Wushuki

GC looks very interesting, I am looking forward to it. Is there any information available on the system requirements yet? Is this equal to what PT requires or higher? I am asking, because my ancient computer barely handle PT and if it is much more demanding it probably won't run.

The unit you are talking about is a headquarters. It can command several units, which is depicted by outlining them in green. Units that are lead become stronger, because their readiness greatly increases. The actual amount of readiness increase is dependent on the experience of the headquarters and its command rating. More specific, 1 bar of experience for a commander increases the morale of all units that are lead by 10%. 1 point of command rating increases the strength of all units that are lead by 1 point for the readiness calculation. Perhaps even more important, headquarters also act as a supply point. This will increase the readiness of all units friendly units nearby, not just the ones that he is leading. Look up headquarters in the manual for addition details.

Arado, the issue is though that when you do the math behind it, production technology really can't compete with industrial technology. I don't know the actual amount of US production, but say its 200 resources per turn, which will probably be an underestimation. Industrial tech now increases this by 20%, which is 200*0.2=40. This 40 resources can be spend on anything. Production technology only gives a 5% boost, which means you have to spend 40*20=800 resources per turn on producing new units to get the same effect. Obviously this is impossible. Let's approach it from a different angle for Russia. Industrial technology gives you 10% additional resources which can be spend on anything. Production tech could give you 5% additional resources if you would spend all your money on purchasing new units. If you spend less on it, you would get less resources. So even in the most ideal case, industrial technology would be far better then production technology. The reason behind this is that for countries that do not capture a lot of new terrain, the overwhelming majority of the resources is provided by sources that are affected by the industrial technology research. This means that the total increase in resources will be close to the 10% of the original income, an amount that will never be achieved by production technology. Perhaps you think its still useful to develop production technology and that is of course a legitimate viewpoint, but you would have to admit that compared to industrial technology, production technology is very weak. When you have to make a choice which to develop, industrial technology will always come first. This seems absurd to me, why put in 2 similar technologies and then make one the far better choice? So with that in mind I think that balancing this out a bit more would make sense.

I don't think that production tech is really a good investment. It doesn't seem to reduce the reinforcement cost of units, just the purchase cost. So that means you buy a 5% discount for 100 MPP. That is 2000 MPP before you have your money back, which is something like 8 upgraded armies. I never actually kept track of how much resources I spend purchasing units in my games, but I doubt it would be much more then 2000 a year for the majority of the years. So a rough estimation is that it would take about 15 turns before you start making a profit. Compare this to industrial technology, Germany gets its money back 5 turns after researching a level of it. That means that 1 level of industrial technology is almost 3x as effective as 1 level of production technology for the Germans. You would have to purchase new units for 300 resources per turn to get the same economic benefit from production technology. In spite of this, industrial technology is cheaper to research! Of course, this differs from country to country. For the UK it takes almost 2 years before they get their money back from 1 level of industrial technology. For them, the difference between production technology and industrial technology is a lot smaller. That is of course, if anyone is crazy enough to research any of these technologies with the UK to begin with. Nevertheless, it really wouldn't hurt in my opinion to seriously rebalance industrial technology and production technology if another patch is made. The two solutions that come to mind for fixing production technology are reducing the chit cost or make it reduce production cost and reinforcement cost. With this done, if you would spend all your German resources on reinforcing and purchasing units, you would only need an income of 300 per turn to gain the same benefit as you would get from industrial technology. Your real income will undoubtedly be higher, but you also need money for operating units, for research etc. So production and industrial technology would provide a roughly equal benefit. Perhaps some minor increases in their chit prices in this case would prevent too many resources from entering the game. For England and Italy industrial technology isn't very useful, boosting the effect or decreasing the cost would make this technology a serious option for them. Back on topic, don't waste money on production technology, get industrial technology instead. And whatever you do, don't research industrial technology with the UK.

The script says the following: ; Free French Units (French units transferred to UK control when France Surrenders) { #NAME= Free French Units #POPUP= #IMAGE= #SOUND= #FLAG= 1 #TYPE= 0 #AI= 0 #COUNTRY_ID= 2 #TRANSFER_ID= 1 #TRIGGER= 100 #LAND_PERCENTAGE= 20 #NAVAL_PERCENTAGE= 20 } So each unit has a 20% chance of getting transferred to the UK, but I am certain that it only happens to units that are not standing in France itself.

Scottsmm, if you put 2 corpses in Greece at the correct positions Athens does not lose strength. In my calculation I assumed you would dedicate 4 corpses to suppressing partisan activity, so that both Greece and Yugoslavia wouldn't give any problems. What I mean by 10 turns is that you take it 10 turns before you attack Russia, not that it takes you 10 turns to take Yugoslavia and Greece. It is of course not impossible to take it in 1 or 2 turns before you attack the Soviet union, but this brings you into problems with positioning your units before your invasion in Russia starts as it takes a couple of turns to move your units back from Greece.

I already have WaW myself, my post was a reaction on the OP actually. But you are right, it is better to get PDE instead of WaW and in retrospect I wish I had done that. If I want to buy PDE now it is going to cost me an additional $25 + shipping cost.

Iron Ranger, in WaW/PDE there is no railway to Albania, so it would only be 32/turn. That still would not be a bad deal, but the problem with these countries is that it increases the Soviet activation by 15~20% if you take them both. Russia has an income of 200-250 or so, so that is 40/turn to the Soviets until Barbarossa begins. So lets say you capture them 10 turns (2/3rd of a year) before you attack the SU. That is 400 extra income for the SU, 400 for the corpses = 800. 800/32=25 turns or almost 2 years before you get your money back.

Not so sure that it is a good idea to get WaW and PDE both. PDE can be played without WaW and the storm of steel scenario of PDE pretty much replaces the fall weiss scenario that WaW offers. So I would actually but either PDE for the extra functionality or WaW for the $15 you save on the bundle pack.

>2 Are you talking about headquarters? If so, they do 3 things: 1) When in range of a city > 5 supply they act as a supply point with 10 supply. When in range of a city with 1-5 supply, they act as a supply point with 8 supply. When not in range of a city they act as a supply point with 5 supply. 2) For determination of the readiness of a unit, they add their command rating to the strength. So the effective strength of a unit lead by a commander with a rating of 7 would be 17 if the unit is at full strength. 3) They add their experience as a bonus to the morale of units they lead. A max experience commander will add 50% to morale. This will increase readiness by 30% or so. So in summary, they make units they lead stronger and increase supply of all units near them. >6 The manual can be found here: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_flippingbook&book_id=6&Itemid=227 Alternatively you could download a patch, I believe they all contain a copy of the manual as well.

The formula I quoted came out of the manual, I guess its possible that they tweaked the values afterwards. It is certainly possible to fail to take Norway on the first turn you take its capital however. Although I don't have any real statistics about how often it happens, I have seen it happen in a game.

It appears that the same error is another formula, the one for calculating the defenders combat losses. Take a look at this screenshot and read the explanation below. The corps targeted in the right screenshot is standing in a swamp and has 50% readiness. The corps targeted on the left screenshot (the one next to the city) is also standing in a swamp and has 110% readiness as there is a HQ near him and he is in good supply. As you can see on the combat calculation predictions at the top of the screenshot, the bomber does more damage versus the corps with the most readiness. So when a unit is standing in a swamp, low readiness protects it from air attacks. The reason is the same as above, but now in a different formula: Defender Losses = Attacker Multiplier * (Attack Type Value + Attacker Experience / 3) - (Defender Multiplier * (Defender Experience / 3 + Defender Entrenchment + Defense Bonuses)) Only the last part is relevant: (Defender Multiplier * (Defender Experience / 3 + Defender Entrenchment + Defense Bonuses)) Defender experience and entrenchment are both zero so that makes this part of the formula equal to: Defender Multiplier * Defense Bonuses Defense bonus is -1 because the units are in a swamp. The higher the Defense multiplier is now, the lower the defense bonus will become. For example, say that a unit has 100 readiness, the defense bonus is now -1 (1*-1), say that it has 10 readiness, the defense bonus is now -0,1 (0,1*-1). So the low readiness of the target in this example is reducing the damage by 0,9 point. Unlike the bug in the above post this one is actually much harder to exploit and will generally not affect the game much, but I guess should point it out anyway.

After you have captured a capital there is also a 5% chance per unit that the country has left that they will not surrender for a turn. For major countries, like France and the Soviet Union, this is only 3% per unit. So you might have to wait 1 or 2 turns after capturing a capital before they surrender. But I agree with scottsmm on this, if you are playing the AI there is no real reason to capture Norway. You would have to garrison Oslo and that offsets the plunder. Since Norway is already transporting all of its resources to you and the AI doesn't spend diplomatic MPP's to convince Norway to stop doing this, there is no real advantage in capturing it.

Hi Borsook, I send you a private message about this.

No, this is weapons and warfare with the latest patch, but the formula I posted came out of the blitzkrieg manual as I obviously do not have the source code. Considering that the effect can be demonstrated in the editor of weapons and warfare however this error must still be in it.

I am fairly certain that this game isn't sold in any stores. They just don't sell enough copies of it to be distributed it among regular sale points. So ordering it online is probably the only way. Still if you'd like to buy this game I don't see what is keeping you from making a paypal account and ordering it online. I did that as well and encountered no problems. The only thing you'd have to check is of course if battlefront is delivering it in Hong Kong.

No to both questions. In fact, what you see on the screenshot is the entire map. This was done in the editor, so all contaminating factors are removed. Feel free to test it yourself if you find it difficult to believe, it is quite easy to do.

Not sure if there is still going to be a patch, but I'd like to point out that the morale calculation formula is not working well. Imagine the following situation from the editor: I am letting the tank attack the AT gun and then either retreat to the capital (supply 10) or to the open (supply 7). Then I check what the effect on the morale is on the next UK turn. Obviously you'd expect that the tank would have the best morale if its in good supply and that therefore moving to the capital would be the best move. The opposite is true however, the tank will have a higher morale if it has less supply. So say that the tank takes 7 damage from the attack and then moves to the capital. The next turn it will have 25 morale. If it took 7 damage and moved out in the open it would have had 32 morale. This happens due to an error in the morale calculation formula: Morale = OldMorale / 10 * 75% + (Strength - OldMorale * 75%) * Supply / 10 * OldMorale / 100 In the formula the (Strength - OldMorale * 75%) part is usually positive, at which point the (Supply / 10) would reduce the positive number and therefore reduce morale based on supply. If a unit takes severe damage however, the (Strength - OldMorale * 75%) part becomes a negative number and would reduce morale. But it is still affected by the (Supply / 10) part of the formula that now begins to reduce the negative number. So whenever a unit takes serious damage taking it out of supply reduces the reduction in morale it will suffer the following turn. One possible solution would be to split the formula into two parts, if (Strength - OldMorale * 75%) is positive, use the formula like this. If it is negative, replace the supply part with a fixed number, such as 0.5 or 1. This would make supply irrelevant after a unit has taken high damage. That is of course far from perfect and even then it would need fixing, but it is still better than that being in good supply reduces morale quicker after taking damage.

Bill101, I tested this in the editor now and it seems to work as follows. It uses the normal formula with its readiness equal to the town efficiency. This can be seen by letting an unexperienced bomber attack a town with >5 strength and a town with <5 strength. The prediction you get is 1 damage to the bomber if the town has strength >5 and 0 if the town has strength <5. This is precisely what you would expect if its efficiency was equal to its readiness. It is interesting that the town defense bonus remains active for strategic bombing. So if you attack a town with 10 strength you will do 1 less damage on average.

Thanks for the answers. I did some testing and looked up a few things in the editor to see if I could find out something about this. For the benefit of others who might be wondering I will write my findings here. Arado, you are right about #2, they are partisans. Apparently every time a new partisan unit appears every city in a certain radius gets a efficiency penalty. This is good news, because that makes it fixable. AFAIK when you have a unit next to a possible partisan spawn point no partisan will ever spawn there. If this is true you can keep Leningrad at maximum strength with only 2 units: one in the square directly right of the city and one in the square directly under Leningrad. These two units will save you no less then 48 resources per turn if you control Sweden. About #3, I tested this in the editor and strangely enough it works as I described. If Russia researches industrial efficiency after the axis have captured Riga, the Axis will suddenly produce more resources from Riga. So the USSR is heavily researching this technology after they have lost crucial areas, they may be helping the axis more then they are helping themselves :|. About #4, thanks for the answer, but what I meant with the question was what the formula is for calculating the damage to the bomber. Normally this is: Readiness * ((Experience / 3) + Defense) - Readiness_Attacker * (Experience_Attacker / 3) I assume that the defense of the town is 1 and the experience is 0, but what is its readiness? Is this equal to its efficiency? Or is there a different formula for calculating this?

A few questions popped up while playing SC 2, if you're interested, please share your opinions and ideas. 1) I am getting the idea that the game is pretty much unbalanced in the allies favor. How are your experiences with this? Is it reasonably possible to win with the Axis against another human player and if so, how would you accomplish this? 2) For some seemingly undocumented reason Axis cities in the USSR occasionally lose a few points in effeciency. Does anyone know why this happens and what the details of it are? It is very bothersome when this happens to Leningrad as this city is the railway hub for all scandinavian territories. So whenever Leningrad falls below 50%, you lose 48 resources per turn (by my count) from a 3 point reduction in all scandinavian cities and mines. 3) I understand that the industrial modifier remains active for each country you have captured. But what happens if the USSR researches industrial efficiency AFTER the Axis has captured Riga for example? Will Riga now begin to produce more resources for the Axis, because the USSR researched this technology? 4) I do not entirely understand how unit vs resource combat works. When a bomber bombs a city is the current efficiency of the town used as readiness modifier for the town? Or does it work entirely different? Unfortunately the manual doesn't mention this and it is important for evaluating the usefulness of strategic bombing. Any ideas how this works? Thanks in advance.

1) I am pretty sure the answer is no. 2) Each level of intel that you are above your enemy you get a 1% increase in researching something for each level that your enemy is higher in that area of research. So having a higher or equal intel prevents the enemy from getting this research bonus. The research chance never gets lower then the base chance, which is 5% per chit if you are at level 0, 4% if you are at level 1 etc etc.

This one: http://www.battlefront.com/products/sc2/ It is the first one you get when you type strategic command 2 in google. It looks like an outdated page on the website though as you can't even navigate there from the link you gave.

The link you gave me does work. Apparently, its just the link from the strategic command 2 website that doesn't work. Quite sloppy of me not to search for battlefront store on google . Thanks guys, I'll order a copy soon.

I recently played the demo of SC 2 and would really like to buy the game. The battlefront store website seems to be down however (permanently?) and no other website I have visited is selling it. Does anyone have a clue where I might still get a copy of SC 2, preferably the bundle pack with expansions?