COG2?

[Russian Guard]

Eric,

Yes I am certain of this. In fact, I reloaded version 1.18 so that I could play with this feature. Also, although others have mentioned this issue as well, making it very unlikely that I had a bad file, I re-downloaded the 2.26 patch from the members area in case my original had become somehow corrupt, and it was still missing.

CoG is a great game, I'm looking forward to the coming enhancements.

Please consider including some work on the TCP/IP stability issues, of which were discussed at length some time ago in various threads.

[Mus]

I havent played COG recently enough to recall how the economy worked as compared to FOF, but I really think the reinforcement system in COG was superior. Selecting how many of what age of men to conscript to determine the number and quality, modified by whatever upgrades such as levee en masse, as opposed to the FOF Camp system. Thats a superior system in my opinion and makes the number of reinforcements more dependent on the size of the country involved and less of an exploitable infrastructure problem like it is in FOF where you can invest a great deal of resource to attain an unrealistic amount of reinforcements every turn.

I also like jwindsors ideas about expanding on naval strategies, diversifying types, adding detailed naval combat. Not sure about changing the scale to be one unit one ship though. What was the number of ships engaged in the decisive battles of the period?

[Russian Guard]

ORIGINAL: Mus

I also like jwindsors ideas about expanding on naval strategies, diversifying types, adding detailed naval combat. Not sure about changing the scale to be one unit one ship though. What was the number of ships engaged in the decisive battles of the period?

There were few decisive large engagements of the period 1790 thru 1815. Trafalgar was, I believe, the largest, with 33 Spanish/French SOL's and 27 British SOL's. These numbers do not include Frigates and smaller vessels, since they had little impact on the outcome of the battle.

The 4 battles that come to mind are:

Trafalgar (1805) - (see above)
Nile (1798) - 15 British SOL vs. 13 French SOL
Copenhagen (1801) - 20 British SOL vs. a smattering of various Danish ships of differing smaller sizes and 10 SOL
Cape Finisterre (1805) - 15 British SOL vs. 20 French/Spanish SOL

And a number of other engagements, all under 10 SOL total for either side.

edit: The type of naval battles you see in CoG, with sometimes 80 or 100 ships on a side, never happened during the period. In part, it was near impossible to organize a fleet that large and keep it together over time, due to weather, communications, repairs and general organizational problems - not to mention the small number of ports capable of supporting a fleet that size.

But it's fun [:)]

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: Russian Guard

There were few decisive large engagements of the period 1790 thru 1815. Trafalgar was, I believe, the largest, with 33 Spanish/French SOL's and 27 British SOL's. These numbers do not include Frigates and smaller vessels, since they had little impact on the outcome of the battle.

The 4 battles that come to mind are:

Trafalgar (1805) - (see above)
Nile (1798) - 15 British SOL vs. 13 French SOL
Copenhagen (1801) - 20 British SOL vs. a smattering of various Danish ships of differing smaller sizes and 10 SOL
Cape Finisterre (1805) - 15 British SOL vs. 20 French/Spanish SOL

And a number of other engagements, all under 10 SOL total for either side.

Cool. Maybe it should be scaled down in size and given an appropriate unit cost then.

Detailed naval combat would be the best improvement I think, just maybe a bit trickier to pull off well. You would need weather to be going on that would dictate movement abilities to some degree, not sure how that would work with the detailed combat engine they have right now. Also would need a system where structural damage and crew casualties would have effects on the performance of the ship.

Complicated but if they did it right really awesome potential.

[ericbabe]

ORIGINAL: Khornish
Another thing that annoys the heck out of me is the % to change formation.

In 1805 scenario a number of French divisions have a 50% or less chance of changing into a line. WTF!

Napoleon first started fighting with a combination of raw recruits and well-trained regular units. The raw recruits were unable to form lines during battle. Napoleon's solution was to have the regular units pound the enemy with fire and then when their morale was shaken to have the recruits march to close while remaining in column formation. According to Part 6 of Chandler's "Campaigns of Napoleon", the French army was still using these techniques in September of 1805. COG considers experienced regular units to be units with a morale of at least 5; units below morale 5 have only half the base level of assuming line formation as do units with morale of 5 or more.

[ericbabe]

ORIGINAL: Russian Guard
CoG is a great game, I'm looking forward to the coming enhancements.

Please consider including some work on the TCP/IP stability issues, of which were discussed at length some time ago in various threads.

Thanks!

There's not a lot we can do directly about TCP/IP stability, unfortunately. The Microsoft libraries we are using have some known issues and it would be quite a bit of work to replace them with other libraries as subsequent versions of Direct Play have a very different architecture. I spent a month working on this last year and didn't get very far. With FOF I'm working on some methods of writing my own dropped-packet detection routines, and if these work then hopefully I can port them back to COG.

[ericbabe]

ORIGINAL: Khornish
How about a toggled action instead? Toggling gives a screen to adjacent hexes. Splitting would be nice, but the way the combat mechanics work, it would add several degrees of frustration to a player as well.

That might be a very interesting way to do it. It would almost be analogous to infantries' deploying skirmishers.

[augustus]

I meant to reply to this thread before, but never got around to it. I liked COG, but got tired of it partially because of some annoying things that should be fixed, and partly because it was close to being a GREAT game, but only (IMO) was a good game.

1. Get POW's off the map. Every game I played as France, and most other games as well, I'd capture enemy troops, only to have a lone cavalry division enter my country and free them. For example, as France I'd be busy fighting Austria and their Russian friends, when a cossack division will just go around my army and liberate the prisoners, and suddenly there are more Enemy troops in france than French troops! POW's should be kept track of, but not on the map.

2. As long as we're talking about POW's, an option to exchange prisoners with an enemy during hostilities would be good. POW's would naturally be freed when a peace is made. Freed POW's should not just show up as formed units again--the troops should have to be rebuilt in their home country (but with their experience and quality intact).

3. I never did get the hang of the naval side of the game, but I can't put my finger on what should be improved. Of course everyone wants tactical naval battles, I'd even like it if the tactical naval battles weren't very realistic.

4. How about giving us some more provinces on the map, and changing the time scale to half-months? Anyway, the look of the strategic map could be improved, and enlarged a bit so Spain doesn't get squashed (a minor thing, but it drove me nuts)

5. Land Tactical Battles needs to be tweaked, or maybe just remade altogether. The AI needs a lot of improvement for a start. It always seemed to come at me piecemeal, even when the AI was supposed to be defending against my attack, it still came at me.

6. In some ways it's nice to have no stacking in battles, because that simplifies things in a good way, but it does make it difficult to use artillery. I always thought it would be good if Artillery would be allowed to stack with one other unit, allowing it to participate without leaving it so bloody vulnerable to cavalry attacks (on a division scale, such a large section of front would not be just artillery).

7. This probably won't happen, but I was thinking about it when on another thread someone (gil, I think) mentioned that the game would remain division based. Does anyone remember a game called Napoleon: 1813? It was another strategic/tactical game, but wasn't very good because the strategy portion was not user-friendly (actually, I would describe it as user-hostile) and the tactical AI was practically nonexistant. But the tactical part of the game was good. You commanded divisions, but the divisions were made up of individual brigades. You could only give orders to the division, but you could choose formations for the brigades and the division as a whole, change direction, etc. I always thought it had the potential to be a great tactical game if it was just developed a little more, and the AI was given a brain. I think it would provide an interesting sort of balance between division and brigade level, and at the very least a much cooler Tactical experience. The other interesting thing was that it was played out on a hex grid, but was real-time. It was a very, very interesting battle simulator, and I can't recommend too highly that, should COG2 be made, that the creators look at that old game and see if the tactical portion is something they like. This would require very few changes to be made to the rest of the game (i.e. perhaps instead of building divisions you would build brigades and form divisions out of them).

8. I think COG 2 should be remade from scratch. A lot of good can be done by just modifying the existing game, but there are so many things that can be improved that it might be better to begin from the ground up. Although I agree with everyone who liked the economic system, and complaints about protectorates have already been aired.

[jchastain]

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

I too like the economics of COG, and we definitely won't remove it, but we will very likely offer the option of using a much simpler system.

As I have thought about it, I cannot help but wonder if the right answer isn't the opposite of my initial reaction. This game appeals to those who appreciate complexity, not simplicity. And maybe that is the niche this game needs to focus on. Just as a grossly simplified version of WitP might be a weird hodepodge that appeals to no one, perhaps here too the right answer is to give the people more of what they love and actually make the economics more complex instead of more simplified.

[ericbabe]

You might have the impression that COG players love complexity, but we did get a lot of complaints about the complexity level of the economy, moreso when the game was first released.  I'd say this forum was nearly evenly split on the economy overall, but outside this forum I'd say that opinions are clearly tilted against the complexity of the economy.

[Motomouse]

I think the complexity of the COG economy is fine, but the sliders where a little bit cumbersome means to fine tune it. The UI in FOF was a big improvement in my eyes, not only on the economy side. I would like to see the UI improvements and brigade level detailed combat with an instant battle option implemented in COG 2. And if you really want to make me happy, please include detailed naval battles, I would like to see and play your solution to this.

One thing I do not understand quite well up to now. Why did you choose in COG and FOF a strict order of movement for the units. I always liked to decide myself the sequence of activation. You could even implement it in a way, where one player has a designated number of units to move and then the other to represent a different initiative. Perhaps it could be implemented as an option to FOF and COG 2.

Keep up the good work!
Regards
Motomouse

[Ralegh]

I think j is onto something - more of the same.
 
The diplomatic system is awesome, and a major differentiator from other games - so lets make it even more so by supporting more treaty types, more enemy play styles (hey, craft parameters for an enemy player, and share them with other players. Allow for the "ruler" to be changed during the game...).
 
The economic system appeals lots to this audience, but it could use a little help to reduce repetative interface action, and the thinking behind some FoF concepts has ideas that could be added.
 
And so on.
 
(BTW, I don't play FoF. I tried, but I just didn't enjoy it.  The multiplayer aspect of COG is a key thing to me, with the diplomatic aspect, and the actions you take while NOT at war.)

[ericbabe]

ORIGINAL: Motomouse
One thing I do not understand quite well up to now. Why did you choose in COG and FOF a strict order of movement for the units. I always liked to decide myself the sequence of activation. You could even implement it in a way, where one player has a designated number of units to move and then the other to represent a different initiative. Perhaps it could be implemented as an option to FOF and COG 2.

I'd be interested to hear what other people think about this. It wouldn't be too hard to allow people to click on a unit and activate that one to move. Honestly I did the fixed order because I thought this would be better for the AI -- the AI isn't going to be able to choose which units to move first very intelligently.

We could go with a system in which players flip for initiative (with big modifiers for generals' stats) and then the winner can either choose to delay 'til after the other player or would just move all his units before the other player. I like the interleaved method because it keeps all the players in an m-player game engaged, but most players play against the AI.

Anyway, more feedback on this would be greatly welcome.

[jimwinsor]

I don't have an issue with the random move order.  I think it adds an welcome element of uncertainty to tactical combat.  Letting players pick the order gives too much control.  Battles are by their nature very chaotic and difficult to control as such.
 
Plus you can always delay a unit, at a certain cost.

[Ironclad]

I agree. It does help to accurately reflect the uncertainty of battle orders/timings even for the best led armies whilst ensuring that corps formations move together. It seems to work equally well for FOF with its greater and more varied leadership/unit qualities so should be fine for COG2.

[Russian Guard]

And I third the idea of leaving this as is. I agree with all points made (reflecting uncertainty of battle, etc).

As an aside, the issue of wanting more control over unit movement might (don't mean to speak for otheres) be tied to those infrequent but very annoying times when the initial deployment of forces in Detailed Combat sets your forces too close to the enemy (sometimes literally adjacent) and the AI moves first, charging your exposed Artillery and otherwise mangling your forces before you have a chance to form an order of battle.

I'm hoping that CoGII has a better initial set-up routine, as FoF seems to have.

[jchastain]

I'll be the contrarian again.  I would prefer to be able to choose the movement order.  I want a game that is challenging because the AI opponent makes good moves, not because it forces me to make my moves in a scrambled order.  Being told when to move each piece isn't at all realistic, it is just a poor UI. 

[jchastain]

Let me touch a bit more on the "harder economy" model. 
 
Lots of resources work well in a game with heavy diplomacy and trade.  No one should have everything they need - getting what you need is part of the strategy and therefore part of the fun.  Next, more resources should need to be processed into finished goods.  Cotton/wool is processed into textiles (and those either need to be combined or there needs to be a real difference between them).  Iron should likewise be milled into steel.  And then those processed goods are what really drive an economy, so Turkey might have lots of resources but lack in processing while England would be in the opposite situation.
 
One of the great things about the game was that you could establish recurring trading treaties, so you don't have to micromanage trade every turn.   But you do have to be wary of it when dealing with geopolitics, as it should be.
 
Provinces should be "good" at something.  You shouldn't be able to just easily build more banks or factories everywhere.  What if there were a strict limit and building something required you to lose something else?  So to expand your factory, you might lose a farm.  That would lead to further specialization in provinces, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  All-in-all though, the buildings do need work.  They were not consistently valuable and it is likely worth thinking through what economic expansion looks like before redefining their benefits.
 
Waste should be reworked.  The cliff style drop-offs are silly.  I understand the intention of keeping anyone from growing too large, but losing 90% of production after you hit threshhold X just isn't logical.  At a minimum, the curves should be significantly smoother.  But I'd prefer to see waste (if it remains in the game at all) to have a much a less pronounced role.
 
Peace treaties definitely need work.  There needs to be a much higher "cost" for annexing a territory with which you do not have a border and there should be additional admin/carrying costs to incent logical expansion policies.  The patchwork of who owned what got pretty silly in CoG.
 
Prisoners and depots were both removed from FoF.  I wonder what this group thinks of their removal.  Keep or lose them in CoG2?  I see arguments both ways.
 
As Ralegh indicated, diplomacy was a BIG element of the game and it should be highlighted and further improved.

[ericbabe]

The most important thing to figure out is what the best improvements might be.  The cold reality is that expansions like this only make a fraction of what the original product did, so we can't spend as much time on "COG2" as we did on the original.  I wish we'd make enough that we could spend a year or two on this, but we just can't afford to do it.  So perhaps more important than generating long wish-lists is to identify the 10 improvements that you'd most like to see.

[augustus]

Responding to eric's post by identifying a few key improvements I'd like to see:

First of all, I think the economic model is fine. Go ahead and improve the UI if you can--otherwise, I think the only problem is that you need to create a good tutorial that shows how to work the economy. I figured it out by playing the game, and I think some people don't like doing it that way. But just reading it in the instruction manual is not good preparation.

Aside from that, I'd like to see most of the improvements focused on tactical gameplay. I mentioned a possibly model for completely redesigning tactical combat, but you can't really do that in an expansion (which is a shame, because that Napoleon: 1813 tac combat was a really cool idea in a really bad game). I'd like to see artillery handled differently, i.e. in units that can be stacked with other units. Armies sometimes did concentrate artillery on the battlefield (Nappy in particular), but having divisions of artillery moving around is not realistic. I'd also like to see something done with supply during battles. I don't know what, but I hate those supply units as they are. And of course everyone wants tactical naval battles, so I don't have to mention that, but I will mention another of my hopes for the "improved COG": GET THE POW's OFF THE MAP. I also mentioned this before. I'm tired of capturing a bunch of prisoners, only to have a lone cavalry division wander into my country (which would never have happened in real life) to liberate them, and instantly form a very large hostile army in my country where I have no forces. I can only think of a single instance where POW's ended up armed and fighting in the country where they were held prisoner, and it was over 100 years after the this game takes place. Prisoners should be kept track of on the diplomacy screen--exchanges should be allowed during wartime if both sides agree, in which case the troops exchanged can appear at their nation's capital in a certain number of months. Otherwise, prisoners are not released until peace is made (when they are released automatically.