Lots of questions from a newcomer to AGEOD

[Einbauschrank]

Hello all!

I picked up ROP and waltzed through the little intro "Invasion of Saxony". But I have several problems with the real campaign.

First of all: The Austrians always either evade me or they seem to know from where I'll come. I also find it difficult to time the arrival of my stacks in the enemy hex (e.g. if there's a siege and I know the enemy won't move). Is there a possibility to prevent a cavalry column from Hex A to arrive three days earlier than an infantry stack from Hex B? Even if the cavalry and the infantry begin their turn in the same hex but if they don't belong to the same army I don't see how I can coordinate it.

Then I am a little bit confused about the "intercepting" thing. In theory I drag and drop on the enemy. Sometimes it works and I get the tooltip and then again it doesn't work and I don't know why. Any suggestions what might be happening?

And finally a little bit more a plea for help: What should I do as a Prussian?
Normally I assault the camp at Pirna because it yields huge spoils of war (something like "493 000 muskets") and offers me the opportunity to promote some generals.

They Austrians then dance around me, seem to be either somewhere else or right on top of me with double the (active) number. Even Friedrich wasn't sometimes able to deploy all of his force and suffered several defeats due to only a fraction of his forces entering the fray. Do these rascals want to live forever?

Then, as soon as I get past Lobowitz (normally by sacrificing Chemnitz) I get bogged down. Sieging seems to take forever. Is it because I am doing it wrong or because it is supposed to take some time?

Why can I only load the last save game? Is this on purpose as an "iron man" contest? Or am I once again doing something wrong?

And now, really and honestly last but not least:
I am using the 1.01g patch BTW and on my Laptop (Dell XPS 1330 with W7-32 and 8400m GS) I get CTD on a regular base and sometimes the message before loading a game that something doesn't work with my directx drivers whereas my desktop (Vista 64) everything works fine. Is there some kind of known issue with Nvidia Laptop graphic adapters? I have of course fresh drivers installed.

Thank you for any response to my many questions!

Regards

Einbau

[mjw]

Sounds like your talking about actual warfare: can't coordinate units, can't keep track of the enemy; can't predict where the enemy will be; can't pin the enemy down!

Look, in all seriousness, AGEOD games work on probabilities not certainties. You can try to intercept the enemy, but mud, snow, degree of enemy region control, etc can all effect how fast you move...not to mention army makeup and cohesion.

There is just no way to say 100 percent that a move will work...that is realism. You are probably doing it right mechanically but you can't guarantee results anymore than.a general could. A general can order all his corps to move out and concentrate at a particular point...but that doesn't mean it will happen. If everyone could do that, napoleon would have been just another general

[Jarkko]

Is there a possibility to prevent a cavalry column from Hex A to arrive three days earlier than an infantry stack from Hex B? Even if the cavalry and the infantry begin their turn in the same hex but if they don't belong to the same army I don't see how I can coordinate it.

Unless they are in same army (when you can move the corps in tandem), the only way is to be gamey; have your cavalry try to take a longer route in hope of the timing matching. Even then the "confusing orders" or some such can delay the start of the movement, and things will go wahooney shaped anyway. While it would be nice to have a delay order (for example, click Delay icon to add a day before the unit starts moving) like for example in Hearts of Iron, I am not that sure it would fit the time-period (poor communications and all that) for units not in the same army.

Then I am a little bit confused about the "intercepting" thing. In theory I drag and drop on the enemy. Sometimes it works and I get the tooltip and then again it doesn't work and I don't know why. Any suggestions what might be happening?

Do you mean the tooltip that the unit is intercepting the target? I haven't noticed any other problem, except at times I have to scroll the map closer so that I hit the right stack in multi-stack areas.

And finally a little bit more a plea for help: What should I do as a Prussian?

Go for Pirna, then *slowly* push towards Lobowitz (you want the Austrians to stick around there *and* you want your troops to recover cohesion and supplywagons to be filled up again), while your flanking forces race through Chemnitz and Karslbad, swing east and cut off supplies from Prague. When your flanking force is about to enter Prague, press on hard through Lobowitz towards Prague, with any of luck the Austrians are now cut off from supplies from Prague, and it should be relatively easy to mop them up in the snow turns (your troops will be mostly active, so they will move faster than the Austrians and you'll be hammering them over and over again). Most of the time the besieged Prague holds on just fine, but sometimes it surrenders real quick, so better pray to Lady Luck (no skill in sieges in RoP sadly, pure luck, so there is absolutely nothing you can do but hope for the best (if you've broought in the engineers and siege cannons, that is)).

I am using the 1.01g patch BTW and on my Laptop (Dell XPS 1330 with W7-32 and 8400m GS) I get CTD on a regular base and sometimes the message before loading a game that something doesn't work with my directx drivers whereas my desktop (Vista 64) everything works fine. Is there some kind of known issue with Nvidia Laptop graphic adapters? I have of course fresh drivers installed.

Be sure to update your DirectX drivers from Microsoft ( http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/resultsForProduct.aspx?displaylang=en&productID=9C954C37-1ED1-4846-8A7D-85FC422D1388 ), especially DirectX9 as that is not necessarily updated automatically on your laptop.

There were some reports of latest NVIDIA drivers messing up some games, and a fix was released yesterday ( http://www.nvidia.com/object/196.75_customer_support.html ). However, I do not think that would be the cause of your problem, but never hurts to fix it anyway

[Einbauschrank]

Do you mean the tooltip that the unit is intercepting the target? I haven't noticed any other problem, except at times I have to scroll the map closer so that I hit the right stack in multi-stack areas.

Yes, this tool tip. Normally there's some small icon (the same one that appears when merging forces) but sometimes when I try to intercept the enemy stack I neither get the tooltip nor the icon.

[Strategy]
(no skill in sieges in RoP sadly, pure luck, so there is absolutely nothing you can do but hope for the best (if you've broought in the engineers and siege cannons, that is)).

OK, thanks. I will try this. I even had engineers built to add to the siege value. And I will have a look at my Direct9 drivers

[rwenstrup]

Is there a pdf somewhere that walks through a "typical" Ageod game, they're pretty similar in the basics, and shows the thought pattern and specific movements/decisions made?

There are AARs...but they tend to start from the perspective of an experienced player.

It seems the writeups either focus on the basics of "how to do it" or "this was my plan".

A walk through targeted at newbies with "tips and tricks" could be posted as the "Newbie Guide"...

...just a thought...I've looked for that many times when I've been away from Ageod games for a while and want to play again...

[Generalisimo]

Is there a pdf somewhere that walks through a "typical" Ageod game, they're pretty similar in the basics, and shows the thought pattern and specific movements/decisions made?

There are AARs...but they tend to start from the perspective of an experienced player.

It seems the writeups either focus on the basics of "how to do it" or "this was my plan".

A walk through targeted at newbies with "tips and tricks" could be posted as the "Newbie Guide"...

...just a thought...I've looked for that many times when I've been away from Ageod games for a while and want to play again...

Well, I really think AARs is exactly what you are talking about.
You can get different strategies by reading the AARs out there.
It really depends on the game you are playing... not all of them should be played the same way.

By the way, there is no "win recipe" here... something like "do this and this later and you will win". The game doesn't work like that... any game that you play will be full of "contingencies" that you will have to solve based on what you know about the game.

[Spharv2]

Yes, this tool tip. Normally there's some small icon (the same one that appears when merging forces) but sometimes when I try to intercept the enemy stack I neither get the tooltip nor the icon.

Do note that you can't use the intercept command on units in the same region as you. Only ones in other regions. If they're in the same region, you have to either hope they catch them before they can retreat, or plot a move to the area you think they're most likely to retreat to.