Totem Ironclads, my own humble opinion/review/thoughts

[CaptainHaplo]

jdkbph,

While I cannot answer all the questions - I can touch on a few. Damage will SLOWLY be repaired as turns pass. This is slow - so dont expect to see drastic damage fixed quickly. I see 1% fixed usually every 2-3 turns.

As for crew - your crew has a training level on each ship. This information - at least in testing - was nore readily available to be seen. However, it has a great impact on your ship's performance. Crew is also factored in to damage - perhaps simplistic in some respects, but actually very helpful and useful for those of us who don't like to micromanage.

You talked about "bouncing" shells off the Virginia's hull all day for no damage. Even small shots will wear down the armor of a ship. Each hit in a specific area will futher weaken the armor there - so even firing dinky little guns at an ironclad is worth it over time. This is one area that the game truly excells in, as it monitors accumulated damage to areas.

When it comes to aiming - there is not, to my knowledge (which is limited), a way to aim at a specific point, unless where you click on an enemy ship is the aiming point. That might be the mechanics used.

However, I can tell you a couple of specifics about aiming. Each ship is divided just as your damage screen shows: Fore, center and aft areas - each divided into a port and starboard side. This creates 6 damage "areas". The most effective shots will concentrate fire in one of these locations.

For example - a "broadside" shot - where your shooting at the parallel side of your enemy, usually spreads your shots out - the majority going into the center -with a few going fore and aft (not counting misses). However, if you use proper ship handling, you can often fire your shots at a more narrowed area. One thing I often did was turn BEHIND enemy vessels. Then, while I passed behind them, my guns would be able to bear for a limited time - either on one side as I approached, or the other "far" side as I passed. Using this technique allowed me mazimize my shot placements - meaning more hits in specific areas. The more damage - the more likely you can have a fire or flooding affect the enemy. At the least - concentrated damage often takes out a few guns - sometimes permenantly! If you use this successfully enough, you get to enjoy seeing the enemy down aft and struggling to just stay afloat! Not to mention many of the ships you use this with often cannot turn fast enough on their next "round" to target you. Remember that landing shots on your opponent, while staying out of his shot range/angle, makes winning alot easier!

You mentioned opportunity fire - can you explain a bit more of what you want here? Usually when my ship has finishd moving - it has no enemy in a targetable position. This may be just due to my style of play, but its very important to remember that these ships have a very small "window of opportunity" when it comes to engaging targets successfully unless the guns are turreted. For fixed broadside guns, its usually apparent where and when you have the "best available shot". If you dont stop and take it there - then you are wasting the opportunity. Think of it this way - your the captain. If you don't yell fire - is your crew going to let loose? Of course not. You take your shots when you think you should. Personally - I suggest get as close as possible, fire every available gun when its highlighted, and thus insure that every shot in a full broadside counts!!! If you can explain "opportunity fire" a little better, the Totem guys seem to be very open to suggestions!

[Maxim]

2 Crinius\

The artillery in days of Civil war was still very primitive. The shell flied aside the enemy, but not to a concrete part. To aim a gun at any part it was almost useless.

However, if your ship stands very close to the enemy the shell flies in parallel a direction of a gun. It can be used to fire separate parts. Always shoot only from one side of a vessel. Always shoot at that part which is protected by the reservation worse. Simply put the ship in parallel or perpendicularly to the enemy and shoot.

Try to imagine sector of bombardment of your gun. Here in this sector the shell also will fly to the purpose.

Totem Team

[Maxim]

2 jdkbph\

We tried make game in which the person who does not understand war on the sea can to play. Besides we have decided to not show the player of that information which the captain in 1862 could not know.

1. Damage is a physical destruction of a design of the ship, destruction of guns and murder of a crew. Destruction influences efficiency and accuracy of shooting, speed of the ship and its maneuverability. Flooding is a receipt water inside of the case of the ship through through holes in the case. Flooding leads to that that the ship or will slowly sink or overturns. If water acts in all parts of the ship in identical quantity to sink quantity of water inside of the ship should be equaled to its displacement. If in one of parts of the ship there are more than holes and more water the ship bends until will turn over. To turn over the ship it is necessary that in one of its parts was more waters than in other parts provisional on 10 % from displacement. Critical damages to game are not present.

2. It is very difficult to find balance between simplicity and details. I have understood your wish.

3. Onboard there is a crew. 68 hits it not so are a lot of. At the first bombardment of the Charleston in each of monitors of the USA 50 shells have got on the average.

4. You can remove the ship from fight. The opponent too does it if its ship is threatened with danger of destruction. But it not always turns out. Sometimes the ship receives such damages that has not time to run aground or fall outside the limits a map any more for one round.

5. To a regret in 1862 there were no devices for measurement of speed of the ship. The captain approximately measured the speed on number of turnovers of a shaft of the screw. Thus if the steam machine has been damaged, measured not truly. Pay attention what even today we do not know exact speed CSS Virginia.

6. It agree. Good idea.

7. Movement - the Stop - the Shot - Movement. The most successful combination.

8. Save of game - explain please more in detail.


It is our first game. We attentively study your responses to understand that it has turned out, and that it is necessary to change. Thanks for your response.

[jdkbph]

Thanks for the reply. I'll respond in-line below...

Originally Posted by Typical Russian

We tried make game in which the person who does not understand war on the sea can to play.

I'm not sure about the thinking here. Based on subject matter alone, it seems to me your audience is by definition "grognard". Casual gamers are not interested in ACW era ironclads.

Besides we have decided to not show the player of that information which the captain in 1862 could not know.

I agree with this design principle. However, nothing I suggested would require that you violate that principle.

1. Damage is a physical destruction of a design of the ship, destruction of guns and murder of a crew. Destruction influences efficiency and accuracy of shooting, speed of the ship and its maneuverability. Flooding is a receipt water inside of the case of the ship through through holes in the case. Flooding leads to that that the ship or will slowly sink or overturns. If water acts in all parts of the ship in identical quantity to sink quantity of water inside of the ship should be equaled to its displacement. If in one of parts of the ship there are more than holes and more water the ship bends until will turn over. To turn over the ship it is necessary that in one of its parts was more waters than in other parts provisional on 10 % from displacement.

I understand. I was referring to specific damage, such as damage to a rudder or steering mechanism, an engine, or a boiler.

Critical damages to game are not present.

This is something I believe you should consider for a future update or perhaps your next game. Critical damage such as damage to systems I mentioned above did occur during battle more often than not. Catastrophic damage such as magazine or boiler explosions did occur as well, albeit not as frequently.

2. It is very difficult to find balance between simplicity and details. I have understood your wish.

See my comment above RE: your audience. Grognards want details. If the details are there in the game, but not being presented to the player (with the "only knowing what you should know" caveat), you're selling the game short, IMHO.

3. Onboard there is a crew. 68 hits it not so are a lot of. At the first bombardment of the Charleston in each of monitors of the USA 50 shells have got on the average.

I meant numerous hits from a 68lb'er gun, not 68 gun hits. What I'm trying to say is that any significant number of hits, even if they don't penetrate the armor, should still affect the crew - and by extension the fighting effectiveness of the ship - in a negative way. Again, this may already be part of the game... but if so, we should be aware of it. If not, it may be something else to consider for the future.

4. You can remove the ship from fight. The opponent too does it if its ship is threatened with danger of destruction. But it not always turns out. Sometimes the ship receives such damages that has not time to run aground or fall outside the limits a map any more for one round.

Maybe so. I'm still getitng used to the game and I've only seen one example so far where discretion was obviously the better part of valor, but on that one occassion the AI unwisely chose valor.

I was engaged in a battle with 2 fast cruisers/commerce raiders. My force of 2 ships was more heavily armed but much slower. The AI, having the initiative, decided to engage. I quickly sank one of them, at which point the second could have easily escaped but did not even try. The battle inevitably ended with both enemy cruisers sunk. My conclusion was that the AI is either programmed to fight no matter the tactical advantage or disadvantage, or the fight/flight algorithm simply has an error in it. There may be something else more complex at work here, but again, if so, it would be nice to know what it is.

5. To a regret in 1862 there were no devices for measurement of speed of the ship. The captain approximately measured the speed on number of turnovers of a shaft of the screw. Thus if the steam machine has been damaged, measured not truly. Pay attention what even today we do not know exact speed CSS Virginia.

I think they were still using simple logs for determining speed through the water... but of course they would not be making those measurements during battle. That said, they would absolutely have a fairly good idea of how fast they were moving relative to their maximum achievable speed under the conditions extant, using the same techniques and drawing on the same type of experience sailing masters used during previous centuries.

The problem here is that damage as it relates to speed is not reported, therefore the percentage of the max speed as shown by the green line is pretty much useless. For instance, if we're showing 50% of max speed, is that 50% of the normal max speed (eg, 12 knots / 2 = 6 knots) or 50% of the current max speed, factoring for damage (eg, 4 knots / 2 = 2 knots)?

7. Movement - the Stop - the Shot - Movement. The most successful combination.

Yes, however many game systems that employ that mechanism also use opportunity fire to offset the lack of control during the opponent's turn. For instance, Steel Panthers (computer game) uses an Igo-Ugo play style with opportunity fire.

In that game, you get X number of shots per unit, per turn. If however you leave one or more shots unfired, the AI will fire those shots for you if an enemy unit moves within (a player defined) range during the opponent's turn.

Many board wargames have used this system since forever. It is a well established, well understood gaming convention.

How this would apply to Ironclads is simple. For every ship under your control, you would choose to fire either all or some or none of the guns during your turn. Then during your opponent's turn any enemy movement would trigger a check to see if their current position places them in range and within the firing arc of any previously unfired guns on your ships. If so, then those guns would fire. This could be further refined by giving the player the ability to set a maximum range at which opportunity fire would occur, or perhaps specify a minimum accuracy % for opportunity fire to occur. This way if the player is trying to conserve ammo, the AI would not waste it on far away or low percentage shots.

8. Save of game - explain please more in detail.

Hard to explain without pictures... and I didn't think to take any. I tried to save a game using my own save game name. I used AAA as the name of the save. When I went to load a save game, AAA appeared as a save I could load, along with all the autosaveX files. So far so good. However, I then tried to save a game called BBB, but it showed up in the save game load screen as BBBosaveX and it would not load. No matter how many times I tried to save BBB, being sure to delete autosaveX from the name field, it kept overwriting the autosaveX and corrupting the save. I finally figured out that using autosaveX as a save game name was the only sure way to actually save a current situation, so I just started overwriting those, keeping the same name.

I hope that's understandable.

It is our first game. We attentively study your responses to understand that it has turned out, and that it is necessary to change. Thanks for your response.

I know and I appreciate that. Please don't take anything here as a criticism. I think it's great that you guys are addressing areas of naval warfare that no one else will touch, and with the great customer support you've shown so far, I have no problem putting up with a few minor issues.

As I said at the end of that last post... I would not hesitate to recommend your game to anyone.

Thanks... and keep up the good work.

JD

[jdkbph]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

You mentioned opportunity fire - can you explain a bit more of what you want here?

I'll just repeat what I wrote to the Totem guy, who had a similar question...

Many Igo-Ugo turn based games also use opportunity fire to offset the lack of control during the opponent's turn. For instance, Steel Panthers (computer game) uses an Igo-Ugo play style with opportunity fire.

In that game, you get X number of shots per unit, per turn. If however you leave one or more shots unfired, the AI will fire those shots for you if an enemy unit moves within (a player defined) range during the opponent's turn.

Many board wargames have used this system since forever. It is a well established, well understood gaming convention.

How this would apply to Ironclads is simple. For every ship under your control, you would choose to fire either all or some or none of the guns during your turn. Then during your opponent's turn any enemy movement would trigger a check to see if their current position places them in range and within the firing arc of any previously unfired guns on your ships. If so, then those guns would fire. This could be further refined by giving the player the ability to set a maximum range at which opportunity fire would occur, or perhaps specify a minimum accuracy % for opportunity fire to occur. This way if the player is trying to conserve ammo, the AI would not waste it on far away or low percentage shots.

JD

[AlExal]

What about your future projects? Are you working on something?

[JHS]

Played through a big battle scenario on the demo. South (my side): one British-design CAPTAIN class turret ship, three big Austrian-built broadside battery rams, three or so total wimp light ships with popguns. Union: Murder Incorporated---a couple of double turret monitors, couple single turret monitors, a couple unarmored steam sloops with guns coming out of their ears, and a couple light vessels with turntable guns and some broadside guns. Well, it is not a low-IQ toy, as the Russian designer insisted. The turn style play is maybe questionable, but it works well. You can interrupt your individual ship's move to blast an opponent whenever you like. You can't fine-tune your move perfectly, so some of the unrealism of a turn system is eliminated---if you think you can make your move perfectly to run right up along side an enemy ships, you might find yourself colliding. Best advice: don't try running close to anything unless you intend to ram. Ramming is the way to go if you have a big Austrian ram and you see a big, fat, vulnerable Union steam sloop in range. Monitors try to ram the tender ends of the Austrian rams because they are wood. The Austrian rams are white elephants. They are fast (they are big seagoing steamships with armor amidships). Their guns are useless against monitors. The way to nail the Austrians is to ram their wooden ends which causes them to flood over time (game has excellent flooding/structural-above-water/fire/armament damage displays). If you have to run with a badly damaged underwater bow, the high speed causes further flooding and you founder (believe me, I know). Sank two of my Austrians this way.

The heavyweights in the game are the monitors. They can't be knocked out. Massive turret armor prevents damage. They are too low in the water to hit their sides. You can't ram them because of the overhang above the underwater hull won't let you reach the hull with your rams. Brawling with them puts you in range of their gigantic Dahlgren smoothbores which blow your wooden ends in on you. Add to all of the above, they are very maneuverable. Once you slow yourself down in a twisting fight, they dance all around you pummeling you to pieces. You can see why the USN loved monitors and kept building them until the 1890s. Wonder if the game will have any rough weather scenarios? Rough weather would ruin the monitors' day because they were so low in the water---they flooded and sank in heavy weather. Guess why the RN hated them?! Their solution was the CAPTAIN class turret ship with high ends but low amidships to carry the massive turrets.

As for the scenario I played, the only way to win as the South is to blow right through the Union squadron at full speed, ram the wooden steam sloops, and get out at high speed. Don't even bother shooting at or ramming the monitors. If they start to swarm your big Austrians, use their greater speed and seaworthiness to run away. My efficiency rating at the end was 16%---all I managed to do was wreck one steam sloop with a perfect ram job. Union had 68% because they wiped me out---one of my big Austrians was able to run for dear life and escape the pack of monitors.

The game beautifully models the effect of turning on these ships. If you keep turning, pretty soon you run out of momentum just like a turning airplane. You stall to practically 0 speed. I didn't fully realize what I was doing to my ships by trying to maneuver all the time. It takes several turns to build up speed again and you only do this by steaming straight ahead.

There was one mystery: sometimes I managed to pull right next to an enemy, and I expected my guns would blow him to kingdom come, but, no, nothing happened. I could not shoot. This was very frustrating!

I think IRONCLADS is a brilliant design. I've always wondered what would have happened if British ironclad designs had been in battle in this period. Most of the fights are "what if" but I think it is a legitimate "what if".

Graphics and detail supposed to be better with full monty version. Bought it but haven't loaded it yet.

☆☆☆☆

[JHS]

Played the first campaign game scenario of the standard game this morning as the Southern commander. Fabulous. I love this brilliant game.

I hope they carry it on to model the whole close-range "ironclad" period up until the Spanish-American War.

[CaptainHaplo]

I wouldnt know - they STILL havent sent me my unlock key.

[JHS]

I had to wait over 24 hours. The producers told me they sent many emails but they weren't getting through. Have you emailed them? I sent a follow-up email after 24 hours.