Another Newbe with thoughts, questions, and feedback

[Hobo]

First to Ageod. Great game and engine that I hope you continue to build as it is one of my favorite wargames ever and this is coming from someone that started with Battle For Normandy on an Apple II. As long as you keep adding functionality and depth, I will purchase every module/campaign pack that you release. Thank you for the effort.

Questions
1. What do the lines represent when you click on a region and then hit <Shift>?
2. How does the "turn replay widget" work? Is this only for PBEM games?
3. I am getting crash to desktop on my first real campaign, marius vs sula on turn 44 played as Pop when I select or move certain units or leaders. It is a little bit inconsistent but bothersome. I have rebooted and reloaded the scenario a couple of times. Any idea why?

Feedback in no particular order
1. The battle screen (not talking about the results screen) needs some work. A few complaints:

I see some text describing the battle but it disappears too quick to read it. Can you make it available via a menu in the battle results screen?
It takes up so much of the screen I frequently dont know where the battle is fought. I know I can go back and check later but it would be nice to be able to move around the screen on stick it in a corner some place.

2. I really wish there was more tactical elements too the battle. I am not talking about TW like stuff but simply picking the elements to fight in a round and perhaps their position and plan would be awsome. I know this is no small task so I would expect something like this to be a major paid-for upgrade.
3. Picky item, but I have a hard time understanding how a leader loses experience. I would expect it always to grow from a battle with the amount dependent on results and maybe seniority or some IQ trait.
4. I would love to be able to manage units at an element level. Simply combining weakened elements or units in to a single strong unit would be nice for the micromanagers among us.

I am sure there will be more in the future. Thank you again for a fine game.

- Chris

[Hobbes]

Hi Chris, they show the type of terrain to be traversed - but forget exactly what each colour represents - can anyone elucidate?
Turn replay should work for any game - just press it and you should see the previous turn again? If you post the log and save files
somebody may be able to help. I have not experienced a crash myself since the early days of release.

Have you tried the options to Pause after Battle and Battle Animation?
By leaders losing experience I'm not sure what you mean. Seniority can be lost - this is just a indicator of how well they are regarded.

Cheers,
Chris

[Owl]

Does clicking on on the turn replay widget not do anything for you? In that's the case, you might want to check if there is a line "inoReplay = 1" in the General.opt file in the Settings folder of the game. If there isn't (or if the value is 0), add that line or change the 0 to a 1 and the turn replay feature should work for you.

[Hobo]

owl - That did the trick, many thanks

Hobbes -

The way Leader's experience, not seniority, is what confuses me. The guide says, experience is gained by "the ratio of losses suffered/losses inflicted and has nothing to do with winning the battle." Logic dictates to me that you should always gain some experience from a battle which in turn would raise your offense and defense rating. For instance, lets say you fight a defense battle and forget to erect some form of defenses and get slaughtered. Next time you fight, I would expect that experience of getting slaughtered would teach you a lesson and increase your experience.

Even with the rules the way they are, it appears sometimes experience for leaders is not calculated. Just fought a battle that my leader won and inflicted 5596 men and 246 horse casualties and sustained 3936 casualties and received precisely 0 experience. What is really weird is that the elements that fought in the battle did receive experience.

Thanks all for the help

- Chris

[Hobbes]

Sorry Chris, I see what you mean now. A good point - it's odd that experience can be lost. Maybe experience is not quite the correct word for what this indicator represents. It seems to be more like an indicator of morale or confidence. Maybe somebody can shed some light?

Cheers,
Chris

[bob.]

Experience is weird. The formula is way too dependant on the actual result of the battle. In my opinion, if you absolutely slaughter an inferior army you should get only very few experience.

I can tell you the most absurd result of this I encountered in AGEOD games, although it is a completely different game :P But I think it works the same:
In Espana 1936, I assaulted Madrid with Franco, it was obviously a huge battle and my superior Nationalist forces handily defeated the Republicans. Franco got 650 experience. SIX HUNDRED FIFTY EXPERIENCE. He was catapulted to a 6-7-7 beast.
So, that tells me that experience gain has to be in some way equivalent to the size of the battle and amount of enemies killed. Which is in my opinion an absolutely terrible way to do it.

Maybe in future AGEOD games this mechanic can be reworked?

[Hobbes]

It's not something I have thought about much - and have the feeling nobody has. The game mechanic does seem a bit odd. The remains of a unit that suffers a huge number of losses may gain a lot of experience from the battle but if after that their ranks are reinforced by green elements you would not expect a huge experience gain. A single leader should be handled in a different way. He could suffer a huge defeat but learn from that. Tend to learn more from a defeat than a victory.

Cheers,
Chris

P.S. bob - although I spend time making scenarios for the game I rarely play it (will do soon for testing) so I am quite rusty on a lot of things. I'm surprised when you say an experience gain led to a '6-7-7 beast' I assumed experience gain just gives a leader more stars which helps in combat - are you saying his stats somehow went up? Was he promoted? Not sure how this works - I'll have to look into it.

[pantsukki]

It's not something I have thought about much - and have the feeling nobody has. The game mechanic does seem a bit odd. The remains of a unit that suffers a huge number of losses may gain a lot of experience from the battle but if after that their ranks are reinforced by green elements you would not expect a huge experience gain. A single leader should be handled in a different way. He could suffer a huge defeat but learn from that. Tend to learn more from a defeat than a victory.

Cheers,
Chris

P.S. bob - although I spend time making scenarios for the game I rarely play it (will do soon for testing) so I am quite rusty on a lot of things. I'm surprised when you say an experience gain led to a '6-7-7 beast' I assumed experience gain just gives a leader more stars which helps in combat - are you saying his stats somehow went up? Was he promoted? Not sure how this works - I'll have to look into it.

The leader stars (their rank) doesn't change. Their ratings (strat-off-def) increase as they gain experience, and so does their seniority.

[Hobbes]

I've never noticed a leaders stats changing - surprised about this. The number of stars must increase as they gain experience though?
[ATTACH]26890[/ATTACH]

I feel I'm getting confused - must pay more attention to these things.

Cheers,
Chris

EDIT - I see what you mean - the rank stars 1 2 or 3

[pantsukki]

I've never noticed a leaders stats changing - surprised about this. The number of stars must increase as they gain experience though?
[ATTACH]26890[/ATTACH]

I feel I'm getting confused - must pay more attention to these things.

Cheers,
Chris

EDIT - I see what you mean - the rank stars 1 2 or 3

Yes, your edit is correct. I think that once the experience stars reach the right extreme (or go over it?), the leader improves.

[bob.]

I actually still have the Espana 1936 save of the victorious turn.
And I have to apologize. It wasn't 650 experience, it was NINE HUNDRED AND FOUR. I don't really know why I had 650 in memory
Yep, he got from 2 to 9 stars in one single turn.



(I won the game that turn anyway, but it still is just weird)

Hobbes, what improves on level up with a leader are the ratings. Notice the 6-7-7 strategic-attack-defense ratings. That is, as far as I know, the "perfect" leader, it doesn't get any better.
The RANK of the leader (1, 2 or 3 stars) has nothing to do with experience, it's determined by seniority (if you gain a certain amount of seniority, you can promote your leader).
This is not existent in AJE though - IIRC, you are making a scenario for that, yes?

[Hobbes]

Yes a scenario for AJE. For the WiA scenarios I made I have a feeling I turned off promotion for all leaders - but maybe this wasn't necessary if the games don't allow for promotion. (Gets confusing moving from WiA to AACW and then AJE). In any case I will take a look to make sure all works as intended. I've always given the highest ranked leaders the highest seniority but never really thought about why

Thanks,
Chris

[Jim-NC]

Leader stats do go up for experience. In the older games, it was only offensive and defensive. Starting with PON, it appears that the Strategic rating can go up as well (Look at Loki's AAR on Sardinia-Piedmont for example). I did a write up a few years ago about experience for AACW I. At that time, it was roughly +1 defensive for each odd star, and +1 offensive for each even star. I am not sure if that ration holds anymore.

Also, several other stats go up with experience (rate of fire for instance).

From my observations, a unit can actually lose experience after winning a battle, if it takes enough damage. There's a formula involved that I think sums all xp and divides evenly when replacements enter. Also know that the stars are not actual experience, they are a indicator of "level". This is why he sees that Franco has 904 out of 910 XPs.

[bob.]

Hobbes since you say "you never really thought about why", you do know that seniority dertermines who takes overall command of a force, yes?
That can be a very important thing if leaders are few in number. If the terrible leader has a higher seniority (and same level) than a military genius it can be a very difficult situation.