Some observations

[Rover]

Having played the game a few times and taken some notes as well as being familar with the SP series I thought the following might be interesting for design team consideration. Apologies in advance if some of this has already come up but I'm finding following the various threads increasing difficult to keep up with. If an item has already been discussed consider this just another vote.

1) It seems planes are only available as long the first weapon has ammo. Sometimes this results in planes becoming no longer available because the #1 weapon is out while #2 or #3 still has ammo. It would be nice if all weapons had to be exhausted before the planes were removed from the game. Also the ability to turn weapons on and off for a particular mission would be cool.

2) I think I've seen this request before but have the ability to upgrade/modify the offboard artillery in a campaign game.

3) Experience seemes to be the only way to know what can be upgraded to what. I've read the design team is considering making anything upgradeable to anything. Short of that a matrix (wow, this would take some time unless it could be done by unit class or some other summary categories) showing what is connected to what would be very helpful.

4) When checking LOS sometimes hexes can be partially shaded. I never can remember if that means the hex is seen or not. This is not a concern if something is in the hex because then it's obvious, it's more when trying to set up traps, surprises, etc targeting a empty hex.

5) Some kind of duel shading for indirect fire range would be very helpful. I'm thinking something like if a 81mm morter has 20 hex range then clicking on it for vision gives both a bright hex response for what it can directly see but a duller?? circle with a radius of 20 hexes in every direction for IF range. This would be very helpful when determining where to set up and/or position the units.

6) Don't know if this is realisitc but have the ability to set the number of rounds offboard artillery fire in a given barrage ie: 50% of possible.

7) Reducing units available ammo when damaged could be interesting as well. For instance it would seem if a morter gets zapped by artillery it's possible unused ammo could be damaged or destroyed. This wouldn't cause damage to the personnel but would represent material rendered unuseable.

8) Something else I've tried to do, and created almost a second game within the game, is modeling available upgrade units. In campaign games it's often possible to accumulate enough points to change large numbers of existing units to the newest thing when it first becomes available. I've messed around with a number of random ways (dice, cards, etc...) to try to influence my ability to not be able to buy a Tiger for every tank I currently own when they first become available.

My point is voluntarily managing myself doesn't seem nearly as fun as being a victom to random events beyond my control. This request is to not ask you to invent yet another random way (I've done that) but instead create a switch that limits the number of something available in any one repair cycle based on historical realities. Ideally it would also change throughout the war as production capability/performance in battles improved or worsened. I'm sure this would be real easy to do... :->


Thanks for listening, R

[Seth]

As far as #1 goes, I believe the answer is that planes do not return if they are out of cannon ammo. So if they only have MG ammo, they leave. Makes you wonder why they have an accurate ammount of MG ammo, if anything over the cannon ammo amount gets wasted.

[victorhauser]

#1 I think the aircraft issues are being corrected in the upcoming version 2.0.

#2 I think this is also being handled in version 2.0.

#3 Yes, there are instances where you buy something out of the "armor" category (like an M3 Command Car, for instance) only to discover that it won't upgrade to armor but upgrades to "transport/utility" instead. Other examples from the other unit types does make for some confusing times when trying to plan ahead for future upgrades. My concern with the "anything can upgrade to anything else" is that the experience penalty (i.e., how many experience points the upgrading unit loses when upgrading) will be the same as when units upgrade "out-of-type" as when they upgrade "in-type". Units should pay more experience penalty when changing out-of-type (say from riflemen into Wespes) than when staying "in-type" (say from riflemen into armored infantry).

#4 Yes, this can be tricky. Sometimes only a sliver of a higher ridgeline lights up when in fact you can see and be seen from there. Perhaps using the hex outline itself could make things easier to see. For instance if you can see into a hex, rather than making that hex brighter (or sometimes only a small portion of said hex, which is the nub of the problem), paint the whole hex outline a bright green or something (even with the visible grid turned off an LOS hex-outline indicator would show up to the player). Also, be aware that just because you can or can't see into a given hex doesn't necessarily mean the same for your opponent. I'm nearly certain that units with high experience can see into or even through foliage and smoke concentrations that inexperienced units cannot. So just because your experience 63 unit can't see through that dissipating smoke doesn't mean that that experience 102 sniper on the other side doesn't see your unit either.

#5 An interesting idea. Perhaps a hex-outline approach could work here, too. Say use a blue outline to indicate indirect-fire range limits or something.

#6 You used to be able to set your artillery to "single round" mode in SP3. Maybe something like that could be revived?

#7 Another interesting idea. Perhaps that could be a "Realism Button" option so that novice players wouldn't suffer unduly.

#8 I don't like this idea. If I've planned ahead for months of campaign time, keeping my units in outdated equipment in battle after battle just to save the points needed to upgrade my company of M2A1 Mae Wests into M4A3 Shermans, then I've already paid my dues. I shouldn't be punished for my foresight and planning. The game should reward rational and reasonable things (like planning ahead) and should only require a heavy cost for "unreasonable" (or maybe the word "emergency") things (like, "Man I need a Panther bad. I'll upgrade my machine-gun crew over here.").

[Skandranon]

"My concern with the "anything can upgrade to anything else" is that the experience penalty (i.e., how many experience points the upgrading unit loses when upgrading) will be the same as when units upgrade "out-of-type" as when they upgrade "in-type"."

Fortunately, this is already being addressed as I understood it - the men in the unit stay the same when upgraded to a new class (except for men added in a larger formation, I would assume they start 'Green' - as in the extra men acquired from converting a Veteran Sniper to a Rifle Squad wouldn't start with his experience). So, changing between the armor, infantry, and artillery classes would be inadvisable, since their ratings in their 'new job' would be retained from the old class. Infantry converted to armor with a 20 Armor Skill rating wouldn't be so hot.


"#8 I don't like this idea. If I've planned ahead for months of campaign time, keeping my units in outdated equipment in battle after battle just to save the points needed to upgrade my company of M2A1 Mae Wests into M4A3 Shermans, then I've already paid my dues. I shouldn't be punished for my foresight and planning. The game should reward rational and reasonable things (like planning ahead) and should only require a heavy cost for "unreasonable" (or maybe the word "emergency") things (like, "Man I need a Panther bad. I'll upgrade my machine-gun crew over here.")."

I'd have to disagree here. I think there should be a realistic upgrade OPTION. You could leave things as they are, or toggle an option to allow limited resupply of new units or units that are being phased out - especially for the Germans and their AFV's. The Allies (especially late US) didn't have as much of a problem, with their enormous production. A month or two after one was developed, they were widely available, quite often. And skimping and saving? I dunno, I've never once had to 'save' at all... the points awarded during a campaign are just excessive for necessary upgrades, you really shouldn't be able to immediately upgrade all your armor to Elefants as soon as they are available and have a few thousand points left over. Heh, I've had games where I must have had the entire German war output for those on a single map. That's just silly.

I do agree that changing classes (machinegun to armor) should be even more expensive, though. Good idea. An acquisition like that, above normal reinforcements and replacement, would raise eyebrows with your commanders.

Derek "Skandranon"

[Drake666]

I got to agree with you their Skandranon. In the one WW2 campaign that I have played I had like +6000 points by the time it came for me to upgrade to tiger. So I would not mind see a option that could limit force buy for some units. Like for the tiger set a monthly buy limit of the number of them that were made that month or a little lower.

[Desert Fox]

Originally posted by Drake666:
I got to agree with you their Skandranon. In the one WW2 campaign that I have played I had like +6000 points by the time it came for me to upgrade to tiger. So I would not mind see a option that could limit force buy for some units. Like for the tiger set a monthly buy limit of the number of them that were made that month or a little lower.

As far as I can tell, it is some sort of bug. Unfortunately I don't think Matrix sprayed this bug. It seems to me that the points you get from the first battle are added to the points you get from the second, then you get that total. For the third, the points are added to the previous total, and so on. You really should only be getting about 200-300 points after each battle I think, but you end up getting something like 200 after the first battle, 400 after the second, 600 after the third, until finally you have so many points its just irrelevant. Anyways, I don't know if they can fix this or not, but I am pretty sure that is how this bug works.

[victorhauser]

Schools of Thought...

I guess there are as many ways of playing a Campaign as there are opinions as to what options should or should not be available to players regarding spending campaign build points.

I know a guy who used to start his SP3 campaigns with 20,000 points, set his troop quality to 120, leave the AI on all default settings, and then complain that the game was too easy to win!

So, yes, if you are winning decisive victories in 99% of your battles, then you will have an abundance of build points available for upgrades. That is a reward for a job well done. If players, like my friend above, set up their campaigns so that decisive victories are the rule rather then the exception, then those players should expect to have as many campaign build points as they could ever want and then some.

On the other hand, playing in a campaign where each and every battle is a grueling test of skill and character, where suffering a draw or defeat is as likely as winning a decisive victory, then available build points for upgrades are much much fewer. Not only does the game award fewer build points after a defeat, draw, or even marginal victory than for a decisive victory, most (if not all and more) of your available build points must be spent simply replacing your losses between battles. I see absolutely nothing broken here. You are awarded and rewarded in proportionate measure to your success on the battlefield.

I don't necessarily oppose the viewpoint suggesting a toggle-option for upgrade availability (although it still seems a strange way to "reward" success, more like punishment actually). As long as it is kept as an option, and not become a built-in "standard" feature, though, I'll do little more than shake my head in confusion.

In any event, I believe that there is far more likelihood of abuse involving changes/upgrades from any kind of unit to any other kind of unit than there is from campaigns that suffer from an "overabundance" of build points. Indeed, I see the potential where all campaigns could have overabundant build points simply because the game is too liberal in allowing changes/upgrades from unit type to unit type, thereby creating exactly the kind of situation where each campaign becomes simply a successive string of decisive victory after decisive victory.

[victorhauser]

Not a Bug...

The reason for the non-linear progression of build points after each battle is because the campaign mechanics calculate the number of build points to award based on the current value of your battle group. And since the value of your battlegroup is almost always larger following each successive battle, then the build points awarded also grow in proportion. There is nothing broken here.

[Antonius]

Instead of modifying the number of re-build points (though maybe it would be better that you'd get FEWER after a decisive victory to help balance the next battle), I would like a "rarity factor" to be associated with each equipment in campaigns and random scenarios and a total "rarity budget" allocated as well.
That would help limit "best unit syndrom", which for instance makes any German human-bought OB include 88 guns, Tigers and Panthers as soon as they are available (I personnally also always buy a few Elephants in 1943 ...).
But I suppose that as it probably implies adding new fields to the files and a major OB update effort this will remain a dream...

[Charles22]

I agree with Victor 100% here. I would also like to remind everyone, that when you talk about limiting your upgrade points or a 'rarity factor', the talk is always made in the direction of the user and not the AI forces. Remember, the AI can pick 150 out of 170 S-35's (the best French tank) in '40, as it did with me.

If we put such measures only on the user, you would find this gross inbalance with much to be desired. Besides, as it stands, we can make a few upgrades if we're fighting well, so we're already at an upgrade (although the computer technically isn't upgrading, it purchases outright) disadvantage, and I think it works quite well. The only reason you end up with 60,000,000 points, so that you can then be dissatisfied that you can upgrade your entire army at one time, is because it is the user who is being unrealistic. If you upgrade what you can, as you go along, you won't have that problem. One of the strategies involved in an early campaign is to at some point upgrade, and then at another save for a big jump in improvements. For instance, take just one tank here. If you upgrade a PZIVC to PZIVD, and then to PZIVE, you've spent, what, about 100 points? If you never upgraded that PZIVC till the Tigers came, you save that 100 points to aid in helping put one more Tiger out there, and that doesn't even begin to address ALL of the changes that could be made to the PZIVC before the Tiger came out.

This 'rarity factor' makes somewhat more sense to me, as I recall I was opposed to the Poles picking so many 75mm AA guns. Even after resetting their too low cost of 11 to 45, they still picked "8" in a campaign battle. I think the AI's been toggled to deal with people picking a ridiculous amount of Gerry 88's, as I recall, somewhere or another in the earlier SP versions, that it was considered cheating to have more than two or four 88's. Unfortunately, if the Poles picking more is supposed to counter unrealistic purchase of 88's, it accomplishes nothing when those same people pick 8 or more 88's to counter. What an absurd war; the battle of the flak guns! As well, it distresses me that with the Poles picking close to 400 points in flak guns, the rest of their force must suffer, so that things are quite out of kilter.

One last thing, for those 'turn-one-type-into-another' fans, consider that your COMMANDER's ratings hasn't changed. The commander's ratings play a major factor in the ability of the unit to fight well. A commander who specializes in infantry, with say only a 40 rating in armor, with his units changed to armor, is going to make a pretty poor showing for that armor. The question remains, is the engineer unit more useful with the high rating from it's normal commander, and being cheaper than most armor, or is the tank which can't hit the broad side of a barn? Also, consider this...do commanders who have infantry switched to tanks EVER get promoted? Probably so, BUT, do they ever get their armor ratings raised, despite how poorly they start out? In effect, do prior prior infantry commanders, switched subordinates to armor, only gain experience with their old (in this case infantry) speciality? I would guess they would "possibly" progress with whatever types they had under their command (armor would raise armor rating), however, remember, that an infantry commander who had progressed his armor skills from 40 to say 70, would, if he were still commanding infantry units, should the infantry had gone through as much success as the armor, have raised his infantry rating from 70 to perhaps 100.

[Desert Fox]

Originally posted by victorhauser:
Not a Bug...

The reason for the non-linear progression of build points after each battle is because the campaign mechanics calculate the number of build points to award based on the current value of your battle group. And since the value of your battlegroup is almost always larger following each successive battle, then the build points awarded also grow in proportion. There is nothing broken here.

I really have to disagree on this. If you manage to get 200 points after the first battle, and lets say that none of your units were destroyed, then you can only increase the value of your battlegroup by 200 points. The original core points are on the order of 1500 points, so after the first battle, you have a core value of about 1700 points. Now, lets say you complete the next battle and get another decisive victory, with no destroyed units. Getting 400 points is far too much for your 1700 point core force. After the first battle, you got 13% of your core value to rebuild. After the second, with 400 rebuild points, you are getting 23% of your core value for rebuilding. I am pretty sure this is not right. I see this in every campaign I start, so it is consistent.
I should also point out that in SP2, the rebuild values seem right at about 200 points per battle, and slowly growing larger as your core improves. Usually you end up getting about 600 points per battle near the end of the campaign, and that is after you have upgraded all those M60 Pattons to M1A2 Abrams, and those trucks into Bradleys. Those values seem about right, but the values in SPWAW do not.
I am going to do some experimenting to try and isolate it further, but hopefully Matrix will look at it too.

[Kluckenbill]

Regarding the 'scarcity' issue, I would like to see additonal buttons in the 'General Preferences' where you could turn "Historical Scarcity' (or some more descriptive term?) on or off for either the Human or AI player or both. Historical scarcity should be a function of the general availability of a unit based on how long it has been in service and its overall makup of the force structure of the army. Thus the Germans would be able to buy a few Tiger 1s in spring of '42, but not reequip his whole force immediately. Also the AI would take a mix of French tanks in 1940, not just Somuas and Char Bs.
I think this would make for more interesting play but it would add an interesting wrinkle to realism. Which is less realistic, having a battalion sized unit with half of Germany's total Jagd Tiger force, or having a battalion sized unit with 4 or 5 different kinds of tanks in it?

[Rover]

And I think another interesting possibility if the logic of what is available could be solved is to have it not only impact what can upgraded but what can be replaced if destroyed. Imagine if a player did manage to build a tank force with a significant number of a prefered unit but then had to worry every time one got destroyed it might not even be able to be replaced for some time. What a decision, rebuild a Panther as a PIIIH or have no unit at all until the factory makes a Panther available.

By the way I agree with the thought earlier in the thread this should definitely be an option to be toggled at the beginning of a campaign. It's fun for me to have someone model the reality of equipment availability but equally I'd like to be able control my own availability if it suits my mood.

[Paul Vebber]

THere is an AI rarity system to make the AI chose some things more often than others. IF you find teh AI chosing things more often than you like, go into the OOB editor and chang ethe "radio code".

THe fist digit of the radio code x10 is the the percent chance a unit of that type will have a radio. All "0" leaders have a radio.

The second digit is the "rarity factor" for the AI picking that unit. IF the AI has a choice of units to pick in a formation it will be most likely to pick a unit with a 0 second radio digit, than a 1 less often and a 2 less often still. A 3 indicates the AI will pick that unit ONLY IF IT IS THE ONLY UNIT TO CHOOSE FORM FOR THAT FORMATION.

[Desert Fox]

Ok, after some time, I have determined that I am most likely wrong about the 'bug'. I started a campaign as the Germans in December 1942. I picked a core force that cost exactly 1600 points. Instead of actually fighting out the battle, I decided to use the exit button bug to make sure there were no enemy units to destroy my units. I, of course, ended up with a decisive victory with a score of 2100 to 0. Now in the rebuild screen I get 533 points. Way more than I expected to get after the first battle.
At anyrate, I did a few different tests at this point. I had saved after the battle, and for the first test, I did not upgrade any units and went to the next battle, saving all my rebuild points. I used the exit button bug again and again got a decisive victory with 2100 to 0 as the score. And the rebuild points afterwards were 1066, or 533+533.
For the second test, I reloaded the save and this time changed the units repeatedly to use up all the points and yet keep the force composition exactly the same. Again, I used the exit button bug to face no enemy. The rebuild points afterwards were 533.
The final test was to change units so that the force composition was of a greater value. Again, I made sure there was no enemy, and I ended up with more than 533 points.
My conclusions is that the points recieved after a battle are 1/3 of the intact force composition. 1/3 of 1600 is 533. I didn't bother trying to actually fight a battle out since I don't think that would have much of an effect. Personally, I think a third is a bit much to rebuild forces after an overwhelming victory. Obviously with this many points, they add up quite quickly and that explains the huge point reservoirs that everyone gets after a little while.
I think the system should be revised simply because there is no way we should be getting such huge amounts of points for upgrading. Lets figure that if you lose half of your force, you would be able to almost completely rebuild with a third of the value of your remaining units. I doubt this would be possible in any war. If a commander lost half of his force in one battle, he is not going to be able to rebuild and get right back into it. Perhaps there should be a maximum on the rebuild points available. Maybe the max should be the maximum core value attained to that point in the campaign. Or maybe half of that, especially since with the patch one could get an entire force composed of Tigers. Those are my thoughts.

[victorhauser]

If the majority of a player's battles are decisive victories then he will accumulate an overabundance of build points after only a few battles.

I suggest players challenge themselves by making decisive victories rare, especially if they want fewer build points per battle. They can do this by selecting a variety of advantages to give to the AI and/or a variety of disadvantages to give themselves. If 1/3 the core-force value is awarded for a decisive victory, then that number is much smaller for marginal victories, and smaller still for draws and defeats. And as I mentioned in an earlier post, simply replacing losses becomes difficult when the majority of a player's battles are marginal victories or less.

Each player is completely responsible for the conduct and outcome of his campaigns since he can adjust handicaps and advantages even during the course of a battle to change the outcome of that battle. If players want campaigns where they get to wallow in excesses of build points and win decisive victory after decisive victory, then I have absolutely no problem with that. It's their campaign and it's their enjoyment with the game that is important. I have friends who come home from a long day at the office and they don't want to burden their overstressed minds with a challenge--they just want to overrun a relatively weak opponent to relieve stress and have fun. I'm in favor of that, completely. Have fun. But there is nothing wrong with the post-battle build-points algorithm, either.

Also, the time between battles is a potential point of argument regarding replacing losses only if said time between battles is short. The current long-campaign time between battles is at least 1 month--enough time to rest, refit, replace losses and prepare for the next battle. If the time between battles is a matter of weeks or days, then the rest, refit, and replacement argument becomes more justifiable.

[Charles22]

I agree with Victor, again. The 'next battle, at least if you're playing WWII campaign isn't immediate as one might suppose, but as Victor said, a month later.

Here's another factor in favor of large upgrade points per level of victory. Think of it, if a nations army is getting less things destroyed, then there is more material available that wasn't just trying to shore up losses. Also there's the 'American factor'. What do I mean by that? Well, we're always fighting overseas. In other words it may seem that the replacement rate is too high, but most of these nations aren't fighting overseas, and most of them, at some point or other are fighting with the factory on the horizon.

[Panther]

1What I would like to see also is the amount of points to be altered acording to how much time passes betwen battles. The resupply rate should then be taken into account using some rerity points as stated previusly as well as seting a limit on the maximum amout of vehicles that can be purchased, kind of like air support was/is done. You purchase the unit and then once you get max the unit disapears from the menu.
2 This should also be included in the ability to fix units. If you are fighting battle after battle not all of your units have the time to be fixed depending on the damage done. Those units that were not fixed( exeption to this is minor damage like one hull mmg or aamg or some suspenion damage) should not take action in the upcoming battle including those that were imobilized. Some of the more serious cases that need major repair that needed shipping back to factory should take lot more time to repair. The fix cost should also be adjusted acordingly to the rarity factor. Some of the more rare vehicles should cost lot more to fix than other more common vehicles. An example is the elepfant it propably cost more to keep this unit going than it was intially purchased for.
2 I know some of the above is done already by having different cost types. Could those costs be adjusted acording to the year in which the vehicle upgrade happened. For example a panther in 43 should cost lot more than a panther in 44.

Thanks you guy are doing a great job.
Panther.

[Nikademus]

a simple solution, (pretty much already suggested but given the recent arguments and counter-arguments perhaps it should be clarified)

install an 'option' that allows a limited upgrade process based on time period and a perhaps a random or two. In other words, you are put into a more historical situation as a Kampfgruppe leader, where your more at the mercy of the supply chain than with the situation when this 'option' is turned off and you have total control over how your battlegroup gets upgraded.