Gameplay Rules and Hints

Commander - Napoleon at War is a turn based strategy game that brings gaming back to its roots - it's fun!

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firepowerjohan
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Gameplay Rules and Hints

Post by firepowerjohan »

Posting some important issues here plus issues missing from the manual.

1. Combined Arms Support
In addition to directly attacking enemy units, Cavalry and Artillery are able to support other attacking and defending friendly units in combat but only in battles where an infantry unit is attacked.

Cavalry must be adjacent to the Defender’s hex in a combat to lend support. Artillery must be within two hexes of the Defender’s hex in a combat to lend support. A combat can only be supported by one Artillery and one Cavalry unit. These units support combat with the following bonuses at their base level:
a. Horse Artillery: 8%
b. Foot Artillery: 13%
c. Siege Artillery: 4%
d. Light Cavalry: 16%
e. Heavy Cavalry: 17%

If you have several cavalry or several artillery the best one will be used, which means if you all the 5 types nearby (a+b+c+d+e) you would get the 13% for foot artillery and 17% for the heavy cavalry. Support is proportional to the strength of a unit, so a half strength unit only gives half support.

2. Combat Panel Penalties explained
When the player holds the mouse over an enemy unit to initiate a combat, a summary of combat bonuses and penalties for both sides is displayed in the center of the bottom interface bar, above the expected losses caused. These bonuses are as follows, from top to bottom:
a. Attack Across River Penalty
b. Terrain Attack Penalty
c. Terrain Cavalry Penalty
d. Weather Penalty
e. Support Bonus (Cavalry + Artillery)

3. Generals and Admirals leadersship range and battle bonuses
Generals have range 4 hexes while Admirals have range 3 hexes. Admirals only boost naval units, generals only boost land units. In addition to boosting nearby units max effectiveness, some of them also have powerful battle bonuses for the unit they are attached into. Furtermore some admirals have a looting bonus, receving higher looting from attacking merchants.

4. Supplies and Weather
That supply affect recovery, reinforce rates and movement is well known and can be easy to distinguish but there are some tricks that can help you preserve supply and wreck enemy supply. Using this knowledge correctly can make or break an invasion of Russia for example where weather is very harsh.

If you have no supply route to a City or Capital or are in Mud or Snow your supply levels WILL drop. If being in home land (for example Russian unit inside Russia) the supply will never reach zero but stay at supply=1 while invaders may have their supply steadily drop until reaching zero.

Snow rapidly decreases supply, Mud more slowly. To prevent this you should conquer enemy cities since that give a one time boost to nearby units in supply. To prevent this, the enemy may decide to raze the City before you reach it since this prevents you from looting.

So in Bad weather, Cities and Capitals wont help your supply from dropping. If you are on foreign land you need to loot supplies. Consider the weather and try to stawy away from snow instead mud is easier on your units.

5. What scenarios are there in game?
There are both long ones over 100 turns and short ones less than 10 turns. A briefing list can be found here
viewtopic.php?t=8324

6. What is that land area created for Vassals?
You cannot annex or wipe out the Major Countries in game, when they surrender a Vassal state is created. You can pass their land, but they have a small zone which they can use as deploy area which you cannot enter. Vassals may revolt so be sure you keep some units nearby to be rdy for it.

7. Renaming units
You rename a unit by first selecting it followed by clicking its name in the unitpanel below the map


8. Scolling through units
Use Page up / Page Down to quickly scroll through ready units

9. Sentry
Select a unit and push "s" to sentry it, removing it from the quick scroll function.

10. What does research do?
To find out what each technology does, in the research screen you click one of the button "Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, ..." which jumps you to the detaield research screen showing what units are effected by each tech level and what values are increased. Weather tolerance need explanation, it means you get less penalty in mud and snow. A +50 value to weather tolerance means you only 50% as much penalty in bad weather for example.

11. Roads
A unit start start and finish its movement on a road receives a +1 movement point that turn so can move one hex further
Last edited by firepowerjohan on Thu Apr 02, 2009 10:40 pm, edited 19 times in total.
Johan Persson - Firepower Entertainment
Lead Developer of CEAW, CNAW and World Empires Live (http://www.worldempireslive.com)
alaric318
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Awesome Game, Modding Question, Congratulations The Game

Post by alaric318 »

first allow me to congratulate for the awesome napoleonic game, played last night for 4 hours, for 50 turns, is very very well balanced, well, here i go with my question, faq, about modding,

the manual points to the english version mod in /CNAW/Data/ dir to the text files under "eng" filename, but i take care abut "eng" files and his counterparts (these without "eng") have different values, i review land_leaders and units and i think the game use the files without the "eng" in filename, as the costs of the units shown in my game are these at the filenames without "eng", so, what files we need to mod?, i realize that these without "eng", can take 5 minutes to test but was wanting to point about it to the potential modders,

thanks for the awesome game and thanks for any and all advice,

with best regards,

alarick.
keep up the good work!!! :)
i think is the best wargame so far this year, the convoy system for both sides is a great feature, encourage the french player to maybe build fleet, as the horses are needed, the best advice that i can give is that the most powerfull unit in my game is napoleon attached to the heavy cavalry corps.
firepowerjohan
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Post by firepowerjohan »

The .eng is only used for the language thingy, for gameplay you want to mod the number sin the normal unit.txt

same applies for technology, terrain, land_leader, sea_leader

I made 2 identical layouts so that I could maintain the code more easy.
Johan Persson - Firepower Entertainment
Lead Developer of CEAW, CNAW and World Empires Live (http://www.worldempireslive.com)
alaric318
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Post by alaric318 »

firepowerjohan wrote:The .eng is only used for the language thingy, for gameplay you want to mod the number sin the normal unit.txt

same applies for technology, terrain, land_leader, sea_leader

I made 2 identical layouts so that I could maintain the code more easy.
thanks for the advice and fast repply, this game will consume much time for me, i really like it, i have at the moment one more question, the losses balance mouse-ing over combat hex takes care and show with bonus and penalties applied or bonus and penalties modifies combat from the "base" "casualties value" ?

i do not know what will be better, go for some uncertainty or go for more control over casualties, any both does the job for me,

best regards,

alarick.
firepowerjohan
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Post by firepowerjohan »

The shown modifiers are included in the final odds shown below, the modifiers are just for explanations.
Johan Persson - Firepower Entertainment
Lead Developer of CEAW, CNAW and World Empires Live (http://www.worldempireslive.com)
alaric318
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Post by alaric318 »

firepowerjohan wrote:The shown modifiers are included in the final odds shown below, the modifiers are just for explanations.
thanks for the advice and fast repply, i will start work on my mod tonight, cavalry maybe in horses cost is expensive, but i find fine with game scale, there are few cavalry corps trough all the war/s and added in, cavalry is powerfull, more with the bonuses for infantry, is good to have 3 range of infrantry to choice, i think each player will have his own concept of perfect parameters, excuse for going on offtopic, just was wanting to say thanks for the repply and the awesome game,

best regards,

alarick.
firepowerjohan
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Post by firepowerjohan »

I am glad you enjoy the game :)
Johan Persson - Firepower Entertainment
Lead Developer of CEAW, CNAW and World Empires Live (http://www.worldempireslive.com)
alaric318
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Post by alaric318 »

firepowerjohan wrote:I am glad you enjoy the game :)
greetings, the Commander game engine is one of the better in the wargame market, i only hope that will be continued, a first world war game or a seccesion/civil american war will be great, i have my mod for 1.0 almost ready for playtest, want to try if there are not much balance issues but this week will try it out and may be almost sure to make it public, in essence gives more freedom on all facets to both sides, i love player's freedom to configure his army and give more importance to the combined arms rules at enhance the capability to recruit cavalry troops, costs in horses are high but i find it realistic, so not a problem with the default main line campaign scenario, each player have his own concept of perfection,

thanks again for the great game,

with best regards,

alarick.
Happycat
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Post by Happycat »

Johan, I have forgotten. When does Prussia automatically declare war?

Are there any other automatic activiations that should be known, and posted to this FAQ?

Last question: is there anything in the game that duplicates the historical "switching of sides" that occurred historical with Russia (Tilsit War I think it was called, where they became ticked off with England for invading Denmark, I think...)

THANKS IN ADVANCE! :)
Chance favours the prepared mind.
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