Public beta patch 1.14 rc21 (July 8, 2009)

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[oldspec4]

Thank you sir..

[Jarkko]

Looking good, all the small things (cavalry alone can't capture cities early on, Polk delayed, forts buffed, Virginia and NC not active at start) seems to me like steps towards making the game a bit more historical Who knows, maybe at some point historical strategies might start to make sense in the game too

[marecone]

great idea for cavalry. Just wanted to suggest something similar As when I play union I use cav too capture too many rebs cities. Well done guys.

[oldspec4]

Gray,

With latest beta, I can't open neither of the July 1861 scenarios (with and without your Kentucky scenario). April '61 opens ok.


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[Chertio]

Great patch and some very good things in it. Thank you!

Should the Western Branch (=Atchafalaya River) be Shallow/Freeze? It wasn't navigable in winter - I put several links about the Red and the Atchafalaya at the end of this thread but for instance

By this remark he [Halleck] did not intend in any way to disparage his [Banks'] current operations on the coast, for at that time of year neither the Red nor the Atchafalaya was navigable.

(Banks and Halleck discussing operations against Texas, November and December 1863, from "Red River Campaign", Ludwell H Johnson).

[Gray_Lensman]

Gray,

With latest beta, I can't open neither of the July 1861 scenarios (with and without your Kentucky scenario). April '61 opens ok.


[attach]6828[/attach]

Confirmed... I'll look into it...

edit> Includes the 1863 Campaign Scenario also... A simple recompiling of the .scn files seems to be fixing it. I'll re-upload shortly after I double check the rest of the scenarios.

edit> Fixed. Posted new v1.13d (RC1a) above.

Please re-download. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[oldspec4]

Gray..Thanks for the quick response

[andatiep]

3.) Implemented a new attribute provided by Pocus (*NoCapture*). Early game horse mounted units can no longer take control of city structures. Once cavalry upgrades to (Late) cavalry this restriction is lifted. In other words, you will have to accompany invading forces with non horse mounted units if you wish to take control of city structures.

Mmmh... It seems to me like a too much extremist way to reach the point...

In a way, the fact that a single cavalry can't anymore capture all the remote cities far deep in the ennemy territory is good because you don't have to care of the stupid micro-management of buying and settle in each little city a militia. That aspect of the game is useless because it was "automatic" in the reallity : as soon as the news arrive in a city that there is a cavalry units in the region, the city will organize a basic defense with milicians and dismiss it when the danger is over.
The single cavalry unit raids are in order to spy or to destroy railroads, not to take cities.
So the objective of that new rule is good , but...


How now would it be possible to organize large cavalry raids in order to take cities and to burn second lines dépôts ?
I agree that it is not historical to keep the same combat values when cavalry fight in the country side or in a town (or mountains...). But it is still possible to a large force of cavaliers attacking by foot to take a poorly defended town with dépôt.
After all a cavalry attacking by foot would have probably the same value as a milicia unit : why a milicia unit in the game could capture an "empty" town and a cavalry unit couldn't ?


Can't you instead link that new *NoCapture* rule with the among of units in the raiding force (less than 2 or 3...) ?

[viper73]

It is not allowing me to load, do we have another optioin or sever for this?

Thanks

[Gray_Lensman]

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[W.Barksdale]

Mmmh... It seems to me like a too much extremist way to reach the point...

After all a cavalry attacking by foot would have probably the same value as a milicia unit : why a milicia unit in the game could capture an "empty" town and a cavalry unit couldn't ?

+1

Why can't people just protect their cities properly?

Cavalry not able to take cities? Forrest is rolling in his grave.


EDIT:

Say you have a cavalry division in which only one of the units is early Cav. Can it capture the city?

[Clovis]

Mmmh... It seems to me like a too much extremist way to reach the point...

In a way, the fact that a single cavalry can't anymore capture all the remote cities far deep in the ennemy territory is good because you don't have to care of the stupid micro-management of buying and settle in each little city a militia. That aspect of the game is useless because it was "automatic" in the reallity : as soon as the news arrive in a city that there is a cavalry units in the region, the city will organize a basic defense with milicians and dismiss it when the danger is over.
The single cavalry unit raids are in order to spy or to destroy railroads, not to take cities.
So the objective of that new rule is good , but...


How now would it be possible to organize large cavalry raids in order to take cities and to burn second lines dépôts ?
I agree that it is not historical to keep the same combat values when cavalry fight in the country side or in a town (or mountains...). But it is still possible to a large force of cavaliers attacking by foot to take a poorly defended town with dépôt.
After all a cavalry attacking by foot would have probably the same value as a milicia unit : why a milicia unit in the game could capture an "empty" town and a cavalry unit couldn't ?


Can't you instead link that new *NoCapture* rule with the among of units in the raiding force (less than 2 or 3...) ?

This new rule IMHO is commendable because not only it solves a recurrent gamey tactic but by adding a new rule in the spirit of the AACW original design. The rule is arbitrary, simple but highly effective and the result is historical.

The long range raids possible in 1864 were possible in 1861. Morgan's one in Ohio was technically possible at the start of the war. Why both sides didn't undertaken this quicker? Simply because military theory was based on both sides on the axiom of suppluy chain to keep armies approvisonned. Both sides during Civil WAr learned progressively it was possible to raid deeper and deeper, by trial and experience method. I agree AACW engine to be too lenient on risk for long range raid parties but in any case, the new rule is just introducing this needed time for changing military doctrine.

Now, a way to attenuate the effect to be able suddenly to do long raid would be to have a leader ability suppreesing in any way the "nocapture" attributes for units under their command. I don't know if possible though.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[W.Barksdale]

So how are we supposed to recreate a Murfreesboro in 1862?

Granted this change is not perfect...it accomplishes the purpose it was meant to do, and that was to restrict/limit the effects of early game Cavalry raids and the totally non-historic seizure and holding of large cities by cavalry units alone in the earlier part of the war.

If cities are under\undefended why shouldn't they be able to fall to "early" cavalry. Please lookup the first battle of Murfreesboro. Do you really think these raids are non-historic?

[Clovis]

So how are we supposed to recreate a Murfreesboro in 1862?



If cities are under\undefended why shouldn't they be able to fall to "early" cavalry. Please lookup the first battle of Murfreesboro. Do you really think these raids are non-historic?

Found it. New ability for some cavalry leaders giving them possibility to accelerate the ugrading of calavry under their command into late cavalry...so we would have some leaders with cavalry able to raid from Autumn-Winter 62

[runyan99]

The problem is the horses can go too far.

Every time Stuart circled the Union army, his horses were exhausted at the end, and blown for a week.

However in AACW, it is fairly easy to keep horses going for months, crossing several states. Thus it is routine to see CSA cavalry in Chicago or Milwaukee. In reality, horses pushed hard would need a rest at Springfield, IL and would never reach the great lakes.

[andatiep]

This new rule IMHO is commendable because not only it solves a recurrent gamey tactic but by adding a new rule in the spirit of the AACW original design. The rule is arbitrary, simple but highly effective and the result is historical.

The long range raids possible in 1864 were possible in 1861. Morgan's one in Ohio was technically possible at the start of the war. Why both sides didn't undertaken this quicker? Simply because military theory was based on both sides on the axiom of suppluy chain to keep armies approvisonned. Both sides during Civil WAr learned progressively it was possible to raid deeper and deeper, by trial and experience method. I agree AACW engine to be too lenient on risk for long range raid parties but in any case, the new rule is just introducing this needed time for changing military doctrine.

Now, a way to attenuate the effect to be able suddenly to do long raid would be to have a leader ability suppreesing in any way the "nocapture" attributes for units under their command. I don't know if possible though.

OK, i'm happy with that explaination !
And since the dépôt cost is now 4 chariots supply, it is good to come down a bit with the cavalry raids...

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[Clovis]

Either that or we could adjust the normal conversion of (Early) Cavalry to (Late) Cavalry to occur somewhat earlier. (currently it's January 1863). I had not changed that just yet in order to assess feedback.

edit> The purpose of releasing this as a "Public Beta" was to get feedback from players who will actually load it and play-test the changes. The Cavalry rule change has actually already been tested (standalone) including one of the regular (non-beta) game players and it was found to work quite satisfactory in achieving its goals of limiting the effects of the non-historic early game raids.

The leader way has 2 advantages:
- a limit can be put to the maximum of conversion by leaders
- it adds a new slight flavour to the game...Forrest...

[Gray_Lensman]

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[enf91]

I installed this patch over 1.13b QF 8 and all the scenarios added in 1.08 or something disappeared.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Jarkko]

Bigus scenarios are not compatible any more until he updates them, hence they have been removed from the AGEod data files. See the note above. Once he updates them, he will have to provide them as a MOD.

This is quite sad, especially for new players, but understandable. Bigus' scenarios are in my opinion currently the best scenarios and they were crucial for me to learn the game (and I would like to believe that has been true for others too), and it is pity they will be gone

The worst thing for a new player after these changes is, that even after Bigus makes the necessary changes to be compatible with the new changes, the scenarios will be only available as mods. *That* really is a bummer, because newbies hardly will first go looking for mods. Without easy to grasp and well thought out scenarios the learning curve will be way steeper (and yes, I understand that is the way the grognards here have had to go through, but it does not mean everybody should be forced to do the same ).

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[Jarkko]

Generally, installing MODs is not nearly as difficult as you make it out to be.

I understand that, I am well aware I am all thumbs regarding any computer stuff and that it is most likely just because I refuse to think of them in a logical way However, lets say you buy a new game, how likely is it that you (I presume you are quite computer savvy, thus quite the opposite from me ) would go looking for a mod the first thing after you installed?