Campaigns suggestion and feedback

[Zipuli]

Hello!

The campaigns bring a lot of "game" to Pike and Shot, well done!

There are a few things I noticed while playing the Swedish and Turkish war campaigns:
- Autoresolved battles don't count as "victories" nor "defeats" in the final score
- Province supply limit (points) is inconsistent between the tooltip and the info given on the right panel when the province is selcted... which info is correct??? (see image)

A suggestion that would make at least the Swedish campaign less frustrating:
- have player be able to pick the units for garrison duties, or even purchase the garrison if there is money in the treasury. I was not very happy when on the crucial moment my best salvo and hakkapeliitta units were ordered to garrison a province while the main imperial army was moving in!

Also a suggestion, that would make finishing campaigns slightly more rewarding:
- In the final screen give information on losses of all kinds from the duration of the campaign... Like how many combat casualties, how many deserted/starved due to supply problems, how many were lost during sieges or acting as delay party while the army withdrew. I noticed that in the Swedish campaign both sides lost a lot more due to other causes than field combat!

In the Swedish campaign I also noticed that the imperials had advantage in numbers the whole time, but I was able to starve them enough during the year, while outmaneuvering to pick provinces, to eventually win. Not many battles were fought.

[rbodleyscott]

- Autoresolved battles don't count as "victories" nor "defeats" in the final score

That is working as intended. You only get credit (or blame) for the battles you fought out yourself.

- Province supply limit (points) is inconsistent between the tooltip and the info given on the right panel when the province is selcted... which info is correct??? (see image)

That is a bug. Thanks for pointing it out. The code is not correctly reporting the supply limit in the province because of the presence of the enemy army. The net effect is that the actual supply limit is somewhere in between the displayed values when an enemy army is in the province, because the tool-tip is over-compensating and the main display is under-compensating. This will be corrected for the next update.

Thanks also for your other suggestions. We will take them under consideration.

[Pixel]

@rbodleyscott How is the prestige value at the end of a campaign calculated? Just finished a ECW campaign and was wondering about this.

The manual suggests it has to do with provinces won/lost and the decisiveness of victories and defeats throughout the course of the campaign. Does prestige have any other impact or does it just serve as a numerical score to try to best on a second play through?

[rbodleyscott]

@rbodleyscott How is the prestige value at the end of a campaign calculated? Just finished a ECW campaign and was wondering about this.

The manual suggests it has to do with provinces won/lost and the decisiveness of victories and defeats throughout the course of the campaign. Does prestige have any other impact or does it just serve as a numerical score to try to best on a second play through?

Exactly so.

[Ffire31]

Hello

new to this game and forum, first let me tell you it's great game

however it needs more feature in the campaign mod to become an awesome one imho.

Actually this how I think the game incitate you to play campaigns : you stack some armies to build a big one and then chase an ennemy army around the whole map, during other ennemy armies try to besiege your provinces.
Or you divide your armies to match opponent strenght (to incitate the IA to accept battle) and fight open battle vs a slightly superior ennemy army and then you play the same type of battles again and again.

I think it lacks of depth. it remind me an other game achtung panzer by graviteam where the tactical phase is awesome while the operationnal phase sucks

my suggestions to improve the game :
- Give the possibility to order "stance" to the armies, the probability to evade battle or to play any kind of battle should depend of the combination of the attacker stance vs defender stance and the composition of both army. Changing stance cost ap except during initial deployment.
ap cost changes depending the stance used
- Add some war fog ; seiing ennemy stance and having just estimation about his numbers depends if you control the province or have high cav number (they scout) and should be wrong sometimes.
- add generals on the campaign map with traits. To add them on the battefield you should create a small unit wich add as headquarters
- Let the player choose wich units are garrisonned. being on garrison duty raise up morale, except under siege.
only unexperienced troops can be recruited, but they can slowly train while they garrison
- you should spend ap to siege.
- Add an ironman mode (the game autosave, and there's only one save for one campaign)
- And generally speaking, add un undo button (who should be availaible only for the actions wich do not generate a dice roll). it's very frustrating some time when you don't click the good tile and turn your back to the ennemy while you want to fall back

Keep up the good work

(and sorry for my bad english)

[rbodleyscott]

Thank you for your suggestions.

[Keir]

Hi there.

Bought the game on steam today and had a blast playing the tutorials. Really nice battle system.

The addition of campaigns is why I bought P&S so I started with the ECW on Sgt Major (3) difficulty. Campaign started well with an early battle versus a similar sized Royalist force which I won. Since then no battles. I attack with a similar sized force to them - they retreat. So I attack with a smaller force and they retreat. They attack me and I auto retreat.

I sieged the West Midlands for awhile (up to 60% chance to take) so they counter attack and I automatically retreat even though I want to give battle - it doesn't even give an option to stand an fight? In desperation for a fight I attacked straight back outnumbered and they retreat from their province with the same stack the made me auto retreat. I think the forces where 1300 pts for me versus 1600 pts for them. This goes on until late summer of 1644 and I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong - they won't fight me even with the advantage?

I bought the game after watching a video of a guy connected to Slitherine playing it and answering questions. My understanding from that is that the campaign is designed to be a battle generator with context and carry over - is that right?

What I'm experiencing feels like a bug not a feature. Why would my force auto retreat from an enemy who then retreats from me the next turn with the same forces involved? Since then I've attacked aggressively outnumbered most turns without the Royalists giving battle. The Royalist strategy is too avoid battle under almost all circumstances which is very frustrating. Right now all their armies are stacked up in the West Midlands after being chased around by me. They have combined them into a single army with just over 4000 pts and must be suffering from attrition.

How do I get a fight?

[rbodleyscott]

What I'm experiencing feels like a bug not a feature. Why would my force auto retreat from an enemy who then retreats from me the next turn with the same forces involved?

Because there is a Fog of War factor affecting each side's perception of the size of the enemy force. The reported size of the enemy army can be between 75 and 133% of its actual size. So if both sides overestimate the size of the enemy forces, both will retreat.

Historically there was a lot of marching and countermarching between significant battles, and generals would not accept battle if (in their opinion) they were significantly disadvantaged.

The present system is based on this historical truth, and intended to avoid battles that are too unbalanced to be any challenge for the advantaged side.

[jomni]

Just keep playing. Eventualy there will be a fight. I can go for years without a fight, just like in real life.

You should also keep track of losses happening due to supply constraints and attrition. Even forcing the enemy to retreat can make him lose men even "without fighting". Then you form your strategy around this than engaging in battles. Force him to retreat to poor provinces so that he can starve to death. The best strategy is not to fight at all.

It bites you back also. I moved my "stack of doom" around and the enemy ran away. Guess who lost more men? Me, because the enemy kinda knows that I cannot sustain my large army indefinitely. This is a better strategy for the outnumbered side than giving battle.

If you want a battle, you can reduce the size of your forces to make the enemy confident. But you have to be smart about it.

The option to stand and fight is intersting though.

[Chaldean]

Those armies do feel slippery and it is hard to force a battle. I understand that it helps to generate only interesting and balanced battles but maybe this slipperiness could be reduced by allowing defenders and attackers to push their luck and then giving outnumbered defenders some battle advantages.

For example, if defenders are significantly but not extremely outnumbered, attackers could choose either audacious or cautious attack and defenders could choose either to retreat or dig in.

Cautious attack and retreat: as is, defenders retreat with no battle
Cautious attack and defenders dig in: defenders have fortifications
Audacious attack and retreat: attacker rearguard arrives late as reinforcements or St Quentin scenario type withdrawal battle
Audacious attack and defenders dig in: defenders have fortifications and attacker rearguard arrives late

[rbodleyscott]

Those armies do feel slippery and it is hard to force a battle. I understand that it helps to generate only interesting and balanced battles but maybe this slipperiness could be reduced by allowing defenders and attackers to push their luck and then giving outnumbered defenders some battle advantages.

For example, if defenders are significantly but not extremely outnumbered, attackers could choose either audacious or cautious attack and defenders could choose either to retreat or dig in.

Cautious attack and retreat: as is, defenders retreat with no battle
Cautious attack and defenders dig in: defenders have fortifications
Audacious attack and retreat: attacker rearguard arrives late as reinforcements or St Quentin scenario type withdrawal battle
Audacious attack and defenders dig in: defenders have fortifications and attacker rearguard arrives late

Interesting ideas. Thanks.