Tuesday Morning Exercises part 6

[doomtrader]

This time I would like to write something about a very cool feature that is unit's upgrade.

Most probably the image attached to this post will explain everything, but please let me tell you a little bit about it.

Thanks to that a basic infantry division can be ultimately promoted to the enlarged armored unit (corps in this case). Achieving that needs a lot of time and lot of Production Points, but for an experienced unit, the result might be worth to give it a try.

Imagine that you have got an infantry unit that participated in many battles during early campaigns and received only little losses. This makes the unit very well experienced and allows it to be even more efficient during future battles. However with the time passing by, infantry unit becomes too slow and this reduces possibility to engage enemy. Wise decision would be upgrading this unit to motorized division. This will increase speed of the unit and will allow to catch many more enemies. Next step will be upgrading the unit to armoured division. This will boost strength of the unit and make it much more deadly for enemies. Last and ultimate step is upgrading this unit to armoured corps. This will upgrade strength of the unit even more and with the proper commander make it a very efficient part of the spearhead.





Please feel free to ask questions about this (and others) feature and let me know what do you think about that.

[Frido1207]

Interesting idea.
But nevertheless i have some questions about this concept.
Generally i think it depends on how these upgrades are translated into PP costs & how the unit experience is handled. I confess i don´t know anything about this yet.

Nevertheless here are my thoughts / questions:

Assuming i have an experienced mot.Inf Div/Corps, if i upgrade them to an armoured unit, wouldn´t they not being novices concerning tank tactics & the like? Wouldn´t it be necessary to drop the experience level of that unit to reflect this? Or what about to just allow to upgrade a mot Inf Corps to an armoured Div to reflect this "experience issue".

Another question is related to the Inf Div to Para upgrade path:
As far as i know are Para troops "Elite troops". So i would guess, even in an experienced Inf unit only a part of that troops would be able to serve as Paratroops. Here again i would suggest only to allow an upgrade from Inf Corps to Para Div to reflect this point.
Also, as Para troops in ToW & SotP are only available in Div size, please don´t allow an upgrade from Para Div to any Corps sized unit.

But please keep in mind, i don´t know anything about the details of your concept & everything i wrote could be meaningless.

[doomtrader]

We didn't wanted to make the Time of Fury to complicated and also trying to encourage players to use all the features within the game so we didn't included to many rules into upgrading units.

[vveedd]

We didn't wanted to make the Time of Fury to complicated and also trying to encourage players to use all the features within the game so we didn't included to many rules into upgrading units.

LOL . If I may, I will say couple words here. Too complicated? Don’t want to criticize you before I, actually, try the game but I think that you are making a few crucial mistakes.
First mistake is game duration. Grand campaign has more than 450 (!!!!) turns if I have seen correctly? My estimation is that only 1 % of starting games will be, actually, finished even with great Slitherine PBEM++ system. Simple calculation: if you play 1 turn per day you will need, approximate, 1 year and 3 months (!!!!!) to finish the game. LOL , you can die a couple of times in this time period. I have seen that you are Third Reich board game fans and you haven’t learned anything? One of crucial element why this game is so great is game duration – 4 turns per year. Is, at least, one game in Beta playing finished? LOL .
Second mistake is that you want merge all great old games in to one (Panzer General, Third Reich, Clash of Steel, World in flames etc.) and that why you (still) have too many options, too many micromanagement and too large map. Maybe hard core wargamers will like it but game with all that is not what I called fun game.

[doomtrader]

vveedd, the game is very easily moddable, there is no problem to change the turns length to two weeks, or even a month, of course a couple of other small changes should be then done.

I don't think there is a lot of micromanagement. If you wish, you can just move your units against enemy. Of course in PBEM this can be different, you can also play couple of turns a day. Very much depends on the game style. Some players take 10 minutes and some 2 hours to make their turn

Also the Grand Campaigns end when there is only one player left. 450 turns is dedicated to finish at 1948. With two click you can change it to 1.06.1945 and there is 170 turns less

[lascar]

I have only recently become aware of Time of Fury and have been following closely any information that I can find on it. The AARs are particularly helpful in that regard. I am impressed by the apparent depth and scope of the design. It seems to cover all the important aspects of the European theater and promises to offer a real historical feel and sense of immersion. The modability, such as changing the turn time scale, seems to be a particularly powerful feature of the design. I am looking forward to the release of this one for sure.

[vveedd]

vveedd, the game is very easily moddable, there is no problem to change the turns length to two weeks, or even a month, of course a couple of other small changes should be then done.

I don't think there is a lot of micromanagement. If you wish, you can just move your units against enemy. Of course in PBEM this can be different, you can also play couple of turns a day. Very much depends on the game style. Some players take 10 minutes and some 2 hours to make their turn

Also the Grand Campaigns end when there is only one player left. 450 turns is dedicated to finish at 1948. With two click you can change it to 1.06.1945 and there is 170 turns less

Thanks for quick reply, again. Still, my opinion is that you are making mistake about game duration. I appreciate your work on game mod ability but, by default, players don’t wish to play any game changed by other players. Usually they all stick to default, original scenarios. To prove it I will say this: couple years ago I have had very successful cooperation with guys who made Commander Europe At War and we have had the same conversation and they have had similar stand. After some time they have added in next patch, expansion or whatever (can’t remember anymore) short scenarios for multiplayer purposes. As I know, they were very pleased with that.
Maybe micromanagement is not best word but you, definitely, have too many information about everything. Strategy on global scale means exactly that – on global scale so everything should have been adjusted accordingly. I don’t care if one my soldier in army group has a flu .