Very impressed

[Ktonos]

SC WiE is my personal best thing on WW2 among all things about WW2 (action games, strategy games, board games, movies, and ofcourse ww2 itself..)
So I couldn't think that this could be better than SC WiE, nor Guns of August (my best game up to now about the great war), so I gave it a pass. Fortunately not for long.

National decisions are now real dilemmas as both choices have merit and often are subject to the circumstances of a specific game. The WW1 feel is spot on; Stagnant warfare but you always have the feeling of creeping doom and that all that defense can crumble during your opponent's turn. The air war system is very appropriate to the era. Dropping armies, keeping only corps as the main infantry units while introducing detachments was wise; the Corps-detachment relation makes much more sense than the Army-Corps of the previous titles.

A couple of nitpicks:
1. Instead of having a whole separate campaign for "Italy in CP", I'd prefer to have Italy be fair game for both sides in the main campaign. It was like that, back then, and under different choices from the belligerents Italy might have joined the Central Powers. Maybe the event structure ought to remain the same, but the CP could influence Italy to mobilize to her side.

2. No separate system for Gas Warfare? I don't think that the "more shells per turn" is enough to do justice to the part Gas warfare played in the war. Maybe it could be done as a small pool of "charges" that each side can accumulate and have its artillery to use, or as a new unit (something like the V-Bombs in WiE but hitting Readiness instead of resources).

And a couple of questions:
1. Carriers are only good for recon yes? I am not missing something here?
2. No long range amphibious transports or am I mistaken? If so this is a good thing imo
3. Vanilla artillery has 0.5 de-entrench but no matter how many shells I use no entrenchment is lost on the target
4. Any plans for adding a campaign for each year of the war as is in the WiE?

[The Land]

ORIGINAL: Ktonos


3. Vanilla artillery has 0.5 de-entrench but no matter how many shells I use no entrenchment is lost on the target

Yes - 0.5 gets rounded down to 0 for every shell

While combat damage values end up being treated probabilistically, de-entrenchment is an all or nothing thing. A 1 or 1.5 will always de-entrench one level regardless of readiness, a 0.5 never will.

[eriador08]

Could it be, that this was different in the older SC WW1? Or did germany have tech 1 in artillery from the start? I have the feeling, that artillery was more usefull at the start of the game.

[The Land]

ORIGINAL: eriador08

Could it be, that this was different in the older SC WW1? Or did germany have tech 1 in artillery from the start? I have the feeling, that artillery was more usefull at the start of the game.

I never played the older game. Though I mod in fixing the entrenchment value at 1. To me this is important for artillery to play the role they historically did. The limited shell supply is enough to stop artillery becoming overpowered in 1914-15.

[BillRunacre]

Hi Ktonos

Great to see you're enjoying the game. [:)]

1. Seaplane Carriers have two modes, recon being the default, but you can switch to Recon & Bomb.

2. You're right that there are no long range amphibs.

[johng5155]

I have played a monster table game of WWI, "Der Weltkrieg", and the designer had an interesting take on the effects of gas warfare. Even though by 1918 a third of the artillery shells were gas, it only had dramatic impact twice, at the first use of chlorine gas, and to a lesser extent, the first use of phosgene gas. In the table game, only a limited number of gas attacks are made available, and the consequences vary, from "gas contaminates attacker prior to the attack" (bad for the attacker) to "gas has catastrophic effect" (really bad for the defender). The most common result is "gas has a minor effect", which occurs about 44% of the time.

Effective countermeasures to gas were developed as new types of gas were introduced. For a game at the scale of SC WW1, I think the simplification seems OK.

[Ktonos]

Yeah, I mostly support this more for thematic reasons than actually believing gas made such an impact in the war. Mostly it was the fear in anticipation of gas attacks.
But after delving a bit far in the game I believe the more shells/turn is appropriate as it makes artillery a constant anxiety for the defender.

[Chernobyl]

Is it not possible to get Italy to go central powers in the main campaign? Even if you spend max money on diplomacy? Would love if someone tested this.

[BillRunacre]

ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

Is it not possible to get Italy to go central powers in the main campaign? Even if you spend max money on diplomacy? Would love if someone tested this.

This can be done in the 1914 Triple Alliance campaign, in fact it will happen in that, but not in the 1914 Call to Arms campaign where Italy can either remain neutral or join the Entente.

[Christolos]

ORIGINAL: The Land

ORIGINAL: Ktonos


3. Vanilla artillery has 0.5 de-entrench but no matter how many shells I use no entrenchment is lost on the target

Yes - 0.5 gets rounded down to 0 for every shell

While combat damage values end up being treated probabilistically, de-entrenchment is an all or nothing thing. A 1 or 1.5 will always de-entrench one level regardless of readiness, a 0.5 never will.

I wish I knew this before I wasted tons of vanilla level shells on Verdun...[:(]

It is also not readily clear, at least to me, how artillery de-entrenchment levels can be increased with resereach.

While each level of artillery improves attack values, I don't see anything about de-entrenchment values.

I do see de-entrenchment values being increased with Ground Attack Weapons research, but this appears to be only for Recon and Ground Attack Bombers.

C

[The Land]

ORIGINAL: Christolos


It is also not readily clear, at least to me, how artillery de-entrenchment levels can be increased with resereach.

While each level of artillery improves attack values, I don't see anything about de-entrenchment values.

That is a very good point. I have just checked the manual and can't see any reference to it THERE, either. I think I only became aware of it myself by reading a forum! Probably worth the devs addressing in a patch.

If you inspect a unit using the magnifying glass button you get a window with its stats and the second figure in brackets is the result of any upgrades. So you should see a o (1) for level 1 upgraded artillery's de-entrenchment.

[BillRunacre]

Hi

Good spot, sorry about the frustration.

It looks then as though we need to add that Artillery Weapons increases artillery's de-entrenchment values. Essentially, obtaining level 1 and upgrading with it will make Artillery units de-entench by 1 level per shot.

[FOARP]

Wouldn’t it be better just to increase vanilla de-entrench to 1?

Kind of annoyed at this as, playing a game where only Serbia is under manual control, I’ve just bought an artillery unit specifically to de-entrench opponents and now it seems it’s going to be pretty useless (because vanilla artillery almost never damages) unless I can scrape together the MPP to upgrade the artillery tech as well.

[Christolos]

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre

Hi

Good spot, sorry about the frustration.

It looks then as though we need to add that Artillery Weapons increases artillery's de-entrenchment values. Essentially, obtaining level 1 and upgrading with it will make Artillery units de-entench by 1 level per shot.

Thanks Bill.

I was about to post that I found this out by upgrading one of my arty units to level one.

Cheers,

C

[The Land]

ORIGINAL: FOARP

Wouldn’t it be better just to increase vanilla de-entrench to 1?

Kind of annoyed at this as, playing a game where only Serbia is under manual control, I’ve just bought an artillery unit specifically to de-entrench opponents and now it seems it’s going to be pretty useless (because vanilla artillery almost never damages) unless I can scrape together the MPP to upgrade the artillery tech as well.

If anyone wants to mod this, it's fairly simple in the Editor if you know where to look.

Open a campaign in the Editor then go to Campaign - Edit Country data -Edit Combat Target Data, select Artillery, and De-Entrenchment is on the right hand side. Note that you need to adjust it for all the countries.

You would probably also want to edit the research settings so that tech no longer increments it, otherwise level 2-tech artillery would get de-entrenchment 2.

[BillRunacre]

ORIGINAL: FOARP

Wouldn’t it be better just to increase vanilla de-entrench to 1?

Kind of annoyed at this as, playing a game where only Serbia is under manual control, I’ve just bought an artillery unit specifically to de-entrench opponents and now it seems it’s going to be pretty useless (because vanilla artillery almost never damages) unless I can scrape together the MPP to upgrade the artillery tech as well.

Hi

The need to upgrade is tied in with the change of artillery tactics and equipment required as the war moved from being a mobile one to a war of trenches and positions.

Consider for example the British use of 18 pdrs firing shrapnel, it was largely ineffective against entrenched troops, and this is why we require them to invest in improving their artillery so that they can have better effect.

Bill