Matrix Games Forums

mdsmall wrote: Thu Sep 18, 2025 7:20 pm

teletabicus wrote: Mon Sep 15, 2025 3:03 pm I'd like to make some observations and suggest some changes I believe necessary to make to Icarus 6.8, so as to make this variant even more realistic and interesting.

Hi Teletabicus - I very much appreciate your interest in the mod and your very comprehensive suggestions on how to make the game more historical, and perhaps more interesting. Having worked on this mod for the last several years, I have a pretty good sense of what is and is not possible with the Strategic Command game system and unfortunately most of your suggestions are beyond the scope of what can be changed using the Game Editor.

teletabicus wrote: Mon Sep 15, 2025 3:03 pm I suppose players of SCWWI, especially Icarus, are interested in historical accuracy. There are many other games in the series that can "change" history, so I think that if you're interested in the historical accuracy of WWI, when simulating it, you need to accept its distinctive character, at least on the Western Front, namely its extreme static nature.

You are absolutely right the in real life, World War One (especially on the Western Front) was very static, while SC WW1 is considerably more dynamic. In the autumn of 1918, the Entente armies broke the back of the German Army in the "Hundred Days Campaign" which did not even see them reach Brussels. In contrast, it is normal in a game of SC WW1 or Icarus that a winning Entente offensive in the West will see Entente armies push into the Rhineland and even the Ruhr before Germany national morale hits 1% and the Central powers collapse. Making trenches as powerful as they were by 1917 in the West would entail pushing their defensive bonus much higher than they are now; and they would require far longer than one turn to build. They should also incur significant movement penalties to cross, even if lightly defended. Every trench hex would have the properties of something close to a Major Fortress in the existing game. There is no way to do all those things with the existing game engine. It would require a different game, probably on a smaller scale, to model what World War One trench warfare actually looked like, even when the lines started to move again during the offensives of 1918.

teletabicus wrote: Mon Sep 15, 2025 3:03 pm Technology:
Infantry Weapons, Artillery Weapons, Trench Warfare and Command and Control progress regardless of the situation on the field. Gas/Shell production guarantees increased ammunition. A player avoids offensive combat as much as possible and miraculously, some time later, finds himself with improved infantry assault capabilities, artillery bombardment capabilities, and headquarters tactical and strategic capabilities. Progress in these areas must be linked to field results, even negative ones. Unfortunately, experience comes only through blood. Do you want to preserve the French army? Fine, but you do so by remaining in the open, wearing red pants and kepis. Attrition warfare should be introduced; only by incurring losses of this type and their accumulation a corps can benefit from tactical improvements and better entrenchments. Likewise, commands can only improve if they have commanded units that have fought and suffered losses. In brief, many of the research areas should be reviewed and/or abolished to transfer their functional contents directly into a ‘field’ evolution scheme of units, including HQ.

The existing game engine tries to capture much of what you are suggesting through the accumulation of experience points, which are the biggest single determinant of combat effectiveness. Every combat, on attack or defence, gives the participating units more experience; and there is a significant difference in the odds which a corps with one full point of experience can achieve, versus a newly built corps going into combat for the first time.

teletabicus wrote: Mon Sep 15, 2025 3:03 pm Artillery:
Icarus has strengthened its forces and partially slowed research, but once it enters the field, say from 1916 onwards, artillery is devastating. You can conquer at least one hex per turn, including Verdun. Note that these territorial gains aren't always decisive for victory; the defender generally creates a new line in the next hex; the only sure outcome is the non-historicity. To simulate this, I think we need to work on ammunition, abolishing the Gas/Shell production research option and replacing it with a rule that starting from 1915, each artillery piece's ammunition is 2, to which additional ammunition can be added via a die roll modified based on progress made in Industrial Technology. Not knowing how much ammunition you have simulates that uncertainty in the command when launching an attack, which, at least from a certain point, you don't have in Icarus. Historically, many attacks were initially successful, then the artillery ran out of ammunition and the attack stalled or failed.

You are quite right that the game engine models in a fairly imperfect way the shell shortages that were a major feature of World War One combat. They only means available is through investing in Gas/Shell tech and Logistics (in the regular game) and these techs yield a uniform benefit every turn which can not be modified by a die roll. I think it would be great if the devs could add a "shell unreliability factor" so that not every shell fired would necessarily de-entrench, demoralize or potentially kill a strength point; and that investment in Gas/Shell tech would increase the reliability of the shells that are fired. Perhaps that is possible in the future, but it is not possible to mod that effect at present.

teletabicus wrote: Mon Sep 15, 2025 3:03 pm Static nature of Western front:
A WW1 simulation must simulate this. Despite all the efforts made in Icarus and the updates, Western Front it's still too ‘fluid’ compared to the story. This is why I suggest the ‘loss absorption’ that could be introduced exclusively on this front. Loss absorption means that, perhaps starting with the third loss of a corps, losses can be partially absorbed by adjacent friendly corps (reserves played an essential role in contain the initial breakthroughs). Likewise, a vacant hex cannot be occupied until the following turn (‘contested hex’). This allows the defender to decide whether to reoccupy it or leave it to the opponent. In this way, the mechanism of attrition battles typical of WW1 could be implemented on the Western Front.

Also very true, but not possible to do with the existing game engine.

teletabicus wrote: Mon Sep 15, 2025 3:03 pm Tanks and German Shock Infantry:
Tanks and German Shock Infantry should be able to break the line thanks to the ‘special’ ability to concentrate their attack power and not allow the defender to absorb losses among the defending units. The current rules on Shock Infantry are great and could be used, updating them with the ability to ‘break the line’ denying the absorption of losses. Naturally it should also be added to Tanks too.

This effect could be modelled to some degree by allowing tanks and shock infantry to de-entrench at a higher level than 1 per turn. I have done that already in Icarus by allowing tanks at Level 2 in Tank Development to de-entrench by 2 per turn. It would be possible to give shock infantry that capability too. In my experience, by the time both tanks and shock infantry have reached a high level of effectiveness, both sides usually have enough artillery shells available to be able to de-entrench a target unit fully without the need of extra de-entrenchment by other units.

teletabicus wrote: Mon Sep 15, 2025 3:03 pm Italian front:
The Italian front presents characteristics typical of both the Western Front’s staticty and the Eastern Front’s fluidity. Certainly, to simulate General Cadorna's famous senseless attacks on the Isonzo, rules should be applied that force Italy to attack even with no chance of success. On the other hand, AH twice managed to create the conditions for a breakthrough, once in 1916 (Strafexpedition), which was contained, and once in 1917 (Caporetto), which was successful. I leave it to the imagination of a potential creator of these suggestions to simulate all this.

House rules
I'd like to add some considerations on the historicity in Icarus, aware that many of these issues have already been addressed in the forum. Attacking the Russian fleet in ports with the German fleet is like Captain America saving the world from the Nazis. In general, I would forbid any port attacks, especially in the Adriatic, but I would definitely do so at least in the Baltic. Regarding the Adriatic, if Germany doesn't invade Belgium, the Royal Navy shouldn't be allowed to enter that area before the DOW. I don't see it as unrealistic for British naval units to stand between Austrian or German units (in the North Sea and the Mediterranean, excluding the Adriatic) and French units. Let's just say that London would have give a hand to Paris, even during neutrality. Sending an Ottoman corps to Basra before the DOW is also anti-historical. Finally, no Belgian HQ in Mesopotamia. Naturally, all of these can be decided by house rules without ad hoc interventions on the scenario.

As you say, most of these constraints are better introduced using house rules. In Icarus, I suggest not allowing either side to send most European minor units to the Middle East. The defensive bonus for naval units in port against bombardment by naval units at sea can be easily increased.

teletabicus wrote: Mon Sep 15, 2025 3:03 pm Conclusions
What can persuade a player to launch attacks with very little chance of success? Just the necessity. If you don't launch them, you don't progress, and if you don't progress, you don't break through. In this regard, the Entente's and Germany’s chances of breakthrough must be maximally linked to the development respectively of Tanks, and Shock Infantry. Can the game be more boring if such rules are applied? Surely yes, but my idea is to provide the possibility to those who want to play it to have a scenario or a module that is historically more realistic (and boring ).

Sorry, I could not be more positive about your suggestions! But I hope you will continue to find things of interest in the SC WW1, especially with the various new features I have tried to add with the Icarus mod.

Michael