My Questions/Suggestions for WCS Thread :)

[barbarossa2]

Well, I could have posted a thread for each question of mine, but I don't want to do that. I will see if I can put them in one thread. If anyone wants to comment on them, please try to indicate which question number your answer deals with.

Before I launch into this, I want to make clear that in my opinion, CoG:EE is a 9/10 game play experience for the wargaming world. At least in its conception and diplomatic scope. At the moment, a couple of minor possible problems with coding may keep it at an 8/10 for me, but by the looks of things, I would say that the team is hard at work addressing the few issues it has and that the first patch will go a long way to giving it the 9/10 that I feel it deserves. People simply have never been able to do things with this much diplomatic flavor in the Napoleonic Era. And now, the questions/suggestions...

**GAME PLAY QUESTIONS:**

QUESTION 1: Sometimes, in the Army report as one nation (Nation "A"), I am told the following about nation "B"..."B regrets that it must decline to rally due to low national morale." The time it happened that inspired to me to make a note about it was when I was France and at war with Prussia. I got the message in my events list about Prussia. What does this mean?

QUESTION 2: Can a unit guard a depot from inside a city? That is, if I put a single unit of infantry inside of the city, is the depot guarded? Or can a roving band of cavalry come by and burn the depot. Is the depot inside the city? Where is it?

QUESTION 3: I know I can set formations to plunder provences. How can I set an independent cavalry unit to plunder?

QUESTION 4: I am assuming that experience upgrades help in "instant" combat resolution. And I am assuming exactly how this is done is not a simple answer. I would simply like to hear a designer reassure me that bonuses which sound like they have an effect only on the detail battle maps also have a mathematical effect when doing "instant" combat resolution.

QUESTION 5: When designing a peace treaty to impose on the loser of a war, does it cost fewer "treaty points" to force a power to cede/liberate smaller provences/countries? So does a region like Picardy cost more to extract from France than a poor one, like Corsica?

QUESTION 6: What is the XYZ affair event? (I know I can look it up in google, but humor me...I would like to know in the game and not have to stop to look up these things for a super simple, 4th grade explanation). When the event came up while I was playing France, it merely said, "XYZ Affair? 50% War with USA. Yes/No" I feel this is just a bit overly vague. And I think some other events are a bit overly vague. I would recommend that someone spend a little time to enter a short paragraph on the event and then explain what the options do. As it was for XYZ Affair, I gambled and clicked "no"...and I was told that I was now at war with the USA. After having read about the XYZ affair, I still don't know what clicking "no" did.

QUESTION 7: Towards the end of the 1792 scenario last night (discussed briefly in my AAR report in the AAR section), Britain the only nation leading me in terms of Glory points. After 3 wars with Prussia and 3 wars with Austria, I wanted to expel Britain from the continent by invading Hanover. However, when I attempted to right click on Britain and declare war, it was not presented as an option. It should be noted that I was at war with the USA I think (XYZ Affair) and that Hanover had the diagonal stripes in it which I think show that I am violating its neutrality (but I didn't know I was). Why was I not allowed to DoW Britain? Can anyone think of any reasons? To that point in the game we had never been at war.

QUESTION 8: Why doesn't Britain have any roads in it besides the one in the south? It seems that it was one of the most "industrialized" regions of Europe. And to give it fewer roads (the kinds between regions) than Poland, seems a mistake. Why was this done? It is just odd to think that I can't get from London to Edinburgh on a road, but I can get from Zhytomyr to Yekaterinoslav on one.

QUESTION 9: I see you pegged interest rates on loans to the number of wars which have been fought. Why? It seems that this would be more a fucntion of any increase in the money supply and when players defaulted on loans. I don't understand why interest rates should go up just because I have fought in a war. I did a whole college level course on Enlightenment Era Economics and it just doesn't make sense. There has to be a better way to deal with this.

QUESTION 10: In the Army report, when a battle is fought between my armies and those of an enemy nation, it indicates, for example: "Total casualties 17,000. French Casualties: 3,500". Does this mean 1) The total casualties to ALL SIDES in the battle were 17,000, and my 3,500 are a part of it and therefore I inflicted 13,500 casualties on my enemies? Or, 2) The casualties I inflicted on the enemy were 17,000 and these have nothing to do with my total losses of 3,500?

QUESTION 11: (deleted)

**GAME PLAY SUGGESTIONS:**

SUGGESTION 1: When a war ends (with one side surrendering to another), it would be nice to be able to choose a provence for each army or major formation you had within it. So, when the war is done, you can go through a list of the units/formations and click on a map (like the "Cede Provence" map) to indicate where it will be placed. This was borne of repeated frustration as France when a war came to end with Austria-Hungary. In each case I had launched a two pronged invasion. One with units from Italy and one from Germany. When the war ended, all of my units were put in one location (and Germany being the more important of the two was chosen by me). However, all of the units from the important theatre of Italy had to march all of the way south for 2-3 months again...leaving me virtually defenseless there.

SUGGESTION 2: Add Swedish Pomerania! (already dealt with elsehwhere, don't respond here)

SUGGESTION 3: Make Genoa a "box" like Gibraltar so that Piedmont and Savoy can be moved south, putting the Swiss Confederation in its proper position... I feel like I have double vision and vertigo when looking at Switzerland because the physical border is so obvious, but the border assigned for game play purposes is way off. (already dealt with, don't respond here)

SUGGESTION 4: Concerning the map of Poland in 1792:

The fact that Poland is actually in a game as a playable faction is amazing. Two minor, minor complaints: Krakow and Kiev. Once again, I know we are dealing with an abstract map. I am sure you gave the entire Krakow region to Poland because the city itself was Polish at the time. However, you could simply redraw the region so that its southern/southwestern border is a little higher and in line with the Bohemian border and all would be in order in my book. It is just a weird bump! Yes. I am anal when it comes to maps.

It is the same story with Kiev. Historically, Russia held Kiev, which was on the southwestern strip of the Dniepr river. But didn't hold the hold provence around it (just the city really). I would argue that most of the economic benefit would fall to the holder of 95% of the region, and as such the region known as Kiev should belong to Poland. It pains me to see these two interesting tumors growing into and out of Poland in the only game I can play them in!

Silesia (Silesia and Breslau combined) is a bit of a funny looking thing too (my form of polite understatement) and looks like it just got out of bed. Instead of bumping out into Petrokov, it curves inwards--eeeeeew! Which gets me every time I see it. Oh well. That's the down side of being anal about maps.

And really, that French/Luxemburg border is way off. It should be straight, almost like the modern border of France. I just checked it and rechecked it in two sources for the period. However, now that I understand that various regions need to be a certain size, I see you are probably just making Luxemburg large enough to allow units to be shown in it as necessary. So, cool.

I will just change my diplo map. ;D

SUGGESTION 5: Concerning Music: Get a better version of the French National Anthem! It sounds like it has been played on a Casio keyboard someone found at a garage sale! Most of the other stuff is great (except for one piece that sounds like a child is playing). I would be curious to know where you licensed it. The 1812 Overture always puts the game into another dimension when it plays .

SUGGESTION 6: Add a mini, mini flag to each independent unit floating about so that I can tell who it belongs to without having to click on it or know what the uniforms look like for different countries.

SUGGESTION 7: Allow major nations to form treaties with minor nations and give the player the OPTION of using this level of complexity. This is borne of my "Danish Invasion" thread where I was Sweden and discovered Danes moving through my territory without my permission (I do not believe I was even asked whether I would issue an ultimatum or DoW them or not). I think it is unfair to a minor like Bavaria not to be able to make treaties with it and such. And it seems you already have all the brains and attitudes programmed in which would allow this. I guess in this kind of world, you would need to give players a few more diplomatic actions per turn.

SUGGESTION 8: Concerning Treaties. Allow nations to choose regions in which walls are removed when dictating peace treaties (or doing any treaties). Maybe someone wants France weak in Strasbourg, but not in Languedoc (gee, I wonder who THAT could be? [:D]).

SUGGESTION 9: Give Poland one diplomat in the 1792 scenario (even if he sucks...just so the player can feel like he can do SOMETHING against all the Poland hating sentiment).

SUGGESTION 10: If, in fact, small units operating outside of an army or corps can't "plunder", then I would recommend that you add a button which allows this. I would really like to send my cossack cavalry on occasional raids into enemy territory to burn everything down. I don't really understand why I need to buy an army "container" to get them to do this. What is the design rationale? I bet WCS already thought of this and may have had a decent design reason for skipping it. Obviously the odds of a single unit plundering a region successfully and to the same scale a full army would would be low. But still existant.

**REAL BUGS**

REAL BUG 1: Please see tech support forum for CoG for my CTD thread.


**POSSIBLE BUGS**

POSSIBLE BUG 1: When given the opportunity to impose a peace treaty on Austria, I did some experimenting with the terms to see what I could fit into the 12500 point limit. Naturally I added--and then cut-- several terms. Including changing my mind on a few provences to be ceded. I am 100% positive that when I sent the treaty off, that the final version of it required that Austria cede Trent to me. Yet, when it came to the big hand over day, lo and behold, I did not get it! It seems that the cut routine makes some mistakes and I would highly suggest you check this out. I need to add that I do not believe that anyone else was at war with Austria at the time. And no one else got it. It stayed Austrian.

POSSIBLE BUG 2: I posted on this somewhere else, but didn't get an answer, so I will try again here. Below I have two screen shots. I was France and had pulled into Piedmont and attempted a siege. Obviously I hadn't brought enough with me at first, and for a couple of turns nothing happened. I was just shown something similar to image number 1 below from turn to turn. My army (not yet as big as the one pictured) sitting quietly outside of the city with an enemy general present. After a couple of turns of this, I got smart and sent more troops, leading to the number shown in image 1. During the entry of my turns, I was repeatedly shown something like image 1. However, I noticed that after clicking "End Turn", while the computer executed move orders, I was shown image 2 (this image was captured very carefully and quickly in the short time it was displayed). That is, the image shows (I believe) that suddenly, out of nowhere, there was an army of Piedmont in the region! Which scared me every time. However, turn after turn, after turn, there was no combat which occured or reported. However, since then, I have noticed something interesting when studying these pictures: The number of troops and leaders in this "Piedmont" army in image number 2 is PRECISELY the same as the number of troops and leaders in my French army--namely 5 green boxes and 4 yellow. So, it appears that IF this is a "bug", it is merely showing my troops to be the wrong nationality. I am highly curious as to what gives here.

[barbarossa2]

QUESTION 12: In this movement example, I have selected my Polish army and want to move it into Dvinsk. To the human mind, the obvious answer is to move along the road to the northeast into Dvinsk. However, for various reasons, the computer would like to move northwest into Kovno and then east into Dvinsk. It seems that it is possible that the "road benefit" may not be great enough to get the units to want to march down the road and that if I choose to send them on the road manually, that I will be moving along the "slower" of the two routes? Am I correct?

(The black arrows in the example are mine and indicate which direction I would have thought they would move)

[Mus]

XYZ Affair :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XYZ_Affair

Question 12, you can see the AI is pathfinding around bad weather (those vertical watery streaks represent heavy rain storms), thats actually kinda impressive.

You take a big hit on your chances of being able to complete a move order trying to march in and march out of provinces that are experiencing bad weather, be it heavy rains or snow. Force marching helps. In this case the AI is just trying to get you to the same place without getting bogged down.

Theres a really good chance if you put an army on a move order through that province you get in but not be able to get out before the end of the turn, unless you were force marching.

[barbarossa2]

QUESTION 13: In the attached graphic, a unit moving south from Podolia to Silistria through Bessarabia moves exactly 2 spaces to get there. A unit moving from Podolia through Upper Moldovia, Lower Moldovia, Greater Wallacia, and THEN on to Silistria moves four spaces to get there. However, from looking at the map, it is obvious that the unit moving through Bessarabia covers perhaps even more distance than the unit using the western path. So, when moving, is the number of SPACES what is important for a unit's movement rate? Or is the distance between the "hub" of each space what is important? For instance, I can easily envision a system in which units simply are "charged" for the miles between the "hub" of the regions they move between. What kind of a system is used in CoG:EE? A simple area system? Or a "miles" system? Or something else?

[barbarossa2]

Mus, concerning Question 12, I saw the rain you mentioned too, and I hoped this would be the explanation! However, I am now ready to leave the provence and head south again and the weather has cleared up. The graphic below shows my recommended path versus the path I would choose as a human (not knowing all other variables in the game). Note, the path I want to take even has a bridge to get me over the river. One thing that MAY be happening is that the woods cause a problem in the "pathfinding" here. But the road should nullify the woods. Especially in this era of warfare. Armies stayed ON roads and didn't move in broad sweeping formations on wide fronts.

I ask this, not because of this example alone, but because I notice it happening several times in the game and in different areas. I want to know, if the recommended path is the "shortest" path chosen for me by the computer, am I stupid to enter a path which seems shorter to me as a human?

[Mus]

In that case Im stumped.  Maybe the road isnt being taken into consideration for the pathfinding?

I want to hear an answer on your Question 4. I remember seeing upgrades having effects for quick combat in Forge of Freedom, and thought they did in COG as well. Also in quick combat in EE I see "applicable upgrades" listed if I right click a unit, but nowhere in the manual or appendix do I find quick combat effects for upgrades listed, so, like you, I hope they exist.

[barbarossa2]

QUESTION 14: A depot question. I have been told again and again by the computer that I am not allowed to build depots in neutral territory (something I am made aware of again and again in my efforts to attack distance nations). However, I am currently playing Poland and this came up. Russia is at peace with me (though not a fan of my proud nation by any leap of the imagination and have rejected alliance requests). However, Russia IS at war with Austria-Hungary. Sensing this is what all of the Russian Troops marching through southern Poland headed west were all about, I let them pass without an ultimatum. Two turns later, I have discovered an entire chain of Russian depots which stretch across Poland and Austria. The ones in Austria make sense to me. But the ones in Poland don't. What am I doing wrong not to be allowed to build a depot on a neutral nation's land? One additional detail, I have no treaties. Are these depots here because I did not object when they marched through? How can I get other nations to allow me to do this with them without having a treaty in place? (the fact that I can even ask this question about a game says it deserves 9/10...I mean in WHICH other game are the diplomatic nuances so expansive that one can even formulate questions like this).

[barbarossa2]

QUESTION 15: A guerilla question. Okay, so playing as France in the 1792 scenario, I came across this Austrian-Hungarian guerilla next to Austrian owned Luxemburg. Is it normal for them to sit there for years without doing anything? I couldn't do battle with it (I had a French army there for months, and nothing happened). Is there anything to worry about when guerillas from your neighbor come into your country and sit there?

[barbarossa2]

QUESTION 16: I am playing as Poland currently. I recently DoWed Prussia and annexed the provence of East Prussia. I started building an army "container" there. Time came and went. I wondered where my Army container was. So, in May, with another likely war on the horizon with Austria-Hungary, I checked and reviewed the progress. The attached image is what I saw. I believe it indicates that the unit was due in February of 1794...but as you can see, it is already May of 1794. Why is the unit not being produced? It it because of unrest in the provence? If so, then it should surely be ready by August of 1794 (the current turn), because there is no more unrest. And there still isn't an Army...and Austria-Hungary is looking hungry! Help! Am I just stupid? Any ideas?

UPDATE: The Army "container" just appeared in September of 1794. But I am still curious as to why there was a delay?

[Joram]

Hi Barbarossa, I can answer a few of those.  I'm at work and will revisit this later if still not answered.
 
1) This message comes up when a nation's capital is occupied.  If there's more circumstances, eric will need to elucidate.
2)  No, the depot is outside and can be destroyed.  Even an army guarding it doesn't 100% guarantee coverage.
3) You can't, sorry.
4) I'm not a designer, just a beta tester but experience/morale is checked to determine if it goes to the rout or recovers to the frontline.  Differently than in hexwar of course but still for essentially the same purpose.
5) That's a great question, not sure off the top of my head but easily testable.  It never was an issue so not something I cared to notice.
6-9) I will leave design and historical questions to those better informed than me.
10) The first answer, though I thought it was more clearly separated now between the two sides.
11) Design question for Eric. 
 
Regarding your suggestions, they all are well thought out though Eric or Gil will have to respond to the feasibility of it all.
 
For bug1, did you notice if another nation got the province?  Sometimes if a nation surrenders to multiple nations it is possible to 'compete' for a province and you will lose out all other things being equal.
 
Can't comment on bug2 because I'm pretty used to it but I think has to do with fog-of-war though I would not have expected the flag to actually change!
 
Q13: I can't answer this definitively but I do know it's also a function of terrain and infrastructure.  E.G. you can travel a lot further in a wide open plain than a mountain thus it makes sense to have smaller mountain provinces vs bigger plain provinces represent the same amount of effort to cross.  Then, there's the infrastructure which could also affect the size of the province as a representation of the effort to cross too.  Put those together and you can get the result you see.  I'm not saying this is definitively the answer but conceptually I don't have an issue with what you are seeing.
 
Q14:  You simple need to enable the option to violate the neutral's territory (right click in the nation somewhere to find it).  Then you will be able to cross and build depots on neutral land.
 
Q15: If you are at war with a nation and it's guerillas, they can cut supply lines and battle like any other unit.  However, it's possible that you aren't at war with a nation and that guerilla gets pushed to your land in which case it won't have any affect at all and yes, they do tend to sit there.
 
Q16: Yes, it is due precisely because of the revolt.  No building takes place while a land is in revolt.  Perhaps the due date could be made clearer.
 

[barbarossa2]

Joram,

Concerning Question 15: Today in the diplomacy menu for International Relations, I discovered that I could could actually declare war on the Russian Insurgency! I wondered why I would often see the words "Russian" or "Prussian" listed way down on the list. Apparently these appear only when they are active. Love it. What a fantastic game! I really hope they polish up one or two "minor" bug issues and then go on to a CoG:EE2, CoG:EE3, CoG:EE4...

Concerning Question 16: So, I ordered the Army container, and its production start was delayed until after the unrest ended. Which put back completion until September. Makes sense. Then really the only thing off about this picture is the estimated completion date given in the window below. I had assumed it was the unrest. But the expected date shown threw me off. However, I don't know if I really understand why "unrest" would stop the military from putting this together. Maybe an "unrest threshold" is what is needed. That is, if the unrest grows to 5+, the production stops. I don't know if you have different levels of unrest though. I am assuming these numbers are the number of turns of unrest remaining.

And thanks for your input on the others. With one or two of your answers, I had to slap my forehead and say, "Duh!". But as you know, I would still like answers on the others.

I am going to keep a Word Document with sufficiently good answers to these questions so that I can always refer to them and perhaps post the help guide at some point in the future.

[Mr. Z]

And some remaining answers:

5) I don’t think size of the province matters, though other things like resources might matter.

6) I have wanted to sit down with Eric and rewrite the text of some of the events to make them clearer. We just haven’t had the time yet.

7) May have been the “ally of ally” rule in effect. (You can’t go to war with allies of your allies—at least I think this was true for release).

8) Eric will have to answer this one

9) We made interest rates parallel the inflation that would have been expected from war. If you have a suggestion for a different method, we encourage you to post it in the Wish List thread [:)]

12) The forests between Alytus and Vilna and inside of Vilna might have slowed down the other path.

13) Yes, some paths are shorter than others. This is unavoidable, but can reflect easier movement through certain areas of Europe than others. Note that you are not necessarily moving from city to city—the cities, and the unit’s location in a province (as I explained on another thread) are somewhat abstracted (though we’ve tried to put cities in roughly historical locations). Moving from one province to another is simply one move. Also note that you should be able to move from Lower Moldavia into Silistria, making it only three moves.

14) Yes, if you permitted them to violate your territory, you permitted them to build depots.

16) Yes, unrest—the completion date doesn’t change if there is unrest—production is paused, then resumes after the unrest, and at that point you would see a new due date. In this case it was completed immediately, so you might not have seen the change.

[Mr. Z]

"Possible bugs"--

1) There is a possible problem with ceding--Eric is working on it.

2) In between turns, you just see all units collapse into a single stack--a container icon (an army or corps) goes on top of the stack, and that's what you see. Then you see dots for all the units the icon represents. Nothing is actually changing.

ETA: I guess the non-French general wasn't shown, but again, this is just a between-turns thing. After you hit End Turn, you're just watching the game calculations. It's possible that the flag code might pick out the general first. If you want to report this on the Tech Support thread, you may, but again, this is just the code going through its motions.

[Franck]

about Q)1:

Rallying is something you can set in your military screen to ask dumb AI to join you at this location... It is pretty useful as Prussia or Austria to ask Russia to meet you in your capital to beat of the russian.

[barbarossa2]

QUESTION 17: What is the 12 month enforced peace following any war based on?  Would it be interesting to have this run between 9 and 18 months randomly?  Is there historical precedent for 12 months exactly?  If I am mistaken, Empire in Arms runs on 18 months of peace following conflicts.  I don't like knowing in advance precisely when someone will be free to attack me and feel the 12 month thing is a bit artificial.  Thoughts?

[moose1999]

Question 12:
Good idea with a bit of randomness there.
9-18 months would suit me fine.

[barbarossa2]

QUESTION 17: In the image attached below, my friend and I were playing and his happiness was low. It seemed his people were ready to gobble up textiles, wine, spice, and luxuries. He also had plenty of them on hand and was ready to give it away on street corners. However, the AI said that his people were going to consume 0 textiles, 18 wine, 0 spice, and 0 luxuries for a total national morale change of -25. Given the fact that he had more than enough of each of these items on hand (see bottom of image), why didn't his people consume it?

[barbarossa2]

SUGGESTION 11: It seems when you have high levels of national stocks of any resource (timber for example), that you can't sell it off.  You are stuck with what you have, even though you may be starving for cash or something else.  All you can do at that point, it seems, is find some provences which sell these items and unload them as fast as possible for whatever you can, but only at the rate new units are being produced.  Can't we sell these national stocks which already exist? 

SUGGESTION 12: In "hot seat" mode, it seems that you really, really need a screen which comes up after one player is done moving which hides everything and says, "Sweden's Turn is Next, Press PLAY When Ready". As it is in the hotseat game I am playing (highly enjoyable!), you always get to see the next guy's most important regions in all of their glory, even if you are at war with them.

SUGGESTION 13: In the "hot seat" interphase (after everyone has entered their turns and the computer is calculating moves), on many of the warnings and notices that come up, players have absolutely no way of knowing who they are meant for. For instance, if I, Prussia declare war on Denmark, all there is is a generic, "We declared war on Denmark", without so much as a flag to indicate who the message is for. Other, more serious problems occur when one player is given a historical event option and has to choose what to do (make a historical decision or not) and no indication is made as to who it applies to. All of these messages and decisions and more need better markings so players can know who they are for.

SUGGESTION 14: Fog of War...it often occurs that after I have clicked "end turn" that the map moves around as moves are executed and I can see things which are actually supposed to be hidden from me in fog of war and would normally be during my turn. This should be changed to make sure that players don't know exactly where their enemy armies are at just because they happen to be watching the "execution phase" at the right (wrong) moment.

[barbarossa2]

QUESTION 18: When players A and B have signed a depot sharing deal, I know that if player A is using a depot of player B, that player A is still responsible for the upkeep of his own units.  But who is it that pays for the supplies which player A units is gobbling from player B's depot by the mouthfull?  Player A?  Or player B?

QUESTION 19: Can allies take shelter in your cities? 

QUESTION 20: Is it normal for the leaders of enemy minors to not surrender when their nations do? Below is a screenshot taken one month after the surrender of Poland to Prussia. These three leaders seem not to know when to quit!

[Russian Guard]

ORIGINAL: barbarossa2

SUGGESTION 11: It seems when you have high levels of national stocks of any resource (timber for example), that you can't sell it off.  You are stuck with what you have, even though you may be starving for cash or something else.  All you can do at that point, it seems, is find some provences which sell these items and unload them as fast as possible for whatever you can, but only at the rate new units are being produced.  Can't we sell these national stocks which already exist? 

One thing you can do is set up trade routes to purge your overflowing stores of wood or iron or whatever, for cash or whatever else you need. But it would be interesting if there was a way to sell off surplus items, even if at a major discount. Like maybe to the U.S.A.?