Matrix Games Forums

When I played the Allies, the Belgian Arrmoured Car unit started in Antwerp and the Garrison in Liege. When I played the CP it was the other way around? Is that a "bug" or is that as intended?

The Russians on that level are a BEAR, and I am not trying to be funny-though it help..

The lack of an undo button is surely to model the idea that the British allowed most of their trained staff officers to rejoin their regiments - poor staff work...units head east instead of west! There is the same issue in DC:CB - but it is still my (staff's) fault when I misclick!

Allow the UNDO button to work in PURCHASING and RESEARCH also.

Also, tone down the Serbs. They are too powerful.

Dont allow undo button - encourages "exploring" aka cheating. In CEaW, there is no undo button - works very well.

An undo button, with the option to not allow it in multi-player. Wouldn't that be the absolute ideal ?

Bought the game last week. Finally sat down and played over the weekend. Played all the way through the 1914 - 1918 campaign game as the Central Powers (Germans, Austrians, Turks, Bulgarians) and managed a minor victory. Overall impression…Great Game. Lots of twists and turns and numerous moments of panic against the AI. Just when I think I have things stabilized ion the Eastern Front – Italy enters the War – or Romania enters the War – or the AI manages a breakthrough on the Western Front. It all kept me hoping around from crisis to crisis resulting in a “can’t put down the lap top experience”. I finished the grand campaign at about 2AM last night. Tough getting up this morning to drag my arse into work.

The AI actually works pretty well. Which I suppose is partly a function of the static nature of the War. But it seemed to be well scripted and pretty adapt at applying game mechanics – logical applications of combined arms attacks (infantry+armor+artillery+air; relief in-place of disrupted\depleted units -- counterattacking breakthroughs -- and etc.). The AI also executed a few interesting scripting surprises such as coordination of the UK offensive thru the Gaza Line along with the Arab Revolt coming up thru Medina. The AI Completely shattered my Turkish Line around Gaza and then Advanced up into Palestine and Syria. But then the AI stopped after Capping Jerusalem and Damascus. Why doenst the UK continue to Advance into Turkey?

I really liked how the game automatically reminds you to have a look at the Turkish Front. I kept forgetting to go down there during my turn. When you hit end turn, if you haven't touched any Turks, a warning note pops up telling you that you forgot to move your Turks.

Things I would have liked or things I think would have made the game just a tad better:

1) As others have indicated above – an “UNDO” command for moves which haven’t resulted in any sort of intell being gained. This isn’t critical, but I did make a couple of bad mouse clicks during the game.

2) As somebody else indicated above, the use of Gray for the Russians is tough on my eyes. I started with the 3D art unit representations (the 3D art is very well done). However, because I'm an old fashioned (old-fart) wargamer, I quickly switched to NATO symbols. Nice to have the option to use either. It was occasionally difficult to tell the difference between German Units and Russian units. I accidentally attacked a Russian unit that I thought was a German. I was looking at a number of units and their relative condition and had selected a friendly Bulgarian unit whos strength was "in the Red". I than clicked on what I thought was an adjacent German infantry unit only to have the Bulgarian unit attack. Because it was in the red, it was wiped out during the attack. Ouch.

3) As with above but less critical, it seemed like the UK units, Portuguese Units and Italian units color palate is very close to each other. Not a huge deal.

4) Air bombardment – both from fighters and bomber air units -- seems overly effective at reducing the strength of enemy units. I guess I’d be more inclined to see the strength loss effects reduced, but keep the “disruption” effects (not sure “disruption" is the right game nomenclature – but when a units strength points go from white – to yellow – to red).

Aside from the minor complaints above, Great Job with “Commander, The Great War”! It’s not a game of Blitzkrieg – so be prepared for a long slugfest. But it really felt like a strategic level portrait of WWI. On the other hand it didn’t feel overly ponderous or overwhelming or boring. I'm always worried about WWI wargames being overly boring because of the static nature of combat on the Western Front.

GTGW is a great mixture of wargaming fun and historical simulation. It's fun, but not over the top beer and pretzels. Perhaps a tad more complex than Panzer Corps. It was like a good book that I just could not put down until I got to the end.

Thanks a lot for the feedback jwduquette. Just a quick note; you refer to a lot of 'scripted' AI. In the usual sense of the word, very little of the AI behaviour is 'scripted', it is (almost) entirely dynamic. If you completely changed the map and the nations involved, the AI would adapt to this new situation.

ORIGINAL: warspite1

When I played the Allies, the Belgian Arrmoured Car unit started in Antwerp and the Garrison in Liege. When I played the CP it was the other way around? Is that a "bug" or is that as intended?

Warspite1

Does anyone know the answer to this?

Warspite... I have always had the Armoured Car in Antwerp regardless of side... I will try and start a few games for each side to investigate. Maybe there are some alternate set-ups it randomizes?

There are no random starting positions. Was this on the turn Germany entered the war? Or did the AI have a change to change the unit positions?

ORIGINAL: Lukas

There are no random starting positions. Was this on the turn Germany entered the war? Or did the AI have a change to change the unit positions?

warspite1

I will check and let you know, but from memory it was the first turn when Germany attacked.

Edit: Checked and it appears the start positions are the same - apologies [&:] My eyes must be playing tricks on me in my frail dotage....

I was able to "swap" an Armored Train off the railroad tracks with an infantry unit in clear terrain. Next turn I swapped the train back onto the tracks by using another adjacent unit on a railroad. I expect this needs fixing. [:D]

Minor low priority QOL

Have a double click on the savegame filename open it.

I'm so used to that in windows, I keep doing it, then it gets a DOH! and I hit launch.

ORIGINAL: wodin

After reading warpsites excellent AAR it seems the German Army could do with some beefing up. Having heard people struggle from the CP point of views aswell it probably isn't an AI issue. I think it may need looking at. Not sure what it is but I feel it needs abi more work somehwere to make it play like WW1 rather than a mix of WW1 and WW2 which is how it felt not long into Warspiets AAR.

I got caned by the Central Powers AI quite a few times! I could of course just suck.

I'm in a game now up to 1918 as the Entente and the CPs have conquered Russia and Serbia. The British took all of the Ottoman Empire up to Erzerum after a successful Gallipoli landing in 1916 took Constantinople, but then Russia surrendered and the Germans promptly Kaiserschlacht'd them all the way back to Gaza and the Ottomans are back in the war. There will be no Americans harmed in this Great War as the Entente assiduously torpedoing every Swedish convoy just outside Konigsberg has annoyed them.

The Italians have Trieste and Trento though they are under heavy pressure and required French reinforcement, and the Entente is advancing on the Western Front under a deluge of artillery and bombs, I'm up to the Ruhr now. If there was any error from the AI it was liberating the Ottomans at the expense of the Western Front, but that's splitting hairs really, and it may still have been the correct thing to do.

I think the CPs have made a pretty good fist of it though and the Entente may be stopped yet. Looks like everybody is scraping the bottom of the manpower pools now. So the AI looks pretty good to me, with the 'I may suck' caveat. [:'(] This game isn't including the successful German Schlieffen Plans it has managed to achieve against me. [:(] They were quick games...

Tried 2 games as entente and got my a** kicked two times.
First time I had no problem taking belgium and sacrificed my fleet to stop english convoys to france but had made no advance in Serbia before I got streamrolled by Russia, second time was the other way around, managed to almost take Serbia when I got streamrolled I did try to garnison city in germany but it didn't work (Konigsberg is the only one that held).

When the game starts it says that Russia needs time to mobilize, looks like it doesn't *grins* it has like 10 times the amount of troops I have. But that's not really the problem imho, the problem is the way russian troops can easily use infrastructure and go by train to berlin in a few turns. Even by putting garnison in every city the Russian troops move too fast and can just gang on each city one by one. I'd like to see some movement penalty for russian troops (or have their troops start very far from the front without any trains at disposal) which would ensure a slower entrance in war.

Also it seems Russian troops are better than germans (they usually can move and destroy my troops in the same turn with just 2-3 of their units even if I'm entranched for a couple of turns)

Of course it's only first two play run but I'm not a "blitzkrieg" player so I would definitely like a few more turns before having to face Russia

ORIGINAL: SA_Avenger

Tried 2 games as entente and got my a** kicked two times.
First time I had no problem taking belgium and sacrificed my fleet to stop english convoys to france but had made no advance in Serbia before I got streamrolled by Russia, second time was the other way around, managed to almost take Serbia when I got streamrolled I did try to garnison city in germany but it didn't work (Konigsberg is the only one that held).

When the game starts it says that Russia needs time to mobilize, looks like it doesn't *grins* it has like 10 times the amount of troops I have. But that's not really the problem imho, the problem is the way russian troops can easily use infrastructure and go by train to berlin in a few turns. Even by putting garnison in every city the Russian troops move too fast and can just gang on each city one by one. I'd like to see some movement penalty for russian troops (or have their troops start very far from the front without any trains at disposal) which would ensure a slower entrance in war.

Also it seems Russian troops are better than germans (they usually can move and destroy my troops in the same turn with just 2-3 of their units even if I'm entranched for a couple of turns)

Of course it's only first two play run but I'm not a "blitzkrieg" player so I would definitely like a few more turns before having to face Russia

I too have some concerns about how well the Russians perform. One problem is that it's damned difficult to design a game where history can replicate itself, when so much of what actually happened was determined by "soft" factors like leadership, personality, psychology, and chance. I do agree that the Russians seem to move too fast and too flexibly, with too few restrictions, but I cannot quantify that, nor can I specifically give a suggested fix, as I'm not 100% sure there is a problem. I could just be terrible as the Germans. On the one hand, it would seem logical to make the Russians less mobile and less durable; give them good starting power but make replacements and upgrades more expensive, and perhaps cut their movement by a fraction. The problem then though would be you might make them totally incapable of posing a threat to Germany, and the Germans were very concerned about the Russians--indeed, for a while in 1914 the Russians moved pretty expeditiously into East Prussia.

At the scale of this game, it's hard to balance these things. The way things are now is pretty good. I think maybe a few tweaks to rail movement and the ability of the Russians (or anyone else) to move rapidly with infantry forces deep into enemy territory might help. In France it doesn't matter much, as the distances are so short. In the East, it does matter, but you still need to have the possibility of grand routs too.

Russia doesn't start with the 'Industrial Warfare' tech, so their troops actually start with significantly lower stats than their German opponents. They quickly develop industrial warfare, which closes the gap significantly, but the Germans should (with no labs being bought on either side) stay one step ahead of the Russians.

Just to be sure - are you playing on Handicapped AI?

ORIGINAL: Myrddraal

Russia doesn't start with the 'Industrial Warfare' tech, so their troops actually start with significantly lower stats than their German opponents. They quickly develop industrial warfare, which closes the gap significantly, but the Germans should (with no labs being bought on either side) stay one step ahead of the Russians.

Just to be sure - are you playing on Handicapped AI?

I play on Balanced. But damn, the Russians sure show up fast, and if I don't keep a 100% full line of units, they pour through the gaps. There are precious few units to go around, too, even if I abandon the coastal fortresses, which I don't like to do. Again, I am definitely not saying there's a flaw in the game, just that it appears to me that the Russians are more mobile and effective than I guessed they would be. Part of it is I have no idea how, as the Germans, to stop them effectively in the long term. I've held the line into 1916 only to have them grind a hole through it and capture Germany's Baltic ports like Stettin, driving deep into German lines with speedy infantry dudes.

Part of it is I am sure I'm not pressing them hard enough early on, but then, I haven't figure out how to free up enough resources to do that while simultaneously holding the line in France, where the seemingly endless flow of Entente troops makes having a double line imperative. And then of course the freakin' Italians come in and drive to Munich on a Sunday outing....

But again, there's a good chance that I need to figure out the magic trick here....

playing on balanced as well and me too my problem is to actually be able to field anything to be able to slow them down. If you field north they'll take vienna and encircle you if you field most cities they can take one by one. The speed might be a problem but then it's "same" for everyone I suppose (but then do they have more trains ability I do not know, haven't had time to try allies yet). The amount of troops is sure a problem as well, they can surround 3 cities without problem in early game which is more than you an entente player could do even if it doesn't go on the offensive in the west.
The problem is I think germany has much more need for its resources than Russia and maybe that's why a player has so much trouble keeping the edge (at least in 1916 it didn't feel like I had any edge at all) maybe a small bonus to germany could actually balance it out rather than nerf Russia but which? munition per turn more or a couple PP? I actually have no clue either but it sure feels that when Russia is coming you want to be able to create a front even a weaker one. Right now it feels like you are playing on hard or that it's too fast paced. Again it may just be I'm not experienced enough but then I sure look forward to the fix to difficulty setting *grins* and it might not be the best welcome for new players to feel powerless (not just newbie )
I'll try to give a try at the allies and see what Russia really have so I could better see the difference