ORIGINAL: Tigleth Pilisar
1) Colonies: How do you get them, or see how many you have, or influence them? I understand you can trade them. Are they kind of like free money and there is a set number of them?
There is a set number of colinies in existance. They can change hands through either treaties (including peace conditions) or due to "colonial warfare" - there are two upgrades that get your colonies trying to take over other colonies. There is no other way for you to interact with colonies. [Colonies produce money and some spice, and with particular upgrades also generate a militia levy.]
2) Upgrades: Is the timeline for upgrades finite? That is, do I wait so many turns and then get an upgrade? Or does something I choose influence when upgrades occur. Is there a "cumulative affect screen" for upgrades, or simply a list of upgrades owned and then I click one at a time and figure out the aggregate myself?
In the Economy Screen, there is a button referring to Training - that is your upgrades. It shows you your current "training points", and lists all the upgrades you currently have. Each "training point" entitles you to an upgrade - once a quarter the game compares your current training points witht he number of upgrades you currently have: if you have more training points, you get an upgrade. (You don't lose upgrades even if your training points drop.) "Training points" go up based on the number of level of barracks and the number of levels of culture (barracks are worth twice culture) - note that going from a level 8 to a level 9 barracks is worth the same training points as going from level 1 to 2.
3) Starvation of provinces: I don't exactly follow what forage is. Lets say a province has a forage value of 50k. If no soldiers, is this 50k lost? If no then its kind of a food resource only present if there is a division to take it? If some soldiers, do they forage, then seek a depot second if set to forage and the opposite if set to supply? The latter doesn't make sense, because you would fully supply from a depot always anyway, I think. Wouldn't you always want to forage first, if foraging cost nothing? If so, why burden us with an option to supply first that makes no sense?
But if an enemy is in the province, you said it takes 3 divisions, then no income to the owner of the city. Right? How does supply work then for the garrisoned troops? Lets say there is 50k of soldiers occupying that are enemy and 20k of friendly soldiers garrisoned in the same province. And forrage level for the province is 50k. Who gets fed? And if the answer is the 20k owner of the province gets it first, then what does that say of the seige option "starve the city"? You'd only be starving yourself.
- Think of forage as getting food from undeveloped land - if its not used for forage its 'wasted'.
- The historical reality is that units were either supplied by depots or not. If not, they tried to forage - and some died. Units in this period did not forage as much as they could and draw for supply for the rest, however logical that may seem to a 21st century person. So its a realism thing.
- Troops in a beseiged city don't get to use the province's forage value at all - they are resolved differently, and don't effect the foraging of units in the rest of the province. The options the besiegers take against the city don't affect the foraging in the rest of the province.
- If there were forces of multiple nationalities in a province (whether at war with each other or friendly), then the province's forage value is divided between the forces proportionately (so if 1/3 of the men in the province are mine, they forage against 1/3 of the forage value).
- Note that the forage value changes based on things like weather, season etc.
- Most importantly: the forage value is an estimate: the actual forage available will be within 25% of the estimate based on a probability distribution. So if you put 60k men in a 60k forage value province, they will lose men due to foraging about half the time!
4) Can you use POWs to seige? How do you get them to work, I mean labour for you?
To get labour from them, put them in one of your provinces. You don't need to do anything else.
No, they dont siege (or resist seige) on your behalf.
5) Reinforcing I still don't understand. It seems all provinces contribute to a pool then I guess reinforcements are spread out pro-rata? If you set a specific province to reinforce to an army then I guess its reinforcements don't go in the pool, they go to that army? What if that army is full? Back to the reinforcement pool? And why is the dropdown selection in random order to pick where to reinforce? Why is it not alphabetically sorted or something? What does it mean to reinforce to a province? Reinforcements go to that garrison in that province, and if it is full then back to the pool? Why can't I set many provinces at once to garrison to a certain army?
The reinforce to command for a province sets the initial move order for any divisions built in that province. It has nothing to do with reinforcements, contrary to the obvious similiarity in the names.
In 1.2, reinforcements are allocated by calculating the total that could be distributed [based on a maximum per division from their unit type (easy to reinf inf, hard for arty and guards for example) and current location (more at home, less in enemy territory)] and proportioning out the available reinforcements.
The random order of the drop down annoys the hell out out of me, and I have asked for it to be alphabetical.
6) Military screen. Why is this not alphabetically sorted? Why is it that if I click on an army, I don't go to it on the map. The military screen allows me to see things one way (not alphabetical, so I have to goof around finding things) than I have to find those units separately on the map because it is not linked. I think you have a provincial management button on the military screen, but that is not linked either! If I press it nothing happens.
The random order of the drop down annoys the hell out out of me, and I have asked for it to be alphabetical.
A jump to command is a frequently requested feature.
7) Supply just isn't very transparent. I don't know if I will need a depot or not, or if I do if some foraging drops my costs. I know you can figure it out - but we are playing a computer game. It should figure it out and tell me. What 4 star general is told by his subordinate to do the math himself on a supply line?
Now that I have explained foraging for you, perhaps you will have a better feel for all this. Your idea (showing on an army, corps, or division the aggregate supply cost for that unit if they are set to use supply) is a really good one, and I will propose it as an enhancement to the game (the 3rd patch will have lots of feature enhancements, some small and some large - we are probably too late to get this into the 2nd patch).
8) Tips on detailed combat. MMMmmmmm. Hexes. I love hexes. Just a wargamer thing. And I love the concepts you have of line/march/square/charging etc. And supply - well thought out. In general though, practical playing is not working out like I imagined. Morale seems to drop to nothing too fast. First guy to break the other guy in a turn or two wins. If my troops don't immediately line, unless they are guards, they likely will not be able to line for the rest of the combat. Resting doesn't seem to help much. Basically, I can't really form a "line" of several divisions, practially. I mean some battles maybe, if you don't move first. Anyway, detailed combat seems really cool, but I think I've still got a bunch to learn.
Yeah - there is so much depth in this game it can be hard at first. Don't give up! For example, the idea that you can change formation more easily if you are out of sight of the enemy is cool, but very un-obvious. Here are two tips you seem ready for:
a) troops should rest whenever they get fatigued unless you have a great reason not to. Non-fatigued troops are more effective at doing damage, more resiliant to enemy damage, etc etc etc. I have often compared having one division fire every turn next to a division next to it which only fires when it is not fatigued, and the 'rester' does more damage over the battle. (I retest this after any changes that might effect it). You can help them recover morale more quickly when they rest by putting a leader with them - that is the most important use of leaders on the battle field. When troops rest, they recover morale - and that is what you need to do!
b) changing formation if improved by not being fatigued, by being out of the line of sight of the enemy, and by having at least some supply. Depending on what your forces actually are, you might find there is some user-error in what you are doing. [It is massively effected by the unit's starting morale: militia/irreg cav are unlikely to change formation; and the upgrade for changing formations helps lots too.] Your frustration with this is probably fair enough if you are playing Turkey - very low quality troops, very unlikely to successfully change formation.
[You might also like to read Ralegh's Guide to Hexwar in the War Room - in the main tips thread.]
I don't want to overload on questions. But would appreciate responses to the above. Thanks.
You keep asking 'em. Others are getting value too. I'm glad someone who doesn't know the game yet is putting in the intellectual effort to ask the questions!
