Slitherine

Hi guys,

I am a big fan of CEAW other than the non-secure PBEM. It sounds like this game is going to fix that which is great.

However I have a concern. CNAW was a terrible game, in large part because there just were not enough hexes in Europe to allow for manuever. From the screenshots of this game it appears to face a similar problem.

I'd like to recommend that you consider some option to increase the manuever room at least on the main fronts to avoid parking lot syndrome, in particular because stacking is not implemented in the game.

You could:
A) use a different scale for the main fronts in Europe than you do for outlying regions like the Atlantic ocean, scandinavia, n. africa, mid east, etc. For examples of this you can have a look at some of the user-made scenarios for the SC2GC game fromt battlefront.com, or the Advanced Tactics WaW scenario or World in Flames (boardgame). All of these essentially double the size of hexes outside of europe. This allows more manuever room in Europe.
B) zoom the map in to exclude the fringe areas and implement those as offmap boxes similar to what World in Flames boardgame does (without expansions) or WW1 Gold from Ageod does. This would maximize the number of hexes where it really matters - in Italy, France, Prussia, Austria, Russia.
C) increase overall map size to allow more hexes on the map (i.e. add another 100 hexes to x and y axes)

I hope you will seriously consider this suggestion as lack of manuever room completely ruined CNAW.

Thanks

IMO the biggest problem with CNAW was trying to portrait semi-tactical napoleonic battles on a strategic scale campaignmap. Obviously there was not enough room for that.

WW1 is much more comparable to WW2 than the Napoleonic wars, in scale and many other things. So the gameplay is much more simular to CEAW than CNAW. The Western Front was known for its "lack of manoeuvring room" which is exactly what led to the stalemate in the trenches. We are balancing the faction economies and unit cost/upkeep to make certain you won't be able to press 3 solid rows of Infantry Corps all along the western front. Generally you'll hold a single line with a few reserves spread out in a second line, while all other units are required on other fronts.

After 1914 the most dynamic/important fronts will be the eastern front and the balkans, and any other front you or the AI choses to open. Unit density will be a bit smaller than CEAW so there should be plenty of room in the East and Arabian desert. Combined with much shorter LOS (compared to CEAW) the element of surprise will be very important and thus encourage concentration and manoeuvring of forces.

We do have a couple of "tactical" units such as Armoured Cars and Cavalry but these serve a limited and very specific purpose. In reality they were only useful in mobile fronts such as the Eastern and Mesopotamian/Middle East theatres.

Will it be possible to built fortifications? Later in the war it was much more then trenches alone which 'protected' the soldiers. Bunkers and fortified positions were raised as well.

adherbal wrote: The Western Front was known for its "lack of manoeuvring room" which is exactly what led to the stalemate in the trenches.

Ah well I would respectfully disagree with that analysis. The front can be constrained while still offering players some granularity in unit size to allow manuevering. If unit level is army or army group size then there is really not much movement possible - you just smush some units into the front without a lot of thought or options. If unit level is division or corp sized then there is a lot more flexibility for the player. Instead of "my 2 or 3 units squish into Belgium", it can be "my most experienced corps occupy the area around and just south of Brussels while my new militia corps extend the defense line south into the Ardennes. That portion of the line is backed up by 2 reserve regular infantry corps and my fledgling tank unit is in reserve just west of Brussels. The line to the sea is completed by a mix of French Foreign Legion corps and Belgian corps.". The latter poses far more interesting decisions for the player and is what I mean by manuever room - it's about granularity.

As for why the western front solidified I think in large part that's a function of technology: machine guns and trenches with no corresponding offensive piece to counter that defense other than artillery (no tanks, planes to speak of, etc)......not just due to a limited width front.

I'm looking forward to the game but this lack of granularity for manuever and manuever room in screenshots isn't what I'd hoped for. I'll be rooting for your success and for a good game though.

"my most experienced corps occupy the area around and just south of Brussels while my new militia corps extend the defense line south into the Ardennes. That portion of the line is backed up by 2 reserve regular infantry corps and my fledgling tank unit is in reserve just west of Brussels. The line to the sea is completed by a mix of French Foreign Legion corps and Belgian corps."

Certainly what you explain may be "more interesting" but it only takes the western front into account. If the game scale allows ~10 units in Belgium alone you are looking at 100+ units to manage throughout the entire campaignmap. I'm not saying that wouldn't be fun but it is not the scale we are looking at for this Commander game. It's focus is on a higher strategic level, simular to the one in CEAW.

Will it be possible to built fortifications? Later in the war it was much more then trenches alone which 'protected' the soldiers. Bunkers and fortified positions were raised as well.

The Hindenburg Line is a good example of that. Currently we don't have any sort of contruction though, just automated entrenchment. It's been discussed though, and I'm not ruling it out entirely yet. But no promises.