Not Bad!

[pcpilot]

I played the game twice lastnite, once with a friend at his house. We both thought it was pretty cool and we will be buying it when it is released. Which is pretty amazing considering I was never a big "operational type" in gaming, preffering more tactical level gaming instead.

I liked the graphics, but it would be cool if they were more oriented towards each countrys' equipment. For instance, instead of a generic tank for all countrys armor, have a Tiger for Germany, a T-34 for Russia, etc. The capital citys should have perhaps something more distinguishing than merely its color.

I thought the subs were awfully expensive for Germany which produced so many of them. I also didnt think they had enough for the start of the war. I would think the different Flotillas would be represented as a counter and not the entire fleet of what, 56 boats?, in one counter. I would also think there would at least be one cruiser counter representing the Pocket BB's, Ca's, and DD's.

I also thought that the airforce on Malta was very difficult to eliminate, never did despite having 3 Italian air fleets on sicily attacking together(!), and considering that at the begining of the war in the Med there were only 3 Gladiators known as Faith, Hope, and Charity.

Perhaps a switch in setup to allow the purchasing screen to be toggled so that it will stay up after purchasing a unit if you want to buy more than a single unit.

Please do not take this as negative critism, it is merely my thoughts and first impressions of things that could perhaps use a bit of tweaking. The game overall played very well with gameplay proceeding smoothly. The AI appeared to be pretty good, at one point quickly taking Belgrade when I left it opencausing me to loose Yugo, grrrrr! I found it easy to keep track of my units but this may change with the eastern front... My friend and I both commented on and enjoyed the sound effects. I played at a very high resolution, I think it was 1280X960X32 and the game looked very nice. All in all, I think I'd give the game beta demo an 8 outta 10. Considering the way you fellas work on your games, I expect that will rise...

[Moon]

The good thing is, in the full version you'll get a campaign editor, so you can make all those changes - and more.

[Wolfpack]

My general rule for taking Malta is that it's going to require at least 9-11 air fleets. :eek: I had to be at work by 6 this morning, so of course, instead of going to bed, I decided to stay up all night playing SC. Needless to say, I got a few games in. Unless you have incredably experienced air fleets, taking out Malta with less than 10 air fleets is nearly impossible. Being attacked by hordes of enemy fighters gets the brit squadron a ton of experience, which appears to make it even harder to hit. Every time I managed to take it, it was by loading up Sicily, the toe of Italy, and N. Africa with air fleets and surrounding Malta with the Italian fleet. The ships attack first and I hope to bring the strength below 5 or 6, then I use all my fighters...I think I took it out with the last plane all but one time, and that was with the second to last. One advantage of this tactic is that as soon as you capture Malta, you have plenty of air power to race through N.Africa, capture the Balkans, wipe out the RAF, and invade Russia all at the same time. Of course, there is the whole thing about making yourself spend 4000 MPPs on air power.

I also noticed that there's a cap of 10 research points that you can purchase. Any particular reason for this Hubert? I suppose if you're far enough ahead to get that many, it's unfair to get more, but on the other hand, if you're that far ahead and lose, you're hopeless anyway, and you'll need the extra help. Also, is the actual research chance a % or is there some formula? I've gotten Industrial production lvl 1 once with Italy after only one turn with one point invested, and gone most of the year with nothing to show for 5 points invested as Germany.

Edit - Perhaps one way to make Malta a little easier to crack (In the war, the Axis could have [and should have] taken Malta without having what I assume would be thousands of planes strafing the airfields) would be to lower the amount of recovery the garrison gets. I was constantly irritated by me getting the squadron down to 1 with my last attack only to have him reinforce to 8 next turn. It was definitely NOT an easy thing for the British to reinforce Malta during the war. They nearly decided to abandon it at times because of the supply difficulties, and that without a real concerted effort by the Axis to take the island.

[ May 21, 2002, 04:40 PM: Message edited by: Wolfpack ]

[BloodyBucket]

Agreed. Malta is one tough nut to crack, and since you can't invade while occupied, (I'd like to see that changed) some sort of supply tweak there would be nice.

[Andrew H.]

I didn't find Malta that hard to take - I used two air fleets (one German, one Italian), plus three Italian warships. The warships surrounded it and bombarded, while the airfleets just bombarded.

I don't mean to say that it was easy - it took a lot of the game to get to this point - but it wasn't impossible. I had a transport nearby ready to land after the airfleet was finally destroyed.

[Wolfpack]

Originally posted by Andrew Hedges:

I didn't find Malta that hard to take - I used two air fleets (one German, one Italian), plus three Italian warships. The warships surrounded it and bombarded, while the airfleets just bombarded.

I don't mean to say that it was easy - it took a lot of the game to get to this point - but it wasn't impossible. I had a transport nearby ready to land after the airfleet was finally destroyed.

Then you must have gotten your unita a ton of experience for a small number of units to cause that much damage. My problem is that while taking Malta isn't absolutely necessary for a successful invasion of Egypt, it is helpful, and if you do it before taking Egypt, your units generally won't have that much experience, and therefore the forces you used would likely get worn down with no result. Generally, when I bombard from ships, I kill about .5 points ber bombardment (1 in 2 will hit for 1 point) and take on the order of 2.5 - 3 damage in return, which isn't a good exchange rate. My air units rarely hit until I get their exp up a lot. I've gotten used to not doing full reinforcements now so their exp will build faster, and that does help. I really think air power is pretty well modeled in the game. It's hard to do crippling damage to an attacking unit, which is as it should be, but it is possible to take out an opposing air force. The fort on Malta just makes it very hard to do that. And the issue with the resupply. What I'd really like is a longer demo so I could really get into the research and see what kind of effects some of them have. Best I've done in one game so far is +1 on industrial tech and +1 on heavy tanks. I'd like to get into the air research and MLRS and see what it does. The rockets look like they'll only really be useful later, +1 does triple the attack rating, but I doubt that rate of improvement stays constant. As for Subs, I like how the improvements increase the chances of diving and evading...and considering the surprise issue with them, it looks like getting this research area up is a big help to the Axis. Hubert or Ted if you read this, something I've been wondering, does more than one sub in a sea lane cause greater MPP losses? My subs are consistently killed because they'll suprise a unit, get in a good hit, but then get swarmed by every unit on the oceans invariably, and trying to get my naval units out of the Baltic is plain suicide, so I've never had more than one out there at a time.

[ May 22, 2002, 04:00 AM: Message edited by: Wolfpack ]