Lack of information screeens

[Mynok]

ORIGINAL: Nalamin

Well, Mynok, I guess we have a difference of opinion here. I suppose Marshall or someone up the ladder needs to make that decision. Either way the game will still be fantastic! [:)]

Do you hold your position because you want an exact replica of the board game...or some other reason? Just curious...

[Murat]

I disagree with making all this information available without having to take the small effort of clicking a few buttons. All the information that should be available to you is as long as you know where to look. One of the best parts of FtF was that the lazy got punished. You do not get to know what your opponents have built in this game (except ships, you can see those getting built if you look) nor do you get to know what is is in their corps markers (except ships and even that can be hidden by stacking properly). You want to know "Hey what is in that stack on my border?" you have to attack it. Who allied with whom? Click on the capitals and find out.
 
THis is especially true in PBEM. Popups in solo games might make the game more accessible and easy to learn (maybe link them to the Easy AI setting) but one should have to determine their own goals and level of interest in PBEM.  Spain is worried about who is at war, Britain about who has fleets, etc.

[dauphan129]

Honestly, I agree with you Murat.

If we are going to end up with info screens though I would rather they be summaries than keyed on every event. That's all I am saying. [;)]

[tgb]

I'm 55, and don't want to have to dig through line after line of small font to find out why the corps that were in Turkey last month popped up suddenly in Mecklenburg (the only reason I found them was an "out of supply" warning. If not for that, I would have reported it here as a bug).

I'm not asking for unrealistic or god-like information. I'm just saying that if I'm at war with Turkey and they sue for peace, giving up reparations and ceding me Egypt, I'd like it to be pretty damn obvious

[Donegal]

Another suggestion:
It's quite difficult to track opponent's land movement and i really lost myself. I think some kind of "highlight unit" would be great

[Micke II]

I think that only the most important informations must be put to the knowledge of the other players.
Results of big battles winner/loser and casualities on each side
Declarations of war
Capture of towns
Treaty of peace with the conditions
The format could be a table at the end of each month.

[Murat]

ORIGINAL: Micke II

I think that only the most important informations must be put to the knowledge of the other players.
Results of big battles winner/loser and casualities on each side
The format could be a table at the end of each month.

Absolutely not. You will destroy the Fog of War. I would not upload any patch that did this.

Declarations of war
Capture of towns

This information is provided in the events screen.

ORIGINAL: tgb

I'm 55, and don't want to have to dig through line after line of small font to find out why the corps that were in Turkey last month popped up suddenly in Mecklenburg (the only reason I found them was an "out of supply" warning. If not for that, I would have reported it here as a bug).

I'm not asking for unrealistic or god-like information. I'm just saying that if I'm at war with Turkey and they sue for peace, giving up reparations and ceding me Egypt, I'd like it to be pretty damn obvious

An expand feature for the events screen would seem to solve this and is highly desired from what I can see in other posts. It is hard to have to scroll to get all this info, especially in solo games.

[chuckj118]

I definately think summaries would be the way to go...if any of you have played Europa Universalis you have seen what to many pop ups can do.

Mynok --- All I am saying was that the original intent of Matrix Games was to do an EXACT copy of EiA.  To try and get the same feel and flavor as the board game; but on the PC.

I actually think that it probably would have been better, and easier, for Matrix to do a "blend" of EiA, keeping alot of the games features but updating them for the PC environment rather than an exact copy.  But this is not what Matrix and ADG decided to do.  If this had been done it would it have had the same "feel"? The same "flavor"?  Would it have gone over as well with the EiA audience?  I'm not sure...but with the help of ADG I am sure they could have come pretty close.  But this decision was made years ago.

I suppose all I am saying is lets get the copy of EiA down then we can look at making some "optional rules" that we can pick and choose.  This was done by the boardgame community as well. [:)] 

[DodgyDave]

this game is not really EIA, its a EIA/EIH/PC mix.

Newerwinternights 1 and 2, claim to be based on the original D&D 3.0 and later 3.5 rules, but having them both now, i found they have still not updated them properly, both games have like 1/2 of the right edition along with 1/4 AD&D and 1/4 self made stuff, ohh and ofc unlike D&D, where combat is suppose to be turn based, its more real time, which dont work with the magic rules, nor movement in combat nor ranged combat. they should keep to the rules of the game!

ofc not 100% as there might be reasons and limits on how to do the turns, but always stay close to the product you claim to making it over.

at least they have kept PC EIA close to the original game and thats why i bought it

[petter26]

Mynock. I can't agree at all with your statement. European paper reported battle sizes and casulty outcomes. If the common Englishman knew that Talavera was won with so many men, and so many losses. What makes you think that a monarch of a major nation would not know!!!???

[Mynok]

He would not know accurately, because none of the reporting was accurate. I have no problem with reporting casualty figures and men involved as long they are randomly falsified by at least 30%. [:)]

[Odysseus]

HoI2 has settings for this kinda stuff: the player gets to decide what types of information should be presented in alert windows, and what will simply remain in the general mass of scrolling text. It can't be that hard to create a similar functionality, can it?

[Micke II]

ORIGINAL: Murat



I think that only the most important informations must be put to the knowledge of the other players.
Results of big battles winner/loser and casualities on each side
The format could be a table at the end of each month.

Absolutely not. You will destroy the Fog of War. I would not upload any patch that did this.

It's not exactly what is commonly adopted for the definition of FOW. FOW is all informations hidden to the other players before a fight. But when a battle is finished the outcome of the battle + casualities is no more FOW but public information.
One week after the Austerlitz battle, all Europe was aware of the results.

Declarations of war
Capture of towns

This information is provided in the events screen.

I don't see to which screens you are refering exactly ? Could you provide an example ? Thanks

[Murat]

I suck at paint but here:

[Micke II]

Yes I know this screen, but as it has already pointed out the flow of informations appearing here is almost useless.
You have a mix of informations mixing "turkish corps foraging in Syria" with loss of political points for reasons which are sometime unclear.
If we take the example shown on the screen you provided, first you have to search on the map where is area 12. During the play of the land phase of GB, we have no automatic scroll where the battle has occured.
I think it could be easy to produce for each phase a window showing what have been the outcomes of the phase during the month.

[Mynok]

Having area names instead of numbers would help that screen tremendously. I, for one, do NOT want a large number of popup screens.

[Grognot]

"Area #NNN (in Crimea, Russia)"
would identify the location reasonably quickly (given that 'Crimea, Russia' narrows it down considerably) without having to come up with non-numerical names for each place.

[Murat]

You can right click on that window and save it into Notepad if you want to see everything. I think naming areas may be possible (as I pointed out elsewhere Area 51 is Sarragossa, Spain so it has a name) but I will let a dev take on that one.

[Mynok]

Good point...I forgot some areas are nameless wasteland...  I like the idea of Area ### (near/in Province/city/port/etc).

[Thresh]

One week after the Austerlitz battle, all Europe was aware of the results.

They knew that france had won and austria-russia had lost. they did not know exact numbers, corps composition, and the like.

thresh