Demo Experience

[Liam]

Alright, loaded up the Demo, to explore this new title. Interesting!

The Map is much cleaner, and much more precise. There will be much more naval warfare at this point due to it. Also due to the fact Subs and Destroyers play a role in the game. Though subs will still be killed by a determined player they at least now can get out of a bad situation a little better than before, and Cruisers are more like MainLine Capitol Ships... You will have to have Airpower, and Destroyers now to easily polish off Subs, that or few extra ships.

The are some interesting additives, with a more realistic feel, like Rails/Roads getting rid of weather effect. Rain grounding Air Units. Fighters are nolonger UnitKillers. DiveBombers are now the Big Punch Air Unit. Fighters are just helpful but really are going to lose their power. DiveBombers also have an AntiTank tech which I think with experience will make them vital, if they're affordable!

Big factor that will change the dynamics! Tanks and Bombers are double strike units, which means they can both hammer a target twice, instead of once. This will change everything. Bombers before were a bit weak as you needed a couple to really empty out a City, Resource, Unit. Now Bombers will be effective if you have just 1. Tanks that were really too expensive will be Massively more powerful, as high tank techs will be more powerful than FIGHTERS! Bit more like real War, indeed! As for Commandos, antiair, antitank units, I'm not sure their value.

BTW: I beat the AI the first try on the hardest setting in my sleep but it was A LOT more intelligent than usual. just no challenge for me

P.S. the new Bomber that Italy has will actually bring it into the game I think a little earlier. With an HQ, two way to Egypt it may actually be able to play a role

So much more I haven't investigated

[Hubert Cater]

Hey Liam,

Glad you like the changes as a lot of time and effort went into making the game more interesting/realistic while at the same maintaining playability.

Btw, I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head with your assessment and what I tried to achieve with Weapons and Warfare.

You mentioned beating the AI... can you be more specific for which campaign and what constituted your victory? i.e. since the main campaign is limited in the demo you might be surprised what the full campaign has to offer when it shortly becomes available.

[SeaMonkey]

Hey Liam did you notice the seemingly quicker pace at which the German air units accumulate experience?

Haven't played the Allies side yet.

Is it my imagination.?.....by the time I was out of France, all three Fighters(Me 109+110) had 3 ribbons and the Stukas were at 2 and a half.

[Colin I]

Poland is doomed even faster with double strike armour.

Liked cheaper sub warfare technology and think the subs and other graphics look very good.

[Colin I]

Notice German armour gets 2 strikes, French 1. I realize French had doctrinal limitations but suggest if of similar morale and better tech they should be at least equivalent. German leadership advantage simulated fine by HQ.

Norway falls to Germans by event - OK - but Allies liberated it 1 turn later to howls of protest from Sweden and Finland. Feel German invasion was at least as provocative!

[aesopo]

Liam,

You said you played it at the hardest level but did that include +2 experience for the AI? If so, that would be indeed a miracle...hmmm.

[Liam]

Glad to note you were reading HC,

Yes, a much more historical Feel, much more indepth... a lot of studying to do, on the dynamics, and yet still playable.

as the Axis vs Allied AI I noticed it attacked a lot more frequently, they took the iniative when in the previous versions they often fell asleep only reacting to an offensive and then planning very linear moves. However there are a few chokepoints on the map the AI doesn't understand that costs it direly. Proper time to abandon the Maginot move back on the mine, where entrenchment is 3 and the MPP value, and is not an easy target for the Axis with 1 or 2 Maginot Tiles covered by French Armies. For instance when my units arrived outside of Paris, 2 corps were posted North and South of the Capitol Tile, and that wasn't an effective deterrent. The AI should've posted both Corps in Front of the city, Corps cannot counterattack very effectivetly and they are not going to stop armies/tanks assualting them in that position. In Front of Paris it would've delayed my victory of France.

Also I noticed the AI didn't bombard my Coastal Offensives quite as well as it should've, but that is understandable... The AI also saw the benefit of moving into Benelux when I left the tile open there for it and it could be an easy trap. I suppose you cannot train it to do everything you want, it will attack targets of opportunity, which it did with effectiveness in other positions, I Pre-DOWed Benelux to make the game harder, and the Dutch Corps moved up to occuppy 2 German cities and harassed me, as I also PRE-DOWed Denmark, so it operated in to prevent me from getting position... Doing much damage to my economy.

The Naval aspect the Allied also were very aggressive, I could see some room for improvement there as they let me get away at the last minute, the AI does not yet understand how to bait a Sub... Though Much has improved from previous versions

[Hubert Cater]

Liam,

Thanks for your feedback.

Overall your assessment of what occurred, Fall of France as well as Denmark and Benelux is generally still to be expected, i.e. even human opponents should lose these countries but as mentioned before it is difficult to gauge the entire game from the demo as the full game has changed quite a bit and should offer much more of a relative challenge.

That being said it is still of course an AI and as such will likely never play quite as clever or as deceptively as a human player, as you've noted, although some of the plans for the next evolution to this engine will definitely help in this regard.

I also suspect the top tier of players will still generally defeat the AI no matter what the settings but even here I'll bet there will be a few surprises

But I will say again that I am very glad you like and more importantly recognize much of the improvements we (myself and the beta team) worked so hard to achieve.

[Ottosmops]

I tried the WaW Demo today and I like the new map with its details.

There are only two bagatelles I want to report:

If I understand the ZOC rule correctly, then the active unit in the picture above shouldn't be able to move so far in the enemies camp as the highlighted tiles indicate.

Actually, when I tried the move, it was stopped by a previously unseen unit south east of Brussels.

And I think there is a rule that ships are safe from bad weather along the coastline.

I always assumed, that tiles adjacent to a port are also safe places.

Apparently I'm wrong, see picture below.

[Hubert Cater]

Ottosmops,

Yes it looks like the hidden unit caused the ZOC penalty to not be applied... I'll look into this.

For the storms at sea damage you are correct that it does not apply if you are next to a port but only if it is a friendly port. In this case it was a neutral port so the damage still occurred... same as it would if it was an enemy port etc.

[The K Man]

Look forward to the new game. Have played as Axis and Allies on the demo. Good job on making a great game better HC.

I do like the fact that you can now see where the subs had attacked the convoys. Nice feature!

[Fintilgin]

I enjoyed the demo, and I think that (finally) with WaW, SC2 will displace Clash of Steel as my favorite game in this genre.

A quick note, though. Maybe it has to do with me running at a high resolution (1680x1050), but I find it very, very hard to tell which squares I can move to during the winter. Slightly brightened white is very similar to white. I often just have to swing the cursor around, watching it change to see where I can go. Maybe it's possible to darken the areas where you can't go? Or something? I had the same problem in vanilla SC2, but it seems worse somehow in WaW. I suppose I can just darken my snow graphic, but I thought I'd mention it.

EDIT: I used Paintshop Pro to give the highlighting a golden hue that I rather like. If anyone else wants this, I can upload it to CMMOD.

I'm really chomping at the bit for my download to activate. It's really a shame that if it's gone gold we can't just download it NOW. That would be awfully nice, and it's not like there needs to be a street date when it's not going to physical EB stores or whatever.

Anyway, thanks for the hard work. I really haven't played much since the early days of release, but I'm looking forward to getting back into the game.

[ October 22, 2007, 07:55 PM: Message edited by: Fintilgin ]

[dgold07]

Enjoyed playing the WAW demo as the Allies on normal level.

I noticed that the Axis AI player could not take Paris within the time limit of the demo. Is this because the AI, like myself, was not able to buy new units, thus was handicapped?

Also, instead of pushing to take Paris, once the Maginot line was broken/evacuated by me, the AI player moved 2 armor and 1 inf unit South to attempt to take Marseilles to assist the Italians, who were having a difficult time.

Otherwise the AI seemed to play a pretty smart game.

What are the surrender conditions for France?

[Hubert Cater]

dgold07,

Could be that no purchases may have had an effect. Also weather and bad dice rolls can play a role on the AI as it would for a human player. Could also be that you are a better player that would require you to move up a few difficulty levels.

Difficult to say as you would probably need to play a few times through with maybe even a few changes to the difficulty options to find just the right balance. The full game may also make a difference once the AI has the option to make purchases etc.

For France, Paris needs to be captured and enough French units destroyed before it surrenders.

Hope this helps,

Hubert

[Hubert Cater]

Fintilgin,

Have you tried using the National colours option via the OPTIONS dialog? I agree it can still be difficult to see all the movement options but I find this helps especially for the white on white.

For your modification I for one would be interested to see it if possible... please send to info@furysoftware.com.

Thanks,

Hubert

[Fintilgin]

I did try the National colours option, but honestly I still had a really hard time seeing my options in snow.

Here's a couple samples, I sent you an email with the files zipped up.

I opened each of the light_XXX.bmp files in Paintship Pro, then I:

1.) Raised the colors to 16 million.

2.) Adjusted the RGB values by about -40 blue.

3.) Did a color replace on the background to restore it white.

4.) Dropped the colors back down to 256 and saved.

I suppose I'm biased, but I really rather like it. Winter is much less frustrating.

[Ottosmops]

I noticed that in the Battle of the Bulge scenario tactical bombers and strategic bombers have different 3-D but the same 2-D Icons.

I use always the 2-D view, and I think I would prefer different 2-D Icons as well, to see at first glance, who is who.

[Hubert Cater]

Ottosmops,

Good catch and this seemed to be missed entirely during development... I'll have a quick fix ready for this once the game is available and include it in the first patch.

Hubert

[Hubert Cater]

Fintilgin,

Very nice indeed... with your permission I'll gladly include this in the Extras folder for the first patch.

Hubert

[Fintilgin]

Absolutely. I'd be honored.