14-02-2004 07:09									#91
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This is looking really great!

The look of everything is just so darn cool!

	14-02-2004 21:06									#92
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Looks really nice, and the improvements of the artillery is GREAT!

	14-02-2004 22:31									#93
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Thanks guys!

Another screenshot: The East Coast on the eve of war. Longstreet waits for the inevitable Yankee assault in order to sway world opinion to his cause...

Attachment: easternseaboard.jpg
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	15-02-2004 07:23									#94
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Look at all those spaces I can only think of how many more units could be represented in this scenario. However I am curently drunk and two thousand miles away from my personal computer (I am in Texas) and sadly cannot help. I am anxious to see the outcome.

P.S. I am currently reading "The American Front" and think it is a far better read than "How Few Remain".

	15-02-2004 21:02									#95
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OMG! Nice screenie!
When will it be released?

	15-02-2004 21:20									#96
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Well, I was originally planning for a beta test at the end of February, but that was grossly optimistic. I'm not going to set a date as I don't know when I'll be back home again.

Regardless, I did get a great deal of work on it done this weekend. Graphics are completely finished. The scenario file is almost complete: the units and city improvements have all been placed. City commodities have been adjusted to be more appropriate for a given region using civtweak, and trade routes have been established. The only thing left to do is define which cities are objectives.

I still have to start work on the game.txt and rules.txt to have text messages more appropriate to the era. Events have not yet been written (if anyone has any suggestions, let's hear them)!

So, I'd say another 5-6 hours work before it's ready to roll.

	15-02-2004 21:20									#97
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I agree with Jimmywax!

I would love to see more units!

	15-02-2004 21:26									#98
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What other units would you like to see?

To finish off with: two screenshots showing the relative strength of each nations army on the eve of battle. First the Union:

Attachment: unionarmy.jpg
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	15-02-2004 21:28									#99
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The Confederate armed forces.

Attachment: confederatearmy.jpg
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	10-03-2004 23:43									#100
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I should have a playtest version ready by 6pm GMT tomorrow. If you're interested, leave your e-mail and I'll send you a copy.

I've put a lot of work into this, but it's still pretty rough. Therefore I would ask people only to volunteer to playtest if they are willing to commit themselves to giving me feedback on how to improve it.

Ideally I'd like equal numbers of players playtesting the Confederates and Union. The British should also be playable. The Mexicans and Mormons won't be any fun to play though.

So if you've any preference with regard to which side you'd like to playtest with, let me know in your post.

	11-03-2004 00:53									#101
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I would just love to playtest the Brits. Lets see just how much of the US I can capture.

	11-03-2004 18:54									#102
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I'd like to have a go O_M. Time is a bit limited, but I can give feedback on the weekend. Either US or Confederates will do.

The e-mail button in my profile works; I don't want to post it here for spammers

	11-03-2004 20:41									#103
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Three cheers for the Stars & Bars.

Message & e-mail address sent via Apolyton e-mail.

	12-03-2004 03:21									#104
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Sorry Agricola, I can't get your e-mail message that way. The e-mail I used to sign up to Apolyton to was from a now defunct site. I'll post it here for the moment, even though it's not the most ideal solution. Maybe you could PM me your e-mails?

Please acknowledge that you've downloaded it. Thanks for volunteering guys!

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php...owFewRemain.zip

	12-03-2004 03:58									#105
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So, things I'd appreciate comments on:

Units - are the unit statistics OK? Are any of the units too powerful or weak? Did the computer build all unit types available to it, or did it concentrate on just a few? Are there too many units in the game at the start?

Goody Huts - what are you getting inside them? Anything weird?

Research - too fast/slow? Problems with the tech tree?

Barbarians - if you encounter any barbarians, please let me know what they were. I tried very hard to properly fit barbarians into the game for both goody huts and uprisings.

At the moment I'm trying to figure out what, if any, additional events to add in as I still have lots of space. I'm also still working on the game.txt (which might explain why some of the messages don't make sense in the scenario at the moment).

	12-03-2004 03:59									#106
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*Downloading*

I'm just looking at it right now and I love it. I'll probably have more time to get into it tomorrow

	13-03-2004 03:46									#107
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Hmmm... well it looks good from the get go. I'm not sure I like the fact that the mormons are green.

	13-03-2004 05:23									#108
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Downloading

	14-03-2004 08:37									#109
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@ our_man

Please take a look at your PM.

	14-03-2004 16:02									#110
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OK Agricola, thanks for the feedback. You've made some very good points, which I believe the other playtesters will also comment on.

The background. I agree; it is quite hard to read the writing. I'll consider changing it to something more suitable. WRT to resources inside the city, I've never had much of a problem. What do the other playtesters think?

I'd just better state this before I go any further; I still have to finish off changing the rules.txt and game.txt to make the in-game text more appropriate. So, when you do pop a hut, think of it as sending in a surveyor to the village, who finds that it is now large enough to be considered a town. I will include an altered cities.gif in the release version to fit in more appropriately with the milieu. What's everyone elses opinion on the huts? Are there too many of them? Should I get rid of them altogether?

Movement. I raised the road value from 3 up to 4, but obviously it still isn't fast enough. What do you think would be a suitable road multiplier value? I'll make the engineer a move 2 unit anyway.

Agricola, the problems you outlined for the CSA will also affect the USA, as I tried to make the two sides as balanced as possible. If everyone else is having the same problem, I'll change the caravan units to have a shield cost of 50, and lower the tech paradigm from 20/10 to 15/10. I tried to err on the side of caution while making this scenario. Caravans are incredibly powerful units so I wanted to prevent the player from relying on them too much.

I know that unit cost in the scenario is high, but this is because I would like players to think about conserving their units rather than wasting them. Hopefully they'll be left with tough decisions about whether to strike quickly at a lightly defended region and suffer casualties or proceed more cautiously and allow the defences time to build up.

Thanks for the great feedback. That was a great deal of useful information for me. And you haven't even started to play yet!

	17-03-2004 02:25									#111
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@ our_man

Please take a look at your PM.

BTW, I believe that Control Panel/Edit Profile lets you change your e-mail address to make it current.

Last edited by AGRICOLA on 17-03-2004 at 02:41

	18-03-2004 00:52									#112
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To all playtesters, I have changed my e-mail (thanks Agricola!) so you can now e-mail me via apolyton. For future updates I'll probably e-mail the files, so could you please PM me your addresses, as at the moment I only have Fairlines and Agricolas.

Agricola, very impressed with your success. I think that it shouldn't be too hard to make it a bit tougher however by giving the cities you captured coastal fortresses and city walls.

	19-03-2004 23:40									#113
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OK guys, I've just read through Agricolas excellent report on how his game went as the Confederates. I'll list some of the gameplay changes that I'm thinking of making to make this a more challenging scenario.

- Changes to research and trade (mentioned in previous posts)
- Increase the number of cities on both sides with Coastal Fortresses/City Walls
- Increase the size of the United States Navy
- Reduce the attacks of both artillery units by 1
- Prevent the player from building forts until he has researched a new advance

Hopefully this will make for a tougher human game against the AI.

Please let me know how you're doing in your playtests and whether you agree with the proposals outlined above.

	19-03-2004 23:48									#114
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skrprod@earthlink.net

	20-03-2004 05:31									#115
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By how many % will reducing the tech paradigm to 15/10 actually reduce the number of flasks needed for a tech advance? IIRC, at the beginning of the game, the Rebs needed 9 turns for a new tech, a very long time in a 50 turn scenario.

As I see it, the problem is that a good unit like the Cruiser needs 5 or 6 tech advances. Advances have to be much faster to ensure that the unit is still needed by the time it becomes available. In my game, in part thanks to the powerful British navy, the war at sea was effectively finished before the end of 1881. Doing further research to obtain cruisers would have been pointless.

Traders that cost 50 shields may still be on the expensive side. IMO a CSA city would have to have at least 25 trade arrows to make it worthwhile to build a Trader and set up the transportation needed to deliver it to Port-au-Prince. The Rebs don't have many cities that fit that criterion. It comes down to a value judgement, does a player want ~250 shekels or, for 10 extra shields, another vet artillery.

Ooops, as I was checking the above numbers while writing this post, I noticed that the Pedia says that a Transport has a Mv=13. Is the Pedia wrong or do you think that the poor quality of the coal available to the Confederacy is the reason why their Transports have Mv=10?

No problem with any other of your ideas.

IMHO you have a very interesting scenario. The main map is absolutely perfect.

Last edited by AGRICOLA on 20-03-2004 at 05:39

	20-03-2004 21:15									#116
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The move 13 in the pedia is a bug. It's best to ignore this for movement values; it also lists Jeb Stuart as having a move value of 4.

I've made a lot of changes, and will e-mail you the new zip files tonight. I only have e-mail addresses for Fairline, Agricola and POTUS at the moment however, so Sarsstock and Kobra, could you please let me know your e-mails so I can send you the file.

Again, thanks for the help guys. I want to let you know that my final exams are coming up in a months time, so I won't be making any further updates for at least 6 weeks. By all means continue playtesting and letting me know how you're getting on, but just don't be too put out if I'm not able to address your concerns immediately.

	21-03-2004 00:30									#117
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Sorry, but I was trying to make smarta** joke about the transport movement.

Catfish posted the following explanation for the discrepancy

quote: Originally posted by Catfish Defence Advisor displays raw MF values. The Pedia, on the other hand, uses this formula: Road Multiplier/3 x MF Therefore, when the Road Multiplier is 4 and the MF is 1, the Pedia displays 1 (1.33 rounded down). When the MF is 3, the Pedia displays 4.

in Case's "Appeasement and Aggression Released" thread in this forum.

Best of luck with your exams.

	21-03-2004 02:41									#118
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File sent to playtesters.

	21-03-2004 07:21									#119
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Got it. Thanks.

	30-03-2004 13:19									#120
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I like the terrain graphics, the yellow colour. Don't know why.