RE: Army size limits

RE: Army size limits (Full Version)

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sol_invictus -> RE: Army size limits (3/12/2009 3:31:39 PM)
I was one of those players who was howling about the massive battles in COG. They ruined the game for me because any sense that Napoleonic warfare was being depicted went right out the window. In a game such as this that strives to replicate the factors that made Napoleonic warfare what is actually was, I think it is critical to either include very complex rules to reflect the limiting factors that controlled the size of armies that could be brought to the field of battle or to use some less complex but sensible limit to approximate those limiting factors. Whichever path is chosen, the end result should be that massive sized battles don't occur as soon as the game begins and not every battle approaches Leipzig sized proportions. It seems that a happy medium course; leaning toward limits was chosen; which is fine with me. I could demand a "better" way to achieve the reasonable outcome, but since I don't have to code it I will leave that to the judgement of others. I will say that since battles are limited, I will certainly end up buying GOG: EE in the near future and that if the old system that allowed massive armies was still used, I would not even consider purchasing it. I have Empire: TW and the inevitable Napoleonic expansion to tickle my mood for a fantastical romp through history, but COG: EE need to meet my expectations for a much more believeable depiction of warfare in this era.

ericbabe -> RE: Army size limits (3/12/2009 3:51:34 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: barbarossa2 So the way it is now, do all of the units in a region when the shooting starts get to participate? If so, then this may be part of the problem of having "unrealistically" large "battles". No. quote: Mr. Z, doesn't this mean though, that you are assuming that most of the troops in a region end up in the "major battle" most of the time? In my humble opinion, I think this is where your system has made a mistake. It doesn't work this way.

barbarossa2 -> RE: Army size limits (3/12/2009 3:56:23 PM)
Dear Mr. Z and Ericbabe, [&o] Well, I am VERY happy to announce that I have just purchased the incredible looking and playing (so I am told) CoG:EE (though am having problems downloading from Digital River, whose server keeps having "internal errors" and their customer service hasn't responded yet)! I will withhold further comment on this battle issue then, until I have acquainted myself with this problem better! Within a week, I should be able to stop speaking out of my ass on this subject. :) However: I was lying in bed awake last night wondering about this problem. It seems that there are 5-6 requirements which need to be met for "realism" and marketing purposes: 1) For marketing purposes, CoG must offer battles for tactical resolution which offer "Type 1" battles. 2) This system should not result in giving players a "Leipzig" sized battle more than 1-4 times in every Napoleonic Campaign (1805-1815) 3) Stacking limits for a region should be realistic 4) Players should be able to auto resolve every conflict in a region at the click of a button 5) Turns should represent 1 month spans or so and that historically, 1 month turns could have many small, medium, or many large battles for a region 6) Regions the size of those in CoG:EE could hold up to 250,000 troops historically. But only on the rarest occassions would they all make an appearance at any single battle It seems that what you could do is use the type of "Type 2" battle system I have proposed, but when generating the files for the turn's conflict in a region, the computer would also determine how many Type 1 LARGE battles would be fought. If a player is auto-resolving this, not much would change (but it would list the number of small, medium, and large battles fought during the turn for control of the region). If the player prefers tactical resolution of the large battles, the computer would work out which units could appear at the first (and perhaps only) large battle. This could then be fought. If it was then determined that there was a second large battle, and control of the region was still not decided, there may be a second large battle (again determining which units (or which commands) could participate). The results for these would be stored and mixed together with the rest of the auto-resolved conflict. So, theoretically, you could lose a region even though you won the "large battle" or even both. But the odds would be low for the first case, and close to zero for the second case. Perhaps you could let players select if they want to tactically resolve all of the small, medium, or large battles on their own--giving them an option as to how much they want to do (I personally, WOULD be interested in gaming battles the size of Elchingen, a critical mid-sized engagement in the campaign for Ulm in 1805 where Ney earned his Marshall's baton). Though it would take a while to resolve 1-2 large battles and 1-3 medium battles a turn, maybe some people want to game medium battles. However, if not every battle were of "Leipzig" proportions, these battles wouldn't take as much time on average. And the Leipzig battles would be mostly dropped. You could even add a "massive battles" category and let players game only those when they popped up--leaving large, medium, and small battles for the auto-resolve system.

Erik Rutins -> RE: Army size limits (3/13/2009 2:54:52 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: barbarossa2 Well, I am VERY happy to announce that I have just purchased the incredible looking and playing (so I am told) CoG:EE (though am having problems downloading from Digital River, whose server keeps having "internal errors" and their customer service hasn't responded yet)! I will withhold further comment on this issue then, until I have acquainted myself with this problem better! Within a week, I should be able to stop speaking out of my ass on this subject. :) Send me an e-mail with your order info if DR doesn't respond, or contact our Help Desk please.

Tanaka -> RE: Army size limits (3/13/2009 11:50:41 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Arinvald I was one of those players who was howling about the massive battles in COG. They ruined the game for me because any sense that Napoleonic warfare was being depicted went right out the window. In a game such as this that strives to replicate the factors that made Napoleonic warfare what is actually was, I think it is critical to either include very complex rules to reflect the limiting factors that controlled the size of armies that could be brought to the field of battle or to use some less complex but sensible limit to approximate those limiting factors. Whichever path is chosen, the end result should be that massive sized battles don't occur as soon as the game begins and not every battle approaches Leipzig sized proportions. It seems that a happy medium course; leaning toward limits was chosen; which is fine with me. I could demand a "better" way to achieve the reasonable outcome, but since I don't have to code it I will leave that to the judgement of others. I will say that since battles are limited, I will certainly end up buying GOG: EE in the near future and that if the old system that allowed massive armies was still used, I would not even consider purchasing it. I have Empire: TW and the inevitable Napoleonic expansion to tickle my mood for a fantastical romp through history, but COG: EE need to meet my expectations for a much more believeable depiction of warfare in this era. Instead of limiting units wouldnt it just make more sense to make units more expensive, rare, and special? I wish more games were made this way for some reason most games are made to spam lots of everything. Micro-management nightmares!

barbarossa2 -> RE: Army size limits (3/13/2009 11:55:07 PM)
Actually, I am with you on this Tanaka, I am curious as to why there are "mobilization limits". Shouldn't units just be more expensive to keep people within "realistic" limits? This kind of punishes players who ran their economies differently so that when they needed the armies "for a rainy day" they would have them. I think it is entirely feasible that a player may run his economy entirely differently than the power of the day and then be able to field more units in a time of crisis. Is there a way to turn off mobilization limits in games? (I wish units could be made more expensive too then I suppose, though I don't have a feel for the game yet, so I can't say).

ericbabe -> RE: Army size limits (3/14/2009 12:13:03 AM)
The mobilization limits are meant to model factors beyond economic expense. Even the most extremely mobilized nations during the Napoleonic wars only had a few percent of their people under arms. The Royal Navy could raise the revenue required to buy many new ships of the line, but even with draconian feudal-style impressment of manpower, they were hard-pressed to recruit even the minimum number of lubbers they needed to man them all. In the advanced economy, we can model this with our population rules -- which we could have made much tighter for this purpose. However the simple economy does not have this layer of complexity, so we needed a rule that could limit the level of units a nation can field without making units unrealistically expensive.

barbarossa2 -> RE: Army size limits (3/14/2009 12:35:49 AM)
Ah! So in the advanced economy there are no such hard and fast mobilization limits?

theonlystd -> RE: Army size limits (3/14/2009 12:53:47 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: barbarossa2 Ah! So in the advanced economy there are no such hard and fast mobilization limits? I still see the mobilization limit thing with the advanced Econ on.. I think he met you cant really hit it in the advanced econ game without totally screwing up your Econ. Which from what i've seen and did is most likely true. I know i couldnt

ericbabe -> RE: Army size limits (3/14/2009 1:01:42 AM)
Remember that we also have a "Unit Cost Increase" parameter that models the effects of scarcity, inflation, and war-weariness. However I don't think that mobilization limits were primarily a matter of economic scarcity. It would be weird if Britain were able to give Prussia double its normal national income, and that this would allow Prussia to field 12% of its population. Historically, Britain could have given Prussia this much, but there's just no way that Prussia could have mobilized anything beyond the 6% it already had in the field -- at some point, money just wasn't the limiting factor.

morganbj -> RE: Army size limits (3/14/2009 1:24:11 AM)
When the modder's guide comes out, you'll know how to mod the game and set the limits to whatever you want.

Mus -> RE: Army size limits (3/14/2009 2:46:59 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ericbabe The Royal Navy could raise the revenue required to buy many new ships of the line, but even with draconian feudal-style impressment of manpower, they were hard-pressed to recruit even the minimum number of lubbers they needed to man them all. I was recently reading about how the Food onboard ship in the Royal Navy at the time. Bread infested with maggots, meat salted so heavily that it got harder and harder with time and eventually it could be carved into the shapes of objects and polished to a high sheen like wood. Had to be boiled for several hours before it was edible it was so hard and salted. Water that was infested with algae to the point it had to be mixed with rum to sterilize it, etc. Yeah I can see why they had manpower issues. [:D] quote: ORIGINAL: ericbabe Historically, Britain could have given Prussia this much, but there's just no way that Prussia could have mobilized anything beyond the 6% it already had in the field -- at some point, money just wasn't the limiting factor. Right. Well look at the current situation with ammunition in the United States. We elect a President who people fear is going to try to pass antigun legislation. The availability of guns and ammunition plummets as demand skyrockets. There simply isnt the production capacity to match present demand. This would be the same as having a standing army so large the production capacity of the region couldnt support it. Yeah there are measures that over the long term could be helped by spending additional money. But these measures are well modeled by the Universal Service I and II upgrades, the Krumper System upgrade, etc.

Steely Glint -> RE: Army size limits (3/14/2009 5:28:43 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: bjmorgan When the modder's guide comes out, you'll know how to mod the game and set the limits to whatever you want. What's the ETA of that guide?

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