Moving Independent Units in Army-by-Army Mode

[Anthropoid]

I'm finally getting the hang of the most complex settings on this wonderful game (army-by-army mode, with all the reaction and interception settings on). It is quite a mental puzzle how to make best use of this initially, but I figured that this mode was the key to unlocking the full tactical and operational simulation potential of the game; it seems it is!

How I finall figured it out was this: (and maybe you guys would consider creating a "Tutorial #4 set on a small front on the Balkans late in teh war or something that would sort of simulate this?) I started up a Grand Campaign, and turned the AI down to lowest diffiiculty but everything else on full complexity.

Playing as CP, I chose Kronprinz Plan, and France chose Plan XXIV or something like that: basically frontal assault across the border. The AI attacked me in Luxembourg in the pre-Turn, so after refilling my damaged units I puzzled over how exactly I might use this Coordination plus army-by-army mode to rollup the French left-flank (Longwy as left).

Looking at all the armies I through VII arrayed along my front from my right-flank (Luxembourg) to my left-flank (Mulhouse) I realized that there are two to three "Reserve" corps in every army (corps without the little Roman Numberal in the upper right of the corps icon). It took me a while to realize that: these "flexible assignment corps" coudl be moved into a region with the activated army, but once I did realize that I was off to the races.

In the pre-turn I reset III Army (the one on Luxembourg at start) as the main army and activated it. Now I could move my heavy hitting "Flexible" corps from I, II, IV, and even as far as V armies along the front. I had to replay it a couple times to figure it out, but eventually managed to use mostly railroad to get the one 7.8.4 "Flex" Corps as well as several 5.6.4 Flex Corps and the GHQ all positioned either IN Luxembourg or on the way there at the end of the Early August pre-turn.

It didn't work exactly how I wanted (some units did not move as far as I expected them to move), but more-or-less I managed to get a large mass of the Flex Corps in position before the start of the August turn. Next turn it was a simple matter to once again activate III Army, send it into Longwy, and also send in as many of those Flex Corps as possible . . . again it didn't work out exactly as planned. The GHQ and only one or two of the Flex Corps got there first . . .but in any event, the French forces in Longwy were (just barely) overwhelmed and retreated! Yah! Now I was off to the races with making use of Breakthrough moves, Interceptions, and the most powerful part of the army-by-army mode: moving the ADDITIONAL armies that did not coordinate in the first moves of that month!

There are still some slightly annoying glitches here, but overall I can now fully appreciate what a brilliant game engine this is! (e.g., get V Army to successfully coordinate, and then move a Flex Corps [lets say XLV Corps] OUT of V Army onto the map in Saarbourg *poof* XLV Corps suddenly loses its V Army assignment making it ineligible to move!? Hey! It shouldn't work THAT WAY!).

My question(s) are as follows:

(1) What is the trick to being able to move my Independent Corps (unassgined Flex Corps)? I infer that, I have to activate all my armies one by one, and that after all numbered armies have been activated (and moved?) then I (should) be able to move the Independent Corps? However, a couple times now it did not work this way.

During my Aug 14 turn: I had moved ALL the armies on both West and East front that I wanted to move (German, Italian, Austrian). There were a couple armies in the West that I activated, but did not actually want to move (lets say for example German VI Army), all other numbered armies and many of the independent corps had the little envelope on them.

So I clicked to activate German V Army. Then It tried to click on one of the remaining Unassigned Independent Corps, it wouldn't activate. So I clicked on the "Enact Remaining Moves" (without actually making any) and it progressed me on to the next Phase without letting me move my remaining Independent Corps.

I'm guessing that what I should have done is to: click on the activate army button for the last numbered army, then click on the activate army button a second time to "cancel activation?"

[calvinus]

The independent stacks are moved during the very last activation, because when you commit the movements of this last army (or armies in case of coordinations), once the battles are finished, the "impulse" moves immediately to the next player (or the phase virtually finishes if you are the last acting player). So be very careful before enacting movements (green how arrow button): check if there would be other armies to activate. If no army is remaining, this is the activation when you can move the Ind. Dets... maybe I should add an Alert popup???

Btw, GHQs are moved instead during the activation of the same-front main army.

[calvinus]

There are still some slightly annoying glitches here, but overall I can now fully appreciate what a brilliant game engine this is! ...

I'm happy to hear you like this engine... The development of this monster game made me almost insane... The difficulties that are behind what you see are really enormous..

[Marquee]

The independent stacks are moved during the very last activation, because when you commit the movements of this last army (or armies in case of coordinations), once the battles are finished, the "impulse" moves immediately to the next player (or the phase virtually finishes if you are the last acting player). So be very careful before enacting movements (green how arrow button): check if there would be other armies to activate. If no army is remaining, this is the activation when you can move the Ind. Dets... maybe I should add an Alert popup???

Btw, GHQs are moved instead during the activation of the same-front main army.

I thought this too, but there's a different alternative: If you go FIRST in the turn, then AFTER the opponent's turn the game will stop after all his activations. You still have the opportunity to move your independent units at this time, BEFORE clicking the phase advance button.

Of course, if you're going second, then your last activation will naturally come at this juncture and you just move them before advancing the phase normally.

[patrat]

"maybe I should add an Alert popup"


this would be a great idea.

ive been screwing up with my independant detachments too.

[db99]

Btw, GHQs are moved instead during the activation of the same-front main army.

Aaaaaah! Thanks for that. I was just wondering why I couldn't activate my GHQs.

Playing my first game using army by army activation. I much prefer this mode to the wego.

Is there a problem with interceptions in army by army mode? Playing WEGO I'm usually presented with the interception timer multiple times a turn in 1914 and with army by army activation I'm up to Jan-Feb 1915 and haven't had a single one although I've gotten the 'successfully intercepted' message in the log many times when setting an army to intercept.

[calvinus]

Is there a problem with interceptions in army by army mode? Playing WEGO I'm usually presented with the interception timer multiple times a turn in 1914 and with army by army activation I'm up to Jan-Feb 1915 and haven't had a single one although I've gotten the 'successfully intercepted' message in the log many times when setting an army to intercept.

Probably a regression bug... I will investigate.

[Anthropoid]

The independent stacks are moved during the very last activation, because when you commit the movements of this last army (or armies in case of coordinations), once the battles are finished, the "impulse" moves immediately to the next player (or the phase virtually finishes if you are the last acting player). So be very careful before enacting movements (green how arrow button): check if there would be other armies to activate. If no army is remaining, this is the activation when you can move the Ind. Dets... maybe I should add an Alert popup???

Btw, GHQs are moved instead during the activation of the same-front main army.

Really Calvinus, I think that this is a brilliant engine. It reminds me somewhat of the engine for Forge of Freedom, but in some ways more streamlined, and in other ways more realistic. In any event, I can now see how imminently suited it is to this war, played at this scale, which I think _is_ the ideal scale for an engrosing simulation of the strategic dimensions of "playing God" as the grand leader of one of the rivals in this story.

To me, when I play a strategy war game, I want to (a) be immersed in the ecology of the strategic factors that shaped history; and (b) have fun by not being too bound up with "excessive" realism which can obstruct game play. In this game, you play the role of "semi-autonomous Imperial Leader/Commander-in-Chief," in many ways quite similar to the role played in many strategic level wargames these days (and in their board game precedessors for years and years). Some grog purists might quibble over the fact that: I enjoy virtually as much autonomy over my nation and her forces if I play CP as if I play one of the democratic nations, or that, but I would have to dismiss such criticisms as inconsequential.

WWI achieves a brilliant balance here. While I think there are perhaps some more kinks to work out in the unit-icon graphical-mouse user-interphase department, on the whole I think the game is exceptionally well designed well-balanced, fun, and even quite replayable, which says a lot given the subject matter. The engrossing map+music along with the fascinating insights into corps-level strategic war offered in the innovative engine are the strong suits, and may well prove to be innovations that become "public domain" in a wide-range of future games. Developers of long-standing games like Civ would do well to attend closely to the basic structure of the military operations in this game as it is frankly the direction they need to go in if they want to continue to retain a share in the Grog-enthusiast segment, and not just "sell-out" to the 12-year old RTS crowds.

As a social scientist with some training in consumer psychology: where do I think you could make some improvements/additions that would grease the wheels of commerce and happy customers? As follows:

1) As quickly as you can possible manage, get all the merchants who are selling your game to include the 1.06a patch. Honestly, I still find that, in order to get a really satisfying rate of game response, I STILL have to go in to the Taskmanager and turn off as many processes as possible (including my wireless). It may well be that I have some adware infections or something of that sort which are the culprit here, but I tend to think it is something more along the lines of virus-protection. That is frankly a problem for the game expanding its market share. Most prospective purchasers are not sufficiently enthusiastic that they will go to the trouble of fiddling with their taskmanager to get a $50 game to run smoothly. Instead, they'll just complain, which is not a good thing for you developers.

Just as a point of reference (not meant to be an invidious comparison): my rig, just as it sits presently, runs Civ4 Beyond the Sword no-sweat. That game is a HUGE graphics hog, but I can nonetheless play it for hours and rarely ever have a hang, CTD or delay. From a designer standpoint, comparing how civ works on a middle-to-low-end but fairly new machine like mine to how your app works IS comparing Apples and Oranges. Civ underwent four or five MAJOR patches, and the initial game was fraught with hangs, CTDs and slow game play.

But from a customer's standpoint, they are not Apples and Oranges, they are both just purchases.

So, what is the second thing I'd suggest:
2) Streamline your code. I have no idea what it is that you developers do when you create a new patch that somehow miraculously makes an app that previously ran like a clunker suddenly run like a top, but I'd recommend that you make this a priority.

3) Whatever makes the clumsiness of merging corps/ships into Armies/Fleets would be the next thing I would say you need to prioritize.

By correcting lingering issues with (2) and (3) you will protect yourself from negative consequences from frustrated "drive-by" casual purchasers, and also increase your rate of retention among those who try the demo. There will also be a small segment of "tasters" of the game (or buyers) who will immediately try to play it on the most complex settings, and who will (for obvious reasons) eschew even glancing at the manual (just as I did! ). To address potential lost revenue deriving from frustrated owners/demo-tryers in this segment, the following:

4) Add a Tutorial #4 that gives considerably more detail about (a) the phases, what you can do in each one, what you SHOULD do in each one, and how to recognize what stage you are in during a turn; (b) the army-by-army mode, reactions, interceptions, coordination, and some basic tips on how these functions might be used to mount a small scale offensive (perhaps using a semi-hypothetical scenario). I would almost say that covering some of the other elements of the game (which I have yet to really taste myself) like the transition to trench warfare, would be a worthy topic for a tutorial, but I think that that might be going to far. If you can get folks making PROGRESS (not necessarily sitting down and immediately playing in army-by-army mode smoothly and without mistakes) toward a mastery of the army-by-army mode, you will preempt a large fraction of complaints, and requests for help, and facilitate clients doing what it is they probably most want to do with this game: explore the possibilities, instead of exploring the game engine.

5) More popups, alerts, and "search" functions would be useful in general. Specifically: it would be quite handy if, during my reinforcement phase, there were a hot-key or something that would allow me to "select" (or scroll-through) all the corps or ships in my forces that are damaged. Related to this: while playing army-by-army mode, it would be VERY handy if there were a little window or something that gave me a list of the Armies or independent corps were still eligible to be activated. That right there might prevent people from inadvertently skipping their independent corps.

[calvinus]

Dear Anthropoid, simply comparing WW1 to Civ is in re ipsa the best compliment!

Edit: I already collected a huge set of suggestions, bug reports, various requests etc. Now I'm going to print them: I come from the old school... reading from a sheet of paper is much better for my old eyes!

[calvinus]

Is there a problem with interceptions in army by army mode? Playing WEGO I'm usually presented with the interception timer multiple times a turn in 1914 and with army by army activation I'm up to Jan-Feb 1915 and haven't had a single one although I've gotten the 'successfully intercepted' message in the log many times when setting an army to intercept.

Just verified. Interceptions take place normally in army-by-army mode. Probably you was a bit unlucky: all enemy rail moves or large river crossings?

[db99]

Just verified. Interceptions take place normally in army-by-army mode. Probably you was a bit unlucky: all enemy rail moves or large river crossings?

Thanks. Could have been river crossings, I didn't really look for that. Turned out OK anyway as the armies I felt I should have intercepted ended up behind my lines where I easily cut their supply