1815 Scenario Problem

[Omnius]

I just finished playing both ways in the 1815 scenario and found that the French player loses a bunch of line infantry replacement elements to guarding depots that are totally out of the way. The biggest problem is that the active portion of the map is just way too large for the small scenario scope. I was rather miffed that I lost replacement elements to guarding depots and cities like Nice where there will be no game action.

The 1815 scenario active map area needs to be cut down to only cover the pertinent section of France that will be used in the campaign. About Dijon north and Caen to the west would be appropriate boundaries for this small scenario.

Another thing that's been bugging me about using line infantry replacement elements to guard depots and cities is what the heck good are militia replacements? So far every scenario I've played I end up with a plethora of unused militia replacements and a severe shortage of line infantry replacements. Why can't militia replacements be used for depot garrisons instead of line infantry?

[PhilThib]

Because that would need to re-do the scenario and make the depot garrisons out of militia and not line....

The scenario designers mentionned to me a few years ago that in the 1815, two-third of the French army was standing guarding depots or the other frontiers of France....therefore I would say this is WAD

[Omnius]

Philippe,
While it's too late to fix NCP scenarios it's not too late to start making smarter scenario designs for NCP2 or other current games. The map area that's somewhat active in France is way beyond the scope of the scenario and the active map with active depots and cities needs to be cut down to make the 1815 scenario better.

Just because 2/3 of the French army was on garrison duty doesn't mean you have to include a bunch of depots and cities well outside the scope of the game. Plus your scenario designers muffed it bigtime by not including garrisons in the first place in all those wayward areas to show that 2/3 of the French army was on garrison duty. The 1815 scenario would be greatly improved if the active map were cropped to ignore the vast majority of France that isn't germane to the scenario.

While 2/3 of the French army was supposedly on garrison duty where does it say that 100% of these garrison troops were line infantry and zero% were militia? In most Napoleonic games garrisons were militia troops, but in your whole series of games garrison is only line infantry with almost no militia garrison units except those that get started in garrison. I think there might be one or two militia as garrison in 1815. The problem is why spend money and conscripts to make line infantry when they just go down the tubes wasted on garrison duty in depots and cities that are outside the scope of the scenario?

In order to make your whole line of games more popular you need to cut down on things that frustrate players. I was really glad to see you fix the artillery replacement problem where good replacement artillery was wasted on fortress artillery. It would be so cool if you could fix the garrison problem in all of your games by making militia the designated garrisons for depots and cities instead of line infantry. It's rather frustrating to see so many militia replacements just sitting doing nothing on the replacements screen instead of on the map doing garrison duty while there's a shortage of line infantry.

[PhilThib]

I agree.... just I have absolutely no time at all for this for the moment. Till the release of PON, my work on NCP++ can only be limited to very short advice and hints...

[Omnius]

Philippe,
Obviously Santa forgot to bring you your time machine so you could do everything in no time. When thinking back to BoA and the AACW demo those games had a reason for militia and militia didn't collect up so much in those games. That's what's missing in NCP, a reason for militia. Especially in the early scenarios when the French army was pretty good. Still even then they had militia type units. Having the militia in NCP be the vast majority of garrison troops would have been a good thing to do. Granted there would have been some line infantry garrisons in important fortresses and large cities but for the little rinky dink out of the way garrisons militia should be the first choice as that would have been more historically accurate.

Well if this doesn't get fixed in NCP hopefully it will in NCP2. Plus making sure the map is properly cropped for scenarios. Around 2/3 of France is irrelevant for the 1815 scenario because it is so short and really all the action happens around Brussels.

Plus it would be nice if we drafted from depots and didn't have that draft end up wasted on depots.

[Bohémond]

Hello,

IHMO there are two ways to solve this issue;

First one ; Rework the setup files to make sure every structure will get his garrisons at the the beginning of the scenario. The AddGarrison Script Command will only give Garrison (Line infantry as actual design) to new conquered structures. Scenarri need to regenerate.

Second one ; Rework the Units Database to make the Garrison Unit make of Militia Elements. Scenarii need to be regenerate.

This can be a first step, the AddGarrison ScriptCommand can handle with different kind of Structure so Garrison Units can be differents if the structure is a city, a depot or a fort. See AGEwiki for more information.



Regards

Bohémond

[Omnius]

Bohemond,
Sounds like some interesting suggestions to improve the 1815 scenario and NCP overall. You've been doing great work helping to improve NCP and correct lots of little booboos which will make NCP much better!

I like the concept of different garrisons for different structures, reminds me of an old saying of my generation - Different Strokes for Different Folks! Basically line infantry should be in larger more important areas while militia goes to lesser areas. I also like the idea of putting them in on the first turn if not in the scenario setup, but wouldn't that require adding more replacements to the scenario setup to ensure there's plenty for all?

I still think that for the 1815 scenario the map needs to be cropped to match the playing area so we don't have garrisons showing up in say Nice which is way out of the playing area. That's what really annoyed me was seeing blue units on the global mini map that I couldn't access through moving around the game map within it's preset boundaries. Deactivating all those superfluous areas would go a long way to reducing the wayward garrison problem.

Which brings me to another point which is to make sure the playable map at the highest zoom-in level allows players to see all of their units. In 1815 it's tough to see Amsterdam and in the 1805 Sun to Austerlitz scenario Brest Litovsk is tough to see and access those Russian units unless one zooms out to the highest level. Not something I expect to see fixed in NCP but hopefully NCP2 will be better at giving us the whole playing area within the boundaries of where the map goes by just moving it around.

[Bohémond]

Hello,

To Omnius ; You can try the 1815 scenario included in zip file.

To be dezipped in NCP\Scens. To be sure do a Backup of existing 1815 Campaign scn.

In this 1815 scenario, Garrison will be Militia in Theater_France and Line Infantry in Theater_LowCountries.

Let me know if it's ok for you,i f you want to try it of course.

Regards

Boémond

[Omnius]

Bohemond,
If you're going to be such a great sport fixing the 1815 scenario regarding my complaint about so many wasted line infantry garrisons then I have to reply in kind by offering to betatest your work. Downloaded your 1815 campaign file and will try to get it installed properly after renaming the game's original. Will have time Friday and through the weekend to check out how the garrisons work as far as militia being used and will report back my findings.

I like your concept of having militia in France and line infantry in the Low Countries as line infantry in the strategic cities with low loyalty helps generate VP's.

I take it that fixing the garrison problem of wasting so many good line infantry replacements is scenario dependent meaning you'd have to put your new commands into each scenario. The earlier scenarios would really benefit from your work on the 1815 scenario.

I saw where you're working on some new diplomacy command under the mods section, I'm glad you've taken to learning the scripting language to help make NCP a better game!

[Omnius]

Probably the biggest problem with the 1815 scenario is the map scale. It's just too big to give us the true flavor of the actual campaign. Not enough spacing between the Allied armies to start means that replicating Napoleon's desire to separate the two allies so he could fight each one separately isn't happening. Obviously nothing can be done about it with NCP or even NCP2 considering the time scale of each turn.

I'd love to see the AGE game system done on a smaller scale focusing on individual battles and the lead up to them. A daily time scale would be a hoot to play with a smaller map scale. Maybe a greatest battles of the 18th or 19th centuries would be fun, with battles from different wars portrayed in the same game.

[Omnius]

I was surprised that the 1815 scenario didn't have an event for replicating the defection of General Bourmont. Now that would be fun to see and a nice touch of historical accuracy. I'd figure that it should happen at the end of the first turn. Just as historically happened that would make a little mess out of his command while a replacement for Bourmont comes along.

Considering that Blucher and especially Wellington got out of the gates slowly I'd think that locking them and their commands down the first turn would be appropriate. Blucher responded a little quicker, getting busy on the 14th while Wellington was fooling around with his comely companion at a cricket match and didn't get busy until the 15th. Nappy did start out the campaign by stealing a march on the Allies.

[Omnius]

Bohemond,
I checked out your nifty garrison changes and they work very nicely. I had a dickens of a time testing it the first game as I tried to move the corp at Sedan to Liege and just take down Liege to test garrisons in the Low Countries. Turn after turn I set that corp to storm the fort and turn after turn it switched back to just attack. Really strange since it was active the whole time and I had turned the AI off. On the second test I just moved the Allies off Brussels and Namur and took those two Allied Low Country cities.

On that second test I noticed that on the first turn Lille and Amiens received line infantry replacements, but then there were no militia replacements yet. On the second turn I jacked up the infantry replacements and sure enough after that the French cities and depots received militia. I did receive a line infantry garrison at Brussels which was good. I even noticed that on the Allied side their garrisons that already had militia received more which I liked.

Thanks so much for improving the 1815 scenario so that all that superfluous territory in France now burns off militia instead of line infantry. It would be wonderful if all the NCP scenarios could be improved with this new militia garrison routine but that's a lot of work and if you don't get to it I understand. Hopefully this will be fully replicated in NCP2.