AGEOD's American Civil War

[Willard]

Hi all -

Can you advise if Matrix has picked up AGEOD's upcoming American Civil War?
I hope that Matrix does add ACW to the stable.
BoA is a great game and I expect ACW to surpass even that.

Additionally, as a plug, will someone at Matrix pick up the phone and call the boys over at Mad Minute Games?

MMG created, IMO, the best tactical battle simulation out there for the ACW with 2nd Manassas (the follow-on to 1st Bull Run).
The game concept takes that of SMG Gettysburg to a new level.
Unfortunately, MMG has had some commercial problems...probably the result of a crappy deal with the History Channel on 1st Bull Run and Paradox with 2nd Manassas.

It would be a terrible shame to see MMG's future Shiloh title and others go the way of the dodo because of deals that don't build upon the strengths of the franchise and cater to the right audience. IMO, Matrix has enough juice to get this series going and is a natural fit given their partnership with Panther Games on HTTR and COTA.

Anyway, my two cents for what it is worth.

Thanks!

[General Quarters]

I second the point about MadMinute Games. They have created an extraordinarily immersive and realistic tactical ACW engine. You can command anything from a cavalry troop to the whole army. Afterwards, it is as if you had commanded a unit in a real historical battle. They have a demo. Check it out!

I waited for years for a good strategic ACW game. Now we have Forge of Freedom, the best ever produced, and I am really looking forward to trying out AGEOD's game.

[Gibbon]

ORIGINAL: Willard
Can you advise if Matrix has picked up AGEOD's upcoming American Civil War?
I hope that Matrix does add ACW to the stable.

So do I
From the AGEOD forum, it looks like they are still discussing. When asked, PhilThib said that nothing was signed yet. Link is here

[Skeleton]

Willard, I could not agree with you more regarding MadMinuteGames. Both of their titles are among the best war/strategy games that have come around in some time. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why they have struggled so much for commercial success. I would not only like and hope that Shiloh sees the light of day, but also I would love to see them go in two directions. One have a campaign, a big grand campaign. With their current engine being as good as it is, a nice big campaign map would be something to behold. The other thing I would one day like to see them do is a Napoleonic game in the same vien. I just thought I would pipe in, MMG is a class organization with two brilliant guys who deserve better. Matrix, please make them an offer they can't refuse!

[Willard]

ORIGINAL: Marcus the leper

Willard, I could not agree with you more regarding MadMinuteGames. Both of their titles are among the best war/strategy games that have come around in some time. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why they have struggled so much for commercial success. I would not only like and hope that Shiloh sees the light of day, but also I would love to see them go in two directions. One have a campaign, a big grand campaign. With their current engine being as good as it is, a nice big campaign map would be something to behold. The other thing I would one day like to see them do is a Napoleonic game in the same vien. I just thought I would pipe in, MMG is a class organization with two brilliant guys who deserve better. Matrix, please make them an offer they can't refuse!

Marcus -

I too would like to see MMG add the campaign feature. Shiloh is fine, but I would love for them to do the 7 Days...I think that would be the best place to start with.

As for the success, Paradox is carrying the title now after the History Channel debacle. I am not a big fan of Paradox or their game release/patch policies. I did own HOI, HOI2 and EU2, but finally gave up on all 3. First, all 3 were unplayable out of the box. Second, patches are good, but when patch after patch comes out that impacts the game play so fundamentally, that says to me the game wasn't finished when it was initially released. That being said, MMG and 2nd Manassas has suffered from that problem. However, I think the MMG system is not a good fit with the gaming audience that Paradox caters to. IMO, it is a better fit with Matrix or even Battlefront.

As a Napoleonic version...that would be my dream game also. Hopefully the MMG guys will get some good luck going their way here pretty soon.

[Skeleton]

Willard,
To keep this from becoming a MMG appreciation society of two or a Paradox bashing thread, I will make my response short and sweet; I could not agree with you more on everything you have said regarding everything. That was easy! By the way, a Seven Days campaign is a great idea. Cheers and a great thread Willard, I tip my hat to you.

[decaro]

I've enjoyed my brief time so far w/BoA, but had second thoughts about buying this engine again for a Civil War game as Gettysburg will probably be just another "victory city."

However, there are several gaming similarities between the Rev and Civil Wars which will probably work well with this engine:

-- Both should still involve population support, i.e, Maryland -- the capital of the USA -- was a "southern" city rife with spies and supporters of Jeff Davis.

-- There should still be seige warfare, i.e., Atlanta, etc.

-- Volunteer regiments should disappear in months (instead of just in winter).

-- Mobility, weather, supply and training should still be a major factor.

But I will still miss the TC series; I was looking forward to a successor to Sid Meir's Gettysburg game, but at this rate I may die of old age before that happens.

[chris0827]

  -- Volunteer regiments should disappear in months (instead of just in winter

 
The only regiments that disappeared after a few months were composed of men who had signed up for 90 days. Most men in the Union army signed up for 3 years.

[Pocus]

I've enjoyed my brief time so far w/BoA, but had second thoughts about buying this engine again for a Civil War game as Gettysburg will probably be just another "victory city."

not quite. Gettysburg is not even considered as an objective, except in the Gettysburg scenario [:D]

Vicksburg is a permanent objective city, and if you take it, the national morale of both side change significantly. Add that in 1864, prior to the election, the Union side is handicapped and must be wary of not having a low morale, or the election is lost for Lincoln. The game differs on many aspect compared to BOA, while the basics are still there.

[decaro]

At the beginning of the Civil War, many men signed-up for short enlistments as both they and their leaders thought the war wouldn't last very long!

This was a big headache for the federal government; I wonder if it is reflected in the early stages of the game?

[decaro]

So there is a separate "Gettysburg scenario." Is it all urban terrain, or does it have any of the historical geographic features, i.e., the wheat field, seminary ridge, etc?

Screenshot, s'il vous plait?

So if Grant doesn't take Vicksburg and Lincoln loses the election, does McClennan become president and game over?

[chris0827]

You can find more information about the civil war game along with screenshots here.
http://www.ageod.com/
It's not a tactical level game. You won't see the wheatfield and seminary ridge in the Gettysburg scenario.

[Pocus]

as Chris said, the Gettysburg scenario is a small one where the Gettysburg region is an objective, but you are still handling troops at the operational level, manipulating armies, corps and divisions/brigades. This game is about the whole war, from 61 to 65.

[decaro]

Here's a more direct link to the screen shots I asked for: http://www.ageod.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1949
Thank you , Chris.

Pocus, your ACW sounds intriguing, mais ou allez-vous apres? I don't see modern warfare with the BoA engine, perhaps a European Midevial/Crusading game w/chess piece-looking icons?

Just a thought.

[SpharV2]

They've already announced the follow up game for AACW, which will be Vainglory of Nations which will be a game on a worldwide map set in the Victorian age. See their News board for further info on the plan so far. I'm personally hoping for a Roman era game along the way somewhere, but medieval would work for me too, just might have to wait a few years for it.

[decaro]

I wonder how far AGEOD can push their BoA engine?

Paradox built the successful EU engine, which won them strategy game of the year. It then went from EU to EU2, Victoria, HoI, HoI Platinum, HoI2, HoI Doomsday and now EU3.

I confess I purchased 4 out of the 8, but now have only EU2 and Doomsday; re the latter, it took Paradox 4 tries to get their HoI (WW II) version playable.

[Pocus]

the BOA engine is not the BOA engine, it is the AGE engine (Adaptive Game Engine), designed from ground to be morphable*, as long as basics are kept: turn-based, regions-based, units grouped in stacks, using drag&drop, simultaneous client/server processing. Aside that, no era can't be done.

VGN will features the whole world from 1820 to 1920, but no, you won't be able to play Tibet, we are keeping things more focused. After VGN, we have already choosen our project, but it is not disclosed for now.

*: how you design a morphable engine is essentially to program in such way that you think ahead in time on how the base code can evolve, without overdoing too much things (no over-engineering, at least not too much of it, and yes it takes more time at start, but it pays for the future). E.g, the levy of militia of BOA were designed so that it can evolves into mechanisms dealing with full scale, nation-wide, uprising and even partisans actions of WW2 (I'm not saying that we will do a WW2 game after VGN, I'm not saying we won't do it either [:D] ).

The second point to consider is that you must allow some time between projects for 'refactoring', meaning your code must be checked, cleaned and reworked  so that it can be expanded without too much of a problem. Many motivated programmers do that normally, the essence being that when you program a game, you must not think of it as the last game you will code, but as only a stone in a building. It changes enormously your approach of doing things.

[MarkShot]

Just like any other software systems game engines have a life cycle. And like any other software systems there needs to be a constant struggle against code entropy which conspires to ever increase the complexity and cost of future enhancements. However, I would say that it is an axiom that despite best efforts all systems will eventually reach a break even point where a rewrite begins to look more attractive than further maintenance and enhancement. However, AGE is brand spanking new and is too youthful to worry about the toll that the years will take upon her.

[Pocus]

Rise of Rome or Fall of Byzance then? The first I hope [:D]

[decaro]

Thanks to both Pocus and Markshot for their insight on programing/code. I only have an intro-level understanding of Visual Basic, but most complaints I heard against programers is that they are loathe to annotate their own work, making it harder for other programers trying to fix/modify it; case in point, fixing the Y2K "bug" as many of the original programers had retired and/or simply couldn't remember what they were coding -- from years ago -- because they didn't annotate their work!

Markshot, thanks again for all your BoA tips (posted by Gibbon); I recently beat the Colonial AI, which was set to enhanced, Hard and w/one degree of FoW. I wonder how far I can push the AGE engine, perhaps all the way to Very Hard and full FoW? Boosting the Colonial Ai makes it more fiesty and the game more exciting!

So what does "OD" -- in AGEOD -- stand for?