Issues with SC

[Specterx]

I've got four major issues with SC that I'd like to get comments on:

1. Maybe just my own ignorance, but is it possible to conduct real amphibious assaults? i.e. assault an enemy unit directly from a transport? If this isn't allowed for I can see major opportunities for exploitation (line the coast with a wall of corps). Specifically I've found that Malta is nearly impossible to capture because of the strength of the defending air unit and the fact that you can't land any ground troops. Admittedly, allowing for real amphibious assaults is difficult since there's no automatic retreat in the game, which brings me to point 2:

2. Allow for units to automatically retreat when too much damage is done to them (say if they suffer >30% casualties from the start of the turn while on defense they retreat). Without retreat built in we can't have amphibious assaults and it creates some unrealistic situations in general.

3. Stacking. I can understand no stacking for Armies, but you should be able to stack multiple planes/ships, maybe even multiple Corps, as well as ground units and planes in the same hex.

4. Sub spotting range and sub ops. Right now subs can be seen from 1000 miles away (literally) and attacked by anything, even battleships which would realistically have no anti-submarine weapons. IMHO reduce sub spotting range to 1 hex (can only be seen from an adjacent hex) and introduce the Destroyer as the only ship type that can attack subs, along with Carriers.

[DevilDog]

Good points.

One note on point 4 - the battleship, cruiser and aircraft carrier counters represent fleets, so destroyers are already present in the game, they just aren't significant enough to have their own counters.

[pzgndr]

Allow retreats option would be nice, and 30% would be a good threshold. The whole amphib assault thing needs to be looked at, like designating beach hexes and permitting invading units to attack the hex. With retreats, this would be good, but retreats should be limited to attacks from ground units - air/naval bombardment.

If retreats are added, some option for historical no-retreats should be considered for Germans and Russians. Maybe a random chance of no-retreat, decreasing over time.

In addition to retreats, how about an option to advance units into vacated hexes? Sometimes I would like to do this rather than move another unit in. If you want to move another unit in to continue the attack, just decline the advance.

[Hubert Cater]

1. Maybe just my own ignorance, but is it possible to conduct real amphibious assaults? i.e. assault an enemy unit directly from a transport? If this isn't allowed for I can see major opportunities for exploitation (line the coast with a wall of corps). Specifically I've found that Malta is nearly impossible to capture because of the strength of the defending air unit and the fact that you can't land any ground troops. Admittedly, allowing for real amphibious assaults is difficult since there's no automatic retreat in the game, which brings me to point 2:

Again this was just a design decision, found that assaulting an enemy unit directly from a transport could lead to a lot of abuse, i.e. just keep trying until success, it's definitly a tradeoff right now and does make areas like Malta that much tougher. Exploiting the current design more often than not doesn't really happen. Most countries do not have the luxery to build enough units to guard the entire coast line and actually when I think about it, guarding an entire coast line would probably make an amphibious assault next to impossible using either design choice, so I am OK to leave it as it is.

4. Sub spotting range and sub ops. Right now subs can be seen from 1000 miles away (literally) and attacked by anything, even battleships which would realistically have no anti-submarine weapons. IMHO reduce sub spotting range to 1 hex (can only be seen from an adjacent hex)

Sub spotting is currently implemented as you describe (this is a special rule for all units that can spot a sub, just subtract 1 spotting point from the spotting range of all naval and air units when dealing with subs)

Hope that helps,

Hubert

[Lars]

Originally posted by Bill Macon:

If retreats are added, some option for historical no-retreats should be considered for Germans and Russians. Maybe a random chance of no-retreat, decreasing over time.

Or increased chance of no-retreat as Hitler gets loonier.

[grimlord]

yea the invasion thing is fine to complicated if it was changed...and to no real effect....use airplanes and ships if you want ashore bad enough

and malta was very difficult to even think of assualting...damn thing was a fortress ilsand with very profiecient defenders...it should cost a huge amount to successfully take

[Mr. Clark]

Originally posted by grimlord:

yea the invasion thing is fine to complicated if it was changed...and to no real effect....use airplanes and ships if you want ashore bad enough

and malta was very difficult to even think of assualting...damn thing was a fortress ilsand with very profiecient defenders...it should cost a huge amount to successfully take

Agree with Grimlord. Before the DEMO, I believe we were worried Malta would be too easy to take. Glad that's not the case.

[grimlord]

yea that makes two of us...the malta option haunted the germans throughout the war....

the failure to successfully indetdict malta very well may have cost germany africa...

the main reason that rommel lost in africa was a lack of suppy and not due to being "defeated" in a conventional sense...el almein would have been an entirely different story if the german and italian commands could have kept him in supply....which malta was the prime reason that it didnt happen

[pzgndr]

Or increased chance of no-retreat as Hitler gets loonier.

Maybe. The no-retreat directives for Germans and Russians hit a peak in 1941-42, then declined because they couldn't work. It wasn't an issue for the Germans before then, and pretty much irrelevant for the Russians after that.

First we have to get Hubert to consider adding retreats, then we can haggle about options to restrict them! LOL

[grimlord]

Originally posted by Bill Macon:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Or increased chance of no-retreat as Hitler gets loonier.

Maybe. The no-retreat directives for Germans and Russians hit a peak in 1941-42, then declined because they couldn't work. It wasn't an issue for the Germans before then, and pretty much irrelevant for the Russians after that.

First we have to get Hubert to consider adding retreats, then we can haggle about options to restrict them! LOL </font>

[grimlord]

Originally posted by grimlord:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bill Macon:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Or increased chance of no-retreat as Hitler gets loonier.

Maybe. The no-retreat directives for Germans and Russians hit a peak in 1941-42, then declined because they couldn't work. It wasn't an issue for the Germans before then, and pretty much irrelevant for the Russians after that.

First we have to get Hubert to consider adding retreats, then we can haggle about options to restrict them! LOL </font>

[Achiles]

I have a few points I would like to make as well.

1) I've noticed that allied air units won't run interdiction for each other or each other's ground units. Example, When I played the allies the british air fleets I had stationed in France would only intercept german air fleets if they attacked british or minor allies units. If the german air units attacked french units then the british air fleets would just sit by and do nothing. This is obviously quite unreallistic.

2) The player should be allowed to construct units for the minor allies. Example, When I was planning for my invasion of Russia I wanted to have army group south consist of 3 romanian armies, 1 hungarian army, and 1 hungarian TG. I only had 2 romanian armies and 1 hungarian army. I couln't build the other units except as german units. I suggest a simple solution. Have all units built with in the radius of a minor allies city or port belong to that minor ally. However HQs should be excluded as you couldn't really have a romanian Rommel. Which brings me to my third and final point.

3) Allow HQs from the major powers to command units belonging to subordinate minor powers. Example, When I was planning my invasion of Russia I had planned to intitially have 3 army groups. 2 german and 1 mixed. I built an extra HQ(Kesselring) and put Rundstedt in charge of army group north, Kesselring in charge of army group center and Bock in charge of army group south. Unfortunately Bock couldn't command army group south since it was a mixed force of hungarians and romanians. IMHO this is unrealistic and unhistorical. Army group south historically was made up of german, romanian, hungarian, and italian units as well as units from other nations. But it was commanded by a german. However I don't think this should translate over to major powers. French should only command french, italians should only command italians, americans should only command americans, etc. There are historiacal example of this happenning many times, but IMO it should be left out for gameplay purposes.

Thats about it for now. Cya, bye!

[ May 28, 2002, 03:20 PM: Message edited by: Achiles ]

[Genghis]

There are quite a few posts on stacking issue in SC but thought I bring this one out...has some good points (also mentions retreating options as well).

I too wondered about stacking...army as single stacks is fine but the ability to stack at least 2 corps level units is not too far fetched and a very excellent tactic when using tank units.

Hubert didn't answer the stacking issue in this particular posting but I didn't see his response elsewhere but I gather it was just a design decision again not to have stacking period.

Oh well...we'll wait and see for SC2.

[ January 02, 2003, 04:19 PM: Message edited by: Genghis ]

[Les the Sarge 9-1b]

Maybe I have missed the other locations this sentiment has appeared, but I am glad to finally see someone else state it "nearly" identically to the way I have been stating it...

"3. Stacking. I can understand no stacking for Armies, but you should be able to stack multiple planes/ships, maybe even multiple Corps, as well as ground units and planes in the same hex."

I don't require multiple ground air or naval units for the reasons stated elsewhere, but the game gives us zero justification for why one of each of the three can't co exist in a hex.

I see it entirely as a game design mechanic in need of redesign for SC2. I don't percieve it in any way as resembling modelling the realities of spatial location limitations.

Example, the naval unit in a port, why is it impeding the presence of a ground and or air unit, those boats are out in the water eh.

[ January 02, 2003, 06:11 PM: Message edited by: Les the Sarge 9-1b ]

[SeaWolf_48]

That's good stuff Specterx.

1)Invasion! It was really hard to invade anywhere in the world without special landing craft designed. The Brits and Japs some times did it from destroyers, but could you imagine doing that on D-Day. Another unit needs to be designed for that purpose. An LST unit or the like( Landing Ship Tank, or as the sailors called the"large slow targets"). The game needs them, and that would cut down on Italy invading wherever she wishes.

2)I've been preaching the retreat thing for a little while now. Most Armed Forces consider 10% casualities exceptable, higher than that is where most started to squirm. 30% is high, and I believe most sane commanders would retreat at that point(Hitler wasn't sane). Yes we need retreat rules. Perhaps you could click on the unit and tell it to retreat or stand, before combat, retreat being the normal mode? Same with air interdiction!

3)stacking- don't really care, I just pretend that there is Infantry in Malta. However Ports do look silly with all the ships outside of them!

4)Subs. The whole working in this game sucks (and I like this game alot). Subs should only be conquored by ASW units. The Nazi Naval Intel radioed there U-boats every day telling them where the convoys where. They got their info from scout planes and other U-Boats. But Battleships sinking sub? Well we need another unit to destroy subs, the good old Tin Cans, yep, DD's and DE's/and Corvettes. Why have subs, a small unit to this game, and small in numbers, and not have destroyers also, I believe there were more DD's and there compliments than U-Boats at any given time. 900 u-boats total, never more than 150 at one time.

Britain considered them so important that she traded land for ships, and that never happens in history. And where the hell is Iceland? That was a very important unsinkable carrier. PBY's and Liberators scouted the sea for those pesky Wolfpacks. Very important realstate.

Resond:

P.S. My Startrek reference was just for ****s and giggles. (another message)

[ January 03, 2003, 09:11 AM: Message edited by: SeaWolf_48 ]

[David Brown]

SeaWolf_48 wrote:

Another unit needs to be designed for that purpose. An LST unit or the like...

That's one possibility -- however, one of the reasons I like SC a great deal is that it doesn't have a huge number of different counter types. (I for example, believe it would be possible to have only one infantry type rather than two, but that's for another day...)

I think the game nicely simulates sea transportation (and landings) through the use of MPPs, costs varying with the unit type being transported and the tech level, rather than the creation of new units. The biggest problem to my mind is that the cost is so relatively low that it becomes easy to throw vast numbers of troops at a coastline -- all you have to do is save up for it. I have a suggestions to deal with this difficulty:

An incremental increase in transportation costs per unit in simultaneous transport. i.e. it's cheap to sea transport one unit, more expensive for the second, even more expensive for the third, etc. Do this by giving a 25% or 50% surcharge for each succeeding unit put into transport mode. Thus moving the Canadian army to Britain still costs 12 points (or whatever), but if the Germans try Sealion with eight armies, the cost goes something like this: 12 for the first, 16 for the second (25% increase), 20 for the third, 24 for the fourth, etc. This represents the relatively rarity and expense of sea transport and landing craft -- it's easy to transport a few units about, but as numbers increase, so does the relative expense. Yes, you can put your entire army to sea -- but it's going to cost you really big.

[John DiFool]

Originally posted by SeaWolf_48:

4)Subs. The whole working in this game sucks (and I like this game alot). Subs should only be conquored by ASW units. The Nazi Naval Intel radioed there U-boats every day telling them where the convoys where. They got their info from scout planes and other U-Boats. But Battleships sinking sub? Well we need another unit to destroy subs, the good old Tin Cans, yep, DD's and DE's/and Corvettes. Why have subs, a small unit to this game, and small in numbers, and not have destroyers also, I believe there were more DD's and there compliments than U-Boats at any given time. 900 u-boats total, never more than 150 at one time.

Cruiser units work just fine for me [representing

that they were often the lead elements of DD

squadrons]. Make BBs much less effective vs.

subs while upping that of CA's (CL's?)-BBs were

designed to square off vs. other BBs, not to go

hunting hither and yon chasing down subs. Heck,

aside from the fact that this would give the

Germans yet another advantage, this is something

which could be done now! [if we could talk

Hubert into releasing one final patch... ]

John DiFool

[Les the Sarge 9-1b]

I have not seen much of it in the game, but in A3R subs were just some economic nuisance counter off to the side of the board, and if you didn't acknowledge it at all, yes you soon paid for it. Uncountered for 2-3 years, and you suddenly realised you had really screwed up.

Same with Strategic Bombing, it was not actually conducted on the board.

I would much rather the subs and strategic bombing was conducted in a more abstract manner.

Driving subs around the board in entirely vulnerable mega groups just seems like a waste of a sub resource.

It has to be the worst all yer eggs in one basket example in the game.

It really doesn't matter to me if the cuiser counter is a decent depiction of a unit that would possess an ASW effect, the subs should not even be on the board.

[Genghis]

John DiFool

Aye, BB's weren't really sub hunters...CV's and CA's in SC should be the most effective.

Hopefully in SC2, subs are no longer counters on the board...they should all be abstracted somehow..same thing with ASW warfare.

I would imagine tha a Uboat captain's topmost priority was to sink merchant ships even though sinking capital ships made headlines.

Of course out in the Pacific, the Japanese subs went after all kinds of capital ships and, unfortunately for them, learned very little from the North Atlantic campaign and the value of DD escorts and ASW tactics.

America essentially won the Pacific war through the use of their submarines by denying Japan their resources.

[ January 03, 2003, 06:03 AM: Message edited by: Genghis ]

[JerseyJohn]

Genghis & JohnDiFool

At this point I think the naval counters represent the principal ship of a task force, the rest would be light cruisers and destroyers.

Genghis

A Golden-Oldie Forum. I never saw this one till now. Glad you found it and let the rest of us in on it.

[Hueristic]

IF not Stacking(or temp stacking) SWITCHING is needed I want to switch units in a line but i can't that's just wrong. :mad:

[John DiFool]

I have been on record as favoring keeping

subs on board. It is a lot more fun moving them

around than sticking them in some box somewhere

and watching the random number generator determine

their fate. It would also allow the Germans to

hunt in specific areas, if my idea of placing

convoy routes-abstracted, no actual convoys

moving around-on the map is also implemented.

Of course I also agree that things are broken right

now, but given a bigger Atlantic to hunt in, and

some tweaked rules making subs harder to kill, and

less useful against surface ships, and the Battle

of the Atlantic would be a helluva lot of fun. I

think one sub=a wolfpack isn't a bad thing, esp.

if you model their dispersal by minimizing any

damage that they take.

OR...cut the cost in half and have twice as many

of the buggers running around out there (with

appropriate adjustments in combat and interdiction

ability). They could also take damage any time

they sink some MPPs-reflecting the efforts of the

convoy escorts [which would have to be bought and

paid for by the Allied player{s},natch]. The

options are quite myriad there for Hubert to do a

lot of different things-and I certainly think

that on-map subs can work quite well.

John DiFool

[John DiFool]

Oh, and one more thing-if the dreaded box is indeed

used, how will you model subs sinking capital

ships (CVs included)? If you decide to yank them

from the box and use them in a tactical role

against naval assets, where will they appear?

And if you want to stick them back into the box,

from where do you do so?

I guess I just dislike needless abstractions...

John DiFool

[Genghis]

John DiFool

Actually you may like this approach as it shouldn't be hard to implement and not too abstract. Plus we keep all the subs and capital ships counters in the game for you to move around

We first subdivide a sea area into 2 box sections: patrol and movement.

Merchant convoys and other ships that just want to move into and out of a sea area can just pay the normal movement costs.

The patrol box is for Uboats and/or capital ships. To enter this mode, you either need to pay extra movement points or spend an entire turn in that sea area without moving.

While in patrol, Uboats will remain hidden (until spotted or attacking) and hunt for capital ships or merchant convoys that move through. Similarly capital ships in patrol mode have increase chances of finding hidden subs and/or enemy surface units.

Uboats and surface ships can detect adjacent area boxes as well.

Research into Sonar as well as sub technology can help increase or decrease the chances for a Uboat to be detected, evaded or destroyed and vice versa.

Convoys and/or capital ships that want to reduce the chances of being hit by a Uboat would pay extra movement points by entering zigzaging mode whenever they enter a new sea area. This also increases the time it takes for a convoy to reach its destination which of course happened in real life.

Here is what I like to see when you right click on a naval unit. It's the same menu in SC but with more options:

1)Operate

2)Transport

3)Unload

4)Zigzag mode

5)Escort mode (allows capital ships to protect and respond to attacks on convoys by subs)

6)Patrol mode

7)CAP (Combat Air Patrol from CVs)

8)Smoke Screen (to increase chances of evading surface combat)

etc.

Oh and naval units have the ability to to stack within the same area.

[ January 03, 2003, 03:07 PM: Message edited by: Genghis ]

[coe]

In Clash of Steel there were instances where

your german units could not retreat due to Hitler's stand fast orders....

The other interesting things was the crippling frost reduced German strengths for a little bit and Malta

could interdict Axis supply lines to Africa....