Dreaded/heroes ability

[Walloc]

Quoting Gil.
I did hit on a potential solution, though, and am curious what you think about it. What about inserting a bit of code that prevents a 4-star general from teaching those abilities? I view Heroes/Dreaded as abilities for division commanders and corps commanders. If we artificially limit those abilities to 2-stars and 3-stars, it would solve the imbalance problem, while letting generals like Stuart and Cleburne have it. Players would then have to decide whether they promote guys like that to army command because of their outstanding ratings, or keep them at a lower level in order to take advantage of those abilities. Is this a good idea or a bad one?

I found that this idea hasnt been implimented in the beta patch.
Since that im of the believe those abiltities are decisive if a large number of units have them in HW. See my post for a explanation in detail athttp://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1363952
With the new patch u have alot more generals and earlier with these abilties. Expanding the IMO problem.
So i'd like to petition for Gil's excellent idea to be included in the "official" patch.


Kind regards,

Rasmus

[Gil R.]

No word yet on whether this idea will make it into the patch. It's a good one, though.

[christof139]

Not all that many Abilities are issued to troops anyway, and if you stop the 4-Stars from issuing the ones they and their subordinates have , then the game mechanism will have to be programmed to stop 3-Stars and 2-Stars from also doing the same, thereby making the game rely on 1-stars to issue Abilities.
 
I like the game the way it already is in this regard. I interpret the issuing of Abilities as simply training taking place and experience being gained and learned from actual campaigning.
 
Chris
 
 

[Walloc]

To make it clear. The suggestion is only in regards too heroes and deaded and only for 4 star and 5 star generals. Meaning 3 star and 2 star can still do it.
4 / 5 star can teach it too 35+ units and still be in command of armies.
If limited to 3 star's u cant army command and the number of unit under ur command that u can teach at any time is less than half for 3 star's and 1/7 for 2 star's for union and not all that different for CSA.

Playing a Southern steel, just too see how powered u are as North.
Its aug 62 less than a year into the war and i have 12 units with heroes already.
6 of those teached.

If u wonder why i single out those abilites u have to read my original post, in the thread linked in OP.

im thinking about if flankers should IMHO be added too.
Imagien this. A unit with dreaded and flankers ability. Brigade art and gatling spec's.
Thats double damaged and 4 times moral damage in the flanks at 1 range with another 50% + per gatling gun spec. Possibly 4 times casulties and 8 times moral damage. Give such a unit spencer / henry rifles. That not only a battle winner, but a war winner all in it self. [&o]



Not all that many Abilities are issued to troops anyway

Thats not what im seeing, but that isnt the point im trying to make with this thread.
Taking the example from above. I have 2 field combat armies plus a few siege armies, but since i dont put generals in those ill only tell the stats in the 2 field armies.

65 units, including LUs, in those 2 armies. This is aug 62. 36 on those units already have 2 abilties, 13 with 1 and 16 with out(5 of those have just been added in last turn so no chance of learning). 8 of the 36 units started with non. Ofc some of these units are LUs that had abilities for starters. This is after 10 months.
I've only just started to put corps containers in my armies. Thats more teaching. So i wonder how it will look by 63.
My opinion is those sorta number kinda detracts some thing from the value of LUs. Im not opposed to it in concept, quite the opposite, but i'd say tweek it even futher down. But as said this is another issue than OP issue.


Kind regards,

Rasmus

[christof139]

To make it clear. The suggestion is only in regards too heroes and deaded and only for 4 star and 5 star generals. Meaning 3 star and 2 star can still do it.
4 / 5 star can teach it too 35+ units and still be in command of armies.
If limited to 3 star's u cant army command and the number of unit under ur command that u can teach at any time is less than half for 3 star's and 1/7 for 2 star's for union and not all that different for CSA.

Playing a Southern steel, just too see how powered u are as North.
Its aug 62 less than a year into the war and i have 12 units with heroes already.
6 of those teached.

If u wonder why i single out those abilites u have to read my original post, in the thread linked in OP.

im thinking about if flankers should IMHO be added too.
Imagien this. A unit with dreaded and flankers ability. Brigade art and gatling spec's.
Thats double damaged and 4 times moral damage in the flanks at 1 range with another 50% + per gatling gun spec. Possibly 4 times casulties and 8 times moral damage. Give such a unit spencer / henry rifles. That not only a battle winner, but a war winner all in it self.



Not all that many Abilities are issued to troops anyway

Thats not what im seeing, but that isnt the point im trying to make with this thread.
Taking the example from above. I have 2 field combat armies plus a few siege armies, but since i dont put generals in those ill only tell the stats in the 2 field armies.

65 units, including LUs, in those 2 armies. This is aug 62. 36 on those units already have 2 abilties, 13 with 1 and 16 with out(5 of those have just been added in last turn so no chance of learning). 8 of the 36 units started with non. Ofc some of these units are LUs that had abilities for starters. This is after 10 months.
I've only just started to put corps containers in my armies. Thats more teaching. So i wonder how it will look by 63.
My opinion is those sorta number kinda detracts some thing from the value of LUs. Im not opposed to it in concept, quite the opposite, but i'd say tweek it even futher down. But as said this is another issue than OP issue.


Kind regards,

Rasmus

I don't see all that many abilities actually being issued to troops. It would seem that the 1-Stars hardly issue any directly, and it is always the higher Gens. that issue abilities.

What I would like to see is 1-stars, which represent Bde. Commanders whether a Brigade Commander be a Lt. Col, Col., or Bde. Gen., be able to command a Division Container since sometimes, at least in the USA army, a Col. would occasionally be in divisional command.

I would also like to see Gens. in a city or fort be able to give abilities to troops that are also in garrison in the same city of fort.

The Abilities themselves, those affecting combat outcomes, could easily have their numerical modifiers slightly decreased.

By August, 1862 much fighting had occurred and was ocurring in the ACW, and many troops were very experienced by then.

As for Gatling Guns and the other similar rapid fire weapons used in the ACW that Gatling Guns in FoF also represent, I usually don't or very rarely use those as they were actually only used in very limited numbers during the ACW. Problem solved for too many Gatling Guns; just don't use any or limit the number you actually use to a very small amount.

Overall, perhaps you have a good point in that some of these special abilities and attributes may be over powered, and lowering their effects may be a good idea.

You have some good ideas.

Chris [>:][>:][>:]

[Erik Rutins]

I wonder if Heroes and Dreaded should be non-teachable - off the list entirely for generals. They would only be either starting abilities or learned by the unit through experience.

Regards,

- Erik

[Walloc]

You and Gil, think alike Erik [:)]

He think he suggested that too at some point.
I like that too, just some thing that tones it down.

Well for the moment I just love my 18 heroes unit (G. H. Thomas) army that just beat ANV odds 1 to 2.5. if u dont break u dont lose [:D]. Should be said it was an all disposition inspired+ army of excellent quality on defense. So all units had 7-9 in moral. That helps too.

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[sadja]

If you put a 3 star over a Div in a Corp, will he teach abilities and does he comand that div if there is another 3 star commanding the corp&:]

[Gil R.]

There are other changes Eric and I are considering that would have an impact on how often abilities are taught by generals, and thus would have an impact on this issue. So, no final decisions just yet. Once I know what Eric is able to program I'll adjust the generals files accordingly.

The ideal would be for Heroes and Dreaded to be learned only through combat, and be based on outstanding performance in combat, but that would take more programming than we have time for if we want this patch to go gold quickly. Down the road we might implement this, though.


Sadja, a three-star can command a division, and can do so while another three-star commands a corps.

[sadja]

thanks

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

There are other changes Eric and I are considering that would have an impact on how often abilities are taught by generals, and thus would have an impact on this issue. So, no final decisions just yet. Once I know what Eric is able to program I'll adjust the generals files accordingly.

Eric and I figured that we should run past you guys the other change we're considering. Right now, generals train units in special abilities very often -- much too often in our opinion. We think that the best solution is not to lower the chance that they can teach something, but to require that a unit have a minimum quality level to be teachable. In other words, right now a general doesn't care if a unit's quality is 1.5 -- it'll teach it anyway, even something as counterintuitive as "Brave" or "Blasted." Should a brigade's quality be at least, say, 3.0 or 3.5 before it can be taught a special ability?

[Walloc]

My off the bat feeling, would be 3.5 or since i am a dane. Compromise at 3.25 [:D]

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[ericbabe]

Removing them from the list of teachable special abilities would be the easiest way to proceed.  I do think generals are teaching a bit more freely now -- because ranks are much easier to come by than they previously were.  We don't want to drag out public beta on this version of the patch for too long; we're most interested in fixing the easy things to fix with the OOBs and easily fixed game-balance issues, and to address a couple of the critical issues (PBEM replay, etc.)  Making too many changes to the way generals give special abilities would necessitate a few more weeks of testing.