Problem with Swedish Map Positions...

[barbarossa2]

Here is something I have noticed for several turns now. Every time I look at the strategic map, my armies (Sweden's) are in the wrong place. They are always hovering in Prussia (circled), when they are actually in southern Sweden (where X marks the spot).

This happens every turn, so I wonder if there is a problem in the code for positioning Sweden's armies (blue I believe...correct?).

The other armies appear to be positioned correctly. Even Denmark's, which is currently in Malmo.

[barbarossa2]

Here is PERHAPS another minor map issue...

Playing as Sweden, fog of war covers the continent. Yet I can still see whether or not each city is garrisoned. Not just on the part of the map I have shown, but on the whole map. For some reason, I think this is too much information. However, I could be wrong.

This could be intentional. In that case, I don't really care. But I wanted to point it out.

[barbarossa2]

Another map issue is the following:

Once a player has clicked "end turn", the game starts scrolling around from place to place to move units. Right at that moment, if your map is positioned over enemy territory, the fog of war is lifted, and you can see troop positions. I think the fog of war needs to maintained in this "movement phase" where necessary and where it would have been in place otherwise.

Has anyone else noticed this?

[Mus]

I have shifting of some armies like that in my view as well. Some of my forces in N Africa display as off the map to the South as do some of the independents in N Africa.

The fog of war issue, I agree, fog of war should remain in place.

[IronWarrior]

Same... this happened in FoF as well though, I think it's meant to be an abstraction of approximate locations. I believe it also has something to do with size limitations iirc. I kindof wish that map wasn't there at all, sort of defeats the purpose of FoW imo.

I haven't noticed that end turn-FoW issue, but if that's the case I agree it should get fixed.

[Mus]

Agree to an extent.
 
I personally can not see any reason why Sweden would know that Russia has a large force underway in the Med for example.
 
I suppose rumors of their destination would flourish if they stopped to water en route, but how long would such news take to reach Sweden?
 
I get why I know its there, because I have ships in the area, but I wouldnt have thought that Sweden would know.

[IronWarrior]

Yeah I think it just needs some tweaking. I wonder how I'm able to see Russia's and Turkey's positions even though they are in my FoW on the main map, for example. Maybe over time news would get around, but that should be in the form of a '?' symbol on the map if you ask me.

[barbarossa2]

I think the "overview map" concept is brilliant and feel that it should be left as is, except, the positions of the armies should be roughly accurate (showing my Swedish army in Prussia is a bit off). 

Concerning the Sweden knowing about the large Russian army under way in the Med, I think it is a good idea on the whole.  There is no way to keep movements of that many men secret.  But, I would be up for some randomization of the reports on this screen (perhaps why my Swedish armies are out of place?).  I would also be up for a delay system, whereby you would be shown the position of the armies at the moment a dispatch being sent to you would have had to be sent to get to you by the start of the turn. I do agree that I shouldn't know PRECISELY where the enemy armies are.  And would be willing to accept a random direction and distance from its actual location.

But I also think that the "lifting of the fog of war" as soon as one clicks "End Turn" should be fixed.  I hate to cheat like that when I am playing!   I always feel guilty for picking up details I should not know about!

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: barbarossa2

Concerning the Sweden knowing about the large Russian army under way in the Med, I think it is a good idea on the whole.  There is no way to keep movements of that many men secret.

Not necessarily any way to keep them secret, but a little more detail on how long it would take you to receive news of the fleets departure with loaded troops and their likely destination would be nice. Some news could be same month (basically real time as far as the game is concerned) but other information should arrive the turn after. Would news come all the way across Russia from the Black Sea of a Fleets departure in 1 month or less? I couldnt say for sure, but it doesnt seem like it.

News across bodies of water or friendly or allied territory would be different as fast ships and semaphore systems were in use.

[barbarossa2]

I agree Mus. 

[Mus]

Another weird thing Ive noticed, looking at the icons, is their size doesnt seem to have anything to do with what they contain.
 
The "larger" of my armies in Egypt for instance is actually about half of the size of the force below it that has a smaller icon.  Im not sure what the boxes mean or if they fluctuate randomly with a Fog of War effect.
 
I just realized they might be larger because the ships carrying the army might be included?  That would explain the size of the Russian force in the Med as well.

[barbarossa2]

Quote Mus:
"Another weird thing Ive noticed, looking at the icons, is their size doesnt seem to have anything to do with what they contain."
 
That is an interesting observation.  Can anyone from WCS clarify?

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Sorry folks I come down on the side of get rid of the strategic map completely, it is pretty pointless having a FoW in place in the main game if all folk have to do is go Looksee at the strategic map to find out roughly where stuff is.

To quote the eg of Russias armies moving into the Med, France/Spain or anyone else for that matter who is excluded from seeing by FoW should have no knowledge of that at all!

It allows potential enemies at the other end of the map to spot potential weakness by adding strategic map info to what they can see in their own area.

What happens if Secret Alliances are made do they also show up on the ‘Overview’?, again, a pigging waste of time having the option in the game if the “Secret” is there for all to see.

Back to that Russian army en-route for Spain, in a real life setting there is only Turkey that at this stage should be able to know about it (I know coz I checked the shipping in the area), ie if France/Spain/Sweden or whoever get to know about it, it could only be through Turkish shipping spotting it and passing the info on.

So what goes down here? Some enterprising Turkish sea captain decides “Oooo, The French/Spanish/Swedish/Outer Mongolian Ana-Baptist would love to hear about this! I’ll just get my Laptop out and notify them all”; of course the 19th Century equivalent of the Laptop would involve a journey possibly taking weeks and would most certainly not have reached all parties at the same time!

No, that ‘Overveiw’ should either be completely scrapped so as to represent the time period (at least in FoF the Telegraph might be used as an excuse for fairly instant info exchange) ie Ship, Horseback etc. or at the very least have a time delay imposed on it to reflect the speed of news travelling during the period.

All the Best
Peter

[barbarossa2]

Kingmaker, I do agree that there should be a time delay of some sort in many cases.  But also do feel that the map is useful because I think the Prussians (for instance) should know that France (for instance) is gathering a massive army near Switzerland and that they are headed northeast.  If only the full FoW on the large map was used, Prussia may never know that 150,000 troops are coming for them until they are 40 miles away.  Which would be totally unrealistic. There was news about this stuff and rumors. And sometimes even spies (most surely spies).  News travels much more quikly than armies can march (though historically, the spread of syphillis is approximately equal to the rate with which armies can march [:D]).  This is why I like the strategic overview map.  I believe it gives commanders of the day an inkling as to where enemy forces are and how large they are, but does not reveal all.  And in my opinion, this is a good approximation of the problems of the day.  If the game had a $20million budget, I would say it needs tweaking.  But until they can afford to put in delays for communication, a double check on the positioning of these armies would be a good idea (Sweden example above and Turkey issues above).

[ericbabe]

This might be a system speed issue.  On the main computer I test on, the AI nation turns happen so quickly, that I can't really see the FOW being lifted.  But, when doing some testing on one of our other machines the other day, I noticed that on that machine I could see FOW being lifted for a second or two.  It should be easy enough to hide FOW from the player during AI turns.

[barbarossa2]

Ericbabe, what about the issue with the armies being show in the wrong locations (see my first post in this topic).  It seems that either the code for placing the armies is a bit off, or that the randomization (to hide its exact location) goes wild.  I do know you are busy, but your comment really only addressed the third issue:

1) On the overview map, some units seem to be strangely out of place.  For instance, when I am Sweden, my armies seem to always be hovering in Prussia.
2) On the main map, even in Fog of War regions, one can see the size of garrisons in towns.  This may be intended.  If so, then fine with me.  But there could be a better solution.
3) Immediately after pressing "End Turn", the FoW is lifted for a split second as the game moves from region to region to execute moves.

[IronWarrior]

I still agree with Kingmaker, I think the strategic map gives too much info. Yes, there was "news about this stuff and rumors" and that's why there is a 'Rumor' tab in the game. I would much rather see that be used to its fullest than have total vision of the map. It's also hard to plant rumors if players can just verify them by clicking on the strategic map.

Now imagine if instead of that massive green box with XXXX over it sitting in Corfu, it was a green '?' instead. And imagine if the game created a rumor entry for each '?' a player gets on the strategic map. This would open up some nice possibilities when the other players are able to plant rumors. One would then need to decide what news to believe or not instead of having 20/20 vision of the entire map.

Anyway just some ideas.

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Yer good call IW, make the rumour tab more effective, remember the much vaunted 'News & Rumour' travelling faster than armies worked both ways; Polish peasants for eg could be terrified of the nearby Cossacks that had been reported when the nearest Cossacks could be several hundred miles away, City businessmen would be in a turmoil because a french fleet was reported of Lands end when the nearest french fleet was sitting snug in Brest etc etc etc.

Maybe a way to get round the problem would be to have land Merchants/Spies with a reliability factor on 'News' gathered who could only travel along established trade routes with a 1 province range of vision, that may go someway towards reflecting how 'News' really travelled (and maybe encourage the establishment of Trade routes, eg the reliability of news gathered would be higher if it was a route your Nation had established) rather than a modern day electronic 'Overview' that just destroys any authenticity the Good folk at WCS have spent so much time & energy creating.

All the Best
Peter

[IronWarrior]

Definately! [:D] Kind of reminds me of some campaigns our miniatures group would run... the referee was a big fan of planting rumors and you would have to decide if/how true they were. [;)]

Another idea I just thought of that would be cool is if the Strategic map only showed what you would see in FoW, but give the player an ability to add information directly to their map that they believe to be true. A good example is the "pips" you could add on NWN2 maps where you could type some brief info (anyone who played it would know what I'm talking about). This would be even better than the '?' idea.

[barbarossa2]

I have to admit, that if there were more rumors, what IronWarrior mentions is a good idea.  And the rumors would be grouped according to nation, so we wouldn't have to look through a rumor soup to find the rumors about, for example, Turkey.  Yes, more rumors, grouped, giving much the same info as is presented on the "overview map" would be good.  With time delays.  I like it.  However, WCS could also plant the rumors on to a strategic overview map for us.  And when players enter their own rumors they would enter a provence (with a provence picker) for which the rumor is attached to when applicable, so that they would appear on the strategic overview map along with the other rumors.
 
Good idea IronWarrior