Passing the Initiative

[grab]

I've noticed that during a battle if I pass the initiative I lose an action point. when the enemy passes the initiative they do not lose action points. Why is this?

[mercenarius]

I think that what happened is that you won the next initiative, so you got to go again for that reason, not because the AI passed.

[grab]

What seems to happen at the moment is this;

1 = I win the initiative and fire a field piece and loose 1 activation point. The enemy does nothing and his action points remain the same.

2 = The enemy wins the initiate and fires an infantry unit and looses 1 activation point. I do nothing and have to pass the initiative loosing 1 action point.

3 = I win the initiative and pass it loosing 1 action point. The enemy does nothing either but does not loose an action point.

[mercenarius]

After passing the current initiative, you won the next initiative.

Now this does raise a point, that passing the initiative might imply that the enemy should get the next initiative (if they have any left). This is actually a design decision. You cannot rely on "waiting out" the enemy by passing one initiative.

I edited my previous post because I had forgotten this point and what I wrote was somewhat misleading.

[grab]

Sorry if I am labouring this point but I want to be clear in my mind how the combat pulses of a battle work.

It seems to me that for each combat resolution phase of a battle all combat units have the potential to engage once within that phase until all of the action points are used.

Now if I have understood this correctly from your replies mercenaries, the game calculates who has the initiative and that player can perform combat, the game then calculates initiative again and so the process repeats until both sides action points are used up. That then completes the combat phase and the game move to the next combat phase.

[kendrick88]

If you pass the initiative, you should lose 1 action point. That makes sense. But if you do pass your turn, the enemy should automatically win the next initiative. If they also pass, they lose a point as well. Otherwise, they have to take a turn. That would work well. Both sides can essentially hold off on combat if they see no advantage in attacking. That can happen in real combat. But passing your turn and then winning initiative again can happen over and over. I have lost as many as 6 action points by passing turns, just to see what would happen. I feel that should be changed to incorporate the above suggestion.

[EdinHouston]

At first glance, I agreed with this suggestion. But then I realized that making this change would be an advantage for the French because Napoleon is so likely to win initiative rolls. It would mean that Napoleon could fire the units he wants to fire first, and then save his initiative for if/when the AI advances, and then slaughter the AI with infantry fire... and then on the next turn, slaughter the AI again because Napoleon is likely to win the initiative. It would make it very hard for the allies to attack and advance and win against a superior general like Napoleon... and its already pretty hard for them to do that with the current system. So on second thought, maybe I don't support this change because, while more realistic, it might be very unbalancing.

[Uncle_Joe]

ORIGINAL: EdinHouston

At first glance, I agreed with this suggestion. But then I realized that making this change would be an advantage for the French because Napoleon is so likely to win initiative rolls. It would mean that Napoleon could fire the units he wants to fire first, and then save his initiative for if/when the AI advances, and then slaughter the AI with infantry fire... and then on the next turn, slaughter the AI again because Napoleon is likely to win the initiative. It would make it very hard for the allies to attack and advance and win against a superior general like Napoleon... and its already pretty hard for them to do that with the current system. So on second thought, maybe I don't support this change because, while more realistic, it might be very unbalancing.

Correct. I posted the same on the Steam forum in a similar topic.

[kendrick88]

That is a fair point. I also recommend improving the odds of the allies winning initiative. It should be closer to 60/40. In my game, it has been more like 75/25. I'm often completely done and then the enemy gets to make 6 or 8 moves, which is a bit of a disadvantage for Napoleon really. You have to prepare for a huge amount of enemy action at the end of each round.

[gdrover]

Actually, winning the initiative is a big advantage. It means that you can disrupt, rout, force into square, or eliminate units that would otherwise have the ability to attack at full strength.

[kendrick88]

Yes. Winning initiative is better than not winning it. But you get to a point where it feels like the pendulum swings the other way. Let's assume an absurd scenario where you win every initiative and you take all of your French actions at once. You would likely eliminate or rout a few enemy units and disrupt a few others. But after that, the enemy AI would take its entire turn all at once as well. While certainly diminished in capacity from your initial onslaught, the AI would have the luxury of taking many actions all at once. It would allow the enemy to focus multiple attacks on a single target. It could do that several times. The odds of routing or eliminating French troops would be much higher than if the AI had to sprinkle its moves throughout the turn and then had perhaps 3 or 4 actions at the end. While I have never been in this theoretical scenario, I have been in battles where the AI got 8 actions at once. It is far more devastating than turns where the AI wins initiative more often early on. I find that I would rather fight a general with a rating of 6 to 8 than a general with a rating of 3 to 5, for this reason. It provides more of a punch/counter-punch feel, with the French still seeing advantage.

[EdinHouston]

How about a system where you can only pass the initiative (say) twice before the enemy must take an action. That would help get rid of the situations where Napoleon is out of actions but the allies have almost all of theirs banked up.

[James Ward]

The passing of the initiative does seem weird to me too.
I thought passing meant you give the initiative to your opponent and they needed to then either act or pass. It doesn't seem to work like that. It seems like if you pass that ends the round and a new round begins.

[Froz]

I agree that the current mechanics are not the best, especially as it's so unclear how it works.

In my recent game I was fighting lvl 3 general with my lvl 5 general. I was defending. On the first turn, I passed my initiative up till it was 0, while enemy still had 10. Next turn, surprise, he got to move first! This was really wierd.

Bigger issue to me is something different though. It's true that usually when enemy has the end of one turn, you get the beginning of the next turn, so it kind of balances it out, except of one thing - disruption, especially of cavalry units. Cavalry that is attacking later in the turn is very often going to have more bonuses then the cavalry of the higher initiative side. That's because it will get bonus for attacking tired cavalry and possibly another bonus if the defending cavalry was disrupted. It doesn't work the other way around, as disruption is cancelled at the beginning of the turn - so enemy cavalry disrupted by attacking you have a high chance to get disruption cancelled before you can counterattack. This happens a lot, as cavalry has a bonus to cancel disruption at the start of turn. It often means that you either should not use your cavalry to attack or take high risk, that enemy will kill or at least route you after you made your attack.

In general I have to say I don't like how cancelling disruption works. Maybe it would be better if instead of once per turn for everyone, it would be some small chance after each action on the battlefield (with similar modifiers to the current ones). Alternatively it could work similarly to getting back routed units, but during the battle. Double click on disrupted unit and you use one action to try getting it back in shape. Of course there would have to be be more actions for both sides each turn available.

[bobarossa]

I'm on my second attempt at a campaign and I hate the pass intiative implementation. If I try to get the enemy to take a move, I usually have from 0 to 2 moves left before he moves. This basically allows him to move up to my troops without me being able to fire back at his tired units. If I move up to him, he always gets to shoot my tired troops. Having a big initiative bonus is more of a negative than a positive.

[Uncle_Joe]

ORIGINAL: bobarossa

I'm on my second attempt at a campaign and I hate the pass intiative implementation. If I try to get the enemy to take a move, I usually have from 0 to 2 moves left before he moves. This basically allows him to move up to my troops without me being able to fire back at his tired units. If I move up to him, he always gets to shoot my tired troops. Having a big initiative bonus is more of a negative than a positive.

It may seem that, but try using one of your 4-rated leaders up against Wellington. Trust me, you won't enjoy having 4-5 enemy units activate the next turn before you even get up to bat.

[gdrover]

Yup. [:'(]

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe

ORIGINAL: bobarossa

I'm on my second attempt at a campaign and I hate the pass intiative implementation. If I try to get the enemy to take a move, I usually have from 0 to 2 moves left before he moves. This basically allows him to move up to my troops without me being able to fire back at his tired units. If I move up to him, he always gets to shoot my tired troops. Having a big initiative bonus is more of a negative than a positive.

It may seem that, but try using one of your 4-rated leaders up against Wellington. Trust me, you won't enjoy having 4-5 enemy units activate the next turn before you even get up to bat.

It may seem that, but try using one of your 4-rated leaders up against Wellington. Trust me, you won't enjoy having 4-5 enemy units activate the next turn before you even get up to bat.