AGEOD English Civil War

[Phantom]

I already own several AGEOD games, from Wars in America to Espana & many in between. However, I find the month long turns in many games unwieldy - giving you little opportunity to react - any chance of AGEOD allowing a "2 week turn" option on their games (or even an IgoUgo)? I've tweaked several; WIA2 scenarios to have 2 week turns but its time consuming & I don't fancy doing it for all games.
That said - looking forward to ECW - I'll definitely be on the regicide-side!

[MengJiao]

Another renaissance title.  Was Thirty Year War any good?   Does it suit the engine?

http://www.matrixgames.com/products/683/details/EnglishCivilWar

This is really what the AGE engine was designed for. Wars with no true fronts where armies rely on forage or basic depots and no diplomacy.

Thirty years war is the most polished and well done AGEOD game to date. It's not my favorite but the time period and nature of warfare in the early-mid 17th century suits it.

Edit: Mengjao, why do you think the Thirty Years War game is "very bad"? I find the AI to be as good as any other AGEOD games, it's very stable and the AI usually doesn't go stupi lad like in ACW2 when it sends Stonewall Jackson and 2 divisions to take Pittsburg

  I think the real problem with the AGEOD thirty-years war is at the basic level of historical analysis.  The real dynamics of the war were that the constitutional problems in Germany + the Hapsburgs of various kinds trying to build order out of what looked like a fast slide toward chaos sucked almost all of Europe (including the Turks, Hungarians, Poland, Transylvania etc.) into a very chaotic process of progressive dissolution.  The war has to include France -- anyway to get it to work you'd have to do it completely differently than how the game does it.  The smaller scenarios are okay, but even they simplify far too much to fit the time period very well.  I'm more hopeful of the English Civil war (up to 1646) for this engine since it is relatively limited and the dynamics are fairly well understood.  For the 30-years war the only good analysis I've seen is Peter Wilson's book:

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674062313

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/5940172/Europes-Tragedy-by-Peter-H-Wilson-review.html

http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/866

And this gives a very different analysis than the traditional one put forward by Wedgewood for example.

[mikeck]

 OK, but the things you were talking about are more grand strategy. The game is meant to simulate the operational aspects of the military and war fighting. I think it does a good job of simulating that. I mean specifically how armies are moved, what their comprised of, the supply system, how little they fought versus Laying siege, the importance of fortresses etc.


So, will the "English Civil War" simulate the politics of the parliamentarians versus the loyalists? Will it simulate the different alliances and political machinations? No.  But what it will do is what it did in "30 years war" in that it will do a good job of simulating military operations once the war has started. And that simulation will likely closely follow how the real war was fought.

[MengJiao]

OK, but the things you were talking about are more grand strategy. The game is meant to simulate the operational aspects of the military and war fighting. I think it does a good job of simulating that. I mean specifically how armies are moved, what their comprised of, the supply system, how little they fought versus Laying siege, the importance of fortresses etc.


So, will the "English Civil War" simulate the politics of the parliamentarians versus the loyalists? Will it simulate the different alliances and political machinations? No.  But what it will do is what it did in "30 years war" in that it will do a good job of simulating military operations once the war has started. And that simulation will likely closely follow how the real war was fought.

  You don't have to go into the internal politics, but I think for AGEOD you do have to get some overall dynamics working via the events triggers and so on.  That certainly didn't work at all in Espana 1936.  I think it will work for the English Civil war where the overall dynamics are well-understood.  To give another instance of how the AGEOD version of the 30-years war doesn't work:  by the late war, armies were much smaller and had much more cavalry: Campaigns aimed deep and sieges were not as important.  So maybe the 30-years war fails in the AGEOD system because it went on for so long and so many things changed.  For the English Civil war (1642-1646) not as much time passes and the changes can probably be simulated in the game fairly well.

[dinsdale]

That certainly didn't work at all in Espana 1936.  I think it will work for the English Civil war where the overall dynamics are well-understood.

They are? Better than the Spanish Civil War?

It takes only a slightly cursory glance to see the complexity of the civil war, not only in shifting alliances and deep mistrust among allies, but in the widely varied forms of fighting. From set piece battles to sieges and independent guerilla warfare from strong points.

All of that of course ignores Ireland where three sides opposed and allied with one another, sometimes differently at the local and national level, and whose events drove the larger scale alliances fighting in England and Scotland.

I think AGEOD will do it justice because its a short war - significantly shorter than any phase of the 30 years war, but hardly understood or driven by easily simulated mechanics.

[WallysWorld]

For the 30-years war the only good analysis I've seen is Peter Wilson's book.

A terrific book. I read it just before starting to play TYW.

[MengJiao]

That certainly didn't work at all in Espana 1936.  I think it will work for the English Civil war where the overall dynamics are well-understood.

They are? Better than the Spanish Civil War?

It takes only a slightly cursory glance to see the complexity of the civil war, not only in shifting alliances and deep mistrust among allies, but in the widely varied forms of fighting. From set piece battles to sieges and independent guerilla warfare from strong points.

All of that of course ignores Ireland where three sides opposed and allied with one another, sometimes differently at the local and national level, and whose events drove the larger scale alliances fighting in England and Scotland.

I think AGEOD will do it justice because its a short war - significantly shorter than any phase of the 30 years war, but hardly understood or driven by easily simulated mechanics.

  For the military dynamics of the English Civil war, in England, I think the traditional historical analysis is pretty solid and you can probably get it to work in the game.  for example, you don't get the New Model Army unless you have the Eastern Association up and running.  When I played Espana 1936, roughly similar dependencies didn't seem to be functioning at all in the way the game was set up by the developer.  The 30-years war seemed to have a similar problem with dependencies (ie in both games "historical" events just happened -- they weren't modified by events in the game)

[jomni]

Release date 11 May.

[jomni]

And it's out!

[bbmike]

It's too much! I have too many games!!!  :D

[mikeck]

It's too much! I have too many games!!!  :D

Solution: stop playing the other games. By this game. Play this game.

[bbmike]

^That's good logic! Bought!

[Ian C]

Bought. First few turns fly past. Smaller map than other AGEOD games. Maybe this is the perfect scale for this engine. Not unit-heavy so far but we'll see in later turns.

[Tpek]

I'm really on the fence for this one.
On one hand, the ECW is an interesting and highly underused setting.
On the other, I never had much luck with AGEOD's games.

[Jarhead0331]

Bought. First few turns fly past. Smaller map than other AGEOD games. Maybe this is the perfect scale for this engine. Not unit-heavy so far but we'll see in later turns.

Lower unit count in the beginning would make since since, at the outbreak of the war, England had no standing army.