Longstreet is angered....and so am I

[Wheat]

Ok, again, sigh, I don't understand this game it seems. ON turn 20, I promote Jackson to a 3 star general. On turn 21, I make Jackson an army commander and promote Longstreet to 3 star general. At NO TIME was Longstreet's seniority lower than Jackson's. I get this message, and the loss of morale and victory points.

While on this angry subject, I lost another 150 victory points for promoting commanders who the game said because of battlefield success, were eligible to promote. So, I promoted them, ONLY TO ANGER other generals with lower seniority but WERE NOT eligible to be promoted. Is that working as designed???

[GraniteStater]

Yup.

[Gray Fox]

You didn't get a warning of the cost right when you were promoting?

[Wheat]

You didn't get a warning of the cost right when you were promoting?

No, I did not.

And GraniteStater, I assume the yup is to my second point. But the first issue was clearly not in any violation of seniority.

[GraniteStater]

Oh, I know that. It is WAD, however. I would say, from what I've seen, Promotions are best handled One Guy at a Time (same for bestowing Army commands). I think the engine gets mixed-up, sometimes, if there is more than one (in either case). And, as this appears to be a single-shot (at least at first), sometimes I think the code gets squirrelly about Seniority, etc. I know the same thing has happened to me, albeit not to the tune of 150 VPs.

[Cardinal Ape]

A 3 star Longstreet has a seniority of 10. A 3 star Jackson has a seniority of 13. Unless Jackson's seniority was improved by several points, then you did in fact pass over Longstreet for an army command. It is too bad that the game did not tell you what Longstreet's new seniority would be after promotion on the next turn, but during the turn it seems that he did get moved ahead of Jackson. If your Jackson has a seniority of 9 then I am completely wrong.

[Captain_Orso]

That was just bad luck, because Longstreet got promoted at the same time Jackson get an army command. Because when you issued the orders for Jackson to get an army, Longstreet was still a Maj.Gen. there is no warning.

Just as a tip, though, unless you are desperate to field an additional army, never promote Hood, Jackson, or Longstreet to Lt.Gen. They are far better at Maj.Gen., especially as corps commanders under Lee.

[Wheat]

A 3 star Longstreet has a seniority of 10. A 3 star Jackson has a seniority of 13. Unless Jackson's seniority was improved by several points, then you did in fact pass over Longstreet for an army command. It is too bad that the game did not tell you what Longstreet's new seniority would be after promotion on the next turn, but during the turn it seems that he did get moved ahead of Jackson. If your Jackson has a seniority of 9 then I am completely wrong.

Jackson was promoted the TURN BEFORE Father Ape. So, when I gave Jackson Army Command, Longstreet was a 2 star. I promoted Longstreet that turn. Jackson had won some battles and his seniority was better than Longstreets. This stuff gives the game a bad taste, as there was NO warning. I'm playing a PBEM game too.

[Wheat]

That was just bad luck, because Longstreet got promoted at the same time Jackson get an army command. Because when you issued the orders for Jackson to get an army, Longstreet was still a Maj.Gen. there is no warning.

Just as a tip, though, unless you are desperate to field an additional army, never promote Hood, Jackson, or Longstreet to Lt.Gen. They are far better at Maj.Gen., especially as corps commanders under Lee.

Wish I knew where to find out such stuff, but no data tables to help decide whether to promote or not. In any case, I did want Jackson at army level and he is now in Missouri. Preparing an attack on St. Louis I hope. Doing a PBEM, my first as South, my opponents first as North.

[GraniteStater]

The way to find out is experience. I got tired of VP penalties, so I just do 'em one at a time.

[Jerzul]

Wish I knew where to find out such stuff, but no data tables to help decide whether to promote or not. In any case, I did want Jackson at army level and he is now in Missouri. Preparing an attack on St. Louis I hope. Doing a PBEM, my first as South, my opponents first as North.

You can find a list of generals floating around the forums, but they do not mention which leaders are promotable or what their stats are when they are promoted.

Jackson was promoted the TURN BEFORE Father Ape. So, when I gave Jackson Army Command, Longstreet was a 2 star. I promoted Longstreet that turn. Jackson had won some battles and his seniority was better than Longstreets. This stuff gives the game a bad taste, as there was NO warning. I'm playing a PBEM game too.

I agree. I think AGEOD has made the best grand strategy civil war game available by a large margin. I love this game. HOWEVER...MY GOD is the opaqueness of this game frustrating. How many discussions have there been on the mechanics of this game which NO ONE UNDERSTANDS? The replacement chit discussion, the fact that promotions are so confusing and ham-fisted, SUPPLY, etc. The fact that the manual is left uncompleted is forever frustrating. Why put together such a huge colorful manual if you aren't going to finish it? It would have been better to just create a wiki or a txt file to explain game concepts. There are so many parts of this game that are just frustrating because the developers have never bothered to explain them and we have to all bounce around the forums fumbling for answers like two teenagers in the backseat of a car.

[Captain_Orso]

Wish I knew where to find out such stuff, but no data tables to help decide whether to promote or not. In any case, I did want Jackson at army level and he is now in Missouri. Preparing an attack on St. Louis I hope. Doing a PBEM, my first as South, my opponents first as North.

This is a situation, which only occurs under specific circumstances, which to the best of my knowledge, I have never seen occur before; this is after play the game and reading the forums for seven years. If it were otherwise Pocus would probably--if possible--have moved promoting leaders to after army command creation during turn execution, which would have prevented this issue.

[Captain_Orso]

You can find a list of generals floating around the forums, but they do not mention which leaders are promotable or what their stats are when they are promoted.



I agree. I think AGEOD has made the best grand strategy civil war game available by a large margin. I love this game. HOWEVER...MY GOD is the opaqueness of this game frustrating. How many discussions have there been on the mechanics of this game which NO ONE UNDERSTANDS? The replacement chit discussion, the fact that promotions are so confusing and ham-fisted, SUPPLY, etc. The fact that the manual is left uncompleted is forever frustrating. Why put together such a huge colorful manual if you aren't going to finish it? It would have been better to just create a wiki or a txt file to explain game concepts. There are so many parts of this game that are just frustrating because the developers have never bothered to explain them and we have to all bounce around the forums fumbling for answers like two teenagers in the backseat of a car.

The issue with replacement chits was, in my mind, one of proving empirically the way it works, not that nobody knew.

I'll agree, that the lack of a concise and complete manual is very unsatisfactory. The reason it was not simply published as a Wiki was because at the time many players were already complaining about their poor internet access for downloading updates, or even reading the forums. Forcing them to access that manual online was simply not a satisfactory solution.

That being said, the Wikis which do exist are also far from complete. I've done some updating over the years, but very limited. I hate to start updating things if I can't put out all the information 100% complete and correct. From my stand-point, there are many things you only have to know approximately to be able to handle them.

Supply is not "ham-fisted". It is if anything, extremely persistent; ie it will always find a path to move over if there one to be found. This can lead to some surprising things; I've been quite surprised not seldom myself. Pocus did it this way specifically to ease the burden on the player. If you had to do nearly a quarter of the planing the game does for you through simple mechanics, you'd need 2 hours per turn just for planing supply distribution. You'd have more understanding and more control, but not be able to achieve much more than what the game does now, and nobody would want to play game anymore.

[Jerzul]

The issue with replacement chits was, in my mind, one of proving empirically the way it works, not that nobody knew.

I'll agree, that the lack of a concise and complete manual is very unsatisfactory. The reason it was not simply published as a Wiki was because at the time many players were already complaining about their poor internet access for downloading updates, or even reading the forums. Forcing them to access that manual online was simply not a satisfactory solution.

That being said, the Wikis which do exist are also far from complete. I've done some updating over the years, but very limited. I hate to start updating things if I can't put out all the information 100% complete and correct. From my stand-point, there are many things you only have to know approximately to be able to handle them.

Supply is not "ham-fisted". It is if anything, extremely persistent; ie it will always find a path to move over if there one to be found. This can lead to some surprising things; I've been quite surprised not seldom myself. Pocus did it this way specifically to ease the burden on the player. If you had to do nearly a quarter of the planing the game does for you through simple mechanics, you'd need 2 hours per turn just for planing supply distribution. You'd have more understanding and more control, but not be able to achieve much more than what the game does now, and nobody would want to play game anymore.

Orso,

I appreciate the long response. In my own defense I did not say that supply was ham-fisted. I said that promotions were, and I think they are. They are awkward and have too much uncertainty about VP and NM loss when doing them. I know you get messages warning of some VP/NM losses, but we still get screwed up at times. Also, POCUS should always have had promotions before army creation. This is not the first AGEOD game to use this type of promotion system, and situations like Wheat's should not happen.

I actually think the supply in this game is very well done...but still opaque and highly confusing. GS had to write a primer about it in AACW for me to even understand how it works. This sort of thing should have been explained by the devs up front, especially in CW2 after the confusion in AACW.

Don't get me wrong. These games are awesome, they are just plagued by oddities that could have/should have been either better coded or better explained. [Let me point out that I totally get that AGEOD is a tiny company and does not have a lot of excess resources.

On this last point...I wish they had used an easier system to Mod. If the coding system were easier I think a small dedicated group (like those on the forum) could have easily created a "CW2 Improvement Mod" which fixed many of these issues.

Last gripe: It kills me that the text in the game doesn't fit in it's designed areas half the time. In my current PBEM the Loss NM number is blocked (no idea what it is for the Union...50?) and so is the FI trigger number (I think it's supposed to be 75? This is on EASY FI).

Again, I wish the interface and other items in the game were easier to mod. I think everyone would be happier then.

[GraniteStater]

Maybe AGEOD will finally hire me to be Chief Documenter and Grand Poo-bah of Word-Smithery, and then we'll have awesome manuals; after all, it's what I do for the shekels.

And we won't have 'Rockhingham' in New Hampshire.

[Jerzul]

Maybe AGEOD will finally hire me to be Chief Documenter and Grand Poo-bah of Word-Smithery, and then we'll have awesome manuals; after all, it's what I do for the shekels.

And we won't have 'Rockhingham' in New Hampshire.

Hell, why don't they just release the base file for the manual? I'm sure someone could fix at lest most of it. Especially those "(Chapter )" entries. As a librarian who knows how to index these drive me up the wall!

I know I'm pi...barking into the wind here, but good documentation would be a real boon to this game.

[Captain_Orso]

It's a PDF file. With a PDF editor you can edit it. The real big work would be compiling all the information not included in the manual; all the stuff just in the forums (AACW & CW2), plus the Wiki articls (AACW, AGEOD, plus lots of info which can be found in the other Wiki's too. That would probably easily expand its size 4 to six fold.

Honestly, I would rather have a well put together Wiki. The quality of Graphics in PDF's always seem to go straight to hell, which I don't understand, and on a Wiki you can use JPG, PNG, and SVG, all of which are 500% better than PDF graphics.

[GraniteStater]

The quality of Graphics in PDF's always seem to go straight to hell, which I don't understand, and on a Wiki you can use JPG, PNG, and SVG, all of which are 500% better than PDF graphics.

PDFs ae simple to maintain, thus a popular delivery solution.

[Captain_Orso]

I think it popular because most people do not have access to a PDF editor, which makes PDF files generally unchangeable compared to MS-Word or ODF (Open Document Foundation) files, which can readily be changed. Using these formats would make it possible to falsify documents meant to have some official status, or even inadvertently change them, because to read them you use their editor programs.