I am a little concerned

[DeepPoseidon]

I am a little concerned about the future of this game...
considering a lot of what the devs sold us isn't in the game and it's very different to how they sold it to us.

1. There is no persistent battlefields all the creators vanish, the tanks vanish. The only thing that stays is the trenches and buildings knocked down so you sold us a straight up lie.
2. The enemy seem to have unlimited supply. I don't know how many units I have knocked out but it seems to be just endless wave after wave followed by endless artillery.
3. Equipment doesn't carry over so you lose your MG nests, Balloons, artillery batteries and have to spend more supply setting them back up leaving you little for units and artillery barrages.
4. Barbed wire doesn't seem to do much infantry can still seem to pass through it with ease.
5. Enemy can take out my MG nests with light artillery meanwhile I have to do at least a minimum of 4 barrages on one of the MG nests to knock it out.
6. Player infantry dies super quick meanwhile the enemy infantry seems to have a lot longer time to kill life span.
7. AI ignore the FOW and can fire arty down on you even when you have taken out their observation balloons.

these are just some of the grip points I have picked up on.

[Your Friend Remi]

I honestly wished the Early war would have like early technology and little advances into what was to come in WW1 like chemical warfare and tanks and planes, but I feel like pretty much the only way to decide the factor of an early war battle is whichever player has more companies. And you're to the point where if you want to puncture through the enemy lines and take a hexagon with little companies, then you're just risking one of your hexagons to being attacked by enemies with a bunch of companies over one with little to none.

[Duke of Ghost]

+1, I'm truly wishing I didn't buy this game. That will change should they fix these issues but basically everything you said is true.

[Rataphract]

-1. I disagree with everything you said.

1. The level of persistence you're talking about would be cool? But the amount of persistence we have is way, way more than other games provide. Dawn of War Soulstorm used to flat out reset maps 100%.

2. Doesn't seem to be the case, for me. If you use the supply espionage mission you can see that the AI will almost always wait until it outnumbers you to attack, and often by a lot. Each infantry corps on the strategy map it brings means more supplies, so, yes. The AI brings more supplies than you to a battle, if it can. If you overwhelm it with like 6 infantry corps to 2, you'll see what I mean.

3. MG nests, balloons, artillery batteries, are all intentionally mobile. This is a war where everyone has artillery which is being used all the time. If you leave a machine gun there for a month, it will obviously get blown up. Many battlefield assets during the first world war had to be moved regularly because as soon as it could be drawn on a map and passed up the chain of command to the big guns, it was going to be shelled every day for a week. It makes sense... but I will say the game doesn't explain why it makes sense, this is only something you pick up when you know the history, and the game SHOULD explain it, but doesn't.

4. Barbed wire doesn't stop people. It slows them down. Which... it does. Also, barbed wire wasn't just one thin line of it. It was huge thicket-like fields of it. Lay multiple lines, criss-cross some links between it, and build your trenches further back from the absolute front line. Cover your barbed wire with machine guns. (But, I will admit, for the supply cost of barbed wire, it'd be nice if it was more effective. It feels expensive for the effect, whereas part of why it was used was that it was cheap.)

5. The enemy's probably using multiple guns, and heavy artillery. It may feel like 'one barrage', but if you're playing the same game/settings I am, it really isn't. Also, use heavy guns to attack MG nests. Light artillery isn't built for it, just for suppressing it.

6. Player infantry and enemy infantry seem to die at roughly the same pace to me, but, I will admit, when I started and before I understood how the trench networks worked, when I was moving my infantry in blocks of 2, my infantry would die a lot. And that's because I was putting my infantry in places where they could be shot - above ground - and the AI wasn't. So, I'm having a different game experience to you, but - again - this is something that, if it's the difference between our playstyles, it's not something the game explains, and it really needs to.

7. I haven't seen the AI ignore FOW in any way more egregious than I ignore the FOW. I have seen it dump arty shots into the middle of nowhere, I have seen it throw arty shots at my trenches, I have dumped arty into its trenches even if I can't see them. I have seen it park infantry in forests somewhat near my lines so I can't see them until my infantry skirmish into the forest, and I have done that to the AI - sat my infantry in a forest right next to their lines, and they ignore that infantry despite the fact I can now see them. So. Again, we're having different experiences, apparently, so I disagree.

[DeepPoseidon]

Originally posted by Rataphract:

-1. I disagree with everything you said.

1. The level of persistence you're talking about would be cool? But the amount of persistence we have is way, way more than other games provide. Dawn of War Soulstorm used to flat out reset maps 100%.

2. Doesn't seem to be the case, for me. If you use the supply espionage mission you can see that the AI will almost always wait until it outnumbers you to attack, and often by a lot. Each infantry corps on the strategy map it brings means more supplies, so, yes. The AI brings more supplies than you to a battle, if it can. If you overwhelm it with like 6 infantry corps to 2, you'll see what I mean.

3. MG nests, balloons, artillery batteries, are all intentionally mobile. This is a war where everyone has artillery which is being used all the time. If you leave a machine gun there for a month, it will obviously get blown up. Many battlefield assets during the first world war had to be moved regularly because as soon as it could be drawn on a map and passed up the chain of command to the big guns, it was going to be shelled every day for a week. It makes sense... but I will say the game doesn't explain why it makes sense, this is only something you pick up when you know the history, and the game SHOULD explain it, but doesn't.

4. Barbed wire doesn't stop people. It slows them down. Which... it does. Also, barbed wire wasn't just one thin line of it. It was huge thicket-like fields of it. Lay multiple lines, criss-cross some links between it, and build your trenches further back from the absolute front line. Cover your barbed wire with machine guns. (But, I will admit, for the supply cost of barbed wire, it'd be nice if it was more effective. It feels expensive for the effect, whereas part of why it was used was that it was cheap.)

5. The enemy's probably using multiple guns, and heavy artillery. It may feel like 'one barrage', but if you're playing the same game/settings I am, it really isn't. Also, use heavy guns to attack MG nests. Light artillery isn't built for it, just for suppressing it.

6. Player infantry and enemy infantry seem to die at roughly the same pace to me, but, I will admit, when I started and before I understood how the trench networks worked, when I was moving my infantry in blocks of 2, my infantry would die a lot. And that's because I was putting my infantry in places where they could be shot - above ground - and the AI wasn't. So, I'm having a different game experience to you, but - again - this is something that, if it's the difference between our playstyles, it's not something the game explains, and it really needs to.

7. I haven't seen the AI ignore FOW in any way more egregious than I ignore the FOW. I have seen it dump arty shots into the middle of nowhere, I have seen it throw arty shots at my trenches, I have dumped arty into its trenches even if I can't see them. I have seen it park infantry in forests somewhat near my lines so I can't see them until my infantry skirmish into the forest, and I have done that to the AI - sat my infantry in a forest right next to their lines, and they ignore that infantry despite the fact I can now see them. So. Again, we're having different experiences, apparently, so I disagree.

You have rocks in your brain or you're just ignorant to the common problems that are in this game. I am not the only one who sees these problems and pretending they're not there and that they're just "aspects of the game" won't make them any better. Because when I work my way up to the enemy lines they only have 1 or 2 batteries of artillery and there is no way they can direct artillery onto 4 separate spots with only 2 artillery batteries.

[Rataphract]

Originally posted by DeepPoseidon:

You have rocks in your brain or you're just ignorant to the common problems that are in this game. I am not the only one who sees these problems and pretending they're not there and that they're just "aspects of the game" won't make them any better. Because when I work my way up to the enemy lines they only have 1 or 2 batteries of artillery and there is no way they can direct artillery onto 4 separate spots with only 2 artillery batteries.

I'll look out for that while I play today, but I didn't notice anything like that happening yesterday, and I played for quite a lot.

[ShouteN]

Originally posted by Duke of Ghost:

+1, I'm truly wishing I didn't buy this game. That will change should they fix these issues but basically everything you said is true.

To develop challenging and smart AI is still a problem. So i am not sure if they are going to make it, specially till lunch. This game will get review bombed for sure if they are not going to fix it and when they will lose lots of sales, which will lead into cut development for sure. First impression is very important.

[DezKaiZer]

Originally posted by DeepPoseidon:

Originally posted by Rataphract:

-1. I disagree with everything you said.

1. The level of persistence you're talking about would be cool? But the amount of persistence we have is way, way more than other games provide. Dawn of War Soulstorm used to flat out reset maps 100%.

2. Doesn't seem to be the case, for me. If you use the supply espionage mission you can see that the AI will almost always wait until it outnumbers you to attack, and often by a lot. Each infantry corps on the strategy map it brings means more supplies, so, yes. The AI brings more supplies than you to a battle, if it can. If you overwhelm it with like 6 infantry corps to 2, you'll see what I mean.

3. MG nests, balloons, artillery batteries, are all intentionally mobile. This is a war where everyone has artillery which is being used all the time. If you leave a machine gun there for a month, it will obviously get blown up. Many battlefield assets during the first world war had to be moved regularly because as soon as it could be drawn on a map and passed up the chain of command to the big guns, it was going to be shelled every day for a week. It makes sense... but I will say the game doesn't explain why it makes sense, this is only something you pick up when you know the history, and the game SHOULD explain it, but doesn't.

4. Barbed wire doesn't stop people. It slows them down. Which... it does. Also, barbed wire wasn't just one thin line of it. It was huge thicket-like fields of it. Lay multiple lines, criss-cross some links between it, and build your trenches further back from the absolute front line. Cover your barbed wire with machine guns. (But, I will admit, for the supply cost of barbed wire, it'd be nice if it was more effective. It feels expensive for the effect, whereas part of why it was used was that it was cheap.)

5. The enemy's probably using multiple guns, and heavy artillery. It may feel like 'one barrage', but if you're playing the same game/settings I am, it really isn't. Also, use heavy guns to attack MG nests. Light artillery isn't built for it, just for suppressing it.

6. Player infantry and enemy infantry seem to die at roughly the same pace to me, but, I will admit, when I started and before I understood how the trench networks worked, when I was moving my infantry in blocks of 2, my infantry would die a lot. And that's because I was putting my infantry in places where they could be shot - above ground - and the AI wasn't. So, I'm having a different game experience to you, but - again - this is something that, if it's the difference between our playstyles, it's not something the game explains, and it really needs to.

7. I haven't seen the AI ignore FOW in any way more egregious than I ignore the FOW. I have seen it dump arty shots into the middle of nowhere, I have seen it throw arty shots at my trenches, I have dumped arty into its trenches even if I can't see them. I have seen it park infantry in forests somewhat near my lines so I can't see them until my infantry skirmish into the forest, and I have done that to the AI - sat my infantry in a forest right next to their lines, and they ignore that infantry despite the fact I can now see them. So. Again, we're having different experiences, apparently, so I disagree.

You have rocks in your brain or you're just ignorant to the common problems that are in this game. I am not the only one who sees these problems and pretending they're not there and that they're just "aspects of the game" won't make them any better. Because when I work my way up to the enemy lines they only have 1 or 2 batteries of artillery and there is no way they can direct artillery onto 4 separate spots with only 2 artillery batteries.

First of all Getting insulting because someone is Disagreeing with you really doesnt sell me your points at all. And while i Agree that there are some Issues. (Mine being basically whit the Supply Counter of the Enemy which is confusing when they can have more than i have scouted before)

I also Agree that after mimicking the AI a bit and taking hints from its behaviour and such it truly makes a difference how you approach the trench warfare in this game. And even if 99% of People Agree...if they are Wrong they are still Wrong. Just saying not actually telling you you are Wrong. But from my personal experience there are a lot of "Bugs and Cheating" Accusations for the AI which come from a place of Misunderstanding. Even the Devs said so in their Interactions on here. So we will see what they have to tell us when they make their clarification post.

until then have a nice War

[DeepPoseidon]

Originally posted by ~DezKaiZer~:

Originally posted by DeepPoseidon:

You have rocks in your brain or you're just ignorant to the common problems that are in this game. I am not the only one who sees these problems and pretending they're not there and that they're just "aspects of the game" won't make them any better. Because when I work my way up to the enemy lines they only have 1 or 2 batteries of artillery and there is no way they can direct artillery onto 4 separate spots with only 2 artillery batteries.

First of all Getting insulting because someone is Disagreeing with you really doesnt sell me your points at all. And while i Agree that there are some Issues. (Mine being basically whit the Supply Counter of the Enemy which is confusing when they can have more than i have scouted before)

I also Agree that after mimicking the AI a bit and taking hints from its behaviour and such it truly makes a difference how you approach the trench warfare in this game. And even if 99% of People Agree...if they are Wrong they are still Wrong. Just saying not actually telling you you are Wrong. But from my personal experience there are a lot of "Bugs and Cheating" Accusations for the AI which come from a place of Misunderstanding. Even the Devs said so in their Interactions on here. So we will see what they have to tell us when they make their clarification post.

until then have a nice War

Saying "have a nice war" is like saying "have a nice Christmas" after you insult someones family. And it wasn't a personal insult if someone can't see the obvious issues in this game then that's not my issue but pretending they're just game challenges and aspects when there is something wrong with it is just ignorant and they have rocks in their head.

[HistoricalGamer]

Originally posted by ~DezKaiZer~:

Originally posted by DeepPoseidon:

You have rocks in your brain or you're just ignorant to the common problems that are in this game. I am not the only one who sees these problems and pretending they're not there and that they're just "aspects of the game" won't make them any better. Because when I work my way up to the enemy lines they only have 1 or 2 batteries of artillery and there is no way they can direct artillery onto 4 separate spots with only 2 artillery batteries.

First of all Getting insulting because someone is Disagreeing with you really doesnt sell me your points at all. And while i Agree that there are some Issues. (Mine being basically whit the Supply Counter of the Enemy which is confusing when they can have more than i have scouted before)

I also Agree that after mimicking the AI a bit and taking hints from its behaviour and such it truly makes a difference how you approach the trench warfare in this game. And even if 99% of People Agree...if they are Wrong they are still Wrong. Just saying not actually telling you you are Wrong. But from my personal experience there are a lot of "Bugs and Cheating" Accusations for the AI which come from a place of Misunderstanding. Even the Devs said so in their Interactions on here. So we will see what they have to tell us when they make their clarification post.

until then have a nice War

I wonder if the supply going up after scouting has to do with how depots work? When I fight in a hex where I have a depot, I get my initial prep amount of supply but when I begin the battle I draw from the global supply and have extra supply. Are you just scouting the in hex supply that units carry with them but not what the depot provides? Just a thought of how it works maybe.

I also think the fact your limited to 30 unites plays a lot into folks frustration with AI spamming artillery/supply, because a hex with a 4 vs 2 corps battle, both sides can easily fill out the 30 unit cap, but one side is going to have a MAJOR advantage in terms of supply due to each units supply counting to the total deploy-able amount.

[DezKaiZer]

Originally posted by HistoricalGamer:

Originally posted by ~DezKaiZer~:

First of all Getting insulting because someone is Disagreeing with you really doesnt sell me your points at all. And while i Agree that there are some Issues. (Mine being basically whit the Supply Counter of the Enemy which is confusing when they can have more than i have scouted before)

I also Agree that after mimicking the AI a bit and taking hints from its behaviour and such it truly makes a difference how you approach the trench warfare in this game. And even if 99% of People Agree...if they are Wrong they are still Wrong. Just saying not actually telling you you are Wrong. But from my personal experience there are a lot of "Bugs and Cheating" Accusations for the AI which come from a place of Misunderstanding. Even the Devs said so in their Interactions on here. So we will see what they have to tell us when they make their clarification post.

until then have a nice War

I wonder if the supply going up after scouting has to do with how depots work? When I fight in a hex where I have a depot, I get my initial prep amount of supply but when I begin the battle I draw from the global supply and have extra supply. Are you just scouting the in hex supply that units carry with them but not what the depot provides? Just a thought of how it works maybe.

I also think the fact your limited to 30 unites plays a lot into folks frustration with AI spamming artillery/supply, because a hex with a 4 vs 2 corps battle, both sides can easily fill out the 30 unit cap, but one side is going to have a MAJOR advantage in terms of supply due to each units supply counting to the total deploy-able amount.

When you use your Intel on A Hex your are Attacking you can actually see if the Enemy has an Supply Depot there and how much Supply Draw he can have if you Scout Succesfully. I tried Attacking a Hex without a Depot on Purpose with a Total Army Supply of 180 for my enemy. And while the Supply definitely was Limited for the AI they still had at least 2 Machine guns on 3 Victory Points each, one Ballon that ive seen while Fighting the battle and of course lots of Shelling and trenches.

So the Supply must have been more than i have been able to see before the Battle thats a big Point of Confusion for me. I might still overlook something of course thats why i hope the Devs share a bit more Information about it.

[HistoricalGamer]

Originally posted by ~DezKaiZer~:

Originally posted by HistoricalGamer:

I wonder if the supply going up after scouting has to do with how depots work? When I fight in a hex where I have a depot, I get my initial prep amount of supply but when I begin the battle I draw from the global supply and have extra supply. Are you just scouting the in hex supply that units carry with them but not what the depot provides? Just a thought of how it works maybe.

I also think the fact your limited to 30 unites plays a lot into folks frustration with AI spamming artillery/supply, because a hex with a 4 vs 2 corps battle, both sides can easily fill out the 30 unit cap, but one side is going to have a MAJOR advantage in terms of supply due to each units supply counting to the total deploy-able amount.

When you use your Intel on A Hex your are Attacking you can actually see if the Enemy has an Supply Depot there and how much Supply Draw he can have if you Scout Succesfully. I tried Attacking a Hex without a Depot on Purpose with a Total Army Supply of 180 for my enemy. And while the Supply definitely was Limited for the AI they still had at least 2 Machine guns on 3 Victory Points each, one Ballon that ive seen while Fighting the battle and of course lots of Shelling and trenches.

So the Supply must have been more than i have been able to see before the Battle thats a big Point of Confusion for me. I might still overlook something of course thats why i hope the Devs share a bit more Information about it.

Does intel have any fog of war? I haven't used it much. In most wargames, intel operations have some degree of variation and reliability that play into things. It would make sense if your scouting could be "wrong" but I'll be honest I haven't played around with the intel tech tree yet so I haven't really used it much yet. Or perhaps intel is just bugged. Not sure.

[Hopeless Knight]

The game has a great foundation. I think most points about the AI are more about player ignorance than the other way around. If you use your spies you can see how much supply the AI utilizes on that Hex and with 9 divisions that the AI normally stacks before an attack, it gives the sensation of overwhelming numbers and supply (which stacks per div).
All of this whinning is just Skill Issue to be honest.

I think the game should take a harder stance on auto resolve it makes it too easy on easier difficulties. I just saw a guy playing a campaign for 8 turns and winning in just eight months into the war just by auto resolving 40 battles on very easy.

[DezKaiZer]

Originally posted by HistoricalGamer:

Originally posted by ~DezKaiZer~:

When you use your Intel on A Hex your are Attacking you can actually see if the Enemy has an Supply Depot there and how much Supply Draw he can have if you Scout Succesfully. I tried Attacking a Hex without a Depot on Purpose with a Total Army Supply of 180 for my enemy. And while the Supply definitely was Limited for the AI they still had at least 2 Machine guns on 3 Victory Points each, one Ballon that ive seen while Fighting the battle and of course lots of Shelling and trenches.

So the Supply must have been more than i have been able to see before the Battle thats a big Point of Confusion for me. I might still overlook something of course thats why i hope the Devs share a bit more Information about it.

Does intel have any fog of war? I haven't used it much. In most wargames, intel operations have some degree of variation and reliability that play into things. It would make sense if your scouting could be "wrong" but I'll be honest I haven't played around with the intel tech tree yet so I haven't really used it much yet. Or perhaps intel is just bugged. Not sure.

As far as i know it does not have a FOW Mechanic in that sense. The Tutorial Mentioned your first Intel Scout while always have 100% Success and each following attempt has a higher chance that the scout will Fail completely and you wont be able to use any more Scout mechanics on that turn.
But of course you might be on to something there..the scouted Supply could also be a more "about 180" Supply instead of being a definitive Number. I will Check in this direction later today. Thanks for that Idea

[Yuithgf]

Modders will probably fix it.

[HistoricalGamer]

Originally posted by 33rd Hopeless Knight:

The game has a great foundation. I think most points about the AI are more about player ignorance than the other way around. If you use your spies you can see how much supply the AI utilizes on that Hex and with 9 divisions that the AI normally stacks before an attack, it gives the sensation of overwhelming numbers and supply (which stacks per div).
All of this whinning is just Skill Issue to be honest.

I think the game should take a harder stance on auto resolve it makes it too easy on easier difficulties. I just saw a guy playing a campaign for 8 turns and winning in just eight months into the war just by auto resolving 40 battles on very easy.

I do get the sense that some of the complaints are a lack of understanding of whats happening, vs the game outright cheating, but I also don't think telling players "you suck, get good" is going to help anyone out. All you're going to do is trigger a fight, and it would be a terrible approach for the devs to take as well.

What I think would be far more helpful, is acknowledging the game is either deliberately, or not deliberately, doing a somewhat poor job of communicating information to players, and to help players understand why that is, and what is happening.

If the game wants things to be opaque, that's a perfectly acceptable design decision, but you gotta let players know that up front, you gotta tell them there's fog of war, there's different troop prices, etc what all goes into it, otherwise folks are going to feel like the AI cheats, or the game screwed them or whatever, and most players are not going to have a good experience. you don't have to hand hold, but you should at least explain what you're doing.

Or perhaps certain parts of the game's UI or Tutorial could be updated to help folks understand more clearly why things are happening the way they are.

Either way, telling gamers to "get good" is not a terribly constructive approach imho.