Empire in Arms 1.03.13 Public Beta Avalible!!

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: RayKinStL

ORIGINAL: NeverMan

ORIGINAL: RayKinStL

I still am not understanding the aversion to stack mvoement.  No one is saying you HAVE to use it.  But when I am marching a stack of 11 corps from Paris to Berlin, only to turn to Vienna after Prussia's surrender, the constant flipping and moving each stack becomes tedious and annoying.  No one say you HAVE to sue stakc movement.  In the naval phase you are not forced to use stack movement.  You could still move individual corps to deal with things such as foraging and depot destruction/conversion.  The point is to give the player options, so that when I am France or Prussia, or whoever, and I have a large stack to mvoe 3-4 spaces, I can do so quickly and painlessly if there is no other menutia involved in said movement. 

Move stack inside/outside city would also solve the problem I bring up, I jsut want some solution to forgetting to siege one city (if I move into multiple areas) and the game skipping the Land Combat phase.

Stack movement can not be used because of the way foraging works. There are forage penalties for a corps moving into and foraging in an area where other corps are already sitting and or moved to that turn.

There is no foraging for naval units hence allowing stack movement.

I understand that, but I still do not understand the problem. The game could certainly calculate all this if the player chose to move multiple corps through a land area. In other words, say I have the I II and III french corps. If I move all 3 together to Lille, or if I move I then II then III, what is the overall difference? The game will still calculate which corps moved through which areas. Movement points are still used up in the same way. How could moving one corps, as opposed to 3 or 8 or whatever number change the way the game calculates things, assuming the game is programmed to calculate a multicorp movement as individual stacks? In other words, the stack movement would be nothing more than window dressing. On the back end, the game could still move the corps individually, to maintain all existing rules, but on the interface, the player would see the ease of selecting multiple corps and moving them where ever they desired. Just because you are seeing multiple corps moved together, for the sake of time and convenience, doesn't mean the game has to CALCULATE the movement as a stack move.

I don't think you understand.

It's not about MOVEMENT, it's about FORAGING. Movement points could easily be gotten around BUT FORAGING (this means supplying the moving corps) would not be.

I suppose that if you knew you weren't going to forage any of those forces OR maybe if you choose to move as a stack you wouldn't have the option to forage any of those units, then that would be possible; HOWEVER (and a BIG HOWEVER) that brings in a whole new ball of wax, such that the computer would have to automatically calculate where you could move that the supply would be paid for. This isn't a problem if a corps has to forage since each spot on the entire map has a forage point value. ALSO, now the computer has to take into account which depot you want to use (should it pick automatically or should you somehow be allowed to set a priority, etc, etc...) AND the computer has to now make sure that you do not remove that depot.

All of this can ALSO be gotten around simply by letting the computer choose which two corps "virtually" moved to the spot first, since the first has no penalty, the second -1 penalty and the others -2 penalty (I believe I remember correctly). The PROBLEM here is that how many of us want to trust the computer to do this? NOT ME!! I don't want the computer picking my calvary to move last.. OR DO I? What about guard corps?

Bottom line is that it's too situational and player dependent to implement this, it's simply is not cost effective from a development standpoint in my opinion.

THEN, there are those things Jimmer has mentioned, but I still believe the above reasons to be the primary reasons.

So you see, it has NOTHING to do with movement has you mention in your post and EVERYTHING to do with paying for supply.

[RayKinStL]

ORIGINAL: Jimmer

You can forage the first corps at an advantage (unless the enemy already has 2 or more corps present).

I don't think that's the real problem, though. The real problem is most likely that the presence of a corps is noted in the database for the land area (or city). So, there's no construct that has "Nappy's Grande Armee" (the 6 corps with Nappy), for instance. It would have to be coded.

However, it should be possible. But, despite that, there's another problem: One almost never moves an entire stack of corps. So, the feature would only very rarely get used.

Now, IF there were a pop-up for stack movement (for land OR naval) that let you pick and choose the corps you want to move, that would solve this problem. But, coding that might not be trivial.

A pop-up should not be necessary. And when I say stack movement, I don't necessarily mean every corps in a stack. The feature I would like to see most could apply to Naval and Land. Image this is how it works....

When looking at the screen, you select the land area with the corps in it. In the window that shows the corps occupying that area, you could then click on the corps you would like to move together. So let's say I am in Paris. Let's say the 1st through the 10th are full, as well as all4 cavalry, and the Guard. After declaring war on Austria, I want to send a force there. I click on Paris. I see all the forces. I click on the I and it highlights green. I do the same for the II, which also highlights green. I do this for the III, IV, IC, IIC, and Guard. Now I see 7 of my corps are highlighted with a green border. When I click on "Metz", the program moves the corps IN THE ORDER I clicked on them. Now on the screen, I simply see the entire stack move. However, in the background, the I completes it's movement. Then the II. Then the III. The IV. The IC. The IIC. And finally the Guard.

Nothing has changed about how the game calculates anything. The corps still technically moved one at a time, but I just saved a minute from having to click on each of the individual corps I want to move. Is a minute a lot of time? No. But when I am doing this every turn, and flying through turns as quickly as possible, it adds up. All you would need to program is a multi-select feature, which already exists somewhat, because when you buy re-inforcement corps, you can select multiple corps that were purchased (or leaders, fleets, etc..), rather than having to select those one at a time. Since they obviously know how to program a multi select already, you simply make a rule, which is stated in your handbook, that multi-selecting corps for combined movement will move the corps one by one in the order they were highlighted. Now of course this applies mostly to land forces and land movement, because mvoing like this in Naval could be detrimental, given the rules for interception. I agree that a true STACK movement, by the literal meaning of the phrase only makes sense for Naval, but when I say stack movement for land, I simply am discussing a way to streamline the interface for land movement and reduce clicking back and forth over and over, and thus wasted time. If it was understood that doing a multi-corp stack movement calculated moves based on individual corps moving the clicked spaces in the order of how the corps were highlighted, this should not be a hard programming issue which would greatly improve the interface and make the game much more enjoyable, in my opinion.

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Edfactor

Actually a stack movement option would be very nice.
You would move and forage with a couple corps first if you like - then pick up the rest of the stack and move them all - and it doesn't even matter if your paying for supply as then there would be no forage rolls anyway.

Yes, this might work but now how much time are we really saving vs. precious development time?

How big are your stacks going to be? 12 corps all moving together? This rarely happens, IMO. 6 corps is more the norm for the larger stacks, so then you are saving 3*(number of clicks to move) clicks. Not really all that advantageous.

[RayKinStL]

ORIGINAL: NeverMan

ORIGINAL: RayKinStL

ORIGINAL: NeverMan




Stack movement can not be used because of the way foraging works. There are forage penalties for a corps moving into and foraging in an area where other corps are already sitting and or moved to that turn.

There is no foraging for naval units hence allowing stack movement.

I understand that, but I still do not understand the problem. The game could certainly calculate all this if the player chose to move multiple corps through a land area. In other words, say I have the I II and III french corps. If I move all 3 together to Lille, or if I move I then II then III, what is the overall difference? The game will still calculate which corps moved through which areas. Movement points are still used up in the same way. How could moving one corps, as opposed to 3 or 8 or whatever number change the way the game calculates things, assuming the game is programmed to calculate a multicorp movement as individual stacks? In other words, the stack movement would be nothing more than window dressing. On the back end, the game could still move the corps individually, to maintain all existing rules, but on the interface, the player would see the ease of selecting multiple corps and moving them where ever they desired. Just because you are seeing multiple corps moved together, for the sake of time and convenience, doesn't mean the game has to CALCULATE the movement as a stack move.

I don't think you understand.

It's not about MOVEMENT, it's about FORAGING. Movement points could easily be gotten around BUT FORAGING (this means supplying the moving corps) would not be.

I suppose that if you knew you weren't going to forage any of those forces OR maybe if you choose to move as a stack you wouldn't have the option to forage any of those units, then that would be possible; HOWEVER (and a BIG HOWEVER) that brings in a whole new ball of wax, such that the computer would have to automatically calculate where you could move that the supply would be paid for. This isn't a problem if a corps has to forage since each spot on the entire map has a forage point value. ALSO, now the computer has to take into account which depot you want to use (should it pick automatically or should you somehow be allowed to set a priority, etc, etc...) AND the computer has to now make sure that you do not remove that depot.

All of this can ALSO be gotten around simply by letting the computer choose which two corps "virtually" moved to the spot first, since the first has no penalty, the second -1 penalty and the others -2 penalty (I believe I remember correctly). The PROBLEM here is that how many of us want to trust the computer to do this? NOT ME!! I don't want the computer picking my calvary to move last.. OR DO I? What about guard corps?

Bottom line is that it's too situational and player dependent to implement this, it's simply is not cost effective from a development standpoint in my opinion.

THEN, there are those things Jimmer has mentioned, but I still believe the above reasons to be the primary reasons.

So you see, it has NOTHING to do with movement has you mention in your post and EVERYTHING to do with paying for supply.

Read my reply to Jimmer (which I apparently opsted while you were replying to us, so you may have missed it). Simply coding the multi-select movement so that it calculates the moves individually, based on the order the corps were selected in, resolves all your issues, while still maintaining the clean interface of streamling large stack movements. Do you disagree with this?

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: RayKinStL

ORIGINAL: Jimmer

You can forage the first corps at an advantage (unless the enemy already has 2 or more corps present).

I don't think that's the real problem, though. The real problem is most likely that the presence of a corps is noted in the database for the land area (or city). So, there's no construct that has "Nappy's Grande Armee" (the 6 corps with Nappy), for instance. It would have to be coded.

However, it should be possible. But, despite that, there's another problem: One almost never moves an entire stack of corps. So, the feature would only very rarely get used.

Now, IF there were a pop-up for stack movement (for land OR naval) that let you pick and choose the corps you want to move, that would solve this problem. But, coding that might not be trivial.

A pop-up should not be necessary. And when I say stack movement, I don't necessarily mean every corps in a stack. The feature I would like to see most could apply to Naval and Land. Image this is how it works....

When looking at the screen, you select the land area with the corps in it. In the window that shows the corps occupying that area, you could then click on the corps you would like to move together. So let's say I am in Paris. Let's say the 1st through the 10th are full, as well as all4 cavalry, and the Guard. After declaring war on Austria, I want to send a force there. I click on Paris. I see all the forces. I click on the I and it highlights green. I do the same for the II, which also highlights green. I do this for the III, IV, IC, IIC, and Guard. Now I see 7 of my corps are highlighted with a green border. When I click on "Metz", the program moves the corps IN THE ORDER I clicked on them. Now on the screen, I simply see the entire stack move. However, in the background, the I completes it's movement. Then the II. Then the III. The IV. The IC. The IIC. And finally the Guard.

Nothing has changed about how the game calculates anything. The corps stillt echnically moved one at a time, but I just saved a minute from having to click on each of the individual corps I want to move. Is a minute a lot of time? No. But when I am doing this every turn, and flying through turns as quickly as possible, it adds up. All you would need to program is a multi-select feature, which already exists somewhat, because when you buy re-inforcement corps, you can select multiple corps that were purchased (or leaders, fleets, etc..), rather than having to select those one at a time. Since they obviously know how to program a multi select already, you simply make a rule, which is stated in your handbook, that multi-selecting corps for combined movement will move the corps one by one in the order they were highlighted. Now of course this applies mostly to land forces and land movement, because mvoing like this in Naval could be detrimental, given the rules for interception. I agree that a true STACK movement, by the literal meaning of the phrase only makes sense for Naval, but when I say stack movement for land, I simply am discussing a way to streamline the interface for land movement and reduce clicking back and forth over and over, and thus wasted time. If it was understood that doing a multi-corp stack movement calculated moves based on individual corps moving the clicked spaces in the order of how the corps were highlighted, this should not be a hard programming issue which would greatly improve the interface and make the game much more enjoyable, in my opinion.

You still have to click on every corps "in the box" once, so you are only saving time on the back end of the move. It's hardly a minute, it's more like 5-10 seconds. It's really not worth the development time.

If this game was perfect and Marshall still wanted to tweak some stuff, then I would probably agree with you, but there is still so much wrong with this game that 5-10 second speedup ONLY when you are moving large stacks from one place to another place just doesn't seem worth it to me.

[Marshall Ellis]

You mean it's not perfect, Neverman? LOL!
 
I must agree with Neverman that this would save little for you and cost me a lot of dev cycles. There are much bigger fish to fry before we get to this.

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: RayKinStL


Read my reply to Jimmer (which I apparently opsted while you were replying to us, so you may have missed it). Simply coding the multi-select movement so that it calculates the moves individually, based on the order the corps were selected in, resolves all your issues, while still maintaining the clean interface of streamling large stack movements. Do you disagree with this?

I agree that the concept would resolve most of the issues, I disagree that it is a simple task.

Currently there is an "undo move" button. Now Marshall has to keep track of each corps and it's order. He also has to be able to change the order in case you decided that the 2nd corps you moved with the stack wasn't suppose to move with the stack, or the 1st corps or the 1st and 3rd corps.

Ultimately, this is Marshall's decision AND it largely depends on how this thing is designed. So far, it has appeared that is doesn't have a very object-oriented/abstract design, so I'm not sure how easy this is going to be.

Marshall: LOL. It's not that I mean to come across harsh, I just do. Besides, you, I and most everyone here realizes this, but it's coming along and honestly I haven't checked out 1.03 yet. I will be more excited to see some seriuos PBEM streamlining.

[RayKinStL]

ORIGINAL: NeverMan

ORIGINAL: RayKinStL

ORIGINAL: Jimmer

You can forage the first corps at an advantage (unless the enemy already has 2 or more corps present).

I don't think that's the real problem, though. The real problem is most likely that the presence of a corps is noted in the database for the land area (or city). So, there's no construct that has "Nappy's Grande Armee" (the 6 corps with Nappy), for instance. It would have to be coded.

However, it should be possible. But, despite that, there's another problem: One almost never moves an entire stack of corps. So, the feature would only very rarely get used.

Now, IF there were a pop-up for stack movement (for land OR naval) that let you pick and choose the corps you want to move, that would solve this problem. But, coding that might not be trivial.

A pop-up should not be necessary. And when I say stack movement, I don't necessarily mean every corps in a stack. The feature I would like to see most could apply to Naval and Land. Image this is how it works....

When looking at the screen, you select the land area with the corps in it. In the window that shows the corps occupying that area, you could then click on the corps you would like to move together. So let's say I am in Paris. Let's say the 1st through the 10th are full, as well as all4 cavalry, and the Guard. After declaring war on Austria, I want to send a force there. I click on Paris. I see all the forces. I click on the I and it highlights green. I do the same for the II, which also highlights green. I do this for the III, IV, IC, IIC, and Guard. Now I see 7 of my corps are highlighted with a green border. When I click on "Metz", the program moves the corps IN THE ORDER I clicked on them. Now on the screen, I simply see the entire stack move. However, in the background, the I completes it's movement. Then the II. Then the III. The IV. The IC. The IIC. And finally the Guard.

Nothing has changed about how the game calculates anything. The corps stillt echnically moved one at a time, but I just saved a minute from having to click on each of the individual corps I want to move. Is a minute a lot of time? No. But when I am doing this every turn, and flying through turns as quickly as possible, it adds up. All you would need to program is a multi-select feature, which already exists somewhat, because when you buy re-inforcement corps, you can select multiple corps that were purchased (or leaders, fleets, etc..), rather than having to select those one at a time. Since they obviously know how to program a multi select already, you simply make a rule, which is stated in your handbook, that multi-selecting corps for combined movement will move the corps one by one in the order they were highlighted. Now of course this applies mostly to land forces and land movement, because mvoing like this in Naval could be detrimental, given the rules for interception. I agree that a true STACK movement, by the literal meaning of the phrase only makes sense for Naval, but when I say stack movement for land, I simply am discussing a way to streamline the interface for land movement and reduce clicking back and forth over and over, and thus wasted time. If it was understood that doing a multi-corp stack movement calculated moves based on individual corps moving the clicked spaces in the order of how the corps were highlighted, this should not be a hard programming issue which would greatly improve the interface and make the game much more enjoyable, in my opinion.

You still have to click on every corps "in the box" once, so you are only saving time on the back end of the move. It's hardly a minute, it's more like 5-10 seconds. It's really not worth the development time.

If this game was perfect and Marshall still wanted to tweak some stuff, then I would probably agree with you, but there is still so much wrong with this game that 5-10 second speedup ONLY when you are moving large stacks from one place to another place just doesn't seem worth it to me.

I disagree, and I will go back to my example. In your scenario, I click on Paris, clcik on the first corps, click on Metz. The I go back (or right click), click on Paris, click on the II, click on Metz. Rinse and repeat. I am constantly going back and forth.

In my scenario, I click on Paris, I click on all the corps, which are right next to each other so it's like bam bam bam, and then I click on Metz...movement done.

If you don't like the idea, then that is fine. You are entitled to your opinion. To me, after playing 5-6 full campaign games against the computer, I have found this to be the most annoying feature of the game...to the point that it is almost not fun to play it! If it were up to me, this would be a high priority item. That is my opinion and I am entitled to it. I don't mind friendly discussion, but I get a bit peeved when someone is so egotistical as to think their opinion is superior to mine. To me this is a major issue. Further, it would not be a major programming issue as it is mostly cosmetic. Everything still gets calculated the same way, provided rules are in place (such as the order corps are clicked moving in said order). It simply streamlines the way the game is played. Land movement is by far the most tedious part of the game, as well it should be, and streamlining it with the suggestions I have made should not be hard to implement. If you don't like the idea, then I welcome your opinion, but please do not tell me it is not doable. Anything can be accomplished with some ingenuity. And beign that most of the pieces are already in place and that such a feature would be mostly cosmetic, not really affecting HOW the game plays, any fierce opposition to the idea seems silly to me.

[NeverMan]

Ray,

Yes, you stated your opinion. I disagreed and stated mine. Not sure where the ego was in that. Sorry if disagreeing with you makes me an egomaniac. Would it be less aggressive if I put "IMO" behind every sentence?

I understand your position, I also find it annoying, I just don't think that's it's a high priority. It's MY OPINION. It's really up to the developers (Marshall) what to do, not me.

Maybe it doesn't bother me as much since I don't play against the AI anymore and just play PBEM games.

[RayKinStL]

Marshall,

Here is the last I will say on this issue.  And this is in no way meant to be snotty, or snide, or anything else.  The simple fact is, I played this game in high school with a group of friends and loved it (as did they).  This (the computer version) should be a welcomed addition to the series.  Rule variations and lack of IP support aside, I would currently not recommend this game to any of my friends, certainly not at the 60$-70$ price point it currently goes at.  My main reason for not recommending it would be that, while I enjoy the game itself, I do not enjoy the interface.  This is not a jab at you.  I understand the enormity of the task you undertook in attempting to convert a very complex board game to a PC platform.  However, when play the game, I find myself so bored and annoyed with clicking on the SAME areas back and forth, simply to move a stack of 6-8 corps together, that I question if it is really worth it.  Unfortunately, at this point, I have paid the money, so I play it mostly to get my money's worth out of the game.  The fact is, the interface is so unintuitive, it literally pulls you away from the enjoyment of the game.  Rather than being excited to take a full stack of French corps up against the monster stack of the Austrians, I find that by the time I have clicked back and forth and moved everything in place, I am happy just to be done with moving everything.  I know there is a ton on your plate and that tweaks and fixes are always popping up.  I am simply tellnig you that form the perspective of someone NEW to your game, someone who paid the full price to play it, this is the biggest issue I have with it.  You can take that opinion for what you will.

And to Neverman, keeping track of what a person has clicked on and in what order is not a hard thing to store.  Once again, I will certainly value your opinion that you believe there are more pressing matters.  I don't argue this point as it is your opinion.  Yes it is one I disagree with, but that is OK.  In my opinion, spending another second on PBEM is a total waste of time and IP play would be a much more productive use of it (even if such a feature took 3-4 months to fully code and implement). But that is why we call them opinions.  But to say that my idea would be hard to implement seems ludicrous to me, since it is all cosmetic and easy to keep track of, since it is all user input.  So unless this game is coded in some backwards fashion that user input can't be stored, and then discarded when it is no longer needed, implements a multi-corp movement feature should really not be that tough.

Anyway, that is my 2 cents on the subject.  I have said what I needed to say.  I stated my case, with examples, and at the very least I hope what I propose makes sense.  I don't expect anyone to agree with me that it is necessary.  But coming from someon who has gone home and loaded this game up almost everyday since he has had it, I can tell you what has bothered me most.  And that would be the land movement interface.

[Marshall Ellis]

Ray:
 
I don't think anyone is fiercley opposed. I'm just letting you know what I think as well. I can say that you're not saving a lot of clicks here. If I were to spend a lot of time on this code then other more vital parts of the engine would get neglected and I just cannot have that right now so while I will save your idea, I just don't want to set the expectation that this will be in the next release or 2.
 
 

[RayKinStL]

I don't expect it in the next relese or two.  Honeslty it will probably never get implemented.  And in all fairness, by the time it did(months down the line ) I would probably have moved on to something else.  I just simply don't see the point to making PBEM the priority.  This can already be experienced through groups on yahoo or google for free.  In all honesty, now that I have gotten a feel for the game and how it plays again, if I were to join a game, it would most likely be through a yahoo or google group.  Part of that would be to use the classic EiA rules, but also because I don't think the interface adds all that much to increasing the PBEM experience from what you could get through an internet group.

I think where this game would flourish would be IP play and a much improved AI that would allow people to play competitve games against a competent computer opponent.  However, these are not my decisions to make, and so for now I mostly use your game just to refamiliarize myself with all the rules and the nuances of depot supply, movement points, foraging etc.  I truly do applaud your efforts in making a PC version of the game, but I just simply disagree with how precious time is being spent on improving the experience of owning the Matrix version of EiA.

[Marshall Ellis]

RayKinStl:
 
I hear and respect what you're saying. My PBEM experience with this game is quite extensive over the past few years and I think this helps a lot over the Cyberboard stuff that I have played. It sure beats manual supply calculation and manual combat. There tends to be too much interpretation of the rules and arguing. This has taken that out. Everybody plays by the same interpretation (whether you like it or not ). As far as IP? I'm definitely not opposed and I think interests in this is increasing.
 
Anyway I hope your experience gets better and please keep your ideas coming because I am not fiercely opposed to them, I only help prioritize them. Frankly, most of the enhancements come from you guys!
 
 
 
 

[RayKinStL]

Thank you Marshall.  I certainly appreciate your respectulf reply.  The thing is, I simply am looking at things from the Matrix perspective.  I want EiA to succeed.  I want it to get popular and more people to come back to the game.  And of course, from a business standpoint, you want to do that as well so you sell more copies.  The problem with tackling the PBEM market is that you are concentrating all your efforts on a very  small niche.  That nniche is the market share who play PBEM games, like EiA, and are willing to pay money for a more managable streamlined interface.  In that regard I believe you have somewhat succeeded.  Except for teh lack of original EiA rules as an option (which you said is coming), this is superior to cyberboard play for the most part.  That said, I think you are targeting the wrong market.  With a strong AI, you cuold bring in new players who would get a challenge from the computer, and thus a level of competence that the rest of us attained from getting our teeth smashed in for 1-2 full campaign games in someones basement for 2 hours a week.  I think the true potential in this game is that you can severely reduce the time input for the learning curve.  I can get through a whole Grand Campaign game in a weekend against the AI.  If you put 2 or 3 of these under your belt, against competent AI, you re reayd to jump ni the pool with the big boys.  As is stands, beating the AI right now doesn't mean much.  Most of my PP and thus VP is attained from careless AI moves or inactivity and indifference.  I think if you had a truly worthy AI that could teach new players the nuances of the game, then the natural progression would be IP play which could potentially create a whole new community of EiA players.  As it stands now, you are mostly limiting yourself to getting current PBEM players, and a few nostalgic ones to try your game and realize it only offers a little more over traditional PBEM play.
 
Sadly though, I fear it may be too late to change the course.  I believe you are hunkered in for the fight.  You have committed so much time and resources already to making PBEM the ebst it can be, that I don't know when you will be able to truly point your efforts elsewhere.  I just think there are bigger prizes out there, but it would require a shift in strategic thinking at Matrix as far as how and where to apply the limited reources available.
 
And although thats a lot to say and comes off more negative than I intend it, I really do applaud your hard work.  You are always courteous and professional on here.  You work diligently to resolve issues and bugs submitted through the Mantis tracker.  I don't doubt your efforts for one second.  I just fear that every day that goes by fixing problems on an area that should, in my opinion, not be your focus is jsut another day wasted.  But we shall see what the future holds.
 
P.S. - Sorry for the business jargon in the first paragraph.  That was the MIS degree coming out of me.

[NeverMan]

My two cents: (because I can)

1. There are many here, very much so including myself, who would love to see Internet play.
2. While the major drawback to EiANW is the "modified" ruleset, I do think it provides somewhat have an enhancement (at least on the bookkeeping side) over Cyberboard or VASSAL.
3. Personally, I just don't think the AI is ever going to be "good enough" to be a challenge to anyone who has any real experience playing this game (ftf or pbem with human players).

On top of all that, minus a few clicks now and again really doesn't enhance the AI or solo play all that much, IMO. I can get through a Grand Campaign game against the AI in ~4 hours as is.

[Marshall Ellis]

ORIGINAL: RayKinStL

Thank you Marshall.  I certainly appreciate your respectulf reply.  The thing is, I simply am looking at things from the Matrix perspective.  I want EiA to succeed.  I want it to get popular and more people to come back to the game.  And of course, from a business standpoint, you want to do that as well so you sell more copies.  The problem with tackling the PBEM market is that you are concentrating all your efforts on a very  small niche.  That nniche is the market share who play PBEM games, like EiA, and are willing to pay money for a more managable streamlined interface.  In that regard I believe you have somewhat succeeded.  Except for teh lack of original EiA rules as an option (which you said is coming), this is superior to cyberboard play for the most part.  That said, I think you are targeting the wrong market.  With a strong AI, you cuold bring in new players who would get a challenge from the computer, and thus a level of competence that the rest of us attained from getting our teeth smashed in for 1-2 full campaign games in someones basement for 2 hours a week.  I think the true potential in this game is that you can severely reduce the time input for the learning curve.  I can get through a whole Grand Campaign game in a weekend against the AI.  If you put 2 or 3 of these under your belt, against competent AI, you re reayd to jump ni the pool with the big boys.  As is stands, beating the AI right now doesn't mean much.  Most of my PP and thus VP is attained from careless AI moves or inactivity and indifference.  I think if you had a truly worthy AI that could teach new players the nuances of the game, then the natural progression would be IP play which could potentially create a whole new community of EiA players.  As it stands now, you are mostly limiting yourself to getting current PBEM players, and a few nostalgic ones to try your game and realize it only offers a little more over traditional PBEM play.

Sadly though, I fear it may be too late to change the course.  I believe you are hunkered in for the fight.  You have committed so much time and resources already to making PBEM the ebst it can be, that I don't know when you will be able to truly point your efforts elsewhere.  I just think there are bigger prizes out there, but it would require a shift in strategic thinking at Matrix as far as how and where to apply the limited reources available.

And although thats a lot to say and comes off more negative than I intend it, I really do applaud your hard work.  You are always courteous and professional on here.  You work diligently to resolve issues and bugs submitted through the Mantis tracker.  I don't doubt your efforts for one second.  I just fear that every day that goes by fixing problems on an area that should, in my opinion, not be your focus is jsut another day wasted.  But we shall see what the future holds.

P.S. - Sorry for the business jargon in the first paragraph.  That was the MIS degree coming out of me.

Ray:

Appreciate the input! Good stuff indeed. EiANW will succeed because my measure of success will not come from how much it sold but from my personal satisfaction of adding to this thing (Funny thing is that I don't even know how many have sold already LOL). It's an extremely configurable engine that will be around for a long time and it will only get better and better. I'll be with this thing for a long time (Actually, I already have )

I'm intrigued by your assessment of the niche market of the PBEM players??? I think this situation is a little different. I believe that PBEM is a small niche of computer gaming BUT in my exploration of the EiA community, I still in fact believe that PBEM has a larger user number than IP (EiA seems to have a huge PBEM community in comparison to other games). Keep in mind that this is not a vote from me in favor of or against IP but simply an observation that I have seen myself for several years. Much of this comes from the fact that most players in the PBEM community are from around the world and would rarely be in front of the keyboard at the same time thus making IP a little tricky. I actually believe that eventually we will arrive at IP at some point. I'm not opposed or dug in for the fight on this and in fact some of the code is already in the current engine and I would love the challenge.

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: NeverMan
You still have to click on every corps "in the box" once, so you are only saving time on the back end of the move. It's hardly a minute, it's more like 5-10 seconds. It's really not worth the development time.

If this game was perfect and Marshall still wanted to tweak some stuff, then I would probably agree with you, but there is still so much wrong with this game that 5-10 second speedup ONLY when you are moving large stacks from one place to another place just doesn't seem worth it to me.

No, this is incorrect. You don't just click once on each corps. After every move of a single corps, you must right-click to clear the rest of the movement, and then click the pile in the other location. Finally, unless the one you want happens to be on top of the stack, you have to find the right corps and click it. Only then can you move the next corps.

IMO, this qualifies at tedium. However, I'm in agreement with you that it is only worth development time (now) if the development cycle is really short. Otherwise, many other things have higher priority.

[Dancing Bear]

I think it is time for a few PBEM enhancements this round. Major AI enhancements can come next time when everyone has had a go with the new version and all can comment.
 
 

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Jimmer

ORIGINAL: NeverMan
You still have to click on every corps "in the box" once, so you are only saving time on the back end of the move. It's hardly a minute, it's more like 5-10 seconds. It's really not worth the development time.

If this game was perfect and Marshall still wanted to tweak some stuff, then I would probably agree with you, but there is still so much wrong with this game that 5-10 second speedup ONLY when you are moving large stacks from one place to another place just doesn't seem worth it to me.

No, this is incorrect. You don't just click once on each corps. After every move of a single corps, you must right-click to clear the rest of the movement, and then click the pile in the other location. Finally, unless the one you want happens to be on top of the stack, you have to find the right corps and click it. Only then can you move the next corps.

IMO, this qualifies at tedium. However, I'm in agreement with you that it is only worth development time (now) if the development cycle is really short. Otherwise, many other things have higher priority.

Sorry, I didn't break it down for you. Oh, and you have to breath in and breath out, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah..

The fact is that in a PBEM game it's not that annoying. I can see in an AI game that it is.

All said and done I don't think it's a high priority, JMO.