AGEOD Forums

Would it be possible to add a few lines of biographical info to each leaders Detail Box?
It would be a community project to gather the info and do all the work.

Pocus would only have to show us how. Is it possible?
Does anyone want to do this? Is this a good idea?

Here is an example: (need to move the ratings info up a bit)

This is planned, just takes time to build the 300+ bios needed

Thank you Philippe,

Would it be easier on your team if some members of this forum built the bios?

That was my original intent, that we would form a small group of interested persons, set a standard for the type and amount of info, gather the info and build the bios.

What we would need from Ageod is a way to get the bios into the game, if it is possible.

You are more than welcome

Forward, march !!

NB: please contact Sunray on this forum, he is one of the Betas already working on this...

An example

Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. BANKS
As a political appointee, but with no military experience, Banks was named a major general and given divisional and departmental command near Washington early in the war. He was routed by Gen. Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley campaign and at Cedar Mountain. In the Gulf area, he led the costly
siege of Port Hudson and the dismal Red River campaign.
His field career was rather disastrous but his appointment served its purpose in rallying support for the war effort.

Maj. Gen. Don Carlos BUELL
In Washington in September 1861, Buell helped organize the Army of the Potomac under McClellan. He then led the Army of the Ohio into Tennessee and took a notable part in the battle of Shiloh. He lost his field command for failing to follow up the retreating CSA after the battle of Perryville on October 24, 1862.

Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. BUTLER
At the beginning of the war, Butler's contingent of Massachusetts militia was one of the first to reach Washington. He then restored order in secessionist Baltimore and was named military governor of New Orleans. There his highhanded rule infuriated the people of the South and earned him the name "Beast". He suffered several defeats as commander of the Army of the James and was removed from active command in Dec. 1864

Thanks again Philippe,

Here is my idea:
-Each bio would be a very short, bullet style comment (fit in the small space of the Detail window, unless Ageod makes more space available).
Something that the player can read "at a glance", for quick information.

-Would help the player identify who was a politician, West point graduate, career officer, farmer, etc...

-It would deal exclusively with Pre-war information.
This would enhance the immersion of the game. There would be no pre-defined notions of who is a "good" or "bad" officer. The player is making their own history in this game.

Here is a possible layout:

-Born: Month Date, Year (Age in 1861), Place of birth
-Military: West Point or other academy graduate, Year, Pre-war military service or experience, highest pre-war USA rank, (year resigned pre-war USA commission)
-Pre-War: Pre-war occupations, pre-war political appointments, state
-Commission: I'm not sure how to organize this section.

If anyone has any ideas on how to organize or display the information, please reply

Here are some examples:

USA Grant
Born: April 27 1822 (39), Point Pleasant, OH
Military: West Point 1843, Mexican war (Lt), Lt (1854)
Pre-War: farmer, store clerk
Commission: June 1861, Illinois (Lincoln)

USA McClernand
Born: May 30 1812 (49), Hardinsburg, KY
Military: Private during Black Hawk war 1832
Pre-War: Lawyer, US Congress Illinois
Commission: May 1861, Illinois (Lincoln)

CSA Price
Born: September 20 1809 (52), Prince Edward, VA
Military: Mexican War (Col), Military Gov New Mexico
Pre-War: US Congress Missouri, Gov Missouri
Commission: Missouri

CSA Longstreet
Born: January 8 1821 (40), Edgefield Dist. SC
Military: West Point 1842, Mexican War, Indian Wars, Major USA (1861)
Pre-War: US Army Paymaster
Commission: June 17 1861

CSA Fitzhugh Lee
Born: November 19 1835 (26), Fairfax, VA
Military: West Point 1856, Indian Wars, Lt USA (1861)
Pre-War: US Army, West Point Instructor
Commission: May 1861

we will add a tooltip on the portrait, so that you are not constrained by the room left. And a legend saying that you get the bio when hovering over it, so to not miss it.

I like tc237's bullet point layout and agree that bio info shouldn't detail what they did in the war.

tc237:

I agree with your approach, with one modification. The information definitely should be pre-war focused (the future hasn't yet happened in the game, after all). But I would add pre-war anecdotal material for "flavor" - i.e, that X exhibited bravery in assault on Chapultepec in the Mexican War or that Y was cashiered from a frontier cavalry unit for drunkenness. Most of the prominent generals in the war had at least one interesting tidbit of "back story" that would give them some personality in the game.

OK then let's move forward....

Example for Grant:

Hiram Ulysses Grant, born April 27, 1822, in Claremont County, Ohio. Erroneously nominated to West Point as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio," the name stuck when the school refused to change it. "U.S." Grant established a reputation at the Academy as a fearless and expert horseman, but upon graduating 21st in a class of 39 was assigned to duty as a quartermaster. Twice brevetted for bravery as a lieutenant in the Mexican-American War, Grant moved through several frontier postings with the 4th US Infantry Regiment after the war. Lonely and frustrated with the post-war army, Grant resigned his commission in 1854 amid rumors of drunkenness. After failing as a farmer and bill collector, he moved in humiliation to Galena, Illinois to work as an assistant in a leather shop run by his younger brother in 1860.

Where are these bio's going to be collected? Should a new forum or thread be opened up? Alternatively, I suppose biographical information could be collected in each General's post in the officer rating forum.

Jackson:

Thomas Jonathan Jackson, born January 21, 1824, in Clarksburg, Virginia. Orphaned at the age of seven, Jackson was accepted to West Point in 1842 where, despite the inadequacy of his early education, he graduated 17th in a class of 59. A second lieutenant in the 1st US Artillery Regiment at the outbreak of the Mexican-American War, Jackson fought with distinction in the assault on Chaultepec and the siege of Veracruz, earning a field promotion to the brevet rank of major. In 1851, he accepted a teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute, where he was a brilliant, but unpopular, professor. Students mocked his apparently stern, religious nature and eccentric traits. In 1856, a group of alumni sought to have Jackson removed from his position.

Here are some good ACW sites dealing with all the generals if you don't have them already saved:

http://www.generalsandbrevets.com/
This site has photos and bios.

http://www.civilwarhome.com/confederategenerals.htm

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/generals.html

Chris

PS: I would keep the Bios short and sweet, and I think FoF is overdoing them simply to attract attention to that game since most things about that game are rather 'off'.

this is a change... I mean in most game you learn what the generals did historically in the current war, if I'm not mistaken. But I'm neutral here, the approach that some advocates is original and refreshing in a sense. (and I'm also neutral because I'm not in charge of doing the work ).

I would like to read more opinions, if there are any, before proceeding.
Anyone, please feel free to post your thoughts or ideas.

Pocus, between tool-tips or the example picture above, which is easier.
Is it possible for me to test some of these options by a simple file modification?
If so which files?

Pocus wrote:this is a change... I mean in most game you learn what the generals did historically in the current war, if I'm not mistaken. But I'm neutral here, the approach that some advocates is original and refreshing in a sense. (and I'm also neutral because I'm not in charge of doing the work ).

I would definitely prefer the pre-war info. Especially since I play with Random generals, I don't want the fact that Banks or Butler was a crappy general staring at me every time I open his card.

Agreed...pre war. I don't want to know what my bumbling blue clad fools did in real life...I want to see them at their best...pre bumbling fools

I dislike this idea intensely, but, as it is going forward, I guess I have nothing to say about it.

If it were to be done at all, I would have preferred to see such information in the separate leader list PDF.

I see nothing in it but added clutter and time wasted on something that is, at most, peripheral.

frank7350 wrote:Agreed...pre war. I don't want to know what my bumbling blue clad fools did in real life...I want to see them at their best...pre bumbling fools

What way did he go??? Faygo!!! F-Troop!!!

Chris

pasternakski wrote:I dislike this idea intensely, but, as it is going forward, I guess I have nothing to say about it.

If it were to be done at all, I would have preferred to see such information in the separate leader list PDF.

I see nothing in it but added clutter and time wasted on something that is, at most, peripheral.

Hehe...that's why it's going to be a player driven addition...then you don't have to worry about the devs spending good useful time on it when they could be fixing other things.

Spharv2 wrote:Hehe...that's why it's going to be a player driven addition...then you don't have to worry about the devs spending good useful time on it when they could be fixing other things.

Oh, sort of a "Wikipedia" thing, eh? No editorial oversight needed ... no additional coding and graphical redesign to get this stuff into the in-game display ... certainly no alleged inaccuracies that will be disputed on the forums requiring developer research and decision on what is correct ... several dozen cooks boiling up what's supposed to be a homogeneous broth ...

I tell ya, Eric Blair was right, decadence is the way of the world...

Well, there will be some coding time to get it in, but as stated, that was already planned, so no time will be taken away from anything else. As for the inaccuracies, that's what we're for...to make sure they're caught. That part shouldn't take any time at all away from Pocus or Phil. In fact, if you see them in there, feel free to shoo them away ya old curmudgeon.

pasternakski,

I know what your saying, that's why I'd like to keep it as simple as possible.

"Just the facts", basic pre-war stuff to give the player a little insight into what that officer was doing before 1861.
Date of birth and age, military education and experience, and any political ties.

What I don't want is

alleged inaccuracies that will be disputed on the forums

I can't stand that, it drives me nuts, most of that is just some old, with an axe to grind, historian's opinion.

This isn't meant to be a biography on each officer, there are plenty of resources and books for that.

If this is going to take up the Ageod teams time, then I definitly don't want to do it. But I think it is possible with minimal Ageod input.
It's time for the community to take charge of this game!!!! Who Rides?

Spharv2 wrote:if you see them in there, feel free to shoo them away ya old curmudgeon.

Well, hee hee, I'll be mudgeoning my cur elsewhere, thanky, sonny.

So, you're in charge of quality control on this assembly line, eh? Okey dokey. Let's not be seein' any more sloppy glue seams on them PBY control surfaces, by gum...

tc237 wrote:I think it is possible with minimal Ageod input.
It's time for the community to take charge of this game!!!! Who Rides?

*sigh* okay, I guess, then, but I hate this "community take charge" talk.

pasternakski wrote:Well, hee hee, I'll be mudgeoning my cur elsewhere, thanky, sonny.

So, you're in charge of quality control on this assembly line, eh? Okey dokey. Let's not be seein' any more sloppy glue seams on them PBY control surfaces, by gum...

Man, I always get those glue fingerprints on the canopies though.

the coding part should be done in 5 mn, I just have to plug a tooltip ability to the portrait icon, and then seek an entry in the data file. The rest is up to you.
You can add unit description too if you want.

tc237 wrote:It would deal exclusively with Pre-war information.

Very interesting suggestion indeed.

For :
- very original
- faster
- immersive

Against :
- less useful for the novice players
- does not explain the special abilities
- (minor) my work so far is abandonned

You get my vote, the 2 first arguments are really important IMHO.

We should begin with the most important generals (3-4 stars).
Do we use this forum or the beta forum ?

Pocus wrote:....I just have to plug a tooltip ability to the portrait icon, and then seek an entry in the data file....

Exactly where and how will the bio appear? (when you have time, send a test file or post a screenshot, no hurry)

Once we see how it works, it will give us a better idea of how much space we can use.

The trick will be to balance presenting enough information clearly and concisely, in a structured format. Trying to aviod being to verbose.

-sidenote: large blocks of text on a screen are difficult for me to read. The bullet comment style, for me, is easier and clearer.
For example, Queeg posted two possible bio's, but they look like big black blobs to me. I have to squint and strain to pick out the important points.

Thomas Jonathan Jackson, born January 21, 1824, in Clarksburg, Virginia. Orphaned at the age of seven, Jackson was accepted to West Point in 1842 where, despite the inadequacy of his early education, he graduated 17th in a class of 59. A second lieutenant in the 1st US Artillery Regiment at the outbreak of the Mexican-American War, Jackson fought with distinction in the assault on Chaultepec and the siege of Veracruz, earning a field promotion to the brevet rank of major. In 1851, he accepted a teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute, where he was a brilliant, but unpopular, professor. Students mocked his apparently stern, religious nature and eccentric traits. In 1856, a group of alumni sought to have Jackson removed from his position.

Would be something like this:
Thomas Jonathan Jackson, born January 21, 1824, Clarksburg, Virginia.
West Point class of 1846. Second lieutenant, 1st US Artillery Reg, Mexican War; distinguished himself at Chaultepec and Veracruz; promoted to brevet rank of Major.
Instructor Virginia Military Institute.

oh, by the way, the tone of this post is one of asking for or making suggestions.
I'm not trying to argue for any method, just explaining where I'm coming from.

As for getting into heated discussions about what is in a certain officers bio, if this stays in the realm of a user created mod, Ageod should be cleared of having to answer to anyone.

Any chance of making this optional? Or at the very least put it at the bottom of the tooltip so other information is not hidden?