I had written a report on a few bugs and glitches i found but my private messages were deemed inappropriate by the WiA coordinator since such problems have to be discussed in public improvement forums with a policy that, being a former beta, i find hard to understand.
I fail to see why i should post in public negative details about a game, except if in the gravest circumstances, thus hurting the producers and the publishers, since those monitoring the private beta boards should be aware of the difference in quality and quantity about the bugs being reported. I have written tomes, gospels and bibles on WiA and AACW on themes i had never seen anyone talk about in private, much less in public.
Anyway, I was told to find the courage to post on AgeOD's boards again but i turned down the proposal. [:)]
I can't post on the AgeOD's boards due to the horror i feel in having to deal with a few people, but occupying significant positions at AgeOD, who have badly disappointed me (to say the least). So, here's the report, in public as requested, but probably not on the forums AgeOD had expected. [;)]
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"Chasing Nathanael" scenario:
-British spawn an Augustine BN, which is a locked in place unit, in San Mateo instead of in St. Augustine. Obviously, this unit will perish due to lack of supplies and there's nothing the player may do since it's locked in place.
-Charlotte (Victor) has no siege icon.
-I have noticed the entrenchement level of every stack is unaffected by the army exact location in the region. Units and stacks in settlements should not be allowed to entrench. They either are in the trenches or in the settlement, not in both.
-Training officer attribute, I am really curious about this attribute speculating it's not working as intended, if working at all.
The tooltip says the leader will train up to 2 conscripts per month turning them into regular units. This would be really handy since the British need regular soldiers to garrison the objectives and strategic towns to make them accrue points...however, no noticeable change in experience, nor in unit type is visible by the end of the whole scenario either in stats, nor in typology nor in unit portrait design or color.
I left Gen. Randon (Training attribute 1) in place with MIL units and they didn't turn into anything at all. Now MIL definitely is made of conscripts so either the attribute doesn't work or it's unclear WHO is to be considered a conscript (trainable by attribute) and who isn't.
Partisans, Indians, Light Infantry, Dragoons?
Question is, if this attribute doesn't train MIL, then who does it train?
"Cornwallis' Campaign" scenario:
- Thicketty shows no siege icon.
- Battle report in most circumstances the tooltip showing unit ratings (off fire, def fire etc.) is blinking and it is unreadable.
- Right panel Commander's Rating, related to "Div-equipped" leaders (Watson's Legion and Tarleton for example) exceed the borders. Suggest abbreviation "Cmdr. Rating". This would fit. Same can be said with Lord Charles Cornwallis. Same could be said about "Ship of the line", Suggest "Hvy Warship".
-Exactly same bug as in AACW, Force march button is greyed out when leader is inactive but the button can be pressed anyway and the forced march is executed (its the opposite of what the tooltip says, inactive leaders should be unable to order force march).
-The troops spawning in Yorktown spawn with an average cohesion (standard foot infantry) of 76/71. I suppose that should be the opposite 71/76.
Pequot scenario:
-This scenario seems too unbalanced.
For a starter, the Pequot don't have strenght even to capture a settlement right away while the brits have Boston's stack, twice as strong as the Pequot player, furthenmore, the British also have the mohican allies.
The turning point is the arrival by event of a new British stack which spawns west of pequot in Hartford. I have razed this village to the ground during a test and this monster stack still arrived in Hartford (spawned like a mushroom out of the ground). I am not entirely sure this to be intended.
It also looks like the Boston general and the new general spawning in Hartford use the same portrait. If not identical they are very similar, too similar.
Maybe the event is bugged? Maybe there's an event calling in for reinforcements to Pequot which is not firing? I find it hard to think possible to hold 3 strategic towns + Pequot village with 4 total units (and 2 generals). Maybe the scenario is built to recreate the exact historical situation but in that case the description should not state this to be a balanced scenario.
Two months ago, after wasting a week only to convince AgeOD that good scenario descriptions are paramount, seeing that the descriptions have changed but again, they are totally inaccurate, my arms fell down. 2 months ago, one of their community members told me he resigned to make me understand the descriptions were correct because i wasn't capable of understanding. Perhaps I am just stupid but i kindly suggest anyone to play the Pequot scenario and then make his own mind on whether this scenario is balanced like he and the description say or unbalanced like i say. [8D]
-This pic shows a little problem arising when Hartford is captured and simultaneously the village of Misistuck is captured too. Native troops dissolve and the chief goes to the village but there's a spawned and captured (yet unmovable) supply with the name of UNIT_NAME_GBR_SUP2 as you see. Ignore DX render problem, it's me engaging fraps after the game and not before the game, luckily there's the printscreen feature.
Nouvelle Orleans scenario:
This scenario has some serious mess-ups.
Let’s begin with the easy things:
-The transport capacity of the British fleet is reported to be 96/82. This could be causing problems of stability, better add even a small transport and to make the things as they should be.
-The British 1st Scouting Squadron is missing a proper short name in the right pane. (displayed UNIT_SHORTNAME_G.)
The main issue is balance:
-With the whole forces deployed and no reinforcements coming, the british must conquer New Orleans, Baton Rouge and the fort behind new Orleans in just few turns.
Since this is impossible without reinforcements after the losses at New Orleans, with 30-day long turns you only have a few options available while needing to recover cohesion and fighting generals’ inactivity which prevents you to attack. The cohesion recovery compels you to camp for a full turn in defensive or passive mode, else be utterly destroyed by desertion or by enemy and with no hope of reinforcements. The british also need supplies and it takes half turn to build a depot and about half a turn to be totally resupplied. Since the turn is 30 days long, this means in both cases 1 turn (the other half turn is basically lost).
-AI issue:
Jackson’s army in Nouvelle Orleans tries every turn to reach Ft. St. Philip if British troops are present. This move takes longer than a month to execute but it appears that, in the following turn, the AI cancels the move and stays in NO with all its cohesion depleted. I have concluded the only possible way to win for the British is to arrive in NO exactly when Jackson’s army aborts its move and is low on cohesion. Exploiting the AI's glitches is not for me.
-Nasty error delivered to support:
I had a nasty error moving Berkham’s forces from St. Philip to fleet in bay activating at same time the distant landing feature towards NO. The move is From St.Phil to Biloxi Bay to New Orleans (via distant unload).
It appears out of the whole stack, only the Dragoons arrived in NO while the rest of the forces remained on the ship. I had expected a CTD but only an error was reported.
-There’s an erroneous behavior to triple check with the distant unload + bombard feature.
Useless to get down to the details, the conclusion is that when distant unload is selected the stack must only bomb the selected land zone and no other place, else the distant unload won’t work when more fleets and more amphibious assaults take place. As stated above, there's also a minor bug affecting distant unload alone when troops are not already on board the ship.
Things I noticed while playing as American:
-The British lose 60-0. They never even show up and, at the end of the scenario, there’s no british unit on the map. Possibly all dead to attrition. Unbelievable how this scenario could pass the QA with the american player having no enemy on the whole board.
-Move of a MIL unit from NO to Ft.St.Leon : NO to river area of NO to Ft. st. Louie (via distant unload) failed.
-Again the training issue: 1st Mississipi Infantry is trained in Baton Rouge with no training officer present at all. Presumably an XP increase since this was not a MIL unit originally.
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At the light of what i found, in just 2 days of playtesting WiA's scenarios and, knowing what i know of AgeOD and its engine, I am not surprised to see such results in this product as well as I am aware it's not the lead DEV's fault.
The fact stunning me is that 2 months and 7 patches after the release, so many macroscopic bugs are still present in the scenarios. I can only begin to imagine what's lying ahead in the campaign...
It pains me knowing very well how much effort has been spent on it and it pains me twice to have had to post about it in public.
I couldn't care less about the money i spent on the game, all i see is that such poor display could have been spared if AgeOD had changed this policy of bland and superficial stress with which beta patches are tested.
Why i am not surprised?
Simple: after 13 months of constant patching, I've still got to see the Union AI doing an amphibious assault.
In the meanwhile, have a look at this screenshot of what's happening in June 62 while i siege Richmond.
One would think it proper and smart to learn from his own mistakes but this seemingly doesn't apply to AgeOD.
November the 11th is very close...but, to be honest, i don't think there's time to learn right now and, sadly, there's no worse deaf than one who doesn't want to listen.
