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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Strategic Command Series >> Strategic Command WWII War in Europe >> global map

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global map - 8/19/2013 6:01:01 PM

mathiaswargamefan

Posts: 20
Joined: 7/22/2013
From: near Stuttgart, Germany
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hello hubert,

the sc3 global map release is also in 2014 or in 2015 and as a expansion or add-on?

mathias

Post #: 1

RE: global map - 8/20/2013 8:03:46 PM

Hubert Cater

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Hi Mathias,

I'd like to see an eventual Global Map release using the SC3 engine, but there is nothing officially planned at the moment other than the first SC3 European Theater release... one thing at a time sort of thing

Hubert

(in reply to mathiaswargamefan)

Post #: 2

RE: global map - 8/23/2013 8:35:38 PM

mathiaswargamefan

Posts: 20
Joined: 7/22/2013
From: near Stuttgart, Germany
Status: offline

and why hubert, the same long way with sc3 as with sc2 (eto, pto, global)?

mathias

(in reply to Hubert Cater)

Post #: 3

RE: global map - 8/24/2013 6:12:05 PM

Robert24

Posts: 176
Joined: 7/26/2013
Status: offline

Do not forget WW1, Interwar years and post WW2...

All have worked well with the SC format!

(in reply to mathiaswargamefan)

Post #: 4

RE: global map - 8/24/2013 7:47:28 PM

pzgndr

Posts: 3170
Joined: 3/18/2004
From: Maryland
Status: offline

quote:

and why hubert, the same long way with sc3 as with sc2

You know why. You're not going to get unlimited free patches for a game engine year after year. And Hubert and other game developers cannot work for free. Neither would you and neither would anybody.

Now, with that said, the question may be whether Matrix/Slitherine wants to repeat the game expansion scheme or try to develop SC3 into a TOAW-like game engine for grand strategy gaming. TOAW focused more on the game engine and a core of scenarios, but many more wonderful scenarios and campaigns are developed independently as mods. I would kinda like to see The Strategic Art of War. It might generate more revenue in the long run with a bigger customer base than a series of expansions oriented to smaller customer bases who are interested in a particular genre. Who knows.

(in reply to Robert24)

Post #: 5

RE: global map - 8/24/2013 8:51:16 PM

DSWargamer

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Joined: 8/25/2010
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I personally think global is often just not so doable.

The war in Europe is so different than the war in the Pacific, and often you get a better simulation when not trying to force the two to get along.

This problem is not specific to computer wargames either. I have seen numerous board games that simply did a better job of it when the product was not busy trying to do all things all the time.

Plus I concur with pzgndr, I have no beef with Hubert making a decent income off of his efforts.

_____________________________

I have too many too complicated wargames, and not enough sufficiently interested non wargamer friends.

(in reply to pzgndr)

Post #: 6

RE: global map - 8/24/2013 9:43:48 PM

SeaMonkey

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C'mon everyone, you know the drill, ETO, PTO, and the culmination of Global. Just think how good this will be as we tweak the engine through the various editions. An already refined engine being molded to perfection........OK...."close to perfection".

(in reply to DSWargamer)

Post #: 7

RE: global map - 8/25/2013 8:26:12 AM

mcaryf

Posts: 169
Joined: 7/11/2003
From: Uk
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I have to say that I am disappointed that SC 3 will initially start out as ETO. I think an important current advantage of the SC series is that it is one of the few that has made a reasonable attempt at including all of WW2 albeit with some flaws. It is those flaws that would make SC 3 worth attempting because the potential is there to be better. I am not convinced that there is a whole lot of unexplored opportunity in the ETO.

If it is not entirely too late I would suggest to you that one big opportunity on the global scale is to make some of the major groupings play independently. Thus the Western Allies, the European Axis, USSR, China, Japan all controllable by the AI or by players indpendently. With this approach those interested in the ETO could effectively play it with most of the rest of the world being played by the AI. It might even be possible to split off some part of the Western Allies for the AI to play the non ETO theatre with periodic requests made to the main Western Allies player to provide more resources for the Pacific or India or wherever so some priorities had to be assigned.

A previous poster has correctly noted that there are difficulties in combining ETO with other theatres. In my view that is what makes it interesting to attempt it. The danger with starting ETO first is that desirable compromises to make the global scale possible will not be made in the interest of producing something competitive with other existing ETO products. I am sure that Roosevelt and Churchill would have preferred to concentrate on just one theatre - this was not a choice they were given.

regards

Mike

(in reply to SeaMonkey)

Post #: 8

RE: global map - 8/25/2013 3:00:48 PM

DSWargamer

Posts: 283
Joined: 8/25/2010
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If game design was only just about making up political team mates though, everything would be so much easier wouldn't it.

One could just as easily ask the question, why do SC3 at all? After all, couldn't a person just ask, why bother when the game industry already has several designs that are fully global already?

I can think of numerous proven designs right now. The trick of course, is some designers simply want it to be THEIR design not surprisingly.

Frankly, I have some board game designs that beg the question, why not play them, learn the computer program to play them online, and stop searching for a creation that isn't needed? There's always something though, and the most common reason being too many people simply don't wish to play the game against anyone else, they actually WANT to just play an AI.

I have wondered, if not for the forced AI inclusions, how many superb no-AI game designs might be already available? Could we already be playing numerous game designs, if we had no choice but to play all the various sides solo pretty much the way we did in the 70s?

_____________________________

I have too many too complicated wargames, and not enough sufficiently interested non wargamer friends.

(in reply to mcaryf)

Post #: 9

RE: global map - 8/25/2013 8:10:03 PM

mathiaswargamefan

Posts: 20
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From: near Stuttgart, Germany
Status: offline

that is the fury software way with expansions/add-ons, not my way, therefore my question...i DISLIKE ww games with only parts of the ww. ww2 is a WORLD war, not an european war. and in a turn-based game is that no problem with a big global map!

(in reply to DSWargamer)

Post #: 10

RE: global map - 8/25/2013 10:48:44 PM

DSWargamer

Posts: 283
Joined: 8/25/2010
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Actually part of the problem with WW2 is in deciding when it actually began.

If you ask someone from China, is sure wasn't the 1939 attack on Poland.

If you look at a lot of media, it seems Americanocentric as so many seem to suggest it wasn't fully global till the US made it possible to bridge the gap between the war against Germany and Italy and the war against the Japanese. This makes it sometimes seem like the global war began in 41.

The war wasn't really the Western Allies AND Russian until Germany attacked them. In some respects, the Russians can be said to have been an Axis power until they were stabbed in the back by Germany. They sure weren't nice people when they carved up Poland and absorbed large swaths of Eastern Europe.

_____________________________

I have too many too complicated wargames, and not enough sufficiently interested non wargamer friends.

(in reply to mathiaswargamefan)

Post #: 11

RE: global map - 8/26/2013 9:39:17 AM

mcaryf

Posts: 169
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From: Uk
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Hi DSWargamer
I guess I might be in a variant segment in that I like to set up different scenarios within the bounds of historical capability and then set the AI to play itself and check how it progresses.

I am not as convinced as you that there are plenty of good wargames addressing the entire scope of WW2.

I would agree with you that the China Incident should technically be included but it would significantly increase the time span and hence add in rather too many imponderables for my taste.

Regards

Mike

(in reply to DSWargamer)

Post #: 12

RE: global map - 8/26/2013 1:12:53 PM

DSWargamer

Posts: 283
Joined: 8/25/2010
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Well mainly the point was calling it WORLD war 2 is mostly the problem.

And demanding it be a global map just because it was called WORLD war 2 eventually, is a poor reasoning.

In China it was a different experience, because it didn't start at Pearl Harbour and it didn't really end in 45 as the communist forces just switched over to fighting the forces of Chiang's nationalists.

Russia knows it as the Great Patriotic War, due I suppose as it was suddenly convenient to appeal to the nation's sense of pride once communism seemed inadequate not to mention Stalin was eager to get people to forget he had only recently been slaughtering everyone himself.

The war began in 39 with the attack on Poland if you were Canadian due to our contacts with England, and it began in 40 if you were Italian and wanting to score some points with your German buddies. It began at varying times for you if you lived in Eastern Europe, and it's near impossible to tell when freedom came although it likely was sometime in the 90s when communism finally rolled over and expired.

I personally prefer my wargames to cope with the dynamics of the fighting by sticking to European mode or Pacific mode as it allows the designer to focus on the differences better.

They did a fine job with Advanced Third Reich, but as good as it was, Rising Sun is better solo, as most will tell you the game started to wobbled the second they tried to cram the two together.

I personally think we would already be playing cWorld in Flames if there was no AI trying to actually pretend it had a clue how to run a truly global war. I know I won't buy the game if it can't be played hotseat with no AI, as I personally think nothing polite about anyone's opinion if they claim the AI is any good at all. And yes I have the board game.

Most games that do global well, usually do it at the Risk level of complexity. Risk being a good example, and plenty of the expansions proving my point. The more complex the setting the more likely it is best to leave it as a setting that is nor global.

Gary's World at War a World Divided is likely a better game than would be pretending it is possible to play the whole war at the same level of complexity of merging War in the Pacific and War in the East (a prospect I find truly horrifying, you couldn't pay me to beta test such an idea).

I am a total hex preferring wargamer, but, sometimes you need regions, not hex or squares or anything rigidly defining.

_____________________________

I have too many too complicated wargames, and not enough sufficiently interested non wargamer friends.

(in reply to mcaryf)

Post #: 13

RE: global map - 8/30/2013 1:41:36 AM

AlvaroSousa

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All software has to be built starting small and working up. SC3 is a new map with lots of ideas poured in that need testing. A smaller scenario allows us to work out bugs easier.

_____________________________

Creator Kraken Studios
- WarPlan
- WarPlan Pacific

Designer Strategic Command
- Brute Force (mod) SC2
- Assault on Communism SC2
- Assault on Democracy SC2
- Map Image Importer SC3

(in reply to DSWargamer)

Post #: 14

RE: global map - 8/30/2013 6:54:13 AM

mcaryf

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Joined: 7/11/2003
From: Uk
Status: offline

Hello Al

You are of course right about building software - I will just leave a plea that the design decisions taken in the early days take account of the possibility of a later move to a global map.

In the meanwhile of course it means that modders will have a longer time to work on variants of AOD without having to look at SC 3 global rapidly coming down the track to obsolete their work.

Regards

Mike

(in reply to AlvaroSousa)

Post #: 15

RE: global map - 9/4/2013 6:33:09 PM

Fintilgin

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I hope that you design the naval system from the ground up with the Pacific in mind, though, which would be the big advantage of starting with the whole world. While the SC2 naval model worked fine for the European theater, which is largely land oriented, I thought it felt kinda awkward and kludgy when trying to represent the Pacific.

(in reply to mcaryf)

Post #: 16

RE: global map - 9/9/2013 2:12:56 AM

Hubert Cater

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Just catching up on a few posts here and I wanted to quickly mention that all the planned changes, enhancements and general improvements should port over very well to either a single theater or global design, including our planned naval improvements.

Why ETO and not something else?

While I'd love to mention we had a very long and reasoned strategy session on how we'd start with SC3, I think in the end it came down to a couple of emails in our discussions on SC3 where I mentioned starting with ETO and Bill agreed and we quickly moved on from that. With so many things to do for SC3 and so many items on our list to consider I think we both were probably relieved to agree on that particular point and that we could quickly cross it off our list and move on.

I can also add that starting with the ETO was not a decision to make things easier for ourselves, far from it as our goal is nothing short of the best SC release to date regardless of what the initial context for the SC3 engine was going to be.

Essentially there is no intention on our end to take any steps backwards with the SC3 engine and we truly hope you will enjoy what we have in store for everyone

Hubert

< Message edited by Hubert Cater -- 9/9/2013 2:15:46 AM >

(in reply to Fintilgin)

Post #: 17