Slitherine

This might be my only chance to have some input:

First some definitions:

???3R??? means Rise and Decline of the Third Reich by Avalon Hill

???UV??? means Uncommon Valour by Gary Grisby

???HOI??? = Hearts of iron

???SC2??? = Strategic Command 2

???DBS series??? means the Decisive Battles series by SSG. Namely: Korsun Pocket, Battles in Italy and Battles in Normandy.


Some suggestions:

Ability to PBEM

Ability to PBEM with multiple opponents. Each opponent would control one or more countries.

A hex based game.

Turn based. I feel WEGO would not work at this scale.

The counters graphics. Please do not allow the counter graphics to resemble those of SC2! 3D is too hard on the eyes! The counter graphics need to provide INFORMATION at a GLANCE. A graphic that sits between those of 3R and the DBS series would be perfect.

The map graphics of 3R are ancient . The map graphics of UV and the DBS series are both just fine. Something like those would be satisfactory.

Information! Information! Information!

Ease of information is the secret! If the information is hard to find it becomes work instead of a game. Please add Hot keys like those in the DBS series. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!

Information! Information! Information!

The other way to provide information is by using lists.
Lists that can be sorted such as those in UV.
Then drill down from the list to the unit or the hex in question.

I like the Economic Warfare model and the Strategic Warfare aspect of 3R. I would hope this game has something equivalent. Strategic warfare as modelled in 3R could be resolved each turn instead of each quarter. As we have computers this could be taken to the next level and add a feature called "Research and Production" giving further choices where to spend your ???BRPs??? as they were called in 3R.

It must be subtle. Too much emphasis on Research and Production would spoil the game and not enhance it.

Information! Information! Information!

Zoom levels. If I have to page all over the map this makes it very hard to get an overview of the situation
Zoom level 1: The whole map.
Zoom level 2: Can view about 1/4 of the map on the screen. The map is then only 2 screens wide and 2 screens high and it is easy to view.
Any higher zoom levels make it too hard to get an overview of the situation.
From each zoom level, all the info ought to be available and we ought to be able to give orders.
In saw a screen shot of your map. I feel (without knowing anything about the game) that too much Atlantic Ocean is on the map. The US and Canada could be ???on the edge??? as they are in 3R. It makes it hard to get an overview of the situation with so much water there.

Short cuts! Short cuts! Short cuts!

Hex stacking. SC had a limit of 1. HOI2 seems to be unlimited. Can we please have hex stacking of 2 or 3 or 4. A limit of 1 is bad design. Anything more than 4 and it is difficult for the player to control because the information is hard to obtain.

Thinking ahead. A fan of the game might want to mod it and make a War in the Pacific. Please incorporate ???features??? that are not needed in your game but would be needed in such a mod.

The scenarios ought to be:
France 1940
The whole Mediterranean 1941 - 1943
Barbarossa 1941
June 1944 to the end
A Grand Campaign

A scenario titled ???D-Day??? would theoretically cover only a small geographical area and be too small for the scope of the game

Short cuts! Short cuts! Short cuts!

Information! Information! Information!

I look forward to hearing more about this

Joe

Mini-scenarios might be a way to introduce a player to the game, or provide shorter multi-player games.

Kursk
Stalingrad
Seelowe (Sea Lion)
France '40


Or maybe not. Perhaps Slitherine's vision of the game involves a larger scope that excludes the idea of such small situations. If so, I'm sure we'll all understand

Interesting post there, Joe. Unfortunately for me, the old AH dinosaur is the only one of those I ever played. Thank you for not including Axis & Allies in your list! (what a reeking POS).

What makes or breaks the game is not the bells & whistles, it's the "overall feel", playability. That's a rather general statement, I know. Personally, I thought the original 3R board hex game was lame. I did like SC, the jury is still out for me on SC2. Hopefully CEW will deliver.

SC is really annoying (JJR & I are playgn a game the moment) - for me it has so much promise, and then deliveres "merely" a board game.

Sure the game works - we're having a right old ding-dong - but IMO it fails to deliver the promise I'm looking for from a computer - complicated mechanics handled by the computer leaving teh player free to look at strategy. Instead we jsut don't have any complicated mechanics at all - at least not more complicated than computer games weer in 1986!

So I'm looking for the shifting of resources (military and civilian, boats, transport, a/c, etc) between realistic "force pools" such as production, commerce raiding, training, etc ., eg one of the main screw-ups at Stalingrad was that Ju-52's formed a huge part of the LW training fleet, and hte loss of them and the instructors really impacted on the quality of the LW for the rest of the war - so you make a choice - do you shift a/c out of training into tactical roles for short term gain??

I probably have more computational power on my desktop than existed in teh whole world in 1980 - as does everyone who reads this - but it jsut doesn't get used to deliver somethign that is a better game.

Very good suggestions from Joe 98. Here a few more VITAL suggestions:
-no micromanagement or at minimum level as possible
-keep it simple to play but with lots of strategic and tactical solutions
-luck factor should be at minimum level as possible to prevent main problem for all PBEM game ??“ RELOADING
-it will be good that you have online dice roller support. (This is one more solution to prevent reloading.)
-hex stacking limit should be like in 3R - 2 land units + air unit(s)
-very important is how you will solve supply rule, naval combat and amphibious assaults. For example, in SC2 naval combat and amphibious assaults solutions are terrible, supply rule is good but it could be better, in 3R naval combat and amphibious assaults solutions are very good but it could be better, supply rule is excellent.

Actually, Advanced Third Reich is the best strategy game I have ever played so you should remake this game.

And one more suggestion: you should listen Stalins_Organ, Jon_J_Rambo and me. We are veteran SC2 forum buddies and we know what we are talking about

Thanks - we're always interested to hear feedback & suggestions.

We totally agree on micro management & keeping it to a minimum, which kind of goes agains the stacking limits & complex supply rules?

Naval and amphibious are still being tweaked. We know they wont be perfect because of the compromise between movement distances & turn durations but we'll do what we can. E.g. if a turn is 14 days, a ship could sail across the Atlantic, but obviously that would not work for gameplay reasons. One aspect we do think we've got right is naval bombardments & air strikes - these do very little real damage but disrupt the units morale and cohesion. As cohesion recovers over time you must follow up quickly with ground attacks to make the most of it, which is very realistic.

We have lots of other ideas for the future that could really improve things, but we have to keep the design manageable for the first iteration of the engine. If we tried to do everything in one go we'd probably never finish it

iainmcneil wrote:Thanks - we're always interested to hear feedback & suggestions.

We totally agree on micro management & keeping it to a minimum, which kind of goes agains the stacking limits & complex supply rules?

Didn??™t quite understand this. I don??™t think that supply rule have to be complex, just good. I will take 3R for example again: units are in supply if you can find free land path to capital. If units are not in supply they will be destroyed because one turn duration is one season. Simple but excellent. Because of this rule you must watch out your flanks, you must watch out that your units will not be surrounded etc. The punch line is that this rule makes lots of realistic situations and unleashes numberless tactics and strategies.

Stacking limit to 2 land units I also suggested because it is simple but excellent. 1 unit in hex is too little, 3 is too much to my opinion.

Thanks for quick reply.

iainmcneil wrote: We totally agree on micro management & keeping it to a minimum, which kind of goes agains the stacking limits & complex supply rules?

I'm glad you put a question mark in here - no I don't think supply and stacking are problems - it is relatively simple to stack units and move them seperately if required.

Supply is also relatively simple IMO if you restrict it to tracing supply lines and having a supply strength that affects combat - SC2 does a reasonable job of simulating supply with a very simple system - too simple in some respects IMO, but that's a matter of taste....

Naval and amphibious are still being tweaked. We know they wont be perfect because of the compromise between movement distances & turn durations but we'll do what we can. E.g. if a turn is 14 days, a ship could sail across the Atlantic, but obviously that would not work for gameplay reasons.

True - but capability matters too - for example the German plan for Sea Lion involved the large ships of the invasion fleet being anchored off the English coast for 3 days to offload the first wave, then those same ships (any that survived the RN!!) were to return to the continent and pick up the 2nd wave, although it was thought they would have harbours to offload at by then.

So the ships weer plenty fast enough, but lacked an actual amphibious capability.

SC2 has added an amphibious tech in it's 1st patch, but this only affects teh range of amphibious units - not their actual capabilities.

I'd like to see amphib tech along the lines of how much loss a unit takes getting ashore on an undefended beach, a defended beach, how easily it can get off that beach, and the ability to supply units across a beach.

A basic amphibious tech would be Gallipoli - a very few slightly modified ships, longboats, etc. Real basic - god help you if there are significant numbers of defenders, and it proved to be very difficult to move off even undefended beaches!!!

Sea Lion's Rhine Barges, etc would be the next level up - still adapting unsuitable vessles, but doing a lot more too them so probably reducing losses and increasing the effectiveness of an assaulting force.

Dieppe is perhaps Lv3 - the ability to put heavy tanks ashore

Lvl 4 might be D-day without the Mulberries, and Lvl 5 is D-Day where you can create a harbour for good supply once you're ashore.

One aspect we do think we've got right is naval bombardments & air strikes - these do very little real damage but disrupt the units morale and cohesion. As cohesion recovers over time you must follow up quickly with ground attacks to make the most of it, which is very realistic.

yes a much better idea than most!!

another idea I think might be useful - non-linear strength for ground units.

I think it might be a good idea to have units that are quiet difficult to actually destroy totally - inflicting the 1st loss on them might be quite easy, but once they get down to 1/2 strength or less they become significantly harder to destroy - assuming they have good morale, organisation and supply, etc of course - low quality units shold still be easy to shatter!

However this might allow the use of kampfgruppe in the classic German manner where remnants of fairly well equipped and motivated units were sometimes still effective.