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RE: Guess where the French went?

 
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RE: Guess where the French went? - 11/4/2005 3:39:04 AM   
Azog

 

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Joined: 9/28/2005
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I think the movie "Lord of the Rings" had a big flaw: Tom Bombadil didnt appear.
I had kind of 40% of my troops killed in Moskau in winter. I think the suply rules are generally speaking okay. That nations maybe have too much money, to much food or the AI doesnt cut the suply lines or whatever, that could be another question. How was suply in the early 1800s? I dont know, but I can more or less imagine. Anyway, the Roman Impire, 2000 year ago, did manage quite well, also the mongolians with Gengis Kahn. They faced different problems and used different strategies. I think it is to easy to say "you cannot have 100ks in Egypt". IMHO lets improve the AI, first things first.

(in reply to Gresbeck)
Post #: 31
RE: Guess where the French went? - 11/4/2005 4:34:50 PM   
ericbabe


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Gresbeck
Agreed. It seems a good solution, rather simple and easily implementable.


It would be more difficult to change the supply rules so drastically at this time.

And I actually have received many more complaints from players who think supply is too limiting right now than from players who think supply is too generous. The ratio is about 3-1. There seem to be many more players who want to be able to conquer-all-Europe-with-their-enormous-army than there are players who want a more realistically limited army, and who are happy with more limited accomplishments, like say, conquering all of Austria in 15 years. The large cost of supplying armies, the ease with which depot chains can be cut in enemy territories, and the enormous losses that big stacks of units sustain when they lose supply are some of the most complained-about rules in the game.

For the sequels we are planning to change the supply rules in a way that I hope both simplifies the rules and makes them more limited.


(in reply to Gresbeck)
Post #: 32
RE: Guess where the French went? - 11/4/2005 5:01:37 PM   
ericbabe


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Joined: 3/23/2005
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe
The things that occur in the game allow for hundreds of thousands of troops to base far from home. That is where it start to really strain believability. Part of the problem is that Depots are just a channel for your entire econ. If you have the money/food in


Frankly the mechanism I originally had to prevent this was supply costs. There is a penalty for large stacks and there is a large cost for every depot in the chain. There is also extra supply cost for operating in enemy territory and for operating in bad weather. There are also surrender-during-retreat penalties for units that are out of supply. Economies were limited by the very large waste rules we had. In early versions of the game players couldn't field enormous armies because the waste rules prevented their economies from being able to afford them. At the start of the 1805 scenario France immediately had to go into debt in order to continue to prosecute the war.

I found it to be a fairly elegant way of handling the problem -- you can field a big army far from home if you can keep the depot chain open and can afford to pay the huge costs. I reckoned it integrated the economy into military maneuvers and into politics very thoroughly. It encouraged players to save up resources when they anticipated war, to make their campaigns brief and decisive, and allowed the underdog the strategy of fighting a delaying campaign.

Secondly, the AI's advantage at harder levels is an economic advantage. This allows the AI to field larger armies than the player and to concentrate them farther from home than the player. It's AI handicapping, and it's a common computer game mechanism. Admittedly it does allow the AI to field larger than historical forces, even with the old waste rules, but it makes for a more challenging game and a more enjoyable game, in my opinion. I could have handicapped the AI by giving it large combat bonuses, but then you'd have the situation at harder levels where Turkish militia were better fighters than the French Old Guard, and then you'all would be (rightfully) complaining about that. I prefer the former situation. Any AI handicapping is going to make the game a-historical in some way, and no AI handicapping is going to make the game less challenging and thus less enjoyable. Faced with this situation we choose to err on the side of challenging/enjoyable.

Players didn't like the limited economy and the large waste rules, though. There were many irate posts to the effect "I've built a 2,000,000 man army, but why can't I afford it! This ruins the game for me." And the waste rules... we probably received more complaints about the large level of waste than we did about all other aspects of the game combined.

Consider France in the 1805 scenario: there are new players trying to figure out combat and movement rules, but we've thrust them into a situation where they're burdened with an army that they can't afford -- a perfectly historical situation for France at that time, but it's not perhaps the best way for new players to learn the game. Players want to move and fight, yet their most pressing concern is really the economics of supply, and they probably don't even realize it!


(in reply to Uncle_Joe)
Post #: 33
RE: Guess where the French went? - 11/4/2005 6:36:38 PM   
rich12545

 

Posts: 1705
Joined: 10/31/2000
From: Palouse, WA
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You might consider playability/realism toggles for this in options. Or maybe even make them slides. Don't know how difficult this would be to implement at this late stage but it would be a way to satisfy everybody. If it's pretty easy you could include several toggles or slides in the "realism options" section. Personally I prefer playability and would rather not have the economy too difficult.

(in reply to ericbabe)
Post #: 34
RE: Guess where the French went? - 11/8/2005 7:31:53 PM   
ericbabe


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We're considering something like player customized complexity-levels for the sequels. It's too late to add it to COG really. It's difficult to allow players to turn off rules and still keep a well design game, because -- in my opinion -- the rules of a well-designed game are very integrated with each other. But in a very integrated set of rules, one can't just turn rules off and on without other elements of the whole system.

Still, I think there might be a way to do this.


(in reply to rich12545)
Post #: 35
RE: Guess where the French went? - 11/9/2005 11:38:43 PM   
Napi

 

Posts: 19
Joined: 12/28/2004
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Eric,

Don't make it easier, please. If you must change it, then give people like me the option to keep the old rules. Thanks.

Best,
Glenn

(in reply to ericbabe)
Post #: 36
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