Matrix Games Forums

This is on "introductory" - senate directs to send armies to Spain; I gather up a leader and army at Carthage; hold the ALT key as I drag; get the fleet icon; try to drop on Spain but get an "Illegal move - provinces not adjacent - must hold ALT key" etc message.

Sometimes it works, sometimes not. What am I missing in my dumb newbishness?

Just fiddling around with the first couple of turns so far, but it's looking really good - kudos!

Just one comment: you do need to invest a few hours in RTFM, learning rules etc. Just from a commercial point of view, even though that hump doesn't seem very large, I think cutting it down could have a big impact in terms of getting people in to the game, word of mouth, sales etc. The big issue these days I think is time rather than money - people want to use their skinny entertainment time budgets entertaining themselves, not learning rules.

And a wish: I'd really love to see a game at this kind of level of detail on the ancient world from Alexander (or post-Alexander) to the beginning of empire.

This is on "introductory" - senate directs to send armies to Spain; I gather up a leader and army at Carthage; hold the ALT key as I drag; get the fleet icon; try to drop on Spain but get an "Illegal move - provinces not adjacent - must hold ALT key" etc message.

Is there any chance you are accidentally releasing ALT key down before you release the drop? I can't think of anything else which should cause this.

I can't immediately duplicate this on my end. But I will do a little more checking on a test machine.

Which version of the game are you playing? What kind of machine are you using? Those things should not matter, of course, but something is going wrong for you.

As for the manual, yes, I wasn't as successful in getting players over the hump as quickly as I would like. What would have helped you? Do you have anything concrete to suggest?

I have considered a different kind of tutorial which might suit some players: a four-turn "sit by Nellie" tutorial in which the game does pretty much everything for the player for four turns. The results would be canned, of course. Maybe that would help?

You are going to laugh, but when I designed "Hannibal" I thought that learning how to play the game would be a significant part of the fun. But I see that this doesn't work for everyone.

Thanks for the feedback, and please let me know what else you can about the move by sea problem. I'll keep looking at this, but anything else you can tell me about your hardware and system might help.

Maybe there could be a button that you click with the mouse to activate sea transport mode, in addition to the key command? Just a thought...

I haven't had that kind of problem and I don't remember reading about anyone else having it (before this topic), so it can't be very common, I hope.

Regarding the rules, they are wonderfully simple and easy to learn, in my opinion. But of course I'm comparing them to some other games that come with incredibly thick manuals and complex mechanics and user interface. You can find plenty of such games being sold here at Matrix Games. I hope the next game in the series will keep the smoothly working mechanics of Hannibal, with suitable improvements made, of course. [:)]

ORIGINAL: mercenarius



Is there any chance you are accidentally releasing ALT key down before you release the drop? I can't think of anything else which should cause this.

Oops - that's what it was - sorry for wasting yr time!

IMO learning the game was a fun part of the process because the system was so original.