Play-through PDF-Documents by various players over the years (with screenshots and commentary, shared from Google Drive)
- 1400+ Turns of Eastern Front
- France
- Eastern Front in 73 turns
- Sea Lion
- Luzon
- Guam
List of Campaigns in chronological order: size of the map plus any possible noteworthy factors making the scenario different etc.
Biggest maps are in Eastern Front, WW1: Western Front, and Korean War --- followed by France, Italian Campaign, Finnish Defense, Guadalcanal, Downfall: Japan, Caucasus.
40x40 Defending Spanish Republic 1936. Leading the forces still loyal to the Republic against General Franco's rebels and their foreign nationalistic supporters.
30x40 Battle of Tinian 1944. You command the US WWII Marine forces tasked with carrying out an amphibious assault on the island of Tinian in order to turn it into one of the biggest airbases in the world.
50x50 Panzers to Baku 1942. Captured oilfields will eventually produce fuel for units. Fuel and Ammo logistics (can be turned off). A lot of unit types. Events: Chechen insurrection, Soviet landings, Luftwaffe sent away to Stalingrad.
60x50 Union (American Civil War 1861-1865). Switch Ammo Depots ON/OFF (playing with ammo depots requires long-term planning). Gold based resource/logistics management: Raise infantry corps, manage railways, riverboats, gunboats, artillery.
50x50 Poland between Germany and USSR. Grim, hopeless defense against attacks from all four cardinal directions.
40x60 Axis Endgame in Tunisia. Fuel and ammo delivery. Three separate fronts: Attack itself, northern infantry front, and Italians vs British 8th Army.
60x30 Dieppe Raid. The score will be cumulative per turn victory points from held cities multiplied by the number of units rescued.
50x50 D-Day: Utah, Omaha, 101st & 82nd Airborne landings (Rangers, Paratroops, Night, Decide what resources to request from Depots)
50x40 D-Day: Juno, Sword, 6th Airborne (Paratroops, Night, Decide what resources to request from Depots)
28x23 Patriotic War (Soviet Defense vs Operation Barbarossa, deciding which factories to evacuate)
50x40 Fall of Army Group Center 1944 (Operation Bagration) (2-phases of Soviet attack, Warsaw Uprising, Partizans, very hard scenario)
50x30 Battle of Tarawa 1943 (pacific, navigate the reef, choose where to land units)
40x50 Operation Spring Awakening: Axis Defense of Hungarian Oilfiels (Fuel ON/OFF option, unless you miraculously get a quick victory the campaign turns into horrific attrition battle as quality of your meager reinforcements drops)
50x40 Operation Luttich: German drive into Falaise Gap (decide what resources to request from Depots)
50x40 Falaise Pocket: Trapping the Wehrmacht (Allied side, decide what resources to request from Depots)
40x50 Battle of Peleliu 1944 (seizing Y-shaped swampy island forces splitting troops optimally for a quick victory, pacific)
50x40 Axis Crimean Campaign (Multiple AI landings)
46x30 Second Battle of El Alamein - British Offensive (fuel, ammo for artillery and bombers)
40x40 Battle of Guam 1944 Japanese forces used a strategy of dispersed, fortified positions across the island, not a centralized defense. (pacific)
40x50 Battle of Luzon 1945 (pacific)
46x30 Second Battle of El Alamein - German Defense (fuel, ammo)
40x40 Spanish Civil War Chaotic setup and eventual escalation of the warfare.
50x50 German Drive to Caucasus (Fuel delivery with Depots and Trucks)
40x40 German Drive to Leningrad (Fuel delivery with Depots and Trucks)
30x40 Axis Invasion of Balkans (attack from multiple directions)
50x60 Korean War (Engineers, initial pull back period before going on offensive)
44x50 3rd Battle of Kharkov (initially defensive, difficult)
50x50 Downfall: Japan 1945 (engineers, multiple landings, naval element)
40x40 Battle of Saipan 1944 (pacific, choose where to land units)
40x40 Battle of Island of Leyte 1944 (pacific)
60x40 Battle of Guadalcanal (naval element & supply)
40x50 Battle of Suomussalmi (initially defensive)
60x40 Finnish Defense 1944 (initially defensive)
37x50 Invasion of Norway (naval element & supply)
50x40 Operation Sea Lion (naval element & supply)
50x40 Anzio Landing And Monte Cassino (link up with the Anzio beachhead)
46x56 Allied Italian Campaign (Grinding through the long mountainous terrain filled with German defense lines)
50x40 Allied Invasion of Sicily (race to Messina between American and British forces)
64x30 Battle of Crete (several airborne drops, some almost impossible to rescue)
50x40 Fall of Stalingrad (initially defensive)
40x50 Battle of Moscow 1941-1942 (German push against increasing Soviet resistance)
40x50 Battle of Okinawa 1945 (Kamikaze attacks)
40x50 Invasion of Poland (attack from multiple directions)
38x40 Battle of Berlin (defensive, difficult)
50x50 Invasion of France (special target reach the ocean)
40x40 Ardennes Offensive: German Side of Battle of the Bulge (Unique: Place Depots which give MPs to the closest German unit)
40x50 Market Garden (airborne drops & airdrop supply)
40x50 Battle of Iwo Jima 1945 (caves, warships which can bombard or deliver requested supplies)
30x50 Battle of Kursk (attack from north and south)
60x24 Rommel & Afrika Korps (fuel delivery with Depots and Trucks, fairly limited number of units so quick turns)
60x50 WW1 - Western Front (production, railway network)
40x35 Demyansk Pocket (open corridor to cut off German troops)
27x23 Fall of Normandy 1944 (difficult, small scale)
30x40 American Revolutionary War (production, difficult)
79x66 Eastern Front 1941-1945 (production, railway network, Partizans)
40x40 Battle of the Bulge (initially defensive)
40x30 American Civil War 1861-1865
18x32 Panzer Missions (short WWII eastern front missions which get increasingly harder)
27x22 D-Day 1944. Small scale, mine clearing with special tanks, increasing number of units.
27x22 Operation Barbarossa. It's a classic campaign for a reason: Small map, quick turns, costly mistakes.
How about adding the word 'battle of' and the year of the battle in the app title in the Play Store to make it clear what the app is about?
For many years, my games in the Play Store were named with that PRECISE formula, i.e. "Battle of Guam 1944". This very plainly indicated the purpose of the app, both via the year and the word "battle. Then the Play Store policy team decided to """"improve"""" things, at first by banning the use of numbers/digits in the title to reduce the "#1 app" type of claims, but since everything is sweepingly automated without any common sense or considerations for the edge cases, all numbers in the app title started to cause issues and prevent updating the app, so I had to remove all years from the titles. Secondly, with the removal of the year digits, my apps had a lot of "battle of" wording, and that started to annoy the play store reviewers/robots, so I had to remove most of that clarification from the title. As a result of all these seemingly "helpful" play store policies, my app went from super clear indication of history game with the title "Battle of Guam 1944" to hyper generic "Guam" which does not tell anybody anything what the app is about. Is it a local app, guide, history, game, nobody can quickly tell that at one glance. I'm sure these Play Store policies make sense sitting in a comfy office looking at this complex thing from a single point of view, but when they get implemented with automated broad strokes, they often generate more doubt and confusion as opposed to making the play store experience clear and trust-building. Obviously 90,000 developers have complained about these types of policy-absurdities week after week, month after month, year after year, but, alas, since we developers effectively have zero ways to contact any common sense human representative from Google who actually has time to consider things from multipole points of views, there is nothing we can do but to continue to make many aspects unclearer and obfuscated for the end user.
How can I finish the turns/gameplay as quickly as possible?
Turn off most of the resources (mines, mortars, first-aid, air strikes, etc) and also turn off most support unit types (generals, artillery, air force, etc) that are available in that particular campaign. Disable pop-up dialogs for combat result, river crossing, moving-back-warnings, etc. Most of the other complex feature likes storms, supply depots left by units, etc should be off by default, but you can double-check that they are not available either. An AI turn can go by in a flash if you turn off the animation, although you'll miss some information about enemy troop movements. If the Less-Units feature is available, max that out. Make sure the resting units are not selected during the unit-selection loop, and that units without move points are automatically deselected. You can long press the DONE button to mark units permanently DONE if you do not need to move with them in a while. Rear area units can be moved several hexagons at once, by selecting the unit and tapping a handful of hexagons away. As the campaign nears the end and the enemy are about to collapse, you might want to disband your own units that area far away from the action and have lost HPs. When I have to test play a new game countless times, this is pretty much the setup I use to get through the turns in a timely manner.
Could you show the MP cost before crossing the river?
Surprisingly, this would be a problematic small feature to include. Firstly, the enemy area might have unseen area, and thus unseen enemy units, that would affect the cost of the crossing. So, showing the exact number would 'leak' critical information to the player, who would never carry out bad river crossings. Secondly, showing an 'incorrect' number that excludes unseen enemy units, would mislead some players who only glance at the information on the popup-dialog into crossing the river, making them feel annoyed and betrayed. Thirdly, showing a guesstimate number, might be confusing to a non-native English speaker, and get on the nerves of those personalities who either want the total full correct number or nothing. So, alas, adding this feature would seem to generate more doubt and confusion than help. The very essence of the military river crossing when there is enemy controlled area on the other river bank, is the unknown and possible horrible outcome.
Why do the app names sometimes (slightly) differ in Amazon and Play Stores?
Firstly, for years Google allowed very long names with, then all of a sudden, BANG, they were banned. So, some campaigns had to be (fully) renamed to fit into the tiny text size, while Amazon still allows full length app names. Secondly, one day Google decided to ban numbers in app names as number are considered misleading: me saying 'Guam 1944' clearly is misleading as numbers imply I could be #1 app (well, #1944 app), yes, that makes zero sense, but that's Google for you, everything is so automated that all the sense have left long ago. The third issue is that sometimes the app name passes 987987987987 reviews, and then BOOM, suddenly a Google reviewer notices that a little bit similar name was used 4,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia and forces me to change the app name. Fourthly, sometimes a new campaign covers partly the same element as one of the previous games, but in more detail, so a couple of times I have been forced to refine the names to separate them more and avoid key word clashes and general confusion.
Why isn't there a simple explanation for the rule that triggers something like an enemy landing?
The answer is that most of the code is complex and relative, for example an enemy landing depends on timetable, how the player attacks and advances, how much and where the player controls the hexagons, where the AI priorities are this time around, difficulty level, timing of other events, weather, built-in variation, etc. Even I, as a programmer, can't most of the time tell when something is about to happen. This gives a lot more re-play value, as all these things combine to direct the game into slightly trajectories each time. Plus, let's be realistic, in real world the opponent would adjust its plans and actions all the time: If the side is about to lose all its ports on one coast they would get aggressive. So, putting all that into words or a formula is fairly impossible. And oh yes, sometimes the fuzzy soup that triggers an event goes haywire as the cumulative math spirals out control.
Is distance to the enemy area the only rule for returning my mines and dugouts to the resource pool?
The low amount of the enemy controlled area nearby is the main trigger for sending a dugout or a mine back to the resource pool, but it's not the only one. Also, the longer the resource has been in play, the higher the chance that it will be sent back to the resource pool. In addition, the total number of that particular resource actively in play will a small effect in the likelihood of that type of resource to be returned to the resource pool. Also, to reduce the amount of data that needs to be processed between turns, not every mine and dugout will be checked between every turn. It is also possible, and this is a completely different process, that the underlying game engine runs out of memory reserved for the resources, and then it starts to remove the most common resources from the resource pool or map in order to make room for the new resources.
Could you explain the accuracy action?
In some campaigns, artillery and air force units can spend their move points to improve accuracy of the future barrages/sorties. You can do this action multiple times and the bonus gets stacked. Not only is the overall hit more effective (HP loss, MP loss, fatigue going up), but the chance of the enemy unit losing HP gets an extra boost.
Can I automatically move units longer distaces?
Yes, there is a feature called 'auto-move'. Auto-move, moving the selected unit multiple hexagons at once in the quiet rear area by tapping more than one hexagon away from the selected unit, has settings which allow you to turn the entire feature off, or set the range it is active (prevents scrolling the map away from the selected unit and then accidentally moving the unit in the wrong direction). There is also a setting to allow predicatively moving the map view forwards into the direction of travel, this way you don't have to constantly scroll the map as you auto-move the selected unit in the vast empty rear areas. The auto-move prefers roads and tries to avoid difficult terrain to save move points, but it's a fairly basic feature, so don't except it to handle very tricky faraway taps.
Sometimes MPs from general do not go to the closest combat unit
Exchange 3 MPs from the selected general with the closest ground combat unit, usually within the range of three hexagons. To avoid wasting these MPs, the general first tries to locate units without negative MPs, and failing that, also looks for units with negative MPs. The logic behind this is that usually giving +1 MP to a unit with minus 8 MPs is not beneficial, while giving +1 MP to the closest unit with the ability to move is beneficial.
Why is the size of your apps so ridiculously small compared to other games, do your games load components after installation process?
The size of the application is so tiny because I'm a professional software developer who actually understands how operating systems work, and I'm also interested in keeping my games playable even on older budget devices as many players have a military background, and that doesn't usually make one a millionaire who can get the latest gold-covered flagship phone every six months. The app does not load extra code, images, or components later, what you see is what you get. I admit that my desire to optimize the icons has backfired a couple of times, and the end result has not been particularly crispy looking, but you live, learn, and start to hate the vague way phone makers follow image specs.
Does the (new) HOF include all scores?
The new online Hall of Fame (HOF) will include all scores from all the players who have chosen to share their scores from the settings. The new HOF, just like the old on-device HOF, will be periodically cleared of the oldest (time based) scores to even out the playing field as the campaign gets tweaked and new features are added. Naturally, some popular, quick-to-finish games fill up the HOF quickly, while some (looking at you, Demyansk Pocket) have much fewer scores, and this also plays into how regularly the HOF in question will be cleared. Terms you might see in the Hall of Fame: Turns = Turns spent on finishing the campaign, VPs = Victory Points when the game ends. Less Units [Units-%] means only a certain percentage of units are in play. Encircle-score [enc]: Each turn a unit spends out of supply, encircle-score increases by a number which is related to the HP and strength of the unit type. The username (not an account) you provided will be uploaded, and no other personal or account information about you or your device will be transferred.
These are simple games, too simple to pay for?
My thinking/feeling is that the seemingly simple mechanics and lack of complex menus fool people into thinking these are simple games during their first play-through. But once you start to factor in the support from adjacent units, the order in which to move units to maximize that effect, assigning resources, bombardments, generals, terrain, traffic, fatigue, transporation layer, weather, how to prevent infantry-vs-motorized gap growing too big, when and which unit to send resting, thinking one turn ahead, two turns ahead, etc, you quickly end up with a complex mosaiq of moving parts that need to be moved in a fairly well-thought-out manner to achieve constant speed of advance without too massive setbacks from the risks you take. On top of this some campaigns include production or resource requests, fuel and/or ammo delivery using depots and trucks, railway building, various action commands by generals, engineers, etc. It all starts to add up.
What Permissions does the app request?
The application only requests the permissions it absolutely needs to function: (1) VIBRATE, (2) INTERNET (3) ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE. Your personal account, contact list, or device/personal identifiers are not even read as they are not needed in any shape or form.
What data is sent from my device to the server if the app crashes?
In the unfortunate case the app crashes, only the following non-personal data is sent to me (via https-web-form using ACRA library) to help me quickly fix the issue: (1) Stack trace (my code which failed), (2) Name of the App, (3) Version number of the App, and (4) Version number of the Android OS (in case it's an operating system dependant error).
Why is the game area (map) so tight (no extra padding)?
Every single hexagon needs to be processed on many levels, from weather to battle markers to AI considerations, plus stored, loaded, and saved, not to mention the whole thing must fit decently on lower end small resolution screens. So it makes sense to frame the map as tightly as possible to "cut out the fat" and focus on the essential active area. There have been a couple of campaigns where this approach has not worked perfectly in hindsight: For example, in Operation Spring Awakening, the Russians don't have much of a rear area to fall into or rely on as their base for their supply routes, so this definitely gives a very skilled and aggressive player a chance to kind of "break the game". The first scenarios in the series are also breaking from their seams as over the years, new resources, options, and settings have made the game play faster, and these tiny maps can be moved across unrealistically quickly if you find a gap and ruthlessly exploit it with extra move points, etc.
UNDO - Cancel Movement on OWN hexagon
A player usually has 10 simple undo actions available per new start game. Only movement to an adjacent hexagon that the player controls can be canceled. Moving into an enemy area or combat cannot be canceled. To access undo action after accidental movement, deselect the unit immediately (if not already automatically deselected) and tap UNDO from the main menu (if undo action is available, it will replace the EXIT button, otherwise the exit button will be shown). When an undo action is carried out, the location of the unit, move points (MP), fatigue (FA), and possible fuel (FU) and Tactical Move Points (TMPs) will reset back, but all the other data stays as is (if you gained visibility into enemy area this stays visible) due to memory limitations (thanks to all the random variation data, it cannot be calculated backwards, so everything would have to be kept in memory, which simply is too much memory usage for lower end devices). The number of UNDO actions is limited to prevent cheating. In some very large campaigns, there might be 20 or 30 undo actions available.
Settings reset to default
My theory is that there is so much data (loaded) in the memory that when you continue an existing game (which is still partially in memory), this might create a brief situation in which parts of the game will be reloaded while parts of the game think everything will continue from the memory. So default settings are loaded in to start everything while the existing code triggers the "save-settings because things have changed" method. And as a result, the new default settings that were just loaded end up being written over the ones you selected. I added a check which prevents saving default un-changed settings over changed settings--but this doesn't prevent all the override moments as when I add new settings to the games or change the default of a setting, this creates a mismatch between what is default and what is not, so the save-settings action can still sometimes be triggered and write over the user settings. Or maybe the built-in Android memory manager screws something up on its own.
Tactical Move Points (TMPs) & Key Tactical Locations (Green +1 TMP Diamonds)
Tactical Move Points (TMPs), Key Tactical Locations (Green +1 TMP Diamonds), and Tactical Routes: Key Tactical Locations (Green Diamonds) produce TMPs when they are located in a province you fully control. A green line between two adjacent hexagons indicates a tactical route. If you have TMPs, a unit can then move between two hexagons sharing a Tactical Route using TMPs instead of regular Move Points of that particular unit. There is a button at the bottom of the screen to turn the TMP system temporarily ON/OFF so you can prevent a unit from spending TMPs when they move via Tactical Route (if you, for example, want to save TMPs). There is also a game wide setting to turn the whole TMP-system ON/OFF. Depending on the campaign, generals might be able to exchange 10 TMPS for an operational movement resource, which allows one unit to gain 4-6 regular move points in the rear area (away from the front line and active battle).
I can no longer use the TMPs
There is a button to switch Tactical Move Points (TMPs) ON or OFF at the bottom of the screen (visible when the unit is not selected). This ON-OFF switch also decides if the Tactical Routes (green lines between hexagons) are drawn on the map. In addition, in some campaigns, this button also controls other aspects of the play, like rail move points (RMPs) or automatic fuel delivery from trucks to armored units.
Why are there so many TMPs
Generals can exchange TMPs (Tactical Move Points) to rear area Operational Movement resources (most often +6 MPs but this can vary). Most often the few TMPs available are best used moving unit via Tactical Routes (green lines between hexagons) early in the campaign when quick movement is critical to seize new area or consolidate the captured area, however, as the campaign advances and both the number of units and the area covered increases, bigger emphasis needs to be on the getting the units to rear area hospitals to rest and then back to the front lines with Operational Movement.
Can I pile up Minefields?
If a hexagon has several minefields in it, all those minefields will cause movement penalty to the first enemy unit that enters that hexagon (after which that hexagon is clear of minefields but that one unit has major move point losses). Usually the MP penalty of minefield is the number of MPs of the unit type triggering the mine, meaning that when a unit type with max 2 MPs enters a hexagon with minefield the unit will lose 2 extra MPs. For example: A unit that has max 2 MPs now is at 2 MPs, it then moves into a hexagon and loses 1 MP for normal move cost (the unit is now at 1 MP) and then it also loses 2 MPs for triggering the mine in the hexagon it entered into. The unit now has -1 MP, and between turns it regains 2 MPs, ending up with 1 MP at the start of the next turn. So a unit is not necessarily unable to move during the next turn in spite of triggering a mine.
Too many units (solution availability varies per game)
- Disband individual units via Action by General
- Mark units permanently done (long press DONE button when a unit is selected)
- Less Units feature (access via DICE/GEAR icon on the lower-right corner of the Play-HOF-Guide view)
- Some campaigns allow disabling certain unit types (engineers, generals, artillery, airforce, commando-units, minefields, etc)
Best way to contact me?
Use email (no limitations like the character limits in the store replies, can reply when-ever, clean 'paper' trail for me to check bug reports, etc). It would be helpful if you mention that you have played 30 of my games through 30 times if you send 'this campaign is too easy/hard' comment, this way I will know you're not just a newbie getting crushed on his very first play-through ever. One point per email would be great, so later replies don't get messy, but if you have a list of 8 things, just send that. If there is painfully too little or too much of some resource/unit-type in a campaign in a style you play, mention that, as it helps me to balance scenarios between various playing styles.
RESOURCES (grouped all resource related questions below)
Is there a benefit adding two mortars to a single unit?
No. You will only get one mortar bonus, regardless of the number of Mortars assigned to the unit. The same obviously applies to all resources. The duplicate resource should automatically return to the resource pool between turns.
Expire (resources)
Certain resources will expire, meaning they are removed from either the unit they are assigned to or from the generic resource pool. A Special Order will expire between turns after you have assigned it to a unit (unassigned Special Orders are not removed from the play between turns). Unused Air Strikes and Recon flights will expire between turns (not really historically accurate to be able to pile up unlimited air strikes inside a hanger). Certain resources will expire after a certain amount of usage and variation, for example a Flamethrower assigned to a unit will eventually be exhausted (or if you're really unlucky quite quickly). For memory management reasons, it's not possible to keep detailed track of everything to prevent occasional quick expiration. It is also possible that under certain extreme conditions, the game engine might be so filled with units and resources and other data that it will remove the most common resource or zero HP units to free up some space in the system for new units or resources.
Why did unit exhausted assigned weapon/resource in the first battle?
Sudden weapon loss (exhausted resource): There are a several factors going into calculating when an assigned resource is exhausted: available memory is starting to run out, how many resources unit has (markers can cover the entire unit if there are too many resources assigned to it), the amount of free un-assigned resources of this type, and just randomness. Due to memory limitations it is not possible to keep track of how many times each and every resource has been used. What this means is that if you are in the late stages of big campaign there are ton of units and countless resources then the game engine might be starting to run out of free slots to store stuff, so there is increased need to clear up space by removing the most popular resources. Add to this a streak of bad luck and you could be very annoyingly exhausting newly assigned resources.
Why Aren't Resources pre-assigned to units?
This serves several purposes: (1) If the campaign lasts hundreds of turns the resources don't end up being useless (meaning it takes longer time before all the units have certain resource). (2) Give player both the freedom of choice and at the same time give player more things to think over (where do I send the units with Flamethrowers). (3) Avoid overwhelming new players with huge number of markers in units. (4) It is visually jarring if all the units have a lot of markers on them. (5) Game engine and screen update get slower the more data (resources) there are to process and draw.
Why doesn't the enemy units have skills or resources?
The game engine is already modelling so much data that it is pushing the memory and processing power limits, so adding hundreds or even thousands of more data points to the mix is not really possible or a high priority (as there are more important things to add) at this moment, but maybe when lower end devices get better. In addition, drawing all those unit markers required for all those new skills and resources would slow down drawing process significantly. Some campaigns are already hard, giving enemy units lot of resources and skills would make those campaigns too hard. New players would be confused by dozens of units with each having different letter combinations. In addition Combat dialog would be way too long and require scrolling - and this too would be intimidating to new players.
In really long game one resource or dugout might disappear?
If the game engine is filled to the maximum, but it needs more space to create a new unit or resource, it tries to find the most abundant unassigned resource or pointless zero HP enemy unit to get rid of to free up space, failing that it uses various approaches to figure out what to remove and in some extreme cases this can even be a minefield or dugout already placed on the map. The huge number of units and resources create problems on multiple ways: it is slower to process everything, it is visually slower to update screen, and loading and saving game data can run into storage space issues potentially leading to a less of the current ongoing game.
Speed up screen drawn (use less runtime memory)
You can make the games a little bit faster by turning OFF some visuals like:
+ Unit Depots
+ Storms
+ Minefields
+ Unit History
+ Darken Damaged units
+ ** etc Markers on units
+ Battle Clouds
+ Movement Arrows
+ Scattered flags
+ Shadows on Unit Icons
Unit History
It is possible to turn ON a feature called Unit History, which will keep a separate text report for each ground combat unit for their major actions like winning or losing battles, seizing cities, resting process, capturing enemy generals or artillery, etc. Select a unit, and usually then tap 'Info' button to see a menu of options, one of which is called 'Unit History'. In some older games Unit History button might be directly available without having to go through the 'Info' button. Keep this turned OFF if your device is low on storage space.
What is Strength Map?
Strength Map shows a very rough estimate of the strength of your ground combat forces versus enemy forces you are aware of on minimap located in the upper-right corner of the display. There is no cost associated using this action via General (in some games this feature is directly available without the need to go through the General). Only includes GROUND units and area.
Some of the scores are unrealistically fast considering how fast units move?
Units can move an amazing amount if you actually think about it: Many unit types have 2 MPs, so they move TWICE per turn, in addition Road/Railway can give you ton of free movement if there is no enemy area nearby, Generals can give HUGE amount of extra MPs and if you have several Generals supporting the spearhead it can move half a dozen hexagons per turn, add to that Tactical Routes, Extra MPs, Operational Movement resources (which can give you 6 MPs - which with roads means you can easily move 10 hexagons per turn), etc other factors and suddenly moving 40 hexagons in 10 turns is theoretically possible (naturally battles, river crossing, storms, terrain, fatigue, etc will act as a counterbalance to all these methods which speed up the movement). And in games with naval landings, the player can do more landings closer to the front line to avoid slow movement. Secondly, in a strategic big picture, players with quick wins aim to seize the supply cities instead of endless grinding ground combat (during which units are often forced to move back-and-forth) to clear all the smaller targets which would fall by themselves if you just take the supply cities.
Where/How can I learn about new releases?
1: War Diary AKA Developer LOG, availale on web and in all the apps via the guide-menu, lists major announcements like new games.
2: In-game notification: You will get a one-time pop-up notification in the games about new releases.
3: War Status report shown at the beginning of the turn shows information about new games from time to time.
4: Check the website conflict-series.com for the latest campaign and the most recent publications.
5: Check my developer page on the app store you use.
6: On the top of this very FAQ page is a chronological list of all scenarios and their maps sizes and possible noteworthy differences.
Unit Size button [u] goes from small to over-sized icons
Tapping the round [u] button, located in the upper-left corner of the game-play screen, will increase the size of the unit icons until the biggest possible size is reached, then jumping to the smallest possible size, and continuing to increase in size after that with each tap. The smaller sizes of unit icons are handy if you want to see more of the rivers, roads, and terrains 'under' the unit icons. The over-sized icons (which can slightly cover other units located in adjacent hexagons) can be useful if you have s small display, a poor eye-sight, want the markers on the units to be bigger, or you prefer to play with the map zoomed out to give you a more terrain in each view. Please note that there is a separate option to increase the size of the markers shown on unit icons (see the Settings View).
Encircle-number is different in HOF vs Unit Tally?
Encircled-number in the Hall of Fame (HOF) listing shows a different number than in the Unit Tally dialog. HOF number (encircled-score) also calculates in the strength of the unit type which is out of supply, so cutting off a tank unit gives you a bigger increase in encircle-score than cutting off an infantry unit. Since HOF encircle-score could be a fairly big number, it has been divided by 10 to make sure all the data shown in HOF fits on the screen. Encircled-number in the Unit Tally simply lists the number of turns this type of units have in total spent out of supply, so for example if 2 regular infantry units are out of supply for 2 turns this number would be 4 (2 X 2 = 4).
What developer tools do you use?
I'm using Google's Android Studio IDE (integrated development environment) for programming and GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) for graphics. Squoosh is a website/app that can optimize various types of images. All are completely free tools (links below).
https://developer.android.com/studio/
https://www.gimp.org/
https://squoosh.app
What do the round buttons on upper-left corner do?
Round buttons at the upper-left corner of the game screen carry out the following actions:
[U] Unit icon size: smaller size allows player to see the rivers and other elements under the unit, bigger icons make seeing units easier.
[-Z-] Zoom out.
[+Z+] Zoom in.
[MAP] Show full screen map. Tap BACK key to return to normal screen or tap anywhere to focus the map on the selected area.
Where to get information about a specific game or Conflict-Series?
Each app has their own Change Log view listing the latest noteworthy new features and changes, please note that the Change Log in the application will in most cases be more detailed than the Change Log in the app store as there is often a limited amount of space reserved for text in app stores. To see what's happening with the entire Conflict-Series tap yourself into Guide section of any app, and then hit Developer Notes: This is where bigger series-wide things are announced. There is also a Facebook Page, but unfortunately it is more and more impossible to reliably post anything on that Page so that everybody wanting to see the information could see it as Facebook limits the visibility of these posts even if you follow the page to get information, as a result the FB page has evolved into more of a place for generic military history posts not related to Conflict-Series, but from time to time the major developments are also mentioned there (and these are always also posted on Developer Notes, so there is no need to follow FB page to get these). Plus, you can always tap my avatar image on the apps to open up a possibility to email me.
Support for exciting new non-standard hardware?
There are a ton of new odd non-standard hardware pieces/innovations/annoyances released every year, from projectors and non-square-screens to game controllers and turn-this-mobile-into-laptop contraptions. First problem is that these are rare as heck which means working weeks to support one (1) player makes no financial/energy/time sense, secondly trying to support these exceptions build on exceptions is a lot of work and since they are new documentation is often lacking, and they have bugs, thirdly, at least 99 percent of these are dead after some time, fourthly is it worth is supporting one player to potentially have compatibility issues with the rest of the 99 percent of players. So, unless something truly is a success and becomes Android standard, there is very little sense/incentive/motivation for me to make an effort to support these futuristic devices.
Feedback based on looking at something from ONE SINGLE point of view
Yes, it would be great if all the games ended during the first 5 turns to make games shorter, but some players might want something different, like longer games. Yes, it would be amazing if air force could completely stop the enemy unit to model the aerial superiority, but that would make a poor gaming experience and offer no challenge, and what about those players who hate supporting/aerial/naval/artillery unit types as they just like to maneuver ground combat units. Yes, it would be amazing to have black and white graphics to get you into the mood, but some players want bright colors. Yes, there could be more buttons on the screen if you are playing on 20-inch screen device, but most are playing on average devices with regular display sizes and resolutions. Yes, the mud season on the Eastern Front doesn't completely prevent movement for 12 turns, but have you ever tried to sell a game in which for long periods of time absolutely nothing happens? Yes there should be 20 artillery units but how boring it would be to always be able to stop and pulverize enemy without any thinking. And here are 100 well documented historical cases were Americans fought well so why can't they automatically win all the battles - oh also here are 100 well documented historical cases were Americans fought poorly so why don't they automatically lose all the battles - or maybe it is a balance between different views and just pure randomness of the combat results. There are different sizes of maps and different number of units and different default difficulty and a lot of settings so that there is something for everybody and things can be tweaked in various ways. Each campaign is a balancing act between historical accuracy and quick enough game play and long enough game play and proper amount of challenge without too much challenge with technical limitations taken into consideration while not spending so many years on the development that the release is not financially viable while obeying all the laws and regulations in 200 countries and not breaking any policies set by various app stores, not forgetting totally different styles of play and strategy, while making the initial battle the biggest without making the last stage of campaign boring, so it too has to be the biggest battle and the middle obviously cannot be stale, so the biggest battle has to take place when exactly, while trying to offer something for huge risk-takers without forgetting those who play super safely while trying to not make anything too different or complex which would put off new players. What I'm trying to showcase here is that while you can look at things from one single point of view and declare this or that inaccurate, I have to seriously analyze things from 200 different points of views of creating a cheap entertainment --- which inevitably results in a hugely inaccurate compromise.
How about Swipe-for-the-next-unit feature?
I have tried to make this a couple of times, but unfortunately without success. Budget devices don't support multitouch and swiping well enough (partly because there are so many layers of data to draw and react to), plus on some screens half of the hexagons have units, so it's extremely easy to misinterpret swipes and unintentionally move units, and on top of that some manufacturers have their own (edge) swipe-detection-features on top of everything triggering things and some float-over apps make things even more complicated, and those who play on shaking commute have screamed at me one week straight every time I have tested something like this. There is a setting to turn ON automatic selection of the next unit after X seconds, which avoids most of the issues mentioned above, but it's not a perfect solution, but you might want to check it out it if it works for you (the automatic selection of the next unit stops if you hit back-key couple of times to deselect a selected unit).
What is Big Advance?
If one side gains control of over 13 new Victory Points (VPs) during one turn, the other side gains Fatigue and loses MPs from multiple units either instantly (player advances) or before the next turn starts (AI advances). Logic being that collapsing front line reduces morale and increases uncertainty. After reaching over 13 new VPs during a turn, the counter resets for the ongoing turn. So it is beneficial to group your advances time-wise to shock the enemy side. The advancing side might also get some extra MP resources (depending on the scale of the campaign and other factors).
Why so annoyed reply to my basic question?
I get each basic question several times per day, so let's say I spend 10 minutes per day replying to one basic question. Now I have been replying to this very question 7 years (365 days in each year), which means I have wasted over 25,000 minutes (10 x 365 x 7) copying the same basic reply to players who cannot be bothered to read the FAQ or GUIDE. So, naturally, sometimes in the middle of the night it gets a little bit annoying having to, once again, for the billionth time, to reply to the same basic question.
Why don't I reply to SMS-to-EMAIL no reply possible messages
I cannot reply to the not-reply-possible SMS-to-EMAIL messages I receive. Please DO NOT SEND me questions via some strange SMS-to-email contraption which DOES _NOT_ ALLOW ANY WAY TO REPLY TO THEM. All I get is a question and ton of added legal and technical talk explaining that it is not possible to reply to this message in any shape or form. And then later I get angry messages for not replying - and I can't reply to those either. Truly makes my night having to handle these. Just use the plain old e-mail to send messages for free without the danger of communication getting lost in all the messaging-network-method-changes.
I want to re-install or update the game I purchased but the app store shows buy or purchase button
Short answer: Updating and re-installing is free. You are either using a different Google Account or App Store itself is out of date and as a result it is showing old incorrect information. Firstly, make absolutely sure you are using the exact same Google account now that you used to purchase the application the first time. Your purchases are not tied to the device, they are tied to your Google account. Secondly, if the accounts are the same, the app store app is most likely having some cached (=out of date) files issues (to reduce the amount of files your device needs to download it shows you old files assuming they are roughly up-to-date), so you can clear the cache files of the app store app itself from the settings (how to do this varies per manufacturer). Thirdly, if you just press purchase-button, it should not charge you a second time after the app store realizes that your account has already purchased this app and show you the update button or take you directly to updating. If you are 100 percent sure that you are using the same Google account, and you still are charged twice, contact Google support, as they completely handle all the financial and selling and distributing - and I have zero control over that.
What's up with the lack of Artillery or Airforce efficiency?
So, realistically a good artillery formation or aerial superiority would result in either huge losses to enemy or at least massive slow down effect. Germans recall how their Panzer units could not move at all during daytime because of Allied aerial superiority in Normandy. Artillery barrage can nail down enemy unit so that doesn't advance at all. Any attempt at modelling this accurately makes the game-play extremely boring: There is very little challenge in grinding your enemies to dust without any exciting maneuvering, just by passively bombarding your enemy to oblivion does not offer much changes to risk taking or challenging situations. Many players outright ask for a setting to completely remove artillery and air force units, they want less support units and quicker turns with emphasis on moving ground units around. Then there is the issue with unrealistic cheating: If artillery can surely stop enemy units from moving, you can collect enough artillery in one spot to completely prevent AI from moving, and then it is super easy to encircle enemy units and march to their supply city and bang the whole campaign is over before it began. Then there is the overall question of how-quickly-turns-evolve: If large percentage of units is always nailed down and not being able to move at all, then situations evolve slowly, too slowly for the liking of many players. So, efficiency of bombardments is a balancing act between useless and too-decisive.
What are the biggest in-game mistakes you have made?
One of the most common one is some kind of cumulative or exponential miscalculation, and by that I mean that I have made a change which should have 3 percent change in difficulty level (so basically so small change it cannot be detected), but that 3 percent takes places inside a complex formula where it can have some 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 multiply/cumulative/exponential effect with other elements of the formula, which in the worst case only activates over time so I do not even notice it during testing. And then boom, instead of 3 point change, I have completely different end result of that formula. Another very embarrassing mistake is to flip comparison or element in a formula the wrong way, for example: if the likelihood of seeing what is in the enemy hexagon depends on nearby power balance and fatigue and nearby area control divided by similar enemy stats factored by terrain and campaign elements and unit type features and weather and all is compared and divided in certain order and rounding is considered but nothing can be made too computationally heavy -- now what was the exact way you need to an effect of a resource into this formula to it work as intended? I have also made couple of major errors in specific campaigns, especially Operation Market Garden seems to have been cursed: Once I flipped swamp and forest icons around and I was so focused on seeing if the other 40 changes were okay that I missed the swamp-forest flip. The other time, still Market Garden, AI was way too passive and I tried to fix that in a completely wrong way, and when I finally after months realized what was wrong, the whole carefully created balance was out of the window because of all the changes and tweaks and incorrect fixes. It is also bittersweet to work hard to add a feature and feel excited about the new feature -- and then 2 years later to realize that it heavily messes up all the other future plans and design changes and it need to be removed because it is not compatible with anything. I also had one unit upside down for a brief period of time, because I was adding reserve shadows to the icon, and forgot to tilt it back to original orientation before saving it. So I guess I try to take solace in the that saying: If you are not making mistakes you are not trying hard enough.
Assigning a mortar or an antitank gun to tank unit makes no sense?
You are likely thinking the tank unit as a single tank driving around. In these campaigns tank units often represent battalion, regiment, or division level formations, meaning it is not just a single vehicle, but 10,000 men and hundreds of different vehicles. And at that scale, assigning mortars or antitank guns to this unit starts to make more sense.
Why don't you add this massive feature which would re-do the whole half-a-decade old game?
I know people mean well when they say things like this, but it is such a dismissive slap in the face for anybody working hard on something. Why don't car manufacturers completely re-do your car every 5 years for free? Why don't board game makers like Avalon Hill completely re-do their decades old campaigns for free? Why don't you work for something for a year, get paid, and then re-do everything for another year for free? Even massive game studios stop the support for their 50-dollar games after couple of years because it just isn't feasible in any sense. So why does everybody keep suggesting that mobile game makers need to completely re-do everything every year for free? Some developers have tried that, and they all are long gone and bankrupted. You cannot work months for free re-creating ancient stuff. I realize this often originates from the fact that people have zero idea how many things need to be re-calculated and test-played and fine-tuned after making a small change: Lets say I add 1 extra unit to older campaign: That might throw fuel calculations out of the window and the fun speedy gaming experience is suddenly boring as all you do is wait for fuel and get angry as one unit is always out of fuel somewhere. Or maybe that unit allows clever player to create corridor to an enemy supply city, that would completely and totally change the dynamic of the campaign. Everything from broad things like AI to details like resource flow and balance need to re-worked from the ground up. It is hard not to get offended by this type of suggestion, especially after being tired of answering to hundreds of messages during the weekend when you just want to unwind: No, I really don't want to work for free to a decade, would you?
What's the point of Zero HP units? Why don't units just instantly die?
Short answer: Game play, historical accuracy, balance, style of the game engine. Long answer: Historically many battalions, regiments and divisions have been wiped out, sometimes completely, sometimes HQ and supply and such are saved, in any cases, they are often re-raised. For example, during WWII the Red Army had some division-level units annihilated 6 times but they just kept re-raising them. Plus in reality, some of the men are hundreds or thousands of kilometers behind lines in hospitals and can be used to re-raise units over time. In addition, many units have storied history over centuries so it makes little sense to stop using that unit just because most of current front line soldiers got once wiped out. Then there is the game-engine and game-play side of things: If lost units were in some way just to be replaced with new ones, then taking mindless risks would be a good thing (lose a unit, get a new one). But when the process of re-raising a unit includes dragging zero HP unit back to a city (old games) or hospital (newer games) and then resting and repairing them, and then transporting it back to the front line, that makes you think twice before walking into a hopeless battle. And if units were just lost without getting a new one to replace them, then that would heavily favor those who play it very safe. With zero HP units you can always try to rescue them and re-build your strength even after a failed offensive. Using zero-HP logic in this game engine also underlines the importance of encirclement (or not getting your units cut off): It is completely different thing to force enemy unit to withdraw, than it is to encircle it and seize its HQ and Depots, which actually means wiping it out and gathering a lot of great intelligence. The less units there are in the campaign, the more out of whack the whole campaign can go if you accidentally lose couple of units (in Rommel & Afrika Korps you have barely 10 units, if you lose couple of them for the length of the entire game that makes the game unplayable. But moving unit to rest, then resting, then moving back to front line gives enough time penalty for the careless player without ruining the whole campaign.
Bravery of side X not covered?
Lot of feedback is along the lines of: I have read one history book written by my countryman about soldiers of my country (and I am now the ultimate expert on this battle), and it depicts a lot of heroic combat by the soldiers of my country, why aren't units depicting my country hundred times, or at least ten times, stronger than enemy units? Answer: Every country has its own historical narrative which needs to portray the bravery and positive conduct and ignore the mistakes/evil-deeds/idiotic-leaders. I strongly recommend starting by reading books from both sides, written by historians from both sides. And to make this even more confusing, books written in different decades use different style: Lot of archives weren't available decades ago and in any case style was much more one-sided and patriotic back then. All battles have at least two sides: Lets look at the battle of Iwo Jima for example: Was it a battle in which well fed no-combat-experience American GIs stumbled in a jungle island environment they didn't understand at all and a single clever Japanese soldier could emerge from well camouflaged cave and wipe out entire American unit single-handedly --- or was it a battle in which brave American GI hero could wipe out an entire Japanese unit which made a mad senseless Banzai-attack running across open field? Looking at casualty numbers, which very roughly are 20k for both sides, seems that both views are correct: All the battles saw hundreds of heroic feats from both sides, and also idiotic feats from both sides. And in any case, it is hard to make an interesting challenging game out of one side being untouchable semi-gods and the other side being completely mindless. The real casualty in this one-sided view of history is me: trying to consider both sides and take a middle ground and constantly being harassed by both sides for not favoring their brave heroes enough.
What are the worst things about being an indie developer?
Military history is highly sensitive subject (even personal one if your relatives served), and many have one-sided view of the events and battles, so I get a ton of hate, threats, ignorant comments from people who only see one side of the story. I'm pretty sure a topic like sheep herding would have been much less heatedly-debated option. Repetition: I get to answer literally thousands of times to the same questions (more units, less units, what is the next campaign, add this mega feature, games are too easy, games are too hard, etc), and it can take its toll at times (try replying calmly and coolly to 300th message during the weekend when you are tired and want to relax and the previous messages have floored you with hate and you already had few drinks. I automate and cut & paste what I can but it's still a mindless grind. I understand why most developers have read-but-no-reply policy, it is pretty much the only sensible option. Too bad that I have the personality that I really need to explain people why things are the way they are. Having to deal with mandatory store management, legal hassles across dozens of countries. I just want to create strategy games. Oh, and add the maintenance of all the documentation (year, it's always out of date as everything is changing all the time) and graphics (40 games X 100 icons X 10 pixel density etc issues etc = 40,000 icons). Oh, the shadow does not work on certain type of displays, let me just quickly edit all those icons, NOT. Discovery is absolutely soul crushing challenge: Sometimes a player writes to me that they have been looking at a game like this for years on the Play Store and now they have finally managed to find it. It is just downright impossible to stand out, which is why every developer begs for mentions and links and reviews. And which is why many use questionable methods to promote their creations. Players having the exact opposite needs: Less units vs more units, more WWII vs less WWII, more resources vs less resources, no artillery vs yes artillery, bigger maps vs smaller maps, no economy vs control over production, etc. How do you solve that? Too complex system to cover everything: Dozens of units, dozens of resources dozens of layers on the map, dozens of settings, dozens of different hardware devices, dozens of different versions of Android, dozens of ways to play --- that quickly expands into millions of little combinations of things to check and test, which obviously is beyond any reasonable scope without a crew of 10,000 programmers. And as an extra bonus Google penalizes for taking a long time to process a lot of stuff, and inevitable crashes are also bad -- effectively fart apps which consist of one line of code are perfect in the eyes of Google algorithms, while hyper complex games like this are heavily penalized. Mental fatigue since the overall tendency of people being 100 times more likely to complain than praise, this will in the long run make every developer super defensive. Plus you can have 999 things work perfectly but it is the one thing which doesn't work which gets everybody riled up. Then there are players who have read one book from one side of a battle and they think they know everything and everything should be changed according to their one-sided view of things, and they get angry if that doesn't happen. Thanks for listening, maybe this gives a little bit insight into the glorious life of being a strategy game developer. Please understand that no matter how constructive you are trying to be, you are writing a to person who is out of time, out of energy, deeply defensive after tens of thousands of negative messages over the years, and we are talking about something which took a lot of time and effort to create, it is effectively my baby, and you rarely go to a parent and say 'damn that baby is ugly, I don't like the head-part at all, why don't you just try again with these changes to the new baby'.
Difficulty Level
Difficulty Level offers 7 different options from Ultra Easy via Normal to Ultra Hard. The level can be changed at any time but the new Difficulty Level will ONLY be applied to a new game (=game started AFTER changing the Difficulty Level - in other words: the Difficulty Level for the ongoing current game cannot be changed mid-game). The difficulty level affects many different aspects of the game, some of which are more notable and some more based on having a tiny but cumulative effect. Difficulty Level can be found from the Main Settings View (DICE icon on lower-right corner of the Play-HOF-USERNAME view). The whole Difficulty Level element has been completely re-written on late 2017 to unify and simplify the two previous systems which co-existed in various campaigns. The Difficulty Level of the current ongoing game can be seen at the bottom of the War Status report.
Does Hall of Fame show all scores?
The Hall of Fame (HOF) lists your scores and the best scores from the online database. HOF will be periodically cleared from the oldest (time based) scores to even out the playing field as the campaign gets tweaked and new features are added. Terms you might see on Hall of Fame: Turns=Turns spend finished the campaign, VPs = Victory Points when game ended, Less Units [Units-%] means only a certain percentage of units are in play, Encircle-score [enc]: Each turn a unit spend out of supply encircle-score increases by a number which is related to HP and strength of the unit type. No scores available. Usually this means that the download process is running in the background, wait a couple of seconds and then re-open the Hall of Fame to see the top scores. The username you provided will be uploaded and no other personal or account information about you or your device is transferred. If you have the app for years on the same device continuously, and you regularly check the HOF it might gather so much data that some of it will be purged locally to keep the size of the data matrix tolerable.
When and why is each campaign updated?
Due to the big number of campaigns to maintain (50+ in 2023), creating new scenarios, and the fact that each campaign consists of tens of thousands of lines of complex code, the update cycle through all the games can take months to complete, so there is no need to think that a particular game is forgotten or abandoned just because there aren't new updates in a month or two. There are basically three different main reasons for a particular campaign to get updated. (1) There is a crash causing bug or some other critical issue in the campaign (and I'm actually aware of it - so please send feedback). (2) The campaign is one of the most out-of-date games in the series (at which state the to-do list starts to be overwhelmingly long). (3) I want to add or test a particular feature and this campaign happens to be the best fit. (4) If none of the previous three conditions apply, newer and very popular campaigns are on top of the list to get updated because they have most users, which guarantees more feedback on the new additions, which helps a lot with the inevitable tweaking.
Should I email you about crashes?
Crashes are usually on the top of the to-do list and there is no need to send a message about them as I see the crash reports, but, please do remember that if you are experiencing any other non-crash types of issues let me know - you might be only one playing that particular campaign on that particular device with those particular settings and with that particular style in that particular stage of campaign -- and since I absolutely suck at mind-reading and I cannot be playing all the campaigns myself all the time with all the possible setting combinations and I positively cannot fix something I'm not even aware of -- please let me know. I take pride in what I do, and I'm happy to fix any issues I'm aware of.
Why resting in done in hospitals instead of cities in newer games?
The reason why city-resting was replaced with hospitals in newer campaigns is that resting in cities is kind of problematic for multiple reasons. Since cities are key to winning thanks to Victory Points (VPs) and important to game play thanks to being supply sources, player can just over-fill cities (partly with resting units) which makes a little sense to AI or to game play. In addition, if every single thing happens in cities, units just move from (major) cities to (major) cities with zero tactical, strategical, or maneuvering thinking. The idea with provinces, province borders, traffic fatigue, hospitals, airfields, etc, is to spread the focus and units around, not just boringly move one invincible 20 unit stacks toward the enemy main city, and to induce more phase-based thinking and advancing. And when units cannot rest in cities, you cannot just use resting units as instant city defenses. Plus, if you want to add economy, production, etc major game engine components later on you need more variety and items and map elements and resources - hard to build economy or engineers if they can only produce one single thing. So, it's one of those 20 things affecting 20 things affecting 20 things - type of deals. I don't do these changes to improve one single thing, or 10 things, but rather to step up 100 things - of course, every change potentially throws something off, and change is always deeply hated - so I try not to change things just for the change's sake.
How does Traffic rules work?
A ground combat unit moving into a hexagon already occupied by another ground combat unit will have an increase in fatigue (known as Traffic Jam). Traffic formula multipliers are Infantry=1, Motorized/Artillery=2, Tanks/Armor=3. Traffic Formula is the following: Unit-1-multiplier x Unit-2-multiplier x Campaign specific coefficient (usually 3) = percentage points added to fatigue. Example #1: Infantry moving on Motorized: 1 x 2 x 3= 6 points more fatigue. Example #2: Tank moving on Motorized: 3 x 2 x 3 = 12 points more fatigue. Traffic rules are the same for the both sides, but small traffic related tags and notes are often not shown for AI units because they could easily fill up the entire screen on an area filled with units. Please note that attacking enemy controlled hexagon does not add traffic fatigue, but other fatigue penalties are most likely applied. The Red FA marker shows units which are high in Fatigue, after Fatigue reaches 100 percent a unit will carry out Relieve action between turns, meaning it will spend the number of MPs on that unit type to halve fatigue, which can be thought of as fractional MPs.
Can you make a setting for X
If possible I will try to include a setting for all the major features, but every single setting added increases the maintenance a LOT (since bugs might only happen with that setting in one position that basically means double the number of tests to see if every possible combination of settings still work - just because of adding one setting), plus there is only so much you can turn ON/OFF before the flow of campaign and the gaming experience starts to crumple for some combination of settings, or at least made it so that with certain combination of settings allows better scores in the Hall of Fame. Not to mention, there is a limit of how many settings I can place on a view before that starts to cause issues on budget devices. Time consumed: For example: 100 settings, 10 styles of play, means 1,000 combinations to test, some things are quick to test, but some require up to a half an hour (for example a tricky end game position), so how about 5 minutes on average per test, 1000 combinations to test, means 5000 minutes, split by 60 minute means 80 hours of testing, add to that the fact that there are thousands of different android devices, and you quickly see how the testing with huge number of settings takes years - just for one app - not very realistic. So, while I would love to have every single thing and color and line as a separate setting, that just isn't feasible in the real world.
Some flags, insignia is too big, incorrect
Unfortunately, symbols need to be recognizable even when they are a only couple of pixels per a couple of pixels, which means, everything has to be as simple as possible and as big as possible to work at all in the smaller lower resolution screens. In addition, as these games are played globally, only the most basic symbols and terms can be used to avoid confusion. In addition, some symbols are banned in some countries, and some symbols are only known to be historically (in)accurate only by history buffs (for example, Canada is represented with a recent flag which is easy to identify and works well even on smaller screen, but which is not really WWII accurate).
Less Units feature
Some players want quicker turns with fewer units to control to move the campaign along in a speedier manner. If the campaign has enough units it is possible to reduce the number of units to certain percentage like 55, 66, etc. Some key units might always be available, but the rest are randomized with some thought into grouping by unit types so that you do not, for example, lose all the panzer divisions. The Less Unit setting is only active during the first turn, so change Less Units to the desired number, and restart the game to see the effects. Less units effects both initial units and reinforcements. Naturally, in a complex system, it is impossible to balance everything perfectly for each of the million setting combinations a player might choose, so some of the resources might be plentiful if you play with only 50 percent of ground combat units, but this is to be excepted. If you notice anything horribly out of whack, email me.
How to change font size
You can change the size of the font used to draw text like unit tags-notes on the game screen by tapping the MAP FONT SIZE element on the settings view (located in the very top of the Settings View, which is accessed from the Main - End Turn menu). Unfortunately, the previous solution which features separate smaller-bigger buttons and headline needed to be simplified into one element, because the settings view already has so many components in it that is causing performance issues on lower end devices.
Could you use real maps?
Here are some of the reasons why real maps do not work that well: (A) They consume too much memory and storage and processing power, which all are challenges to budget devices. (B) There is a lot of terrain variation in the map every time you start a new game, how do you do that with a fixed boring always-the-same map? (C) Real map of Norway is just narrow capes and bays, so edits are needed for good play-ability. (D) All the perfect maps are copyrighted and cost a lot of money. (E) Reals maps do not separate different terrain types clearly enough on small, low resolutions screens. (F) Seasonal variation: some rivers are lakes during rainy season, normal rivers between them, and dry out or are not visible on satellite maps during dry season. Scenario maker will in any case end up making a lot of decisions what maps to use and how to frame and cut and project them. (G) Background Patterns would not work or would work poorly. (H) Compiling the map from tiny pieces allows huge freedom and quick edits and various options.
Some scores seem impossible
Over the years most of the hacks have been closed and there are several layers of security to prevent one just pushing made up data to servers, and the extra information about most high scores on the database looks normal and valid. But it is still possible to start the game 100 times until you get a perfect start, then try to operate in a way and scale which confuses the AI, then try to drive directly to enemy supply cities taking huge risks to get a superb score. This is not a very realistic way to play since you lose 9999 out of 10,000 times, but it is kind of impossible to prevent all of those type of hacks. In addition, if you give a unit an extra MP resource and then use a couple of generals to give several more extra MPs, that unit will be moving a fairly large percentage of the map on one go. Just imagine the possible encirclement in mega scale with just couple of 6 MP units. And on smaller scale scenarios, for example Barbarossa, you only have to advance a meager 20 hexagons to reach the end of the map, with 2 MP units, that's 10 turns. Of course, add rivers and some combat, but you can theoretically get low scores. Plus it's a matter of time imbalance: if I handle 14,000 different devices, dozens of settings, hundreds of ways to play, hundreds of countries, mandatory legal and store management, etc, I have fairly little time to focus on non-critical things like making HOF more secure than online banking, while somebody can spend 500 hours trying to figure out to beat/break the system. It's a challenge for every game in existence. In spite of all that there are from time to scores which are hard to believe even for me, but I will look into and remove the most outrageous ones if there indeed are signs of foul play - when I'm notified of strange scores. Also, please realize that the HOF loads only top 100 scores, so there well might be 900 really low scores in the database, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to download them due to the server, bandwidth, storage space on device, etc limitations.
How do I see all the campaigns in Conflict-Series?
Tap the Conflict-Series by Joni Nuutinen element on the main screen (where play-button is located), this will open the developer page of the App Store, where you can see the listing of all the campaigns available for your devices. There is a free turn-limited version available from almost all of them, so you do not need to buy something blindly.
Doesn't variation mean each game is wildly different, even a lot easier or harder?
If the variation is done in a major-event-style (deciding whether or not add 10 units) each play-through of the campaign would be monumentally different, but in Conflict-Series varition means hundreds of tiny tweaks to locations, tactics, terrain, etc. So, thanks to the law of average, what happens is 50 tiny tweaks go against you, and another 50 for you. All things considered the difficulty level is roughly the same but game play has the potential to be different, for example, multiple factors like unit locations, terrain variation, tactical choises, might result in a situation where AI groups lot of units in a defense of a major city - while in the next time you play these troops might be spread more evenly.
Answering to emails
I will answer to all noteworthy emails as soon as I'm online (and actually know the answer to your question). Unfortunately, as much as I love talking about military history, replying to longer chat-style emails is outside the scope of my free time. Because I'm not a native English speaker and I like to explain why things are the way they are, crafting coherent replies takes time, and spending 5 minutes per message to reply to 100 messages eats away over 8 hours from my day - which is obviously something I cannot do on top of the all the programming, maintenance, app store & business management, and rest of the life (yes, I surprisingly kind of have one ;-)). It is relatively easy for me to reply to a message with one key point, as opposed to email which flows all over the different campaigns and generally chit-chats all over the place. So, to make sure your point is not lost and to get a speedy reply, make it pithy and avoid 900-line ramblings. All that being said: All the emails are carefully read, all the opinions added into the data I collect to tweak the scenarios and features. Please, do not hesitate to send message if you spot something that is off: There are dozens of games, thousands of physically different devices, lot of settings, various ways of playing -- and it is always possible that only fairly small number of players is experiencing the issue you are having, so let me know. I'm a bit obsessive about everything running smoothly so I'm more than happy to fix any and all issues -- but it's surprisingly hard to fix things I don't know about ;-) And as a final note: After getting thousands of hate/drunk/I-lost-a-battle/etc messages over the years I have zero tolerance to those, and you will just be added to a permanent straight-to-trash list (and in case of death threats your address will be reported both to your ISP and authorities of your country).
Is there Zone-of-Control?
Zone-of-Control (ZOC) is implemented in the Fatigue (which you can think of as the fraction of move points). When you move next to enemy controlled hexagons and hexagons with enemy units in them, fatigue increases. The number of enemy units and balance of power in nearby area can drastically increase the speed in which fatigue grows. The worst thing you can do is move in a way where both the hexagon where you are moving from and the hexagon you are moving into have multiple adjacent hexagons with multiple enemy units in them.
FOW (Fog of War): Why I sometimes cannot identify unit in adjacent hexagon?
Fog-of-War: Several factors play into the fog of war FOW): area control, area strength, terrain, fatigue, etc. So it is possible, if the situation is really against you, that you do not know about the enemy forces anything other than that they exists. There are countless examples of this in history: Just before Germans launched Operation Blue in 1942 Soviet Red Army launched their own attack with 30 divisions which were located literally few hundred meters away from Germans in the area German were trying to scout with signal/planes/spy-intelligence but failed to get any forewarning. Similarly German attack which caused Battle of Bulge was surprise in spite of Allies having total aerial superiority and ability to read all German HQ messaging and Germans themselves constantly leaking information about their plans. That being said, because of all the factors, the FoW formula can sometimes seem/be out of balance - it is a never ending tweaking process.
App Versions
There are three different versions of the application of most campaigns in the Conflict-Series (this is why the words 'latest version' does not mean anything to developers - we always have ton of 'latest versions' available at any give time): (1) The latest version with all the bells and whistles, Android version 4.4 and newer. (2) One with slightly reduced graphic/decorational features to avoid memory, API-call, and processing limitations in the old or budget devices (varying within android versions 4.0.2 - 4.3, so basically Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean). (3) No longer maintained version of the game application is for Android versions 2.3 - 4.0.1, however, the latest campaigns are only available for the Android versions 4.1 and upwards, because of growing requirements and to reduce maintenance times (plus the older versions now have a market share less than couple of percentage points, so it does not make much sense to double your workload for those versions which are losing ground day by day). It is a little bit depressing to see a crash report on Android version 2.3 (usual reason is that the device is out of memory and storage space since apps have gotten a lot bigger since that device was released) when my own daily device is the leatest version like 8.1.
What are all the MP markers
MP stands for Move Point. TMP stands for Tactical Move Point which allows a unit to move between hexagons sharing a green line without losing regular MPs. Red MP marker on unit means it has a noteworthy amount of negative MPs (the limit can be altered from Settings), Yellow MP marker on unit means it has recently received extra MPs from a resource and cannot get another such resource in a row, Green MP marker means unit is standing in a hexagon which is a Key Tactical Location (which provides TMPs when you control the entire province in which the TMP is in).
Is being out-of-supply same for both sides?
The out-of-supply formula is the same for both sides, and in certain campaigns (like Market Garden) even slightly favors players. The reason for this illusion that there is a difference in favor of AI, is probably caused by the fact that the AI side moves AFTER player but BEFORE supply routes are counted. If player could just instantly cause enemy units to be out of supply, that would make the game way too easy and unrealistic.
Languages: Localization
Unfortunately there are several factors preventing localization (using different languages). First of all, I barely have minutes to spare each day so managing even a crowd-sourced translation would just take away time I could spent on creating new games and maintaining existing ones. I use rapid development style, meaning, if there is a noteworthy bug I will respond within couple of hours with a new version if I'm near my computer, and I do not want to bog myself down with things which are not directly in my control. In addition, phrases used in Conflict-series games are not full phrases but parsed together based on various variables and the situation (Unit X did Y in or near or south of Z), so it's hard for a translator to know how many ways and in which context words will be used. Plus there are well over 30 campaigns, in various time periods, so is it a cavalry or mechanized or armoured unit, or is it consuming hay or gasoline. And when scales change from company to corps, it's just impossible to keep track of everything from 'outside'. It's simply too many moving parts. And, most history buffs speak good enough English to understand the basic terms (and I try to keep them basic enough), so it is questionable how much benefit a localization project would really bring, especially compared to the huge amount of work and coordination it would require.
Could you make a multiplayer game
I have made several attempts at creating a multiplayer game based on the current game engine, but there is just too much data to be moved back and forth to it to work from technical point of view, not to mention limitations set by data costs in most areas around world. Cost wise running own servers, since all the free options offer too little data and have other limitations, would make this type of niche game unprofitable. In addition, being a niche segment, there would not be enough players, especially with any type of paid or in-app version. Yet another challenge would be players who abandon the game just as soon they are not winning. So, lot of different types of steps to get over before multiplayer game can be made based on current engine and experience. Probably some type of super simplified free version could possible be a sensible first step - now I just need to find time to create one.
Main reasons why you can play just one side
The game is modelling so much data that it is crashing on older versions of Android and on budget devices, and a lot of my time and energy goes into optimizing things so that running just one side is possible. Therefore, adding huge segments like another AI and resource flow is technically not possible. In addition, adding major components like second AI would double the development effort, and it would no longer be financially viable to release these creations (please remember that google takes 30% cut, then taxes, VAT, accounting, etc all eat away the profit until I'm making cents/pennies per game). Plus it is challenging to make a good AI which can play well when it is controlling less units, need to make a deep attack, etc, so developing the second side might take even longer than creating the entire game. There is also a long list of smaller reasons why offering play of both sides not really on the cards. As a closing note: Very few requests playing the other side, however, if enough players request it I will consider releasing this scenario as a new campaign where you play the other side.
Most common crashes
Game crashes after hitting PLAY button. Either your system runs out of memory during loading the data and graphics (likely explanation if you're running an older version of Android, a budget device, or an older device), or the saved game file is corrupted. This second option is usually caused by the Android OS having too many active apps, and as a results the OS runs out of memory/CPU/storage/etc and forcibly ends the saving game process, screwing up the file (sometimes just a little bit, sometimes completely). In the case of loading error, you should see a pop-up dialog about it, and the game engine might try to fall back to a previous saved game if possible.
What are flags/skulls for?
Flags, skulls, and battle markers (X) are just eye-candy and indications of the past battlegrounds of the campaign. However, in the earlier years they also nicely filled out the empty areas in the map, making it less empty and ugly. Now that there are provinces, hospitals, and such additions, the empty areas are less of an issue, but it is still nice to see where the major battles took place when your reinforcements march through the rear area towards the front lines. This data is also used to calculate things like Area Ravaged by Warfare, and AI can use it to help figure out certain things.
Visual features removed from really really old Android devices
Some visual features like red or blue battle clouds, darkening damaged units, map labels, flags, etc might be turned off (disabled) for really old versions of Android Operating System or really old hardware. These devices are already working overtime trying to crunch the actual data affecting the game play, so showing visual eye-candy is obviously not a priority. This is not an option, since majority would not touch this and just wonder why their devices keep crashing being out of memory or jamming being out of processing power.
Why is there often a sudden influx of updates and then nothing for months?
When you do a major update and change/tweak a complex set of hundreds of features all interacting each other, you can only test it so far (lets assume 100 features, 10000 devices, 50 settings, 10 styles of play all interacting, this means 500,000,000 different combinations to test. If it takes on average 5 minutes per combination to check out, that's roughly 1000 years to test them all out if you don't sleep at all etc. Unsurprisingly, this leads to a situation where I check the biggest things, trust that the game engine which has been battle-hardened over the years does not completely collapse, and push a major release out, and in the following days aggressively release a batch of smaller updates fixing crashes and issues messaged to me by players. After all the critical things are fixed and campaign seems to be in balance, there is a lull in the updates as all the non-critical stuff and new features just go into to-do for that campaign to wait for the next major release. And then it all starts from the beginning again.
Why are some games not played to the end
LOT of reasons behind this decision, here are the main ones: (1) This allows different ways to finish the campaign, do you focus on the south or the north, etc. (2) Half of the players dislike playing the last phase where dozens and dozens of units crush handful of enemy units, not much to do, no excitement over who is going to win the battle. (3) The last remaining AI units have so many tasks to do that they start to operate ineffectively and in an erratic manner. TIP: If you really want to capture the entire map, and give yourself a little bit extra challenge, try to position your forces in a way which allows you to capture all the last cities during one turn.
Screen is 'frozen' after hitting 'Play'
Try changing your username to 'hardwareaccelerationoff' and then hit 'Play' again. If the fix works, keep the hardware acceleration setting turned OFF. You can now return to using to your regular username. If this does not work, try the following: Hit 'Play' button. Hit 'Home' button. Switch back to the game via app list. This in some cases removes the 'frozen' state. It is also possible that you are using half a decade old budget device and generating and varying a big map consisting dozens of 60x50 hexagons data layers can take tens of millions of calculations which can take more than a 1/10 of a second. If none of these tips help, send me an email detailing with your exact device model and steps you are doing. The challenge with ANR (Application Not Responding) type of issues is that most of the time Google cannot collect a bug report on these (as the device does not respond) and as a result I will never be notified of these - so I would really like to know if you are experiencing this.
Historical accuracy vs gameplay
I'm trying to balance out historical accuracy and good flow in the gameplay. This means that I sometimes tweak locations of cities and units to provide more engaging experience. Similarly, majority don't want unwinnable scenarios or too easy setups which don't offer proper challenge -- how many campaigns realistically fall into that sweet spot? In addition, it's not always easy to locate a unit on the map - for example American, German, British and French sources might each place the unit in different place before the battle starts. And the unit might well be split into dozen places, one regiment might be in completely different place, artillery is thrown elsewhere, HQ not even active yet and on rear area… so where do I mark this unit on the map? Decisions, decisions, decisions. Things are not made easier by the fact that sources like Wikipedia are sometimes dead wrong, and people really like to rely on it. Some listings (order of battle, etc) often rely on recent WWII books, which in turn are based on books published in the 1960s by historians who often have never visited Germany neither do they speak any German, and haven't had access to German archives. And to make things extra explosive, every single country of the roughly 200 on the planet have wildly different view on history - for example certain type of WWII books are not published in the US, while some countries outright ban every single book not taking the official view on the events of the past. So hold your horses if you think you have spotted something outrageous - I'm not trying to insult anybody or belittle any country - I'm just trying to create some entertainment here. And if I'm forced to create every soldier of every country a patriotic superhero who can tear tanks half with their bare hands, the end result is not going to please anybody or be very playable.
Why no Generals, Tactical Routes, in some games
In the early campaigns, which generally have smaller map, player could get excessive number of MPs by grouping several extra MPs from TMPs, several extra MPs by grouping Generals, add to that normal regular extra MPs, now add to that roads -- and you have a situation where a unit can move up to 10 hexagon each turn. If the width of the map is 20 hexagons, moving this much ruins the whole game, as player can seize the supply cities in just couple of turns. Clearly that makes no sense at all. The smaller the scale, the less funky complex interplaying features you can have, without opening up the nasty possibility that somebody starts the game 200 times to get an opening in the front line to march straight to enemy supply cities - creating such a great score in the Hall of Fame that it drives everybody crazy.
Why Different Paid and Free Versions
Firstly, in-app purchases (=buy full version option) work differently on different Android Stores so not having them makes management across all the different stores easier. Secondly, this way ratings don't get watered down by the big masses who don't like strategy games. Thirdly, in-app purchases have kind of a bad reputation these days, especially among strategy gamers who much rather rely on their intelligence than their wallet to achieve victories.
Why aren't all the changes listed on Store
Stores only give limited amount of characters to list the changes. This also explains why they often are written in such a crude English. For the better list of what's new in a release, check out the Change Log inside the app. If the version number is only increased by 0.0.0.2 then it is just an update including bug fixes and minor tweaks -- still worth updating -- not worth listing separately since there is limited amount of time available for me to explain every single color tweak so that the game works in some random Chinese tablet.
Does Change Log list all the edits
Change Log only includes noteworthy alterations and updates, plus new features. Out of roughly 20 tweaks, just 1 ends up in the Change Log, for the simple reason that large majority of these tweaks are insignificant and only apply to small percentage of users. For example shade of some colors on couple of icons might be tweaked a tiny bit so that they are not too bright on devices using certain type of display technologies. Clearly it is not worth my time to sacrifice a lot of time writing detailed public listings of such miniscule changes, especially remembering how few players bother to visit the Change Log or Guide. Sometimes a new feature is listed on Change Log, talked on Facebook Page, included in the Guide, app stores, etc, and I am still flooded with emails asking 'what has happened' - this does not encourage me to take time away from actual programming to write documentation which is rarely read. As an extra bonus, the more detailed documentation is, the sooner it is out of date, creating confusion - I just do not want to end up with a situation where the amount and quality of programming collapses because I have to be updating information online, on Change Log, on Guide, on unit type info, etc. And to make the maintenance of Change Logs extra hard, some new features turn out to be not-so-good in the long run, so they end up being removed, and running around app stores, change logs, guides, and emails correcting everything and editing references to something takes surprisingly huge amount of time as it would be nice if the remaining text would still make sense.
Are AI units suffering from the same traffic, terrain, weather, etc penalties
Units from both sides suffer from the same traffic, terrain, weather, etc MP penalties, but to keep the front line area of the map less messy and screen update (=drawing) process faster, notes of minor importance are not shown from AI units. For example, crowded section of the front line could easily have well over 10 traffic related unit notes drawn all over units and covering more important markers on the map. I'm trying to show more information as Unit Marekrs on the units themselves instead of drawing a text tag outside the unit, but even this can be off-putting if every single unit is filled with colorful markers. It is the eternal challenge of mobile development: How do you show gigantic amount of information on tiny space -- this is extra bad on strategy games where terrain layer often has crucial information too (rivers, bridges, etc).
Pricing: Have you tried price Z
Yes, I have run countless massive pricing tests over the years, and this current model is the best for my needs and resources. In addition, at lower prices the influx of players who have never ever played any strategy game is huge and I quickly get drowned in thousands of messages asking basic things (so this tank looking thing, is it an attack (what, who, how do you even start to answer to that)?), plus ratings start to fall as players are disappointed that you cannot just shoot everybody with a shotgun like you obviously should be able in the war game. In other words: Many other things matter, not just the total amount of money. And I like to think long term.
Why cannot I add replacement (+1 HP) to front line unit
1) In most time periods, when talking about integrating into bigger formations, replacements have only been added when unit it not in the middle of a fight. 2) Some players have used this as a way to cheat by pushing through with handful of units giving them 'endless' amount of MPs and HPs (that why there are various limitations). Which is not quite realistic in many ways. 3) Historically, when moving replacements from home land training grounds to front line, it is quick to move them near the front line (just place them on a train), but actually getting them to a unit which was fighting could sometimes delay this last movement even months. 4) I understand that everything really depends on what scale and what time period and what type of replacement you think of, but since the games running on this game engine cover hundreds of years and various unit sizes, I have to go with a rounded values and most generic valid logic.
How about adding and maintaining a forum
This is a great idea on the surface, especially if are have lived through the early days of the Internet and the glory days of the forums, however: Firstly, there already exists Facebook and Google+ Pages, secondly, running a traditional forum is a huge time and energy drain (yes, I have done that several times and it quickly wears you down): You have to constantly deal with spam, hate messages, arguments, repeating the same questions over and over, updating out of date information on older posts, creating the community by being constantly active, support and update the underlying software, not to mention either having to run the servers and software yourself or using some flaky ad-based free option out there. Plus some of the questions are inevitably such that they can only be answered by the developer, forcing me to spend a lot of my time on the forum instead of coding. And if I do not personally run the forum, then the trash there can hurt the ranking and reputation of this strategy game series. To put it bluntly: it is a gigantic amount of work on dozens of different levels, and I simply don't have time or energy to do that currently. Plus most players of the mobile strategy game are fairly private persons, not to mention on their mobile devices, so they are not likely to post any lengthy texts anywhere (unlike gamers on desktop environment).
Freemium, in-app purchases, ads
I do not like in-app purchases, as you have to design the whole game and experience around them -- instead I much rather focus on creating the best possible game I can. I do not appreciate ads as they destroy the visuals and take you out of the experience, kill your battery, and on niche apps ads make too little money to be a viable option. In general, I do not quite understand why would anybody want to use freemium app: your information is scraped and sold to data collecting firms, which sell it to companies like your insurance corporation, which then can mine the data to find reasons to increase your monthly payments, and in the long run that freemium costs you hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands over decades. And in any case, why should your insurance company get lot of money from an app it has nothing to do with?
There is a jump/drag when scrolling
To show maximum amount of information on the tiny screen, the map is always drawn on the screen with the logic that the upper-left-most hexagon will be fit into the view completely. What this means in practice, is that when you scroll the map, it jumps to the direction of the scrolling by one hexagon row/column at a time. Moving the map pixel by pixel would require a TON of drawing, and, the massive amount of processing to draw the screen even one time (units, their skill, their resources, terrain, weather, labels, notes, shadows, battle marks, movement arrows, victory point boxes, etc) would take a noticeable toll on the battery. Plus, once you start to use the NEXT-UNIT button, you'll just instantly get to the right center-of-the-screen view without having to scroll around the map.
About the next game (what, when)
I honestly do not know what the next project will be and when it will be ready. In any given week I'm working on several scenarios which are in various stages of development, and some are highly experimental. Sometimes a project goes surprisingly smoothly and suddenly there is a new balanced campaign ready, or you struggle 4 months trying to sort out major elements before they all settle together, and in some cases the end result just is not satisfactory and the whole undertaking goes into 'cold storage' waiting for a breakthrough idea, system improvements, or something which would make continuing working on that particular project sensible again. I have been burned on many occassions by making the mistake of saying something along the lines of 'Battle of Y will be out soon', and then 18 months later it is no closer of being ready -- that pains me because I really don't like making promises I cannot keep. And I do not want to publish anything I'm not happy to play myself, and which does not feel finished. There is enough pressure being an indie coder as it is, without me making promises and then stressing out because of them. Plus, components like more detailed supply, production, or naval movement can easily double the time of the creation process -- which immediately raises the stress levels because I cannot postpone releasing new games endlessly if I want to make living. So, things are advancing as quickly as it is humanly possible, but I understand that looking it from outside it sometimes might feel like it takes forever for a new game to emerge -- but just the maintenance of 20+ campaigns threatens to eat up all my time and energy.
Can you add sounds and music?
There are several challenges with audio: 1) Memory and processing power, there are limits how much one app can use memory. The biggest cause of troubles is already running out of space, adding huge audio files would just make that much much worse. 2) Where to get good sounds without paying through the nose. How to get right authentic sounds? 3) Most players don't want sounds (they play during commuting, etc) so it would be a huge time/energy/memory-usage undertaking to please very small segment. 4) Repetition is a killer: You play the 2-second sound clip of troops marching intolerable amount (50 units, 200 turns, 10 games = 100,000 plays). Some players have played Barbarossa for 7 years almost daily, those people would go mad. 5) Battery drain would be noticeable for constantly processing decent quality audio files. 6) The size of the APK file is very small both to download and on the device, adding sound-files would multiply the size. It is not a question of APK size being 1 percent of 10 percent bigger, we are talking about increasing the size by 5X or 20X. 7) Most devices have horrible speakers, and using headphones would consume even more battery. This is just one of those things that this is priority for a very very small percentage of players, and the amount of work and issues created for other players with budget devices would be too much.
Will there be other time periods (Rome, Vietnam, Modern Wars, etc)?
I would love to tackle different time periods, but it is a little bit troublesome for numerous reasons. I'm not as familiar with other wars/periods as WWII, so it means more research, which increases the financial risk. Plus the more I focus on WWII, the more I get fans who like WWII, so it is getting harder to stray away from that, the campaigns I have made from other periods have required a lot more work than WWII campaigns and sold much less than WWII ones (how much you would like to work for 1/4 of the normal pay for months?). Add to that the fact that graphics would have to be made from the scratch and that takes even more time, there are already competitors who have focused on certain type of games with loyal fans so it is very hard for me to make a push into established territory, and as extra bonus players used to different type of game engine have wildly different expectations from what I can offer. All those elements listed and many more combine to make it a surprisingly intimidating undertaking (double the work, 1/10 of the income). To sum it up: I really want to and plan to add campaigns from previous centuries, but I hope to have the game engine ready to create those campaign more easily and hopefully select one time period in which I can easily make some type of sustainable beachhead to expend from. I know it sometimes looks like nothing 'new' is happening, but lot of long term things are brewing under the hood to enable future expansions.
Is Conflict-Series coming to iOS?
I would love to develop for iOS but: After researching history, coding new games, maintaining the existing projects, handling all the business aspects, and dealing with all the communications I have barely minutes to spare in each day, which makes taking on another development environment highly unlikely at the present time. In addition to time and energy limitations, I would have to get a lot of hardware for the Apple development and testing, and master another programming language thoroughly to produce efficient code.
Can I transfer my saved game from FREE to FULL version?
Unfortunately, Free and Full versions are completely different applications, and for security reasons Android Operating System does not allow apps to access data created by another application. And moving the data via cloud is not practical since there is such a huge amount of information and some people have limited internet-data available, and some type of unique identifier or complex user accounts and security would have to be created to make this work. It is just not worth the trouble at the moment to add this massive component which would very rarely be used, when there are a lot of more pressing features and improvements to be worked on.
Some movement arrows disappeared after loading a saved game
To squeeze all the data into a as small file size as possible (nasty crashes with data loss can happen if the device runs out of storage space so this is a critical issue), a lot of optimizations and compressing is done to the data. As a result some of the movement arrow information (which is considered non-essential decorative data) might be lost when you exit the app and then continue the saved game. This allows relatively big jumps in the efficiency of the data compression.
I lost a saved game, or game tilting back to previous saved game stage
First of all, this is very rare, and you should see some type of dialog popping up informing you that something has gone wrong. If you see nothing, that is a bad sign. Most likely explanations: (1) Device is running out of either memory OR storage. Check both. (3) The game you tried to continued used such an old saved game format that it is no longer supported. If this happens you will see a dialog telling you that this happened. (4) Other apps jammed the system during the saving process and eventually the Operating System violently killed the saving process, corrupting the data beyond hope.
How can I print the guide?
If you want to print the guide or the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) or just read it on a bigger screen, send me an email and I might be able to eventually send a relatively up-to-date PDF file (this is not a top priority task for me, so crashes, etc are handled first). As of 2017-2018, I'm relocating the FAQ to the Conflict-Series website to be available as an HTML file, and I plan to rewrite and relocate the generic parts of the Guide information to an online HTML file as well. I understand that this is not a perfect solution, but it makes much more sense for me to maintain one file online rather than 40 separate ones in 40 campaigns, which might slightly differ from campaign to campaign and be critically out of date. So, the plan for the future is to have generic information online on a website and campaign-specific information on the application.
What is the logic with the unit selection in stack of units?
Units in the unit stack are selected one by one in the order they are in the memory. This is done both because of optimization and because it is impossible to know whether a player wants to select a unit with the most MPs, or most HPs, or least HPs to move them away immediately--so any chosen system would favor one situation and annoy in 10 other cases. In addition, if the order of selection is based on any changing attribute like MPs, then the order would jump around, confusing players. In some campaigns, it is possible to assign things to minefields, dugouts, etc., so they too must be kept in the selection loop in generic game engine rules (writing exception code for individual campaigns would make maintenance intolerable).
I cannot update my app or dog ate my app, can you send me the APK
First of all, all the updates are handled through the App Store for the very reason that I do not have to manually spend 20 hours figuring out the exact hardware on your device to send the correct version of the APK to tens of thousands of players. Secondly, how do I know you're not a pirate asking for the APK? It is very difficult to identify purchases with random emails since, for privacy reasons, we developers have very limited access to the information about purchases. Let's start from the beginning: What exactly, word for word, are you seeing when you try to update? What app store is it? What an app. What app version? What is the version of the Android OS you are on? What is the model of your device? A very long list of questions needs to be answered before I can even start the very first steps of helping you. The most likely explanation is that there is something wrong in the cache-files of the app store APK on the device. Go to the settings, Apps, select the app store app, clear its cache, and try to update the game after that. If that does not work, what do you see when you visit the app store via a desktop browser? Is it a different view than in the app store app? That might help you to figure out where the issue is: If the information is different, then your device will most likely keep showing old, out-of-date information, which prevents the update. You can wait, contact the app store folks, try to force the update via the up-to-date web-view. If there is no update-button but just a purchase-button in spite of the fact that you have already purchased the game, then make sure you are using the same exact Google account now as when you were purchasing the app in the first place (all your purchases are tied to your Google account). If you are 100% sure that you are using the correct account, just press that purchase-button. It should not charge you anything, but instead force the app store to update all the information, notice that you have already purchased this game, and let you update it. If you are in a different country, there might be some geo-blocking going on, so return to the right country. In addition, there are something like 14,000 physically different Android devices, and without knowing a lot about your device, I cannot just send you an APK, because it won't work without figuring out exactly what type of APK to send. If you have a really old device, it might no longer be supported by the app store, or by me, or some part of the underlying infrastructure.
I bought a mobile app from you, can you help me figure out what's wrong with my laptop
Unfortunately I'm a little light on the free excess time to help every single human being on the planet, plus, I'm not your personal technician on the call around the clock, so I regret to inform you that I cannot help with your generic tech problems, but I'm sure a search about the issue with relevant keywords will give you some ideas how to troubleshoot it or at least find contact information for somebody who fixes laptops in your area as their job.
Why are (especially supporting) units trickling in during the first 20 turns?
This, like pretty much everything else, serves dozens of different purposes: Firstly, to avoid overwhelming a new player with a huge number of units to move and countless different unit types to learn. Secondly, players who just want to get a quick idea of the campaign (to decide whether they want to buy the full game) can get a decent understanding of the flow and feel of the campaign without having to spend hours grinding through countless units and turns. Thirdly, campaigns with a huge number of units available during the first turns tend to scare away the most casual players, and reducing the number of units available initially helps this a lot as players are eased into the campaign. Fourthly, in many campaigns, the width of the front line increases as you advance, so you do not need that many units to begin with, but later on they are definitely needed to man the long front line. Fifthly, it gives a little bit more motivation for players to purchase the full version.
Could you add pinch-to-zoom
Update: There are zoom (+Z+) buttons on the upper-left corner of the screen. I have tried adding pinch-to-zoom a handful of times over the last half a decade, but it runs into a ton of problems on lower end devices: No multitouch support, no proper/correct multitouch support, re-scaling tons of images for each size-jump requires so much processing power that a quick pinch either jams, crashes, or messes everything up, even on medium-level devices, and because of the lag, you just end up moving 20 units every which way. Then there are practical issues (even when everything is working technically fine), like you might start your pinch from a non-unit hexagon but as sizes change during the zooming, you end up having touches over units. People just don't have any idea how many millions of calculations are carried out for each simple screen draw, and when you throw the scaling issues on top of that, it is an instant death unless you have a flagship device. Also, the floating Zoom buttons (-Z-, +Z+) on the upper-left corner of the game-screen provide quick and easy access to controlled zoom without the issues of fluid zooming through several sizes at too-quick speed. I'm also 'stuck' in a way that once I have built a fairly low-level code to handle hexagon-shaped touches over the years, the logic of that code goes against the way multi-touch pinch needs to be processed. All that being said, if I ever get around to making a big cut to my support of older versions of Android, I will give pinch-to-zoom another try since most of the issues would be less critical on newer devices running newer versions of the OS.
Why does the movement system (1 MP vs 2 MP for infantry) vary?
Over half a decade ago, I tested different movement systems which would cause many changes, like reducing the randomness of possibly losing 1 MP on the road or not, altering the ratios of speeds of different unit types (infantry vs motorized), changing the relative penalty of moving into difficult terrain, etc. Like with everything, there were dozens of good effects but even more bad ones, so most campaigns use 1 MP base cost and roads may or may not give free movements, and therefore the relative penalty of bad terrain is greater and motorized units are much faster (which is required to create the historically accurate gap between infantry and motorized units over the advance on longer distances). Unifying the movement system after all this time would require completely re-calculating everything in those campaigns, and as such, it's just not worth the effort.
What exactly are Ground Combat Units?
A ground combat unit is any unit that has the ability to move as well as the ability to lose HP in combat. Artillery, General, Air Force, Fuel Trucks, Supply Ships, etc unit types can move but they do not have HPs, which can be lost, so they are not ground combat units but supporting units. Supporting units can be attacked by the enemy and either pull back or be destroyed, plus they can be destroyed by being out of supply for too long.
Why dugouts can be only placed on province-border hexagons?
This serves many purposes, from forcing the player to spread units around to secure entire provinces and preventing the game play from turning into just stacks of units moving from city to city, to modelling how the larger scale defensive structures were built over a longer period of time. There are many physical and time scales you can think of when you think of building dugouts: Is it individual soldiers building dugouts with shovels or administrative action in which an army group hires tens of thousands of locals to supply resources and manpower to build defensive structures. In the latter case, clearly the locals won't cooperate much if their local province still has an enemy presence, and they much prefer to have the defenses built away from the actual village/town/city in the center of their province. Please understand that the game engine model needs to fit 10,000 BC and 10,000 AD scenarios plus 1 man and 1 billion men scenarios while being simple enough to work for non-native English speakers and support fluid game play and prevent cities from ending up with dozens of defenses in each one and spread units around, etc., hundreds of elements, so, like everything else, the current system is a rough compromise.
How do traffic jams or traffic fatigue work?
Traffic Jam: Ground combat units moving into a hexagon already occupied by another ground combat unit will experience an increase in fatigue (known as Traffic Jam). The traffic formula multipliers are: Infantry=1, Motorized/Artillery=2, Tanks/Armor=3. The traffic formula is the following: Unit-1-multiplier x Unit-2-multiplier x campaign-specific coefficient (usually 3) = percentage points added to fatigue. Example #1: Infantry moving on motorized: 1 x 2 x 3 = 6 points more fatigue. Example #2: Tank moving on motorized: 3 x 2 x 3 = 12 points more fatigue. Traffic rules are the same for both sides, but small traffic-related tags and notes are often not shown for AI units because they could easily fill up the entire screen in an area filled with units. Please note that attacking an enemy controlled hexagon does not add traffic fatigue; other fatigue penalties are most likely applied. The red FA marker shows units that are high in fatigue; after fatigue reaches 100 percent, the unit will carry out a relieve action between turns, meaning it will spend the number of MPs on that unit type to halve fatigue, which can be thought of as fractional MPs. Certain light support unit types, like generals, do not usually collect traffic fatigue. The First Aid resource can be used to reduce fatigue. Concentrating several armored units in a small area can lead to horrific traffic jams and skyrocketing fatigue that will noticeably slow the advance and reduce combat efficiency.
Why is the font on some pages so big?
Most people reading the FAQs and other documentation seem to arrive using small lower resolution mobile screens, and a fair proportion of the players are also elderly with limited eye sight (I almost automatically wrote 'air sight'), so I'm aiming to make sure that these pages work for those people by default, while tech savvy folks will resize the font in a second.
So is this game series called Conflict-Series or Joni Nuutinen series?
For the first years of publishing these campaigns, everything was 'branded' under the 'Conflict-Series', but then an update for one of the games, which had passed 8975985785 previous Play Store reviews successfully, was rejected by one reviewer on the grounds that during the last 8,000 years of human history there had already been a game published with a fairly kinda-sorta similar name, that included the word 'Conflict'. I realized that over the coming years, more and more of my games would eventually run into this ridiculous issue, and since there is no way to logically argue with the robots/folks carrying out these reviews based on strictly staring at the rules and not using any common sense, I started to shift towards using my name as the unifying branding factor behind this series in order to avoid any future issues. Of course, at this point I have an established domain and massive amount of old files and documentation, so I have not been able to completely leave the Conflict-Series name behind.
Why 'com.cloudworth.zzz' used as the app application/package ID?
A long, long time ago, me and some of my friends decided to get a very rare thing, called 'domain'. And because we were sharing it, we had to compromise on the name, which was a generic enough name that we could all live with. And since my very first app used that format, I have kept it ever since.
How to install Amazon App Store?
You can get all my apps via Amazon on ANY android device but first you need to install the Amazon App Store app on your device directly from Amazon. Here are instructions.
https://help.simpletelly.com/article/334-installing-the-amazon-app-store-on-your-android-device
Can I run your Android games on my PC/MAC?
Windows 11 will eventually support some/all Android apps via Amazon app store (Windows Central: How to get started with Android apps on Windows 11) or you can try to use Bluestack emulator (https://www.bluestacks.com/.
Known Issues:
+ Screen is moved and drawn by hexagons, so it might not seem particularly smooth when you drag it around, but this optimizes the number of full hexagons and information available at once.
+ Certain counters drawn on unit go only up to 99 as three-digit numbers would render too small on lower resolution screens (you usually can see the actual number by selecting unit and looking at the status line at the bottom of the screen). For example Fatigue shows XX when maxed out at 100 percent.
+ Variation of the initial location of the units has a lot of build-int safe fails, but it is possible that sometimes land unit is thrown into water and sails around the map and eventually when the time limits kick in to force a solution the unit can end up far away from the intended initial zone. If this happens more than once, definitely take a screenshot and let me know.
+ Sharing fuel if there are multiple (more than two) fuel using units in the same hexagon: Solving this edge case would require either complex menu structures of multiple menus and I really do want to keep the design clean and simple.
+ Settings are reset to zero. Some key settings are stored per-ongoing-game inside the saved game, so they won't be affected. There is probably some concurrent load-save issue. I have tried to block those, but it still might occassionally happen. It's tough to debug because it's so random.
Conflict-Series by Joni Nuutinen