A Fresh Look

Afghanistan '11 changes the paradigm of wargaming and manages to bring Counter-Insurgency and guerrilla warfare to your screen, properly represented thanks to a revolutionary gameplay formula!
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Captain_Orso
Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
Posts: 44
Joined: Sun Jun 23, 2013 2:05 pm

A Fresh Look

Post by Captain_Orso »

I hadn't touched A11 for about a year, and since I recently had nothing pressing on the table I thought I might take another look.

I found a couple of bugs. One I think is known, that if you grind the game without quit after completing a turn, things can start to get wonky.

I noticed a few time, so I'm guessing it's standard, every time an infantry unit is 2 and 1 turns away from requiring a resupply, if they were in ambush or OP mode, they quite the mode and stand up. Aside from it being a PITA to put them back they way they belong, with SF, when you put them back into OP mode it costs doesn't just cost another 3 to put them back, but actually 5(!!) are assessed, which means, if you had planned on calling in an A-10 Warthog to hit an enemy, you can now forget it, because your SF are now on hunger strike.

I've seen Husky hit mines and have the highway damaged. Additionally they lose the rest fraction of their movement point, which can leave them in a lerch.
--
What still bugs me, sometimes badly:

Game Mechanics
  • Let me pick my flight path by myself by using Ctrl-Click... really. I don't want to fiddle around with your wonky path, which flies right over an area Taliban has just disappeared into.
  • When with a Buffalo, I click on 'construct road', ALL the hexes eligible are highlighted. When a Blackhawk over the mountains wants to drop an infantry squad somewhere near a poppy field, I have to fiddle around with the mouse pointer, going over ever hex, to see which ones are eligible. And it's the exact same thing when picking a squad up. Man, leave the ef'ing poppies alone and do it right, like the Buffalo! *SHEESH* what a PITA!
  • Speaking of dropping off and picking up -- squads AND supplies -- what's this adjacent hex sometimes, and sometimes not BS. Make it all the same hex and stop fooling around with non-sense.
  • I've played some very complex board games, and I've rarely had an opponent who was against or incapable of counting and keeping track of fractions of movement points. No, generally, if I asked if we would play that way, people looked like I'd asked if they'd like to cut off a finger before starting the game. But as with the helos, if you kept track of MP fractions, and allowed using Ctrl-Click to plot a move, it would be so much fairer and easier to plan, instead of making me bang my head on the desk every time. It's a computer program. Doing fractions and keeping track of minutia is what computers were made for... well, that an porn.
  • If I don't have enough PP or whatever to use it, grey-out an option. Don't rearrange buttons. I don't know how many times I've tried to go through units quickly, clicked to pick up supplies from a nearby FOB, and then go into ambush mode, but the buttons have shifted and I accidentally clicked on RTB!! FUUUUUUUU!!!!! Really!! Leave the poppies alone, man!
Game Concept

The concept is interesting. The imbalance of power and influence in different areas affecting the same outcome will probably always fascinate curious humans, and that's asymmetrical warfare in a nutshell. However, von Clausewitz is in affect more than ever in AW - War is merely the continuation of politics by other means. And here is where the game breaks down, IMHO.

Looking at the cost of running the war, the best advice -- what apparently the public wants -- is to never leave the HQ. Fighting a war is logistics, first and last. And in this game, not the enemy is your enemy, people back home telling you not to drive your trucks is your enemy, and I don't think that reflects on the conflict and public support at all. No one complained about the day-to-day business of logistics. They complained about losses, and costs, compared to successes.

The way the game works now, unless you immediately have most villages hooked up to the highway and with a water tower, the negative PP are practically impossible to maintain. Running supplies and sweeping roads of IED's cost immensely, when they should not cost at all.

PP, IMHO, should be based on
  • Turn number. The higher the turn number, the more PP you ought to have.
  • Loses. Wounded and especially lost units should cost PP.
  • Maybe having too many units in-land, but there has to be a number of units that cost nothing. The premise of anything else is ridiculous.
Of course I don't expect anything to happen because of this post -- except maybe the bugs -- but I felt I just had to put this out there.
Captain_Orso
Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
Posts: 44
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Re: A Fresh Look

Post by Captain_Orso »

Two more suggestions, maybe three, because all good things are... six... seven?...
  • The Apache looks to be an AH-64D Longbow, which means it has ground radar. It should have excellent detection within its main armament (AGM-114's aka Hellfire) range of 5.
  • The Apache has 20 MP's, but as soon as it has fired its Hellfire missiles -- the way it fires, it actually looks like hydra rockets -- it's stuck where it is. Common, all the MRAP's and ASV's get to fire and move as long as they have MP's. The Apache ought to be able to keep moving. And where is the 30mm chin-mounted chain gun?
  • Because misclicking is apparently my speciality, to alleviate such mishaps while building onto a FARP, allow building-over, or rebuilding, an addon. It can't be that hard to do.
Maybe that will be it for a while... maybe.
Captain_Orso
Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
Posts: 44
Joined: Sun Jun 23, 2013 2:05 pm

Re: A Fresh Look

Post by Captain_Orso »

After taking a closer look, the issue with SF losing all of their MP's when going into OP mode, I've discovered it is not just when being forced to exit OP mode through having only 1 or 0 rations left. No, it's always.

This is illogical, because the SF squad should still have 2 MP's left, which which they could call in an A-10 strike without endangering their OP mode. Changing into OP mode actually costs ALL remaining MP (minimum of 3). This happens each time the SF squad reaches 1 or 0 rations.
BloodCat
Senior Corporal - Ju 87G
Senior Corporal - Ju 87G
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Re: A Fresh Look

Post by BloodCat »

Buggy saves and invisible units make the game unplayable for me. The worst is, I absolutely love the game while it behaves as intended. If only I could throw a couple hundred bucks in the monitor and the game would suddenly became bug free...
robertahyuk
Sergeant Major - Armoured Train
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Re: A Fresh Look

Post by robertahyuk »

I beta tested the original game and it was buggy then. The Dev said he had everything fixed but two people I know bought it and the bugs are still there. I personally didn't buy the game because I felt the Dev would never help with some fixes and lo and behold, I was right.
ErissN6
1st Lieutenant - Grenadier
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Re: A Fresh Look

Post by ErissN6 »

robertahyuk wrote: Sun Dec 01, 2019 12:49 pmI beta tested the original game and The Dev said he had everything fixed but the bugs are still there.
I guess the problem arrised even just before the beta actually started, when the dev I imagine felt not free enough:
developpment of A11 was not like V65...

In the end, for different reason, a zombie game like Sovereignty?
AgrippaHX
Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
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Re: A Fresh Look

Post by AgrippaHX »

I think in the end it just didn't sell enough and has been abandoned by its developer. I'm not calling it abandoned because it didn't receive infinite updates — that's not a reasonable expectation — but because numerous serious bugs were acknowledged by the dev and never corrected. So now it's a game that sits in my Steam library, and I never play. Which is a pity because with one more patch for the most serious issues, I'd enjoy it and be a satisfied customer.

The best thing we can do as consumers is remember this the next time Slitherine or Every Single Soldier releases a game that looks good to us.
Ventura1976
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Re: A Fresh Look

Post by Ventura1976 »

AgrippaHX wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2020 3:06 am I think in the end it just didn't sell enough and has been abandoned by its developer. I'm not calling it abandoned because it didn't receive infinite updates — that's not a reasonable expectation — but because numerous serious bugs were acknowledged by the dev and never corrected. So now it's a game that sits in my Steam library, and I never play. Which is a pity because with one more patch for the most serious issues, I'd enjoy it and be a satisfied customer.

The best thing we can do as consumers is remember this the next time Slitherine or Every Single Soldier releases a game that looks good to us.
I couldn't agree more. I don't really fault Slitherine for this as much as they're the publisher, and are the publisher for a lot of other great games, and devs. Don't let me catch Every Single Soldier trying to sell something else after they abandoned Afghanistan '11 though as I'll be quick to let others know what they did. What they did by leaving A11 in the state they did is scummy for a dev to do, and I've learned my lesson with them.
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