Hiding MP info

[NY Cavalry]

The MP community s growing finally. More and more players and courier groups seem to be starting up.

A concern many have in Mp games is all the available info available in game. I am referring to the info available through the stars. It is just too much info if we are looking at playing from a realism standpoint. The info isn't essential anyway and could be easily dropped. If anyone ever wants to get campaign going that info will likely wreck any campaign as it takes battlefield unknowns and makes them known to all. In HITS games the player has more access to info about other players strengths from the stars than he has info about the actual positioning of his own troops at any given moment.

The info would still be readily available to anyone computer savey who would take the time to make a mod and therefor have the info available, but for the rest of us who have an honor system i don't see a problem.

The less the info the better. That brings in the fog of war so predominate in military history.

If any other players agree with this then maybe you should post here and we may get a small change that would greatly improve this simulation.

[Blaugrana]

I agree.

It would be good to include this as an option, via the stock game options, the ini file or in a mod.

[Beef Stu]

seriously. it's never fun having the smallest division and no way of hiding it.

[norb]

That's a good point, this information should not be available to the other side. We'll get that in mantis.

[Martin James]

Excellent idea, and good news. Thanks.

Martin

[Olszowy]

This is a great idea and would like to add these thoughts. Is there a way to hide what commander you are selecting during game setup so that all that shows is the game is ready to launch? Reb side only sees reb side and vice versus. This kinda blows the whole element of surprise as well. Same with the name of the human player showing when you click on the human controlled commanders flag. An option within fog of war to turn all that info off would be great.
We use a CSV that places the corps in a tigther column formation around the map. We use all the corps randomly placed so you never quite know where you are going to start(could do the same with div or bde). All corps not taken by a human are AI controlled. You might start next to two human players or two AI or a mix or see nobody but a courier for 30 minutes. Locate your buddies by courier and then try to manuever your way to take out the enemy one piece at a time or get to good ground and hang on. I have had more fun playing SOW like this than on any other ACW I have ever played. the uncertainty, the risk, the moment of discovery when you realize you are between three enemy units...and they know it.

If there was a associated macro map of Northern VA or the Western Theater you could manuever across and then battle when you make contact...wow. There was a game long time ago that had something like that, but the battlefields and mechanics were poor.

[Martin James]

This is a great idea and would like to add these thoughts. Is there a way to hide what commander you are selecting during game setup so that all that shows is the game is ready to launch? Reb side only sees reb side and vice versus. This kinda blows the whole element of surprise as well. Same with the name of the human player showing when you click on the human controlled commanders flag. An option within fog of war to turn all that info off would be great.

That's an excellent idea too, Olszowy.

Martin

[NY Cavalry]

Just looking at the OOB screen in the staging room doesn't give troop strengths or troop quality. Unless you already know the oob it still leaves several unknowns. going into battle, there would be a certain amount of info about the opponent. Of course, unless you were McClellan.

[Martin James]

Just looking at the OOB screen in the staging room doesn't give troop strengths or troop quality. Unless you already know the oob it still leaves several unknowns. going into battle, there would be a certain amount of info about the opponent. Of course, unless you were McClellan.

Good point re troop strengths and troop quality. Your point re having a certain amount of info about the opponent is also valid. But only at the army level I think. If a division or corps of the Army of the Potomac was in action against a part of the ANV, they might have little idea of what they were facing.

Depending on how good their strategic intelligence was, once they identified say Anderson's Division facing them, they might be able to make a reasonable strength estimate (or they might not). But it seems to me that those initial 'unknowns' are quite important. It might turn out to be Pickett's Division not Anderson's, or there might be a second or even a third Confederate division lurking too. Do they outnumber the enemy, or does the enemy outnumber them?

Martin

[Saddletank]

I do not think, in battle, any troops know who or what they are facing. They see some men in grey (or blue) are ordered to engage them and do so. Sometimes the enemy line wavers and goes back, other times your guys are forced back. You may never know why. Apart from a few distinctively uniformed units, neither side would give away who they were by just standing there shooting at you.

Even if corps, division or brigade commanders knew which higher enemy formation they were facing... well, so what? hey are not going to act differently are they? And certainly they won't have the inclination or time to inform their men.

I'm in favour of leaving all the game info as it is now, but providing a series of historic/accurate/FoW toggles to turn off any number of options regarding information on the enemy right down to no player names and no enemy regt names given when you click on their flags. If you melee an enemy I think you should be told what regiment it is because win or lose you'll most likely come away with a few prisoners.

Most of the information about enemy formations was obtained prior to battles from deserters or prisoners or sympathetic locals so I don't have many issues with the army formations being visible in the formation selection screen (the host in any case will have very good knowledge if he's setting up a scenario or creating a sandbox scenario). Some of us have super analytical minds and excellent information retention and might remember those things in the heat of battle, some players won't and even that isn't unfair I don't think.