A plea

[RedRalphWiggum]

I'm starting to get very excited about this game. The Gamespot interview is good and has whetted my appetite! This could be a real cracker...

...unless it runs so slow as to be unplayable. Please, please consider omitting features or levels of detail if they are going to have a catastrophic effect on performance. Please do all the opitimisation that is possible, because I think the potential for a real gem is here, but we'll never know if it's too slow. I know that 90% of players would sacrifice a feature of two for decent performance. Keep up the good work lads!

PS: any ETA?

 

[Romtos]

I agree. Maybe I just tried to play it the wrong way, but trying to go for economic development in SR2020 just wasn't feasible.

 

[ashbery76]

If this game is battalion scale ala 2020 I have no interest.

 

[fabius]

If this game is battalion scale ala 2020 I have no interest.

Kind of know where you are coming from. But, they are supporsedly working to improve the control with theatres, and they added groups a while back. Point is- see what they come upi with and try the demo.
Having said that many of us have been asking for the obviously needed hierarchy to put batalions in larger formations or an option to use brigades since 2010 beta, all to no avail. My biggest turn off with batalions is micromanage in creating forces and getting them to another theatre (controling in battle is fun). Other turn off is how quickly units evaporate.
Btw, did you used to post on the bg forum?

 

[Hardcore_gamer]

If this game is battalion scale ala 2020 I have no interest.

Yea, and battalion sized units wasn't the only problem with SR 2020 either.

Look guys (Battlegoat studios that is), I can understand if you like making extremely detailed games and there is nothing wrong with that when its done correctly, but Supreme Ruler 2020 was like the unholy mother of unneeded levels of detail.

To quote the CPUGamer review of game:

There are dozens of tank models, dozens of armored car models, dozens of airplane models, dozens of missiles, and dozens of every obscure class of destroyer and cruiser. It’s absurd to expect players to know the benefits and weaknesses of every model, or to expect them to even compare the relative merits of two models, when they are required to do so much already. And what does the addition of two hundred types of humvee do, exactly, for the game?

If SR: Cold war is going to have the same level of detail as SR: 2020 then it should at very least even if nothing else make it easy for the player to quickly see which units are the best ones. It drove me mad having to skim through all of the different unit designs trying to find the best ones.

The fact that old unit designs don't appear at the button and new unit designs at the top was also extremely annoying.

The effects of the player's decisions must also become obvious before too long so that he isn't simply playing through trial and error. If those issues can be fixed/addressed in SR: Cold war then I think it will be a good game.

Kind of know where you are coming from. But, they are supporsedly working to improve the control with theatres

Paradox tried using theaters in Hearts of Iron 3 and it was a complete disaster.

I am going to be fully honest here, I just don't understand why it is so important that the game uses battalions instead of larger groups/formations of units. How does it add to the gameplay that your controlling half a thousand individual units in great detail instead of just a few hundred that are organized into a few dozen armies via Hearts of Iron?

I just don't get it how it is suppose to contribute anything to the fun factor, the only thing it brings is needless micromanagement of the worst kind. I really hope Battlegoat studios will reconsider having each unit represent only a small battalion.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

I have to agree. There is just too many units to keep track of. Streamlining would greatly enhance the game.

 

[PSJK]

+1

If this will be same kind of unitfetish's wet dream like SR2020 then I must say I'm dissapointed.

 

[unmerged(3264)]

+1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.0000000000000000000 ---oooooowwwwwwww !
Also ......


*Can we get the unit count changed to just one unit for every region ?And can we get it so that unit of whatever region the player currently is auto adjusts to the best unit possible upon commencement of "play".

*Can we get the hexes removed ?It requires just too much damn effort to actually have to pick a route and plan it out(and other things like that).A simple one click to capture each province would be so much more "fun".
Oh, dont make too many provinces,"big" numbers hurt people heads......

*Can we get combat replaced with a "i win " button ?Having to actually have the unit fight requires too much effort on the "players" part.And could you make the "i win" button the same as the movement button ?You know ,this way each click gets the player a "glorious" battle and a new province .

* Can we also get the economic system revamped or remoevd completely ? Please.Havign to think and act to keep money flowing to a region is just too much work for a player currently.Just put in a "got money" button.One press and you get the max amount of money the game number system can handle.

* Oh and can we please ,please ,please, have the diplomacy system removed or reworked ?Just put in a "agree to everything button" that i can push, and the AI region will automatically just roll over completely.

Oh, and battle goat ? Pffft. Lets turn that hard headed, head butting goat into a sheep waiting to be sheared.And the games name ? No good.It doesnt resemble HoI enough.So lets change that also.
The next BG supreme ruler game should be called.......
Hearts of Sheep.
You can advertise it as the lastest game a four yr old can win .And offer a free depends changing service along with purchase for those players over 4 who will be attracted to the game after the recommened changes.

I only ask these changes, well, becuase all those options and features in the series now are just too hard.Some of "us" would be much happier with something built around a single button,or maybe two, we can push as we "play".

Oh, and after we purchase this game, can you devs come over to our houses and push the buttons for us when we "play" the game>I mean geez,you dont really expect us to have fun pushing a button now do you ?
We may have to reach up our arm off of the chairs arm rest,our snacks could spill,our drinks even !.So it would be so much better if you guys showed up and sat on the floor in front of us and just pushed the button for us when we say so.

Thanks, and i know this great new game will be embraced by the masses if only these simple changes are made.After all, i have ONLY the best interests of the game in mind.Really.

Signed,
(Awww who am i kidding,signing would take too much effort)(Could you have that button also sign things for us ?)

Super cereal here !
chuckle tm

 

[Hundane]

then it should at very least even if nothing else make it easy for the player to quickly see which units are the best ones. It drove me mad having to skim through all of the different unit designs trying to find the best ones.

What do you consider is the best ? The best stat? What stat is the best ? Fortification Attack, Soft attack, Hard Attack, Close Attack, Close air Attack, Mid Air Attack, High Air Attack, Surface attack, Close Defense, Ground Defense, Air Defense, Indirect Defense ? Or How about the other stuffs like Spotting, Move range, Move Speed, Price to build , Days to build, MG's needed to build, Annual Maintenance or Uranium Requirements ?

Newer designs arent always the better design.

I know that 90% of players would sacrifice a feature of two for decent performance.

I guess Im in the 10% that wants more features and doesnt care how slow the game plays as long as 1 game day doesnt take 1 real day. How come everyone is in such a hurry to play a game, what do you do when you finish ? Be in a hurry to start another game ? You kiddies still havent learned that it doesnt matter how many times you have sex in an hour , its still an hour of sex.

 

[fabius]

No need for an "either or" argument; no need for an argument at all.
(Michael Caine voice )"They could have implemented a bloody heirarchy system"-
-that allowed putting batalions into larger formations to strategically build and move. Then we would have had a choice, more realism and imersion, and detaching for mircro batalion movements when we wanted or needed to.
It's fair to assume this would make it much more broadly appealing= sell more= more resources for the guys to invest.

Also, and this is important. The AI just couldn't cope with batalions. The game would be more challenging if AI also used higher formations much of the time instead of drip feeding batalions into action against full stacks.
I like SR series, there's loads of depth but honestly the way the wargame aspect plays out has fundamental flaws. Yes 'every games' AI can be beat' but good systems throw challenges and decsions at the player that will have consequences, SR had somewhat failed with that when playing with the major nations.

tkobo- I know that you're passionate about SR and find the HoI comparisons irritating; but your comments sound like you never really played HoI3. Seriously the combat is not bloby, and it's very nuanced when you get into it. Also big plus for me, battles last a while so you get the 'epic struggle' feel and opportunity to influence even individual battles by player decisons. SR2020 AI batalion hits a player stack and just evaporates- puff gone before you've even had chance to see it. Oh yeah, SR represents other stuff plenty more satisifying: economy, resources, demographics in some ways, and not least hexes. Wondering off topic so, what I'm tryingto say is I don't think most are trying to lobby for a HoI clone- thay can go to mods for that. Just legitimate persectives about some of the drawbacks of having only batalions.

Going back to M. Caine "A bloody hierarchy system"
The way I recall things all the bg ancient ones were calling for this time and time and time again- including a tkobo you grumpy burger

Edited- all academic anyway because it's been revealed- Batalions with possibly some new X methods to help.

fabius (aka dust off at bg site)

 

[ashbery76]

+1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.0000000000000000000 ---oooooowwwwwwww !
Also ......

That is the amount of units one had to control in the game,silly for WORLD scale.

 

[Balthagor]

nice try, but it was around 5-10k max. Still large, but no need for the exaggerations.

And adding hierarchy only increases revenue if the time designing it doesn't chew up more resources than the "additional income from that feature" generates.

That said, we've already started to scratch the surface by giving details about Theaters and BattleZones and how they will improve the unit control systems so clearly we recognize this as an area worth improving. However, this is Supreme Ruler, the unit size is battalions. We've never made any secret that this remains a key characteristic of the game.

For those who are unsure, watch for the demo around release, and don't spend you're money till you've checked it out. We've never had a problem being judged on our product...

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

nice try, but it was around 5-10k max. Still large, but no need for the exaggerations.

And adding hierarchy only increases revenue if the time designing it doesn't chew up more resources than the "additional income from that feature" generates.

That said, we've already started to scratch the surface by giving details about Theaters and BattleZones and how they will improve the unit control systems so clearly we recognize this as an area worth improving. However, this is Supreme Ruler, the unit size is battalions. We've never made any secret that this remains a key characteristic of the game.

For those who are unsure, watch for the demo around release, and don't spend you're money till you've checked it out. We've never had a problem being judged on our product...

I appreciate there is still a lot we don't know about this game and will very probably buy it. Just hope there are some mechanisms to simplify combat somewhat. anyway, thanks for replying.

 

[Hardcore_gamer]

Newer designs arent always the better design.

But in video games they are. And I believe Supreme Ruler: 2020 as well as Cold War are in fact video games.

I don't care if SR: 2020 was trying to be realistic, if there is no good reason to research a unit design because it is inferior and has no obvious advantages then it has no business being in the game.

Including lots of different units that don't actually serve any real gameplay purpose simply because they exist in the real world is probably the dumbest idea I have ever heard.

The Hearts of Iron games go for realism by making sure that all of the units existed in the real world, but they did not include tens of dozens of variations of the same units simply because they could. There HAS to be a reason for each unit to be in the game, there is no excuse for including a largely if not a mostly useless unit in the game just for the sake of being able to stuff the game with as much stuff as possible.

However, this is Supreme Ruler, the unit size is battalions. We've never made any secret that this remains a key characteristic of the game.

Then at least make it so that the player can wage wars effectively himself without having to make the AI do it all for him, without any large amount of annoying micromanagement.

There also has to be a much easier way to see the obvious advantages and disadvantages of each unit. I should not have to just guess which units are good against what and figure everything out through trial and error.

 

[Balthagor]

...Then at least make it so that the player can wage wars effectively himself without having to make the AI do it all for him, without any large amount of annoying micromanagement...

Ah, but we already get players who report back that they are waging effective wars and that the level of micromanagement is about where they like it. Some even ask for more!

But point taken, and I think everyone here is already aware that we continue to consider these aspects as we have for years. As we get further in the development, we'll discuss in more details how our efforts are panning out.

 

[Hundane]

I don't care if SR: 2020 was trying to be realistic, if there is no good reason to research a unit design because it is inferior and has no obvious advantages then it has no business being in the game.

Including lots of different units that don't actually serve any real gameplay purpose simply because they exist in the real world is probably the dumbest idea I have ever heard.

Oh my, A game that makes you think about what you need to research. I See you didnt answer the question I asked before which goes to show that you really dont understand the game. One unit may have feature that another lacks like some are amphibious or air droppable while others are not, some are light enough to be carried by Helo's and some are not. Some are cheaper and have cheaper maintenance costs which usually doesnt come into play since getting money is so easy to do in the game but some peeps actually dont use all the features the game includes to make easy money. Some have higher reaction times which makes a difference in how fast they use up their ammo in a battle. All these things come into play in the game. Units that carry missiles can have different size limitations. The list goes on......

I don't care if SR: 2020 was trying to be realistic, if there is no good reason to research a unit design because it is inferior and has no obvious advantages then it has no business being in the game.

LOL... Who's rule is that ? yours ?


Just because YOU dont see the advantages doesnt mean it doesnt have some advantage and just because YOU dont use all the units that doesnt make them useless.

 

[Hardcore_gamer]

Oh my, A game that makes you think about what you need to research. I See you didnt answer the question I asked before which goes to show that you really dont understand the game. One unit may have feature that another lacks like some are amphibious or air droppable while others are not, some are light enough to be carried by Helo's and some are not. Some are cheaper and have cheaper maintenance costs which usually doesnt come into play since getting money is so easy to do in the game but some peeps actually dont use all the features the game includes to make easy money. Some have higher reaction times which makes a difference in how fast they use up their ammo in a battle. All these things come into play in the game. Units that carry missiles can have different size limitations. The list goes on......



LOL... Who's rule is that ? yours ?


Just because YOU dont see the advantages doesnt mean it doesnt have some advantage and just because YOU dont use all the units that doesnt make them useless.

Even assuming everything you are saying is true (which I don't believe) the fact still remains that there is no easy way to compare units to one another. The player should not have to hover his mouse pointer over each and every unit and read all of the details, and then compare those details himself manually to the other ones an attempt to get an idea about which units are worth building. That's just sloppy design.

 

[Balthagor]

A comparison tool would be wonderful but with so many variables, it's not as easy to design. If you're looking for an amphibious land unit that has a good close combat rating, that's a stat and a specialty to compare. It's like everything else for the game, every feature takes resources to create and there's only so many resources to go around. The lack of certain features is bound cause some players to look elsewhere but we try to prioritize the features that will reach the most players. This remains on our wish list.

 

[Hardcore_gamer]

A comparison tool would be wonderful but with so many variables, it's not as easy to design.

It doesn't have to be anything super precise. Anything as simple as being able to sort the units by their tech level (that is, the latest designs appear on top and the old ones at the button), type (infantry, tank, mechanized etc), whether it can be loaded into planes or not, whether it can carry missiles, those kind of things, it would go A LONG way to make it easier to find the information you are looking for.

Just think of it as being like the map filter modes but for units. By default all filters are on but if you want to you can turn off certain filters to only show the kind of units you are looking for.

It would make the game much easier to understand, not to mention that it would be very useful as well whether you are a novice or a hardcore supreme ruler player.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

It doesn't have to be anything super precise. Anything as simple as being able to sort the units by their tech level (that is, the latest designs appear on top and the old ones at the button), type (infantry, tank, mechanized etc), whether it can be loaded into planes or not, whether it can carry missiles, those kind of things, it would go A LONG way to make it easier to find the information you are looking for.

Just think of it as being like the map filter modes but for units. By default all filters are on but if you want to you can turn off certain filters to only show the kind of units you are looking for.

It would make the game much easier to understand, not to mention that it would be very useful as well whether you are a novice or a hardcore supreme ruler player.

Agreed... a 'sorting tool' more than a comparison tool.