iPad observations

[ryan1488]

Got the game last night and put about 3 hours in. Overall very good. A few things though.

The map jumps around like crazy during the AI turn. Can't tell what moves the computer is doing.

Fat finger syndrome makes its way to easy to accidentally swap units, maybe an optional are you sure you want to swap units option?

There is no way that I know of to clear units from the screen, like when studying terrain for example.

A big one is no included manual. I don't see you picking up very many lite gamer converts this way. The in game tutorial should be a supplement not the main course.

But overall im loving it! Keep up the good work!

[Lord Zimoa]

Regarding AI camera: I think it only happens if your view is zoomed out, as a work around: please zoom in before ending your turn and see how camera behaves then.

Here you can find the CTGW Manual PC version in PDF:

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam ... 1406292810

[dstone11]

Newbie issues w/ iPad version.

1) Concur (STRONGLY) with the "fat-finger-accidentally-swap-units" problem. Has happened to me more times than I can count. I'd guess that "undo" is not feasible. Either needs a new interface for swapping, or a confirm. Confirm would be annoying I know, but better than the undo-able accidental swap.

2) I'm guessing the "tutorial" messages are just the one-time messages that show up when you first start playing. I I missed a few the first time through, and there seems to be no way to reset them.

3) The tutorial messages include several PC-based instructions, e.g., instructions to hold down the space bar to review terrain, etc. Needs a pass for the iPad version.

4) For the mass market you're trying to reach with iPad, you probably need a true tutorial. I'm a hardcore PC gamer, so I'll live, but even I would like more of a tutorial.

5) Again for the mass market, many sections of the manual detail the PC interface. Again, doesn't bother me since I read the manual(s) for game rules rather than interface instructions, but I imagine it will bother the mass market.

[Lord Zimoa]

Thanks for the feedback:


1) Concur (STRONGLY) with the "fat-finger-accidentally-swap-units" problem. Has happened to me more times than I can count. I'd guess that "undo" is not feasible. Either needs a new interface for swapping, or a confirm. Confirm would be annoying I know, but better than the undo-able accidental swap.

>>> Swapping needs a confirm so double tab now, but we have a look at making this more clear in the graphics.

2) I'm guessing the "tutorial" messages are just the one-time messages that show up when you first start playing. I I missed a few the first time through, and there seems to be no way to reset them.

>>> They will start up at random every time you start and load the game.

3) The tutorial messages include several PC-based instructions, e.g., instructions to hold down the space bar to review terrain, etc. Needs a pass for the iPad version.

>>> All was done for the iPad version, but somehow it seems an older text file was included in the approval build, be sure we fix this in next update, as again it is a bug really

5) Again for the mass market, many sections of the manual detail the PC interface. Again, doesn't bother me since I read the manual(s) for game rules rather than interface instructions, but I imagine it will bother the mass market.

>>> I see if we can do this in next update, the game mechanics also had some minor changes, biggest is the addition of the smaller garrisons, so an update of the manual we have on the wishlist.

[bob.]

How can you display the industrial map mode on iPad?

[Lord Zimoa]

You mean the cities PP, in both the PC and iPad versions this has been changed now:

The amount of PP produced in all cities are represented on the map as the numbers next to the city names.

This was updated in the text, but somehow we still have an older version in the approved version, we fix this in next update/patch.

[bob.]

ORIGINAL: Lord Zimoa

You mean the cities PP, in both the PC and iPad versions this has been changed now:

The amount of PP produced in all cities are represented on the map as the numbers next to the city names.

This was updated in the text, but somehow we still have an older version in the approved version, we fix this in next update/patch.

Ah, I see. That makes sense.

I would suggest though to implement a view without anything on the map, i.e. only the terrain. With the new thick borders rivers are completely invisible. Maybe like in Shenandoah's games, when holding one finger on the screen?

[Lord Zimoa]

Hi Bob, would be great but CTGW is one very, very big art map piece, just making it load, work and still look acceptable on the retina displays on the iPad is a small miracle, concerning the tight memory budget we have to deal with.

So showing the PP permanent on the map was, in our eyes, the best option in this case.

[bob.]

ORIGINAL: Lord Zimoa

Hi Bob, would be great but CTGW is one very, very big art map piece, just making it load, work and still look acceptable on the retina displays on the iPad is a small miracle, concerning the tight memory budget we have to deal with.

So showing the PP permanent on the map was, in our eyes, the best option in this case.

I'm not sure I understand you correctly. Isn't the map displayed anyway?

I did not mean showing the whole map at once, just hiding everything on the map that is currently visibible so you can clearly see the terrain underneath.

[dstone11]

re: the double tap to swap -- I think I know why this keeps happening to me.
-- I select unit one
-- after seeing unit one, I decide not to use him right now
-- I (attempt to) deselect unit one by selecting another (adjacent) unit
-- visually "nothing happens", i.e., unit one remains selected and there is no graphic indicating the upcoming swap
-- and then I "try again" to deselect unit one by tapping unit two again, and get the "unexpected" swap
-- note: this second tap is often seconds, or 10's of seconds later, i.e., not really a "double-tap"

Make sense?

[dstone11]

More re: the double-tap to swap
-- just realized there IS a visual indication you're about to swap
-- it appears UNDER the icon
-- I use NATO icons
-- you can see the tiniest sliver of the swap icon

Display bug?

[rodney727]

I fat fingered it also but I use a stylus now and that problem went away. Great game.

[xwormwood]

I just bought the iPad version of the game, and would like to ask for some help:

With no manual coming with the game nor to be found within the game I finally found the PC manual here in the forums. Please give me a hint where i can find the iOS manual, or how i can access it from within the game.

Something else I couldn't find was an information if there is an undo button / function with the game or not. I refuse to believe that there is none, so I would like to ask you to teach me how to undo a move. After all the interface is at least at times quite disturbing, like if you want to unselect a unit and suddenly swap positions with another unit.

Next question I would like to ask is where i can find loss statistics in the game (unit losses for each country). I'm pretty sure that i looked into every menu. There are loss statics, right?

For your help many thanks in advance.

[Hellfirejet]

ORIGINAL: Xwormwood

I just bought the iPad version of the game, and would like to ask for some help:

With no manual coming with the game nor to be found within the game I finally found the PC manual here in the forums. Please give me a hint where i can find the iOS manual, or how i can access it from within the game.

Something else I couldn't find was an information if there is an undo button / function with the game or not. I refuse to believe that there is none, so I would like to ask you to teach me how to undo a move. After all the interface is at least at times quite disturbing, like if you want to unselect a unit and suddenly swap positions with another unit.

Next question I would like to ask is where i can find loss statistics in the game (unit losses for each country). I'm pretty sure that i looked into every menu. There are loss statics, right?

For your help many thanks in advance.

Sorry to say there is no undo last move button,not yet anyway!

You can view the in game casualties,click on the management button,the losses are shown bottom center panel.

[Lord Zimoa]

The PC gameplay or iPad gameplay are the same out side a few updates we added since release, so basically you can read the PC manual perfectly just no clicking but tabbing.

Gameplay and feature wise there are none really, but after next patch we might update the manual and include the latest balancing and game-play changes, biggest change since release is the addition of small garrisons in both versions, explained with some ingame tutorial info at this point, but not in the older manual.

Great playing guide for Commander: The Great War at Pocket Tactics:

http://www.pockettactics.com/features/f ... war-noobs/

[xwormwood]

Please explain the reasoning for not implementing an undo function. The abscence kills (at least for me) any fun which might come from playing this game because it is so unbelievable easy to misclick in the iPad Version of the game. Every time I misclick I'm truly absolutly [:@] angry [:@] about this missing standard feature in a high price iPad game, and next thing I do is asking myself how on earth it was possible to overlook this during the creation of the game and the following beta phase.
I would also strongly suggest that you inform your customers that they can find the PC (sigh) manual here in the forum. Again I'm not able to understand why you ingnored to offer a manual in the first place.
For me that is like asking for angry iTunes reviews on purpose. Was that the aim? [&:]

[Lord Zimoa]

The undo button is a very complicated and big task, we probably can only add one for the new Commander games realistically, but it would involve such potential bugs and problems, waiting another 6 months on the game on iPad was no option for us. If we still see a possibility to engineer it in in the future we will, but again definitely nothing easy and quick to add. We realise it is a missing cool feature, but the port was hard enough as it was, read here for some more background:

http://www.wargamer.com/article/3643/in ... r-for-ipad

What we will do for the next update is put the switch double-tab function and symbols more clearly on the units visually.

On the manual, we plan to update it after the next few planned patches as we have some last mayor game-play and re-balancing plans we want to implement, meaning the manual will be outdated in a few weeks/months.

At the moment feature wise the PC and iPad version are practically the same, except for some changes we again have done in the past:

Gameplay and feature wise there are none really, but after next patch we might update the manual and include the latest balancing and game-play changes, biggest change since release is the addition of small garrisons in both versions, explained with some ingame tutorial info at this point, but not in the older manual.

So the PC manual will do fine for now, we don`t have the man resources or budgets to do it now than start over in a few weeks time.

It is everybody it`s own choice therefore punishing us with bad reviews for it, but it will not help us or speed us up...

[Lord Zimoa]

Side note here are links to manuals and gameplay guides:

Here on Slitherine:

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 02&t=51294

Here on Matrix:

tm.asp?m=3662935

And here on Steam:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/312350/di ... 350780359/