Revolutionary Thoughts

[Mardonius]

I was wondering how hard it would be to recreate through some creative programming (Bless you, Marshall!) some nifty house rules that we used to employ. For all those Grognards who may be saying harrumph, please note that all I suggest should be optional so if ya don't like it, just don't use it. And remember what happened to the old style armies at Valmy...

How hard would these be to program?

Minor Country Improved Morale with training. (Yours truly wrote his MA thesis on this little matter for the Portuguese. Moreover, I have had some first hand exposure to training/modernizing certain armies myself.) The old AH rules allowed for an optional rule the Brits to improve the Portuguese and the Hanoverians to a 4.0 morale with 24 months of continuous training. I would love to see other nations have the option of training them as well to say 0.5 below their own morale. So the French to 3.5 and the Spanish et alias to 2.5. I would expand this to other nations as well up to a certain limit. I would allow the gaming group to select what countries (say Holland, Denmark for example) could be trained and to what level and by whom.

Increased Corps Size. Allow nations to spend money and time to increase certain of their Corps. Must be in a step function and within reason.

Increase number of corps a nation can produce. Start with their smallest and perhaps could be improved as noted above.
Could apply to some minors as well.

Increase number of depots with expenditures of time and money.

Increase number of fleets with expenditures of time and money.

Allow certain minors (e.g. North Africa) to build light fleets.

Improve fortifications or harbor guns with expenditure of time/money.

I would also consider having a portion of the Privateer monies go to the privateering state. This was the common practice of the day.

Semper Fi
Mardonius

[bresh]

I think, if all could, it would wrip the optional rule apart.
Only reason Hanover and Portugal got the options, because UK managed to make them good in history.
That didnt apply for all corps sponsored by UK. Portugal & Hanover where unique.

Never happend for any other of the majors.

If you added your options, you wouldnt have anything reminding much of EIA after.
Sorry just my points on this.

Regards
Bresh

[Mardonius]

Interesting points Bresh.

Just so we don't close the loop on this entirely without some rejoinder: much of the Nezami Cedid (Turkish European Style troops), who were officered by the French. And though it is outside the geography of our maps, Wellington fought crack armies in India (in the geographic term) trained and officered by the French. And we Americans have a certain fondness for a Prussian Baron Von Steuben who helped Washington train a rag tag militia army into a rather formidable regular force... So my point is that other nations improved morale historically.

Moreover, the Hanoverians have the improved morale historically for dynastic not training by British officers. Why should only the Brits have this benefit? All nations get the Polish improved morale despite the French historical training.

Just because something happened in history does not mean that other things could not happen, so long as they be grounded in reason.

[bresh]

Dont see why i gotta repeat myself.
 
It wouldnt be EIA anymore.
 
Regards
Bresh

[AresMars]

Mardonius,
 
Interesting ideas, but I have to agree with bresh that they are not a part of EiA.
 
I would prefer that with the limited resources available, time and effort be spent more on CORE EiA concepts, rules, options and similar requirements first.
 
Already, EIANW varies greatly from EiA and some of the EIH v3.0 stuff also rubs me the wrong way.  I would love to hear what this Michael Treasure had in mind - I have followed EiH and it has developped nicely in many ways....v3.0 eeeks!
 
As always, this is an open community so majority rules, but my vote would be focused elsewhere in the immediate future.
 
 

[sw30]

actually, the majority has jack didly to say about anything.  If the Majority said to throw out all the EIH stuff because EIA was better balanced (and EIH 3.0 is definitely not as balanced than EIA) do you think the devs would go back?  heck no.  This is a benevolent dictatorship, maybe an oligarchy, definitely not a democracy...

[Mardonius]

Without getting into a detailed argument that would probably not convince many of those not disposed for such options, I would simply suggest that they opt not to adopt such a variant.

I will add to others who may be more open to the suggestion that these options worked well in the old game as they were based in the limited game incomes. If you spent money on these improvements, then you went without something else. Balance was maintained.

Please remember that these are suggested options. My original question was how hard they would be to program. If they are relatively easy to program and allow us to tailor our campaign accordingly then why not?

[Soapy Frog]

Although TBH EiANW has already strayed distressingly far from EiA.

Screwed up OOBs, lack of combined movement, ability to freely loan corps to other nations, heavy and light ships and generally trashed naval balance, inability to pick chits for minor battles, no 5:1 trivial battle implementation, and those are MAJOR foundational changes, let's not get into all the little changes which add up.

EiANW will play radically differently from basic tabletop EiA. Of course there has been zero proper playtesting of all these changes and there may never be with the glacial pace of PBEM and the tiny pool of willing players.

What this game desperately needs is not more house rules and modifications: it needs the core rulset, properly implemented, with the proper optionals FROM THE RULES. From there of course the sky could be the limit. But you have to start somewhere, and we are NOT on solid ground here.

[iamspamus]

Well, I think that it's a good idea. Expanded house rules can work well. Some of them I'd do, others I won't. Thus the idea of a house rule.

To Bresh, adding light fleets makes it "not EIA". Same with the "extra provinces" that were added in EIH. For EIANW, doing dip randomly is not the "real game", nor is FS for minors without a corps, right? So, what? It's the core game that makes it the game. Everyone (I know) plays with official or non-official optional rules.

Some of our house rules involved:

-We kept FS money separate and allowed them to save it. They also did builds when neutral.

-At some time, we added the cost of ships without access to nordic timber (or something like that). Basically GB had to pay more if not allied with RU or controlling Sweden or Norway. Only used that a bit.

-We definitely used the -1 for friendly forage (all conq, FS, ceded, and allies)

-We often played with "personal leader". Roll 4 dice. The first three dice were the strat, tact, and corps max. Rerolling 6's, while on the fourth roll a 6 = a cav leader. That 555* British guy really changed the game a bit!!! The catch was that your leader was a D leader and could only be used if you, personally showed up! It was crazy.

These were just a few. We didn't use them all the time, but could if we wanted to. Thus the reason they were called house rules or options. It didn't make it less EIA.

Matrix folks, I'd like to see more options available too...after fixing the AI...[8|]

Jason

ORIGINAL: Mardonius

I was wondering how hard it would be to recreate through some creative programming (Bless you, Marshall!) some nifty house rules that we used to employ. For all those Grognards who may be saying harrumph, please note that all I suggest should be optional so if ya don't like it, just don't use it. And remember what happened to the old style armies at Valmy...

How hard would these be to program?

Minor Country Improved Morale with training. (Yours truly wrote his MA thesis on this little matter for the Portuguese. Moreover, I have had some first hand exposure to training/modernizing certain armies myself.) The old AH rules allowed for an optional rule the Brits to improve the Portuguese and the Hanoverians to a 4.0 morale with 24 months of continuous training. I would love to see other nations have the option of training them as well to say 0.5 below their own morale. So the French to 3.5 and the Spanish et alias to 2.5. I would expand this to other nations as well up to a certain limit. I would allow the gaming group to select what countries (say Holland, Denmark for example) could be trained and to what level and by whom.

Increased Corps Size. Allow nations to spend money and time to increase certain of their Corps. Must be in a step function and within reason.

Increase number of corps a nation can produce. Start with their smallest and perhaps could be improved as noted above.
Could apply to some minors as well.

Increase number of depots with expenditures of time and money.

Increase number of fleets with expenditures of time and money.

Allow certain minors (e.g. North Africa) to build light fleets.

Improve fortifications or harbor guns with expenditure of time/money.

I would also consider having a portion of the Privateer monies go to the privateering state. This was the common practice of the day.

Semper Fi
Mardonius

[DCWhitworth]

I'm not against some of these ideas but what they will do for game balance I can't say.

I have misgivings about some of the changes already made to the game, if nothing else I would like to see the thoughts behind these changes. For instance - Turkish corps, previously the Janissary corps were just 15i, strong but inflexible. Now they are 15i 3c, not just making them better, but better than the Nizami Corps which is supposed to represent the reformed section of the army.

Another thing I find frustrating in games are being limited to doing only those things that happened in history. The training minor country corps is an example of this. On the other hand there is the fact of various corps getting a four movement when French.

In a way you probably need to go deeper than tinkering with the existing rules. Most armies during this period underwent huge reorganisations which would be represented by changes to morale and corps counters. In 1805 most armies didn't even *have* such a thing as a corps in their structure.

Is the original design sacrosanct ? If not how far do you go in making changes ? If you tinker and tinker and tinker soon you'll have a game that bears little resemblance to the original board game.

[gwheelock]

I would recommend making most changes as "optionals".  That way
"purists" can play the standard game while others try out the changes
to see how they implact play-balance.
 

[Grimrod42]

Read Soapy Frogs post ...
fix the basic non optional version of the game
then maybe someday if that gets done then maybe add in these made up "House rules"
This discussion seems to me to distract from what is actually important.

[DCWhitworth]

ORIGINAL: Grimrod42

Read Soapy Frogs post ...
fix the basic non optional version of the game
then maybe someday if that gets done then maybe add in these made up "House rules"
This discussion seems to me to distract from what is actually important.

I have read his post and I don't necessarily disagree with it, though I feel his comments are rather more scathing than is necessary, but I don't see that this should detract from us discussion potential ideas. I don't see anyone here expressing the view that these ideas should take precedence over fixing the core game issues.

This only "distracts from what is important" if you think the Matrix staff are going to see it and be distracted which I think is doing them a disservice.

I don't believe it has anywhere been stated that the computer version would be a 100% faithful reproduction of the original boardgame.

[Soapy Frog]

Scathing? I am not trying to give insult. I wish to be straightforward and honest about the state of affairs. I would hope the developer is able to take that in context.
 
It is just not wise to stray so far from the core design when so many fundamentals are broken or not implemented. Start with a solid foundation, and then go crazy from there

[WJPalmer1]

Afraid I have to agree with DCWhitworth on this. Use of adjectives such as "screwed up", "trashed", accusations such as "zero proper playtesting" and a generally hostile tone qualify as "scathing" in my book. While I would probably otherwise agree with several of your points, I find myself looking for reasons to take the opposite view. Just some constructive feedback...

[Soapy Frog]

Hostile... I bought this game, and I am trying to run with it, as is everyone else. It is what it is. The things that are broken need to be pointed out, sugar-coating it or using euphemisms isn't going to help anything.
 
Best to be clear, straightforward, to the point. That's all!
 
Sorry to (partly) derail a potentially interesting discussion on hosue rules... I have a real fear that the core issues are going to be ignored in favour of more chrome.

[Mynok]

I doubt that. What's core to one is maybe irrelevant to another however.

[Mardonius]

Hi Lads:

I think my intended points won't be able to be conveyed or put in their proper context to a considerable portion of our already rarified audience in the near future. However, I would like to revist them after the first three or so patches.... but readers must promise to have a couple of beers first to induce creativity. At that point I reckon that we will all be a little bit more amenable to the concept of house rules.


One shot, one kill!
Mardonius

ps Jason/Spam: We did the same thing with minors saving dollars but were not so clever as to do the neutral building. Good idea.

pps: Soapy: You somehow managed to get our French and Brit player allied in their perspectives:) Nifty trick!

[DodgyDave]

the need for new leaders is not really there, even if you loss them all, then does it seem that the corps you got, can still outflank, russian corps still qualify in the defend chit along with Turkey using Assault vs counter and the more aggressive one, so the need for more leaders is not really there i would say. still i would not mind still more small leaders like some 2 2 1 and 3 3 1 would be fun.

[Mardonius]

Hello Lads:

Ready for your barbs and arrows again...

Now that Marshall is cracking away on Patch 1.02 and the AI, I thought we might want to revisit some options I put forward about a month ago. Mind you, these are ideas that you may or may not like.

The point is to allow a scenario editor to change things like corps amount or size, unit morales, leaders, incomes, etc.

What you might call a market approach vice a central planning rigid approach... This way individual groups could tailor campaigns to different flavors in in the "horse and musket" timeframe.

Yes, this is not EiA in the old Avalon Hill version but neither is what we have today. With such a tool one could campaign from the beginning of the 30 years War to, perhaps, the Franco-Prussian War.

Just some ideas.

best
Mardonius

ORIGINAL: Mardonius

I was wondering how hard it would be to recreate through some creative programming (Bless you, Marshall!) some nifty house rules that we used to employ. For all those Grognards who may be saying harrumph, please note that all I suggest should be optional so if ya don't like it, just don't use it. And remember what happened to the old style armies at Valmy...

How hard would these be to program?

Minor Country Improved Morale with training. (Yours truly wrote his MA thesis on this little matter for the Portuguese. Moreover, I have had some first hand exposure to training/modernizing certain armies myself.) The old AH rules allowed for an optional rule the Brits to improve the Portuguese and the Hanoverians to a 4.0 morale with 24 months of continuous training. I would love to see other nations have the option of training them as well to say 0.5 below their own morale. So the French to 3.5 and the Spanish et alias to 2.5. I would expand this to other nations as well up to a certain limit. I would allow the gaming group to select what countries (say Holland, Denmark for example) could be trained and to what level and by whom.

Increased Corps Size. Allow nations to spend money and time to increase certain of their Corps. Must be in a step function and within reason.

Increase number of corps a nation can produce. Start with their smallest and perhaps could be improved as noted above.
Could apply to some minors as well.

Increase number of depots with expenditures of time and money.

Increase number of fleets with expenditures of time and money.

Allow certain minors (e.g. North Africa) to build light fleets.

Improve fortifications or harbor guns with expenditure of time/money.

I would also consider having a portion of the Privateer monies go to the privateering state. This was the common practice of the day.

Semper Fi
Mardonius