Questions about Empire for CA?

[Vuk]

Hey,
Got some questions/suggestions that I really don't think E:TW could be a worthy game w/out. :)

Since naval combat was such an important part of Imperial warfare, it would be treason not to fully encompass the dynamic of naval strategy...that is, to leave essential things out, like the ability to bombard cities and forts with your warships during a land battle, and the inclusion of marines.

Marines may not have been as heavy as line infantry, but they had a darned good reputation. It would be awesome to (as you attack with your main land force) strategically land Marines in key locations.

This was the main way of warfare in several Imperial Wars, including the War of 1812.

One way I was thinking that you could include the ability to commad both naval and land units at the same time is to allow the player to scroll through different panels (you know, the panel that the unit cards are on). This way he could "command reinforcement armies" just like regular ones, and could command both naval and land units.
Hope you take some of this into consideration.
Vuk

[ninjahboy]

Hello pevergreen,

Wasn't Australia 'just' a British penal colony during those days? That and Aboriginals living their lives in a huge continent. Sorry, I don't know that much.

Despite the fact that it was just used as a penal colony, the brits found it a really good place to get rescources and really really really really cheap labor and of course more resources. it wouldnt exactly have a very important role in terms of the military (may can be used as a staging area for an invasion of Indonesia) but it would definitely be a place with economic benefits.
Then again, Australia isnt in it anyways so meh
i wish is was though :(

[TosaInu]

Hello ninjahboy,

Which resources? Was it a resupply base in the Empire?

[pevergreen]

Yes. Australia often had British Warships stationed. Even now, it is a resupply base for the Americans and British. During that time a British fleet was nearly always present on the East Coast of Australia.

Flax was a important, as well as wool, mutton and beef. Sugar Cane grows well up north. (the largest amount in the world)

[YuriVII]

I have to agree with the person that asked for a whole map. Chances are, if I am playing Russia (which I like to do quite often), the player would need to expereince Eastern expansion as well as the Great Game in Central Asia. In addition, I would like a much more comprehensive strategic map. On the example of the Great Game, Russian and British intelligence services were highly active, inciting coups, and cohersing khans to join their side. Your spies could be one of their generals for example.

Look at Knights of Honor game, baisically a embryonic form of the TW concept, they however do a good job with the campaign map.

Also, please dont change it back to risk style map. It is good to control the route of your army in detail as opposed to vague notions of region.

Again, it would be nice if you could actually found cities in the new world.

[YuriVII]

Also, I almost forgot.

Assaulting cities is rather bland in TW games. It is like I am always assaulting the same city every time. For example, some cities should be edited to what they are actually like.
IE, attacking Istanbul you will be attacking a heavily fortified peninsula, attacking St. Petersburg you will have to probablly storm Petropavovskaya Fortress, and London and Vienna will have rivers running through the cities, making it an urban bridge battle. Of coarse you are not able to do this with every city, but with important ones such as London, Paris, Vienna, Rome, St. Petersburg, Istanbul, etc.

[General_Someone]

Also, I almost forgot.

Assaulting cities is rather bland in TW games. It is like I am always assaulting the same city every time. For example, some cities should be edited to what they are actually like.
IE, attacking Istanbul you will be attacking a heavily fortified peninsula, attacking St. Petersburg you will have to probablly storm Petropavovskaya Fortress, and London and Vienna will have rivers running through the cities, making it an urban bridge battle. Of coarse you are not able to do this with every city, but with important ones such as London, Paris, Vienna, Rome, St. Petersburg, Istanbul, etc.

That's a good idea. Hopefully C.A will do something to eliminate the repetitiveness of city battles

[Colonel-Commissar Gaunt]

Do you plan to make the graphics more feasible this time or are they still to be outrageously demanding?

[Juvenal]

Will Empire have an improved Auto-Resolve feature?

One of the great things about the Total War series is that you have strategic and tactical games running in parallel.

The strategic game can generate a very large number of battles. Most of us don't want to play every last skirmish, but if we raise the difficulty to give us a challenging game, then Auto-Resolve becomes just another form of suicide.

Please give Auto-Resolve an independent difficulty level (i.e. separate from the campaign and battle difficulties) - at present some of us have to rely on the auto-win cheat, but this is not really a satisfactory solution.

[Vuk]

Oh yeah, good point. The graphics in M2TW were way to demanding. I know great graphics are good and all, but at the end of the day, I think everyone would agree that it is the game experience that is most important. You can't have good game experience when your computer lags the ever-loving-taff out of the game. :P

Vuk

[Mouzafphaerre]

Also, I almost forgot.

Assaulting cities is rather bland in TW games. It is like I am always assaulting the same city every time. For example, some cities should be edited to what they are actually like.
IE, attacking Istanbul you will be attacking a heavily fortified peninsula, attacking St. Petersburg you will have to probablly storm Petropavovskaya Fortress, and London and Vienna will have rivers running through the cities, making it an urban bridge battle. Of coarse you are not able to do this with every city, but with important ones such as London, Paris, Vienna, Rome, St. Petersburg, Istanbul, etc.

.

.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I, too, agree with YuriVII! Make the variety both graphical, and tactical. Also, please add the option for enemies to surrender. In a hopeless city defense during this period, it wouldn't be common for the garrison to fight to the death. Surrender at the latest when half the defenders are dead. Maybe this can be incorporated into the engine in some clever way. Say, let the player too choose to surrender when needed. The surrendered garrison can then be ransomed back or handed back as part of the next peace treaty, or the victor can choose to execute the prisoners. If the winner executes them, the city defenders in later battles will not surrender during battle (but possibly more prone to surrender before it begins, if they think they can't win).

[Rodion Romanovich]

By the way, as I said in some earlier post: I'd like to see added mechanics to make the majority of troops in a losing army be able to retreat in most battles, rather than all battles ending in the wiping out of the losing army, and you then have to fight an entirely new army. This would add some more interesting dynamics and logistics, and above all - more realism. Second, the AI should, as you advance deeper into enemy territory after victories, pull back plenty of garrisons from the first lines, so that their army may grow or remain of constant strength, while the advancing army decreases due to losses and logistical trouble. For example if you hold a first line, and the enemy decides to break through by capturing key cities in the middle, and wins, the AI retreats much of the garrisons on the flanks, and merges them with their retreating main army, which now makes a stand with stronger or equal force as in the last battle, while the attacker has been worn down a bit. This would simulate realistic needs for careful logistical planning and reinforcement of the army used at the initial stage of the invasion, as casualties pile up. It's also how many defensive wars have been won, against an attacker that failed to win a decisive enough early victory, and is gradually worn down without capability of reinforcing properly. Wounded soldiers would also be a great feature. Perhaps wounded soldiers could require that they can be safely brought to the nearest province where you have a hospital building, and they need to remain in it for x turns before they are healed. A random number of casualties could fail to heal, and become cripples that need pensions, which draw money from your treasury in many years to come. There should also be a loyalty and morale penalty among other troops if you aren't able to bring back injured men to healing (if its an offensive war).

[Caius]

Some questions are:

How many provinces there will be?
Will there be forts?
What about mercenaries?
Are you CA workers adding bombers and planes?