What Would You Like?

[Panther]

The same type of combat system as steel panthers.

1 Multi level building hexes and ability to go up or down in levels. Sewers. Fences both wooden and chain linked. Wall tall and short.
The feces on hex edges rather than in the center. Maybe not examine note 6
2 Ability to split up squads into halfs and later reforming them.
3 Anti tank ditches like the gully but man made.
4 Units getting killed in the mine field that are not engineers that are trying to demine a mine field.
5 Ability to go around buildings and not through them with vehicles
6 If at all posible eliminate hexes all together use a line of movement instead of counting hexes. Like close combat but no real time. If you need more of an explanation feel free to email me.
7 Cellers
8 Different brige types to support different vehicle weight.
9 Carpet bombing (Just kiding.)
10 Have the ability to customize the maps to what ever you want inclouding objectives and never have them be modified by the AI even in generated battles.
11 modified buildings that served as bunkers but were not real bunkers.
12 Castle walls nice big thick walls. Castles common in europe.
13 Randomly add to the vehicles and other units small field modification. Ie sand bags. Extra Cammo.
14 The way the units are done now is great with the actuall thickness in mm and slope.
15 Long Campaigns for two players that are randomly generated. Lets say east front.
16 Bigger map on board altilery as well as off board.
17 Elaborate man made fortifications. Ie more of a vriety Based on actuall bunkers.
18 Booby traps in buildings.
19 ability to mine buildings and bridges and then blowing them up.
20 Map editor instead of fliping through buildings have a menu come up and then let me choose one.
21 Sorry if these thoughts are random Thanks guys SPWAW is great I am really enjoying it.

Panther.

[Jakob Jung]

How about a really loooong campaign? a battle every week instead of every month. Would be more realistic and more challenging.
Second suggestion: armor breakdowns. Heavy tanks like Tigers often broke down on the road and had to be abandoned. Also Guns could malfunction at the worst moment. This was implemented in Squad Leader, so why not try it in a computer game.

[Bondy]

U-235 wrote:
"1. Star shells, for those dark nights when you just can't see a darn thing. It might be nice to illuminate a few hexs."

That leads to my suggestion - graphic night and rain representation. By this I mean at night the "unseen" hexes should be almost black, the current seen hexes should be a bit brighter, and the hexes seen by the active unit should the lightest. Not sure if this is a programming job, a graphics job, or both but I'm curious if anyone would find that interesting. It certainly would make the use of starshells and maybe even artillery flashes impressive and dramatic. Along with the great new sound this would just add to the total immersion in the game. Another way to do this with just graphics is to load up darker versions of all the terrain files for any night scenario (I know the terrain editing is a big job but I'll volunteer to do at least part of it;-).

The rain idea is along the same lines - maybe the game could load a green and brown hex terrain image in place of the regular green SHP terrain file when a rainy scenario is loading. There should be a general haze over all the hexes during rain as well, like a very light smoke effect.

I also love the suggestion of seasonal camo for some of the units. I know it's possible with a batch file outside the game but it would be great if someone is going to do a season camo patch anyway to have the game recognize the season and battle area and load up the appropriate SHP file for a scenario or campaign.

-Paul Bond

[U235]

Camo would be awesome! Maybe a radio button in the human deploy map that you could click on and blend a unit in with the terrain. Imagine MMG's in haystacks like in the movie "Anzio". A unit coming up on something like this could really suffer some casualties that way. Also I think it would make infantry vs tank combat a little more realistic and better in line with actual doctrine.

Lots of great ideas on this thread, Wild Bill. I'm drooling just over the potentials!

[nikb]

1. Campaign Unit Purchase Points - a fixed split between perhaps armour, infantry, arty, support and air units. Would allow campaign designers to factor such things as higher air unit availability for the allies later on in the war - insted of just perhaps buying all armour units.

2. Like the idea mentioned of having different bridge types.

3. Assault options - such as overruning positions.

4. Allowing AFVs to reverse.

Nik

[Charles22]

nikb: OOOOOh, like that last suggestion. And perhaps the tank would have higher movement costs for going in reverse. Hey, wouldn't that be cool, to see the enemy attacking en masse, and to see some of his tanks reversing when they started drawing some fire (or at least would occassionally start reversing)? Also, if that's such a good idea, it would put a greater emphasis on that armored car the Gerrys had. For those who don't know, and I don't recall which one it is, but they had an armored car which had a drive both forward and reverse. In other words, it used forward gearing both ways, such that it's top speed went both directions (great for hit-and-run).

[xopher]

How about a further zoom so the entire map can be seen without scrolling (ie. when deploying troops)

[Nikademus]

A 'SP type game' with.....(drum role)

1. ability to select ammo type when targeting

2. ability to lock on target (either by modifying current OP rules, *or* by specific order (could even include an exp chk to see if actually does or if is forced to shift targets)

3. graphical display of key weather conditions (fog....rain...snow/blizzard etc)

4. graphical battlefield display showing nighttime (instead of just a low visibility rating)

5. ability to pause game during fire phase (so one can read all that juicy info about hit/pen etc

6. planes that dont go away after a single damage point (even if they are very durable!)

7. ability to set 'Morale' level in the same vein as exp in a prefrence screen (since its possible to have poorly trained, but highly motivated troops!)

8. a better artillery routine

9. campaign generator that allows the human player to either switch sides or play both sides (or set to 2 player) (this would be especially nice to do after the AI does something really really dumb)

10. Ability of Japanese infantry units to 'Banzai' attack (similar to what Talonsoft did with 'Rising Sun')


how's that for starters??

[kliest]

WB - A few more suggestions.
First some from others that I think need repeating.
Counter attacks on the same map...Very cool.
Close combat / melee
Multi level buildings
Star Shells!!!
Bigger hills and cliffs

One new idea.
How about real map vs assumed map. I dont know how you would do it, but in WWII there were many instances of commanders having faulty maps. So much of the game map is unknown to you until units uncover it. This would make assults much more deadly as you would only have a vague idea of the terrain features that lie ahead.

More hours to day so I can play longer.. I'm not sure this one is possible....

[Nikademus]

here's a couple more...

11. addition of a 'pool' of available equipment to upgrade to (they would still cost points to purchase) This would possibly shake up the upgrade process a little more (instead of the usual one where most just buy the best equipment as soon as it becomes available)

12. variance of terrain type when generating campaigns. Currently one can only select one type of terrain, regardless of length or # of battles chosen. This would make longer #'d camp's a bit more interesting.

13. when generating a single battle, option to choose 'city' as the battlefield.

[xopher]

Originally posted by Nikademus:

11. addition of a 'pool' of available equipment to upgrade to (they would still cost points to purchase) This would possibly shake up the upgrade process a little more (instead of the usual one where most just buy the best equipment as soon as it becomes available)

I like this one - somewhat like close combat (esp. CC3) where there may be better units \ but not all are available.

In addition, I'd like to see the ability to upgrade\change to equipment abandoned on the battlefield... maybe for less or no cost. For instance, the Germans in North Africa were often glad to capture British Matildas.

[Fabio Prado]

Hi, Bill!

I would like to see overruns implemented.
I also would like to see reverse movement (where your tank moves away from the enemy keeping the front armor towards it) implemented.
And last but not least, more control over tha type of ammo used (in tanks) and over the off-board arty.

Keep strong,

Fabio.

[StuNZ]

After having read the thread about the updated SP3 Modern, it sprung to mind what would be awesome to have ...

An expandable system ...

All data - country names, flags, morale, experience, year range covered, orders of battle etc - open to modification by the end user

On top of that, the ability to add/replace code modules (from third parties) to it - adding pieces to the system that weren't there previously - the soviet anti-missile system that ocassionally got mentioned on TGN's boards springs to mind here ... don't like the fact that it's missing, then code something up, slot it in. Don't like the SAM system, modify it. Would probably be (heh, hell, not probably, would be ) a sod to code to allow this, but would truly be an incredible addition to the game.

[Antonius]

I'd like fuel consimption to be taken into account. I have a detailed book about the Abbeville battle (May '40) in which many French tankers speak of stopping their attack because they had exhausted their fuel (and they had only progressed a few miles)

i'd also like that all units would'nt be able to see an ennemy just because it's in LOS and spotted by someone else (as if they all shared a modern high-tech comm system).

Calling artilley strikes should be limited to forward observers and company commanders HQs (and higher).


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always to the last man

[Voriax]

I may have mentioned this earlier but repetition is the mother of..ehm.

Could it be possible to create way to limit the number of particular units you can buy in one scenario? The need for this option has popped up when redoing the Finnish oob, and some of you know that the tank numbers were very small...there is/will be several tanks that were unique examples in Finnish army and having hordes of them in the field may be fun but unrealistic.

Perhaps you could create a new unit data item, a blank field for unlimited and then a number value for scenario maximum? And perhaps a button in the preferences to ignore this if you want several dozen Finnish T-34's or German Maus(es?)


Voriax

[Moonwolf]

Originally posted by troopie:
The ability to buy any units for any type of scenario. E.g, to get landing craft for other than assault missions.

To get Armies and Airforces for all nations involved in WW2, Ethiopia, Thailand, Denmark, Brasil, Union of South Africa. And for potential combattants like Sweden, Turkey and Switzerland.

I second that!!! (Both)

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| Moonwolf |
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[Wild Bill]

I spent a good part of the morning catching up with this list. Wow! You haven't left out very much!

Some good news. The upcoming patch will address some of these requests.

And some can already be done in SPWAW IF you know how to them.

Let me go through the list again and pick those out and I'll try to detail them for you.

Now landing craft can be selected by changing the nation and going to one that has them in their OOB, then picking them.

That is one...about 30 to go (G)

Wild Bill

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Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

[Fabs]

HI, Bill,

Here is my list, for what it's worth:

1) Victory objectives: add option to relate to units survived at the end of the game (to simulate retreat situations).

2) Victory objectives: add option to relate to enemies killed or the destruction of objects.

These two features would allow more variation in mission type.

3) More elevation levels. Cliffs.Streams, gullies and swamps at higher than -2/-1(Surprise, surprise...).

4) Multi level buildings (with cellars).

5) Sewers (for Stalingrad fanatics).

6) Ability to re-assign a unit to another HQ during play.

7) Sharper shooting Americans (were they really that poor?)

8) Smarter AI

9) melees

10) Graphics: gory deatails after casualties as in Close combat (for the bloodthirsty)

11) Small churches (1 hex) with tall tower (level 1)

12) unfordable streams added to the current fordable type.

13) thick woods impassable to tanks (for lovers of ambushes)

14) Bridges at higher elevation than on the water.

15) Flyovers and underpasses. (Tunnels?)

16) Trench systems.

17) Ability to slice a large map in smaller chunks. (One would design a very large general map and use different parts for each engagement in a series of scenarios).

18) dismounted cavalry/bycicles and motorcyclists.

19) Darker screen for night scenarios.

20) simulation of starshells in night scenarios.

21) simulation of creeping artillery barrage.

These are my main points. I realize that some of them are a bit fancy. Thank you for asking!


I love the idea of marrying the SPWAW system to a macro game that would define the strategic situation of each small scale engagement.




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Fabs

[victorhauser]

German Elite Infantry...

I would very much like to see Waffen SS squads redesignated as "Heavy Infantry" and a new "Elite Infantry" category worked into the German OOB (with variations for panzergrenadiers and motorized infantry). I believe it is a grave injustice to the rest of the German Army to call only the Waffen SS elite. It's also very distasteful to me to have to use SS troops to represent formations like Grossdeutchland, Panzer Lehr, 78th Sturm Infantry, etc.

While the SS may have had some units of high quality (although I'm more-than-ready to debate even that claim), many were composed of the dregs of human society. I believe that SPWAW can make not only a spiritually wise choice and redesignate SS infantry as "Heavy", but a militarily correct choice as well since there were more "Elite" non-SS formations in the German Army than there were SS ones.

Correcting this issue would also make me feel less spiritually dirty to play the Germans. And I would be grateful for that.

[Desert Fox]

Originally posted by victorhauser:
German Elite Infantry...

I would very much like to see Waffen SS squads redesignated as "Heavy Infantry" and a new "Elite Infantry" category worked into the German OOB (with variations for panzergrenadiers and motorized infantry). I believe it is a grave injustice to the rest of the German Army to call only the Waffen SS elite. It's also very distasteful to me to have to use SS troops to represent formations like Grossdeutchland, Panzer Lehr, 78th Sturm Infantry, etc.

While the SS may have had some units of high quality (although I'm more-than-ready to debate even that claim), many were composed of the dregs of human society. I believe that SPWAW can make not only a spiritually wise choice and redesignate SS infantry as "Heavy", but a militarily correct choice as well since there were more "Elite" non-SS formations in the German Army than there were SS ones.

Correcting this issue would also make me feel less spiritually dirty to play the Germans. And I would be grateful for that.

Hmm, I think maybe you are making a big deal of nothing here. The first Waffen SS units were in fact, elite. Now, it is true that there were many elite units in the Heer, but lets remember that they are not depicted in the game, so to pass on calling the Waffen SS elite really does not grant other units that status, gamewise. Also, the Waffen SS were not heavy infantry either. For the most accurate oob, there would have to be several different types of German infantry, with both regular Heer and Waffen units, as well as elite Heer and Waffen units. This is obviously pretty close to impossible due to the limited space in the oobs.
I don't know if there are bonuses associated with being classed as elite infantry instead of something else, and I guess Paul would have to tell us that. However, if you don't like calling the Waffen SS elite (which btw is just as great an injustice to them as it is not calling certain Heer units elite) then you can go in and change it yourself with the oob editor.
Now I also think that you are not very educated on the subject of the Waffen SS. The Waffen SS was plain and simple a battlefield unit. They had nothing to do with the concentration camps, nor were they full of evil people. Don't ever confuse the Waffen SS with the Allgemeine SS. On paper, the Waffen SS was created under the Allgemeine SS, but in reality the Waffen SS answered to the OKW in battle. Waffen SS was a group of soldiers, Allgemeine SS was the political force responsible for the Holocaust.
This is a common and pretty bad misconception to make. I hate to think of the trouble Waffen SS vets have been given just because most people don't understand the difference. Sure there were bad folks mixed into the Waffen, but there were most surely bad folks mixed into every other German unit, and every other nation's armies as well.
And one last thing, if you still don't feel right using Waffen SS units in the game, then don't use them. Rename them or just don't buy them.