Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

If the game relies on AI we have trouble.
Theron can you micro manage your units like HPS? By the sounds of what you are saying you cannot.

If that's the case I would prefer HPS any day. Austerlitz is excellent.

I doubt I'll bother with it if you cannot run the units yourself as I hate moronic AI's [:D].

General de Brigade Knox
Grand Duc d'Austerlitz et Comte de Argentan



Escadron Mamelouks
Chasseurs a'Cheval
Division de Cavalerie la Vieille Garde.





CO. 1er Brigade, III Division Cavalerie Legere, III Corps Armee du Nord
http://www.aspire.co.nz/colinknoxnwc.htm

No. Micromanagement is not the theme of LG at all. Maybe not for you for a while then. Personally I have the other reaction: Directing skirmisher companies at Borodino as well as commanding the army drives me nuts. hehe Well, each to their own @ the NWC.

Lithuanian Uhlans,
Russian Army

To me,
the open question for Les Grognards is whether or not the AI actually works well enough for the game to run right. That is a tall, tall task, because to really work everything from skirmishing to cavalry countercharges to mixed order has to work.

I find the idea of a corps level simulation interesting but for it to work in the level of detail presented is a tall challenge. I really hope it works!


Feldmarschall Jim 'Prinz' Pfluecke
Commander, Austrian Cavalry Reserve
3 Graf O'Reilly Chevauxleger Rgt
Hahn Grenadier Bn

You're right, it is a tall order for the AI. In LG there are two engines: one for the game mechanics and another for the graphics. Being a one-man enterprise, LG's graphics are adequate currently but not as sexy as big company releases more focussed on game play rather than simulation. Sometimes too what you see doesn't adequately express what happens. However I'm confident that the game mechanics do actually stand up fairly well at this stage and will certainly only improve as HistWar gets feed back from all the players buying the game now. Likewise the graphics.

One virtue of LG is that it has tried to introduce a sensible AI where, with many other titles, there is virtually none. That is, I can order a corps or a group of divisions to attack that village over there with a series of simple clicks, then, like a commander, I issue no further orders until I see the need. I don't pace out the path for each battalion in turn, etc. etc. So, it's the first of (what I hope will be a group of) so-called 'First Person Commander' games. From the viewing I've done, the AI tries to achieve those objectives with good sense, not like a thick robot. So, for e.g., if the corps is threatened on a flank, it's (AI) commander will take sensible precautions without me/player having to micro-manage the response (though I can ride over and order this brigade or regiment to undertake a particular mission, too).

The other day I watched a movie of a battle I'd fought a week ago in the demo, locking myself to the perspective of a division commander. Fantastic simulation & 'battlefield' view. It's a great feature with the game that battles are saved as movies (only a few MB too!) and you can rewatch them, fully able to zoom about to check out different key moments. I'm really looking forward to the postmortems after playing LANed battles with a friend or three at my kitchen table or at a games club on a Saturday afternoon!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5keJJf-NIlY is a link to a YouTube video 'Bibouba' produced of in-game action. The narrative isn't so strong but it gives you a feel for how it all looks.

Cheers

Harry


Lithuanian Uhlans,
Russian Army

Harry the day AI can actually do a descent simulation I would happily move away from micromanagement as it can be tedious in a big game.

However I reckon there is about as much chance of the AI being that smart as the Wallabies had of beating the All Blacks this year gone.[:0][:D][:D]

Salute!

General de Brigade Knox
Grand Duc d'Austerlitz et Comte de Argentan



Escadron Mamelouks
Chasseurs a'Cheval
Division de Cavalerie la Vieille Garde.





CO. 1er Brigade, III Division Cavalerie Legere, III Corps Armee du Nord
http://www.aspire.co.nz/colinknoxnwc.htm

Bless wikipedia. I know know more about the Bledisloe Cup and the fact that NZ generally kicks the butt of the New South Wales team - oh, I mean the Australian team. AND I saw you took the 2009 series 4 nil!! Yep, Weeping Wallabies alright!! Let alone the fact that you own the cup and apparently only let us borrow it occasionally.

Well, keep an open mind on LG Colin. You'll understand if I like the idea of more players in nearby timezones.

Lithuanian Uhlans,
Russian Army