SC2 Movement and Time Scale

[Panzer39]

I know its all been discussed before but for fun lets discuss the time scale and unit movement.

1. Unit movement, I would like to see units be able move several times during a turn as long as they don't come into contact with an enemy or run out of movement points. For example, you could move your Battleship/sub/Army etc 2 hexes west, stop, 1 hex north, stop, 1 hex west all in the same turn even after clicking on another unit. Since turns represent at least two weeks game time, I feel it is reasonable. That brings me to....

2. Time Scale. What is everyones thoughts on SC2's timescale. Same time length year round? Weakly turns or Monthly? Personally I would like to see Bi-weekly truns year round with other factors causing the slown down of winter because I feel it would be more realistc.

What are your thoughts on these issues?

[santabear]

In terms of playing the game, there is no difference in the 'feel' of summer or winter combat. Everything works the same in winter, except that the date changes faster. Ideally, it would be great for the players to feel the effects of winter more in terms of restrictions on units (movement, combat, visibility, greater losses, etc.). And in a perfect world, the winter effect would be greater in really cold weather climates.

There should also be a 'mud' factor in Russia. When the German generals weren't complaining about the cold (duh...send warm clothes to the troops, guys!), they were REALLY complaining about the muddy, bad roads in the winter. One historian puts forth the theory that Russia's terrible roads may have been her salvation. The muddy roads stopped the blitzkrieg.

[Konstantin V. Kotelnikov]

Originally posted by Panzer39:

1. Unit movement, I would like to see units be able move several times during a turn as long as they don't come into contact with an enemy or run out of movement points. For example, you could move your Battleship/sub/Army etc 2 hexes west, stop, 1 hex north, stop, 1 hex west all in the same turn even after clicking on another unit. Since turns represent at least two weeks game time, I feel it is reasonable. That brings me to....

This would be fairly easy to do within a movement point or action point system. Allowing a unit to move then move again if it has remaining points. The only concern would be spotting, but a lot of games have provisions that if you enter an enemy ZOC the cost for either entering or exiting that ZOC is greatly increased.

Then of course if you enter an enemy ZOC and initiate combat, your movement is done.

A system such as that would allow so many different options. A definate good thing.

[J P Wagner]

Time sale: Bi-weekly turns with regional weather effects to affect movement (among other things).

[MacDuff]

If some of you remember the old DOS COS, it had ramdom weather conditions; suddenly the land mass would turn brown (mud) in Fall or Spring, or white (snow) in Winter. I think those designing SC2, if it comes out, should consider a more straight forward time line.

Don't get me wrong. They way the time scale is set now in SC is a good experiment. I've seen it used with success in other games. The first game that comes to mind is Empire, a miniatures Napoleonic grand tactical rules set. The designer referred to his version as a "telescoping" movement, where during general movement the elapse time was one hour. When contact was made, the turn would telescope would collapse to 15 minute intervals through a series of initiative actions, which ended after both players had completed certain phases (overly complicated - I never like those rules).

Columbia games, Bobby Lee and Sam Grant (ACW), uses a monthly movement system, where the number of moves is driven by one or more HQ's capacity to active units. The move alternate between players during the month until both players HQ's have exhausted their capacity to active, or the both players simply pass. This was also an experiment, although more on conventional lines. This is also similiar to SC's timescale, the only differents being a Quarterly timescale, with no randon element that I can see (but I could be wrong on the random aspect of it).

All in all, the SC designers are to be commended for this experiment. It was a bit risky going outside the box, but I believe, and hope, it has paid off in sales. I look forward Hubert's next design. Indeed, if it were offered as a pre-pub today I would buy it, sight unseen.

Sorry for being so verbose.

Rick