observations & possible improvements

[wosung]

After playing my first full campaign as Entente (4 players, standard setting, w/o stacking limits) I’ve to say I like it a lot.

It runs stable on my system so far, using, what is it?, V 1.08 without any beta patch. What I did was installing the free patch for the older WW1 version and then upgrading to the gold version.

Being a more ore less direct conversion of a boardgame to the computer nowadays makes it exotic in a good way. OTH such a conversion is not without problems.

UI
It’s far better than in the original computer game. No major problems with mouse sweet spots for me.
But nonetheless the UI still could be improved a lot:
-Esp. all those event cards and windows often lack clearness. Too much text. Too little vital info. Probably it would be better to leave all the historical info and “board game details” for the manual and for the event cards concentrate on the essentials:
Exactly who is affected by those fog of war or battle advantage events? It’s often not clear.
What requirements are not met in the political option screen?
It would be fine, if more essential info could be ingame, instead of being only in the manual.


It also would be nice, if
-reinforcements could be made easier to handle. Often a vital corps is not reinforced, because it was forgotten. Thus it would be good, if the complete list of corps could also be sorted by the criteria “full/needs reinforcement” and each corps linked to its place on the map. Esp. the free corps, not bound to an army are hard to find.
-the upgrade button for corps could be more distinctive.
-fleet orders could be made lasting more then one combat phase. At least with me they don’t change much.
-events are put together in one window, instead of tens of windows, every single one you have to close.
-the way of moving between the main Europe map and the two global maps could be streamlined. Do I really have to hold the mouse button and move the mouse from USA to a French port to move US units? Also moving certain naval units out of certain ports is not easy (frex. London).


About the AI
-All those Huns and their Allies really were attacking recklessly for the whole war, loosing one corps in every of their five or so attacks per phase, essential bleeding themselves white.
-Osman troops were spreading strangely all over Sinai peninsular, with the Brits soon control Jerusalem, Cairo(?), the one port/railstation in between and Akaba.

Various game mechanics
-The rules for moving troops through enemy frontlines are really irritating (as far I understand: in the 1914 movement phase and on the Eastern Front). Is there an option to autointercept? It makes me nervous having enemy corps just wandering through my lines without being easily unsupplied.
-How to blockade the North Sea? It took me until 1915/15 to realize that for Britain the political option “Blockade the Central powers” would not bean option. “Requirements not met”. All I had to do, was moving fleets with the control command into the North Sea. For me the manual was not very clear in this respect. Info about “blockade” is shattered all over the manual.
-Victory conditions remain a mystery to me. From time to time I brought various enemy powers to a negative national moral, but they fought on. In autumn 1918 the game ended with a minor victory, the Entente with Russia still onboard having conquered the Rhineland, all the Ruhr cities, Frankfurt, Mannheim and Stuttgart and the allied Greeks in Istambul. From 1917 on the Central Powers were beaten in the field, no Dolchstoss. But the national moral wasn’t really reflecting this, remaining a wild card hard to calculate. Also I would like to few the map with enemy units after the final score is stated.
-the manual states that each HQ can only have a small number of air units attached to it. What happens, if you overstack?

Best regards & thank you for this game.

[NefariousKoel]

All very good points regarding user-friendliness.

The event cards had thrown me for a loop pretty quickly. The tooltip text should definitely list the game mechanics and requirements.

[Drakken]

About the AI
-All those Huns and their Allies really were attacking recklessly for the whole war, loosing one corps in every of their five or so attacks per phase, essential bleeding themselves white.

Yeah, I noticed too that French and Germans would sometimes fight each other to the death, almost until total annihilation of their Corps. Which is totally cool, I can picture the French and the Germans killing each other with bayonets over the whole Alsace-Lorraine, because it's what they did : fight like wild beasts.

However, could it be because the Leaders have high Obstination ratings, thus forced to send flipped corps to battle knowing that chances are high that they'll be destroyed because they are not yet allowed to retreat?

Besides, we must not forget that "Destroyed" Corps doesn't mean they are annihilated, just that they are out of action and removed for the phase, but will return in the next Reinforcement phase at next to no RP cost.

Still, I'd like to see the AI retreat when allowed, if all available Corps are flipped and at least one enemy Corps remains at full strength. Attackers should be likely to retreat when it loses the advantage, in case of counter-attack.

-The rules for moving troops through enemy frontlines are really irritating (as far I understand: in the 1914 movement phase and on the Eastern Front). Is there an option to autointercept? It makes me nervous having enemy corps just wandering through my lines without being easily unsupplied.

One, that is the benefit of frontage (by creating Detachments) to allow wider flexibility and block passage to any attempt to bypass your Army flank. Second, if they are out of supply it is actually good for you, just attack them since they'll defend at half-strength and cannot be reinforced.

Just like the player, AI units cannot stray too far from their supply source. If they go more than 2 steps away from a supply source they'll be OOS and vulnerable. That's a very effective method of restraining units from going in deep raids behind enemy lines.

[Fastsnake]

-How to blockade the North Sea? It took me until 1915/15 to realize that for Britain the political option “Blockade the Central powers” would not bean option. “Requirements not met”. All I had to do, was moving fleets with the control command into the North Sea. For me the manual was not very clear in this respect. Info about “blockade” is shattered all over the manual.

REALLY?! I mean... Seriously?
Ok, so that's why...

[Mowers]

It also would be nice, if

All your points were interesting but for me the following are a real pain.

-the upgrade button for corps could be more distinctive.

There is an upgrade button?!

-fleet orders could be made lasting more then one combat phase. At least with me they don’t change much.

I would love this, its a real hassle reseting all the fleets every turn.

-How to blockade the North Sea? It took me until 1915/15 to realize that for Britain the political option “Blockade the Central powers” would not bean option. “Requirements not met”. All I had to do, was moving fleets with the control command into the North Sea. For me the manual was not very clear in this respect. Info about “blockade” is shattered all over the manual.

So this explains alot.
Naval blockade was very unclear and I had obviously been doing it wrong.

So blockade the North sea. What about the other ports for other countries? Which seas do you need to do a control order in?

[wosung]

Please remember, that I'm also a novice to WW1 gold, although I fiddled around with the original computer game.

Corps can be upgraded in the regular "buy new assets" window. There's a lengthy rifle button to do so. You can do it with your to be built corps, but also with the ones on map. Go to the "all builds window" and to the right on the top toggle ... I think it's ... the "show on map units" option. Some of your corps can be upgraded from time to time for alot of bucks. Asides those upgrades give a +1 boost for the national moral.

Naval blockade and anti sub warfare seems to be managed on-map. To do so move your heavy/light naval units into contested sea zones (esp. North sea). This also affects Hapsburgs income & moral. AFIR there are special rules for Eastern med.

Military control of sea zones is represented by little national flags in the sea zones. Some zones by in heritance belong to a power, some like the North sea are contested from the start (having no national flag). All this probably can be manipulated by moving out your naval assets.

Regards

[RGA]

With regards to the Blockade.....if Germany gets control of either the Channel or North Sea then the blockade is interupted.....I found this in section 26.5 of the manual.

[Fastsnake]

Regarding all you've been saying about the blockade...

A man in Matrix forums said that:

10. To set up a naval blockade of Germany do I only need to select the option "Naval Blockade" from the UK political options menu or do I need to also
physically move Task Forces into sea zones?
Blockade is handled automatically, once you have selected the proper option (you may even receive it by historical event if you are lucky ). No need
to move fleets.

Calvinus have turn out not to refute this... whereas that's the exact opposite of what we are discussing since a week now! Some indeed told us all that we have to gain control over Northern sea with british ships so that the blockade start to be efficient...

[Mowers]

It would be useful to have a clear understanding of how blockades work.

I am unclear as to how to use my AH fleets to blockade France or Eygpt for example, its just not clear.

[calvinus]

The Blockade (and Severe Blockade) are two Political Options of UK. The first one can also be enacted by an event.

So what kind of blockade do you refer to?

[Fastsnake]

Let's say the first one.
But how the second work may be interesting as well.

[calvinus]

The second one is a pure political action that worsens the economic and political effects on CPs, but that has a negative diplomatic side-effect on minors that are hit by the blockade, and also on USA...

[wosung]

The Blockade (and Severe Blockade) are two Political Options of UK. The first one can also be enacted by an event.

So what kind of blockade do you refer to?

So as Britain blockade doesn't need any fleet movement at all, providing the Hochseeflotte doesn't move to the Channel or to the North Sea either? Just choose the political option or the event?

Regards

[Fastsnake]

Er yeah, we did know that, it's well explained actually, but I was asking about how it works, regarding fleet movements.