Ancient Demon

By the way, the Austrians and Ottomans don't surrender if their NM hits zero in the Russia's War campaign. Not sure if it's supposed to be like this, but it seems odd that NM has no effect.

Wasn't this also a problem in the original Gold campaign? Is it fixed there too?

Some concerns regarding the 1870 scenario after completing games as both sides against the AI: 1. Are villages not supposed to provide any supply? It seems it's very hard to keep units in supply because of this (especially for the AI, which seemed to pay no heed to supply at all). 2. What's the deal with the "broken" railroad West of Metz? Is there supposed to be a rail connection here or not? 3. The game doesn't seem to end if Germany surrenders before NM reaches zero, like when I as the French took Koblenz in October after destroying most Prussian units out of supply around Metz earlier in the war. 4. Haven't seen any notification of the establishment of the French Republic as either side. Prussia gets notification that the Prince Imperial (and some Count) flee to Belgium, but not the abdication of Napoleon (or anything else after that). France gets notification of the abdication of Napoleon, but not about anyone fleeing for Belgium (or anything else after that, but maybe the NM didn't get low enough that time). 5. The AI seems to play especially poorly in this scenario as either side, with me winning as France (on intermediate difficulty) not much more difficult than winning as Prussia (where I was told some AI scripts weren't working).

I just e-mailed you a copy of the save.

Oops. Still, one would think they'd get around to replacing some units before they lose them all.

Now at September 15th, I had destroyed a total of 52 French units, with 3 remaining on map (at the beginning of the war they start with 27 units on map with ~30 in the queue, so that can account for about everything). Not sure where the ~7000 so far they spent on units went to, but it couldn't have been all to reinforcing existing units. I looked at their queue now and there's 12 units there, but they're mostly scheduled for near the end of September (purchased units should only have a one turn delay in this scenario).

How far in are you? I've seen them deploy the ones that start in their queue (the initial mobilization ones), what I mean is that they don't seem to replace destroyed units.

Well I'm not sure what exactly these AI improvements are supposed to be, but so far I'm not too impressed with what I've seen in the 1870 scenario, with the French AI apparently not willing to deploy new units (total unit count being about 10 by the end of August).

That could be it, but this is in a multiplayer game started by someone else. Could I be playing an edited version of the campaign without knowing it? How do I tell if this option is on from the saved game?

Unfortunately it appears this event was not fixed in 1.02 as per the patch notes. Now instead of going to Montenegro, the Albanian Legion simply doesn't appear at all. Also, shouldn't the initial strategy advice popup for the Ottomans appear on their first turn, rather than the second?

Yes, but Erzerum and Trabzon aren't connected to anything by rail, so they can't support anything but themselves. What's keeping up the strength of all the cities and ports in Syria/Palestine?

Thanks for the clarification, although that doesn't seem like a very useful impact. I would have expected it to have some effect on income or national morale. Also, in this case nobody landed at Gallipoli, Russian ships got in after a landing at Scutari.

I've noticed that cutting the rail link between Constantinople and the cities in the rest of the Ottoman Empire does not drop the maximum supply there to 5 for the cities and ports (they remain 8 or 10) despite not having any other connection to a primary supply source. Please explain.

In the Call to Arms campaign there are ship icons in the Sea of Marmara, but occupying them with Entente ships doesn't seem to do anything to the Ottomans. Is this a bug, or are those icons really just there for decoration?

A possible solution for Belgium would be to remove Antwerp as an alternate capital, but add a rule that Belgium doesn't surrender as long as there is at least one Belgian unit in Belgium (like what's already in place for Serbia). This I think would lead to a more reasonable situation. Any thoughts?

It seems when Antwerp becomes a capital, it gains all the properties of a capital. A bigger problem than the entrenchment issue is the incentive the Entente player has to leave Antwerp empty, and the incentive the CP player has to avoid occpying the empty fortress, until Ypres has fallen. The Germans lose out on a significant amount of income over the course of the game (net 11/turn) if they occupy Antwerp before Ypres. Such gamey play around Antwerp couldn't have been the intended design, but that's what happens when a country is worth more or less depending on which order the cities are conquered.

I'm playing as the Entente and have captured Aqaba and got the Lawrence HQ, but still the Arabs haven't risen against the Ottomans yet, and it's March 1916. What's going on?

Oh come on, yes it is.

That bothers me too. I'd like an option to add more time for pop ups.

Were these actually fixed in patch 1.03 (doesn't appear in patch notes)? If not, will they be fixed in patch 1.04?

I'm a player yet untested in multiplayer for Strategic Command as of this post (but can beat the AI on intermediate) looking to try a PBEM game against an opponent of novice to average skill. I'd like to play Breakthrough - either 1914 Call to Arms or 1912 First Balkan War. Please send me a private message if interested.

Well you could always get Strategic Command - Pacific Theater, though it's a bit dated at this point.

Also, in addition to what I said above, you might want to do something about Greenland. I think it should be automatically occupied by the British through event (like Iceland) upon the surrender (or protectorate) of Denmark, or the port there should be removed. Currently this port is useful for German u-boats, and I don't think it's reasonable to make the Allied player go to the effort of invading Greenland manually (unrealistically time consuming and expensive).

I currently playing a game of SoE as the Allies vs the AI, and I've noticed some odd things. When the AI turned down the decision to resolve border disputes in the Balkans in 1940, it prompted me to look into the AI acceptance percentages in the events decision file, and it was apparently 100%, 25% and 0% all for that one event. There appear to be three percentages (sometimes the same, sometimes different) for all decision events, leading to multiple other instances of odd outcomes in game, and I'm not not even sure which of the three is actually supposed to be applied in each case. This file could use a thorough going over for the next patch.

Another thing to consider, is to have more decisions where a country can sacrifice production for morale gain (there's already a decision like this, but maybe it's too little).