Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Marquo


It occurs to me that the lesion allowing this approach is the unfettered recruitment of new units in various states without consideration of time. Just because Virginia fielded let's say 100 regiments during the war, and the game allows 1000 to be raised, there needs to be a limit on how many can be raised per month or year. Surely this data is known from historical sources. This would prevent fielding Virginia's entire contribution to the war in the first year, instead of spread over 4 years - and this would make a huge difference and maybe solve the problem.

This really isn't hard to do, You can see it very well in the way the CSA builds unlock progressively as the states secede. Have it so the upper limits of troops to be recruited per state climbs slowly, say once every 5/6 turns. It would force the players to recruit in all states based on how much they actually built in history AND would mean that recruitment is a less brutal process, ie happening the turn after you got lots of conscripts through draft or bounties. It would ensure more linear growth of the armies. a good thing imo.

I genuinely think, that south is not as strong as it seems at first glace, but its advantage in mobility and better leaders is artificially maginified by very poor automatic distribution of supply.

I absolutely agree with Marquo, that ridiculously big piles of supply in frontal cities makes CSA offensive self-perpetuating to ceratin extend, but it is not win button.


Overall I think north still has unfair advantage - amphibious assault (by sea and rivers) is far to easy

ORIGINAL: Marquo

I never fault a player like MT for using the rules and game engine to his advantage; hopefully the developers will take heed, study and react to these observations.

I don't fault them either. But that doesn't mean I should accept it.

But anyone who ever studied the ACW knows there are reason why it was never done. General Scott never even proposed it. I would think that since the war was won using his plan as a guide, not by putting several hundred thousand men in one big blob, he knew what he was talking about.

Winning/losing doesn't play into it for me. I'm on the way to loss #27 after all. And I don't care. I don't care about losing if I enjoy myself.

And I'm not.

ORIGINAL: Ace1

About, no. 5. I was thinking about raising recruitable units for both sides. Right now, it is easy to field 200.000 troops to the East, and little elsewhere. But, if both sides had the recources to field large armies boh East and West, and on the Coast, I think it would be less of a problem.

I think it would be the same problem. Everything built gets sent east as it is.

"I am afraid the only solution I can think off is neutral host."

This does not solve anything but reloads; a player could play with whatever options he wanted, then change back before sending to the neutral host to advance the turn. Frankly the developers could spent a little time a program an easy fix to lock all the settings as setup by the first player; and as for reloads, some games have mechanisms to prevent this so why not this one?

ORIGINAL: Marquo

"I am afraid the only solution I can think off is neutral host."

This does not solve anything but reloads; a player could play with whatever options he wanted, then change back before sending to the neutral host to advance the turn. Frankly the developers could spent a little time a program an easy fix to lock all the settings as setup by the first player; and as for reloads, some games have mechanisms to prevent this so why not this one?

Good question. I didn't even know this could be done

Because, you can always erase game files, and put previous turn files from the windows explorer.

There was a discussion about it here:

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?31577-Pbem

ORIGINAL: Marquo

"I am afraid the only solution I can think off is neutral host."

This does not solve anything but reloads; a player could play with whatever options he wanted, then change back before sending to the neutral host to advance the turn. Frankly the developers could spent a little time a program an easy fix to lock all the settings as setup by the first player; and as for reloads, some games have mechanisms to prevent this so why not this one?

Wouldn't the only settings that count be the ones of the neutral host when he executes the turn?

The easy solution of course is to pick a decent opponent who doesn't seem like the sort who wants to win at all costs. Psychometric testing? However I guess there is the risk we will all end up in the 'Little Napoleon' category...

I am quite surprised that there isn't a more robust PBEM mechanism given that its a 2nd version and that hasn't changed in 5/6 years.

As to the amphibious HR question I would for sure say that at least one fort should be captured before any attempt on the city its protecting is assaulted by sea. Of course New Orleans was a case against this but on balance it covers more historical cases where this wouldnt be possible than not. That that the New Orleans case could be excluded in that the forts there are far downstream and don't cover the city. The situation we had in mine and Q-Balls game was troopships running the charleston forts and then unloading directly onto the quay under the guns of 3 forts with an entrenched division in the city, and it worked, rather than the massacre it should have been.
As it is its too easy to roll up forts with an amphibious landing force landing and instantly storming a fort with minimal losses. I feel its a shame that you can do it without a breach quite easily without heavy losses. Maybe the marines is the issue though, not tested without. But overall our game, while fantastic fun and challenging hasn't really seen anything that would resemble a siege as you can just roll up, fix bayonets and almost guarantee an instant win, then load ships again and repeat against another target. I feel something needs to slow this tempo down.