SC2 and Economics

[arby]

The economic model in SC has gotten a lot of criticism, and to me some of it is unfair. The economic model is very simplistic, but anybody who thinks that's a fault in itself should spend a few months playing HOI, as I did. There, you have a very elegant economic model, which factors in consumer goods, world trade, the effect of various resources, convoys, the whole nine yards. The only problem is that it doesn't work. I am not in favor of making the economic model more complex in SC2. I've seen suggestions about not being able to build tanks or planes unless you have so many mines or oil fields, and I'm sorry, but I don't buy into that. Making something more complex doesn't translate into making it better.

The real problem with the economic model is that it does not accurately simulate what really happened during WWII: Germany gradually being overwhelmed by the combined might of three superpowers (one decining, one stagnant, and one ascending). By 1944, the US alone was churning out more tanks and planes in a month than the Germans could build in six. By contrast, the game doesn't do that. Germany never falls behind the Allies in terms of production. In fact, even discounting Italy, it's not unusual to have Germany alone getting more MPP's in 1944 than the three Allied nations combined.

There have been many suggestions on how to correct that, but I've got two relatively simple ones that may go a long way toward doing that. In order to implement them, though, we've got to overcome something which we've all sort of presumed all along: that all nations have to be treated equally. As it stands now, it costs the same for Germany to field an army as it does for Russia. An Italian battle fleet has the same combat abilities as a British one. (Hard to see that in print without laughing, isn't it?) An increase in Industrial Tech benefits the Germans and the Americans the exact same way.

Well, it doesn't have to be that way. Here's my suggestions:

1. MPP's reflect not only industrial productivity, but manpower. It shouldn't cost the Russians anywhere near what it cost the Germans to field an infantry army; probably about half to two-thirds would be right. Armies might actually cost the UK and US a tad more, maybe 10 to 15 MPP's, reflecting the aversion to losses that a democracy usually has: if units cost more, you're more likely to be careful in how you use them. But, to reflect the much greater capacity for motorization, UK and US armies and corp units should have a movement of 4, not 3, and tanks should have a movement of 6. US and UK tank units should cost the same as Germans; Soviet tank units should cost slightly less. (US, UK, and Italian tank units should have 1 less attack and defense rating, across the board, than Russian and German ones.) Air units should cost the same for all powers. Italian and Russian surface fleets should have lower naval attack and defense ratings than German, US, and UK ones.

2. Here's the biggie: Industrial tech. Each increase for Germany and Italy increases their production by 5%. Each increase for the UK and USSR increase their production by 10%, and each increase for the US increases its production by 20%. In short, by 1944 Germany is producing 25% more than what it did at start, the UK and SU are producing 50% more, and American production has increased by 100%. In other words, if the Germans are going to win, they have to win quickly.

Which is exactly the way it should be.

[pzgndr]

These two points are so closely related that I wouldn't recommend a separate difference for unit cost - let IT cover it all. I agree with national differences for IT growth rates as proposed, but I would add a game option for Germany to have 10% increases. The end result would be an economic model that allows the Allies to grow their economies faster than the Axis and eventually overwhelm them.

Appropriate at-start tech levels for IT and other tech areas, as well as unit strengths and experience, can adequately portray national differences such as cheaper Russian armies and inferior Italian fleets. This can already be done with the campaign editor, and is essentially what I did for the 1939 and 1940 Campaign mods. If I could have edited the national IT growth rates, believe me I would have.

IT is the biggie. Adjusting resource values, normalizing production, doing something about plunder, and providing some means for MPP transfers between allies (Murmansk Convoys, Lend Lease, etc.) should be worked into SC2, but this economic growth issue is the main one that needs attention.

[arby]

Originally posted by Bill Macon:

These two points are so closely related that I wouldn't recommend a separate difference for unit cost - let IT cover it all.

But it won't. The Russians weren't that much better at producing aircraft or tanks, but they were far more able to put men in the field than the Germans were, because they had a much larger population base. The game doesn't reflect that, in fact it really does the reverse. By the time Germany starts Barbarossa, it's often at IT 3. Which means that it's actually cheaper for the Germans to build infantry than it is for the Russians. And it will continue to have that edge throughout the war. That's not accurate. The best and really only way of changing that is to make Russian infantry much cheaper.

I agree with national differences for IT growth rates as proposed, but I would add a game option for Germany to have 10% increases. The end result would be an economic model that allows the Allies to grow their economies faster than the Axis and eventually overwhelm them.

Actually, I probably understated the economic disparity. I ran across some stats on GNP and percentage applied to military spending for all of the major powers during the war. Here are the figures, in billions of dollars, with the assumption that half of US spending was devoted to the Pacific Theatre (a more accurate figure would probably be 1/3 to 40%.):

1941 1942 1943 1944

US 70 238 373 411

UK 136 138 149 138

USSR 181 138 134 150

Germany 162 194 213 219

Italy 34 35 40 NA

Kinda interesting, huh? Understand, that doesn't include the effect of manpower, which is also supposed to be reflected by BPP's. But still... US spending almost doubled from 1942 to 1944, while that of the other combatants remained relatively static. And it certainly puts the kibosh on the notion of Italy as a "major" power.

Appropriate at-start tech levels for IT and other tech areas, as well as unit strengths and experience, can adequately portray national differences such as cheaper Russian armies and inferior Italian fleets. This can already be done with the campaign editor, and is essentially what I did for the 1939 and 1940 Campaign mods. If I could have edited the national IT growth rates, believe me I would have.

Yeah, I've played your mod, and you did a really good job with it. And you're right, giving the British fleets the extra experience accomplishes pretty much the same thing I suggested. But you can't mod speed rates, and you can't mod basic tank strengths, and you can't mod buy costs for the various units. And I think those things can and should be changed.

IT is the biggie. Adjusting resource values, normalizing production, doing something about plunder, and providing some means for MPP transfers between allies (Murmansk Convoys, Lend Lease, etc.) should be worked into SC2, but this economic growth issue is the main one that needs attention.

Good point about Lend/Lease. Maybe it would be better to have everyone's IT increase by 10% per level, the US increase by 25%, but that they can "give" a certain percentage of theirs to the other allies.

[Minotaur]

Originally posted by arby:

1. MPP's reflect not only industrial productivity, but manpower. It shouldn't cost the Russians anywhere near what it cost the Germans to field an infantry army; probably about half to two-thirds would be right. Armies might actually cost the UK and US a tad more, maybe 10 to 15 MPP's, reflecting the aversion to losses that a democracy usually has: if units cost more, you're more likely to be careful in how you use them. But, to reflect the much greater capacity for motorization, UK and US armies and corp units should have a movement of 4, not 3, and tanks should have a movement of 6. US and UK tank units should cost the same as Germans; Soviet tank units should cost slightly less. (US, UK, and Italian tank units should have 1 less attack and defense rating, across the board, than Russian and German ones.) Air units should cost the same for all powers. Italian and Russian surface fleets should have lower naval attack and defense ratings than German, US, and UK ones.

That's a major change to SC... I've seen it in Third Reich (PC) and Boardgames and I can live with that, but I guess a lot of people will not...

Beside it needs a major programming change...

Perhaps in SC2?...

Originally posted by arby:

2. Here's the biggie: Industrial tech. Each increase for Germany and Italy increases their production by 5%. Each increase for the UK and USSR increase their production by 10%, and each increase for the US increases its production by 20%. In short, by 1944 Germany is producing 25% more than what it did at start, the UK and SU are producing 50% more, and American production has increased by 100%. In other words, if the Germans are going to win, they have to win quickly.

That can be (and should be) done to SC in the next patch...

But Axis needing to invaded USA to win should be removed as well, and all will be fine... Because with this Industrial Technology change, it may be difficult for Axis to win at all... Especially if you choose the French-Russia-UK-USA path (and most ppl do exactly that)...

[SeaWolf_48]

Good job Arby, I agree that if Germany does not win by winter 1943 she's thru!

This is one subject that is not subjective. Here we have concrete numbers of GNP's and percentages (although it seems everyones numbers are different) of what was spent on defense. There is alot of material on the internet abouts this and I'm going to research it. For now the only number that is the same in about 10 different research papers I've read is in 1944 the US GNP was 210 Billion Dollars, of which 42% was spent on defense. That's 88.2 Bil on Defense.

I'll be back!

[Piumarcobaleno]

Arby

Well, italy WAS a Major Power in Second World War. You sure wouldn't treat her as Belgium or Norway!

It's interesting to see the figures of billion of dollars, but it's not like every nation was buying troops at a common shop.

Even nowadays a US dollar has a differen buying power in each of these countries, so you can bet that these 30 or 40 billion dollars in Italy were for sure giving more items than the same amount expended in the USA!

Second, Italy's army wasn't one of the best armed and equipped, but more infantry based, so count that giving a rifle to a foot soldier hasn't the same cost of building, equipping and keep going a carrier task force, or an intercontinental invasion army.

I'm not saying that Italy was one of the most POWERFUL powers in the world, sure she fared awfully, but you can't say this only by looking at her war expences.

Let alone this, very good ideas about national IT and units. Problem is, with units, that SC is a "what if" game, more gamey than historical under this aspect, so maybe this is why units are set equal for every nation.

On the other hand, maybe in SC2, each player could chose some "optional traits" for his nation, say like "land power, +1 to army soft and hard attack, -1 to battleships sea attack and defence" and so on (my RPG background comes back!!).

[JerseyJohn]

Arby

Great Forum, great contributions from everyone who's posted. As you probably know this Forum is actually the latest of several on this subject. You aren't so much repeating things as giving a fresh slant on the now familiar issues so I'm glad you're starting your own thread instead of continuing the others. I'll try to locant and link them here after I finish this posting.

As an experiment I've made a 1939 scenario where various minor countries are assigned to one side or the other. Here are the how and whys followed by the wherefors with a summary.

Before going any further, let me add a disclaimer, this is not offered as a scenario, as such, it's offered as a summation in game terms of the economic influences we've been discussing as expressed in MPPs. A side topic is aquiring Norway by it's April 1940 historical timeline (parts of it lingered till mid-June, but in game terms the country itself was conquered quickly) without upsetting Germany's schedule in France. Also, as is seen by a link in the Denmark-Norway Forum, Sweden was already very extensively tied in to Germany, allowing troops and supplies (under extreme German pressure) to bypass British positions using Swedish railroads within Sweden itself enroute to a stranded force outside Narvik.

UK receives Iraq, Ireland and Portugal .

Iraq was a British satelite both before, during and after the war. There was considerable anti-British/pro-Axis sentiment in the company, a failed coup was attempted, but in economic terms it was a de facto British colony.

Ireland similar to Iraq. The southern half had recently received it's independance and, though their was widespread anti-British sentiment, to put it mildly, it's economy was solidly bound to Britain's. At any rate, there was little opportunity for them to trade with the Axis, even if they'd wanted to.

Portugal Served as the conduit for trade between Axis occupied Europe and the UK and the neutral overseas world. This arrangement was beneficial to both sides. Germany received imports it wouldn't normally have had access to and Britain kept otherwise closed contacts alive.

The good thing about putting these three nations in the Allied camp is they have no direct military effect on the play and provide the UK with much needed MPPs. In truth, the British economy in SC is far too small and this compensates nicely.

Axis recieves Sweden

Engulfed by Germany, especially after the fall of Norway, the Swiss economy was tied in and dependant upon Germany's. She had nowhere else to export to! By leaving the Swedish military in tact and bringing in a German HQ, the German invasion of Norway proceeds on schedule (perhaps a bit ahead, but not by very much as to do it properly, the invasion requires some preparation) and the two Swedish armies serve as Oslo and Bergen garrisons with the airfleet defending against otherwise gratis bomber raids.

Like Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and Spain served as import/export lings for the Reich and the rest of the world.

This scenario was only created as an experiment but I'm very satisfied with it. Britain builds units needed to defend against Sea Lion and is also able to purchase badly needed Research. Germany is discouraged from conducting an early Sea Lion and able to used the enhanced Scandinavian MPPs for both research and naval expansion/additional units for Barbarossa.

link to Minor Neutrals as Economic Contributors Forum

link to the Denmark-Norway Invasion Forum

I'll have to find the other Forums, originated by Shaka and Kurt88 and link them a little later. The two I've linked, however, are the most relevant in explaing the topics adressed by the scenario discussed in this posting.

[ March 09, 2003, 02:24 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Shaka of Carthage]

It is a true statement that complexity does not increase realism. However, there is no way a single economic unit system can give us the subtle differences that were out there. Trying to merge them to represent manpower and industrial might is difficult enough.

I did an economic comparison between Third Reich, Clash of Steel, High Command and SC. While there are a few conculsions that I made, what is relevant to this discussion is that I feel any economic model in a future SC should have two (2) to three (3) economic units.

You need to represent industrial might. Thats a given.

You need to represent manpower. Especially in a "what if" situation, unit maximums are not good enough.

You need to represent oil. This dictated many of the decisions and actions performed by the Axis (ie Germany, Italy and Japan).

Those three at a mimimum. There are a few others that would be nice, but are of lesser importance than the above.

[xwormwood]

Ever played STORM ACROSS EUROPE? Looks like this game had your economic system...

[Shaka of Carthage]

Storm across Europe? Not familiar with it. I'll go Dead Dogs and see if they have a manual on it.

Thanks for the info.

[arby]

Originally posted by Minotaur:

That can be (and should be) done to SC in the next patch...

But Axis needing to invaded USA to win should be removed as well, and all will be fine... Because with this Industrial Technology change, it may be difficult for Axis to win at all... Especially if you choose the French-Russia-UK-USA path (and most ppl do exactly that)...

The things I'm suggesting are for SC2. And you're right about the victory conditions, that needs to be changed as well. First, I don't care what happened in Europe, there is not the remotest possibility, at least within the timeframe of this game, that Germany could have mounted an invasion of the United States. It's doubtful that they could have mounted an invasion of the UK after America's entry into the war.

If we're going to give the Germans a harder time in Russia, we should make the goal easier to achieve. Victory in the USSR should be defined as simultaneous control of the big three: Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad. Maybe throw in Grozny, I'm not sure. However, even if Russia were defeated, partisans would still exist, which would force the Germans to garrison Russia.

Beyond that, I'd probably do levels of victory with something like

Total Axis Victory: conquest of 3 majors (inc France)

Major Axis Victory: conquest of 2 majors (inc France)

Substantive Axis Victory: control of all German cities and three minor capitals (inc Poland) by war's end.

Marginal Axis Victory: complete control of all German cities by war's end.

Total Allied Victory: conquest of Germany and Italy by May of 1944.

Major Allied victory: conquest of Germany and Italy by end of 1944.

Substantive Allied Victory: conquest of Germany and Italy by May 1945 (historic outcome)

Marginal Allied Victory: conquest of Germany and Italy by war's end.

I'd also move "war's end" back to May of 1946.

[arby]

Originally posted by SeaWolf_48:

Good job Arby, I agree that if Germany does not win by winter 1943 she's thru!

This is one subject that is not subjective. Here we have concrete numbers of GNP's and percentages (although it seems everyones numbers are different) of what was spent on defense. There is alot of material on the internet abouts this and I'm going to research it. For now the only number that is the same in about 10 different research papers I've read is in 1944 the US GNP was 210 Billion Dollars, of which 42% was spent on defense. That's 88.2 Bil on Defense.

I'll be back!

I should have mentioned that the figures I gave are in constant (1985) dollars.

Although the figures might differ somewhat from source to source, I think the effect is probably the same. Britain maxed out its production early. Germany increased its production slightly by shifting more toward military spending. Russia was devastated by the loss of the western portion of its country. And the US just kept chugging along, getting bigger and bigger... Perhaps the most revealing stat is that by 1945, the US was generating more than half the world's GNP.

[John DiFool]

Originally posted by Shaka of Carthage:

You need to represent industrial might. Thats a given.

You need to represent manpower. Especially in a "what if" situation, unit maximums are not good enough.

You need to represent oil. This dictated many of the decisions and actions performed by the Axis (ie Germany, Italy and Japan).

Those three at a mimimum. There are a few others that would be nice, but are of lesser importance than the above.

I agree-I don't think using just these three would

bog the game down much if at all. I really don't

think you can just toss off any concerns about

the effects of oil supply on your war effort-it

was in fact massively important and I don't think

you can have an adequate sim of WW2 without

modeling oil in some significant way.

Sure you want to avoid the micromanagement heck

of HoI, but you also want to avoid these sorts of

gamey strategies we keep seeing. I am uncomfort-

able with attempts to "band-aid" things by

abstract means, when a more direct approach would

likely be more sensical and more elegant. Some

of these schemes I keep reading here (to limit

hordes of air/amphib/tanks/whatever) seem rather

Byzantine to me. :confused:

You need oil to run a mechanized war? Fine-impose

stringent oil costs on any mechanized unit. Thus

the hordes of air units will disappear, to be

replaced by a more historically-possible unit

mix (read: infantry units). No muss and no fuss.

John DiFool

[arby]

Originally posted by Shaka of Carthage:

It is a true statement that complexity does not increase realism. However, there is no way a single economic unit system can give us the subtle differences that were out there. Trying to merge them to represent manpower and industrial might is difficult enough.

I did an economic comparison between Third Reich, Clash of Steel, High Command and SC. While there are a few conculsions that I made, what is relevant to this discussion is that I feel any economic model in a future SC should have two (2) to three (3) economic units.

You need to represent industrial might. Thats a given.

You need to represent manpower. Especially in a "what if" situation, unit maximums are not good enough.

You need to represent oil. This dictated many of the decisions and actions performed by the Axis (ie Germany, Italy and Japan).

Those three at a mimimum. There are a few others that would be nice, but are of lesser importance than the above.

Before we start proposing solutions, I think we need to define the problem. The problem, to me, is not that oil or manpower is not represented. They are. Oil is the most important resource. If I'm playing the Axis, I'm really happy when Rumania comes on board and starts pumping that 60 MPP's a turn into my economy, and later on I make it a point to go for the Caucasus. If I'm playing the Allies, I'm going to do my damndest to get those Iraqi oil wells for the Brits. Manpower is factored in, too. The Soviet Union has more MPP's than the US not because it has a bigger industrial base (it doesn't come close), but because it has a larger manpower pool and it is much more willing to utilize (or, arguably, waste) that pool.

Basically, the reasons for the suggestions for oil and manpower are that there are too many units. But when people complain that there are too many units, what they really mean is that there are too many German units. Think about it. Does anybody ever complain that the Americans or the British or even the Soviets build too many untis? Of course not. And not only that there are too many German units, but that there are too many types of certain units, especially air.

Well, the reason that there are too many German units overall is that the German player can build units instead of replacing losses, because the combat model doesn't accurately reflect the costs of attack. My guess is that the German player during Barbarossa will probably lose between 5% and 10% of his overall strength, and maybe 20% of his armor, instead of the 30% and 95% which the Germans historically lost. If you require the Germans to replace the losses they historically suffered, they're not going to be able to crank out tank units and air fleets every turn.

And the reason they build too many air fleets is because it works. In fact, it's about the only way to break through the opponent's lines. If you include oil as a factor so as to make it more difficult to buy air fleets and don't do anything else, then rename the game The Great War, because that's what you'll have.

The problem with the economic model of SC is not that it leads to an ahistorical production of units. The combat system is what leads to an ahistorical production of units. The problem with the economic model is that it does not portray the relative strengths of the economies of the major powers as the war progressed.

[pzgndr]

But it won't. The Russians weren't that much better at producing aircraft or tanks, but they were far more able to put men in the field than the Germans were, because they had a much larger population base. The game doesn't reflect that, in fact it really does the reverse. By the time Germany starts Barbarossa, it's often at IT 3.

Arby, this is true with the current game and IT. Your proposal to change BOTH unit costs and national IT rates is redundant. If we assume Germany gets 5% and is at L3 by Barbarossa, while Russia gets 10% and starts at L2, then German units would be 15% below normal cost and Russian units 20% below normal cost; ie, cheaper.

What the Russians had in real life that isn't portrayed well in SC are reserves that get mobilized. Here the game could provide numerous low-strength cadre units that could be reinforced up to full strength "cheaper" than building new units. New units from scratch needed more than manpower; they needed heavy weapons, leadership and training to be effective. And as time wore on, even the Russian manpower pool became depleted, so should unit costs then increase at some later point? Details like this are difficult to resolve.

Shaka and I will no doubt continue to debate the multiple resources idea. Can it work? Of course it can; other games prove it. WiF has separate oil resources and HOI has everything. Do we NEED it for SC2? That's a game design decision that's not up to me; I'll only offer my recommendation against it. SC's charm is its simplicity and I see no compelling reason to change that. The abstract BRP worked fine for 3R, and the MPP works fine for SC. Some force pool limits could be introduced for historical accuracy and significant events could be used to affect production.

The bottom line comes down to asking "What can I buy?" and "How much can I afford?" This can be kept simple so players are free to make decisions (even bad ones, or slightly ahistorical ones). Fun and replayability are also important goals to keep in mind.

[arby]

Originally posted by Piumarcobaleno:

Well, italy WAS a Major Power in Second World War. You sure wouldn't treat her as Belgium or Norway!

You're right, I overstated the case. Italy should be regarded as a major power, but I think its power is overstated in the game. The Italians start out with 115 MPP's, and as soon as Yugoslavia falls, opening up the land link to Albania, it goes up to 125. That's 10 less than Britain has. It can wind up with more than the UK by taking out Greece. In fact, with a little help from Germany, I've seen games where the Italians are outproducing America. That's completely whack.

I'd start out the Italians with about 80 MPP's; knock out the two cities in Northern Italy, the port in Sicily, and the other city in North Africa.

[John DiFool]

Originally posted by Bill Macon:

Shaka and I will no doubt continue to debate the multiple resources idea. Can it work? Of course it can; other games prove it. WiF has separate oil resources and HOI has everything. Do we NEED it for SC2? That's a game design decision that's not up to me; I'll only offer my recommendation against it. SC's charm is its simplicity and I see no compelling reason to change that. The abstract BRP worked fine for 3R, and the MPP works fine for SC. Some force pool limits could be introduced for historical accuracy and significant events could be used to affect production.

The bottom line comes down to asking "What can I buy?" and "How much can I afford?" This can be kept simple so players are free to make decisions (even bad ones, or slightly ahistorical ones). Fun and replayability are also important goals to keep in mind.

I dislike force pool limits because they are

arbitrary: 3R/WiF et al. pretty much had to use

them because they can't put an infinite number of

counters in their boxes. Well that, and

the fact that without a computer to crunch the

numbers, trying to adequately model de facto

limits (as imposed by the game system, and not by

the counter pool) would likely have proved

horrendous.

I reiterate: my problem with force pool limits is

that it is a guessing game as to (ex.) how many

air units to give to Germany. Is 4 adequate?

5? Trying to tweak this as a game designer would

be an almost Sisyphean undertaking. There wasn't

any Grand Deity Named Hubert who told Hitler that,

"No, Adolf, you cannot under any circumstances

have a fifth Luftflotte, and that's final!" I am

sure that he would have loved to have had a much

larger air force than he did-so model the reasons

why he couldn't, without some silly force pool

restriction.

I say, no size restrictions and SCREW the limit

(with apologies to Gary Larson ). If Germany

wants to build a couple of extra air units, which

it ultimately cannot support (because of lack of

oil and/or manpower=trained pilots), then let

him. There is much more strategic "meat" in that

decision than just a firm, unyielding limit; maybe

the Jerries CAN get away with it. I am confident

that Hubert (we aren't worthy! :eek: ) can

devise something which is workable, playable, but

also puts the decision in the players' hands, and

not in his.

Another problem with force pools: it assumes that

the circumstances which prevent (in my ex.) the

Germans from building a huge Luftwaffe will always

and forever exist, despite any actual changes in

circumstances. Aside from the fact that they

have probably won the game, if the Germans capture,

hold, and get up and running the Caucasus oil

fields, and maybe have some Ukrainian nationals

who are willing to become pilots, then that force

pool limit is now bogus, and doesn't now reflect

the ACTUAL constraints on air unit creation.

Okay (rereading Bill's post)-I guess that would

qualify as a "special event"-but can Hubert

possibly foretell every single possible contingency?

It would drive him nuts, frankly. :eek: And as I have

argued, he doesn't need to.

John DiFool

[pzgndr]

John, I made exactly the same arguments against force pool limits several months back. "Hell no," I said to sogard and his force pool limits, "let the economy limit what the player does." I have softened my resistance by supporting user-defined limits in the editor and proposing a game option to build additional units at increased cost. If Germany is successful and can afford the increased cost of an extra air fleet or whatever, then by all means this should be possible. If that could be made to work, then I'm all for it.

[arby]

Originally posted by Bill Macon:

John, I made exactly the same arguments against force pool limits several months back. "Hell no," I said to sogard and his force pool limits, "let the economy limit what the player does."

Why not let the game system limit what the player does? The reason the German player builds all those air units is not only because they can, but because they have to. It's the only strategy that works. If you limit the German player to four or five airfleets, I guarantee you he will never get past Smolensk against a reasonably competent Allied player.

If the game system were changed to reflect how WWII combat actually worked -- reducing the role of air fleets and increasing the role of armor -- you wouldn't see the German building twenty air fleets. Conversely, if WWII combat had actually worked the way it does in this game, the German factories building Panthers would have been building FW-190's.

[Shaka of Carthage]

Arby, Bill Macon, John Di Fool

For all the reasons the group of you have pointed out.

SC ... as it is today, give us an Editor that allows unit maximums.

SC future ... give us an economic model that drives the number and type of units we can have.

[JerseyJohn]

Shaka

Well put; as I said earlier, I'd pretty much be satisfied with the expanded editor for SC and the rest can be sorted out for SC 2.

Also as Minotaur advised Hubert in my feedback forum, it would be the best solution for Hubert himself.

[ March 07, 2003, 03:16 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[KDG]

I'd prefer not to have force pool limits, instead using an increasing cost per use of unit factor. If this isn't possible for SC, then make it for SC2.

I'd never use an editor, but I'd use some of the games made by you gents.

[JerseyJohn]

KDG

Good point. Hopefully Bill would incorporate these new options into his excellent 1939 and 1940 MODs and they would become the accepted game models. As they already are with many of us.

[Piumarcobaleno]

Maybe, apart from mpps, oilfields and cities could have a "fuel" value, like 2 for ports (trade), cities and mines (coal refining) and 6 for oil fields. Let's say that corps require 0 fuel, army 0.5, tank groups 1, sea units 0.5 and airfleets, along with strat bombers 2.

These wouldn't be "expendable" points, nor cumulable, just a limit on fuel supply. Say Germany has 5 or 6 cities at the beginning, 2 ports and a mine, collecting 16 points of fuel supply. So Germany could field say 6 armies, 2 tank groups and 3 air fleets, with five point of surplus that get wasted, but could supply a few more units. Every unit that can't be supplied within this max expense would have a supply level of 2, and a readiness of 10\20% (maximum).

How about this?

[pzgndr]

Hopefully Bill would incorporate these new options into his excellent 1939 and 1940 MODs and they would become the accepted game models. As they already are with many of us.

Aw shucks guys, you do care!

If (big if) Hubert makes any changes, I'll certainly provide an update.