Night

I would really really like to get involved with games, ethier these or others NightC2win@hotmail.com Night917 AIM

What exactly does Intel tech do now?

very much agreed.

You should be able to switch positions of units. I.E. if you have Corps A sitting in tile A, corps B in tile B, and you wanted Corps B in Tile A and Corps A in Tile B during the same turn, you can't do it, you must move one to Tile C first, then next turn complete the move, which IMO is gamey and stupid.

ETA?

What does go gold mean exactly...

Yea what is going on here... this is crazy

OMG I can't believe this turned into such an issue. Kuni is right, he barley represent's the feeling of the "community" as a whole. I have a small amount of post's compared to how long and how much I view this board, but I still know what i'm talking about though. However as far as the demo goes I do believe we need one, if only to help us grasp the game better before it's actual release. Let's not forget that it is a whole new system in basicly every aspect of the game. I have already paid my money but want/need a demo anyway

Yea, we would all appreciate some news on this subject.

Do we have a more definate date for demo release?

Very good point. If the A.I. cannot use all of it's nations for one goal, then it will surley be soundly defeated by any decent player.

I appreciate the response, I can understand now why we are not given a discount. Upon reflection the game is pretty much spot on price. It is 2006 after all. I sincerly hope the copy protection is not TO hardcore, because it ALWAYS causes some kind of problem for someone. Like many have said, we don't want to lose/scratch/break our CDs then be stuck havin to buy a brand new copy.

got a pic of him?

LOL @ MadMatt. You don't expect us to believe battlefront doesn't make a cent off of that shipping charge, do you? Someone on the staff has to be paid to wrap and send the thing's out. From what I understand, a large majority of company's slightly inflate this price. I knew right away when I saw $8 that it was high. Handling, why does that cost so much, someone just has to carry a small box to a truck or plane or warehouse. The shelf it sit's on i'm sure doesn't require daily matience, so save it and just give us the straight deal, Battlefront wants and needs to make it's money because every business does. Period. We still buy your games don't we?

ASSCLOUDS ROFL That was so hilarious! hahah

the Battle of the Atlantic should and must play a role in SC2. Any other way would not do justice to the men on both sides who sit in watery graves as we talk about this.

Well my order is in. The price is slightly high IMO but I was expecting that. Hey, everyone needs to make their money. Can someone tell me what Starforce is? Pre Order's should have been given a slight discount, that would have been cool.

The A.I. of SC1 was very awful IMO. It could only succeed in the most basic of operations where there was only one way for it to do thing's anyway. It had a VERY NASTY habit of sending forces right into the absolutley perfect position to be surrounded. Sometimes it would do this just to get a stupid mine or city, and other times it seemed to basicly just give up the game and send Army groups behind Russian unit's as a sacrafice or something, I could never figure it out. All the A.I. in SC2 needs to do is realize that force conservation is more important then giving up all you have to take and hold a city for two turns. Also, anyone who has played a full game in SC1 vs the AI while playing as the allies will realize how badly Germany handles the second half of the war. At some point or another the Russian's will destroy nearly all of Germany's unit's in Russia. The remaining unit's are almost never withdrawn to complete safety, and to make matters worse, new unit's (Alway's corps) are sent peice meal, in 1s and 2s, with no experience or even enough support to form a decent line. It seems the A.I. never realizes that Offensivly the war is lost. In other words, it is alway's trying to get to Moscow even when Russin's are outside Berlin, this just wastes unit's and makes for a crappy game. I suggest the A.I. in SC2 have two settings that switch on and off during game play depending on the situation. For example, if the A.I. play falls below a certain number of unit's per city it owns, it switch's from Offensive mode to Defensive/Rebuild. This way the A.I. can start to fight a proper defensive war, and if thing's go good enough they can resume the offensive after they have caused enough damage or built up enough new unit's. You would be hard pressed to see a large scale strategic withdrawl in SC1 that actually made sense. Most of the time unit's are withdrawn that are ethier non-combat (Air Fleets and HQs) or badly damaged with no replacement chance. The one thing that was nice about the A.I. was that it handled the opening of new front's fairly well. As soon as troops land anywhere that threaten's them, troops are withdrawn from elsewhere to deal with them, and usally the right about of force is sent. (Not to little to deal with the problem, not to much to strain other front's too greatly) If the A.I. in SC2 handles this just as well or better it would be a great plus. The A.I. in terms of Offence also needed much work as of the first game. It would not always recgonize great oppurtunity's to encircle my forces or strike the right unit with it's forces. Many times a unit of mine was dead-to-rights by far and for some reason not destroyed. The A.I. will never be comparable unless it can set up large stratgic traps and well planned offensives. For example, the A.I. in SC1 would never set itself up for a Stalingrad type fight in which strong unit's are intentionly placed on flanks and held there until enemey unit's move into the center, and in turn are hit on the flanks and encircled. You can do it on the A.I. all day long, but never really recieve one in return. Without such manuevers, you basicly cannot win the war unless the other guy isn't even trying. Just my thoughts, I played SC1 soley vs the A.I. (and I have played 100s of games) so I am very familer with it. In SC2 most of my games will probally be with the community but having a solid A.I. is a MUST as far as i'm concerned.

What did I bash? I asked some questions and said that I didn't want a response that included pointing to the editor.

I Appreciate the response HC.

That is a good point. There is a internet game called infantry, which at one time was totally free and highly populated. Now-a-days, the addition of a pay to play and the EXTREME learning curve have all but killed the game. You could quite literally not play the game unless taught, and teaching could take weeks to cover everything, then years to master the game. As long as SC2 does not get overly complicated and the fan's keep new mods etc. orginized I don't forsee this as a problem.

Ahh well I am glad I made this post, a few thing's are cleared up. I do not think it was made very clear that Blashey's game was so far from the default, I atleast was under the impression that they were Beta-testing a default scenario and that the major diffrence's had been in how they invested Diplo. chits. I for one totally like the idea of diplomatic's and believe they can and should be powerful, but with limitations. The editor will certainly be half of the games value easily. in SC1 alone, with its very limited editor, we saw great fan-made scenarios. With this new one, we should basicly see brand new games that are fan-made. An excellent addition. I guess what I meant by saying people are hiding behind it was that it seems that more attention has been focus'd on the editor and what it can do rather then what the game is supposed to be: A fairly realistic strategic simulation of WWII in the European Theater. HC, what would be useful to us here is if with the next batch of ScreenShots, you do prehaps a slide show of 3 or 4 turns on the same front, so that we can actually see with our eye's how major movements and offensives are carried out. In other words, take a SS of Barbarossa turn's 1-4 at the same spot in the map. This way we as fans (who haven't been testing keep in mind) can get a better feel for how a turn plays out and how it effect's turns after it. What movements leave you vulnerable? What positions give you the best advantage? What unit's usally lead offensives? Etc. As you are very fond of mentioning, this is NOT SC1 and thus it is difficult for some of us to understand gameplay. Thank you for your time.

After seeing the last Screenshots and hearing the arguements, I am a little concerned about gameplay in the Russian Front. Yes I understand the game is customizable... but I don't expect to be shipped an editor and told to make my own game, what about the default scenario's that have been tested for months, shouldn't they be up to par? Unless it was a rare event, the unit amount and placement seems to give the feel that fighting on this front is far less then the grand/epic scale it really was. For example, while Stalingrad was first being attacked by the Germans, there were still operations mopping up around Moscow. In SC2, will we see only enough forces to generly engage in 1 large operation at a time? Also, the thing that bothered me the most about the first game, and what I was hopping would be fixed with this one, is the absence of large Soviet armored forces. Cost and pressure often made buying armor as the Russians non-exsistent. Esp. for the A.I. In SC2 will we see the Soviets more able to field large forces of Armor, as historical, that will drive the axis from their country? (Yes I realize that all unit's have some armor as part of their representation, save it.) Last but not least, I don't post that much on this forum but I read it often enough. I am getting extremly sick and tired of people being faced with potential problems with the game and pointing to the editor. "Go fix it yourself!" I am not paying someone $50 of my hard earned dollars so I can fix their game for them. I am also not paying $50 to play a game that 2 or 3 play testers thought was great. I WILL pay $50 if I feel I am getting a game that we ALL have contributated to. For all intents and purposes SC2 should be a finished product that has further potential with the editor, not a half-baked idea with an editor that leaves it up to whoever is playing. Everytime I have a few hours and want to play a game, I don't think I will feel like sparking up the editor and programming myself a historical Stalingrad. All that said, I believe the editor will be fantastic, I am looking forward to using it and seeing what everyone else does with it. But STOP HIDING BEHIND IT! GREAT! WE HAVE AN EDITOR! WHAT ABOUT A GAME!?

I don't understand why you can play many differnt full games, and we can't have a demo. That just doesn't make sense. I don't know about everyone else, but the eastern front looks very... gamey. In other words, There are like no unit's in the middle and north of the map, specifcly near Moscow. So why would the Axis not advance there? If they don't have the resources, then why wouldn't the Russians counter attack in that area and sweep south behind Axis forces? It doesn't seem to me that much strategy has played out besides just move a group of unit's forward and attack a city, and move unit's to defend a city that is threatened. I hope it isn't really that simple. Can you explain how many MPPs the Russians are working with at this point? They seem to have much left in terms of resources, however it is not reflected by their military which seems to me to be extremely small, and on top of that completely defence oriented. 4 of the 6 unit's are actually garrisoning cities and really can't be moved out at all. By this time in the war the Soviets had a good amount of tanks and troops massed to attack around Stalingrad and turn the tide of war, in the ScreenShot it looks like Russia is just trying to delay the Axis victory for as long as possible. In the Western front, I notice a lack of tank groups. Do the allies find it less useful to invest in tanks and tank technology then historicly? Do the Germans find their own armor ineffective at stoping a French invasion? I realize it is still only 1942 and the western allies are far from full strength but the absence of armor is interesting. All in All I can't wait to play. But looking at these screenshots gives me more question's then answers. The German positions in Russia are unbelievable. In SC1 if you held that setup, you are asking for armor or some corps to sweep behind Army Group South and cut it off, on top of that the unit's that are actually in the rear are AF unit's which will just get run over at high cost. It seems that with this setup of less clutter the loss of, say, two unit's in a single turn would spell the end of the fight. Just my observations.

Very much doubt it.