basic question

[Dalwin]

Hello all. This game sounds great, but here is my question:

How steep is the learning curve compared to ACW?

Even with 30+ years of wargaming experience, I found the chain of command rules awkward in ACW and struggled with them (though that is probably historically accurate )

It also seemed very hard to maintain a coherent front in ACW. Units would constantly slip through into the rear. I would hope that this is much less a problem in a WWI game.

Thanks for any replies.

[pesec]

Getting into enemy rear can be VERY dangerous due to risk of isolation-destruction. And even if someone does get into rear, they can do little since if they move further they will be isolated and die.

In other words, when something passes through the frontline one way or another, they need to establish a railroad line to supplie forces that broke through. That means that frontline should be broken only by large forces.

And, given the way reinforcements work, even a thin line of troops can block enemy attempts to breakthough (unless they use a lot of forces and artillery).

So, do not worry about a single corps getting behind you making your life hell (as long as you do not have a whole army dependent on a single rail line that corps can break:wacko

[PhilThib]

The learning curve is not that difficult, but the wealth and sheer mass of information to handle in the GC is important.

Start with the small scenarios to get yourself used with the system...

The WEGO mode is simpler but slightly less realistic...in the Army-by-Army activation, you have a very tough and realistic gameplay, but it may be tricky on large front with huge forces...

The extended manual is there to assist...

My recomendation: download the demo and try the game (valid 1 month, free)

[calvinus]

My recomendation: download the demo and try the game (valid 1 month, free)

Correction: valid 15 days, not 1 month.

[Dalwin]

Thanks for the replies.

I am an addict for these sort of games, so when I got home from work last night, I bought it and jumped right into the 4 player GC as France.

Today I will actually try digging through the manual for some of the bits I had trouble with on that first session.

Even with the latest non-beta patch, I had a CTD after the last battle of the first turn. Disabling both back ground music and sound effects got me past that though (the advantage of browsing the forum before buying something )

Am I right in gathering that the zero value diplomats are only good for confusing the enemy as to your intentions via diplomatic fog of war?

[calvinus]

Am I right in gathering that the zero value diplomats are only good for confusing the enemy as to your intentions via diplomatic fog of war?

You're right.

Btw: tomorrow we will publish a new beta-patch 1.06D, that will contain several outstanding improvements in AI and land battles...