rwenstrup
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This game is not ready for market yet

Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:16 am

After a number of attempts to play this game the lack of a manual, a confusing tutorial and a number of crashes/glitches has made me decide to play other games until the patches make it a real game.

I'm disappointed in the half baked shape this game is in at release. Very surprised in light of the past excellence of AGEOD.

I would suggest holding a game until it's ready instead of rushing it to hit some release date...when you pay in advance for a game you expect a quality product when released. I won't buy an AGEOD game in advance again. I'll wait until I see in the forums that it is working, has a complete manual, and rules that are understandable.

The manual is not complete and the game locks up or takes a very long time to work with no indication of progress towards the next turn...on a new computer!

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eleven_west
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:12 am

All I can say is that I haven't been able to finish one turn yet - the AI seems to working all the time, and sluggishly so . Let alone that I have hardly figured out what am I supposed to do.
I'm sure that our favourite guys will work it out eventually. It's just I was so looking forward to enjoy this that I was a bit annoyed.

- Also found a random inaccuracy : On the message popup telegrams the stamp date appears to be 29DEC41. That surely can't be right now can it.

DJACK
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:32 am

Yes many problems !!!
I think it's because this game hasn't been tested with antivirus/ firewall ... on a PC with other programs etc...

I had these probs even on small scenarios too.

I solved it doing this :

Close your internet connexion
Close Firewall
Close antivirus
Use Smartclose (free utility) and try to close so many process as possible.

No Doubt speed will be better. In my case, after this the game is playable for me.

pkpowers
Corporal
Posts: 41
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 3:10 am

closed firewall
shut down internet
turned off anti-virus
all back ground programs off

= still eternal "game is busy" never ends

it will be solved

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Generalisimo
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 3:22 am

pkpowers wrote:closed firewall
shut down internet
turned off anti-virus
all back ground programs off

= still eternal "game is busy" never ends

it will be solved

I really suggest you post here your PC specs, so calvinus can get a better idea of what could it be...
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pkpowers
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 3:30 am

don't worry, already have multiple times in other threads.... :thumbsup:

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captainmatt
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 5:13 am

I have been playing the game for the past two days for a total of about 8 combined hours of game time.

It has hung up about 3 or 4 times and I have had to reboot. The furthest I got was the end of 1914.

My biggest issues are the following-

1. Dragging armies to where you want them to go seems to be slow and sometimes unresponsive. Often times you get a message saying your army cannot move there. It might be helpful, when you click on a unit, to highlight all the areas where it can move.

2. Rail capacity- How do you improve it? Does 1 corps take up 1 rail capacity, or does 1 army use up 1 rail capacity?

3. Budget sliders- Moving them are difficult and budget is very difficult to understand.

Many of these items could be settled with a game manual and a better demo, which I think is needed. It seems that this game was rushed to meet the 11/11 date.

I like the wildcards and their potential play in the game. However, I am a little confused about drawing and using them. For example, as Germany, I was able to draw a card which improved Russia and another once that could cause problems for the Austrian Army. As Germany, I would never want to play either of those cards.

Other suggestions are-

Be able to play as just the UK, or just Serbia, or the Ottoman Empire, or Italy to begin the game.

Give us some guidelines on diplomacy. It seems like a great tool, but getting to the point where you can see if it makes any difference is somewhat confusing. For example, as Russia, I sent my diplomatic mission to Romania and eventually brought them in on the Allied side which opened another front on Austria-Hungary

How does the technology tree work? Are there items we should be working on first?

The War Plans phase is awesome, and I like all the different choices available. Will that be available in subsequent years (like for planning offensives and such)?

Im sorry about all the questions, but I know this game has potential...it's just not quite there yet. I will still play and still evaluate and be looking for updates and a manual soon!

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WallysWorld
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 5:35 am

I haven't come across any issues yet, but I've only done the first tutorial and played a bit of the Serbian campaign.

The only thing I've noticed is that this game takes up a lot of virtual memory on my machine. I've got 4GB of RAM with 3GB of it being recognized by my 32-bit XP and yet this game takes up 1.4GB of virtual memory. The only other game I've seen take that much up is Flight Simulator.

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PhilThib
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:05 am

captainmatt wrote:
1. Dragging armies to where you want them to go seems to be slow and sometimes unresponsive. Often times you get a message saying your army cannot move there. It might be helpful, when you click on a unit, to highlight all the areas where it can move.

2. Rail capacity- How do you improve it? Does 1 corps take up 1 rail capacity, or does 1 army use up 1 rail capacity?

3. Budget sliders- Moving them are difficult and budget is very difficult to understand.

...

4. I like the wildcards and their potential play in the game. However, I am a little confused about drawing and using them. For example, as Germany, I was able to draw a card which improved Russia and another once that could cause problems for the Austrian Army. As Germany, I would never want to play either of those cards.

...

5. The War Plans phase is awesome, and I like all the different choices available. Will that be available in subsequent years (like for planning offensives and such)?

...


1. The feature is in (at least in the redeployment phase). I'll check why it does not show on normal moves.

2. It does not improve (nor deteriorates, except in Russia). The capacity is expressed in terms of corps. This is a design feature, to represent transport bottlenecks.

3. Which ones? :confused:

4. There are only a few cards, for both sides, and usually only one of each. The only advantage of 'keeping' a favorable-to-the-enemy card is to make sure he does not get/play it... ;)

5. Yes, the Offensive planning during the trench warfare period is quite impressive to (define date, location, amount of commitment, etc...)

Thanks for all the comments...we're still working on improvements :D
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Frank
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Location: Nürnberg, Germany

Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:53 am

I like the game so far. Sure it has bugs but which new game haven´t some. The other AGEOD games had bugs too in the beginning. I waited 4 months to play Birth of America, 5 months for American Civil War and 1 month before i played War in America. The crash bugs and freezes will be solved in a few days and no one will talk about them after 2 weeks anymore. The main problem is the non finished manual. After reading the boardgame rules many problems i thinked where bugs are design decisions. Hopefully Philippe will publish the big manual as soon as possible. :coeurs: And we should not forget this is a boardgame translation. This is much catchier to code. Look at Empire in Arms how badly they translated it. Even after one year the game is unplayable. And EiA isn´t nearly so complex then this one. Or look at the Third Reich translation. This game has huge potential so we should give AGEOD a little bit of time to fix this issues. I think we will be rewarded with a great game.

And Calvinus has showed me with Great Invasions that he can made of a bad game a good game. GI was one of the buggiest game on the release day i played. The game crashed all the time, the AI was brain dead and many functions hadn´t worked. And i never belief that this game will be playable in the future. But i was wrong. Patch after patch the game got better and after 1.07 i played the game 2 weeks nonstop. So i have high hopes in the work of Calvinus. :)

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PhilThib
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 12:05 pm

Thanks for the support and praise... we're indeed working like madmen to fix those problems... :D
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calvinus
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:06 pm

Thanks a lot also from me! :) :coeurs:

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Tamas
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:39 pm

1. It might be helpful, when you click on a unit, to highlight all the areas where it can move.




It is highlighted. When you click on a stack in Military/Reinforcement phase, you can see its movement range. It even adjusts itself if you turn administrative or rail movement on.

aspqrz
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:04 pm

pkpowers wrote:closed firewall
shut down internet
turned off anti-virus
all back ground programs off

= still eternal "game is busy" never ends

it will be solved


Easy solution.

Took me a while to figure it out, though, because the manual provides nary a clew.

"Game is busy" means "AI needs to be paused so you can actually do something"

The game is not actually busy. Wait till the GiB message goes away for a second and hit "Pause" ... then do whatever it is youi need to do and, when you're ready to actually *execute* the plan, hit "Pause" again.

Maybe "Game is Busy" means something else in French? :thumbsup:

Like those Jinglish translations I remember from my plastic aircraft modelling days back in the 70's?

Should work, anyway.

Phil

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sval06
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:09 pm

aspqrz wrote:....
Maybe "Game is Busy" means something else in French? :thumbsup: ...
...


:D

I can swear that it has the same sense in French, maybe different one in Italian? :D

aspqrz
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:15 pm

There are a number of really, really, really, really annoying things about this game that make it, for me, at best marginally playable.

* Reinforcement Phase: I don't want to have to manually try and match up the reinforced Corps from the little scrolling list with their actual position(s) on the map ... you should be able to click on the corps symbol on the list and be taken immediately to the Corps' position on the map. :confused:

* Movement Phase: Especially with mandated offensives where you continually get messages that you can't move onto the next phase because not all units have moved ... could we please have a button that allows us to either identify these units and move us to where they are on the map without having to manually search for them *or* could we have a button that allows us to cycle through a) all units on one side and a different one that b) allows us to cycle through all the units that haven't yet moved and take us to their position on the map. :confused:

Yes. I know. Some of the War Plans specify where these armies are ... however, given the weird projection of the map even someone who has a reasonably good grasp of European geography (and I like to think I do) is going to find it nonintuitive to search for their locations ... especially as the text of the Plans is nowhere accessible once you've gone past that screen, so you can't even check up on it. :confused:

I really, really, really don't feel like fighting the controls ... these are fairly basic gameplay issues, I would have thought :grr:

Phil

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Tamas
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:22 pm

Mandatory offensive armies: they have a little flag above their heads. Red if they still have to move, green if they are done.

As for the reinforcement phase problem: what do you mean? On the left side there is a list of your armies. To be honest I never use it. On the bottom, there are the units you need to place on the map. These are either new reinforcements, or units which suffered "out of combat" result in the previous turn. You drag and drop them into a stack you wish, unless they have a designated army number, in which case they should go into one of the respective army's stacks.

aspqrz
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:32 pm

Tamas wrote:Mandatory offensive armies: they have a little flag above their heads. Red if they still have to move, green if they are done.


Yes. All very nice if you can find them in the first place without having to look all over the weird map projection. Why would I want to waste the time ... and some of them (the Russian ones in the 1914 campaign, forex, with a West Prussia target) are way to hell and gone away from where you'd logically think they should be, even allowing for the weird projection.

A simply keystroke should take you to them. I mean, its not as if all the keys on the keyboard are taken up doing other things :)

Tamas wrote:As for the reinforcement phase problem: what do you mean? On the left side there is a list of your armies.


Which is useless because, as I said, it doesn't tell you where those armies are ... this is from trying the beginning of the 1914 and 1918 campaign scenarios ... like I said, I want to be able to click a single button and be taken to the map position of the reinforced army without having to check each army marked on the map, individually.

Tamas wrote:On the bottom, there are the units you need to place on the map. These are either new reinforcements, or units which suffered "out of combat" result in the previous turn. You drag and drop them into a stack you wish, unless they have a designated army number, in which case they should go into one of the respective army's stacks.


This may be the case, and may be OK, but in the specific instances I have mentioned (and I presume its the same for all the campaign scenarios) it is a significant issue. YMMV, of course ;)

Phil

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Tamas
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:48 pm

On your second point, I tend to agree, its just that I have played so many games of the Great War, that I usually know where to look for for a given army. :) So its not a hassle for me, but I understand it may be so for many.

But for the mandatory offensive flags... Is it really that hard to find them?

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lodilefty
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:53 pm

Tamas wrote:On your second point, I tend to agree, its just that I have played so many games of the Great War, that I usually know where to look for for a given army. :) So its not a hassle for me, but I understand it may be so for many.

But for the mandatory offensive flags... Is it really that hard to find them?


I got lost at first also, but quickly found my way around...

I 'zoom out' for a strategic view. This allows me to find things fairly easily...

...and these are all good ideas, that I'm sure will work their way in on a priority basis :)
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calvinus
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:57 pm

Dear all, as mentioned on the game manual (despite it's very poor... I know), you can use the 'Enter' key to browse the armies and fleets of one nation.

The procedure is very simple. Click on an army of Russia, for example, then hitting the 'Enter' key will bring you to every army of Russia, one by one, zooming the map directly where the army is located. If you click on a fleet, instead, you will browse all fleets... If you select an army/fleet of another nation, you will browse instead all armies/fleets of that other nation.

This could be a way to locate quickly the armies, also those ones that have a mandatory offensive.

rwenstrup
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Conventions would help

Wed Nov 12, 2008 4:06 pm

AGEOD has done a fantastic job in the past...and established a number of conventions (ways of doing things) that we all know. It might make sense to apply these conventions as much as possible to this game system.

Selling a volume of games depends upon the quality of the game and the ease of getting into it to the point that the strategy is where the energy goes...not figuring out how to do something. This game suffers from a very difficult journey to get into it and understand it. The interface is a serious problem in getting to the point that you can enjoy the quality of the game.

A manual is clearly needed...but the interface should be addressed as well.

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Dragoon!
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 5:40 pm

Most wargames from smaller companies will have issues when first released..It's just a fact of life.

Just use the first few builds to get used to the engine and get a feel for the game. I still can't say I'm totally comfortable with the turn structure yet, booking reactions are very confusing-In battles, the enemy activation goes by so fast that there's no time to book them.

All that being said, I would love to see a full manual ASAP!

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PhilThib
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 5:57 pm

rwenstrup wrote:AGEOD has done a fantastic job in the past...and established a number of conventions (ways of doing things) that we all know. It might make sense to apply these conventions as much as possible to this game system.

Selling a volume of games depends upon the quality of the game and the ease of getting into it to the point that the strategy is where the energy goes...not figuring out how to do something. This game suffers from a very difficult journey to get into it and understand it. The interface is a serious problem in getting to the point that you can enjoy the quality of the game.

A manual is clearly needed...but the interface should be addressed as well.


Thanks for the remarks. Could you give us a short "wish list" of Interface improvements to your opinion ? :)
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Emeg
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:06 pm

For many years I play computer games and because past experiences i will never buy games that are just released. I have not a real opinion of using gamers (who paid the full price for the game) for free as an onofficial testteam for hunting bugs and other problems. I have read a message from a guy who wish to write the full gamemanual for free. Why for free? It would i.m.o. fair to give the early bug hunting and game polishing costumers somewhat back for their initial dissapointments, by example a 10% discount for the next AGEod game they buy.

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Mike_Toth
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:11 pm

ehh , just a couple of "undocumented features" that's all ;)


These guys are good at what they do... :) :) All shall be fixed

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PhilThib
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:34 pm

Emeg wrote:For many years I play computer games and because past experiences i will never buy games that are just released. I have not a real opinion of using gamers (who paid the full price for the game) for free as an onofficial testteam for hunting bugs and other problems. I have read a message from a guy who wish to write the full gamemanual for free. Why for free? It would i.m.o. fair to give the early bug hunting and game polishing costumers somewhat back for their initial dissapointments, by example a 10% discount for the next AGEod game they buy.


We'll come down to something for sure...at the moment, the priority is to fix the most urgent problem encountered by a few players. We're almost on a solution... :bonk:

AGEOD has a reputation for serving clients and we shall live with it. :cool:

BTW, who is the guy willing to write the manual...I missed his message and would be glad to discuss that point with him :blink:
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tagwyn
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Wwi

Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:15 pm

Guys: As I got further into the tutorial, I became confused and frustrated. I am awaiting the promised patch by Calvinus, I think; or, maybe Tamas. I sitll have high hopes it will be playable.l Perhaps a more detailed AAR like some of them for NC and AACW? :p apy: :coeurs:

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Clovis
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:22 pm

Emeg wrote:For many years I play computer games and because past experiences i will never buy games that are just released. I have not a real opinion of using gamers (who paid the full price for the game) for free as an onofficial testteam for hunting bugs and other problems. I have read a message from a guy who wish to write the full gamemanual for free. Why for free? It would i.m.o. fair to give the early bug hunting and game polishing costumers somewhat back for their initial dissapointments, by example a 10% discount for the next AGEod game they buy.


And you will kill the wargaming PC market. Sorry to put it so blunty, but from time to time, a long term vision is necessary as taking risks. until now, AGEOD has always patched games and refined them beyond the reasonable. I accept risk from them, not beause of blindness but because of the possible alternative, ie no more AGEOD games.
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Tamas
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:23 pm

tagwyn wrote:Guys: As I got further into the tutorial, I became confused and frustrated. I am awaiting the promised patch by Calvinus, I think; or, maybe Tamas. I sitll have high hopes it will be playable.l Perhaps a more detailed AAR like some of them for NC and AACW? :p apy: :coeurs:


You will not get a patch from me, sorry. :bonk:
I am just a betatester. Calvinus seems to be on the right track to find this bug which kills the game for several people, then he will give you a patch.

When that is done, I think it is a good idea to have a sort of "tutorial AAR".
I can start working on one tomorrow, but I can't promise anything.

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