Guess where the French went? (Full Version)

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Naomi -> Guess where the French went? (10/26/2005 11:32:53 PM)

Should an occupied province be able to act as a supply origin? If so, I would like to share with you a situation where all French forces concentrated on Moscow with a depot there without bothering to bring the intermediate provinces under control to secure a supply line. The event was recorded as of 1806; I had searched for several months for all French footsteps, only to be surprised at the sight of a high stack of French units in the far N.E. portion of the map. A month after my finding, Russia surrendered to France and Nappy conjured himself along with his Grand Armee before my Britons that happened to be in Batavia to crush the latter into ashes. [sm=00000030.gif]



PDiFolco -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/27/2005 1:00:47 PM)

The lack of any sort of real constraint for having lines of communications/supply is the biggest gripe I still have with the game, as it totally ruins historicity quite often.
I really expect the next patch to tackle that issue and make AI behave accordingly. No more Spanish Siberian conquistadores or other silly Turkish landings in Ireland, pleeease [&o] !



ericbabe -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/27/2005 3:16:49 PM)

A conquered city is allowed to act as a supply source.




PDiFolco -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/27/2005 3:34:23 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

A conquered city is allowed to act as a supply source.



Yes, I know the rules, but that's the problem IMHO... There should also be a continuous line of provinces/cities/fleet back to the capital to preserve some realism in the conquest paths. An army not only needed food to sustain itself, but also a continuous flow of guns, ammo, horses, medical equipment, communications of all sorts with the motherland etc..
The game has to simulate this.

To name the most known example, Napoleon did conquer Moscow in Russia, that did not prevent his army from starving ..




nachinus -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/27/2005 3:54:16 PM)

Aye, units without a supply line from friendly territory wouldn't last long.

Although they could feed themselves (to a certain point) from the occupied land's agricultural production, I don't think that an isolated occupied enemy city is a valid unlimited supply source for things like rifles, cannons, ammunition, etc...



TexHorns -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/27/2005 4:24:21 PM)

Another issue as I see it that is similar is a country not protecting it's capital at all cost. Austria declares war after surrendering to France and Britain and Turkey. Their capital has no units protecting it. Russia (me) has two armies near Krakow and one near Finland. A 300k strong force made up of 4 armies of Austrians and satellite units appears in East Prussia and makes a bee line for Moscow. No concern that their own capital lies unprotected. Their capital is now undersiege and they have lost three battles in and around Moscow costing them upwards of 70k casualties. Oh and before I could confront the Austrians they took an interior province close to Moscow, but not adjacent and built a supply depot. It would seem that it would not be hard to program the AI to prioritize their own capital when at war. I agree with the posts in this thread that a reworking of supply to include traceable lines of communication would benefit the game from a realism standpoint.

Still having a blast.[:D]



carnifex -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/27/2005 5:05:55 PM)

quote:


quote:

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

A conquered city is allowed to act as a supply source.



Yes, I know the rules, but that's the problem IMHO... There should also be a continuous line of provinces/cities/fleet back to the capital to preserve some realism in the conquest paths.


Yeah I agree with that. It's not a game killer and it probably helps out the AI a lot, but there's no way I should be able to feed 200 thousand French troops just because I've captured Ekaterinoslav and nothing else. Minor country provinces maybe, but major power home provinces should not.




Gresbeck -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/27/2005 5:47:01 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: carnifex

quote:


quote:

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

A conquered city is allowed to act as a supply source.



Yes, I know the rules, but that's the problem IMHO... There should also be a continuous line of provinces/cities/fleet back to the capital to preserve some realism in the conquest paths.


Yeah I agree with that. It's not a game killer and it probably helps out the AI a lot, but there's no way I should be able to feed 200 thousand French troops just because I've captured Ekaterinoslav and nothing else. Minor country provinces maybe, but major power home provinces should not.




Not sure. Probably we shouldn't think at supply depots as stuff produced in the occupied province. Probably they are the logistic infrastructure (magazines, men needed to transport stuff) needed to deliver stuff to the troops, where the stuff is produced in your home provinces. Put this way, it could have sense to imagine that conquering an enemy province lowers the cost of infrastructure needed to supply your troops (because it helps organizing a supply net near your troops). That's why I think occupied provinces should at least lower the cost of supply, but you may be right that the actual game system lowers it too much.



nachinus -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/27/2005 8:28:14 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Gresbeck


Not sure. Probably we shouldn't think at supply depots as stuff produced in the occupied province. Probably they are the logistic infrastructure (magazines, men needed to transport stuff) needed to deliver stuff to the troops, where the stuff is produced in your home provinces. Put this way, it could have sense to imagine that conquering an enemy province lowers the cost of infrastructure needed to supply your troops (because it helps organizing a supply net near your troops). That's why I think occupied provinces should at least lower the cost of supply, but you may be right that the actual game system lowers it too much.



But the problem is not that, the problem is that in the example given by Naomi, a whole army was being perfectly supplied for ages and ages while it was in an occupied enemy city totally surrounded by the enemy! Without contact with its supply lines or friendly forces. Where the hell are the rifles, cannons, ammunition, etc coming from? [X(]

[;)]



Naomi -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/28/2005 3:55:57 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: TexHorns

Another issue as I see it that is similar is a country not protecting it's capital at all cost. Austria declares war after surrendering to France and Britain and Turkey. Their capital has no units protecting it. Russia (me) has two armies near Krakow and one near Finland. A 300k strong force made up of 4 armies of Austrians and satellite units appears in East Prussia and makes a bee line for Moscow. No concern that their own capital lies unprotected. Their capital is now undersiege and they have lost three battles in and around Moscow costing them upwards of 70k casualties. Oh and before I could confront the Austrians they took an interior province close to Moscow, but not adjacent and built a supply depot. It would seem that it would not be hard to program the AI to prioritize their own capital when at war. I agree with the posts in this thread that a reworking of supply to include traceable lines of communication would benefit the game from a realism standpoint.

Still having a blast.[:D]

Capitals need assume more of what they mean to a nation's people, or the following few events will not stop recurring:
- Russians flock to French land for the smell of freedom and civilisation, leaving Moscow a hate place for Nappy to huddle himself in.
- Austrians break into Italian mansions for chests of liras, regardless of Spaniads knocking on Vienna's gates.
- Britons set foot in Fontainebleau effortlessly sending for Nappy to seal his abdication.

Now, as of 1808, Nappy is launching himself again in the direction of the core of the severe cold, and he doesn't seem to remember his baggage way behind. [sm=00000506.gif]



Uncle_Joe -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/28/2005 6:18:36 AM)

Yes, this is the same point I was trying to make when we were discussing 'Lines of Communication' in another thread. It takes more than just a localized supply of food/ammo in order for an army to be effective.

Time and time again, armies maneuvered to cut off the enemy or to avoid being cut off from home. This element is just currently missing in CoG and I think that manifests itself in many ways, leading to ahistoric mobility and range for armies. Going from France to Moscow should be a major undertaking and lesser developed nations such as Sweden and Turkey should have an extremely hard time projecting power out of their own theatres.

But many times I've seen Turkey gain a province along the Baltic and next thing you know, they have huge 100+ armies rolling around Northern Europe. The same applies when the Austria/Prussia/Russia want to go campaigning through Spain. In the game, its quite simple. In reality, they just did not have that level of logistical capability.

So, we are back to the original question asked ages ago...is the game supposed to more accurately simulate history or is it meant as more of lighter game where things are a lot more open-ended? If the former, then I definately think a LoC concept has to be introduced to prevent the completely ahistorical events we see happening on a fairly consistant basis. If its the latter, then I think the game is fine and people just have to adjust to the way the rules function.

To me, it doesnt matter much either way. I enjoy the game as is, and I would enjoy it equally if more realistic constraints were place on the participants.




ptan54 -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/28/2005 11:10:06 AM)

I agree that depot building should be allowed in hostile territory (including occupied hostile territory) ONLY if a LOC can be established and maintained with friendly territory. Depots do NOT consist of materiel and food from the province that they are situated in, we already have the concept of forage for that. Depots should be thought of as materiel and food from the motherland/allies. To use 1812 as an example, the major depots were at Smolensk and Vilna, these were supplies from France and the German allies. Not Russian supplies. Russian supplies should be thought of as forage, French armies foraging in Russia would be living off Russian land.

Pursuant to this concept of forage, I believe that a scorched earth option should be made available in a later patch. Countries should be given a choice to deliberately burn things down (destroying levels of barracks, courts etc) and lowering forage value at the same time. Perhaps forage value should be linked to the overall development of the province as well, so that self-looting would automatically reduce the forage value? This would accurately reflect the situation when peasants absolutely refused to cooperate with the invaders, refusing to sell any food whatsoever and burning everything down.

Whether this should be a universal option or just for Russia, Spain and Turkey (since they had the most fanatical peasants) should also be considered....



Naomi -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/28/2005 1:01:40 PM)

We have the rule that depots in non-friendly territories are more likely to be destroyed to account for, inter alia, lack of full geographical knowledge about, and inability to control events in, alien land. Nonetheless the body of rules may fail to capture an important part of establishment of depots on foreign soil. Were people then really able to build depots even before they had set foot there? Supposed they were (by sending small stealth companies to handle it), such establishments were very likely to be destroyed (through the absence of regular divisions for guarding duty), or at least, malfunction (in light that there need be time before supplies reach those depots laid far afield - if they can safely be there). That said, depots created this way are simply empty structures and to be logistically enriched. The prevailing body of rules seems to have over-abstracted such a matter. To minimise fanciful - if not ahistorical - trespassing tendencies, depot-construction and supply-source may better be regulated otherwise. [sm=00000028.gif]




Gresbeck -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/28/2005 4:30:18 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: nachinus


quote:

ORIGINAL: Gresbeck


Not sure. Probably we shouldn't think at supply depots as stuff produced in the occupied province. Probably they are the logistic infrastructure (magazines, men needed to transport stuff) needed to deliver stuff to the troops, where the stuff is produced in your home provinces. Put this way, it could have sense to imagine that conquering an enemy province lowers the cost of infrastructure needed to supply your troops (because it helps organizing a supply net near your troops). That's why I think occupied provinces should at least lower the cost of supply, but you may be right that the actual game system lowers it too much.



But the problem is not that, the problem is that in the example given by Naomi, a whole army was being perfectly supplied for ages and ages while it was in an occupied enemy city totally surrounded by the enemy! Without contact with its supply lines or friendly forces. Where the hell are the rifles, cannons, ammunition, etc coming from? [X(]

[;)]


I see your point, but in game terms things are rather different.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ralegh

the reason it is as it is is because most of the cities were actually declared open cities if they got surrounded - armies of the period usually beseiged fortresses in the province, not cities, and didn't make war on the civilian population



That's why we shouldn't think at beseiged cities like "surrounded cities": cities are an abstraction for the infrastructure of the provinces. That means that an "occupied capital" represents a conquered province. Troops are not locked inside the "walls". Troops occupy and exploit the military / civil infrastructure, and they can use this infrastructure to stockpile resources, to supply troops and probably to produce rifles and ammo. I dont't know if this is realistic or not (i.e.: abstractions are never realistic, sometimes they can get realistic results) but that's how the game works, and explains the rule (manual, p. 60) allowing troops in besieged cities to get their upkeep even without supply depot (the "walls", i.e. the infrastructure, work themselves as a supply depot).

On the other hand, the problem
quote:

Where the hell are the rifles, cannons, ammunition, etc coming from

is a problem also when troops are foraging, because forage doesn't model rifles, cannons, ammunitions. Put this way, I agree 100% with Uncle Joe: the point is that the game doesn't model lines of supply. A supply depot is not properly a line of supply: it models stockpiled stuff, not the route from province of production to the battlefront. And the game system cannot be changed simply by a rule requiring a chain of supply depots from home province to the front (and btw, should such a rule apply also to enclaves like Gibraltar? Should Gibraltar be supplied from Britain? If not, why shouldn't the same rule apply to conquered provinces without land connection to home provinces of the conquering power?). Such a rule would make supply too expensive, would compel to rewrite the rule about foraging (because foraging units shouldn't be considered supplied with rifles and ammo), and the rules about upkeep costs (that should depend on number of battles fought). Last but not least: what about the chance to cut a line of supply in a game based on very large provinces, where the presence of enemy units doesn't assure that stuff could be intercepted?

That's why I think that a rule based on line of supply isn't easily implementable, and I continue to ask myself if the game system "abstraction" is so unrealistic, or is based on the realistic assumption that in 1800's feeded troops could be considered supplied with rifles and ammo. In the examples reported by Naomi (even assuming the situation was exactly as reported by nachinus) the problem is with Russian A.I. not defending its capital; a conquered capital means a huge loss of organization and infrastructure; Napoleon's army starving after conquering Moscow could correspond in game terms to a situation where the French army has not conquered the province of Moscow (the conquer of Moscow in game terms abstracts a situation where the French have conquered the whole infrastructure of the province, not only the city).



Naomi -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/28/2005 6:57:27 PM)

Abstraction is not bad in itself, but abstraction based on persuasive, if not realistic or historico-relative, premises is even better, right?

When units can draw on all necessities from an occuplied province, which means they become self-reliant in this isolated island of theirs, should they - to say the least - yet consume their nation's resources, i.e. gold and food in COG's terms? I remember the national economic ledger still accounts for expenditure for such occupiers. [sm=00000459.gif]



carnifex -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/28/2005 9:24:43 PM)

I think the main problem is that a conquered province is treated like an original home nation province for all purposes. If my French take Kiev from the Russians, then Kiev essentially becomes France. The Kievans now produce troops for the French, provide supply, money, resources, everything. This is obviously unrealistic, as Kiev would chafe under the foreign rule and would resist being orderly and efficient, and definitely would not provide loyal troops.

Changing that relationship is probably out of the question at this stage in the game, but in my opinion national provinces that are conquered by another power should not provide even half the benefit of an actual home nation province, and in regards to supply, the costs should be tripled or quadrupled.

In effect, the main reason to take a major power's home nation province should be to deny it to the original owner, and not to reap 100% benefits of ownership.



Naomi -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/29/2005 12:45:41 AM)

I didn't know an occupied province can be used even for unit-building purposes. Btw, maybe there is nobody keener than Mr. Bush to desire it will be the case in the occupied Iraq. [sm=00000924.gif]



ericbabe -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/29/2005 5:31:18 PM)


It is true for conquered provinces (obtained by Cede treaty clause), but not occupied ones.

I can make the change that occupied cities cannot act as depot sources; that wouldn't be very hard. I'm worried that from a game balance perspective there wouldn't be nearly as much reward for occupying any city other than the capital, so maybe I'll increase victory points awarded, or some such.

For what it's worth, our design rubric is to give primacy to game playability over accuracy of the simulation. It's quite simply a matter of self-preservation on my part: Crown of Glory required a tremendous amount of work in production, and in the development of it I incurred quite a bit of personal debt. There is a very limited market for products that emphasize simulation over game-play, and not being independently wealthy, I simply can't afford to make games that lose large sums of money. We try to make the game as historical as possible, but we have to try to attract more mainstream players -- as it is, I've had many complaints, some even on these boards, that the current supply and upkeep rules are too limiting!

The Matrix forum attracts feedback from the most elite players, but if you've read our reviews in CGW and CGM you can get a sense of the considerations of the wider audience for which I need to account, to reckon with the feedback which I receive on these boards. So I must beg your indulgence to recognize the reality that I have to balance the game's rules to try to accomodate all sorts of players.




Naomi -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/29/2005 7:34:59 PM)

As long as the most elite players, which I am far from and can never be [:'(], vote for playability, I would like to swim the trend (in the hope MatrixGames won't otherwise turn to Chapter 11). I was just playing a game as France, where my armies were simply stationed in Madeburg and Linz after I had taken them and built depots there, and what I needed to do was only instructing my troops to stay there staving off endless (which, fortunately, they turned out not to be) waves of enemy offensives till their NMLs dived to nowhere further. Alas, I neglected to remember that such occupied-land depots would be automatically dismantled behind my evacuated soldiers after my enemies sued for peace. [sm=00000028.gif]



PDiFolco -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/30/2005 1:08:45 AM)

Eric,
The game has been acclaimed *also* because it was a credible simulation of Napoleonic Europe. Myself I gave it a good rating in PC4War... ;) Yet those silly situation with Turkish Scandinavia or Russian N Africa really ruins the game for me, and other "elite" players !
What "playability" and market shares would be lost by fixing that ? The gamers wanting "simple" and more colourful games have already bought IG (Cossacks II) ... Don't miss your audience, the game is a Matrix game, not EA's ..[8|]



pricemc1 -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/30/2005 4:15:41 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

I can make the change that occupied cities cannot act as depot sources; that wouldn't be very hard. I'm worried that from a game balance perspective there wouldn't be nearly as much reward for occupying any city other than the capital, so maybe I'll increase victory points awarded, or some such.


One thing I think you should consider is making these kind of changes as optional rules. Alot of the threads on the forums really seem to deal with people who desire realism versus people who desire game play. My personal feeling is that you can address both types of issues by creating a more comprehensive set of "options" for the game so that players can turn and off what they feel makes the game better or worse. This would make the game more flexible, fit with everyone's desires, and cater to the simple and more complex game players as well.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

For what it's worth, our design rubric is to give primacy to game playability over accuracy of the simulation. It's quite simply a matter of self-preservation on my part: Crown of Glory required a tremendous amount of work in production, and in the development of it I incurred quite a bit of personal debt. There is a very limited market for products that emphasize simulation over game-play, and not being independently wealthy, I simply can't afford to make games that lose large sums of money. We try to make the game as historical as possible, but we have to try to attract more mainstream players -- as it is, I've had many complaints, some even on these boards, that the current supply and upkeep rules are too limiting!



I'm glad you finally spelled this out because this should quiet some of the threads where people rail for realism. My personal desire is for playability but as I stated above making all additional rules as options just makes it that much easier to address everyone's likes and dislikes.

Mike



ptan54 -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/30/2005 9:22:27 AM)

I would support the move that an occupied province (owned by enemy, occupied by you) should NOT be able to serve as a supply SOURCE.

This would have no impact on enclaves such as Gibraltar, as it is British OWNED. So long as Britain owns and maintains control over Gilbraltar, it can act as a supply source.

This change would get rid of "gamey" exploits such as maintaining weak forces along the LOS but occupying the province adjacent to an enemy capital, in the hope that all the supplies for the army can flow from that occupied province.

I should point out that at Wagram, Napoleon ordered his supply ministers to get 600,000 bottles of wine and thousands of pounds of flour - from FRANCE, not from Austria. Such a gargantuan amount of materiel could not be extracted from Austria with ease - either because the Austrians destroyed them, or if they didn't, it would take forever to sort things out in a newly conquered city. It only makes sense that there were previously sorted military supplies ready to ship once the order is given.



nachinus -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/30/2005 11:06:20 PM)

Well, almost all wargames, even the simplest ones have rules dealing with lines of supply, and sometimes they are really restrictive, as they should be. Usually things as simple as the classical: 'if a unit can't trace a continuous line of owned or occupied provinces toward his lines, it is considered out of supply'. Simple, clear and restrictive rules like these haven't prevented very popular grand strategy titles like WaW or HoI to achieve commercial success.



Gresbeck -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/30/2005 11:55:10 PM)

First of all, thanks to Eric for his kind response (I find very interesting to debate with developers).

Now, just a few thoughts.

quote:

Well, almost all wargames, even the simplest ones have rules dealing with lines of supply, and sometimes they are really restrictive, as they should be. Usually things as simple as the classical: 'if a unit can't trace a continuous line of owned or occupied provinces toward his lines, it is considered out of supply'. Simple, clear and restrictive rules like these haven't prevented very popular grand strategy titles like WaW or HoI to achieve commercial success


But almost no wargame has rules dealing with foraging, and that makes things more complicated. If we assume that line of supply should simulate rifles and bullets, also foraging units should be sometimes considered out of supply, and on the other hand the level of supply shouldn't depend only on the supply line, but also on the fact that a unit has engaged in combat.

quote:

Usually things as simple as the classical: 'if a unit can't trace a continuous line of owned or occupied provinces toward his lines, it is considered out of supply'.


But some posters have argued that during the Napoleonic period lines of supply where very thin and difficult to be cut (I remembere an old post by Ralegh about the inability to defend borders). A rule allowing a single unit (located in a very large province) to cut a line of supply would be probably too restrictive, and would probably never allow realistic results such as Napoleon conquering Moscow.

quote:

This would have no impact on enclaves such as Gibraltar, as it is British OWNED. So long as Britain owns and maintains control over Gilbraltar, it can act as a supply source.


I know, but I don't understand why an owned province should be considered always supplied, and a conquered province not (btw, the actual game system allows peace treaties where some provinces are ceded and become enclaves, probably such a rule should be rediscussed, anyway how would you consider ceded provinces that become enclaves? always supplied?).

That's why I agree with all posters saying the actual game system seems to be unrealistic; I prefer realistic rules; but I've the impression we are not suggesting improvements; and that probably we are proposing to develop a completely different game.



nachinus -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/31/2005 12:53:56 AM)

Well, I don't think that we are suggesting to develop a different game, simply a modification of current rules.

What I would do is to leave as it is now (so a conquered enemy city acts as a supply source) BUT adding some limitations to it, whether putting a maximum army size that a enemy province can supply or putting a time limit to it, so for example if a occupied enemy city is cut from the rest of your territory, it can supply units from there for 2-5 turns, this duration depending on the province developments or the foraging limit.



ericbabe -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/31/2005 1:59:59 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco

Eric,
The game has been acclaimed *also* because it was a credible simulation of Napoleonic Europe. Myself I gave it a good rating in PC4War... ;) Yet those silly situation with Turkish Scandinavia or Russian N Africa really ruins the game for me, and other "elite" players !
What "playability" and market shares would be lost by fixing that ? The gamers wanting "simple" and more colourful games have already bought IG (Cossacks II) ... Don't miss your audience, the game is a Matrix game, not EA's ..[8|]


Oh, I don't think there's anything unmarketable about tweaking the game to make a Russian NAfrica more difficult to obtain; I was refering more to the proliferation of rules for LOC and supply. I'm getting a lot of feedback to the effect that the current supply rules are already too complicated and too limiting to players' imperial ambitions.

Never-the-less, many of the events that did happen in the Napoleonic era -- the French invasion of Egypt, for instance -- are just the sort of things that players seem to want to disallow as ahistorical using LOC rules and similar.

As I mentioned in the previous post, if we can only sell to the hard-core gamers on the Matrix forums, then we will lose money with each project: I wish it weren't so. I'd love to be able to ignore the reviews in CGW and CGM, but unfortunately I can't afford to do it.





ericbabe -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/31/2005 2:15:24 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: nachinus

Well, almost all wargames, even the simplest ones have rules dealing with lines of supply, and sometimes they are really restrictive, as they should be. Usually things as simple as the classical: 'if a unit can't trace a continuous line of owned or occupied provinces toward his lines, it is considered out of supply'. Simple, clear and restrictive rules like these haven't prevented very popular grand strategy titles like WaW or HoI to achieve commercial success.


I'd dare say we have an even more restrictive rule, as one not only has to keep LOS open, but also has to predict which LOS will be open and to build a depot chain along that line (or to spend extra money and build superfluous depot routes). In bad weather in winter in a low forage area, divisions that are out-of-supply can lose thousands of men each in a given month, easily more than is lost by a single rout in battle. I think we can eliminate the rule that allows depots to be built in occupied cities to address the current issue without the need to add more draconian LOS rules to the game.

The sort of rules that I don't want to implement simply for the sake of playability are rules that destroy units instantly once they become out-of-supply. My sense is that some players would be pleased if all their units were destroyed if they become out-of-supply in Russia, but that many more players would find that too frustrating.





ericbabe -> RE: Guess where the French went? (10/31/2005 2:18:26 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: pricemc1
One thing I think you should consider is making these kind of changes as optional rules. Alot of the threads on the forums really seem to deal with people who desire realism versus people who desire game play. My personal feeling is that you can address both types of issues by creating a more comprehensive set of "options" for the game so that players can turn and off what they feel makes the game better or worse. This would make the game more flexible, fit with everyone's desires, and cater to the simple and more complex game players as well.


This is one approach we are considering for the sequels. It's hard to do it this way, because -- in my opinion -- a well designed game is a well-integrated game, but in a well-integrated game it's difficult simply to turn off sets of rules (because the rules that are left should be dependent on them.) Never-the-less, this is one approach we are considering.


quote:


I'm glad you finally spelled this out because this should quiet some of the threads where people rail for realism. My personal desire is for playability but as I stated above making all additional rules as options just makes it that much easier to address everyone's likes and dislikes.


I'm keen to make the game realistic in-as-much as that serves to make the game more immersive and thus more enjoyable, but I'm looking for ways to do so that don't make the game more complicated.





Uncle_Joe -> RE: Guess where the French went? (11/2/2005 11:13:19 AM)

quote:

Never-the-less, many of the events that did happen in the Napoleonic era -- the French invasion of Egypt, for instance -- are just the sort of things that players seem to want to disallow as ahistorical using LOC rules and similar.


I think you are over-generalizing here a bit (is that a word?). There is such a thing as scale going on here. I dont have a reference in front of me, but how many men did Nappy take into Egypt? I believe it was under 50k.

The things that occur in the game allow for hundreds of thousands of troops to base far from home. That is where it start to really strain believability. Part of the problem is that Depots are just a channel for your entire econ. If you have the money/food in existance to supply your troops, they can literally be anywhere and in supply. Even in the most barren wasteland, 100s of miles from home, they are well supplied in good morale. Napoleon in Egypt was cut off quite easily and the army was left to die. When France invaded Russia, they lost hundreds of thousands to attrition for little gain. Those are hardly ringing endorsements of the capabilities of armies to sustain themselves far from home! ;)

In fact, I think they point out why it was rarely done in that era...once you are going so far, the supply needed to maintain the supply line was often so much that you weren't really getting much forward to the troops. Draft animals need food and water. The amounts carried by them would often be consumed just getting out there, leaving little to distribute.

A suggestion I have mentioned before would be to have Depots add 50k to the Forage Value or double it (whichever is greater). That would mean that in desolate areas (or mountainous), it doesnt matter how much money/food you have laying around, you cant GET it to the troops.

That said, I understand your point about keeping the game with 'mass appeal'. I think its possible to please most vantage points though, either through options or by making clear, easy to discern limitations based on reality. Once the rules become convoluted, you start losing the 'lite' crowd, but just because a limitation to reality exists, it doesnt necessarily mean the game is more complex or difficult to play.



Gresbeck -> RE: Guess where the French went? (11/2/2005 12:44:31 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe

A suggestion I have mentioned before would be to have Depots add 50k to the Forage Value or double it (whichever is greater). That would mean that in desolate areas (or mountainous), it doesnt matter how much money/food you have laying around, you cant GET it to the troops.




Agreed. It seems a good solution, rather simple and easily implementable.[&o]

Tonight I had a dream [:)]
A dream where each province in enemy territory was rated not only for a forage value, but also for a supply value. The supply value depended on presence of supply depot chains, presence of enemy / friendly troops along the supply chain, distance from home provinces. The supply value of provinces more distant from home country could never be higher than the value of closer provinces (exc.: conquered provinces should have a supply bonus). Every unit in enemy territory should pass a "supply check" based (inter alia) on the number of battles fought during the turn. Casualties depending from unseccessful supply check could be sent (at least in part) back to the draft pool (assuming they are troops feeded but no supplied with ammo).

I admit such a solution wouldn't probably be implementable in the actual engine. Consider it a wish list for a sequel.

BTW: I'm not sure a complicated rule about supply would make the game too difficult to play. Realistic rules are difficult to implement, but can be easily mastered if they make the game strategies more intuitive.




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