Glabro

Regiments? Detachments? Are you sure we're talking about Strategic Command here?

The playoffs are pure elimination, starting with the round of 16, then proceeding to the quarter- and semi-finals and finally the final. At least that's the understanding I came to with Lucas. No bronze game I'm sure as there's no third prize, maybe a consolation prize to the runner up though? Who knows.

Wait, so you actually end up paying a lot more for those DDs than if you bought them normally, this being a sort of a "loan scheme" for them? That's very silly. I'd say drop the administrative costs down to 50, perhaps make them need more repair.

Why does every discussion on Italian troop quality always lead to a discussion on the issue to the bravery of the general soldiery? I think that's not in question here. The normal soldiers were probably of average quality bravery wise, but the leadership problem was not limited to HQs, but unit commanders as well (down to company level and such) and the troops were not properly motivated or led in both wars. In addition, their doctrines were outdated, and they lacked modern weaponry because of that. Rommel was able to, with German officers, make brave troops out of the Italians. So it's a bit like someone saying "that guy sucks in football!" "No, he's a good kicker and a fast runner!", doesn't matter if the guy has no eye for the game at all and no training or coaching, plus his leg happens to be busted. Myth or no, Italian troops are usually garbage in any wargame, board or computer, and the arguments are always about the bravery of the soldiers. I apologize if you felt like I was saying Italians were / are cowards. But them being brave wasn't unfortunately enough to cope with their major shortcomings.

Surely you mean the inverse as retreat is a positive thing for the defenders, you'd want the experienced units be able to retreat while the green units get destroyed. That's because the current movement system makes it very hard to follow up to destroy a fled unit. I'd probably change the "+2 movement cost for moving next to 2 enemy units" to just "+1 to move next to one or more enemy units". I think it's pretty silly when sometimes units are not able to march to contact with an enemy battle line because of this rule, even if they'd only need to move one tile.

Of course Austrians were better than Italians! Let's not exagerrate here. Italian troops were...well, Italian. They're unique in how bad they were!

The reason the Italians did not meet with much success had surely a lot to do with the fact that they were Italians. I've yet to see a wargame that punishes so heavily for mountainous terrain as SC. But yes, having a "high mountain" type terrain in the Alps might be ok, they would keep the movement cost of 4 while these normal mountains would go to move cost 3 and defense 2. But certainly it's miles better with just +2 mountains than keeping them at +3.

Austrians battered in Call to Arms? Never seen that happen. Lots of Russian battering though when Germany rolls east! I guess some of you never help out A-H. But as it is +4 is an impenetrable barrier without superiority of infantry tech and arty. Even +3 wouldn't be quite enough, so I'm glad it's +2. It's in line with the +1 from everything else. They still are quite a barrier, but IMO trenches should be more significant that mountains (with tech). I'm glad to see the Italian and Caucasus fronts going.

How do you actually make a supply chain with an in-supply HQ to an otherwise out of supply HQ? I've never seen it succeed. Do you need to get supply 6+ from a HQ to be in supply? The manual says supplied HQs are a normal supply source, so I've been trying to play with that in mind, but it always fails. Well, we need a new supply model anyway, a normal one where you have to trace supply to a capital or other major supply source....but in the meantime...

You mean...you never assign HQ attachments manually? How can you play that way? Well I mean against humans, that is.

Well, if mountains become defense 2, that will go a long way towards making Montenegro non-invincible. It becomes realistic then.

One little request: please make HQs deploy with auto/manual (or whatever the option that lets you assign units and makes it fill up the empty slots automatically), it's always a bit annoying to have to switch it. I don't think anyone really plays with Auto anyway, it's that important. Here's hoping mountains will be defense +2 in the patch (in line with hills and forests being 1).

Yes, Bill, I force marched them all...though this time around I was extra cautious and left significant reserves on the west front, which clearly was important, as you attacked the west line aggressively. I was able to hold on with my reserves and the mobilizations without great difficulty, and now I've got enough trench tech to stop the French cold for now. The East has been decidedly slower because of your efforts though, so it paid off and highlighted a potential weakness in the plan, since crucial early MPPs had to be spent on defense (inc. trench tech). Therefore next time around I'm going to try von Moltke's plan and see what that does for me. Trying to get Paris feels like folly to me, but getting those mines would help, and then use the rivers for defense, even though the line is much longer and therefore more vulnerable in that case (which was one of the main reasons I adopted the "East First" policy.) - might as well use those troops deployed for Schlieffen for something! Here's hoping we get an official East First though! Shouldn't take too long!

This is a big change, as the readiness loss was such that units were able to rest up most of it even while marching long distances. Since this directly impacts Russia First, can we get a "East First deployment CtA"? Hmm...now that I think about it...why not simply make a variant CtA where the German units are deployed for an attack east and mobilizations take place there? Let the German player decide which one he takes! Should be a relatively quick new scenario but it would be of interest to many, I'm sure.

Hmm...interesting, does this also impact the time of recovery by the same amount? Does it stack with itself if you do a forced march for many turns in a row?

Well it's been said before, but I don't think anyone should be able to use Forced March in the scenarios...at least not the current ones, because they're not balanced for it.

Quoting from the Dropbox page: Dropbox uses modern encryption methods to both transfer and store your data. "Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and AES-256 bit encryption Dropbox website and client software have been hardened against attacks from hackers Public files are only viewable by people who have a link to the file(s). Public folders are not browsable or searchable Dropbox uses Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) for storage, which has a robust security policy of its own. You can find more information on Amazon's data security from the S3 site or, read more about how Dropbox and Amazon securely stores data. "

But then it won't perform any defensive fire, either.

Well, I stand by what I said. Garrisoning just the cities mentioned in the manual gives the message that too few units are garrisoned at the Russian border and leads to an increase in mobilization. Easy to test out using hotseat.

Just thought I'd advertise Dropbox to those of you who haven't checked it out yet. It's a handy program that lets you swap files (so in our case, turns) as easily as if you were copy-pasting (or dragging n' dropping, take your pick) files to another folder on your hard drive, and it notifies you of new files being updated automatically. It's a lot more convenient than doing e-mail attachments, so I've been waging a guerrilla war to convert the SC community to use it. Check it out, it's very lightweight and easy to use, at: http://www.dropbox.com

By the way, can someone correct the title as it pains me to see it out there constantly with no chance to correct it. "Marced", what the heck is that? I seriously don't know what I was smoking when I wrote that. Makes me look like an amateur, maybe I was thinking of something else while I wrote it and got jumbled up, I sometimes do that (irrespective of the language used.)

Noo, I want my Schrödinger's landing craft!

Very good point. I assume amphibious transports can make use of the "loops" from the USA at least in SoE?

The problem is that in the game engine we cannot represent small units properly, nor are the stats high enough to represent the difference in quality and size. I am sure that the ground crew of the aircraft would offer no serious obstacle to an infantry corps, effectively being walked over. This is infinitely more preferable than them defending a city and the corps not being able to make any progress there.

Well, that might be, but I've had no problems with NM myself as the Germans. Like I said I lost almost all ships but am sitting at 93% morale. Of course, that probably just got boosted a bit from the fall of Russia, was something like 89% after the naval combat was all said and done. I thought the war would be decided long before the NM would become an issue. But I was very wasteful with my fleets as well, and there's something to be said about preserving the swedish convoy which usually ends up being neutered by the Russians otherwise. The Russians were too strong in the Baltic, but that also meant they had no Dreadnought presence in the Black Sea which means the Ottoman mine is safe. That was my purpose in sending the second line ships to the Baltic, but my timing must have been off and I misremembered that the dreadnoughts were already deployed, I just tried to make him deploy them there and leave with my ships. Repairing the ships is not really needed in my mind, well except for subs if you want to continue with those. You can also run a 0-mpp cost single run perfectly fine as well. BUT and this is the biggest but, if this leads to the US becoming involved faster and with more resources, then it's not worth it really. I am under the assumption that they deploy automatically regardless of mobilization in 1917, but they get more war production from your UNW.