User avatar
marecone
Posts: 1530
Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2007 11:44 am
Location: Zagreb, Croatia

Game balance

Wed Jan 03, 2007 11:08 am

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?
Forrest said something about killing a Yankee for each of his horses that they shot. In the last days of the war, Forrest had killed 30 of the enemy and had 30 horses shot from under him. In a brief but savage conflict, a Yankee soldier "saw glory for himself" with an opportunity to kill the famous Confederate General... Forrest killed the fellow. Making 31 Yankees personally killed, and 30 horses lost...

He remarked, "I ended the war a horse ahead."

User avatar
Pocus
Posts: 25673
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:37 am
Location: Lyon (France)

Wed Jan 03, 2007 3:18 pm

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.
Image


Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law."

User avatar
marecone
Posts: 1530
Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2007 11:44 am
Location: Zagreb, Croatia

Wed Jan 03, 2007 5:05 pm

Wow. Great. Can't wait :dada: . Just be very cerefull with settings. In FoF forum we have a whole discussion about historical accuracy and such.
Forrest said something about killing a Yankee for each of his horses that they shot. In the last days of the war, Forrest had killed 30 of the enemy and had 30 horses shot from under him. In a brief but savage conflict, a Yankee soldier "saw glory for himself" with an opportunity to kill the famous Confederate General... Forrest killed the fellow. Making 31 Yankees personally killed, and 30 horses lost...



He remarked, "I ended the war a horse ahead."

User avatar
Korrigan
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1982
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2005 12:33 pm
Location: France

Wed Jan 03, 2007 6:38 pm

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. :coeurs:

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" :niark:
"Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference." Mark Twain

Image

User avatar
runyan99
Posts: 1420
Joined: Tue Dec 19, 2006 6:34 am

Thu Jan 04, 2007 7:13 am

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?

User avatar
Pocus
Posts: 25673
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:37 am
Location: Lyon (France)

Thu Jan 04, 2007 8:37 am

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.
Image


Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law."

Elmo
Captain
Posts: 153
Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2006 8:20 pm

Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:33 am

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?

Elmo
Captain
Posts: 153
Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2006 8:20 pm

Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:48 am

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.

User avatar
Pocus
Posts: 25673
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:37 am
Location: Lyon (France)

Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:55 am

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.
Image


Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law."

Elmo
Captain
Posts: 153
Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2006 8:20 pm

Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:57 am

OK, thanks Pocus.

User avatar
PDF
Posts: 548
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 11:39 am

Mon Jan 08, 2007 12:28 pm

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).

User avatar
Spharv2
Posts: 1540
Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2006 5:39 am
Location: Tallahassee, FL

Mon Jan 08, 2007 3:12 pm

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.

veji1
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1271
Joined: Fri Dec 08, 2006 6:27 pm

Mon Jan 08, 2007 4:18 pm

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...

User avatar
Spharv2
Posts: 1540
Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2006 5:39 am
Location: Tallahassee, FL

Mon Jan 08, 2007 9:09 pm

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. :)

User avatar
Pocus
Posts: 25673
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:37 am
Location: Lyon (France)

Tue Jan 09, 2007 9:13 am

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 ;) ).
Image


Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law."

User avatar
saintsup
Captain
Posts: 171
Joined: Sat May 20, 2006 7:22 am

Tue Jan 09, 2007 10:55 am

[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 ;)

Return to “AGEod's American Civil War”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests