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I don't... no one needed this. Like I said, get some serious work done and do rivers or a supply system, or something that's actually useful in a normal game.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

I don't... no one needed this. Like I said, get some serious work done and do rivers or a supply system, or something that's actually useful in a normal game.

Basically what Zazimo said. Their playerbase wouldn’t care very much for rivers, and a complicated supply system is not only extremely difficult to correctly implement but also could easily backfire.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

I don't... no one needed this. Like I said, get some serious work done and do rivers or a supply system, or something that's actually useful in a normal game.

It was also a pretty small change which allowed us to do it on the side, the features for it already existed (Firestorm in Iron Order 1919). Rivers or Supply Systems are much bigger changes and thus cannot be squeezed into the schedule that easily.

freezy wrote:

It was also a pretty small change which allowed us to do it on the side, the features for it already existed (Firestorm in Iron Order 1919). Rivers or Supply Systems are much bigger changes and thus cannot be squeezed into the schedule that easily.

That would be easy to say, but I’m sure Freezy being a developer and having received this suggestion and responded to a thread with that suggestion has probably thought about this before. Perhaps there is more difficulty to implementing it that we wouldn’t realize. Either way I’ll take a win where I can, this is a good thing.

How about logistics companies? or supply hubs?

K.Rokossovski wrote:

I agree about the supply system which would indeed be very hard. But the rivers are at least almost in place already. Amphibious tanks showed that you can already play around with dis/embarkment times. Just create a mini-sea of one dot, make embarking and disembarking take both 30 minutes, and voila, you have your river.

Carking the 6th wrote:

That would be easy to say, but I’m sure Freezy being a developer and having received this suggestion and responded to a thread with that suggestion has probably thought about this before. Perhaps there is more difficulty to implementing it that we wouldn’t realize. Either way I’ll take a win where I can, this is a good thing.

But if you want shorter embarking times for those rivers that would be a code change though. And it would also only work if we added "sea terrain" to CoW (Iron Order uses this), only then can we differentiate rivers from sea (river is then a terrain type and sea is another one). But that would make the map rework much more cumbersome as we would have to delete all sea points and replace all of them with sea provinces with specific sea terrain types. I don't envy that unfortunate soul who would have to add those sea provinces to all maps .

But even with all of this done: Wouldn't this still be rather boring? So much effort for just a small "annoyance" in the path of armies. Wouldn't it be much cooler if we then had bridges over those rivers, which you can destroy and repair? Imo a river feature only really makes sense if we have that, only then would it be truly a nice gameplay addition that adds new strategies. But this is what makes the feature bigger, including code additions. When I made my comment I had such a feature in mind.

freezy wrote:

K.Rokossovski wrote:

I agree about the supply system which would indeed be very hard. But the rivers are at least almost in place already. Amphibious tanks showed that you can already play around with dis/embarkment times. Just create a mini-sea of one dot, make embarking and disembarking take both 30 minutes, and voila, you have your river.

Carking the 6th wrote:

That would be easy to say, but I’m sure Freezy being a developer and having received this suggestion and responded to a thread with that suggestion has probably thought about this before. Perhaps there is more difficulty to implementing it that we wouldn’t realize. Either way I’ll take a win where I can, this is a good thing.

Ok well just adding multiple very "slim seas" to maps is not that hard, that doesn't require any code change. It would require us reworking all the maps though (or at least those where we want rivers) which is still quite some work, so some unfortunate soul would have to put lots of manhours into this .But if you want shorter embarking times for those rivers that would be a code change though. And it would also only work if we added "sea terrain" to CoW (Iron Order uses this), only then can we differentiate rivers from sea (river is then a terrain type and sea is another one). But that would make the map rework much more cumbersome as we would have to delete all sea points and replace all of them with sea provinces with specific sea terrain types. I don't envy that unfortunate soul who would have to add those sea provinces to all maps .

But even with all of this done: Wouldn't this still be rather boring? So much effort for just a small "annoyance" in the path of armies. Wouldn't it be much cooler if we then had bridges over those rivers, which you can destroy and repair? Imo a river feature only really makes sense if we have that, only then would it be truly a nice gameplay addition that adds new strategies. But this is what makes the feature bigger, including code additions. When I made my comment I had such a feature in mind.

freezy wrote:

K.Rokossovski wrote:

But even with all of this done: Wouldn't this still be rather boring? So much effort for just a small "annoyance" in the path of armies. Wouldn't it be much cooler if we then had bridges over those rivers, which you can destroy and repair? Imo a river feature only really makes sense if we have that, only then would it be truly a nice gameplay addition that adds new strategies. But this is what makes the feature bigger, including code additions. When I made my comment I had such a feature in mind.

The point of annoyances in games is that they are FUN kinds of annoyances. I won't comment on rebellions, but for sure, Himalaya's and factories and research are fun things to overcome when you're playing; after all, fun games are about overcoming difficulties, or we would all be playing Farmville (does it still exist?). And I betcha, rivers would be fun... gone are the days when you can just gather your troops and unleash them in a straight front on your poor opponents... because defending a river actually make sense, even with an inferior force, and the attacker would actually have to think of ways to cross them... and no, I don't mean by building bridges or taking them down again (bridges are optional to river development imho), I mean by tactical maneuver and finding weak spots; securing bridgeheads and figuring ways to destroy the enemy ones; amass artillery and planes to attack the enemy when he is at his weakest, or gathering interceptors and counterbatteries to help them... That's not boring, that's a challenge.

The amin reason the Homefront map is so boring is because it is just a blot of continuous land. WaW-map is SO much better; and that's exactly because there are lots of seas, big and small, and all the tactical options associated with them. It is a diverse map; and the seas make it so. Why not expand on that principle from big-scale strategy to tactics as well? Rivers are the way to do it.

And Bytro is very bad at mobilizing their fan base. Give them the tools to generate those "second sea types on maps" and I assure you that 1,000 volunteers would rise to do it for you, organizing themselves into committees and boards and discussion groups on wether the Rhine should just go to the Ruhr or all the way to Switzerland. I'm sure I'm throwing another stone in the pond here, but I'm pretty sure that being able to mod maps and scenario's would give the fan base the opportunity to take the game in hundreds of directions you never even thought about yourself.

Ok if you are really satisfied by having lots of slim lines of sea on most maps with no codechanges at all to embarking/disembarking, then it is not that much work (besides editing all the maps). I agree that it could still add a little bit of fun in some locations which are otherwise mostly land.

One downside of adding rivers via the slim lines of sea is that maps would look much more "split up". We had that issue when we built a map with lots of rivers and roads in Supremacy 1 (which later became Iron Order). The map was indeed very fun, but it was also a chore to look at with all countries being split up by these small lines on the map. So if we ever added rivers we should probably only stick to the biggest ones to not run into the same issue, and still make them super slim on the map. Which also means no traveling down the river, only have it there as a crossing from one side to the other. However, would still look quite dumb to have a transport ship displayed there that is bigger than the river itself And no, that transport ship part cannot be changed without some tricky code change.

I suppose you could make it so that river crossings take only an hour or so, and the unit rather than embarking and disembarking is simply crossing the river or something? Either way it wouldn’t be tooo big of an issue, if anything it would be rather funny to see a huge transport boat in the Dneiper. As said I think as long as major rivers are in, things should be fine.

I’d say Mississippi/ Missouri, Amazon, Dneiper, Danube, maybe Rhine, Nile, Congo, Tigris/Euphrates, Ganges and/or Indus, Yellow and/or Yangtze are the main ones that should be added, all else is very optional, probably. Changing the Nile and Panama too these crossings is another good idea. Just these main rivers and a system to cross them is all that’s needed. Still, making Rivers different from sea sounds like the big deal with coding. I wouldn’t want to have to deal with 4 hour crossings in Ukraine.

Now that I think about it wouldn’t something like the code from amphibious tanks work, allowing you to make the embarking/disembarking times much faster? I don’t know if that’s how it works but if it does…

Carking the 6th wrote:

I suppose you could make it so that river crossings take only an hour or so, and the unit rather than embarking and disembarking is simply crossing the river or something? Either way it wouldn’t be tooo big of an issue, if anything it would be rather funny to see a huge transport boat in the Dneiper. As said I think as long as major rivers are in, things should be fine.

I’d say Mississippi/ Missouri, Amazon, Dneiper, Danube, maybe Rhine, Nile, Congo, Tigris/Euphrates, Ganges and/or Indus, Yellow and/or Yangtze are the main ones that would be nice to have. Changing the Nile and Panama too these crossings is another good idea. Just these main rivers and a system to cross them is all that’s needed. Still, making Rivers different from sea sounds like the big deal with coding. I wouldn’t want to have to deal with 4 hour crossings in Ukraine.

K.Rokossvki implied though that no code changes are necessary to make rivers fun, so basically just adding slim lines of water for the biggest rivers and keep all other mechanics as they are now (standard embarking times, transport ship graphics). If most players agree that this would suffice I could pitch that version to the team.

Maybe if some sort of bridge system could be added? If at all doable though, I’d take the deal. Geography is very important…

Carking the 6th wrote:

Now that I think about it wouldn’t something like the code from amphibious tanks work, allowing you to make the embarking/disembarking times much faster? I don’t know if that’s how it works but if it does…

Carking the 6th wrote:

Maybe if some sort of bridge system could be added? If not at all doable though, I’d take the deal. Geography is very important…

freezy wrote:

Carking the 6th wrote:

Now that I think about it wouldn’t something like the code from amphibious tanks work, allowing you to make the embarking/disembarking times much faster? I don’t know if that’s how it works but if it does…

Yes but the problem is that this would be the case for any sea, not just the "slim sea" which we call rivers here. The tricky part is the differentiation in behavior between rivers and normal sea.

GG

freezy wrote:

K.Rokossvki implied though that no code changes are necessary to make rivers fun, so basically just adding slim lines of water for the biggest rivers and keep all other mechanics as they are now (standard embarking times, transport ship graphics). If most players agree that this would suffice I could pitch that version to the team.