Map error and other thougts about Sweden

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Empires in Arms the Napoleonic Wars of 1805 - 1815 >> Map error and other thougts about Sweden

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Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 4/11/2006 1:33:25 AM

Hasse

Posts: 2
Joined: 3/25/2006
Status: offline

Hello, scince im from Sweden, i care about the map errors in Sweden.
It would be nice to have them corrected when i buy the game.

1. Stockholm is not positioned right. It should actually be in the wooded are to the upper righr of its current position. And yes, it is then above the iceline, which is correct.
2. Norrkoping is actually situated in the province where Stockholm is in the curent map.
3. Gothenburg was (and is) Swedens largest port, so it should have a port on the map. According to this site concerning Napoleons Continental system http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Heckscher/hksrCS12.html
the Gothenburg harbour could house 1200 ships in 1808.
4. On hard winters it was actually possible for armies to pass, on the ice, between the Abo land area and the land area in sweden where the sea area divisor from Abo attatches to the mainland. This was made by the Swedish general Dobeln (bringing around 4000 men) in 1809 and he was pursued by the Cossack general Kulneff. Could this be handled by an optional rule? This should be valid for the stated provinces only, scince it is made possible by the Aland island arcipelago, that is not printed on tha map. It was not possible to travel between any other provinces across the ice in these days.

Yours Hasse. Go Sweden Go.

Post #: 1

RE: Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 4/11/2006 1:39:31 AM

Rosen

Posts: 11
Joined: 9/24/2005
Status: offline

Hasse

Dont forget Swedish Pommerania...

Niklas

(in reply to Hasse)

Post #: 2

RE: Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 4/11/2006 10:57:14 PM

Hoche

Posts: 491
Joined: 11/30/2002
Status: offline

Have you played EiA? The Matrix game is a computer adaptation of the board game. So Matrix needs to stay true the original map, errors and all.

_____________________________

It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
-Edmund Burke

(in reply to Rosen)

Post #: 3

RE: Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 4/12/2006 1:30:53 PM

YohanTM2

Posts: 1143
Joined: 10/7/2002
From: Toronto
Status: offline

Don't know that I agree with that Hoche, clear errors can be corrected. If you pop over to the WiF forum you will see that some changes are being made to the map where clear errors exist, and IIRC, the majority are in Scandanavia. I guess Australia was so far away Harry could not see it correctloy.

(in reply to Hoche)

Post #: 4

RE: Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 4/12/2006 3:36:12 PM

donkuchi19

Posts: 1062
Joined: 3/14/2004
From: Cleveland, Ohio
Status: offline

On an Australian map, Sweden is on the bottom. That makes for lots of errors.

(in reply to YohanTM2)

Post #: 5

RE: Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 4/14/2006 8:54:54 PM

Murat

Posts: 803
Joined: 9/17/2003
From: South Carolina
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hoche

Have you played EiA? The Matrix game is a computer adaptation of the board game. So Matrix needs to stay true the original map, errors and all.

EXACTLY. To make some of those changes would actually affect playability:

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hasse

Hello, scince im from Sweden, i care about the map errors in Sweden.
It would be nice to have them corrected when i buy the game.

I am from the US and we are not even on the map - we are represented abstractly through the British having a Colonial Fleet and through American trade (which I guess is what our little part in helping Nappy is worth)

quote:

1. Stockholm is not positioned right. It should actually be in the wooded are to the upper righr of its current position. And yes, it is then above the iceline, which is correct.
2. Norrkoping is actually situated in the province where Stockholm is in the curent map.

This affects playability by making Stockholm a wooded land instead of cleared land. Also I would argue it is accurate for it to be "clear" when you look at what it takes for an area to be wooded on the rest of the map - fairly dense forest, not cleared settlements.

quote:

3. Gothenburg was (and is) Swedens largest port, so it should have a port on the map. According to this site concerning Napoleons Continental system http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Heckscher/hksrCS12.html
the Gothenburg harbour could house 1200 ships in 1808.

You would need to eliminate another port in its place to prevent altering the balance and number of ports.

quote:

4. On hard winters it was actually possible for armies to pass, on the ice, between the Abo land area and the land area in sweden where the sea area divisor from Abo attatches to the mainland. This was made by the Swedish general Dobeln (bringing around 4000 men) in 1809 and he was pursued by the Cossack general Kulneff. Could this be handled by an optional rule? This should be valid for the stated provinces only, scince it is made possible by the Aland island arcipelago, that is not printed on tha map. It was not possible to travel between any other provinces across the ice in these days.

Crossing arrow.

quote:

Yours Hasse. Go Sweden Go.

It's a shame Finland did not take hockey gold from you to keep your hubris down and prevent you from nitpicking on a game that has already been delayed too long

Yes, there are errors in the game. I doubt they will changed in this version. Once you get the game feel free to play with it and make all the modifications your heart desires once you get express written consent from the game devs to mess with their code

(in reply to Hoche)

Post #: 6

RE: Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 5/10/2006 6:51:53 PM

j-s

Posts: 76
Joined: 3/18/2003
From: Finland
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Murat

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hasse

Yours Hasse. Go Sweden Go.

It's a shame Finland did not take hockey gold from you to keep your hubris down and prevent you from nitpicking on a game that has already been delayed too long

Agree

(in reply to Murat)

Post #: 7

RE: Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 5/10/2006 11:29:52 PM

Hard Sarge

Posts: 22741
Joined: 10/1/2000
From: garfield hts ohio usa
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hoche

Have you played EiA? The Matrix game is a computer adaptation of the board game. So Matrix needs to stay true the original map, errors and all.

Man that is a interesting idea

remake the game, but don't worry about any of the errors in the game, since there were there before, everyone expects them to stay ?

I am the project leader for BoB to BTR, Matrix verison, I don't think there is a single plane that is the same as it was in the stock verison of the game, bombs were changed, fuel system were changed, raid plotting was changed, besides other things

sure would of made things easy, if everyone expected us to leave all the old errors in the game, since they were there to start with

sorry, was not trying to make a plug

but to my thinking, if the Cap of a nation is in the wrong place, it should be fixed, if other things on the map are wrong, they should be fixed

_____________________________

(in reply to Hoche)

Post #: 8

RE: Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 5/11/2006 10:38:45 PM

YohanTM2

Posts: 1143
Joined: 10/7/2002
From: Toronto
Status: offline

I agree they should be fixed and if you pop over to the WiF forum and search Sweden you will find that the Scandinavia maps are indeed being reworked due to errors.

And it is an ADG game as well so I am sure Harry is OK with it.

(in reply to Hard Sarge)

Post #: 9

RE: Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 5/15/2006 11:23:21 PM

Hasse

Posts: 2
Joined: 3/25/2006
Status: offline

Hello fellow Wargamers.
Thank You(han) and Hard sarge. I was so bored by the first answers that i had to cheer up myself by designing my own computer game on the American civil war.
To improve the playability i moved Washington to Texas, replaced Stonewall Jackson with Jeanne dArc, and changed the setting to 1220 B.C.
Strangely, durig playtesting, the Mesopotamians almost always gets beaten up by the Vikings (very playable, the vikings, due to their ICBM:s) before anyone even discovers America and founds Washington in Texas. We all know what happens then...by 1210 B.C the Vikings have conquered the Milky way.
I am now designing other galaxies to see if this will improve the chance for Washingtons foundation.
In the cold

Hasse

(in reply to YohanTM2)

Post #: 10

RE: Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 5/16/2006 6:49:20 PM

hlj

Posts: 83
Joined: 3/19/2004
Status: offline

You are right that Stockholm is not placed where it actualy is.

But I don't think there is any reason to move Stockholm anywere. It was clearly put there for game design reasons. And not to be historicaly accurate.

I think the developers of the board game placed Stockholm below the ice line to enable a naval landing in the area regardless of the season, and to ensure that Sweden shouldnt be the only minor country (exept Finland the secondary district of Sweden) with its capitol in a wooded area.

I could with the same logic as you use say that Lord Nelson should be removed in october 1805 as he died then, but for game design reasons he isnt.

To call irregularities in the map or forces errors are wrong, they are not errors they are game balancing changes, I belive that all down to the forage values of the land areas are the result of game designers balancing playability vs history.

Your comment about a game on the american civil war is totaly out of proportions. If you instead had made a general survive to the end of the war despite his historical death and moved Austin 20 miles south to ensure that it wasnt the only state capital in a forested area, then you would have made changes in line with what have been made in EIA.

Regards
HLJ

(in reply to Hasse)

Post #: 11

RE: Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 5/23/2006 3:49:20 AM

Murat

Posts: 803
Joined: 9/17/2003
From: South Carolina
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hasse

Hello fellow Wargamers.
Thank You(han) and Hard sarge. I was so bored by the first answers that i had to cheer up myself by designing my own computer game on the American civil war.
To improve the playability i moved Washington to Texas, replaced Stonewall Jackson with Jeanne dArc, and changed the setting to 1220 B.C.
Strangely, durig playtesting, the Mesopotamians almost always gets beaten up by the Vikings (very playable, the vikings, due to their ICBM:s) before anyone even discovers America and founds Washington in Texas. We all know what happens then...by 1210 B.C the Vikings have conquered the Milky way.
I am now designing other galaxies to see if this will improve the chance for Washingtons foundation.
In the cold
Hasse

Link it so we can all see your awesome game design ability and compare it to EiA.

Also map is an ABSTRACT view of Sweden which obviously does not have that forest line with the straight edge coast.

ALSO: Look! A map of Sweden from 1805! http://68.178.150.41/htdocs/zoom/17380.htm.

FINALLY: Did some research on historical Sweden and compared to the rest of the map, you should be happy they are even showing Stockholm and it's 75,000 people compared to how many larger cities were left off the map due to abstraction (not to mention your "ports" which are dwarfed by the ports of the majors during this period).

(in reply to Hasse)

Post #: 12

RE: Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 5/30/2006 2:52:34 AM

Regeurk

Posts: 24
Joined: 11/17/2004
From: Denver, Colo.
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: hlj

I belive that all down to the forage values of the land areas are the result of game designers balancing playability vs history.

Regards
HLJ

While I definitely agree that many of the components and aspects of EiA must remain at a relatively abstract level for playability reasons, etc., I'm not sure I agree with your one comment, hlj, about every aspect, including the forage values of every province, being intentionally calculated and conciously adjusted by the designers. While I am not proposing wholesale changes, and almost find myself agreeing with Hoche in saying that "errors" in the original game ought to be preserved in the computer version to retain the game's integrity; yet I would like to point out one problem I have always had, at least while playing Prussia:

For a corps to autoforage in its home country during Winter, it must be alone in a province with a 4 forage value or higher, and not have moved (4+3 [unused m.p.] +1 [home territory] -2 [Winter] = 6). In Prussia there are only 3 provinces with forage values exceeding 3: Warsaw, Glogau, and Breslau (all 4's). So it is impossible to put Prussian forces into "Winter Quarters" and have them autoforage (and in the 1792 campaign, where Prussian forces suffer from an additional -2 in foraging, it's impossible for Prussia to autoforage EVEN IN SPRING/SUMMER/FALL!).

I seriously doubt that the designers actually intended for Prussia to be so incapable of autoforaging, and to force it to be a spendthrift in terms of depot supply, even when the corps sit and do nothing during peace-time.

In many games I am in, we add a house rule that Prussia (only) gets a +2 for the home nation foraging modifier, in order to allow 3-value provinces to sustain autoforaging in winter.

I suspect more than a couple of you will disagree with me, but I look forward to reading your comments, if I have indeed engendered any debate!

Regeurk (any other EiA-gamers in Colorado, by the way? I haven't been in a face-to-face game for decades!

)

(in reply to hlj)

Post #: 13

RE: Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 5/31/2006 1:38:07 AM

hlj

Posts: 83
Joined: 3/19/2004
Status: offline

You might be right but I think that prussias good corps, lousy forrage values and bad income is a combination made to:

1.encurage england to pay money to prussia.
2.encurage prussia to seek an alliance with austria and get allowance to forrage corps in austria.
3. make prussia feel that it would be nice to attack austria to take home nation provinces from her if he doesnt get the deal in 2.
4. gives Prussia diplomatic good-will as any player can relate to how irritating it would be to have to pay for your troops 3 months of the year or have a chance of a factor dying.

Prussia is a totaly dependent major power in EIA, if prussia doesnt spend the majoraty of the game cooperating with other powers, then they have no chance of winning.(same is true for most of the other major powers)

That said, I have yet to se a prussian army that wasnt build to the maximum within 6 months of them first having enough manpower to do it. And I have NEVER seen a Prussian corps forced to forage due to lack of funds anywere but deep into french home nation, and that is poor invasion planning.

I have however seen a crippled prussia not having its army up to full strength again when france came for the seccond time, even though he had the manpower to do it.

If Prussia doesnt get money and dont want to pay for forrage it has options.
Lets say the prussian army is full
Three prussian corps can autoforage in winter time. The six others have to forrage at 5
If each of those 6 corps contain 3 millitia at the start of winter then nothing but millitia can die in the forrage.
If he pays for them he have to create 2 depots: cost 2 gold
pay for 6 corps for a duragion of 3 months: cost 18 gold
Pay for maintainence of the 2 depots in one economic phase: cost 2 gold
Total cost 22 gold

During the winter an avarage of 3 millitia will die from starvation if all remaining 6 corps forage.
That is a total cost of 6 manpower.
I normaly rate one manpower worth 2 gold... With Prussias low income it is my experience that he needs more cash than manpower. So I would forage winters in peacetime this way, paying the price in manpower rather than gold. You would have to make 6 rolls of 6 with 18 dice for it to be worth wile paying for the corps if we calculate one manpower being worth two gold.

I think that not having the capacity to autoforage in the winter gives Prussia more than it takes. He looks weaker, but in reality he should be able to either get more than the gold it costs from GB and/or (depends on how much extra gold he can get) pay the price in blood(manpower) without weakening himself.
A skilled diplomat should furthermore be able to use it to his advantage that he looses 2-4 factors each winter by getting other deals than pure monitary deals.

Regards HLJ

< Message edited by hlj -- 5/31/2006 1:43:39 AM >

(in reply to Regeurk)

Post #: 14

RE: Map error and other thougts about Sweden - 6/22/2006 6:05:40 PM

Regeurk

Posts: 24
Joined: 11/17/2004
From: Denver, Colo.
Status: offline

Thanks for the reply. Lots of very good food for thought. I agree entirely with your strategy of placing militia in the corps that must forage through the Winter, in order to absorb any bad die rolls, and that this more than compensates for the money that would have to be otherwise spent.

I still, however, feel that Prussian forage values, on the whole, are too low. I used to live in Germany for 3 years (while I was doing my Masters' Degree), and while I was there, the wall came down (I lived there 1988-1991), and I travelled extensively through the former East Germany -- because it was possible for a Westerner for the first time in 50 years! -- and I found the countryside green and fertile. And Winters, because of the near presence of the Baltic Sea, are not terribly harsh. This all leads me to believe that the forage values (at least Berlin, and those provinces immediately surrounding Berlin -- which would have been the ones I saw) are undervalued. Now, you may be right, that the game designers made them intentionally low, in order to force Prussia into many of the things you listed. But I seriously have my doubts about that, and suspect it was simply a small flaw that I have chosen to mitigate by my small addition of +1 to Prussia's home-nation forage modifier.

Anyway, a very engaging conversation. Thanks!

Regeurk

(in reply to hlj)

Post #: 15