SC2 Exploits Problems

[Liam]

Alright folks, me and HellRaiser were both sitting down today and we both have come to the conclusion that there are some major issues that need to be brought regarding the Exploits within Strategic Coomand 2. I think most in the community will agree. So far there are nearly 3 or 4 houserules, and there is likely to be 2 more added soon. 1939 Fall Weiss is very bugged for balance, and though I know the betatesters may take this somewhat personally, do not Blashy and others. The game needs tweaking, rather than houserules... So that in the next patch Hubert will not miss the neccessary patching I suggest all SERIOUS issues be placed right here. That a sticky be made and so that us as a community Strategic Command Players can come to find as much balance as possible with as little houserules as possible.

Right now I throw up a big big issue: North African UK Exploit. Basically the UK ignores the Home Island with the SeaLion Houserule and just takes over N.Africa with the combined French, UK fleets, kills off much of Italians and leaves nothing in England whatsoever... It's an obvious exploit and there is no rationalizing it. With no Sea Lion rule without DOW on USSR, it makes England an empty Island, completely off... All agree who are avid SC2ers

So folks, while here we know there are other issues, please be proffessional in your explanation and brief, and post each individual bug/exploit that needs some alteration. So we can narrow them day to make SC2 as enjoyable and as balanced as possible.

I'm here because I want to make the game as balanced and enjoyable as possible so please no TrashTalk, no slander, no insignificant bugs. Only Serious Ones. Thankyou

~Sincerely Liam

[Agamemnon]

Right now I throw up a big big issue: North African UK Exploit. Basically the UK ignores the Home Island with the SeaLion Houserule and just takes over N.Africa with the combined French, UK fleets, kills off much of Italians and leaves nothing in England whatsoever... It's an obvious exploit and there is no rationalizing it. With no Sea Lion rule without DOW on USSR, it makes England an empty Island, completely off... All agree who are avid SC2ers

The easy answer is, don't have a house rule for Sealion. IMO the increases in readiness for the US and USSR make a house unnecessary. As I have stated in other threads, "go ahead and do an early Sealion, it's suicide for the Axis." Now if the Axis wait because of the readiness issue, then England can be defended.

the combined French, UK fleets, kills off much of Italians

As the Axis you don't have to let this happen. Their are ways to defend against this.

So for me, I don't see Sealion as an unsolvable. It's just a strategy that can work against either side.

[jon_j_rambo]

I'd like to officially support this as an Investigation. I'm also backing these two kids in their research.

Sincerely,

-Legend

[SeaMonkey]

I'm with you Ag, well stated. Did I mention I hate "House Rules".

Blashy's mod already addresses all that are presently pertinent and when another comes up, the editor will take care of it also.

Did I mention, I love this SC2 editor.

[jon_j_rambo]

I'll need to see more facts, never played Blashy's mod. Remember, like Yodl & the competitive crowd state, "the official game" has to be issued with the game!

[Liam]

Originally posted by jon_j_rambo:

I'll need to see more facts, never played Blashy's mod. Remember, like Yodl & the competitive crowd state, "the official game" has to be issued with the game!

Agreed, what is official, staple, accepted as the Tea for 98% of us

[Liam]

Ag,

You think you that what you say holds water? ::smiles:: 1939 Fall Weiss, I'll take Axis for you or Allies.. I promise you, you do not have a prayer.

Originally posted by Agamemnon:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Right now I throw up a big big issue: North African UK Exploit. Basically the UK ignores the Home Island with the SeaLion Houserule and just takes over N.Africa with the combined French, UK fleets, kills off much of Italians and leaves nothing in England whatsoever... It's an obvious exploit and there is no rationalizing it. With no Sea Lion rule without DOW on USSR, it makes England an empty Island, completely off... All agree who are avid SC2ers

The easy answer is, don't have a house rule for Sealion. IMO the increases in readiness for the US and USSR make a house unnecessary. As I have stated in other threads, "go ahead and do an early Sealion, it's suicide for the Axis." Now if the Axis wait because of the readiness issue, then England can be defended.

the combined French, UK fleets, kills off much of Italians

As the Axis you don't have to let this happen. Their are ways to defend against this.

So for me, I don't see Sealion as an unsolvable. It's just a strategy that can work against either side. </font>

[Scook]

I have been playing the Heck out of Blashy's mod, I am hoping most of it is adopted for the next official patch. No need for house rules.

[Jollyguy]

I think I'm in the Sea Lion is okay camp. I've got no Sea Lion going in two games, me Allies, but did not exploit it, and I lost Egypt in both. I played as if Sea Lion could happen, even though I realized I could have evacuated England. I did take Vichy Algeria in both, but did not advance on Tunisia, because IMO that opens the Allied player up to Sea Lion.

Blashy said Sea Lion and Turkey are both fixed for 1.03, so I'm willing to wait and see. I think Sea Lion should be a viable Axis option, just a little harder.

Bob

[Terif]

In V1.02 England is unfortunately not defendable against a good axis opponent, so an anti-sealion rule is simply necessary for game balance.

Egypt is no real problem:

No matter if there is a Sealion house rule or not - only diplomatic consequences prevents Axis from taking the island since this brings in USA immediately and boosts russian readiness.

So there is no egyptian exploit of the house rule in itself. Even with no house rule, UK will leave its island empty if they decide to defend/conquer Africa. As long as Axis can´t get Cairo, Allies would be even happy to see them invading the british home islands .

But it only depends on the skill of the axis player and his willingness to use sufficient ressources and he WILL get Egypt, even against an all-out british defence with an empty England.

Summary:

Egypt has nothing to do with any Anti-Sealion rule - the island will be left empty in either case if UK decides to defend. The egyptian campaign is then even a bit more historical: it is no cakewalk any more for Axis, but they can still get it - but now they need some skill and have to spend a lot of ressources if they want it, so they have to trade off if Africa is worth the effort.

In the end only changes in V1.03 can change the situation of an undefendable England and therefore the necessity of a house rule - and as said above it has be taken care of .

[Bill101]

If the UK could get a few Home Guard Corps in 1940, weak units that can't be shipped overseas (can this be programmed in?) would this make any difference? I'm hoping that house rules can thus be avoided.

[hellraiser]

You do not even need to transport ground troops from UK to get North Africa (only bomber and air). The default med troops + the french fleet and the uk med fleet are enuff for the task. The problem is ppl have adopted no SL pre-barbarossa rule because of game balance. Ok. But it is unbalanced as ever to force Italy in the war while gerry is busy taking paris, by the means of emptying the med cities to increase the italian war readiness. It is a pure gamey exploit, nothing more. No way in hell when you are at war , you try so hard to get another enemy, right?

If Allies want Italian Africa, then DOW Italy.

I would rather see it as: if allies attempt this gamey strategy then Axis has free hand to attempt the Sealion. There has to be a consequence to everything, otherwise it's just an allied cookie cutter

[Terif]

Yes, it is not historical to bring in Italy earlier as Allies, so is not DoWing Denmark as Axis...or Norway...or sending lots of german tanks to Africa where they had not enough supply historically...or bringing in Spain via diplomats (also unhistorical)...or...or...or

This is a game, not a historical simulation - so if something is unhistorical you may not like it, but it is a game. Nothing more, nothing less .

Only because someone doesn´t like how the game is designed, it is not automatically a "gamey exploit" if players play accordingly - an expression a bit too often used todays so it more or less becomes meaningless in the meantime.

Or more precise...from the previous uses I have read so far I have to say it is usually used if someone encounters a strategy where he has not yet learned how to counter - then it is suddenly "gamey", but in reality it is just necessary to develope/learn the counterstrategy

If some things should be changed or made more historical in the future is another question and depends on Hubert.

P.S. Allies bringing in Italy earlier is only bad for Axis if Italy makes the mistake to send its fleet out of port into open sea battles. But then it is certainly not a "gamey eploit", but a mistake by the axis player .

[ July 23, 2006, 02:08 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

[pzgndr]

I have been playing the Heck out of Blashy's mod, I am hoping most of it is adopted for the next official patch. No need for house rules.

More feedback like this is helpful. Continue playing the different mods and see what works better and what doesn't. Try out your own ideas using the Editor and provide some comments. Hubert needs the feedback.

If you haven't noticed, the first couple of patches focused on game bugs and a few minor enhancements to fix obvious play balance issues. As those have been fixed, players have discovered new issues. The next patch will also address a couple of bugs and minor enhancements. More significant play balance and AI enhancements will come after that. So keep the feedback coming.

Players are abandoning England??

[hellraiser]

@Terif -> you probably are reffering to that game we had when I quit after 5 turns or so. It's not that Italy lost the fleet that mattered, it is the very concept of that strategy that is gamey. Historically or not, when you are on the defence, you don't want to have another enemy...or at least delay it for some time. You say Sealion is flawed. Agreed. I say this crap is flawed as well. This is what pissed me off not that I lost 2 ships or something.

Don't come here playing the teacher and trying to convince ppl that this strategy is fair game. You may have audience in the PL forums with this, but not with me.

Can it be countered? Yes for sure, but this is not the point. The point is there are way too many flaws right now, exploits of game's engine, bugs and abusing them has become some 'cool strategy'.

I don't think I am one of those 'omg i wanna beat terif at all costs' guy. I enjoyed all of our games whether i won or lost. Remember that game we had back in v 1.0, when my axis offered a draw just before the tank was to enter moscow (with uk knocked out), because of f*cked up victory conditions ? Never boasted bout it here, because i take no pride in winning an unbalanced game. The 'no Sealion before barby' rule is a direct consequence of that game we had. I guess this should speak for my fairness.

I even wouldn't have mentioned it now but it kinda annoys me your support for a clearly exploitative strategy.

[Terif]

@Hellraiser:

Agreed, in V1.02 in deed are still many flaws and bugs and it is certainly not perfectly balanced, didn´t say something else, nor would .

Nevertheless there is much too many crying about "gamey" strategies everytime something is not the way done in the game as someone thinks it should be or was in history...(was the same in SC 1 btw).

And this was something I had to say now since I simply find this also pretty annoying to make it easy and just cry "gamey" instead of thinking about counterstrategies and usually there are some. Sorry if this did annoy you, your post was only the trigger, but you are not the only one going this easy way .

At least after all - as you told me last time - you took the consequence and stoped playing SC 2 since too many things are "gamey" for you in the game .

[Scook]

As for the Italian gambit, I make sure to watch my Italian entry on the diplo chart every turn. If I seeing rising and it isn't anything I do, I take appropriate actions as Axis. I am not sure I can call it an exploit as I took all of N. Africa before France fell. Discovered Vichy rules kicked in and turned all the French territoty back to neutral Vichy .

As for abandoning the home island for Africa, that does make me cringe. I just can't bring myself to do it. Whatever happened to the speach by Winny? That would be like USA abandoning itself and fighting from South America. I would think the Commonwealth would move their capital to Canada, not the desert. That makes a lot more sense to me.

[John DiFool the 2nd]

Hmm I have an idea for the African problem. Any HQ

down there (from whatever country) can only attach

a maximum of 2 units (perhaps 3 for the UK). I don't

think this would be a hugely major tweak for HC.

[Blashy]

Originally posted by Liam:

Agreed, what is official, staple, accepted as the Tea for 98% of us

[Fartknock3r]

Why the hell do people leave there island empty and not put up a stiff defence against sealion? I would get screwed if i lost the british Isles. It's important and is the greatest area to strike anywhere on the western area of the map. Without the british isles, USA units would be out of supply by the time they reach there destination, unless you have amphib tech at level 4-5.

[hellraiser]

@Yoda - true, that's why I stepped out of competitive play and only have a game or two once in a while.

I don't care if it is historical or not, I only care for some balance, nothing more. This what we are talking about it is not strategy, it is twisting the italian readiness percentage in a way that was obviously not intended.

As it stands right now, the default campaign still favours Axis. But I would like to see valid allied counters not the need to employ gay strategies to offset their weakness.

Aside from setting up the no-SL rule and no Turkey dow rule, I really do not remember myself 'crying' about anything like strategies...

I advocated back then for those 2 rules (back then we were in the same boat...), I stand up now against this 'cool strategy'.

You're smart enough to win games as allies, no need to twist readiness %

[SeaMonkey]

Amen Blashy! It was this way in SC1. Instead of adopting a balanced campaign mod many players embraced the bidding scenario.

OK, fine by me, others move on and find something else, or create it themselves, sometimes called progress.

Humans are habitual creatures and those old habits die hard. We're all guilty, no big deal, it is as it is, and rest assured even when Hubert has the game as balanced as the mechanics will allow there will always be someone complaining of imbalance.

Its just human nature, the unsatisfied variable of different perspectives/realities. Look at the world today, for example, totally unquenchable, it is without solution.

[John DiFool the 2nd]

I would REALLY like to see those who prefer a flawed

default scenario to a modded version of the same

scenario to put forth a reasoned rational reason

for doing so. At this point I have ABSOLUTELY no

interest in playing default Fall Weiss, I can't

imagine anyone who would, but apparently there are

quite a few here. I mean we all have the URL for

the mods database don't we? So (no sarcasm or dig

intended), I'd like to hear why you stick with the default.

[william bowen]

Originally posted by Scook:

I have been playing the Heck out of Blashy's mod, I am hoping most of it is adopted for the next official patch. No need for house rules.

Scook please explain to me a house rule and what does it have to do with Sealion? Does it pertain to human vs human only? I thought they were called scripts. Have you played Honch's mod yet?

Willy

[Blashy]

A house rule is for player vs. player only.

In SC1 the editor was very limited and to help cover some flaws the game had some house rules had to be created.

In SC2, so far anyone who has made a house rule for a certain flaw I've fixed it in my mod, the goal of my mod is to always remain close to the default campaign but 1) make it more historical and 2) fix obvious flaws or exploits via the editor or scripts.

So IMO at this time you play my mod and you do not need house rules, which I never cared for myself as they limit gameplay or possible strategies.