SC2 WaW " THe death of human vs human MP"

[Sombra]

I like SC2 and love many aspects of WaW . SC2 WaW could be the perfect game for , ok if it had hexes but nothing is perfect. I love the concept of the new weather zones, diplomatic possibliets , new units etc.

Unfortunately the more I play SC2 WaW against humans the more I think I see the serious flaws in the current setup of the game for human vs human competion.

The problem from my point of view is that there is a risk the players is forced down and just one way to play WaW as the Allies as the "optimal strategy" (Kind of Terifs cookie cutter + HDO for SC1)

What is the best strategy for the Allies? Simple just secure Afrika. Forget about England you dont need it.

Even before France falls take Iraq, Iran and if you are good and lucky take Saudi Arbia as well. The "whole" english fleet , french fleet , bomber etc works on reducing the ports in Afrika as soon as Italy joins the war ....move an engineer and anti aircraft for good measure to Egypt. Defend England lightly after the dust settles and North Afrika is secured you can think again about the Island if it still lives.

You will need a bit of practice but try it, it works. Consequences are ...Afrika is a no go zone. England mostly will be converted to a German holding. D-DAy wont happen in France ... As a simulation as a "what if" scenario WaW fails big time here.

The main root causes for this scenario are simply:

- Its much more cost effective and worthwhile to defend Egypt than England

- England still cannot be defended if the Axis players wants it.

Some suggestions of a fix:

- Scrap the capital move in case of England surrendering. At the most move some Navy assets to Canada and let Egypt declare independance. The main goal of the allied should be the defense of England in the beginning.

Some suggestions to improve gameplay human vs human and and open up more strategic possibilities :

- Reduce greatly the soft attack value of TacBombers. Give them a paper as tank killer but please not as the "fist of god" to wipe out whole armies with 1-2 strikes. Problem with the Tac Bombers in their current state is that they simply work as an "Island cleaner" if the Axis players wants England. There are quite a few others suggestions to reduce the effectivness of the TacBombers (make anti air in cities work against them, reduce soft target attack, make that Tac Bombers are not escorted anymore etc.) I think reducing the soft attack value of Tacbombers would work best for the gameplay.

- Strap down the German fleet. No way the German fleet was able to challenge the English fleet "Oversea fleet" as much as we can in SC2 WaW . To balance the gameplay you could give more subs to the german player.

- Give the English player a "Pioneer unit in the production list"

- Reduce the diplomatic penalties of the Allies attacking Norway. To prevent that the Allies always take Norway before Germany. Reduce for example the B.E.F. Army to 5 points and give England more money in exchange, reduce the amphib tech of England by 1 . Both changes would convert an early invasion 1939 of Norway to a big gamble for the Allies but open up the possibilities for an early attack in 1940 . Forcing the Germans to strike first even before France or risk that the Allies take Norway

- Increase penalties for attacking Syria, Saudia Arbia, Iran , Iraq (Mainly reactions by Turkey and perhaps increase the defence of Iran etc. would be logical if they see somebody gobbling up their neighbours.)

I would simply love to see that Allied players has to think much more about the defense of England . Right now he has mostly a "jail free" card if England falls. Giving the Allied player the possiblities to move way to many assets to Egypt.

The current setup plays out much to "ahistoric" for me" and gets kind of boring fast. I really hope that a new patch would adress these topics.

P:S: Please dont say Editor ... humans player have the tendency to play the official version of the game and its hard enough to find players already.

[Nupremal]

I have tried to do a lot of this in my game. I do have the UK transfer to Canada if it falls, not Egypt - this prevents the benefit of the supply there but if I don't transfer then you cannot buy any new units for its previous minor allies. I will keep some of these ideas in mind. I have also altered some unit stats, tac bombers I start with 1 soft and 1 hard attack. This way they are not as good even as fighters until they get some tech - also limit number of builds and no soft builds allowed.

My game should be very nice and I will be looking for players/testers. It also will take longer to get to work with ai - first want it working w/human.

[Big Al]

Im doing a gobal game 256x54 map on a scale slightly larger than SC2. Ive played every WW2 grand strategic game (board and PC) under the sun. I will release a base game with no AI for everyone to play and test. Im basing it World in Flames. WIF is a very successful WW2 board game and a proven system.

[SeaMonkey]

Sombra I have never played WaW with Egypt as the fallback condition of UK surrender, always Canada. It's a simple selection in the Scripts at the beginning of the game.

The other suggestion is to always build the UK engineer unit first and start fortifications immediately around London landing areas.

I think the one most important aspect for modification is to allow anti-air tech that is applied to cities and ports defend against all air units, paratroops also. Hubert will have to code this.

Finally my last suggestion, which I've made before, that in the event that UK does fall and the Capital is moved to Canada, UK should still be allowed to receive USA lendlease in which case the Axis will see intervention early back into the Eastern Hemisphere.

[Nupremal]

WiF is being done by Matrix and quite awesomely: http://www.matrixgames.com/products/296/details/World.In.Flames

[SeaMonkey]

Yeah I've been following it since its creation, what???? about 3 years ago.

Watching its development, I'm of the opinion it'll be a monster to play. The same thing put me off of War in the Pacific by GG, glad I didn't buy it, I'd never get through a PBEM in my lifetime.

[Nupremal]

Yeah it does look like a monster - I think it will be useful just for the historic information it will have alone, actually. I will still give it a shot for fun.

[Colin I]

To echo SeaMonkey - AA should be able to intercept paratroopers, so should fighters and a fighter escort of paras should be allowed. transports are easy to intercept - nobody in their right mind makes a mass airborne landing without air superiority.

[SeaMonkey]

Excellent Colin, you are, without a doubt, in possession of wisdom.

[Sombra]

Thx for the Input . SeaMonkey, I know I can change some of the scripts in the editor. Unfortunately if it is not official you wont find any human player.

Regarding the AA , Paratroops etc. yeah would be nice if it would be handled more realistically.

Hopefully hubert isnt finished yet with Waw after PDE and the Pazifik Game

[SeaMonkey]

Sombra, you don't have to use the editor. Its in the campaign setup choices(player that goes first..Axis)...go advanced, look in the surrender scripts and activate the fall back capital as Ottawa, deactivate Egypt, I think it will automatically.

Its easy, no editor, and its official.

[arado234]

-Imho if Germany can take England and clear Africa then Germany should recieve some sort of instant mpp bonus and it should give them a permanent small morale boost.This would have been a disaster for the Allies in reality

-English capital moves to Ottawa.

-America and Russia get an Immediate Ind.and Prod.boost and they both recieve 3 free research points in both Ind.and Prod.tech

-All minor countries than could be "influnced"(close proximity) by Germany see an instant increase in their diplomacy to Germany(dont know by how much).You can bet that every country in question would now be in great fear of being occupied and would probably be "encouraged''that it would be in their best interest to be friendly towards Germany

England being removed from Europe and Africa should have a major effect on this game as it would have in reality.

As far as their being some penalty for the Allies(imho there shouldnt be) occupying the Mideast,thats what they did in reality and their was no big issue from Turkey or anyone else.Russia and England "'persuaded"Iran to allow LendLease.Iran wanted no part of it but had no choice.The reason I know this is because two of my co workers are Iranian and they both told me there was ALOT of resentment about this for along time after the war ended.They feared that if Germany was successful in taking Africa they would be blamed for trying to help the Allies and feared reprisals from Germany.

-I agree with the toning down of Tac.bombers,especially against Inf.

-I also find it kind of strange that Artty.can fire at and cause damage to a battleship(shouldnt be allowed).Most Artty.was either three inch and up to about 5.5 inch guns and had nowhere near the range or destructive power of a battleships 14 to 16 inch guns.

[Nupremal]

well I think I will find human players for my campaign when it is done - I hope - I invite anyone, need to playtest - not quite ready for beta test yet.

[thetwo]

Arado, I thought you might like this. It's a PM I sent to Sombra some time back and the topic is self-explanatory.

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Sombra, I'd like to comment on the English capital question.

I agree that Churchill would have chosen to move to Canada. I think few would doubt that. He would be in a populous English speaking country with large natural resources. This would keep him close to Roosevelt too. What would happen then is more interesting.

Please bear with me. Some will be aware (others may not) that Churchill did contemplate surrender as a possibility at one point, because of the food shortages in the UK caused by U-boats. This burden weighed heavily on him in early and mid-1942. He was waiting and hoping and worrying. The turn around in the U-boat war in that July saved Britain.

This is significant in several respects.

- Great Britain was a net importer of food. A surrendered UK would still have to import food to feed the population. Continuation of hostilities would make this unlikely. The three breadbasket countries at the time were Canada, the United States, and Argentina. Transport would be necessarily by sea and would require the consent and cooperation of the German leadership. Any other option would lead to widespread famine in the British Isles in a matter of weeks. No British government could have fled and then allowed that to happen.

- Germany was itself short of food as early as March 1940. I am referring to a remembered reference to a diary entry that wheat flour was being replaced with potato flour at that time. Any importation of food to the UK could be diverted to other locations, essentially ending food embargoes on Germany and Italy.

- If you do a quick internet search on Spain's role in the war, you are likely to come up with reference to how the UK and US used petroleum imports as leverage to keep Franco from aiding the Axis. My own research has led me to the conclusion that this is a prettied up version of history. Spain at the time was also a net importer of food. Actually, Spain was importing food rather heavily and Churchill had threatened Spain with the same fate that his own country faced, famine. My guess is, that if the British Isles surrendered, the resultant food imports would allow Spain more freedom of action. (Or the Germans more freedom to deal with Spanish needs.)

- An interesting remaining question then is the fate of overseas forces. Germany would certainly want Gibraltar, Malta, and British withdrawl from the Middle East. The Germans would not be in a position to demand that those forces actually withdrew to a certain place. There is a limit to how far you can push the threat of starvation. You either can starve a populace or you can't. The Royal Navy would have probably withdrawn to Canada and the US as would most of the land units. The surrender of the British Isles would have been a gaping wound to the English speaking world, but there is very little that could have been done about it considering the food problem. (You get perhaps 350,000 British military personnel world-wide stranded while their families are home and hungry. Nasty scenario.)

I think the war with the West would have to come to a frustrating end. A Cold War situation would have developed. After all, we were shipping food to the Soviet Union during that “conflict.”

[Hubert Cater]

Sombra,

Thanks for your post and I wanted to respond earlier but I found myself too wrapped up in work for the Pacific Theater.

For the UK transfer to Egypt, originally we felt this was necessary in order to give the Axis player a target to finally force the submission of England. By having it move to Canada it is less likely they would be knocked out of the war but I can definitely see your point with respect to the Med once UK loses the isle.

Reducing the BEF to 5 is a doable change but I am hesitant to change the UK Transport range from 5 to 4 as the AI needs the range help later in the game.

For Tac Bombers would it be helpful if they alone were capped at AT Level-2 while allowing full Level-3 for Infantry and Anti-Tank guns? Additionally I should mention that we did not have Tac Bombers escorted but during Beta testing we found that they were not as useful as we would have preferred. This could be changed but I wonder about the unforseen consequences as we also do not want to neuter this unit in the end either.

I am always interested in improving the games and while I cannot guarantee any further changes for WaW I can certainly make a note of things and work to improve future releases as applicable.

From your list I can see the following changes being a strong possibility:

- reduce BEF to strength 5 and give the UK an extra 44MPPs instead

- change UK transfer to Canada instead of Egypt

- cap AT upgrades for Tactical Bombers at Level-2, down from Level-3

- eliminate escorts for Tactical Bombers entirely

Are there any objections to such a list of proposals? Also, is it enough? Is it too much?

[Nupremal]

Wait - are AT bonuses for Tac Bombers capped at 3 if I have the AT Tech set to 5? I believe in 5, at minimum 4, for AT for infantry. This combats the bonuses for Tanks and indeed, AT technology by the end of the war was quite effective - particularly with the Panzerfaust and the Bazooka. That said, I would like to keep Tac bombers down some - so a 3 limit is fine.

[Hubert Cater]

For the regular campaigns AT is set to a max Level=3. This then allows you to upgrade Infantry, Tac and Anti-Tank to a level of 3 AT if you've reached this level. The proposal above is just another way of asking if I introduced some fine tuning, i.e. left the master level at 3 but then capped specific unit types to the desired level, i.e. Tacs at Level-2 and leaving the rest as is, would this have the desired effect?

[thetwo]

Hubert, I think that would have the desired effect.

[SeaMonkey]

How about going another way. Make it so that as anti-air levels rise through research the air defense(AD) CTV of ground units goes up. Increase the chit cost to 100 MPPs for research.

Once a player reaches level 3 anti-air tech all his ground units receive a boost to 2 CTV for AD. This would make it more expensive for ground attack air units to conduct missions as it happened in real life.

Further as each player enters into the later stages of the game and the TAC becomes more experienced, give ground units another boost at AA tech level 5 increasing their AD to 3.

You could also plan that BBs, Ca, and DD units might see an AD increase at that level 5 anti-air tech level. I like the idea of having further dilutions of MPPs for players to commit to different arenas, enhancing the rock-paper-scissors theology.

[Nupremal]

No I was just wondering if I set, as I have, a tech level of 4 or 5 for AT - that also means tac bombers can get the same 4-5 and are not capped at 3 artificially - I am pretty sure if I set it in a scenario to 5, the tac can go +5 also. Flexibility in caps for units and ability to have tech do different things would be nice for the future - but I understand where we are now.

Me, I chose to make some other changes - Tacs start out kind of weak 1/1 Soft/Tank and can get like 4 upgrades or so - so max is still 5 -

[arado234]

Imho you should still be able to escort tac.bombers but the surviving interceptors get to attack the bombers(this would atleast prevent the attacker from using a very low strength fighter using up a full strength defending fighter completely).If the fighters choose to ignore the escorts they should suffer some penalty(perhaps their advanced fighter level drops 1 or to 2 levels to mimic the greater destruction they would recieve by ignoring escorts like it really happened) and they dont get to shoot back at the defending fighters.Im sure this would be hard to program though.

Land based tactical Artty. shouldnt be able to shoot at battleships or crusiers.

[Terif]

Main reason why holding Africa as Allies is so lucrative in WAW is because of the too narrow gap of El-Alamein which makes it very easy for them to defend Egypt and also the lack of railroads in the area so Axis reinforcements landing further west can´t operate to the front so it is very easy to prevent Axis from sending troops to Africa in the first place by a naval blockade.

So to nerf this - for multiplayer pretty much "must do" strategy - and bring back some more variety at least in this aspect, just these 2 issues need to be adressed .

Concerning the list of possibilities:

...

From your list I can see the following changes being a strong possibility:

- reduce BEF to strength 5 and give the UK an extra 44MPPs instead

- change UK transfer to Canada instead of Egypt

- cap AT upgrades for Tactical Bombers at Level-2, down from Level-3

- eliminate escorts for Tactical Bombers entirely

Are there any objections to such a list of proposals? Also, is it enough? Is it too much?

- reducing BEF or not makes no difference, just delays it one turn...but Allies have all the time in the world, so it doesn´t matter if or if not

- UK transfer to Canada: would make the situation even much worse since then UK would still have the same benefits of a Med strategy (lots of ressources, exposed Axis underbelly) but now had zero risk when sending everything to Africa as then they can not surrender any more. As long as the capital transfers to Egypt, UK has to hold it and risks surrender if not. If that would change, then UK could just do whatever it wants without any possibility for Axis to punish them for their actions (by forcing a surrender).

Therefore: pretty bad idea

- Cap TB upgrades: different topic - has not much to do with Egypt (would make it even easier for Allies to defend Egypt against the german tac bombers...).

But for the overall game (and modders) a very good idea if it is now possible to implement that their research cap is independent from the other units. Tac bombers are simply too strong and later in the game pretty much like an atomic bomb, destroying everything in 1-2 shots...but limiting it to just lv 2 would only be a drop in the ocean... Tac bombers are just the all-mighty superweapon in WAW...

- and so removing escorts for them would also not help that much since then they may take some damage if attacking alone (nevertheless still beeing able to destroy their targets easily)..but good human players let their own fighters attack first anyway and so deplete the enemy interceptors, so this is usually not a factor and therefore pretty much irrelevant for Multiplayer one way or the other .

In general I would like to see the possibility to REDUCE damage by applying certain techs and therefore making defending something at the main fronts an option again also in the later stages of the game if units have a better resistance to damage (which could also be used to put tac bombers back in place so they are not the super weapon any more they are today if their targets could be made more damage resistant) - there should be a balance between offence and defence which isn´t there at the moment.

So far attack/defence values only increase with higher techs and the damage done to one side or the other just gets higher and higher until 1-2 shots are enough to kill any defender no matter which terrain they are in.... Combined with the unit flood in WAW and even more the double strike capability of (too) many units (making entrenchment obsolete), the attacker is usually extremely in the advantage. Which makes putting up defence lines - especially in Russia (also because of the necessity of rails for operating units..) - foolish and unfortunately lastly results in just one viable possible strategy for Multiplayer between veteran players. With at the end one gigantic bloodbath where within a few turns hundreds of units bite the dust...last man standing wins...making (weather/research) luck and who is having more ressources the deciding factors who wins the war...and not who has the better strategy like it should be in a strategy game.

[Nupremal]

interesting. I would like to try some of this with my campaign and see where it falls if I can correct some of these issues. I am trying to. There are a lot of fairly bad things that happen if the UK is lost.

[arado234]

Terif what you say about tac.bombers is true but if the defender has some high tec.A.A.guns with alot of experience they can prettywell stop any type of tac.air attack(I do realise you can use other planes to use up the A.A guns fire but that will only be a viable option for a couple of turns).Ive had them maxed out with high experience lead by Manstein and hotseated it to see the effect.In some cases they totally destroyed the attacking aircraft.It gets very expensive to start loosing planes to cheap A.A. guns(not to mention the experience).I do realise that A.A.guns cant be everywhere and that longrange air makes it tough to defend against.

I guess another way to do it is to limit the tac.bombers built to just two only.Even with soft build limits turned on,only two tac.bombers allowed.

Nupremal is right in that if Engalnd is just abandoned(which in reality would never happen)then bad things should happen.One way to stop it is to have the Brits.force pool drastically reduced and their overall morale takes a big hit.Their overall supply capability in Africa also drops.

To make England harder to take, give them some level three tec. A.A.guns to help defend the country(these should also be able to fire at Paras) and a commander.Plus give them an engineer.England should be quite hard to take but not impossible.Weather Germany could have taken England in reality with an allout effort will never be answered.

[SeaMonkey]

I like A234's approach and I also can see the premise behind Terif's proposals. It has been a constant compromise for SC development, historical accuracy vs strategic gameplay.

Since I don't have the PDE expansion I can only comment on the lines of the WaW variant. And as I've said before choosing Canada as the backup capital to continue UK involvement has produced some very long and captivating games for me, H to H.

The supply situation in Afrika should always be precarious at best, for both sides! It is a very important theater with vast consequences and thusly should be portraid in that manner. It should take a commitment from either side that will impact other arenas for its rewards and should conversely have its downsides. I think with the Ottawa fall back provision it is represented.

Perhaps, and I say this hesitantly, there should be a decrease in USA readiness if UK does choose, in the face of British Isle invasion success, to continue from Canada. If they choose to continue from Egypt, then morale and supply needs limitations. Since PDE has the decision events it should be for the Allied player to choose.

The gameplay balance, the diversification of strategies, and the historical context can all be satisfied, but its not going to be easy, especially in the case of constant SC evolution.

I've been here, as well as others, a long period of playing commitment and I don't see me bowing out anytime soon as long as Hubert continues on this SC development path.

So what happens when we get there? Its over? We have the perfect game? I think not! We'll never get there so let's have fun on the road that never ends.

Now ...as far as the defense of UK homeland...my group constantly employs the engineer unit(first built) to guard London. I've even seen the USN(as a neutral), in conjunction with the RN, engage in naval maneuver exercises in the North Sea and English Channel that completely impedes any notion of Sealion in the early stages of the game. So ... I still revile the easy victory of UK invasion by the Axis forces.