Battle Goals and Fixed Time Limits Ruin The Fun (And How To Change This)

[Nuss]

So I just "lost" the 2nd Battle of Bull Run as Union, because I lost more than 40% of my men. I achieved my official objective and the game doesn't even grant me a draw (not to mention that my Rearguard was completely absent from the fight for reasons never explained). At other times I'm about to reap the benefits of my efforts just when the timer is down. Like his main Northern lines starting to collapse rapidly and I'm about to drive every last one Rebell off and capture their artillery. Or when I have the enemy outnumbered and encircled at North Malvern Hill, with East and West captured, and get only a draw as Confederate. All this is pretty frustrating in its own right, but it also significantly affects your future campaigns, so the frustration carries on.

There are some easy and a few difficult changes to the game which would make it so much more enjoyable:

• Actually tell us what all our objectives are. This should be easy, right?
• Actually tell us what happens when the timer runs down.
• Break down objectives into smaller ones. Example: 2nd Bull run, -5 reputation if casualties > 25%, -7 if >35%, -10 if >45% and so on.
• Hand out reputation only as a result of a battle and grant fixed amounts of manpower and $ after each Grand Battle. This would make Politics actually useful, generate more interesting choices (do I hold back in this minor battle and face the consequences because my manpower is low?) and make things a little more calcuable.
• Make the timer more dynamic. Battles shouldn't end at exactly 5:51 pm or something, especially when the battle just reached its climax. And also make it a player choice whenever possible.Using the day/night circle is a good start. Units could lose max endurance and efficiency during the day, even more so when they're engaged or running around. This limits offensive capabilities in the evening and makes planning for reserves more valuable. Instead of setting a dead limit of possible operations, give us choices and make them explicit. Like: When and how many units will I send to the main battle, when I already have difficulties pinning down this Jackson fellow? Do I order a major offensive an hour before nightfall, knowing things will get really messy if I'm not done in time? What troops am I willing to sacrifice to cover my retreat (instead of hold this hill for X hours, no matter how hopeless the situation gets in the last 30 minutes)?
• Give the game a way to roughly assess tactical situations, like encirclements, possibly through more minor tactical locations and a weighting of troops in locations ("holding" a hill with 100 skirmishers isn't much of a holding, having 1k infantry up there is a different thing).  This could also trigger the AI to try and break through or retreat and would allow for a more nuanced victory point distribution. Make and allow for actual retreats and avoid ridiculous situations in which the battle stops when its currently reaching its climax.

You may or may not agree with any item on this list, but I think my main point is definetely legitimate: Give the player meaningful choices and enough disclosure to actually make them, instead of setting rigid, opaque, mechanical limits.

[Koro]

1 minute ago, Nuss said:

• Actually tell us what all our objectives are. This should be easy, right?

If you click f11 or the box in the top right corner, the victory conditions for the scenario will be shown.

[Nuss]

Just now, Koro said:

If you click f11 or the box in the top right corner, the victory conditions for the scenario will be shown.

Oh, that's good to know, thanks!

[Koro]

2 minutes ago, Nuss said:

• Make the timer more dynamic. Battles shouldn't end at exactly 5:51 pm or something, especially when the battle just reached its climax. And also make it a player choice whenever possible.Using the day/night circle is a good start.

In many battles and almost all of the minor ones (if not all), there is a finish button so you can end the battle when you chose. I believe it ends if you are winning sometimes but otherwise you are often allowed to continue anyway. This could probably be expanded to include other battles if you have any specific cases but usually there are reasons for them ending when the timer does. Giving the player almost infinite time would make the reinforcement timer redundant and the optimal strategy would almost always just sit around and wait until all the troops have shown up, which would in turn create boring game play.

For Gettysburg and Chancellorsville f.x., the battle moves on when the timer does to make day 1 victories harder to achieve so the player will experience more of the battle.

[Koro]

7 minutes ago, Nuss said:

 

• Hand out reputation only as a result of a battle and grant fixed amounts of manpower and $ after each Grand Battle. This would make Politics actually useful, generate more interesting choices (do I hold back in this minor battle and face the consequences because my manpower is low?) and make things a little more calcuable.

Sorry for replying like this but I have bad experience with the quote system here.

There is a small variance in the number of men given to players if their army is severely lacking in strength but otherwise it is mostly fixed. Reputation is fixed for each battle.

Politics always seem worth it to me so not sure what you mean here.

[Nuss]

Well, I'd need to play on easy in order to gain enough reputation to actually spend it. Glad I didn't invest in it, neither as Union nor Rebell.

[Koro]

22 minutes ago, Nuss said:

Well, I'd need to play on easy in order to gain enough reputation to actually spend it. Glad I didn't invest in it, neither as Union nor Rebell.

I would encourage you to check out my tips for new players thread in the stickies and perhaps the faq linked in it as well. There are also links to Playlists for tutorials and the campaign missions in game if you would like some inspiration. 

Many people here are also helpful answering questions so feel free to ask if you are in doubt about something 

[Fred Sanford]

Something I'd like to see in addition to the geographical objectives would be a prestige bonus for enemy casualties.  Right now, there's no benefit to causing casualties other than a small %age of weapon drops.  This would be in addition to the rewards for winning or drawing, and could make it worthwhile to fight some battles that are otherwise not worth it (CSA Antietam, Fburg Union e.g.).  Say 1 prestige for every 500 or so.  

[Aetius]

18 hours ago, Koro said:

If you click f11 or the box in the top right corner, the victory conditions for the scenario will be shown.

Except, sometimes they aren't, or are unclear. The first phase of Confederate Chickamauga is an excellent example - the victory conditions list what you need to do for the whole scenario, but they does not tell you that if you don't achieve the first few objectives, you immediately lose the entire battle. This is something that is critically important for the player to know, but can only be discovered through bad experience. Leaving aside melee dragging, I think unclear victory conditions and the battle timer are the most important remaining problems in the game (followed by player units never showing up for battle).

18 hours ago, Koro said:

There is a small variance in the number of men given to players if their army is severely lacking in strength but otherwise it is mostly fixed. Reputation is fixed for each battle.

Politics always seem worth it to me so not sure what you mean here.

He's pointing out that if you lose (deliberately or otherwise), Politics is a lot less useful - you get very little extra money and very few additional troops (and in some cases zero, like Confederate Gettysburg).

Edited April 1, 2017 by Aetius

[Koro]

1 minute ago, Aetius said:

Except, sometimes they aren't, or are unclear. The first phase of Confederate Chickamauga is an excellent example - the victory conditions list what you need to do for the whole scenario, but they does not tell you that if you don't achieve the first few objectives, you immediately lose the entire battle. This is something that is critically important for the player to know, but can only be discovered through bad experience. Leaving aside melee dragging, I think unclear victory conditions and the battle timer are the most important remaining problems in the game (followed by player units never showing up for battle).

He's pointing out that if you lose (deliberately or otherwise), Politics is a lot less useful - you get very little extra money and very few additional troops - in some cases, zero (like Confederate Gettysburg).

The introduction to the battle tells you, you need to hold all of the bridges. 

You still get men for losing so politics still affect that. 

[Aetius]

The introductions to the battles say a lot of things, the majority of which are wrong or misleading, but are more-or-less historically accurate and good flavor. They are, however, entirely unreliable as a source of accurate information about the scenario victory conditions.

You get zero men for losing Legendary Confederate Gettysburg - +20% of zero is still zero. And +20% of $28k is a very different reward from +20% of $168k.