Just getting started and questions

[MarkShot]

The short cut keys say:

Press CTRL for number of men. I don't see that?

Also, press CTRL-E to cycle through units that are moving. Mine seems to cycle through all units?

Thanks.

[MarkShot]

The manual describes green and purple show strength and cohesion. I seem to red and blue. The stack commander seems to have an average value of the units. But he also has a dark green bar of which I don't know what it is.

[MarkShot]

I also cannot find bronze, silver, and gold element experience ratings on the counter. Just black chevrons?

Thanks.

[Captain_Orso]

The short cut keys say:

Press CTRL for number of men. I don't see that?

Select a stack and then hold the mouse pointer over one of the NATO icons of one of the units in the Stack Panel to see the number of men.

Also, press CTRL-E to cycle through units that are moving. Mine seems to cycle through all units?

Thanks.

I never use the short-cuts to cycle through units, so I can't help you there.

[Captain_Orso]

The manual describes green and purple show strength and cohesion. I seem to red and blue. The stack commander seems to have an average value of the units. But he also has a dark green bar of which I don't know what it is.

The three bars on stacks are, from left to right:

-- hit-points of present/hit-points possible

-- average current cohesion/full cohesion

-- average current supply/full supply

The stack show the 'Stack Power' which is an extrapolated value averaging offensive and defensive values.

If there is a dark stripe going diagonally across the upper-right-hand corner of a stack from upper-left to lower right, it means that stack contains one or more units which are temporarily or permanently locked--the tool-tip of the stack will tell you which--or it contains a unit(s) with restrictively slow movement, such as coastal artillery or fort-batteries.

[Captain_Orso]

I also cannot find bronze, silver, and gold element experience ratings on the counter. Just black chevrons?

Thanks.

In CW2, going from AACW, the chevrons replaced the bronze, silver and gold bars on units. Those represented Experience Levels of the elements of a units. I don't remember exactly but I think after one element gaining one EL one of the bars went to silver, and after an element gaining EL 3 one bar went to gold, but it's been a long while.

If you want to know the Experience Level of an element, you will have to click on the unit and then either the NATO symbol on the unit to cycle through the elements in the element detail window, or click on the NATO symbol of the element in the Unit Detail Panel to the right of the the Stack Panel. Each star equals one Experience Level.

[Cardinal Ape]

E (previous) and R (next) will cycle through land units that have not received orders in the current turn. Crtl+E or R will cycle through all land units even if they have been issued orders. T and Y are for naval units and functions the same way as land units.

I have assigned keys to my extra mouse buttons when playing ageod games. R and T for the two side buttons and Space for the middle wheel button.

[MarkShot]

Gentlemen,

Thanks a lot. I have getting familiar with things and will probably start playing. I realize the learning curve is steep, but the replayability and the fact that there are so many offerings with this engine make it well worth it.

[MarkShot]

I see that sometimes the map says that it is in combat mode, but I hav no idea what that is?

What determines the sequence of the generals in the army outliner? Why are some collapsed?

Is there a document any where that explains how the rounds of combat work?

Is there a document any where which explains the battle report?

Is there a document any where that explains the battle planner?

Thanks.

[Gray Fox]

"I see that sometimes the map says that it is in combat mode, but I hav no idea what that is?"

Can you provide a screen shot? I've really never noticed this.

"What determines the sequence of the generals in the army outliner? Why are some collapsed?"

I don't know what determines the order for the Army outliner on the left side of the screen. If you click on the star icon on the right of each black bar with a General's name, then the picture will collapse or open. I believe this feature is supposed to give easier access to the map overlay icon that sometimes gets covered over by the pictures.

"Is there a document any where that explains how the rounds of combat work?"

Yes!

http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/Combat_Explained


"Is there a document any where which explains the battle report?"

Not to my knowledge. Here is a report as an example:

[ATTACH]34362[/ATTACH]

The battle results are at the very top. The side that withdraws is the loser. So you may do more damage than you get, but still lose because your General withdrew.

At the top left, clicking the circled "E" icon will give you a day to day breakdown of the battle. Battles last a number of rounds (hours) and can continue for several days. To the far right is the terrain and weather of the battle.

The next large rectangle shows the Commanders of the two sides, as well as who was in Offensive/Assault posture and who was the defender. Icons represent the number of infantry, cavalry and artillery involved in black and the losses in red. "Total inflicted" damage icons are hits (the heart) and cohesion (the sort of hashtag square). Below this is a row of many icons and if you cursor over them they are self-explanatory descriptions of entrenchment level, prisoners taken, etc.

Next comes the in depth intel. A by unit (Division or brigade) breakdown with Commander and elements who fought and how well they did. The icons for hits and cohesion loss are again present. New self explanatory icons describe how this unit performed. Perhaps they scored lucky hits or were cowardly. You can piece together how your side did, but more importantly you get a great deal of info on the Opposing Force (OPFOR). Know your foe.

At the bottom of the report is the battle planner breakdown, which belongs to your next question.

"Is there a document any where that explains the battle planner?"

Not to my knowledge, other than what is in the manual on pages 87 & 88. That said, what I do is to figure out what I believe Athena is going to do. I then click each of my available choices to find the best one versus this. If I have better infantry or more cavalry or artillery, then I may just go with these choices. Athena may react differently at the difficulty setting I use than what someone else might have, so a sort of table formatting responses may not be helpful or too mechanical for anyone to use. Good luck!

[grimjaw]

"I see that sometimes the map says that it is in combat mode, but I hav no idea what that is?"

Can you provide a screen shot? I've really never noticed this.

Gray, I think he might mean he sees the message "Military mode active," which I have also seen and wondered at but not enough to ask about it.

[Gray Fox]

Perhaps so. I did a search with no real answer:

http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/index.php?title=Special:Search&ns0=1&redirs=0&search=military+mode+active&limit=20&offset=0

This mentions a military submode regional decision being active to build units, but doesn't mention it specifically for CW2:

http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/Regional_Decisions

[MarkShot]

I post a couple of screen shots when I get a chance.

[ArmChairGeneral]

i think I have seen this, it says "Military Mode" or something vague like that up in the text box that displays the song that is playing or that you have targeted a stack. I think it is just telling you that you can issue orders, which is kind of a pointless thing to tell you, and is safely ignored.

[ArmChairGeneral]

BTW, nice Battle Report explanation, Gray. It is worth noting that when figuring losses that you should look at the hearts and not the men to figure out how you did in the battle. The number of men is for flavor only, the hearts lost are what determines the number of replacements you will have to pay for.

Though the men number shows a 3:2 overall initial advantage, the hits show that the Union advantage was more like 2:1. In terms of casualties, the men number indicates almost 2:1 casualties CSA:Union. In practice, the hits were more like 1.5:1, and not as stunning a defeat for the CSA as indicated by the "men" killed.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Another thing that the battle report above shows is that the command structure of the CSA was clearly deficient. The CSA was organized by brigade where the Union was in Divisions. If the CSA's five single brigades had been organized into two or three divisions they would have fought with better leader bonuses and have had more elements in each unit to spread the hits they receive around allowing them tostay in the battle for another round without breaking. It looks like Cocke's Brigade did most of the fighting; if it had been in a full sized division, the hits it received would have been spread out among more elements, and it would have in turn scored more hits on the opposing division(s) that it lined up against (apparently the 31st or the 33rd).

Proper organization could have turned this battle into a draw for the CSA. I would guess the CSA is the AI, which is notoriously poorly organized, or that Gray was just throwing some forces together for illustration.

[Gray Fox]

Another thing that the battle report above shows is that the command structure of the CSA was clearly deficient.

When I confronted Athena with this she winked and remarked, "You Yankee scoundrels just don't play fair!"

[Bill's Boy]

A point of clarification, please. Gray Fox says that the icons and numbers at the top of the report indicate the number of infantry, cavalry and artillery involved. But don't the icons and numbers actually indicate the number of men (including the men in infantry, cavalry and artillery units), horses (including horses in cavalry, artillery and supply units) and artillery? In other words, doesn't Kearny's force total 32,048 men including its cavalry and artillery as opposed to 32,048 for just its infantry plus 5,059 in cavalry, plus its artillery?

ArmChairGeneral is right that you have to look at hits and cohesion rather than men to truly understand a unit's combat power but for those of us who like to look at the number of men, if only for entertainment, perhaps this could be clarified.

Thanks.

[Gray Fox]

I believe you are correct.

[MarkShot]

Thanks for all the replies. We got hit by a typhoon shortly after I posted this. Lost electricity and water. Lots of damage. So, I was quite distracted. But it is nice to see that answer were getting posted.

[MarkShot]

The tic-tac-toe thing with cohesion: How to read that number exactly? Is it total loss of cohesion by the enemy?

Thanks.

[Gray Fox]

Yes.

[Slick Wilhelm]

the hearts lost are what determines the number of replacements you will have to pay for.

So this means to bring this particular Union army back up to full strength is going to require 82 replacements? Is it a one-to-one mapping between hits and replacement points?

[ArmChairGeneral]

Each replacement chit that you buy will replace a variable number of hits. There is a random factor involved, but on average a replacement chit will replace as many hits as a single element of the appropriate type would have at full strength. Line infantry elements have 20 hits each at full strength, so you would need between 3 and 5 Replacement chits to recover 82 line infantry hits.

[Captain_Orso]

Yes, this is a 'gamey' part of the game.

Think of it as playing a board game. You buy replacement chits and put them into their respective pools. Each time you want to replace a hit, you check if you have a chit in the pool of that element type (cavalry, line infantry, etc.).

If you have a chit in the necessary pool, you replace the hit and then role a die with the same number of sides as the element receiving the replacement has hits at full strength. So for an infantry regiment, 20 hits and thus a 20 sided die. If your role a 20, the chit has been used up and is removed from the pool. If you role <20 the chit is returned to the pool.

So statistically, you can use each chit a number of times equal to the number of hits a full strength element of that chit's type has, but there can be great variations in the actual outcome.

[Slick Wilhelm]

Each replacement chit that you buy will replace a variable number of hits. There is a random factor involved, but on average a replacement chit will replace as many hits as a single element of the appropriate type would have at full strength. Line infantry elements have 20 hits each at full strength, so you would need between 3 and 5 Replacement chits to recover 82 line infantry hits.

Perfect, thanks for the clarification.

[rss334]

Gentlemen,

Thanks a lot. I have getting familiar with things and will probably start playing. I realize the learning curve is steep, but the replayability and the fact that there are so many offerings with this engine make it well worth it.

I have a question about replayability, specific to AGEOD games and/or civil war 2. I'm new to the game and have started the campaign 3-4 times but only play a few months before starting over with my new found knowledge, I find that I skip more and more of the events and messages each time as I've already seen them. Does this cut down on the replayability after a while or get boring? Do you still go through all the messages or just mainly focus on the screens you need to after getting to know the game?

[Durk]

In some AGEOD games it is a good idea to read messages closely as they provide options; which you may want to try or must respond. However, in CW2 most events are historical so merely repeat what you already know. You for sure should check messages in the leader promotion section of the ledger.
I do not think it impacts replayability at all. I still enjoy BOA2/WIA after countless replays, but I tend to know which messages need attention. AGEOD game are very dynamic, especially in PBEM. You begin to think you have the ''perfect" game winning play, only to be shown why that particular line of play can also be a trap.

[deidaraakatski]

As Durk has said, the AGEOD games are very dynamic, in some playthrough you might not have been able to execute certain plans or events or might have done something different. There is also a lot of other "tinier" scenarios you can play through as well and get different outcomes and test out new things. For the most part, the game takes on an historical settings, but it is ultimately up to the player whether they want to follow the historic route or go a completely ahistoric one, which the game also allows.

[DrPostman]

I have a question about replayability, specific to AGEOD games and/or civil war 2. I'm new to the game and have started the campaign 3-4 times but only play a few months before starting over with my new found knowledge, I find that I skip more and more of the events and messages each time as I've already seen them. Does this cut down on the replayability after a while or get boring? Do you still go through all the messages or just mainly focus on the screens you need to after getting to know the game?

When playing CW2 no two games are ever alike. That's one of the things I
love about it!