CoG EE and FoF

[Marshal_Ney]

Dear Matrix delevopers this is the second thread that i am going to open in this forum,at first allow me to thank you for all the great games that you provide to publish,this is something that people who loves history like me and many are very grateful to you.
actually i didn`t see such a good tactical/strategical game like this since napoleon 1813.
i also apoligize to you if my english is not perfect but i`ll try my best and i hope that you will understand what i`m trying to tell you in this thread.
as an old matrix player i enjoy your games,especially the crown of glory series and forge of freedom.
especially about the new CoG i have some questions for you.



1 Forge of Freedom is about 3 years older than the new Crown of Glory,so i hoped with this new CoG you could bring some features from the amazing FoF but unfortunatelly i didn`t have the pleasure to see them,for example,why in forge of freedom we have such detailed divisions,each one of them with his own original brigade and flag,but this was not implemented in CoG EE,i also can`t understand why you decided to bring the `brigade` level detail in CoG only in the tactical battle and not also in the strategical one,now i can understand that CoG is based on events that came about 50-60 years before the american civil war,and i am awared that there are less historical information about the composition of each singular brigade,but in my personal opinion if you search well you can find the detailed composition of each corp of army,division,brigade,regiment and even battalion from the napoleonic era,the books of david chandler and even the ofsprey books provides the knowledge to re-contruct dettailed armies,at least for the main nations like france,austria,prussia,russia and england.



2 About the tactical detailed battle,why you didn`t add the graphical features of forge of freedom and the informations that where provided in the battle? i think it was really nice the idea that you had that we could read under each bridade in red from wich division they belonged,in fact FoF could be even more tactical than CoG,becouse if i divided the brigades in battle i could even simulate a battle in a regimental scale.
another thing that i liked from FoF was how nice where the units recreated in the tactical battle who gave he sense to lead a real army instead the line of dots in CoG.
was this something hard to do?



3 About the generals,i was amazed of how detailed was the database for the commanders of each side in FoF,again i can understand that certanly there are less informations about the generals from the napoleonic era compared to the american civil war,but for sure i think you could add something like 40/50 generals for each major faction,and i mean not like now with their name written only in the divisions,but like in FoF that you could deploy them in each division.

please don`t take this thread like a critic,i really like this game,actually i love both games FoF anf CoG,and i think you did a wonderful job with the new incarnation of CoG,and so far this is in my opinion the best napoleonic game that we can play in a tactical/strategical way.
regards.

[terje439]

@2 You can have small men shooting, kneeling, marching etc in CoGEE if that is what you mean. I tend to use the NATO-symbols in FoF but not in CoG.

[Marshal_Ney]

Thanks for your comment,but please read my whole post,i am not talking just about the graphic.
 

[moose1999]

I agree with you!
I would also have loved if they had imported every FOF feature into COG:EE - and then added some of the better features of EU3 (I really like some of the diplo stuff and the general level of information and presentation of it).
But, alas, that would have taken another couple of years to do.
I think the team did I fine job updating COG, and by not making the two games too similar we now have two different games with quite different flavors which, in the long run, will give us more pleasure - because diversity is good... [:)].

But I will give you, I miss some features from FOF too.
Maybe the next title from WCS will give us it all in one package.

[Vasquez]

I miss the eyecandy detailed battles from FoF as well. I love those lines of men firing instead of these dots. Added a lot of atmosphere. COG:EE detailed battles are kinda sterile.

[Gil R.]

Marshall_Ney,
Thank you for your comments, which are great to see. Regarding your three issues/questions, we've addressed them here and there in the forum already in the past few months, but I can address these again for all the newcomers.

1) What you suggest, having COG:EE go to the brigade level (or making that an option instead of the original divisional level) would have involved an enormous amount of work -- and that's just in terms of programming, without all of the added work of doing the historical research into brigades. It's one thing to have divisions temporarily split up in detailed battles if one chooses to fight at the brigade level, but a very different thing to have brigades at the strategic level as well. Even though FOF is at the brigade level doesn't mean that COG:EE could easily be -- just as redoing FOF to be at the regimental level would take several months of work and testing.

2) I explained this a few times in the months leading up to release: the cost of redoing the graphics for detailed combat would have been enormous, and would have eaten up a good amount of our profits if we had done that in addition to redoing the strategic map and adding naval graphics. Remember, new land combat graphics would have to cover a dozen or so types of units for eight major powers as well as the newly added Denmark, Poland, etc. So that's maybe a hundred or more units, each requiring intensive work to produce something of comparable quality to the FOF units. Even putting aside the issue of profitability, these graphics alone would have delayed release by 6-12 months.

3) Generals in COG:EE are much stronger than those in FOF, so if you add dozens of new generals that can throw off the balance significantly -- requiring weeks and weeks of new programming and testing. And, since only the most diehard Napoleonics buffs would ever have heard of any generals we might add on top of the ones already in the game, it just didn't seem like a high priority.

Overall, the key factors are time and money. Each of these is a change that would have been nice to have, but could not be done without delaying release for a very long time and costing us money. Instead of these features, we added a whole bunch of others -- we had to make tough choices what to do and what not to do, knowing that no matter what some players would be disappointed that we didn't do X, Y or Z.

[ptan54]

Understand where WCS is coming from.

What about adding which Corps/Army a division belongs to on the hexmap, like in FOF? This shouldn't be too hard to code?

[Marshal_Ney]

Dear Mr.Gil R
thank you very much to be so kind to reply at my questions,i really appreciate this,it is a pleasure to see that you comunicate with your customers like this,in a very honest and direct way.
and i totaly understand the reasons that you gave me about my questions,i think that CoG and FoF are the perfect combination of games that an history fan should have in his collection,again you did a great job with both wonderful simulations.
kind regards.

[Gil R.]

What about adding which Corps/Army a division belongs to on the hexmap, like in FOF? This shouldn't be too hard to code?

The reason we left it out is that hierarchies aren't as important in the rules as they are for FOF, since military groups don't have ratings that can impact the battle.

It might be a good thing to have just as a "cosmetic" -- for lack of a better word -- addition, so please mention it in the Wish List thread.

[madgamer2]

Ok both FoF and CoG and EE are all good games but not for me FoF has to few areas and the economic building system was just not for me. Getting every unit to the point of Assembly even in friendly territory can take forever. It just did not feel like a civil war game. With its "roll your own rules" concept which was interesting but seemed to me not to work.
Even after the patch(S) the AI knows that the North has to take the four major cities. Every game no matter which one was last (usually Richmond) The game developed in to a kind of risk effect with sides trading areas etc. The idea of having 400K union fighting 250K rebs for the city seemed just to much of a farce.
I am sure that the game is a great seller and loved by many and my thoughts are just that mine. Its my brain that just could not get into the game but i am strange that may. None of the three games on the civil war (GG'a civil war,FoF, and AACW were right for me although Gary Grigsby's game comes the closest.

Madgamer

[MorningDew]

GG'a civil war,FoF, and AACW were right for me

Then you're screwed when it comes to getting an ACW you like [:D]

[madgamer2]

how true...how true....Now however now that WitP is out for me for awhile I might have to give FoF and GG's game another shot. One thing playing war games has taught me is that no matter how much you may want to do something there are things that are just not within your grasp without expending more effort and brain power that it is worth. I do have a life and I find it hard to believe that some of these guys devote as much time as they do and still have a life. To me there are more important things in life than sitting in front of a computer playing a game, although I still do at times


Madgamer