Rough Terrain Observations (newbie)

[eclectriceel]

I love this game. I bought AACW on a whim at Best Buy about two months ago, and I was simply amazed. It is the best war game I have ever played! (For reference, the previous best were the windows versions of the old SSI squad level games: WinMBT, et. al.)

I eagerly downloaded WIA to celebrate the 4th of July, and I am so happy with it! The Ageod team has incredible support and really pays attention to their customers.

On to my newbie observations.

First, the 1.01 patch really helped the attrition imbalance. You can move through friendly territory now with very minor losses in good weather, and you can just barely get away with spending a whole month moving through wilderness in good weather. Moving through wilderness is bad news if the weather or miliitary control is against you, and suicidal in those conditions if you don't have a supply wagon. Perfect! The AI still moves around in unsafe ways, but now it isn't punished as badly for it by the engine, so the advantage I get by my more conservative movement isn't as great, making the game a bit tougher, at least for a newbie.

The two main things I had to get used to compared to AACW are the movement and the command structure.

The terrain on most of the map in WIA is rough! Marching hundreds (not thousands, another adjustment from AACW) of men through old growth forest in January without adequate footwear and only a compass and a map for guidance means losing quite a few men, and LOTS if you are engaged by an enemy that is warmer and better fed than you. No more willy-nilly moving troops around on railroads! Most of the smaller scenarios are set in wilderness and even the long campaigns have strategic cities and objectives in the Great Lakes and Canada, so learning how to move forces around in rough country is important. When troops move through unsettled territory now, expect them to need at least a turn to be back to full combat strength after a two region move, and more if you had very many impediments (terrain, weather, lack of military control). Forts are key staging points in less settled regions because of the faster recovery rates. You can march troops through snow to get them to a forward position as long as they have a couple of turns on a fort (which there are a lot of) or depot (which there aren't a lot of) to recover before spring campaigning or any type of combat starts. It is really important to have all of the assets you need for a campaign in place and in fighting order as soon as the spring thaws come.

Assets located more than two regions away from an offensive target will have a hard time reaching their objectives in any kind of fighting order. They will arrive able to contribute little to the fight and will need a turn or two in an adjacent region just to recover cohesion. On top of that, they can only recover a fraction of their movement attrition until they are back on a structure or level 2 city (I think something like 25% to simulate stragglers finding their way back to the unit?) and so have a weakened strength even when the cohesion recovers. And that's before we even start thinking about where the supplies are coming from. Unless the route is civilized, has a road and is in my military control, I try to only attack adjacent regions. If I have to move more than one region to reach your objective I have tried with some success resting a turn right next to the objective if the supplies can handle it (two is even better if I need to gain military control of the region: if the force is defeated, I want a region in military control to fall back on so that my retreating and possibly routing troops are not hit with extra cohesion and attriton penalties). Waiting around outside an enemy city in a civilized region would be dumb- the enemy will see you are there and rush in reinforcements. In more remote areas however those reinforcements will suffer their own cohesion and attrition losses, so they will be weakened if they can even get there in time. (Be careful of wasting time resting before attacking harbors: lots of troops can come in VERY quickly ahead of you by sea and arrive at essentially full strength.)

OK, so a month or two to get there, a month to get back up to fighting strength, another month to take the objective, another month or two to recover from the fight (longer if you are counter attacked) and you can see that a single force of sufficient size will realistically only be able to take one objective per campaigning season in the rural parts of the map. I have tried to cut it close and take a second city in October, had the assault fail, and had to walk the wounded force through wilderness back to the nearest fort in a blizzard while moving through enemy territory. Talk about a force melting away!

On the command front, not having divisions really changes the way you organize. You need several generals to put together a decent sized army but only one gets to contribute bonuses; the rest are just there for the command points. Therefore, abilities that affect the whole stack are now more critical than ever (and abilities that only affect the unit are pointless since Generals can't be attached to brigades, so there can never be a unit affected by them). I like to divide up large stacks into two or three groups to take advantage of special abilities or higher leadership ratings from subordinates. This requires juggling seiority, abilities and command points in a way that is different from AACW but in some ways almost as complex. I am perfectly willing to split high ranking sub-par generals off into their own stacks so that the bulk of the force has better leadership. The power ratings seem to add up the same, and based on my statistically invalid sample size, they seem to fight just as well that way as long as they all engage. I suspect that a pair of armies split up like I have them will not do as well in the assault portion of the battle as if they were all together, but this tactic will at least take the edge off of those epidemics since only half as many units will be exposed. (Spread out those supply wagons too, they only help the stack they are in!)

Thanks for taking the time to read this long post. I would love to hear from anyone as to whether I am on the right track or not. Suggestions, comments, mockery, flames and outright laughter are all welcome.

[Ian Coote]

I Get the most out of Ageods games by reading a good book on the subject as I play the game.It really brings the characters in the game to life.Right now reading Francis Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe,really makes you appreciate the fine level of historical research these guys and girls at Ageod's put into their games.

[Son of Montfort]

Thank you for the long post on impressions and tips! I am sitting on the fence atm, but your post pushed me a bit toward the "buy" side!

I am happy to see the attrition bug seems squashed. That was a major worry.

That statement about the unit traits seems strange though. If unit traits don't apply, only stack traits, then why have them? How does that work, exactly?

[GShock]

Just Fyi: New commands are being developed to teach the AI how to think properly and a major command has just been developed. It is now possible to teach the AI the exact path to take to reach an objective as well as teach it when to be bold and when to be safe (the first of these two commands tell the AI which settlement to take first, as to resemble a real strategy and a real historicity in its tactics).
Lastly, it is being discussed and planned to help the AI use the fast-slow aggressive tactic, so that if it's losing it will be bolder and if it's winning it will be safer.

It's the engine, not the game and the DEVs who make these things happen.

[Clovis]

The AGEOD engine is astonishing by realism and playability levels it has reached. Each new patch is refining it and confirming its ability to address in depth any conflict from roughly 1700 to 1900 ( and certainly a bit further in the next years).

Buying WIA isn't simply get assured of rich hours of play but to allow the engine to go yet further with the next games.......

[GShock]

Am happily surprised about the guy finding the game @Best Buy.

I stopped to discuss with the staff of Best Buy in Sausalito, CA, about the fact that AACW was not on the shelf

I had overlooked this detail in ee's post.