unlocked factions

[AllRoundGoodEgg]

A search hasn't found this suggestion elsewhere so I'd like to make it (because it would make the single biggest difference to my gaming experience, and I suspect I'm not alone):

Can we please unlock the factions you can choose during skirmishes, so you can play any of the groups (US/British/Soviet/Wehrmacht/Panzer Elite) on either side of an engagement? There could be a button at the top of the screen, next to the 'swap starting locations' button, that locks this ability or unlocks it, so people can disable it when they want to.

There are two reasons I ask for this. Firstly, it would be fun (and that is the primary reason to play any game). I would enjoy seeing how a tide of three Soviet AIs would fare against my British who are furiously trying to create their 'Alamo' before they get over-run.

Secondly, it's a way of playing 'what if...' scenarios. What if the Americans had not handed Prague over to the Soviets like a bunch of sheep but instead stood their ground? We'd get a battle on the Prague map with US forces against Soviet forces. What if a Wehrmacht division tried to go west to surrender to the US/British and were intercepted by other Wehrmacht forces who were loyal to Hitler and determined to punish the traitors? You'd get a Wehrmacht versus Wehrmacht battle. And so on.

I'm aware that some people would never use this option. For me, though, it would add hugely to the playability, especially now we have the Soviets in the game. I also wonder how difficult it would be to achieve that result. I remember how frustrating CoH was in the early days, before we had that 'Swap Starting Location' button and how liberating it was when it got added in a patch. This is the same sort of thing, and if it's not too complex to allow the drop down boxes in skirmish mode to show all the factions for every slot... wow, that'd make me a happy man and I'd donate another big wedge of money to you guys to say thank you!

[Cranialwizard]

This has been discussed before but under a different name.

The conclusion was that it would not be efficient and, no, they would not do such a thing, but I forgot why, since it was a while ago.

[IJoe]

^^ quite simple to answer: factions on one side aren't made to counter each other, so in such games there would be no balance at all,- basically, it would be a fucking mess, in terms of balance and game-play.

[AllRoundGoodEgg]

I wasn't asking for balance. If I play against three elite Soviet enemies and I'm playing the British, you could say the Soviets aren't designed to counter the British emplacements and so it's unbalanced. But actually, the choice I made when setting up the game gives me exactly what I want - a true Red Tide of Soviet infantry to pit myself against.

Sometimes unbalanced games are the most fun. If you took that logic to everything about CoH you'd have only maps that were perfectly symmetrical so everyone has exactly the same resources, choke points, etc. They wouldn't look like realistic landscapes, but hey - they'd be balanced with no advantage or disadvantage for anyone in any start location. It'd be Dawn of War, basically (the original, not DoW II).

I'm not trying to pick a fight with you IJoe, please don't read it that way. I'm just pointing out that most of the time war is a fucking mess and being allowed to be creative with the setups adds longevity to the playing experience.

[IJoe]

^^ No problem.
However, anything that is not multiplayer-viable (read - balanced) is considered to be of low priority ATM and in the vicinity.
Besides, IMO, that would be somewhat conflicting with the spirit of the mod and the original game as well, thus highly unlikely to be implemented.

[AllRoundGoodEgg]

As with every design decision, I suspect it comes down to the usual equation: will enough people feel it's a good thing for the amount of effort it took to implement. If I'm the only person who is interested and it's a really tough thing to implement, then obviously it's a no-brainer... nothing should be done. If it's something that takes an evening of somebody's time to implement and is enjoyed by a bunch of people, then it becomes something to consider.

I started the thread primarily to express my interest as someone who'd get pleasure out of the change, to see if there are others like me, and to find out how easy or difficult a change it would be to make.

[cephalos]

well, CoH is kind of game like 'Rock, paper and scissors". Every unit has it's counter unit(s). That's why multiplayer is such fun. Making "home wars" how it was called in previous thread is hardly balanced - like PE and Brits in one team they would dominate battlefield with their OP infantry. Also CoH is supposed to be accurate historical in at least terms of allies and axis.

[AllRoundGoodEgg]

I hear what you're saying, Cephalos, but I'll respectfully disagree with you on your last statement. CoH isn't supposed to be historically accurate in almost any way you slice it. It's a game where the mechanics of warfare such as armour penetration (tanks have hitpoints), supply (manufacturing units at bases and getting more resources because you hold an abstract point on a map) and just about every other aspect aren't realistic. They're fun, but they a perversion of reality in a million ways.

If I want to play the 'what if...' scenarios I suggested above, I'd like to think they're a lot closer to what happened in WWII than soviets fighting the Wehrmacht in a French or Dutch village (which is easy to set up and which happens whenever you play Soviets on a map like Montherme).

As for your other point, I absolutely agree with both you and IJoe - it will be easy to create unbalanced sides with unlocked factions. However, my supposition is that it's up to me to set up games that are fun for me (and any friends I'm playing with). If I want one British versus four Soviets on a 4x4 map, it's probably not balanced, but it might be a lot of fun. I can create that kind of imbalance any time I want by having 1 against four right now, and I don't see this as very different.

I remember some Relic staff when CoH first launched saying that they'd never add a way to swap the starting locations of the Allied and Axis forces on Skirmish maps because those maps were carefully designed so each side of the map has slightly different fuel/munitions/access to buildings/choke points/etc and if you reversed the starting positions you would unbalance the game. It strikes me as being very similar to what you're saying now.

Soon afterwards, by the way, they added the 'swap starting locations' button to the skirmish setup screen, and you really don't hear anyone saying that the game is imbalanced because of it... it just added flexibility to setups and if you didn't want to do it, you didn't have to click on the button. I'm not suggesting anything different.

My 2 cents, as the Americans would say.

[WartyX]

I agree with AllRoundGoodEgg. Personally I would enjoy being able to mix-and-match the factions together in  a custom skirmish, for the reasons stated. Anybody who wants to play historically simply shouldn't choose Panzer Elite vs Ostheer - problem solved.

However, I am not familiar enough with the inner workings of CoH and setting up matches, so I cannot do anything to help. Perhaps Rizz or Copernicus have a good enough understanding to determine its feasibility, and maybe implement it?

[cephalos]

oh, I got it now. If it's just for fun, then I'm ok with it. Moreover, I support it - I always had a dream of making a full scale 2h movie in CoH, but it was literally impossible without multiplayer, and often get srcrewed... 

[IJoe]

oh, I got it now. If it's just for fun, then I'm ok with it. Moreover, I support it - I always had a dream of making a full scale 2h movie in CoH, but it was literally impossible without multiplayer, and often get srcrewed... 

Aren't most things (if not all) here meant just for fun?
I donno, it would be too "what if", IMO.
There are plenty rather un-fun to play mods (IMO), like NFC (if I'm not messing up the name, which I might), because they're made without some proper thought. They all were made with best intentions of improving some gamers' joyful experience, but it ended up in piles of burning ashes (that's a metaphor).
Besides, it might result in an unwanted spreading of (this) mod-playing gamers' attention to an exceeding amount of game variations over the actual amount of available people.
But frankly, I don't really care. Just my thoughts on it. If it will be implemented - OK, I might even give it a try; if not - couldn't care less.

P.S.: What movies are you talking about? Just curious.

[WartyX]

You can use the NIS tool in WorldBuilder if you want to make your own movies - it's what I do.

[GodlikeDennis]

Ugh, I can see all the double wehr vs double wehr achelous river games now...

[cephalos]

Ugh, I can see all the double wehr vs double wehr achelous river games now...

haha lol 

[AllRoundGoodEgg]

Ah, so you agree there's a big market for people who'd like the change and use it