Glabro

Mate, give it a rest, will ya. Did you miss the part where I agreed with you that the NM value comparison is a good tool for the primary tiebreaker? As for the casualty ratios, I don't remember, did we have a "lost MPPs" by way of casualties chart? Because each strength point lost counts, not just "finished off" detachment, correct?

No, the players would do it for him, and he'd only have to do it if someone tried to cheat and there'd thus be an argument. That is, unless the charts supply that information. It's too bad the resources don't matter for NM purposes. I don't understand how Moscow for example is only worth 100 NM (out of tens of thousands).

Durrr. Why is this so hard. I mean the value that the resource has on the map when you click it. You'll notice that this isn't multiplied by tech or anything else. Just count 'em up. And obviously I wasn't talking about who has the bigger industry, CP or Entente, but who has conquered or retained more resources as either side. Aaaaanyway, as long as NM is free from silliness like I mentioned above, I suppose it works fine. Then again, it would mean you basically have to take the "MPPs for NM" options even though you otherwise might not want to, but oh well...

Wait....doesn't everybody go for max industrial tech research anyway? I guess not. But what I meant by nominal had nothing to do with industrial tech, and everything to do with the MPP value of held territories without any adjustments for supply, tech or recent enemy capture (and recapture). I don't really have a problem with morale, except that that loss of minors affects it FAR too much and skews the strategy to favor taking minor countries where it otherwise wouldn't make sense. I've found that my Germans get crippled for 3-5 turns when Belgium or Netherlands or something is taken, and that's complete bollocks. You don't cry and fold over when your buffer states fall, when they're designed to fall in their strategy!

How horrible but true.... In any case, looks like the "big games" will be mirror games too. Are those scenarios not balanced either? Looks like we need a "handicap" option in the future. Now we need a set of victory conditions, or rather, tiebreaker conditions, BEFORE the games start playing. How about total (nominal) income first? Current troop ratios second?

Indeed, however, you want all of this to work as intuitively as possible. That's why I thought stacking with one unit clearly in front (larger icon than the rest, in the front facing) and three "slots" to fill in each tile could work? If you need to set it up through the right click menu or something, while that's good for us, might not be as intuitive to new players? And since it'd be a core mechanic then, it needs to be intuitive. But I don't really know your suggestion thoroughly enough to properly comment on it.

Ooh, good one. And offensive on the East Front, yes, that's a general to my tastes! But seriously, sorry if I took you too seriously! I'm a bit ill, perhaps that made my mood sour.

Ooh, maybe I'll run against you, in the spirit of fair competition! I remember us having some "political disagreements" already! This can be the start of a great new tradition! I can be the republicans and you can be the democrats (or whichever way, don't really care as neither of them represents my politics really, but they're the only two labels people will accept), and everyone else can be the "rest" (J/K)! Of course you have that right, the same way I have a right to speak plainly and want to make others speak plainly as well instead of "suggesting" things. I'm a blunt instrument type of guy! But we have no conflict, really, at least from my viewpoint (well except maybe "politically", but that's it!)

Umm, I just did. I certainly didn't speak for anyone but myself. There's no need to be bitter and offensive. Even on the internet, you can read into the tone of the text, and mine wasn't offensive. Plus the context was different, you said "the only thing we need" which is actually speaking for others, whereas I said "we'll have" and "we'd be able to use" which is not speaking for others. But really. Peace.

I'm surely not downplaying the importance of the thinktank here, just check the SC3 thread and any other thread about balance and improvements! What I'm trying to say in my blunt way is that in any event I've held or helped with, I've always believed that someone should be in charge and make decisions, even if they happened to be unpopular ones. All smart "leaders" listen to the people around them, in war and peace, and pick the best ideas to use. What I meant by democracy is that any votes we take would be binding and the "decider" would get in trouble for going against it, I don't like that idea, not in real life, but especially not on the Internet. That being said, I'm personally not against publishing results. After all, it may influence who's picked to be the next organizer (well, in this case, it was more like someone stepped up and volunteered to do the job out of his own limited spare time, so kudos to him). Kommandant is busy with both work and university studies at the same time, so any extra "burden" that he's loaded with in real life on top of that can and will severely limit his ability to take part. I'm sure we'd all like for Kommandant to speak up rather than me, which I think is the main point, so I'll ask him to take a look here again. I'm just trying to help here, and if you think I need to be part of the tournament staff officially to do that, then I can look into that as well if it helps things go along more smoothly. In fact, you can do that yourself as well if you wish! No-one's "specially privileged" here, I just know Kommandant better than the rest of you I suppose.

I don't think the tournament is a democracy nor should it be, all we can do is help give our input for Kommandant to decide upon. I get the feeling you don't like that I'm a "power behind the throne" in that Kommandant seems to value my advice (he asked me for this role) of sorts and being transparent about it, but life's tough...but rest assured, propositions are valued on their own merits, not from who they come from, in their end, and "popular support" like the vote for the scoring do count. I'm sure Kommandant could put the results up as well, but in the end you have to say - is it a good policy? Would it cause controversy if the staff went against the popular vote? I know that this was not the case this time, but just on principle...

However, this defensive improvement would need an offensive stacking improvement as well. This is why I suggested triple stacking and disallowing corner attacks - in defense you'd have one in the lead, the rest in reserve ready to take its place should it break or flee.

Hasn't it already been decided that the next phase is a knockout cup? That way you only play more games if you win. Should we do it like in hockey, so that the no. 1 ranked plays the no. 16 ranked, and the winner of that plays against the winner of the game between the 8th and 9th ranked, and so on? We probably don't want Swiss style or random draw as we want the final stages to be the most balanced and epic, not the first one? Opinions?

Hooray, Bill! Maybe we'll have the Panzercorps-style separated movement and and attack possible at different times in the turn. That alone would help a lot! We would be able to use the "shift units" feature and still attack. However, often the rear lines are taken up by artillery, so it's good that other units further back could also move in to attack. But in any case, I'm certainly eagerly waiting for 1.04. A huge load of improvements is sure to come.

Ultimately it's up to Kommandant as he's the only "referee" as far as I know. But I think we should wait and see the results as they stand, so we can get an idea on how many games have actually been completed.

Speak for yourself. I lack realistically punishing supply rules, an air layer, some form of stacking (I hate the "attack, figure out a huge puzzle to move that attacking corps back because friendly troops in the rear lines prevent him from moving back, and thus allowing another corps to take its place and attack, all the while trying to accomplish the same for the entire battleline so you don't accidentally take up someone else's only withdrawing tile"). In fact what I'd probably do with the current system is disallow corner-to-corner attack but have a stacking limit of 3, allowing for the same number of attackers from a direction against a single target, but allow for a realistic concentration of troops against an entire battleline. One corps would always be in the "lead" and be the one enemies would resolve attacks against. Also, I'd want to disallow corner-to-corner movement between two adjacent enemy corners entirely (it's supposed to be a solid battleline). But I suppose hexes would solve this already. What else? Don't get me started....I have great expectations of this series, but what I don't want is for it to turn into something you can't approach relatively easily, like TOAW. But adding rules that mostly resolve themselves automatically or intuitively shouldn't hurt.

It's simple: it's inevitable that people would disappear from the roster, especially since the "workload" of 8 games at the same time was clearly too much. Have to resist saying "told you so"...wait, I just did. At this point we're just going to have to take the highest-scoring 4, or 8, or however many we have with enough games played, and run an elimination cup with what we have regardless of leagues. We might also arrange something for those with a lot of unplayed games, perhaps their own "elimination" cup that can at some point merge with the ranked players. It all depends on the results at the end of the month, we'll talk it over and try to arrange something. I'm unofficially part of the tournament staff anyway, it's just Kommandant who makes the calls. My League, Passchendale, deserves commendations for completing all its games with me (and thus probably with each other as well). It was tough for me, but I soldiered on to victory (at least a personal one).

Hmm, a good idea, a third member to work on the audiovisual side of the game to give it a unique and appealing graphic design? There's been a lot of new developments in this field that show that even 2d grand strategy can look appealing when done right. This would leave Hubert & Bill in charge of the game design & programming with their full attention... Anyway, let's not try to mess too much with Fury Soft's way of game design!

Seamonkey, if it turned out that it was impossible to institute realistic / conventional supply rules and SC needs to have "soft and cuddly" supply rules, then your solution would be ok!

Not buying it either, to be honest. In fact I'm at the extreme camp as I want cut off units not only not be able to reinforce, but actually be destroyed if left out of supply on its own without enemy assaults even required! Remember we're talking about huge numbers of men, 30-50k per corps. With desperate measures (airlift etc.) I could see the unit just suffer attrition instead of being destroyed! But that would cost a lot imho.

Why do out of supply units with or without HQs need to even be able to get reinforcements is something I don't get. Where do they get them? How are they able to get the logistics needed to reform (ie, where do they get the access to your MPPs that clearly are needed for reinforcement / reform)? Only units in supply should have access to your MPPs, just as only the resources that are in supply can provide you with MPPs.

Probably the best AIs are in territory-based games with a limited amount of territories (like Shogun I and Medieval I, Total War, that is), so in single-player focused games, it's always a shame to go for free movement or even a huge number of hexes. However, those features are golden for the multiplayer portion, so it's always a toss-up....

Interesting. This will let you fully revise the engine again and represent battling, supply, etc. even better. Can you share any early macro design concepts with us? Back to hexes perhaps? Stacking? Panzercorps-style movement and combat? Air layers? Large worldwide map? Heh, well, I can wait.

Good. Maybe this solution can be implemented in the next patch, and a more complete revision (perhaps) can await further titles. I noticed now that cutting Warsaw off from primary supply did indeed drop its level to 5. That represents "limited supply" where you still can route supply to the location quite well, but does not really account for the "totally cut off" situations for resources or troops, so let's wait and see! I think the main thing is to remember that

Umm, I don't see how that relates to my questions, but very well. I was simply asking about the current scheme as I haven't ever experienced a resource worth a 10 dropping to 5 due to ZoCs. Hmmm...now that I think about it, you probably caught on to the "extending" part of my message. I wasn't talking about relaying further with HQs or "extending" that way, I was talking about adding new supply sources - not relayers like HQs and cities / towns etc but that wasn't the main point of the message.