Official wishlist

[HussarGames]

Please post your improvement requests here. If something is feasible and agrees with our design, we will likely make it into the game or maybe into our next game.

[SpaceBum]

I'd like to see a "windowed" mode. I have a widescreen display and both of the available screen resolutions in the game look terrible (i.e, like an old DOS game).

[Hidde]

Supply. I think you could make it so the player get a bit more involved. No micromanaging but some decision making by the player. Maybe choose supply center, not much more. It would also give the opportunity to cut supply lines in a clearer way than it is now.

Fewer battles. This have been debated before. Two opposing armies can fight a battle almost each week for a ridicously long time. This is my main beef with the game. Try to make each (big) battle have more impact on both armies with regard to readiness and the time it takes to prepar for the next one.
This is by the way something I belive is a problem in every strategic wargame I've played.

Well, not a very detailed list. Only a couple of areas where I could see the need for (minor) changes. I trust the developers will follow up a great game with something even better.

[lancer]

Goodaye,

You have an excellent game. The combination of your interface, the balance you've struck between ease of use and complexity and the graphics are head and shoulders above most other offerings on the market.

My suggestions would be aimed more at the upper end of the game. Eg. additional features for players who want more of a challenge.

Your tactical battle system is great. The AI is pretty good but it's no match for a human which is probably more of a reflection on AI in general than any limitations of your implementation.

A couple of 'advanced rule' features that could be toggled on/off as desired that would handicap the human player in the tactical battles would be appreciated. Something that tied in with the leaders. Another game, can't remember what, had an activation system where each leader had to make an activation roll each turn in order to move is along the lines of what I'm thinking. Good leaders activate more often than bad leaders. Having a greater differentiation between leaders of differing abilities would be desirable and if this could somehow be utilised to make it tougher tactically for the human while still retaining the fun factor it would be good.

On a larger scale having leaders that don't reveal their abilities until they are used (eg. their ratings) in combat could be a plus (Forge of Freedom?) . Anything, in fact, that makes the leader management and use side of the game deeper would be desirable.

There were some good suggestions on the old Battlefront forums with regards to raising armies in that you were given a random leader initially and you could pay extra influence points for a random brigadier or general. If you wanted a specific leader then you would have to pay influence points to replace the initial random one. This overcomes the cherry picking of all the good leaders by the player.

I'd also vote for a slightly more involved supply system as mentioned above. Once again in the advanced rule set so the game can retain it's 'scalibility' for different levels of users.

Cheers,
Lancer

[AndyfromVA1]

I suggest a diplomacy feature, where you can send negotiators to other countries (e.g. Spain and France in the Amer. Revolution portion of the game) to attempt to get economic aid or military aid.

[Ursa MAior]

ORIGINAL: AndyfromVA1

I suggest a diplomacy feature, where you can send negotiators to other countries (e.g. Spain and France in the Amer. Revolution portion of the game) to attempt to get economic aid or military aid.

If the above is made, then the possibility to play naval engagements too.

[Moltke71]

One thing that struck me was the inablity of Washington to threaten the British fleet at Boston when he finally got good artillery. The concept of a port never starving could be re-examined.

[Joram]

Maybe I missed this in the manual but besides an intricate knowledge of geography, how do you tell where your new units are going to be built? It would be nice if on the unit build screen there was a mini-map that showed where the town was. My American geography is good but not good enough to know every little town. And apologies to the Hungarians but I don't have a clue where any of those cities are!

[HussarGames]

If you right-click a town, you can recruit right there with the recruit option in the menu.

[Ike99]

Hi Hussar, I have a couple wishes.

The first involves cannons....

When Infantry or Cavalry charge the front 3 hexes of a cannon, the cannon gets one, automatic ¨canister¨ defensive fire shot at a higher than normal fire power rating. If the attacking unit breaks morale the charge would end of course and the attacker route as normal. If not, the attacker would continue its charge as normal, one gun be destroyed and the cannon route as normal. This would give cannons a chance to break up a charge before the charger could close with the cannon. Against its front three hexes only of course.

Kind of like when Infantry has its reaction fire range set to 1 or 2 and a unit comes within range it shoots. Only in this case when charged against its front three hexes the cannon fires an automatic defensive ¨canister¨ shot before the attacker begins his charge.

I don`t know how hard that would be to code into the game but it would certainly be a plus and help solve the problem of being able to over run cannon so easily.
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My second request is for an update to the editor that allows you to edit the entry times of reinforcements.

Thanks!

[hadberz]

I second the window mode, widescreen monitor support or support for custom resolutions. 

[HussarGames]

Window mode is not possible with our current game engine.
Other requests will be considered. Thank you!

[James Ward]

I'd like to see some improvements in the AI particularly in regards to how they handle their forces. The AI should add replacements to units once they get below certin strength (300?). They should either combine units and build additional new units or they should fill them up. The firing penlties for understrength really hurt those weaked units.
I'd also like to see it keep units in suppy, as far as possible, during winter. In many instances the AI will park a force outside a city full of your units during the winter. After they have been there a month or so it's an automatic victory usually with tremendous losses for the AI.
Overall I really like the game.

[jeffreysutro@jeffreysutro.com]

Supply. I think you could make it so the player get a bit more involved. No micromanaging but some decision making by the player. Maybe choose supply center, not much more. It would also give the opportunity to cut supply lines in a clearer way than it is now.

If you institute a more detailed supply system I hope you will make it an optional rule. I very much like the current system which is simple and clean playing while still placing realistic constraints on the player. I agree that the actual commanders had to devote much of their attention to supply ("amateurs discuss strategy, professionals discuss logistics") but I would rather have the option to “retain my amateur status", and not have to bother too much with it.

Fewer battles. This have been debated before. Two opposing armies can fight a battle almost each week for a ridicously long time. This is my main beef with the game. Try to make each (big) battle have more impact on both armies with regard to readiness and the time it takes to prepar for the next one.

I'm ambivalent on this idea. The current system is certainly somewhat unhistorical in the rate at which battles take place, but it plays very well, and is a lot of fun. If the rate of battles was reduced to a historical level most of the game would be spent sitting and waiting to recover readiness, with very little action. I also think that the game rate of battles is not as unhistorical as it might at first appear. Although major battles were infrequent during the American Revolution, it was more common to have an ongoing series of encounters between the armies, such as took place in 1776 with the battles on Long Island, then New York, then the pursuit across New Jersey, followed by the American counterattack at Trenton and Princeton. Most encounters were not decisive.

This type of thing is modeled in the game by the common occurrence of having one side attack the other repeatedly, pushing their opponent back each time but losing readiness faster than the defender and stretching their supply lines. Eventually the attacker becomes exhausted, and the defender can then counterattack. I think this gives a pretty good feel for the nature and overall course of Revolutionary War campaigns, even if it is not accurate in all the details. As with supply, I think the current system is a type of “design for effect” that works rather well.

However, if the next game is going to be Napoleon in Italy, I think it might be appropriate to look at making battles more decisive. Napoleon’s “strategy of the central position” depended on decisively defeating first one army and then, in rapid sucession, decisively defeating a second army. This strategy was used during the Italian campaign, and I think the game should be able to reproduce it. It seems to me that Hussar Games has taken on a considerable challenge in trying to accurately simulate operational level Napoleonic campaigning (as opposed to the tactical battles), and I look forward with great anticipation to seeing the results.


Finally, I would put in a vote to upgrade the system for automatically resolving battles. The current system sometimes gives annomolous results where a superior army will be defeated by one which is decidely inferior. This was also the case in “1848”, but it wasn’t that much of a problem because the player was given an estimate of the outcome, and therefore had the information needed to make a decision. In “For Liberty” the player can assure more accurate outcomes by always playing battles out tactically, but the AI bases it’s decisions on the probable outcome of an automatically resolved battle which leads it to periodically make some very ill advised attacks, and sometimes to not attack in situations where it would probably be successful.

This could also be alleviated somewhat by improving the tactical battle AI, and I’m certainly in favor of any improvements that can be made. However, the current AI is pretty good and the difference in results between automatically resolved battles and tactical battles is not only because humans play more skillfully than the AI. I don’t know how difficult it would be to upgrade the routines for automatically resolving battles, but I do think it is worth considering.

[lancer]

Goodaye,

I like to (in your forthcoming game) see a different supply system. Historically in both the American War of Independence and Napoleon's Italian campaigns the armies lived off the land or took supply with them (wagon trains). The amount of supply that was derived via a logistical tail from a base was miniscule.

For Liberty models a supply from base system that can be interdicted by the opposing force. While this is O.K and works well it is a fair way off the mark in terms of what actually happened. The Birth of America model of supply wagons and living of the land is closer to the mark.

However the fact that the underlying supply model doesn't reflect reality isn't a big deal 'cause it's a good game as it is but perhaps the new game could have something more in line with what actually happened while maintaining the fun element.

Cheers,
Lancer

[HussarGames]

Thanks for the feedback. Some remarks:
- all towns provide supply, so it is not just bases
- Wagons are modelled. All units can carry around 10 weeks of supply (they consume more if they battle or move). Supply can even be captured after battles.
- The supply system will not be changed in our next game.
- Cohesion is a new unit attribute in the next game. It is specifically designed to lower the frequency of major battles - this will not be too drastic unless you play with the Realistic rule set.
- Initiative for leaders in battles was also added (for next game only). All leaders will have a die-roll at each turn. If they fail, they will have no effect on troops that turn.

[lancer]

Goodaye,

Fair enough. I wasn't aware about the wagon modelling and the other aspects you mentioned. You are more on the ball than I thought. Well done.

I'm looking forward to your next game and I love the idea of leader initiative.

Cheers,
Lancer

[Hidde]

It is specifically designed to lower the frequency of major battles

Cheerio! [&o]

[gdpsnake]

I would like to see:
1). Fix the map so you can correctly surround Ft Augustine in the south. The rules say you need to 'seige' from two opposing hexes and that cannot be accomplished on this fort.
2). Move the towns on the edge a bit like the Indian towns so they have at least 6 hexes around them.
3). An option toggle to remove the mini-map from tactical battles as it can get in the way.
4). An option toggle to remove the map on the strategic scale as it definitely gets in the way.
5). Combat results display during combat can get cluttered real fast as the little numbers scroll up the screen and even obliterate the current results in the case of multiple melees into the same hex. Could we make the numbers bigger, pause a bit and then vanish? The pause setting could be player selected?
6). When routed units are surrounded on the tactical map, they should roll a random to surrender when fired or meleed upon. And they should not retreat displacing good ordered enemy if they don't surrender.
--Also, surrendered enemy should add a random amount of ART or ARMS to the victor.
7). Surrounded units on the strategic map should not displace enemy units when they lose a battle and retreat but should surrender. How else do you ever replicate a victory like Yorktown when the defeated armies keep moving away regardless?
--The exception would be a surrounded fortified position where the defender NEVER RETREATS but can randomly surrender or perhaps he holds out long enough for the fleet to arrive.....(As might have happened at Yorktown if Cornwallis had decided to hold out).
8). Change the victory conditions in a battle. Make it so REGARDLESS of opposing morale/power the ATTACKER MUST do something to win rather than just show up. I would suggest that most battles involved occupying some specific objective that the defender is defending. After all, the defender is there for a specific reason - to protect something and the attacker is there to take it away.
--SO...for battles in towns, the random terrain should include buildings and the attacker must occupy the "Church hex" or hexes in a large town, teepees in an Indian town, Central fort hexes in a fortified place, key high ground areas (Like the Bunker Hill battle where the key high ground overlooked the city/harbour and cannons there were a real threat the British had to march out and occupy), wilderness battles might have defender "camps" that need taking and so on.
--THEN, the attacker only wins if he has greater power AND occupies all the key victory hexes. Greater power but not all key hexes held means 'draw' or hold the hexes but have less power means 'draw.' OTHERWISE, the defender wins.
--In 'quick' battles the attacker should have better morale as now but also inflict at least 20% casualties (Or some other number?) on the defender. I fight all tactical so don't care too much on quickies.
--This would have the added benefit of improving AI battles as the AI can now focus on the capture of the "Key Objectives" to win battles. After all, the human defenders can usually beat even a superior force now but with specific objectives to hold, the AI will prove more difficult. As a human attacker, now you have to get those hexes that the AI will defend better.
This should also improve the AI set-up in battles as the important hexes can be better planned on set-up. The defender AI should set up his guns on the high ground protected - yes...lots of help for the AI with specific objectives in the tactical battles.
--Perhaps the occupation of 'identified' key objectives on the tactical battle maps rewards the 'holder' of the objective with influence points at the end of the battle rather than the current system of just win/lose. Now you might lose the battle but still get a few points for 'spirited defense/attack' even if outgunned but not outmanuevered as evidenced by holding the hexes at the end. This idea works well with the previous definition of 'draws'.
9). I can never tell who has Fleet control. Can we put a little symbol on the strategic map - say a ship with a British flag or American flag? And the ship can be 'highlighted' if a fleet action is available?
--This may be too much but battles fought in a port town might have some "sea hexes" terrain with a random number of ships for the side with sea control that can fire cannons at the enemy. That is, ships may or may not be there and involved in the battle as was historical (Just like the attacks on forts supported by Naval gunfire.)
FLEETS IN THE GAME?
--Perhaps the "Fleet counters" would be 'seen' on the map in whatever port/ports at the end of each move. The player could even designate what ports they are in at the end of each move (never stay at sea). The American should get ONE fleet counter and the British should get Two Fleets and Two transports - then eliminate the concept of Fleet control - it's all on board. Later, add Two French fleets when they enter the war. Add 'quality' and 'strength' to the fleet counters for play balance such as British 3/2, French 2/3, American 3/0 (Americans were very high quality - just few in numbers, no SOL's but the Constitution class Frigates were the best ships afloat.) So American strength is low (0) and can't fight against a British fleet but can be a real nuisance - perhaps causing supply losses to the Brits or attacking the transports.
--The turn after the French enter the war, the British add two fleets and one transport and the French add a fleet.
--Combat results should involve damaging fleets that must be repaired in port (takes turns) and even the very rare event of sinking a fleet which only the Brit could replace after a LONG time. Damaged fleets can do nothing while damaged.
--You could even add blockades by fleets that stops supply to the port.
10). Some differentiation between unit types. Yes, riflemen can shoot farther and light infantry moves cheaper but shouldn't the grenadiers melee better? I mean, can we SEE a melee combat value on our units? Higher for some types of units and of course, modified for experience, morale and readiness.

My two cents

[James Ward]

I believe if you right click on a particular unit in tactical combat you get a screen that gives you all the stats and a description of the units. For example Grenadiers have a better melee factor than militia and also have an additional morale effect in melee combat.