The right decision?

[Captain_Orso]

Before I bought this game I searched around the internet for reviews and the such. Most of the reviews I found stated that AACW was not a game for the casual player because of the steep learning grade until you could enjoy playing the game. That however did not scare me off from buying the game and taking the challenge.

But what is making me constantly re-evaluate my decision are all the details about how things like Blue- and Brown-Water Blockading (http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=15321) really work, or that, as in the case of blockading, playing the game along historical lines, do not work, because the game engine often works 'gamey' and not logically in a real world perspective.

I could pick out a number of other places, where un-documented information suddenly comes to light in the forum, but I'd rather not. Who has been on this forum a while, knows about what I am talking.

To make matters worse, the state of the documentation is atrocious. The strategy of AGEOD seams to be that the documentation does not need to be complete or concise, because there is a forum where you can be forced to spend hours searching for information, which should be in the documentation. And constantly, somebody is coming up with new information about game play, or un-documented key-combinations, which more and more put playing AACW into the realm of the esoteric.

From http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/esoteric

[INDENT]Main Entry: es·o·ter·ic
Pronunciation: \ˌe-sə-ˈter-ik, -ˈte-rik\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Late Latin esotericus, from Greek esōterikos, from esōterō, comparative of eisō, esō within, from eis into; akin to Greek en in — more at in
Date: circa 1660

1 a : designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone <a body of esoteric legal doctrine — B. N. Cardozo>
b : requiring or exhibiting knowledge that is restricted to a small group <esoteric terminology>; broadly : difficult to understand <esoteric subjects>
2 a : limited to a small circle <engaging in esoteric pursuits>
b : private, confidential <an esoteric purpose>
3 : of special, rare, or unusual interest <esoteric building materials>[/INDENT]

I don't expect AGEOD to suddenly change its development strategy for AACW because of my post. Honestly I only expect to hear responses to this post along about three lines;

-- we hear you buddy, hang in there, things will get better
-- we could spend lots of time updating and re-updating the documentation, but that would take away time from fixing bugs, enhancing the game and developing AACW2
-- get over it, we all learned to play the same way, earn your wings before you whine about this game

In the end I don't really care what responses come from this post. We all know the old platitude about 'opinions and assholes'.

There is a thread 'What I want to see in AACW2'. I was intending on adding my two cents to the dozens of diverse requests, but I feel what I am taking about here is not a theme for AACW2, or AACW1 for that matter. It is about AACW in what ever version or form.

I visited this forum before delving into AACW and in retrospect I remember discovering the AACW-wiki and wondering why it seemed to be so dormant. I also thought that if the players, developers, etc were not updating the wiki, it must be because there was basically no need for it. Documentation and the distribution of information pertaining to the game, patches, etc were not such a big subject. How wrong could I have been.

Newest patches and updates are linked from the forum ONLY and can disappear, on purpose or by accident, in a moments notice. Descriptions to said patches are intermingled in the 'official' forum thread with hoots and backslapping, cries of mangling game play and general banter. When I searched the first time for the latest patches I ran into numerous references to the 'official' update thread(http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=14820), none of who's composers were courteous enough to put a link in their posts. And because the links to patches had inadvertently been deleted, there was no way I could even tell that that was the correct thread. What a chaos. Even worse, on the official home page of AACW there is a link to the 'the new patch', and it points to 1.13b!!

So here are my suggestions for AACW, AGEOD and everything having to do with the game:

In stead of having three - four different instances of documentations (1 downloaded at the time of purchase, 2 downloaded from the forum, 3 the quick-reference thread, 4 the PDF format of the quick-reference thread, 5 the official update thread, 6 threads used in developing the official patch but not documented there, am I missing any?) combine them all into the wiki.

If somebody discovers a new secret key-combination, into the wiki. Is there a bug that prevents things from WOD? Into the wiki. New patch? Copy the wiki and update the copy with the patch designation, update the wiki for the patch. DO NOT lose the previous wiki. It documents the game at a specific patch-level. Some players may still be playing at that level.

Patches, HotFixes and QuickFixes: patches and the such should have their own home page, or at least a forum thread which cannot be updated by anybody other than the author. This should be where to find access to a download link to the patch and a clear and concise description of the patch. Want to discus the patch? Open a thread for discussing it. Changes made to the way the game is played? Into the wiki. New patch? New thread.

As a solution for AGEOD for customers who only buy a boxed version of the game and do not have or wish to use the internet, a copy of the WIKI can be put on the CD with a link to the one in the internet for the others.

The wiki is a living document or at least it should be. Rafiki opened it for the community to update. Use it!

If you've read this far, thank you for your interest and attention. These are just some thing I felt I needed to say.

[W.Barksdale]

I agree the documentation is weak. I did consider writing an 'updated' manual and extension of runyan's excellent AACW 101. However, the game is to this day changing and any such effert will require constant edits.

My advice to you and those with similar grievances:

Learn by doing! You can read read read every little thing to do, rule to use, strategy to employ, however, nothing beats just sitting down and playing straight through a campaign of AACW.

Curious about how blockades effect production? Send your fleet next to a southern ports and take a peak at Athena's turn. Wondering if your newly built depot will get supplies where you intended? Advance a few turns and find out! Still confused? Start up a thread and ask!

[Captain_Orso]

I love learning-by-doing. I have a hard time learning by just the book. But there a too many nuances in this game that learning-by-doing will reveal to nothing less than ... I was going to say 'the most astute player'.

But with the example 'Brown-Water Blockading' a port/harbor adding to the 'Blue-Water Blockade' percentage (http://www.ageod-forum.com/showpost.php?p=158649&postcount=28), I beg to say that the probability of 'learning' from this are so tiny, that it is near impossible.

Did anybody else know this?

Reading Gray's post I just had to stop and reconsider everything. Not because of how the game plays, but because it seams that to learn how the game works, you have to debug it. That's not the way it should work. If I wanted to spend my free time doing that I could work overtime for free.

On top of all that, if it is too time consuming to update a documentation, how time consuming do you think it is, to try to learn the game or about changes through learn-by-doing? But that's somebody else problem I guess.

It is the responsibility of the publisher to document his product, including changes through patches. I understand the amount of time necessary to keep documentations up-to-date. I've done it in my work.

This is why I suggested using the wiki as the official documentation. Everybody can pitch-in in the work adding learned interrelation of how the rules work together. But the hard-facts of how doing X produces Y and Z are the responsibility of the the publisher.

[Franciscus]

Well, probably a can of worms is about to be opened...
But trying to answer some of the questions brought by the OP, I have two points:
- To which it's own style of playing. Curiously I sincerely do not think that AACW had such a steep learning curve to be enjoyable by me. But that's because I do not really care to know all the intricacies and sub-rules. I probably only know well about 10% of the actual rules of the game. But I only play occasionally and only vs AI. I have no doubt I would be completely humiliated by a good PBEM player. But if you really want to know everything about the rules of the game you will have a tough time indeed. I doubt if even Pocus or Gray know them all. And that brings us to my 2nd point
- One reason for the problems you are facing have to do with the way the game is evolving in the last months. For probably more than a year the game is stable and could be considered finished. But rule changes and some new features have constantly been added, partly as backfitting from the current development of the Ageod engine for the upcoming games (and this is a partial blessing for although these changes keep a 2 year old game "new", it can also be seen as making AACW players "betas" for Ageod), and partly because the "coordinator" is willing to continue making dB changes and creating some "historical" additional scenarios, different from the vanilla games, but potentially creating confusion about the different rules between the vanilla and "Ky" scenarios. This is one of the reasons for the frequent arguments you see in the forums. I have proposed that AACW should be considered finished and further changes should be better considered as a mod, but this can also be misinterpreted.

Nevertheless, even with all the "problems" this game is probably the best I have ever bought and never regretted it. Ageod is a great albeit small company. Although the documentation can indeed be considered outdated and confusing you will not find better support to us players than the one Pocus and Philthib provide.

Regards

[Generalisimo]

Well, probably a can of worms is about to be opened...
But trying to answer some of the questions brought by the OP, I have two points:
- To which it's own style of playing. Curiously I sincerely do not think that AACW had such a steep learning curve to be enjoyable by me. But that's because I do not really care to know all the intricacies and sub-rules. I probably only know well about 10% of the actual rules of the game. But I only play occasionally and only vs AI. I have no doubt I would be completely humiliated by a good PBEM player. But if you really want to know everything about the rules of the game you will have a tough time indeed. I doubt if even Pocus or Gray know them all. And that brings us to my 2nd point

I must say that i have enjoyed MANY MANY games by following that "house ruler"... just trying to have fun, never interested in learning all the 100% rules of the game to squeeze them as much as posible.

Of course, everyone should play the game the way they like more... it is all about having FUN!

- One reason for the problems you are facing have to do with the way the game is evolving in the last months. For probably more than a year the game is stable and could be considered finished. But rule changes and some new features have constantly been added, partly as backfitting from the current development of the Ageod engine for the upcoming games (and this is a partial blessing for although these changes keep a 2 year old game "new", it can also be seen as making AACW players "betas" for Ageod), and partly because the "coordinator" is willing to continue making dB changes and creating some "historical" additional scenarios, different from the vanilla games, but potentially creating confusion about the different rules between the vanilla and "Ky" scenarios. This is one of the reasons for the frequent arguments you see in the forums. I have proposed that AACW should be considered finished and further changes should be better considered as a mod, but this can also be misinterpreted.

Nevertheless, even with all the "problems" this game is probably the best I have ever bought and never regretted it. Ageod is a great albeit small company. Although the documentation can indeed be considered outdated and confusing you will not find better support to us players than the one Pocus and Philthib provide.

Regards

Yep, that's one of the main issues with the documentaion... someone needs to update it almost weekly to be able to have it up to date.
That's a good thing and a bad thing... a two years old game is being constantly updated to new standards and it is far more polished than on v1.0... but the vanilla manual is almost half void right now...

And, yes, obviously, that's not the best situation... but AFAIK, anyone can start adding their old or new knowledge about the game to the Wiki and share it with the world... they just need to get in contact with Arne (Rafiki).
In the end, the Wiki is something for the community done by the community... at least that's what happened with the VickyWiki.

[lodilefty]

Patches, HotFixes and QuickFixes: patches and the such should have their own home page, or at least a forum thread which cannot be updated by anybody other than the author. This should be where to find access to a download link to the patch and a clear and concise description of the patch. Want to discus the patch? Open a thread for discussing it.

Excellent idea!
Shamelessly stolen and applied to WIA patch 1.05

[gchristie]

Is there are lots of people eager to help out.

Take Aphrodite Mae and Dixicrat. They put together a very useful quick reference guide to changes in the game manual over time, which I believe they modeled on a similar document put together by Picaron in the Spanish forum. The reference guide shows changes to the manual up to and including version 1.13b as of June 2009.

IMHO, if you try to get too far under the hood, you may never get out again. While the documentation struggles to keep up with rapid advances in the game, folks in the forum will help you figure out the larger items.

Me, I try not to sweat the smaller stuff.

Enjoy and keep at it, your efforts will be rewarded.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[richfed]

Patches, HotFixes and QuickFixes: patches and the such should have their own home page, or at least a forum thread which cannot be updated by anybody other than the author. This should be where to find access to a download link to the patch and a clear and concise description of the patch. Want to discus the patch? Open a thread for discussing it. Changes made to the way the game is played? Into the wiki. New patch? New thread.

I couldn't agree with this more ... it is quite difficult to keep up with the changes at times - and I've been around this forum for a long time. It is vast ... and when all you want to do is download the latest fix, it can be daunting.

[Captain_Orso]

Is there are lots of people eager to help out.

Take Aphrodite Mae and Dixicrat. They put together a very useful quick reference guide to changes in the game manual over time, which I believe they modeled on a similar document put together by Picaron in the Spanish forum. The reference guide shows changes to the manual up to and including version 1.13b as of June 2009.

IMHO, if you try to get too far under the hood, you may never get out again. While the documentation struggles to keep up with rapid advances in the game, folks in the forum will help you figure out the larger items.

Me, I try not to sweat the smaller stuff.

Enjoy and keep at it, your efforts will be rewarded.

Hi GChristie, thanks for your reply. I already have that doc too, thanks.

About getting too far under the hood, this game handles three aspects of the Civil War. The politics (generically to a small extent), the military conflict itself (mainly) and the economics meaning the ability of a faction to wage war (largely). All parties involved in the American Civil War knew before it even started that the South's ability to wage war was limited directly by her economic situation. Thus the South's great interest in being recognized by England, France and the rest of the Europe, continuing trade with them and possible bringing about an intervention by those powers on the side of the South.

So the players need to understand what factors are counted towards his ability to influence the economic aspect of the game. IMO this has little to do with 'getting too far under the hood'.

Easily done when you have moderator capability in the necessary forums/sub-forums. Not so easily done if no moderator capable person is around. I gave up a while back trying to keep the main AACW forum organized because of the lack of such capabilities and it's only grown worse this summer since Rafiki has been understandably busy with his real life business.

Hi Gray, thanks for replying (multiple times ) I understand your situation. The only way I know to change such situations is to bring the issues to the table. I hope this thread succeeds in doing this.

I wouldn't describe the AACW manual as "half void" right now, but rather "half-empty". Half-void implies that half the information is incorrect which really isn't the case. It's just missing a heck of a lot of the new information about the changes that have been done over the last 2 years, but see the post below.

This is one of my main issues. I cannot think of anything in the manual or the other documents mentioned here, which I could say was wrong. But even in their collective they are incomplete.

Captain_Orso:

The latest "official" patch is always stickied at the top of the main AACW forum page.

Beta Patches on the other hand are posted in the "Help to Improve AACW!" sub-forum.

QuickFixes posted within an "official" patch thread are "unofficial" temporary fixes posted by me for database errors discovered after the "official" patch was posted. I deliberately delete older Quickfix posts when I post new ones in order to reduce confusion as to which Quickfix is the latest. Since the Quickfixes are not "official" per se, it is my perogative, and will remain so, to remove them when I have a new one to post or the current one is perceived to possibly be causing crashes.

I understand this. I read discussions about what the HotFixes and QuickFixes are and searched like a mad-man for the latest QuickFix. What I understand is that you withdrew QuickFix3 because it could cause crashes. I'd have done the same.

What really irked me was that I could find no link to any previous QuickFixes, being deleted as you say. There is nothing more frustrating than searching for something that isn't there.

I've also noted that the QuickFixes (with 4 and 5 anyway) are now being distributed implemented into latest patch file. Cool.

Though I confirmed that this link is mislabeled. It actually downloads version 1.14c. This site was just moved to a new server around the first of August, so not all items on the home page have been updated. AGEod is a small company with very little in the way of a full web support staff.

I understand. Shit happens. There is a saying here in Germany. Wer arbeitet, macht Fehler. Wer nicht, schaft nicht einmal das. Translated: He who works, makes mistakes. He who doesn't, doesn't even manage to do that.

There is a file named ACW Updates.rtf in the main game folder which list ALL the changes through ALL the patches released since the game's initial version. This is a practice similar to other game software producers to post a patch change list in the main folder. Before complaining about the lack thereof it might be better to ask first.

Yes, I know that document and I am also aware of the description in the official thread. I understand this concept as I've been working in data processing for over 25 years.

I also know that after a certain period of time, patches are incorporated into the current distribution and the documents are updated with them. The latest document I could find through this forum is Revision 20 (I thought it was 2.0 at first, but no it's really 20, from what I've read in the forum) for AACW Ver. 1.0.5 in PDF format. The PDF information in this document states that it was created on the 29th of June in 2007. There is no modification date, so I have to assume that it hasn't changed since then. That is over two years ago. I'm not certain if that date is correct, but there it is.

I have to go back on one thing that I said though. I DID find something wrong in the documentation, but only per insinuation.

On page 22 at the top under Division it states, "To form a Division, first select a general and press the ‘Enable Divisional Command’ button." Firstly, it should say 'an active general' and secondly, the illustration in this section shows none other than the '1st Division HQ' unit. It doesn't state that you cannot form a division before 1861-10-01. It still doesn't say this in the ACW Updates.rtf, but that's still in the 1.13 version from January 21, 2009. It is now on the first page of the 'official patch' thread, but there's no way to tell since when, because that got written-over by the 1.14c update.

After lots of frustration playing the USA in the '61 Campaign and not knowing what I was doing wrong, I did find it in the forum somewhere, though I don't know where anymore.

Oh, BTW I had the same problem then with Corps.

Gray, when you noted what you had discovered about the effects of 'Brown-Water Blockading' a port affecting also the 'Blue-Water Blockade' percentage (see the first message of this thread) you could have pushed me over with a feather. I thought, how much more of this game is being kept secret because the publisher doesn't want to put an effort into making the documentation clear, complete and up-to-date. I really considered just uninstalling and moving on.

But instead I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could do something to make a difference. I thought I made objective criticism and feasible suggestions.

My goal is not to ridicule, but to improve the situation. But there can be no improvement until the issues have been evaluated and a solution discovered.

Just my (apparently not so humble) opinion.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Captain_Orso]

Sorry, my bad.

[richfed]

Hey Captain ... despite some faults, it was definitely the right decision. Awesome game!!

[W.Barksdale]

Hey Captain ... despite some faults, it was definitely the right decision. Awesome game!!

+1

[Captain_Orso]

I don't give up that easily, I just need a break sometimes when all the unknowns and un-understandables (from my view) pile up too much. Technician that I am, I sometimes get caught in the detail too much.

[MFogal]

I agree with Orso's general complaint. When I first loaded up the game (I bought it on a whim) I gave it up after a few tries. And then again a couple months later. Only after I found this website (and read through the PBEM game between Soundoff and Banks) did I stick with it. Even so, it took a full weekend to begin to feel comfortable with the game.

I've since played through to victory a couple times, as both CSA and USA, and think this is one of the better comptuer wargames I've ever played. That said, I think that AGEOD would be well-served to help people overcome the steep learning curve.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Pocus]

I believe that if we had more tutorials, it would be good for new players. No I'm not asking anyone to make them, it is a fact without afterthoughts.

[Matin]

I don't have to be everything documentated....I think this makes a lot of the fun and makes the game really replayable to find out new things, by chance or by the forum. If every detail is documentated, you use everything in your first play and never discover new things which make you want to play the game again a different way..

[Captain_Orso]

Many thanks for all your comments.

Even if the manual contained EVERY detail that the game had to offer, new players would have just as much difficulty learning the game as they do now. This game is complicated to learn PURE and SIMPLE and the only way to get comfortable with it is to jump in and PLAY, PLAY, and PLAY AGAIN.

True and untrue at the same time. It's true that you don't have to know into the last detail how the combat odds are calculated to be able to put a stack together and make and attack with reasonable chances of success, thus trading detail for enjoyment. If however you spend a lot of time planing such an attack and to the best of your knowledge have a very good chance at succeeding with it, and then get slaughtered, I would assume that there are factors in the calculation that I haven't considered and I'd like to be able to learn out of this being then a focus-point of my interest. If the information is not available it turns the game into a guessing match, because there are so many unknowns. In my experience, this is no fun. It is practically impossible to learn what to do from observing complex occurrences only from outside the precess.

But there are many much more simple things which are poorly documented or are maybe bugs. But lacking a concise documentation it is impossible to determine. I'll give two examples that I ran across.

1. I wanted to build a fortification. I looked up the rules and built 4 artillery batteries and two supply trains as stated in the manual. Once in place I tried to build the fortification. The 'build fortification' button however refused to unlock and the tool-tip wouldn't say exactly why. So guessing from the information I had, I thought I needed an additional structure like a city, harbor or depot. So being that the region had neither a city nor a harbor I decided to build a depot, I had two supply trains in the region for building the fortification already, and build a third supply train for the fortification. Depot finished after 15 days, new supply train into the stack. Still no go. Back to the manual. I have everything listed in the manual in place. Look through the update.rtf file, nothing, the official update forum-thread, nothing. I finally found it in the wiki. Fortifications can only be build in regions with cities. Ugh.

2. I got the offer to promote a several generals, who were in one stack, at the same time, a ** and two *. I selected the ** and clicked on the promote button. Then went to the first * and the button was already clicked. Hmm. I played around with it and found out that the button is relevant to the entire stack. I thought, "okay, I want to promote all the generals anyway, just check that it's clicked for each and let it run". It didn't work. The next turn only the ** general was promoted. So I wasted another turn with separating the two * generals from their stacks, totally disorganizing my army to get them promoted.

Did I do it right in the end? Maybe, maybe it also works differently than that too.

These examples have nothing to do with extreme amounts of detail. They are very simple factors, which should be documented in right places. This cost me lots wasted time and resources in my game and lots of time to search for the answers.

The amount of time needed to test such things out extensively to learn all the possibilities can become immense. That's when I start getting p*ssed off at the documentation. And I feel I have every right to be.

I believe that if we had more tutorials, it would be good for new players. No I'm not asking anyone to make them, it is a fact without afterthoughts.

Tutorials can be very helpful for getting the feel of the game. But tutorials also only demonstrate a limited number of possibilities of a specific aspect of the game. The rest needs to be found in the documentation to deepen the understanding of the game.

I started out with tutorial scenarios and when I ran into things that I didn't understand I went back into the manual an reread it. When I started running into things that did the manual didn't completely explain I started looking through the forum and the wiki. It was and is an arduous task.

And when I run across things in the forum that are documented nowhere but coincidentally in the forum, things that one would never discover through normal play, and are still an important aspect of the game, like all the affects of Blue- and Brown-water Blockading, I just get so p*ssed off and ask myself if to play the game is worth all the effort.

I don't have to be everything documentated....I think this makes a lot of the fun and makes the game really replayable to find out new things, by chance or by the forum. If every detail is documentated, you use everything in your first play and never discover new things which make you want to play the game again a different way..

To each his own, I guess. I didn't start out by reading every piece of information I could find either. Trail and error are good teachers. But at some point I need to be able to deepen my understanding beyond what can be reasonably learned from trail and error. For that a clear and concise manual is essential.

It eventually comes down to whether you want to play 'with' the game or 'play the game'. I personally prefer that latter, though I do a lot of the former.

[enf91]

True and untrue at the same time. It's true that you don't have to know into the last detail how the combat odds are calculated to be able to put a stack together and make and attack with reasonable chances of success, thus trading detail for enjoyment. If however you spend a lot of time planing such an attack and to the best of your knowledge have a very good chance at succeeding with it, and then get slaughtered, I would assume that there are factors in the calculation that I haven't considered and I'd like to be able to learn out of this being then a focus-point of my interest. If the information is not available it turns the game into a guessing match, because there are so many unknowns.

Just like real war, isn't it? No matter how good your intel is, you can't see how anything is going to turn out.

Otherwise, you make good points, like about the game mechanics.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Generalisimo]

Given the extremely limited manpower resources of AGEod combined with the complexity of the AACW game design itself, there is no way that a manual as thorough as one might expect from Microsoft or other large corporate software company is ever going to be forthcoming from AGEod in regards to AACW...

... and that's exactly why the AACWWiki was created... so the community can share all the knowledge about the game in one place.

[Captain_Orso]

Gray,

I understand. For such a small and dedicated team (volunteers included) the results are great.

These fact being, this is why I suggested that the community make use of Rafiki's wiki to complete the documentation and also suggested that AGEod make it official. Of course once it reaches the point, where AGEod could agree that it has reached that quality.

Rafiki stated that the wiki was for the community and only requested that the community rules and standard be upheld. I've already made one update to it. Minor, but there it is. Once I get to the point, where I feel I can add reliable information to the wiki, I plan to do just that.

BTW the MS documentations that I've used have been, well ... lacking. I've gotten better result from google. Maybe the 500 - 600 page manuals that cost $100+ for enterprise products are better, but that's not my area of business.

[MFogal]

Even if the manual contained EVERY detail that the game had to offer, new players would have just as much difficulty learning the game as they do now. This game is complicated to learn PURE and SIMPLE and the only way to get comfortable with it is to jump in and PLAY, PLAY, and PLAY AGAIN.

I don't mind having a steep learning curve. I've been playing chess (pardon the chess analogies ) for 40 years, and still don't feel as though I have mastered the game. But I'd be upset if, after playing a couple hundred chess games, I learned a new way to move my knight.

Grey: you do a great job providing online support to newbies. Reading through these posts, it looks like you occassionally get frustrated answerign the same questions over and over again.

I suggest the following:

First, figure out how most people learn a new game. For myself, I typically run through a tutorial, and then plunge right in and play a game. I usually read through the manual at night for a week or so, after I've shut down the computer. You might use these forums to do an informal poll.

Second, figure out who is your target audience. Is AGEOD aiming at the "high-end, hard-core gamers?" They will dedicate the time to learning complex games, and (for a good product) will put up with less-than-perfect manuals and tutorials. A broader audience will consider these barriers to entry, and will not buy the product.

Third, design your manuals and tutorials to reflect what you learned about how you target audience learns games. I like POCUS's suggestion to have more/better tutorials, maybe even dedicated to specific topics. ("Naval invasion tutorial").

(A pet peeve of mine: get help with the writing. I'm not necessarily aiming this criticism at AGEOD, but there seems to be a general feeling in the world that, since every Tom Dick and Harry has written a high school term paper, they all think that they know how to write. This is nonsense -- they don't.)

Fourth, (and I'm going to start getting controversial here) beware of continually making tweaks/improvements to the game. By all means, please get rid of bugs. But every marginal improvement made to the game will likely tick-off a casual gamer. Moreover, the time it takes to improve the manuals/tutorials/etc. needs to be incorporated into the release of the patches. Put more strongly, if you don't have the time to improve the manual, then you probably shouldn't release the patch.

(Note: this goes back to my second point above: who is your target audience? The casual customer won't put up with out-of-date manuals-- the hard-core gamer will.)

An observation that is sure to tick-off people in these discussion boards: we don't matter. You've already got us. We love the game. To grow the market, sell more games, and get more people to PBEM, you've got to address the concerns of Captain Orso and others.

I appreciate that AGEOD is a small company, and you don't necessarily have the resources to do everything that you'd like to do to improve the product. Grey does a good job answering questions (in corporate jargon, "providing customer service") to those people who have found their way to these forums. But I suspect that there are lots of potential customers that are turned-off by the steep learning curve and who don't make it to these forums.

Not that you want to become Microsoft, but you probably do want to grow the company a bit. I suspect that, for every Captain Orso you hear from, there are hundreds of people who don't bother. I would pay very close attention to his concerns.

M

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[MFogal]

Grey:

Nothing I said was meant to be construed in any way as critical of you or the excellent job you're doing. That you're doing it for free suggests it's a labor of love, and those of us who have benefited from it are thankful.

Rather, my posting was intended as free advice on possible ways to improve the way the game is presented. (as they say about free advice: it's usually worth what you paid for it...)

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted