What we would like to see in ETW.....

[Daithi MacGuillaCathair]

i know its historical accurate to have baggage trains and living of the land etc. i was just pointing out that your request for the inclusion of this feature is some what opposed to your wish for less skirmishes. as the raids and counter raids would be conducted on a small scale.

[locked_thread]

edit

[Freedom Onanist]

I've attempted to brainstorm a simple logistic system...

- Armies draw forage automatically, leading to indirect competition for food.

- Each soldier and horse strips a tiny amount of forage from a nearby farm (5 square radius? 10?). Large stacks of men and horses can rapidly deplete the countryside. Richer farmlands provide more forage per turn and recover faster.

- As farmlands are depleted, they provide less food/income to the regional capital, and are depicted darker on the campaign map (green->yellow->brown->gray->black). Thus a fully depleted farmland would provide nothing to the capital. This is similar to "devastation" in existing TW games.

- If a port is within an army's foraging radius, forage can be redirected through that port.

- If all local supplies are exhausted, forage is automatically redirected to any unblockaded port within forage range. This will transfer farm depletion to other controlled provinces that are not themselves blockaded. If troops cannot obtain supplies locally or through a port, they are considered "unsupplied". If a stack contains a mix of supplied and unsupplied troops, the stack as a whole is assigned a supply%.

- 100% supplied armies operate at 100% mobility and combat strength. Armies below 100% move proportionately slower on the campaign map, and fight under a handicap, ie reduced morale / attack / defence / speed. Thus an army at 80% supply moves at 80% speed and fights at 80% effectiveness in battles. Armies below 25% supply are also considered to be starving, and lose troops each turn.

- Besieged troops cannot forage. They are considered "in supply" until they consume the city/fort's food stockpiles. If the city has an attached port, they can trace supply unless the port is blockaded.


Why a logistic system? Because historical military campaigns make no sense when viewed outside a logistical context. Why did they build navies? Why did Napoleon split his armies into separate columns? Why were generals forced to attack strong positions instead of waiting it out?
1) Standing armies cost food, not just cash.
2) Large armies eat alot, impacting population growth and economy wherever they go.
2) Moving an army into foreign territory lets your troops dine at enemy expense.
3) The size of a standing garrison is limited by local forage.
4) To march a vast army into enemy lands you probably have to control nearby ports.
5) You'll normally want to divide large armies into separate columns for better foraging.
6) Large armies must keep moving or eventually starve, unless supplied through a nearby port.

What about the situation where a concerted effort was made not forage? Wellington put a lot of effort into creating a semi efficient supply train. Part of the reason was to avoid (as much as possible) pillaging the allied Spanish and Portuguese contrysides, and avoid local antagonisms. When he got into France he experienced none of the problems with the local population the French had in Iberia becasue he paid(ish) for what he took.

I do like your ideas though. You could add an option to use scorched earth tactics as well, like the russians in front of Napoleon, or Wellington in Portugal. An enemy has to move on even faster. Or you could have resource raiding, where you rob and devastate an opponent's resources.

The only problem is that in game terms logistics might get pretty tedious with the expanded map. I took out the supply side of things from the Stainless Steel mod in M2TW, good, but not for me.

[Mersk]

One thing I’d like to see is realistic close order movement in battles. in MTW2 groups sort of flow through turns. As someone who has been subjected to close order drill, I can safely say the entire unit can turn any direction and stay in formation with ease and moving along at a pretty good pace or turn in an orderly fashion by rank or file to navigate tighter spaces.

Perhaps there can be a button on the UI, and this toggle button turns on/off close order movement. When on, units, elements in close order speak, stay tight and turn tight, march etc in a very orderly almost mechanical fashion. When the button is off, they move more loosely, more along the lines of MTW2 unit movement.

The purpose being that a unit needs to be able to stop and deliver a volley in unison and in short order. This may require CA allow stragglers to “walk through walls” on occasion. But that would be preferable to having a unit standing there getting shot up waiting on a straggler that got hung up on some battle map obstacle.

[RoadKill]

I really hope CA read this stuff, because if they take our advice they can make one heck of a good game.

Well what I'm really looking forawrd to see is more intense and detailed Diplomacy.

For example: If you are able to capture prisoners from battles, maybe make it so you are able to build jail cells in the cities so you can place the prisoners there in the jail cells, then in diplomacy you could ask them to give you a region or make them get off your land for the prisoners.

Maybe even add a Non-Agressional-Pact option for diplomacy.

For infantary battles it would be better if the battles used more of land advantage and stuff like that, more tatical planning then like the MTW 2 strategies where you just shot arrows then throw your whole army at them. What I'm trying to say is it would be cool if the battles could work like Company of Heroes, where tatics are the most important.

I also wouldn't mind a campaign with a better story line to it. Like I dont want to spend half my time playing a game then end up only having a pop up telling me I won, I want better prizes for my winnings, and even devastations for losing. A optional storyline is even better, so the game can flow with a story line in all diffrent directions.

[anders]

i know its historical accurate to have baggage trains and living of the land etc. i was just pointing out that your request for the inclusion of this feature is some what opposed to your wish for less skirmishes. as the raids and counter raids would be conducted on a small scale.

the board game "empires in arms"( fantastic napoleon era game if you have the time) handles supply routes by forcing you to be able to pull an uncontested ( ie not broken by enemy units) straight line between the supplied force and a depot, it doesnt cause to mant skirmishes, but makes cossaks and freikorps very valuable.