GaiusJulius78
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Emperor sends troops to Poland

Thu Jul 27, 2017 11:23 pm

Was having a blast in the full campaign, when the Emperor decided to send both my biggest armies (Tilly and Wallenstein - plus Marradas for good measure) to Poland. They all got magically transferred there and vanished through starvation on the long trip back (for some reasons another separated stack of depleted supplies that i detached from the armies got magically transferred to a blocked area east of Danzig). Hours of carefully crafted strategy wasted (I tried backing up the save few times on the turn of the Polish transfer but the results were always very similar so I decided to continue as see what happened. I thought ' Maybe they will magically go back somewhere where there is supply, it would be an insane game design choice to have the player lose three armies this way'. I was wrong.
Now, I don't mind when a game throws a curveball at you but there is no way that the Emperor would have made such a suicidal choice in reality (and historically he didn't either). I progressed the game almost a year anyway but now the armies are totally wiped out, unable to move in bad terrain and the Danish armies that were on the brink of disasters are ravaging the Imperial lands almost all the way to Wien. There is no point in continuing the campaign.
I would strongly suggest to revise the code for this event since as it is its totally game breaking, maybe limiting the transfer to one Army? Such a shame that a very enjoyable campaign got ruined by a scripted event...
Last edited by GaiusJulius78 on Sun Jul 30, 2017 9:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Leibst
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Re: Emperor sends troops to Poland? WHY?

Fri Jul 28, 2017 9:52 am

This event has been revised, and its a tricky one, not easy to tune and not always with the same result.
In your game its clear it is very damage to your strategy.
This and the Mantua event have to been revised again. My apologies.

GaiusJulius78
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Re: Emperor sends troops to Poland? WHY?

Fri Jul 28, 2017 10:05 am

Dear Leibst,

many thanks for your reply. No apologies needed, it is truly an amazing game once you get used to the very challenging supply system (especially when the campaign begins).

Basically, what I learned is that it is very important to not build armies bigger than the local supply system can support and split them and send them to different cities if necessary.

As for the event, yes I would strongly suggest some tweaks. I did not have personally any issue with the Mantua event (at least at the point I stopped playing, summer 1630 if I remember correctly - all it caused was that a new army under general Gassler appeared there) but the 'Troops sent to Poland' event totally wrecked my campaign as it left the border with the Danish forces totally opened and condemned the armies (like I mentioned my main two armies under Tully and Wallensteing plus a smaller detachment under Marradas I used to garrison Prague) to a slow starvation when travelling back to supply rich areas. Also like I mentioned, a very weird thing happened as I detached empty supply wagons from the 3 armies stuck in Danzig and those were moved somewhere east of there, unable to move and slowly starving away, whereas the three armies were transferred to accessible areas that could be traveled.

Maybe we could have just one Army sent there? There is a level 4 depot in Danzig so the issue is mainly to bring the forces back through very difficult terrain. Or maybe a new force could be created there (Like in the Mantuan war event).
Even better would be to simply have an historical notification in the Message log (eg 'The Emperor raises 4 regiments and sends them to Danzig') and not move any actual troops.

My intention was to provide a constructive suggestion to improve the game, many thanks again for getting back to me!

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Durk
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Re: Emperor sends troops to Poland? WHY?

Sun Jul 30, 2017 3:18 am

These two event are indeed challenging, especially the first time a gamer is taken unaware of the possibility. Once noted, there are some in-game remedies of adjusting forces and commanders. These two historical events are so important to the age. I have been thinking about how I might adjust them as a player, but at a lower level, the advice to players to minimize the consequences.
I do not have a solution, but I am trying solutions.

GaiusJulius78
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Re: Emperor sends troops to Poland

Sun Jul 30, 2017 9:51 am

Many thanks for your reply Durk! I have been a long time lurker in Ageod forums and your contribution to the community, with your enthusiasm, passion, competence and knowledge of the games, has been invaluable for my learning of the games (I have finished ROP, RUS, AJE, ACWII and TEAW so far and your posts have been a great help).
I think TYW has the potential to become one of the best AGEOD games, I love the low unit density and the challenging supply system. I hope they keep supporting it/patching it in the future.
Out of curiosity, what is the issue with the Mantua war event? In my case a new army appeared there but it did not affect my forces (mind you I stopped playing summer 1630).
I have now restarted a campaign and really enjoying it. I guess when April 1629 comes I will try some different things to avoid my previous campaign's issue (maybe dividing my forces in smaller groups each with some supply wagons?).

Another issue I noticed is that, when verifying files on Steam, the games seems to recreate save games for every scenario (very weird every save game is few turns into every scenario) which overrides a current campaign.
Just thought it was worth mentioning as an unaware player may have his campaign overwritten when verifying files (I am talking of the Steam version).

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Xaloc
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Re: Emperor sends troops to Poland

Sun Jul 30, 2017 8:16 pm

GaiusJulius78 wrote:Many thanks for your reply Durk! I have been a long time lurker in Ageod forums and your contribution to the community, with your enthusiasm, passion, competence and knowledge of the games, has been invaluable for my learning of the games (I have finished ROP, RUS, AJE, ACWII and TEAW so far and your posts have been a great help).
I think TYW has the potential to become one of the best AGEOD games, I love the low unit density and the challenging supply system. I hope they keep supporting it/patching it in the future.
Out of curiosity, what is the issue with the Mantua war event? In my case a new army appeared there but it did not affect my forces (mind you I stopped playing summer 1630).
I have now restarted a campaign and really enjoying it. I guess when April 1629 comes I will try some different things to avoid my previous campaign's issue (maybe dividing my forces in smaller groups each with some supply wagons?).

Another issue I noticed is that, when verifying files on Steam, the games seems to recreate save games for every scenario (very weird every save game is few turns into every scenario) which overrides a current campaign.
Just thought it was worth mentioning as an unaware player may have his campaign overwritten when verifying files (I am talking of the Steam version).


Hi,

I was playing with Durk a Grand Campaign game with the Catholics when the Mantua event fired. Like you, my forces were basically divided between two armies (one slightly bigger led by Tilly and the other by Wallenstein) plus some scattered forces here and there and the locked garrison units. I got a first event sending troops to the Mantua War... the whole army led by Tilly! At first I though 'OK this is becoming interesting, I have temporarily lost my strongest army and it has been deployed in a place with no depots' I built 4 depots at once and some new troops were added in Pavia.
Until here the game became more difficult but all the forces sent to Italy plus the new ones would be safe from starvation now with the four depots built.
But then came the second event sending troops to Mantua and the whole Wallenstein Army was sent too. In Germany I had no forces to oppose to the enemy and with the new army in Italy the supply consumption was so high that all the forces there were condemned to starvation in a matter of time. So game over after 120 turns more or less. Durk is trying to find some solution but from now the game is on hold because it makes no sense continue playing if the Catholic side is left with almost no troops and all the units are sent to a place where they will be eliminated due to lack of supply.

So all in all my experience with the Mantua War event is very similar to yours regarding sending troops to Poland.

Hope we can get some kind of fix. Like you, I like very much this game and the difficulty of getting big armies supplied.

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Durk
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Re: Emperor sends troops to Poland

Mon Jul 31, 2017 3:28 am

GaiusJulius78 Thank you for your kind comments. I am a bit of a chatterbox and love discussing games.

Your are right about TYW. It is a gem of a game. Really complex, but with low unit density. I see from your list of games, only AJE has a similar supply situation. Of course the constraints of the era make TYW even more of a supply challenge over AJE.

Xaloc very completely explains the game he and I are playing. I am also in another game where my opponent has not be as severely impacted as Xaloc. In a game where I am HRE I have not been as severely impacted. My force is a painful loss, but not fatal. The Mantua event, which appears to have fired fairly decently in your game, can be a bit wild in its consequence. I know Leibst has a handle on this and is working on what appears to be a complicated solution. Until he discovers a path forward, I simply recommend keeping Tully and Wallenstein armies at a modest number at the critical time.
Then if disaster happens, as it did with Xaloc, run a short script to return all troops vacationing in Italy back to Germany. That script I have not written as I am very bad at modding, but it should be a tool for players.

I really do not know anything about Steam as I prefer to own my own games without an intermediary. But this sounds like a nice caution for others.

GaiusJulius78
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Re: Emperor sends troops to Poland

Mon Jul 31, 2017 9:48 am

Hi guys,
many thanks for your replies. As I mentioned earlier, Mantuan war event was not an issue for me (a brand new army under a new general - his name was Gassler if I remember well - appeared in Mantua but this didn not affected my pre-existent forces).
Durk - your suggestion to split armies is a very good tip! I will try that.
On a side note, I started a new Imperial campaign and I can confirm that TYW is a fantastic game, with a very competent AI (especially considering the supply issues which are challenging even for a human player).
Currently at turn 60ish, will see if I can find a way around the events issue hopefully!

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