Glabro

What, where's Shogun 2 for $15? Even took a look at Steam... Going to get it too. By the way, is there any difference in the pre-order or retail price if I don't need a physical product shipped? One would imagine you wouldn't need to pre-order a digital copy.

The description states that the scale is 40 km per hex. Does this mean then that it's quite close to the SC:WW1 map scale, and Finland, for example, would be 1160km/40km = 29 tiles long (if it was modelled fully and not cut off in Northern Lapland)? This sounds like the kind of global map many of us have been waiting for. It should be double the size of Nupremal by a rough count (in Europe - I understand the Pacific and the US as well as the Atlantic might be in 80km scale, that's ok for me). But is there a catch? Edit: Whoops, this might have been appropriate to add in the existing map size discussion, I forgot about it. Mods can feel free to move it there.

Indeed, that is a very, very important point that can't be stressed enough, Mike. There simply shouldn't be reinforcement opportunities for units cut off like that regardless of HQs (if those too are cut off). A port changes things, though it's still too easy I think. I suppose Strength loss represents "repairable" readiness and morale damage in a big part in addition to casualties, but the big problem is attrition doesn't work if you can keep repairing to a certain level.

Turning it off does have an effect, scrolling is about 50-75% faster and selection maybe 20-33% faster. This means that scrolling takes less than a second per tile, but over half a second.

I'd like to say as well that now that I got GC and Pacific, they run pretty smoothly. Even Nupremal is way smoother all the way (including selecting, deselecting and scrolling), something that none of the beta exes for WW1 could do. What has changed? Surely Nupremal's map rivals the WW1 map in size, so that can't be the problem?

Mike, I'm not sure the Balkans NEED to be conquered currently except for Serbia. It only has the 1 mountain capital town that needs to be taken for surrender. I admit that it can be hard to crack, but you might not need to do that...you could siege it and Montenegro out with detachments (invulnerable because of the mountains too) and send the corps elsewhere.

Hmm. So you believe the CP to hold the advantage in WW1 instead of the Entente? Interesting. I always considered the CP the underdog. The lowering of mountain defense won't really help Serbia. It means Cetinje in Montenegro CAN be attacked instead of it being impossible, but that's probably good. What else...well if Italy joins then the A-H are not nearly so secure in their mountains. I'm sure you mean the Ottomans launching an offensive into the Caucasus - is this really a problem? I'm just interested in how you think this would change the balance.

Agreed. A defense bonus of +2 would be enough for mountains, not a whopping +4. Most of the fighting would happen in valleys with roads anyway. If we do this, suddenly the map opens up a great deal and the aforementioned campaigns are feasible. Oh, and adding more mountain roads is a good idea.

Well surely there can be a counter-action to weaken the Entente elsewhere as an alternative. But to be frank it does not bother me either way.

Thanks! So those are the ones that can keep on fighting. Great support. The rest will definitely surrender, so will stand and fight. The filipino 25% is also not worth it.

Hmm. Thanks. But since I have no idea of the chances (is it 20%? 80%?) per country, I cannot make any decisions to abandon the capital to defend oil fields, for example - I tested it out and the Filipino units just disappeared when Manila was taken. So I have to discount any nations that have a chance of having their units disappear....I cannot spend MPPS to transport them only to see them disappear for no reason. Are there any that are guaranteed to fight on (or nearly guaranteed) like the Belgians? I will only consider those for transportation.

I think the area with the greatest room for improvement in Strategic Command 2 as a whole is the supply model. The current one doesn't really work too well in simulating grand scale encirclement / cutting off (like so often happened in WW2). It also allows for gamey moves like amphibiously attacking a non-port town and holding it indefinitely unless a major effort is taken to dislodge them. What would be a good evolution for SC2 / 3 to take in order to get a good but still simple enough supply model? I've thought about adding supply depots as a unit (low strength HQs with Rating 0) and putting the supply values of towns to 1 (cities could be 6, capitals 10, but I still don't like the idea of reinforcing in an occupied city without a nearby supply depot that has access to a friendly city - even if it's through a port!). However, this is impossible since the editor doesn't allow the resources in the editor to go below 5 nor can I change the maximum strength of units. Pretty please, could Fury Soft change this in the next patch for the editor? Discuss!

I didn't find a list of the units / nationalities that disappear or don't disappear magically when their country surrenders. Again, I don't really understand the point of disappearing when your alliance is still a contender and you can liberate your country, but who am I to know!

We could bid for sides in the campaign scenarios, but how would that work? Should we create small variant scenarios with a set number of bids (starting MPPs).

Yeah, the elite reinforcements cost double...but I suppose the readiness increase makes it worth it when you've got the money to spare later on.

Is overstrenghtening really an issue?

What do you mean, no choice not to enact Schlieffen? What forced them into this blunder? Like I've said before, the whole strategy was to knock out France fast, not to knock out Belgium and capture some industry, then hold the line from Schwarzwald to the Channel. As for the tech question, just as long we agree it's not somehow wrong to invest a lot in one tech, just the results can be weird, we're fine.

2) Well, like I said, I don't even attack Belgium, in order to get an early hit in on Russia, and I can halve the amount of garrison corps needed on the west wall. When me (just once for kicks) or my opponents attack the West, they are always stopped at the Somme, where are you stopped then? 4) It actually requires 2 detachments. 5) It's gamey to put 4 or more chits in one tech? What? 6) Yes. It's a major problem in my mind that cut off units in towns simply keep reinforcing (out of occupied enemy towns no less!) In my mind the whole supply system needs a re-thinking, my idea was supply depots (non-leading HQs). For example, it's very silly when the Cyprus detachment can invade and cut the Ottoman railway (I forget the name of the non-port town nearby) and reinforce from there, requiring 2 corps and a HQ to dislodge! 8) Yes, there's absolutely no action there. Even a single detachment can hold a mountain road town indefinitely.

Well sure, I could take part. I need my arse handed to me for once, after all, so I don't get too confident. Any prizes?

Personally I feel that the CP have a very strong position IF they attack Russia first and only maintain a defence at Alsace-Lorraine and possibly at the Belgian border river if it is attacked / turned. Therefore measures to implement a Russian border garrison should be taken, what kind of a garrison depends on whether Lenin was sent and / or the Brest-Litovsk treaty signed or whether total conquest took place without Lenin being sent. Of course, Russia first being (in my books) the best winning strategy is a balance problem in of itself, it has to do with the amount of troops required to maintain the western border after the attack in the West inevitably stops at the Somme, and the inability to strike that crucial early blow to put Russia on the back footing and prevent them from teching up to become nigh-unconquerable.

The IT research is not really a solution, as that's something any major should use anyway. Perhaps if you wanted to represent the US industry without adding any resources, you could just make the US start at a high level (3-5), which would "cap" their industrial power. Personally I feel that the US in total should be about 3/4 of the total Axis income at the historical war entry date (with historical German progress) and this would be divided between the PTO and ETO, I don't know the exact ratio but if it was halved I'd say 450-ish MPP. This could be achieved with the industrial tech upgrade as I said earlier, level 4 I think. Then the US could concentrate on researching other things for the most part, at least. The real problem in my mind are pushover Polish and French campaign, units are missing in France even with the Army scale, units are at half strength, and they're all very bad in quality, the numerical French tank superiority divided between the corps doesn't show at all. The morale scripts are a bit excessive there too. There's no way anyone's going to pay for sending the BEF there in these circumstances! I think the Russians are missing some armies, as well all around from their 1939 setup. Would it be a bad idea to just increase ship AP by 50% as well to make them match with transports and get around a bit faster?

But why am I getting a replay error even though I'm using the hotfix? It always crashes the game at a certain point in the reply, just like before I had the hotfix. (Failed Animate Replay)

It goes to show that against infantry against non-existent anti-tank weaponry or only primitive close range antitank weaponry, the difference between tank models was not all that great. Even an "invulnerable", mobile bunch of MG nests like PZIs can make a big difference when employed right. And thus it was german doctrine and tactical superiority that won the day, not equipment.

I think it's an attempt to simulate mobile warfare, but eventually I think the mobility happens at the scale of the battles between corps - and line defense was still alive and well during the period vs. the modern area defense doctrine.

Indeed we will understand (well, as long as that means new games for us, instead of prioritizing Global over Great War!). You carry on now.