worg64

A thing to consider is the HQ with infinite supply that are isolated. I run into this problem in the deserts of irak where the english HQ starting in Basra run around for ever and always at supply 5 regardless of me having cut all its way to the sea. It wasnt untill I could box it in I actually could kill it off. This also happends when a advance get encircled and cut of but still the HQ provide supply to those units in the pocket. I would suggest here that a HQ that are isolated dropped its supply value by one per turn, this would easily solve this problem.

Just wondering why is it that you have made the units abroad of its home nation continue to fight when its home nation surrender while those inside its homenation does surrender? This would make some sense if the units abroad was under some other countries command and supply and having their goverment in exile but for example for Serbia that doesnt seem to be the case. Should it not be better to have the countries that go in exile have their units continue to fight regardless where they are while those nations that surrender without going into exile have all their surviving units dismantled?

In the two centralpowers campaign games I have played so far I managed to make Serbia surrender both those times it required me to take three of their cities used as capitols one after the other. They swapped capitols two times after the starting capitol city Belgrad was captured. After that the troops gave up and lay down arms and germany got a plunder based on the units giving up. So what makes Serbia giving up is when they lose their third and last capitol (The old and two new capitols). I think this is how it works. So the main key to survive as Serbia is to keep the third capitol at all cost prefarable newer lose Belgrad in the first place or the second capitol. The other cities doesnt affect the surrender but contribute to the income for Russia that can buy Serbian troops.

I read this and thought I would put my view in as well on this matter. You will have to excuse my rambling a bit since english is not my main language but I hope youll understand the content of my text. Please read the whole before getting to conclusions First let me say I have bought all the game of SC and it is a great and fun game constantly developing to even better heights. Secondly I dont feel at all Battlefront are treating us as criminals, far from it in fact. The support and service as well as the daily input in forums they provide is very much unheard of by other companies and should be saluted and given a great applause! I really hope you keep this fantastic work up towards your customers. You are doing a great job so far, keep it up! However that said Battlefront is protecting their game in a way that many people myself included feel are not 100% right. Why is that? Well because as it is now when we buy a product from Battlefront we just dont get 100% value of the merchandise we buy. It is like buying a CD with music and not being able to use it whenever you want and lets face it you have bought the merchandise, it is our product in the eye of the customer. That I think is what making people angry and upset because they fell they have the right to use the product as they want because they have bought it fair and square. The difference here something that really must be taken into consideration is that any computer game is not really a physical item, it is a in a way when done as a CD. But all in all it is a computer program existing only in the virtual world. And the problem with that as well with music is that you can freely distribute it to anyone if you have the means or if it is free of any kind of protection. This makes any kind of gaming program a hard issue both for the customer that want his product 100%, being able to do whatever he wants with it and the company that makes them that dont mind their customer get 100% but not want all the customers relatives and friends having it for free, or worse someone selling it further to potential new customers. At the moment their is really no good solution to this problem and that is why so many companys make all kind of strange protection for their games. Most may I say add horrendus pieces of bad programing who only makes their paying customer even more angrier. Like steam or DDi. The worst is the gaming consules that is only existing because the need for the companies to have a secure enviroment for their game. I really despise consuls and it is not because they protect the games for their companies but because they limit the game in so many ways a computer does not as well as preventing us from upgradable patches and mods when they are made. Another bad example of company protection is wizard of the coast recent debacle regarding their DDI downloadable program for their D&D roleplaying game. They decided to withdraw their support for all paying customers own program and instead make a server based tool for all their customers that they had to pay for to use and in the end they lost 43 % of their current paying customer according to recent offical numbers. 43 % !!! All this based on the piracy their product was enduring but they still thought it a good idea that if anything should tell us the huge problem piracy is. Well the problem here is that this ONLY affected the normal good paying customers in a very bad way not the ones that do the piracy. The pirates they crack and gleefull play the game regardless of protection while the paying customers rip their hair out in frustration because of all the much more or less useless protections and that is where we stand today in the gaming industri buisness. But I ramble away my point is as a customer I understand the need for game protection but as a paying customer I dislike and loath anything that lessen my ability to use my bought game as I want. And it is even worse if you have to use additional programs like Steam! The core of the problem is the pirates and the people that use piracies copies not the gaming companies nor the need of game protections! And not untill a good solution toward this has come we as paying customers either will have to endure and help the gaming industries by paying for those game we want to have developed in the future and be subject to this kind of protections regardless of how futile they are. OR we can decide we wont pay for games with protection meaning in the future we maybe wont have the games we want to play available. For me that is a easy choice and the reason I despite my dislike of the games protection buy the game product I want, this to see those games I love to play around not just for now but in the near future as well! So before you get angry at the companies for making protections on their game take a minute to think this over and then I suggest you vent your anger over those that really deserve it the pirates and the companies incompetent security programmers ( And boy are they incompetent! ) then go and buy the games you want to be supported in the future!

Thanks Bill for clearing the weather up for me that makes much more sense. Hi John DiFool the 2nd As to my reference to subs not killing as many capitol ships I was refering to one on one fights between a sub and a capitol ship. As I wrote subs going in for the kill on already damaged or crippled war ships happenend as you also point out several times but most of those was in a naval battle together with other ships and subs. It has happened other wise also but considering the amount of ships and subs and the amount of engagments it is not very often I would say. I am very much aware of the damage a torpedo can do to a capitol ship but for a sub to get a chance to fire against the capitol ship he would most of the times have to get pass a screen of destroyers not something easily done even in a naval battle. Ludi1867 had some really intresting points in his posts regarding the battle ship versus subs also that I agree with. I know it is not easy to balance this and I am sure the opinions are as many as the number of players :-D but to go back to the question at hand what makes me think the sub is to good contra the capitol ships is the lower cost in build and repair, lot faster to make and lets not forget the dive ability and convoy hunt on top of that. Also as a bonus if a sub run into a hidden sub and get surprised they dont get damaged. I use subs as scouts because of this and send them ahead of my capitol ships. If we are discussing as Ludi is writing about a battle ships WITH a destroyer flottilla versus a Wolfpack of subs I understand the game mechanics but as he points out it is not really a good solution for many reasons many already discussed there. One solution maybe would be to make the Ship and Sub units have 5 wounds each instead of 10 as of now with 5 counting as fully battle ready, 4 minor damage, 3 damaged, 2 crippled, 1 dead in the water (in game minimum speed and considered towed to harbour)and 0 sunk. Each wound would effect the attack value and speed of the ship and Sub. This would require increasing the amount of destroyers and Sub in the game tho but would make the naval war a much more dynamic scene.

Well lettowvorbeck what can i say other than the computer does make multiple attacks most of the time with around 3 corps but I have witnessed several times now when the computer have not finished off strength 1 units even when the Ai has had units left to act with. I have finished the campaign game two times now and are well on into my third and I have seen this several times during these games. That said I am sure it only requires some minor tweaking to get that in order. It is very important that the AI kills of the units he gravely damage If of course he is able too since then the unit get long time to getting back into the game. It is especially important when dealing with naval forces. As for winter attacks it does get harder but I still find it a bit to easy against entrenched and units in good defensiv terrain but it is just my personal view and experience of the game so far. I feel it should be even harder to attack during winter turns. Bill you write " Attacks in snow should be much less effective, but if the weather itself is normal then losses will be the same as in other seasons." Maybe this is what I have experienced and taken notes off, I assumed the attacks in winter with snow on the ground but a sunny day would be much harder than a a attack a normal season would have while attacking in snow or blizzard would be even harder. Can you confirm that attack losses during winter without any weather effect is equal as a attack on summer without any weather effect?? This should then explain it for me. As for the subs I agree that they did sink warships as I also said earlier but it was not that often it happened during both the WW1 and WW2 considering how many subs their where and how many opportunities they had being submerged and had the element of the surprise. As for the fear factor I would say it is well incorporeted in the game by the events, I for one as player also sure fear those subs I can tell you That said I am just stating my opinion here where I think the subs are to good against naval vessels in the game but that doesnt mean I am correct. It is just a feeling and a personal view regarding my knowledge of the WW. Maybe if the subs had taken on a more active role hunting war naval vessels maybe they had been as deadly as they are now in the game. But it is good you are looking it over and considering it thats all I wanted

Hi there thanks for your kind comments and awesome support for the game as always. I understand some suggestions are not always possible and also hard to balance I just want to give you my feedback and see what comes out of it. I am now into my third campaign gameplaying the centralpower this time. I just play at normal to start with to feel the grasp of the game and look into what can be better as i think at least :-D I have noticed with some regularity now the AI unable to kill of units with 1-2 hits left even if he had units standing next to them and at full strength with AP left the computer very often doesnt finish them off. I guess it most be in the scripting some how. I really hope you can tweak this up because it is very important this work as it should. Also I have noticed the high success rate for attacks during winter. Should it really be this easy? Compared to WW2 it is a lot easier to attack now during winter even if the defender is entrenched and in good defensive terrain it more often than not the attacker wins or lose equal amount of step losses during a winter attack. Maybe the severity of winter attack should be increased here I think. For the HQ that is good that they have some defense value and are able to kill steps of the enemy. I see your point on how you look at HQ while my view is more of a combat HQ where the supply trains ar another thing all together but if going your way then it works ok. As for Subs not being scary for cruisers and battle ships I really dont think they should be that scared. Almost all Main battleships and cruisers was supported with destroyers flottillas. And how often did sub sink Heavy war ships during WW 1 and WW2. Sure it happened but then most of the time with a lucky strike at ammo depot or similiar or against a already crippled war ship near dead in the water. If you look at the subs statstic of the war you should see there main job was to attack convoys not other war ships something they tried to avoid fighting. I understand they must be able to hurt them but I think they are way to good now compared to the other ships. If you let the sub have a higher attack when run into (A surprise attack) that will be scary enough if you know the water is filled with subs but otherwise I think you should lessen their attack against all ships and instead have players use them as intended convoy hunters. Important tho is that Subs should not be able to be boxed in as they can be now but always be able to move to other space if diving! I have noted the artillery shells of max 10 might be a bit to much. I really like the shell and that you can load them for a offensive, but I have noticed having two or even three artilleries loading up shell and then attacking with full barrage makes it a bit to deadly and good. Here I would advice go down to 5 as maximum, still good enough albeit not as deadly, more balanced if you ask me. As for the Egyptian campaign area I have noted when the AI play, the HQ that come into play for the english in Alexendria gets stuck there and hence prevent any supply for the english more or less. Maybe it would be better if it come in closer to the front line Kairo or Suez ?? Alexandria has that event for keeping it safe against rebels also so the HQ really is needed better near the suez canal. How did my suggestion regarding a more detailed experience and resource for each major power turn out? IS it something you are considering to put into play into the future of the game? Ill try to keep feedback coming as long as I am playing and see if you can find any use of them.

Hi Hubert and Bill! Now I have played the game on normal for both sides. The computer makes a decent fight and with just some minor tweaks the game will be even better. Lots of fun! Best game so far and it is by far the best on the market. Great job guys! Some Suggestions: The game works well but the AI need to be a bit more aggressive as well as learn to finish 1-3 wounded units of when ever possible. Maybe you could incorporate a KILL PHASE where the AI looks for possible easy kills, units wounded to 1-3 steps? This should REALLY increase the AI combability. As it is now they often miss going for the kill even if they have units able to kill the very crippled wounded unit off. This is especially important in naval combat but of course also in land combat. The AI have a tendacy to garrisson city behind the lines with Corps as much as detatchments. Here I would very much see a increase of detatchments being used as garrissons and have the Corps in the frontline. Also when on the defence the AI has a tendency to leave heaxes well entranched and with good defensiv terrain and have a difficulty to keep a good strong frontline intact. Especially in WW2 is this a big problem especially the russians. Maybe you could script at least two to three hexes around each town with good defensiv terrain to defend, that would make it much more harder to surround the defender and gain a fast victory. Hubert you asked me about the hexes the french left near paris, unfortunate I did not have a save from there but if I recall correct it was the forest hex beside paris facing closest to Armiens and then the clear hex between the two forests near paris behind the river. I would suggest You make the script defend ALL Hexes around paris vigoursly. And same for all capitols. Talking about surrounding I also think the subs being able to be surrounded and then finished off is something you should consider to look at how it works. Maybe here you should encorporate that if a sub goes silent mode he can move through a enemy vessel hex at the cost of 2 movment and he can not stay in a hex where there is another vessel. After all a sub should be able to submerge and go away. I also strongly suggest you lower the Subs effectivness as a combat vessel towards other ships. As it is they are by far the best combat naval unit considering their abilities and cheaper cost and cheaper build time. Subs should be used as convoy hunters and killing of crippled combat ships and also as naval scouts NOT as the prime naval assault vessel as they work now. This is really a must I think. They could have a higher combat value if a enemy vessel run into them in a surprise attack that would work well tho. I would also very much being able to just swap places with two units They would have to start beside each other and being able to normally move to each others hex. Like a rockad in chess, it is way to often you end up in a traffic jam in the game. I think if you would use up both units move and attack it still would be beneficial and used in the game. For the AI Entate Powers I strongly suggest a 5 strong detachment in Sedan from the start to prevent german player a easy walk along the line. For the AI Central Powers I strongly suggest a 8 strong detachment in Qurma with the script to advance on Basra if left unguarded, as it is now it is way to easy to just walk around and gobble up all the small villages with the Basra unit that starts there, Or make a penalty or a event if the english leave Basra before the Indian troops have arrived. Some Questions and suggestions: Why have you made it impossible for HQ to entrench?? Not only that you also make them take away entrenchment?? There is no logic that HQ should not be able to entrench. A HQ should be able to entrench as much as all other unit. If you think this make them to easy to defend with I suggest the following the HQ not being frontline troops that if attacked they will ALWAYS retreat IF taking combat losses UNLESS defending towns, villages, Forts, mountain, hill, forest and entrenched 2 hexes or of there is no hex to retreat to. That will put them much more in context toward their lower ability to defend. Maybe you also should also lower their defense and instead make them have experince and being able to be bigger than 10 in strength. Or being able to have a increased combat detachment incorporated. Something along those lines. The AI get to have the tank Unit prior to the player able to. Why is that? The AI got a tank unit 26feb 1916 when I played. Not a big thing but if for historical reasons I suggest you use historical dates when they first arrived for both sides and have them being able to buy so they can arrive att that date. The first use of tanks on the battlefield was the use of 49 British Mk.I tanks at the Battle of the Somme (1916) on 15 September 1916, with mixed, but still impressive results as many broke down but nearly a third succeeded in breaking through Well this got to be a long letter I hope you can have some value of all my rantings and crazy ideas. I apology for any bad grammar since english is not my main language.

I changed drivers but no luck and same for the sleep screen theory I had. A strange thing tho is that the game functions perfectly well when I play the Entente side.something I just now discovered. It is only when I play the centralpowers this bug occur, really weird.

I noticed while playing Germans that Sedan was empty at the start of the campaign for the french, since I went for a delayed attacked on Belgium it was rather easy to bypass the french line now since both Sedan and the forest hex just south of it was unoccopied as well the hexes west and east of Sedan and then in later turns I could attack Belgium from French soil a lot easier. It also made it a lot easier towards the french since you get a central hole in the front already at start. Unless Sedan is made empty of french troop at start because of some historical reason or because it shall picture some early german succes attack, I strongly recommend the french to start with a unit in Sedan at the minimum preferable also one unit on the forest hex south of Sedan. This will really grind down the german at the first turn afterward its not so important to defend it.

I have also noticed that when I got closer to Paris the french abandon some hexes around Paris. Some I can understand but the ones behind river and the hexes with forest should also be made into the Capitol defence script and not abandoned. If the french dont defend these hexes around Paris, taking Paris will be a lot easier than it should be.

hmm yes I think I will try that but it is a really strange bug. It is similiar to the one in WW2 where if the sleep screen started up you couldnt see the new units that had come as reinforcements as this also somehow seems connected to the sleep screen going on but it shouldnt since I am active at the computer. That bug was fixed long ago tho but no worries Ill manage eventually I think Ill do as you suggest and also turn off the sleep screen while I play and see if that helps. Thanks for your suggestions Hubert!

Hello Bill and Hubert! Thats fully alright I didnt take anything personal I just thought I better clearify it towards Bill since i thought his post was directed towards me. You will have to excuse me because albeit my english is good enough to talk and read and write I often fail to see feelings, sub meanings in texts since english is not my main language. Me=:confused: You two are doing a great job with this game and it is by far my favorite strategy game! Keep the good work up! I have some other suggestions as well but I will getback to them after playing WW1 some more. have a good weekend now.

Yes I know but this was not in reference to the units but the possibility to set the experience and resources to different settings for each major country in both WW1 and WW2 instead of just one side. As it works now you can only affect the computer side and only in a positive way. I would want it so i could change the experience and resources both for the player side and the computer side (Both sides that is) seperate for each major country as well as being able to change both downwards and upwards and preferable in lesser steps. Experience -2, -1.5, -1, -0.5, 0, +0.5, +1.0, +1.5, +2.0 Resources -50%, -25% , 0, +25%, +50%, +75%, +100%. There is many reasons why this should prove beneficial but mainly it provides the players with more flexibilty. Example of this would be if I would play WW2 for instance and wanted to boost the axis I dont mind giving german and japan +1 experience but I would not want Italy to have it because then taking Italy would be very hard and unhistorically as well. All in all it is just a matter of preference but I think it would be well worth doing it since it opens up some many more possibilities for the game. This would make it much easier for a player to obtain a more balanced and enjoyable game depending on his level of expertise and also when playing other players with various skill you can use it as a very good handicap. I think many with me agree on this and I should think it is not to hard to code to makeit possible. I for one hope you will incorporate it

Sorry no Hubert that did not help. In fact it got a lot worse :-D I got a message saying directxfailed: dderr_generic and when I said ok and proceded the map was in one colour and I could not see the units. I will change it back and see how that turns out now

Thanks Hubert for the advice I will surerly test it and see if it works and come back to you. It is awesome the time and effort you put in the service towards your customers and fans. I Greatly thank you for this and keep up the good work!

Hello No it was not a entire front but it was the 2 hexes one named epinal behind river in between Belfort and Nancy where they where entrenched and had full corps and a splendid defensiv line at the moment they had a full front line before they pulled those back. For me it really seemed like a very bad move. And I could not see any reason whatsoever why they pulled back either because they was not really hard pressed otherwise. It made it possible for me to push out of the hole they created when they left and envelope both belfort and nancy in fuuture turns. Maybe you should make these hexes a priority as well so they easier defend them since they are so vital for that sector.

Thank You Hubert! That would be awesome! I dont know how hard your coding is but it seems it should be fairly easy to do this and it would really make for the possibility to make a easier and better balanced game both against the computer and against a opponent. Really looking forward to this if you manage to do it!

Great game all! Well done! I will for sure play this game a lot of times. It is refreshing to play some other fronts than those of WW Two. That said I eagerly await the WW Two scenario Apart from a issue with computer turn phasing out and that France sometimes leaves a full frontline the game and AI seems decent enough but I think its full potential is against a human opponent. I do hope you can tweak the computer even more to not leave a frontline hex unless it is very disadvantage to stand there. :eek:

I have experienced a very strange bug in WW1. After I have made my turn and the computer starts his turn somewhere near the middle in the computers turn it shift from game view to deskboard view, and I can not do anything. Then when it seems the computer is nearly done with his turn the computer shift to the logg in side and I must relogg in to my computer and then reactivate the game at the bottom of the deskboard, once done that the computer makes the finishing moves and then it is my turn again. I can do my own turns without this bug. It doesnt happend all the time but roughly 4 times out of 5. Less if I have saved before and load the game. I can still play the games but the computer turn takes a lot longer because of this and it also makes the game somewhat more instable from time to time and I have had to reload. You can see why this is so annoying! I have no such problem at all with all other strategic command game I play for WW2. I have also tried to reinstall but so far nothing has worked. Can anyone come up with some idea what might be wrong and what to do? Is there others that has the same problem as me?

Hi Something that has bothered me both in WW1 and WW2 is the lack of better adjusting the game as you like when it comes to experience and resources. I would want a more detailed choice when it comes to the choise of those. Both for play against the computer but also against a opponent. I assume this would be rather easy to manage as well. Example if I play against the computer in WW2 I would want to be able to choose +1 experiences for Germany and England while having -1 experience for France and Italy. Example two if I play WW1 I would want to have Germany and England +1 experience while having Russia -1 experience but +50% resources. All in all one should be able to pick the experience from -2 to +2 for the major powers and same for the resources from negative -50%, -25%, to positive +25%, +50%, +100%, this for both sides regardless what side you play. This should make the game much more enjoyable and more historical.