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Ace
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Far West stockade capturing - the effect it has on victory points

Tue Oct 21, 2014 5:24 pm

This question has emerged while playing and measuring score for advancing in tournament by victory points.

The problem in VP calculations are VP gained for stockade capturing. For every stockade lost, a player looses 6 VP.
Capturing the city of Richmond brings 0 VP whatsoever besides 5 VP for capturing Ft Richmond, the same amount as for capturing some lone stockade in the Far West. This is way off and does not feel right. Defeating an enemy and inflicting him 20.000 casualties will give 0 VP as long as he hasn't lost any element.
It seems more important who has captured a stockade then who has won Gettysburg type battle.

I firmly believe there is room for improvement here.

I can see 2 possible solutions for this:
1) Have autogarrisons spawn with 100% chance in stockades, or
2) Remove VP value from stockades.

What do you think about this problem and proposed solution. Do you have another proposal. Please participate in the discussion.

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ohms_law
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Tue Oct 21, 2014 5:41 pm

VP are pretty meaningless, though. Losing Richmond (or DC) means that the Confederate (or Union) player takes a massive National Morale hit, which is far more important. Players also receive VP's every turn for objectives.

I think that VP's are just measuring something different then what you're thinking of. There are a bunch of one-time VP hits, but objectives are the only thing that really make VP's move.

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Ace
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Tue Oct 21, 2014 5:45 pm

You are right in a sense, when I play vs AI I never keep track of VP. Also, when I play vs human I measure someone's success by looking at how many objectives is each player holding. But why do we do that. We do that because VP are not accurately representing who is playing better. If they don't do that accurately, what are they supposed to do?

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ohms_law
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Tue Oct 21, 2014 6:03 pm

If we get Pocus to implement either of the options you gave above, then the result is completely predictable: nobody will bother with Stockades (aside from maybe one or two near Alabama).
There's already no real reason to bother with them, other than to have some fun, really.

I tend to agree with your underlying point about Victory points, though. I mean... yea, they're pretty pointless. If you guys are trying to use them in tournament play then that's a problem.

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ERISS
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Tue Oct 21, 2014 6:30 pm

Don't Victory Points be to tell who has officially won the game (and in what measure), when in the end time, players are guessing?
:winner:
Players could swear they have won, and the game upholds it or not,
even against a gentleman who's telling that he lost.

VPs are not only a game measure, but an historical too, they do not have to be underestimated as a feature.
Or maybe you tell they that devs have done a bad historical simulation?, that these VPs really means nothing? or rather that many of these VPs are gained whithout fun, I think.

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Captain_Orso
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Tue Oct 21, 2014 7:07 pm

I didn't even realize that you get 6 VP's for capturing a Stockade and even if I had known that it would not be the reason I would go after then. I've always viewed the Stockades as mini-depots that are massively important in getting supplies to flow out west. Without them there's no way to support troops in western Texas, New Mexico and Arizona[SUP]1)[/SUP]

VP's should reflect the cumulative successes of each side. So if 6 VP's are granted for capturing a Stockade, certainly far more should be forthcoming for more important locations. If strategic and objective locations produce VP's per turn they should be inline with other VP's granted.

Does anybody know where VP's for capturing and holding locations and structures are defined?

[SUP]1)[/SUP] The Union can also build depots all the way from California into eastern New Mexico, improve the civilization levels to improve movement and transportation and then build roads. But this costs a huge amount of money and takes an extreme amount of time to complete. I've done it once and once done I could have supported a small army year round.
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minipol
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Tue Oct 21, 2014 10:56 pm

I'm not a fan of getting VP's for destroying a stockade.
But having said that, I would like to see more opportunities to select these kind of things when setting up a game.
It's an area I believe the game can still improve a lot.
Instead of talking about modding and how it should be (we all have our own opinion), allow the players to select these
kind of things in the settings screen.
For instance, this one could be VP for stockade or not.
You could have options for low, med, high VP for cities, certain settings for big battle wins or losses, starting funds, gs and ws,
production rating of the structures, and so on.
This really should be selectable to a certain degree without having to mod the game.
It would make the game more interesting and allow the player to give Athena a head start in resources for instance without having
to go with the Colonel level which feels a little bit over the top.
Even starting troops could be an option.

FelixZ
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Wed Oct 22, 2014 3:08 am

The correct number of Victory Points won and lost when a stockade is captured is ………drumroll ………..

The loser losses 6 …. the gainer gains 5 = a net of 11 Victory Points!

In game terms, if a CSA Ranger captures a Union Stockade, CSA adds 5 VP and USA subtracts 6 = 11 point gain for CSA.

Okay now lets really take a look at what I call 'Ace's Exploit'. CSA has Rangers . Each Ranger (on B/G) has the movement to run through 3 to 5 stockades a turn . And in 1861, the capture rate just by moving through a stockade region is above 80%. Let's say 3 were captured in a turn by the CSA Ranger - that's just a 33 point difference.

But you reply the USA also has Rangers. Yep 4 Rangers vs 10 for the CSA.

Potentially that means USA can gain 40+ VP a turn - while CSA gains 100+ VP in the same turn.

But there are only so many stockades in New Mexico, Indian Territory and Texas. True but what about those stockades in Colorado, Nebraska, Dakotas and Minnesota … .

Prior to this writing there are only three players who understood 'Ace's Exploit' - Ace, Liberty Bell and FelixZ.

Now with this thread - let's see how many CSA players will go out and take those Victory Points.

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ohms_law
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Wed Oct 22, 2014 4:10 am

I do all the time.
Of course, I play against the AI.
*shrug*

Still, it's an obvious and natural thing to do. Rangers are essentially "free" (no war supply cost, so they're an obvious purchase in early '61), and raiding stockades in the plains is one of the few real uses for them. I'd be really surprised if the three of you actually had some sort of "secret exploit", here.

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Ace
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Wed Oct 22, 2014 5:15 am

So there are actually 2 things which need a change:

1) Capturing a stockade brings you too much VP +5 VP, and -6 VP for the enemy. I can see 1 VP cost for loosing the stockade in the structure file, so I don't know where the rest of cost is coming from
2) Texan rangers are way too fast in the Far West compared to everything else. They are actually 2-2,5 times faster than regular cavalry and move at a pace of 1 region per day in the far west where everyone is moving lot slower.

And now about the scenario start - I always thought stockade was a manned military outpost. But pretty much all those start the scenarios unmanned. Did the far West had so much stockades with no troops inside in real life. And, even if it did, does it matter if Company of enemy soldiers flagged abandoned military outpost noone cared to put 50 men in to guard it?

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Pocus
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Wed Oct 22, 2014 9:13 am

Each fort lost is 5 VP lost, this is semi hard coded.

I would agree to add an autogarrison on stockades. They are important as they can hold supplies and represent the presence in the wild west?
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Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law."

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tripax
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Wed Oct 22, 2014 10:17 am

The forts were garrisoned by companies of various frontier regiments during the war for defense against Comanche raids. There were fewer companies of these regiments than forts (This page estimates 16 forts with 9 or 10 companies at different times in Texas), and by civilian militias.

I think autogarrison firing at or above 50% of the time would be reasonable (I think this for towns as well). The consequences could include more garrisons being destroyed in battle (which sounds find to me) and more exp and seniority for destroying units (not really a bad deal).

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Captain_Orso
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Wed Oct 22, 2014 11:41 am

I'm not sure what the point of using auto-garrison for the stockades is. One turn it's there. The next it isn't. Where did they go to, and why can't I tell them to stay put where I want them to?

Either pick the stockades which are to have garrison when generating the scenario, or generate a certain number of them randomly per event at the start of the scenario. I think even I could write an event to do this.

Another idea, which would give the player some control over the game "setup". Give each player a set of non-regenerating RGD's at the start of the scenario. Each of these RGD's creates a garrison unit in a stockade without a garrison unit--no more than one cards may be played in the same region. Stockades built during the game automatically get a garrison unit.
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grimjaw
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Wed Oct 22, 2014 11:44 am

Given their current characteristics they ought to be worth *some* VP. They generate small amount of supply and ammo and provide instant protection from harsh weather. Artillery inside a stockade built in a region along a navigable river fires under the rules for forts. When they're built, they usually start off with a fair amount of supply (50-100 units).

But it's way too easy right now to scarf up them with a raider unit. You can sometimes take five of them in a turn if the weather is good. Under the vanilla game, I usually always take as many of the western stockades as I can but I wasn't doing it for the VP. I never even considered that. The auto-garrison idea is not bad, but I'm with Orso on this one. I don't really like the auto-garrisons and would prefer permanently locked ones to autos.

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ohms_law
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Wed Oct 22, 2014 12:45 pm

I agree as well. I've never been much of a fan of the "auto-garrison" thing, for exactly the reason Orso brought up.
Stick locked militia units in about half of them (they could even be renamed garrison units or something) and be done with the issue.

I never really thought about the VP benefit of taking them either. The main advantage, in my mind, aside from just giving your Rangers something to do, is to limit the Far West to even smaller unit sizes than can operate there with the stockades. That, and preventing the enemy from sheltering over the winters.

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pgr
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Wed Oct 22, 2014 4:57 pm

ohms_law wrote: If you guys are trying to use them in tournament play then that's a problem.


Well to defend the integrity of my tournament...we need some kind of basis of comparison...and VP are the game's "score." Plus the game defines winners and loosers in terms of VP.

My main problem is that there seem to be way too many stockades littering the west in 61, which makes them impossible to defend, and given the VP potential, easy to raid. I personally would thin them out a bit. However barring that, then equipping them with auto-garrisons seems like a better idea. It makes them less of a push-over.

And I second the motion that rangers are too damn mobile. I'm all for slowing them down a bit.

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pgr
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Wed Oct 22, 2014 4:58 pm

Captain_Orso wrote:I'm not sure what the point of using auto-garrison for the stockades is. One turn it's there. The next it isn't. Where did they go to, and why can't I tell them to stay put where I want them to?

Either pick the stockades which are to have garrison when generating the scenario, or generate a certain number of them randomly per event at the start of the scenario. I think even I could write an event to do this.

Another idea, which would give the player some control over the game "setup". Give each player a set of non-regenerating RGD's at the start of the scenario. Each of these RGD's creates a garrison unit in a stockade without a garrison unit--no more than one cards may be played in the same region. Stockades built during the game automatically get a garrison unit.


+1

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