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marc420 -> RE: Wish List: Suggestions for a future patch (7/7/2005 2:03:30 AM)
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For tactical battles, I'd like to see the starting placements somewhat reflect the strategic situation.
--If the defender is in place and not moving, then those forces should start in a defensive position.
--The attacker should be entering in columns from an edge. Make the columns have an order that puts the Lt Cav out front and the supply caisons in the back.
--If the defender is also moving, make it a meeting engagement and have both sides entering from a map edge.
In a strategic sense, it should be very rare that one army just blunders into another one and there's an instant battle. And if that happens, it should be because of lack of cavalry or other scouting/screening forces. Or maybe also a commander function. Does anyone know of any instances where Napoleon blundered into a battle with no idea of where the enemy was before the shooting started?
I realize the AI might be a limitation here, but I'd rather see work done to improve the AI than have the battles be crippled. I'd very much rather have a game where the battles start with a scouting/screening phase ... not an exact phase in game terms, but a setup where the forces start further apart with the scouting/screening forces just barely in contact.
On another note, it seems like sea battles are way too deadly. I'd say there should be a bigger chance of not having a battle, even when both sides say "seek combat". Those are big sea zones. At sea, fleets were known to sail right past each other. 10 Frigates can't cover hundreds of miles/kms. And also, this was the era of Lines of battle and Rules of engagement. A lot of the naval battles of this era basically were the two lines shooting at each other and destroying a few ships. But big battles where 30-50 ships were destroyed were very rare. In general, part of the idea behind the lines of battle was to keep the fleet intact. Admirals were wary of risking the entire fleet, and it seems like the combat results should reflect that. Perhaps we should have Admirals in addition to Generals, and only the rare Admirals like Nelson are willing to take big risks in a battle. Most should be very cautious with their fleets.
In tactical battles, any chance of getting that big red box off the mini-map. Just an outline of the box would show me the screen view, and the mini-map might be more useful for seeing the big picture then.
Any chance of changing the controls on manpower allocation in a province? I find those sliders hard to use. Especially when there's one unallocated manpower and I'm trying to move the slider by "just that much". Improvements could be ...
-- A text box that lets a player type a value instead of using the slider.
-- Arrow keys at the end that let me move the slider by one unit easily
-- A lock on a control so that if I move another slider too far it doesn't take away manpower from the one I've already set.
On the economics, some sort of consistent estimate of how the turn is going to go. I love the variablity. But it seems to me that the +xx numbers don't take into account the subtractions ... especially waste. I don't want the variablity to go away, but I'd like to be doing my planning based on some reasonable guess as to average results of what might happen when I end turn.
The reports seem to be HTML windows that come up (a guess on my part?). I thinking the ones that say "Economy, Supply, Chat, Rumor" etc. Any chance those could be printed? I have a printer on my system, but almost no game designers ever let me use it.
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