Matrix Games Forums

Hi,

I really love this game series and I am very excited for this release.
I was wondering though how the different front/army distributions of this war could be effectively modeled without stacking. The few hexes of the western front would fill up almost instantly while the vastness of the east will require a lot more units. It could be argued that Germany was only able to stay in the war in 1918 because of the possibility to transfer men westwards from the collapsed russian front. Without stacking and a western front already filled 3-4 rows deep this would be rendered almost meaningless.

Commander The Great War (a game with similar mechanincs and no stacking) had a somewhat elegant solution to this by requiring countries to pay upkeep cost in proportion to the size of their forces so it made sense to disband the units from the east and have more production capacity.

Are there any plans to tweak the SC mechanics to model the 'overcrowding' of the western front? (Higher possible unit strength maximums in the west? Morale or MPP reduction for large unit numbers in the east? etc.)

Germany was greedy, when large parts of the Army were ordered to remain in the east, just to make sure that the victorious peace on the eastern front was secured for the time after victory in the West.
If Germany had withdrawn its entire army, maybe be giving friendly peace terms to the russian, who know what this could have meant for the spring offensive in the West.

a maintenance system like Commander the Great War would have pretty far-reaching effects on things such as research capability, reinforcements, etc. Basically anything requiring production points would be impacted by it since maintenance is acting as a sink for production points. In Commander, the more you conquer, the more you can blow your army up in size since your production is going up as you expand and take more cities. Strategic Command opts for hard build limits instead.

given, I did like the maintenance and manpower mechanics of Commander (despite some implementation issues, such as the Germans gaining manpower from convoys), but I think it's too late to expect it in this second generation of Strategic Command games.

If you want a game with stacking ability, Darkest Hour has a WW1 scenario which allows stacking. if you're not familiar with Paradox games, it's not really turn-based but more akin to playing simultaneous Risk where if you move into a territory occupied by an opponent then combat ensues. Central Powers though are fairly OP in that scenario (it's winnable as the Allies/Entente, but if you simulate AI vs. AI, you should be seeing the Central Powers coming out on top pretty often, as Russia tends to get wrecked no matter what).