Matrix Games Forums

Does anyone feel that the armies starting position in detailed battles should be farther away from each other than it is now ?
It seems to me that cavalry rushing artillery divisions right at very the start of the battle before the opponent has a chance to organize his troops is a little unrealistic, especially since artillery divs always appear right to the front of your massed troops...

Cheers.

Psword

exist a topic about of this in this forum, seek in the historial.

This is principly a game-play issue. Even small increases in the starting separating greatly increase the playing time of battles. We did a large amount of testing of battlefield sizes and starting distances to try to keep the time spent playing detailed battles roughly proportional to time spent at the strategic level.

For the sequel we are experimenting with a larger battlefield and an increased initial separation but using group-movement commands to try to speed things up to compensate for the larger distances.

uncertainty play a huge role in the historical battles, you will find examples trough all the warfare time, say waterloo (grouchy not marching to the guns), gettysburg (a battle neither side want to fight) and overlord, june 1944, normandy (restricted positions to german armored reserves that effectively improve very much the allied effort to take a beachhead), so uncertainty is a good thing and not easy to implement in a computer game, i must say, maybe my point of view is not for the better, but i think a tactical environment must be at 30 x 30 or 40 x 40 hexes at most, with variable entry points and variable time entries for given formations, (say maybe "army corps') it is only as i see it for now, and in crown of glory we can think that the given provinces will maybe be pretty large enough to make a battle into a limited micro-campaign,

with my best regards,

Murat30.

I would love longer tactical battles, with more reconoissance & scouting, operational movement & stealthy flanking maneuvers (Chancellorsville!), forced river crossings (Lodi!)

It seems the map size is appropriate, but we're only able to use a fraction of it because we start more or less completely engaged.


Perhaps a player selected option (eg "Longer Tactical Battles") that would change the starting distance?

Completely agree. More separation at the start would be good (unless there is some reason to start close (fog, night, etc)

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

This is principly a game-play issue. Even small increases in the starting separating greatly increase the playing time of battles. We did a large amount of testing of battlefield sizes and starting distances to try to keep the time spent playing detailed battles roughly proportional to time spent at the strategic level.

For the sequel we are experimenting with a larger battlefield and an increased initial separation but using group-movement commands to try to speed things up to compensate for the larger distances.

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My main hope is that the armies would be separated enough to prevent your enemy from charging your exposed artillery on the first turn. Perhaps just setting it up so that artillery forms farthest from the enemy would be a solution. All too often it is the unit closest to the enemy.

Also my troops often never get a chance to form line, without becoming disordered. Guys, we cant even see the enemy yet, just stand in a long line OK?

I agree…. most of my troops end up fighting in column formation most of the time.
I’m also for more separation at the start of a battle.