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Frustration is off the chart - 1/1/2016 1:33:40 AM

Lucky77777

Posts: 13
Joined: 1/1/2016
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I have been playing wargames since 1982. I have never been so frustrated as I am with this game.

I am just trying to play the Waterloo scenario so I can learn the mechanics.

I have many issues so I'll just start listing them as I remember them.

1) Automated update to newest version does not work. This times out every time with unable to download file An error occurred while trying to open an ftp file. This has happened over the last two days and my internet connection is up and working.

2) Save game function makes no sense. Can not load a turn I just saved. The file naming is complicated for no apparent reason.
my save folder has directories named "1 - 1815 Waterloo "with numbers appended to the end like "1 - 1815 Waterloo0" inside each directory is another set of directories called "backup1" "backup2" etc... I currently have 5 of these waterloo directories with multiple backups in each. When I go to reload a turn I have only 5 choices. I calculate that I should have at least 20 save games. Why can't I name my save game something that makes sense to me and then be able to load that game? I really want to be able to do this to learn the game. How else do you learn what is the best way to play?

3) I have read the manual twice. I cannot find any explanation to the battle choices other than you must make them. Nothing describing what is the best response to enemy choices is in the manual or on the web.

4) In one of my turns it appears that I captured an enemy battery; I think great lets put it in one of my corps. Cant't do a thing with it. It just moves around on its own.

5) Tried to manually download and install the beta version 1.02. This fails because directory structure is not the same. I tried to manually copy over the correct files but I must have done something wrong because when I run the game it shows the version as 1.00

6) Detailed results page does not really explain what happened. Why for example did only 15K of the 60k troops engage in combat? Did they fail some activation? Why did some of the troops march to the sound of the guns others did not? Did the battle choices I chose help or hinder the battle? It is currently so either complicated or simplified to the point I can not determine which of my decisions is helping me or hurting me.

Post #: 1

RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/1/2016 9:16:13 AM

loki100

Posts: 10920
Joined: 10/20/2012
From: Utlima Thule
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ok, here's some suggestions.

First - have a look at the short notes in the War room, that may help you a lot with march to the sound of the guns etc.

Battle plans aren't in the manual in detail as they tend to change a lot in the patching process. The effect is broadbrush rather than detailed. So look at the battle - do you have more men than the enemy? If so pick one that extends the available frontage (ie you can bring your larger army to combat). Do you have more cavalry - well seek to exploit that. More guns? same. They all tend to give you some clear advantages - better defense/better attack/more units in combat.

Remember also that leader traits matter and perhaps will offset any gains from the battle plan you choose - for eg Wellington on the defense has a trait that allows him to deploy more units than the combat frontage allows

As to who fights, again have a look in the war room. The numbers on the simple battle report just show you everyone who *could* have fought. The combat engine is designed to put the player in the position of organising for battle, it is then a very detailed working out of the battle but this is taken out of your hands.

I don't understand your point #4. Have a look at the thread 'a unit is a unit ...' you should be able to add a captured battery to any of the tabs present in the province.

Save game system is to allow multiple versions of the same scenario to be played. Useful in a grand campaign for example. The simplest way to load the game you are playing is to use the 'load current game' option on the opening manual.

Can't really help you with the download etc. I found it worked first time, just saved the file to my downloads directory and once it was downloaded ran the update.

Hope this helps to orientate you a little.

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Post #: 2

RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/1/2016 12:29:34 PM

Bearcat2

Posts: 577
Joined: 2/14/2004
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucky7777

5) Tried to manually download and install the beta version 1.02. This fails because directory structure is not the same. I tried to manually copy over the correct files but I must have done something wrong because when I run the game it shows the version as 1.00

You have to be careful when dropping into your folder, had the same problem; on my machine, the default wanted to create an extra folder.
you know you have done it correctly when the game shows ver 1.02
The save game system is the worst I have ever seen

< Message edited by Termite2 -- 1/1/2016 1:33:52 PM >

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RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/1/2016 7:55:00 PM

Lucky77777

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Thanks Loki! I had missed the war room posts. You did a great job explaining many of the concepts of the game. My point on number 4 was that I had a battery in a province all by itself and could not control it or add it to a corps. Its probably just a bug.

As to regards to the battle choices Sometimes a choice will highlight the other commanders choice in red or green. I could see this going either way. I assume that I want my choice to make one of his highlight green. But I could also see that as making his choice better against mine. Any ideas?

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Post #: 4

RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/1/2016 8:04:09 PM

Lucky77777

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I'll try the update again.

As far as the save game: The game gives me the option to control click a load item and that takes you to the folder. Does any one know which file you are supposed to select?

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Post #: 5

RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/1/2016 8:09:43 PM

Lucky77777

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Well I fixed the update to the .01 version I turned off my anti virus for the download.

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Post #: 6

RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/1/2016 10:21:24 PM

Lucky77777

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Ok another point I don't understand. What are engagement points? The manual talks about them once; to say they are a strategic asset. Are they used in the campaign game?

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RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/1/2016 10:56:01 PM

Aurelian

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucky7777

Ok another point I don't understand. What are engagement points? The manual talks about them once; to say they are a strategic asset. Are they used in the campaign game?

Engagement points allow you to raise money, or issue decrees or military reforms.

(

< Message edited by Aurelian -- 1/3/2016 11:48:59 PM >

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Post #: 8

RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/2/2016 6:58:44 AM

loki100

Posts: 10920
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From: Utlima Thule
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucky7777

...

As to regards to the battle choices Sometimes a choice will highlight the other commanders choice in red or green. I could see this going either way. I assume that I want my choice to make one of his highlight green. But I could also see that as making his choice better against mine. Any ideas?

I tend to use them on a common sense basis (or lack there of depending

). So if I've stumbled into a battle I suddenly don't want to fight, the passive minimise losses/minimise damage inflicted on the enemy plans are good choices. If I know what the enemy is up to (and this is common say with Napoleon on charge), I may look over the options and see if one not only fits what I want to achieve but also effectively cancels out their choice - this is when their option goes green.

Re EPs etc.

The game uses 5 different currencies - War Supplies (WS), Cash, Engagement Points, recruits, horses. One effect of the different regional decision cards is that they effectively convert one or more of these into one or more of something different (or into other nice gains like development levels or victory points). As Aurelian says EPs are a key to buying decisions etc so sometimes its worth playing regional decisions that yield these as the final outcome.

Otherwise they come from winning battles and taking important cities, as well as your regular allocation

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RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/5/2016 12:19:00 AM

Lucky77777

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Loki I'm Late posting this; but thank you very much for your helpful replies.

I have some more questions. trying to reorganize my armies and the division thing seems weird. Sometimes I can form a division by ctrl clicking units and a leader and sometime that fails. I'm playing the French so I thought I could make a division out of just about any brigades. I'm finding that is the exception vs the rule. Any ideas on this?

Second is there a special place to look for responses to treaty proposals? I proposed a peace treaty to England when I had a War score of 86. I thought the highest war score was a hundred. So I offered peace and far as I can tell got no response. I'm still at war.

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Post #: 10

RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/5/2016 6:05:15 AM

loki100

Posts: 10920
Joined: 10/20/2012
From: Utlima Thule
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucky7777

Loki I'm Late posting this; but thank you very much for your helpful replies.

I have some more questions. trying to reorganize my armies and the division thing seems weird. Sometimes I can form a division by ctrl clicking units and a leader and sometime that fails. I'm playing the French so I thought I could make a division out of just about any brigades. I'm finding that is the exception vs the rule. Any ideas on this?

Second is there a special place to look for responses to treaty proposals? I proposed a peace treaty to England when I had a War score of 86. I thought the highest war score was a hundred. So I offered peace and far as I can tell got no response. I'm still at war.

a problem in division forming is that in some scenarios the at start divisions are a unitary collection so you can't add anything. Also there is a limit to the number of elements you can have in a division so sometimes you want to add a brigade and its too large for the space remaining. In that case you are probably as well to break open the current structure and rebuild the force. Final issue is you may have reached your limit but that is very unlikely with the Frence early game.

easiest place to check for diplomatic offers is via the diplo page in the ledger - there is a sub-section for offers/responses.

But yes the AI (or a player) can just choose to ignore you. The WS can go over 100 (its numerical not a ratio). Basically there is a routine where the AI compares your demands to the war score to what it believes are its chances of getting a better deal. Often early in a war its very resistant to peace but if its losing (badly) then late war you sometimes get offers for more than you have earned (but of course you may not want what the AI offers). A key to convincing the AI it is losing is to take the capital.

If your peace offer doesn't use up all the WS then the balance goes to improve relations - depending on what you are up to this could be a good idea. I've done this in my (slowly) ongoing game where I offered Prussia a good deal compared to WS as I only wanted a few very specific provinces (Playing as Austria) and clearly later in the game I want to be chums with them to bring down the Corsican Ogre.

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RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/5/2016 1:48:25 PM

morganbj

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Lucky7777, give yourself time to learn the mechanics. It sounds like this is the first AGEOD title you've played. The first one I got several years ago was very confusing, but once I played it a little (well, ... a lot) I learned that the system is really quite elegant and realistic compared to many games. This one just might be the best ever. it's more complex, but not overwhelming if you don't want it to be.

There are a lot of bugs yet to be worked out, and I hope they will be worked out very soon. It seems that most are in the CG and directly related to the diplomatic system, with a few "out of range" type errors tossed in, just for good measure. These are easy to fix and posting the errors to the AGEOD site will help them get fixed. It seems that most of these result from the interaction of several random events and unless the testers had the exact random events at the exact same time, the errors may not occur. Well, it seems that way to me. Some games I can get 50 turns in before I notice an issue. Some it's one turn. So, that randomness has to be because of some event firing off in the background not liking some other event that just fired off, or some index pointing to a unit or terrain area that's not correct, or something. AGEOD will fix those if you help them out by notifying them when it happens. There is so much complexity in this system these errors are predictable. Perhaps the game could have been tested more thoroughly, but they can all still be fixed now.

Frankly, I'm more excited about this game than any I've played in a long, long, time. I was a play tester on another large Matrix Napoleonic game a few years ago that was excellent, but this one has the potential to be the best ever. It's complex, but you can play it without getting into the morass right away and have a lot of fun.

Relax. Drink your favorite beverage, and enjoy the game. Each patch will fix a few more things until most all the bugs are gone. Even if you have a game crash a few turns in, or you let the Grande Armee get annihilated in Bavaria, start another game and take the opportunity to explore all of the stuff you haven't tried yet. I think the next patch will fix a lot of things, but there's fun to be had until then.

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RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/7/2016 4:09:48 AM

Lucky77777

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BJ Thanks for the words of encouragement. I have taken a couple of days off. I came back and was able to install the .02 beta patch. This did not fix my CTD but I figured just take your advise and start over so I did. Here is what I posted on the AGEOD forum.

Can someone please tell me how the save game function is supposed to work with screen shots.

I have figured out how to roll back a turn. Yes that took a while. My issue is the branching style of saving with the control click on the save. I can not for the life of me figure out how to load or select one of these supposedly branched saves.

Here is my issue. Had problems with CTD. Updated game to 1.02. Started new game. Pressed save game icon before hitting end of turn. Did not like the results of the choices I had made. No problem just go and do the new roll back thing I figured out. However, when I go to do this the load screen says you are on turn six of the game that was causing ctd. I click the cog icon and I get a directory listing. No matter what file name I click on I cannot load a different game.

If this is in the manual some where please tell me what page it is on because I have missed it.
This is the only thing I have found in the manual.

"Saving a Game (and PBEM) At any time during a game, you can reach the Main Menu (Esc key). From here, you can select the Save Game menu. You don�t generally have to save a game, as this is done automatically each turn once you hit End Turn. As explained previously, you have the option to restore the 24 previous turns of any saved game. Usually, the only cases where you would want to manually save a game is either if you halt your planning in the middle of a turn and want to resume giving orders after quitting the game or to change the name of the save game from its default. In other words, if you click End Turn, watch it unfold and only check your forces without entering new orders, you can quit safely and everything is saved by default. "

This does not explain how to actually restore a control clicked save game nor how to name a save game to something you want .

Please help.

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RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/7/2016 5:33:40 AM

Aurelian

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It's a mystery. I can't get more than six turns into single player campaign before the crash and burn.

But, I'm 22 turns into a 7 player PBEM with no crash.

My programming experience is the ability of getting the Amiga to count, but for some reason I suspect a memory leak.

Why do I think that? (More than likely, I'm wrong...)

Playing solitaire is a multi turn session, while PBEM is fire up the game, load and do the turn, save, shut the game down, and send it to drop box.

I'm thinking of running another solitaire session, but shutting the game down and restarting every turn and see what happens.

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RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/7/2016 3:53:58 PM

Queeg

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

I'm thinking of running another solitaire session, but shutting the game down and restarting every turn and see what happens.

I'll try to do the same thing over the weekend. Might help pinpoint the problem.

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Post #: 15

RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/7/2016 11:57:42 PM

Aurelian

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12 turns in with no crash.

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RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/8/2016 12:01:13 AM

Lucky77777

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I think your just bragging

I actually got 6 complete turns today before my first CTD today.

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RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/8/2016 1:40:55 AM

Aurelian

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucky7777

I think your just bragging I actually got 6 complete turns today before my first CTD today.

Nope :) Just doing what I said above. Run game, save, shut game down, restart, load, lather, rinse, repeat..

Over at AGEOD, Pocus said it could be a massive memory leak

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RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/8/2016 11:03:58 AM

Leibst

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If your choice makes his green just points that is a good selection. That's enough imo.
So you cant make a better selection.

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RE: Frustration is off the chart - 1/8/2016 1:21:44 PM

Lucky77777

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Leibst

If your choice makes his green just points that is a good selection. That's enough imo.
So you cant make a better selection.

That is how I have been playing it. By picking a strategy that turns one of the his green I have seen the AIs choice fail in the battle results. Makes me happy.

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Post #: 20