AGEOD Forums

Very nice job Korrigan. I noticed that you don't provide us with options for arming the troops. Will there be no different weapons? Maybe you shouldn't use all weapon types but they were very important in ACW.
Just my two cents

that would not be consistent with our design philosophy. We don't want the player to tend each regiment (= element) but act and think at the unit level. For most players, knowing that a division has 6 regiments and is worth 250 combat points will be enough. For a small fraction, they will check the name of the regiments, how many hit points, experience and cohesion they have, and if they are from New York or Chicago...

Bottom line is that it is not the player task to shift to another rifle type the said regiments. But we do take into account technology, as you have early infantry and late infantry (same for cavalry).

ACW is something rather special equipment-wise, as many troops were initialy raised with whatever equipment was available and reequiped later when the war industry really started.
So it's not only a "tech level" thing, maybe we'd need some "events" or special rules to simulate this ?

This is planned

PhilThib wrote:This is planned

Woot ! as those Yanks say

Maybe you could programm it like this:
Infantry costs diffrent amount of money and supplies. The ones that cost more are better equiped and carrying better weapons.
Weapons were very important in ACW. Like if you had paper cartriges and it rained you were in some deep s**t . Also, smoothbores were better for charging then Springfields but Springfields kicked ass on battlefield because of their range, reload time and such.
I am also against micromanaging each regiment wepons but if you could do it through costs it would be a nice addition.

On the other hand, if you say it can't be done, I'll live with it .

Infantry do cost money, men and somehow supply. The main point to consider (not taking into consideration the coding time needed to do the things properly, thus a release delay) is that, if you start to add granted properties at the regiment level that can be changed by the player (like weapons), you start to be inconsistent with the main design line, which is to play the game at the unit level (brigades, divisions), with elements (regiments, arty battery) that should not be manipulated directly (but still needed, as the underlaying system that grants more historicity and accurate behavior to the simulation).

Sometime more is less. We don't want to head toward mammoth games which can sound cool but are tedious in the end.

In the same way, for this ACW game, you just fiddle with the economy at the state level, with a set of simple options. Would you like to be able to set new ore mines, open or close workshops, monitor how many guns are produced in each backyard fabric (factory) etc. ? This would not be the same game, and I'm unsure that people would enjoy it, really.

Back to weapons upgrade. This is done according to a set of historical parameters, in the hosting phase and automatically. We differenciate between conscript/Second line troops / early infantry or late infantry. You can consider that second line troops are equiped with mixed rifle types, including smoothbore muskets.

Last note, it is also artificial to be able to keep regiments with deprecated weapons. I have no evidence on that, but frankly if soldiers get springfield, will they keep their old muskets because in some circumstances they can be more potent? I don't think so. And thus players are playing with options that should not be if you can do that.

Thanks for the answer Pocus

Pocus wrote:that would not be consistent with our design philosophy. We don't want the player to tend each regiment (= element) but act and think at the unit level. For most players, knowing that a division has 6 regiments and is worth 250 combat points will be enough. For a small fraction, they will check the name of the regiments, how many hit points, experience and cohesion they have, and if they are from New York or Chicago...

Bottom line is that it is not the player task to shift to another rifle type the said regiments. But we do take into account technology, as you have early infantry and late infantry (same for cavalry).

An excellent design decision. Congratulations for resisting the temptation to plunge into unnecessary details. I like your philosophy.