Turn based and Army by Army activation

[abulbulian]

I'm not completely ignore on some of the concepts I'm asking about, but would like for people to share their knowledge and elaborate on the topics.

So what are the main difference for 'Turn Based' turned on vs off?

And similarly what are the main difference for Army by Army activation turned on vs off?

I really want to completely understand how all this plays together when I configure it for a game.

Thanks!

[Tamas]

Uh oh, I am way too sleepy to give you a comprehensive list. Basically, the advanced features you are asking about, turn on the most "boardgamey" features of WW1, namely the I go - you go mode.
Someone will explain in detail I am sure.

However, I advise you to stay away from this mode in single player for the time being. Calvinus mentioned it somewhere that he has started heavy bug-hunting on it, but you can still run into the occasional AI hangup with it (changing how the AI works to solve compatibility problems post-release did not help this advanced game mode).
Besides, the AI's performance in general is lower (in this advanced game mode, you have to decide in which order to activate your armies, and the AI can not always chose the optimum order, nor can a human in all cases, mind you!).
Plus, by many ways its less realistic than the standard move mode.

All that being said, the advanced game mode would be my choice of game mode for multiplayer matchups.

[calvinus]

However, I advise you to stay away from this mode in single player for the time being. Calvinus mentioned it somewhere that he has started heavy bug-hunting on it, but you can still run into the occasional AI hangup with it (changing how the AI works to solve compatibility problems post-release did not help this advanced game mode).
Besides, the AI's performance in general is lower (in this advanced game mode, you have to decide in which order to activate your armies, and the AI can not always chose the optimum order, nor can a human in all cases, mind you!).
Plus, by many ways its less realistic than the standard move mode.

All that being said, the advanced game mode would be my choice of game mode for multiplayer matchups.

Agreed 100% with Tamas. After having fixed some key bugs concerning the advanced game mode (AI hangs and turn locks), yesterday I successfully tested the full 1914 in 4-players mode, with the strictly-turn-based & the army-by-army activation rules. No problem at all, playing with Germany. Of course, further tests are to be done, because -as you know- the number of combinations is extremely huge and this game mode is so complex that it can hinder a lot of unforseenable problems behind...

But I can say that the AI sometimes really "suffers" this play mode!
Exactly for the reason explained by Tamas. The order of activation for armies is an extremely complex stuff, mainly for the "main armies" constraints... I spent days and days working on the algorythms that make the AI work in this mode, and I can say it's really hard! So yesterday night I was forced to introduce some tweaking to "help" the AI (also to avoid nasty hangs and locks), removing for the AI (in some conditions) the rule "main army is to be activated first"... I hope this will be helpful.

Thanks,
Calvinus.

[Kaiser1918]

I personally still believe that the army activation mode will be my preferred way of playing against human opponents. It just creates more tension.

Calvinus, have you heard the AI behaviour of stacking multiple armies in France and therefore not keeping a coherent line after you changed the stacking rules in WEGO mode?

[calvinus]

Calvinus, have you heard the AI behaviour of stacking multiple armies in France and therefore not keeping a coherent line after you changed the stacking rules in WEGO mode?

Yes, I saw the posts... This is a stuff on which I will start working next week (together with the Combat Logs new feature), and I believe it's a noisy side-effect caused by the change on army-cohexistence rule done in WEGO, as you said... it's the typical side-effect caused by the design changes done on the run...

This week-end I want to double-check (and fix if needed) the Multiplayer engine... a lot of things have been changed since 1.03!

[Marquee]

I too prefer the Army-by-Army mode of play. Most of the rules in the manual are geared to this manner of play and it appears more structured to me, making the game concepts more understandable. YMMV

[dougbush93]

Army-by-Army is how "real" LGG is played. The main downside is that it takes a lot longer. The main benefit is that you are more in control of your Armies. You can see how one attack works out before launching a second one, etc. I have exclusively been playing the 2-player CG as the CP using army-by-army mode, and the AI seems to be able to handle it well enough.

[calvinus]

Happy to hear this, even if I think better can be done...

In fact, as soon all scheduled new features (combat logs) and bug fixes will be delivered, I will have finally time to work on AI!