Exel

He is talking about the AI...

Edwin: I agree that there should be a chance for ahistorical "what ifs". But having such a player selectable surefire option would be way too unrealistic, at least for my tastes. A better way to do it would be with "random" events together with the new diplo system. Let's say the Allies spend two diplo chits on the Low Countries and with a 20% chance an event letting Allied troops in occurs. Just as an example.

To Edwin: Where's the realism in those choices? You think the Allies didn't attempt to pressure the Benelux into alliance, for example? The French especially wanted to form their primary defensive line in Belgium, but the Belgians didn't allow any Allied units on its soil prior to the war because they didn't want the war to be fought on their soil. Likewise, Hitler tried his best to persuade both Turkey and Spain to join his war, but he failed to get them to even seriously negotiate about it.

I sure hope so at least. Naval warfare was a dud in SC1.

Now that is horse ****. Most if not every study into WWI and WWII warfare have concluded that the attacker needed at least 2:1 odds to succeed with an unsupported frontal infantry attack against a qualitatively equal opponent. Of course, such attacks rarely occured after WWI with the advent of tanks, close support aircraft and more sensible tactics. One of the top ranking annoyances for me in SC1 is the fact that the above does not apply in it. 2on1 attacks rarely produce any decisive results and more often than not you need to attack with 3:1 odds to achieve anything. I can't believe that someone wants it to be the same way in SC2. :mad:

Conquering USSR actually is an achievement (at least on expert difficulty) if you don't use exploitative tactics (invade Sweden, Spain, mass with AF, etc.).

It doesn't take 8 armies to siege a city...

I don't know. That's why I said "compromise". In any case the Finns would not have been happy with Germany invading Sweden, but on the other hand they'd still have their score to settle with the Russians (and it was the "my enemy's enemy is my friend" logic that brought Finland and Germany together). Sweden did help Finland in the Winter War in many ways, though not directly militarily, and Finns surely were grateful of that. Finland also houses a great Swedish-speaking minority which might have had effect. In game terms there probably should be a percentual chance of Finland not joining forces with Germany if the latter invade Sweden.

Definitely agreed.

And reasons not to attack the aforementioned countries. Ireland: Great Britain would be stuck in the conflict for a looong time and it would probably drain its resources even more than the conflict in northern Ireland. Plus it would probably mean political suicide for the government. The diplomatic cost would be heavy as well. Switzerland: The price of conquering Switzerland would most likely be enormous in comparison to the gained benefits and the campaign would be anything but short. The Allies would lose any diplomatic credibility they possessed. German invasion on the other hand might result in dow from USA. There's a reason why Switzerland hasn't been invaded... Sweden: The Army of Sweden was in a lot better shape than the Norwegian army. Though it was ill-equipped in many branches, its domestic arms production gathered speed as the war progressed. The price of invading the country would probably be heavy in comparison to the gains, especially for Germany. They got part of Sweden's iron ore anyway, and war with them would have compromised their Baltic fleet, supply lines to Norway, and alliance with Finland. None of that is of course reality in SC1, and all three countries are easy conquests with the invasion having little if any negative effects.

For example, yes. The decision to invade another country is something not taken lightly, especially in a democracy that must justify their cause by other than just the success of the motherland. The Allies were preparing to invade Norway, but there's no chance of them invading any country just for some added production value if it has no strategic significance.

Wanting a historically realistic game is different from wanting a historically precise game. There's no point in a WW2 game that doesn't allow "what ifs". But exploit on the other hand is exactly what the term suggests: unrealistic game mechanism abuse. Invading a small neutral just for the easy plunder and experience without any consequences is just that. It is not realistic, it is not fun.

*Sigh* Though some of you power players may want the AI to play as abusive and exploitative as you do, I for one strongly disagree. The AI should above all play realistically. Or even better, the game should model the world so that certain exploit strategies wouldn't be so unrealistically feasible as they are in SC1 even to human players. Invasion of Ireland and Sweden just to name two of them.

Eeh, Sweden surrendering to Axis automatically should really be a very very distant possibility.

I hope even the historical Axis/Allies minors will be handled the same way instead of them being automated with preset events. Ie. to get Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria join the Axis, Germany must excert diplomatic pressure on them.

Making the AI play without FOW would totally destroy any chance for even tactical scale surprise moves by the human player. The war would be degraded into a simple set-piece battle, though one-sided as such.

It should also be done so that Germany has little incentive to attack Sweden. I'm afraid that the merchant ship route suggestion would only add to the reasons to annex Sweden instead of just strangling some safe MPPs from it. It's hard to say if it would be historical, but it could nevertheless be done so that if Germany attacks Sweden, the chances of Finland joining Axis in 1941 would seriously drop. If Finland is already in war with USSR, then the consequence might be that Finland would disallow German troops on its soil. Not sure if the latter is possible with the SC2 engine, but just as suggestion.

I just hope that SC2 manages to model the WW2 world with such accuracy that all those gamey strategies from SC1 would become much less preferable both to a human and AI player. Like the Allied invasion of Ireland and Axis invasion of Sweden. There are reasons why neither of those happened irl. Of course, executing some ahistorical maneuvers shouldn't be penalized too much to make them completely unfavorable, but SC2 really should strive towards a more realistic gameplay than what SC1 had.

Eh, why do you always keep asking "why would a competent AI do this and that"? Ffs, think why they did so IRL! Germany didn't attack Norway for no reason to just waste resources, and what negative political effect could the invasion possibly have had on Germany that had already annexed Austria, Chechoslovakia, Poland and Denmark? If anything the Norwegian campaign was a setback and a political defeat for the Allies, not the Axis.

Please do remember that in most cases the 'free' troops moved to their allies' ranks only after their own country had fallen. Dunkirk excluded (since in its case the French had no choice but to evac or surrender), there's NO way that the French had evacuated any large numbers of their army to Britain before armistice. How many of you would voluntarily admit that defending your homes is a lost cause and flee to another country before the fight is essentially over? Now, I have absolutely no idea how this could be done realistically with the SC engine, but I do know that the current system where you have to evac troops well before surrendering or lose them for good is not right.

Yes, as some sub modifier, but not really as a decisive factor like experience. Which practically is neglecting morale altogether.

You guys are apparently neglecting history. Why would USSR player attack Finland? Well, why did they attack historically? Soviet Union would easily steamroll Finland? They didn't irl... Had USSR not attacked Finland in 1939 the Red Army would have been in a piss-poor shape in 1941, and Barbarossa probably would have succeeded. And Finland wasn't steamrolled for two reasons: the Red Army was in piss-poor shape and the Finns had great morale. Unfortunately Hubert will neglect the effects of morale and not simulate it in the game, but we could always play around with readiness. Give the Soviets a low initial readiness that will only go up after Winter War has been fought. That way the Soviets have a good reason to attack Finland and the Finns have a chance to survive. Germany on the other hand normally wont want to intervene since it would probably lose an early war with USSR. As for the potential Allies-USSR war, you are correct in that the Allies would never have declared war on the Soviets. However, they were willing to send troops to the frontlines and that probably would have resulted in Soviet dow on the Allies. Which, in Churchill's mind, would have been acceptable (remember that at that point the Germans hadn't yet beaten the crap out of the Allies and Churchill felt strong).

Haven't read the whole thread, so sorry if some of this has been brought up already. The Winter War should definitely be in. If not otherwise, then at least as an event that moves the Finnish-Soviet border. There's no point that Finland starts Continuation War with its 1939 borders. That said, I think the event should be fully simulated. The war was not only valuable experience for the Soviets - without the lessons learned in Winter War their performance against the Germans later on would have been even worse - but it also made Hitler underestimate the Red Army as well as thinking of the Finns as potential allies, both leading him to ignore the M-R Pact and taking a more aggressive stance against Soviet Union earlier than he himself had thought before. Not only that, but the Winter War also almost led to a war between the Allies and the Soviet Union - or it might have had the war been prolonged longer. There could also be an option for diplomatic outcome - Finland accepting Stalin's terms to avoid war. In which case the political situation between the majors as well changes somewhat from the historical one. The latter of course depends a lot of the specifics of the diplo engine.

Turn 73 - Finale: Soviets break through in the east and take Venice. Part of the Italian army faces encirclement in the Alps, French attack too causes losses, and Allied invasion fleets threaten Sicily and southern Italy. Counter-attacks produce little results. The government decides to surrender while it still is in some condition to negotiate the terms. Yugoslavia and Finland, after hearing the news about Italian surrender, start - after final skirmishes - too to seek peace with the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia practically surrenders but retains formal independence. Finland negotiates peace with pre-war borders, though the aim was the borders of 1920. The war is over.

Turn 71: British Africa Corps reduced to 1, Italian army to 4. Tripoli two turns away, carriers just 1... Italians pull back in places to fill the gaps created by Allied attacks, and a corps is brought to Rome to prevent invasion threat.