More Info Please

[geozero]

It would be nice to get more info on the game... though some of the following has been answered in separate threads, how about putting one sticky with all the juicy info?

Scale? What is the disctance of hexes in miles or km? How many hexes cover the playing area?

How long is a game turn? Weeks, months?

What weather effects alter movement or combat?

Are there random events or fixed events?

Are the units moddable? Can new units be added?

Is the map moddable? Graphics? The UI?

How are amphibious landings handled?

Is there lend lease?

Is there diplomatic choices you can make? Treaties? Alliances?

Are minor countries automatically aligned to major countries? For example can Romania be played as an allied country or will it always be aligned to Axis powers?

How are convoys handled?

How are aircraft carrier planes handled?

Do subs possess stealth? Some other games are weak at this, and as soon as they attack they get pounced on and destroyed...

Is there production? How is that handled? Must a player build factories?

Do aircraft operate only from cities or are there separate (and maybe buildable) airfields?

Does oil play a factor in the game mechanics. This was one of the primary reasons for many of the greatest WW2 battles, North Africa, South Russia/Stalingrad, even the Battle of the Bulge was about getting oil and supplies.

What type of units are there? Infantry and Armor? Any others? Engineers, mechanized infantry, garrison, AA units, forts, etc?

I like the way the timeline has been extended past 1945, is there anyway to get the game to start say in 1936 and play out the Spanish Civil War???

Do national borders re-draw when that nation has been conquered?

What does it take to conquer a country? Usually, these level of games assume that capture of Capital or several vital VP areas or cities produce auto-surrender.

How many different types of aircraft area there? Fighters, interceptors, jet aircraft, bombers, ASW, dive bombers or other tactical bombers, transports, etc?

Speaking of transport planes are there Airborne units? If so, what advantages do they have? How does supply effect them?

Speaking of supply, how is that handled? Can you build supply depots? Are supply lines only traced from cities or ports?

More questions to follow... I do hope someone in the know can answer these...[:)]

[alaric318]

greetings,
 
scale is two weeks turns, at base, but winter turns take 4 weeks, meanwhile summer turns take only 1 week, so the average is around 2 weeks turns.
diplomacy... you get as time pass on "diplomacy points", you can use them to haste a nation on your "allignment" to enter the war on your side, in example, germany receive if i remember correct 5 points each turn, haste alliance with romania cost 55 points, each nation starts with a fixed allignment, too there are an option to try a coup d'etat but i do not have tried it. (new allies are under AI control if not set to human control, there are a cheat mode, on game, push the f1 key and can adjust control, so, you can take control of newly allied nations).
troops... infantry, motor infantry and armor, air fleets or divisions and strategic bombers (i still have not try-ed strategic bombers), there are not production delay, troops are available to deploy just when purchased, land forces are given in some scale, from weak divisions to much more strong corps, upgrading levels is expensive but you can make powerfull units with armored upgraded units and good experienced commanders, you can build/purchase a infantry division and after upgrade it to corps, air units are expensive but effective, single unit attacks are tread-ed as overrun and can be dangerous for an attacker, i think all land combat that is not concentric (attack by more than one only hex) are given penalty.
conquest and surrender... you must take all cities with victory points, not only the capitol, in example, for france you must take paris, metz, marseilles and i think i some other, in russia there are some Rear Area cities with vp that makes much difficult to make russia surrender).
stealth mode... i think you can set all types of ships as "raiders" and then, them will act somewhat as stealth attack, naval combat is abstract and automatic, allies have the advantage here, i think is very difficult to make an invasion of britain isles, a sealion operation.
each side is a regime with a leading nation, axis is germany, capitol cities is primary supply source and cities draft supplies from main supply source (the capitol city), so you can cut off a city from the capitol and starve much the defenders, i used this tactic to beat minsk and kiev attacking on the russian front, there are a second echelon of supply, from cities to units, each city have a radius of influence and units trace track from his position to the city, the more the distance you get less supplies and troops efficiency is decreased.
aircraft can be at base under all hexes but player must beware of left them or move them away of supply, rebase command is only available with at least 10 supply unit status so, for the better is to have air units on cities or near cities.
there are airborne divisions available but i still have not tried them, are expensive but can be of help maybe taking denmark and then sweden and/or norway.
the map scale, well, can not give a distance frace-berlin or such but is the more large map i have seen on this game genre and on world war 2.
oil is not featured but there are resource hexes that did the job of featuring the advantage of have the oil "sites" given on the war.
 
hope it helps a little, i are just two days with the game, at the moment playing the campaign as axis, i like it,
 
with best regards,
 
murat30.

[geozero]

Murat,

Thanks for the initial info... I do hope you are enjoying game.

Any official response would be welcome.

It seems many things are a bit extrapolated based on Murat's initial findings. France only falls if Marseilles is taken??? Seems ahistorical. I do wish that production was not instant deployable...it's much better IMO to decide to produce and then be somehwat commited to the units (unless you decide to scrap them). This makes more realistic and enjoyable game IMO as it makes you decide critical decisions...otherwise it's like playing Risk but on hexes.

Still would like more answers. [:D]

[lparkh]

Any comments on AI so far ? I have SC2-WAW where AI is quite strong. Held off on commander europe because of AI weaknesses (reported). Curious here. THanks!

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: geozero
It seems many things are a bit extrapolated based on Murat's initial findings. France only falls if Marseilles is taken??? Seems ahistorical. I do wish that production was not instant deployable...it's much better IMO to decide to produce and then be somehwat commited to the units (unless you decide to scrap them). This makes more realistic and enjoyable game IMO as it makes you decide critical decisions...otherwise it's like playing Risk but on hexes.

There is a Vichy event that fires when Paris falls giving you the option for Vichy or total conquest. To *Conquer* France you need to take all VP locations.

The game feels nothing like Risk. The fact it takes many turns to save up for an expensive unit gives it a feel of long term production goals. But by not spending the PP until ready, you can redefine production goals in a pinch if needed.

Jim

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: lparkh

Any comments on AI so far ? I have SC2-WAW where AI is quite strong. Held off on commander europe because of AI weaknesses (reported). Curious here. THanks!

The AI so far feels adequate, but I’ve only just played into Barbarossa, so I haven’t yet finished a game. The one problem I see with the AI is it defends every city (as it should), making it easy for you to bypass non-VP cities without having to fight those units.

I don’t view this is an AI weakness, but rather a scenario design weakness. There are few enough cities on map, that I believe each one should have at least one VP, more for critical production cities and capitals of course.

Then change it so non-winter turns are one week (gives you time to take all the extra VP locations) and I think the AI would be a lot tougher as you’d now have to fight all is units, not just those defending VP sites.

There is one AI problem I view as a bug and not a weakness. For some reason the AI sometimes abandons critical VP cities. I saw the AI pullout of Paris once as one of my armor units moved close enough to grab it in one move. I guess the AI failed to recognize the danger and was moving the defending unit towards the *front*. I saw this again as I closed on the Yugoslavian capital too.

The AI needs to keep a permanent garrison in every VP city no matter what. Perhaps creating fixed garrison corps that cannot be moved would fix this. Or simply tweak the AI so its first order of business is to make sure every VP city is garrisoned before it moves any other units.

Of course I restarted the game and this time around I’ve had to fight for every VP location I’ve captured so far.

Jim

[geozero]

ORIGINAL: lparkh

Any comments on AI so far ? I have SC2-WAW where AI is quite strong. Held off on commander europe because of AI weaknesses (reported). Curious here. THanks!

I think your assessments of other games mentioned is right on spot. Commander was a bit weak even at hardesr settings and played out more like Panzer General, though I really love the way it feels and the way it's all layed out. Beautiful map and graphics, but not much replayable. SC2 and WAW are tougher in the AI department. As is HOI2 which I still find very enjoyable.

As a wargame junkie and tester I have played many, many games, but hesitant to drop a few bucks on another title with so little information about it.

[von altair]

ORIGINAL: lparkh

Any comments on AI so far ? I have SC2-WAW where AI is quite strong. Held off on commander europe because of AI weaknesses (reported). Curious here. THanks!

I don't know where did you get that misinformation about Commander - Europe AI Weakness. Its quite strong and I bet it can beat you down easily.

[Erik Rutins]

CEAW's AI was improved quite a bit from the original release version, were you guys commenting on the original AI or the updated AI?

[lparkh]

My understanding was that the game, for example did very little in North Africa. Is this mistaken?  I have no prejudice against Commander... just read a fair number of emails saying this.. would be happy to be out of date

[lparkh]

Here by the way is an example is a fairly recent thread on commander AI. Please skim the whole thread for the general impression about the AI. Above it sounded like I'd made it all up...
tm.asp?m=1664842

[geozero]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

CEAW's AI was improved quite a bit from the original release version, were you guys commenting on the original AI or the updated AI?

I admit I meant early version, because I haven't played much of it since about a couple of months after release.

[Erik Rutins]

The CEAW AI is still weak in North Africa, but that's the only area it's weak in my experience now that it's been updated. When it comes to the land war, it will give quite a challenge.