Victoria 3

[Tamas]

Excitement level increased.  I will honour the promise to myself never to buy a paradox game on release again, after this one.

Same here. 

[Josephus]

Excitement level increased.  I will honour the promise to myself never to buy a paradox game on release again, after this one.

Yeah, but will you pre order the special uber deluxe version with bonus song.?

[HVC]

is it falalala?

[The Minsky Moment]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/victoria-3-dev-diary-23-fronts-and-generals.1497106/

Looks like basically it keeps much of the essence of the old system except without the ping-ponging, carpet sieges and other annoyances and exploits associated with province based movement.

[The Minsky Moment]

Posted this in the dev diary thread:

So far, looks good.
Really like the interaction between the generals and their political influence and effects.
However, if there is one nit it is that I think there was a missed opportunity on the general traits (positive) and conditions (negative?)
It is logical to think that the generals would acquire positive attributes through experience but in reality I think that is rarely the case. The Napoleon of 1812-15 was more experienced than the Napoleon of 1797-1805, but not I think the superior general. I don't think Rommel was an effective general in North Africa because he spent many years in deserts. etc.

What would be more interesting is if the general's personality was always known but key traits both positive and negative were hidden and unknown until after the general spent some time in action. That would better reflect the reality that the true abilities of many commanders in the period were not really known until after they had been tested - compare for example the evolution in the reputations of McClellan and Grant. It would also help recreate the real dilemmas that occurred during this period when generals believed to be effective were promoted and obtained political influence only to be exposed as incompetent in the field.

[crazy canuck]

Excitement level increased.  I will honour the promise to myself never to buy a paradox game on release again, after this one.

Yeah, but will you pre order the special uber deluxe version with bonus song.?

I am excited but not that excited - yet.

[DGuller]

Posted this in the dev diary thread:

So far, looks good.
Really like the interaction between the generals and their political influence and effects.
However, if there is one nit it is that I think there was a missed opportunity on the general traits (positive) and conditions (negative?)
It is logical to think that the generals would acquire positive attributes through experience but in reality I think that is rarely the case. The Napoleon of 1812-15 was more experienced than the Napoleon of 1797-1805, but not I think the superior general. I don't think Rommel was an effective general in North Africa because he spent many years in deserts. etc.

What would be more interesting is if the general's personality was always known but key traits both positive and negative were hidden and unknown until after the general spent some time in action. That would better reflect the reality that the true abilities of many commanders in the period were not really known until after they had been tested - compare for example the evolution in the reputations of McClellan and Grant. It would also help recreate the real dilemmas that occurred during this period when generals believed to be effective were promoted and obtained political influence only to be exposed as incompetent in the field.

I like your idea, and I think it would also go a great way towards removing the gamey leveling-up aspect.  Right now in HOI, if I'm in the mood to min-max, I try to manage where the general fights to engineer a God-like combination of traits.  I find that too cheesy.

[garbon]

Would it be fun though? Battle after battle, why am I losing? Oh secretly unrevealed terrible general. Okay immediately toss him out assuming I can take rep hit with his interest group.

[Tamas]

Would it be fun though? Battle after battle, why am I losing? Oh secretly unrevealed terrible general. Okay immediately toss him out assuming I can take rep hit with his interest group.

Yeah I suspect generals is where they want to give players the feeling of control over battles and war.

[Josquius]

I do wonder on generals. The way many games do it where you have this pool of generals just sitting around waiting for an army to lead...and you can swap them in and out at will with little ill effect.... That just doesn't seem right to me.
I do wonder whether abstracting this could be the right way to go. I don't give a shit whether the guy in charge of my army is General Jones or General Smith. Surely what makes the difference is more the quality of my officer pool as a whole, with a randomness factor thrown in. This is important both for the strategic decisions armies make when fighting a war and for how well elements of the army perform when they meet the enemy - who knows whether it'll be the top of the class junior General leading those units that run into the enemy or the guy who bought a commission just for the crack.

[The Minsky Moment]

Okay immediately toss him out assuming I can take rep hit with his interest group.

That's the issue though - the trade off between problems on the war front and problems on the home front.

I don't think the existing system provides more fun factor - it's just a matter of taking the 10 seconds picking out the generals with the best modifiers.  The alternative could open some more creative options - e.g. using a promising but still unknown general in a backwater brush war (rather than a known and reliable hand) to test them out before committing to promotion. 

As DG points out the status quo system results in the ahistorical result that all wars are fought by brilliant generals and the dolts are all weeded out.  Whereas in real life this period of military history (like many others) was notable for the significant role played by limited or outright incompetent generals.  The lack of historical immersion would be reason enough to make a change but the decision to make generals into political characters as well reinforces that reason.

[garbon]

I'm not saying current system is more realistic but question if it would be more fun by a player to be hamstrung in battles by something they were unaware of...and really until trait was revealed would have no idea that's why they were failing.

[PDH]

Not sure if it would be fun, but Minsky's idea allows for something like the string of...interesting generals the Union had in the East during the Civil War.  Of course, the only way to overcome that would be huge grand divisions to chew up the confederates in battle after battle - but people would cry out "gaming the system" in that case.

[Josephus]

You can have character tratis for the generals similar to traits in Crusader Kings and Hearts of Iron.
A general in Vic can have several traits. One or two might be known (studious, clever). One or two might be picked up in battle (good in mountain fighting or snow), and one or two might be latent until they show up in battle (coward, ruthless).

[Habbaku]

Not sure if it would be fun, but Minsky's idea allows for something like the string of...interesting generals the Union had in the East during the Civil War.  Of course, the only way to overcome that would be huge grand divisions to chew up the confederates in battle after battle - but people would cry out "gaming the system" in that case.

This is one of my favorite Languish memes.