If you guys really want an SC:pacific theatre, read this.

[Carl G. E. von Mannerheim]

Ok, some of us want sc 2 to be the pacific. Or at least include the pacific. I myself think this would be 'cool.' However it would require the revamping of the layout of the map and units. Instead of corps and armies, There'd probably be Divisions and Corps. And 50 miles per hex is too big. Probably a 1 mile hex would be required for most of the islands, and a 25 mile hex for the ocean. Plus, this is a larger theatre, meaning even more hexes. Of course, on way around this is to vary the size of the hexes. But this is only my opinion. Your thoughts?

CVM

BTW, In the event of an SC pacific theatre, im changing my name to Wainwright!

[aku_djinn]

I would love to see a Pacific SC but you may have to forfeit any tactical level play to keep the feel of the original game. The hex scale will probably have to be adjusted one way or another.

One *possible* way of working it is to have a strategic map for large scale movement/transport, and tactical maps for the battle areas if two forces get close to each other. You would definately have to reduce the unit sizes, even a corps would have been a very large unit for many Pacific battles.

[Carl G. E. von Mannerheim]

Ur right, the only places a corps would be the right unit i think would be in the CBI theatre, The phillipines, or perhaps australia and the invasion of japan.

But i would love to play as the americans during the battle of Bataan

Im getting goosebumps(goosepimples) just thinking about it.

CVM (or in the future, J. Wainwright.

[Carl G. E. von Mannerheim]

Wow, guess no one wants pacific theatre.

[Mannheim Tanker]

The naval combat and supply models in SC are totally unsuited for island hopping campaigns at this scale. The problem is quite similar to that in TOAW. I'd love to see a game that got this right, but it'll probably never happen since there isn't enough demand.

[TrionDelta]

thats not true in the pacific Corps where used alot, Leyte, iwo jima, owkinowa, and a couple others.

not to mention main land china by the japanese... there where many a instance of corps on small islands and atolls.

[mavraam]

I think the scale could stay the same!

One hex could represent a collection of islands not just one. After all this is STRATEGIC command, not operational or tactical command. I would love to see the game expanded to the entire globe keeping the scale exactly as it is.

Obviously some concessions have to be made with the map but there is no reason that every single island that had a battle has to be seperately represented! We are already doing that in SC 1. Look at the low countries, they aren't broken out into individual countries, they are combined into one. We can't re-enact any of the smaller battles that took place in Europe so why would we have to in the Pacific. Simply have 1 Corps or Army on an island group.

All we really need is a mechanism for attempting to unload on to territory occupied by an enemy piece. This would be adequate to simulate a series of Amphibious assaults.

I think the Winter/Summer rules would have to be looked at because it really has no effect in the Pacific! We would probably have to change to a constant time scale and simply limit movement in the cold regions.

Also, we might have some issues with the map scale at the extreme north and south of the globe.

Otherwise, I think we can have basically the same game world wide and I would absolutely LOVE it!

One of the best things to me about having the whole world involved would be that naval strategy would take on much more importance! Balancing your land and naval forces would become a much bigger challenge.

I ran into all of these issues when I tried to write my own strategic level WWII game a couple of years ago. The world is a very big place and if you want to represent all of it, you can only have your scale be so small before it quickly becomes completely unmanageable.

Its roughly 24,000 miles around the world which means with 50 mile hexes you need a map that is 240 hexes vertically by 480 hexes horizontally. That's 115,200 hexes. Believe me, you start to run into serious performance issues even on that large of a scale.

If you want to get down to division level and 10 mile squares, good luck! Now youre talking about 2.8 million! Of course you can divide that roughly by 3 since only 1/3 of the world is covered by land and there is in effect, no terrain on the water, but still, you have to keep track of what piece is there.

And one more thing. If you think the AI is weak right now, (which btw, I don't. I think it is extremely well done since I know a lot about the challenges of writing one) wait till you get on a larger map. You may have to wait 5-10 minutes on a fast machine while it plans its moves or have it play tactically smart but strategically stupid so it doesn't have to take in so much info.

So the bottom line is this. If you wan't an SC2 that JUST covers the Pacific Theater, it may be doable on a smaller scale. But if you want the whole echillada, the entire World at War, I don't see the scale coming down at all.

[Narayan Sengupta]

Unit scale is just a word. It doesn't really matter what we call the scale.

The islands could consist of two harbors outside of two hexes and would represent island groups as someone else just mentioned...

The rest of the map scale could stay the same.

Narayan

[husky65]

Originally posted by Carl Von Mannerheim:

Wow, guess no one wants pacific theatre.

No one who has any conception of the realities of the Pac theater wants it done with this system.

SC is a great beer and pretzels European Theater game, as a system it is totally unsuited to handling the Pac war.

SC2 (if it bears any similarity to SC1) should stick to Europe and build upon SC1s success.

[Friar Bellows]

SC2 should be a world-wide game, and sod (most of) the realism issues in the Pacific theatre! I'm more interested in playability.

[Panzer Cmdr]

I agree with keeping the same scale and lumping islands together. Also SC2 if made should be world wide. Japan unit color should be orange background, China yellow etc... Naval aircraft should be separate from the carrier, so that when you send those planes out to sink that old battleship 150 miles away you may lose some planes but not the carrier itself. This would also allow to use carriers as floating airfields to allow planes to be based further out to distant islands. Only navy fighters/attack aircraft should be allowed to use carriers and thus may cost more. This also would be better to have ability only to upgrade units to new techs and not automatic. Those aircraft stationed way out in Kon Tiki should not just be instantly turned to jets, they should need to be sent to a city (say at least size 10) for upgrade.

The issue on individual country MPP's should be tweaked, i.e. currently if you lose G.B. then you can no longer support the minors. Perhaps there should be a choice of whom you want to support a country. Say if Romania joined the allies you could have England supply them (60% effective), if the U.S. supplies say (50% effective) or if Russia supplies (80% effective)- effectiveness as a function of logistics and relative closeness to a major port/supply source. So if an army cost normally 250MPP, and the US was supporting Romania it would cost 500MPP, Russia 313MPP and units would have associated level of tech of supporting country. The counrty supporting the minor would thus get the minors resources. Wow, such a cool game with so many possiblities! I hope Hubert can keep his sanity long enough to do an SC2. I thought in an earlier post Hubert flat out said there will be no SC2! Was he joking or was he just overwhelmed with all of us fanatics and our desired tweaks...??? Hubert we only "complain" because we love the game and truly appreciate your great support

[HankWWIIOnline]

Basically, combine Command HQ with the detail of SC and have the ultimate world-wide WW2 strategy game.

[blackbellamy]

you want war in the pacific, look here: http://www.matrixgames.com/Games/WarInThePacific/features.asp

it's sort of on the opposite scale of SC

you manage individual ships and air squadrons

[iolo]

Those War in the Pacific maps are incredible btw.

[Hubert Cater]

I hope Hubert can keep his sanity long enough to do an SC2. I thought in an earlier post Hubert flat out said there will be no SC2! Was he joking or was he just overwhelmed with all of us fanatics and our desired tweaks...??? Hubert we only "complain" because we love the game and truly appreciate your great support

No worries, you guys are great and to be honest it's my absolute pleasure to read so many responses to SC. All "ideas/complaints" are welcome and as always I'll keep my eye on them to see if and how they may affect future decisions. I don't recall saying there would be no SC2, but if I did I must have been tired. To the contrary, there will be another game in one shape or form but just not ready to commit to the design just yet

Hubert

[ September 04, 2002, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

[Les the Sarge 9-1b]

They made "Rising Sun" to be the Pacific theatre for the game that began as Third Reich and ended up Advanced Third Reich by the time RS showed up.

Many agree that it was not a small task, and that Rising Sun is really not nearly as good a game as A3R.

With that in mind, I would love to see SC2 be the Pacific, but I won't expect the designer to have either an easy time of it, nor enjoy as much success.

All things considered, I would rather see the Pacific done in the same vein as SC but, not expect it to just be an slightly altered SC.

I don't think a "slightly altered" SC will be putting the best foot forward approach.

It is possible they might have to make the game, its own game, to get the best job done.

[iolo]

Maybe I shouldn't be posting in this thread but personally I think that Pacific war is too small a niche. Of course Battlefront _is_ a niche-publisher, but what I'd really like is a global-scale SC2. With 2 to 5 player TCP/IP a la Axis & Allies.

[Carl G. E. von Mannerheim]

Too small?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!? :eek:

The theatre covered 1/4 the earth' landmass! An was sight to the bloodiest battles in history. (Yes, even more bloody than in Russia)

CVM

[iolo]

heheh, I meant the niche of people fanatical about re-creating the conflict, not the conflict itself.

But c'mon, bloodier than the Russian front? How many people died? (I have no idea). I know they used what looked like a hell of a lot of flamethrowers from the american movies.

[Carl G. E. von Mannerheim]

Well, you know how the russians were forced to attack the germans against overwhelming odds? The japanese did this willingly. And thought it an Honor to die for their emporer. That in itself, along with the samurai traditions, make for the bloodiest conflict in history.

CVM

[Brian Rock]

Europe was bloodier.

Just looking at major combatants, China lost about 13.5m (3.5m military, the rest civilian), Japan about 2m (1.7m military), while the Russians lost 20m (10m military alone) and Germany 7.3m (3.5m military).

The Poles lost 5.3m in civilian deaths alone.

As for the US and Commonwealth, combined losses from both theatres were under 1m.

[husky65]

Originally posted by Carl Von Mannerheim:

Too small?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!? :eek:

The theatre covered 1/4 the earth' landmass! An was sight to the bloodiest battles in history. (Yes, even more bloody than in Russia)

CVM

Surface area rather than landmass, and the battles tended to be bloody but a hell of a lot smaller than the European battles.

From a game perspective, SC does not handle naval warfare terribly well - not a big deal for a european conflict, but critical for the Pac.

The game mechanism has no way to simulate the Japanese shortage of Oil, nor their inability to move troops, nor their inability to move critical resources, nor the political divides that crippled the Japanese military, the battles will be farcical -

a one hex island group is surrounded by naval forces, the army on it is battered to non existance, then the corp storms ashore capturing a useless bastion that has no impact on supply and that you probably can't get the unit back off of.

The scale is wrong for a Pac game and you can't stack.

The question to ask is 'why bother', just build a force and head straight for Japan.

The SC system neither supports the reasons for the Japanese need to attack south, nor their inability to do so in the long term, balancing that it also does not support the effectiveness of submarine warfare against the Japanese, nor the effectiveness of CV airpower.

SC is the wrong game system to do the Pac with.

Given the amount of research done for SC1 and the amount of feedback given, SC2 should simply build on SC1 and be in europe.

[iolo]

Midly off topic, but how come the US didn't just do that? Forget those silly little islands and go straight for Japan?

I know, I really have some reading to do, but indulge me plz.

[Les the Sarge 9-1b]

Are there any REAL marines in here that want to tackle that question.

I am surprised though that it was asked. Surely there are enough films and documentaries on the subject.

[Canuck_para]

Originally posted by iolo:

Midly off topic, but how come the US didn't just do that? Forget those silly little islands and go straight for Japan?

I know, I really have some reading to do, but indulge me plz.

I would guess lines of supply. The US had to keep bringing supplies and land based bombers closer. They also had to defeat the Japanese navy and airforce. I think one big attack would have been hard to supply since the ships would have had to go all the way back to Hawaii. Did the US have enough ships to transport everyone to Japan with all their equipment and all the supplies for the conquering of Japan, particulary when they took loses?

My take on the situation, anyway.