nwg

Hi Folks,

About 2 years ago the PC version of Empires in Arms (EiA) was released after 7 years or more of development - it was much anticipated and, upon release, was really a big disappointment to all.

http://www.matrixgames.com/products/285 ... es.in.Arms

However, two years have passed and the main code monkey behind the game is still beavering away making changes and fixing things - by all accounts most of the wrinkles are sorted. Possibly the most interesting aspect of this game, for us here at NWG, is that it allows battles to be 'broken out' of the game itself and played with a third party battle resolution system, such as NTW2 or ETW. You get to a battle situation, export the forces, use those forces lists to create your tactical game (ETW), play the tactical game then import the results of that battle back into EiA and continue on with the campaign.

Using such a system could provide a thought provoking game for a handful of interested folks including both campaign and tactical aspects. Such a system will not be a quick bashing of heads, no sir, it will move slowly perhaps taking 6 months to a year to complete only a small part of a campaign and maybe resulting in a tactical battle or 2 a week if we're lucky, still, those battles, though few, would be laden with contextual 'good stuff' and could be enormous fun.

We would need to work on a consistent interface between the campaign game (EiA) and ETW, but I'm confident a way can be found.

The EiA game itself can be played solo, PBEM or 'hotseat'. PBEM requires each player to own the game, solo is not really of interest to us here, but I thought that there might be way to have a hosted server play the hotseat possibility between a group of several players using only one copy of the game (ie; the one I own) - I have not investigated this but it seems to me that it would be possible to use XP or Vista's inbuilt 'remote desktop' feature to gain access to the hosting machine and play the game in a way not dissimilar to having a group of buddies over at your house doing the true 'hotseat' thing.

I'd encourage people with even the slightest interest to pop along to the link provided above and have a look at the game. Go along to the forums as well to help make a judgement call on whether the game has matured enough for us to think seriously about it. If you feel positive enough please leave a comment here and I'll investigate more fully what might be possible and present some ideas on how some of the mechanics might work.

Best regards,
Moopere

I've looked at this many times, I have been a little tempted but as I'm not a huge fan of this type of game I've not bothered - but if LG goes all wrong (for any reason) then I may get it next year as a time killer till ntw3 arrives.

If you all decide to, i ll participate. I know thats Etw topic but would EiA accompany better to Etw or LG ?( Btw, i think The Generals HQ starting doing EiA+LG )

I think LG would be better.

Both would be suitable I think. The advantage of LG as the third party battle resolver will also be its disadvantage by a strange twist of fate. The problem, if its a problem, is that EiA is likely to play out over about 18-24 months for a full sized campaign with 7-8 players. If you add to this the likely long period of play for an LG game, which would probably have to be PBEM as a 'lobby' game of campaign magnitude could take literally a half dozen hours or more you could probably add another year.

The positive aspect is obvious though, you'd get much better resolution (accuracy) of the forces presented.

Moopere

That is a big, serious, commitment, to ask of people.....is there no "limited" Campaign, like a "mini" Campaign that would be suitable ?.

very good idea.
Besides, does it have to be EiA?, just a thought...Any other games like that available, maybe Commander - Napoleon at War for 1v1, i am not sure.

The trouble with almost all the campaign level games is that you can't "break out" of the game itself to play the battle - most campaign systems seem to be self contained.

Moo

Ah course...i remember someone from that club saying EiA would be the only game that can use a third party combat system like Histwar and then re-entering the battle results into EiA again for the strategic game.

Its sure a pity though Ank as EiA is really far far too sophisticated and high level for our ideal purposes. As Gunner rightly says, there are probably few here with a very serious interest in this type of campaigning and I'm really only proposing it as a way to generate context for tactical battles which is where most of our interest lies.

Having said that, I think the whole pace of our most interesting previous gaming has been different, a lot slower (the wiki campaigns for instance). In the future when LG arrives I concur with the general chatter here that PBEM is likely to be the most interesting gaming method and this will also present much slower paced games that cover probably months or at least several weeks of time.

I also wonder about the real commitment required. A game likely to take 2 years to conclude might as well be infinitely long - but is this actually a problem? Are battles today, in the real world, any less important because the world isn't going to end the week after next Tuesday?

Maybe there is scope for interesting contextual battles to come from a campaign system that is essentially perpetual. Countries are run and battles fought by teams. If a team drops out or reduces to zero players for a time it can be 'auto' run by the umpire or the computer (I think it can do this, I'd have to check) and a new player or new team could pick up that country any time in the future.

It could be 'EiA World' hehe, and never end. Or perhaps an arbitrary end can be brought about - the game runs on "Political Points" I seem to remember, so, we could just call the winning team whoever has the most PP's after 6 months if this was desired.

Anyway, food for thought. Context is good, contextual battles are great. An automated or semi automated campaign could be fun and hopefully not too much work. Might be best to wait and see what CA produces for their MP campaign first though, it could be exactly whats needed and of course will integrate into ETW/NTW beautifully.

I'll come back to this thread once we know what the MP ETW campaign really looks like.

Regards, M.

Haven't had a chance to have a look at the link yet, and i would have needed to have a really good look to get some idea of what this was really all about.
I have no experience of anything like this other than the wiki.

But you guys last few comments have cleared a few important points up, especially being able to use a different game for battles and then import the results into the campaign.
Interesting

Moopere, is there no way to use it in a more limited context, kind of like the Waterloo campaign for example ?.

I don't believe there is Gunner. I think its really a world domination Risk type of game. As I say in a post above, I realise that in a world full of choices I don't think we'd choose this particular vehicle as its focus is so high level and abstract yet also very detailed and complex but at a level way above the battlefield.

However, I've searched for years and have yet to find a single campaign level game that allows third party battle resolution so I'm now thinking of force fitting the tool - perhaps its the wrong thing to do.

Moo