.... is it or would it be possible to designate minor country control, (and resulting MPP gains) of an invaded country? In otherwords, If The Allies invade Vichy France, would it be possible to give control of the Vichy France (and their units) to Italy instead of Germany? Thanks! Mark

another short and sweet question/suggestion. Will Germany be able to assist Italy with MPP's? This may be particularly important in light of the unit build limits that exist. (after all, Italian land units may not be particularly good, but at least they can help hold some territory...) Thanks!

Double barreled question... 1) would it be possile to upgrade a minor country unit? 2) would a limited amount of tech bleed/sharing be possible in the SC2... not sure of the realism of this...but... hey, ya never know... Mark

you could simply have it lose additional readiness and strength an be pushed back to the nearest non occupied non enemy zoc hex, skipping over allied units... of course if it has to do it too much, the additional strength losses could eliminate the unit. and we all would agree you would never be allowed to retreat into an enemy ZOC... I hope... Mark

Hey everyone (again...) I find this idea appealing, While Neither Spain nor Turkey would (or should) have the firepower of Germany, Britain, or USSR, I would suspect they wouldn't be that much weaker than Italy. The first question that comes to mind, Are the major countries hardcoded to a side? In otherwords, in SC2 would it be possible as Germany to declare war on italy and take their goodies for yourself? If the sides are hardcoded, then I can see how it would be... difficult to have neutral major countries that could go either way. The other potential advantage for having neutral Major countries would be for those people who love to mod wargames and would want to create their own varient SC. Anyway, enough ramble! Mark

Hey everyone, Another short and sweet question. will SC2 feature minor countries creating units from time to time? for example, will canada be able to produce a corps unit once a year to assist in the war effort? It's not something I would call critical for playability, but I think it would be a nice little feature. Thanks! Mark

Short and sweet. Will defenders retreat in SC2? or will they fight to the death as in SC1? (Personally I think retreats add more verisimilitude to a war game.) thanks! Mark

Hey everyone... It wouldn't be hard to increase the force size of the minor countries, you just have to be prepared for the corps and armies in question to not be very effective. thanks! Mark

Hey everyone, been testing and playing the newest patch and noticed a slightly vexxing... feature/bug. It seems that when you take over the United Kingdom, Free france surrenders as well. I know this normally isn't a big deal, but. in some circumstances it is a bit frustrating because I was working on a scenario that involved having the UK taken over with Free France fighting on. Dunno if Free France can be 'decoupled' from the UK surrender and simply treated as an independant minor country that has no capital city and will never surrender, but it would be a nice little tweak. thanks Mark

Well, I'm sitting here looking at a whole horde of Boardgames. Ranging from Fortress America and Axis and Allies, to NATO, WWII:ETO (which I still think is one of the best games I've ever played, and I would buy a computerized version of it repeatedly in thanks....). I like SC, and I really really enjoyed Clash of Steel, (in fact I have a machine at my house I still use to play the game). But I wish more people knew about WWII:ETO.

To me, I don't see how it would be so complicated. Just a simple check, if UK in war, mmp go to UK else if USA in war mmp go to USA else if USSR in war mmp go to USSR same thing with germ and italy as for minor country production. having a counter that keeps internal track of how much each country has to spend towards an item doesn't seem hard... heck you could make the units half strength, so the major country would have to spend points into them.... and just make a checklist that states what type of unit the minor country is attempting to buy... corp, army, fighter (maybe cruisers) and go from there... just thinking... them main thing... it adds flavor, and gives an added advantage to having a country on your side... or liberating a minor country....

I wonder, how difficult would it be to encode some sort of minor country production into the SC code. Personally I would like to see the minor countries able to generate their own units from time to time. Based on their production capacity (or a percentage of) For example, if Ireland is invaded, it should take a long time for a corps to be generated. But say Sweeden is invaded, what would prevent them from generating a corps every so often, or even an Army or (egads) an air force every once in a great while. Obviously game balance issues apply, but with some tweaking it could certainly add some flavor. Along a related vein, when the the UK is knocked out of the war, all the minor countries are no longer able to rebuild or repair their units because they no longer have a resource pool to work from. Would it be viable to transfer ownership of minor countries to the US (or if not available) to the USSR player in the case of the allies, and in the case of germany, to italy. Its really a minor issue, but in the case of an active US player and the Soviets holding the line, having canada adding their resources and having their unit(s) rebuilt (or other minor countries that are allied) could tip the scale one way or another. Thanks for reading and happy invading