Oil, Raw Material, Industry

[Liam]

Has anyone considered, or has the issue of raising certian qualities for each resource you possess been brought up.

I.E. Per 1 Oil Well you get say 5% readiness attached to Mechanized Units up to a certian Max.

Similarly for Raw Materials, you get a decrease in cost in all Units save Infantry.

Perhaps for Cities you recieve Cheaper Infantry units... Ports allowing faster production of Naval Units and so on... ... ...

Anyone think on this issue yet? I think it would make the idea of possessing certian resource types lucrative

finally, bombing them too which gives some WW2 feel, perhaps the bombing could be very effective in reducing a larger portion of the benefits gained by these resources.....forcing production to fixing your Bonuses, making a player want to protect his real estate.

[Blashy]

IMHO, That delves a little too deeply into micro managing.

Bombers will have their use in SC2. Having one on Malta is great for one thing.

And MPPs are VERY valuable in SC2, you don't want a couple of Bombers keeping you from receiving MPPs from a couple of Mines or Cities.

[jon_j_rambo]

Incredible insight! Blashy, can you give me a few pointers on life too?

Man, I miss the old days when I wasn't on double secret probation (see Dean Wormer that meaning).

[Liam]

Blashy, all things considered it is a bit of micromanaging. BUT! Not really in comparison with having oil as a resource available at all during WW2, why not just make it a Raw Material then and do away with oil wells altogether

They are represented in some more Strategic Level Wargames... HOI was a bit anal, but Worlds at War made good use of them<these are just a few modern examples>, though the game's tactical edge lacked. You couldn't do much without oil, and in WW2 you couldn't either. I'm thinking why not. Now adays, why bother with capturing them at all, what are those regions really worth aside from an MPP count. Historically when Hitler's oil ran out so did his Panzer Thrusts. Historically Stalin had enough Cities to create a Million men for every Million he lost. Historically the Allies had the shipbuilding capacity to replace what the U-Boats ate. Not all that micromanaging, quite simple, we've got hedgerows my friend

P.S. in SC1 Oil Wells never mattered. Noone ever made it a strategic objective to capture them or hold them really unless it was in the way. Whilst in WW2 much was done to bomb them, attack them and even plans in the USA to sabotage them. So it isn't totally off scale.

[SeaMonkey]

You know guys Liam has a point here, and yes I know we have discussed it to death in earlier threads, but this oil thing is a very significant parameter for WW2 simulations.

Now I'm not going to advocate micromanagement, but something simple, perhaps an oil factor tied to any unit motorized/mechanical type APs.

Each SC oilwell icon could have an AP factor or oil point multiplier. Each time a motorized/mechanical type unit moves beyond.. say one tile it uses an AP oil point. This would only be for units like naval vessels, aircraft, and the motorized ground forces.

It would all be mathematically computed by the game engine and a small screen data box would tell you how much you potentially use by the acting unit and how much you have remaining for the rest of the turn.

It would dictate to each player which campaigns/battles would get the priority of fuel supplies and add some relevance to SC oil resources. When you're out, its back to the horse drawn artillery and foot infantry maneuvers.

[Edwin P.]

Personally, I like the concept of adding an additional reason for players to control oil resources.

SEAMONKEY: It would dictate to each player which campaigns/battles would get the priority of fuel supplies and add some relevance to SC oil resources. When you're out, its back to the horse drawn artillery and foot infantry maneuvers.

Great idea!

So here are some of the oil related options to be considered:

1. Oil gives a bonus to readiness OR

2. Oil affects AP available for oil and gas fueled units - armor,mechanized air, naval

units OR

3. Oil affects build limits of oil and gas fueled units.

Which one is best? I like them all. They all give players an additional to capture or bomb oil wells tiles.

[ October 06, 2005, 08:34 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[Blashy]

If a couple of bombers hit 2-3 of your oil wells and keep them at 0 all the time, you'll be screaming to get those bombers off your tail.

20-40mpps is no big deal in SC, in SC2, it is virtually essentiel. So mines and oil wells are precious. To the point you might just give it some AA tech to have those bombers leave you alone.

[Edwin P.]

Originally posted by Blashy:

To the point you might just give it some AA tech to have those bombers leave you alone.

Does this mean that you can spend MPPs to build up the AA rating of specific city and resource tiles?

And does this mean that in your beta testing games you have found a real use for bombers?

[jon_j_rambo]

Germany was doomed.

[Blashy]

Originally posted by Edwin P.:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Blashy:

To the point you might just give it some AA tech to have those bombers leave you alone.

Does this mean that you can spend MPPs to build up the AA rating of specific city and resource tiles?

And does this mean that in your beta testing games you have found a real use for bombers? </font>

[jon_j_rambo]

Sounds like alot of micro management?

[Blashy]

Don't worry about that part, I personally hate micro managing games. SC2 does not fall on in that category.

Individual tech is quite easy to manage, it does not even feel like added work but more like added fun.

[Liam]

Hmm, if you're upgrading individual cities, seems it would be a hell of lot more simple to just make it universal. I personally like a bonus from a particular resource or for owning Real Estate, it gives meaning to those resources other than having them just as Point Earners.. You could figure something more simple than what have come up with here and people would go after objectives like Ploesti or the Caucasus Mountains as they did in history and similarly protect Steele from Sweden, and rape the hell out of all Minors that have any Raw Materials to be had.

As you know Bombers were incapable of reaching a single oil field in SC1 strategically, nightbombing of cities was all that went on historically till what '42 or '43? Not until Bases were secure in N.Africa did Ploesti get hit so the real effect and real feel of damaging the enemies Panzer effectiveness/cost/speed of production/etc... Perhaps something like this. i.e. 1 turn delay if a Bombing run hits an Oil field on 1 Armored or OilConsuming unit. To me it sounds very simple, not micromanaging and gives me the feel.. I want to Bomb this guys Oil.. I want to bomb his Real Industry. I want to bomb his Rail<Industry Raw Material same thing> I want to because in the end he'll suffer if he does research AA and if he doesn't post units to protect these vital targets!

Otherwise you can kill corps off all day long, I'll throw a thousand at you like SC1.. If there is no real loss why retreat, place 8-12 corps in France and D-Day will never realistically happen till they're killed off by air alone. They're cannonfodder and the same effect just unrealistically, the RAF, USAF didn't do damage nor did the Luftwaffe purely by bombing Units. The Allies staple was bombing Ports, cities, oil, Industry, Raw Materials. That was to cute off the arm of the Third Reich and in some minds it was very very intregal. Why send out 1500 tanks vs an enemy when you can send out 150 bombers and level his tank factories.

[Blashy]

As I said prior, MPPs are VERY precious in SC2, loose 20 and you'll bitch at that bomber like there is not tomorrow.

So if a bomber does bomb brest city/port, you'll be happy to upgrade whatever AA tech you can achieve to get that bomber off your city.

And Universal tech, like SC1, no thanks, the SC2 formula is a huge improvement.

[hellraiser]

and if you just place a corps on the resource/city? Will the bombing run have any effect or not (like in SC1 - you place a punk ass corps on the mine, and mine is safe from planes).

[Hubert Cater]

Nope, bombers, battleships, cruisers and rockets now all hit the resource/city first with a small % chance of doing additional damage to the unit within the city after that. Note, that % chance increases for each applicable tech such as Heavy Bombers, Gun Laying Radar, Rockets etc.

[Lars]

So keeping a corps in a city that's getting pounded will no longer be a wise idea, eh?

Course, you'd lose the entrenchment bonus. Decisions, decisions...

[Lars]

Er, sorry, think I misread that. Shouldn't the damage be split more evenly?

Stick a corps in something like Hamburg and say bye bye corps along with the city.

[Liam]

what HC saying is correct, rockets, bombs, whatever....cannot as easily target units. men, tanks, guns can be moved faster...they can scramble, occassionly being hit by certian forms of carpet bombing and strategic level bombing. If your focus was to hit the city not the unit then the unit should pretty much remain in tact the ocassional hit on men happening. Which would be accurate. Industry and resources are larger and sit still and can be targeted if done right usually, even those where often missed. Now how could V2 or V1 rockets be targeted on Ships, men, or tanks? Or anything else other than a "Huge" Industry or Resource Hex.... Historically that couldn't happen with those guidance systems... Maybe V-5s would have a chance of 1 in 5 of hitting men... That's a huge tile or hex...

Bombers are slightly different, if you mean fighters, Dive-Bombers, Torpedo bombers, etc.. they were designed to hit specific units and ships, tanks, gun implacements, etc... Some were specially designed. Bombers even to some degree in WW2, heavy bombers, targeted these positions often with less effectiveness, however with the Allies and SOOOO MANY of them, that could be altered and said semi-effect...

[Edwin P.]

Liam is correct. Artillery and gravity bombs of WWII were inaccurate and largely ineffective against enemy forces in bunkers.

[Lars]

But a firestorm is.

Eh, not that important anyway. Nobody would be stupid enough to stick a whole Corps in a city.

[Edwin P.]

1. True.

2. Generating a firestorm - ie Dresden - takes a lot of bombers. Perhaps in SC2 terms it would be comparable to 5 bomber attacks on the same turn against a single city.

Futhermore,

"The destruction of Dresden was comparable to that of many other German cities, with the tonnage of bombs dropped lower than in many other areas[28]. However, ideal weather conditions at the target site, the wooden-framed buildings, and "breakthroughs" linking the cellars of contiguous buildings and the lack of preparation for the effects of air-raids by Gauleiter Martin Mutschmann[29], conspired to make the attack particularly devastating. For these reason the loss of life in Dresden was higher than many other bombing raids during World War II. For example Coventry, the English city which is now twinned with Dresden, and is often compared and contrasted with it, lost 1,236 dead in two separate raids in 1940. In late 2004, an RAF man involved in the raid said in an interview on the BBC's Radio 4 that another factor was the lower-than-expected level of anti-aircraft fire, which allowed a high degree of accuracy on the part of the bombers.'

[Liam]

This is all very true about Strategic Bombing. I don't believe Firebombing would have killed much of a corps or armored unit Folks. A few thousand men here or there maning Anti-Air and any entrenched in the city? Well, how many units actually entrenched in the heart of the city, don't they usually use the outskirts until the actual invasion unless of course there is a special circumstance? That means a Strategic Bombing Campaign would likely miss most units entrenched like a Square Box around the City and rarely do damage to it. PLUS, the Armies of WW2 weren't complete idiots, they knew to expect some bombing and they would hide their equipment in Forests, Caverns, Hills, Camouflaged... They wouldn't line it up in the Industrial sector of a street to be bombed.

I was watching a show on Albert Speer, spoke of the US-RAF bombing of OIL refineries in German Occupied Europe, destroying 90% of their capability. The Germans had to employ 300 thousand or so workers<forced labor> to fix this situation. It would've been dire and critical. I wonder if the immediate outcome of this was a lack of industrial production or a shortage of fuel and Panzers/Trucks/airplanes and other various vehicles that lacked the ability to travel as freely. Lacked the ability to Train. Lacked the Ability to Fight ultimately reducing Effectiveness, hence my point You couldn't rebuild 90% of German Oil Production overnight could you?

Something we don't simulate here... another similar situation was the bombing of German BallBearing Plants, ultimately the Germans replaced the parts with parts from Sweden and Switzerland but it cost some.....it was difficult a bit and their tanks suffered

I am not speaking of any micromanagement I'm merely bringing up some interesting concepts about actual warfare and how it could easily be introduced. Oil, Raw Materials, Industry<cities> and ports are the other represented resources in SC as far as I can tell. Doesn't matter which you bomb unless you want to prevent certian actions and you want to gain experience in SC1. Very rarely done for any sort of Strategic Purpose. Meanwhile even on a HUGE Strategic Level in WW2, Strategic Bombing<as it was phrazed>

I know my idea of destroyers was scraped as many people feel that Destroyer and a Battleship/Cruiser/Gunboat, etc... are pretty much on the same level. They're fleets broken up into fighting units with all these included. Actually Destroyers were great Escorts, often used especially for subhunting. Just the Right Size

I still honestly feel they could be useful in conjuction with Subs, as a sort of surface Raider, fast, powerful, and duel role. Though a bit small maybe for this scale..

[Comrade Trapp]

Originally posted by Liam:

I was watching a show on Albert Speer, spoke of the US-RAF bombing of OIL refineries in German Occupied Europe, destroying 90% of their capability.

Let me guess, Hitler's Managers on the History Channel.

Been watching that all weekend.

[Liam]

Originally posted by Comrade Trapp:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Liam:

I was watching a show on Albert Speer, spoke of the US-RAF bombing of OIL refineries in German Occupied Europe, destroying 90% of their capability.

Let me guess, Hitler's Managers on the History Channel.

Been watching that all weekend. </font>