AltHist-A: Shall We Try Again?

[Marshal Villars]

HOW'S THIS FOR FREAKING FONT SIZE!

[Marshal Villars]

Anyway. Back to normal font sizes.

Yes. I am serious. Discussions are under way to implement a system which would allow people to view each other's files without passwords. And I am trying to figure out what people want.

[vaalen]

I agree that you should not change the forage value of the Ukraine, for exactly the reasons you gave.

ORIGINAL: Marshal Villars

The fact that modern players know the Ukraine as the "bread basket" of Russia is interesting. This is 1792. Not Stalinist Russia.

In my reading again and again and in my interview with Dr. Lynn, who has written books on logistics and specializes in 1600s and 1700s France, I was told and lead to believe that population density is the most important factor in determining the ability of a region to support armies. To feed people, you need a certain number of calories lying around. Which means they can be "requisitioned." If the Ukraine would have had more calories lying around they would have had more people. But they didn't. At that time, the Ukraine was neither 1) densely populated, nor was it 2) well off. I used maps of populaton density from 1700 and 1900 to guess 1800 values and came up with this. I can't change the foraging numbers for Ukraine in good conscience. Wealthy regions had more variety in their calories, and the kinds of calories they consumed were often fancier (beef instead of endless grains).

One reason population density mattered was the amount of time it took and the distance your men had to travel to get to these sources. The more spread out it was, the harder it was to get at what was on hand.

I have been considering the addition of Belgrade as well. And I may drop Luxembourg.

But such massive border fortresses are things which were built up over the course of 20 years. The scenario would work with 10 year games, but if we stretch to 20 years, in that time frame players should be able to build their own massive depots. But that is outside of the ability of the game to show right now.

I really need to get Terje and Montesaurus on to the playtesting group. And if we lose Anthropoid, we will need yet another playtesting/AltHist player so we can move this into the discussion area for the project and speak freely.

[IronWarrior]

All this shouting going on! [:D]

I agree with vaalen about trust, and it doesn't really bother me. I never replay a turn as Spain, but you just have to take my word for that. [:D] For me, cheating ruins the fun of playing, but in other games I've played I sometimes wonder about that slightly too perfect turn from an opponent, and rather enjoy pbem security where one can rest assured. At the end of the day there's really no stopping someone (if determined) from cheating though.

[vaalen]

ORIGINAL: Marshal Villars

HOW'S THIS FOR FREAKING FONT SIZE!

Impressive.

[Marshal Villars]

On another topic, I am not saying I want to do this, but part of me almost wants to add a supply point to every region with 40k+ forage (all of the bright orange, yellow, and green spots). This would make most locations in France, Germany, Italy, and Britain supply points, but would leave the peripheries quite open. Tunisia would get a supply spot. So would Damascus, Greece, Salonika, Belgrade, Serbia, and Istria (St. Petersburg).

What are the downsides of having so many spots in central Europe having supply points? I am not really for it. But I would love to adopt some kinds of rules for what gets supply points and what doesn't and then apply them universally.

Are you against having those border fortresses of Krajina, Belgrade, Bessarabia, and Yekaterinoslav represented as supply points Mus? Perhaps these border fortresses could support operations for a few months but not longer. The only downside of having JUST a capital be able to host a supply point (as the Ottoman capital in example 2) is the fact that it would almost be easy to land troops to surround the capital and cut off all supplies flowing out of ONE PROVINCE, and then you have conquered the Ottoman Empire for lack of supplies--when in reality much of the production was probably centered outside of Istanbul and only collected at places like Edirne and sent along. This supply point problem is VERY complicated compared to the forage value. There will be another solution for it in the WCS project I am working on hopefully.

It is almost as if we need two types of supply lines. One for food (which can be organized in any "densely populated" province--though the scale of some of the armies might make even that prohibitive) and the other for replacements (which should really be brought from a depot in the player's home country). Again this kind of a system is obviously outside of the scope of COG:EE at the moment.

The problem with adopting a "universal rule" for food supply system (i.e. every province over 40k) is that perhaps even poorer provinces could be bundled together under regional capitals to get their "supply point" and surely were and could be. Which is why I added Smolensk in the 3rd version of the map for example. It is also why Kiev works for me. And maybe the use of map three with its more liberal use of "supply points" in Russia and the Ottoman Empire may not be too bad.

[Marshal Villars]

By the way, thanks for your patience with this. Being a playtester ain't always a cake walk!

[vaalen]

I believe that it would not be unrealistic to have a lot of supply points in central Europe. Armies starved in Spain, Russia, the balkans, and the Crimea. Not central europe. Central europe was very well developed in its infrastructure, which made it much easier to transport supplies.

Your point about having only a single supply point for the Turks is well taken. I might add that local garrisons often stored local supplies, though I don't know how you represent that in the game.

[Marshal Villars]

Well, I do know that when armies were cut off from their supply points in central Europe it could also be devastating. A campaign of Frederick the Great into Moravia and a 1792 campaign by the Austrians into and past the Vauban fortifications of Lorraine showed that. However, both of these disasterous campaigns are replicatable with this engine and even a supply point setup which would make most of central Europe a massive supply point, because supply points inside of an enemy's country do not function for an invader. They disappear. I can see how conquering a minor nation would allow you to organize its resources for yourself--their ruler would probably want to cooperate after he surrendered. However, when invading a country, very few people want to cooperate--especially because they know that your presence is likely only temporary.

[vaalen]

True, but in both those campaigns the issue was not that supply could not be acquired but that the supply lines were cut. I might add that both the 1792 Austrians and Fredericks Prussians had strict prohibitions on foraging. If the soldiers had been allowed to forage, they would have suffered much less.The use of foraging by the French Revolutionary armies during 1792 and beyond was considered, well, revolutionary.

This could be simulated by a rule that would treat the ability to forage as an advance. Maybe a patch could address this.

[Anthropoid]

I would be surprised if anyone in the PBEMs I have been in was cheating. Call me naive I guess, but everyone seems pretty trustworthy to me.

As for supply: what happened to the idea of "packets." I thought that that sounded way cool, though obviously it would involve more substantial changes.

I think to some extent there are issues with how much closer to "reality" building off the current system can get you, supply being one of those issues.

Since the engine can obviously handle a system in which "units" are represented with specific stats on map (and in various windows showing the inside of containers, etc.) I would think a packet system could be implemented. Give every province a supply production profile, and allow this to change over the course of the game, and also be subject to more short-term changes by the Monarch. Provinces can build three types of supply "units" ammo, food, and horses (or something like that? maybe skip the horses) and then these can be stockpiled, recombined, moved on the map, but into caravans, or inside containers . . .

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: vaalen

This is my first email game. From the response of Villars and Mus, it seems that the honor system does not work here. That is very disappointing.

I put a little asterisk next to my comment that the Spanish player could remerge the files until he got an outcome he liked with a note at the bottom that it was a statement of fact, not an accusation. I did this because I knew when I was typing it it would be perceived as an accusation. In reality, it is merely an observation of the way the game works.

My point is the game is already a GREAT DEAL trust based. Now I personally think that adding even more trust into the system is a bad idea. I would rather see some effort made towards addressing the lack of security than to see security entirely abandoned.

My wishlist would be to see online play in real time available (obviously this would require quick combats). Failing that, we should at least see some effort to address possible cheating on critical things like turn merging in PBEM, and under no circumstance should effort be made to make the game even less secure. The idea that you would expend effort to make it so that anyone could select an opposing country from the ALL files and see everything? Ludicrous.

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: IronWarrior

For me, cheating ruins the fun of playing, but in other games I've played I sometimes wonder about that slightly too perfect turn from an opponent, and rather enjoy pbem security where one can rest assured.

This is the first game I have played by email. If you have any insights as to how the game could be better secured from the way things are done in other PBEM games please share.

ORIGINAL: IronWarrior

At the end of the day there's really no stopping someone (if determined) from cheating though.

Agreed.

I still think locked doors help keep people honest though.

[;)]

[Marshal Villars]

The supply system for this mod has little to do with the other WCS project I am working on. Except for the relative distribution of rich and poor provinces. Many systems will be changed and upgraded. What will be interesting to me with the mod is to see how this changes the patterns of warfare and how such low forage values in the Ottoman Empire and Russia will change the nature of the campaigns and play.

[terje439]

Sorry my modem died on me
(but replied now)

Terje

[Mus]

So what's the word on this one? Haven't been around for a couple days, so are we restarting with a mod or what?

[Marshal Villars]

Okay. I had to take care of a few things this week. Very complicated. I am now able to put more energy into this. Which I will do.

[Anthropoid]

Hey guys,

I'm now VERY glad that I have backed out on this one. I do not think I'll be adding ANY PBEMs to my schedule for quite a while.

Work has become absolutely insane.

[vaalen]

Such is life, Villars.

[Marshal Villars]

Hehe... no problem. I think we will find a couple more. Maybe not right away. But we will. I don't want to make anyone do this if they are busy. It is horrible pressure if you are.