Brigade Size Entry Box

[chillwolf]

For the love of god, if I could just type in 2000 instead of adjusting a slider, I would save hours of my life. 

It cant be all that hard to add in, please just add this small QoL change. This game is amazing otherwise. 

[Fred Sanford]

I hear you.  I slide to get close, then click the arrows at the end of the slider to fine tune the number.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

2 hours ago, chillwolf said:

For the love of god, if I could just type in 2000 instead of adjusting a slider, I would save hours of my life. 

It cant be all that hard to add in, please just add this small QoL change. This game is amazing otherwise. 

Agreed, great game.

I would expect a major tweak in the Camp to be on the horizon. Probably when all the battles are in place. 

But, to answer your question, the reason why there is a slider is because a brigade's efficiency is tied to to its command structure. There is a complicated formula that determines a brigade's efficiency built into the experience of each level of the Brigade/Division/Corps leadership tree. The better the commanders above him, the more men a lower level commander can handle. Based on that, it is much easier to adjust the slider to maximize men in a brigade than it is to type a number. 

But, i totally understand just jamming as many men as you can into a brigade and shoving them into the line. That's how I leaned to play. 

 

[JollyRoger1516]

I think one of the reasons this game relies on sliders also is that it is being developed for mobile phones/tablets as well!

[GeneralPITA]

A manual entry box and a slider would be useful. This should be easy enough to implement if you can find an aesthetically pleasing place to put it on the UI without a redo. 

There are other ways the barracks can be improved:

1. Allow divisions to be named.

2. Allow officers to be removed from brigades in camp so we may rearrange command structure (conversely, don't allow the player to deploy the next mission until all brigades have an officer). Replacing a division commander can be a bear and requires a three way or sometimes a five way swap because only colonel and above can be assigned to divisions and the command penalty is severe if you lose your division officer. This is inconvenient until you reach Fredericksburg and you have more high ranking officers. I want strip all brigades of their commanders and assign officers from scratch out of the entire pool. I'm playing musical chairs right now.

3. Allow brigades to merge in camp with commensurate experience with senior officer of the two brigades defaulting as command and the junior sent to the pool (not to be confused with superbrigades, which take up valuable brigade slots and is buggy). Currently you must disband a brigade to merge two 1000 man 3 star brigades for example, and of course you don't end up with a 2000 man 3 star brigade. This becomes a problem later in the game where the AI has 3000+ man brigades and 1000 men cannot defeat them no matter how potent. 

4. Combine the tooltips for unit stats and weapon type. Toggling between the two (both in camp and in battle) is very tedious. Let me see it all in one glance. I name all my brigades after their weaponry because of this annoyance. 

 

[chillwolf]

21 hours ago, GeneralPITA said:

A manual entry box and a slider would be useful. This should be easy enough to implement if you can find an aesthetically pleasing place to put it on the UI without a redo. 

There are other ways the barracks can be improved:

1. Allow divisions to be named.

2. Allow officers to be removed from brigades in camp so we may rearrange command structure (conversely, don't allow the player to deploy the next mission until all brigades have an officer). Replacing a division commander can be a bear and requires a three way or sometimes a five way swap because only colonel and above can be assigned to divisions and the command penalty is severe if you lose your division officer. This is inconvenient until you reach Fredericksburg and you have more high ranking officers. I want strip all brigades of their commanders and assign officers from scratch out of the entire pool. I'm playing musical chairs right now.

3. Allow brigades to merge in camp with commensurate experience with senior officer of the two brigades defaulting as command and the junior sent to the pool (not to be confused with superbrigades, which take up valuable brigade slots and is buggy). Currently you must disband a brigade to merge two 1000 man 3 star brigades for example, and of course you don't end up with a 2000 man 3 star brigade. This becomes a problem later in the game where the AI has 3000+ man brigades and 1000 men cannot defeat them no matter how potent. 

4. Combine the tooltips for unit stats and weapon type. Toggling between the two (both in camp and in battle) is very tedious. Let me see it all in one glance. I name all my brigades after their weaponry because of this annoyance. 

 

Amen to both. I understand the need for a slider due to the mobile/tablet development goal, but they could definitely accomplish both. For example, just make the numbers above the slider a text box if you click on it. This way, it displays the number of troops if you are using the slider, or it allows more precise input when wanted.

The officers thing is another piece that, as you mentioned, needs some tweaking.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

On 1/22/2017 at 11:00 AM, GeneralPITA said:

A manual entry box and a slider would be useful. This should be easy enough to implement if you can find an aesthetically pleasing place to put it on the UI without a redo. 

There are other ways the barracks can be improved:

1. Allow divisions to be named.

2. Allow officers to be removed from brigades in camp so we may rearrange command structure (conversely, don't allow the player to deploy the next mission until all brigades have an officer). Replacing a division commander can be a bear and requires a three way or sometimes a five way swap because only colonel and above can be assigned to divisions and the command penalty is severe if you lose your division officer. This is inconvenient until you reach Fredericksburg and you have more high ranking officers. I want strip all brigades of their commanders and assign officers from scratch out of the entire pool. I'm playing musical chairs right now.

3. Allow brigades to merge in camp with commensurate experience with senior officer of the two brigades defaulting as command and the junior sent to the pool (not to be confused with superbrigades, which take up valuable brigade slots and is buggy). Currently you must disband a brigade to merge two 1000 man 3 star brigades for example, and of course you don't end up with a 2000 man 3 star brigade. This becomes a problem later in the game where the AI has 3000+ man brigades and 1000 men cannot defeat them no matter how potent. 

4. Combine the tooltips for unit stats and weapon type. Toggling between the two (both in camp and in battle) is very tedious. Let me see it all in one glance. I name all my brigades after their weaponry because of this annoyance. 

 

I agree with you on naming units by weapon type. I started off by naming my artillery batteries by their cannon type so I'd know where to site them, I now rename every brigade of all types usng weapon type so I'd know which brigades were best for firepower and which for melee, what cavalry was Hussar and which was Dragoon, which skirmisher was long range and which was fast firing, etc. 

Piggybacking on your highly accurate list of upgrades to camp: 

5. In addition to being able to remove officers from brigades in the camp, you need to be able to remove arms from a brigade and return them to the armory to allow brigades to be reconfigured without have to keep a massive stockpile of obsolete farmer rifles to use as placeholders while you reconfigure which weapons which brigade weilds. . 

6. There needs to be a way to make provisional changes inside the camp that can be reversed without wiping the entire build to allow the gamer to experiment with weapons/brigade size, etc. The OOB is static when you enter camp, all changes made to any brigade should become provisional, temporary, and can be reverted back to its original state independent of the entire build until the player 'Approves OOB'; and the OOB must be approved and all changes made permanent prior to saving the game or entering a battle. 

7. The player needs the ability to bleed troops/guns/horses off of their units without disbanding and losing XP to ensure maximum efficiency when changing leadership, and to allow artillery batteries to be massed or dispersed into multiple batteries depending on the tactical situation the gamer will face in his next challenge. Perhaps make a Replacement Depot with three different levels of experience for artillerymen/cavalrymen/infantrymen the player can reassign where desired? 

8. Allow the player to decide whether a unit deploys at the beginning of a scenario in either column/limbered formation or in line/unlimbered. 

I'm sure I've forgotten something, but these items are fairly critical and have come up more than once. 

Edited January 23, 2017 by Andre Bolkonsky

[Fred Sanford]

9. Allow an 'Army HQ' commander to be appointed once you get AO that allows a second Corps.  Big morale hit to all units if Army CO is killed though so be careful.

10. Allow attachment of cavalry to Div, Corps, and Army HQ as 'escort' detachments (similar to Total War generals).  This was really done, btw.

11.  Allow attachment of spare officers to Div, Corps and Army HQ as 'staff' officers that buff command and efficiency stats and provide backups if CO is killed/wounded.

12. Shattered units return to Camp, but with reduced morale (instead of disappearing completely).

13. Regiments in Camp (only).  You can transfer regiments between brigades, but you get a slight morale buff for brigades formed from regiments from the same state, or regiments that stay in same brigade together for extended period get slight efficiency buff (used to working together).  Regiments from same state can be 'amalgamated' (Combined) if total combined is <1,000.

14. Enforce rank hierarchy- e.g. brigadier generals can't command major generals.  You'll have to work your character up the promotion ladder to get him into Army command- that would be part of the game.  Getting killed = game over (but with the escort provision above you have a little more resistance to fire).