Dr Matt Lamb

It wasnt on the list but I would still like to see rivers added in somewhere along the line. As for the options I feel that the AI plays a much better game and is now pretty formidable on the high levels. It still doesnt use some units (paras, carriers, etc) and it does leave its cities sometimes undefended. The AI also doesnt escort its transports that well so whilst the AI will launch waves of (unescorted) invasion craft (which is great to see) it is sometimes easy to destroy them with artillery and ships before they get near. I feel this might be a an issue with the combat model which I mentioned a few months ago. I still believe where you have a stack of battleships, destroyers and transports, the 'fighting' ships should have to be destroyed before you can get at the transports; in real life escorts are there to shield more vulnerable ships. The same with stacks of artillery, tanks and infantry or stacks of bombers and fighters. You have to physically put your tanks between your artillery and the enemy to protect them. The AI isnt good at that and so perhaps the combat model should be tweaked to allow this. Any improvements would be good. My priority would be to get the AI to offer trades, offer (and accept alliances and break them!), set up teams and even demand or offer cities, resources and units. That would give the game a whole added dimension. I realise some people dont want that as they believe a wily human player could use the system to manipulate the AI and construct an alliance to win the game. However, that would be part of the fun and if you dont want that just have an option to switch off the diplomacy. I also still think that there is a bug on the trade screen where, for example, Russia wants to buy 50 oil at $1.7. If you sell them 50 oil I would expect my oil to go down by 50 but my money to go up by $85 but whilst my oil does go down my money doesnt go up. If it is a 'gift' (like lend lease) it should be called that rather than a trade- however, why then state what price the computer is willing to buy at? The games continue to improve in leaps and bounds- carry on the good work!

I have just sent it.

Yes, I had a play. It works ok with the default rule-set. You can double click on them in the bar at the top and re-name them. However, do the same with my custom ruleset and it crashes.

I am using a custom rule set. I have tried selecting the unit in the editor and then clicking 'properties' (in the same way that you would rename a city) but it crashes. The same when you click the unit so that it comes up in the bar at the top of the screen- I double click that and it crashes there too.

Either there is an issue with the editor (or I am just being slightly slow here)! I am trying to design a unit set which uses NATO symbols and has a different coloured infantry, tank, etc symbol for the major nations (brown for us Brits, Green for the US, Red for the Russians, etc- I know the flag indicates the nation but I would like different coloured counters as well). So I have messed around the with the rules editor and created sub-rule groups of British forces, German forces and so on. However, when I go into the editor (or the game set up) and try to get the British to use sub-set 1 and the US sub-set 2 and the Germans sub-set 3, etc it doesnt work. You select the US as subset 2 but when you go to the Germans and try to select 3 it sets that at 2 and re-sets the US as 1. I am sorry if I havent explained that well but is this a problem or am I missing something. Also on the editor how do you change the name of units you have created (not in the game but in the editor)? If I am doing a Battle of the Bulge scenario and I want to rename a unit the 1st SS Panzer Division how do I do it? If I go to properties and click on a unit to change it the game crashes. I am also trying to develop a unit set where the units take much longer to build but which are much more durable. What I find is that the human and the AI churns out dozens of differerent units (and you sometimes see an AI player with dozens of units just lined up in the middle of nowhere whilst leaving key cities unguarded or guarded by fighters) which then leads to micro-management whilst I feel that fewer, stronger, more durable units would work better. So, an infantry with a strength of 10 rather than 2. From playing around with this combat lasts much longer and seems more realistic. It also gives the player time to retreat units for repairs. However, the AI doesnt seem to repair (or indeed upgrade in some cases) its units. Therefore, to make this unit set not give the human a greater unfair advantage over the AI, the AI has got to start repairing its units. Finally, could you introduce and autoname function for groups as well as units. It would be nice to gather together your 3 infantry units and that group be called "3rd Army" or whatever automatically.

This looks excellent. You could do scenarios based on the Ardennes, Barbarrossa, etc. I like the idea about HQ and supply units and it will be interesting to see how those would work. I have often thought when you had a stack of units how good it would be to add a 'general' (Rommel, etc) or 'HQ' unit to give them a boost in their movement/attack/defence ratings. I guess if you are giving more tactical scale scenarios you do need rivers and bridges and with that comes engineers, etc.

What I great idea! I really like that as it helps give a bit of 'personality' to those units.

Now working!

Just keeps on coming up 'bad validation'.

Yep, I am afraid I got that too.

I think that would be a nice option to have if you wanted- your first city would be your capital and that would need to be defended against sneaky attacks. The AI would have to understand that capitals needs to be defended fiercely otherwise it would be a gamey tactic to sneak a small force into enemy territory and take his capital.

Sorry- posted twice. I just thought- my point about stacks would also apply to aircraft and ships. If you have a stack of bombers and fighters the fighter escorts should be tackled by enemy planes first. If you have a stack of battleships and transports the battleships should be tackled first or a stack of aircraft carriers and destroyers the aircraft carriers would be shielded by the destroyers. You wouldnt get aircraft carriers crusing into battle to take on enemy capital ships directly. I realise that you could put them in seperate stacks but the scale makes sense that a stack of ships is already covering a lot of ocean.

Hello! Good to see another update and I am looking forward to seeing those rivers soon! I do see to be having some stability issues with this new update whereas previously it has been very stable. I tried to load a game started under the previous update and whilst it loaded it crashed as soon as I tried to do anything with my units. I also tried to start a new game with a scenario I had designed under the previous update (the world map enhanced) and that too crashed. Therefore, I started just a regular map and that played happily along until about turn 100 when a pop up anounced the Americans had been defeated and the programme crashed. Can I also ask a question about combat? How does it work in terms of which units attack which units in which order? What I mean is that if you have a stack of units (armour, infantry, artillery) in one spot on the map (which depending on the scale could be 100s of square miles in area) do all the units get involved in combat at the same time? In real life the tanks and infantry would be at the front and the artillery behind being shielded. Only once the defending tanks and artillery were brushed aside would the artillery be vulnerable to attack. However, and correct me if I am wrong, the combat model in EOS seems to throw all units equally into a battle making artillery particularly vulnerable against tanks. Shouldnt there be a hierarchy that tanks and infantry are tackled first with artillery only being hit once the covering forces are defeared. It is also odd that infantry and tanks can fight across the English Channel, the straits of Gibraltar or any other sea lane- artillery fine but not infantry or tanks. On another issue, I find it frustrating that you build up a stack of entrenched infantry in a city and then when a column of enemy tanks approaches they negate their advantage by rushing out to attack. I realise that this is because the default is aggression but I take it that 'no field orders' is actually defend. It would be useful if 'no field' orders would be relabled 'defend' or 'hold position' or something clearer. I know that you can define your own orders but I am not sure how that works. I think it would be really useful to have a 'retreat' order or an order that tells a wounded unit to retreat to the nearest barrack once its strength falls below 25% for example. The way point order for new units to march to a particular point is great but doesnt seem to always work. If I set up a way point from Cape Town to Alexandria the infantry unit which is then produced sets off but then often seems to just stop half way up Africa and entrench. Any idea why? When I am trading with the computer and the AI says that he wants 100 oil for $1.8 each (or whatever) I find that I agree to that trade and he gets the oil (my oil total goes down) but I dont get the money!! If it is a free gift it should be relabled as 'lend lease' or 'foreign aid' because it doesnt seem much of a trade to me! I also still have occassions when I set up an ongoing trade with the market and it works for a few turns before abruptly terminating it.

I am playing my beloved world map with the latest patch and there are some comments which I feel are worth making. 1. I really like the borders- they really work for me. 2. Diplomacy with the AI is still rather frustrating. I got the Germans up to 88% (very friendly but it took me ages) but couldnt push it any further than that despite additional sales of oil, food, sharing technology, etc. After I stopped showering them with gifts their attitude slowly declined again (for no discernable reason) and it now down to 71%. I was trying to get it high enough that they would share maps or sign an alliance but they just wouldnt have it. Is there a certain % you need (more than 90%? 95? 99?) before the AI will play ball in terms of alliances and so on? 3. The AI still seems rather inert. Germany is fighting China across the Urals and I have a satellite above the battlefield. There are two huge armies facing each other but they are not attacking at all- just sitting there and have done for dozens of turns (is it a shortage of oil??). Furthermore, following an initial flurry of declarations of war, battles and peace treaties at the start of the game the AI seems to have gone to sleep happy just to build up huge armies and do nothing with them. I suspect this stockpiling of troops is one reason the game really slows up after about 100 turns. 4. Still not much use of planes. The Americans have them but are just sat there in the USA being isolationist. The Spanish attacked one of my battleships with a lone dive bomber which was a first but neither the Chinese, Turks or Germans have bothered with them at all leaving me master of the skies! However, seeing my expensive and painstakingly massed tactical bombers being shot down by crippled Japanese tanks makes me wonder whether the AI is being smarter than I think not wasting its time on them. 5. The AI is now subject to the same rules as the human on food, steel and oil (which is fine) but what now happens is that if an AI empire is short of food their cities shrink to nothing (Tokyo was down to 0 by the time I occupied it). The AI doesnt seem to do what the human does- play the world market to sell oil and buy food for example. It certainly doesnt invest in the new technologies or buildings which boost its food production. It seems as it the food enhancements (fisheries, etc) were added but the AI was not updated to use them. As a result the AI empires grind to a halt. I know that tanks stop with no oil but I would have thought that food shortages would lead to land units being disbanded. The Turkish Empire has very small cities but still hundreds of infantry units. I would have thought that shortage of food should reduce your forces in some way. 6. When I set up ongoing trade agreements with the market it sometimes terminates them abruptly for no reason meaning you have to start them again. 7. Hope that rivers are still on the cards.

I have to say that on balance the borders are a really positive introduction and again pays tribute to Brits responsiveness to suggestions. It just feels more realistic than before when you could basically have one of your units wandering round another countries sovereign territory. A real improvement in my opinion. If you want to find out what is going on in another country you have to invest in plane techology to do so which seems sound. The AI still seems rather sluggish (I am on turn 188 on the world map and none of the AI players has declared war for ages) and doesnt seem to invest in some of the technologies (fisheries, etc) which it now needs being subject to the same restrictions in terms of food, oil and steel as the human players (this was another good improvement as previously the AI was able to build huge armies at no maintainance cost making the game one of rather dull attrition). The AI also doesnt seem to build the improvements in cities such as robot factories which gives the human player a real edge. However, overall, this is a really enjoyable game which is just getting better and better with every improvement.