Weekly turns the whole year

[Siegebreaker]

Is it possible to have weekly turns the whole year instead of having the on month turns in winter?

[USGrant]

I'd vote against that, it would ruin the game. Instead of playing the whole war in 3 to 5 hours, it would take 20. You would also have to halve or quarter the movement allowances so that infantry moved one and armor 2 hexes per turn.

[Siegebreaker]

There is a problem, I've noticed that in Summer every turn is also 2 weeks instead of one.

When I click done the date advance a week, the AI plays, and when its my turn again another week have passed!! :confused:

Did anybody else notice this?

Sorry if this have been discussed before.....

[J Wagner]

Originally posted by USGrant:

I'd vote against that, it would ruin the game. Instead of playing the whole war in 3 to 5 hours, it would take 20. You would also have to halve or quarter the movement allowances so that infantry moved one and armor 2 hexes per turn.

I've stated this in other threads so forgive me for being repetitive but why are there a certain group of players who are so concerned about how long the game plays? I don't think saying that SC takes only 5, 6, or 7 hours to complete is that much of a selling point for most players. Afterall, how many times do you hear people complain that such and such a game is too short and wargamers and rpg'ers are used to games that take a while to play. The purpose of the save feature allows you the luxury of playing as much or as little you wish during each session so the idea of knocking off a complete game in one sitting means nothing to me. So, in conclusion, I wholly endorse the notion of weekly turns and incorporating variable regional weather conditions which would effect movement and combat. I don't think these two features would increase complexity a whit, and as far as making a single game play longer, so much the better.

[Guest Mike]

5 hours??

Sheesh - the first game I've ever bothered to finish ended after 50 minutes last night - Germany won (Int, +1) in March 41 when I took Manchester and the USA and USSR were not in the war yet.

And at the end of the turn Yugoslavia joined teh allies!! lol

anyway - the longer winter bounds aren't a bad idea, but they do distort soem things - like production and research - why is production so much slower in Winter?? Are the scientists all huddled in bad for half of each day or something??

and ships and troops are able to stay out of supply for longer apaprently?? (ie a winter "month turn" affects supply exactly the same way as a "Summer week" turn does!!)

It makes sense for movement of units, but not for anything else.

[USGrant]

Originally posted by J Wagner:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by USGrant:

I'd vote against that, it would ruin the game. Instead of playing the whole war in 3 to 5 hours, it would take 20. You would also have to halve or quarter the movement allowances so that infantry moved one and armor 2 hexes per turn.

I've stated this in other threads so forgive me for being repetitive but why are there a certain group of players who are so concerned about how long the game plays? I don't think saying that SC takes only 5, 6, or 7 hours to complete is that much of a selling point for most players. Afterall, how many times do you hear people complain that such and such a game is too short and wargamers and rpg'ers are used to games that take a while to play. The purpose of the save feature allows you the luxury of playing as much or as little you wish during each session so the idea of knocking off a complete game in one sitting means nothing to me. So, in conclusion, I wholly endorse the notion of weekly turns and incorporating variable regional weather conditions which would effect movement and combat. I don't think these two features would increase complexity a whit, and as far as making a single game play longer, so much the better. </font>

[Brian Rock]

Originally posted by USGrant:

I've stated this in other threads so forgive me for being repetitive but why are there a certain group of players who are so concerned about how long the game plays? I don't think saying that SC takes only 5, 6, or 7 hours to complete is that much of a selling point for most players. Afterall, how many times do you hear people complain that such and such a game is too short and wargamers and rpg'ers are used to games that take a while to play.

It's a big selling point for me.

Most wargames bore me because there are too many units and too many turns. There are lots of players who love pushing counters, I'm just not one of them. I found some of the large scenarios in Steel Panthers or TOAW were tedious, while friends of mine just loved them.

There's also a big difference between how long a single game takes to play and how much play a game has. If the game has large replay value a single game might only take 20 minutes, but the game could have hundreds of hours of gameplay (eg Starfleet Command). Then there are games that might have a scenario that has 80 hours of play, but you only play it for 3 hours before you're over it (dozens of RPGs would fit here for me).

[ August 28, 2002, 08:49 PM: Message edited by: Brian Rock ]

[jmbunnelle]

I agree, it works at its current length and changing to weekly turns would open up a big can for all of the reasons stated above. I don't think this type of game, as abstracted as it is, lends itself well to that kind of length. There are some excellent grand-campaign scenarios for Operational Art of War COW edition, which should be about 2.99 by now. There's at least four different ones on my computer at home: Third Reich, Europe In Flames, War In Europe, Europe 1939, etc., all of them somewhat whacked out if playing against the computer. Still fun, though, in my opinion. Many multiplayer stalwarts would disagree with me. Most are like 250 turns long or something insane like that, with thousands of counters and great detail.

[pzgndr]

Be very careful what you wish for. Russo-German War has 1-week turns, 10-mile hexes, and division size units. It takes about an hour to grind through the various phases for a single turn in the larger scenarios - and that's just the eastern front. The campaign scenario is intimidating enough. A WWII campaign at this scale would become life-consuming. :eek:

SC with 13-14 player turns per year is fine for this scale. The abstractions can be a little irritating at times, but they gloss over minor details which would become increasingly important at a smaller scale. Think we're haggling too much about things now? Recommend we focus more on grand strategy issues, improvements to the politics and AI, and some subtle changes to the game mechanics. Going to shorter turns, smaller hexes, and/or smaller units would completely upset the current economic and action point models which have been playtested so far and result in very different game. Maybe someday, but let's work with SC as is for now.

[Danish Monger]

Hi there,

jmbunnelle.....or anyone....

Where can I find those games you mentioned? Third Reich, War in Europe, Europe in Flames as computer games????? Anybody know this????

[Panzer39]

Maybe a compromise can be worked out. Instead of having weekly turns all year round, the game could simply follow the two week formula that it uses in the Summer for the entire year. This would add about 18 turns to a year (please correct me if my math is off). There would be no need to reduce unit movement across the board. Instead units on the Russian front would receive a supply and movement penalty in winter months which in my opinion would be more realistic anyway. Of course this could all be done in the back ground so as to not turn off the casual player. This would also clear up the silly slow in production and research in the winter months. The only problem I can foresee with this idea is that the AI might be to weak to fight a war that lasted 26 turns per year. Maybe that is why Hubert set up the turns like they are to begin with?

[Guest Mike]

Yep - 26 turns /year is hardly oppressive.

From teh graphics point of view I'd like to see the weather represented as different hex textures so you could watch the mud, rain or snow affect ground conditions and advance down in winter, retreat back in summer

Ie there wouldn't be any different effects for "season", but there would for ground conditions - probably good, mud, snow/frozen would be enough.

Each hex would have it's conditions indicated by a different graphic, and combat, supply and movment would all vary by the conditions in the hex.

EG Winter would see more snow hexes in Russia (at least!!), and hence different combat conditions.

Now this would be a good use of computing power IMO!!

[pzgndr]

There are in fact 27 turns per year, but one player gets 13 and the other 14. So one side gets an extra winter turn on alternate years.

Perhaps my suggestion of halved production in summer and doubled in winter could still be considered here. The MPPs would be the same over a 2-year period, but each side gets an extra payment on alternate years. This could work well if its the Allies getting the extra during the winter of 42 (Dec-Jan-Feb) following Barbarossa. The dates could be adjusted if necessary to make it happen. Then Allies would get the MPP boost during 40, 42, and 44; Axis would get it during 41, 43 and 45. Given this, we could then see the historical transitions - Allied buildup in 40, Barbarossa buildup in 41, Russian winter counter-offensive in 42, Zitadel buildup in 43, Overlord buildup in 44, and finally Wacht am Rhine in 45.

I posted the above several weeks ago and the idea keeps growing on me. Hubert said he isn't interested in wholesale changes now, but something like this could be considered for a future version. (Maybe a patch if enough players think it's OK??) I think it's subtle enough to give us normalized production on a monthly basis plus some seasonal differences without significantly changing how the current game plays. If you try to change too much, you have to rethink everything - production points, action points, research percentages each turn, etc. That's a major effort.

[iolo]

Danish Monger, you can get all the old games at

http://www.the-underdogs.org

They have manuals, everything. If you're having a problem getting these old Dos dinosaurs running try a google search for a specific game.. really helped me with Clash of Steel.

[J Wagner]

Are you able to get these dos based games running on XP? I've heard there are emulators which allow you to do so but I'm not sure about it.

[iolo]

I know there's a post somewhere in this forum about someone being able to get CoS going in WinXP (with the w95 compatibility more option).

Myself, I had to download a Dos boot disk and do it the ole' fashioned wat...

[Randell Daigre]

O.K., I'm an idiot. I downloaded the DOS boot disk, but I have never been able to get it to work. If I try to start up (or restart) my computer with anything in the three-and-a-half inch drive, XP won't let me.

I have a seperate issue with a game I downloaded from underdogs.org. The copy of Pacific General I got from there crashes incessantly, but only during certain scenairios.

Anyone with any solutions or comments would be appreciated (except comments about the fact that I'm an idiot - I've already stipulated that).

[iolo]

Are you sure about your Dos boot disk? It shouldn't matter if XP or w98 or NT or whatever is installed since you're booting off the disk. I would double check the disk (maybe get another image file) and also check your BIOS to make sure your boot sequence is A, C, ...

Actually though, if your hard drive is formated in NTFS then forget about the DOS boot disk...

You can use VMWare to emulate a PC but that takes some effort..

Other than that, quite few games require little helper apps to slow them down... again google is helpful.

But honestly, I spent hours and finally got the following classics going

- Clash of Steel,

- Third Reich

- Storm Across Europe

- High Command (Jamaican edition)

And guess what? Their retro-value is limited. I didn't finish a single game in any of them. SC combines their best elements and you can play against it real people. Don't waste your time like I did!

[Immolator]

Backing up to the original thread. Keep in mind 2 and a half week or 3 week turns are possible. These are options to keep the number of turns low for a game such as SC. Being able to complete a game in this lifetime is a serious consideration for a good game in the genre of SC.