SC2 Exploits Problems

[Liam]

If the MOD is so balanced, then adopt it as Fall Weiss 1939 otherwise the exploits in it will be had within a few weeks by players much more "well versed" in SC2 game mechanics and exploitations...

So don't speak of inflexability, I've none, merely stating the obvious. Make a very balanced Game1 Scenario and stick by it for Competitive play where there is the least amount of issues having to do with bending a game bug rather than a strategy to win. We all want to win by strategy not by bug

[Liam]

technically I have also experienced this Italian Exploit, I have noticed that a form of neutral blockading and spotting is used. It must be enforced, a violation of Italian Naval Space and not open water to blockade an Italian Corps/Army/Ship that is not in port before a DOW... less of course you wish to violate pretty much all Neutral blockading Rules, i.e. the British navy in the East Med at the opening. Counterstrategy or not, it's far far too gamey to tease a player who is bottled up with 4 rows of Battleships when his nation isn't even in the War

In this regard I can see HR's angst with it.. I also shall not use such a strategy ever in game play, it seems boring.. The Russian and Americans should be beefed up in the event of a British Surrender, there solves the that problem... the Entire Pacific US fleet in the Atlantic would be sufficient. Also an immediate Siberian Transfer.. and do away with Alexandria an Ahistorical Capitol, Canada would've been the location if any

[Scook]

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

Sorry, been playing an online game (Blashy's mod) for most of the day, haven't checked the boards in a while. Blashy did cover what a house rule is, but you can set it for anything you want, much like saying deuces are wild playing poker because you want to. The scripts are for the human vs. computer play, and as such, are not house rules. As it pertains to Sealion, a competent Axis player can take Britain away from an Allied player (or so I am told). So most pvp house rules include no Sealion unless Axis is at war with Russia, to keep enough pressure on Axis.

I play 3 different mods: Blashy's, Honch's, and Kuniworth's. Right now I am spending as much time as possible with Blashy's looking for any script errors/bugs/playabilty, etc, as I would like to see most of this adopted for the 1.03 patch.

Kuni's Russian Front scenario holds much love in my heart too. I specialize any game as an Eastern Front guy, doesnt matter which side I play. Makes my blood boil. Love it when I can be Russia and Vladivostok and Japanese are in it too. Sadly, haven't had time to do v1.3 yet, but it should be even better than 1.2.

Honch's mod reminds me so much of World in Flames, I think its great. The scripting is very creative, and popping up units when taking countries is awesome, really gives incentive to Germany to take the world. The far reaches on the map, namely Ethiopia, India, and everything east of India need some more work to keep things balanced, but it's a hoot to play vs. someone else.

[william bowen]

Thanks Scook for taking the time to explain to me about house rules and the mods, do you have any information on a Pacific mod coming like Japs vs. allies.

Willy

[Scook]

Pacific mod that was supposed to be out is way overdue, so as of now, there is no Pacific game. I really dont want to think about attempting right now, that map will be a bear to do.

[Sombra]

Originally posted by Liam:

technically I have also experienced this Italian Exploit, I have noticed that a form of neutral blockading and spotting is used. It must be enforced, a violation of Italian Naval Space and not open water to blockade an Italian Corps/Army/Ship that is not in port before a DOW... less of course you wish to violate pretty much all Neutral blockading Rules, i.e. the British navy in the East Med at the opening. Counterstrategy or not, it's far far too gamey to tease a player who is bottled up with 4 rows of Battleships when his nation isn't even in the War

In this regard I can see HR's angst with it.. I also shall not use such a strategy ever in game play, it seems boring.. The Russian and Americans should be beefed up in the event of a British Surrender, there solves the that problem... the Entire Pacific US fleet in the Atlantic would be sufficient. Also an immediate Siberian Transfer.. and do away with Alexandria an Ahistorical Capitol, Canada would've been the location if any

@Terif: Exploits are for me when the player has an advantage if he does something that would have been impossible or a disadvantage in real life. For example: Forcing Italy early in the war. Building a blockade, driving with tanks over water and highest montains etc. Yes, you can work with these kind of movements but then its better not even to call it a 2nd world war strategy game.

@Liam As before I am aginst these ghostunits. Do you believe that Rusia and Amerika where holding back until things got worse. Already the early siberian transport takes away a very real strategic options the germans had,. Attacking Rusia in 1942 instead of 1941. You have already the chance to build up your forces with the UDssr and Amerika for an early war entry why should the US and Rusia get even more units?

[Blashy]

Sombra, the Siberian transfer is not early, the date is correct, what is wrong is the size, it should be less than half (I fixed it in my mod).

Actually it should come in 2-3 parts but the reduced size does not make this a necessarry fix.

As for Ghostunits, I agree with you with the exception of USA, simply because landing with say 5 transports on US/Canadian soil would be less than 300k troops. There is NO WAY 300k troops could stand up to 100 million citizens, not even 10 million in Canada. Plus they would be seen coming miles away. Anywhere else, I agree.

[Sombra]

@Blashy I agree that it would have been impossible to invade the US. One of the mayor problems would have been supply, the transports would have been shot during transfer etc. For these reasons alone an invasion over the ocean would have been utterly impossible.

I think the "last and least " of the problems would have been the people living still in the US Where the game fails right is that with the current rules logistic and the transfer of the troops is not the real difficutly. Same goes why a sealion is to easy.

I like your suggestion for the siberians. At least much better than the current system.

[jon_j_rambo]

Another problem is "what is a transport"? There are seaworthy transports & landing transports. You need a serious Ocean worthy system to move large amounts of troops, equipment & supplies.

[Liam]

I find all to be partially right here.

That is because everyone has game experience and looks a pretty much what seems logical!

The Siberians comming early was done to balance gameplay so the Axis don't sit and overbuild.. they still do, it doesn't solve the problem but helps. A phazing addition of Siberians would solve the problem, so they didn't have an instant hitting power and would be more realistic, as moving that amount of men didn't happen in 1 game turn I'm certian?

As for the USA and USSR standing idly bye, that is a point. Ghosting units floating around in preparation for all sorts of OPs, it did happen. Though on the scale of Grand Strategy.. A bit unique... I do not feel that it should be allowed for Grand Strategy, more for tactical situations. Like Pearl Harbour, which was a Minor attack but still considered Majour.

Rambo brought up a very very interesting point, SeaWorthy Transportation of Land Units. Amphibious Units. Romania never possessed Amphibious Transports and would've moved it's troops on Fishing boats and trade ships more than likely as would of many nations. Again a tactical point of view, why would Germany lend her these craft when she wouldn't have given her IW1 or HT1? They shouldn't even be allowed to float.. As many other units in SC2...

Now there is amphibious tech, and an evolution in that aspect of this game, I think it should be pressed hard.. I doubt the Reds had any ability to launch amphib ops... Just like Paradrops, only Germany and USA I know actually used them during WW2, likely due to the expense. All those gliders, supplies, well trained men, and the situations they faced. Crete, Malta, Normandy. Where Paradrops were important. Soviets didn't invest in Amphibious Warfare because they never intended to use it.. neither did many other nations..

A possible solution to this issue is Purchasing Amphibious Armies and Corps??? Instead of transfering regular ones into these??? that would do away with gamey landings...plus raise the price of roaming transports per turn? Each turn a transport is at sea severely penalize it and also with Amphib units

welcome to other's advice and input

[Scook]

For air drops, Britain had some in joint operations with the USA, and the USSR had some rather amusing ones. During the Soviet Winter Offensive of 1941, paratroopers were used near Rzhez. About 7,000 made a jump into fog there, about 1/4 directly on German lines. One quirk, they didnt have enough 'chutes for all jumpers, so some aircraft were ordered over what looked like snowbanks so the 'chuteless ones could jump out there. No records exist of what the results were of this 'test'. A 2nd jump occured at the Dnepr River bend when the Soviets were pushing back late '43. Don't remember how many jumped there.

[jon_j_rambo]

How about them Poles parachuting at the Bridge Too Far?

[R.J.]

The French seductively removing their garrisons to get a rise in Italian readiness – it's not just gamey, it's positively immoral.

To counter the Italian exploit, when Italy's readiness reaches 100%, it should not automatically enter the war, but rather the player should then be given the option of entering the war when they choose. Or at the very least, Spanish readiness should also go up.

[Agamemnon]

Why the hell do people leave there island empty and not put up a stiff defence against sealion?

@Fartknock3r The reasoning is that US and USSR readiness goes up big time. This results in the Allies getting more MMP's than the Axis early in the game. Plus the cities and ports in Egypt go up to 10. England gets a fair amount of MMP production out of Egypt, and has better supply in NA than the Axis.

A down side is no convoys to England or the USSR.

[hellraiser]

Originally posted by R.J.:

Or at the very least, Spanish readiness should also go up.

This is a very good ideea RJ, indeed very good.

BTW, IRL, mr. Churchill even sent a letter to Musso, asking him not to enter the war 'not because we are afraid...' as he said

Anyway, at least Italy should always join on Axis' turn, never on allies' one (if things will stay the same are now) - think that Axis do not have the opportunity to twist readiness % otherwise than using legit diplomacy, so it is a clear disadvantage in this case.

IMHO, allies should be give bonus mpps, troops in the queue, whatever but not the ability to use gay readiness % twisting to gain the upperhand.

You want a piece of pizza? Dow them italians and assume there are also costs involved.

I would also like the possibility for active ships/transports to pass thru tiles occupied by neutral ships, just to avoid another gamey tactic of establishing blockades with a neutral power (i.e. italian ships blockading the greece-crete-tobruk passage, effectively interdicting allied shipping in the med.

Another ideea would be to restrict the use of transports or even ships (AP = 0 for ships and no possibility to use the embark feature for ground units) until the activation percentage reaches a certain value (say +50% or even more, perhaps 70%) - just to deny the gayish tactic of spotting the subs with US transports/ships or the uber gayish tactic of blocking the british coastal tiles/English Channel with US transports to prevent axis units from landing and conducting the Sealion.

Now, this thread has become more of a 'technical forum' thread = maybe there it will be considered by mr. HC, once he's back from his h-day

[ July 26, 2006, 02:21 AM: Message edited by: hellraiser ]

[SeaMonkey]

I have been an advocate of the "pass through" feature for a long time HR. There should only be a random chance that naval vessels would be stopped by the "surprise contact" mechanics.

This % random chance should go way down in stormy tiles, giving vessels a tactical or strategic chance of hiding in squalls/bad weather conditions. Subs running silent should have a reduced random chance also.

This feature would allow the "search" features to be more compelling and realistic for naval operations. In the event that two vessels would occupy the same tile at the end of a move, the game mechanics would simply move the active player's vessel to a random adjacent unoccupied tile, just like when transporting from an occupied port.

We could even see some interaction with a player's intel tech causing greater random percentages of spotting and surprise contacts for the higher levels.

Look at any of the historical naval battle scenarios over the 20th century and you will find "the search" the most important aspect of the engagement.

In my opinion SC2 could improve this aspect and become a very interesting and in depth naval model and the number of ocean tiles could actually be reduced, assisting in the larger map mods.

[Retributar]

Sound's 'Terrific' SeaMonkey !.

Maybey, some of the 'Sea-Salt-Cabal' can add to your creative suggestion's?.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Kabal

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Cabal

camarilla, faction, junto,clique, coterie, ingroup, inner circle, camp, pack - "an exclusive circle of people with a common purpose"

[ July 26, 2006, 08:27 PM: Message edited by: Retributar ]

[Liam]

I have an addition to these ideas, U-Boats that accidentally get spotted by a Neutral perhaps they should have a percentage chance of firing on that neutral. If the Sub attacks the Neutral Transport or Amphibious unit, make a 0% raise in War Readiness if intentionally make a percentage chance.. This way a gamey aspect is dealt with, also the same for other normal ships.. Only thing is a neutral cannot then fire back, because historically Neutrals rarely if ever did... This would cut out a lot of gamey qualities of blockading and neutral navies if they got hurt bad...

Originally posted by SeaMonkey:

I have been an advocate of the "pass through" feature for a long time HR. There should only be a random chance that naval vessels would be stopped by the "surprise contact" mechanics.

This % random chance should go way down in stormy tiles, giving vessels a tactical or strategic chance of hiding in squalls/bad weather conditions. Subs running silent should have a reduced random chance also.

This feature would allow the "search" features to be more compelling and realistic for naval operations. In the event that two vessels would occupy the same tile at the end of a move, the game mechanics would simply move the active player's vessel to a random adjacent unoccupied tile, just like when transporting from an occupied port.

We could even see some interaction with a player's intel tech causing greater random percentages of spotting and surprise contacts for the higher levels.

Look at any of the historical naval battle scenarios over the 20th century and you will find "the search" the most important aspect of the engagement.

In my opinion SC2 could improve this aspect and become a very interesting and in depth naval model and the number of ocean tiles could actually be reduced, assisting in the larger map mods.

[Edwin P.]

The pass through feature is good, and as you say it recreates a key aspect of naval combat during the Ancient through WWII era.

For the simplest implementation, I would consider allowing pass through when neutral units are involved - so that neutral units can pass through/by active units and active units can pass through/by neutral units without stopping.

[ July 27, 2006, 08:09 AM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[hellraiser]

@Liam - if you use a 10 strength corps in a boat for spotting subs, even if they get fired upon, they won't get sunk for good. It is left at str 2-3-4-5-whatever, shipped back to the mainland and reinforced while the UK cruisers finish off the raider at leisure, right? Something has to be in place so as to deny the use of transports/amphib transports until the readiness is high enough. It makes a lot of more sense this way, when the piss off ratio reaches some critical level, the neutral is far more concerned on what's happening here and there on the map.

@Seamonkey - indeed a lot of interesting ideeas in your post. I'd be happy if at least some of them could get implemented in the future.

[Liam]

HR, best way to stop it is, make noncombatant nations unable to view those involved, both ways Those involved unable to view those at war (Hell I'm Italian flying the French flag aboard the Italia?) if you want to get anal about it, those were big seas and oceans lots of nations were in them, doesn't mean they were spotted and blocked by 1 warship especially not at war with them, would take dozens an aircover.. On a Strategic Map no reason to give away what was done historically. You do not have Junkers bombing Russian Tanks?

Originally posted by hellraiser:

@Liam - if you use a 10 strength corps in a boat for spotting subs, even if they get fired upon, they won't get sunk for good. It is left at str 2-3-4-5-whatever, shipped back to the mainland and reinforced while the UK cruisers finish off the raider at leisure, right? Something has to be in place so as to deny the use of transports/amphib transports until the readiness is high enough. It makes a lot of more sense this way, when the piss off ratio reaches some critical level, the neutral is far more concerned on what's happening here and there on the map.

@Seamonkey - indeed a lot of interesting ideeas in your post. I'd be happy if at least some of them could get implemented in the future.

[Hubert Cater]

Coming into this discussion a little late as I was on a much needed rest and relaxation holiday. Much of what is being posted here in terms of play balance should be addressed in the next patch and in fact I believe some of the latest beta changes have also been included in Blashy's Mod so in some ways everyone is indirectly testing the next patch which hopefully will make v1.03 that much better.

I'll also be taking a look at some of the other changes proposed as well as reviewing some of the AI scripts Edwin is working on as he has also now officially joined the Beta team. Give me a few more weeks (roughly) and we should have a pretty solid v1.03 that hopefully addresses the biggest issues found up to date.

For a current (unofficial) list of changes, those that I managed to get done before I left on holiday I've listed these below:

v1.03 (Current Unofficial Changes)

GAME ENGINE CHANGES

- fixed a bug where Air Fleets, Bombers and Rockets would sometimes attack friendly resources (Wolfe)

- fixed a bug where Amphibious and Sea Transport plans (once activated) did not take into account #CANCEL_POSITION conditions

- fixed an amphibious bug that caused a fatal error (Louis, Normal Dude)

- fixed a transport bug where transport units without a plan would not unload if they started a turn in port

- fixed a bug where HQs would continually load and unload when assigned to a transport plan (Edwin P.)

- fixed a bug where amphibious units were not ideally unloading once reaching the 50% (within range of attack position) threshold

- fixed a country surrender script bug (Lars-Holger)

- fixed a bug related to FoW and friendly resources when moving friendly units off of them (Chris)

- fixed a bug related to the repurchase cost of HQs after the 60% discount cost had been applied, re-purchase cost was not properly

calculated if a Production Technology discount also applied

- fixed a bug where the AI did not repurchase destroyed HQs when available at 60% discount cost

- AI now reclaims diplomacy chits when no longer applicable, i.e. targeted country is already at 100% activation

- AI now reclaims research chits when a particular research area has been fully achieved

- land units that move into a friendly fortress/fortification now automatically entrench up to 1/2 the max entrenchment value

- land units that start a turn within a friendly fortress/fortification now automatically entrench up to 1/2 max entrenchment

regardless of initial entrenchment value

- fixed a bug where free units would surrender if their original parent country surrendered a second time

- fixed a bug where unit purchases were still possible in some circumstances under 'Hard Limits' (Major Spinello)

- fixed a bug related to UNIT scripts where the game engine did not properly handle the case of units arriving with

unavailable destination tiles. For now these units will be skipped by the game engine (Lars)

- convoy routes are now shown on the game map

- sub raiding has been adjusted to check for subs directly on a convoy route first followed by a range check if the initial check

fails. This will allow, for example, Axis subs to raid a US convoy if directly on this route whereby previously if the US convoy

was within 1 tile of a Canadian convoy then the Canadian convoy would be raided first until all MPPs are exhausted as a result of

convoys being checked in event order.

- fixed a bug where transport information was not shown in the unit box when unloading a unit (Randy)

EDITOR RELATED CHANGES

- added Wolfe's unit mod to the Extras folder

- added Fevsi Turkish HQ

- added 2nd Turkish Army

- removed ACTIVATION#1 events for Axis DoW on Denmark and Norway with a subsequent bump in initial US activation from 15-22%

- removed ACTIVATION#1 event for an increase in USA % when Allies DoW Norway

- lowered ACTIVATION#1 event for an increase in Swedish % when Allies DoW Norway. #TRIGGER was also lowered to 25%

- made adjustments for Axis DoW on Turkey resulting in a higher % increases for Syria, Iran, Iraq towards Allies (ACTIVATION#1)

- made adjustment for Axis DoW on Iraq resulting in a higher % increase for Turkey towards Allies (ACTIVATION#1)

- made adjustments for Axis DoW on Syria resulting in a higher % increase for Iran and Turkey towards Allies (ACTIVATION#1)

- removed a plan for the UK to amphibiously attack Essen if vacant as the automatically calculated ideal coastal landing position

was less than ideal

- fixed a bug related to setting Amphibious #GOAL_POSITION as an island location (i.e. Malta). Editor no longer complains that it

is not within 2 tiles of a coastal position

- fixed a bug where the unit name text limit was not the same in the Properties dialog and the Rename dialog. Text limit for unit

names is now 15 characters for both dialogs

- changed USA ACTIVATION#2 increases for Axis Sealion landings to a #TYPE= 1 event with a one time increase of 15-20% from multiple

increases of 5-15%

- fixed a bug related to VICTORY scripts that allowed for sea tiles to be selected as a Victory #MAP_POSITION. Only Land or

Land + Sea tiles can now be selected (Lars)

- adjusted how the Convoy scripts have been implemented... now you can set multiple scripts for the same #COUNTRY_ID and/or

#TRANSFER_ID essentially allowing for several convoys between countries. Note, there can still only be one convoy at a time but

should a destination port no longer be available due to occupation or a strength level less than 5 then the secondary convoy script will

be used. This will also allow, for example, for Canadian MPP convoys to be redirected to Egypt from Canada should the UK become

Axis occupied. Under this new system, validation checks for valid source and destination ports relative to #COUNTRY_ID and

#TRANSFER_ID respectively are no longer performed by the Editor during complilation but rather by the game engine at game time

- following lines were added to the localization.txt file:

- #CAMPAIGN_DATA_TEXT_14= Advanced

- #IMPORT_MAP_INDEXES= Import Map Indexes

- #EXPORT_MAP_POSITIONS= Export Map Positions

- fixed a few AI scripts relating to Amphibious assaults and the lack of proper cancelation checks, i.e. USA sending units to liberate

the UK and not checking to see if mainland USA has Axis units

- fixed a few AI scripts so now the AI will re-try D-Day should the original assault fail via a change from #TYPE=1 to #TYPE=2 (Blashy)

[hellraiser]

having a refreshed and relaxed HC working on it sounds promising

welcome back

[Canuck_para]

Will there be surface raiders in the next patch? While they were not as effective as the subs they did have an impact and kept the Allies busy in the begining. On a similar topic is it possible for the Allies to disrupt convoys from Norway or Sweden?

[Edwin P.]

In case it was not noticed:

- convoy routes are now shown on the game map