SOME THANKS, PRAISE AND CRITICISM

[regularbird]

First, I want to thank the WCS team for taking on such a tremendous task with a very diverse target audience, I know it is hard listening to some of the feedback you are recieving (it is hard to please everyone). Please understand if we did not like the game and effort we would just quit playing and not bother you fellas with our criticism, but I know you already know that.

I really enjoyed COG and some of the things you have added to FOF are trully awesome. You guys really went all out and have put forth a good game with excellent potential. The way you continue to work with your customers is well, just flat OUT-FREAKIN-STANDING.

My problem with COG was that I felt the Tactical AI was not the least bit challenging, but the strategic AI was decent (when it comes to AI decent is usually good enough). It seems that this is the exact opposite in FOF. The tactical AI will actually send forth some coordinated attacks and it will even defend sometimes which is great. The Strategic AI sends forward brigade after brigade to be slaughtered by my waiting armies. I am holding out hope that the upcoming patch will address this problem, if not the game is really only playable against a human opponent and PBEM is not a great option for me.

The final issue is the same as Mike Scholl's. Why should a player have to set crazy adjustments to achieve a historical representation of the economic and military situations of the USA and CSA in 1861. Erik has said that this will be addressed somewhat in the upcoming patch so I will be patiently waiting its release.

Once again thanks for the efforts and good luck making this game a huge success.

Regards,

Ryan

[parusski]

I love, and agree with, your sentiment(OUT-FREAKIN-STANDING)

So far this game has overshadowed SPAW for me-no game has ever done that. It is more thrilling than I would have thought, as well as challenging.

Can't wait to get home and fight some more for the glorius south.

[regularbird]

SPAW?  Acronyms are wasted on me most of the time.  Do you really find the strategic AI challenging playing as the CSA?  If so what are doing to make it so??

[christof139]

SPAW = Silly People At Work, Steel Panthers At War, Some People Always Wink, I don't know either. [&:]
 
Chris
 

[parusski]

YOU CAN ALL BITE ME.
SPWAW-steel panthers world at war

[Gil R.]

Regularbird, thanks for your comments. Regarding the lone brigades that rush off to be slaughtered, that's an unintended feature of the game that is being fixed in the upcoming patch. What's happening is that those brigades are attempting to join up with divisions/corps/armies, and the AI is setting a path that puts them in danger. In the patch, I believe the solution will be to let them sneak through, just the way generals are able to pass enemy forces to get to their destinations.

[ericbabe]

No, not sneaking through Gil!  Good grief...  I think there's a bug in the auto-join code.  When a unit is set on auto-join (whether from the AI or a player's unit), that unit should not plan a movement path that takes it into any enemy units.  The AI uses auto-join to get its new brigades to its units in the field.  I must have done something late in development that broke this code, since it does not seem to be working now.

Anyway, thanks regularbird and parusski (i ya izuchal pa russki dla odnu gorod tolka cechas ploxoi govoryu!... Gil can fix my grammar...) for the kind words.  Actually you'd be surprised how quickly one becomes, I guess "numb" is the word I'm looking for, to harsh criticism on the forum!  Pertaining to your question of the economic settings, most important criterion is that people who play the game find it fun... when our economy was such that when the CSA could barely afford anything, the beta testers did not find the game (as the CSA at least) to be very enjoyable.  We've got the grogs on the Matrix forum to please, but we've also got to please game reviewers and other people in a more mainstream audience, so (as you say) we do have a diverse audience to try to satisfy.

Erik has suggested providing a "realistic" setting button that loads another scenario and sets the game options such that the North/South have historically comparative economic powers, and that seems to me to be a good solution.  In retrospect, we should have done this before release.

[Gil R.]

Hmm. Looks like Eric and I are playing "Good Cop, Uninformed Cop."

Eric, your Russian grammar looks fine, though "dla odnu gorod" is how you'd say "for a single city." But since I'm momentarily blanking on the word for "year" I'm no better than you.


EDIT: I just remembered: "godu" should be "year."

[christof139]

I had a unit on auto-join do that. I just thought it was because of a poor general or whatever.

Chris

[christof139]

Well, I was close with Steel Panthers At War. [;)]

Chris

[ericbabe]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.
Eric, your Russian grammar looks fine, though "dla odnu gorod" is how you'd say "for a single city." But since I'm momentarily blanking on the word for "year" I'm no better than you.

Oh yeah.... <let> is the word for years, but I thought it was a different word altogether when you're saying only one year... but obviously that word is not <gorod> [8|]

[parusski]

At least you knew of what I was speaking.

[General Quarters]

The only thing I remember from my Red River expedition into Russian is something that sounded sorta like: Ya garaloo parusski ploha. Ploha is not a commentation!

[parusski]

If you are asking if I am well-(Ochen rad chto u tebya vsyo khorosho)

[Gil R.]

Eric, you're right about "lyet"="year" -- I forgot all about that word. You use that unless you're giving a date, in which case "god" is used. So "B etom lyet ya hochu govoreetz po-russki kajdee dyen" means "This year I want to speak Russian every day," whereas in future years I might say that "B 2007 godu ya nidostatachno ni govoreel po-russki" would mean "In the year 2007 I didn't speak enough Russian."


General Quarters: I think you're thinking of "govoryu" (= "I speak"), though perhaps there's a verb "garaloo" that I don't remember. (It's been 16 years since I was last in Moscow, so I'm a bit rusty.)

[General Quarters]

Yes, I always thought that it had a 'v' but someone had told me it should be an 'r.' Thanks, now I can report that I speak Russian badly, less badly.

[spruce]

hm, now I hear from this particular bug - I had the AI doing this&nbsp;- sending brigade after brigade into Virginia - month after month (I was the CSA) - but in fact there wasn't even one of their containers in Virginia - seems some suicidal run. From there on - the AI never attempted to invade Virginia - in spite of having a few large armies sitting on the other bank of the Potomac ... and the Union was losing the war.

[ericbabe]

ORIGINAL: spruce

hm, now I hear from this particular bug - I had the AI doing this - sending brigade after brigade into Virginia - month after month (I was the CSA) - but in fact there wasn't even one of their containers in Virginia - seems some suicidal run. From there on - the AI never attempted to invade Virginia - in spite of having a few large armies sitting on the other bank of the Potomac ... and the Union was losing the war.

Fredericksburg is a "shortest path" province along the route from Ohio and such towards Potomac River, so their destination may not have been interior Virginia, just the national capital.

[spruce]

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

ORIGINAL: spruce

hm, now I hear from this particular bug - I had the AI doing this - sending brigade after brigade into Virginia - month after month (I was the CSA) - but in fact there wasn't even one of their containers in Virginia - seems some suicidal run. From there on - the AI never attempted to invade Virginia - in spite of having a few large armies sitting on the other bank of the Potomac ... and the Union was losing the war.

Fredericksburg is a "shortest path" province along the route from Ohio and such towards Potomac River, so their destination may not have been interior Virginia, just the national capital.

makes sence after re-reading post 7 - thanks for making things clear. And it seems the upcoming patch will be worthwhile ... I stopped playing a few weeks ago - but definately will pick up when the patch will be released.