Comments

[Nats]

It's a good game first off wanted to say that, but here are a few things that have hit me as I've been playing:

It's a bit frustrating not having a wrap around map especially when dealing with the US, is there any way this could be implemented in the game?

How does the cancel wrong move work? I have made a few mistakes in moving ground units and so far I haven't managed to reverse any of them using the appropriate hotkey.

It would be really useful to be able to get some idea of how an attack will go before moving your units up to the front line. I know you can see this info when adjacent to enemy units before you attack but when your units are further away and need to move first before you attack there is no way to get any idea whether the attack is liekly to be successful. Surely some sort of strategic awareness would enable your troops to know whether it would be worthwhile moving into an area before they do so or whether they will be moving into greater danger?

[Shammy]

I think the map makes the AI much better. A wraparound map would throw the AI off, I think.
It seems realistic enough for me. From a distance it's hard to tell how many people are hiding :)

[Nats]

I also am not very happy with being able to play the Russians as allies at the start of the game before they have even joined the allies - its just too weird and feels wrong to me. They were the bad guys until they came over to the allies in 1941. Same for the US - between 1939-41 they were not even in the war at all.

You should start in 1939 by controlling Britain/France/China or Germany/Russia/Japan and only get the option to broaden your control to other factions if/when they join your faction through diplomacy.

Sometimes I think you can try to be too simplistic, and thats the way this game feels at the moment - it just feels awkward and a bit too contrived to me. This may be trying to be a simple wargame of WW2 but the way its set up at the moment feels very inaccurate in its depiction of the start of the war.

Maybe someone will mod it to be more accurate in 1939 I hope so?

At the moment I think I will just have to restart my game again with US and Russia set onto AI control in 1939 because I cant stand to see them be part of the allies when they weren't.

[Bill Runacre]

Although the neutral Majors like the USA or USSR are in game terms on the Allied side at the start of the 1939 campaign, there is only a limited amount that can be done with them.

For example, their economies are much smaller than they will be, and a fair amount of their armed forces will be deployed when they enter the war, preventing you from moving them around from those locations prior to their war entrance.

A limited amount of forward planning for their war entrance is allowed, e.g. what research to invest in with the small number of MPPs available, and the purchase of maybe a few units.

Historically, the US was always pro-Allied and more and more so as the war progressed, providing an increasing amount of economic assistance to the UK, and this is evidenced by their slowly rising Mobilization % which increases the amount sent by Lend-Lease to the UK before the US enters the war.

That said, your suggestion to set the US and USSR as being under AI control at the start is a good one.

[Nats]

I understand why it was done and you have obviously thought it through, not expecting it wouldnt have been.

I can understand the reasoning behind controlling the US in 1939 because it was a major player in the war later on unlike smaller countries that joined the allies.

But I cant understand why Russia needs to be part of the Allies in 1939 when it could easily change over later with an event. Controlling Russia whilst it invades Poland and Finland seems strange, they were definility more axis than allied at that point. I think a bad design decision personally, it just sits awkwardly with me as I play the game.

Having said all that I can put Russia on auto if need be, so its not a massive issue I guess, a bit annoying more than anything because I dont like historical inaccuracies.

[Hubert Cater]

Originally posted by Nats:

But I cant understand why Russia needs to be part of the Allies in 1939 when it could easily change over later with an event. Controlling Russia whilst it invades Poland and Finland seems strange, they were definility more axis than allied at that point. I think a bad design decision personally, it just sits awkwardly with me as I play the game.

As Bill mentioned since the Soviets and US eventually join the Allies it gives you an early opportunity to guide their direction for later on in the war, i.e. which investments in research to make, which units to purchase and to of course prepare them for the eventual attack by the Germans.

That aside, one other reason to not have them start as Axis and potentially switch over to the Allies later is that in Multiplayer games this unfortunately doesn't really work.

In one of our earlier games, a WWI game, we had Italy switch sides during the game as they did historically and in competitive multiplayer games the player that was about to lose control of Italy would disband all their units and sell off all research and so on. This created a bit of a mess of unfairness once Italy switched over and while Italy can still switch, just as it does in our WWII games, we handle it differently so that there is no advantage to destroying all your units before the switch.

In theory we could perhaps do something similar such as have a set order of battle that goes into force once the USSR is belligerent and at war, but then you lose out on some of the early directional control you have over the Soviets when playing as the Allies as you potentially lose out on alomst 2 years of choices etc.

There are pros and cons to every design decision, but for playability, and since the game only has an Axis and Allied side to it, some compromises need to be made with a best fit solution and this we feel was one of them.

In the end the Soviets are on the Allied side from the start, but in every other way are indpendent as there is limited cooperation between them and the other Allies. For example you cannot operate your air units from the USSR to other Allied fronts, and foreign Allied units will not receive any supply from within the USSR and so on.

[Nats]

Originally posted by Hubert Cater:

Originally posted by Nats:

But I cant understand why Russia needs to be part of the Allies in 1939 when it could easily change over later with an event. Controlling Russia whilst it invades Poland and Finland seems strange, they were definility more axis than allied at that point. I think a bad design decision personally, it just sits awkwardly with me as I play the game.

As Bill mentioned since the Soviets and US eventually join the Allies it gives you an early opportunity to guide their direction for later on in the war, i.e. which investments in research to make, which units to purchase and to of course prepare them for the eventual attack by the Germans.

That aside, one other reason to not have them start as Axis and potentially switch over to the Allies later is that in Multiplayer games this unfortunately doesn't really work.

In one of our earlier games, a WWI game, we had Italy switch sides during the game as they did historically and in competitive multiplayer games the player that was about to lose control of Italy would disband all their units and sell off all research and so on. This created a bit of a mess of unfairness once Italy switched over and while Italy can still switch, just as it does in our WWII games, we handle it differently so that there is no advantage to destroying all your units before the switch.

In theory we could perhaps do something similar such as have a set order of battle that goes into force once the USSR is belligerent and at war, but then you lose out on some of the early directional control you have over the Soviets when playing as the Allies as you potentially lose out on alomst 2 years of choices etc.

There are pros and cons to every design decision, but for playability, and since the game only has an Axis and Allied side to it, some compromises need to be made with a best fit solution and this we feel was one of them.

In the end the Soviets are on the Allied side from the start, but in every other way are indpendent as there is limited cooperation between them and the other Allies. For example you cannot operate your air units from the USSR to other Allied fronts, and foreign Allied units will not receive any supply from within the USSR and so on.

Fair points thanks for the explanation.

[Simulacra_53]

Originally posted by Nats:

I also am not very happy with being able to play the Russians as allies at the start of the game before they have even joined the allies - its just too weird and feels wrong to me. They were the bad guys until they came over to the allies in 1941. Same for the US - between 1939-41 they were not even in the war at all.

You should start in 1939 by controlling Britain/France/China or Germany/Russia/Japan and only get the option to broaden your control to other factions if/when they join your faction through diplomacy.

Sometimes I think you can try to be too simplistic, and thats the way this game feels at the moment - it just feels awkward and a bit too contrived to me. This may be trying to be a simple wargame of WW2 but the way its set up at the moment feels very inaccurate in its depiction of the start of the war.

Maybe someone will mod it to be more accurate in 1939 I hope so?

At the moment I think I will just have to restart my game again with US and Russia set onto AI control in 1939 because I cant stand to see them be part of the allies when they weren't.

All is relative.
You might argue it is simplistic to say the Soviets were the bad guys until they came over in 1941. They never came over...

The liberal democracies did not want to join the Soviets against the Fascists, genrally preferring fascism over Communism, and once Germany attacked the Soviet Union they (well at least Great Britain) were glad to have them fight on the same side.

There is a reason why the Anglo-French failed to declare war on the Soviet Union.

From a Soviet perspective I cannot blame themmfor reoccupying territory lost during the revolution.

[Simulacra_53]

The game has a nice way to depict US “neutrality” as well.
So I disagree on both counts.

[Nats]

Is there any way to create a travel order in this game so that a ship or unit will continue to a far destination without having to keep going back to it to move it over several turns? If not that would be most useful.

[Hubert Cater]

Not at this time, but it is on our list for nice haves for down the road.

[Nats]

Great stuff - it's certainly a thing I do quite a lot with ships - need them to move a long distance over a few turns but then forget to move them the next go.

[FangoWolf]

Nats, just in case you haven't found it, ships have that blue arrow that let them move double with some added risk.

[Nats]

Oh yeah you mean cruise mode - yes I've been trying that lately. But a way to do long distance travel over several turns would definitely reduce micromanagment a bit, not that tthere's a lot of micro in this game it's generally very well done.

[GoldenTalon]

Originally posted by Hubert Cater:

Not at this time, but it is on our list for nice haves for down the road.

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