Totem games "Ironclads"--- DEMO is up

[RedChico]

I think it should be in Real Time rather than Turn Base.

[CaptainHaplo]

For those wanting the game to be "real time" - remember your tasked - in the demo only - to control 8 or more ships at a time. Think your up to tracking them ALL at the same time in "real time"? If you tried - you would end up screaming "Its too much to control at one time - why isnt there a "pause and command" feature!" The first time you neglected to check a vessel and it got hammered, you would be unhappy. This is not a game that is designed to be command and conquer with ironclads - its designed to represent some of the HISTORICAL challenges of fighting with, and against, this "new technology" at an earlier time in naval history.

Your entitled to your opinions, but lets keep the "well your screwed this all up" to constructive criticism. Instead of saying "the map doesnt show which way my ship is going" - try suggesting a fix - a map graphic change that shows the bow of your ship marked so you can determine direction for example. Just remember - you have a map - the Captains of the time period had a hand drawn map that they had to be able to tranlate what they could see - to relate it onto the map. Think just seeing a map that gives you a "birds eye view" would have been a luxury they would have loved to have? *Actually it would have given them alot better tactical awareness".

While games like Xcom did allow a soldier to "pass" his movement phase, thats something a person in the real world could do - choose to not move. However, can a ship in battle suddenly stop dead in the water just because its "tactically sound", then resume its movement later? No - physics indicates it can't - so such an option should not be in a game that strives represent the challenges of the era. Part of the challenge of naval maneuvering - from the age of sail through steam, is being able to plan ahead and anticipate what your opponent may do - so you place yourself not for the moment, but you act so that you have the opening in the future you need to gain the advantage. If you play any sailing "game" for the "right now" advantage - you won't win. This held true even with powered ships, and can be seen in actions from the defeat of the Spanish Armada, to the Battle of Jutland.

I am a bit of a history buff. I look at this as yes - the game could be improved. However, these devs haven't gotten this "finished" and have shown a great willingness to fix things that can be shown to need fixing. Is that not what we as gamers have always said we wanted? They have obviously done alot of groundwork research, and no game is perfect. Sure its not as pretty as Seadogs2 (PotC), or realtime. So far I haven't even inquired about if they are building in multiplayer support (nothing listed on that on the main english page). But the fact is, its a work in progress that shows a lot of promise.

If you like something - say so. If you don't - say that too! Just be considerate of the fact that these people are pouring alot of effort into it - so offer ideas on how to improve things, vs just "this is whats all wrong". The only exception there is turn based vs realtime. Taking a game like this - on a "built" engine - and changing that from one to the other - is almost impossible. You are asking them to almost start over. Those types of decisions - real time vs "time" turn based are made very early in developmental planning. There is nothing to be done about it now - and trust me on this - in the end you wouldnt be happy with it unless you could constantly pause the game to issue new commands anyway. If your having to do that - your not playing "real time" like a historical captain did anyway right?

Now - I will make a couple of suggestions regarding the turn based model. First, set it up so that if a player does not give specific orders to a vessel or group, they continue with the current orders. Also perhaps create a slider or setting to where we could control how much time each "turn" is containing. Currently the manual states we are simulating 5 minutes of time per turn. Some may see 5 minutes as too long a period for each turn. If we could adust it - say to 1/3/5 minute settings, then it would allow many gamers to feel they have more control over the actual battle. This could alleviate some of the "real time" requests while keeping the current scheme. Might not be possible due to reloading times - don't know how you guys implimented that. Just a couple of ideas.

[Ilpalazzo]

Is Totem Games looking for suggestions regarding gameplay changes? I was under the impression that this game was very close to release and that any gameplay change would be out of the question. I thought that at this point, Totem Games was only interested in releasing their game bug free.


I think I might play it a few more times and see if I can come up with any good ideas.

For those wanting the game to be "real time" - remember your tasked - in the demo only - to control 8 or more ships at a time. Think your up to tracking them ALL at the same time in "real time"? If you tried - you would end up screaming "Its too much to control at one time - why isnt there a "pause and command" feature!" The first time you neglected to check a vessel and it got hammered, you would be unhappy. This is not a game that is designed to be command and conquer with ironclads - its designed to represent some of the HISTORICAL challenges of fighting with, and against, this "new technology" at an earlier time in naval history.

CaptainHaplo, the game, in it's current form, cannot be real time. I understand that and that's cool cause it is a good game. I think I like your idea about the turn time slider. More micro management of the flow of battle might help distract me from feeling like there is nothing else to do, which is something I ramble on about later in this post. I just want to know if you think a naval battle game where you control many ships would be completely ill suited for real time.

On an unrelated note. I would have purchased Distant Guns if they didn't make the price so unreasonable. Seriously, I believe Distant Guns is $70 US!


I just feel like I have to say this,

for me, turn based games are fun because they are meant to be tactical. They have to be in turns because there's so much you can do that you need time to think about it. I know next to nothing about the time period and the naval battles so I can't say what else can be added for you to do on your turns in Ironclads. The game is striving for realism and I really can't imagine the real ships doing anything other than moving and firing. So really there is no problem with the game. I just can't quite understand (from a gameplay standpoint) why it was decided to be made turn based. As Letum said earlier in the thread,

The game really needs to have the player more involved.
Give the player more control, more to do. Some more micro-management.
Give the player some tough choices to make (other than move, fire!), some
traps to fall into. Give visual feedback about what is happening; damage
graphics are a good start.

If Totem Games can think of anything else for the player to do than I am all for it. The current choices are simply limited to move and fire. I know it's not an rpg or anything so nothing outlandish, but is it possible that there could be something else for the player to do? If in reality all they did was move and fire then perhaps the game would have been best suited for real time with pause and time compression features and orders for your ai ships to fire within certain ranges or target certain ships. In other words, less micro more macro. That is all under the assumption that moving and firing is all there is to it. However, in a turn based game, I find it preferable to have more micro management.


If possible, more damage graphics to show the player how things are going would be nice. So far the game is doing very well with this, if I see a ship listing to a side or burning, then I know I did something good It would be neat if there were other damage graphics/effects to give the player more visual feedback on the progress of the battle. However, it is not necessary as the game does already do this well enough.

I noticed, when firing point blank, that often times there is no graphic to indicate if anything happened. Normally you would see an explosion on the ship or a splash in the water to indicate hit or miss, but when firing close ranged I sometimes do not see an explosion or splash which makes it hard to tell if I hit or missed. I believe this may be a bug.


The only reasonable suggestion I have for Totem Games regarding Ironclads is to make the user interface smaller or 'streamlined'. The UI is, in my opinion, unnecessarily large. I play on a 37 inch monitor and the graphic just seems to take up an awful lot of space.



And now the stuff that I don't think will be taken too seriously.

I would like to discuss whether or not the point of impact from my shots has significance on the enemy. I can see on my screen that my ship is divided into different points that indicate damage/flooding. I assume the enemy ships are the same way yes? I've been maneuvering my ships to fire on the same points of the enemy in hopes that my concentrated damage will hamper the enemy more than randomly firing anywhere I can. I need clarification on this because it seems that when I fire, the explosion hit graphic is usually on the center of the enemy ship regardless of where I was hoping to hit (fore,aft). This just make me confused as to whether or not I'm hitting what I mean to hit.

I guess what I'm saying is that I would like to know if it is possible to make 'aimed' shots for specific points on the enemy and whether or not this is necessary. Usually, my ship seems to just aim for the center of the enemy. Perhaps being able to aim shots would add an interesting dynamic and something more to do with your turn. I noticed the ai seems to destroy my guns and actually manage to render my ironclads harmless. I would like to be able to aim at their turrets and try to destroy their guns, but this all seems up to chance as there is no real way to aim the guns. There seems to be parts of ships that are less armored than others. I always try to aim for these 'weak points'. I just can't tell if it matters in the game.

I also would like to know if it would be possible to give the player different ammo types, as this would add a tactical decision. I believe historically they did have different types of ammo (explosive shell and solid shot).

I'm just trying to think of how you can add more to the players decisions. You are striving for historical accuracy so don't take my ideas there seriously because I really don't know much about this subject. Since it is necessary to be as close as possible to make a hit, perhaps they didn't care about what they hit and so there was no real use in aiming? Is this true? It can be difficult to set up a perfect shot so I would not be surprised if they fired whenever they thought it would hit, regardless of whether or not it's where they would prefer to have shot. I'd imagine that, ideally, they would try to concentrate on a specific part and keep at it because of the difficulty in damaging an ironclad to begin with.

The scale indicated in the game throws me off a bit. Are the ships in proportion to their surroundings? When I am as close as possible to a ship without ramming it, is the distance between us mere meters or hundreds of meters? It seems so odd that it could look like I am touching a ship and still manage to fire past it.


Did anybody else find it more difficult to win as CS vs US in the demo? Got any tips for me? I seem to play badly as CS in the demo. I think I can win, but the demo always does that crash to me. Anyway, as CS I quickly end up with only my 3 best ships. Perhaps I should be less suicidal with my little ones? Generally, I would try to use one of the big ships to ram an enemy ironclad at full speed and then pull the other big one up beside said ironclad and fire a full broadside. Is this a good tactic? I was under the impression that ramming ironclads with the big ships was a viable strategy.


edit. OH i wanted to mention one more thing. I like the way the speed of movement works in the game. It makes sense that you must complete movement to finish your turn. However, sometimes my ship wont make the full movement. Then I have to keep messing with the slider and hitting the move button many times until the ship finally finishes it's move length and allows me to end the turn. This seems to be another sort of bug.

It doesn't matter to me whether or not the game gets new features because I have already decided to purchase it. Just letting you know I'm not a jerk that wants to change the game. I just want to see the bugs fixed.

[CWorth]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

For those wanting the game to be "real time" - remember your tasked - in the demo only - to control 8 or more ships at a time. Think your up to tracking them ALL at the same time in "real time"? If you tried - you would end up screaming "Its too much to control at one time - why isnt there a "pause and command" feature!" The first time you neglected to check a vessel and it got hammered, you would be unhappy. This is not a game that is designed to be command and conquer with ironclads - its designed to represent some of the HISTORICAL challenges of fighting with, and against, this "new technology" at an earlier time in naval history.

I am going to guess you have never played Age of Sail 2 Privateers Bounty.

One of the best things about it was that it was in real time.And trying to fight the Battle of Trafalgar in real time with all those ships is what made that even more fun.Simply because it made for a challange trying to manage a fleet of 22 British ships or a fleet of 33 French and Spanish ships.

Sure it was buggy but it was still a fun game and the real time control made it even better.

This is a game I will be getting for certain but a real time version maybe later on would be great.