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Russian Rant. - 5/15/2007 2:48:16 PM   
Didz


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I'm a bit annoyed at the minute. I've been very carefully familiarising myself with this game using the Russian faction as a test bed and so far I thought I was doing quite well.

I had managed to sort out my economy so that I was steadily building units, growing my population and developing my infra-structure, and I had managed to suss-out the supply system so that my four armies were almost free from attrition and battle ready.

The only slight concern I had was that so far my attempts at diplomacy had universally failed. Both Austria and Prussia had flatly refused to allow my troops to cross their borders despite being attacked by France and so my Army had been forced to remain on alert along the border and watch the struggle. Nevertheless the Event Log suggested that France was getting a good thrashing with a steady list of defeats and heavy losses from Austria, Prussia and Britain.

It was a bit of a surprise therefore when first Austria then Prussia surrendered, apparently without losing a significant battle. Nevertheless, I was not too concerned my army was in good shape and the surrender of Austria even allowed me to annex Gallicia to increase my production of luxuries.

The Russian Army was deployed along the border and ready to go:

1st Army (Alexander)24000 Foot, 14000 Cavalry, 3000 Art in Gallicia
2nd Army (Kutuzov) 22000 Foot, 12000 Cavalry, 3000 Art in Volhynio
3rd Army (Bagration)17000 Foot, 11000 Cavalry, 6000 Art in Lodomeria
4th Army (Platov) 46000 Foot, 9000 Cavalry in Podolia

So, basically I had 156,000 troops under arms and ready to fight, so I was reasonably confident I could put up a good show, even if the Grande Army appeared in full strength.

What actually happened next was not what I expected, which is fine, up to a point.

What actually happened was that instead of a massive French Army coming over the horizon and smashing into my troops. Three rather small French armies suddenly appeared hugging the North Prussian coastline. The leading army (6-7 dots) marched rapidly into Kovno and laid seige to my fortress whilst the other two 5-6 dots each hung back just over the Prussian border.

I was surpised but not really worried. These armies were smaller than each of mine and so it was merely a case of marching north releiving my fortress at Kovno and driving them back across the border. So, my armies marched north heading for Kovno, but following different paths to maximise their foraging capability.

The French as if anticipating the battle to come concentrated their three armies in Kovno abandoning their lines of communication and a group of POW's. My armies also concentrated across their lines of communication and liberated the POW's.

The scene was now set for the big battle, with the French outnumbered and unsupplied facing my superior army with full supply depots.

Or so I thought.

What happened next was just ridiculous. The French now without any supply line decided to march the full distance from Kovno to Moscva in one turn. Bypassing all my fortresses and detroying as much of my infrastructure as they could on the way and leaving my Army to occupy Kovno with hardly any opposition.

Again I was surprised, but I figured. they are French so what do you expect. And ordered my army to follow the line of destruction to Moscva whereupon we would teach them the importance of protecting your LOC. So, a turn or two later I am once more poised for the big battle. The French Army are now even weaker than before and are down to 3 dots each due to attrition. Platov's Cossacks get overexcited and the 4th Army engages them seperately and without support giving them a nasty bloody nose, 5,000 casualties for 2,000 losses before withdrawing voluntarily during the night to regroup for the big battle.

Then, just as I'm about to wipe the floor with these French upstarts I get a message from the Game telling my that 'Insurrectionists have forced me to surrender to the French'

WTF: My army was still intact, the French were about to go down big time and some abitary trigger has called 'time out' to save them. At least when Napoleon captured Moscow he had already beaten the Russian Army soundly a Borodino and come with a full army not a few left-overs from Bavaria, but even then the Russians didn't sue for peace just becuase he turned Moscow into a bonfire.

I quit the game in disgust, who the hell are these limp wristed insurrectionsts anyway?

< Message edited by Didz -- 5/15/2007 2:56:33 PM >


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Didz
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RE: Russian Rant. - 5/15/2007 8:27:00 PM   
anarchyintheuk

 

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As it's just been illustrated for you, your capital can never be allowed to fall. Whether it falls in a realistic manner or not.

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RE: Russian Rant. - 5/16/2007 1:13:12 AM   
Didz


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Except of course that historically the Moscow did fall, and was burned to the ground but Russia did not surrender. The other point worth noting is that Moscow was not the true capital of Russia, the main administrative centre was St.Petersburg.

It annoys me that Russia is denied the same advantages that existed historically and that the AI seems to be excused those same restrictions imposed on the player.I've fought this part of the campaign again since and this time managed to force a favourable battle and disperse the French Army only to have the game interupt and declare time out on my army and force it too rout. We then had the ridiculous situation of the French running one way and the Russians the other, with victory being awarded to French becuase they ran slower.

< Message edited by Didz -- 5/16/2007 1:31:31 AM >


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RE: Russian Rant. - 5/16/2007 10:15:27 AM   
jkBluesman


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The AI will always go for the capital and take the shortest way. Sometimes your nation may survive one turn after its capital fell in enemy hands, but most of the time it does not.

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RE: Russian Rant. - 5/16/2007 11:51:27 AM   
Didz


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Well I think I'm going to take a break from Crown and Glory.  It seems to me that the game goes to great lengths to model some aspects of gameplay and then runs out of idea's when it gets to others.  I certainly don't like the way the programmer has chosen to interupt my game to arbitarily dictate the outcome of my campaign or battle on the basis of some simple trigger like the capture of a location or the time elapsed since the start of a battle.  As the player I should be in control of my country not the guy who wrote the code.

Its the same reason I stopped playing Uncommon Valour, I basically want to play the game not learn how to avoid the programmer.


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Didz
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RE: Russian Rant. - 5/16/2007 11:16:22 PM   
oliver


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It is long ago I played the game, but I believe to remember that your "insurrectionist" are the result of a low national morale. This "national morale" in soem way represents the public opinion of a nation, and sometimes confronts us with the interdependence of military and politics. Of course, it is a very simple abstraction from "reality", but for me, it adds to the flavour of the game,

Each turn an enemy is in possession your capital, your national morale will go down heavily, but you can lift it by victories, lower taxes and mightbe other actions - I remember to have seen somewhere a detailed list of good and bad effects and how much they contribute. Somewhere in the game, you can also check your national morale level.

Cheers,

Oliver

< Message edited by oliver -- 5/16/2007 11:18:24 PM >


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RE: Russian Rant. - 5/17/2007 12:27:36 AM   
Didz


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Sounds more like the sort of concept I'd expect in a WW2 game to me.  Russia in 1805 was not a democracy and the Tzar didn't need popular approval for his decisions.  As for insurrectionists I think their about 100 years early.

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Didz
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RE: Russian Rant. - 5/17/2007 12:46:01 AM   
oliver


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Replace the "insurrectionists" by "enraged noblemen" and it will be more correct. Or not.

After all it is just a game which tries to mingle military and politics.

Cheers,

Oliver


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RE: Russian Rant. - 5/17/2007 11:19:50 AM   
Didz


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Hmm! well at the moment its proving pretty difficult to play with all this programmer interference. I've just tried again on the 'easy' setting in the hope that it would reduce the railroading but I still found I wasn't allowed to win a battle against the French even though I had routed their entire army and some of mine were still fresh and uncommitted. Damned annoying when units that haven't even seen a Frenchman yet decide to rout just because the program wants the French to win.

I get the impression that this will be an enjoyable game if I can just find out how to modify these features so that the programmer stops interfering in the game play.

< Message edited by Didz -- 5/17/2007 11:25:14 AM >


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RE: Russian Rant. - 5/30/2007 5:40:48 AM   
GalacticOrigins

 

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Aye, the AI will force march or get to the capital in any way possible.

In this era of warfare, having a solid line of armies at the front border is not going to work. Basically, I leave a strong force at my capital at all times. Then, I use other armies to either blunt the enemy coming in and win easy victories or go for the enemy capital. I usually only take provinces from the enemy if they are on my way to the enemy capital or I have a surplus of armies.

Whoever gets the enemy capitol first has a serious advantage. This 'all or nothing for the capitol' was an overall feeling of the times for national honor. It can also be seen in the surrender of France in 1940, when they still had a decent force available. If I am in a war that I am not ready for, I just go straight for the enemy capitol.

The AI will do the same, and there is very little you can do to stop them from coming in. You must win the battles at the capitol but a defensive stance is not always giong to work either. Especially against France, they are just too strong.

The 1805 scenario is kinda hard, since France has very good troops and many armies. They actually need to take casualties since otherwise they have economic problems. Their morale is great. In that scenario, or any other, I usually declare war on France along with the rest of Europe to force the French Nobles to come to terms. I have seen France surrender when they (the AI) thinks it is vastly outnumbered by enemy makor powers.

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RE: Russian Rant. - 5/30/2007 1:08:02 PM   
Didz


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Whats lacking is any recognition of the concept of 'the fleet in being'.  Napoleon recognised that to obtain an enemies surrender one first had to neutralise or destroy their feild army.  As was proven in Russia merely capturing a city, even a capitol is not enough to force the enemy to surrender if they still have a viable army to fight with, therefore his primary objective was NOT to capture their capital but to destroy their army.  That concept seems to be overlooked in this game.

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RE: Russian Rant. - 8/8/2007 8:55:26 PM   
ericbabe


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Napoleon really only occupied Moscow for the equivalent of only 1 COG game turn -- as I recall, Moscow was only occupied for 5 weeks.  It would be possible for a Russian COG player starting with even modest levels of National Morale to survive without Moscow for that long, or even longer.

We considered a rule that allowed Russia to avoid the National Morale loss from having its capital occupied, but many of our testers thought that Russia is already one of the easier nations to play and so didn't need this rule.



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