Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

Thanks gentlemen, and while we are working on a few things that we believe will be of great interest to this community, we are just not quite ready to announce anything official just yet. Hopefully soon enough though

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ORIGINAL: eriador08

I must disagree in part, Elvis. I am from Europe and know some people who would love a Civil War version.

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ORIGINAL: ElvisJJonesRambo

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ORIGINAL: eriador08

I must disagree in part, Elvis. I am from Europe and know some people who would love a Civil War version.

If the Euros want to come on over, do little bit of U.S. Civil War, fine by me. After all, America is Europe 2.0, new kids on the block. I would program this game: Victory Games U.S. Civil War. I'd pay $250 for this game if it was TCP/IP or "live" somehow. The game plays in pulses, Army of North Virginia, Potomac, etc. Interactive makes in fun. I'm an old fish these days, have played tons of games. Played Victory Games U.S. Civil War, face-2-face at least 150+ times.

Computer games tend to be two extremes. Choice #1, the game sux. Just a big blob of pieces, no strategy. Play the game 3 times, you're pissed you bought it. Choice #2, Strategic games keep getting deeper & deeper into clicking forever. Forget one thing, you're ruined. Compare original Civilization versus the latest Civ. New Civ versions take a lifetime to play. Maybe in Heaven I'll have enough time to play. Doesn't work for me.

I want to play the game, more than PBEM 2/turns day. I only get a small fix. Takes for forever to do a proper turn or I forget all the pieces because it could 3 days since last turn. You really think people aren't reloading. Sending flawless turns on the Oceans. Never making a bad move in Russia/Africa. It's a joke.

Frankly, I have no clue what to make. Nor what people will buy.

I forgot to remember to forget,
-Legend

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ORIGINAL: nats

There is Grand Tactician: American Civil War? That is a very good game although not multiplayer. But does anyone actually play any of these games as multiplayer games?

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ORIGINAL: archmache

3) Differentiate Unit combat (i.e. army should function different than recon besides just stronger unit values)


.... Also need to add localized moral so that if you take or retake a city it effects units with x hexes to mimic routs and tactical victories or whatever. This is a real gripe I have that the Russian front is so big yet it does not feel tactical at all .. its just three lines to the big 3 cities. Something like Kursk battles have never showed up in my MP games.)

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ORIGINAL: Keenan

I would take American Civil War or a Napoleonic Age one. Both has been built as Mods for SC 2 and given the limitations of the engine and the effort a typical modder can afford to invest, the results were already pretty cool. And I can`t wait to see what FOARPs Opus Magnum (more than 2 years of work) American Front will turn out to be.

On an ACW or a age of Napoleon version:
- One of the core elements: Manoeuvring and supply also works of these scenarios (with a few tweaks, some beyond the capabilities of the current engine, will possibly be required).
Cohesive frontlines would obviously be a lot less relevant, so the local battles need to work somehow different (refreshing unit strength points would need to be more limited, so a localized war of attrition becomes possible - this is already there in the current engine but barley moddable to tweak it to a level where it would work smoothly for such scenarios). For example it could make sense to emulate the "living off the land" aspect to only give supply to units attached to HQs not every unit in range. And low supply units could already suffer some attrition not only out of supply ones. But higher readiness and moral could do the job as well - just now it is very hard to do siege efficiently in 2:1/3:1 situations if the defender is positioned in supply source that has not yet been brought down.
- Maps would need to be bigger or the movement points reduced - a combination of both might allow the best compromise. (I know the creation of larger maps is painful and time consuming, so not sure if this will be doable as an invest into a new version of SC3.)
Impact of ZOCs possibly needs some tweaking as well.
- The political and econonmical game could use some extension as well (still could be done without re-inventing it in full).
Units or minors with their units switching sides but keeping strength (more or less) and position would be a great thing to see. For a Napoleonic scenario it would be even better if this would work for Majors as well - maybe one could introduce something like "secondary" majors which can do so, while the core majors (France and UK respectively USA and CSA) are kept static. [I know, this is possibly a big ask in terms of engine adjustments. But it is also quite a weakness already now. When Italy switches sides even a fully intact and upgraded Regina Marina just vanishes. The naval war is typically not of any relevance at this point and all relevant Italian military units basically are gone anyways but it is still a strange mechanism.]
Production could be more regional (pre-assigning the capital/supply/industrial center when starting unit production, so you would need to place it there could make a lot of sense - to be honest I think this could even make sense for the current games and it`s there for the initial production queue at game start).
Also I`m missing different approaches to deal with occupied countries, historically there was often the choice between short term gain (plundering) and strengthening local forces willing to collaborate. Right now this has always been left to events to deal with. But for example it would be an option to plunder less and gain a higher max occupation efficiency percentage in return. Or events could be allowed to adjust this value. Some monarchs and codes of law Napoleon put in place were more popular that the previous ones. In other cases or just when times of peace fell short this "strategy" failed miserably. In a similar way one could choose the reduction of conquered supply sources depending on a military doctrine chosen by both the attacker and the defender (potentially paying a price in respect to NM when choosing extremes).
- Overall it could be more a game of NM for the majors than just conquering capitals to somehow emphasize the importance of larger battles during these days. With typically some heavy impact, if a capital is actually being lost.
- Naval game would possibly use some tweaking as well but I think this is something that is partially true for the existing games as well. (I`m not saying it`s broken but it always kind of feels like it should be improved here and there.)

Obviously such scenarios could also work completely different, I just wanted to add my 2 cents how certain effects could be achieved while keep most existing core mechanisms of the engine intact. I can definitely see options for both timelines without major changes to the engine. But possibly some would be required to make some things work in a non-weird way.

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Independent for these kind of expansions there used to be some more "battle" and "local campaign" type scenarios as part of the SC2 add-ons. Things like that might not attract as much attention and are possibly also drawing less interest from the MP community but that does not mean there is no interest at all.

+++

And in any case I would like to see the Russian Civil War Scenario return - one way or another.

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ORIGINAL: Unfortunate Son

Holy reincarnation Batman! I see the resemblance. Was this picture taken in 1865 or 1965?

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ORIGINAL: Bo Rearguard

While we're dreaming, an American Revolutionary War game would be interesting too. I still have my old copy of Avalon Hill's 1776.

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ORIGINAL: OldCrowBalthazor

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ORIGINAL: Bo Rearguard

While we're dreaming, an American Revolutionary War game would be interesting too. I still have my old copy of Avalon Hill's 1776.

This was such a well made game...one of the best Avalon Hill put out. I still think its tops over any other American Revolution era games that came out, at least at this strategic level. Mine got lost in a move..but there are some on the market. I may go shopping!

Anyway..yes, this conflict would be a great choice to develop.

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ORIGINAL: ElvisJJonesRambo

Pow! The shot heard around the world. 1776. I had that game. Bought it, barely could read, the cover looked cool. My gaming group buddies were readers, they taught be all the games 3rd Reich, Squad Leader, US Civil War, War in the Pacific. We never got around to playing 1776.

But here's one we probably played dozen plus, multiplayer neighborhood games, Conquistador. Had too much paperwork calculations and the combat was stale. The exploration was the fun part, second half game dragged.

Startin' tomorrow only good things in life are going to come to me,
-EJR

There's a brand new day on the horizon
Everything's gonna be just fine
There's a brand new day on the horizon
And the whole world's gonna be mine

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ORIGINAL: archmache

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ORIGINAL: OldCrowBalthazor

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ORIGINAL: Bo Rearguard

While we're dreaming, an American Revolutionary War game would be interesting too. I still have my old copy of Avalon Hill's 1776.

This was such a well made game...one of the best Avalon Hill put out. I still think its tops over any other American Revolution era games that came out, at least at this strategic level. Mine got lost in a move..but there are some on the market. I may go shopping!

Anyway..yes, this conflict would be a great choice to develop.

I agree ...

It could start off in 1775 with players having to make strategic and tactical choices. Kind of like a long drawn out mulligan and deployment phase. In this players would vie for Native American allies, Old World help from Spain, France, or Germany etc, loyalists states vs ones that would "rise" immediately, and where the constitution was signed and finally where the first "shot heard round the world would occur." This would be phase one. Even something like spies could be placed and location of gunpowder.

Phase two would be the initial fights, building the armies, English arriving on NA shores, skirmishes.

Phase three would be the climax with wars in the North and the South states and even west of the appalachines and into New England and Canada. Now that I think about it this could be a fun game.