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semper fi -> My Observations and Recommendations (11/11/2006 6:26:57 PM)
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I enjoy playing Crown of Glory, but I think there are some areas that need improving. Some of these ideas may have already been posted, but then this will reinforce the need for correcting them.
I’ve edited some areas in my initial post and they are highlighted in bold and italics…for those who are interested.
1) Province Control: The province control system is broken. Some of the problems include (1) Protectorates that are conquered by a major power are considered “home territory” and are unable to be turned into protectorates of that power. In the player list, the conquered protectorate is still considered a protectorate of the former major power (2) Ceded provinces from a treaty are considered “home territory” and are impossible to form as part of a minor nation i.e. The province of Tyrol is required to be part of Bavaria in order to receive bonus troops during the spring levy. The only way I’ve been able, as France, to get Tyrol from Austria is through a peace treaty. Hence the problem, I can’t make it a protectorate as part of Bavaria. A province that is acquired through conquest or treaty should be able to be turned in to a protectorate at that countries choosing and not have limitations placed on them.
2) Leaders
a) Leaders are not “rally monkey’s.” In tactical combat, leaders are able to attach to multiple units and provide their moral bonus for rallying. This is inaccurate, especially since you are able to attach leader to a different division on the other side of the map…sometimes through enemy lines. You should only be allowed to attach a leader to another division once per turn.
b) Leaders should be only allowed to attach to a unit within his command.
c) In detailed combat, leaders should provide their bonus to adjacent units of their command. This would facilitate keeping your corps close together as they historically fought.
d) Leaders should be able to be promoted to the next rank. To stop any abuses in this manner, some restrictions may be in order:
i) Only one national commander is allowed as usual.
ii) Only allow a corresponding amount of two/three star generals equal to the amount corps/armies in play. For example, if France only has four armies units in play, then only four three-star generals are allowed in play at one time. Any excess at a beginning of a scenario are allowed.
iii) A possible loss of some attributes may occur after a promotion.
iv) Naval leaders should be included.
v) Leaders for small countries armies e.g. Denmark, Bavaria, etc…
vi) Possible attribute increase after battles.
vii) The ability to retire generals.
viii) Generals should have a chance of being wounded in detailed combat and spend some months recuperating from the wound i.e. out of play.
3) Corps
a) Countries should not be allowed to build corps until they research “Corps System.” After lessons learned from Italian campaigns, Napoleon adopted the corps system and put it into use during the Austerlitz campaign of 1805. Austria, Prussia and Russia were still utilizing tactics of the “Ancient Regime” until their defeats 1805, 1806 and 1807 respectively. Only after their defeats did they instituted reforms and adopted the corps system.
b) Minor country armies should be considered corps for attachment purposes, but only for their units. This would allow minor country armies to attach to a major nation’s army. Also, minor countries divisions should be allowed to be detached from their army. This will allow for more flexibility and ease of garrisoning units. If this is not feasible, then at least allow the ability to disband the minor country’s army unit in order to allow their divisions to be attached to other corps.
4) Units
a) Minor Country Armies: Minor countries army sizes become grossly oversized during the course of a game. The minor country armies need reducing to their actual historical sizes. For example:
i) Throughout the Napoleonic Wars, Wurttemberg fielded an army of 12,000-14,000 men total (all branches). In my current game, Wurttemberg has fielded five infantry and three cavalry divisions for a total of 80,000 men.
ii) Bavaria consistently fielded an army of 30,000+ men (all branches) throughout the war. In my game, there are 74,000 Bavarian soldiers organized into three infantry, three Jaeger, two cavalry, and three artillery divisions.
iii) The United States Navy during this time amounted to about 20+ frigates and sloops. There were no ships of the line. I’ve seen the US Navy numbering about 50 ships of various types. The US did have substantial privateers operating during the War of 1812.
b) Militia: Militia divisions should not be allowed out of the province were they were created. Militias were citizen soldiers called out in time of crisis and returned to there home when it was over. They were not designed for active campaigning over all Europe. Also, militia divisions (and garrisons) should never be allowed to adopt a skirmish formation. Militia and Landwehr divisions should only cost two manpower like other divisions. Finally, replacements for militia should not come from the draft pool, but from the province.
c) Light Infantry, Jaegers and Rifles: These divisions should be eliminated from the game. Except for the British Light Division, which fought with distinction in the Peninsular Campaign, there were no divisional formations of these types of troops. These types of units were incorporated in the regular infantry divisions to enhance their combat capabilities, specifically skirmishing. This was especially true of the rifle-armed units (Jaegers and Rifles), which were few in number and not the 5,000-10,000 divisional size formations that are in the game. To compensate for eliminating these units, the skirmish capabilities of the regular infantry divisions should be modified as follows:
i) Eliminate 50% chance of becoming disordered when adopting skirmish formation. In all my reading of Napoleonic warfare, I never heard of a unit becoming disordered while deploying skirmishers. I’ve heard of units becoming disordered while attempting to change formation from a line, column, or square in to another formation, but not for deploying skirmishers.
ii) Reduce the point cost for adopting skirmish formation to 2.
d) Guard Cavalry and Guard Artillery – Allow the building of these types of units.
e) Horse artillery should be able to evade infantry charges like cavalry.
f) Artillery: Artillery should only be allowed to fire while in line formation, which was their only historical firing formation. Artillery never fired while in column and to me this represents the artillery limbered and ready to move. To accurately reflect this, the penalties for artillery changing to line should be reduced since this was their normal firing position.
g) Ships and heavy ships should cost two manpower vice one. The typical 74-gun ship of line had 600-700 men (nation dependent). A 100-gun ship of line had over 800 men as a crew. A 10-ship unit would be equivalent to a newly built division.
h) POWs:
i) POW s quartered in a province should provide a certain amount of labor to the controlling player. Also, POWs should suffer attrition affects while in captivity. Many POWs died of disease and malnutrition while in captivity.
ii) POWs should not count toward stacking limitations while in a city. They were exactly being quartered in the finest establishments.
iii) Allow prisoner exchanges.
i) Diplomats: allow the ability to retire diplomats…especially not very good ones. Diplomats require gold for upkeep and some of them are not worth this expense.
j) Upkeep Cost: Upkeep cost for certain units should include resources
(1) Infantry = textiles (uniforms/equipment)
(2) Calvary divisions = horses (remounts) and textiles (uniforms/equipment)
(3) Ships = timber, iron and textiles
(4) Artillery = timber, iron and horses
k) Changes to upkeep cost
(1) Militia = 0 or .5 – Militias are typically not called to active service until they are needed.
(2) Guards = 4 – Guard units typically were better equipped and paid than the average soldier. For example a French Old/Middle Guard infantryman was paid 3-4 times higher than of a line counterpart. Also, their muskets were of higher quality than the regular line infantry.
(3) Landwehr = 0 or 2 – should only pay upkeep cost when the nation is at war or the unit is moving/fighting. If this is not feasible, then 1 as an average.
(4) Lancers= 4 - Should be the same as other regular cavalry.
(5) Howitzers = 2 - Should be the same as other artillery.
(6) Generals = 1 per star
l) Heavy artillery should count double for siege purposes than regular artillery i.e. every 750 points of heavy artillery should count towards the siege strength.
m) Eliminate the minimum size for division before it disbands rule.
n Implement the ability to re-train a unit. For example, the ability to re-train a light cavalry division as a lancer division.
o) In the 1805 scenario, there is two French Guard Infantry divisions and this is inaccurate. There should only be one French Guard division. During the 1805 campaign, there was only one Imperial Guard Infantry division numbering about 4,134 soldiers. The entire Imperial Guard, including artillery, cavalry and staff, numbered approximately 7,111. I believe that the other French Guard Division is supposed to represent the 5th Corps’ first division, which was composed of the elite companies from the regular line regiments. This converged grenadier formation was a temporary formation and not a permanent organization. One of the French Guards division in the game should either be (1) removed and the strength divided among the rest of the grand French army or (2) made into a regular infantry division with high moral (> 6.0).
5) Detailed combat:
a) Allow players to set up there units before battle starts. Sets up areas depend upon screening and reconnaissance capabilities of opposing forces. This will mostly depend upon the amount of cavalry, especially light, irregular, lancer and Cossack cavalry. Light infantry might also be a determining factor.
b) A mouse rollover of the terrain giving an explanation of the terrain type.
c) A unit should be allowed to adopt line formation in any terrain except villages. Also, units in line should be allowed to move in any terrain (except villages); however, there is a 50% chance of becoming disordered while moving through forest, fortresses, mud and swamp.
d) Horse artillery firepower needs to be reduced. The current rules dictate that the amount of firepower a unit has is based upon the remaining movement points. Horse artillery, with more movement points, seems to get an unfair advantage over regular artillery because of this. Two points supporting this argument are (1) if both types of artillery units are stationary and firing they would being do so at the same rate of fire (approximately) and (2) most nations horse artillery was lighter caliber guns than regular field artillery.
6) User Interface:
a) Add a button on the unit info bar for support orders.
b) The ability to re-name units with more than 3 x characters (exaggeration).
7) Upgrades
a) Corps System: allow for the building of corps.
b) Corps System I: allows for one extra division.
c) Skirmish Tactics – allows skirmishing for infantry units
d) Skirmish Tactics I: Reduce moral loss by 10% for owners units and increased moral loss by 10% for target unit.
e) Skirmish tactics II: Same as Skirmish Tactics I, but with 10% increase in casualties. Also, greater chance of an attached general becoming a casualty.
f) Rifles – Doubles the effect of Skirmish Tactics.
g) Standardized artillery equipment and ammunition (Gribeauval System) –Incorporates the “cannonball standards” upgrade and reduces construction time, resources and upkeep cost by 25% for artillery units.
h) Foraging: Allow units to forage for food. Only France (possible Turkey) demonstrated efficiency in foraging. Armies of the Ancien Regimes, before their reforms, were tied to their supply depots. This impeded their operational maneuverability and slowed them down. This is one of the reasons why Napoleon was able to outmaneuver his opponents in his early campaigns. I’m not sure if this is feasible due to the existing supply rules.
i) Landwehr: allows for the building of Landwehr units. Austria and Prussia both established their respective Landwehr systems in 1808 during their military reforms. These units should not be allowed in play until this upgrade is researched. Of note, Sweden also adopted a Landwehr system in 1808, but it was not very effective.
j) Military Reforms: A special upgraded granted to a nation that surrenders for the first time. It allows the nation two (or three) free military upgrades to illustrate that the lessons learned from loosing. In addition, the entire list of upgrades should be made available for choosing. This mimics the Austrian, Prussian and Russian defeats in 1805, 1806 and 1807 respectively and their reforms they undertook to correct the deficiencies in their military establishments. Two areas these countries specifically corrected were adopting the corps system and light infantry (skirmish) tactics.
k) Divisional Organization: The establishment of permanent divisional organizations by Napoleon was part of his corps system. Formations would not longer be ad hoc and with regiments transferring from one command to another on a frequent basis. This new permanent structure allowed units within the same command work coherently together on the tactical and operational level. This upgrade would increase the fire and charge combat for infantry and cavalry divisions by 10% and increase their movement by 4.
l) The upgrade system needs some adjusting. A nation is allowed a certain number of upgrades based upon the number of barracks and cultural developments they posses. This is fine for major nations (France), but does not bode well for other countries that do not expand much (England). In many of my games, England received only a few military upgrades because they didn’t build many new barracks or cultural achievements and they didn’t expand much. This is historically inaccurate. England, a world empire at the time, was a very advanced nation that was able to field a first rate army. A possible solution is to assign a value to each military upgrade. A nation may accumulate its upgrade points from season to season (or turn to turn) and when it has enough upgrade points it can select a military upgrade at the next opportunity. This way every major nation will have a chance to choose an upgrade, albeit more slowly than some. Note: Certain military upgrades should be worth more than others. Another idea is to assign barracks and cultural improvements value to colonies. This would then count toward the overall upgrade value.
m) Combat Engineers upgrade should count towards siege purposes.
8) AI: A much smarter artificial intelligence, especially in tactical combat. 95% of the time I crush the AI because in launches uncoordinated attacks, keep on changing a unit’s formations for no apparent reason often resulting in them becoming disordered and other stupid things.
9) Special Events: More special events beyond the “Pope asking for money…” Some examples:
a) 1793: Second Partitioning of Poland by Prussia and Russia – Poland either peacefully accepts the partitioning or declares war on each of these major powers. If Poland accepts the partitioning then (1) Posen becomes a conquered province of Prussia (2) Minsk, Volhynia and Podolia become conquered provinces of Russia and (3) the Polish army is reduced to 12,000 men
b) 1795: Final Partitioning of Poland by Austria, Prussia and Russia – Poland either peacefully accepts the final partitioning or declares war on each of these major powers. If Poland accepts the partitioning then (1) Warsaw and Masovia become conquered provinces of Prussia (2) Courland, Kovno, Grodno and Vilnia become conquered provinces of Russia (3) Krakow and Galicia become conquered provinces of Austria (4) the Polish army is removed form the map and Poland ceases to be a minor nation.
c) 1803: Louisiana Purchase – France sells 10 x colony units to the USA for gold.
d) 1810: Annexation of the Batavian Kingdom: The Kingdom of Batavia is formally annexed by France and becomes home provinces. The Batavian army becomes regular French units.
e) 1810: Marshall Bernadotte becomes the Crown Prince of Sweden – Marshall Bernadotte is removed from the French side and becomes the national leader for Sweden.
f) Napoleon recognizes the Kingdom of Poland: After forming the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, Napoleon has the option to recognize Poland as a kingdom. The results would be an increase is the size of the Polish Army and the Polish attitude dramatically shifts in favor of the French. The downside would be an unfavorable reaction from Prussia, Austria and Russia possibly resulting in war or trade embargoes.
g) 1801: War with the Barbary Pirates – After refusing to pay tribute, the US declares war on the North African countries of Algeria, Morocco and Tunis and engages these countries navies and/or privateers. There is a random chance every turn than peace will ensue.
10) Replacements and Ship Repairs:
a) I find an inconsistency between the ability to build new units and the draft pool. It only takes three months to build a new infantry division, but these soldiers do not come from the draft pool. The manpower needed to form these units comes from the province or surrounding provinces were the unit was built. At the same time, replacements to bring divisions up to full strength come from the draft pool and the training time for these soldiers may be up to 48-months (player dependent). This is basically saying that it is easier to build a new division that to train replacements. I feel that the manpower for new divisions should come from your trained recruits in your draft pool and not directly form the provinces. (On a side note - I’m not sure, but I believe the average recruit training time for an infantryman was 3-months and a cavalryman was about 6-months).
b) Ship Repairs: Ships undergoing repairs should expend resources and manpower to bring them up to full strength.
c) Fix the draft (replacement) system: I really don’t think the system works properly or I’m doing something wrong. The main problem I have is the amount of trained replacements produced each turn is not allocated to divisions. I understand that this should not be a 100% zero-sum game, but I have had divisions sitting around in a home province for years without receiving any replacements. Meanwhile the amount of trained draftees I have number over 50,000+ (according to the information). Something is not quite right. Also, I would like the ability to prioritize which units receive replacements.
d) Break down draftee training into the three branches of arms: infantry, artillery and cavalry. Different cost should be associated with training each type of arm.
11) Countries
a) Corsica: Corsica should be considered a home territory of France since in was ceded to France after the Treaty of Versailles in 1768. Corsica should often attempt revolts against French rule.
b) United States: It would be nice to be able to establish trade relations with the United States.
c) Sweden: Sweden is highly overrated in the game for several reasons. First, the Swedish army in the game grows to be quite large, which is inaccurate. Sweden was not able to build a large army due to limited manpower and the financial inability to support it. Historically, the Swedish army in 1805 was 40,000+ infantry, 6500+ cavalry and 3800+ artillerymen. It remained relatively this size until it loss Finland to Russia in 1808. In 1814, the army’s strength was 31,000+ infantrymen, 4700+ Cavalrymen and 3400+. Secondly, it seems Sweden is a financially strong country as it continued ability to subsidized Denmark with hundreds of gold every turn. Again inaccurate, The Napoleonic wars were a great financial strain upon the Swedish economy.
d) Gibraltar: Although not a country it needs mentioning. Gibraltar is too easy to lay siege to and conquer by Spain. As France, I always set Gibraltar as a rally point for Spain. Needless to say, the Spanish move their and in a few turns conquer Gibraltar. Only if it had been that easy, the Spanish would have done it years before. Since Gibraltar is basically an island, then it should only be accessible from the sea.
12) Treaties:
a) I would like to see “Trade Concessions” as a treaty clause. This would entitle the major power to favorable trade agreements between them and the other major power. This would be perfect following a “Terms of Surrender” treaty.
b) “The 6500 Limit” needs fixing. I’ve imposed many peace treaties on my enemies, but never have been able to get over the standard 6500 limit. This is even after conquering numerous provinces and thrashing their armies. However, there are times when the “6500” is too much, especially for allies that did not contribute much to bringing about victory. For example, as an ally of France, Spain is entitled to impose a peace treaty on Austria when it surrenders. Usually the AI acquires a few provinces, which were not even adjacent to any former Spanish Territory (a little strange) and other treaty clauses. However, beyond being at war with Austria it didn’t contribute anything in bringing about a victory.
c) I’m not sure if this part of above paragraph, but it seems that on the turn a major nation surrenders, any province conquered by the victor (on that turn) does not count towards victory conditions.
d) Transfer of Colonies: Transferring colonies in a peace treaty is too liberal. For example: In a recent game, England Surrendered to France and Spain. Spain was able to get all of England’s colonies in the ensuing peace treaty they imposed upon them. England would never have tolerated this.
13) Allies: allies have too much free access to your home territory and depots. In the current system, alliances allow free access to your territories and depots. Before you know it, you have allies moving all through your territory and causing excess expenditures from your depots. To further complicate matters, on occasions, I’ve been an ally with other nations (Spain and Turkey) that have been at war with each other. They decided to have a battle on my home territory…”not bloody likely” as the British would say. Allies need to have some restrictions on what they may and may not do. This may be fixed by not automatically including “free access” and “depot sharing” in an alliance. These clauses must be agreed upon in a treaty.
14) Nautical Matters:
a) Minor Country Fleets Operating Areas: It seems that the some minor navies and ships operate in areas were they did not historically or were not capable. For example, I’ve often seen the Danish Navy (while neutral) operating in the Mediterranean far from any friendly naval bases. The Danish Navy, as far as I know, never operated in the Mediterranean. While not a protectorate, these navies should have some restrictions on were they may operate…maybe in 1 or 2 sea zones of their home port.
b) Neutral Privateers: Also, it seems that neutral privateers have a habit of steeling from your trade routes. I could be wrong, because the game doesn’t quite give enough details on the matter. However; if they do, then they should be fair game to be engaged by your navy.
c) Moral: the only way that ships gain moral after they are built is by combat. I would like to see this expanded. For every turn (month) a ship spends at sea its moral should increase by .1 (maximum 5.0). This represents the ability for ships that are underway to train their crews. Not having the ability train their crews while underway was one of the main reasons why the French and Spanish Navies never performed well against the British during the Napoleonic wars. The British usually kept them bottled up in their harbors and the crews could not train. When they did meet in battle, the British usually won because they had superior crews…also better leadership and tactics played a part.
d) The at start moral for the French Ships should be lowered to either 4.0 or 4.5. Presently they are 5.0, which is only a .5 difference from the British at start moral of 5.5. As stated before, the British sailors were better trained and led than their French counterpart.
15) Province Improvements
a) Barracks. IMO, barracks represent the regimental depots that each nation maintained to service existing regiments and train new recruits. Barracks should not be the determining factor for the quality of troops built. The length of draft training should determine this. However, the total number of barracks a nation has should be the key factor in determining the total number of draftees that may be trained at any one time.
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