Zaratoughda
Posts: 714
Joined: 11/15/2008 From: NE Pa, USA Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: IronWarrior Ironically these criticisms are making me even more interested in this game. I only play against the AI to learn a game and I don't mind the slower pace of pbem, nor do I want absolute and total control over everything. The C&C rules really sound interesting. With the Tiller's games I set Defensive fire on and didn't mind the extra turns. Maybe this game can fill the void for a good tactical game that was left when I quit playing Tiller's games. The straw that broke the back for me in those titles was artillery consistently firing to no effect at hex range of one, or a turn where 5 battalions in line formation charging 5 routing battalions in the rear lost all but one engagement, cavalry worth too many VP's and cannot be used effectively nor historically, square formation too effective against line in melee... etc etc. Hopefully HnM is more realistic and not too much like the Tiller's games. I bought a couple of Tiller's games.... and got really turned off. It seemed things weren't going like they should so I did some testing and found if you broke a unit down into like 4 units they did 2.5x the amount of damage and took around 2.5x LESS morale and readiness loss. In other words, the game system was totally unbalanced in favor of smaller units (yeah, posted some nasty words on that here in this forum and got yelled at <g>). The thing that is most impressive about Dave Erickson's design is that it does a very good job about differentiating between line infantry and other types. Though there are improvements that can be made, very good and much better than the HPS games in this regard. However... as far as the AI is concerned.... Bill Sherman did a full set of HnM scenarios for the FIW and the ARW, and I wrote a program that converted them to HnM2:PWM. But, a very basic test of games along these lines is the battle of Guildford Courthouse and the North Carolina militia. These troops.... lol..... were some of the most ill-trained in the history of warfare. What Greene got out of them were two volleys and then they ran.... never to be seen again in that battle, in that campaign, and in fact never again in the war <g>. So, if as the British you can't get by the two lines of NC militia in Guildford.... you are doing real, REAL (!) bad and.... in HnM2..... the AI got by the first line but got stopped by the second. :-( But, in the HPS game.... didn't even get by the first line (sheesh). Imagining Cornwallis getting captured by the NC militia is almost unbelievable. So, the AI in these games is not very good. Bad and worse. Zaratoughda P.S. Oh, I modded the HPS Fort Necessity scenario so that it played out reasoanably by combining small units into larger ones so that all units were within 2x, and was able to WIN the Battle of Fort Necessity as George Washington (!). This only made sense given the AI's tendency to throw it's units in piecemeal attacks but, at least it was reasonable to that degree. P.S.2. Oh, one thing I should say about the HPS games... they seem to have done a good job on the OOBs. Maybe use as reference for scenarios in other games.
< Message edited by Zaratoughda -- 6/18/2009 4:38:18 PM >
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