Wishlist

[Rafiki]

For me, a "Goto" button in the message window from the post turn message log would be nice.

IIRC you can accomplish this by clicking the log message once (twice will bring up the battle summary)

[Syt]

IIRC you can accomplish this by clicking the log message once (twice will bring up the battle summary)

Ah, thanks.

[Huo long]

A minor request here. In the tooltip of a division whitout general the actual number of elements is showed. In one with a general the stats of the general is showe instead of the elements number.

This forces the player to do the manual count when a general is present
¿Can the number of elements be specified even when it's a leader?

[mayonaise]

Another minor request: I'd love it if at some point the generals name could be displayed on their counter (maybe just last name) as well as their picture.

[mayonaise]

• Leadership
  I would suggest rethinking the way leadership is done entirely. As it is now, it seems that leaders- somewhat arbitrarily- show up with preexisting high ranks, leaving little option as to what to do with them. Historically, leaders and promotions were very much a matter of trial and error. While I know this is a lofty wish- I think the following system would much better replicate history.
  Have a general pool of all commanders available throughout the game. This isn't something the player will be able to view. Allow each brigade to have its own commander. They probably shouldn't have portraits at this point, but perhaps just their name. It was the tradition at the time to name brigades by their leader, not # & location. (in fact, the way it is now, your naming system is for regiments but applied to brigades, which is historically inaccurate).
  This way all of the commanders we know and love are involved and useable from the getgo. Longstreet and Jackson will begin as lowly brigade commanders, along with Bee, Bartow, Porter, and on and on. Have the initial pool of officers "historical", with a few higher ranked, also as historically accurate. (McDowell, Beauragard etc.)
  Then through the course of battles, dependant on their individual performance (or a random % factor multiplied by their ability if that would be easier to pull off) they would be promotable. If they were promoted, their brigade would then be commanded by the next available officer in the general force pool. Generals that emerged later in the war would be towards the bottom of this force pool, and generals that emerged earlier would be towrads the top.
  This would do 3 things
  [INDENT]1- it would be much more historically accurate. brigades were named after thier commanders, and were promoted based on their actions on the field. [/INDENT]
  [INDENT]2- it would greatly increase the variety and options available to the player. what if jackson died at manassas. what if someone relatively unheard of emerged as the new jackson? [/INDENT]
  [INDENT]3- it would solve the problem of knowing how and when to appropriately introduce new commanders throughout the campaign. right now, artificially introducing grant as a 2 star general in 61 seems very ahistorical. also, many of our favorite commanders are missing altogether. this would completely solve that problem[/INDENT]
  
  Of course this would be a pretty major overhaul, so it is just a wish, but rest assured, you'd have plenty of support in compiling that officers pool !
  
• Command
  Another issue I have is how command is addressed. Although, I will say I am growing to love the level of detail and work involved in organizing and fielding an army- very accurate- there is more that could be done to make this game more historically accurate. For starters, the availability of corp commanders early on the war is completely false. Especially in the south, corps didn't emerge until much later in the war. For the majority of the beginning of the war, it was a war of armies and divisions. The battle of seven pines was a shining example of the very real impact this organizational flaw had on the armies of the time. Corps were not implemented in the south until 1863, although Jackon and Longstreet acted effectively in that roll as "wings" before that time. The point is, I think it would be much more historical if armies were much easier to create early on in the war, and corps were not available until much later (less so for the union who adopted corps much earlier). The early war on both sides had many more armies in action than the current system allows.
  
• Washington
  In comparisson to the first two, this one is a minor wish. Historically, the union command was extremely sensitive to gaurding the capital. This manifested itself time and time again as a huge advantage for the confederates. The valley campaign froze several armies in place simply because a small confederate army was in the near vacinity of the capital. I would suggest that
  
  [INDENT]a. the union is required to keep a large standing army in the washington defenses[/INDENT]
  [INDENT]b. if a confederate army enters the vicinity of washington (within a certain radius, say 2 or 3 territories) the union player begins systematically losing morale and victory points every turn until they are driven away.[/INDENT]
  
• Militia
  This might be an easier issue to address, i'm not sure. Currently the way militia is done is obviously broke. Having them randomly appear in the threatened state, and immobile, makes them ineffective. It also makes them a nuisance because they add to the clutter on the map. I would suggest instead of this system, simply having every major city on the map have an inherit defense value that represents its local militia. There would be no counter for this, it would just be assumed they are there. That way we would only have useable troops displayed on our mini and strategic maps, and every town would have its own defenses when needed (which i think is more historically accurate) The level of theses defenses would depend on the size of the town, and could be bolstered by drafting troops the usual way and moving them to that town.
  
  
  
  
  
  

[caranorn]

Just a note on Jackson. His starting rank is absolutely justified as IIRC he'd been in Command of all Forces in Northern Virginia before Johnston and Beauregard arrived. So he stood a notch above the other Brigade commanders.

[caranorn]

Also note that only some Militia units are currently entirely immobile. To be exact you could talk about four types of Militia. 1) Those that start fixed (with locked icon) in certain cities, they can be released by event and/or enemy action. 2) Those that arrive fixed via event and seemingly never get released. 3) Those that arrive with the Volunteer brigades, they are obviously mobile once their parent brigade becomes mobile. 4) Those that are built via the Force Pool and are always mobile.

[mayonaise]

i should have been more clear. i was refering to the ones that are randomly generated when a state is invaded. of course the player should still be able to create them, and the historical ones should be auto-generated. it just seems much easier that cities have inherit defense values than counters randomly popping up in cities that may or may not be threatened.

as far as jackson, he was put in charge of the sizable post of militia and volunteers at harpers ferry by the governor of virginia. he was immediately relieved by the CSA govt on the arrival of johnston. while it was something, it hardly vaulted him to the forefront like his actions at manassas did. it certainly doesn't justify him being a corp commander in '61, a position that didn't even exist until two years later.

[Montbrun]

I would like to see a "Historical" scenario, with no production, the players receiving all units on the dates actually produced/arrived, and with the actual Leader losses. All of the tools are there to produce such a scenario, there would just be alot of scripting involved...

[tc237]

I would like to see a "Historical" scenario, with no production, the players receiving all units on the dates actually produced/arrived, and with the actual Leader losses. All of the tools are there to produce such a scenario, there would just be alot of scripting involved...

This sounds like a big "No Production Historical Mod" type of effort.
Anyone up for it?

[marecone]

I would like to see a "Historical" scenario, with no production, the players receiving all units on the dates actually produced/arrived, and with the actual Leader losses. All of the tools are there to produce such a scenario, there would just be alot of scripting involved...

This sounds really interesting

[Carrington]

Here's a consolidated wish-list. I don't have time to organize it better, but I wanted to pull all these suggestions together -- they're quite good overall.

I've attached the list as a word file; on-screen, things began to take up an awful lot of space.

Ideally the next step for 'users' of the game would be to organize the suggestions into U/I, Gameplay, A/I, Useful information/feedback(from the game engine), Chrome, history.

It's a great game engine; both BOA and AACW are lots of fun and have even more potential -- I'd love to see it get worn-in even more!

[Carrington]

One thing that would be very useful would be the ability to create "pseudo-stacks of units: allow the player to select a "stack" of all engineers on the board (perhaps broken into panes reflecting their location) and manipulate the units in the stack with in the same drag-drop mechanics as with normal stacks of units in a region.

One particularly nice version of this would be the ability to create a pseudo-stack of "newly formed" units.

I'm not sure how easy this would be to implement -- I suppose it depends on the database back-end.

But I suspect this function might clear up a lot of U/I wishes....

[Hobbes]

Hardly ever needed but on occasion very useful. The ability to move from
current siege location to new one with an assault order without assaulting the
current location first.

Maybe units with a new move order should not assault their current location
if enemy is in a structure?
Cheers, Chris

[Hobbes]

It seems a bit daft to be able to see the overall combat strength of a unit but not the overall combat strength of a division. You can't even see the overall combat strength of the units that make up a division once they are in it.

Chris

[Toten]

I would like to be able to have multiple stances in a stack...Lets say I have a Corps stack with 3 divs and a independent Cav reg. It would be very useful to be able to have 1 div and a Cav unit on the offense to deal with enemy units trying to bypass your corps in a region and to have 2 Divs in defense to counter any major force entering the area...I realize that I could detach the units for offensive purposes but then I would get a command penalty...I don't see a reason for this penalty. Its not like I am ordering the div/cav to attack another zone...I just want to have all the bases covered so to speak...

[Hobbes]

A very minor one. A total for the number of elements currently in a division
to save counting them.

It would also be nice to have a number showing the number of units of this type already on map when selecting replacements (or even just a symbol showing that you do have units of this type in play) as is done with reinforcements.

Cheers, Chris

[Pocus]

about the second point: the number of replacements allowed to be built is related to what you have on map.

[Mike]

One of the things (the very few things) I like about Forge of Freedom is the 'send reinforcements to' function. Forces built in A will automatically be sent to B once completed.

[Pocus]

this is on our agenda, but as this is a bonus feature there are many others things to do before.

[Moltke]

I would *like* to see an interface on the ledger for manipulating nations' various armies and corps. I know this is a bit ambitious, but it is a wishlist afterall

I envision it something like this: (fade in dream sequence)

A list of all the nation's forces is shown upon clicking a ledger tab labeled "Army Management." When clicking on a particular force, a new interface appears where one can manipulate the units within said force, including generals and support units. So on the left side of the screen you have a scrollable list of all the player-nation's forces on the map, while on the right is a breakdown of the currently selected force.

At the heart of it all would be the ability to drag and drop units between forces without having to scroll all over the map. The units would then automatically move between assignments without having to click and drag across the map. It could even display the travel time, and allow you to specify river/rail movement if appropriate.

This would in many ways compliment the beautiful grand strategy map, while at the same time simulating the "forces on paper" approach that would-be civil war commanders should be familiar with.

[PhilThib]

Nice dream....well, I like the idea, just at the time the wishlist is increasing in size while the available moments to work on it just shrink...anyway, this is noted

[McNaughton]

I would like for the capacity for division's to be expored for modders, as well as to have separate capacity for Union and Confederate (thereby also Mexican, French and British) corps. The primary reason is to allow for larger Confederate Divisions (4-5 brigades) while keeping union divisions down to their historic levels (2-3 brigades).

[goodwood]

What I would like to see, is on the unit roster is the ability to see units that are locked, and a filter for locked units. the second one isn't as important as the first

[Pocus]

I would like for the capacity for division's to be expored for modders, as well as to have separate capacity for Union and Confederate (thereby also Mexican, French and British) corps. The primary reason is to allow for larger Confederate Divisions (4-5 brigades) while keeping union divisions down to their historic levels (2-3 brigades).

one of the problem you would encounter is that several union divisions in the setups need 18 slots, because they have attached artilleries and cavaleries.

[Pocus]

What I would like to see, is on the unit roster is the ability to see units that are locked, and a filter for locked units. the second one isn't as important as the first

filter are definitively planned, but we are so busy

[goodwood]

filter are definitively planned, but we are so busy

thats fine with me

[Doomwalker]

LOL, OK everyone grab an appendage and pull, lets see how far we can stretch Pocus. LOL

We love you work though, and appreciate everything that you are doing.

[mikee64]

Someone posted something similar earlier, and I think it is important enough to bring up again: We really need another option besides <S>entry when using the E-R keys cycling through units. A key that means simply "skip for this turn only" or "don't move this turn only" would be great.

thanks for the support!

[Hobbes]

A minor one. I notice that the background colour for CSA strategic city names
is the same as for Union non strategic city names. A different colour would make ownership clearer.

Chris