xwormwood

Bo, i agree. And i have no problem if the AI gets some help to offer at least some kind of challenge against the human player. It would be nice though if the game would tell me more about this help, something like "Due to your cunning warfare, Hitler seems it nescessary to send Rommel toward africa. Our local spies at Benghazi indicate that he brought a panzer unit, a tac air and two corps with him. " This way i would know that a) these reinforcements won't be there for me if I would play the axis, as they were only sent as a direct result of MY cunning (cough, cough) actions i need to REACT somehow against this REAL thread (often infos pop up just to give me some historical or cultural background information, which i absolutly love, btw.) The game could even ask me now (this would be a brilliant moment to do so) if i want to put those australian reinforcement aside as a strategic reserve (now i would know and understand why they arrive in africa, i wouldn't felt cheated out of a decision). Those little adjustments wouldn't be an impossible task, correct?

At the end of the war Hitler WOULD have made an alliance with the russians, thats for sure. Rather with the russians than with the western allies. Hitler himself stated severall times that if he would have known how strong the russians already were in 1941 he wouldn't have attacked them. Guderian, Canaris, Gehlen, they all warned him, but he called it the greatest bluff since Genghis Khan. So, imagine Hitler dares to visist Moscow, dares to trust his General Staff, everything MIGHT have happened different.

Of course not, and i hope i never said anything like this here or anywhere else. Everyone feels different, has his own opinion about anything, and a good thing that is. I'm writing only about my perspective, my feelings, my hopes. I hope that i wrote this as well already.

Yes, this was true until the Admiral Graf Spee, a single CA, hit GC as a strength 8 Naval Unit.

Coastlines can be harrassed because GC doesn't knows sea mines (even though an early axis pop up info suggest to the player to mine the enemy harbors). quick help: Introduce seamines, and limit with it coastal bombardements. problem: too many BBs and CAs fighting subs = no atlantic war. quick help: reduce the damage BBs and CAs can inflict on subs, or better: reduce it to zero reduce the damage SS can do to BBs and CAs and CVs Let SS be a weapon against convoy lines, and let DDs be the SS hunters. If you miss the rare SS attacks against BBs, CAs and CVs: introduce optional decision events. If the player wants one, he has to pay amount x. If he is lucky he can decide if he wants to send a special attack sub against an enemy vessel. If he pays, and if the odds are right (x %), he sinks vessel y. Create tons of these decisions. Fill in blanks. Let the player buy them or ignore them. EVERYTHING GOES IF YOU WANT IT. suggestion: Enlarge the "neutral sea zone" concept. A neutral leaning toward the axis allows axis ships within its neutral zone, and the neutral could supply the axis ship if the neutral is leaning more than x percent toward the axis alliance. Deny the opposite alliance the neutral zone (or let her suffer the consequences). Combine this with some kind of "malta" effect. If singapore harbor is without a UK BB, than diplomatic shift of one or more surrounding neutral countries toward the axis. If the UK shifts all its ships away from the north atlantic, than make the convoy lines more important toward the UK. No convoy supplies for longer than x game turns: not enough food to feed the UK, let something BAD happen to the allied player, like UK (British Isles) begging for peace talks. Why did i wrote all this? Because i'm sure there are more than enough ways to solve the puzzles of a true global game. You could even rethink the whole naval concept of SC. A solution could be to introduce strength points and task forces (container for the strenght points). isntead of the current units. For this you would need to find a way to park strength points in a harbor until the player decides to from a new task force, to restrenght an existing task force, to dismiss a task force, or to reduce the strength of a task force. Well, mabye this is alltogether something for SC3. Kuuu - niiiii!

Maybe. But Germany would have to pay a price for this alliance. Late 1940 / Early 1941 Stalin already demanded from Hitler Finland, Bulgaria, Romania and the Dardanellen (probably soon followed by the entire Turkey). It Hitler would have agreed, well, maybe the alliance would have lived some more years, who could tell? Common enemies might bring you together. Stalin and the Western Allies became "friends" as well as along as they had a common enemy (Germany), why shouldn't this have worked in any other direction as well?

I truly hope this as well. Everything else worth replying i have already written here and in other threads, so no need to repeat myself too often.

SeaMonkey, problem with games against real persons is that these person don't dwell within my computer. It is complicated to play against humans. When, where, who, how long. The AI is only and alway one doubleclick away. The whole reason for the AI is to make a human opponent unnescessary. As much as i would love to play only against my own brother, he doesn't even OWN the game. Those who own the game live often enough in a different time zone. Sorry, but i can't judge a game only considering its multiplayer values. In fact, those values are only a "nice to have", while no AI is an absolut showstopper.

This helped a lot, and i welcome the addition, of course. If those new movement restrictions weren't in the game, i would have simply enjoyed the additional units, as i welcome all good and new ideas. Due to the in GC new invented movement limitations it takes so much longer to bring in troops. Anywhere. And when you reach your target, every AI unit has been brought to maximum strength. That is simply the way the AI works. I think that the smaler map, combined with the new movement limitations and restrictions rub my hair the wrong way, so that my mood is already completly down in the dumps when anything unexpected happens. But again: i don't give up the hope that some good spirit will find somehwere time and motivation to brush GC up, let it shine the way it simply deserves it (at least in my humble eyes). Back to PDE / PT map sizes, to hell with the new movement restrictions, more choices, more possibilities, less rail shooter behaviour.

Gentlemen, thank you for all your detailed answers! These infos help (me) to understand your thought and motivations. Even though i wouldn't agree with each and everyone, i can surely live with them. Somehow. Greetings from Germany Claus PS: i still hope for updates, new approaches and less restrictions

True, SeaMonkey, and honey on my nerves, and thanks for calming me down a bit.

I feel like i didn't get what was possible. I feel like the game designers didn't wasted to much thoughts into how this release compares to its predecessors. I feel like SC GC in the current version is an unfullfiled promise. I feel like SC GC can be so much more if adjusted here and there and maybe even there as well. I feel angry when i see how much i'm not able to do anymore in GC. I feel anxious to get all those new and fantastic additions in GC presented in a more harmonized way I feel like i want to kill when the game denies me my movements ("you can go there. No, there you can't go as well. Sorry, off limits for you. Yes, there you could go if this tile wouldn't be blocked by your air unit") i feel cut down when i stumble about things which were already better in PDE / PT but worse in GC. I feel good to know that Hubert always listen, and often made things better. I feel sympathetic for Hubert when it comes to ignoring SC3 as long as the SC2 game engine hasn't provided enough income to leave the game engine behind for a new start. I feel empty because i have not much joy playing GC in the current version as i stumble everywhere about or against something that i would have decided or designed different, or at least NOT different than in former SC releases. I feel obliged to state that even though i am absolutly unlucky about the current GC release it still isn't a "bad" game. I feel like i wrote way too much in this thread.

Nice and very kind of you, and yes, you just did it.

I felt exactly the same way when playing the game. Sad but true. But this game concept of harsh movement restrictions is an intended feature. A feature i will never learn to appreciate.

-HQ, surrounding, hitting. -Hitting cities is hitting coastal defenses. They defend. So expect losses here and there when attacking a city. -see above -gain experience, keep the chinese occupied -SF hit harder, but have a poorer defense than regular Infantry. -Yes, with the Strategic Bomber Little hint: read the manual, or at least the entertaining parts of it, you are allowed to skip the editor part for now.

I don't feel like the Game engine of SC2 was already "milked out". To achieve SC3, you have first to learn what there is next to do. and how to do it the proper way. For this, you have to have an European and a Paciifc and yes, a global game with the engine you already have, which you know. You have to learn what can and can't be done, and finaly, you have to make a living out of the process. I nether feel like a milked customer, nore like i would have bought a redundant extension. I like them all, SC2, WAW, PDE and PT. I even think that the GC engine deserves one or maybe two expansions. First: there is plenty of room for GC improvements Second: there is plenty of room for more what ifs Third: only with a steady stream of income Hubert will ever have the freedom to rethink the game engine, to start mostly fresh, on new terrain. The cry for SC3 will grow loud the moment you feel like the current game engine has reached its limits. Partly it has (limitations in major powers, no peace after war declared), on other frontlines the limit still hasn't been reached. I will happily cry "SC3! SC3!" after Hubert mastered his current game engine to its limits. Right now i fell like this point hasn't been reached, even though the time might not be so far away anymore. Always, of course, if there will be a SC3 at all. What had i expected: not the "perfect" game, but the crown of SC2. As it looks right now, the crown is still in the hands of the goldsmith, but still not on the head of the SC comunity. Till the crowning ceremony, i humbly wait till this glorious day and swallow down any SC3 desires.

Hi Bill101. Thanks for your insights. I see reason in most of what you wrote, but i feel the urge to state that you still took the easy way out of the problems. I hope that you would agree with me that it might have been a better solution to balance the game (with all the options GC offers) so well, that some ot the scripted events wouldn't have been nescessary. Example: if the UK shouldn't invest too much money to improve the Far East prior to Pearl Harbor you could make improvements in the far east EXPENSIVE or LIMIT the UK cashflow so much, that it would hurt the UK in Europe and Africa to spend too much in the Far East. Unhistoricals moves were in nearly all SC releases punished (minors getting nervous etc). In my opinion you should have thought more about ways to punish unhistorical practices instead of reducing gameplay. If i think about my example of the Royal Sovereign it could have been such an idea: either the player sends her on its way to india (offer the player to move her protected straight to india or allow the player to move the strength 5 BB on his own risk all the was for himself), or he has to place her in the UK or Africa in 1939, with a high chance that "U 47" appears at one of the placing harbors, damaging her pretty good (Royal Oak at Scapa Flow). This way THE PLAYER could choose what to do. I don't know nothing about programming, but i feel sure that something like "calculate how many BBs are in the North Atlantic part of the Map, if amount is larger than X, allow 60% chance of german sub attack of BB in Harbor 1, 2 or 3" could be programmed. Or if fleet placing ratio larger than 3:1, offer the Axis player random event bonus 1 (like higher morale for subs due to the U47 event) In many decision events players already get the opportunity to choose. At least let me choose if singapore should remain neutral (stay neutral or pay amount x for y turns to activate singapore earlier). Slip this very information to the axis player, and this way he will know that the UK Isles herself will be much more vulnerable for the next several turns. And he knows that he has to react somehow in the Far East, as well. When it comes to the US fleet in Pearl Harbor, than allow me to see this fleet, or to change ships between the West Coast and Pearl. If i place a carrier in Pearl Harbor, than warn me that the japenese would get one surprise attack granted in which my carriers won't be able to retaliate. Than program such a routine. The japanese player won't mind, i presume. This way it would feel like MY fleet lies at Pearl, this way my fleet WOULD lie at Pearl, this way i would be commander in command of my fleet. And offer me to withdraw my fleet if i absolutly want to. Punish the abscene of my fleet with diplomatic losses, with lowered productions values. Punish the allied player it he declares war on a neutral country. example: calculate how much the political status of the country was. 20 towards the allies = 120 points 75 toward the axis = 25 points Allies lose x amount of money or y amount of industry for every z points he collected due to declaring war on a neutral. If total ever reach XXX points, than the allied player lose the war as he showed the world that he is nothing better than the axis (warmonger, capitalist, whatever). Subtract from the collected amount of points ZZZ points if the axis players declare war on a neutral. If the allied player had already a very high amount of points right at the beginning of the game, than he might lose the war by declaring war against "his" neutrals to soon. Here we could imagine even some kind of "bonus" points for getting beaten by the axis player. A friendly neutral surrenders toward the axis: allies "gain" points because they weren't able to protect the neutral or ally. Call it war wearyness. I think you get my point. LET ME play the game, don't let the game play itself just because this is the short cut to avoid the problems, the easy way out of a problem, the hush-hush method to take the next step. Philippines: if the Allied player withdraws preemptive his forces, let them declare true independence, let them invite japanese "military and economic advisors" on the islands. if the Allied player sends too many troops, anxious for japanese attacks: let the chickens get restless, starting to sabotage the imperialist devils, let other neutrals and the maybe even the russians tend away from the allies. Let neutral fincancial moguls invest in axis nations as they fear about their capital getting swallowed by the strangers or get plundered by axis victors. Let the locals help a japanese invasions by giving them the positions of the allied armies or ships, let them sabotage units or cities or fortresses in case of a japanese landing attampts. Let them misinform the allies, reducing effectivity or sight of allied units. The historical hindsights we all have, well, they have never hindered us from accepting that the French couldn't be condemned to run into the dunkirk trap -like they did- again in SC. So this NEVER happens in any SC game. But here in GC (and only GC) we have to see history repeat itself. We are forced to let it happen. Sorry for writing this, one could get the feeling that, while the PT campaign had a good solution for the AI Singapore campaign, the GC AI isn't capable of doing the invasion anymore, as land units are harder to kill, new movement limitations were introduced, and the map hasn't enough room for the nescessary manoeuveres. Of course, this is an unjust accusation. Sorry, i probably totaly missed the point. I will reduce myself now for possible implenent change request. But maybe you could take the one or the other out of my lines above. If not, well, here i have two other ones: How about a contest or an open forum for additional decision events? How about optional decision events (like pay to get one, pay even more to get a BAD one for your opponent or to REMOVE a good one from your enemy)?

Thanks Robert, your insight is appreciated! I'm sure that the British felt betrayed in 1942, and yes, i felt it too. But in a global Game which follows the superb PT expansion i felt again downgraded. And than i saw how poorly the Japanese AI conducted against me in China, and i thought to myself: "well, this AI conducts so poorly on this map which obviously hurts the AI much more than me, that the game designer had no other solution as to cheat the human player with this one". And with this "hey, got ya!" feeling of being cheated out of a good pacific campaign i left the game and wrote this thread, as this drop was the one too much. At least at this moment. I feel obliged to say it once more: GC is a great game in all its parts, but in my opinion the parts weren't connected as well as it would have been possible.

This is true, HC has a receptive nature. But i'm somewhat "angry" that obviously the betas never felt the same way as i. In my opinion it should have been their job to question design decissions / and or to send (more) hints for improvements. As to free units, they could have asked for a descission event like "do you want so send the Royal Sovereign to India? If yes, she will apear on march 1st 1942 at Calcutta, if no, she will appear at Glasgow on November 1941" or "there is the chance for mass produce of Subs. If you pay now and the following 3 turns x amount of money, you could benefit from 3 subs at date y." I'll try the AoE campaign, thanks for reminding me of it.

I ment "shouldn't", of course.

Axis AI against human Allies, 1939 campaign. In 1941 Singapore surrendered simply by choice in front of the japanese AI, even though not a single japanese shot fired and not a single japanese soldier set his foot on the singapore peninsula. edit: great, the japanese convoy lines from the just "to the AI granted" former UK territories start immediately as well. Scripted victories shouldn't be in the game. You can't defend against a scripted invasion. "Arrived" units should suddenly appear on the map. Either i, the player, send a unit, or no one. How can the Royal Sovereign "arrive" in India, if the Royal Sovereign wasn't send away to India? I couldn't use the ship in Europe, in Africa, and nowhere else before the magic arrival. You rob me of the fun to divide my forces the way i feel fit. I can't say how dissapointed i am, the longer i play the game, the more. What good does it do to release a global conquest game - without a globe (!) - without the ability to manage your global forces (the UK is forbidden to even SEE its "minor" garrisson in Singapore or anywhere else until Japan declares war on the UK - pop up messages that don't tell the player everything (like the one where the US isolanists demand that the fleet -on its way to Pearl Harbor- returns to the West Coast bases, not telling the player what happens if he refuses to do so), while on the very next turn an US fleet magically appears in Hawaii, so that the Japanese still can perform the Pearl Harbor raid - Italian wonderfighters in Abessinia (even with a 5 or 6:1 ratio it is nearly impossible to win a flower pott against the fascist blackshirts, which get reinforcements even though there is no more axis port, and disregarding the not existing port still there is a german motorcorps oviously beaming down from subspace onto the east african soil (sigh, OH BOY!). Not to forget that the AI got a free Italian HQ, which makes it so hard to do anything against the italian corps. - way too many movement limitations to keep a smal map somehow challenging. Best example would be the chinese theater of operations, but of course these no movement restriction occur everywhere else as well. -the axis subs, now swarming the north sea, trying to kill the Royal Navy instead of merchant fleets, turning the north sea more or less into a killing ground for the royal navy. -next important step would be to allow all naval units to move much, much greater distances within one turn. In my current game, the Japanese AI parked her amphibs for one or two turns right in front of Singapore, Batavia, the Phillipinese. Even when i, the ALLIED PLAYER, saw them, there was no way to react, as MY "british" minors were sleeping and considered NEUTRAL. Why are my british garissons neutral? Well, because the game designers needed to bend history to keep the play balance. Just great. NO WAY to reinforce singapore, no way even to use its harbors. "Sorry Mr. Chruchill, the Royal Navy is not welcome here anymore, as we, the independend UK of Singapore, only exist to become invaded by the Japanese. After that, feel free to free us. PLEASE." All amphips (and, of course, other navy units) should be able to move a GREAT distances from their homebase and than be able to invade the neutral or other attack victim within the same turn. If this would be possible, than ONE "not so bright" game design (= parking japanese vessels in front of a "neutral" country without a negative reaction from the "neutral" country) wouldn't have been nescessary. Nevertheless, if i play a global game and a global power, than i should be able to USE my global powers. Neutralize Hong Kong, just to guarantee that the Japanes get this city presented on a silver platter? In Europe, this would mean to place the BEF and most parts of the French in Belgium, simply to allow Germany to get the victory in the West on the silver platter. Here the game designer choose not to do this, as no player should be forced to make the same mistake as they took place in history. While this may good and true, the very same thought was wiped away in Asia. As a player you can't avoid but to learn that the game designer have no uniform rules. Here they decide "no", but at a different place, about the very same question, they suddenly decide "yes". I know that Hubert & Co. worked hard to release this game, and i know that they listened to their followship. And i had to learn that there are obviously many, many customers where they hit the gaming spot of these players, but with this release, they missed mine, and this for the very first time, but nevertheless hey missed the spot, major. Too often they bended the map and the game concepts, at least in my eyes, at least in the current version of Global Conquest. Right now I couldn't recommend this game to friends or colleagues who share my love for strategic, turn based games, contrary to SC, SC2, WaW, PDE, PT. Sorry for these lines, and i guess, that you probably knew all this before. Please try to understand why i wrote it: because i want this game to become better, because i loved those games you released before this one, because i feel so sad about the fact that i can't "feel" the way i should be feeling with so many more good ideas, so much more map compared to the older SC games. It is not that GC is a bad game, this wouldn't be true at all. But it is about what you didn't achieve with this release, even though it might have been possible (seeing with layman eyes) without too much more efforts. Sigh. edit: Now i reached early 1942, and i can't help but to feel that you scripted this game to death. Something appears here, some other thing arrives there. What good is a global map with hundreds of tiles if i'm not allowed to use this map? Australian troops "arrive" in the near east. Hello, guess what, i don't want them there. If i want them in Egypt, than i want to ship them there on my own. Why am i not allowed to decide where i want to use my troops? I could understand these arrivals in the single theater maps of SC2 and PT, but for heavens sake, not (N O T !) on the global map! I'm truly disappointed, so dissapointed. Only short cuts in this games, nowhere i can play out a turn the way i was able to in SC to PT. You take away so much with all those unnescessary short cuts, free units, restrictions. I simply don't understand why you did this to this game.

david & KvP, i think you don't know the limitations of the SC2 game engine. There is a limit about how many major powers are possible, in a global game you have to choose which ones you want, you can't have all of them. Btw.: i can't see why France should fall only because Paris gets conquered. As long as their is hope, as long a nation will fight on. Yes, even France. There was a reason why France surrendered, and it wasn't alone the fact that Paris was declared an open city (that we see street fights in Paris, that you can criticize, not that France fights on as long as the general staff thinks resistance is still possible).

In every SC game with a campaign (not scenario) neither the AA, the Artillery or the AT make any sense, i have to agree. A completly different matter would it have been if it would have be possible to purchase AA, Artillery or AT improvements for any land unit (something like a "10" tank unit with Artillery strength "1" out of 3 [all numbers just as examples] and an AA strength of "0" [out of 3], somthing like the way carriers work [hull and airforce strength].

BUMP! Is there an answer out there for me?

I guess this is a feature, not a bug, but i'll ask nevertheless: NO supply in Albania, even though attached to a harbor and suited with streets?