BS: PC War gaming

Subject: PC War gaming
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 06:06 PM

Just because I like the box and due to my ancesteral heritage I bought a PC game called 'Cossacks - European Wars'. It is quite enjoyable but I cannot seem to keep my peasants alive for long before some B!"£$%d despot comes and butchers them!

I thought I might post to a war gamers list but I think they may laugh at my inexperience. I have never played a strategy game before. Now, I don't mind the Mudcat laughing at me, you are all friends ;-) So, apologies to the musicologists, any strategy gamers out there with any advice???

Cheers

Dave the Gnowledgeless Gnome

Subject: RE: BS: PC War gaming
From: Gareth
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 06:59 PM

Unfortunately, Dave, thats always been the case. The peasents, the conscripts, the Matloes, the PBI suffer, but Generals and Politicians die in bed, with thier honours.

I doubt if a "War Game" is any different from a real war map, other than there is no need to write letters to the next of kin. - Or hear the anouncement on the BBC "The Admiralty regrets the loss of the corvette HMS Compass Rose, next of kin are being informed."

Gareth - in cynical mode.

Subject: RE: BS: PC War gaming
From: Gareth
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 07:14 PM

Actually when I think about it try a more strategic Naval game such as "Fighting Steel", or "Age of Sail" - if your good enough you might keep your crew(s) alive.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: PC War gaming
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 07:26 PM

Oh you cynic!!! I would never sucumb to such flagrant political comment...;-)

(Maybe that's why I never win...?)

Cheers and thanks for the advice anyway Gareth!

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: PC War gaming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 09:00 PM

Oh, lord, the countless hours I've squandered on war games...specially on computers...but even before computers were generally available.

You want to keep your peasants alive, do you? Probably a difficult proposition, but it depends on how realistic the game mechanics are.

Some general principles of military strategy:

1. Don't unnecessarily divide your forces!

2. Attack where the enemy is weak, defend where the enemy is strong.

3. Defensive position is inherently stronger than attack. Therefore, given relatively equal forces, it is usually wise to find good defensive terrain and dig in. If the other side is foolish enough to attack you (which they may well be) you wait until they're sufficiently weakened and then counterattack and break them up. You can defeat an army twice the size of your own by this technique, if they attack foolishly and expose themselves. (example: Confederate victory at Fredericksburg)

4. If the enemy is weaker, and inclined to defend a strong position, you must either:

a) Outflank him (forcing him to move)

b) cut off his sources of supply (again forcing him to move)

c) wear him down with bombardment by artillery, aircraft, etc. until he's weak enough to dislodge or overwhelm by direct attack.

5. Use your strongest elite units to launch crucial attacks, use your weaker units to mop up or hold defensive positions.

6. If possible, keep a reserve force ready, in case things don't go as well as you had planned.

The general rule with computers is...at first they play the game better than you do, because you're not familiar enough with the game mechanics yet. Later, you can almost always outsmart the computer, because human imagination can virtually always beat the machine when it comes to strategy. A lot of computers seem to think only in attack terms, for instance, and have little idea how to retreat and defend effectively. This causes them to do truly idiotic things at times, like abandoning an ideal defensive position for no good reason whatsoever.

I don't much like games where despots slaughter noncombatants, as they tend to be chaotic. I prefer encounters between professional armies. I suspect to win your game you will have to pillage and despoil your neighbours before they get the chance to do it to you...a sort of "beginners course in barbarism". I detest such games. Age of Empires is of that variety, and as a genuine military game it absolutely sucks.

A smart commander figures out how to win with as little expenditure of life and materiel as possible...not how to kill everyone in sight.

Anyway, keep trying and see how it goes.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: PC War gaming
From: hesperis
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 09:25 PM

Yeah, the Hawkster will set you up for strategy. He's *good* at that...

Do you have a link for that game? Who's the publisher? Sometimes there are hints and stuff in the reviews.

Subject: RE: BS: PC War gaming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 12:32 AM

Thanks, Hesp. Here's a couple more tips...when forming a defensive or an attacking line...don't leave gaps in it if at all possible! The enemy will exploit those gaps.

The easiest way to destroy any opposing unit is to surround it and attack from all sides, leaving no avenue of retreat for the unit under attack. It's usually best to do this with strong, healthy units, and preferably against an already weakened opposing unit. A unit that cannot retreat is lost entirely, whereas one that can will live to fight again.

Outflanking a position is often the best way to surround enemy units. If their path of retreat is blocked by other units in their own forces, they still have no place to retreat, by the way.

With regard to that, don't get your own units so crowded together that the same thing happens to them...leave lines of retreat open behind your defense lines in case you need to fall back at some point to a new position.

Trade land for time. This is what the Russians did in 1941 and it saved Russia. If they had stood and fought for every inch of land, the Germans would have annihilated the Red Army, taken Moscow and Leningrad, and won the war in the East. But the Russians instead yielded vast areas of land, and fell back until they had enough strength to hold, and until the Germans were stretched thin. The same Russian strategy, on a much smaller scale, defeated Napoleon Bonaparte, and lost him a million men!

Hitler never understood the "trade land for time" concept, and sacrificed whole armies defending indefensible positions, because he associated any retreat with cowardice and moral weakness! He was one of history's most incompetent military commanders...most of the time...and should have left battlefield strategy to his generals.

Good thing he didn't, actually...it might well have been a much longer war, and an even bloodier one.

Whether any of this has any bearing on a game about cossacks, though...well, maybe not. Depends on the game system and how it works.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: PC War gaming
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 03:56 AM

It's at www.cossacks.com surprisingly! There are a number of campaigns but the one I am trying is a single scenario where I have to colonise an island with my peasants - Unfortunately a few other rulers have the same idea! I believe it is similar to age of empires etc.

Thanks for the advice anyway folks - particularly the bit about defending. that could well help.

Cheers

Dave the lord of all he sees...;-)

Subject: RE: BS: PC War gaming
From: Les from Hull
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 08:46 AM

Dave - you might get an faq or a hint (or cheat) list at somewhere like Games Domain (www.gamesdomain.co.uk).

Subject: RE: BS: PC War gaming
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 09:03 AM

Hmmmmmmmm....not played or seen this Game, DtG, but I've played a LOT of Age of Empires (though not online aginst a live opponent).

Do you have much in the way of troops yourself to provide at least some cover for the areas your peasants are working in? Are you able to build those fighting units quick enough with the resources your peasants are gathering? Are you getting overwhelmed with attacks comiing all at once, or constantly/quick succession? (there are times in AoE when I have to slow the speed of the game down so I can react fast enough).

I dunno if this is any help or not

Subject: RE: BS: PC War gaming
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 09:17 AM

Just had a quick look at the site myself, & as Les suggested there are a couple of things in the FAQ http://www.cossacks.com/english/cossacks/addonfaq.php that are worth noting & might help - 'the ability to create alliances with the computer, to trade resources, (& to) configure how a game will begin'

' There is a special peace time mode. This is a special option you can select for both single player and multiplayer games. Activating the peace time causes a cease fire at the beginning of the game, which gives you time to build up your economy and army before the war starts. You can set the peace time to last from 10 minutes up to 4 hours!'

'military units in the game have two new commands available: guard and patrol. This means you can order units to guard a building or another unit. The guards will always remain close to the building or follow a unit they are guarding.'

Hope youre enjoying it even if you are finding it challenging though!

Subject: RE: BS: PC War gaming
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 09:50 AM

I would heartily recommend reading Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" which gives lots of good advice.

Also: Time Spent in Reconaissance is Seldom Wasted!

If possible have some mounted scouts who can keep a look out for those enemy hordes. Follow all of Hawks tips above.

Look for choke points where the enemies abilty to attack you is hindered by terrain/fortifications

Cannon with case-shot at close range is good for breaking up massed enemy infantry.

It's never to late to RUN AWAY!

AWM (Wargamer for lo! these 30 years)

Subject: RE: BS: PC War gaming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 02:57 PM

Good points, Minstrel. Choke points can be priceless if the terrain provides them.

If it's an Age of Empires type game, the units will often be bloody hard to control (very annoying), and it will probably be necessary to SLOW the game down as much as possible, since the computer can multitask WAY more effectively than you can. It's also vital in those games to secure economic advantages by finding and utilizing valuable resources like...trees, iron ore, gold ore, fresh water, arable land, etc....so scout around, find out where that stuff is and make the best use of it that you can.

Reconaissance, as Minstrel pointed out, is absolutely vital. Lee's lack of it on one campaign led to his defeat at Gettysburg, for instance (a rare mistake by "Mars Robert", who made very few of them).

Here's another tactic that can be helpful in desperate circumstances when you are faced with a much stronger enemy: distract them by leaving behind an expendable unit or two for them to attack or chase, while you retreat the main part of your forces to a safer location. They will hopefully spend some time either destroying the sacrificial unit or chasing it all over the place...and lose track of where the rest of your army is, giving you time to recover and fight again.

Cavalry units are good for distracting enemy forces, because they are hard to catch. Very slow units can also be left behind to fight and die, since they are too slow to get away anyway. Siege engines come to mind for that.

In real life, hope and pray that you never end up in such a unit on the battlefield, needless to say...

The small Greek force blocking the pass at Thermopylae was such a sacrifice unit, buying time with their lives as they delayed the advance of an enormous Persian army. Given the nature of Greek warriors at that time, they did it with full knowledge of their certain death, and with absolute courage...it was an incredible example of patriotic self-sacrifice, perhaps the finest in history. And the Persians ultimately met defeat in that campaign because of it.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: PC War gaming
From: hesperis
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 01:55 PM

"the computer can multitask WAY more effectively than you can"

Well, it's better at first. I'm pretty good at multi-tasking in AoE now!

Subject: RE: BS: PC War gaming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 05:59 PM

Say, here's one more vital matter in such games...fortifications!!!

Well placed fortifications can range from a simple wooden palisade to massive stone walls reinforced by fighting towers and various forms of artillery. They can prove very effective at either delaying or outright destroying an attacking enemy force. Always fortify your key areas of infrastructure if there's any chance of them being attacked. This is particularly effective in Age of Empires and even more so in Caesar III and the other games in that general series.

Keep a mobile reserve of troops handy behind the walls in case the attackers make a hole anywhere. I suspect your cossacks can build simple fortifications on their island, so go to it.

When attacking enemy fortifications, attack in one spot only, concentrate your forces and break through...don't waste lives attacking the whole fortified line when you don't have to...just break through in one place and set about destroying their rear areas behind the lines.

- LH