Major Enhancements Needed

Hussar Games "For Liberty!" is a turn based game of the American Revolution and the Rakoczi Independence War. Command the armies of the newly born United States of America against Britain or the ill-equipped Hungarian rebels against mighty Austria. 1848 is a turn base game on the Hungarian rebellion against Austria in 1848-49.

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Mark Breed
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Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2003 10:32 pm
Location: Orange County, CA

Major Enhancements Needed

Post by Mark Breed »

One glaring enhancement needed for the game is the ability to save a turn at any point during it so that a player does not have to sit through the complete turn regardless of time available. Early in the campaign, a turn is taking anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes to complete (taking one's time to look at everything and log the events). As the game progresses, I foresee that the turns will take more and more time. As I do my turns during my lunch hour, I can tell the inability to save the turn so that I can come back to it later in the day will slow down my turn around time to my opponent.

Another issue is the inability to leave the game running and go to another program. When I attempt this, the game screen freezes on the opening menu and I end up having to reboot the game. This is a royal pain as you cannot do multiple screen saves during a turn, nor leave the program to come back later and finish the turn.

These two issues have to be fixed!

Regards,
Mark
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kool_kat
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RE: Major Enhancements Needed

Post by kool_kat »

A few other enhancement suggestions...

Campaigns: Provide more campaign options. Currently, if individuals want to play an American Revolutionary War campaign starting in 1775, they only have two options - a 76 turn campaign and the Full Campaign - 392 turns if my math is correct! These are LONG games - especially the Full campaign! [X(] It would be nice to have more options for shorter turn campaigns starting in 1775 - maybe 50 or 25 turns (with adjusted victory conditions).

Strategic View: Have an "at a glance" view that lists all towns and current ownership of them. After all, town control is how players win the game! [;)]

Winning: Have an on screen "barometer" that displays how close a side is to winning or losing the game. It would show a running points total of captured towns and forts plus battles and engagements won.

Recruitment: Have an "at a glance" view that lists what towns have available friendly recruits for a specific turn. It could be incorporated into the town ownership "at a glance" view. Have town hot links in this menu that would allow players to "jump" to the specific listed town so players could view the town location, and immediate surrounding region. This function would provide players with better information to make recruitment decisions.

Sea Transport: Have fleet counters on the map. Fleets would need to be adjacent to the appropriate friendly port AND the troops to be transported by sea would also need to start their turn in the appropriate friendly port. Would force players to think strategically and to plan several turns in advance in order to have fleets physically available to transport troops. For example, under the current game system, if a player controls both Boston and Savannah (sea ports), troops may be transported by sea from EITHER port subject to the nation's sea control value. However, these two ports are at least 6-8 weeks sailing distance apart and it would be unrealistic to believe the British or much less the Americans, had the fleet capacity to maintain large sea transport capacity at both these ports simultaneously, much less at EVERY friendly-controlled port EVERY turn! [X(] Also, from a realism standpoint, the small Continental Navy could not contest British control of the seas and used privateers to conduct "hit and run" attacks against British commerce and transport ships supplying their forces in the colonies. Again, from a realism standpoint, the Continental Navy should have no sea transport capability, but maybe have the ability 1-2 times per game to interdict British supplies in one region (New England, Middle Colonies, or South), for example, reducing a randomly selected enemy formation in a chosen region to "less then 50% supplied."

Loot: Current image icon representing a looted town is bad. Replace with an animated image that looks more like smoke plumes.

Battles - Non-tactical: Eliminate scrolling battle results window. Slows down game play and is too repetitive without providing useful player information. When a battle is initiated, have appropriate sound effects and after a brief pause, display battle results.

I'll add to this list as other enhancements come to mind.
Regards, - Mike

"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else." - Albert Einstein
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Mark Breed
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Location: Orange County, CA

Winter Operations

Post by Mark Breed »

Now that our game has entered the winter phase another issue has come up that Hussar Games has addressed but apparently not sufficiently. Hussar Games decreased the amount of supply available in winter; however, as can be seen in the AAR of our game, General Gage marched the main British Army from New Haven cross-country, through the swamps west of New York, to attack the American army in New Brunswick with no apparent adverse affect. The armies were each over 6,000 strong. So, this was a major battle in January. History shows us that during this time armies ceased operations to a major degree. Of course, there were exceptions such as General Washington's attack at Princeton and General Arnold's attack on Quebec; but those were relatively small armies (less than 2,500 and 1,000 men respectively).

I would like to recommend that an attrition rate be added to units that either move or attack during snow/cold weather turns. This rate would affect both the strength and the morale of the armies. The rate would need to be significant enough to discourage operations, but not totally prohibit them. And, maybe impact the armies based on their size; the larger they are the greater the rate.

Regards,
Mark
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Mark Breed
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Attrition

Post by Mark Breed »


On further reflection, there probably should be attrition at all times, say 0%-1% of the strength lost under normal conditions. With operations in bad weather further magnifying the effects, say doubling of the strength loss and a negative impact on morale.
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Mark Breed
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Game View Mode

Post by Mark Breed »

In PBEM games, we need the ability to go back into the game after ending your turn in order to just view the situation while waiting for your opponent to execute their turn.
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V22 Osprey
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RE: Game View Mode

Post by V22 Osprey »

I don't think even the word "dead" describes the forums and support for this game.
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Mark Breed
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Starting the Game

Post by Mark Breed »

When l start the game on my laptop with Windows 7, the process works fine except that when it loads the particular pbem game in question, it redisplays the main menu. I have to hit the escape key to make that menu go away and to display the actual game in play. This could cause players, like myself initially, to believe that the game won't start. So, this should be fixed.

Regards,
Mark
HussarGames
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RE: Starting the Game

Post by HussarGames »

The game can be saved mid-turn only if you play against the AI. PBEM games cannot be saved mid-turn for technical reasons.

As for the other suggestions:
- No new graphics or screens will be added by us, but the game is fully moddable. If you make an animation for looted and it looks good, we will add it (currently it is a picture).
- Sea transport capability is minimal for the US until French support.
- Winter attrition - this is possible in a patch.
- Windows 7 and Vista - we are aware of the problems and this is one of the main reasons that we abandoned our older games: it is just not possible to make them work properly on the new Windows operating systems. Our next game we will build an engine from scratch.
gcbisset
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RE: Major Enhancements Needed

Post by gcbisset »

Im glad to see you are developing a new, similar engine. Ive been playing the 1776 scenario solo, and it is growing on me. Im considering NI now. In the new engine please pause the AI combat results after each result so I can follow what is going on in detail (or make this a toggle)

Also, I think youll make more money off the next one if it has an editor for the map and forces, This greatly increases the value to the player. I doubt you will be able to sell every campaign of interest to musket era players yourself (it takes too long) Give us the tools to do the obscure campaigns ourselves!

Keep up the good work!

George
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