Dan Fenton

Bill told me before that if Albania has not joined by the end of 1914, one needs to use diplomacy to move it in. My diplomacy point in Albania paid off with a lucky 26% hit. Albania has joined the Entente. I am concerned about Belgium. Germany destroyed a UK corps there and I destroyed that German corps. Bill's artillery seems really effective. I fear that it is Level 2 now. He might wipe out the whole pocket there. Or I may need to evacutate it all out by sea. France invested one point each in Production Tech, Industrial Tech and ASW. France got an advance in Production Tech this turn. This will be a long war and France will need the increased MPP's. Serbia, Balkans and Turkey were stable. I believe that Italy has siphoned off some Austrian troops from the Balkans. In Russia, the Russians destroyed a German corps and liberated a town. The German pocket is being reduced as planned. I would like to invest in Russian tech, but I feel that more Russian corps would be most effective at this time. The Central Powers seem very stretched right now. Italy has moved a additional detachment into Libya to occupy a partison generating town. I plan to transport a French detachment to occupy the partisan generating oasis. Then Libya should be safe. Bill caused me lots of trouble there in our last game. Bill moved faster than I had hoped in Palestine. It looks like I have grabbed about all that I can for free. I will bring up my heavy artillery and see what slow damage and progress that I can do later.

France is stable. I have plugged the hole in the Eastern flank with everything spare that I could move. France invested in Gas/Shell Production and put a diplomacy point into Norway. France got an advance in Heavy Artillery 1. When the time is right, France will now be able to successfully attack entrenched units. France sent a destroyer to the Med. The UK transported another corps into Belgium. It is racing a cavalry corps, destroyer and a carrier to the Med. UK is still hampered by a lack of MMP's due to needed decision events. An artillery, Tech Level 1 is waiting to be transported to France. Italy is attacking Austria and is moving more units in. Except for subs in the Med, I am now happy with the naval balance. Italy invested one point in Industrial Production and put one diplomatic point into Albania. The Libyian colony is now active. Serbia, Balkans and Turkey were stable. Russia began its dual offensive into Germany and to wipe out the German units in the pocket. Russian destroyed a marine unit and damaged a unit in the pocket. MPP's went to bringing the artillery unit in Turkey up to strength and in repairing damaged land units. I need to rebuild destroyed corps.

Italy has joined the Entente! All French ground units have been repaired. The French extreme right flank is weak but Bill is not exploiting it. He might not have the units to spare. The UK has only 50 MPP's a turn for a while due to decision events (Italy). The planned Russian offensive went East instead of North because of German reinforcements. The Russians destroyed a German corps in that offensive. I still plan to attack north and eliminate the German pocket. The Balkans are beginning to concern me. I have lost another Russian corps there to the Austrians. I don't know how they have that kind of firepower as the Russians have entrenchment level 2. The Serbs are holding well and digging in for the expected Bulgarian declaration of war.

France's extreme right flank is beginning to crumble. The rest of France looks good. I shipped another UK corps and an HQ into Belgium. Both the UK and France got Trench 1 this turn. Italy will be in the war soon. I am postponing the Russian offensive for weather and to allow the artillery unit to be brought up to 10 strength. The Russian offensive on the Turkish coast is stalling. I will need the new decision event artillery brought to strength and moved over there. The Balkans and Serbia were stable. Austrian National Morale has dropped below 90%. I will need diplomacy to bring Albania from 84% up to joining the Entente. The UK in Palestine killed an Ottoman corps.

Goal number two has been met. The German drive in France has been stopped and a hard defensive line has been created. I now hold the entire Amiens river defensive line. France got a tech advance to Industrial 2. In Russia, the Russians sacked/replaced a 5 leader to a 7. The additional HQ has arrived and the corps are moving into attack position to eliminate the German pocket. Serbia, Balkans and Turkey are mostly stable. Russians got an advance to Trench 2 and put a diplomacy point into Sweden to stop the convoy to Germany. The UK is attacking in Palestine, occupied Lemos by a decision event and brought a sub up to strength 8. A UK destroyer, carrier and cavalry unit are on the way.

Except in Belgium where brought in another UK corps and killed another German corps, there is peace. It was a time to repair and to attempt to establish part of my Amiens defensive line on the river. I hope that the possible German counterattacks won't cost me too much. The French HQ's have almost finishing swapping positions. In Russia, two more Russian corps have forced marched into the area. Another is force marching towards that area. Another HQ is almost there. The rest have repaired or entrenched. The Russian defenses are hardening and I am preparing to nibble at the pocket. I have no illusions about attacking further into Germany. In the Balkans, a Russian cavalry corps took the last Austrian city behind Russian lines. I did some repairing and nibbling at Austrian units. The Russians are nibbling at Ottoman units on the coast otherwise that area is stable. Serbians have fully repaired and the rebuilt detachments have swapped positions with Montenegrian detachments. UK units have taken Ottoman cities in the Middle East. Ottoman National Morale is now under the magical 90% mark for the attack bonus. Last turn the Entente got a Russian advance in Industrial Production. The UK got an advance in Amphibs and this turn got Heavy Artillery 1.

I forgot to take screen shots before the turn ended. Three more German corps are dead in France while I lost one French corps. The Austrians are nibbling at the Russians in the Balkans. I am nibbling back but not as well. I just realized I have two more Austrian cities behind my lines for the taking. A retreating and badly damaged Russian cavalry unit took one of them this turn. My rebuilt Serbian detachments are moving to swap places with Montenegrian detachments. That way, if Serbia would fall, those Serbian units being outside of Serbia would not surrender. My Russian encirclement of the German corps in Russia is holding. I have entrenched and repaired units there. Two more Russian corps and another HQ are on the way to reinforce that front.

France and the UK are hampered by the lack of MPP's due to the need to pay for decision event choices. I can't repair everything that I would like. Therefore my counterattacking units are too weak to occupy all the Amiens river defensive line that I hope to create. However, they killed two more German corps. The German line is looking thin. I transported a UK corps into Belgium to create a more defensible pocket behind the German lines. The Serbs are doing well and are conducting nibbling attacks at favorable odds. The other main front in the Balkans is pretty stable again. I am walking a Russian HQ from Warsaw north to assist the Russian Front. The Russian front is looking very interesting. I lost a Russian city but killed a German corps and took a German city. Now the main German army is pocketed behind the Russian held river line. Using the new Forced March feature is helping me put the Russians where I need them without having to pay for Operational Movement. Russia put another research point into Trenches and one into Production tech.

Goal one has been met. More German corps are dead and the blockade is bitting. German National Morale has now dropped to 88%, below the 90% required for an attack bonus. In France, the Amiens river defense line is looking more possible. In Russia, I am playing Russian numbers to German quality. If Germany doesn't retreat, I will own his cities behind the lines. The Balkans are mostly stable this turn. Serbia took an Austrian town. In research, Russia got a Trench hit and the US got an ASW hit. That probably means that all beginning US naval units will get one point in ASW for free.

I will enjoy reading everyone's comments when this game is done. I am not reading or looking at anything to give Bill a fair game. I may be able to hold a line along Amiens. The combined navies have been shore bombarding. French and UK counterattacks have killed a lot of German corps in that area. Many remaining German corps are damaged. I am concerned about the Russian Front. The German units have lots of firepower and the Russian corps are oddly weak when attacking. Promoting my poor 4 quality HQ there will be a priority. I am nibbling when I can in the Balkans and in Serbia. I did not choose to transfer Russian units from the Caucasus as I will need them later against the Turks. UK gets an Intel research point hit. No trench research point hits yet.

All active Entente majors now have two research points in Trench. UK has one point in Artillery and in ASW. Amiens is a thorn in the German path. The blockade is partially in place. The close blockage has full strength cruisers and a few destroyers. Those classes of ships hold up best against sub attacks. The full strength battleship reserve is located near Rosyth to respond to German naval attack against either the close blockade line or against the Strait of Dover. I plan to put weak ships (strength 5-7) on all of the far blockade squares. I don't have the MMPs to repair them anyway. This thorough blockade will seriously erode German morale and over time win the game.

Bill badly mauled me, in France, in opening part of our prior 1914 game. I am concentrating on creating a hard line further back that will actually hold in the Northern part of France this time. I am being more conservative with Russia. I expect Russian to last the entire game as it did last game. I am also putting priority on Trench research by all all active Entente nations and on ASW by the USA.

First, are you playing Strategic Command 2 (SC2) or Strategic Command Weapons and Warfare (WaW)? I do know for a fact that the AI does get some free units in WaW. The truth it that a good AI is extremely hard to program. Giving the AI some free units was a pragmatic game decision to overcome some AI garrisoning issues among other things. For example, the AI might just stop a powerful Tank unit in its tracks to be used as a garrison in France because it was nearby and then later build a new weak green Corps to attack in Russia. By giving a free Corps garrison unit, the AI would then continue using the Tank as an attack unit. I too am not fond of free AI units, but it does work rather well in practice. As I understand things, the free units are scripted in. It should be possible to examine the scripts to see what the AI actually gets and when it gets it. It also should be possible to disable the scripts if it annoys you that much. However, I would never recommend that. In a nutshell, the AI basically gets more money with higher difficulty settings. There is actually more, but I am trying to simplify matters. Since the AI already gets some free units, I am not happy about giving the AI some extra money also. After trying many different settings, I play with the AI on Normal Difficulty (no extra money) but with +1 Experience. This makes the AI units individually more powerful. Each AI unit roughly takes a 1/2 point less damage and does roughly a 1/2 point more damage. The downside to that setting is that Italians do not deserve such a boost and it also makes naval combat far harder than it should be. But on that setting the AI then gives me a very nice challenge.

I wish to thank everyone for their comments and ideas. Should the situation be appropriate for the Allies to take Iran, I now have a much better range of strategies to choose from.

My original understanding was that a Russian DoW on Iran was a must do. I thought, in error, that a DoW would be automatically followed by a conquest. Russia can get full MPP's from Iran because Iran can trace a line back to Moscow. The UK would only get partial MPP's because it is impossible to ever trace a land line back to the UK. Therefore, it seemed that there are interesting MPP possibilities for Russia to take Iran. I was not sure from a supply point of view if an unsupported Russian Corps could actually make it all of the way over the mountains to Tehran. HQ's are just too valueable to remove from the battle for this type of mission. Even if a Corps could make it, it seemed counterproductive to give MPP's to the Axis for the duration of that long Corps walk. I was also unsure if a Russian Paratroop unit actually had the range to drop into Tehran. Before trying one or the other, I thought that I would ask what worked best for most people. Much to my great surprise, it appears that the DoW is simply to prevent the Axis morale boost issue.

I usually play against the AI. I can therefore eventually clear out Africa and make the Med an Allied lake. If Russia could then afford a paratrooper, once Iran falls, the paratrooper could be safely operated back to Russia. A paratrooper seems more cost effective than an HQ and a Corps. Therefore, with an Allied secured Africa, is the paratrooper then the best way to conquer Iran?

Terif recently posted that Iran was a must have for Russia. That seems like a very reasonable idea. However, Tehran is located far enough away from the nearest city in Russia to make a one turn conquest seem impossible. That long distance along with the mountains also makes supplying a two or more turn conquest difficult without HQ support. So what is the best way for Russia to conquer Iran?

Thanks Blashy. Normally I just copy files directly out of the zipped file. In this case, that process left me with all sorts of loose files and no directories. After your response, I tried extracting files normally and the correct directories were automatically created.

How exactly does one copy this mod into the game? Under SC1, one could just copy the .cgn file into the campaign folder and be done. However, this SC2 mod includes all sorts of .txt files that appear to be important. If I just copy the .txt files into the campaign folder, the files from another subsequent mod could overwrite them.

Blashy, actually the German diplomatic blunder that I was referring to was the historic one mentioned by JerseyJohn in his posting of 5/29/06. In it he stated, "Hitler sent Canaris to smooth the way for him and, instead, he talked Franco out of joining the Axis." My suggestion was to have a diplomatic event occur around the time of the historic meeting of Hitler and Franco on 10/23/40 that would move Spain towards the Allies.

1. Combine Canada with the United Kingdom (UK). Canadians were equipped, trained and had the same tech as the UK. Having the Canadians as a part of the UK solves the current Canadian tech issue. If London and Manchester are Axis controlled, have the UK capital move to Canada. This was actually a contingency plan during the war and is more logical than moving the capital to Cairo. It would be more unlikely that the UK would now surrender, but the UK MPP resources would at that point be so low as to make the UK almost irrelevant. 2. With the minor country slot freed up by combining Canada with the UK, create a new country called “Commonwealth”. This would reflect Australian and New Zealand units. The “capital” could be placed on some unconquerable half square in the Mediterranean, like 116, 37. The UK currently seems very MPP poor and could use the small boost. Destroyed Commonwealth units could only be rebuilt in the Med at their “capital”. This capital could also represent an Allied ability to move forces up from middle Africa. This would also eliminate issues with the Australian and New Zealand units being now considered Egyptian. These minor units for tech purposes should be considered UK. 3. Carriers now are basically very expensive Battleships with a longer range. One reason is because Carriers really represent two units, a ship and an air wing, while the game only uses one unit. That would explain the higher purchase expense, but badly warps the repair expense. Generally damage would only be to the ship or to the air wing. Yet the repair costs represent both. I propose that repair costs for Carriers be only that of a similar Air Fleet which is less expensive. Second, I propose an increase in the Carrier Attack of Carriers. Currently, Carriers do no more damage than a Battleship would in naval combat. The UK either through repeated very good luck or very effective Carrier firepower did great damage with Carriers against Axis ships in the war. The wartime UK one Carrier success against the Bismarck during bad weather and at Taranto sinking whole Battleships in a port could never be repeated with the current Carrier Attack and Carrier Defense ratings. 4. From a playability point of view, I request that an option for convoy routes be shown on the map. As Allied, those convoys are mine and I should know where they are. Yet when I play against an Axis AI, the AI knows exactly where they are and I must guess. Frankly, even as Axis, I would like to be able to see them for playability reasons also. I want to know where to put my subs without having to play guessing games. 5. On Diplomacy, I would like to see an historic event occur that drops down the Axis values in Spain, like the Allied values can get dropped down in Iraq. Through a German diplomatic blunder, the Spanish drop occurred in real life and could go a long ways to neutralize the powerful potential addition of Spain as an Axis minor ally. 6. I appreciate how hard it is to improve the AI. One thing that I have noticed in playing the 1940 scenario as Allied, the German parachute unit drops into Norway and gets stuck there for the rest of the game. I suspect that the issue is because of supply. The unit is adjacent to Oslo at supply 4. That supply is too low to operate out the unit or to air drop it out. The Axis AI could sure use this unit back in the game. 7. The UK gets its MPP’s from overseas possessions by convoy routes. Why shouldn’t Italy get its Libyan MPP’s by a convoy route back to Italy? 8. The UK seems way too MPP poor. Perhaps the Allied Iraqi activation level could be raised to start the Iraqi convoys immediately. 9. The US seems a little MPP poor. Yes it can be tricked out with Level 5 Production Technology and Level 5 Industrial Technology. The prepaid units that Bill suggested also helps the MPP situation. Would it be a good idea to put in a prepaid Carrier? The US did have the Ranger and the Wasp for a while. The US was also known for its firepower both on land and at sea. Perhaps it should begin with Level 1 Infantry Weapons and Level 1 Gun Laying Radar. This would also free up some MPP’s. It seems odd that the US which historically built more tanks than Germany, yet only has two Tank Armies with no surrendered rebuilds compared to Germany’s six Tank Armies with one surrendered rebuild. 10. There should be some ports in Egypt and maybe in other parts of the Med that would permit the Allies to fully repair their ships. I believe that the above suggestions would help improve the play balance which people feel is currently tipped toward the Axis and improve the playability of an already great game.

Three cheers for the play testers! Play testing is a hard job. Playing the finishing product is a lot of fun for us. But that isn’t what play testers get to do. They work with the raw unfinished product for many months with all sorts of flaws and bugs that we never saw because they did. On top of that, most play testers seldom get anything more than a hearty thank you from the designer and a free game. That is their reward after months and months of work. Most play testers also have jobs and a family along with other responsibilities. Play testers give up months and months of fun time to do this work unselfishly so that we can have a better product and more fun. With all of the campaigns along with all of the scenarios that they had to test from both sides with all of the different setting choices how could they possibly be expected to find every flaw in the AI in less than one month? The 1.02 version of Strategic Command 2 (SC2) is far better that the fully patched version of Strategic Command (SC). Have people forgotten the Air Fleet dominance problem of SC? That has been fully fixed. What about the U-Boats being like fish in a barrel to be shot in that little pond of the Atlantic in SC? It has been fixed and we can have a real Battle of the Atlantic now. What about the tech issues of SC? Remember the non-consumable research point issues and the miraculous instant upgrading of all units? That’s fixed along with many other improvements in the basic design of SC2. I liked this game so much that I bought a copy for me and one for my e-mail opponent. I have discovered that I can accomplish a lot more in life by treating people with respect than by complaining at them. When we have issues with SC2, if we present them in a non-hostile manner Hubert and his play testers will be a lot more willing to address them.

In both 1.00 and the 1.01 versions, I have noticed that the US is unable to transport or amphibiously transport from the square NE of Boston, square number 10,21. I have a jpg picture of the issue and a saved game, if you need it.

A good AI is important to me. Almost all of my computer games are played against the computer. Strategic Command happens to be such a good game that it is the only computer game that I have ever played by e-mail with another opponent. (We couldn't get the live Internet to work. It may have something to do with both of us having computers accessing through Internet routers.) However, playing by e-mail is a great deal of fun and is extemely convenient. I will go out on a limb, but I believe that Hubert will do a good job on the AI. He has the experience from doing the AI on the original game. That game had a better than average AI. Therefore, I believe that the AI in this game will be even better with his greater experience and our many suggestions. Although they are not historic wargames, I thought that the turn based computer games of Warlords III and Heroes IV had good AI's.

I have a good friend of mine who has lost most of his vision due to a degenerative disease. He can and loves to play old versions of Civilization which have single colored units with simple shaped graphics. On new games, he is unable to distinguish the new multi-colored units with fancy graphics. Will an option for single colored units and simple graphics be available for visually impaired people?