Should I buy this game?

[Didz]

Ok! I'm trying to contain my excitement and keep my credit card firmly in my pocket having discovered this game advertised on the Matrix website.

This game looks good. PBEM options, brigade level elements, even the ability to transfer battles to the tabletop if required. And Frank Hunters name on the design credits.

But I've been burned by Matrix before with Uncommon Valour so I'm looking for any feedback from someone who has bought this game.

Is it really a strategic level Napoleonic Game?

Does it work (memories of N1813)?

Is it challenging?

[Bis]

It's actually more operational than strategic. As I don't know why you didn't like UV, I can't address your issues.

[Reiryc]

ORIGINAL: Didz

Ok! I'm trying to contain my excitement and keep my credit card firmly in my pocket having discovered this game advertised on the Matrix website.

This game looks good. PBEM options, brigade level elements, even the ability to transfer battles to the tabletop if required. And Frank Hunters name on the design credits.

But I've been burned by Matrix before with Uncommon Valour so I'm looking for any feedback from someone who has bought this game.

Is it really a strategic level Napoleonic Game?

Does it work (memories of N1813)?

Is it challenging?

Burned by uncommon valor? [8|]

It's one of the best games matrix has put out....

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: Bis

It's actually more operational than strategic. As I don't know why you didn't like UV, I can't address your issues.

Well. ignoring the bugs and other silly little things that eventually get ironed out by patches, the big issue I had with this game and eventualy persuaded me to archive in the back cupboard was the mismatch between the scale of the conflict and the degree of control possible over ones forces.

The actual combat area was approximately the same as that covered by 'Carriers at War'. In fact little more than the area over which a single tactical battle was actually fought. This was also reflected in the unit scale which even went so far as to name individual pilots, a cute idea but irrelevant to game play.

The problem was that unlike CAW it didn't allow you enough control over these units to manage the combat at the appropriate level and that in turn generated huge levels of frustration when key units like CV were lost due to dumb AI routines.

Such losses in a grand operational game can be accepted philosophically, as the local commander screwed up. But in this instance the operational command level merely acted as an obstical to allowing the player to play the game and it just became a game within a game to try and second guess or manipulate what the AI was going to do with your own units.

It just felt that you were fighting the stupidity of the programmer instead of the enemy and in the end I decided I had better things to do with my time.

In this instance the issue should only arise if the game offers the player battlefield command when the armies meet. If it doesn't then presumably the AI will decide the victor. However, if it does then I would hope that it switches from operational to tactical command mode for the battle sequences.

I'm quite happy to issue orders at Corps/Division level for the approach to combat but once battle is joined I would hope to be able to exercise command at Division level or even Brigade if needed rather than sit and watch the AI fight the batlte for me.

[Bis]

You won't be issuing many commands at the divisional/brigade level unless you detach them from corps. You can do that if you like micromanagement, but operational Napolonics is an exercise in corps command. You'll feel really odd if an enemy corps/column hits a detached brigade. Detached units are good for screening, recce, raids and exploiting undefended areas.

Sounds like you really need a system like N1813 that had a detailed tactical sub-game.

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: Bis
Sounds like you really need a system like N1813 that had a detailed tactical sub-game.

Not really. It would be nice to have something like MTW for Napoleonic's but I'm quite happy with a good Strategic level game.

The only thing I don't want is something like UV which presents me with tactical level problems but won't let me deal with them.

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: Reiryc

Burned by uncommon valor? [8|]

It's one of the best games matrix has put out....

Now that is scary.

UV was a classic example of a game that was flawed at the fundemental level. Playing it was just an exercise is frustration trying to second guess what stupid thing the program was going to come up with next.

[Reiryc]

ORIGINAL: Didz

ORIGINAL: Reiryc

Burned by uncommon valor? [8|]

It's one of the best games matrix has put out....

Now that is scary.

UV was a classic example of a game that was flawed at the fundemental level. Playing it was just an exercise is frustration trying to second guess what stupid thing the program was going to come up with next.

Odd, I've not had that problem... I can usually predict what the program will do.

Maybe the problem is with the user not the 'machine'...

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: Reiryc
Maybe the problem is with the user not the 'machine'...

Very funny[:D]

Perhaps in your case the machine does a better job. Which is why you haven't noticed the problem.[8|]

Its actually been a long time since I removed UV from my harddrive in disgust. But one problem I do remember was the Japanese Battleship bombardment missions. Those damn things no matter how certain you were that one was coming and where it was going to hit, it always made it through in one jump and ended the turn outside LBA range. You could stuff the sound with submarines, block it with battleships or clog it solid with mines , it didn't make a jot of difference because in fact the program didn't plot its movement at all it just jumped it in and jumped it out again.

The only way to intercept one was to guess its jump off point or its jump out point and place a task force in that hex. I remember there was absolute uproar about it. We even managed to prove that the battleships were moving almost twice there normal historical speed to acheive this amazing feat but Matrix were determined to leave it in because they thought it simulated the 'Tokyo Express' missions.

That in itself being total crap because the Tokyo Express was regularly intercepted even when it consisted of nothing more than small vessels like destroyers and it always had to begin and finish its run within LBA range to complete the run during darkness.

In fact the reason the AI is able to perform these bombardment run is simply because the turn duration is too long in relation to the ground scale which means that all the units in the game jump around the map in huge leaps skipping the intervening hexes. Just bad design and lazy programming.

[donkuchi19]

A Total War version set in the Napoleonic times I think would be very cool. Strategic moving with tactical battles.

I just purchased CotD today and am having no problems with it. (downloaded patch too). I am just playing around with it but already have won the Ulm Campaign (with FOW turned off since it was only second time learning to play game) I like strategic games like this but the real reason for purchasing it was to use the campaign for my miniatures. That should be interesting when I get to that point. (A lot of painting to be done)

[NimitsTexan]

Funny you don't like UV, Didz. Personally, I have found it to be one of the most enjoyable wargames I ever played.

I will grant you that sometimes UV does seem to suffer from split personality when it comes to scale (and I would have prefered more direct control over carrier and surface engagements). On the other hand, keeping in mind that (1) you are supposed to be playing as a theater commander rather than a fleet commander and (2) UV was something of a prototype for a system designed to cover the entire Pacific War, and the lack of tactical control becomes very understandable.

I do wish they would release a Carriers at War type game, especially if it had more modern 2-D or even 3D graphics.


Concerning CotD, how are tactical battles resolved if one does not have minatures?

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: NimitsTexan

Funny you don't like UV, Didz. Personally, I have found it to be one of the most enjoyable wargames I ever played.

You obviously haven't played any of the Totalwar series then.

UV was a major dissapointment for me and a large number of other purchasers soon after it was released. (Though to be fair not as bad as N1813 which was actually a brilliant great game that was ruined by 'crap' coding).

But the UV situation was made worse by the arrogant attitude of the game designers who just refused to discuss some of the weirder aspects of game play such as the leaping battleship syndrome. The real crunch for me came, when after a lengthy debate about the 'Tokyo Express', and why it didn't justify the ability of Japanese battleships ability to jump 22 hexes in a single bound, one of the designers stated that it didn't matter what we thought, this was his game and he hadn't modelled it on the real performance of the units involved but on what he considered to be the 'abstract recreation of events' from the period. Duh! I other words it wasn't even a wargame and we were just playing a game that recreated his personal opinion of what should have happened. That was when I wiped it from my harddrive.

I found when playing UV that most of the time I was just a frustrated spectator trying to second guess what this guys program was going to do with my units. You don't even have as much control as the real operational commanders would have had on the day as you cannot dictate the routes used used by your ships or the target priority of your aircraft. Even general orders like 'ships are to remain outside LBA range of japanese bases at all times' are not allowed.

Personally, I've got better this to do with my life.

I will grant you that sometimes UV does seem to suffer from split personality when it comes to scale (and I would have prefered more direct control over carrier and surface engagements). On the other hand, keeping in mind that (1) you are supposed to be playing as a theater commander rather than a fleet commander and (2) UV was something of a prototype for a system designed to cover the entire Pacific War, and the lack of tactical control becomes very understandable.

As I said at the time. The game isn't big enough to carry this off. The area covered by the game is little more than the size of the average naval engagement of this period. Japanese planes for instance can almost fly the entire depth of the map. To produce a game with this level of granularity and then use a turn duration that has units jumping 10 to 20 hexes per turn and not giving the player the chance to direct operations against them is just bad design.

Concerning CotD, how are tactical battles resolved if one does not have minatures?

Don't know. In Frank hunters ACW game you got a screen come up listing the units involved and asking you to choose a basic tactical strategy for the battle. Something like 'Skirmish', 'Minor Engagement, 'Full scale assault' and that was fed into a calculation that determined the outcome and told you the casualties per brigade.

Hopefully CotD will have something similar but with the option of overridding this with your own results if you have fought the battle off-line.

[NimitsTexan]

You bought Nap 1813 too, huh? Probably the worst Wargame burn of all time (and I went out and bought it the first week it was available, silly me). I still have my copy around here somewhere. Too bad not even the open source has fixed enough bugs to make the game playable (IMHO). It was a brilliant concept. I wish someone else would have the guts to undertake a similar project. Matrix would be the best bet for it, but they seem a little stuck in the traditonal turn/phase based games, at least at the strategic and operational level (their WWII real time tactical games, such as EYSA and HttR are another matter entirely), and I have seen no sign that they are planning to combine strategic operations and tactical battles into one historically-based wargame. If they could pull it off, though, they would have one of the greatest wargaming hits of all time.

BTW, yes, I do have MTW + VI, but I don't have it installed. WWII (especially the Pacific) is more my thing.

I just think its sort of "funny" that you dislike UV so much, considering that it was Matrix's flagship game at the time it was released, and it would seem, one of its most popular releases as well. I am not saying your reasons for disliking it are wrong (in fact I agree with most of your concerns); just intersting, in a novel sort of way. I, on the other hand, find it very addictive and a fairly accurate representation of the Solomons/New Guinea campaign (though I still have not yet managed to finish a grand campaign).

[donkuchi19]

Tactical battles are fought by choosing different tactics with different intensity levels. You can pick tactics only if your leader is strong enough to choose that tactic.

EX. On defense, you can choose defend (3) Counter Attack (6) Withdraw (2) Defend in Depth (5) The numbers in parentheses are the required leader ratings to choose that tactic. Each choice has a different intensity level for the 4 rounds of combat. You pick your tactic and then the game engine simulates the entire battle by comparing the attackers tactic along with terrain modifiers, cavalry superiority, supply, troop quality, and leadership modifiers.

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: NimitsTexan

You bought Nap 1813 too, huh? Probably the worst Wargame burn of all time (and I went out and bought it the first week it was available, silly me).

Yeah! The really frustrating thing was that it was so close to being perfect. If the designers had opted for a simple turn based interface instead of getting fixated on real time they could probably have pulled off the Wargame of the century. It had all the elements needed they just screwed up the implementation.

ORIGINAL: NimitsTexan

I just think its sort of "funny" that you dislike UV so much, considering that it was Matrix's flagship game at the time it was released, and it would seem, one of its most popular releases as well.

I know thats what worries me about buying anything else from Matrix. They make all the right noises but basically they churn out computerised boardgames not wargames. So I'm reluctant to spend more money on anything with their label unless I'm sure its what I'm looking for.

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: donkuchi

Tactical battles are fought by choosing different tactics with different intensity levels. You can pick tactics only if your leader is strong enough to choose that tactic.

EX. On defense, you can choose defend (3) Counter Attack (6) Withdraw (2) Defend in Depth (5) The numbers in parentheses are the required leader ratings to choose that tactic. Each choice has a different intensity level for the 4 rounds of combat. You pick your tactic and then the game engine simulates the entire battle by comparing the attackers tactic along with terrain modifiers, cavalry superiority, supply, troop quality, and leadership modifiers.

Thanks donkuchi,

Sounds very similar in concept to Frank hunters ACW. Just out of interest what happens about prisoners do you have to deal with them or are they just assumed to be dealt with?

Also, have you tried the tabletop battle option out?

[NimitsTexan]

Well, the one game you should probably try is HttR. It is the farthest thing I have seen from a computerized boardgame, and completly different from UV in concept and operation. Very intutive, real time, yet very deep.

EYSA is not bad for a small scale RT 3D tactical game, though arguably Combat Mission is more realistic. I chose EYSA instead simply because, given a choice, I prefer real/continous time for tactical gaming (as that is how real wars are fought). I do not go in much for turn- or phase-based games at the tactical level. At the strategic/operation level, considering that time is measured in days or weeks rather than hours and minutes, turn-based makes more sense to me.

donkuchi, is CotD just a Napoleonized version of ACW Sumter to Appomattox?

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: NimitsTexan
Well, the one game you should probably try is HttR. It is the farthest thing I have seen from a computerized boardgame, and completly different from UV in concept and operation. Very intutive, real time, yet very deep.

Not much into real time wargames. I like real time tactical games like C&C but I find that if the game is complex enough to be worth playing then its too complex to work in real time. Apart from which real time excludes PBEM which is a real must for any wargame.

The absence of PBEM is the only real negative point about the TotalWar series and its a real shame not to be able to play against other people

Another recent victim of the real time fetish was Lords of the Realm III which is actually unplayable because of the real time design.

The real difference been a computerised boardgame and a computerised wargame is really the attitude of the designers.

A wargame designer begins with an assessement of the performance and capabilities of the units and the historical effects of the terrian and tries to produce a game that reproduces those effects in such a way that the player is able to explore any possible alternative strategy for their use.

A boardgamer starts with the history of the campaign and tries to reporduce what happened in a boardgame format. As such boardgames tend to be far more abstract in the the way the represent the game and far more focussed on what actually happened rather than what could have happened.

Neither approach is right or wrong but most wargamers find the boardgame approach very restrictive.

[nico71]

Interesting that you consider the TW series "wargames". I think that they are rather strategy games and closer to C&C than to anything Matrix has on the list! Don't get me wrong, I like the TW games, but I don't think that they are very realistic. They are nice fun games. The "strategy" part is the usual base building stuff, the tactical part is a nice huge, yet unrealistic 3D-battle!

Anyway, I think there was a mod for MTW somewhere that puts the game into the Napoleonic era IIRC. Futhermore I have read rumors on the TW boards that the successor of Rome will be Napoleonic era. The engine simply wasn't "ripe" for Nap, yet. Re multiplayer, the last thing I heard is that the strategy level campaign of Rome will now have MP! This is one of the reasons for the delay of almost a year.

Well, I am still not sure whether I should buy CotD or not. I am waiting for some PBEM reports of the 2.1 version!

BTW, did anyone ever play "Battalia"?

[DoomedMantis]

I bought Nap 1813 as my first introduction to Napoleonic warfare, and I think thats what put me off them. Im waiting to see what the reactions are before I buy also.