Liam

Hehe, sorry some of us folk are notorious for off the topic discussion. Also relating, is Finland as key as some of the other Axis Minor alterations on the Map? Or, in this case the Land Connection between USA and Canada... Is it worth the effort to make an alteration of the Isthmus when Moldavia, part of Greece was ceded to Minors as well as that Leningrad doesn't have a proper setup for resupply over a lake to make taking the city a bit more difficult? Why should Finland be at half strength to begin with when you conquor Sweden? Why should Scandanavia have a ferry connection to Denmark? When Canada doesn't, and Ireland does to the UK? Saying what's vital. Most Strategic. I'd vote for USA-Canada connection first... Before Finland was altered. A port for Portugal so that Iberia isn't an Allied nightmare...Connection between Sweden-Finland then Finland with the Winter War inclusion?

Immer: Intrigueing! As a young boy one of my first documentaries consumed about WW2 stated that Hitler was not truly insane, only slighty if at all I sort of buy into the theory myself. And as far as I know Insanity is still rather hard to prove even with modern technology? Can it be. I am not sure it can be. They see all sorts of misfiring messages in the BrainScans hehehe Some will say Stalin was far more insane...than Hitler. I don't believe the Mouse was Insane at all. Even though I'm a big fan of movies I remeber George C. Scott playing him, and I always draw my conclusions from that character and the images I see from 30s film.. that he was actually proud, and old fashioned, etc...

Immer: Odd the that during both WW1 and WW2 the region was part of the World's Greatest Wars.. In one way or another, it has found value..and men have fought there and died there<some of the best the World has had to offer, almost an echo of it's Great History rather than more modern use>.. Even though, I can't really see much value in the Balkans altogether myself either.<aside from Ploesti it's a ethnic nightmare, and you can just buy the oil hehe> Or, bringing Italy on board, facist weakling that can at best defeat the Golden Albanian Horde, the elder Ethiopian Orthodox Monster and with help subdue the Greek Gigantuan<sp,hehe> Quite frankly, the Germans were better off without Italy...What did the Italians contribute, diversions and finally a 3rd Front the Germans had to themselves fight on. Before then a N.African diversion<as you say a Political disaster to lose Libya?>

Iron: Thanks for the elaboration on What Italy did...of course the Puppet North killed their own leader or was it the Southern Sector of the Alliance who snuck over assassins...Oddly enough the Italians vastly improved in their performance after the so-called Liberation then before. lol We all know those Italians, especially Sicilians have skill in stealing, but a whole a train!!!??? Orange: Think it was a little late for Germany to get in on the Colonial Game.<though she may have later>I think she was far more worried about the LifeLine of the British Empire, the Suez Canal, a Southern Approach to cut off Russia from Supply via the Mid-East...and a conjoined border with them to help focus upon the Red Giant...which never went down well with the Japanese who were focused Island hopping in Tahiti<I suppose they wanted the local ladies> instead of India real War Gain... Lets not forget that MidEast Oil and Far East Rubber together would've been nice for both nations with a pretty nullified Britian... It definitely wasn't nice during the War.

Personally I think that the Russian Goverment wouldn't of moved to the Urals If Leningrad, Moscow and Staligrad all fell. So did Russia<she gets 3 Capitols?> Why doesn't the USA get 3 Capitols. Why does Vichy move to N.Africa? Why does England move to Manchester??? Then why doesn't Italy switch sides when it falls like it did Historically [ October 07, 2003, 03:53 AM: Message edited by: Liam ]

To boot!!! The Poles had an Army size Free Pole Army. I doubt the French came close to qtr of a million FF fighters??? hehehe... so why do we have Free French, they didn't put up as much of a resistance as the Poles did to be quite frank they acted a defeated people altogether and conspiracy in Southern France. They're too busy eating cheese and drinking wine in Vichy to care about fighting on after losing so badly. [ October 06, 2003, 11:29 PM: Message edited by: Liam ]

XWormWood: My resources are websources from two seperate sites. Also via a very good novel I do not have the name of I heard a very interesting account of actually how the PAF had destroyed more German fighters than vis versa the first day... which began my intrigueing research Hard to believe that the Polish Air Force was actually very well trained.. their mainline fighter was just not a comparison with the 109s. They accounted for 13% of BOB German Aerial losses at the cost off 33 lives so says the latter link!!! Jesus http://www.electricscotland.com/history/ww2/ww2-3.htm http://www.achtungpanzer.com/polcamp.htm

John, really few nations surrender after a Capitol Falls that have a strong sense of Nationality. It's only the fact that by the time the Capitol Falls the rest of the Nation is captured as well. Thinking about Moscow captured by the Poles. Vienna Captured by the Turks. on and on what makes a gamey tactic in SC, is that someone will make a plan to capture the capitol while leaving the armed forces and Nation in tact. Historically with most major nations, you'd probably incur more casaulties for yourself and get the people to fight harder. I doubt Germany would've surrendered after the Fall of Berlin if it wasn't for the fact Germany was squeezed like a grape. As well as Russia, Britian, France<well, I have to admit they gave in rather quickly, but still had to be put down more or less> [ October 06, 2003, 11:08 PM: Message edited by: Liam ]

The Italians also committed quite a few troops to the Eastern Front... in 1940 their armor was beyond obsolete and perhaps that's the main reason for their poor performance. They did however managed to defeat Ethiopia!!!<I think it was a little trouble vs those pre 19th century bolt action rifles > Their airforce however was fairly decent, I'd say not a complete disaster.<the Italian Airforce was probably un par with the French and not far off the German> Their Navies one of the finest in European Navies. Why shouldn't the Italians surrender when the Americans do after the fall of D.C.? [ October 06, 2003, 09:17 PM: Message edited by: Liam ]

"...in general the bravery and heroism of the Polish Army merits great respect." Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt

German casualties (8082 to 10572 killed, 27,278 to 30322 wounded and 3404 to 5029 missing) were very low compare to Polish casualties (66300 killed, 133700 wounded and 420000 taken prisoner). Poles lost 327 out of their 435 airplanes in combat, while 98 flew to Romania. In addition, 26000 civilians were killed during the fighting. Germans lost some 993 to 1000 armored fighting vehicles (mainly destroyed by anti-tank guns), 370 to 400 artillery pieces, 697 to 1300 airplanes (damaged and destroyed) along with 11000 motor vehicles. According to the German sources only 89 PzKpfw I, 83 PzKpfw II, 26 PzKpfw III, 19 PzKpfw IV, 5 command tanks, 7 PzKpfw 35(t) and 7 PzKpfw 38(t) were completely lost. In addition, Polish Navy sunk 2 destroyers, 2 minelayers (some sources state that only one vessel was sunk) and damaged numerous other vessels including "Schleswig-Holstein", while losing single destroyer "Wicher", minelayer "Gryf", artillery training ship "Mazur" and two small vessels. Soviet losses amounted to 737 killed and 1859 wounded. Some sources state that Soviet losses accounted for 10000 dead, wounded and missing. Soviets also lost 42 tanks and 429 that broke down along with some 30 airplanes. Soviets took prisoner some 242000 Polish soldiers.

Jim: talk about a close affair. I had game VS Hombre Plin. I was really underestimating this guy. I took him all the way to Stalingrad and even let him back up by taking huge tracts in France by this point. I couldn't do him in! I got lazy and wasn't resupplying my foreign legions That guy proved there that he was the 4th best SC player I've met. Though I still think it was an extremely close match

Wow Terif, good one! I didn't think of 2 HQs myself

Interesting, I didn't know that Hubert did research on Yugoslavia. It was definitely not bunch of happy campers. Partly things are half sized or 1/3rd sized in SC. i.e. the Russian Front. No HQs to represent the poor quality of Minor Nations...rather than less units. Even Poland had a decent General who later moved to Palestine named after their famous King<a lot of Minors moved on and fought more bravely and in greater #s than the Free French. The Swiss would definitely not be a backwards Army, but 500k seems a bit high for them as for some other Minors. The Fins would definitely show the Ruskies a thing or two about War! Probably was a big help to teaching the Russians a lesson or two. The Fins a lot should be included into the German Army rather than an independant army however if you want to get very strategic about things. The fins had about 160k during the Winter War and I don't know what that moved up to but that wouldn't equal what is represented in SC. Though the quality of their troops are quite poorer than Russians without a real HQs for them<sadly misrepresented> During the Winter War the Ruskies had 400k, and the fins had about 50k casualties..hehe talk about a Laugh. The Fins almost had an Airfleet sized unit as well with 300 fairly modern aircraft<i'm sure all German backed>Depending on whose figures one uses, the FAF shot down 190-280 enemy planes while losing only 35-62 of their aircraft. The consensus is that the Finns were vastly superior pilots compared to the Soviets particularly in air-to-air combat situations. Would also shock some to learn that Germany lost more Air to Poland than Poland did to Germany [ October 05, 2003, 06:31 PM: Message edited by: Liam ]

Cheating is boring because if you remeber playing Monopoly as a kid, if you allot yourself extra money under the table it's already over, so why play? Now in the case playing a better player, if you work out a reasonable handicap I don't mind that. And also if you're playing for something that you gotta have Like Claudia Schiffer or 10 billions bucks, I'm sorry then I'm gonna cheat all over the block

John: The Canadian situation can be a bad one, since it's disconnected, it can be invaded as well as defended by the Axis making it a geographic disaster area. I suppose I can see where Austria included in Germany. Though in some places you have too much detail and others not enough. Swiss start with 2 full armies, pretty good mobilization in comparison with other European Nations. The Yugoslavians start with 3 corps? They had a million men, shouldn't that be closer to 4 armies or equivelant?

Strange Prague and no Vienna. Although the population and ethnic base was all German. Being historically the Austrian-Hungary Marriage from WW1 would make Vienna a key Map Feature of Prague IMHO and to include Hungary<Budapest>, especially that and Albania<hehehe again>, Bulgaria Sophia. None of those nations combined likely had the industrial or Manpower more importantly<infrastructure> of Vienna itself. I think the Finland issue is a small one. I'd prefer to see an HQ for it, so it's troop fight with supply [ October 05, 2003, 03:41 PM: Message edited by: Liam ]

I look forward to the release of SC2. So long as it in the spirit of the first one and enhanced. All games, have gamey flaws. I was inter-rookie ranked Ages of Empires Player..for some reason that's a game that not even the best guys unless you use hotkeys can ever get really good at.<it's all about speed> A lot Arcade like aspects to it. I wouldn't really compare it to a turn based Strategic Command. The final Patch you're about, the C Patch, only stop hacked proggies that allowed you to get illegal maps, resources, information about your enemy. Mostly a bunch of people pretending to be better at a game than they really were for attention, how boring. There were other flaws you could exploit. Like pulling the plug when you were losing badly, lagging the game into an Incomplete, even go as far as setting up the Teams. People use to buy Ranked accounts Lordy, I hope SC doesn't become anything like that, and SC2 either. In our Axis & Allies group I was banned<won't say by who> for bringing up the fact that there was a DiceHack for the random Dice Generator for the game. It was quite obvious to the whole Bulletin Board I spoke on but the Moderators didn't want that acknowledged as being a reality<guess they were living in some plastic world>;I think now they're bored is ranked last in Axis & Allies boards> hehe This game is hard to tamper with cause it's mainly us old fashioned Wargamers, that's refreshing. The only parts of it that are being exploited are what would be exploited with any game. An editor would be nice! Although like HOI, EU1-2, etc... In the end you get like 4,000 edits and patches. It's fun, though the mere figures can make your head spin The end result isn't all that much different. There is always something you do, that another player'll find gamey.<I'd however like to Strategic Command II stronger on the best parts of SCI> [ October 05, 2003, 03:36 PM: Message edited by: Liam ]

More Importance would be the Balkan Wars I & II that divided the borders up entirely setting up the Pro-Axis sentiment, although not reflected. The Karelian Isthmus would be more important on a larger game scale. Finland and Sweden definitely are very much connected Though there are many such huge Map Errors... Prague no Vienna??? DUH? What, hmmm. That's not up for dispute !

I remeber I use to sit up at the playground and salute our country every 5am, 5pm. Of course all of our families were making the ultimate sacrifice for freedom, <as if we cared> You get payed substandard pay for laying your life on the line and 0 loving from your country<you're Army, yawns>. Past the Russians which were the bad guys, there was no more reason for us all. Obsolete All I can collect about the enemy was from movies. Red Dawn? That was a good one. I remeber thinking that'll be me in 10 years, and I'll be freeing the country with my highschool mates while everyone else is off lost and confused. We'd train for the day when we all get to fight the bad Russians.. Who didn't know they weren't free. I remeber Dolf Lundren, Sly Stone, Arnold... Claude Jad Dam Vamme... Actually that makes 1/4 of my 80s superheroes American. Even Sly was a bit small and Arnie would probably eat him for breakfeast... America hasn't died as in WW2 we were at least one thing a Military Power. Also for another century or century and half pretty much 'dangerous' that way... Everybody should bow their heads for the fact that despite fighting for freedom<you?> true sacrifice for your country will definitely go unnoticed They pay Arab Matyrs more than they pay the average American Soldier.

When I was playing a game VS Terif and I sank his entire Fleet cause he wanted to kill my German Baltic Fleet soooo bad...he locked it all up until I got Sweden. Then I used air combined to destroy his...Problem was that despite this he used Corps to protect what he had remaining, carriers and still managed to drive me nuts with his Carriers. I thought that I would get a chance to finally do his Navy in entirely...see the expression on my face, how the hell

Shaka: As far as National Morale is concerned the Rockets that the Germans used had little effect ont he citizens of Britian. The only ones that made it killed a few thousand people and did some property damage...they were highly inaccurate weapons and not until the 1960s would rockets be useful and then only for very advanced technological nations. ICBMS and Smart Bombs of sorts. The rockets attached to airplanes would replace dogfighting as air-to-air missiles. Smart bombs wouldn't come into their own until the last decade or so... the V-1/V-2 rockets were about as effective a weapon as the flu was on the British Populace during WW2. Also to boot, Strategic bombing was useful however... It was a highly more accurate weapon than Rockets ever were. You could with a few thousands Bombs probably take out a percentage of a given target. Ranging... Most of the bombing done in WW2 was Terror bombing in an attempt to destroy the Morale of the Local Populace. It was a concept dreamt up in WW1, the thought was that it would break the Will of individuals to Fight. In WW2 however we found out that it only increased that will. Now did the Mass Strategic/Area Bombing the Brits-Americans did on Germany have a detrimental effect on their production. Most definitely... There were sooooo many Bombs dropped, it leveled cities, infrastructure and destroyed Materials-War Production. Not a significant amount for the expenditure in Bombers however... The money would've been better spent on what we call more precise Weapons. Dive-bombers, Battlefield useful bombers... Which most of those Heavy Bombers could be converted into. They were accurate enough to take out battlefield Targets, installations, and fortifications...to a degree. Sometimes, it worked in their favour and sometimes it didn't with the weather in Northern Europe often it didn't matter. The converted Fighter-Bombers used against the enemy were very accurate and powerful and that changed the complete ideology of the use of AirPower for all eternity. Only well after WW2, during the Gulf Wars has AirPower been proven to cripple a Military Machine of a nation completely. During WW2 it was a great aide, but now we try to avoid collateral Damage as we know it doesn't help... In the case of the A-bombs, I think that we cannot put to them alone as ending WW2. Many more died in Japan by FireBombing.Certianly enough of those puppies though would level a country completely Morale is included in this game already in a Strategic Sense. However a lot of other gibberish is included too, like Rocket. My question is why? You say that morale is less a factor than rockets, that's perposterous. It was a trillion times more important in WW2 that Rockets ever were and that's no exaggeration The only fine use of Bombing, was to destroy Military Targets to sum it up. Morale has no place in the game at all. You can send a million men to the bottom of the North Sea Literally in Transports and it doesn't matter and that's supposed to roughly represent a few thousand men aboard various Recon ships-planes??? I'm sorry but I don't swallow it. It's kinda makes about as much sense as the Maginot line did.The French thought they were safe behind their fortification, they didn't understand the modern concept of Blitzkrieg War. They didn't know how to group tanks and aircraft to prevent a huge breach like was done in Ardenne. They were completely cut off and destroyed. Sapped of all their Will to fight cause their was no more Capitol within a few weeks. It was a whole new concept. Most nations gave in after their Capitol fell. Where did France have to reatreat to? In that case losing your Capitol was a HUGE blow to National Morale. Not only that but losing so poorly when you feel your armed forces are equal. However if 500 thousand french when on a Suicide Mission into N.Africa after France had fallen, when there was barely 1 free french corps left at the Wars End for Free French Units due to the Unpopularity of Britian Favoritism at Dunkqurkue... give me a break, that's a point... then you talk about having up to a Million free French... Why the heck would they fight when they don't have a country anymore? They most definitely didn't give two craps anymore about winning the War...their side was beaten, their morale was Nill

Immer, I'm impressed! As to the detail that could be added, the mind is the limit. We don't want 'extreme' detail, however perhaps a more thorough game... We already have huge Gaps in the Map-Unit-per-Hex, etc... I think that any idea of increasing units to some base units and doing away with say rocket detachments and Allied Subs in the Atlantic<two completely useless points> would be nice. Double tripe the size of the map, at least... It wouldn't hurt

John: I like your elaboration. We as Americans never withstood high casaulty rates and succeeded in any war, save the Civil War. The fact is we lose our stomach even in Iraq after a few hundred. During WW2 in the Island hopping scenario where our technology wasn't a great advantage over the Japanese, we were hurting bigtime. The Morale for our Marines there was at an all time low, in various opening failures to take the iniative and push off the Tenacious Japanese. The Japs had a Warrior Class society, different than our own. They're quite used to fighting to the death. I would gauge things very similarly to you. Many German Generals before Fall of France didn't believe in it... After they actually began to believe... Bill: As to what impact this should have on this game.. Well, I'm sorry to say but if you include a Corps as 10-20k of men and you send 4 or 5 of them into combat to definitely die! That's hardly a small Destroyer Figure of some Farmilies and Type '34s.. They're helpless cannon fodder. Although Morale overall by be too huge a concept too include, although it's one of the staples of victory in loss in true tactical combat and even strategic combat<sense the two are married> The fact is I'm trying to break the game away from the ugliness of Corp Recon. Suicide Fighter units and amphibious landings. Though the last two were often used they weren't for intelligence as far as I know

Jordy: Well, it kinda reflects the morale levels now by not having a single HQs in Russia at the start of the DOW upon them. What I'm purposing is to elaborate on Experience-Supply system that's already implemented. We have what you say, a unit that moves constantly. We re-equip it and we lose Experience as you've got a bunch of Green Boys with some guys use to shellshock.<very important in the Battle of Bulge in the South as I recall> Supply is fuel, food, ammo, etc.. That wouldn't matter in that instance.. However morale is the average fighting man's feelings about the war, is he happy. You're right, by overextending a unit, it get's tired, weary and morale drops significantly. You can't have an army group fight 24-7, eventually without R&R they're go nuts.<and that's proven> I am talking more about the way that players abuse say for instance throwing a Corps, or unit into harms way to kill it to achieve an objective. Not that it wasn't done in WW2, though mostly ended in catastrophe. The Kamikaze units of the Japanese, had no real impact and just killed off a bunch of Green Pilots, didn't really alter the Wars end just destructive. The cases of German U-Boat men who were captured saying they're losses were up in the 80-90% and that it was a death mission is what I'm trying to indicate. Each Navy, Army, Airforce should have a structure as a Army Group. An HQ in this game, athough fleets cannot be given such things<which is kinda foolish> Why not??? Each time you send a corps on a suicide mission, or an airfleet you pay, it decreases the overall morale of your troops not only the experience. Battle Hardened troops fight well with experience but like you say if they never get one second of rest and end up losing half their #s they really get depressed... If in one Year dozens of units are smashed, overall the feeling is that the War will be over. This could do wonders for the Russians, who would need special bonuses for Winter Counter-offensive. Though it could truly reflect that historically they were ill prepared to even defend against Finland let alone Germany As well as the Western Allies... Though after some initial defeats, and saving units at Dunqurkue, taking Al Alemein...BOB, Western Allied morale finally caught on...Russians caught on heavy after Stalingrad and the Germans plummetted. Overall the #1 goal of such a system would prevent Kamikaze Units, for such things as recon that are completely Ahistorical. Tens of thousands of men do not commit suicide<some Japs did > and if they did, it overall reflects on each HQ, and Army...Even Production on a whole... It forces you to perserve you men, treat them well...They're part of your country and wouldn't commit suicide, they want to commit to a real war effort and win and come home alive. The feeling of all soldats throughout the ages. Germany and Russia payed heavy for that Price. Both Countries were near at the End at some point. Though Russia rallyed back and Germany had nowhere to retreat to, an intelligent German defense without Battle of Bulge and blunders in the initial D-Day landing may have held out for another year. Such a thing would've been costly, even though most average Germans believed the War was lost by Summer of '44 Perhaps why the War ended promptly the following year. The Germans had lost their will to fight of course you'd have to include a random factor fo the fanatiscm<which isn't the majority and never is> Perhaps by this system we could force the introduction of a Destroyer type unit for Recon. Use of Bombers for Aerial...and no more kami-amphib landings..without a cost