Matrix Games Forums

Just a note to say I'm back and I want to say thank you to everyone who purchased Danube. I hope you found it to have a Napoleonic feel and not be a system I could have used for panzers and the Ardennes

Hello Frank, welcome back!

Napoleonic feel: yes, indeed. The messaging system seems to work very well, and I find the game plays very satisfactorily with full fog of war.

As I've already mentioned, my main problems with the game are (1) not understanding why I win or lose battles (maybe I need to read the manual with closer attention), and (2) being puzzled at the degree of victory the game awards me at the end. Sometimes I've got the enemy completely on the run and I get only a marginal victory; other times I don't seem to have achieved very much but the game awards me a major victory.

I think this is because of the way the game counts victory points every turn and then just adds them all up at the end. It means that the situation at the end of the game is not very important in determining the degree of victory, which is counter-intuitive and unlike the way most other games work.

This isn't of major importance when playing against the program, but it could be a problem when playing against human opponents -- especially if the game ever awards victory to the "wrong" player (I don't know how likely this is to happen).

yes, the scoring system takes a little getting used to. Its similar to the way a boxing match is scored with points being awarded throughout the game. A decisive victory overrides the points just as a KO would. There the similarity ends. The other feature to scoring is if you win a battle, points-wise you are say "up 3" then you continue to gain those points until the other side does something to swing the pendulum back. I chose this way of doing things because the French should win most of the time anyway based on standard scoring but this way allows the Austrian player to do better than his historical counterpart even if it does mean the same eventual defeat.

Welcome back, Frank. Could you give us an idea of what your current projects are? Any more development for Danube in the works?

Currently I'm nearing the end of both the DoubleShot game, Battles of Napoleon and of course Guns of August. I won't be adding to Danube itself but I will be adding here and there to the system when I do the next two campaigns. That will be 1806 and 1813 or 1807 and 1812. I'll be adding features that have been requested here in the forum.

I don't know if this has been already requested and noted, but it would be nice to have some kind of postmortem after each battle, so that the players get some idea of why the battle went as it did.

I see two alternatives:

1. A column of figures like the ACW battle analysis. But in this case the figures have to be relevant and correct. In particular, it's worse than useless to give pre-battle "expected losses" unless they can be estimated accurately.

2. A text summary of what happened. Examples:

a) The Austrians had infantry superiority, but the French won through superior cavalry and leadership.

b) The French could have been expected to win this one, but the Austrians got lucky.

c) French and Austrians were well-matched in numbers, but the French had better morale.

A possible problem with (1) and (2) is that I believe you use a rather complicated system of combat resolution that may make it difficult to produce a postmortem of either kind. But who knows, perhaps your drive for simplicity has made it easier by now...

I think a text summary would be a nice addition. Adds a little colour and also provides useable information.

If you are still taking some suggestion for the next campaign, what I would like to be able to do is play the game solo, but still be able to fight the battles on a miniature table.

Thanks

Sure, I can do that. One question for those using it for miniatures, would you like the game to simply provide the numbers it does now or would you prefer that it be broken down into "stands" for various popular rulesets such as V&B, Grande Armee etc.

I may also add an option that would keep the brigade information within a division so that using a brigade set of miniature rules would be made easier.

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

Sure, I can do that. One question for those using it for miniatures, would you like the game to simply provide the numbers it does now or would you prefer that it be broken down into "stands" for various popular rulesets such as V&B, Grande Armee etc.

I may also add an option that would keep the brigade information within a division so that using a brigade set of miniature rules would be made easier.

Frank,

Your post prompted me to finally register on this board in order to cast my vote for option three which is the have a 'miniruleset.xml' configuration file allowing us to tweak the numbers ourselves. The community could debate, maintain and publish 'definitive' config files without requiring effort on your part to issue patches to address the many rulesets available. The format could be as simple as '[Unit Type] SP = X Base(s)'.

I'm sure a few of us here could flesh this out. The challenge being, to provide the required flexibility without encumbering you unduly. It would be a shame, not to mention a waste of your (valuable developer) time to issue patches to address new editions of GA, V&B, or [insert fave ruleset here!]...

Just a thought,

Marc

Using a config file would be best. Like you say, I wouldn't then have to make changes based on a change in a ruleset. It would also allow new rulesets to be used etc. Sure, I'll add that to my list.

I woudl suggest you allow the player to enter in the figure ratio for Cav, Inf and arty
ie 1:60, 1:100 etc (some rules have cav figure = to different number than inf)
To play with miniatures need data by brigade.