Random Leaders

Random Leaders (Full Version)

All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Empires in Arms the Napoleonic Wars of 1805 - 1815

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Marc Hameleers -> Random Leaders (6/18/2002 6:12:10 AM)
Hi, Willthere be an option to have the leader qualities randomized? An option where you would not know immediatly wich general is huge ( apart from perhaps Napoleon ) and wich is not. Each Nation could get an average rating for it's leaders based on historical performance, and the randoms calculated from that. This way French leader early in the wars would still be better then Prussians, but you would not know Who exactly would be best. Kind of like the random option for leaders Frank Hunters civil war game had, for those that rember or still play that excellent game! Marc

Le Tondu -> He has something there. (6/25/2002 11:17:52 PM)
Not a bad idea. It is simple yet profound. It gets my vote. Marc, I don't know how often anyone from the design team comes by. They must be really busy. Its one thing to play historically, and another to play with your idea. The way that I see it, it can only improve re-playablility of the game. Good job.

Uncle Toby -> Where is the strategy? (6/26/2002 1:14:26 AM)
An amusing idea but I don’t see the value in a strategy game. Perhaps if you had leaders with potential for development. Then some could develop further and more quickly than others. This would force the player to choose between risking his army and state in wars to improve his leaders and sitting tight to conserve his strength, an interesting game decision. Merely being surprised once when Mack turns out to be a 5-5-6 doesn’t add much to the game.

Marc Hameleers -> (6/26/2002 5:32:22 AM)
It would matter if you could leader stats hidden. You are not sure if you have the right person in the right place then, until he wins or loses battles. In the game i referred to, more battel son a leader also revealed his hidden stats more and more, so you would find out who was your best leader only by using them. Even Napoleon did not know at first who would prove to be the best and who would fail him at higher levels of command later in their career Marc

Uncle Toby -> Decisions, decisions (6/26/2002 9:55:39 PM)
Yes, but I don’t see how this calls for a decision, merely a guess. If you don’t have anything to go on then you might as well roll dice as chose yourself. In a strategy game decisions are key, they are what move the game and for a decision to be worth including it should not be obvious, trivial or random. You need there to be a trade off so you have to decide between courses of action which are exclusive and you must have information to base your decision on. Hidden stats are no good, they must be semi-hidden and revealing more of them must commit you to give up something else which is valuable.

Le Tondu -> It is a decision. (6/26/2002 11:56:27 PM)
Clauswitz forces us to remember that we should only [B]critique[/B] the past in light of what we have learned about it and to [B]judge[/B] the past armed with nothing more than what was known at the time. Uncle Toby, While not wanting to sound argumentative, Marc is talking about a decision, in my opinion. It is the decision to keep a particular commander in command of a Corps once you know what his capabilities are. Or to pull him back and maybe make him an ambassador or rear area commander. Since, we have the benefit of hindsight to operate from, I'd like to share some thoughts. I wonder if these capabilities (of commanders) will be fluid over time due to the experiences that the commander has. Will victories make him bolder or less uncertain? Commanders can change with time. sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Junot is a perfect example of a brave commander who simply went luny at the end. He didn't stay the same. Ney is another example of a commander who simply lost his "edge" before the end of his career. Yeah, -will an 1805 Ney be different than an 1815 Ney? Now the Austrians who are deluded with "rank by birth" don't seem to know or care what their commander's capabililies are on the (then modern) Napoleonic battlefield until it was too late. Its the same with the Prussians until they are defeated by Napoleon with the 1806 campaign. With 1813, Prussian nationalism took hold and their commanders simply gained experience with time as they warred. The Brits too had "rank by birth" -and by purchase that affected things pretty badly until a gifted commander took the reins and sorted things out. The Russians always had to enlist help from abroad to command their armies. 1805 really showed them the weakness of their system. Kutusov was great against the Turks, but his knees turned to jello when facing Napoleon. So, in my opinion, there is quite the precedent for a national leader to not fully know what his commander's capabilities are -until it is too late. So much so, it seems to be the rule. Only France it seems, had commanders that mainly owed the existence of their commands to the merit of their actions. (I know that my examles are greatly simplified and that exceptions to them can be found yet, I do not believe they are wholly unjustified.) This issue of commanders is an important one. How much is modeled by the developers will be interesting to see. Will their capabilities be static or fluid? Will they be known right away or will they be revealed only by events? How much work do they want to put into this game? Will the game model the "resolve to fight" by a particular commander? I'm thinking of Napoleon's army that in 1814 was willing to fight it out at Paris. It was his commanders that gave up. My fervent hope is that "Napoleonic Wars" will be the stragegic level game that ALL other games of this type will be judged against and that maybe only an improvement in something like graphics could improve it. If this hope is shared by the game's developers, then I am willing to wait for as long as it takes to be done correctly. Go at it guys -with a vengeance. :) Rick

Uncle Toby -> Another matter entirely (6/27/2002 5:07:31 AM)
The key concept here is whether a thing is completely unknown, then revealed, in which case it is a guess. That is what I understand Marc to be talking about. Even if leaders’ potential were revealed over time the decision would be trivial, any sensible person would always employ his leaders until they stopped ‘rising’ to find their potential then employ the best in the most critical positions. The decision of what position is most critical is not a trivial one but you might as well have started with the factors of the generals known for all it adds to the meaningful decisions of the game. All such a system of revealed value would do is delay knowing your leaders abilities and favor nations who are more constantly fighting battles, an interesting effect perhaps but not a real decision. As I said to make a decision meaningful you must give up one path to take another, or find a path where the way is confused. The path here is clear, you want more information, the sacrifice meaningless since it’s going to happen anyway. Now what Le Tondu is suggesting is something quite different and entirely more interesting especially if the penalty for retiring an unsuccessful general were stability or some other desirable quantity. A real decision would be called for if the price of bringing forward new blood were victory points or risk to the state.

Marc Hameleers -> (6/27/2002 5:49:28 AM)
Well, If you think i thought that, then you clearly didn't play Frank Hunter's excellent game :) It's a free download form Adanac games, you might wanna try it to pass time waiting for this game :) You'll find that leaders abilities are slowly reveleaded, can increase with experience and can be differnt at differnt levels of command. For a game covering a much longer period then the civil war, i can see more variation over time as well. Marc

jnier -> (6/27/2002 10:12:13 PM)
I think Marc's suggestion to have random leader system similar to Frank Hunter's system in American Civil War is a great one. It really adds a lot to the replayability of the game. Also, in Frank's game there were penalties for removing very popular generals, so the player has to sometimes decide between two unpleasant options: (1) Remove the poor leader but suffer a stiff "political" price or (2) continue with the poor leader but remain politically popular. This sort of dynamic added a lot to the gameplay and gave you the feel for the decisions that the President (of the Union or Confederacy) had to make. I think that adding this element to Napoleonic Wars would add a lot to the feel of being a European monarch who is trying to win a war, but also trying to remain popular with his people. Also, it would be nice to include the random system as a game OPTION, so that players can choose between having leaders similar to their real ability or the abilities can be randomly determined. Just my $.02 Jason

strategy -> (6/28/2002 4:50:13 PM)
The old Civil War game "No Greater Glory" game had a simmilar system with hidden leader skills. Was great fun - only problem was that the code was broken. :(

von Murrin -> (6/30/2002 4:42:45 PM)
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Marc Hameleers [B]Well, If you think i thought that, then you clearly didn't play Frank Hunter's excellent game...[/B][/QUOTE] I know [I]exactly[/I] what you're talking about! That was easily the best system ever used to handle generals. For those of you who haven't played with it, there were something like 5-6 separate ratings for each commander. You could get a fair approximation of them by checking the units under their command, watching how fast they moved, etc. That part was a bit clumsy, as the "poor - good - excellent" type of rating system used could've had an approximation in place as opposed to making you check everything to find out. The stats on a particular general would be revealed as they proved, or failed to prove, their abilities. What made it even better was the fact that you could remove or promote the commanders as you saw fit, but their stats could improve or decline to reflect their new-found abilities (or lack thereof) when given more responsibility. My vote would definitely be to include something similar. :)

Uncle Toby -> One thing and another (7/2/2002 3:03:54 AM)
I have downloaded and looked at ACW, thanks for the tip, I was unfamiliar with the game. The aspect of paying a price in prestige for dismissal of a popular general is good and worth including in any game of grand political-strategy. If what von Mirrun says is true I can’t say I’m as enthusiastic about how intelligence on the quality of generals is gathered. This seems to be busywork. There is no decision if what information you want (how good you general is) is obvious and it is busywork to make you get it by pouring over minutiae, this merely slows down the game. A decision would be called for if, for example you had a finite number of actions you could take in an administrative turn and you had to decide between analyzing an general’s performance and launching a diplomatic initiative or shoring up your political prestige.

von Murrin -> Re: One thing and another (7/5/2002 1:39:50 AM)
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Uncle Toby [B]If what von Mirrun says is true I can’t say I’m as enthusiastic about how intelligence on the quality of generals is gathered. This seems to be busywork. There is no decision if what information you want (how good you general is) is obvious and it is busywork to make you get it by pouring over minutiae, this merely slows down the game...[/B][/QUOTE] True enough. The underlying system is solid; it's the presentation that's poor.

Hoplosternum -> (7/8/2002 6:07:46 PM)
I too have played this Civil War game and thought the way it handled the Generals was great. IIRC there were options about whether the qualities were hidden or not and if they were historical, vaguely historical or random. I thought it was a very good system all round and was the best part of the game. It would be a great option to add to this game.

Didz -> (7/28/2002 2:04:37 AM)
I would certainly support the option for randomized and hidden abilities for leaders. This system worked extremely well in Frank Hunters ACW game and was one of my favourite features. This game also included a policitical support factor for each commander so some genreals though poor could not be replaced without suffering a crisis in popular support. Whilst other generals who were given very high rating could not be promoted without a similar penalty.

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