June Update (A little early)

[Marshall Ellis]

Hey all:

Just wanted to get a jump on June and fill you in with a little more info...

Well, we listened and we learned. Here is a list of the latest. Again, input is welcome but many of these additions came from you guys and again ... thank you.

COSSACKS have been added and comply with standard EIA rules.

FREIKORPS (Austrian and Prussian) have been added and comply with the standard EIA rules. I added these guys because well after implementing COSSACKS, FREIKORPS were as simple as adding another graphic.

The KINGDOMS of The Ottoman Empire and Poland have been added as well. We will proably add all of the available kingdoms in the standard EIA game but just haven't had the chance to do so yet. Again, once you add one, the rest are easier to implement.

NAVAL INTERCEPTIONS have been implemented in a little different fashion. In order to allow PBEM play to flow, we simply added a PATROL command for fleets. This command will set the fleet in a "SEARCH" mode and will auto check interception
for elidgible enemy fleets. If successful then the battle will commence.

SPANISH GUERILLAS have been implemented and comply with standard EIA rules with the exception of ... If after losing a battle in an unceded home province, Spain already has guerillas in that same province then the factor is added to that guerilla unit. If there are not guerillas in that same province then a guerilla unit is created.

AUSTRIAN INSURRECTION CORPS have been added to the game and we had a bit of a challenge with it but here is how we implemented them: The challenge with the insurrection corps units is that if an enemy invaded Austria (In certain provinces) then the Austrian player could effectively interrupt the invading player's move. This essentially requires two active players which could be a problem in PBEM and in HOTSEAT type games. We simply are allowing an insurrection roll to see if the insurrection corps units are placed blocking the invading player's units. If the roll is successful then the units are placed. If not then the units will be available the next Austrian Reinforcement phase.

TURKISH FEUDALS have been added to the game and act as normal with the exception that the units (In place of the levy step) can be stood down in December then brought back (To full strength of course) in the January Reinforcement phase. Keep in mind that the feudals can still be stood down at any other reinforcement phase and brought back (At the same strength levels) in any later reinforcement phase.

These additions have put me back into a frenzied bug-zapping mode to verify all of the above flows smoothly. Sorry for the long post but wanted to keep you all in the loop as to where we were AND where we are. Anyway, Now MINIMIZING my browser and MAXIMIZING my compiler ... back to work!

Thank you

[sol_invictus]

I must say that I find it astounding and immensely gratifying to see such flexibility and willingness to listen to your gaming public in such a manner. I must admit that while I have the boardgame and have a passing knowledge of the rules; I have never actually played the game; but it seems to me that you are making all the correct decisions and my anticipation for this game is as intense as for any game in the last 5 years. Keep up the great work and I wish you fortune in your endeavor.

[Wynter]

Marshal,

Thanks for the update.
I'm really astonished by the way you listen to us gaming-freaks and incorporate everything we say into the game. Thank you very-very much.

A question on the Austrian Insurrection Corps. Would it be possible to place them in another area than the area the enemy corps is in? In EiA it is a 'common' practice to place the Insurrection Corps behind the enemy advancing through the Insurrection Provinces to disrupt his supply line. Would this be possible in the game?

Jeroen.

[timothy_stone]

NAVAL INTERCEPTIONS have been implemented in a little different fashion. In order to allow PBEM play to flow, we simply added a PATROL command for fleets. This command will set the fleet in a "SEARCH" mode and will auto check interception
for elidgible enemy fleets. If successful then the battle will commence.

[/B][/QUOTE] You may want to consider giving the player a bit of flexibility here - sometimes a player will want to intercept only specific fleets - for examples, "tick this box to only intercept fleets with corps" or "tick here to only intercept at 1-1 odds or better" - otherwise you will make the game very difficult for the british player - perhaps a similar (but less crucial) thing could be done w. the Au ins corps

[Capitaine]

Very impressed with your thoughtfulness and your appreciation for the views of gamers posting here Marshall! I like how you handled the Interception and Insurrection Corps issues (and you may want to consider Mr. Stone's added options which make some good sense if they are easy enough to code in).

Shaping up nicely, indeed.

How 'bout some new screenshots of the artwork?

[Marshall Ellis]

Hey Guys:

Thank you for the feedback.

The insurrections and naval interceptions are the two main tweaks from the standard board game and NOT the units but how they are placed / used.

We may tweak the patrol mission a bit to fine tune what they are patrolling for. We may let playtesting give us the verdict for that.

Insurrection placement? We may tweak this as well to more fine tune it to allow for supply cut off. Again, we'll probably let playtesting give us the answer (or at least more clues).

Sorry for the "tweaks" but in this client-server engine we're developing, it would be quite difficult to interrupt someone in the middle of their move and insurrections and naval interceptions do just that. This requires that all players be able to chime in at the same time and in PBEM (That ain't happening). We're open to suggestions so any ideas then keep them coming.

Thank you

[timothy_stone]

Originally posted by Marshall Ellis
Hey Guys:

We may tweak the patrol mission a bit to fine tune what they are patrolling for. We may let playtesting give us the verdict for that.

Sorry for the "tweaks" but in this client-server engine we're developing, it would be quite difficult to interrupt someone in the middle of their move and insurrections and naval interceptions do just that. This requires that all players be able to chime in at the same time and in PBEM (That ain't happening). We're open to suggestions so any ideas then keep them coming.

Thank you

Having played by email for the last 10 years or so, i understand the fact that the interception and insurrection rules slow life down immensely (had a lot of several-day sessions saying 'do you intercept now? how about now?' I do not envy your task - because I guarantee you that as a FR player I could get an army into great britain in the first 3 months if i won control of denmark, sweden, or portugal (barring ridiculously bad rolls). And if the settings only allowed GB to say 'intercept' or 'no intercept' i could force GB to lose 4 pps worth of blockade battles before i landed my army in london. This is going to be a **very** difficult thing for you to program. Sadly, i am not a beta-tester, but if you want me to explain the difficulties of this to some of your beta-testers i will be glad to. Thinking about it in detail, you might have to let one player post his entire naval phase, then have the defender choose points of interception - sort of like AH's old Squad leader 'tracking'

[Wynter]

Marshall,

You are right that in a PBEM environment the players have to trust the server to make 'the right decision' on interception or placement of Insurrection corps.
Adding additional options for interception ('intercept', 'don't intercept', 'intercept only when opponent is of equal or less strength', 'intercept only if transporting corps' - default option is 'intercept') should do the trick.
I'm unsure on how you could let the server handle the insurrection corps placement. Maybe the options 'attack invading corps', 'block supply line', 'add to existing friendly stack' with default option 'attack' would be sufficient?

Jeroen.

[Supervisor]

I have been reading these posts for a couple of months now, but just now registered on this site. I could not be any more excited about the unveiling of this EiA computer game and am very thankful that some company had the guts to take this project on. I am sure the programming is not easy and the audience is even worse, as they are mostly avid gamers. Thank you Matrix Games. I was also very pleased to read this post becuase I was afraid that from reading some of the earlier posts these options would be left out. Have you decided to program in bidding? I think this is an important aspect of the game (unless the user is playing against only comps, but even then still) and doesn't seem that it would be that difficult to program in. Without bidding, how will the players/countries be decided? Random? That kinda takes the point of strategy out of the game. Anyways, thanks a lot for producing this game.

[Le Tondu]

The updates are what keep hope alive. The longer they are, the better because there is more information for us.

One question though. Screenshots Are there any newer screenshots showing the units for us to drool over? Thanks again.
Rick

[Wynter]

Marshall,

I have another question on the guerilla placement.
The guerilla step is at the end of the land movement phase. When will the player decide where to place them? Or will this also be decided by the server?
In case the server decides where to place the guerillas, this should be handled by the server in the same way as the Insurrection corps placement.

Jeroen.

[pfnognoff]

Since I joined this forum, I'm very excited every end of month, because I know the new Update from Marshall is comming, to reasure me that EiA on PC is a reality now.

Regarding Insurection Corps, you have to know that if the Turk is invading, you as Austrian will probably wait until he starts to move his last Corps in a stack, and then place both your insurections on top of him forcing a combat which will probably guarantee you an easy PP. I understand your troubles with implementing this in the PBEM game, but it is a very exciting part of the game, and I hope there will be Head to Head type of game where this would be easier to implement. Same goes for naval interception.

Thank you for listening, and keep up the good work.

[denisonh]

Originally posted by timothy_stone
Having played by email for the last 10 years or so, i understand the fact that the interception and insurrection rules slow life down immensely (had a lot of several-day sessions saying 'do you intercept now? how about now?' I do not envy your task - because I guarantee you that as a FR player I could get an army into great britain in the first 3 months if i won control of denmark, sweden, or portugal (barring ridiculously bad rolls). And if the settings only allowed GB to say 'intercept' or 'no intercept' i could force GB to lose 4 pps worth of blockade battles before i landed my army in london. This is going to be a **very** difficult thing for you to program. Sadly, i am not a beta-tester, but if you want me to explain the difficulties of this to some of your beta-testers i will be glad to. Thinking about it in detail, you might have to let one player post his entire naval phase, then have the defender choose points of interception - sort of like AH's old Squad leader 'tracking'

Agreed.

Since Naval Interception is GBs "bread and butter", there needs to be a way to assign criteria/guidance to a patrolling fleet with regards to interception. Even if it as simple as Passive (only if outnumbering the enemy), moderate (even odds or better), or aggressive (if it floats, sink it).

[mbatch729]

I'm a long-time lurker on this forum. Very excited about this game. Don't know much about the era, but am reading up on it. Very much enjoyed another company's Nappy era tactical games, but haven't seen one worth buying on the strategic side. Also have never played EiA. But, after a few battles w/the AI, I'll throw my hat in the ring. Best wishes on finishing soon Marshall.

[Reknoy]

I echo everyone's comments about how flexible this process has been.

Re: Insurrection Corps -- given the incredible range of possibilities when an enemy enters a certain area, it seems impractical to have insurrection corps act exactly as in classic EiA.

One result is what Matrix has done -- you land somewhere and the corps might pop up (depending on the die roll) -- though I would suggest that the Austrian player should be allowed to toggle "Insurrection On" or "Insurrection Off" so that the corps pop up automatically.

You can set it up so that the corps pops up (and you should also be able to toggle "Both Corps" or "One Corps") once the enemy hits any prescribed area.

The effect of toggling insurrection corps back "On" when an existing condition is in effect (enemy corps in area) could be that insurrection corps are available in the immediately following reinforcement phase (this would address the issue of being able to toggle off and on at will).

As an alternative to automatic pop up, you can have the corps available to Austria in the ensuing reinforcement phase.

As a bone to the Austrian player who screams that Austria stinks as it is and should not lose more...

You can remove the land-based restriction and code it so that the corps stay on the field as long as Austria remains at war (meaning, once the condition for raising the corps is met, the corps can move freely, perhaps just within Austria, and will not stand down involuntarily until Austria is at peace with all powers).

I know -- wholesale rebellion! Changes changes!

It seems to make sense to me, though, so I thought I would burden all of you with my idea.

Cheers!

Reknoy

[Le Tondu]

A couple of questions here.

Wasn't Austria the only nation to raise these troops? (ie. Hungarian and Croatian Insurrectio?)

Weren't they mostly spread out here and there to "guard" the frontiers instead of operating as a cohesive unit like a Corps?? Having them form a Corps is a joke. I'd be willing to have them add to existing Corps, but form their own??????

Lastly, weren't they a lower quality of troops than Landwehr? Didn't they run away when charged at Aspern-Essling and elsewhere?

They were reluctantly raised, poorly equipped, poorly led, and prone to mutiny.

Is there even one isntance of them doing anything noteworthy during the Napoleonic Era? Aren't they more trouble than they're worth? Their military value is less than minimal at best.

[Reknoy]

The problem, however, is that they are a part of the game.

I am doubting they would be changed so much.

However, that does lend credence to the notion that reducing their efficacy a little would at least be inoffensive to the historical perspective (which perspective would mandate greater change still, per Le Tondu).

Reknoy

[pfnognoff]

If insurection corps just "pops-up" when enemy forces enter, I will never turn this ON, since it is just 30 inf 6 cav with average morale and I will just end up loosing the ensuing battle. I will just wait for the next reinforcement phase and place them then.

If you take the insurection specialty (timed placement during enemy turn) away from Austria, maybe it would be good to make the insurection able to move around the whole country, as a means to compensate the loss of tactical advantage.

2c

[pfnognoff]

Originally posted by Le Tondu
A couple of questions here.

Wasn't Austria the only nation to raise these troops? (ie. Hungarian and Croatian Insurrectio?)

Weren't they mostly spread out here and there to "guard" the frontiers instead of operating as a cohesive unit like a Corps?? Having them form a Corps is a joke. I'd be willing to have them add to existing Corps, but form their own??????

Lastly, weren't they a lower quality of troops than Landwehr? Didn't they run away when charged at Aspern-Essling and elsewhere?

They were reluctantly raised, poorly equipped, poorly led, and prone to mutiny.

Is there even one isntance of them doing anything noteworthy during the Napoleonic Era? Aren't they more trouble than they're worth? Their military value is less than minimal at best.

Actual troops that EiA calls "Insurrection Corps" were ment to protect the Empire against the possible Ottoman invasion. They were first formed during 1553. Recruits were raised from refugees running away from Ottoman occupied territories (Serbia, Wallachia, etc.). They were given freedom and houses along the border, and they were given weapons and small amounts of money as a reward for the service. They formed independent Regiments, sometimes Divisions when called under the emperors flag during major battles (Aspern), but there wasn't actual Corps level unit.

In the game they are presented as a Corps just to give them the abbility to "pop-up" along the border, simulating their primary service, and that was to stop the Ottoman invasion.

We shouldn't change this idea, it will have impact on the game ballance.

[Yorlum]

Do you have anything more specific than "Summer 2003" yet?