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Emx77
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Sat Sep 28, 2013 6:41 pm

Narwhal wrote: Did you check whether it is due to your general choosing not to engage a five dots army with his 2 dots ?


Yes, I did. That is not reason, no message about that and my army kept offensive posture.

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arsan
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Sat Sep 28, 2013 7:53 pm

Maybe the populares were on "Evade combat"?
Or the battle delay was big enough for the populares army exit the region before battle happening? I find it difficult on a mountain region like that...

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Emx77
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Sat Sep 28, 2013 8:20 pm

arsan wrote:Maybe the populares were on "Evade combat"?
Or the battle delay was big enough for the populares army exit the region before battle happening? I find it difficult on a mountain region like that...


In meanwhile my opponent told me that he had blue-green plus avoid order. Maybe he got a lucky roll but I'm not sure. It would be ok if he tried to slip small force but his army was huge bunch of everything (legions, auxiliary troops, supply wagons) and my army wasn't small either. Plus, there were another similar events during this scenario (see previous remark about Sulla's Army passing by huge Pontic armies without engagement).

It would be best if someone can repeat that turn couple of times ( I provided save). I would do that but I'm still in PBEM - probably will try it later after we progress for some more turns. If this happens every time (or to often) during repeat then something is definitely wrong.

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Pocus
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Sun Sep 29, 2013 6:20 am

Hi,

About armies stopping against the first city/fort/force:

if the region you reach exerts a ZOC (because of enemy strength points or an uncaptured fort, which is also generating a fort/walled city, MC x its level until lost) then it's normal to lose all its remaining move, unless you manage to reach each at day 1 (you were already there) and you capture it.

The hosting phase is split in days, and each day there is a move-combat segment. If during move you are under a ZOC, then the code aborts your move, unless this is day 1.

That's one great benefits of forts by the way, even with a lousy garrison, they will slow down the enemy.

As for 2 forces not engaging themselves in a region, if the non moving one don't generate a ZOC, then the other can move through, if they fail their commitment roll. There is such a roll before each battle, it can be as low as 30% per day. This is also why there is often a delay before a battle.
I see that the Optimates force have only 2 bullets, so it can fail to generate enough ZOC points...
Image


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

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Emx77
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Sun Sep 29, 2013 11:17 am

Pocus wrote:Hi,

About armies stopping against the first city/fort/force:

if the region you reach exerts a ZOC (because of enemy strength points or an uncaptured fort, which is also generating a fort/walled city, MC x its level until lost) then it's normal to lose all its remaining move, unless you manage to reach each at day 1 (you were already there) and you capture it.

The hosting phase is split in days, and each day there is a move-combat segment. If during move you are under a ZOC, then the code aborts your move, unless this is day 1.



Basicly, you are saying it is perfectly normal that far more superior Army stops for entire month at each level 1 fort defended by weak militia unit and that assault on more structures during same turn is impossible. I have several problems with your explanation:

1.) I'm little confused because this is contradictory to what you have replied in [color="#FFFF00"]Matrix forum[/color] on my comment regarding ROE and stances mechanics in games based on AGE engine.

2.) If this is truly WAD then at least correct the Manual and tooltip because both are wrong (see [color="#FFFF00"]post #19[/color] in this thread). In my current PBEM I was fooled by this and I've chosen a wrong strategy from a start (there is some fun in being beaten by better opponent but there is zero fun in losing because of incorrect explanations of game rules in official documentation).

That's one great benefits of forts by the way, even with a lousy garrison, they will slow down the enemy.


3.) Pocus, we are not talking about lousy garrison slowing down enemy by couple of days (which is ok) but about stopping in his track far stronger force for entire month. Because of month long turns and number of level 1 forts in AJE, some scenarios are highly unbalanced because of this. For example, in Marius vs. Sulla scenario, Sulla's main advantage is his elite fast moving army. But game mechanics is forcing Sulla to stop at each level 1 fort, alleviating his main advantage - speed and mobility. How realistic is situation where you take a level 1 fort in a five days and then waste rest of turn (25 days) doing nothing in scenario where time is of essence?

4.) Next problem, there is pretty much of inconsistencies in this mechanics during gameplay, which is rendering useless most of the planning. For example, please carefully study what I have posted in [color="#FFFF00"]post #25[/color] of this thread. How do you explain that same lousy garrison stops Sulla's in one case and doesn't in other? We can rule out rolls and luck as this is happening EVERY time in described example.

As for 2 forces not engaging themselves in a region, if the non moving one don't generate a ZOC, then the other can move through, if they fail their commitment roll. There is such a roll before each battle, it can be as low as 30% per day. This is also why there is often a delay before a battle.
I see that the Optimates force have only 2 bullets, so it can fail to generate enough ZOC points...


2 bullets are three veteran legions led by 7-6-6 commander. I will test this more but, as described earlier, there were similar situations where much larger stacks were in play. Can it be that terrain (mountains in this case) was played some role in favour of Populares? If that was case then this is again unrealistic. Mountains should play more in favour for Optimates, helping them to more easily block trespassing enemy force (mountains = less tracks and passes for control).

I hope you will shed more light into these issues and, if you still insists that everything is working fine, at least will correct Manual and in-game tooltip hints regarding ROE and stances.

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arsan
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Sun Sep 29, 2013 11:30 am

I agree with Exm77.
With one month turns and the tons of forts on AJE it is a big problem having to lose 1 full turn to take any fortress no matter how weak the city is or how big the assaulting stack.
In other games with just a bunch of forts and/or with shorter turns is not that important, but in AJE it is. :bonk:

The red/red buttons order making forces assault each fortress in his way without stoping is a great idea and would be a great solution.
But sadly it doesn't work as it's supposed to work... :(

The evading force instead looks like EMx77 rival had luck with the evade combat order. Of course if this happened all the time there could be a problem, but if it's just a matter of luck i'm perfectly ok with the system :thumbsup:

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Franciscus
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Sun Sep 29, 2013 3:38 pm

My 2 cents:

I would say that the problems, if we have some, are not mainly in engine code (that can be changed - although I hope Pocus is not reading this :) ) or tooltips text (that we can change in minutes - not so the manual, I'm afraid)

The matter IMHO is one of design and gameplay.

As it is, in general the pace of operations in AJE / BOR is usually faster than the historical reality.

Some thoughts:

- Legions are no panzers and roman campaigns are not blitzkrieg. Taking the case of MS87, Sulla the "assaulter" had to besiege Athens for many months and only in March 86 the city fell. In the game, even if you are forced to "waist" a month in Thebae, you usually reach and assault Athens in 2-3 turns max.

- "Forts" are an abstraction that represent in fact city walls and their intrinsic defenses.

- Storming a city by "assault" should not be thought as a matter to be solved in one day and carry on. Storming a city like Thebae (that in fact surrendered immediately - not represented in game, unfortunately), represents, in my mind, some siege warfare during a few days, making breaches and some assaults, until finally successful in entering the city. Some days of customary pillaging, looting and raping would follow, and next the necessary imposition of some order, accompanied by a regular division of spoils. The army would then need some more days to tend to the wounded and dead, to resupply and refit, and some time would be spent also in reorganizing the city government. Just then could the army carry on (we are talking weeks, not one day. If this is abstracted in a month turn in terms of game, I can live with it.

- To compound matters further, having a mechanism (the red-red) that sometimes can permit "instant assault and move" is in fact gamey, IMHO, and I personally dislike it. Even more so because the AI will never use it (AI does not use red-red ROE never, IIRC), so the human player has one more advantage over the poor AI


So, I hope that the game never allows the consecutive storming in a month of Pharsalus, Thebae and Athens like this (copied with due respect from Emx77 post #19):

Image

(we are not yet in a WW2 game recreating Operation Marita in April 1941...:blink :)


(Of course, this is my view, not the designer's)

Regards.
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Emx77
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Sun Sep 29, 2013 5:49 pm

Franciscus wrote:So, I hope that the game never allows the consecutive storming in a month of Pharsalus, Thebae and Athens like this (copied with due respect from Emx77 post #19):


Well, above picture doesn't describe what would be a sound and successful strategy but rather what is supposed to happen according to rules (as it is remarked at top right corner of picture). Even if red-red posture had worked as described in documentation, such assault on Athens would probably fail because of low cohesion of Consular army on it's final step (remember Athens is at beginning of scenario defended by not so weak army).

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arsan
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Sun Sep 29, 2013 5:54 pm

Just my 2 cents too...
I also think things move too fast on AJE games. I would be in favor of slowing things down a bit.
But the several aspects of game should be slowed, in a balanced way, not only the storming of towns.
Movement speed should also be considerably slowed down or things get unbalanced.
As it is now, an army may reach a region on 1 day, take a small and nearly undefended town in day 2 and have spend the rest of the month looting, resting or whatever.
But in this same month the enemy can move a massive 50.000 men army with supply wagons and all zooming past you ten or twelve regions away and take the war to a different country or even continent without any possible reaction.
IMHO stacks move fast too much in one turn. Is very difficult to plan moves when the enemy army you have just 1 region away may, in one turn be half the map away without any reaction possibility

Another possibility for the "only 1 town storming per turn" issue would be to reduce the number of level 1 fortresses, making the less important ones un-walled towns.

Regards

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PhilThib
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Sun Sep 29, 2013 6:02 pm

IIRC there was a mod (SRS Mod) somewhere on the forum that considerably reduced the move time, increased supply costs and so on, for a "slower" game...may be it could be worth a try.

This can easily be modded.

I have nothing personal against making the game much slower, to be closer to historicity, on the contrary. But don't forget it is a game and in previous beta we heard more people complaining it was too slow than the contrary... hard to content everyone

But if you want my opinion, the game is indeed much too fast and should be slowed down. But don't remove the possibility to assault cities, or you just kill the gameplay for non-Romans. If this was to be done, then the non-Roman faction should not be allowed...
Image

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Franciscus
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Sun Sep 29, 2013 6:09 pm

Has anyone tried yet patch 1.03 ?

My impression is that movement in non-developed regions is now (a little) slower.

Regards
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Emx77
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Sun Sep 29, 2013 6:16 pm

Just to clarify something, my complains here are primarily motivated with inconsistencies between written rules and things not working as described in rules. Second, as Arsan described, if we want more historical realities in AJE, then more comprehensive approach to balance things is needed. Third, please note that in this thread we are not talking about one issue. Even more frustrating than red-red order issue is so called red-orange order issue as described in [color="#FFFF00"]post #19 (situation 2)[/color] and [color="#FFFF00"]post #25[/color]). I've still not got rational explanation regarding this.

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arsan
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Sun Sep 29, 2013 6:22 pm

Franciscus wrote:Has anyone tried yet patch 1.03 ?

My impression is that movement in non-developed regions is now (a little) slower.

Regards



I have made some test with 1.03 on the start of the Sulla/Marius campaign, testing Sullas Army assaulting Thebae Pontic army (defending on blue/red) on turn 1 to see if the issue with the massive NM loss for the Romans when losing legionaries had improved with the new settings.
And indeed it worked wonderfully :thumbsup: Good job!

But movement times seemed the same to me more or less. In good weather Sulla moved from Dyrrachium to Thebae in 10 days.
In any case, these regions are not undeveloped, so this may be the reason i didn't see changes :bonk: We will have to play some more with it...

But the regions where most of the scenarios are played (Hispania, Italy, Greece/Macedonia) are fairly developed, with roads and even roman roads. And is in these regions where armies move really fast, making the armies maneuvers too fluid (unless fortresses ZOCs block them, of course)

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Franciscus
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Sun Sep 29, 2013 6:33 pm

PhilThib wrote:But if you want my opinion, the game is indeed much too fast and should be slowed down. But don't remove the possibility to assault cities, or you just kill the gameplay for non-Romans. If this was to be done, then the non-Roman faction should not be allowed...


I think no-one is asking for the removal of assaulting cities, the issue is the "assault in a day, move next day" rare possibility. IMHO, it's good that it's rare...
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Gerry58
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Tue Oct 08, 2013 4:01 pm

Franciscus wrote:Has anyone tried yet patch 1.03 ?

My impression is that movement in non-developed regions is now (a little) slower.

Regards


Where can i find it?

Thanks, Gerry

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Franciscus
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Tue Oct 08, 2013 4:36 pm

Gerry58 wrote:Where can i find it?

Thanks, Gerry


In the 2 sticked threads of the Help to improve subforum:

http://www.ageod-forum.com/forumdisplay.php?314-Help-to-improve-AJE

Patches 1.03 available in those threads are beta, but will be made official shortly.

Regards
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PJJ
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Thu Oct 10, 2013 2:16 pm

I wouldn't mind having a slower pace of operations in AJE. That would be more accurate, historically speaking. I fully agree with Franciscus - ancient warfare was no WW2 Blitzkrieg.

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Emx77
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armies passing each other without provoking battle

Thu Nov 14, 2013 11:30 am

Earlier in this thread I've described odd behavior of armies passing through enemy territory without provoking battle with blocking stack (see post #29). Here is another example in scenario The Great Mithridatic War which I'm playing against AI (patch 1.03):

Image

I reloaded same turn couple of times. Switching posture of Roman stack (attack or defense) doesn't change anything. Pontus army will either pass through the province or, sometimes, end his movement there. However, it will never provoke battle with Roman army defending the province.

I think this is serious issue which need to be addressed or, in case it's not a bug, explained when it occurs and why. Under current behaviour, you can forget about preparing ambushes as you will never be sure that enemy stack will not just simply pass through your heavily guarded territory.

Saves are attached.
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arsan
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Thu Nov 14, 2013 12:03 pm

Weird!... i've experienced some strange things in my PBEM AJE games, like armies inside a city under siege slipping past my besiegers without triggering battle... and i talk about 7-8 legion huge armies, not just some irregularse slipping past my defenses :bonk:

What battle delay option do you use?? Maybe setting it to high (like i do) makes battle not triggering until the other army has exited the province... no idea, i'm just guessing...

It's possible Pessimus army is set on passive posture?? I'm not sure if a passive army will change to offensive when entering an enemy controlled province or not. Do you know??

Regards!

EDIT: answering my own questions... looking at the manual, it seems only cavalry/irregulars/support units can move on enemy controled regions on passive without changing to offensive. So that shouldn't be the explanation.

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Emx77
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Thu Nov 14, 2013 1:21 pm

arsan wrote:
EDIT: answering my own questions... looking at the manual, it seems only cavalry/irregulars/support units can move on enemy controled regions on passive without changing to offensive. So that shouldn't be the explanation.


I'm not by computer with AJE right now but during testing I once opened turn file from Pontic side. I remember that Pessimus stack had orange attack order. Later, I will check what delay options did I use.

EDIT: I've used medium delay setting. Tested it again with "no delay" option - same result. Pontic army either pass or stops at the province with Roman army but there is no battle.

I've noticed something strange when opened turn file from Pontic side. Take a look at Posture and ROE buttons. Diophantes army has offensive posture but instead of just one, several buttons are activated for ROE. King Mithidrate's army at Nicomedia has same setting.

Image

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Franciscus
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Thu Nov 14, 2013 8:35 pm

Hi, Emx77.

The only issues in your save are:

1. A graphic misplacement
2. An optical ilusion

As to the misplacement:

It appears the Pontic army is going thru Pessimus region. But it is NOT.

See the AI move plot:

Image

She is going to Bithynia, not passing thru Pessimus

End turn:

Image

Admitedly, the Pontic army APPEARS to be in Pessimus, but it is in Bithynia, as the tooltip says.

Of course, this is misleading and not good; I will correct army sprite position in Bithynia region for 1.03c official. It will look like this, what do you think:

Image


As to the ilusion:

The AI armies you mention have only the orange ROE activated, the other 2 just appear to be. Easy to check, try to select one of the ROE and you will see. In my 27«inch monitor sometimes I also get this "ilusion"


Regards
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arsan
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Thu Nov 14, 2013 9:57 pm

Good detective work Franciscus! :sherlock:
Indeed sometimes the enemy stacks movement looks a little strange, going through adjacent regions, specially on the Replay function. But this is one of the most misleading cases i've seen! :bonk:

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Emx77
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Thu Nov 14, 2013 10:21 pm

Franciscus wrote:
Admitedly, the Pontic army APPEARS to be in Pessimus, but it is in Bithynia, as the tooltip says. Of course, this is misleading and not good; I will correct army sprite position in Bithynia region for 1.03c official. It will look like this, what do you think:



An optical illusion, ha? I knew some kind of David Copperfield trick was involved. :-) Thank you for sorting this out. Regarding your solution, I think it would be ok. Just, please pay attention that other Pontic armies are also displaced from their real positions. I hope your solution will work generally for all similar situations and not just for this particular one.

BTW, what does white line represents?

Image

Another question. On picture below it is obvious that between Bithynium and Gorieum there is some kind of natural obstacle (probably ridge) but you can tell that only when you have your stack trying to go from Bithynium and Gorieum. Sometimes, I plan one route for movement toward far objective just to discover on the next turn that planned route was not best one because of unseen ridge. If I had knew that before making my moves I would had probably used some other route. Yes, I can plot one huge movement from starting province to destination to discover such invisible obstacles but often it is better to rest your troops in cities along route. That means most players are plotting movement turn by turn. Is it possible that game give us indication from the start where are the mountain ridges (ideally ridges would be represented by appropriate map graphic).

Image

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Franciscus
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Thu Nov 14, 2013 10:39 pm

[HR][/HR]Hi

Unfortunately the army, city, pillaged icon, etc sprites positions have to be manually corrected for each region...and there are thousands... I will try to check most obvious mistakes in Anatolia/Pontus...

As to crests/ridges/passes graphic representations it is/was planned. There are hundreds, though...maybe in the future, but not sure.

Regards
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Emx77
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Fri Nov 15, 2013 9:15 am

Franciscus wrote:[HR][/HR]Hi

Unfortunately the army, city, pillaged icon, etc sprites positions have to be manually corrected for each region...and there are thousands... I will try to check most obvious mistakes in Anatolia/Pontus...

As to crests/ridges/passes graphic representations it is/was planned. There are hundreds, though...maybe in the future, but not sure.

Regards


Hi Franciscus,

In above examples, it seems only army icons have to be manually corrected.

Regarding crest/ridges/passes, what do you think about idea that someone from development team starts a new topic where you will ask players for help in identifying natural obstacles not presented on map? I would be willing to help by posting my discoveries about invisibile crest/ridges/passes in that thread. In a long run you would have nice list of provinces where obstacles exist which would help you to easily implement planned graphical update.

I still have one question unanswered, what kind of region link represents white line? It is clear that light blue is link via river, brown is a land link but what white stands for (see first picture in my previous post)?

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arsan
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Fri Nov 15, 2013 10:33 am

Road link?? just guessing...

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Erik Springelkamp
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Fri Nov 15, 2013 12:57 pm

Looking at the example, the white line seems a very hard to impossible connection: the one to the North East enters the sea without a harbour, so it is in general impossible to move (unless entering a fleet at the shore), and the one to the South was the path that takes 64 days, so an almost impassable ridge.

I have examined many regions with the shift key, and I think it is right: a white line means a very hard passage.

I also discovered a few regions with apparently too many connection lines, like Pergamos, that seems to add three extra white lines to non-adjacent sea areas.

I didn't find any modification of the line colour for the presence of roads.

Bullman
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Sat Nov 16, 2013 3:57 am

Hi Emx77

Thanks for persisting with your questions in this thread. I too have encountered the same inconsistent situations as you have. I am a little disappointed that the issues you raise as far as I am concerned are still unresolved despite the thread being over one year old and having Pocus make comment here.

So, in the current build of the game, are RED/RED orders still mean to work exactly as they are described in the manual???? They dont seem to be.

I agree with your comment "moving units in AJE sometimes is more an art of magic than anything else."

I too have brought up how odd it is that the AJE map does not show players where apparent invisible obstacles between regions exist.

Refer to this thread where I highlighted how un-player friendly it is to have invisible obstacles between some regions on the map. It certainly makes planning much harder.

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Durk
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Sat Nov 16, 2013 6:29 am

This has been an interesting thread which I have watch, but not commented upon. Some thoughts:
1. All Ageod games have some variability with regard to the execution of planned orders. Unlike more traditional games, your orders are at best a good idea.
2. "Invisible" objects are a known quantity, after a bit. Two ways to play: fresh; both players ignorant, and experienced, all players know.

Finally, the manual is an idea of the game at best. Not a Bible, a guide.

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Erik Springelkamp
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Sat Nov 16, 2013 11:13 am

Bullman wrote:Hi Emx77
I too have brought up how odd it is that the AJE map does not show players where apparent invisible obstacles between regions exist.


Well, it seems that you can see them while planning: if the connection line turns up white the path is extra difficult. Even just hovering over the area and pressing shift will show it.
It is not as good as a directly visible map feature, but for now it is better than nothing.

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