All my little Japanese

[Sombra]

I noticed in the last games I played human vs human that the Allies (France , Poland etc. ) have taken lessons from their Japanese friends.

They fight to the last man, commit "Harakiri", suicide bombing, french ships pursue the german fleet deep into the baltic sea, the french planes start "Kamikaze"

Since the ammount of "plunder" is tied to the number and strengh of the enemy army left. It seems a little bit funny that the enemy starts to commit ritual suicide as soon as the defenders are before the gate of PAris for example.

Just an obsebvation.

[ April 20, 2006, 01:55 AM: Message edited by: Sombra ]

[Dragonheart]

Well you have to see this in another way...by doing this they are killing numerous german armies. The range in MPP earned by plunder is from 350 - 1100 for france i noticed by playing the demo....dunno for poland.

In that way germany is loosing 3 armies at least which cost 200 each Afaik.

[Sombra]

Yep, DH this is why it seems so gamey to me. You sacrifice your armies though the Axis don´t get any money.

Free french forget it, its much better to kill your soldiers yourself hopefully to the last man. After a few game I think the old system with free french / even free polish planes worked better. Just my opinion.

In SC1 You tried to evacuate you troops and you had to strike a careful balance when to give up the defense of France, get at the right time to the ports etc. In SC2 right now the art consists to kill your units in a way to provoke max damage.

As I said french and Polish troops are disciples of good old "Japanese traditions"

Perhaps the rules could be changed that only units count for plunder which are left in the occupied country and raise a bit the chance for free units not only for France but for any country (Poland etc.)

- No more suicide actions of the french fleet

- And a certain benefit if you try to save your soldiers instead of sacrificing them ritually

[Dragonheart]

The problem why ppl will rather sacrify the whole french army is beside the huge difference in plunder that according to the new rules not only ships have a 20 % chance of becoming free french but also landunits now have only a 20 % chance.

In SC 1 you you got the units you saved but now? The 20 % rule is a waste and senseless as now nobody will ever try to save any unit.....this is really an annoying new rule.....

Generally said the french campange lost alot of its former exitement and fun....and interesting strategies.

[Dragonheart]

Since when only admins can edit the post?

Edit to my previous post:

Before i will get the common answer......i dont know if it is possible to chance survival chances of the french with the editor.

[hellraiser]

Fully agree. The plunder system needs some consideration here... Suiciding is gamey, for japanese it may be cool but for euros, i don't think so.

I think plunders should not be tied to how many units remain on the map after you get the capital, but calculated in the first turn of DOW. So you DOW country X - you can expect a plunder to vary between xxx-yyy (a random % could be used here), irrespective of how many units are left on the map when the country surrenders. For majors, the same thing. Mass suiciding of french units will lead to 400+ mpps collected for Axis while the max plunder is 1k or so. 600 mpps mean a lot in SC2 - later in the game you wish you could have gotten them And moreover, is 100% gamey - no sane european would ever suicide the way frenchies do in SC2 (ok maybe a few patriotic freaks, but only a few ... )

[hellraiser]

DH - you probably tried to edit someone else's post

[ebitt]

In the events folder under the scripts folder in the campaign folder there is a file name free_units.txt. You can change the percentage here, but it may have a problem. If the unit survives while at sea it seems to be different from a unit which is in the UK when surrender occurs.

[Sombra]

Originally posted by Dragonheart:

Generally said the french campange lost alot of its former exitement and fun....and interesting strategies.

Yep, bring back some old SC rules to give the allied player some benefits of preserving his troops.

[Dragonheart]

@Hellraiser seems u are rite.

600 MPP at the start the game are far more worth as just the 600 ...as it prevents early diplo investment, early tech investment ...this is affecting the whole game, the outcome of the game can be affected by this f###ing plunder. In a game where you have to count every MPP.

[Dragonheart]

Originally posted by ebitt:

In the events folder under the scripts folder in the campaign folder there is a file name free_units.txt. You can change the percentage here, but it may have a problem. If the unit survives while at sea it seems to be different from a unit which is in the UK when surrender occurs.

Well honestly said its not our task to chance such prinzipals of the game....i wanna play SC not HOI where one can change every script, every save file using mods etc.....

vanilla SC campagne which can be used as it is for competition with rules that make sense and were used in SC 1 too.

In this respect the playtesters failed as several things in SC2 are really odd and their responsibility is also to inform hubert about the flaws in the game.....this is not to insult you only a bit critism.

[hellraiser]

Sombra, to me Axis needs some benefits is SC2 not the Allies

I hotseated a game last night - going past Dnepr - Smolensk line in 42 is an utopia if the allies play conservative in 41 and build up Axis was quite powerful but to no avail - bad weather and supply stop you dead in your tracks, unless your aim is to be wiped out in 2 turns

Axis had massive IT and PT, so did the Allies who eventually will outproduce Axis.

In Russia, the game is more like a ping pong: in 41-early 42 Axis manage to reach Kharkow, maybe Rostow, Smolensk. After that they gotta stop otherwise the reds defending in depth will wipe them out irrespective of techs, due to supply problems Axis run into. Meanwhile the Wallies become sick strong as well and if they land, Axis can stop them at the expense of a withdrawal from Russia - lines will be thin and in 42 Russia can attack. Once Russia begins to take back cities, they wil run in the same supply problems Axis ran half an year ago. If they push further, germans hitting from high supply areas will eviscerate them in 2 turns. In my game this ping pong happened - the side which was best supplied headcracked the other.

To me it appears that the deciding moment of the game is when allies land in west - if axis repel them, they must pursue the Sealion and conclude the war in west. Eastern border should be safe, higher supplied german units can hold the line , at least in 42-43.

Another option may be after a repelled D-day to start collecting minors, I dunno. Think that if you let Wallies alive, they will be back at full strength in several months due to cheap costs of buying back killed units.

It's a battle of MPPs even more than in SC1 - between seasoned players, I very much doubt game will be concluded in 41-42.

[ April 20, 2006, 02:18 AM: Message edited by: hellraiser ]

[Dragonheart]

The insane hits dished by high supplied units is also a bit a problem as even high expierenced units are killed with just 2 hits....which will change the gameplay in comparison to SC 1.

Beside from tech,supply,diplo SC 2 is very similar to Panzergeneral 1 a great game which is meanwhile 16 years old. Dont get me wrong when i mean similar i mean this under respect of the tactical and strategical gameplay.

I just play it as it is a good training for SC 2 in case i will finally buy it.

[Terif]

My 2 cents:

- Plunder connected to the surviving units may be more realistic from a historical point of view (and that´s probably the reason it was implemented originally this way in SC 2).

But for gameplay this in deed leeds to the strange result that the art of war for defenders is to kill themselves in an as efficient way as possible instead of trying a real defence or to retreat units in time to save them for a later battle. SC 1 has clearly the better system here for gameplay that in deed creates much more interesting battles and decissions than simply to harakiri the units so nobody survives if possible .

- attack values increase a bit too much with tech for my taste. At least Heavy tanks should be capped at lv 2 or 3 like Infantry Weapons and Anti-tank. A Level 5 tank does a damage of 10 points, i.e. one hit and the enemy unit is dead, not really good for the game...What I would like to see would be a tech to REDUCE damage taken from attacks to a bit even out the huge advantages of attackers and offensive techs.

[Liam]

The suicidal actions of a nation aren't farfetched, when you're pushed to the brink you do fight to the death, it's just the experience a unit recieves needs to be increased. I'd say to solve the issue in the two cases of Poland and France where it matters....perhaps Turkey, Finland, Spain and Sweden in the boot as well...

If you kill units in these nations attached to an HQ, on defense or offense you recieve an Experience Bonus for killing first rate nation units. If you Kami Say a Germany army 5 Xs..... maybe you give him 3 or 4 Bars, you'll rethink your strategy and just give up by that point you ought to anyways you're beaten no? Not just give it's HQ a bonus too... If you threw a half million men at a Firing Squad, I'm certian they'd become Elite

as for tech it is VERY TOUCHY Jesus, those pluses and bonuses are hard to beat. Although what would a King Tiger with say a Fuel truck, air support had dished out say in 1940 France? No more through say the Maginot, not much up a Mountain or through a Marsh..so so through a Forest

Perhaps cutting back Tank Mobility as they get bigger would be wiser, forcing a person to invest both in Mobility and Heavy Armor? The bigger the tanks became, the more they need assistance moving along...they lost mobility and gained firepower. That's why many Mark IVs were used to the end of the War as a Staple German Armor...and for Tank Killers, there is no real Tank Killer... Airplanes were better than infantry at that but our fighters don't have anti-tank capabilities? do they

Stukas, P40s and Sturmoviks probably killed more tanks than Anti-Tank Guns after 1942

[Sombra]

The attacker tries to spare the defender and the defender commits kamikaze attacks...

German Soldier: Please I don´t want to shoot you.

French soldier : Arggh, shoot me your german bastard, KIL ME, kill me before I kill you.

[ April 20, 2006, 06:03 AM: Message edited by: Sombra ]

[Ottosmops]

IMHO, there are two questions to solve:

1. How to prevent the 'kill them all' strategy before taking the enemy's capital to gain experience for ones troops of SC1?

2. How to prevent the 'suicide attack' strategy to deny the enemy to much MPP plunder in SC2?

Maybe a solution would be an option to surrender a country.

Then it would be the decision of the defender to find the right moment to end an hopeless defense of a country.

Such an option would fit nicely in the war map, as the 'declare war' button has no more function for a country, which is already at war.

[Lars]

Personally, I don't see a problem with either one.

Germany had 156,000 casualties in France. Casualties were much lighter in Poland, but they still lost about a third of their armor.

How do you propose to have this reflected?

[Sombra]

My suggestions

You count toward the plunder only the units left in France toward the plunder . Raise the possibilty to save free french troops (or other minor nations) and ships(?) I think the game should work more like SC1 in this respect.

In SC1 many times some french units were left you couldn´t evacuate though these could count towrad plunder (and the axis wouldn´t benefit of killing them)

Raise the base ammount of plunder and decrease the ammount of plunder gained of the troops

[ April 20, 2006, 08:46 AM: Message edited by: Sombra ]

[Chris G]

Fully agree with Sombra, the plunder system is one of the biggest flaws in SC2 besides the horrendous amphibious assault exploiting.

[Lars]

The amphib assault was a fix, iirc.