Dan Fenton

We just recently got a 17 inch widescreen desktop replacement laptop computer. It has a native screen resolution of 1440 by 900. Some of our games work well at that resolution and some don't. What screen resolutions are planned for SC2?

Before beginning a game, I would like to have the option of choosing from a list of victory conditions, ranging from limited to absolute. For example, why should the Axis have to conquer the US to win the game? If France, Russia and the UK have been defeated, can the US really rise up and destroy the Axis by itself? Frankly, if the Axis has defeated just France and Russia, it is very likely to win at that point. If Germany has been defeated, is Italy really going to conquer the world by itself? I would suggest, as an option, that players be able to choose from a list of more limited victory conditions to end the game. This would allow a player or players to spend time playing more games rather than spending time mopping up. I would also like to see a resign option, so that the computer could register a win or a loss between two players.

I have had a great deal of fun while playing Alpha Centari and Civilizaton III. Both are tile based games. Frankly, I really did not even notice that much of a difference between playing a tile based game and a hex based game. It is the quality of the game that matters, not hexes or tiles. My opinion is that Hubert is a gifted game designer. If he believes that tiles are better than hexes, then they probably are better for this situation. I will buy this game! By the way, thanks Hubert for supporting a 1280 by 1024 display. It will make my 17-inch LCD monitor very happy.

a) 7 10 c) 6 d) 2 I am very impressed by what I have seen of the game so far.

There is a very nice series of tactical WWII games, similar to Squad Leader, by Talonsoft. They are: East Front II (1998), West Front (1998), Sea Lion (a West Front expansion pack), Rising Sun, (Pacific version 1999). They also made an Arab/Isreali version called Divided Ground (2001). The units are platoon and section sized. There are leaders which affect morale, rallying and fire. The battles run from battalion sized to really large division sized. All major nations and many minor nations are included. There is practically every type of infantry, tank, gun, naval and air support unit included that ever did, or might have served. There are campaigns in which you can have a personal leader that rises in rank, ability and can win medals, for as long as he lives. All of these games contain editors which permits the construction of new scenarios and campaigns. Despite their age, they have good graphics, decent AI and run well on Windows XP.

I would not buy a game unless it included an AI for solitaire play. All of my Strategic Command games have been against the AI. I like being able to instantly turn on the computer and play. I enjoy the convenience of not having to set up a board game and not having arrange my busy schedule with someone else's busy schedule. Some day I may play against a human. Unfortunately, there has been no local interest for a hot seat game. I have never yet played any games of any kind over the Internet.

Concerning the sight range of cities and ports, I have noticed an unexplained problem. Every time that I, as Allies, with FOW on, try to invade against the AI's unoccupied Italian city of Bari, by landing at hex 35,27, which is two hexes away and out of sight range, the AI immediately garrisons Bari on its turn. I know with my air and by checking with FOW off, that there are no other units that can see in range. Yet the AI always can tell that I am at hex 35,27, which is out of its 1-hex sight range. On the other hand, the same type of trick always works against the AI, when Sicily is ungarrisoned.

I have heard that air fleets use Naval Attack versus carriers. I have also heard that Naval Attack does not improve with improved Jet Technology advances. Therefore in this game, Carriers seem to have an odd advantage over air fleets in air combat, which is contrary to historical air combat.

Russian Partisans will appear in mountain, forest, swamp and city hexes that you control but are not currently occupied or covered by a friendly ZOC. I would garrison Sevastopol.

I really enjoyed the many hours that I spent playing Third Reich (3R). Usually, four of us would play the sides of Germany, Italy, France/Russia and UK/US. One of my very favorite games was when I played Italy and lost Italy during a surprise and unplanned turn flip/flop (when a side gets to move twice in a row). The brillant UK/US player created that victory when the opportunity presented itself. Everyone agreed that it was just bad luck on our part. I then became the German West Front commander. The original German player eventually had Russia back to the Urals, but could not yet defeat him according to the victory conditions. The poor France/Russia player got pounded the entire game. My UK/US opponent was one of the most skilled players that I had ever met. He managed to land in France around 1943/1944 and to exploit Allied armor to attack at 2 to 1 on Paris. He rolled the dreaded 4 followed by a 6 combination (Counter attack at 1 to 1 followed by defender eliminated). I believe that the odds of that happening was around 1 in 32. The next turn we destroyed the Allied bridgehead. The UK/USA player built up for another invasion of France. I pleaded with my German partner for more German forces in France. Russia was so close to surrendering. I got the minimum garrisons again. The UK/US player made another brillant landing and exploited to Paris with another 2 to 1 attack. Much to everyone's amazement, he again rolled the dreaded 4 followed by a 6. The next turn we again destroyed the Allied bridgehead. I never saw such a frustrated player in all of my life. It broke his spirit. The West Front held for the rest of the game. So did Russia. I do not miss the many hours that it took to set up, play and put away 3R. We never could play through a full game on a Sunday. We had families and could not spend all weekend playing one game. I do not miss the many arguments over the poorly written rules. I don't miss having to examine each stack, each turn to see what was there. I do not miss the need to plan to optimize attacks and place odds counters on stacks and stacks of units before rolling the die many, many times. I don't miss someone sneezing or opening a windy door and messing up the game pieces. One of my old 3R buddies came over to play my new Christmas present copy of Advanced Third Reich. It took hours to set up and to try to play. We gave up. I have never used it since. I love and greatly prefer the efficiency, the convenience, the generally realistic simulation and the just plain fun of playing Strategic Command.

I played all of the old Avalon Hill games, including Third Reich, for about twenty years before converting primarily to computer games around 1991. Strategic Command (SC)is far better than Third Reich! SC is a much cleaner design. Yet SC is also an unusually deep game. SC is faster to play because the computer handles so many tedious details. The no stacking is a good idea. It makes game play much faster and easier with few real sacrifices. I would highly recommend buying this very reasonably priced gem of a game. I would also suggest reading the free stategy guide that Bill Macon wrote with some small assistance on my part.

Here are some edited comments that I have previously copied from the forum: Invading Edinburgh or Scapa Flow had no affect on USA/USSR war readiness. Once German units approach London or Manchester the USA war readiness increases 10% a turn. However, there is no USSR war readiness increase. If London falls, then there is a quick Russian War readiness increase starting at around 10% a turn and increasing quickly. However, perhaps more Germany troops on the USSR border would decrease this. (I only had two units. Some more testing would be needed). However, if Manchester falls before London there is no quick USSR war readiness increase as if London fell first. The USSR war readiness remains the same until London falls. So I guess better players could plan a strategy of attacking Manchester first and London second. Then when London falls the UK surrenders at the same time that the USSR war readiness begins to increase. Curry

I am not familiar with the current controversy. However, I would like to mention that upon every occasion that I have asked Terif a question, he quickly responded in a very pleasant manner. His answers improved the Strategy Guide that many now enjoy. I never noticed Terif to brag about his many accomplishments. He seemed to be a good sport about the very few times that he actually lost. Terif has behaved in a consistantly polite and considerate manner for the many months that I have followed this board. I have not seen him to be so worked up about something until now. Is there not some mutually acceptable way to work out this controversy?

Writing a good AI is extremely hard to do. Although when compared to humans, the AI seems less than bright at times, Hubert did a wonderful job on the AI for programing his first game. In a nutshell, on offensive, the AI is a little overly aggressive, but fairly good. I have also heard that offensive AI is the most difficult of AI's to program. The real problem is that the AI uses up its army on offense and when circumstances change, the AI really does not redeploy to create a good defense. The AI then often seems to be issuing stand and defend where you are orders. Those units can be encircled and destroyed. Vulnerable HQ's and air units get exposed and can be overrun. Specific AI flaws in Russia that I have noticed are: 1. Failure to establish a continous defensive line. This is the biggest one in my book. 2. Seldom moving HQ's to the rear when the defensive line breaks and wasting MPP's operationally moving them around too much. 3. Seldom moving air units to the rear when the defensive line breaks and and wasting MPP's operationally moving them around too much. 4. Putting too many Italian units in Russia, reducing vital Italian defenses to below minimum. 5. Not returning Italian units to Italy when Bari or Rome are threatened. 6. Not using enough corps units to garrison against partisans. 7. Moving into places where most humans would know that an enemy unit should be, suffering unneeded surprise attacks. 8. When on defense, repairing air fleets with scarce MPP's when those MPP's would be better used on repairing ground units or building new defensive ground units, like corps.

Thanks Rannug! I downloaded the German demo and then copied all of the bitmap files that didn't have German words on them to my game. The map graphics are beautiful and the unit graphics are similar to Panzer General graphics. Another nice thing is that since they are game engine 8-bit graphics, they don't mess up my 1280 desktop when I leave the 1024 sized game display. Some beautiful interface mods that I have used have that problem with their 24-bit graphics. My SC now looks like an entirely new game.

That is interesting. Both you and Codename Condor have said that AI controlled subs attacked your human controlled subs. Yet Hubert says that there is no special programing to permit AI subs to attack human controlled subs. Maybe Hubert's AI subs have gone renegade on him. We do seem to agree that human controlled subs can't attack human controlled or AI controlled subs and that technology is not relevant.

I believe that France had not yet fallen during my friend's games. That would explain five "misses" under a 75% probability per turn chance. Terif raised some interesting issues that I was beginning to suspect. Axis minor allies won't come in until after France has fallen. Does this include Finland? I also suspect that Yugoslavia won't revolt until after France has fallen.

The 1.07 patch states that "Spain tweaked to react to an Allied invasion of Portugal, may now join Axis". I have a friend who has invaded Portugal, using the 1.07 patch as Allied five times straight without a Spanish reaction. Does anyone know the mechanics or probability of the Spanish reaction? For example, is it a one time percentage chance upon an Allied Portugese DOW, a percentage chance per turn after the DOW that Portugal has not been conquered, or a percentage change per turn for the rest of the game? Is the percentage chance 20% or less? Thanks

My test results showed that a friendly sub can't chose to attack an enemy sub. Technology Levels are not relevent. I loaded a 1942 head to head scenario. Rather than playing, I just build subs for all countries and manuevered the subs into sub vs. sub attack positions. I did not test for the French. German subs (with Advanced Sub Tech) could not attack UK, US or USSR subs. Italian subs could not also attack all Allied subs. No Allied sub was able to attack an German or Italian sub. The US and UK Sonar Tech did not matter. Hubert told Bill Macon, who told me, that there is no special programming to permit AI subs to attack human controlled subs. I would speculate that previous reports of AI subs attacking human controlled subs were actually accidental encounters of AI subs by unlucky human controlled subs on the move.

That battleship looks like the Alabama, in Mobile, Alabama. I believe that the sub is the Drum. I have always wanted to go to Mobile since I heard that they put both of those ships there, around 20-years ago.

I have never seen Turkey activated. I have in several games conquered the required countries with Germany, let the minors activate, defeated Russia and then went for and succeeded at Sea Lion. Turkey never became an Axis minor.

I have wondered if the Fog of War option is truly 100% fog for the AI. I have noticed that the AI always seems to know if Gibraltar is garrisoned even if there is no way that any Axis unit could be in the area to actually see Gibraltar.

Thank you.

Terif, could I ask you a question? I am curious as to your defense of Paris. Do you use a corps, army or tank unit to defend the Paris hex? I am personally fond of using a French tank unit there.

That does sound interesting. I would like to see them.