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Why I'd like to see a Grand Campaign

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 3:32 pm
by Adlercreutz
Hey Guys,

First of all to the AGEOD team: I'm really enjoying your games. Your games deserve to be called STRATEGY games.

Playing AACW at the moment, I wonder if there will be a Grand Campaign stretching from 1850 to 1920 in VGN. I'd really appreciate that.

I consider myself an "empire-builder" and for this reason I love to be in control of every aspect of the game. The grand campaign in AACW comes very close to what I call perfect gameplaywise.

As the game is still in development I'd like to share some thoughts with you:
As research was conducted mostly by private enterprises during this age, who offered their inventions to the government and the army/navy for approvement, I'd like to see a rather abstract research system. There could be an event saying an inventor states he developed a new artillery piece and offers it to your army. Then you can decide whether you want it or not. If you choose yes, there's a cost for setting up the production (in money/WS). If you choose no, the piece will be available sooner or later, but pieces may be more expensive.

If you aren't satisfied with your artillery's performance on the battlefield, there could be political, military or civilian option saying "encourage gun development". This could lead either to availability of a new type of gun a bit sooner than historical (but no railwayguns in 1851) or better training (more xp for units or a random statistic increase +1).

Of course there should be more options, but only one could be enacted per year and field. So one for the army, one for the navy and one for the economy, for example.

In a similar way options could be a way to build up the economy. For example there could be an option "government supports armaments industry". Then there's a chance a factory, foundry or whatever appears. I liked this indirect way of industrialization in AACW, because there was no pure state economy in the peroid. However I missed a tooltip saying how many chances a city has to get an improvement and whether the chance is 5% or 10%... In VGN I'd like to see that you can enable this kind of options in certain regions if not provinces (I'm not quite sure how many provinces/regions will be there). Then the option could be "the government invests in military infrastructure in northern France or even in Lille, for example.

As there was quite a lot of advance in many fields of research during the timeframe, I wonder how upgrades are made. I vote for two options: first you should be able to upgrade all you units at once (of course limited by your treasury) or each unit individually. I could also imagine that upgrades are paid for in replacements which you have to buy first. This would add to my control obsession :gardavou:

If the GP makes it into the game, consider it bought!

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 4:40 pm
by McNaughton
There definitely is a grand campaign spanning from 1850-1920, the rest is speculation, or I do not have correct levels of security to provide confirmation (or not) on other subject requests.

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 6:38 pm
by Adlercreutz
There definitely is a grand campaign spanning from 1850-1920


That would be great. I'm just not sure about that, since from what I could find out in this forum only the battle scenarios are confirmed.

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 10:25 pm
by Spharv2
Note McNaughton's titles...he knows what he's talking about. :)

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 8:44 am
by PhilThib
I confirm that we have a 1850-1920 Grand Campaign...this is THE core scenario of the game :thumbsup:

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 9:46 am
by Pocus
We can give you some hints about the aspects you are talking about though:

a) research is definitively not as in: "let's buy this tech" // "let's pour research point into that"

b) there are two kinds of money in the game, private funds and state funds. Industries are built with the former, military with the latter. No private sector? No big industry. There is no possibility to order the state to build vast industrial complex, Soviet style.

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 10:15 am
by Adlercreutz
I confirm that we have a 1850-1920 Grand Campaign...this is THE core scenario of the game


You just sold one copy of your game!

We can give you some hints about the aspects you are talking about though:

a) research is definitively not as in: "let's buy this tech" // "let's pour research point into that"

b) there are two kinds of money in the game, private funds and state funds. Industries are built with the former, military with the latter. No private sector? No big industry. There is no possibility to order the state to build vast industrial complex, Soviet style.


Thanks a lot for these hints. Now I'm even more confident that VGN will be a great game.

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 11:28 am
by Respenus
I would still like to know, if possible, how technology advancements will be portrayed in VGN? Considering that France was at the forefront of military technology during the era, will the arrival of new technologies be a scripted event, or won't there be any technology to speak of (troops are troops and that is that?). Considering your statement, WWI stile technology is out of the question.

Thank you for all the info so far. You guys are doing a damn good job and I'll be sure to support you in the future.

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 1:21 pm
by Generalisimo
Respenus wrote:I would still like to know, if possible, how technology advancements will be portrayed in VGN? Considering that France was at the forefront of military technology during the era, will the arrival of new technologies be a scripted event, or won't there be any technology to speak of (troops are troops and that is that?). Considering your statement, WWI stile technology is out of the question.

Thank you for all the info so far. You guys are doing a damn good job and I'll be sure to support you in the future.

I hope this is what you want to hear: There will be technologies and they are not scripted to arrive on an exact date... ;)
For the exact mechanism, you will have to wait a bit. We will reveal them when the right time comes, just like with ROP and its new features. :thumbsup: (Developer Diaries, etc)

Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 2:04 am
by Spruce
really interesting stuff :thumbsup:

Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 10:48 am
by caranorn
Spoon feeding the starving as usual :-( . Seriously though, any news so far has been great news, be it about RoP or VGN :-D ...

Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2010 8:50 pm
by Fastsnake
Please allow me to add that the grand campaign was THE thing to have in this game and are the only reasons why I might buy your games ('not saying they don't have a lot of interesting and fascinating aspects!), I mean, NCP defintely didn't fit me just because there were only short scenarios and not an epic great napoleonian saga.

So I'm definitely convinced that I'll buy this game!

Is there a release date less blurred than Q3 2010 by the way?