Sombra

Easy, an HQ on its way to Afrika makes a pit stop in southern italy 3-4 airfleets + italian Navy reduce the port to zero afterwards the entrenchment of the garrison. Without supply the garrison can only reinforce to 5 again. Usally you have time to this because you need some turns to ship over troops to Afrika anyway. (If you dont want to fight for Afrika forget the battle for Malta anyway) Its quite expensive but could be worthwhile if you want to prevent the Malta effect

As I nearly never play against the AI I cant tell. Its not that the silent mode is not working its that the FOW is not working if the enemy can see you everywhere. This is up to teh BEta Testers and Hubert to answer if the AI is cheating Against humans its possible to spot subs with bombers for example and then zero in on the sub.

Still hoping to get some news to keep me coming here. ...

I dont think you can filter out other liquides etc. But is good against microorganism.

The feature is not broken. Silent mode: You can´t hunt convoys , you can pass through hidden enemy ships if it is not a destroyer ( useful to prevent surprise contacts) Hunt: You attack enemy convoys but you cant pass through enemy ships. Neither prevents you from being discovered and attacked by the enemy

1. Denmark: you should be able to take out Denmark easily within 1 round of combat or two even with bad combat results. Its kind of a mystery for me how Denmark is "rock hard" 2. Land based aircraft is scary to Naval units if you use the right units (Naval bomber) . Fighters are nearly useless against ships thats right if not trained and low tech. 3. seems that the italian fleet is sleeping if the british fleet can act and punish your ground troops 4. ------ 5. Static warface is your death in naval conflicts against any human opponent. who attacks first usally can take out critical units from the other side .# => if the brithish fleet attacks your ground troops and the itlain fleet can surprise and attack its usally the end of the british fleet in the MEd.

You see me confused. We are talking SC1 here right...how on earth you want to take Gibraltar without attacking Spain first?

Well one of the winning ideas is bring back the "hexes" . So the most important issue is already adressed . The other topics in this thread are more like : Why is SC1 so much fun? Besides it is not that the forum is bogged down by so many and too many new posts. Kind of surprising regarding the recent release of PDE. I am really hoping for some kind of new annoucement soon, something to revive the forums. I am starting to feel like an old relict of times past.

Kind of funny , I dont think I shared so many opinions with Rambo before. Blashy all the features in SC2 are fine by itself and look like great addtions in gameplay. And I think you are right Blashy that if the english capital switches than to Canada ( I would like to see additonally in that case that nearly all the british forces surrender (like the free french) ,the Brits can make a slow comeback from Canada.) Unfortunately as Rambo said I simply dont feel the features. I understand them , I can play with them, I can calcultate them but somehow the easy feeling of the battlefield dynamics of SC1 is missing. Some important features like morale is hard to estimate . Supply is well done in my opinion in SC2 (but in SC1 too), weather changes can have a drastic effect. Problem here is that with the importance of the airfleets weather doesnt only slow down your movements (which you could counter to a point with higher motorization) but makes the most important weapon (aircraft) between useless and and the absolute show stopper ....

Looking at the patches 1.04 and 1.05 it looks like SC2 WAW is quite finished regarding unit balancing and features. At least there have not been any major changes lately as far as I can see. It seems that the efforts are concentrated to kill the last few remaining bugs. Is it that true or are the Beta testers and Hubert still working on some major changes? I would love that still some changes would be made regarding the importance of the aircraft especially in regards of HQ killing. (for example make HQs invisible like the engineers somehow). I think there had been quite a long discussion regarding this topic a few months ago unfortunately (for me) "nothing" has been changed.

Just to come back to SC1. Unfortunately I never played COS . REgarding the need for an SC1 clone look at CEAW. Seems to be commercial succes. - Less pretty than SC2 - Les units than SC2 - No diplomacy - quite a lot of bugs - The AI is on a lvl of SC1 - quite badly balanced - Game has some programming flaws (kind of slow ), disconnects hang up etc. Still it has fans , there are interessting AARs over in the Panzerliga and the main tenor is: Yeah its hexes, its fast and its simple to play but hard to master and feels a little bit like SC1 and its fun. I dont want advertise another game because I am not even convinced that is even good and has the long term appeal of SC1 . But you could observe that some (many) of our players at the PL pick up this game because it reminds them strongly of SC1.

Blashy I can respect your point of view and even respect it. 1. French campaign : Ok 2. Sealion: SC1 : Sealion : unrealistic but possible and really fun => aka I commit my forces to the sealion if the Allied player does lose his fleet + doesnt garrison England enough hard to carry out but game deciding if it works and I win the jackpot. THe german fleet is the underdog but sometimes can be threat at sea - Sealion SC2 : German fleet is quite able to challenge the british fleet, Sealion can (could) always be carried out by the Germans. No way England can (could) prevent it => Capital switches to Egyt and as present the allies receive the whole med as a present (*could I didnt try it in SC2 WAW anymore after Version 1.03 its simply not worthwhile) . In total why dont we see many Sealions in SC" WAW: Simple answwer its simply not even worthwhile and nearly always an advantage for the Allies besides I just knew that the lazy EGgypts are just to lazy to really support my troops in the beginning 3. Afrika actually is much more fun in SC2 WAW still in SC1 its an very important battlefield too 4. Barbarossa: Here SC2 shines but SC2 WAW can / could be over to soon to easily. Usally from my experience its in SC2 WAW is like poker "all in" either I win or get destroyed ...To flee isnt possible anymore because railways etc. artillerie + antiaircraft + fortresses make game really like a siege war. The big start of Barbarossa like in SCC1 is missing, any "normal" skilled player will leave the front cities undefended as Rusia. THe arrival of the Siberian troops in SC2 WAW is much better than in SC1 not dancing around the trigger hexes anymore still the forced arrival as early in in the war brings the curious result that Rusia in the beginning doesnt need much defense forces but can play a high tech research game (to get max tech up Siberians). Regarding overwpowered aircraft in SC1: YES THEY ARE IN SC2: they are I believe still overpowered if used correctly, anytime a units moves outside the "antiar cover" beng its gone.... I feel a little bit like Rambo. Rationally SC2 has all the features I wished for in SC1. The game is bugfree well programmend runs fast even on older computers etc. But somehow its not the "rage" and "fun" to play against other humans as SC1

+1 (nice summary Rambo) @ Blashy: I never liked editors, or creative features in games...even in GAlcCIV2 the ship creator was to much for me already. As you said yourself user made scenarios are usally not accepted in a 1 vs 1 game between humans. its hard enough already to find human opponents as trying to convince them to play a selfmade scenario, it will not work. THe bid modus worked well to adapt the game to adjust the level for different kind of player strenghts ) Unfortunately SC1 had some serious bugs till the end (for example AA-bug) and serious flaws ( Terif cookie cutter strategy) , Invincible Carriers, Rambos Rome Gambit), german D-Day in Rusia, boring U-Boot Krieg etc. sure this is why we wanted an improved SC1, 2. I like many (nearly all ) new features of SC2 . Still I think the streamline beer and bretzel approach of SC1 was more fun for me. Many of the enw features, slow down the game considerably and open the door to new abuses against the AI (You noted it yourself that you have to ignore features to make the AI even slightly more challenging) SC2 vanilla is quite balanced . SC2 WAW looks more realistic but is still open for abuse (IMO) between players. 3. Last but not least: SC2 maybe the better game for single players ( I think it is) still for human players SC1 still shines 1. French campign is stll outstanding inn SC1 regarding gameplay 2. Sealions are just right for in SC1 . 3. Barbarossa is fun 4. The game doesnt get boring its always a race against the clock. 5. Even Afrika could be much fun

Blashy how about: - throwing a dice for every of your units each turn...if it shows a six=> unit gets disbanded - not buying any new units after December 1941 : You have to win with units you have available. ( for hardcore players no new units after December 1940) - No tech upgrades for your army and no commanders (hitler wasnt to trusting anyway) The corps only challenge: you can buy only corps to win the game (for the hardcore players: disband any army commander etc. ) We can surely come up with many more challenging ways to go against the AI

I like SC2 a lot but isnt anymore simply a kind of fast bretzel and beer game. fast to learn and play but hard to master. (IMO) I think SC1 incooperated many ideas / features from SC1 community that we thought are good ideas. Alas, unfortunately the game got kind of tedious and work at points. thats fine for the guys who like to play alone against the AI against a human player its kind of mortal... -The game lost a little bit its focus of the kiss principle . Yeah, upgrading every unit regarding movement , soft attack, hard attack... right klicking every unit to set the commander to support this units or that unit etc. its not very complicated but slows down the game a lot. - Roads and railways are nice features unfortunately they are like the deathspell for a failed counterattack especially when a trained Stukas can nearly destroy a tank unit with one strike => limiting the possible actions you can take - Weather great additon because seasons really change the battlefield : Unfortunately the rapid switch from rain/ mud , snow to sunshine almost randomly for each side made the attacks and counterattacks like playing roulette. - Experience , morale/readiness are nice concepts but hard to understand intuively and hard to balance ( for example the abuse with attacking minors one by one to keep morale high (dont eat your minors to fast) + EXperience .=> (as in SC1 ) bulding units killer units able to destroy their opponents in one strike ( tedious grooming of these killer units) - More units are harder to balance + Anti air and artillery besides of the oh so carefully moving around it leads to kind of strange combats instead of Blitzkrieg is suddenly "siege war" slowly moving battlelines are moved under artillery cover ever closer to the cities The tiles and the 3d view look perhaps better but make it much harder to grasp the layout of the battlefield regarding movements etc. easily. I loved SC1 and still like a lot SC2 . The ingredients/ideas of SC2 WAW are all I ever wanted from sC1 Just the way they are used are not totally to my taste. I would have liked more design decisions to make human vs human games more feasible and attractive (for example seperation between actual combat movement and other tasks in different phases so both players have something to do all the time. Specator view and replays for community building, and work on the interface to simply repetive tasks etc. to reduce the micromanagement, waiting for 20minutes till your opponent has moved is not much fun. If I see now many of the suggestions I would fear that we run into the same trap as before making the things even more complicated and bofg down the game . I would like to see and SC1+ or SC3 going back to the very simple and fast game mechanism it had before . No restrictions and 30 rules to learn but keep it simple.

Wasnt there to be some announcement this week regarding some new expansions / games of the SC serie?

Just a few comments: - To allow breakthrough and blitzkrieg tactics: => make the map bigger (increase movement of units ) to make it impossible to form long uninterupted defense lines.... - Regarding transport on sea , I think SC2 went to right way to create amphibious attack transports with limited range. However in SC!1+ it would work to simply damage each turn a unit on sea during transit (or starting to hurt it beginnign round 2 ) ...... Another way to make a SC1+ would be to take SC2 WAW introduce hexes..give it a review regarding the kiss principle... address shortcomings of balance and unrealistic outcomes with game decision (aka movements of units , number of untis ) and not with "events" and give it soem thoughtss regarding how the map displayed (ugh this Pseudo 3 D view)

I don’t believe a wargame without AI would work. I remember a discussion at Stardock over Galactic Civ2 where the lack of MP was discussed and the producer came up with solid numbers showing that only like 10% of the players would use MP. ...On th other hands games like Starcraft etc. survive only due to MP. Nevertheless the conclusion from Stardock was for an good AI you need to keep the rules simple. I think the same is necessary for a good wargame and MP game. Sure you can add layers and layers of complexity opening more and more doors for cheesy ways to beat the AI or the other guy. Trying afterwards to close these cheesy tactics with more complexity. Regarding the AI in SC2 WAW I played 3 games...one to know the basics..2nd a full campaign...3rd playing D- DAY as Germans and asking myself : Wow why did Germany ever lose this war.... SeaMonkey you asked what’s is fun for me regarding the French campaign . Feeling a sense of competition and that I am can influence the outcome of the game at this stage depending on my skill and choices. Take the following comments with a grain of salt as I really like many parts of SC2 and WAW but still I would like to try to make my point (Besides I have played for sure 30-50+ MP games SC2 in ) - French campaign in SC1 : Using the 1:10:30 bids, games where balanced with round about 250 MP extra for the allied side. Germany was still sure to win the French campaign but the allied could look for his opportunities to make some good moves to give him a chance to win on the long term. Much of the game was decided at this stage depending on the skills of the different players. Different viable strategies for the allied players where possible: Aggressive ones like the Dutch double strike. or defensive like the corps defence. At least I had the feeling as the allied player I had a chance to do something. -French campaign in SC2: Neither the German player nor the allied player can make much mistakes...it simply doesnt matter what they do (if they play not like a total NOOBs) the most influencing factor is the weather...good weather without rain etc and you take France in Feb- March....Bad weather and its delayed till Late May-June but as Terif mentioned in another discussion it doesnt matter a lot in SC2 either way for the Germans so the only real decision you have to take: Take the sure way marching the Germans over to the French front because I expect bad weather anyway or do I gamble for good weather taking the transport costs to have my troops in place... Its going through the moves :. Sure I can gamble money on diplomacy or technology etc… But my French armies are castrated and the best I can do is trying to hurt the Germans being kind of passive… The worst part is: I am mostly depending on luck to determine if I do good or bad. (Ok you can make stupid mistakes and sacrifice your units as I have seen other players out of “boredom”) This sums up the whole game more or less in SC1 as the allied player you are looking for the whole time till Barbarossa and beyond to slow down the axis and try to create for yourself opportunities to win the game. In SC2 well a good axis player in reality wont give you and chance to act before late 1943. Your skill as ally is building up your forces and slowly retreat and minimise your loses… => then one huge battle occurs in Rusia: To early you will be crushed and never recover, made right you will turn the battle. Unfortunately most allied players after playing 6 hours to get to the Barbarossa stage try to early to counter the axis and lose badly within 2-3 moves (kind of crappy return for the time nvested) Most of the time the allied player and German player is simply occupied fine-tuning his forces get the artillery cover just exactly right…. Move the anti air to just this spot… So whats left as allied player in SC2: Fight for Afrika? ….it really doesn’t matter if you lose England you get great supply in the med and have many resources with the whole of Afrika under your control. Feels kind of cheesey for me but it’s the way it is. Its kind of stupid for Germany even to try to take England… (compare it I with the game deciding decisions to go for sealion if the allied player in SC1 overextend himself) For me at least here in SC2 the game mechanics were broken to a point: -If the German player was decided to go for a Sealion the allied player couldn’t do much to prevent it => design decision to make the sealion so unattractive that it isn’t anymore a real possibility (Skripts to move capital to Alexandria, supply goes up to 10 in Afriak etc) => opening up the allied player to move nearly all his forces to Afrika besides I hate the feeling that the game lost a touch of reality and seriousness of an: “what happened if simulation” ( kind the reason I like to play WW2 wargames: could I have influenced the outcome of the WW2 with my decisions) … Either way at least I felt to have been taken away an opportunity and be forced down a certain way to play…England don’t attack …US don’t attack : …even if the game mechanics nearly scream to do so. I feel cheated if I see an opportunity in the other players game and the computer steps in like a “big mother” as says you can´´t do that… I would have preferred that the game itself more subtly forces historic decisions on me: Why is the german fleet in SC2 strong enough to challenge the British anyway? why is the fleet so useless (at the beginning ) to stop a Sealion? What I am trying to say is: SC1 had a fascinating balance of creating action and reaction… allied player overextends his ships => runs risk of an sealion …he doesn’t guard the Canadian coast => German invasion (even if not really realistic) at least choices had consequences and created always changing results. In SC2 many decisions are made by event scripts and mistakes are covered by these events to keep things in check. … I don’t guard the US a US home army pops up… I cant lose as Germany in France , Sealion doesn’t happen ever because it doesn’t make sense… No matter what I do I will be forced to fight in Rusia in 1943 or 1944 to decide the game. End of story

-Hexes should be in -French campaign should be fun

After a few years of exp now with the squares...I say give me back the hexes. By the way... Terif and Dragonheart are still active in the "Panzerliga" they are mostly playing a "Navy" simulator. Terif as always dominates the online world and has calculated the game to death again .. Lately there are some AARS regarding "Commanders at war" ...trying to revive the rage of SC1 ,the game has to many bugs in my opinion...is not balanced enough for a online league. Still it shows at least some desperate need for a good "hex, beer and bretzel strategy " game

SC1 was simple and elegant. Easy to learn. SC2 WAW I like, still why do I not play it anymore? The AI is simply not a challenge. I love to play against humans. Things I still hate : - Squares not hexes (I still think this has been the biggest mistake) - The SC2 game starts to slowly..... its like building up for 6- hours against a human opponent to go to a final huge battle in Rusia. Usally against a good axis player premature action is punished quite hard. SC2 somehow feels like to work hours to get a return of a nail bitting battle in Rusia. -The battles is Rusia are fun but SC1 had much more interessting action before ...Sealion yes or no (In SC2 its a NO ...) : + battle fo France..(SC2 battle of France is only the weather important) afterwards trying to slow down the cookie cutter...SC1 is simply more fun before Barbarossa starts. Its usally a run against the clock for the axis Last but not least I miss the possibility to find opponets easier. Take for example a free game called wesnoth (fantasy hex strategy) . It has multiplayer lobby..you go there..you find opponets ...you can watch games in progress and discuss them...You can save replays etc. its perfect to kill 2-3 hours . In SC2 you need 2 sessions 2-3hours to get to the really interessting part. Then one huge mistake (premature offensive or a blunder from the other side and its over) SC2 is a really good game reaging strategy and 2nd world war. IMHO it moved one tiny step to far away from beer and bretzel and is to restrictive regarding unusal strategies... "invasion of US, Invasion of England etc... "

I think everyone loves SC1. But seriously : "Commander Europe at war" an A grade? - The game balance is not even there - Diplomacy "nada" "rien" -Fixed entry dates regardless what you do - Game is a resource hog on the computer and needs more than 1GB of ram to run smoothly. - Has few units -Unit blancing is bad too.... Regarding SC2 (waw): Even after playing lots of games and having much fun with SC2 I still dont like siome features: - Squares (Is till hate them) - The building of killer units (For example Stukas) - I hate some of the scripted events: switch of Englsih captial to Egypt (takes out the need to defend England at all), The more or less fixed entry of fully build of Siberian troops, the building up of the "home defense army in the US. -The french campaign simply isnt fun (so the first major battle not much fun) That these events are even necessary looks to me like that the game mechanics are very well balanced at sme points and that ham fisted "corrections" with events must be made to mantain game balance There are many things to love in sC2 : -Many different units -Weather -Improved maps : Roads and railways

@pzgndr..regardless that you can change these values for yourself. Waht is the purpose if you play amny times online? The released version is always the reference for these kind of games.

THe purpose of early defense is to slow the enemy down without risking the destruction of valaubale units. So usally I defed the forward cities but hold the escape routes open to op out when the situation gets critical. LEt the Germans work a little bit and organise there troops for an assault than op out. Same goes for the mines over the River etc. Its to buy time for the Siberians to arrive afterwars you can start to defend a little bit more aggressively. Hopefully when Winter arrives I still hold Karkow, Moskau, Leningrad (my first fortifications usally go to Leningrad afterwards I like Moskau.