Results of beginners tutorial test

[Simon]

While awaiting a response to an earlier post detailing events in a test of the main game, I thought I would look at the basic tutorial in order to ensure that I was fully aware of all aspects and commands. This is the observational feedback, which again I hope will be helpful in the further development of the game.

The tutorial claims that the user interface is both simple and intuitive. I'm afraid that I do not find either of these to be the case, sorry. Please don't blame the messenger for the message.

The tutorial should be a safe and clear place for a new player to explore the game but it hardly helps when the very first instruction invites the player to press the return key to go forward and the enter (sic) key to move back in the tutorial. It's very hard to see how this sort of thing gets through testing. It's the backspace key that should have been specified of course.

The new text when exiting a game is difficult to see being yellow on a somewhat yellow background.

Large F2 view. Could not select one of the units at all by left clicking. After using the alternative F2 view and returning, the unit could be selected with difficulty, the hotspot for selection being confined to a very narrow line along the edge of the rectangle.

Once the orders had been issued the infantry battalion, perhaps because it ended up in square formation (which could easily be the case, this being the last command that a beginner would encounter when moving from left to right through the formations), failed to move at all.

When the formation was changed, the unit box continued to show no orders (it has been given the support order as dictated by the tutorial), although eventually the unit began to move. However, when it did so only the front section advanced, leaving the rest well behind, as shown by a screenshot.

The main unit then inexplicably and immediately "caught up" but as the sequence of three screenshots show, the big element became confused inside the main body of the unit and as the camera moved towards the unit, it progressively disappeared from view altogether.

Worse, one of the three artillery icons moved in the correct direction, however the remaining two not only moved off at right angles to the south but did so in large jumps, rather than normal movement. They continued on this route for a long distance until they encountered the lake, in which they promptly went for a swim.

Artillery stayed together on a re-test of this but completely ignored the road.

All the animation failed again with the units sliding along. This seems to occur very frequently.

A patch of mist was observed North East of the objective town that disappears when the camera moves closer???

I think that the disappearing and misbehaving units in this case is largely due to a problem with the representation of the graphics rather than the internal engine’s calculation of where the unit is actually located. Unfortunately, the effect is much the same in preventing a rational interaction with the game.

I will continue testing and report the results in the forum and trust that someone will get back to me with some answers, including the earlier post from some days ago.

[Simon]

Here are the other screenshots. Numbers 2 to 4 illustrate a sequence taken over just a few seconds, viewing the same spot from closer and closer with the camera.

[Hook]

the very first instruction invites the player to press the return key to go forward and the enter (sic) key to move back in the tutorial. It's very hard to see how this sort of thing gets through testing.

I'll take this one, as I was the one who did a lot of the translation cleanup on the various texts.

I really don't see how I missed that, as I played through the tutorials at least 30 times, every time we got a new version, reading the text carefully each time.  The text should tell the user to press Enter to go forward, Backspace to go back. 

There is no Return key on modern keyboards.  I didn't realize this until someone pointed it out a few years ago.  I'd been talking about the Return key all along, and everyone knew what I meant, then I ran across someone who had never used an electric typewriter or one of the earliest keyboards.  Look at this key on your keyboard:  does it say Return or Enter?

----

The odd movement of some units where part of the units hang back is part of the no-animation problem.  This includes the artillery splitting off into different directions.

The patch of mist is probably artillery smoke, but there shouldn't be any in tutorial 1. 

There are still a few discrepancies in the 3D animations, which JMM is working on.

Roads are not used at all in the game.  They really don't make any sense to use on a tactical battlefield; you can see the problems in games like Take Command:  Second Manassas where you can always get a unit to the final deployment spot ahead of the lead units on the road, then you have to wait for the tail of the column to arrive.  Roads make more sense on a strategic battlefield, and this issue has been discussed many times on this forum.  Some changes will likely be made when a campaign level is added to the game, after the bugs are fixed and everything else is implemented.

It takes one or two game minutes for orders to be interpreted and acted upon by individual units receiving orders. 

The new text when exiting a game is difficult to see being yellow on a somewhat yellow background.

Could you provide a screen shot of this?  I'm not sure what you mean.

Hook

[Simon]

Thanks for clearing up some of the points Hook.

The text is 'analyse / continue /exit'  in smaller type below the battle results when exiting a battle.

The animation problems (circling, sliding, disappearing, splitting units) have gone on for a (very) long time now and they all seriously impact on game play. For these reasons, I really hope that these are all going to be definitely nailed by the next patch and that this is not too far off.

The order problem was not one of delay I'm afraid.

There certainly is a case for some road movement on maps of this scale. I suspect that implementation difficulties may underlie the absence of such route finding but whereas there are techniques for achieving this, I can sympathise with the absence of this feature, especially at this stage. There are more important priorities...

[Count von Csollich]

There certainly is a case for some road movement on maps of this scale. I suspect that implementation difficulties may underlie the absence of such route finding but whereas there are techniques for achieving this, I can sympathise with the absence of this feature, especially at this stage. There are more important priorities...

just to make sure....roads are not used for movement in the game....roads were important for strategic movement over long distances...but once the armies reached the battlefield roads were of minor importance...thus the game doesn't use the roads to move units...yet of course they're still there!

CvC

[Hook]

Any time you have the problem with missing animations you'll have several other problems with the game.  I don't know why animations are missing, but I've found that rebooting my computer usually fixes the problem when it occurs, which has happened rarely.

It may be that you don't have enough graphics RAM, or that it's become fragmented somehow, which I have noticed with other games as well... performance suffers and odd things happen.  In this case a reboot should fix it.  There may be a similar problem with the main RAM in your computer if you don't have a lot of it.  Yeah, it's a problem, but it might not be fixable in code.

Hook

[AJ]

It would be interesting to know what Simon's PC specs are? including Graphics card. I  used to have alot of weird things on my old PC but when I bought the new one many dissapeared. Hook, remember my gliding units?

[Hook]

Hook, remember my gliding units?

Indeed I do.  Did you ever find any kind of workaround that got the animations back consistently, or was upgrading the computer the only answer?

We may need to update the minimum computer specs for the game based actual performance of the current version on real world computers.

Hook

[Simon]

Sorry, that's not the answer. I built my present computer, not much more than a year ago to the highest specifications.

It runs, for example, NTW smoothly with every game setting on the absolute maximum and with mods that treble the number of figures. I run some other games but the graphics problems are confined to LG.

[oho]

I can repeat the gliding units: when I Alt-Tab to desktop and Alt-Tab back again -> I have gliding units. When I exit the game completly (don't have to reboot the computer) and load the battle again, the gliding is gone. (OS is Vista 64).
Has anybody a suggestion which acceleration time is the best to avoid those graphical differences between 3D and 2D?
Perhaps we can get more detailed info on the units panel (with option full info) about what the unit is doing, also the name of the unit(s) which is attacked.
JMM: which different actions are there for single units, can you give a list.

[Simon]

Yes, I suspected this was at least one culprit. I think Hook may have suggested that the other 3D aberrations were linked to this phenomenon.

[AJ]

Indeed I do.  Did you ever find any kind of workaround that got the animations back consistently, or was upgrading the computer the only answer?

We may need to update the minimum computer specs for the game based actual performance of the current version on real world computers.

It was the upgrade that worked so I never found out what particular thing it was. Here is a side by side, old V new.

Old                                                                                                                   New

WnXP                                                                                                              Win7 64bit
Pentium 4 @ 3g                                                                                           Dual AMD @ 2.9g each
2g of Ram                                                                                                       8g of Ram
Nvidia 8400GS 500mb dedicated                                                         Mobility Radeon HD4200 357mb dedicated

[AJ]

It runs, for example, NTW smoothly with every game setting on the absolute maximum and with mods that treble the number of figures

Now we have it Simon. You are an NTW guy, superb graphics and the most unintelligent and unrealistic Napoleonic AI (That from many gamer mags). The approaches to the development of these 2 games were entirely the opposite.
NTW has a superb graphics engine which looks great in the battle and it was developed around the graphics engine NOT the AI. In NTW Cavalry charges square and regularly wins, English infantry in 3 lines all fire simultaneously, Grenadiers throw Grenades (not done at this time) etc..... BUT it looks good.

HLG was developed around the AI, which is considered by review to be the best around. The 3D graphics lacks the final finesse and is not entirely in synch with what is ACTUALLY happening in 2D. However JMM knows these things and it is far easier in the long run to fix The Graphics engine than develop a new AI. In fact Gameinformer mag laments NTW's AI as terrible and little changed over the years.

So hang on in there guys, JMM knows all that needs fixing and I know that he won't rest until it's done

[Hook]

I can repeat the gliding units: when I Alt-Tab to desktop and Alt-Tab back again -> I have gliding units. When I exit the game completly (don't have to reboot the computer) and load the battle again, the gliding is gone. (OS is Vista 64).

I can Alt-Tab out of the game without problems, and my computer is similar to AJ's old one, except it's a desktop.  But Alt-Tabbing is one likely cause of this kind of data corruption.

Has anybody a suggestion which acceleration time is the best to avoid those graphical differences between 3D and 2D?

As far as I know, the time acceleration setting isn't going to affect the animation problems, but 20/60 is the setting that will match the animations to the movement of the troops over the ground.  Mostly.

Hook

[Simon]

Now we have it Simon. You are an NTW guy...

Meaning what exactly? I drive a Jaguar X KR sports car, so if I take the bus one day, I am a "bus guy"?

You seem to be suggesting that playing NTW precludes appreciation of LG, which in turn explains some sort of lack of "understanding". This example of your deductive reasoning does nothing to encourage my confidence in your pronouncements on the robustness of the game overall.