WISHLIST - American Civil War

[Amish John]

Hi Norb and all,

If this game series heads in a civil war direction we can probably import most of the outstanding wishlist items from MMG (except multiplayer which now is a given).

One thing I'd like to see is more accurately portrayed maneuvers. I'm sure I'll have plenty more things to wish for once we know a bit more about the subject matter.

Not sure how much I personally will use multiplayer, but that and the right title will probably have a lot to do with the game's success, at least according to all the predictions over the last several years over at MMG.

OK. This is post number 1....and we're off and running.

John

[JohnD]

DrMike1997 wrote:

Start me out as a regimental commander...and then (if I do well) move me up to bgde and so on.

Indeed. I've always liked this idea and as you know, War3D has the foundation for making it happen.

[Amish John]

I know this is looking far down the road, but as new titles are added, it would be nice if the improvements to the new titles could be applied to the old titles.

I know I seldom played Take Command: Bull Run after Take Command: Second Manassas came out.

[Old Peter]

Definitely more varied sprites, if you are going to use sprites. For example, you could have some of the soldiers have beards, some with ratty clothes, and others with no shoes. Also, more character sprites. I really liked the Jackson sprite. Like, for example, if you did a Gettysburg game you could have sprites of Lee, Longstreet, Ewell, Meade, Hancock, Sickles, etc. These would definitely add to the realism of the game.

[MarkT]

Wouldn't a system that starts you out at regiment, and promotes you to higher command, have to have a campaign game attached?
For it is the flexibility of a campaign system that would allow a particular fighting unit to progress, and thusly deviate from history.
You must deviate from history to progress. Simply using a players name, and his impact on the field is deviating. The promotion theory will impact nicely if you can carry that unit through a campaign and by playing that unit well, maintaining the unit integrity and health.

For example: At Cedar mountain, a player could play a regiment in Branch's Brigade of A.P. Hills Division. Realistically, this commander could progress up the chain of command by playing well to replace Branch at Cedar mountain, replace A.P Hill at 2nd Manassas, and Jackson at Antietam, completed by replacing Lee at Fredricksburg. Alot of this has been brushed on in TC2M with carryover.

The above described example, could be achieved within the historical frame of the existing battles. I.E. A.P. Hills division was consecutively present in the named battles. But what happens when you are given command of a regiment that does not fight in consecutive battles. Do you promote outside of the unit to another unit in a critical spot? For example, You being promoted, instead of to the head of Branch's Brigade, to Law's Brigade of Hood's Division. What haapened to unit integrity you have gained?

If you dissect any string of battles, you will be hard pressed to find a commander that can be promoted as I have described above in the first example. Due to the random locations of the placement of the troops in each historical battle, coupled with the absence of units from a battle, to work without a campaign structure would be difficult.

In fact it would be almost impossible to list a string of consecutive battles, where you could provide an environment that a player could take that regiment and \"walk it through\" a series of battles. The more battles you walk through, the more the order of battle deviates. the more it deviates, the harder it is to be historical.

It is a very interesting thing.

With a campaign version or whatever, the critical troops could always be \"present\", for the campaign would be keyed around the player.

-rant- -rant-

[norb]

Not really. In my original design for how the game would work, it was done through open play battles. Now that was a long time ago using an engine that doesn't really exist anymore, but that's what I originally wanted when I put in the rpg elements. I even had an idea for an intro in-game movie where you were a member of a reg in a battle and your reg got decimated, somehow leaving you as the senior member of a reg that consisted of the remnants of the survivors of many reg's, then the game would start.

I guess that anything is possible, we have a ton of ideas that we have not had time to do. I know that I have concepts that I've wanted to put in since I started writing this thing, that still have not made it in yet. Point is that when you are a one man coding team, you have to make baby steps. Everyone wants their ideas in the game, and for the MMG games I basically decided what made it in the game and what didn't, as the coder and the Producer. With John now acting as Producer, he gets to decide, which takes a lot of pressure off of me. He gets to go through the thousands of ideas and decide which ones fit our vision and would enhance it and which ones need to just get their own game. You know what they say about ideas....

Ideas are like ________, everyone has one. Everyone thinks theirs is unique and special, but in the end their all just _____

Everyone has great ideas, it's having the ability to make those ideas come to life that seperates the game makers from the game players.

[MarkT]

Interesting. You are so right about ideas. Some appear so great to some, and not so to others. Everyone looks at things differently. It is nice to step back away from some of the decisions and concentrate on coding and such... Just to bring any Ideas to a state of \"working\" in a program is satisfying. The balance of realism and playability and practicality can be such a fine line.

[Old Peter]

If it's possible, perhaps make the lines look ragged. You know, like how it looks when you advance or retreat, but remaining in one spot.

Old Peter

[Amish John]

Here's a couple more wishes:

If there is something similar to the \"take command\" function like TC2M has, it would be nice if there was some kind of visual indicator on the regiment to show I have taken command of it. Sometimes it's hard to remember who I've TC'd. This should be a toggle indicator so I can turn it on and off.

Improve the AI in the area of moving from point A to point B.
Playing TC2M last night, I directed a unit to go from A to B, both of which locations were in open fields. The unit went thru a cornfield, slowing it down and tiring it out, when it could have easily skirted the cornfield and stayed on open ground. I could have manually guided it, but if it was smart enough on it's own or if we could designate waypoints that would be a help.

[Wheeler47]

The ability to issue commands while the pause button is engaged.