Future DLC

[goodwoodrw]

This question is directly targeted to the Lordz Folk. Tim just a point on the releases, as it appears at the moment, the concentration is on the east, 41 42 etc, only an assumption can be made after that it will 41 42 etc west will follow. My question is if this the case will a player be able to play Poland 41 and 42 east 42 west 43 east then 43 west etc etc,
or will the east and west campaigns be not compatible?
Ron

[IainMcNeil]

We havent worked out the details yet but I would like to able to play one campaign per year so either choose East or West but not both so you play 42, 43 east, 44 west, 45 east. It depends on whether we can make the core sizes work and the carryover and balance cross compatible between the campaigns. The alternative is that once you have chosen your East/West branch you have to play to the end.

[El_Condoro]

I think players will prefer the flexibility of at least having the option of swapping between fronts - I know I would. Practically and historically it was done - LSSAH in the east and later fighting in Normandy, same with Das Reich et al - so being stuck with an all-or-nothing approach would be very limiting, I think.

[VPaulus]

I think players will prefer the flexibility of at least having the option of swapping between fronts - I know I would. Practically and historically it was done - LSSAH in the east and later fighting in Normandy, same with Das Reich et al - so being stuck with an all-or-nothing approach would be very limiting, I think.

+1

[brettz123]

I think players will prefer the flexibility of at least having the option of swapping between fronts - I know I would. Practically and historically it was done - LSSAH in the east and later fighting in Normandy, same with Das Reich et al - so being stuck with an all-or-nothing approach would be very limiting, I think.

+2

[VonHob]

Ideally I'd like to split and play the Eastern campaign, then perhaps go back to the split point and play the Western campaign. If we just moved the core from the end of the Eastern campaign back in time, it would be ridiculously powerful

[brettz123]

Ideally I'd like to split and play the Eastern campaign, then perhaps go back to the split point and play the Western campaign. If we just moved the core from the end of the Eastern campaign back in time, it would be ridiculously powerful

With the DLCs your CORE is saved at the end of each one. This means you can just load your 40 CORE to start a 41 CORE in the desert.

[Kerensky]

Only if the desert 41 campaign has been configured to accept a DLC 40 core. While this may seem an obvious idea...

1. We don't necessarily want people to feel like they have to have the DLC to enjoy Africa to its fullest potential. Remember that a DLC 1940 core has potentially seen something like 22 scenarios already, that is a lot of experience and heroes built up in advance (by comparison the max length of the stock campaign is shorter then 22 scenarios)
2. It largely depends on what scale, and how many Africa scenarios there will be, for it to fit together in the DLC concept. DLC 1941 starts with a core of 27 units. Will Africa be built and balanced around that number? Impossible to tell at this point. But if it isn't, linking DLC 1940 to Africa will be most troublesome.

At this point, all we can do is speculate. Once there is concrete news about Africa to share, I'm sure it will be shared and questions such as these will be answered.

[Aloo]

2. It largely depends on what scale, and how many Africa scenarios there will be, for it to fit together in the DLC concept. DLC 1941 starts with a core of 27 units. Will Africa be built and balanced around that number? Impossible to tell at this point. But if it isn't, linking DLC 1940 to Africa will be most troublesome.

Is this really a problem? Lots if not most of the people playing will have more than 27 units by the end of 1940 already, building up a reserve. You can make africa start out with f.e. 20 units and have the rest as reserves. I don't really think this is a problem.

[brettz123]

Only if the desert 41 campaign has been configured to accept a DLC 40 core. While this may seem an obvious idea...

1. We don't necessarily want people to feel like they have to have the DLC to enjoy Africa to its fullest potential. Remember that a DLC 1940 core has potentially seen something like 22 scenarios already, that is a lot of experience and heroes built up in advance (by comparison the max length of the stock campaign is shorter then 22 scenarios)
2. It largely depends on what scale, and how many Africa scenarios there will be, for it to fit together in the DLC concept. DLC 1941 starts with a core of 27 units. Will Africa be built and balanced around that number? Impossible to tell at this point. But if it isn't, linking DLC 1940 to Africa will be most troublesome.

At this point, all we can do is speculate. Once there is concrete news about Africa to share, I'm sure it will be shared and questions such as these will be answered.

Understandable, but you shouldn't not let us have the option at all either!

And even if the scale is smaller would it really be a problem to not allow us to use all of our units? I can see some people getting a little hot over it but I would rather be able to use 15 of my 27 units instead of 0.

[deducter]

Only if the desert 41 campaign has been configured to accept a DLC 40 core. While this may seem an obvious idea...

1. We don't necessarily want people to feel like they have to have the DLC to enjoy Africa to its fullest potential. Remember that a DLC 1940 core has potentially seen something like 22 scenarios already, that is a lot of experience and heroes built up in advance (by comparison the max length of the stock campaign is shorter then 22 scenarios)
2. It largely depends on what scale, and how many Africa scenarios there will be, for it to fit together in the DLC concept. DLC 1941 starts with a core of 27 units. Will Africa be built and balanced around that number? Impossible to tell at this point. But if it isn't, linking DLC 1940 to Africa will be most troublesome.

At this point, all we can do is speculate. Once there is concrete news about Africa to share, I'm sure it will be shared and questions such as these will be answered.

A victim of your own success! Your problem is that the DLCs are too fun, so who wouldn't want to import their cores now?

I would love it if the Africa scenarios though did lead to DLC43, 44, and 45 West. Once I'm done fighting the endless Soviet hordes, it can be refreshing to face the Americans and the British.

[El_Condoro]

I can see why this is going to become very complicated. Even with a core size limit for Western Front scenarios players will have lots of Panthers and Tigers from their Eastern Front campaign, which will totally unbalance a Normandy-based DLC, for example. Even 10 Tigers will not be impossible to imagine. Montgomery would not have stood a chance against a German force like that!

Perhaps a custom equipment file for the west, with the equipment ID corresponding to units with the same stats but have a maximum size of 5? With experience the maximum size would be about 8. Fighting against Allied units of size 12 or 13 with experience of 300+ might balance it a bit.

[Zhivago]

Once all of the DLCs are completed, perhaps a unifying program could be written where all of the individual battles within each DLC could comprise one master scenario. You could have an infinitely customize-able campaign and victory paths by choosing what theater of operations you wish to fight in, and when. It will be fun to see what the future holds

[goodwoodrw]

After looking the above comments, it is near impossible to run an east and west campaign concurrently. How I see it, balance isn't problem, it's more equipment issues being the problem. Balancing a scenario wouldn't change as it is done now. I might be wrong, but the AI has a lot more prestige than the human player. It's hard to assess kill ratios because there is no scenario tally, but in the real world if the Ruskie vs German if it was the same as it is the game world, the war would be over the end 1942! The kill ratio must around 10 to 1 plus, probably closer to 15:1. Ruskies would be out Manpower and materiel already.

[monkspider]

An interesting discussion here! My take on it is that people shouldn't be able to swap back and forth from the east and west fronts. It would just create too much complication. The battles on the East front were on such a larger scale, I just couldn't take west front cores that were the same size as the east front cores seriously from a historical perspective.

On the other hand, I WOULD love it if the 1940 core could import into any Africa Expansion or a Sealion DLC.

[Schneides42]

Can any of the DLC's be turned around to play as the Allies, or do you need an entirely new game for this? I would rather play Africa as the Allies then have another set of DLCs (West) where you are running a strategic retreat. We will have already this with the later East DLCs.

[goodwoodrw]

The general consensus suggests there is a preference to being able to switch. Balancing between fronts because of larger numbers on eastern front, makes it difficult to program, if it is possible to have a core for each front and if you want to transfer units between fronts there is a need to pay a hefty fee in prestige, that it would limit the number of units you transfer between campaigns. It sort like paying the logistic cost to move unit from one side of the country to the other. Any advances on this idea.