Multiplayer, Historical Stalinism, and Victory Conditions

[Poorlaggedman]

I've played a dozen or so full campaigns over the years. I also played the original Civil War as well as the one even before that (I believe it was by the company Interactive Magic). I have three main points

1. The main thing that would improve the game the most is a fully-functioning and fluid multiplayer system. This system should be user-friendly and have variable settings for how many days or hours can go by without a response before a player forfeits a game allowing a set number of violations before that forfeit and also an automated rating system which indicates responsiveness of sending your turns.

The AI is always going to have limitations. It's very boring for me now and never a challenge. I'm constantly editing the script to give it more stuff. The main drawback to turn-based strategy game multiplayer is always, always, always players dropping or abandoning them. Give people a record system so players can match up which each other.


2. Drop some of the historical Stalinism and create systems to replace it. Automatic promotions should not be a thing in a variable leader game. If Congress is interfering then that should be variable. McClellan should not always run for president. NY Draft riots and bread riots should not always happen. You should be able to make decisions which set off complex chains of events - for example trying to fix your food crisis early. Preferably done in a way where you don't automatically always know what early decisions might be needed to avoid later crises because various crises could take form.


3. The victory conditions should not be so rigid and point-based. An immediate dip or raise in morale should not instantly win or lose the game. There should be a gradual cacophony of problems or benefits arising from achieving results or meeting failures. The elections should be simulated (they were in iMagic's CW IIRC).

[AlessandroD]

About your first point, I don't think the AI can be improved to be a real challenge, therefore I agree that a better PBEM system would be good (this is the worst in all pc games that I have played so far).
Said that, for what I have read on the forums (in general not only about this game), sadly the vast majotity of the players are single player.