Beginner Questions

[jscott991]

If there is a tutorial AAR, I couldn't find it. I know there are tutorial AAR's for GoA (great job) and FoF (slightly less helpful, though I haven't done much with that game other than boot it up). If any game needs one, though, its CoG.

I have a ton of questions and I'm going to avoid editorializing until I understand more of the game. I will say, though, that something about the look of this game turns me off. Whether its the font or the 1024x768 resolution, I'm having trouble getting into it. That being said, I'm sure once I figure out how to do things, the look won't be as important. I have to say, though, that any Paradox game and GoA put this to shame in terms of clarity, brightness, and fonts.

All the following questions are playing as Austria in the 1803 scenario, advanced economy, normal difficulties.

1. Economically, what should I be doing on each turn?

I've spent most turns passing, because I turned on the trade advisor and I don't have the gold to do a lot more than that. Labor seems to build up and I know that eventually it is lost, so I'm wondering what I should be doing each turn. Building banks? Building factories? Building farms? Trading? It's very hard to figure out how to conduct each turn.

2. Do I need artillery to capture provinces?

I move my units into enemy territory and they don't seem to do anything but sit there, typically taking foraging losses. How can I trigger a siege? Does it require artillery every time?

3. Units don't always move.

I assume this is intentional, but it seems that a lot of units just disregard orders. If this is intentional, I think it might be a touch overdone, especially for just peacetime redistributions.

4. Is there an easier way to move units from one army to another and to see the max size of an army?

Right now, its really cumbersome to find out what is in what army and then shift units around. It took me forever to figure out that Charles was in Italy, sitting around doing nothing. I assume the only way to transfer units from one command to another is to do the "automatically join" X command, but that seems a bit awkard. Perhaps the game is just a touch more cumbersome than EU3, so it will take getting used to.

5. Is there no report when the AI goes to war with itself and no information when a nation rejects my ultimatum?

Shortly into the 1803 scenario, Prussia will attack Brunswick and Turkey will attack Montenengro. Both appeal to Austria to become protectorates. I issue two ultimatums. Nothing ever happens, except it seems that Prussia always backs down and Turkey never does. Why aren't I told this info, at least in the form of a "Turkey and Austria are now at war" statement in the end of turn report?

Also, the AI going to war with each other doesn't ever seem to show up. Prussia and France just started fighting. I thought you needed to declare war?

That's enough for now. I really, really look forward to getting the hard copy of the manual in the mail and the advanced economic guide mentioned in another thread. I'm really a bit frustrated with the learning curve here and the awkwardness of certain information, but I want to give this game a chance.

[barbarossa2]

1. What should you be building? Interesting question. I guess it depends. What kind of monarch do you want to be? Do you want to have the best military? Or the best banks? Or? Or? Or? There ARE a lot of things to choose from. It is pretty open ended, and the system is more interesting than I initially gave it credit for. Barracks are important if you want a good army. Guns are good if you want to defend your cities against assaults (as I learned today in my PBEM). I wish I had more time right now, but it is 1:30 am here and I am about ready for bed. So... on to 2.

2.  You need to have a significant number of troops present.  This is exactly what I had noticed when I started.  Check out the siege rules.  But you need like 30k men around to even start a siege is my rule of thumb.  Artillery will help you.  There is a different way of doing siege combat, so check it out.  Or just make sure you bring 30k men along and artillery helps.

3. Perhaps you are right on this.  It can be tough to get some units to move.

4. Hmmm...I prefer getting units to join armies and cities myself.  Doing it manually, instead of "join".

5. The reports could be better at times.  I agree.

Concerning your issue with the font, someone else has already mentioned this, and Eric provided a way to change the fonts.  I don't remember where this is.

[Mus]

On sieging, the amount of men you need according to the tooltips is 15,000x+b where x is the number of guns the provinces and b is the size of the infantry garrison.

Artillery sieging are worth double (or triple?) so are infantry with engineers attached. I dont know for sure if artillery or engineers in garrison count are multiplied in a similar fashion because generally I only garrison as a mechanism to prevent capture by rebel troops or single detached units, but it stands to reason that it would.

Somebody mentioned in another thread that the tool tips say 15,000 per level of guns and the manual says 10,000.  In that case I dont know which value is accurate. I didnt check to see whether or not thats true. Normally I massively overkill the amount of troops needed to seige anyways because I want to be guaranteed to take it faster if possible.

PS Make sure you dont have your Armies or Corps set to Starve the Garrison as that is a very inefficient way of taking territory.

[jscott991]

As Austria, I sent 50k men into Bosnia and 36k into another territory.  After three turns, nothing happened.  That's when I headed to the forums.  Neither force had artillery.  I can't even tell they are doing anything.

[Russian Guard]

Rule of thumb - 50k troops with one Art along will initiate almost all sieges. 60k without Art will do the same. There are a few rare exceptions, like a Fortress city that has multiple garrison Divisions.

When the new patch comes out, fortress cities will be easier to identify.

Oh, and if the siege takes place you will know it, both by a pop-up and smoke billowing from the city in question. If you do not see that, then no siege is happening.

[jscott991]

Wow, that's a lot of men needed to take Bosnia. 

[Gil R.]

jscott991,
Are you also looking at the report tabs each turn? If we put EVERYTHING that happened each turn into the Event Report it would be enormous, so some of the less important stuff ends up there. (And as for units not moving, I believe that's in the unit history, though perhaps I'm thinking of FOF.)

Also, if you haven't already, I'd recommend watching at least some of the tutorial videos.

Have you explored the "Military Advisor Screen" yet? Sounds like that will be helpful to you.

[ShaiHulud]

ORIGINAL: jscott991

As Austria, I sent 50k men into Bosnia and 36k into another territory.  After three turns, nothing happened.  That's when I headed to the forums.  Neither force had artillery.  I can't even tell they are doing anything.

Just a reminder..... IF Bosnia, say, is independent, you need to declare war to begin a siege. Otherwise, your troops will just sit there and Bosnia will complain every month that you're violating their territory.

Re: Moving units between containers- It sounds like you're doing this from the military page. That's only useful IF you have your armies in the same province and want to swap some around. Keep in mind that every movement takes some time, too. Move too many between two containers and they might not have time to do it all and still move.

If you want to see what's in a container, right-click. To transfer units between containers, in the same province, right-click the losing container, then left-click/Alt on the divisions you want to move. Now, close that container and mouse over the receiving container. If there is room in the receiving container you'll see a white arrow, which means you can add this/these unit(s).

Re: reports- Checking the 'Political' report will often show you things that occurred, such as successful sieges, protectorates made. The 'Treaty' report announces DoW's.

Re: Ultimatum- If you issue a ultimatum and the nation backs down you will get no further message. If they reject your ultimatum you will be asked if you really want to go to war with 'X'.

Re: Economy- What are you short? Money? Textiles? Whatever you're lacking is what you either need to build and/or trade for. Building takes materials, so, you should identify what resources you must have to improve your infrastructure. If you're weak militarily, you'll need barracks, as well as resources, to create new, and better, units.

I know the creators are very proud of their basic map. I've never understood why. My first reaction, upon seeing it in the beta stage, was' "It's very difficult to see where one nation leaves off and another begins". Upon booting up the game I always reduce the map about 8 clicks so I can see a broader area. Unfortunately, this makes seeing boundaries between provinces impossible unless you actually click on a province to highlight it. It's better when the minors become protectorates. The dotted lines show up well.

[ptan54]

I kind of preferred the color scheme of COG1, you could easily see where borders are. And straight lines rather than dotted borders are easier on my eyes for protectorates.

[Bonaparte78]

ORIGINAL: barbarossa2
Concerning your issue with the font, someone else has already mentioned this, and Eric provided a way to change the fonts.  I don't remember where this is.

The new fonts can be downloaded in the members download section for CoG EE.

[Russian Guard]

ORIGINAL: jscott991

Wow, that's a lot of men needed to take Bosnia. 

It takes less than the numbers I stated in some cases - I was simply making a rule-of-thumb that covers most sieges, so you can make sure sieges are initiated if important to you. Not sure about Bosnia in particular.

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: jscott991

As Austria, I sent 50k men into Bosnia and 36k into another territory. After three turns, nothing happened. That's when I headed to the forums. Neither force had artillery. I can't even tell they are doing anything.

dumb questions time (I seen this on my way out the door for work last night, so wasn't able to ask)

what other Province did you send troops to ?

did you Declare War on that Nation ?

are you at war with that Nation ?

[Hard Sarge]

also, if moveing men into a Container, it is best if the Container does not move, they can miss each other during the movement phase

[jscott991]

Turkey declared war on me, so I was at war.
 
The posters who said I wasn't using enough men were right, once I had over 80k in the territory, the siege started right up.  50k, though, wasn't enough.
 
These numbers aren't really accurate at all, but I can't comment on how it works in the game, because I elected to start over.
 
As for what I'm short on, its gold.  Austria starts with 400 in 1803 and earns a small surplus.  Building one depot almost eliminates that surplus and a second one pushes Austria into a deficit.  I built banks in a bunch of territories with relatively high gold earnings, but those take 20 months (or so, depending on the level already there).  With a deficit and with banks taking so long to build, it struck me that my best move economically was to simply do nothing or delve into trade.  Province-by-province trade is over my head right now, so I was simply doing nothing.  In fact, when at peace, I was doing nothing on most every turn, except struggling to figure out how to move units between containers.
 
Moving units between containers is still cumbersome.  I finally figured out the basics by trying it in FoF, which is much easier to understand.  Isn't CoG:EE the later game?  Why is Forge of Freedom so much more elegant looking?
 
Also, I downloaded the new fonts and I didn't notice a dramatic difference (if any).  I copied them over the correct file, because Windows came on and asked me if I was sure I wanted to replace it, but the text is still incredibly ugly (this is true in FoF as well).  Again, I'l get past it if I get into the game.
 
Let me also add my voice to the chorus requesting a cancel move button.  I've reloaded close to 10 times so far just because I accidentally moved a unit (incidentally, the operation of the right-click, left-click mechanic for selecting units and provinces works very poorly, in my opinion when compared to something like EU3; also the graphics seem to frequently become slightly corrupted, meaning that the green highlight of a province doesn't always show and a units movement path is not always illustrated).
 
So I guess my basic question now is if I'm at peace and using the trade advisor, are most turns just basically passing until buildings are finished?  This game really needs a walkthrough AAR.
 

[ShaiHulud]

You do know that backspace retracts unit movements, right? This works fine until you do some other non-movement functions.

[Gil R.]

jscott991,
I'd be curious to know whether you still think a walkthrough AAR is needed once bjmorgan's Advanced Economy guide is released. We thought that our ten tutorial videos, adding up to more than an hour, would be enough, but perhaps a complementary approach like an AAR would be helpful as well. You're not alone in having asked for an AAR of some sort.

[jscott991]

No, I didn't know about backspace.
 
I think an AAR is still going to be useful, just to give people an idea of what to do on an initial turn.  The FoF AAR on how to setup the Confederacy on its initial moves is an invaluable tool (even though I would only play as the Union) and CoG:EE needs something like it, telling people how to arrange their units, how to tell good commanders from bad, how many thousands of men are needed to just start a siege, how to undo a movement, etc. 
 
I hate to post again before my basic question was answered (should I just basically being passing on peacetime turns once I start the construction of a bunch of buildings), but I do think an AAR like FoF and GoA both feature would be a very welcome addition.

[Randomizer]

Suspect part of the issue here is that CoG-EE is strategically deep enough that it rewards planning and executing a long-term goal based strategy. An AAR regardless of how well prepared, represents just one-player’s solution to their own particular game situation and vision. Apologies if this is a blinding glimpse of the obvious to some.

The time scale for successfully implementing a national strategy in this era might be measured in years while a single military campaign may take nine or ten months and still not achieve all its goals. Players should consider expanding their timelines and reducing their short-term expectations accordingly.

Unlike FoF where the strategic options of both sides is mostly self evident, with CoG-EE, all bets are off and strategic scope for any of the major powers is wide open. I am finding that this game really benefits from applying the methods used in the good old-fashioned military appreciation and all before starting Turn 1:

- Determine your Aim: Here the player has the advantage of being able to set victory conditions and refer to the Goals provided for his nation at the very start of the session.

- Determine those factors that will affect achieving the Aim

- Determine the military, political and economic solutions to deal with those factors

- Create a plan based on those factors that will achieve the Aim

- Now you can commence Turn 1

- Execute the plan but stay focused on the Aim regardless

This is more effort than a lot of game players are willing to expend but I think you will find that the game rewards detailed forward planning and ruthless implementation of the national plan.

Moltke the Elder is often quoted (possibly apocryphally) to the effect of “A mistake in initial strategy can only be made good in the next war.” Although germane to the European situation of 1870, it is a truly napoleonic maxim that serious players of CoG-EE might do well to heed.

Best Regards

[jscott991]

An AAR like in FoF isn't necessarily designed to tell you how to play the game (in fact, GoA's tutorial AAR's are kind of how NOT to play, based on the results achieved), but they help give a player an idea of what they should be doing on each turn, especially the initial turn.  Perhaps not specifically what actions to take, but what actions you should be THINKING about taking.

For instance, should you be building something every turn or are there turns where you won't be building anything at all?

Should you have lots of small armies or a few big ones?

How can you tell who your best generals are?

How many depots should you have during peacetime?

An AAR might not tell me how to win as Austria because "winning" is defined differently, either as victory over France or maybe Prussia or even Russia, but it can certainly help me with how to PLAY Austria, or any nation.

Right now, I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to be doing on any individual turn, and broad advice like think what kind of monarch you want to be or have a longterm strategy doesn't really help with mastering the mechanics of an individual turn. In the FoF AAR, it was made pretty clear how to assign generals and units, that you needed to concentrate units rather than keep a diffuse deployment, and what factors go into determining your economic needs (he pinpointed manpower and camps as the CSA). Then he showed some basics of how to work on these issues.

[morganbj]

jscott991,
 
The advanced economy is not mysterious and unforgiving as some will lead you to believe.   I've found that there are players who are too ambitious in their expenditures for developments early on, others who build too many units too soon, some who start wars they can't afford, others who don't know when it's time to surrender and take the consequences, and some who don't understand the effects of national morale and the tax rate, or any number of other factors.  But the game has been tested by many people over a sufficiently long enough period of time to identify unreasonable situations in the scenarios.
 
So, this is what I would do:  I would not play the advanced economy until you have all other game concepts well in hand.  Play several different countries and get a feel for the flow of the game from those countries' perspectives (they will be VERY different) for a game year or two, or more.
 
Then, pick a country that is less challenging, maybe France or England for your next foray back into the advanced economy.  England should seldom have a cash problem, and France generally is the same after a year or two in almost every scenario unless you really make a lot of mistakes.  And, consider playing the generous economy scenario, until you get it all down.
 
I've never had serious problems playing any country once I learned the game, but I've found that some countries can be a challenge and much harder to play in a specific scenario.  Russia in the 1805 scenario is always rough because it starts out with 40% waste, for example, but I've won the game with Russia in that scenario, nevertheless.  I've never found any country that is just too difficult altogether.
 
When the advanced economy guide comes out in the next patch, take a look at it and see if it helps.  COG:EE is best appreciated when you really put all the pieces together, including the advanced economy.  Give it some time.  It will eventually come together for you.