Time and distance, the ultimate challenge for EU3

[Falstaff]

I guess you play every single man in your nation. The game just cuts out all the useless lowerlevel commands and capabilities.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

I'm bumping this. I'm allowed, aren't I?

Technically, no, but people are posting now anyways so the point is moot.

so we are playing as a kind of "overlord" who is nowhere and everywhere, and can coordinate attacks on the same day of the month before knowing the country is going to be in a war in 5 continents of the world through 20 provinces at once.

This does not make sense. This is the most "gamey" part of the game in my opinion.

But since most of the people think the opposite and since this is a "game", then so be it.

I feel your pain. People here just can't grasp such a simple concept....

Hmm
This will a complete different game, not a traditional strategy game but an RPing game.
To make it realistic, you will have to give up the all seeing mode, and only see your room, inside your own four walls.

I mean if you are limiting it to a personal view, does a ruler make any day to day decisions like budgeting, investing, collect taxes, decide all strategy, conduct diplomacy, comission exploring expeditions, manage colonies, handle religious matters, etc , etc. etc? Does Nelson have to wait for the king's order to take the initiative? Did Patton received all his important orders from the president? Did the Duke of Wellington waited for his majesties orders to do the important moves?

No, the sovereign in this case chooses the right person from the job, and gets informed of major developments, many times without making the decisions.

Yea its not traditional, but it would really shove paradox into the limelight and put their games into the front of the market and really pull ahead if they were able to impliment it. It's easy to repeat a forumla, but it takes insperation to create a new forumula.

 

[George LeS]

I'll say it again: the problem here is focussing on 2 places, the sovereign & the units at the front. IMO, it would be better to look just at the time lag from unit to unit, or town to unit. The effect would be activating units based on their distance from the stimulus -- whatever they are reacting to. This is instead of assuming all communication is from point A, to the capital, then back to units near point A.

And as far as leaders' initiative is concerned, many games have given leader units an initiative factor, which determines how successfully (or quickly) you can give them orders.

 

[Gwalcmai]

I'll say it again: the problem here is focussing on 2 places, the sovereign & the units at the front. IMO, it would be better to look just at the time lag from unit to unit, or town to unit. The effect would be activating units based on their distance from the stimulus -- whatever they are reacting to. This is instead of assuming all communication is from point A, to the capital, then back to units near point A.

Say my northern border is attacked. I, of course, know of the attack immediately, or as soon as the attack reaches the first unit on that border. What do I do? Do I wait for the units in the south to "activate" or do I order them to move north to points where the "activation" will reach them sooner?

Or does this proposal also include the lovely feature of not being able to arrange your defensive forces the way you see fit? If I see enemy forces congregating on my northern border, can't I send word to the forces in the south to move north preemptively?

What is activation, anyway?

 

[George LeS]

Say my northern border is attacked. I, of course, know of the attack immediately, or as soon as the attack reaches the first unit on that border. What do I do? Do I wait for the units in the south to "activate" or do I order them to move north to points where the "activation" will reach them sooner?

Or does this proposal also include the lovely feature of not being able to arrange your defensive forces the way you see fit? If I see enemy forces congregating on my northern border, can't I send word to the forces in the south to move north preemptively?

What is activation, anyway?

In a word, delay. All I'm saying is that you won't _instantly_ have all units moving at once. You can order them, immediately, in the sense of entering the command. But they wouldn't start to move at that moment.

What I have in mind, is this: there is a delay built in based on the distance from the point of contact or observation, to the reacting unit(s). This is may be less than the unit's distance from the capital, in which case, it reacts more quickly. Units in contact with the enemy (in EUII terms, in adjacent provinces) would be under full, instant control, as now. The effective distinction is analogous to strategic vs operation movement.

For the moment, let's assume a contiguous nation. You want to change your dispositions. You give the orders, &, as time goes on, the units begin moving, with a delay based on the distance from the capital. If you change your mind, that too involves the same delay. But the distance from the enemy (or rebels) would make it possible for them to be reordered sooner (more strictly, for the new orders to take effect sooner). All this entails is a list of what constitutes a proper trigger. Enemy or rebel units, of course. But also, movent of other countries' units could apply (seen as preparation for war).

For larger, worldwide empires, some sort of regional capital would be needed, but then, that's desireable for other reasons.

So, of course you may order your defensive forces as you wish, the question is how quickly you can change your arrangement. Note that what I am advocating entails less delay, not more, than most of the suggestions made here, as I am trying to avoid the need for AI control in the interim.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

That would still require a better AI because as mentioned field commanders knew how to respond to situations on their own without command. They would at the very least aid their neighboring provinces and try to route the army. They might not go on the offensive, but atleast defensively they'd have to know when to fight, when to run and when to seige and when not to.

Recruiting more troops and going on the offesnive might be player actions only though.


However one big flaw in your situation is that often there are multiple points of activation. Enemy moving through territory, another seiging a province, another in a pithed battle, somone building more troops on their home province which borders your own. Then of course you have your capital always and you might if units are tracked as in CK, your home province. That is a lot more cpu intensive since with the exception of static points of activation, not always will one point of activation be relevent enough to reduce lag time.

 

[daedalus]

I still don't understand the point. Was it general practice for the rulers to move troops around from their thrones?

Did the great general just the executors of the king's startegies?

It seems weird for me to think that a Duke of Wellington, a Nelson, a Gran Capitan have to wait for their kings orders to make any meaningful move of troops.

As people mentioned before, the genre of games that EU belongs too, the player represents the whole leadership of a nation. All the people that is in charge of making decisions. That is why he can be present everywhere his troops are.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

I still don't understand the point. Was it general practice for the rulers to move troops around from their thrones?

Did the great general just the executors of the king's startegies?

It seems weird for me to think that a Duke of Wellington, a Nelson, a Gran Capitan have to wait for their kings orders to make any meaningful move of troops.

As people mentioned before, the genre of games that EU belongs too, the player represents the whole leadership of a nation. All the people that is in charge of making decisions. That is why he can be present everywhere his troops are.

It is even more weird that some general should know the very day his liege declares war and be able to start moving his troops then. Not just him, but everyone in the kingdom suddenly has "omipitance". Tell me that makes more sense with a straight face. If you can, there is something seriously wrong with you.

 

[Mike of NW8]

If there was some way of incorporating this, it would be terrific. I remember a game called Powermonger (1990?) - for the Commodore Amiga - had an option to include a time lag between orders given and carried out. When played on linked machines between 2 players, this proved great fun and often cancelled out the benfits of large numbers of troops vs. a smaller but better organized force - something EU3 could really benefit from.

In addition to direct commands, surely it would be simple enough to give an army two default options: avoid combat or engage? The AI couldn't screw that up surely..... This would enable armies to act independently on the spot until an order is received.

 

[Registered]

It is even more weird that some general should know the very day his liege declares war and be able to start moving his troops then. Not just him, but everyone in the kingdom suddenly has "omipitance". Tell me that makes more sense with a straight face. If you can, there is something seriously wrong with you.

But it's not about what makes more sense, it's about what maks a better game. And i, among others, believe that this would only make the game frustrating, not fun.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

But it's not about what makes more sense, it's about what maks a better game. And i, among others, believe that this would only make the game frustrating, not fun.

And I, among others, think this would not only make it more fun, but more realistic and actually enhance the strategic elemet of the game rather than detract from it.

 

[Sindai]

It is probably possible to construct a game around this concept, but doing anything other than that would be a total disaster and is certainly far beyond Paradox's resources. They already make some of the most complex games that exist with only one programmer doing most of the heavy lifting. This is simply not going to happen in EU ever; I suggest waiting until CK2.

 

[Falstaff]

It is even more weird that some general should know the very day his liege declares war and be able to start moving his troops then. Not just him, but everyone in the kingdom suddenly has "omipitance".

It is not weird. It is the premise of the game.

Not that your generals know stuff about events in far corners of the world, but that the player knows and sees all his subjects knows and sees, whether the subjects be kings, generals or soldiers. The player has, aside from omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence, but only pertaining to his own realm. Thus he can know anything in his realm, be anywhere in his realm, and take control anywhere in his realm.

I like the concept though, but the premise of the game would have to be rethought.

 

[TeeWee]

But it's not about what makes more sense, it's about what maks a better game. And i, among others, believe that this would only make the game frustrating, not fun.

I'm not quite sure if this has already been mentioned, but this subject really has me thinking of Panther Games Airborne Assault series (Red Devils over Arnhem, Highway to the Reich, upcoming Conquest of the Agean). Obviously different era (WWII, Market Garden campaign for the first two) and scope (division versus empire), but the key concepts are:

Game is a real time war game (war game, not a (misnamed) RTS game).

The player represents the division commander (largest organisational unit)

Orders delay: when you give an order to a unit, it needs time to filter through to the right subordinates. The time necessary depends primarily on the unit size. For big movements, it can take several game hours for the units to actually start implementing the order. This means, if you want to attack the bridge at dawn, give the order a bit after midnight! It also means it sometimes is better to stick with a not so good plan than to attempt to change it halfway through execution (for example, some units may hear the order to break off an assault sooner than other units)

Layered command structure: you're allowed to give commands to any organisational unit type; from a single batallion to the entire division. The commander of the unit you give the order to (e.g. regiment commander) will organise its subordinate units (e.g. the batallions in the regiment) into a proper attack plan. The commander can adjust its plans a bit to the situation it finds itself in (e.g. the commander may just reroute a move command through a different path to avoid a known enemy position)

As frustrating as this may sound, it works extremely well. You still get real time intel from the units (some consider this a flaw), but you can't just order the units to immedeately take advantage of something. Also, the AI commanders use their subordinates extremely well. Their plans make sense. Sometimes it's just fun to give orders on the division level and just let the AI figure out a plan using all its units. Though war games are not my fave genre, I believe what they are doing is truly unique. And it works and is fun, since it rewards good strategy and good planning and reduces (discourages) micromanagement through its clever use of AI commanders.

I can see some of this, especially orders delay, working in a non-frustrating and fun-enhancing way. Also, instead of telling armies to move to a specific province, you can give them "goals" to achieve. E.g. keep my colonies in Brazil secure. This is comparable with what people here suggest for explorers and vaguer missions.

I'd probably buy a game like this. It probably won't be EU, but it would be an exquisite game if properly executed.

 

[daedalus]

It is even more weird that some general should know the very day his liege declares war and be able to start moving his troops then. Not just him, but everyone in the kingdom suddenly has "omipitance". Tell me that makes more sense with a straight face. If you can, there is something seriously wrong with you.

I am not advocating that the generals should be omnipresent either. I am saying that in Europa Universalis the players is playing the whole leadership of the nation: the king, the ministers, the generals, the admirals, the explorers, etc. etc.

It will be nice to have a game where you can role play and command your kingdom from your throne, but it will require a different game, with a different interface. You wont see the map, you will just get reports from the field and be able to submit orders. The whole game could be text based , which just a paper map to make decision

Buit that is not EU, and I don't even think we should be even discussing it in the EUIII forum.

 

[George LeS]

That would still require a better AI because as mentioned field commanders knew how to respond to situations on their own without command. They would at the very least aid their neighboring provinces and try to route the army. They might not go on the offensive, but atleast defensively they'd have to know when to fight, when to run and when to seige and when not to.

Recruiting more troops and going on the offesnive might be player actions only though.

However one big flaw in your situation is that often there are multiple points of activation. Enemy moving through territory, another seiging a province, another in a pithed battle, somone building more troops on their home province which borders your own. Then of course you have your capital always and you might if units are tracked as in CK, your home province. That is a lot more cpu intensive since with the exception of static points of activation, not always will one point of activation be relevent enough to reduce lag time.

Your missing my point. I would allow control over units adjacent to the enemy, & units adjacent, in turn, to those, would have faster activation than anyone else.

As far as multiple points of activation, I'd just live with it. The fact that unit X is actually triggered by an attack on Brest, wouldn't stop you from moving it toward Calais, if you wish, or embarking it to send to Quebec, for that matter. Of course that's imperfect, but the alternative strikes me as too complex.

Generally, I'd love to see time & distance taken into account, but I think a truly realistic system would be far too hard to make workable. IMO, the best practical option would be to factor SOME delays into the game, but not trying for perfection. At the very least, I don't believe current AI's would be a workable feature, & therefore all I'd like to see are delays in the players' ordering their units. This can happen 2 ways.

(1) As I've been saying here, have units stick to doing whatever they are doing, until ordered from wherever HQ central is defined, UNLESS that delay is overriden by certain defined triggers, e.g., proximity to enemy action.

(2) Consistent with that, would be the feature of many games; giving each commander an initiative rating, which triggers how quickly he actually starts to follow orders. In many board games, you roll for the commander, to see if he moves; for a computer game like this, you could have the roll determine how quickly he starts.

Both the above, I see as alternatives to the strict lag-time which a truly accurate simulation would entail. My reason is simply, that I do not believe an AI-based system could work, so wherever it seems the AI must take over, we need an alternative which gives control to the player. The result would, I hope, add some friction to the game, without making it unplayable. But I certainly don't claim to have a fully-fleshed out system in mind. I am just pointing out an outline of where I think the best answer will lie.

For most of the objections others have, I think we're just looking at 2 different tastes in games. (I know I've seen people who denounce fog-of-war.) For that split, I don't think there is any possible argument which will tell for one or the other.