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I would like to hear from those that have played with the leadership system in Saratoga and Great War beta. Can you think of any improvements? How do you feel about the points system? Should there be more generals on the field? Should generals remain attached to a unit, or keep to the 3LP rule we have now? If you have any thoughts on this or anything else to do with leadership then let me know. It’s something I would like to deal with before finalising the Great War beta for official release. Thanks!
Everything’s stable with the leadership system. But, the general is of only one nationality in the Great War. There can be generals of different nationality since both the alliances that fought in the Great War composed of various countries with different armies led by distinct generals.
l think maybe the general can have a certain range of command (ex:2 tiles), all units within this range will have their status buffed ex: all stats +0.5, and maybe we can have different bonus for each country ex: entente gets more morale bonus. However, when the general is forced away by enemy fire, all units inside the range of command will have a certain chance of becoming disordered (just like moving during night time).
Thanks for the ideas and also, welcome to the forum IJN_Admiral! 🙂
There’s two main problems I have with the leadership system in the Great War game. First, some of the battles can get very large so 5LP is a pretty paltry amount for the size of the armies. Second, leaders didn’t lead from the front. (You never had Field Marshal Haig leading a front line unit on horse back! )
So here’s some thoughts I’ve had:
-Have 1 or more HQ units that can move similar to other units in the map.
-Depending on the size of the battle, have historical commanders you can add to the generals “staff”, at the start of a battle, to increase LP and give other advantages depending on the general.
-HQ units have a command radius like IJN_Admiral mentioned. Units within the radius get a bonus and have LP costs halfed. (so units within the HQ radius are more LP cost effective)These are just design notes. None of this is concrete, so I’m inviting you guys and anyone else to let me know your thoughts on these things.
Also, I’m thinking mainly about the Great War game. Any leadership changes can be different for the other games in the series. After all, the way 20th century armies were led was far different from the Napoleonic era.
If you look at Joni Nuutinens “First World War: Western Front” his approach to leaders is excellent. He’s got them all as well. In a nut shell they have 4 pips each. These can be used to move his tile or to support those in his “Area of Command”. It’s to wordy to get into the details and i don’t want to detract from Pixels.
His game engine and this one are similar yet vastly different so i am not sure how his version of leaders would fit into the Pixel platform.
My honest opinion is that His system has been formulated over the years of development to handle the massive campaign style of “Fronts” which the Pixel system hasn’t been used for yet to my knowledge. The difference i see is that Confict Series simulates the old hex and tile system where a counter may equal a Corp and the feel of the Pixel system because of the casualty system makes it feel more like a Division or Brigade level game (leaning more to brigade level feel).
The cons of Joni system is that his leadership is the same for all games “if leadership is included”. He attempts to make his system cover things like the battle of Iwo Jima to the Western Front in WW1 and Eastern Front on WW2. His system EXCELS at the massive frontal war games, limited engagments are fun but if he puts leadership into them it throws the feel of the game off to me.
My opinions only:
The “Pixel” brand command structure may be enjoyable at the following:
WW1 – generals and whatever aid or bonus they give to either dedicated or individual units.
Napoleonic “Musket and Horse” – Joni doesn’t really do these games and your system is PERFECT for those engagements. I’d love to see the following
Corp Command – Supports any of its Division Units
Division Command – Supports any of its Brigade Units
Brigade Command – Supports any of its Regimental Units
Regiment Command – Directs and supports 2-6 regiments
Brigade Commander – Unit suffers morale penalty upon losing it’s commander.Edit becasuse i’m a bad proof reader.
Regiment Command – Directs and supports 2-6 Battalions
Battalion Commander – Unit suffers morale penalty upon losing it’s commander.I am aware of Joni’s games. I think you make some fair comparisons. Whereas his games have mastered the operational level hex style game, my games are more focused on a table top wargame style.
One thing I want to keep with the Pixel Soldiers games is the way a player can just pick it up and instantly start playing with it. For that reason I’m always very cautious about adding anything that could add to the complexity of the games. So I like the idea of a hierarchy of commanders, but I do think it would need to be implemented carefully.
I am thinking about watering down the importance of LP’s in the game, making proximity to an HQ more important. I’m thinking about allowing units to recover from disorder and rally from a rout anywhere on the battlefield, but if near to an HQ, the leader can use LP’s to increase the odds for success. Just an idea right now.
Thank you for your kind words. I understand your statment, “the way a player can just pick it up and instantly start playing with it. This is quite possibly how i very quickly snatched up a couple of your games. They are incredibly easy to jump into without feeling like one needs a degree in military science to interact with what is going on. Some of Joni’s game feel that way.
OK… so, i’m mainly interested in the Napoleonic versions of your game as your system gives us a path into that genre like no other on the market. Sorry, but you honestly about have it nailed for me (minus a few pet peeves i’ll probably have to learn to live without lol) and all others need to take your hint.
In my opinion, an EXTREMELY watered down level of Leadership in Horse and Musket games could be as follows.
Your battlions each have a commander, each time they take casualties the chance the leader dies is = to the casualty percentage. So if 60 out of 600 drop then 10%. This will continue to increase in percentages as the number of troops continue to drop.
Your other commanders give moral bonuses to the heirarchy which will degrade as they attach themselves to highly damaged parts of their organization. In the horse and musket time period armies would degrade and flee the field once it’s command structure had sustained enough losses.
Armee Commander ZOC 5 SQUARES +30% (because he’d be a rare site, or exceptional leader)
Corp Command – ZOC 40 SQUARES (1-6 DIVISION) +1%
Division Command – ZOC 20 SQUARES (1-4 BRIGADES) +5%
Brigade Command – ZOC 10 SQUARES (1-3 REGIMENTS) +10%
Regiment Command – ZOC 5 SQUARES (2-6 BATTALIONS) +15%
Battalion Commander – Fighting Unit (-25%) at loss of officerIn my version of your game, 2 forces meet at the battle of the cigar box. Each sports a Brigade of 2 regiments with 3 Battions. So we have 6 individual fighting tiles with 3 tiles of officers.
1 Brigade Commander – Hauptfauremarshall
1 18th Regiment Commander – Leutanent I survived
3 battlions
1 27th Regiment Commander – Leutenent Shoot the other guy
3 battlionsHow this could work is that during combat the 3 battalion of the 27th regiment get into a scrap with their alter egos. In the process they lose 2 of the 3 battalion commanders making the entire unit much more shaky. You may now choose to throw your Regimental commander into the fray by attaching him to one of the units who have lost their leader thus avoiding the 25% penalty and re-establishing a full morale value vs just the 15% bonus still leaving them at a -10%. Your Brigade commander could also gallop into the foray and take command of the other ailing unit. What the player would have to decide is whether he wanted to commit and lose the flexibily of having the extra commander because once attached he can’t undo out of the unit. This makes commanders unique and when expensed your choice is concrete the rest of the game.
Some level of this i think would be quite interesting thus adding a flavor to the game while trying to keep complexity to a minimum not only for the player but for the developer.
there would be many other issues needed fleshed out in the mechanics of the game. For instance typically when 2 of the 3 battalions break you lose the entire regiment. Will that be a thing? If so, then by losing 2/3 of the units in the brigade do you lose that? And up the chain as it goes.
Thank you for your thoughts! 🙂 I will be returning to the horse and musket era. However, the human race has been happily killing one another for thousands of years, so there is a lot of history to make a Pixel Soldiers game out of!
Happy to hear you like the games, but would like to hear what your pet peeves are. I might be able to fix them.
One thing that I decided early on with the Pixel Soldiers games was that the battlefield should be as streamlined as possible. Just units, terrain, and the effects of battle. It would be quite difficult to have an authentic army organisation without things looking a bit untidy and complicated. But I could be wrong on that. Today I’ve been experimenting with adding an HQ unit into the Great War game which will soon be sent out to the beta testers. I’ll be trying new things and see what works. I’ll then adapt the changes to the horse and musket era.
Will anyone miss the current system of pressing the attach button to add the leader to a unit? Currently the leader isn’t displayed on the field and is only visible when attached to a unit.
HA! It’s true that humankind has left you a vast legacy of material for you to cover. I see your point about the streamlining of pixels, and i also believe it goes quite well with the whole “pixel” to back in the day TRS80 graphics (i actually took a programming class in high school and we used TRS80s, shows my age as most probably don’t even know what it is haha)
I’ll give more thought on simplifying things to get a cover of what i’d like to see in a manner which fits your business plan. I do agree, i may not enjoy the game as much if it became a micro management system.
I know the TRS80! I do have an obsessive interest in retro computers! Unfortunately, I’ve never actually used one, and only ever seen one in a shop window of an electronics shop. Personally I started on the Commodore 64 (Also showing my age a bit here!). As to the look of the graphics, they were originally inspired by a game i used to play on the Commodore Amiga called Fields of Glory.
OMG…. Commodore Amiga and 64…. now i must buy the rest of your games…. I owned both, i can’t tell you how many hours as a teenager my friends and i spent with a cassette tape drive loading a game called telengard only to have it bumped and misload. It was a 30 minute wait!!!! And we would quitely guard the door, the drive, and the computer to ensure NOBODY touched it. Death and curses to anyone who did. hahaha
Wow, i mean wow. Your brought back a flood of memories.
Ah yes, those painful loading times on the C64! Especially for any complex games. It was even more painful when the game would load to the point the game should start, and then your greeted with a blue “READY” screen!
I don’t remember that particular horror of the blue ready screen lol. I’m sure it happened though. It’s hard to believe our phones have more computing power today than those Commodore Amigas and early IBM machines did. I can look back and only feel amazed at the digital progress we’ve achieved. Sadly, i’m thinking the trade off is not worthwhile. People are less friendly, far more self centered and believe that they can say and do anything without recourse. Back in my day, the way some of the youth act we’d have beat them down. Sometimes i think we need to take them all to a good “wood-sheddin” to get ones point across. HAHA
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