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Overall... - 12/23/2016 6:53:52 AM

macroeconomics

Posts: 126
Joined: 7/28/2004
Status: offline

...I like this game. I'd give it a B+ grade. I've played all the HoI games and Time of Fury (ToF) as well. SC3 is much closer to ToF than it is to HoI4. My view on each titles' strengths and weaknesses, with a focus on the AI:

SC3
++ Best naval AI ever seen in a strategic WW2 game of this scope. Yes, a human using those crafty human tricks, will eventually wear it down. But still the best we've seen so far. Now, hew-man, try to beat the naval AI on Expert difficulty. Hint: the AI will not build 400 transports like it did in HoI4.
+ Serviceable air force AI, almost as good as the air force AI in ToF
+/- Decent army AI. Can attack with sufficient numerical/qualitative superiority. But frequently is tardy in identifying high value hexes (such as capitals, Gibraltar, Malta, etc. and doesn't garrison them appropriately. AI's Russian winter attack in 1941 is weak.
+ AI will actually deploy US air, naval, ground forces to Europe. Yeah that sounds like a pathetically low hurdle, but then how come so many strategic WW2 games can't get over it?
+ US forces deployed to Europe are actually semi-effective. Wow. Just wow. We simply have not seen this before.
- Only game that requires economic output cost to use strategic movement. You will pay to build that rolling stock each time you use it. Hmmmm.....

ToF
+ Best air force AI. On defense, as good as a human. On attack, similar to SC3's AI. Uses brute force to attrition you to death.
+ Best land combat system, more fluid than in SC3
+ Passable army AI. Better than SC3's army AI on the attack. Can orchestrate a punishing Russian winter attack in 1941. On defense, army AI is similar to SC3's. Serviceable as France 1940. Weaker as Russia 1941, as neither SC3 or ToF AI really understand trading space for time.
-- Naval AI insufficient to defend UK. Unable to direct meaningful Allied reinforcements to North Africa
- Weak naval AI slows US deployment to a trickle.

HoI4
+ Biggest scope, includes Pacific Theatre, Industrial development, resource bottlenecks, espionage, and unit customization via Division Designer. The feature set is immense.
- The AI understands nothing about the feature set. For example all production is hard coded. No critical metals? The AI will not shift to making infantry. Will continue to queue up tank divisions that never get completed.
-- naval AI. Hands down the worst of the three. Does not present a challenge even at highest difficulty levels
- Air force AI. Much of this has to due with the inability of the AI to produce aircraft, but yeah after the first month of a war, you will not see that opposing country field an air force
- land AI. Again a lot of the blame goes to the production AI which can't....produce. But bottom line, the land AI can't attack. And it can't defend.
+ multiplayer
+ The game is fast playing. Because of the reasonably proficient front/theatre AI assistants, you can get through the entire war in a handful of hours. Try that in
SC3 or ToF.

< Message edited by macroeconomics -- 12/23/2016 7:30:10 AM >

Post #: 1

RE: Overall... - 12/23/2016 8:25:07 AM

TheBattlefield

Posts: 507
Joined: 6/11/2016
Status: offline

Just a single "negative" aspect in the SC3 list. Very nice. In addition, in a little AI relevant as well as 100% subjective area. I personally find the direct connection of MPP to operational movements quite successful. Thus, the logistical and also resources devouring performance of a large troop transfer is strategically abstracted very effectively. Players' prioritization of expenditures allows operational movements across the rail network to be variable and reduced in cost by infrastructure research. I consider an unrestricted operational movement unrealistic and playful rather boring. Moreover, a separate production of "operational points" (eg in CEAW) would be too gamey and inflexible. But also this assessment is, of course, subjective.

(in reply to macroeconomics)

Post #: 2

RE: Overall... - 12/23/2016 9:00:35 AM

Mountaineer

Posts: 149
Joined: 9/6/2013
Status: offline

Rolling stock and logistics in operational theaters is not a one time expense, and the costs associated with it often surprise combat commanders. Furthermore there were combat losses in the rear area on a scale never seen before with the burden of sustaining consumables and the maintenance of these modes and nodes.

(in reply to TheBattlefield)

Post #: 3

RE: Overall... - 12/23/2016 4:42:55 PM

macroeconomics

Posts: 126
Joined: 7/28/2004
Status: offline

So then why is it modeled as a marginal expense when you transport units? You can't have it both ways. Right now, you incur no costs to maintain that infrastructure. Frankly, the strategic transportation costs are way out of whack with the cost of the units themselves. And the argument that one can reduce the transportation costs via research is irrelevant as you are spending all of 1939 and most of 1940 paying the inflated base costs. Personally I think a better game structure would be to allow the first couple of units to be strat redeployed for minimal cost, and then ramp the costs up as you redeploy more units. Most national rail systems operate with a degree of slack, and additional marginal traffic loads can be accommodated with minimal issues. It is only as larger marginal loads are introduced into the system that economic cargo gets displaced and costs arise.

I did forget one other negative for SC3. The projection map distortion is really severe in the game. A lot worse than in ToF. HoI4 can adjust for this since they use area movement, not hexes. And although Paradox has tended to do an inadequate job here, they are still the best of the lot simply by default. How bad is it? Distance by hexes is distorted by about 100% in the northern parts of the map. So a fixed distance of say 400 miles in southern Italy/northern Germany is about 10 hexes, but that same distance in Finland is 20 hexes. This is particularly problematic for naval operations in this zone as it can take the British/Germans an excessive amount of time to deploy from Petsamo/Murmansk to the North Sea. The problem is solvable if one were to shove the NW & NE corners of the map into the middle North and compact everything. You then wind up displaying NW Canada and northern Siberia in the corners of the map, but as they aren't used in gameplay, it isn't really a negative.

Overall though, I think SC3 is a solid step forward for the genre because of the advances it shows in naval AI.

(in reply to Mountaineer)

Post #: 4

RE: Overall... - 12/23/2016 10:20:39 PM

The Land

Posts: 857
Joined: 2/19/2010
Status: offline

It would be possible to mod in a less distorted map - for instance War in Europe has a triangular map covering roughly the same area based on some kind of conic projection, which sacrifices squareness and "North being top of screen" to preserve distances and shapes

(in reply to macroeconomics)

Post #: 5

RE: Overall... - 12/24/2016 12:16:39 AM

freeboy

Posts: 9088
Joined: 5/16/2004
From: Colorado
Status: offline

Reminds me of the 70s era board game 3rd reich from AH and the economics

(in reply to The Land)

Post #: 6