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Thanks tkobo for the suggestions - interestingly enough the engine tries to do some of that already, - both the number of units respond to an area should be controlled, and the desire to go to transit-problem ports should be limited - though for technical reasons it hasn't been working that great. Part of the work for Update 3.

Regarding proxy war treaty, of course to some extent the "mutual defense" treaty is this treaty. The difference is that Alliances automatically include it as well.

It may be possible to remove the proxy war from alliance (ie, make it part of mutual defense only), but that's a bit odd and a bit confusing - after all, the NATO alliance is all about "mutual defense" (well, at least if it happens in the northern hemisphere).

-- George.

Why should the proxy war be removed from the Alliance?

The way I see it a declaration of Alliance is the most powerful diplomatic treaty that a country can sign (certainly in game and as far as I know in real life as well) so surely a Formal Alliance should contain more not less... I personally have always been confounded as to how the Mutual Defence was originally left out of the Formal alliance, or how a nation didn't automatically get a mutual defence treaty when they conquer and colonise a nation.

I just struggle to understand how, after declaring their support for a foreign government by entering into a Formal Alliance with them, a nation would stand around and let them be conquered! A military alliance is predicated around mutual defence, and unless I am missing something the "Formal Alliance" treaty is based on a military alliance, seeing as how it only provides militarily based treaties. Such as line of sight, full military transit and non-aggression.

If you want to make a distinction between Mutual Defence and Mutual Offence, then implement a new treaty that provides Mutual Offence tie the Mutual Defence into the Formal Alliance and leave the Mutual Offence as a separate, harder to attain, treaty that can be acquired after you have MDT and, maybe, also only after you have a Formal Alliance.

The only problem is where proxy warfare fits in, ideally with a MDT (Mutual Defence Treaty) you would only be able to conduct a proxy war as far as a nations boundaries already stretch so you couldn't "go on the offence" and a MOT (Mutual Offence Treaty) would allow you to fight a proxy war past a nations current boundaries whilst also obligating you to declare war whenever a nation you have this treaty with declares war. However, for simplicity, you could just leave it as both treaties provide proxy warfare capability and each obligate you to declare war in the situation relevant to them.

Although... You could also bring in a proxy warfare treaty dedicated purely to allowing proxy warfare, then MDT, MOT and Proxy Warfare could all have their single purposes giving a player far more options diplomatically, without much work on your behalf! I know this sounds far more complicated but really it isn't, and in fact would remove any confusion around exactly which treaties allow proxy warfare or whether an alliance commits you to mutual defence. Ohh and did I mention that it adds considerably more flexibility to the diplomacy aspect of the game...!

(I realise the idea of a proxy war treaty goes against what I said before, however I have thought it over and realised that the extra diplomatic options are not only more realistic (distinct diplomatic relations and obligations between nations are everywhere in real life, there isn't a "standard" formal alliance that provides all the things the in game one does, nations pick and choose clauses depending on the situation) but also by providing the player with extra options and breaking down treaties to their most basic parts makes it easier to understand what each treaty does and also provides more flexibility, as well as enlarging the diplomatic side of the game)

Edit:

Check out this link for a few details on Alliances. Take special note of the cold war maps on the top right and bottom right of the page!

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Much Thanks

- [On the topic of timelines] "Time isn't made of lines, it is made of circles, that's why clocks are round!" - Unknown-

Number 46-48 = First to Sixth Type Savant

George ,technically youd remove it,BUT what youd really do is make it an option treaty that requires specific conditions still fully tied to the other treaties.

You already have this in the game system,for the most part.The peace treaty is only available IF your at war.A proxy war treaty should only be available IF you have either an alliance,or a mutual defense treaty with the region you would be supporting in the proxy war.

So its not so much as fully removing it from its current location and ties,as it would be expanding it from its current location and ties,to form a more distinct treaty/action available to the player that fits the setting better.

The difference is,this creates a treaty that clearly shows a choice now more visible and no longer automatic to be made by the player,and one that can officially now be ended as well as enacted.And of course this addition opens other doors to other nice possible additions.

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This post approved by Tkobo:Official Rabble Rouser of the United Yahoos
Chuckle TM

My only issue TK is would this now be a player centric feature?
The AI isn't exactly all about signing treaties, heck it won't even sign transit treaties with fellow AI outside of when its included in an Alliance..

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my Supreme Ruler Cold war mods Site
Redistribution of my mods is prohibited. By downloading them you agree to not redistribute the file(s) without expressed permission.

Optimally, a perfect system would be one with a series of 'check boxes' that allows a player to shape what specifically a formal alliance does or does not do.

Example: Instead of just "formal alliance" we have now, you have a submenu with a series of check boxes. You check what you are willing (or want) to do--from "all" (e.g., the US alliance with Canada, Australia and the UK) to specific options. Just thinking, but here are what some of them could be--

-Call on/support ally during Proxy War (check means ally will come, blank means n)
-Call on/support ally for wars outside of national (or annexed) territory
-Call on/support ally for regional wars (outside of national territory--such as NATO)
-Provide full transit and logistics
-discount for arms sales
-discount for petro and mil goods sales

and so on. It would add more options for the player, IMHO. And a bit more complexity to the current system. Example would be Italy/France alliance. As it is now, the AI sees no difference between Vietnam and Europe. Under a more detailed system, Italy would have only the "support ally for wars on national territory" and "support ally for regional wars" options checked--so no AI Italy in Vietnam, but they would go to France's aid in a USSR vs. France war.

Fistalis , implementation is always a key.If done right,it would help the AI to make more reasonable decisions on whether or not to proxy,and when.If done right,it could also help make war and peace treaty decisions more rational on the AIs part.

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This post approved by Tkobo:Official Rabble Rouser of the United Yahoos
Chuckle TM

It's March now. Please start fixing the slowdown issues with earnest.

They are deterring enough that I will not purchase another BG game within the first 12 months of launch. I really expected more.

After spending my evening playing Metro 2033 on its highest applicable settings; spending last weekend playing Shogun 2 on its highest settings and so on I have nothing but contempt for Supreme Ruler CW. I see no reason why I should have paid the same amount for a game that is blighted by slowdown issues months after release.

For god's sake Battlegoat is a small company in Ancaster, Ontario. They don't have thousand's of minions, making a game is hard enough, but not only do they make one of the world's best games, they are active on the forums and have great and helpful staff

GIVE THEM A BREAK

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"Don't worry about the world ending today. It is already tomorrow in australia"
-Charles Schultz

also remember that they also have thousands of more units then total war does so you try that in total war and see how well that performs.

Think of it this way. You have 2000 land units, and you send them to another location. The calculation is rediculous, somthing along the lines of..

Pathing from A to B (2000 times)
Each unit has a call to see the speed of the unit. (2000 times)
Each unit has it's own fuel, so the required fuel is calculated (2000 times)
Each hex has a movement bonus/penalty, that also need calulating (2000 times)
If the unit comes is an indirect fire unit, it has a search radius to calculate (however many times there is indirect fire units)
If combat occurs, there is the combat stat's to calculate, 3x defense stat's, 3 or 4 offense stats supply amount stat's, damage taken in relation to those stat's (howvere many times there is unit's in combat).
See the pattern?
Think logically and filter in that BG is a small independant company that takes care of it's customers/member base better than most of the bigger companys ever do.

I dread to think of other things that is needed to calculate.
That is a LOT more number crunching than any total war game will ever do. I do like the total war series, and I own most of them, but the scope of this game series in terms of programming must be a tremendous task.

Then there is the crunching for resouces,
towns/citys/mega citys population
Population reductions due to fighting
Citys/industrial facilities taking damage, then repairing
...the list goes on and on.

I should stop now before I try and become a programmer.

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It is really disappointing, my current game has now become unplayable after just 3 years of game time - it is so slow that it takes 5 minutes to complete a game. This is far too long, and really spoils any kind of enjoyment from the game.



The size of the company is irrelevant. If they produce a game and charge money for it, then that game should be of a standard that is acceptable, and should be playable.



And herein lies the problem. When designing a game you need to make a trade off between detail and performance.

For example, each land unit in the game represents a regiment, not an individual soldier. The designers could have chosen to represent each soldier, which would have added a lot more realism to the game, but the technical requirements of simulating this would have been far too great. Instead a trade off was made, and instead each unit represents a regiment instead.

Now it seems that that performance is still not sufficient, and as such further trade-offs and simplifications of the simulation may be required.

The fact that BG is a small company is not a valid excuse, they should be developing a game within their means.

Now having said that all that, and as a programmer myself and someone that owns a number of games developed by small game studios, I am actually highly impressed with the quality of this game. For the most part, the game is rock solid. This is a lot different to my experiences with one other similarly sized company - their game (a turn based game) was released two years late, and after release it took a further 6 months before users could even complete a single turn, then a further few months before the game was considered playable.

From my point of view, there only seems to be one issue, and that is the slowdown, which appears to be caused by a de-stacking issue. (i would also add that it seems some nations seem to have far larger militaries than would ever be sustainable in real life, which probably also doesn't help.)

It seems that this issue will be fixed along with a few others, in the next patch. However, I feel this issue is serious enough that it maybe should have been made a priority and fixed immediately by a patch of its own, rather than waiting for the complete patch to be released.

If you look around the forums you can see lots of people playing it so it is "playable" and "acceptable" is a completely subjective term. If you want, send over your savegame and I'll add it as another example for our programmer. Never hurts to give him extra examples of an issue. Ticket 16567.

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Chris Latour
BattleGoat Studios
chris@battlegoat.com

I would not say the game is unplayable but it is slow. But I read a book or serve the net while playing so it is not a problem for me.

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You plastic soldiers i will turn you in to real soldiers


CPO Mzinyati

Make sure you save game and restart it, even go as far as restarting your computer, memory leaks are quiet prevalent in games of this type and a simple restart really helps alot.

Any ETA on update 3?

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-Dare to Know

Hopefully some of that is cached so it does not need to be calculated 2000 times, each time. I have enjoyed the game and there is no other current title that I could compare to SRCW. I find myself wondering about how the game was implemented sometimes. Is the engine something that was created in-house or by a 3rd party? Some of the shortcomings of the game would make sense if the engine were designed for another similar purpose and it is being adapted beyond what the original designers envisioned.

Sometimes I think the game would do well as a web based title as the graphics are not as intensive. The backend seems more relevant. I would gladly pay whatever per month subscription. Though that would limit the game to situations where there are Internet connections. Even outside of that web based model I would gladly subscribe to your content as you continue to release more. Escapism via SRCW is one of my few remaining vices.

Would you guys consider adding autodownload of multiplayer saved games?

Thanks again for the game.