I have read quite a bit around different forums, that units live their own lifes, meaning you constantly have to supervision the units....Is that bug or something comes as standard for this game? Seems really annoying to me.
Cheers once more! I've sifted through the forums, reviews and YouTube videos and I think I understand your question. It seems that these are all mistakes made by players as they try to learn the game system. The features they encounter seem illogical at first, and since this is a kind of novel system (real-time hex-and-counter), they need some explanation of how it works. I tried to explain the reasoning behind it and I hope that will enable them to play the game with more grip on the situation.
Here I will bring you full explanation that I gave them on their comments. If you happen to have some questions, fire away! Here we go ...
Hey again, I've finally caught some time to sit down and watch the whole video. This game launch really is stressful business. First of all Jean, thanks again for checking out the game and supporting it all this time. Without people like you, small indie companies wouldn't stand a chance in this global market. Thanks!
Now about the game. I've seen you wondering about some game features and I'll be happy to explain what's happening. Everything should be explained in Manual and Tutorial, but hey - who has the time to read all that. I know I don't
1. You can't stack two units from different divisions/brigades/groups - I've seen you struggling throughout the video trying to halt a unit on a hex where a unit from a different brigade was already halted. That isn't allowed, and if you try to do that - the unit you're trying to stop will move to a random adjacent hex. Why did we make that design decision? Early on in the game development process we allowed that. But we had a lot of issues with selecting and ordering groups. You see, when you select a group (either by clicking on a group button in the bottom of the screen, or by CTRL+clicking on one of group's units) - all of the units from the group are selected. But what if one of those units was stacked with a unit from other group? If you select it, the other unit from the same stack would be selected as well, and it is from a different group. Maybe we could split them automatically? But I don't want them to split, just to select. Damn, we have a tough call there ..
Not only that, it became clear during playtesting that keeping units from different groups in separate hexes made more sense.
2. Routed units don't respond to commands - when a unit loses all morale, it becomes routed and will not respond to your commands any more. It will try to run away from the enemy, trying to figure out what's the best way to go base on its point of view. This algoritm is ambiguos for a reason, as we tried to represent a non-controllable unit running frantically from the fight. So it will sometimes run in unexpected way, as the unit on the ground doesn't have the overview of the battlefield as you have.
3. There is a limit of 2 active units per hex (plus 1 routed) - you can't have more than 2 active (non-routed) units in a hex, plus 1 routed unit at any moment. If there are 2 units in a hex, you cant order a third one to pass through there. You can have 1 routed unit passing through 2 stacked units and that's that. If you try to move a unit through a 2-unit stack, it will either bypass the stack or halt, depending on the situation (if it can find the way around the halted stack).
4. Formation movement - a unit will move in formation until it reaches an obsticle which forces it to stop. That happens in following cases: - if the unit in front of it stops and the unit can't bypass it - if a unit spends all of its fuel - if a unit bumps into an enemy unit - if a unit tries to move from one enemy ZoC to another
5. you suggested that units can be unrouted during the day - we had that implemented in old versions of the game. The morale was recovering much faster that it does now. But it became unrealistic - the units just went up and down throughout the day. Several times a day they would attack, rout, attack again. It didn't resemble the actual historical account. Think of it like this - you are a soldier in a unit which fought and lost significant amount of forces. You rout and move away from the battlefield to recover. When will you be put into the combat again? The same day? Not likely. Tomorrow? Maybe, but with reduced morale. In a couple of days? Probably, with fully recovered morale (hopefully). And that's how the morale and routing works in this game.
6. refuelling during the day (before the estimated arrival of supplies) - supplies are refilled periodically, as shown in Supply view (from several hours to more than 10 hours, depending on the distance from nearest supply depot). This battle you're playing - Sonnenblume is an extreme example - motorised units moving far inland with very distant supply sources. And since this is the first battle in campaign, players may become bogged down in the desert, not understanding why. Because you're hundreds of kilometres away from the road (Via Balbia), your supply trucks take too long to reach you (let's say 10 hours for one trip). And a tank batallion can spend its allotment of fuel in 3-4 hours (depending on the ground traversed). So they move and then stop.
You are suggesting to speed the supply availability somehow. We tested various options for that in older versions of the game - we had supply priority allocation, number of available supply trucks, even supply boost command in place. But it was very complex to use and it was very, very rarely used. Basically, a complex mechanism that added rarely used feature to the game. That's why we pulled it back from the game. I always try to make a clean design, not to leave anything overly complex and rarely used in the system. That's why for instance anti-air defence is automatic (shown as AA fire while striking the unit) and we don't have naval units. Those features were tested but were all proven as to cumbersome for the ground combat we wanted to portray in a clean way.
I advise you to check the tutorial if you want to learn more details about the game. The game might seem simple at first, as we tried to make the UI as clar as possible, but there are a lot of moving parts under the hood.Cheers mate and I wish you many interesting game sessions!
Cheers DatWalrus! I usually don't write responses for player reviews, as I consider that inappropriate. But a fellow player called my attention to the issues you were having while playing the game and I wanted to check with you to find out about the details.
First of all, sorry if you had bad time playing the game. Games should be fun and engaging experience, and I strive to make this one as smooth and user-friendly as possible. And if there are still some nagging issues, I would very much appreciate to find them out and eliminate them for good 🙂
Now about the formation movement - a unit will move in formation until it reaches an obsticle which forces it to stop. That happens in following cases:
- if the unit in front of it stops and the unit can't bypass it
- if a unit spends all of its fuel
- if a unit bumps into an enemy unit
- if a unit tries to move from one enemy ZoC to another
If you were playing Sonnenblume, maybe you've had your units stopping for the lack of fuel? That would explain those issues, with units going over desert road being halted each day for lack of fuel and breaking formation. In that case, I would suggest you play other scenarios apart from Sonnenblume and 2nd Offensive, and you will see that these things happen rarely, and that game will be much more enjoyable.
But if this was not the issue, then we could possible have some bug in the algorithm. This game has been extensivelly playtested, both in-house and by demo players. But those pesky bugs can always lurk in the dark 😈 In that case I would ask for your help. If you find time to tell me what precisely happens in the game that you find problematic - I will try to reproduce that behaviour and make it go away. But in order to do that, I need more details, and having a short video showing that behaviour would be the best. Or maybe an explanation what you were doing when those issues happened. If you have time for that, I would be grateful.
Anyway.. thanks for trying out the game and I hope we'll resolve these issues for good. Have a great day and good hunting! 🖐️😀
Cheers Ulrik! I must say I haven't seen those issues you're referring to in the forums I follow. Can you please point me to the forums where you've seen those issues being talked about and I'll look into it asap. Also, if you can explain what you've experienced, please share your issues with me. Without the explanation from players I am unable to adress the issue.
Glad to be of assistance. Again, if you happen to have any questions or suggestions, feel free to drop by and ask. Have fun and good hunting! 🙂
Wow! Thanks for the response Tom:-)
That was really helpfull. I will be playing my first game tonight, so very good to know.
thanks again :-)
/Ulrik
Cheers once more! I've sifted through the forums, reviews and YouTube videos and I think I understand your question. It seems that these are all mistakes made by players as they try to learn the game system. The features they encounter seem illogical at first, and since this is a kind of novel system (real-time hex-and-counter), they need some explanation of how it works. I tried to explain the reasoning behind it and I hope that will enable them to play the game with more grip on the situation.
Here I will bring you full explanation that I gave them on their comments. If you happen to have some questions, fire away! Here we go ...
____________________________________________________________
Explanation to The Strategy Wargamer (YT video: https://youtu.be/JGkd3fw7Du4)
Hey again, I've finally caught some time to sit down and watch the whole video. This game launch really is stressful business. First of all Jean, thanks again for checking out the game and supporting it all this time. Without people like you, small indie companies wouldn't stand a chance in this global market. Thanks!
Now about the game. I've seen you wondering about some game features and I'll be happy to explain what's happening. Everything should be explained in Manual and Tutorial, but hey - who has the time to read all that. I know I don't
1. You can't stack two units from different divisions/brigades/groups - I've seen you struggling throughout the video trying to halt a unit on a hex where a unit from a different brigade was already halted. That isn't allowed, and if you try to do that - the unit you're trying to stop will move to a random adjacent hex. Why did we make that design decision? Early on in the game development process we allowed that. But we had a lot of issues with selecting and ordering groups. You see, when you select a group (either by clicking on a group button in the bottom of the screen, or by CTRL+clicking on one of group's units) - all of the units from the group are selected. But what if one of those units was stacked with a unit from other group? If you select it, the other unit from the same stack would be selected as well, and it is from a different group. Maybe we could split them automatically? But I don't want them to split, just to select. Damn, we have a tough call there ..
Not only that, it became clear during playtesting that keeping units from different groups in separate hexes made more sense.
2. Routed units don't respond to commands - when a unit loses all morale, it becomes routed and will not respond to your commands any more. It will try to run away from the enemy, trying to figure out what's the best way to go base on its point of view. This algoritm is ambiguos for a reason, as we tried to represent a non-controllable unit running frantically from the fight. So it will sometimes run in unexpected way, as the unit on the ground doesn't have the overview of the battlefield as you have.
3. There is a limit of 2 active units per hex (plus 1 routed) - you can't have more than 2 active (non-routed) units in a hex, plus 1 routed unit at any moment. If there are 2 units in a hex, you cant order a third one to pass through there. You can have 1 routed unit passing through 2 stacked units and that's that. If you try to move a unit through a 2-unit stack, it will either bypass the stack or halt, depending on the situation (if it can find the way around the halted stack).
4. Formation movement - a unit will move in formation until it reaches an obsticle which forces it to stop. That happens in following cases: - if the unit in front of it stops and the unit can't bypass it - if a unit spends all of its fuel - if a unit bumps into an enemy unit - if a unit tries to move from one enemy ZoC to another
5. you suggested that units can be unrouted during the day - we had that implemented in old versions of the game. The morale was recovering much faster that it does now. But it became unrealistic - the units just went up and down throughout the day. Several times a day they would attack, rout, attack again. It didn't resemble the actual historical account. Think of it like this - you are a soldier in a unit which fought and lost significant amount of forces. You rout and move away from the battlefield to recover. When will you be put into the combat again? The same day? Not likely. Tomorrow? Maybe, but with reduced morale. In a couple of days? Probably, with fully recovered morale (hopefully). And that's how the morale and routing works in this game.
6. refuelling during the day (before the estimated arrival of supplies) - supplies are refilled periodically, as shown in Supply view (from several hours to more than 10 hours, depending on the distance from nearest supply depot). This battle you're playing - Sonnenblume is an extreme example - motorised units moving far inland with very distant supply sources. And since this is the first battle in campaign, players may become bogged down in the desert, not understanding why. Because you're hundreds of kilometres away from the road (Via Balbia), your supply trucks take too long to reach you (let's say 10 hours for one trip). And a tank batallion can spend its allotment of fuel in 3-4 hours (depending on the ground traversed). So they move and then stop.
You are suggesting to speed the supply availability somehow. We tested various options for that in older versions of the game - we had supply priority allocation, number of available supply trucks, even supply boost command in place. But it was very complex to use and it was very, very rarely used. Basically, a complex mechanism that added rarely used feature to the game. That's why we pulled it back from the game. I always try to make a clean design, not to leave anything overly complex and rarely used in the system. That's why for instance anti-air defence is automatic (shown as AA fire while striking the unit) and we don't have naval units. Those features were tested but were all proven as to cumbersome for the ground combat we wanted to portray in a clean way.
I advise you to check the tutorial if you want to learn more details about the game. The game might seem simple at first, as we tried to make the UI as clar as possible, but there are a lot of moving parts under the hood.Cheers mate and I wish you many interesting game sessions!
Tom
____________________________________________________________
Explanation to DatWalrus (game Steam review: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198057924928/recommended/1383640/#developer_response)
Cheers DatWalrus! I usually don't write responses for player reviews, as I consider that inappropriate. But a fellow player called my attention to the issues you were having while playing the game and I wanted to check with you to find out about the details.
First of all, sorry if you had bad time playing the game. Games should be fun and engaging experience, and I strive to make this one as smooth and user-friendly as possible. And if there are still some nagging issues, I would very much appreciate to find them out and eliminate them for good 🙂
Now about the formation movement - a unit will move in formation until it reaches an obsticle which forces it to stop. That happens in following cases:
- if the unit in front of it stops and the unit can't bypass it
- if a unit spends all of its fuel
- if a unit bumps into an enemy unit
- if a unit tries to move from one enemy ZoC to another
If you were playing Sonnenblume, maybe you've had your units stopping for the lack of fuel? That would explain those issues, with units going over desert road being halted each day for lack of fuel and breaking formation. In that case, I would suggest you play other scenarios apart from Sonnenblume and 2nd Offensive, and you will see that these things happen rarely, and that game will be much more enjoyable.
But if this was not the issue, then we could possible have some bug in the algorithm. This game has been extensivelly playtested, both in-house and by demo players. But those pesky bugs can always lurk in the dark 😈 In that case I would ask for your help. If you find time to tell me what precisely happens in the game that you find problematic - I will try to reproduce that behaviour and make it go away. But in order to do that, I need more details, and having a short video showing that behaviour would be the best. Or maybe an explanation what you were doing when those issues happened. If you have time for that, I would be grateful.
Anyway.. thanks for trying out the game and I hope we'll resolve these issues for good. Have a great day and good hunting! 🖐️😀
-Tom
Cheers Ulrik! I must say I haven't seen those issues you're referring to in the forums I follow. Can you please point me to the forums where you've seen those issues being talked about and I'll look into it asap. Also, if you can explain what you've experienced, please share your issues with me. Without the explanation from players I am unable to adress the issue.