AGEOD Forums

How did you handle game balance? Is it equally balanced for game play reasons or is CS weaker and harder to play?
Was your main focus on beeing a historicaly accurate as you can or did you wanted to even the odds?

We definitively want to be historically accurate. Perhaps not to the point of giving ten time as much industrial output for the Union compared to the CS (because you have to consider the industrial output actually used for war, not just the raw output, etc.), but definitively our game will stick to historical accuracy as much as possible.

Is CS weaker? That depends where. In production and manpower, definitively. In leaders no. Until Grant and Sherman can be named in command, the Union side will have difficulty using the full potential of their troops. Our game has a lot of features revolving around leaders: how they can be passive or slow, how well they command troops strategically or tactically, what was the feats they managed to pull. To give an example, take the McClellan 'problem'. He will soon be the CiC of the Union, but you won't be able to remove him from command, unless you pay an ugly political cost. And even if you do that, you have no way to name Grant CiC because Grant will have to show his worth during the war - and in the game - before being appointed. So you have McClellan in charge of your main army... This will impact negatively how your corps can move to the point that they won't be able to conduct offensive operations as you wish... And when they do, chances are that they will get penalties when they fight*.

Spice that with the unknown leader feature (all leaders names replaced by question marks until they fight several battles), and you will face some interesting problems as the Union.

*: I'm not implying that mcClellan was the worse leader on earth. He was very good when it cames to administer and organize his army.

Wow. Great. Can't wait . Just be very cerefull with settings. In FoF forum we have a whole discussion about historical accuracy and such.

The discussion is interesting indeed. It's a good opportunity to assess general Civil war fans expectation and to benchmark the AACW engine against them.

However, you can't really compare AACW and FoF, as the design choices made by the two teams were really different. The two games gameplays, scales, focus, etc. make them unique and they have almost nothing in commun except the American civil war topic.

Now each one can have his opinion about the different game designs, but the two teams have been clear since the begining about what kind of game they were aiming for and IMHO you can only respect that.

I personnally think that our Western civilisation friends succeeded very well in making the kind of game they wanted to propose to their public, and I can only hope AGEOD will do the same and that the 2 Philippe will be able to say:
"We did it our way"

Pocus wrote:Spice that with the unknown leader feature (all leaders names replaced by question marks until they fight several battles), and you will face some interesting problems as the Union.

Huh? You mean I have to give my army to a general I don't know? A mystery general?

I'm not sure I like that. Is it an optional rule?

yes this is optional, but don't look at this as if the you don't know the guy's name. You just don't know how good he will performs, and as players have preemptive knowledge that Grant is good, you have to replace his name by question marks.

Pocus wrote:...

Spice that with the unknown leader feature (all leaders names replaced by question marks until they fight several battles), and you will face some interesting problems as the Union.

....

Will their abilities actually be random or just hidden until used? If the latter will there be an option for the former so that McClellan might be a good general in some games?

Edit - OK so in reading your post just above this one it is the name that is hidden not the abilities?

Also, in an attempt to get this back on topic, will there be game settings to choose at the beginning of a game to adjust balance? Sorry I haven't read every post on this new game so if this is all detailed elsewhere just slap me up side the head and point me to the right thread. Thanks.

when the general name is hidden, everything is hidden, including abilities.

To adjust game balance, simply change the AI settings, you can give her a strong advantage or even a disadvantage if needed. As far as I know, nobody won the BOA full campaign against an AI with maximum advantage, on either side.

OK, thanks Pocus.

Pocus wrote:when the general name is hidden, everything is hidden, including abilities.

To adjust game balance, simply change the AI settings, you can give her a strong advantage or even a disadvantage if needed. As far as I know, nobody won the BOA full campaign against an AI with maximum advantage, on either side.

Abilities are hidden ? But they're still in use, so some are eventually guessable ?
And it doesn't answer the question about values being just hidden (this feature is near useless for me, you just have to look at the data files and print them...If the idea is just to keep players guessing, why not hiding unit strength alos ?) or more or less random (much preferable).

Before their first couple of fights (If you have the option selected), you won't know the general's names, abilities, or ratings. After they've been in use for a bit, these things will become visible. Since the general's ratings and abilities won't be random (From what I understand so far), you have to have the names be hidden too, otherwise, you would be able to know, through a general knowledge of the history of the war, who was better, and work things to get the good ones promoted faster. I would prefer a complete randomization of ratings, so in one game Robert E. Lee might be the South's McClellan, and Jackson be the CSA version of Butler, or vice versa, but I think the way they're doing it was probably easier programming-wise.

Well to be perfectly accurate and yet very unpredictable you would need to be able to select random stats for the leaders, but the game would give a modifier to CSA leaders at the start of the game that would, on average, be better than their union counterpart. Then leaders created during the game would be equal, ie completely random without any modifier...

It would be the smart way to go, but I wouldn't care honestly. If I get a horrible roll for my CSA generals, my new goal is to hold out for a year...or two, or whatever I think I can manage. I work by self set goals, not by what the game gives me, so I wouldn't mind so much if I lost my only advantage.

Spharv2 wrote:Before their first couple of fights (If you have the option selected), you won't know the general's names, abilities, or ratings. After they've been in use for a bit, these things will become visible. Since the general's ratings and abilities won't be random (From what I understand so far), you have to have the names be hidden too, otherwise, you would be able to know, through a general knowledge of the history of the war, who was better, and work things to get the good ones promoted faster. I would prefer a complete randomization of ratings, so in one game Robert E. Lee might be the South's McClellan, and Jackson be the CSA version of Butler, or vice versa, but I think the way they're doing it was probably easier programming-wise.

well rounded explainations! We will see with an update if we do a third option, but I think you will prefer some stats screens before. The game will ship complete and finished, rest assured though... its just that you can always think of things to add in a game, and doing so would delay it endlessly... we have to draw a line then (its called project managment ).

[quote="Pocus"]well rounded explainations! We will see with an update if we do a third option, but I think you will prefer some stats screens before. The game will ship complete and finished, rest assured though... its just that you can always think of things to add in a game, and doing so would delay it endlessly... we have to draw a line then (its called project managment ]

Project management in a 'time boxing' kind of way