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Captain_Orso
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Mon May 11, 2015 6:20 am

Willgamer is correct with #1. The issue with that is that if you lost the first battle, you lost the 5% MC granted when entering the region per the normal MC rules. When the retreat rules changed to allow a force to remain in the region --local retreat-- it also damned the force to remain in the region, or go to PP to retreat.
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Pocus
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Mon May 11, 2015 8:44 am

The initial change was to have a force stays in a region if ordered to retreat but without an enemy in offensive posture in same region. It seemingly made sense when done :)

Then it revealed something: that the 'get 5% rule' was not working that well and was probably bugged. After some errand, the 5% MC rule was fixed. I also checked the 'get % MC rule' and it was still an old code where you would get 1% each time your killed an unit! So I reduced the difficulty by changing that to 'each time you kill an element'. I agree that this is still too timid though. I would like to do something simple, perhaps gain 5% for each morale point won in the victory...
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Captain_Orso
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Mon May 11, 2015 11:42 am

That's the same thing in baby-blue. If you are destroying elements or gaining MN from a battle, you are already washing the ground with defender's blood.

On a bell-curve, at one end we have the attacker getting his ass kicked and thrown out of the region --the first 5% of the bell-curve--.

At the other end of the curve we have the defender getting his ass kicked and thrown out of the region --the last 5% of the bell-curve--.

That leaves 90% of the bell curve which need a results other than these two extremes.

From my experience, it was previously far easier to gain MC when fighting in a region, even if my force didn't win the battle. I can't remember ever having run close to running out of supplies with McDowell's army attacking Manassas and losing 2-3 battles in a row.

I would conjecture that that part of the code was working.

The only part which was not working was the part which insured that one faction's MC didn't fall below 5% once that faction had fought its first battle in the region.
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AndrewKurtz
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Mon May 11, 2015 12:05 pm

How does gaining/losing MC work when two forces are in the same region and not fighting battles? I know when one force is in a region and not fighting a battle it will gain MC, but what happens to MC during the turn when two forces are in the region?

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Captain_Orso
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Mon May 11, 2015 1:05 pm

If there is no fighting, there is no change in MC.


I keep trying to reconcile any possible solution with historic results. What is difficult is to find any meeting of forces within one area, which lasted longer than a 15 day/1 turn period. Nearly all battles were fought within a couple of days or less, with one force then leaving the area.

The only exceptions I can think of are sieges.
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willgamer
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Mon May 11, 2015 4:54 pm

Pocus wrote:The initial change was to have a force stays in a region if ordered to retreat but without an enemy in offensive posture in same region. It seemingly made sense when done :)

Then it revealed something: that the 'get 5% rule' was not working that well and was probably bugged. After some errand, the 5% MC rule was fixed. I also checked the 'get % MC rule' and it was still an old code where you would get 1% each time your killed an unit! So I reduced the difficulty by changing that to 'each time you kill an element'. I agree that this is still too timid though. I would like to do something simple, perhaps gain 5% for each morale point won in the victory...


I observed the same as the Bear, that in the past, the winning army usually gained more than 1% per unit killed; there must have been other factors that were applied.

Seems to me (repeating my earlier post), that simply awarding 51% MC to the winner, as minimum initial point, is reasonable. The 51% could then be increased by the circumstances of the victory.

The most recent hotfix appears to fix the flip to OP with only 5% MC. So now, I believe the intention and the coding will allow 2 opposing forces to remain in the same region, with no changes to MC (except as noted in the next post down), as long as both remain in DP. Furthermore, control should never fall below 5% since, as Pocus said, they must be somewhere in the region.

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Mon May 11, 2015 6:48 pm

Captain_Orso wrote:If there is no fighting, there is no change in MC.


Though sometimes, when two opposing forces are in the same region without fighting, I get a message saying something along the lines of "Because of our overwhelming presence in region XY we won n% of military control over the enemy."
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Keeler
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Mon May 11, 2015 10:10 pm

Captain_Orso wrote:If there is no fighting, there is no change in MC.


I keep trying to reconcile any possible solution with historic results. What is difficult is to find any meeting of forces within one area, which lasted longer than a 15 day/1 turn period. Nearly all battles were fought within a couple of days or less, with one force then leaving the area.

The only exceptions I can think of are sieges.


Stretches of the Overland Campaign, in particular Spotsylvania, provide an example of turn-length engagement... but Spotsylvania could also be argued to be the exception which proves the rule that this did not happen regularly during the Civil War.

The +1 MC control per element killed does seem harsh. One idea that occurred to me was tying some amount of bonus MC control to the number of enemy elements routed. This happens more frequently than elements being killed and could be construed as simulating an opponent's post-battle disorder and subsequent lack of ability to exert its will a region.
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Tue May 12, 2015 3:12 am

Keeler wrote:Stretches of the Overland Campaign, in particular Spotsylvania, provide an example of turn-length engagement... but Spotsylvania could also be argued to be the exception which proves the rule that this did not happen regularly during the Civil War.

The +1 MC control per element killed does seem harsh. One idea that occurred to me was tying some amount of bonus MC control to the number of enemy elements routed. This happens more frequently than elements being killed and could be construed as simulating an opponent's post-battle disorder and subsequent lack of ability to exert its will a region.


Good idea

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Captain_Orso
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Tue May 12, 2015 8:23 am

Now counting routed elements sounds like something that actually takes battle results realistically into consideration :thumbsup: .

One would have to look at real battle number to see how that would actually work.

The equation should take the number of elements a side in the battle has compared to the number of elements of that side which were routed. This would give a kind of 'success value' of maintaining position.

Calculate the 'success value' for each side, if one side won the battle --as opposed to a stalemate-- give that side a bonus and use these values to calculate the MC for each side in the region.


EDIT:

Of course, if the defender retreats out of the region the normal MC rules, including the large battle-win bonus, should kick in.
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veji1
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Tue May 12, 2015 9:43 am

I might say something stupid, but the game should better emulate the fact that in the ACW except in very rare occurrences and really at the very end of the war, it proved almost impossible to crush a defeated army in its retreat. This is a big difference with Napoleonic wars where Napoleon viewed tha battle as the way to set up the ennemy retreat during which you could harvest prisonners, rather than as the main way of causing losses. His successful campaigns were those where he could exploit the victory (in 96/97 Italy, Ulm in 1805 or even Austerlitz where the "pursuit/retreat" takes place on the actual battle field, and Iean/Auerstedt in 1806) with pursuit. When he couldn't it resulted in inconclusive "victories" that could only be turned into to strategic success if the political rapport de force was good enough : At Wagram the victory cannot be exploited operationally, but Wien is occupied, the war is on Austrian soil, the Russians don't seem to want to get involved so the Austrians give in even if their army is still in marching order. In 1813, Bautzen, Lutzen and Dresden are all victories that Napoleon just cannot exploit because he cannot pursue (lack of horses, tied to his operational base, too many other ennemy armies).

In ACW victory could almost never be exploited and the problem with the whole MC situation is that it leads to trapped armies or other unintended consequences. To me some part of the MC should be a consequence of simple force size : Say each pair of combat elements gives you 1% control all the way to 25%. So a corps with 2 divisions of 15 elements and some arty (so say 33 elements + leaders and supply) would give 16% MC straight away, thus making that corps almost always free to get out of the province safe enough.

I really think in the end the whole MC aspect of the game has become too complicated and has too big of a role. To me it should reallly only impact supply movement and detection (ie you have local patrols and such that tell you when ennemies come). But in the actual operational game it shouldn't play that big a role.

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Tue May 12, 2015 1:17 pm

If I have 10k soldiers to defend 10k square miles of terrain, I don't stick one soldier on every square mile. This is not what 100% MC should mean. I have control of the major road intersections, the high ground, the river crossings and the major structures. I don't occupy every square foot of terrain, I control it. When you march into the region, you must wrest this control from me in battle. If you fail to do this, then I still should have 100% MC. I would still control all of the meaingful terrain and you would control none of it. You lost. I control the oasis and you sit in the desert. A rabbit with it's head inside the steel jaws of a trap does not control 5% of the trap.

Players fight battles that have a very low probability of victory. They lose the battle and cannot escape. They are trapped and must fight their way out. They didn't have a reserve that can rescue their force and they stubbornly refused to break up the trapped force and escape in small groups. That is why the MC apple cart was tossed over.
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veji1
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Tue May 12, 2015 1:21 pm

Gray Fox wrote:If I have 10k soldiers to defend 10k square miles of terrain, I don't stick one soldier on every square mile. This is not what 100% MC should mean. I have control of the major road intersections, the high ground, the river crossings and the major structures. I don't occupy every square foot of terrain, I control it. When you march into the region, you must wrest this control from me in battle. If you fail to do this, then I still should have 100% MC. I would still control all of the meaingful terrain and you would control none of it. You lost. I control the oasis and you sit in the desert. A rabbit with it's head inside the steel jaws of a trap does not control 5% of the trap.

Players fight battles that have a very low probability of victory. They lose the battle and cannot escape. They are trapped and must fight their way out. They didn't have a reserve that can rescue their force and they stubbornly refused to break up the trapped force and escape in small groups. That is why the MC apple cart was tossed over.


Dude except if your 10k soldiers are right at the border of the hex when I enter it, I will gain some MC just by virtue of entering the hex ! This is why the important elements should be thresholds for supplies, speed of movement, etc, but even if my guys didn't wrestle all the big crossroads from yours, just by virtue of having entered "the map", set up shop on part of the terrain I have some MC. My point is that MC the way it is set up tends to be way too absolute, particularly once biggish forces are concerned.

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Tue May 12, 2015 1:30 pm

Again, occupying ground does not equal Military Control. This perception was changed so that players could launch a hopeless attack, lose the battle and not be trapped. They were granted 5% MC because otherwise their force would correctly be destroyed. If you sit in the desert and I control the oasis you shouldn't get 5% of the water.
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Tue May 12, 2015 3:05 pm

Very simply, No. The system is set up so that if you enter a region, you must fight.

GF, you sound like you have an agenda with a specific predetermined goal, because your arguments are flawed and appear to be targeted at only a specific outcome.
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Tue May 12, 2015 3:17 pm

Gray Fox wrote:Again, occupying ground does not equal Military Control.


I believe this conflates reality with the necessary simplifications to create a game. For game purposes, MC was the term chosen for ground control as applies to supply, railroads, etc. Perhaps it should have been GC- ground control from the beginning, but other than semantics, I can't see that it matters.

Everyone, as far as I know, agrees that the regions are usually quite large compared to forces that are in them. Two opposing forces can easily fit into a single region and the game models that each could be supplied and railroaded at the same time. So, at this level of detail in the game model, it makes sense that each force does hold some minimal level of MC (ground control) and each force can remain in the region, if desired, until forced out by the opposition.

The three main constraints of this game model are the region sizes, the length of a turn, and the granularity of the forces. They artificially limit how close to reality the game can function. I believe that the current hotfix that allows units to maintain a minimum of 5% MC and only forces OP upon entering a 95%+ hostile region is appropriate to the level of game model.

The details of what factors increase/decrease MC and under what circumstances a loser in battle must retreat from the region seems to still be a work in progress, but I think the modeling of MC as it currently stands is both reasonable to history and playable as a game.

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Tue May 12, 2015 3:39 pm

willgamer wrote:The details of what factors increase/decrease MC and under what circumstances a loser in battle must retreat from the region seems to still be a work in progress, but I think the modeling of MC as it currently stands is both reasonable to history and playable as a game.


I completely agree. There were very few instances during the Civil War when one force controlled enough tactical features to assert total strategic control over the other side and prevent the opponent from retreating. Most of these engagements were sieges occurring at the end of campaigns, and the rest occurred at the war's end. Even after such lopsided victories such as Nashville, the losing side retained enough control over the countryside to effect a retreat.

I think Gray Fox objects to allowing players who launch hopeless attacks a cushion. Fair enough, but I think granting the losing side a small bit of military control neither goes overboard nor reflects ahistorical simulation.
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Tue May 12, 2015 3:59 pm

Asking for opinions here, should I start a new game or wait for 106? is the beta the best way to go right now?
I'm "SAS" from the Paradox Interactive Forum. :)

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Pocus
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Tue May 12, 2015 4:47 pm

Wait tomorrow, I'll release another beta (full patch, not QF). The difference with the old code, relatively to the fact that now MC don't change much, is due to forces able to stay in region, when no enemy is in offensive. As they don't vacate the ground and stay in defensive, the victor don't gain much MC. Before, any retreat would switch you to passive...

So I'll indeed make so that a defeated side relinquish some significant MC to the victor.
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Tue May 12, 2015 5:05 pm

"If opposing players each have forces in a region, neither will increase their level of military control until one or the other player assumes an Offensive Posture. If the player assuming an Offensive Posture is successful in battle (doing more losses than receiving) or even manage to drive the opposing force out of the region (or provoke his retreat into the structure within the region), his level of military control will begin to increase. If only one player has forces in a region, his level of military control will begin to increase. On average, friendly forces will gain total control over a region in only a few turns. (Forces in Passive Posture do not increase or contest military control of a region.)" AGEWiki

An army fights a battle and loses. They're retreating out of the region, because that is historically what losing armies did. Their cohesion is too low and they don't make it out in one turn. The next turn they are supposed to fight again. That was the rule. The retreating army wasn't occupying any ground. Their wounded were on wagons, their artillery were hitched to the wagons and their soldiers were marching in columns out of the region. That's a retreat right?

Only now the defeated army gets to stay on your side of the river, or on your supply line or in your capital's region. The defender, who did everything right up until now, must fight to regain 100% MC. The defender must release the trapped rabbit and give some oasis water to the enemy in the desert. That's the flaw I see.
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SAS
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Tue May 12, 2015 5:22 pm

Pocus wrote:Wait tomorrow, I'll release another beta (full patch, not QF). The difference with the old code, relatively to the fact that now MC don't change much, is due to forces able to stay in region, when no enemy is in offensive. As they don't vacate the ground and stay in defensive, the victor don't gain much MC. Before, any retreat would switch you to passive...

So I'll indeed make so that a defeated side relinquish some significant MC to the victor.


Thanks!!
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Pocus
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Wed May 13, 2015 9:22 am

To Gray Fox

The things that was changed in the new version is this one: if you are, as the only attacker (offensive posture) beaten in battle, then you retreat within the region (tactical retreat) because no one pursue you. The defender is in ... defense (doh!) and stay put.

But if you were in defensive, or even in offensive and the enemy has some troops in offensive, if beaten, you are duly ejected from the region, in passive posture, and the winner racks up MC gain.
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Pocus
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Wed May 13, 2015 3:07 pm

New RC3 published, see first post. Only one new entry to test please:

When losing a battle, you usually get a large % of the enemy MC.
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willgamer
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Wed May 13, 2015 4:58 pm

Pocus wrote:New RC3 published, see first post. Only one new entry to test please:

When losing a battle, you usually get a large % of the enemy MC.


So by losing, you really win! :w00t: :thumbsup: :mdr:

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Gray Fox
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Wed May 13, 2015 5:14 pm

I get the part where you have to program a game that people will play because its fun. I just really don't want to play the Legos version of CW2.
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AndrewKurtz
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Wed May 13, 2015 6:01 pm

Gray Fox wrote:I get the part where you have to program a game that people will play because its fun. I just really don't want to play the Legos version of CW2.


I don't have any idea what that means...

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Wed May 13, 2015 6:02 pm

willgamer wrote:So by losing, you really win! :w00t: :thumbsup: :mdr:


I am hoping that was a typo!

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Pocus
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Thu May 14, 2015 8:31 am

it was, sorry!
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DrPostman
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Thu May 14, 2015 6:37 pm

Pocus wrote:it was, sorry!

We knew. English isn't your first language, so you're "allowed" :)

Besides, a lot of us enjoy hundreds of hours of great entertainment thanks
to you and your codeveloper.
"Ludus non nisi sanguineus"

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Captain_Orso
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Mon May 18, 2015 6:00 am

And how, it was a typo!

The in the meantime infamous battle between Taylor and Hooker:

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Tool-tips said that Hooker had 5 elements routed and 10 which retreated and Hooker attempted once unsuccessfully to retreat entirely. Taylor had 8 elements retreat.

MC at the start of the next turn:

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The only thing I could note is that 52 + 47 = 99 :blink:
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