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Some LAN sessions

Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 9:30 am
by Mazikainen
I played a couple of MP games when the sowgb demo first came out, but hadn't played multiplayer on the full game until last weekend. I managed to persuade a friend to buy the game and we tried MP on it at a LAN party we were attending.

The first match was the historical Oak Hill scenario, in which I played a division commander and my friend played a brigade subordinate to it, since he had only played tc2m before and was rusty. We played confederates. The AI made a good effort at turning the confederate left flank, and for a moment looked like he would succeed. My friend however made a good push on the confederate right flank and managed to deploy behind the union troops. The AI didn't manage to defend the stone wall in front of Oak hill, so he was at a disadvantage.

The second match we played a hunt them down brigade vs. brigade pvp. A larger confederate brigade versus a smaller (but a better one?) union brigade chosen by the balance system. We took our time marching and just as the first shots were being fired and the confederates started circling around the union flanks, the game ended, as I had forgotten to increase the time limit from 30 minutes.

The third session we made a corps vs. corps sandbox on east cavalry field with the human players controlling a division on opposite sides. We started with line of sight and played for an hour. The fighting was very intense throughout the hour. The confederates, spearheaded by me, made a strong push at the union centre defended by my opponent. The union made strong pushed on both of the confederate flanks. In the end, the union centre was routed but so were the confederate flanks. The Union AI didn't capitalize on the open flanks enough though, and failed to come to the help of my friends' division in the centre with reserves, so the union lost. Is there a way to increase AI aggressiveness in MP games? I didn't find anything in the options..

Technically, the game worked flawlessly on LAN. The command lag was small and there were no hiccups at all. Now, if I could just persuade more people in our gaming group to get the game so we'd be able to do bigger games. Maybe Norb could put a nice, big, meaty MP scenario in the demo to tease them into buying :)

Re: Some LAN sessions

Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 4:09 pm
by Little Powell
Sounds like you guys had a blast. MP is awesome on this game, there really is nothing else out there quite like it.

To answer your question about the AI aggressiveness; I assume your friend was on a side where some of the forces were under AI control. You can play around with the preset difficulty options, they will increase AI aggressiveness. A lot it also comes down to the style of the AI commander. If he's a conservative commander, he may not go after the flanks and really move around much at all.. If he's daring, he'll always be looking for a fight. You can also try the "Support to my location" courier message. When sent to an AI division, there's a chance they will come and support you.

Re: Some LAN sessions

Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 7:08 pm
by Mazikainen
So does the aggressiveness of the AI depend also on the profile of the historical commander who's at the helm of the AI? As in an AI corps under Stonewall Jackson is more likely to attack than one under Ewell?

Re: Some LAN sessions

Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 7:11 pm
by SouthernSteel
Oui.

Re: Some LAN sessions

Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:17 pm
by Mazikainen
Wow.