Anthropoid
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Joined: 2/22/2005
From: Secret Underground Lair
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ericbabe
I don't think of it as teleportation but more like strategic movement. I've played a lot of table games that have strategic movement rules -- even for 18th century units -- and so these sorts of rules don't seem that unusual to me. I can see how they might be unusual if one hasn't seen these types of rules before.
The vacating of armies from conquered nations solves a number of things that would otherwise be issues in the game -- the most significant being that of trapped units. Say a French corps is in British Malta when Britain surrenders to France. Even if the French are violating British territory, a French fleet still cannot enter Malta to pick up the French corps there. The corps is stuck there.
When Hard Sarge recommends playing early versions of COG1 -- before we added this sort of rule -- I believe what he's saying is that people who complain about the side-effects of the vacating rule now ought to compare those side effects to those of the game without this rule. The issues you're describing now are very mild compared to the actual game-play problems the game had before we added this system.
Yeah I can definitely see how it is legitimately thought of as strategic movement. That is a very common game device, and not unrealistic on the whole. Just means fast movement as a result of unconstrained logistics, and no demands from combat or some such.
I can also see how NOT having them vacate would produce even worse problems.
Maybe there is a kind of middle ground that could be coded without too much hassle in patch though?
1. Allow players the choice of whether or not they want to move a unit(s)
2. Allow players to move each container separately.
3. Move the units on the map during a special strategic movement phase, instead of just having them "teleport"
Maybe coding all that would be a real bugbear? But if if could be done, it would combine the best of both worlds. Players who want to play 'more realistically' would get the chance to do so every time there was a surrender, and at point (1) leave them inside neutral territory if they want to, and take the hit from breach of neutrality if they want to. At point (2) players could move each container to a different province if they want, thus not having them all dogpile in one province. At point (3) players would understand that it was 'post-surrender' strategic movement, and not just 'teleporting.'
If some wiseguy leaves units in Cyprus after the war like the problem you mention Eric, then nobodies fault but his own.
But again, maybe too hard to code?
As a shirker of my own beta-testing, erm, 'duties' . . .  I can only imagine that fine-tuning of stuff like this is the least of a team's concerns when what they are trying to do is get a product to market. As someone said, there are always patches. In this case, we are talking about (maybe, assuming devs agree it is worth doing and is doable) a slight tweak for the sake fine-tuning, not major overhauls to make the game playable.
Just wanted to say that to clear the air a bit.
I don't get the impression there is a single one of us on here who is currently an active poster who has ANY serious criticism of the game. As the one guy said, "It is a triumph," and it most definitely IS a triumph. To me, one of the best strategy games ever, at least a 9/10 maybe higher . . . though having only played from 1792 to 1796 in a grand campaign, I need to reserve judgement on whether I would call it a 9.5 or a 9.75. I had played 3 or 4 games (all starting 1792 and as France) through a year or so to figure it out, and now I'm on an actual Diff setting campaign that I intend to finish. I _HAD_ been feeling like the AI was a bit of a pushover, but in the last year, he has surprised me quite a bit, so I'm going to withdraw that implication altogether. AI for a game that does not run on a supercomputer is never gonna be as challenging as a human, which for me is always a slight annoyance because I find PBEMs just too slow and cumbersome most of the time. But this AI seems to be well-balanced and resourceful. A well-designed game can compensate for an AI that is actually pretty simplistic algorithmically by anticipating ongoing game dynamics and programming some of those simple algorithms in ways that can create challenges for the player. From what I've seen so far, WCS HAS achieved that here quite well!
I know some guys have been trying out all kinds of different starting times, and different nations and stuff, and that is of course fine. But to me, the game was primarily designed as a simulation of Napoleon's explotis, and so for me, for now, I'm focusing on finishing one complete long campaign as France on a fairly challening difficulty level. I'll reserve 'trying out' all the sub-possibilities until later. After all, the game has only been for sale for a couple months, right!?
I consider some of these issues that guys have brought up as 'criticisms' ALL quite minor, and for me, not in any way spoiling game play. Minor annoyances? Sure, but with any complex strategy game there are always going to be slight tweaks to be done even after the best, most extensive design and beta-testing.
I applaud WCS and the beta-testers for an incredible work of art! 
< Message edited by Anthropoid -- 4/4/2009 3:40:12 PM >
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