Good Or Bad 1.40 Open Beta Patch ?

[Orm]

Maybe the Belgian units can have zero movement points during their first turn? So that their positions are fixed until after the second German move?

[Orm]

To me it feels like the battleships are to strong in comparison to the cruisers.

I just had a cruiser, that was in home waters, annihilated by two enemy battleships without making even one point of damage to any of the battleships. To me that feels just wrong. The battleships sailed around the cruiser to block its path back to the harbour as well so that even if it survived it had no where to flee. Blockading a enemy port that close should incur some sort of penalty.

[Hellfirejet]

I tried just before the patch was launched,to increased the port defence,so that even if enemy Battleships,that tried to blockade a Cruiser in a home port hex,then it would be the Battleships that would take most damage.I have been stressing since this game was released,that home ports should be safe havens for your ships,not sometimes but ALWAYS! This is not the Napoleonic wars for pete's sake,close blockades should not be possible at any time no way.

As for Battleships being to strong for Cruiser's,this is not by accident,it is meant to be.Battleships of this era were not called Dreadnought's just because the name sounded good,it was because they could kick ass big time,so please don't attack Battleships with Cruiser's.The only time it pretty safe to attack a Battleship with a Cruiser,is if the Battleship has been severely damaged,and is attempting to escape.

The Naval Attack options are:

Battleship v Battleship,Cruiser,Submarine,Transport & Convoy.

Cruiser V Cruiser,Submarine,Transport & Convoy.

Submarine V Cruiser,Transport & Convoy.

Stick to these guidelines,for Naval Combat.

NB: At this time I can do nothing with the Naval AI its NUTS![:D]

[Orm]

I agree with you that battleships should beat cruisers easily but my point is that this should not be automatic when the cruisers is in the ports home water (green dot). The battleships should suffer from the minefield and such protecting this area.

In my game I sailed with the Russian battleship and cruiser to attack a German cruiser that was in one of the green dot hexes that marks Russian home waters. Germany then sailed two battleships in behind the Russian ships and their home port thus blocking the Russian ships way back to their port and then sunk the cruiser for no damage. The Russian battleship still survives but is still stopped from returning to port. So I suppose I will get back later on how that battle ends.

Edit: I dislike that submarines can damage, and sink, ships that are in port for repairs. They should not be able to make that attack at all or at least suffer heavy damage when doing so.

[stockwellpete]

ORIGINAL: Orm

Maybe the Belgian units can have zero movement points during their first turn? So that their positions are fixed until after the second German move?

Some extracts about Belgium in WW1 from Wikipedia . . .

Belgium was not officially one of the Allies. In turn they did not consult with Belgium, but Britain, France and Russia in 1916 formally pledged in 1916 that "when the moment comes, the Belgian government will be called to participate in the peace negotiations and that they will not put an end to the hostilities unless Belgium is re-established in its political and economic independence and largely indemnified for the damage which she has undergone. They will lend their aid to Belgium to assure her commercial and financial rehabilitation."

Belgium was poorly prepared for war. Strict neutrality meant there was no coordination of any kind with anyone. It had a new, inexperienced general staff. It started compulsory service in 1909; the plan was to have an army of 340,000 men by 1926. In 1914 the old system had been abandoned and the new one was unready, lacking trained officers and sergeants, as well as modern equipment. The army had 102 machine guns and no heavy artillery. The strategy was to concentrate near Brussels and delay a German invasion as long as possible—a strategy that in the event proved highly effective as it disrupted the German timetable. For example, the German timetable required the capture of the railway centre of Liège in two days; it took 11.
Much of the small army was captured early on as the frontier forts surrendered. In late 1914 the king had only 60,000 soldiers left. During the war a few young men volunteered to serve, so by 1918 the total force had returned to 170,000. That was far too few to launch a major offensive. The Germans had nothing to gain from an attack, so the short Belgian front was an island of relative calm as gigantic battles raged elsewhere on the Western Front. The total of Belgian soldiers killed came to about 2.0% of its eligible young men (compared to 13.3% in France and 12.5% in Germany).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium_in_World_War_I

So the message in the game that Belgium has joined the Entente allies is actually incorrect! The lack of co-ordination mentioned could be represented by making Belgian units stay in Belgium in 1914 and the general unpreparedness for war should mean that the "Industrial Warfare" technological advance is not possible in 1914 and neither is the (very remote) possibility to build artillery (at the moment Belgium seems to continue its research even though Brussels has fallen and the Belgian research labs are no longer available).

[Hellfirejet]

ORIGINAL: Orm

I agree with you that battleships should beat cruisers easily but my point is that this should not be automatic when the cruisers is in the ports home water (green dot). The battleships should suffer from the minefield and such protecting this area.

In my game I sailed with the Russian battleship and cruiser to attack a German cruiser that was in one of the green dot hexes that marks Russian home waters. Germany then sailed two battleships in behind the Russian ships and their home port thus blocking the Russian ships way back to their port and then sunk the cruiser for no damage. The Russian battleship still survives but is still stopped from returning to port. So I suppose I will get back later on how that battle ends.

Edit: I dislike that submarines can damage, and sink, ships that are in port for repairs. They should not be able to make that attack at all or at least suffer heavy damage when doing so.

If the home port hex is given a large defence point advantage,then it should be suicide for any attacking ships,to try and attack a ship in the home port hex. In my eyes this is the biggest negative in the whole naval game,it's not rocket science HOME PORTS & GREEN DOT AREAS should be virtual no go areas for enemy ships. Time after time the German naval AI, sails into the green dot area in the English Channel near London, which also happens to be heavily defended by British ships,with the result that the German Battleship usually gets surrounded and sunk. I ask you, did at any time, the German High Seas Fleet venture this close, to one off Britain's main naval base's during the first world war, no they did not,they were not stupid or suicidal,but this game's naval AI is nuts I tell you its nuts![:@]

[stockwellpete]

I played as the Entente today, single player "balanced" AI. A whole number of things to consider . . .

i) managed to get game to go in to 1916 so the "1915 crash" may only affect the Central Powers side.

ii) I was able to take artillery unit through the Pripet Marshes and up the Alps in the winter! This seems ridiculous. These terrain features should be completely impassable to vehicles and artillery in both summer and winter.

iii) in 1915 the map stayed all snowy even after winter had ended

iv) thinking about the "small garrison" unit - might it not be better to have them as a unit you have to build and thereby start to develop a "home front" aspect to the game?

v) I didn't realise until today that you actually re-name each unit. It opens up the possibility of dividing battleships into dreadnoughts and pre-dreadnoughts in SP games if you want to. It needs some thought but maybe pre-dreadnoughts cannot benefit from research advances (a voluntary house rule).

vi) considering naval combat between battleships, might it be better to have more 2-2, 3-3, 3-2 results rather than 0-0 or 1-0? Naval encounters were short and brutal, not attritional. In my game I boxed in a German battleship and it took about 6 weeks to destroy it! This is just daft really. Also, with higher losses from combat there will be more opportunity for cruisers to join in to try to finish off battleships.

vii) Should ships be able to move into a port and be repaired on the same turn?

viii) Should ships be able to move into an allied port and be repaired (or be repaired as quickly)?

ix) Naval bombardment seems to be far more effective than artillery bombardment. Should it be?

x) there are a number of invisible Italian units when Italy joins the war - garrison at Naples; garrison at Messina; submarine at Palermo; and cruiser at Cagliari.

xi) an AI unit cut off in one of my cities then committed suicide by moving out of that city (got the dreaded pink dot next turn).

xii) Serbia contained Austria very comfortably in the game; manpower quality on 8 but over 70PP's in the bank. It seemed a bit too strong to me.

xiii) I lost Warsaw and the Special Event came up saying Russia had lost morale - but I recaptured the city two turns later. No Special Event, of course, but what is the overall effect of losing a key city temporarily?

xiv) By mid-1915 the Entente was in a winning position in my game. I had massive surpluses of PP's for France and Britain (I was just building more labs and munitions factories). Looking at the mini-map it was a sea of yellow units with just a few bands of red on the Western, Eastern, Palestine, Caucasus and Serbian fronts. The game does seem very unbalanced at the moment.

[operating]

CTD June 1915, rebooted auto-save-game a couple of times same result (My CP vs AI Balanced).

Initially, thought Entente PP was great against AI, a luxury, but as a CP player, the AI creates absolute hordes of ground units, very challenging, would have liked to have played past CTD to see how it worked out.

Sank about 20 transport points, then the "warning memo" popped up about American civilian losses, that bar seemed a bit LOW.

Took all of Belgium, except for one little hex on the coast, which the French tenaciously defended. By this time, the French had units 2 rows deep across the front, beating the crap out of my left flank (Metz).

Went after Serbia first, a real tough nut, however, was making some gains, closing in on Nis, could feel the Serbs weakening (June 1915) before CTD. In the meantime the Russians were doing a million man march and a combined AI army was about to blow holes on the Italian front against scant resources. (Bulgaria was a bright RED about this time, and a pro-West Portugal, Romainia were chomping at the bit to get into this dogfight).

The naval game was actually very exciting, sinking troop transports left and right all over the map, sank a fair # of cruisers and subs, felt as though I was getting the upper hand there, especially when adding subs to the fleet.

The Turks captured a Russian city, only to be met with a 10 unit Russian front in the mountains, Oh Boy! more fun to be had.[8|]

The Brits were building their bulging million man army on the Sinai (to the point where they might fall off and start drowning, like so many lemmings), (according to my snooping Turk cav), per usual of the AI, against a meager blocking Turk force.

Back when I first bought this game, my ass got kicked by the AI, over time mastered the game to a certain degree, playing Entente is not a problem, however, playing CP, is rather daunting. Will be watching all the posts to see what comes about.

[aesopo]

CTD for central powers also around June 1915. Twice already and no amount of reloading allows me to continue beyond.

[Lord Zimoa]

Guys,

Could you post your ctgw logs and save games here please, this will be of great help finding the bug:

Maybe easier at Slitherine as they allow attachments:

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=214


How to get the ctgw.log file:

If you ever get an error or crash, please attach the ctgw.log file to your report, this will help us identify the problem. The logs are in your Documents, so the default is "My Documents\My Games\Commander The Great War"

IMPORTANT: This log is overwritten every time you start the game. Please make a copy of the log after any crash/bug you want to report before reloading the game.


NOTE: Please put your attachments in a .zip or .rar format, before you upload it on the Slitherine forum, if not, it will not upload at all.

[operating]

ORIGINAL: Lord Zimoa

Guys,

Could you post your ctgw logs and save games here please, this will be of great help finding the bug:

Maybe easier at Slitherine as they allow attachments:

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=214


How to get the ctgw.log file:

If you ever get an error or crash, please attach the ctgw.log file to your report, this will help us identify the problem. The logs are in your Documents, so the default is "My Documents\My Games\Commander The Great War"

IMPORTANT: This log is overwritten every time you start the game. Please make a copy of the log after any crash/bug you want to report before reloading the game.


NOTE: Please put your attachments in a .zip or .rar format, before you upload it on the Slitherine forum, if not, it will not upload at all.

2 separate CP vs AI both CTD June 1915, don't know how to zip or look up files- sorry.

[stockwellpete]

ORIGINAL: stockwellpete

I played as the Entente today, single player "balanced" AI. A whole number of things to consider . . .

i) managed to get game to go in to 1916 so the "1915 crash" may only affect the Central Powers side.

ii) I was able to take artillery unit through the Pripet Marshes and up the Alps in the winter! This seems ridiculous. These terrain features should be completely impassable to vehicles and artillery in both summer and winter.

iii) in 1915 the map stayed all snowy even after winter had ended

iv) thinking about the "small garrison" unit - might it not be better to have them as a unit you have to build and thereby start to develop a "home front" aspect to the game?

v) I didn't realise until today that you actually re-name each unit. It opens up the possibility of dividing battleships into dreadnoughts and pre-dreadnoughts in SP games if you want to. It needs some thought but maybe pre-dreadnoughts cannot benefit from research advances (a voluntary house rule).

vi) considering naval combat between battleships, might it be better to have more 2-2, 3-3, 3-2 results rather than 0-0 or 1-0? Naval encounters were short and brutal, not attritional. In my game I boxed in a German battleship and it took about 6 weeks to destroy it! This is just daft really. Also, with higher losses from combat there will be more opportunity for cruisers to join in to try to finish off battleships.

vii) Should ships be able to move into a port and be repaired on the same turn?

viii) Should ships be able to move into an allied port and be repaired (or be repaired as quickly)?

ix) Naval bombardment seems to be far more effective than artillery bombardment. Should it be?

x) there are a number of invisible Italian units when Italy joins the war - garrison at Naples; garrison at Messina; submarine at Palermo; and cruiser at Cagliari.

xi) an AI unit cut off in one of my cities then committed suicide by moving out of that city (got the dreaded pink dot next turn).

xii) Serbia contained Austria very comfortably in the game; manpower quality on 8 but over 70PP's in the bank. It seemed a bit too strong to me.

xiii) I lost Warsaw and the Special Event came up saying Russia had lost morale - but I recaptured the city two turns later. No Special Event, of course, but what is the overall effect of losing a key city temporarily?

xiv) By mid-1915 the Entente was in a winning position in my game. I had massive surpluses of PP's for France and Britain (I was just building more labs and munitions factories). Looking at the mini-map it was a sea of yellow units with just a few bands of red on the Western, Eastern, Palestine, Caucasus and Serbian fronts. The game does seem very unbalanced at the moment.

I have finished off my game now. just a few more points . . .

xv) game played through OK to 1918 and no further crashes, so this may only happen to the Central Powers side earlier in the game.

xvi) invisible Romanian garrison unit at Arad when they join the war.

xvii) Selling off research labs and immediately re-couping a large amount of PP seems wrong. Why should you get PP back at all?

xviii) When Belgium returned to the war their garrison units still had blue uniforms

xix) There is a spelling mistake in the "Tip" at the very start of the game about cavalry units - successfully.

xx) Both Berlin and Vienna had fallen but Germans and Austro-Hungarians carried on fighting. They would have surrendered much earlier than this in reality.

xxi) I think there should be a maximum number of certain types of unit for each power otherwise things can get a bit absurd towards the end of a game e.g. aircraft, tanks, balloons etc.

xxii) When a country surrenders the map needs to update the borders of the country surrendering. In my game Germany did not exist any more and Austro-Hungary was in Czech Republic! Losing powers should lose territory but should still be based on their core historical areas with some cities and a few units for internal policing. It would make the game much tidier.

[stockwellpete]

If you look at this short extract from Wikipedia . . .

The front in the east was much longer than that in the west. The theatre of war was roughly delimited by the Baltic Sea in the west and Minsk in the east, and Saint Petersburg in the north and the Black Sea in the south, a distance of more than 1,600 kilometres (990 mi). This had a drastic effect on the nature of the warfare.

While World War I on the Western Front developed into trench warfare, the battle lines on the Eastern Front were much more fluid and trenches never truly developed. This was because the greater length of the front ensured that the density of soldiers in the line was lower so the line was easier to break. Once broken, the sparse communication networks made it difficult for the defender to rush reinforcements to the rupture in the line, mounting rapid counteroffensives to seal off any breakthrough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Fr ... rld_War_I)

In my beta test single-player game, the Western and Eastern fronts developed in much the same way with trenches strung out across the map. Maybe if units on the Eastern Front could only entrench up to level 8 or 10 (instead of 16 or higher) then it would see much more mobile warfare than the Western front? Cavalry and armoured cars would be more important as artillery would be able to shift units out of trenches more easily.

Also, entrenchment on the Western front did not start until mid-September whereas in the game units start off entrenched. Could this be changed to create more mobile warfare on the Western front for the first few turns?

[stockwellpete]

Another spelling mistake in the "Tips" at the beginning - disbanding battleship message should be "incurs" not "incurrs".

[Hellfirejet]

I will fix that right now cheers![;)]

[Xenocide]

Lost three successive games as the Central Powers and then played as the Entente. I think this needs balancing. When playing as the Entente once I set up my trenches I had more income then I knew what to do with. After the initial battles I pulled the BEF out of France as there was no need for it. Both Britain and France ended up with 3 research factories in every category and I still had a pretty big surplus.

I was wondering why the lines in France were three units deep on the Western Front when I was playing the Central Powers. Too much production.

I disbanded every Garrison I had and had a solid line of infantry on both main fronts and in the Middle East and Caucasus. I think it may be excessive.

Also backing the "slow to surrender issue. I attacked the Ottomans on three fronts and they did not surrender until I had taken every city in the nation. Germany surrendered when it had one city left and so did Austria-Hungary. Both fought on for a few turns without a capital between them.

I do like the improvements in sub warfare. If the Central Powers weren't so poor compared to the Allies I think it would work well. As it stands the British and French don't really need the convoy income.

[stockwellpete]

I asked these two questions in an earlier post . . .

vii) Should ships be able to move into a port and be repaired on the same turn?

viii) Should ships be able to move into an allied port and be repaired (or be repaired as quickly)?

Just a few more thoughts. Again from Wikipedia about Jutland 1916 . . .

"Warspite was holed 150 times during the battle and had 14 killed and 16 wounded; among the latter warrant officer Walter Yeo, who became one of the first men to receive facial reconstruction via plastic surgery. Although she had been extensively damaged, Warspite could still raise steam and was ordered back to Rosyth during the evening of 31 May by Rear-Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas, commander of the 5th Battle Squadron. Whilst travelling across the North Sea the ship came under attack from a German U-boat. The U-boat fired three torpedoes, all of which missed their target. Warspite later attempted to ram a surfaced U-boat. She signalled ahead for escorts and a squadron of torpedo boats came out to meet her. They were too slow to screen her effectively, but there were no more encounters with German vessels and she reached Rosyth safely on the morning of 1 June, where it took two months to repair the damage."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Warspite_(03)

So this is a ship that has taken a fair bit of damage, but its main functions seem to be working OK still, yet it takes two months to repair at a home port. The difficulty here is that when you have a battleship, cruiser or submarine unit at 10 strength points in the game, how many vessels are actually represented by each unit? And, if a unit is damaged down to 4 or 5 strength points, what does that actually mean in terms of damage sustained? If a battleship unit at 10 strength points = 5 capital ships, does a battleship unit at 4 strength points mean that only 2 ships remain and three have been sunk? Or does it mean that all 5 battleships have been heavily damaged but none have been sunk? Or does it mean something in-between?

I think there are a number of possibilities for the game here. One way to depict one or two of the ships out of the 5 being sunk is to say that if a battleship unit is reduced to 4 strength points then it can only repair to 8 strength points, so one ship is permanently lost. If a battleship is damaged to 3 strength points then it can only repair to 6 strength points so two ships are lost - and so on. So battleship units could only fully repair if they had 5 or more strength points left i.e. the 5 ships had taken serious damage (like the Warspite above) but they could still function up to a point.

Then there is the question of repairs. What if major repairs could only be done in a home port? So a British battleship unit damaged down to 7 strength points would have to go into a British port to get fully repaired - if it went into a French or Italian port it could only get "patched up" and repaired by just 1 strength point. Also, repairs on a ship unit would start on the turn after the ship unit arrived in a port so the "move and repair" that happens now would be ended. Finally, research upgrades for ships can only be done in a home port, not an allied port.

I think these changes to the repair and upgrade rules would open up further tactical considerations as opposing players tried to damage units below 5 strength points (you could do the same thing for cruiser and submarine units too) and players would have to make crucial judgements about whether ships should stay at sea even when they are still on 7 or 8 strength points.

[Hellfirejet]

ORIGINAL: Xenocide

Lost three successive games as the Central Powers and then played as the Entente. I think this needs balancing. When playing as the Entente once I set up my trenches I had more income then I knew what to do with. After the initial battles I pulled the BEF out of France as there was no need for it. Both Britain and France ended up with 3 research factories in every category and I still had a pretty big surplus.

I was wondering why the lines in France were three units deep on the Western Front when I was playing the Central Powers. Too much production.

I disbanded every Garrison I had and had a solid line of infantry on both main fronts and in the Middle East and Caucasus. I think it may be excessive.

Also backing the "slow to surrender issue. I attacked the Ottomans on three fronts and they did not surrender until I had taken every city in the nation. Germany surrendered when it had one city left and so did Austria-Hungary. Both fought on for a few turns without a capital between them.

I do like the improvements in sub warfare. If the Central Powers weren't so poor compared to the Allies I think it would work well. As it stands the British and French don't really need the convoy income.

The problem with to much production,is getting looked at, I will reduce the production out put for most off the major Nation's.

[Hellfirejet]

ORIGINAL: stockwellpete

I asked these two questions in an earlier post . . .

vii) Should ships be able to move into a port and be repaired on the same turn?

viii) Should ships be able to move into an allied port and be repaired (or be repaired as quickly)?

Just a few more thoughts. Again from Wikipedia about Jutland 1916 . . .

"Warspite was holed 150 times during the battle and had 14 killed and 16 wounded; among the latter warrant officer Walter Yeo, who became one of the first men to receive facial reconstruction via plastic surgery. Although she had been extensively damaged, Warspite could still raise steam and was ordered back to Rosyth during the evening of 31 May by Rear-Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas, commander of the 5th Battle Squadron. Whilst travelling across the North Sea the ship came under attack from a German U-boat. The U-boat fired three torpedoes, all of which missed their target. Warspite later attempted to ram a surfaced U-boat. She signalled ahead for escorts and a squadron of torpedo boats came out to meet her. They were too slow to screen her effectively, but there were no more encounters with German vessels and she reached Rosyth safely on the morning of 1 June, where it took two months to repair the damage."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Warspite_(03)

So this is a ship that has taken a fair bit of damage, but its main functions seem to be working OK still, yet it takes two months to repair at a home port. The difficulty here is that when you have a battleship, cruiser or submarine unit at 10 strength points in the game, how many vessels are actually represented by each unit? And, if a unit is damaged down to 4 or 5 strength points, what does that actually mean in terms of damage sustained? If a battleship unit at 10 strength points = 5 capital ships, does a battleship unit at 4 strength points mean that only 2 ships remain and three have been sunk? Or does it mean that all 5 battleships have been heavily damaged but none have been sunk? Or does it mean something in-between?

I think there are a number of possibilities for the game here. One way to depict one or two of the ships out of the 5 being sunk is to say that if a battleship unit is reduced to 4 strength points then it can only repair to 8 strength points, so one ship is permanently lost. If a battleship is damaged to 3 strength points then it can only repair to 6 strength points so two ships are lost - and so on. So battleship units could only fully repair if they had 5 or more strength points left i.e. the 5 ships had taken serious damage (like the Warspite above) but they could still function up to a point.

Then there is the question of repairs. What if major repairs could only be done in a home port? So a British battleship unit damaged down to 7 strength points would have to go into a British port to get fully repaired - if it went into a French or Italian port it could only get "patched up" and repaired by just 1 strength point. Also, repairs on a ship unit would start on the turn after the ship unit arrived in a port so the "move and repair" that happens now would be ended. Finally, research upgrades for ships can only be done in a home port, not an allied port.

I think these changes to the repair and upgrade rules would open up further tactical considerations as opposing players tried to damage units below 5 strength points (you could do the same thing for cruiser and submarine units too) and players would have to make crucial judgements about whether ships should stay at sea even when they are still on 7 or 8 strength points.

I agree with your observations, I think the repair option happens to quickly,but any changes won't be included by the time this beta goes, to official release.But rest assured the software wiz kid and I will see what changes can be made.

On the brighter side, an official hot fix is in the pipeline,that fixes the reason the game has been crashing,plus a few other tweaks to help balance game play,watch this space folks.

[stockwellpete]

ORIGINAL: kirk23

I agree with your observations, I think the repair option happens to quickly, but any changes won't be included by the time this beta goes, to official release.But rest assured the software wiz kid and I will see what changes can be made.

No problem. Maybe the patch after 1.40 then? I have just got a lot of ideas coming at the moment as I have had the best part of a year away from the game before this beta patch came out.