A good idea which i thought of the other day:

[johndmuller]

Just a quickie on the time scale.

I think considering each MissionYear to be something like a Week (or maybe even a Day) of WWII time might make a lot of stuff that seems rediculously unrealistic in CIV/SMAC much less so. It would also make the time ballparks more similar - that is, a game of SMAX is set up to go several hundreds of years, while WWII took just 5 or so - multiplied by 50 would be pretty close. This way resource accumulation/support and research stuff could use numbers like the current ones without the risk of some unforseen relationships between game elements destabilizing everything. Strangely, many of the movement allowances seem more reasonable as 1 Weeks worth than 1 Years worth; planes would still be a disconnect (although less so than currently), but land and sea movement would be closer to being realistic.

[RobN]

The Italians deposed Mussolini and changed sides. Would it be possible to simulate that?

[Ned]

Blake, A lot of good ideas in your post.

- Formers should really just be engineers capable only of building road and magtubes (railroads)

- We could then just give the American a lot of very productive bases which the Axis powers could not reproduce

- Growth should be limited - Keep everyone green?

- The Nazi's initial advantage could be simulated by starting them with Fusion, while everyone else starts at Fission

Ned

[johndmuller]

Originally posted by Ned
- Formers should really just be engineers capable only of building road and magtubes (railroads)
- Growth should be limited - Keep everyone green?

If the formers are limited, then growth could be limited by pre-terraforming forest and/or (arid land) farms to the extent necessary to stabilize the pop.

Also, kelp should be disabled (unless we want to call it fishing).

Can the automatic spread of forests and kelp be controlled?

Can we prevent fungus and native life?

[Blake]

Originally posted by Ned
Blake, A lot of good ideas in your post.

- Formers should really just be engineers capable only of building road and magtubes (railroads)

I was thinking of that..... Altough seeing you can pillage terraforming I figure you should be able to rebuild it (but at a greater cost than in SMAC, and really limited to just farms and mines). Also sensors, bunkers, and airbases would have to be allowed. Especially seeing (presumably) founding new bases will be impossible.

- We could then just give the American a lot of very productive bases which the Axis powers could not reproduce

Yeah.... altough with the amount of land America has they dont even need to be highly productive.

- Growth should be limited - Keep everyone green?

Two ideas, one is to have all factions -3 growth, making it zero growth all the game. The other idea is to make the nutrient box really wide, so it takes ages to fill.
Something else to mention, specialists should be available at a greater base size, otherwise players could do all sorts of nonsense to screw up the carefully balanced energy...

- The Nazi's initial advantage could be simulated by starting them with Fusion, while everyone else starts at Fission

Interesting.... but the reactors dont really fit. And any faction which steals/begs the fusion reactor tech then gets to use it. Better just to start them with a large army, or good war SE. (I wouldn't mind the Nazi's having a fanatic bonus)

[Earwicker]

Originally posted by johndmuller

Also, kelp should be disabled (unless we want to call it fishing).

Can the automatic spread of forests and kelp be controlled?

Can we prevent fungus and native life?

Forests won't grow onto rocky squares, so those could be used to hem in automatic growth.

Spreading kelp would be less a problem than spreading forest. Without formers to build sea-platforms or tidals, the new sea squares wouldn't be that productive anyway. I like the idea of negative growth for all factions to avoid even the possiblity of pop-booming.

Is there a way to revise the ecodamage formula so that very productive Soviet and American bases wouldn't be causing fungal blooms? Or purposely running high so that some worms would pop up and be harvested for energy?

No crawlers, I'd presume?

[Ned]

Earwicker, I was thinking those same thoughts. What I think has to be done is start w/o tree farms, hybrid forests and centauri preserves, but with Genejacks and enough production to push the ED meter well into the red. After the first bloom, the Americans, Germans, Japanese, English and Russians, whichever, would be wise to spend some time building these facilities to get rid of ED.

Just one more point, I don't believe that German production was handicapped in any way. There just was not enough of it compared to American production. After Speer took over, production soared. So, rather than -1 industry, they should get +1.

I suggest the Nazi's be given 6 main production centers. The Americans could have 15, the Russians 7, the U.K. 4, the Japanese 5, the Chinese 2, and the Italians 2.

For example, the German bases could be Berlin, Munich, Prague, Hamburg, the Ruhr and Cologne.

The UK: London, Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham.

Russians: Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kiev, Kirov, Odessa, Gorky and Riga.

Japanese: Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Nagasaki and Hiroshima

Chinese: Shanghai and Peking

Italians: Rome and Milan

Americans: New York, LA, SF, Chicago, Detroit, Philidelphia, Boston, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Minneapolis, Seattle, Washington, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh

Ned

[Sandman]

Ned, you're either grossly overpowering the Americans or underpowering the other factions. Four of the seven productive bases you are suggesting for the Soviets were captured by the Germans before they were defeated at Stalingrad.

Soviet production should be on a par with Americas.

[Qualicide]

Soviet industry was not on par with the US. They just had millions, and millions, and millions of soldiers.

[Blake]

America is grossly overpowered in real life though

Altough Russia and China should be almost on par with raw production, but tech rate somewhat slower.

An additional factor is map design, USA troops have to cross the ocean in order to fight, Russia's have to cross wasteland. Prehaps America should have a -4 support hit. This would encourage the use of expensive high tech units too.
But ultimately it was the sheer production power of America which won the war. If you want the game to be realistic America has to be more powerfull than other factions. If you want a challenge dont play as America.


With the ED problem, at the start of the game set a base for each faction as a polluter and generate turns. If done right you should be able to just gen 50 turns, and get 50 pops for each nation. Then clean away all the polluter bases and design the scenerio.

[Ned]

Just a couple more thoughts: Paris, Warsaw, Athens and Cairo should also start as UK. The Nazi's will find it tempting to take them.

We might also add Saigon, Sydney and Singapore as UK: Initial targets for the Japanese. As well, Manila will be in the US camp.

If it makes any sense, we might also add Bombay and Calcutta as UK bases.

Ditto Seoul for the Japanese.

We should also set the Russians to enter the war by 1942 and the Americans by 1943 unless the Axis attacks first.

And yes, taking those four Russian cities meant the Germans had a significant power advantage over the UK and Russia. I really doubt whether they could have beaten Germany without American help.

Ned

[Sandman]

During the course of the war, the Soviets manufactured about 100,000 tanks. 70,000 of these were T-34s.

Supplies recieved from the other Allies amounted to about 10% of what the Soviets made themselves.

For the previous decade the Soviets built up their heavy industry(at great human cost) in the Urals and Siberia.

There should be several highly productive bases in the East to account for this.

[Ned]

I absoluting agree that we need several massive production cities located far to the East in Russia. However, to simulate reality, they should not begin producing military equipment until 1942, unless they are attacked. This will leave Russia substantially unprotected in 1941, underdeveloped in 1942, but beginning to role in 1943.

The productive cities could be Kirov, Gorky and Stalingrad. They should be producing 100 mineral per turn, sufficient produce very expensive tanks in one turn.

Also, for the sake of realism, we need to limit the Russian's ability to build "offensive" aircraft. They should be limited to defensive units only.

I find it strange to discuss this topic, World War II, on the day that WWW III potentially has begun.

Ned

[Earwicker]

Sure takes the enthusiasm out of the game, doesn't it?

[Deimos]

Originally posted by Earwicker
Sure takes the enthusiasm out of the game, doesn't it?

Not really. It adds to it due to the fact that by rembering history, we (hopefully) will not be doomed to repeat it. Unless forced to, by cowerdly faceless demons.

11 September 2001 - "A day that will live in infamy."