The reason why Combat Directive: Napoleonic Wars is possibly the only hexy turnless wargame sold on Steam, is the same reason why your local supermarket doesn’t stock tomato and banana soup or broccoli-flavoured yoghurt – some fusions are simply terrible ideas.
Disclaimer: I only played Fatice Games’ £17 oddity for two hours before flouncing off to type these acerbic paragraphs. During the course of my eight-scrap test-canter, I discovered that CDNW sports attractive art and well-chosen period music…
a crisp/competent tutorial…
over 150 double-ended, sequentially arranged scenarios…
solid AI, and some pleasingly wargamey mechanics (terrain, formations, facing, flanking, suppression, cohesion, and rout recovery all feature)…
Unfortunately, this brief audition also convinced me that hexgrids and real-time action are bizarre bedfellows. While Fatice insist “quick reflexes aren’t essential”, dithering during CDNW’s lively turnless tussles can be disastrous. Because friendly units don’t automatically turn to face new threats, and there’s no game speed selector, or order issuing while paused, battles tend to be hectic, hands-on affairs.
If the devs had opted for a traditional WEGO or IGOUGO approach there would have been ample opportunity to analyse situations, ponder moves, and admire “historically accurate” uniforms (True, players would have had to endure the dreadfully repetitive musket fire sound effects for longer). We would also have been spared the weirder byproducts of this hybrid approach, such as attempting to trigger attacks the moment an enemy crosses a hex boundary.
Sorry, Fatice – call me unadventurous if you like, but I prefer my doughnuts filled with jam or custard.
I am absolutely loving this, but I suppose the world would be a boring place if we all liked the same things. That said, a few things:
1) The devs will be adding the ability to issue orders while paused, not the current map scrolling and status checking only. They are also probably going to be adding a slower speed. That should help people who feel harried by the pace (which, IMO, is still very manageable, but YMMV)
2) Indeed, I play with the sound off generally, but the musketry sound in particular is on their fix list
3) In principle, I agree that WEGO would be a good fit for this sort of thing. In practice, I’m not sure. Many of the strengths and weaknesses of different units/formations etc. depend on incremental differences in time; column can form into square faster than line, well drilled troops can wheel or reform faster, etc. I struggle to see how to represent this well, with hexes, in WEGO. Mare Nostrvm tried and arguably failed with this sort of thing, much as I enjoy that game.
Good to hear active pausing and a game speed selector are on the way. I’ll give the game a second try once they appear.
“In principle, I agree that WEGO would be a good fit for this sort of thing. In practice, I’m not sure”
WEGO works well in hexy titles like the V for Victories, so I don’t see why it couldn’t work in something like this. You would need a more resourceful/responsive AI though. Obviously, if, mid-way through an execution phase your advancing column of infantry found itself being charged by cavalry, you’d expect/hope the friendly AI would take appropriate action. Part of my problem with CDNW at present is that the player-general is expected to baby-sit every unit. Without explicit orders units won’t alter formation or turn to face the most dangerous threat.
Done well, a WEGO system could also convey period command limitations better. Picture, for example, a rule that meant units outside of the general’s command radius would only be ‘orderable’ every /other/ turn rather than every turn.
Thanks for such a detailed review.
Game speed and AI reaction speed can be changed in the settings.
Upcoming plans:
– Adding map panning by hovering the cursor to the edge of the screen
– Zoom and rotate the camera with the middle mouse button held down
– Machine localisation to languages other than English
– Adding a fourth game speed, even slower.
Active pause is very desirable, but it’s quite a big improvement.
Battle sounds will be completely redesigned, I can’t give you an exact date yet. Those sounds that are there – terrible.
Completely turn-based mode (WEGO / IGOUGO) is not in our plans yet.
Some units are able turning toward the enemy, auto-rearranging themselves into a square and bouncing back (Jaegers in Skirmish Order, Cossacks, Horse Artillery).
Thanks for the clarifications, Stinger. I see from the Steam forum that you are also planning to allow campaign choice from the outset which is great.
Re: game speed selection. A ‘plus’ and ‘minus’ buttoned ‘speed bar’ in the GUI (with keyboard shortcuts) would, I think, be the ideal way to handle this.