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ORIGINAL: terje439

This has been mentioned before, but it should absolutely be looked into. When you violate a treaty we need to know which treaty and what part of it we are violating. Not just be told "violation of treaty: -10 glory".

Terje

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Having played quite a bit now, I think I have a couple issues that _really_ should be altered in a patch. If it is already noted cool.

1) Britain is _WAAYY_ too timid with her fleet, and way too adventurous with her armies on the continent.

In my game it is now Jan 1797 as France, started 1792. I have progressively been building up my naval assets; not building ships, mostly just fighting weaker nations and gaining experience. I had one fleet that had four or five Admiral promoted 1st raters, as well as a bunch of Deadeye+Extra Guns promoted 3rd raters.

I've been in a couple wars with Britain, and won smashing defensive victories in northeast France, but no naval battles. I had however, pretty much trashed the navies of Spain, Portugal, and Russia.

Starting in about 1794 or 95, another war with pretty much everyone ensued, including Britain. I kept all my boats in the Med, blockading Gibraltar and GB kept all her boats in south England. She never sortied to attack my powerful fleet blockading Gibraltar, nor did she blockade any of my French ports.

Having won a war against Austria early on, then against Spain, then got lapses of peace from Sweden, and Russia, by 1796 it was just between me Prussia and GB. I had suffered no defeats on the battlefield as of mid 1796, but had beaten both the Prussian and GB armies more than once. I had all my diplomats in GB Pressuring Peace for peace, but despite this and the pretty severe losses I'd imposed on GB, she did not surrender, nor did she make any effective use of her fleets (which were numerous).

Finally, in about Aug or Sept 1796 I had moved my three main fleets and small fleet I'd captured up to Brittany. I set my powerful fleet (Bouvets) to attack + intercept and all the others (Cornics, Marseiiles Flt, 3rd Fleet, Latouce) to avoid combat and not intercept. I moved out Bouvets into Celtic Sea, then all the others except 3rd, I loaded a large amy with two corps (~140K) into French 3rd Fleet and set it to amphibiously assault Devon.

The depot I had preemptively set in Celtic was eaten up by a GB merchant or privateer, but otherwise everything worked fine. I had conquered Devon by no later than Oct 1796, and actually sent the lionshare of that large army back to France. Still not a peep from the multitude of GB fleets lurking in Hampshire/Anglia. A few months later, Dec 1796, I sent my large army back to England. Next turn (or it might have been Dec, not sure, but I do have the .sves) I sent the army to invade Hampshire, while I sent two fleets to blockade London and the port in Hampshire.

Result: Hampshire conquered, and every single fleet in the GB navy captured without firing a shot. This I think is a second but related point that should perhaps be looked at again and changed.

In order for GBs navy to protect the island they have to be out of port, but by the time I had one beefed up fleet and several wins against other nations navies, I never saw a SINGLE action by GB navy other than hiding in port. Consequently, instead of losing a few ships or perhaps even a fleet or two to me in naval combat, but perhaps blunting my navy, the ENTIRE British navy is now under French control.

2) Capturing fleets is _WAAYY_ too easy. I can only guess how the algorithms for this are calculated, but I would suggest they be revisited. I would think that, AT BEST, one should only be able to capture half to perhaps 2/3rd of an enemy fleet, and those should be pretty badly banged up. It has been a routine practice throughout history for Captains to scuttle their ships rather than let them fall into enemy hands. Not to mention, there should be some chance that a fleet that is boxed in will raise anchor and at least TRY to fight back against the blockading force and not simply wait passively in port while land forces swarm on board. Capturing fleets should be possible, but not so easy. Some ports (London for example being up a river) would be easier to blockade than others, but presumably the Guns built in a city would deter blockading ships from staying too close the mouth of a bottleneck that could be effective for boxing in a superior force?

3) It is my custom to keep 1 to 4 Frigates in each fleet. Several times in the last few turns I've had fleets of 25 or 30 ships forced to retreat by a SINGLE merchant! That just has to be changed

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I'm glad that the player doesn't have so much control over promoting generals as in FoF. The problem with that system is: (a) playing out alternate history ACWs is of course the whole point, but Generals with alternate personalities is not really my idea of interesting, and I'll bet that's true for most. (b) if you play with historic generals, but lets say with abilities hidden, it still doesn't matter, because you know Sherman, Grant, etc., are the ones to promote.  So a natural, if gamey action by any player is to promote them immediately, long before they really were in the actual war. But how do you impose a self- or house-rule about promoting? Taking away the players ability to promote as in CoG:EE is one solution.

However, I'd like to have a middle-ground somewhere between the existing FoF system and the CoG:EE system. Say for example, Generals earn points in four categories each with -10 to 50 points possible, for a total maximum General promotion score of 200 or lowest of -40

(i) Loyalty or some-such, the extent to which his units actually follow-through on orders, give a unit (container or a unit in battle) an order and it does it the guy in charge earns L point. Give an order and it doesn't follow-through the guy losses L points. Container in which a general is in charge moves when told +1.5 Loyalty points, doesn't move -1. General improves morale or bestows special ability in battle +1.5 L points.  Unit surrender -5, unit retreats -2.5

(ii) Tactical Ability: success in fire-fights, changing formations, etc. earn him points, failure (meaning losing more casualties in a series of two or more fire-fights, or being driven back from a position) loses him points. +/- 0.5 points per additional 10% casualties inflicted/taken per firefight. +/- 1 per unit which pulls back. +/- half per failed formation change.

(iii) Logistical Ability: - 100 per casualties taken from disease or attrition. Some kind of bonus for more efficient use of supplies? Perhaps one of the other effects generals have on unit training or quality could best be represented through logistical ability?

(iv) Experience/Proven Ability: +0.1 per time-unit spent in battle (turns) * command size (1 per 2500 men for 1-Stars; 1 per 10,000 for 2-strs; 1 per 30,000 men for 3-stars; 1 per 60,000 men for 4-star, erc.; +0.75 per firefight engaged in directly (only brigades/divisions he is in charge of); +1 per special ability revealed; +0.5 for each point of ability revealed.

With a system like this, all starting generals might have some starting level of Promotion points, but obviously the more experience they gain, and the more successful they are, the quicker they rack up Promotion points. A general with higher promotion points costs less political points to promote! A basically pretty simple system, but you'd just need to figure out the math so that it was balanced so that it was not always possible to promote anyone, and always much more economical to promote the one's who have proven themselves in battle.

Assuming everything set up historically, but with general stats hidden, this would give incite the player to make use of his Generals to gain promotion points to be able to promote them more cheaply.

At present in FoF there are basicaly two dimensions that can be adjusted: randomize General's stats, hide General's stats.
Another possibility to improve the engine would be to have different levels of each one. Instead of either totally historical or totally random General stats, have different levels, for example:

(1) Totally Historical Generals: 100% chance that all Gens stats are 100% historic

(2) Slightly Ahistoric Generals

(3) Somewhat AHistorical Generals (some small fluctuations in one or two attributes, or very tiny fluctuations in all or several) Say a base rate of 10% for each Gen that his stats are varied, but up to some max number 15% to 45% of them or something

(4) Moderately Ahistorical Generals (mod to large fluc in two or three, or small to mod fluc in all or several) base rate of 33% for each Gen, with a max of 33% to 66% of all Generals altered in any given game.

(5) Mostly Ahistorical Generals (large fluctuations in one or two or moderate in all or several) base rate of 66% for each Gen to fluctuate, with 60% to 75% of them altered in any given game.

(6) Totally Randomized Generals: 100% chance that all Gen stats are reassigned.

(7) Random Randomization: None-to-Slight Ahistorical: during setup game randomly picks either (1) Totally Historic (2) Slightly Ahistoric

(8) Random Randomization: None-to-Some Ahistorical: picks between (1) to (3)

(9) Random Randomization: None-to Moderate: picks beween (1) to (4)

(10) Random Randomization None-to-Mostly Ahistorical: picks between (1) to (5)

(11) Totally Random Randomization: picks randomly between (1) to (6)

Also have different levels of Hidden Abilities
Totally Unhidden (meaning 100% of all information about each General is visible at game start)
Slightly Hidden
Moderately Hidden (meaning about 50% of the info about each General is visible at game start)
Mostly Hidden
Totally Hidden at start

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-Ability to set up detailed battles as stand alone without strategic play.

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ORIGINAL: Raidhaennor

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-Ability to set up detailed battles as stand alone without strategic play.

I second that. Custom battles would be very nice. In fact sometimes I just start a campaign and attack a random neighbour, when I only feel like playing a battle.

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ORIGINAL: ithuriel2

Would like to see the cost of upgrades listed in the pdf Appendix Manual. One could plan better if one knew.