Couriers

[13thnct]

IronBMike wrote:

I like the courier system the way it is, it makes for great multiplayer fun. My one complaint would be the inability to form a battle plan.

I totally agree, it would be nice to have some sort of planning stage. I obviously don't know the details of how the lobby system works (or more directly, how much control you all have over it), but a possible solution that would be easy(ish) to implement would be to have a team only text box in the lobby.

With that said, my wish-list for the courier system would be the ability to type what I want freely in the message box. Obviously it wouldn't work for the AI, but it would be great for MP. Also, somebody stop me if this is actually in the game already, but the ability to send the same message to multiple people at the same time would be nice.

PS, this game is unbelievable!

[larrytagg]

13thnct wrote:

IronBMike wrote:

I like the courier system the way it is, it makes for great multiplayer fun. My one complaint would be the inability to form a battle plan.

I totally agree, it would be nice to have some sort of planning stage. I obviously don't know the details of how the lobby system works (or more directly, how much control you all have over it), but a possible solution that would be easy(ish) to implement would be to have a team only text box in the lobby.

With that said, my wish-list for the courier system would be the ability to type what I want freely in the message box. Obviously it wouldn't work for the AI, but it would be great for MP. Also, somebody stop me if this is actually in the game already, but the ability to send the same message to multiple people at the same time would be nice.

PS, this game is unbelievable!

I agree, a planning stage is a great item for The Patch wish list. However, any new feature after the game launches is probably tough to code. I'll put it on the list of new Features to discuss with the team.

[larrytagg]

Rich Mac wrote:

My biggest beef with the courier system is that there is no option to just use a free text field to type messages. I applaud all of the courier options and it shows that you put a ton of work into it, but a free text field would do wonders for the system and I can't imagine it would be too difficult to code.

As for using location names in the courier system, I'm not sure how historically accurate that is. I doubt that many on-field commanders knew what the place names were. Especially individual farms. For the most part it was "advance on that farm to your immediate east", "take and hold that ridge ahead of you" sort of thing. Place names weren't usually known until after the fact.

The Map is the 1858 Adams County map, which is the one commanders on the field were using during the battle. (Frequently, they dashed into homes and ripped them off the wall.) It did have the place names on the map--that's what the county map specialized in. As far as historical accuracy goes, this is as good as it gets.

As far as a free text field for multiplayer goes, I'll make sure it gets discussed by the team for The Patch.

[Amish John]

Here is a link to the highly detailed Warren map which even shows the names of the farms. However, the file is HUGE. I downloaded it and it was about 23 MB. If someone could tame this beast it would be a great addition as a game supplement on the downloads section of the GB website. Can you picture this being used as the game map with all your troops being shown on this and the map being scrollable and zoomable? That would be the ultimate! However, it is several years post-battle.

http://www.simmonsgames.com/tools/mapvi ... Frame.html

[Rich Mac]

DrMike1997 wrote:

I highly doubt that a free form courier system could work for single play games. The AI could not be programmed to recognize the quite literally endless variations that we would think up to write in! However, It would be great for multi-player B) Although, it might not be practical to have two different systems, one for single play and one for multi play.

My bad...I meant it for multiplayer - not single player.

[Rich Mac]

larrytagg wrote:
The Map is the 1858 Adams County map, which is the one commanders on the field were using during the battle. (Frequently, they dashed into homes and ripped them off the wall.) It did have the place names on the map--that's what the county map specialized in. As far as historical accuracy goes, this is as good as it gets.

Okay, you got me on that one!

[Garnier]

If I had the list of place locations (as they appear in maplocations.csv when you run a battle), I could quickly generate minimaps with the locations listed. Here is one I made with some of the locations. I used the four objectives in the maplocations.csv from one battle I played to make this:



If someone wanted to play the maps over and over, collecting the locations from maplocations.csv, I could do it with those. Otherwise, when the SDK comes the list will be available and I can do it then.

[Rob Son of Paul]

Please add the ability to send text messages via courier to other teammates in multiplayer.

[ADukes]

Garnier wrote:

I used the four objectives in the maplocations.csv from one battle I played to make this:

Two of them are for the Kansas map.

[Los]

I too like the courier system mostly as is. I haven't had any problems with it, but then again I'm not someone who gets frustrated when I can't control or micromanage each little thing. Seems realistic given the great difficulties they had at the time. I do like the idea being able to print out a high res map of the battle area so I can write my order AND have the map in front of me. I suppose the ability to add free text to a courier message in MP is a good one, even perhaps drawing a simple sketch map and sending it along as well.

Having played a number of battles I can see myself start feeling guilty if I'm not using HITS and the courier system (unless maybe I'm co-located with the unit/general?) for all my fighting.

Los

BTW I found this 1858 Adams county map neat!

http://www.simmonsgames.com/tools/mapvi ... Frame.html