Flanders Front AMA

Hello,

Well, I have a couple of questions:

This new event seems like a big change to the S1914 we all know and have played for many years. So is this the path you are intending to follow for Supremacy in the future? A gradual "Cowification"?

Also, there is no legacy mode for it for whatever reasons, so is this the beginning of the end of the legacy mode?

When will we get a bigger map of this game mode?

If you ever make a hundred people version I have to that the game is a but fast paced and will expect certain units to be locked for a long time.

And I have a great mechanic which will work very well

Scince we have neutral roads I advise of reworking trade system as per making that each deal spawns a resource truck on the roads which travels for the other players capital. Benefit of this rule

1.road blockade make a much more sense and make a key importance in wars as people who control these roads can demand taxes form people in exchange of going through their empire.

2. Best thing is that it will make trade partners a much more realistic thing as you won't find Africa nation yeeting thousands of RSS to European nations instantly.

3. This can be a very fun thing as coalition will become more and more tight connection and can be really fun to control a silk road type system.

4. You can make another rule that if someone takes this resource truck over he gets half the resources in the truck making raiding an actual gameplay strategy

Why is there a desert terrain in the stats if there's no desert in Flandes Front?

Do you think it'd be possible in the future to be able to convert units like if they were upgraded? e.g. Level 1 > Convert > Level 2 > Convert > Level 3

Why are there no spies in this new gamemode?

Do you intend in adding SBDE(State based damage efficiency) or will the combat system be always health points based?

In relation to the question above, why does units die when the whole army reaches 0HP instead of dying unit by unit? What do you intend with that?

The formula for the Victory Points in Supremacy1914 is something that I always thought it was special, like something so well thought that it should never be deleted, even if playing Capture&Secure, like in Flandes Front, from what I've seen in this event, that formula changed, are there any plans in keeping it somehow? Maybe mixing both styles?

The AI is very reckless, but it also moves in kind of a "stupid" way, which is already an improvement from what we have in the normal version, are there any plans in improving it to behave more like a player with some knowledge about the game?

hello

1. I wanted to ask if we can create Flanders with SUpremacy units and Legacy graphic .I would be good to have comparision between bot approaches

There are resons why some people do not play COW- and bringing COW mechanic and units into supremacy puts me off that event.

2. Other thing is that map and graphic is completely unreadable to me that is why I am constantly flanked, surrounded- I am not able to follow roads and units movements. without huge effort on my side. can roads and units movement be visible and easy to read?

Quote from THE BEHOLDER

When will we get a bigger map of this game mode?

I cannot disclose all details just yet, but it is safe to say that you haven't seen the last of this game mode.

Quote from THE BEHOLDER

Scince we have neutral roads I advise of reworking trade system as per making that each deal spawns a resource truck on the roads which travels for the other players capital

Thanks, this idea sounds a bit radical but genuinely fun! I would be the first to start a career as a truck-plundering outlaw on the roads.

Quote from nemuritor98

Do you intend in adding SBDE(State based damage efficiency) or will the combat system be always health points based?

We intend to add a new stack limiting mechanic, that reduces the combat efficiency (SBDE) when the unit count in the army exceeds a certain amount of units. In comparison to prior limits, this one counts for the whole stack and not anymore for each unit type individually inside the stack. In the future it will also allow us to set different size values for units and unit levels, so that certain units contribute more towards the stack limit as others. This system will also limit the circumvention of SBDE by stacking different unit levels together.

In the future even more mechanics could be added, but nothing set in stone here.

We also plan to implement a much better damage overview tooltip that you can access from the army bar that lists numerous things like damage per armor class and damage efficiency per armor class, for the whole army.

Quote from nemuritor98

In relation to the question above, why does units die when the whole army reaches 0HP instead of dying unit by unit? What do you intend with that?

Currently units start to die when the hitpoints of that unit type drop to 10%. This value can be tweaked of course. In the old system, when you have a bunch of units in an army, it was more obscure when a unit would die and how much progress you are making in defeating a stack, because the condition was always shown as being between 90% and 100% (it jumped back to 100% when a damaged unit died) until the army dropped to a really low amount of units. In the new system you clearly see a health bar (it even allows us to show a health bar on the map) for the whole army and you can grasp much better how much damage this army has taken. It also allows for an interesting new dynamic of tactical retreats, which we wanted to promote, as well as the importance of planning ahead and where to go into battle.
In the future we plan to add more penalties to heavily damaged armies, so that battles do not result in such big advantages for the survivor.

Quote from nemuritor98

The formula for the Victory Points in Supremacy1914 is something that I always thought it was special, like something so well thought that it should never be deleted, even if playing Capture&Secure, like in Flandes Front, from what I've seen in this event, that formula changed, are there any plans in keeping it somehow? Maybe mixing both styles?

It is not planned to use the old Victory Point formula for this game mode, as the old formula is very obscure and hard to understand, and also for us hard to predict. With the new system we can plan and balance a map very well, and design where the points of interest and major battles on the map will be, for example. It is also easier to understand for players. In the current event version the points were not displayed on the map itself. This was an oversight that is now fixed, so it will be much more clear going forward.

Quote from nemuritor98

The AI is very reckless, but it also moves in kind of a "stupid" way, which is already an improvement from what we have in the normal version, are there any plans in improving it to behave more like a player with some knowledge about the game?

We have plans to improve the AI, so that it behaves more sensical. But AI improvements are a large task, so I cannot tell when this will be done.

Quote from Arcorian

Maybe they are just hiding...

To add to that, we feel like that the old Espionage system would have taken the focus away from the action on the map, as the espionage system is rather detached from the game and also very obscure and cumbersome. That's why we intend to integrate spying and scouting in a different way going forward.

Quote from Golden Frieeza

hello

1. I wanted to ask if we can create Flanders with SUpremacy units and Legacy graphic .I would be good to have comparision between bot approaches

There are resons why some people do not play COW- and bringing COW mechanic and units into supremacy puts me off that event.

Thanks for the suggestion, although it is sad to hear that you did not enjoy the event. The map is specifically designed for the new game mechanics and would not really work well with the normal S1914 game. Therefore currently it is not planned to mix the map with the old gameplay. Many of the new map features are also not supported in the Legacy graphics, so just turning it on is also not an option.
With the event we wanted to try something exclusive, new and different.

Quote from Golden Frieeza

2. Other thing is that map and graphic is completely unreadable to me that is why I am constantly flanked, surrounded- I am not able to follow roads and units movements. without huge effort on my side. can roads and units movement be visible and easy to read?

Although concerns about readability and usability are valid, I feel like that this is often times a "training" issue. If you played with the new graphics for a while you will get used to them. I also played the Legacy mode back then and now I played the event myself, and I never felt that anything was unreadable. Still, your concern is valid and we will continue to improve readability of the new graphics version, we have it on our roadmap.

Btw, for those who haven't, I suggest to turn "relation view mode" inside the game settings on (gear symbol in the top right). This will paint all allies in blue, all enemies in red and all neutrals in yellow, and yourself in green. This will give a much better overview on the map itself.

edit: Ok Arcorian beat me to it, sorry for the double answer

Quote from Arcorian

The team worked for quite a while on the Flanders Front event and the features you can experience in it. Although we are proud of the result we decided to have these as event exclusive features in Supremacy 1914 as it would change the game quite drastically and we do not want to take anything away from the game. You might see other new events like Flanders Front, but it is highly unlikely that Supremacy 1914 as a whole moves in that direction.

So why do these events that take so much work? It seems like you are making a new game instead of fixing the one you already have. The only reason I can see to do this is to eventually change S1914 in to something similar.

Quote from Arcorian

The legacy mode is already available to veterans only. New players do not have the option to switch to legacy any more.

Yes, I play the legacy mode and when it dissapears so will I and many other old players. It seems to me this is another step towards the end of legacy mode.

there is something not right with a balance

I did zerg rush with cavs spawned in 2 barracks ( naked cavs no supportive units)

cavs were t powerful and t quick for defenders in first days so 2 opponents went down

Only on day 7 I have learned we just have 4 active players and I need to zerg better.in general one friday evening and saturday morning was enough to go from 450-400 to 610 -250 , destroying 5 biggest enemy armies and not beign able to hit 6th one.

zerg rush everywhere with cavs, some planes if I had occasion to get hands on their airdomes. spawning ACs an grenadiers and Infs in their captured barracks to keep defensive line..... ofc I lsot many of defensive untis but they were cheap and fast to produce while my main cav unti was to fast and to powerful to be caught and destroyed for their multi stacks .

In the end it worked fine to have have cavs backed with recruits if you needed to take down stack of 500. My most powerfull was 1300.

nerf cav rush plz

If you only build cavalries the enemy could have defended easily by producing flame throwers (same build time as cavs), which hard counter cavalries stats wise. Even defending armored cars or Infantry would have traded equally with cavalry.

It is true that cavalry rush is a strong opener in the early game, especially due to the mobility, but you can still counter it. Every tactic has a counter tactic in this game, but it seems your enemies did not explore the rock-paper-scissor system to the fullest.

There will be more rebalancing going on though and stronger units will become more xpensive in comparison.

there is one but- with cav you easily gain more provinces so I quickly finished with 60 provs on day 5 I guess and had tons of resources to produce whatever I like

my opponents with much slower conquering units- not so much. I cut through their HT lvl 3, Flame throwers lvl 2, ACs, forts, planes, guns, mortars and tons of infantry - I am guessing I killed around 500 k all together in a final day. There were couple of enemy stacks but they were never able to combine enough strength to counter my main off stack. So it was more of : I have bigger stack and it would get bigger no matter what you will do. If there was danger you simply circumnavigated cavs around enemy bunkers leaving them free to go out - if they did you returned with some cavs and killed them piece by pice.

I am guessing that with Light tanks it would be even more successful but I have never chance to finish one.

So in short- faster units allow faster conquer = allow more resources = allow more faster units and so on. Snowball effect.

The icons for many units (tanks, armored cars, ships, howitzers, etc.) are too large and obscure the map. Especially hiding roads and points where you want to direct multiple units to meet. Although the art work is great these icons need to be smaller so as to not cover the map with clutter.

roads and small junctions are not visible whatsoever

damn I could not even see if my planes and units are standing in town or next to town

easy 40k gm won by win all 4 maps I joined