Quick question for owners of GoA

[justaguy93]

I'm just curious if the initial setup/political situations of GoA have any variance or randomness to them which would make each game potentially unique? Does each game have the potential to be a little different or are things pretty much exactly the same from game to game?

If anyone has played Advanced Third Reich I'm checking to see if there are rules in the game along the lines of the Diplomacy, Research, and Surrender rules which seemed to help keep the games from being too easy to calculate out in advance and forced some thinking on your feet types of strategies.


...the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function. Without mercy. Without compassion. Without remorse. All war depends on it.

-justaguy93

[gothfather]

You have complete control of where you place your units in the game's start. you can even save various setups.

You have diplomacy and research and surrender rules. You don't get to see the mechanics behind the surrender rules but they are there. Diplomacy determines when nations enter the war and on which side. Research allows you to improve units and defenses and allows you the ability to choose your focus. The replay ability appears very high except....

BUT DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. THE GAME ALLOWS ENEMY UNITS THAT ARE ENCIRCLED TO USE RAIL MOVEMENT THROUGH ENEMY UNITS TO ESCAPE.

I went from the opinion that this was a must buy game to the opinion that this game is worthy of the rubbish heap awards. Do not waste your money until this HUGE flaw is addressed.

[Franck]

I do not agree with godfather on MANY points.

First, Yes you have variable setup. But the democracy is a little limited. You can't change the side a country will join. But you can delay or make a country join sooner. Still because of the different setup you can use, I believe this game as a high replayability. In my opinion you should also try to play PBEM. Because the AI is a little limited ( for exemple, if you want to you can make sure the AI britain will never send a single unit over sea to France or whereever. Just by being aggresive in the North Atlantic. ) Still it as huge potential and I'm just starting my first game. Still, in total I played ALOT of games against the AI. About 15, wich I have all won. Still means this game came as a pretty low cost per hours enjoyed ratio. Wich is a must.

I never noticed the bug godfather is talking about and I understand he failed to produce a saved file about this. France gets ALOT of reenforcement on one turn. And I think that's what he believe to be the magic fly away train. I have trapped whole russian armies in poland and I never saw a single unit leave these pocket ( until I decided they were donw enough in Readiness and strengh to whipe them off. ) And I also trapped big french armies in Verdun and the southern city/fort without ever seeing this bug happen.

This game is a must buy IMO if you enjoy WWI, or if you want a different AND fast paced game. This is not War in the pacific ( of wich only the first turn as the japanese can take me as long as a single game of GoA ). It is a great game, wich doesn't go to much in the details. But that really gives you the feel of world war one, I never felt this as much as when I'm going for a Russia first strategy and I inevitably see my offensive loose steam when I have reached the Riga-warsaw and agricultural rich southern region of russia. (wich fortunetely, is enought to cause Russia to go into rebelion )

[gothfather]

ORIGINAL: Franck

I do not agree with godfather on MANY points.

First, Yes you have variable setup. But the democracy is a little limited. You can't change the side a country will join. But you can delay or make a country join sooner. Still because of the different setup you can use, I believe this game as a high replayability. In my opinion you should also try to play PBEM. Because the AI is a little limited ( for exemple, if you want to you can make sure the AI britain will never send a single unit over sea to France or whereever. Just by being aggresive in the North Atlantic. ) Still it as huge potential and I'm just starting my first game. Still, in total I played ALOT of games against the AI. About 15, wich I have all won. Still means this game came as a pretty low cost per hours enjoyed ratio. Wich is a must.

I never noticed the bug godfather is talking about and I understand he failed to produce a saved file about this. France gets ALOT of reenforcement on one turn. And I think that's what he believe to be the magic fly away train. I have trapped whole russian armies in poland and I never saw a single unit leave these pocket ( until I decided they were donw enough in Readiness and strengh to whipe them off. ) And I also trapped big french armies in Verdun and the southern city/fort without ever seeing this bug happen.

This game is a must buy IMO if you enjoy WWI, or if you want a different AND fast paced game. This is not War in the pacific ( of wich only the first turn as the japanese can take me as long as a single game of GoA ). It is a great game, wich doesn't go to much in the details. But that really gives you the feel of world war one, I never felt this as much as when I'm going for a Russia first strategy and I inevitably see my offensive loose steam when I have reached the Riga-warsaw and agricultural rich southern region of russia. (wich fortunetely, is enought to cause Russia to go into rebelion )

I have save game files but no one asked. get your facts right. Frank hunter has been very very silent about the whole thing. You didn't ask for them nor did anyone else and then to imply my problem is not real because i didn't produce save game files is pretty low. you want the @#$% save game files then ask for them. Don't imply I can't produced them and therefore my issue is imaginary.

jerk "He never supplied the save game files so I wouldn't trust him"
potential buyer " Did you ask fo them?"
Jerk " Well no, but he didn't supply them in any case so you can't trust him"
buyer " I see. So if I report a bug here and no one asks for my save games files you will think I'm a liar because I never produced any save game files. Files you SPECIFICLY did not ask for. Great strategy ignore issues by claiming their imaginary because people don't produce files no one asked for."


Unless the french get 3 HQ in jan 1915 then there is no way they could be the result of new units.

This game has A MAJOR issue I've seen it and I've reproduced it three times now.

[Franck]

I still do not agree with you.

This game really shine as a PBEM ( and even with this bug you should beat the AI as I have never lost even if I made Italy, romania and greece join the CP at the hardest difficulty level. OR playing the CP as the hardest difficulty level. ) and in a PBEM your opponent SHOULDN'T exploit this (EVEN if it did exist, as I do not believe it does.) Still I'll try to see if it does in this PBEM I'm starting, as I imagine that some armies will get cut off against a human.

[gothfather]

ORIGINAL: Franck

I still do not agree with you.

This game really shine as a PBEM ( and even with this bug you should beat the AI as I have never lost even if I made Italy, romania and greece join the CP at the hardest difficulty level. OR playing the CP as the hardest difficulty level. ) and in a PBEM your opponent SHOULDN'T exploit this (EVEN if it did exist, as I do not believe it does.) Still I'll try to see if it does in this PBEM I'm starting, as I imagine that some armies will get cut off against a human.

Lots of people do not like playing PBEM. I judge games on their single player merits and magical trains makes this game crap in single player.

[SteveD64]

I don't think there is a magical train bug in PBEM, this could be an AI only problem.  Me and my opponent have both had corps pocketed and neither of us had been able to get out until physically relieved. 

This game has bugs with strategic movement- there's no question (at least with the version I just played).   They should be addressed and I have no reason to believe they won't be.

[gothfather]

ORIGINAL: CLEVELAND

I don't think there is a magical train bug in PBEM, this could be an AI only problem.  Me and my opponent have both had corps pocketed and neither of us had been able to get out until physically relieved. 

This game has bugs with strategic movement- there's no question (at least with the version I just played).   They should be addressed and I have no reason to believe they won't be.

Thank you for not implying I'm making things up.

[justaguy93]

I'll take bugs over design flaws any day, bugs can be fixed.
So aside from the potential rail bug, which I would assume could be easily addressed in a future patch, it sounds like a good game with at least a fair amount of replayability.  I haven't really read anything about the design of the game that leads me to believe that it is fatally flawed, where after you play each side a couple of times it's time to uninstall and move on.  The key in grand strategy games like this to replayablity is the unpredicable.  It'd be nice if some countries could have the potential to swing both ways, but at least if their entry to the war is something of a guess as to if/when it will happen that is enough. 

So for revolution/surrenders, with Russia for example, does it happen when criteria x,y,z are met or is it more random than that?  Like if I know Russia is close to collapse and I gamble my strategy on it happening by a certain time, do I know exactly how to make that happen in every game or is there some guesswork involved for things of that nature?

[wurger54]

Not much doubt about where Godfather stands. Message rec'd loud and clear. [X(]

I have played some solitiare, but don't enjoy it more as PBEM. I've determined that the only way to have a decent game solitiar is to play as the CP, the AI can't seem to put together an offensive that instills fear as the CP. I haven't seen the flying RRs, and have pocketed numerous AI armies. I have seen the AI refit surrounded units until the supply situation prevented it. This is something that at least one if my PBEM opponants and I agreed not to do. That is the nice thing about PBEM, if your opponant plays a comfortable game, you can discuss glitches (or in this case just a design feature we disagreed on) and usually play through them.

As far a the original question raised by 'justaguy93'... I would love to see some more creative political results show up. I'm re reading a work on WWI and it really looks like Italy, Bulgaria, Albania, and Romania were playing one side against the other and could have ended up in either camp, depending on who made the best offer. According the the book I'm reading all of them were watching the Gallipoli campaign with keen interest, and potential gains from a successful 3E campaign, as part of their decision.

Oh, and Justaguy93, if you are interested in WWI, this game is IT. [8D]

[justaguy93]

I guess what I'm really asking is how much of a thinking vs planning game this is.  I can recall playing the old 3rd Reich PC game via e-mail.  That game wasn't the best from a technical perspective, but I remember playing with someone and just getting killed.  The thing is, I got the impression that I wasn't getting killed because I was a horrible strategist, I was getting killed because this guy had played the game enough times to know exactly what moves to make to win the game.  The only real variable was combat results, so once you knew the game system enough strategy was a matter of knowing the exact moves to make, when to make them, and then it coming down to the dice (so to speak) for a handful of key battles.  It wasn't the type of game where your plan invovled a lot of judgement calls and adjusting to unexpected changes in the strategic situation.  That's the type of game that I think really makes you think and can be fun to play over and over again.  And as far as command simulation goes, I think that's the only type of game that is realistic.  History is full of commanders who pulled of great victories through gutsy calls where they caught a break, or armies that have been defeated because their leadership was blind to changing events and clung to their predetermined plans too long.  Those are the types of decisions I like to make in wargames.

Anyways, for those who have played the game more than a few times, does it seem like you get caught dealing with those types of thought processes?  Or does it wind up coming down to just executing the same plan over and over and waiting to see if you catch a break in the combats to see if you win or lose?

[justaguy93]

wurger54,

Thanks for the reply!  I completely agree on the political situations, it seems like this war more than most any other was one that just about anything could have happened.  I'm guessing that's not a patchable type of fix unfortunately.

[SMK-at-work]

All games repay familiarity IMO.....there are many ways of making mistakes that will come back and bite you....but they'er all in the strategy you follow....there's not a lot of "tricks" that I can think of that aren't actually obvious once they're pointed out (eg usnig German cruisers to raid the Atlantic, sending Turkish RM's to Germany)

Gothfather's "warning" above is well over the top (sic) IMO........there are much worse "bugs" in the game than his 1 possible instance of a magic railway, but none of them make the game unplayable.

[Moltke71]

@gothfather:
 
So OK, we're asking.  Send the save game files to Frank Hunter.  Let's see what you have.

[justaguy93]

All games repay familiarity IMO

To a certain agree definitely, but some have enough randomness built in to them to keep you on your toes while others play out pretty much exactly the same every time.

[SteveD64]

I would like to have the option of being able to influence whether Greece or Romania join the CP (not just hardwired in, I mean actually not knowing who they'll join).  Make the TE and CP diplomatically fight over them and winner take all.
 
I'm down to my last turn in my second PBEM game and I'm hoping my opponent will oblige me in another game as soon as we're done- it's been a great experience. 

[SMK-at-work]

You're more likely to want those 2 to join the other side!![8D]

[kcole4080]

I found the replayability quite high.
I've never had a game go exactly the same yet.
So far I've only played against the AI, but the results of moves & battles differ each time.

As to pockets: I found encircling to be the most effective way to eliminate enemy strength, & I've never seen any of those units taken out of the pocket in my games yet.
I always used aerial recon on these pockets to aid in arty bombardments dropping their readiness to 0, then attack with a couple of corps.
Works every time, if you can surround the salient & hold off the inevitable counter-attacks.

The French & Italians seem most prone to over extending themselves, making this tactic easier.

Opening setups of the AI countries is different most times, as are their objectives, and placing the main strength of their reinforcements. Each campaign evolves differently.

Then there are the main strategies of: France first, Russia first, even Italy first, for the CP player.
I haven't even gotten to playing the Entente yet, and I've played the game since September.
Not to mention the spending choices in the Strat Phase: ie: spend more on research, on replacements, arty, diplomacy, etc.

My opinion: if you like the subject matter, then buy the game.
Simple as that.

[justaguy93]

So would it be correct to say that countries joining the war (when they join, not who) and surrender both have some randomness figured in, and aren't events that you can predict with 100% accuracy before they occur?

[justaguy93]

Opening setups of the AI countries is different most times, as are their objectives, and placing the main strength of their reinforcements. Each campaign evolves differently.

Then there are the main strategies of: France first, Russia first, even Italy first, for the CP player.
I haven't even gotten to playing the Entente yet, and I've played the game since September.
Not to mention the spending choices in the Strat Phase: ie: spend more on research, on replacements, arty, diplomacy, etc.

My opinion: if you like the subject matter, then buy the game.
Simple as that.

That's pretty much what I was hoping to hear.  If you've played the game for a couple of months without even switching sides and still not know exactly how it's going to play out from game to game I think that's about all you can ask for.  I guess I'll have to go ahead and make the purchase. 

Thanks to everyone for the replies.

-justaguy93