Hubert, heartfelt thanks from me and hopefully many others.

[japinard]

Hubert, I can totally appreciate how much effort it takes to put out such a game, and doing it primarily on your own.

Despite the "asking for more" threads, I hope you see how much we all love this game and appreciate any sacrfices you made to be apart of the computer game industry.

Thanks, and I hope you do a Strategic Command 2. If you do, I will do everything I can to help promote it from the very beginning.

[Carl G. E. von Mannerheim]

Same here, hubert,

Last late June i was looking around the wargamer, both for player Westfront scenarios when i saw this silly looking Banner add, kina like this:

the line "change the outome of WW2" cought my eye, so i clicked it. i then was greeted withthe option to d/l the beta demo.

I played it for 3 days and finally decided to join the SC forum which i had beenreading for a while.

So began my first crusade (The Winter War)

CvM

[Der Panzinator]

Same here too.

I played the demo for about a day and bought it.

This is truly a game of simplistic genius.

Thanks Hubert.

[jon_j_rambo]

Rambo says,"Patch 1.06 kicks ass. The tech rules are awesome. There is SO MUCH MORE STRATEGY now! No longer does IT dominate the game. With the decrease in IT (10% to 5% discounts), it increases the value of the other techs to the game. Any edge you can get in the land, sea, or air is important. What's even better? The new "spy" to get higher chance of getting a tech after the opponent.

I do have a question: Those arrows to the Suez Canal are "One-Way"? You can't sail back home?

jon_j_rambo@yahoo.com >>> Best in the Business

[LongTom]

Haven't got the game yet (on order for me and my brother in Ireland so we can PBEM) but I wanted to add my kudos to Hubert for a fabulous game - as I've been able to ascertain from playing the demo about half a dozen times

First of all, thanks for the "final" update (I hope it is final, fingers crossed, you made a *lot* of changes in that update and I hope they all work bug-free, and the game balance is not shifted too far *away* from the Axis...but I'm hopeful at this point that you've done it right.

In terms of some comments on the game itself...

I LOVE it! I always wanted to play this type of game (like 3rd Reich, but the game system was just a bit too cumbersome...your computer game seems more realistic to me than 3R while at the same time all the drudgery is removed and the "forgot to move piece X in phase Y" crap is gone. THANK YOU.

Here's what I think you've done right:

1) I didn't realize it when I started, but I recognize many of the game mechanics are very similar to PG, one of my favorite games of all time. I issue this as a compliment because I think that game "did it right" in terms of simple game mechanics that work, seem "internally consistent", and is FUN.

2) SC is FUN (did I mention that). I bought HOI a couple days ago and while I think it has the potential (once it's *finished* - it's appalling how incomplete/buggy it is at this point but most of the problems should be fixable) to be fun, I don't think it will ever be as FUN to play as SC because:

a) SC's scope/scale is just right in terms of being able to "get your arms around it" and feel like you making a semi-optimal move each turn. HOI is so much more complex and so much is always happening...which so far gives me the feeling that I'm having a much harder time being sure I'm playing well.

For example, if I spend a lot of time micro-managing a group of air units in the north, maybe some combat starts in the south, and by the time I can pause and get down there (unless I'm playing at the slowest settings) it may be too late.

If I set the message pop-ups to pop-up EVERY time one of my units encounters an enemy unit and pause the game for me, I can get around this...but I haven't played enough to say whether I'm ever really going to feel "in control" which, although it may not be perfectly "realistic", is part of the FUN equation for me.

SC's handling of air units is so easy and intuitive and avoids micro-managing completely. I love degree of control HOI is giving you (e.g. who will escort who) but I'm currently FORCED to engage in that level of micro-management if I want my bombing missions escorted. In the end, SC's approach seems more FUN...I can exercise some degree of control depending on where I base my air units as to which bomb runs they'll be *able* to escort, so it's kind of indirect control, but in the end, I generally want my bombers escorted if possible, so SC's default is what I would generally want anyway.

c) HOI seems prone (at least at this point) to very ahistorical behavior (I get silly messages about the Spanish attacking Moscow with air units playing the 1941 scenario which just make no sense...the minors don't seem to understand "sphere of influence" - a concept from "Balance of Power" that I think HOI needs. SC, on the other hand, has much more believable behavior (there is wiggle room for the minors (or the majors) to act ahistorically based on conditions in the game, especially with the latest patch, but not *too* much).

d) HOI is not giving me enough feedback about what's going on in combat...if I find out too late about a combat progress I can't even find out what it was that my boys faced, what losses each side took, etc. Again maybe if I set the messages to pause each time a combat starts...but what if more than one combat is going on at a time...hard to keep track of it all.

By contrast, SC is giving me simple, immediate feedback on the results of a combat.

Anyway, the net is, I can sit down and play a game of SC to a conclusion relatively quickly (e.g. in a matter of hours, which is what married guys with kids can find the time for most easily), and I'm having a ton of FUN the entire time. I really look forward to PBEM with my brother (and others) with SC. Playing HOI with my brother in Ireland is probably almost impossible due to the time difference, length of the game, and crappy INet connection he has.

I've really got to get more HOI time under my belt. But it's telling for me that although I have the full (1.01) version of HOI on my PC for only a week, I've spent most of my free time the last week playing the SC demo which I found while waiting for HOI to arrive.

Jim

P.S. Thinking about PG for a moment, one mechanic I notice was left out of SC was the whole "suppression" and "retreat" mechanic. I was wondering if you ever considered putting that in...did you consciously decide to leave it out based on impact on gameplay or a feeling that it didn't make sense in a strategic game?

[LongTom]

Since my last post was so "down" on HOI I felt I should add...HOI has a huge "coolness" factor going for it, and I'm really hoping it will get patched into the kind of fun game I think it has the potential to be. Compared to SC, it has:

1) Much higher production values (photos of techs and leaders, prettier map and units, etc.)

2) That "monster game" appeal (e.g. I played War in the East a few times and it was very cool, never got to play War in the West, tried CWIE but never got a PBEM past a few turns). The potential to game the entire world, starting well pre-war and including all that diplomacy and war build-up - all at a much more detailed level than SC - hold a lot of appeal.

3) Detail (in research, leaders, convoys, weather, diplomacy, events, ministers, *ability* to micro-manage many things like "tac bombers attack at dawn, then the armor an hour later, then infantry an hour after that to mop up") are cool.

HOI's problem is getting this all to work well. Play balance tuning (cost of things, resources allocated to countries), AI that can handle this complexity, micro-management, trade, bug fixes...a lot of work ahead before this will all really *work* (IMHO) in some kind of semi-predictable and more realistic manner. I really applaud the HOI developers for how well this is working so far...but it's got a long way to go.

Bottom line...if the game can be "whipped into shape" it will be very cool AND fun.

But no matter what HOI becomes, SC will be on my hard drive for a long time to come because HOI will never have the straightforward "ease of play" (even though there is a surprising amount of depth underneath it) that SC does, which means they are two different games that don't overlap as much as one might think in terms of the game experience they aim to provide...and I very much like the PG/SC "beer and pretzels" game just as I like more detail-oriented complex games.

Jim

[pzgndr]

I do have a question: Those arrows to the Suez Canal are "One-Way"? You can't sail back home?

That's correct. There's only one way home, through Rome and Berlin!

Btw, those arrows are pretty much for human play. The AI is still weak on Med strategies, including Allied transports using arrows or not. This is an issue that needs attention in SC2.

[Hubert Cater]

Hubert, I can totally appreciate how much effort it takes to put out such a game, and doing it primarily on your own.

Just wanted to say thanks Japinard and to everyone else who has commented here and for anyone who has enjoyed the game

I'm probably going to take a little break for myself now but looking forward to beginning work on SC2 shortly after that!

Hubert

[JerseyJohn]

Hubert --

Great Job! Patch 1.06 is much more than I thought it would be.

I especially like the idea that the 'Round Cape of Good Hope' route to Egypt starts off the African coast instead of England; doing it this way the Allied player has to distribute some of his ships away from the North Sea to cover his transportings.

Looking forward to V 2.00, it ought to be awsome.

[ December 07, 2002, 11:38 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Desert Dave]

As originally posted by Hubert Cater:

I'm probably going to take a little break for myself now but looking forward to beginning work on SC2 shortly after that!

Take all the time you want!

In what -- the Fairy Land, abound & grand!

Only, while you are whiling awhile there,

In that leaping, laughing! elfin air,

Don't forget -- the purpose of your stay...

It's a dream come true! -- Yay Hooray!

The great beginnings... of -- SC2! :cool:

As far as I know this is the very un-official announcement we have all been waiting for.

It's pretty clear to me, at least, that we will indeed see an SC2, and I couldn't be more thrilled, both for Hubert and for all the greatly satisfied SC-1 game players.

Sure enough, the making of an original game has quite likely been -- "a long strange trip," as some old hippie garage-band would arise to say, but surely worth it, every single step, false or static or true, eh?

[ December 08, 2002, 01:15 AM: Message edited by: Immer Etwas ]