On Condition

[Jambam]

This post boils down to two suggestions.
 

1. That there be an indicator when your troops are out of combat and are receiving the boost to condition. For example this could simply be a glowing condition bar or an indicator on the unit's flag. 

 

2. That either units lose condition slower or gain it faster.

 

I'd be interested to see any objections to the first suggestion.

 

The second suggestion seems much more open to discussion. When reinforcements arrive I will sometimes cycle out a low-condition unit for the fresh troops. However, the units with low condition that I pull out are very rarely able to contribute significantly to the rest of the battle. I find it frustrating to have units that have been pulled back for a majority of the battle be unable to even sustain fighting for a few minutes to mount a key last minute defense or attack. Perhaps I am alone in this. It's possible I am not puling my troops back far enough. This ties in to my first suggestion as an indicator would remove the guesswork of when a unit is being resupplied. I just want to know if most people feel similarly or if I am missing something.

 

Thanks!

[HugoBardo]

I think this is a good idea, in any case also for other values like Morale, could b good to have more visible graphic effect over the unit.

[David Fair]

Hi Jambam, This topic seems minor to me given some of the other challenges the design team is working. In the grand scheme of things it would help if the users guide explained how "condition" works so players can understand the game and play accordingly without making code changes.

I'm confused by your suggestion. "Condition" is binary. When troops are fighting or moving they may lose "condition". When troops are out of harm's way and stationary they gain "condition". The further troops are out of harm's way the faster they regain "condition". The closer troops are to a general the slower they lose "condition" and the faster they regain "condition".

Your suggestion seems to me a bit like asking for an indicator in your home so you know when the lights are "on" or "off". My reaction is negative to adding an indicator light to the flag. If you put a highlight around the "condition" bar to show that units are regaining "condition" that might be OK.

Your suggestion to lose condition slower and regain it faster is interesting. I frequently have brigades with zero "condition" that continue to fight if their morale is high. The relationship of "condition" and "moral" currently seem odd to me. "Condition" in my mind is un-fowled muskets, ammunition, water in canteens, and a plug of tobacco. When "condition" hits zero units should not be able to continue fighting without the basics of the 3 B's (beans, bullets, & bandaids). Keep in mind that troops needed to clean fowled muskets with hot water - so troops needed to build a fire and boil water to get their muskets back to fighting condition.

Units with 100% "condition" do not necessarily fight well once they have lost their "morale". You can clean a musket, eat something, and rest but still be so shagged from action you can't move. Currently moving with units with low "morale" immediately makes them rapidly lose "condition". This seems odd to me. Are these demoralized men dumping their canteens out and throwing away their ammunition or muskets?

The "condition" algorithm includes mobility. Units that have been abused have less ability to move. In my mind if this is the case then they should not be able to regain 100% "condition". It is strange to see a unit with 100% "condition" drop precipitously by moving a couple of yards.

Keep in mind you are asking for coding and algorithm changes that, in effect, will deliver the same results. The presentation and relationship of "moral" and "condition" will simply be different.

[MacBlain]

I'm pretty unclear on how all this works.

 

Is "condition" representing concepts that could be depicted visually, either through the behavior of the troops or the addition of staff characters? 

 

I'm not very good at the game yet, but I find that a lot of my time consists of clicking on units to check that blue meter, to see how "gassed up" they are. "Is the Iron Brigade ready to go in again? How about now? How about now?"

 

Even a guide that would tell me very specifically what "condition" does, and how I spend and generate it, would be very useful.

[TheIronKing]

I think having a indicator is a great idea and maybe an indicator which signals everything is improving or a flashing that says they're resting. As I find it difficult to know when units are gaining these stats and honestly they never seem to re cooperate very well at all. I find as soon as they retreat I send them back into the frey and basically spam this till the battle is over. 

[Jambam]

David. I can see where your coming from when you say it's obvious whether or not troops are in harms way. However, I am not so sure that it is. Will troops recover condition if they are simply not currently engaging an enemy? What if they are under artillery fire? Do they need to be out of the line of sight of the enemy? Or do they simply need to be a certain distance away? My point is that an indicator will help us to know when units are truly recovering. But your post did make me think of a simpler and certainly easier alternative. That is that Game Labs explains when exactly units are considered recovering. If the online guide simply said, for example, "Units recover condition when they are not currently engaging or being engaged by a unit" Then there would be no need for an indicator! As it stands the phrase "You can replenish the unit's condition by placing it in a safe location." is ambiguous to me. 

Your points about the relationship between morale and conditioning are very interesting. Personally I think conditioning should affect morale but not vice versa. There could be game play problems or exploits that result from a change such as this so I think this is very worthy of discussion. Start a thread about it! 

[David Fair]

Jambam,

The quickest path to the design team is for me to start a thread on the Forum for the Testing Community.

Threads started in this Forum somehow end up in the weeds or focused on Hitler.

I'll get back with you later when I see what this topic kicks up.

In response to your post:

There are many ambiguities in the documentation. Keep in mind English is not the primary language for any of the developers. Like you I sometimes struggle and with the terminology issues. I agree "safe location" is not very precise.

Condition becomes more obvious with game time.

Troops must be STATIONARY AND OUT OF THE FIGHT to regain condition rapidly.

If the unit is badly damaged it will also need to be OUT OF THE RANGE OF ARTILLERY.

Both reverse slopes and heavy cover mitigate the impact of long-range artillery. You can recover condition but it takes longer.

LOS has no impact on recovering condition - but the further from the action the faster you recover condition. I'm not positive but beyond "shell" range is a fine distance.

If you add an indicator you decrease the fog of war.

I'm a big fan of less precision in information - this increases the risk-taking and replayability. It makes the game less mechanical and more intuitive.

But, it also increases the learning curve for new players.

This might be an option for new players to switch on/off.

Condition and morale are highly interrelated in my mind.

There are many cases where an army has marched long and hard and fought fiercely and won.

Despite their soaring morale the troops are too shagged to follow-up their victory.

Davout's III Corps at Austerlitz and Jackson's Valley Campaign are both examples.

Second case - a unit with morale so low it refuses to move or fight.

Some of the troops at Gettysburg had terms of enlistment that expired two days prior to the battle.

They tried to refuse to fight.

Note - the 20th Maine had some of these men. The compromise was that they would be put on the end of the line at Little Round Top where nothing was happening anyway.

Third example of moral affecting condition - there is a debate about a Union battery at Gettysburg that threw their ammunition away to get off the firing line. The battery commander complained the ammunition he had been issued was "faulty". These rounds were subsequently recovered and some were reportedly found to be fully functional. I'd argue that the Vietnam experience demonstrates conclusively that morale can and does effect condition (ammunition fired with no target in sight, self-inflicted wounds, etc...).

Also note that the definition of morale and condition are not fully exposed. What is included in each of these terms as it is translated into algorithm and code is complex.

[P-Dup]

I think there should be some graphical indicator of the concept 'Condition', but not by a bar, which woul take the game's unique look and feel compared to other RTS games. Maybe the uniforms could get more and more ragged, dirty and bloodstained and the battle lines could get more and more disorderly and undisciplined. There could be empty spaces in the battle line and stuff like this.

But I don't know how to visualize regaining of condition, maybe by soldiers eating from their rations and others getting bandaged or something like this.

[Darkstar]

Why not a toggle option that turns on a tiny indicator of regaining condition, like a small green dot by the unit's flag or something? If people want it ambiguous, they can leave it that way in that case. I know this is probably easier said than done but it seems like a good compromise to me. 

[David Fair]

P-Dup,

While I like the idea the granularity of the game is such that it would be difficult to see and it would strain the design goal of running the game on a tablet.

I was thinking more along the line of Darkstar where the existing "condition" metric is outlined in bold when the unit is regaining "condition". The on/off toggle is important.

If you put more indicator stuff on the map you end up with a bunch of indicator dots messing up the visuals in the game. The on-screen visuals are dense right now and adding indicators that won't be necessary after a couple weeks of play seems less desirable to me.

But I've been at this awhile and may have lost touch with new player requirements.

[P-Dup]

As I said in another thread there could be a re-conditioning mode for units, which is overriden by the next move order or maybe other order. Units could take some time to switch into and out off re-conditioning, so that players don't abuse it where a fight is imminent.

[CmdrMctoast]

I would like to see a dig in or breastworks option with a form of penalty and or bonus, move a unit to the rear command him

to dig in for the next battle phase if he stays out of combat and does not move he gets a slightly higher

recovery bonus for the next battle phase, if he is attacked before the end of battle he would have a slight defence

bonus but be somewhat more fatigued.

this was an option in Civil War Generals 2 and I loved the feature.

Any thoughts?