Desert Fox
Posts: 171
Joined: 5/9/2000 From: Ohio, that is all I can say. Status: offline
|
The SP series has always lacked a rarity feature. This is complicated by the fact that there are so many different units in the SP games. Doing the research to figure out how many units were produced in month X is very time consuming. A lot of other games deal with this by offering a much smaller amount of unique units. However, a lot of other games have this feature, and it is very important to the realism of the WW2 era. Had the Germans been able to produce King Tigers like the Americans produced Shermans, the war would have been very different. But they did not, they could not.
SPWAW has done so much for the realism of the game. What we need now is this very important factor thrown into the game. Lets face it, this rarity factor is the whole reason the Allies won WW2. The question is not should this be implemented, but when will it be implemented?
Now my opinion on how it should be impemented is biased based on my experience with the Close Combat series. In the Close Combat games, you get a requisition screen where you have all available unit types listed, and the number of each unit that is actually available is also listed next to the unit type. From there you spend your points, attempting to make the best use of the points you have, and the units available to you. Reinforcements are added to the pool based not only on time, but on how many units you already have available to you. In SPWAW, there should also be a progress determining factor here, to reflect how your battlefield succes, or lack thereof, is impacting the war effort.
So, for example, you have 20 Tiger 1's available to you at a certain time. You buy 5 of them for your battle. The next month, you may see 25 Tigers in reserve. This time you dont buy any. So the next month you still have 25 Tigers in reserve since HQ saw that you already had plenty in reserve.
Now lets say you lose the next battle and HQ has to allocate your reserves elsewhere, so you have only 10 in reserve.
Now you buy all 10 to replace your beat up force, and win the next battle. Now maybe you have 30 available to you from the victory's impact on the war effort, HQ replacing your reserves, and the increased overall availability of Tigers since they have been in service for a while.
Well lets now say that you have Panthers available to you now. You change your 10 into Panthers. Now you have 40 Tigers in reserve. After the next battle HQ may see that you are not using Tigers and you only have 25 available for requisition.
Now, this could get complicated, and it should. War production was complicated, especially for the Germans who were being bombed for nearly the entire war, and the British who relied very heavily on supplies from the US and abroad that frequently got sunk.
However it is done, though, I think that it is a vital addition to the game. I also know that all the programmers at Matrix will hate this idea.
_____________________________
|