Curry Posted August 27, 2003 Share Posted August 27, 2003 Another thing that frustrates me about SC is the role and power of USA. I've talked about this with Shaka off of the forum and he told me that there was already posts on the forum about this in the past. It was his impression that the game creator has given some of the MPP's of the USA via lendlease to the USSR and UK from the start. However - I was wondering what would you do with the game editor to increase the USA's power and hopefully even the game out a bit more from its pro-axis tilt. In one game a friend and I are playing we are testing out the USA with an IT of 5 to start with. Any other ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curry Posted August 27, 2003 Author Share Posted August 27, 2003 I meant to include this If the USA's role was larger it would be much more costly for the allies to invade Ireland or any of the other minors that increase the USA war readiness. You would want the USA to enter the war as soon as possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaka of Carthage Posted August 27, 2003 Share Posted August 27, 2003 Within the current game, there are really only two things you can do. Change the research levels and/or give them an initial MPP bonus. What I find very interesting, is the paradox between the people who point out that the US MPP production is too low and the bid system. Any bid system should be giving that MPP bonus to the US, not Russia. One of the reasons I don't like the idea of a campaign editor that allows hex manipulation, is that you would get people changing the MPP values. For the same reasons, I don't like the idea of "off map" MPP values. While many people may not appreciate it or even agree, SC does have a MPP balance between the Axis and Allies. As quite a few of us have found out, changing the neutrals from the standard campaign does have a noticable effect on the MPP balance. Thats the kind of change that destroys the existing balance. Having said all of that though, there are some map changes that need to be addressed in SC. The ability to make those changes would be nice. And for the future (ie SC2), variation in the MPP values assigned per cities, mines, ports and oil wells would be nice, as some areas produced more MPPs than others. [ August 27, 2003, 12:29 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pzgndr Posted August 27, 2003 Share Posted August 27, 2003 One concern with giving the USA or USSR a high IT level at the start is Axis gains an immediate research bonus when they enter and can then close the IT gap. On the other hand, giving the Allies that gap at least for a while may be worth reconsidering. The other options are to provide extra MPPs and/or research chits at start. A problem with SC is that it does not reflect the enormous economic growth of the USA and USSR. They both started relatively weak and quickly expanded, and this can't be accurately reproduced in the game. Some ideas for improvements in SC2 have been discussed. We'll have to wait and see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narayan Sengupta Posted August 28, 2003 Share Posted August 28, 2003 "One concern with giving the USA or USSR a high IT level at the start is Axis gains an immediate research bonus when they enter and can then close the IT gap." Bill, How is that? I have also changed many campaigns to have IT = 4 or 5 for the US, and it works well, I think, as long as other factors are balanced. Narayan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pzgndr Posted August 28, 2003 Share Posted August 28, 2003 How does the Enemy Research Relationship work? Normalized Research is 5 -> 4 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1. But if there's a tech level difference, that difference is added to the normal chance. Say you give USA IT Level 5. If Germany is at Level 0 when USA enters, Germany would get a +5% bonus for every chit it invests. At Level 1, the bonus would drop to +4%, etc. So for a chit, Germany would get an adjusted 10 -> 8 -> 6 -> 4 -> 2 sequence. You're essentially giving away a research doubling to your enemy! I prefer see the Allies invest in IT research and let the benefits phase in over time. That's been my "intuitive" argument, but with a max IT of 25% in SC now it really isn't a big benefit. Maybe it's worth exploring the option of just giving USSR L4 and USA L5 at start. Then they would get some MPP benefits for a while, allowing them to ramp up their forces for a couple of years until Germany catches up. Plus, they could then use their research points for other things. The bid system supposedly sees an Axis bias. Maybe this simple mod would balance out the default scenario? Give the Allies a modest boost to make the game a bit more challenging without giving them massive at-start MPP's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Dave Posted August 28, 2003 Share Posted August 28, 2003 As originally posted by Bill Macon: Maybe it's worth exploring the option of just giving USSR L4 and USA L5 at start. Then they would get some MPP benefits for a while, allowing them to ramp up their forces for a couple of years until Germany catches up. Plus, they could then use their research points for other things. Good suggeston. As I progressed, and eventually learned the sly and wily ways of the AI, I gradually increased the IT for both of these countries. You're right. The research for ALL countries proceeds at a slightly quicker clip, provided you have invested chits, which has the effect of placing MORE units on the board. But, I haven't yet tried full-tilt-boogie L5 for BOTH Russia and USA... but will change my own super modified, hot-rod '39 scenario and see what happens... will let you know. **(... if only we could mod ALL countries right from the get-go, now THAT would be... The Chesire Cat's Satin Pajamas! :cool: ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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