Glabro

I'd like to add that even if an air layer is not added in the near future, air units need to be completely demolished if attacked by infantry, even walked over without a fight in a patch. Currently I'm being stopped from conquering cities by a bunch of recon bombers from an attack by multiple divisions, and that's frankly unacceptable. I'd ask players not to employ this very gamey tactic, but that's about all I can do about it. Air units are sort of like paratroopers at the moment, flying in to defend towns at will - they just can't attack. But the sum result of 3 (understrength, admittedly) divisions against a recon bomber in a city resulted in me losing 1 pt of strength, planes none. This just won't do in any game that attempts to somehow simulate war - at the moment it's very axis and allies like.

Replied to in the e-mail, but for the benefit of the forum I'll say that yes, you're correct about the situation, but I need to attack Russia, Ukraine etc. again to reclaim all the income I just lost which is absolutely necessary to overpower the Entente, particularly because they're getting an income boost from the partially conquered Spain which I foolishly brought into the war as I posted earlier. But the script threw my Austrian units next to Transcaucasus, where they'll have a "fun" or at least very expensive time getting out because I did conquer Romania before, that at least I did not lose.

But basically the only thing you're losing is potentially NM, you don't need to invest any MPPs in the naval warfare. Hitting the UK means an easier time for the Ottomans and in the French front. Now if we started earlier and played the build-up phase it'd be different, but the assets are there already for you to be used one way or the other. But yes, retaining them so the danger of them operating exists. Of course the Entente can just do a "close blockade" of Germany as well - I think blockade symbols should be added close to (like 2 tiles from the coast) that'd be the most effective, as well.

Ivanov, the sub attack has an inherent value in shaking up the blockade effort, especially if you combine it with surface operations to sink destroyers and targets of opportunity. Both will lose ships, it's true, and Germany will lose more, it all depends on your overall naval strategy both in the Atlantic and the Med. As a rule, if Italy joins the Entente, then I'd leave the surface fleet home for sure. But in my latest game with Don I went for a pretty succesful all-out unrestricted naval plan, and despite losing most all of my ships sent (only send the dreadnoughts and battlecruisers, though in this case I lost many of the second line ships in a harassing operation blunder and bad timing, I'm still sitting at 93% NM in spring 1916. The UK lost a massive amount of MPPs as a result of the operations, Russia too of course was denied shipping.

In a Call to Arms game, I just completely crushed Russia, killing most every unit and captured both Petrograd and Moscow, as well as Rostov with Austro-Hungarians, was almost at the Caucasus oil. Now, when Russia surrenders, something utterly bizarre happens. I am thrown out of the country by a magical wind, all my troops, and suddenly Russia has reclaimed everything. I lose the Ukraine, I lose the Baltic Countries, all I'm left with is Poland. This seems like it's some sort of a bug that accidentally brings about the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty although it hasn't been signed. Also the Bolsheviks aren't strong because of Lenin not being sent. By all rights I should control all of Russia now. There is no way Germany would give up its conquests like this. I don't think we can continue the game with a bug this serious...I'll have to attack it all over again, and that takes a LOOONG time. Moreover, most of the Austro-Hungarian army got sent to east Turkey, the most remote and inhospitable place possible, without any rail links out of there. They're trapped there for a loong time, and attacking through the mountains, well we all know how impossible that is. I assume it can't be fixed mid-game, so I guess I'll just have to attack again and count this game as unfinished due to a bug and simply attack again and see where we get to regardless of the bug. But please fix it for 1.04.

But those towns have a MPP value of zero, except for Valenciennes. Lille is worth zero MPP, same as Bruges, Ostend. So I thought why defend those if they're worthless, only Ypres really matters for a stalemate which was the only realistic option with the forces I thought I had. And I thought losing Valenciennes only reduces my income from 68 to 48, but apparently it takes it all away. Logical in a way, yes, but it's not very apparent and I couldn't plan for it. Anyway, just put the incoming reinforcements as messages, which are often fluff text, but you could also make those messages have information about incoming reinforcements and their dates of arrival.

By the way, you should post other critical mission conditions. I just heard that for example if you lose Valenciennes in Race as the Germans, you don't get any MPPs whatsoever. Considering I abandoned everything except a token defense in Valenciennes that will fall next turn to form a huge defensive ring around Ypres and go for a stalemate, this is annoying to know, especially since you also get a huge army out of the blue to help you out in Flanders. Why aren't they shown on the reinforcement panel? I just assumed no reinforcements would be sent since that was blank.

I'll revive this thread for my suggestions. This one is simple: could unit swapping allow an attack for the swapped-in unit as well? Currently the swapped unit loses its turn. But similar to amphibious assaults, you could have its movement points reduced to 1, for example, and allow an attack. This would help immensely with the jigsaw puzzle of trying to figure out a space for your attacker to retreat to so that another unit can take his place to attack, without this movement taking up one of those all-important attack tiles. Of course, this'd just be a temporary retrieve until we can be done with the attack-shuffle altogether (wishful thinking) and we can stack, but that's for SC3 I know.

OTOH you gain morale by doing UNW. And the US joins anyway in 1917, that's what I've been told at least. Now if it doesn't....it's a lot more problematic.

Honestly, I at least don't want another league with this one being a trial. I'd rather just draw more players from the leagues into the cup and do another round of Fate of Nations (I assume that was to be used for the quarterfinals, Call to Arms / Triple Alliance for the semis and the final).

Ivanov, this is not a problem, since once scenario does not matter where there's four matches / eight mirrors to be played with a potential (though only theoretical) 32 points to be had and 16 to be expected. People will assuredly vary from that 16 points. Now, in the cup phase, where we only have 16 players....wait, you said 1 from each league, why not 2 to have 16 in the cup phase? Best 2 of 5 gives more people some chances to at least try the bigger scenarios, and at least I didn't sign up to play these small scenarios 8 times that are imbalanced, only to end up not getting to play the game that I'm actually good at (well reasonably at least, since I'm undefeated out of 8-10 games, though that just means I've not encountered the right opponents, and the main thing for me in this tournament was to get to play those skilled players! And no, the scenarios don't count.). Anyway, I digress, in the cup phase, we can use casualties, yes. But it's not needed in the league phase and besides we can't implement in now that the games are underway, I've at least sacrificed a dozen str 1-3 units just to lower entrenchment or inflict 1 hit before dying in the counterattack.

Well if we go with my and Kommandant's system, tiebreakers are only needed when people end up with the same total points. In that case I suppose we need to look first at number of major wins (or 4 point wins in case of Race), then total wins, if all that is equal we can just toss a coin settle it in another quick way. Of course any players that end up being dropped this way will be able to come back in case someone drops out later on.

Indeed, we'll see. By the way, how does timing the scenarios emphasize minimal casualties? Isn't that the exact opposite? I wouldn't really have a big problem with comparing kill ratios as a tiebreaker, but it's a bit too late for that (well if it was even suggested) since I already used plenty of suicide tactics to speed up my attacks...

Playing the tournament scenarios makes me want to make two more requests, one for the next patch and one for the future: 1) The scenarios that are on a scale of 1 day per turn have not been designed with Forced March in mind, have they? The feature totally changes the balance of these scenarios. Could we have forced march as a selectable option in the settings? 2) Could we get air units on their own "air" layer like in Panzer General, pretty please? It drives me mad how air units are used to physically block movement (and cause movement penalties for moving close to 2 units). In the meantime, could we somehow make planes much more vulnerable to ground units, ideally they should just be able to walk over them and destroy them outright (rather than have them block divisions and corps!). Oh, I'll just sneak in here another request that having something like a 1918 campaign only with a detailed map of France, Belgium and the westernmost parts of Germany, similar to Kaiserslacht, would be really cool in future titles. You could add in production that as well or simply go by historical reinforcements, but it would be cool to have that as a detail campaign. So what I'm after are decisive campaign in detailed form...though I would be really happy about Panzer General-style campaigns with Kaiserslacht-type scenarios as well! But that's really stretching it I know...

I just realized the scoring works out better than I thought. We don't need the system of "only take the best result" at all, fortunately, because the voting email went without it. Let me explain. Each scenario has a bias towards a certain result if played between two competent players. Let's say that in Kaiserslacht, this would be a tactical victory for the Germans (for the sake of example). This gives 3 points for the germans and 1 for the entente. As a mirror match, this means both players are expected to get 4 points. Now, let's say Gallipoli is balanced towards a draw. Again, the expectation is 4 points from a mirror game, and if Race was biased for an Entente major victory, then again 4 points for both players. This is great, and means the system works as written, no need to change it. Player skill differences as well as luck (mostly with weather) will influence the results so that there will be variations, depending on how strongly biased the scenario is.

Tell me Ivanov, why would you even play the mirror game if you automatically lose and get zero points even if you get a major victory as well. I don't think fighting to the end is expected here when it was said in the rules that it's perfectly acceptable to surrender when there is no hope. This changes the system so dramatically mid-tournament that it simply isn't acceptable. Let me go on record that I will not continue games in the tournament if this change is instituted, I've invested too much time on pointless games if that were to happen (and yes, while playing in itself is often the reward, not when you're made to play eight games at the same time). Here's my suggestion for a new scoring system: Out of the mirror matches, each player only takes his best score. This gives a more equal opportunity to grab points regardless of the played scenarios, and means there's usually something to play for at least for one side (and really that's all that's needed often) in both games. The scoring is the same as previously: 4 for a major victory, 2 for a draw etc.

Wait...what's the point in playing a mirror match if you surrendered in your first game then? Because that's what I did in Kaiserslacht when I had a second turn disaster. I don't think "faster" should matter, faster is not always better. I t might just mean you took more risks. I say if both get a Major Victory, it's a tie in points. And we do have points, right? That's why we have leagues. Otherwise we would have just done a cup system, and sort out the odd man when we came to that. Again, the only reason we need to even consider this is because we have 3 scenarios instead of 2. With two there would've been equal opportunity for everyone.

It occurs to me that yes, we need a new scoring system. The tournament scenarios are not balanced so that both sides have an equal opportunity for the victory levels. For example, in Kaiserslacht, the question is between a German tactical or major victory, and you have to fight hard to get only a tactical loss as the Entente. Basically, this means you will never get points as the Entente in that scenario, but you're assured of at least 3 points as a German. Mind you, this is between reasonably competent players, which I think is the assumption from everyone here. Ivanov pointed out that Race has similar problems for the Germans, but I don't know anything about Gallipoli. If everyone played the same scenarios and the same sides, there wouldn't be a problem, but now that we've stuck with some players playing some scenarios twice, there is a problem.

That is good. Maybe then if the army can be expanded, the ongoing revolution would be represented by partisans? I suppose there is some sort of a US mobilization penalty for invading Spain, so it was my folly in using diplomacy on Spain. I should have just checked their strength beforehand, but I might have just lost the game on that if the Entente basically reaps a lot of MPP per turn while I've lost at least a thousand or more on diplomacy and troops there. We'll see.

The force pool? Why? I can understand initial troops, but why would a country with 20mil people be unable to muster more despite instability with massive foreign aid? Just implement conscription! Besides, I'm sure if someone had invaded, they could have done better. Right now it seems like it's food on Entente's platter! That is, unless the CP does West first, which I'm dubious about.

That was written before I made the point system. Please don't try to create a problem where there is none.

No, you only get Stalemate points for finished games. Games that are not finished by the allowed time will be judged. But the idea is not to have any unfinished games. Although I'm not so sure, as a loooong thinker I've done nothing but play SC when I wanted to do other stuff too (like FINALLY start Skyrim), alas, my appeal to abandon the mirror matches that aren't really required because we have a scoring system (the only hijinx was having 3 scenarios instead of 2 where everyone plays each side once against a random opponent) was too late.

But by definition you're then spotting new FOW tiles with your movement, which would be forbidden - because naval units only have spotting 1 as a rule, most everything is out of FOW right? In any case, yes, that should be disallowed. And how is this a tournament post, Ivanov?

I'd like to request a change to the Undo function, to prevent it being completely removed from consideration in multiplayer: change it so that you can only undo when you haven't revealed new FOW tiles by your movement (not by spotting, because that would only be done after confirming not to undo) AND only reveal enemy information / battle odds / do spotting (1-3 tiles) AFTER you've selected not to undo. This means you could undo in those cases where you, for example, moved a HQ to the front line instead of a unit (had that happen numerous times, and sometimes my opponents have, too).

How was that divided between the PTO and ETO, Ivanov? We can just reduce that amount (and maybe a big more) for the ETO production values. One thing though is that research would be common for both ETO and PTO, so there either needs to be some commonality in the MPPs or better, simply pre-set research chits in the appropriate areas (more than now)?