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This information could well reveal a dark side to the Strategic Command series...

It would appear that Hubert Cater drew much of his inspiration for Strategic Command 3 from an old computer game created by a totally unknown and forgotten programmer, Huter Cabert.
I've got all the proof on my PC and I'm thinking about what I'm going to do : it's really dishonest, I'd never have believed it of Hubert...

Here is a (provisary) capture of this old game. According some confidential informations I have collected, name of the game was approximatively "SC1". Don't know the signification of this 3 letters, perhaps was it a secret code ?

Investigations are in progress, some minor things have to be adjusted but the result will perhaps give something of interest...

In particular, some bush and swamps or bocage in France have to be reworked, same for interface. In addition, you will notice that in this old game, roads and rails were fusionned in terms of graphs, but not in terms of gameplay (sample : on map there are parts of roads without rails, and perhaps you could find parts of rails without roads. But the global fusion for parts where there are rails + roads did give some better clarty on the map). Huter Caber, who made SC1, was a genious programmer^^, too bad he did forget his great game

Very interesting.

Yes, Huter Caber's SC1 was a very good game

And these screens are the proof that the old graphs are not dead.

In the intermediate view (un zoom level 1), terrains have been erased to get a mor clear visualisation of strategic situation : just units, ground/see, rivers/streams , roads/rails and ressources, line fronts => Player may see immediatly the most important

Interface will be later adapted

Wow thanks for sharing this.

Been long, long time ago. In a far galaxy, SC-1.
Hmmm, not sure the map was that big in hex count.
Don't remember there being terrain.
May have been rivers and just cities.
There was a 1-way loop into Egypt.
Memories.

Whatever you have posted, with terrain, what game/mod is that? (looks cool)

What's game ? No really sure

Perhaps some little things from SC1 (old graphs), some little spirit of SC2 (in general "3D view" design), some spirit of the old "Third Reich PC", and some (large ) things of SC3 (SC WW2 in Europe)

In my memory, SC3 had a long time turns vs AI (I did not like that), but while I'm away, this problem has been solved : turns are now more faster with some settings

I will do some little graphs adaptations for the game. My "Board game mod" was in the past a first attempt to clear the map, but the result did not give me entire satisfaction : map was not so clear as I wanted => I use now a different way to reach this goal


As Guderian always said to me, a clear map is the essential victory condition

The "level 2 unzoom" map allows player to have a clear and immediate strategic view ( front line was improved, and terrain were erased at this unzoom level)

I will modify later he interface map (more clear mini jump map will be better with the new look of the game)

I will also re-calibrate position of some forest, mountains and hills : at this time, I just wanted to test the possibilities (these graphs have to be set with more precision in files, it will need some time because I have to respect the invisible grid position in vanilla : sample, for terrain file, the grid is 96 x 65=6240, and each graph must be positionned in a special place in his "invisible" square)

LEVEL 1 : normal zoom


LEVEL 2 : medium unzoom

'As Guderian always said to me, a clear map is the essential victory condition' -Welk
Oh so you were on his staff eh? I think he borrowed that from Mantsein.

Yes, I know that : I'm half of Manstein's ghost (the other half is Gamelin).

With adapted national colors, mod gives that : very easy to see encirclements.
I have also adapted the mini jump map, to have a "pastel" image (less dark than vanilla)

Now, the game has only 4 "national colors" :

Axis
West Allied
Neutral
Soviets

It makes the map more clear and simple in all views, with a little "look SC1/Third Reich PC"
(Note : French look of polen units is just a mistake of file manipulation, I will rectify that)

For a "grand strategy game" scale, I think that's better to have this kind of map, an uncluttered map.
And at the zoom level 2, terrains are not needed to appreciate general strategic situation on front line

Ultra zoom map

The combination of national colors + climate zones gives some variants for Russia in north and south, but it seems that nothing may be done to avoid this effect



North Africa
(position of graphs - hills, swamp and desertic zones - in hex are not correct and will be later rectified with more precision)



High swiss mountains

The game seems have some bugs...When I try to set in "manuel" mode a german HQ, I obtain a crash (violation segmentation)


EDIT : In fact, seems that the bug has something to do with sprites, but impossible to know what exactly.
I verified all my modded graphs and I did that :
1/ I restablished vanilla graphs (to have the game his exact "vanilla" status)
2/ I did again copy in game directory my modded graphs
And the bugs no more occured.
Mystery of informatic systems...

RE-EDIT : Finally founded the reason of bug : I used a old and obsolete version of the file named "tile_highlight_sprites", that was contained in my old Board game mod (the new version has more graphs than the old version, and the program could not find the needed graphs in the file)

Incidently, reading all SC3 forums, I noticed that lot of mod are in the same case : they were not updated and they do not work with new actual version.

Here is the first version of my "SC1" Mod, that adapts SC3 with old graphs of SC1 (mountains, swamps, forests, hills), and some graphs coming from my "boardgame mod" + perhaps some graphs coming from other mods (My SC3 materiel is a mess for credits, I have forgotten from long years who exactly made what )

VERY IMPORTANT => TAKE CARE ! The mod files erases original files of the game. Save first your original and/or personnel files before to download and to install the mod in directories of the game.

https://static.blog4ever.com/2022/02/86 ... C1_WORK.7z

After installation, the game will almost have the look of SC1 in the state it was when I modded it with a "old 3r look" (Third Reich PC –Avallon hill)
https://forums.matrixgames.com/viewtopic.php?t=411062

Not needed to say that this mod is only for nostalgics of these 2 old PC games… : the look is special "vintage" and not very moderne

I will continue the work to try to improve design. If you use the mod and want special rectifications, ask on the forum : I will see what is asked/needed/possible.

Thanks to sPzAbt653, who saved my time, giving to me the tiles prites base he had made.

Counters will be realized later(perhaps I will keep the vanilla counters with some modifications and additions made by some other modders, perhaps I will adapt them in a 3r look.

Note that at level 2 zoom, weather and terrain have been erased : this level is now only used to have a more clear vision of general strategic situation.

Concerning the fog of war : the game becomes more difficult for human player with the mod, because graphs that indicate FoW have been erased : due to this, human player does never know what are exactly the sectors where he can not see anything... (It gives a improved and more difficult and dangerous fog of war)

The mod was zipped with "7z", a free compression logiciel
Awailable here if your winrar/winzip version does not work with 7z extensions : https://www.7-zip.org/

welk wrote: Sun Jul 06, 2025 3:48 pm VERY IMPORTANT => TAKE CARE ! The mod files erases original files of the game. Save first your original and/or personnel files before to download and to install the mod in directories of the game.

Hi welk

There's no reason for a mod to erase original files if it is installed in the correct place, which for this game is:

%HOMEPATH%\Documents\My Games\Strategic Command WWII - War in Europe\Mods

Yes, I have seen the system (it seems consist to reproduce in the mod directory of "My documents/games etc" the arborescence of the game, and to copy in this "false/imitated" arborescence only the files that are modified by the mod)

But using this process to test, I noticed that some graphs do not work properly, even all my bitmaps are in place (rail sprites and road sprites in particular). Others graphs seems work (therefore, I did not test an entire game), but these two not : if I had made a mistake, no any graph would work, but there are only two.

Seems there is something that does not work in the system and it's a little bit complicated to search exactly what, so I took the old and elementary basic "process" that does consist to change the vanilla files, like in "old times" : this old process is "basic" but it works always and with simplicity, user has just to take care to save his original files.


On the other hand, if I did a mistake and if the process needs to copy in the "false/imitated" arborescence all the files (modded files + no modded files), I will not be able to do that because I have no place to upload a so larger zip.

First screen of SC WIE in my mod (when game is open) : SC1 ambiance nostalgy...

Not exactly a bug per se, but dear Hubert, for the next version of the game, try to make sure that the counters don't shrink when I play in the washing machine... It's very annoying when you don't expect it.

Perhaps this one will be more adapted with the 2D map view

Positions of counters will be more exactly rectified
Interest is the visual "mass effect" without needing any additionnal symbols to see what is what

Out zoom view : this view has a minimum of details (in particular, no any moutains, forests or hills) to preserve a "quick vision" of strategic situation.

Like in normal view, human player has no any view of ennemy counters on map; and no any informations on map about his own units (he always have to consult the interface little windows (left and right)

For naval units, the mod uses (with little modifications) ships of the Kirk 23 War In Europe Nato Counters Version 2
made by Hellfirejet
https://forums.matrixgames.com/viewtopi ... e763c3bd52

To play vs AI with this "hard" fog of war gives a very special sensation : you see only the front line. If in addition you set a bonus vision for AI in options setting, you have a more difficult campaign, because AI has a more better "visual view" than you.

As I am a very bad strategist , I play from the beginning (SC1) only vs AI, and this specific way, allowed by the front lines Hubert created, is very funny.

Lot of users of this forum are multi players, but I think the silenty majority of players play only vs AI.