Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

ORIGINAL: Bill Runacre
Already in there, the French morale won't like losing the Maginot Line, or having German units advancing behind it. [:)]

I looked thru the National Morale events before I posted, so I somehow missed it, sorry !

Easily done as the script title doesn't mention the Maginot Line as such, it's more generic, but a German unit being within 3 hexes of Epinal is a trigger, and for this to happen either the Maginot Line is breached or Paras have dropped behind French lines.

There is also a Strength script that reduces French Unit Morale.

ORIGINAL: Mountaineer

If you could switch sides. I used to do this with OPART, it gave you the chance to see if you could recover the other side from the damage you inflicted as the opposite player.

This is one of my oldest wishes in regard of Strategic Command. Made it probably already 10 years ago, and than with every new SC release...

I used this feature in Clash of Steel once i had more or less won the game. It gives the single player end game so much more fun...

ORIGINAL: Xwormwood

ORIGINAL: Mountaineer

If you could switch sides. I used to do this with OPART, it gave you the chance to see if you could recover the other side from the damage you inflicted as the opposite player.

This is one of my oldest wishes in regard of Strategic Command. Made it probably already 10 years ago, and than with every new SC release...

I used this feature in Clash of Steel once i had more or less won the game. It give sthe single player end game so much more fun...

Agree that it would add a lot to the game. OPART allows you to do it at anytime.

What I really, really, really, really would like to get is a way to place a question-mark (?) on the map, just like in the old classic Minesweeper game.
If you run into a "surprise" even though you KNOW that there is an waiting enemy unit, than that is really kind of annoying.
And even if you don't know for sure about the presence of an enemy units you would like to move your units CAREFULLY next to hex hidden under the fog of war.
You could ad on AP point to the movement cost for every units which moves next to the ?. Just please help the players out of this misery of un-surprising surprise contacts.

+1. I think I've said it before but I'll say it again, that I think Fog of War is too foggy. At the strategic scale it would be rare to not know the location of a corps or army, but in this game these units are only seen when adjacent, or by the annoying intelligence reports that tell us there is a garrison in north guam.

But I'm ok with playing with FoW = OFF [;)]

ORIGINAL: Xwormwood

What I really, really, really, really would like to get is a way to place a question-mark (?) on the map, just like in the old classic Minesweeper game.
If you run into a "surprise" even though you KNOW that there is an waiting enemy unit, than that is really kind of annoying.
And even if you don't know for sure about the presence of an enemy units you would like to move your units CAREFULLY next to hex hidden under the fog of war.
You could ad on AP point to the movement cost for every units which moves next to the ?. Just please help the players out of this misery of un-surprising surprise contacts.

out the presence of an enemy units you would like to move your units CAREFULLY next to hex hidden under the fog of war.

I would say this is absolutely right for the previous titles, but now being able to move the units hex by hex given that most of them have a spotting range of two, it's just a matter of adjusting the way you move them. For example advancing in Russia you know for certain that most cities are going to be defended, I never go to the hex adjacent to the city but one before, deselect my unit and voila they spot the soviet unit defending the city, I then continue my advance and attack.
Another way, which I admit I tend to forget is to use your air units to scout before you advance.

Not saying that you don't have a point here, there are games (Battle Academy) where you can advance more carefully and if an unexpected encounter takes place losses are minor than if you were advancing at full speed.

Most of the time when I end my movement (often enough one step movements) next to an "invisible" enemy unit the result will be a surprise attack. I would understand a surprise if I stumble INTO the enemy.
Matter in fact, there were often enough surprise attacks FROM ATTACKERS against unsuspecting defenders. In my eyes there is something to fix here. Just moving cautiously doesn't help much.

There should be at least a way to avoid combat if you only move nect to an enemy. Next is different to into. And Attackers have often enough the advantage of surprise. This is missing within in SC.

Playing my first game with Fog totally ON, it doesn't feel quite right to me either. Bumping into a unit and suffering 'surprise losses', but I wasn't surprised at all that a unit was there. I'd have been surprised if a unit wasn't there. [Then again, I keep griping that the Fog is too Foggy anyway].

That is, for land combat, because I guess that surprise encounters at sea are ok. I think.

Playing my first game with Fog totally ON, it doesn't feel quite right to me either. Bumping into a unit and suffering 'surprise losses', but I wasn't surprised at all that a unit was there. I'd have been surprised if a unit wasn't there. [Then again, I keep griping that the Fog is too Foggy anyway].

Spot on observation. I have stopped short of a suspect location and still suffered for it

Yes I think we would have to distinguish between stumbling upon an enemy when advancing using all the AP and ending adjacent to an enemy unit. But given the actual game mechanics if ending adjacent wouldn't trigger the surprise attack then we would never have surprise attacks because everybody is going to move hex by hex.

In Russia we know the AI has forces garrisoning each city, but unless you use air recon, ending adjacent means a surprise attack.

How about giving extra AP if you spend all of them from your current location to your destination, or the other way if you move your forces cautiously hex by hex you lose APs and the distance traveled would be smaller, but ending adjacent enemy units would not trigger a surprise attack. Problem here is that re-balancing may be needed, not the best moment for that.

ORIGINAL: rjh1971

Yes I think we would have to distinguish between stumbling upon an enemy when advancing using all the AP and ending adjacent to an enemy unit. But given the actual game mechanics if ending adjacent wouldn't trigger the surprise attack then we would never have surprise attacks because everybody is going to move hex by hex.

You've hit the nail on the head! If moving hex by hex didn't have any penalty, then we'd always move one hex at a time.

The rules are as follows:

Unit Spotting Ranges During Movement

If a unit has moved its full distance in one move, i.e. without being deselected at any point, then its full spotting range will remain after its movement. However, by moving its full movement all at once the risk of Surprise Encounters with hidden enemy units is high.

The only way to avoid these Surprise Encounters is either to reconnoiter with aircraft first, or to deselect an advancing unit, have it spot, and then move it again.

But when a unit moves or attacks, after its second committed move (i.e. when it has been deselected a second time) its spotting range is reduced to 1 hex. Thus it retains its full spotting range after its first move, but loses it once it moves a second time.

The unit's movement range will update as it is moved, and you can click on new attainable destination hexes without deselecting it.

Bill, you've explained the rule. Thanks for that.

But it doesn't change anything about what i've wrote.

If i "know" where an enemy unit might be placed, how could it surprise me if I stop cautiously in front of it?
The "surprise" is single sided, too. Why shouldn't the attacker able to surprise the defender, too?

If I march right into an enemy unit, well, I guess that is when I really am surprised (and, with a bit of luck, the defender will be surprised, too).

I see no general rule or an all certain wisdom that this "defender surprises attacker" behavious needs to be written in stone.

But even if it has to, for whatever reason there my be, why shouldn't the minesweeper "?" be a solution to help the player to avoid surprise attacks? Placing the "?" on my own could slow my approach in hexes right next to the "?", so I would get punished for over cautiously movement.

There are only a limited amount of air strikes avaiable. And there is no way to do a "silent" recon flight. There are no local spotters. There are no suspicious signs like dust clouds, etc. which could help a coutions player to avoid a surprise attack. I like surprise attacks, when I really got surprised. Not so much if i know about a defender, even though I can't see him. Often enough this even happens with isolated towns without a harbor, where you are sure that the defender is still there, as he couldn't have embarked into sea transports, and where he wasn't able move away either. But still you get surprised if you move next to him.

Perhaps the probability of surprise can be based on how much movement you expend. Have of a normal movement, full movement, forced march could each have a % probability of surprise. If a unit expends very little movement then assume they moved cautiously.

The surprise mechanic works fine the way it is, no need to change it.

Works fine but doesn't feel fine [;)]

Late war suggestion:

add some NM pop ups once Germanys looses the Ruhr Region, East Prussia / Koenigsberg, Vienna, Breslau.

All these losses should hit the German NM.

Invading Russians should provide a NM morale boost / unit morale boost for german units in Silesia, East Prussia, Berlin area, while invading American units / British units (Ruhr area, Bavaria, Nothern Germny, Thuringa) should result in NM Morale losses, unit Morale losses.

When the war was lost, German soldiers fought against the Russians (even death is better than Red Army POW camps and years of slave labor / if we lose this, life will be over anyway), while they often surrendered against eh Americans / British units. Especially true for german towns and cities.

One more thought on surprise attacks:

they shouldn't happen if you move next to an ? unit on the naval map.

Suggestion:

offer an information about the unit losses of the current turn. Right now there is now way to understand which unit you have destroyed or lost during the turn you're playing right now.
Add a key ot show the losses, or add a button in the report menu, please.

Here a suggestion for a new late war historical background information pop-up:

Operation Cornflake

This time I've got a question rather than a standard suggestion.

It regards the Warsaw ghetto rising. In my current game (against the Allied AI) the event just hit Warsaw, which got slightly damaged because of the fighting.
Please don't get me wrong, but do you really want to it to stay part of the GAME?

The history behind the Rising is a heroic one, which should never be forgot and often told, not only in history lesson: how the jewish victims made a final stand against the overwhelming might of their Nazi-German murderers.

The question is: does the shoa take place during my game which I only play for fun? Because if it takes place (and the active part with the partial destruction of Warsaw seems to prove it), I can't possibly play the Axis side, but only the Alied alliance.

If I play the Axis side knowing that during my game (even virtual) people get stuffed into a Ghetto, only to be transported into death factories, how am I supposed to play the Axis side at all?

I know of no easy solution for this. But it kind of made me stop when the event took place, damaging Warsaw (as a result of the fighting). I guess this is the dilemma of every WW2 wargame - what about the war crimes.

I'm not sure if it is a wise decision to let the Holocaust become part of the game, even if it is only such a tiny moment like the partial destruction of Warsaw.
Wouldn't it be better to offer an text information only? Or to add a larger part about the Shoa in the manual, explaining there what happened historically, and why all of it can't become part of a game you play with Beer & bretzels while listening to nice music?