First 24 hours -- First Impressions, Bugs, Etc

[jchastain]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

what is there that could be more intuitive about this game of WW1?  If you click on a corps in the strategy or movement phases the possible actions are highlighted, if you click on a HQ ditto, as well as in the activation phase.  When you spend production points you get a visual readout of what they are bing turned into...so many naval points, so many equipment points, artillery points, etc.

Just what is it that is not intuitive???[&:]

When i first started playing this game there was no manual at all.....yet I coped.....and Frank wasn't online nearly as often as he is now!!

Sorry SMK, I should clarify. I do not own this game. I cannot comment in how intuitive Frank's interface is or is not and doing so was not my intent. I have had many interesting discussions with Raven and also was not attempting to disparage him in any way. But in this instance, I disagree with his comments characterizing players who expect an intuitive game as "lazy" and suggest they should just RTFM. I believe your comments about the positives of the interface are a much more useful course of discussion than simply villifying those who are dissatisfied with the game's interface. Again, sorry that my comments were not clear.

[ravinhood]

I often wonder why people use an analogy of cars when we're talking about computer games and interfaces. Lol Cars to computer games are apples and oranges. Most people need a car we do not need computer games. Thus computer games do not have to be state of the art everytime one is produced. 20 years ago, 10 years ago to present day makes no difference. If you do not read the manual and do not learn the interface and accept it for the WORKING AS DESIGNED idea then it's your own fault for being LAZY and IMPATIENT and EXPECTING more than was delivered. Too many expect these games to be like that game or this game as I said before. When you get a new board game do you jump up and down with the same temper tantrums because the NEW board game you got doesn't have the same ruleset and movement features of the other ones before it? No, you don't, you learn to play that board game the WAY IT WAS DESIGNED TO WORK. So, quit your whinning about the interface and quit being lazy and impatient. Play the game as it was intended to be played.

[TheHellPatrol]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

The UI doesn't "emulate" anything - the GAME emulates WW2...the UI works as a function of the game. 

[X(]Really?, WW2?, that explains everything then...[:'(][;)]

[SMK-at-work]

oops[X(]

[jchastain]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

I often wonder why people use an analogy of cars when we're talking about computer games and interfaces. Lol Cars to computer games are apples and oranges. Most people need a car we do not need computer games. Thus computer games do not have to be state of the art everytime one is produced. 20 years ago, 10 years ago to present day makes no difference. If you do not read the manual and do not learn the interface and accept it for the WORKING AS DESIGNED idea then it's your own fault for being LAZY and IMPATIENT and EXPECTING more than was delivered. Too many expect these games to be like that game or this game as I said before. When you get a new board game do you jump up and down with the same temper tantrums because the NEW board game you got doesn't have the same ruleset and movement features of the other ones before it? No, you don't, you learn to play that board game the WAY IT WAS DESIGNED TO WORK. So, quit your whinning about the interface and quit being lazy and impatient. Play the game as it was intended to be played.

If the new board game required me to choose a random number between 1 and 6 by picking paper chits out of a bag every time, then I would absolutely have an issue with the "interface" because I expect to use the far easier method of rolling a cube with numbers on it. If the game used counters that were not printed and I had to write stats on them every turn, then I would have an issue with that interface as well. Board games, and their interfaces, are just more mature than computer games - not only because of their age and the fact that we have all grown accustomed to certain historical precedents but also due to the limited numbers of options available through that medium.

Anyway, it sounds as if there is nothing to gain through continuing this discussion as I don't expect either of us to change our minds. Suffice it to say that we seem to disagree about at least one tenet of good game design. So be it. You have your expectations and I have mine and we can each vote with our wallets as we think best. [;)]

[RyanCrierie]

And is it just me, or is their no functionality to using a Mouse Wheel, or right-clicking on an unit? Again, I know it's not fair to compare one game with another. But The Operational Art of Warfare (some, what? 8 years old now?) used both of these functions to good effect. Even just some eye-candy would be better than nothing here, me'thinks.

Left click instead. I know, it's counterintuitive; but brings up the unit menu.

Or is that still in? It's been a while since I beta'ed it.

[RyanCrierie]

Yes there was - there were a handful of active testers.

I was one of the "silent testers", basically, does it work on my system? Does it crash repeatedly for no reason? SMK did a lot of the work. [&o] I was just along for the ride.

[Bossy573]

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro

He does have a point of this game seeming to have been "rushed" out the door.

Wasn't this game in development for a decade?

[06 Maestro]

ORIGINAL: Bossy573

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro

He does have a point of this game seeming to have been "rushed" out the door.

Wasn't this game in development for a decade?

It's a safe bet that there were several restarts on this project. !0 years ago, a WEGO type game was almost science fiction.

[FrankHunter]

I started the game in 1997, worked on it for about 18 months and then switched to working on my 1806 game instead.  Then I worked on it for a few more months before switching to work on 1809.  Then for another year, maybe a little more, after 1809 was done.  It was then that I made some changes to the design and rewrote the AI and did some playtesting.  Then I was tied up with another game for a long time and finally came back to finishing GoA over the last 18 months.  So all in all it took me about 4 years.

[EUBanana]

It's a good game.  I'm still playing it after the best part of a month, thats actually pretty unusual for me and games.  It's lasted a lot longer than Dawn of War did so far.

My only issue with the UI was that you had to cycle through all your units when refitting them, that really was a pain in the bum.  But thats been fixed in the patch so you can refit them individually now, so far as I'm concerned the interface is peachy.  It took me about 20 minutes to grok what the little numbers on the counters mean, but as theres only readiness, strength and entrenchment level really thats not so hard. 

I don't think the game is really all that complex or unintuitive, the learning curve is much less than something like Hearts of Iron 2, which is really a much more complex game IMHO.  People don't complain about the UI on HoI2 much that I've seen... 

[Hanal]

I actually have put the game on hold for the moment because I have been using my limited gaming time for a couple of other titles, but I am always thinking about GoA and how I'm going to tackle my next campaign. Most games, like the women I've gone out with, don't have me thinking about them when they are not around, but GoA has that appeal to keep me drawn in, even though I have temporarily kept my hands off it!

[hjaco]

I am still addicted with this little gem despite its shortcomings [:)]

So music, graphic, manual, interface and all that are not quite up to standard as the genre is to used to these days but all this is only potentially going to add value to a good product - it can not get a lousy product to be good on its own hand.

As with everything else in life you get what you pay for or rather you can't expect to get more than that. This game comes very cheap compared to most games on the market so you can't really expect all the extra chrome on top of that too.

Lack music - well play some MP3 instead.

Dissatisfied with the manual ? Well when did you the last time get your hands on a manual which really suited exactly your needs ?

Graphics - hey concentrate on the game dude !

And interface is no problem after all it's only moving around in Europe. But it would have been handy with a hotkey to enter the strategic map - it closes again automatically when you select a spot on the map so that would have saved some movement.

But hey - I am having great fun playing this game and that's all that matters to me [:'(]

[*Lava*]

Hi!

Just some comments and observations...

I noted that the original post failed to mention an innovative command and control system, which, IMHO, is the heart of the game and separates it from all the rest.

I really hope this isn't the last time we see such a system (but sadly I don't think we will because it is too challenging for the player). It is really quite revolutionary and, IMHO, is the best simulation of command and control I have ever seen in a wargame at the grand strategy level. And there is the rub... too much thinking and not enough counter pushing.

Of, course, this system puts a lot of limitations on the player. It forces him to really think out a strategy, to plan way ahead, especially for the summer campaign season, and to allocate his very precious strategic points in attempting to meet his goals.

Now nobody has really delved into this aspect of the game, its' truly innovative command and control system, on these boards, and it is IMHO, a real shame.

If you get into a PBEM game, you will rapidly understand just how radical this command system is. Believe me, you do not need to mouse scroll all over the map. You find yourself staring at a front, thinking about your strategy, then switching to another front via the jump map, and again... staring at it... your brain just whirling around trying to figure how to proceed.

My personal opinion is that the game system requires a lot of thinking, more than what the casual wargamer may want to put in.

No insult intended here, but a 24 hour impression of this game is almost worthless.

But what we do see here, and I have seen this on other game boards, is that folks now adays are just unwilling to put the effort into understanding how to play a game... any game.

An example, Mad Minute Game's Take Command Series. If you had watched that forum from day one and followed studiously throughout the evolution of the two games they produced you will see that the majority of the folks only play half the game. MMG's games can be broken up into two quite different games (mechanics wise) at the point in which the player cannot micromanage every unit on the field.. the Corps and Army level. At the brigade and division level, folks are free and have the time to micromanage to their hearts desire, and this is the game they play. But the Army/Corps level requires a far greater understanding of how the units work autonomously (ai controlled) and it is quite apparent, that folks just aren't willing or care to learn how to play at the level. It requires a far deeper understanding of the game, and thus goes neglected.

It appears to me that the a large percentage of folks have a threshold of about one or two sessions with a game in which they expect to, in general, be able to understand all major features. When that doesn't happen the game is shelved and/or they find reasons to try to explain why they couldn't grasp the methodology in the time it takes to eat a Big Mac.

GoA is not your normal wargame. It is a completely different system; a far superiour system of simulating war at the grand strategy level. Unfortunately, while folks beg for innovation in wargames, when they get it, the "Big Mac" mentality of game playing means they don't have the time to actually appreciate it.

This doesn't apply just to wargaming (where folks have built an urban legend that their "thinking" games set them aside from the rest), it now, IMO, applies to all games. The "Big Mac" mentality is here to stay, whether you are an FPS affectionado or a wargames grognard.

I guess we need to get used to that.

Again, this is merely my observation of folks who play games and the feedback I see on the forums of many games. Nothing personal intended.

Ray (alias Lava)

[pelle75]

I made my second attempt tonight at playing this game. This thread seems like a good place to put my comments instead of creating a new.

First good impression: It works perfectly in WINE in Linux! Great! Of course native Linux (and MacOS etc) support would have been better, and hardly difficult to do, but being able to play at all without rebooting to Windows is wonderful. I think the scale of the game is perfect (more/smaller units would have been too much work to keep track of on a computer screen), and I have looked forward to playing this a long time. I own three boardgames covering the same situation (strategic WW1 in Europe) and a forth that was recently released and should arrive here any day, but I have always wanted a computer game as well (to play against the AI only... human opponents are a lot more fun to play over a real gameboard IMHO). I am very happy that this game was published, and I didn't hesitate to buy it the same day I finally noticed it had been released (a month late... but anyway).

But then... The UI... I thought it was the fact that I played in a Windows Emulator that caused many of the problems. But after installing and playing in Windows XP I realised that it was just as bad there. Both my games ended before turn two, as I just couldn't stand fighting the UI, and I have played wargames on the computer for 20+ years so I should be able to cope with almost anything (or so I thought).

First warning was when starting the game I have to click the arrow to go on to setup. Why? It is nice that in 1.1 I at least get a popup first telling me what to do, but why not put me in setup mode directly? If I want to see the map without units there is a button to do so. This isn't a killer really, but it got me worried about the UI quality of the game.

It is not easy to guess which buttons are nation-specific and which applies to all my nations. It seems as if the diplomatic screen is common to Germany/A-H when playing CP, but it appears with the buttons that show up only when a nation is selected.

Limited, if any, keyboard support. I hate to have to bring up the context menu to order units around. Perhaps there are undocumented keyboard shortcuts? Perhaps they can be added in 1.2? It would make the game many times more playable if I could hit M for move or B for barrage etc (no F-keys though please... single letters are very nice and easy to remember). Same for bringing up the different dialogs (and again, no F-keys please).

There is very little feedback about what is going on. It would be nice if the selected unit were highlighted.
It would be nice if when I select an artillery unit I would somehow see what hex it has been ordered to barrage (if any). etc

There is no good and consistent way of getting out of dialogs. When I press the production button I can get back to the game by hitting ESC. If I press the refit button and then press ESC I get a question if I want to quit the game. It would be nice if ESC (or backspace or the right mouse button or ...) could always and consistently be used to do "back"/"cancel" and some other key for "OK". I don't want to chase a small OK/Cancel button with the mouse pointer. A consistent way of deselecting things would also be nice (sometimes right-click seems to work, sometimes left-clicking outside of selectable hexes).

And while at the subject of the dialogs: most of them are not very easy to use and give very little feedback. Sometimes I click a button and it seems like nothing happend, and I do not know if it did or not. And important things such as the cost of upgrades can only be seen in the manual (or the faq).

The diplomatic screen shows only countries that are neutral. Shouldn't there be any way of getting a report on which countries are currently with me or against me in the war?

And since I can not interact with the game board while in a dialog, why not let the dialog cover the entire screen instead? That way perhaps they could have enough room for all the needed details?

When setting up pre-game there is firstly the problem of no visual indication of which unit is selected. Then there is no way (I have found) to easily pick units within stacks. I can right-click to "shuffle" (more like "cycle through" it seems), but then when I left-click I get the same topmost unit anyway (not the unit shown after the shuffle). To move units around I end up doing a game of Towers of Hanoi to get the units I want where I want them. (The small positive effect of this is that it gives the game a nice boardgame-like feeling. ).

The warnings when going from the activation phase without having allocated all air support or activated all HQs could provide more information, or be removed. I still haven't quite figured out how air support works, other than that I sometimes can click an enemy stack and select air recognozation. And why is there a warning when I have not activated all HQs? Perhaps it should be more important to warn me when I have not set all artillery units to barrage, or moved all activated units, after the orders phase? Perhaps it would be better to just have a generic "are you sure" when the player wants to end a phase?

The whole naval aspect of the game is just confusing. Nowhere in the ui or in the manual are there enough information to tell me anything about what is a reasonable strategy to use for my ships. The ui does not give me much feedback on what is going on. I do see some counterstacks at sea that seem to indicate which units are located there, but there seem to be no way to issue orders to them there or even inspect their current status/missions. The naval dialog isn't very useful either. I think removing this part of the game would be an improvement (perhaps make it optional in the future?) and let us concentrate on ground forces. Or make the ships appear as tokens on the board the same way ground units do to make the UI more consistent perhaps?

I have tried to figure out how terrain works. It seems cavalry can never enter non-open hexes. I have not been able to find any movement advantages of cavalry that I see mentioned in the forum, as I only seem to be able to move units one hex per turn regardless of type (and I haven't been able to strat move at all, but perhaps the CP do not get any rail points until later in the game?). It would be nice to have a table of the terrain effects, like is common in boardgames. I know I can see terrain effects after a battle, but that is of little help when planning, and it still does not tell me the effects of terrain plus river crossing (or terrain plus town) when both may apply as far as I can tell. (What effect does rivers have, btw?)

It is not easy to tell if there is some kind of "ZOC" in the game. Will hexes adjacent to my units be difficult for the enemy to move through or trace supply through? It would be good to have an idea of the rules on how supply can be traced and not.

I still wonder what the big grey area in the lower left of the board is used for. Perhaps it will become obvious later in the game?

I will give GoA another chance after next patch (and each following patch), but in its current state it just is not playable. Sorry if I sound too negative. I hope to return here with many positive comments after the next (or some later next) patch. I'm sure there is a nice game somewhere hidden below the UI. It seems promising after reading the comments from those that have managed to play it.

[pelle75]

And a note to Lava about Big Mac mentality: I have no (or very few) problems with Operational Art of War 3, or with most older games I have played, including some using a WEGO system. I have no problems playing huge boardgames with rulebooks many times the size of the GoA manual. I have no problem with the complexity of this game, or the way the turns are strucured, and I did read the manual (and FAQ, and forum posts) before trying to play it. I only wish the user interface provided me with the neccessary feedback and shortcuts to make the game enjoyable. This is not a case of me expecting to be able to start the game and immediately understand everything. I actually prefer a user interface that has a steep learning curve if it allows me to later use the software in a better way ("user friendly" is better than "newbie friendly") (check out the 3D modeller Blender for a great example... or the GNU Emacs text editor... both applications that can scare any newbie away, but are extremely fast and easy to use once you have spent a few weeks practicing). So the problems I (and others) have described does in my mind have nothing to do with any kind of "big mac mentality". And I do like the structure of the game and it seems superior to other strategic games I have played (except, well, possibly, for the naval subgame), and the use of HQ activations is very nice, and it is one of my favorite mechanic from other games.

[jchastain]

That's actually one of the better posts I have seen providing an unemotional critique of the UI with illustrative examples. Thanks. I think that kind of feedback is useful for the developer as well an the entire community.

[SMK-at-work]

I can't agree - the poster is clearly confused....WW1 without the naval aspect - ie no U-boats??  not going to work. 

I dont' have the manual to hand so can't comment on many of his points, but for example the advantages to cavalry IIRC are quite well laid out - they can enter enemy owned open terrain if htey start the move stacked with infantry - infantry would require expenditure of activations points to do the same.  What's unclear about that?

He hasn't played long enough to get to a 2nd strategic phase - he complains of no strat movement and no means to give orders to naval units showing in the seas....yet IIRC these are explained in the manual?

All in all it's someone with minimal experience complaining about things that he has not played the game enough to know about.

He states he's played a lot of complicated wargames......as have many of us....and that, for example, TOAW 3 is fine with him....but I wonder if he was so comfortable with it after 2 sessions of only a little time each?  Did he really come to grips with the subtleties of artillery support in that game so soon?  I know I didn't - it took me months, along with many other aspects!!

IMO anyone who complains about a game interface after "my second attempt" should really not post....there's no reason why you should be familiar with hte game interface so quickly at all.

Pellen to answer some of your questions:

1/ Cavalry can move into an open terrain enemy controlled hex without needing to be activated if they start the move stacked with an infantry corps....that is their only advantage.

2/ Yes everythign only moves 1 hex/impulse

3/ There is no strategic movement for anybody on Turn 1 - all railways, shipping, etc is assumed to be used for eth mobilisatino processes that will be happening

4/ Naval orders are given only in strategic phases - you cannot do anything with the ships and their presence on the map is just to show you some indication of who is where. the naval aspect is VERY important to this game - you can force the UK out of the war if you have a successful U-boat campaign, and allied landings against Turkey etc can be a bit more decisive than Gallipoli was!!

5/ There are no ZOC's - a hex is either owned by you or the other guy. If you own it you can trace supply through it.

6/ Air works like this - you allocate air points to a front. Each air point you allocate has a chance of getting you 1 recce report - the higher your air tech the better thr chance. Each recce report can reveal teh contents of 1 enemy occupied hex adjacent to your front lines, and improves the effect of artillery bombardments on that hex. At tech level 2 and above air points also have a chance of shooting down enemy air points, thus decreasing their recce abilities.

7/ The status of countries at war is displyed in the Victory screen on the top bar - it's the right-most one most of hte time - except in the strategic phase when more buttons are available to deal with strat phase matters.

8/ The big grey area at the botom left of the map is nothing - just an area that has no effect on the war at all so eth map maker didn't bother filling it in.

[pelle75]

SMK, I can understand your reasoning, but I still think the designer(s) should listen to these comments from newbies, especially about the user interface. I probably should have left out some of the comments on terrain rules, cavalry or naval units, as these may become obvious later (possibly even by just rereading the manual, yes). My goal was to be constructive, and I apologise if jchastain was the only one who think I was.

I needed many hours of playing TOAW3 to even start to understand it, and I still stay away from many scenarios because I have yet to reach a level where I can play them. But after a half game I already had a good idea about its UI and that it was good enough to be worth investing more time in, and as far as I remember it has none of the issues I mentioned here. As an example while the mechanics for battles and time management in that game were completely confusing until reading the manual several times AND getting the help from experienced players, the user interface to issue orders and inspecting planned attacks was obvious the first time I played the game (and reading parts of the manual). Allocating artillery was about as difficult as planning barrages in GoA, but in TOAW3 I can easily see which artillery units are allocated to attacking which hexes, and I can even click on an enemy hex to bring up a very useful screen that shows me all the info I need on what planned attacks (and barrages) I have for that hex and get hints about my chances of success are. Of course I do not expect GoA to get all that (at least not until version 3 ).

Labeling me as "clearly confused" for wanting to remove the naval aspect... I don't know about that. Paths of Glory only handles naval warfare in a very abstract way by mentioning it on a few cards, As far as I can remember the old Avalon Hill Guns of August hardly mentioned the naval war except in a later expansion. Neither does the recently rereleased Great War in Europe Deluxe boardgame, or the old SPI First World War (as far as I know). The same is true for many WW2 games (computer and board) on a similar scale.

[pelle75]

Btw thank you for answering my questions. It does make me a bit less hostile to the game. Very nice that it actually was possible to see which countries I am at war with. That frustrated me quite a bit. I would probably not have bothered to look much on the victory screen until near the end of the game, so I would most likely not have noticed it otherwise. (Especially when learning a game I care very little about winning or losing.)