From: sens@worldnet.att.net (Sens) Subject: Great Battles of Alexander - comments A friend has a copy of the game, and I borrowed the CD for the 7/4 weekend to try it out, to see if it warranted many of the compliments bestowed upon it by some folks here. Turn-based, hex-gridded, set-piece battles used to be one of more more favored pasttimes in the days of old, and I wanted to see if the old flame still flickers somewhere in the basement. Less nostalgically, I wanted to see how a score like Alexan make the transition to the computer. Comments follow. Technical: First impression is that the programming skill for the game wasn't quite up to par. Even with 32-megs memory, the manual cited that one needs a 60-meg swap file buffer (or some such equiv) to properly play the largest scenarios with the animation enabled. That's 90 megs of memory for what are some basic stop-and-go animation (albeit high res). I have 64 megs, and even with this, I can't properly reload the Gagaumela (sp?) scenario without getting a out-of-memory error. To reload a saved Gagau scen, I first need to exit the program completely, which tells me that the program doesn't correctly release all its memory. Even in this age of plentiful hardware, Alexander does pay special homage to the term "gluttony." Graphics: I find the hi-res graphics to be quite engaging. It's obvious that the authors had went all out for eye-candy when it comes to the battlefield animation, where there is a different death-effect for every troop type (got to have something to justify the 90-meg memory requirement, right?). Unfortunately, such lavish attention is at the expense of the game's functionality. The oblique-3D angle lends life to the battles, but it not as efficient as the top-down 2D view for strategic planning for the true-blood wargamer (chess fans can well appreciate this). There is no way to turn off the forest graphics, which hides 90% of the underlying hex and its occupants, and you needed to grope for the desired object. (Yes, there is the zoom-out, but it offers minimal visual info for troop status). The terrain offers no information on terrain type, terrain elevation, or movement/ combat effects. Those are available in the help file, but it would be nice to know about such when you have an unit already activated for movement. Units lack basic on-screen information that you can overview their status and organization at a glance, and the fly-by text box doesn't compensate for the deficiency. In a large dynamic battle such as Gagau where there is a multitude of leaders, I am often at a loss as to a clear division of troop leadership. I am shown the active leader's troops, but all of the inactive leaders have no visual designation to identify them with respect to the troops they command. It makes command control of the troops a much more unwieldy affair than necessary. Play Mechanics & AI: Some have claimed that Alexander is tough to beat because of its good AI. I beg to differ. Alexan is tough to beat alright, but because of its haphazard, randomness-emphasized initiative allocation, and because of its unforgiving, no-mistakes allowed UI, and not because of any "good" AI. Granted, the element of chance is present in any wargame (except for Diplomacy), but in Alexander, it is the overriding factor, where you win or lose solely by the vagaries of the movement allocation you received from the computer. To summarize for those who aren't acquainted with Alex's turn scheme: . You start all battles with a fixed deployment, i.e., you live with what the computer gives you. Effect: Severe restriction on overall strategies, as strategies are heavily dependent on initial deployment, given the relatively low manueverability of the formations of that age. . Within a turn, each leader takes turn moving, based on a random selection (in a large battle, there are lots of leaders). Supposedly, this is influenced by the leader's command rating, but any such influence is minimal at best, and I found that a leader with minimal ratings of 2 or 3 can as well move before those with good ratings as not. Because units can't move through each other (except leaders), this makes it a crapshoot for any tactical deployment, as I'd never know if my flank advance/retreat won't suddenly "freeze" in their tracks (i.e. move last during the turn), exposing the whole body to flank attacks. There is absolutely no coordination, not even minimal coordination. . During a leader's phase, he can get up to 2 extra phases called "momentum," as randomly selected by the computer ((init rating +1) x 8 percentage chance). In combo with the above random-selected initiative, there is no chance to plan for any sort of concerted action. You can't even predict the combat capabilities of any given body of troops, as it may well get 3 movement phases to outflank your troops and to wipe out any of your broken troops before you can muster any response. As said above, I get the feeling that I'm playing a game of crapshoot rather than anything based on skill. And there are a variety of aggravating nits as well. One is "orderly withdrawal"; when certain units are attacked by certain other types of unit (ex: calv attacked by inf), they can automatically evade combat and withdraw from the hex. The problem here being in the word "automatic." You have no control over whether the unit stands and flight or withdraw. The end result is that when you have calvary covering your flanks and they are attacked by infantry, they would turn tail and run, leaving your flanks entirely undefended. I can't imagine how the game could term it "orderly withdrawal" when I never give any order to withdraw. "Computer-stipulated rout" would be more accurate. Another is ZOC. There were times when I have a unit pincered as to cover all its retreat routes within my ZOCs, and it would still slip through when it breaks. There are other times when it wouldn't and would be eliminated instead. Either it's a bug, or else different units have different types of ZOC. The manual doesn't give much detail on this subject. The UI: You don't get any second chance when playing. If you are moving an unit and you accidently select another unit, you then have finished your current unit's move and there is no way you can touch that unit again for the rest of that phase. If you press the End Leader's Phase button instead of Center on Leader (they are tiny buttons right next to each other), then you have just cut short your turn without even as much as a confirmation dialog box. In fact, there is no confirmation for anything. You press anything, and it's a done deal, and if you screw up, then too bad. The AI: Given that all the scenarios are canned, and that the range of possibilities are restricted by fixed deployments, and that there is minimal variation in the terrain, I wasn't surprised to see that the AI to be reasonably competent in pushing its troops forward and in trying to seek flanks to attack, albeit not in any coordinated fashion (which I doubt is possible anyway, given the haphazard initiative scheme). No doubt much of the strategic movement, if any, is scripted, and the tactical movement falls to the weighing of different values (there are some scripts in text form in one of the directories). Overall, the AI is one-dimensional in that it is programmed to respond to basically only one approach. The best example can be seen with the Issus battle. If you simply line your units up by the river's edge, and then use only Alexander to break through to the north and then drive south to outflank the Persian forces, then you can see that the AI is a failure. In the game that I played, it would periodically launch one- or two-unit attacks (with archers, yet) across the river and be annihilated each time, while paying no attention to the developments up north. Even when I have Alexander attacking the heart of the Persian center from the side & rear, the AI only activated units within 2-3 hexes of the action, while all the other units stood pat. Isssus is probably the easiest of the battles. The other battles are made difficult mostly due to the fact that the non-Macedonian side usually sport more leaders, and thus benefit more from the extra movement pulses under the current weird allocation scheme. Most of the battles are heavily biased against Alexander, and as such, would not be suitable for human-vs-human play (you can't change anything in the battles). Summation: I wanted to like this game, if only because I liked the pre-Roman period. Overall, however, the predominating feeling is one of annoyance. As far as (board) wargames went, Alexander has to rank pretty close at the bottom, probably on a par with the average SPI titles during the days when they were crank out games by the truckload--interesting topic and catchy graphics, but not much play value. Disclaimer: The above is my opinion only. You are free to sport your own opinion. From: Mike Hussey Subject: Re: Great Battles of Alexander - comments In article <33c08218.96495786@netnews.att.net>, Sens writes > For a strategic level game as Alexan, the >most important thing is that I have to be able to grasp the strategic >layout and flow of the battle, and from that basis, be able to effect >some reasonable measure of command control. I don't find these >possible with Alexan. I spend an inordinate amount of time figuring >with which leader has how much and is doing what, and the randomly >allocated initiative makes a jumble out of any coordinated attempt to >deploy. The other flaws in the mechanics are the straws that break >the camel's back, such as the automatic withdraw and the automatic >advance (the troop which gets auto-advanced into a vacated hex >inevitably gets mauled and routed, if not wiped out altogether if the >enemy has two leaders in the same area, or two pulses to conduct >attacks). It gets to the point that I often refuse attractive attacks >because it would inevitably pull one of my units out of the line due >to the auto advance, and in Alex, you can't just put the unit on >reverse an ease it back into the line. I think this is deliberate. A lot has been written down the ages about the unrealistic god-like control of individual units that the player has in a lot of wargames. BoA seems to me to emphasis the command control problem faced when commanding an ancient army. Allowing units to charge forward in uncordinated attacks would have been courting disaster in an ancient battle. Ancient generalship was about trying to impose some form of system on what was basically a street fight. To shift periods slightly look what happened at Crecy, when the French knights ignored their commanders and simply charged the English archers. BTW i would describe Boa as tactical rather than strategic unless you were playing the campaign game, which I didn't think you were. > > >I'll defer to your sentiment here, as I've only played one battle as >the non-Maceds (Gagaumela). With the numerical superiority (which >includes plenty of good quality Persian calvary), and with the shock >combat superiority of the elephants, I find that the Maceds have no >chance. Conversely, the AI did make a contest of it when the sides >were reversed. This isn't a tribute to the AI. All that it needed to >do was to push troops straight ahead. There isn't much terrain >features to channel movement, nor is there any flanking action to >worry about. There are some other battles, however, that I find the >lopsidedness to be even more extreme. Pellium is one where Alexander >is heavily outnumbered, yet he has to carry the burden of attack to an >enemy who is holding advantageous terrain. Pelium is winnable (see other threads in this NG), by using the tactics that Alex used in real life. According to the victory conditions in the manual you can also win by retreating 50 rout points off the north of the map, so there is no question of Alex *having* to attack. > > >Perhaps that is the problem I faced when playing the Maceds, as the >Persian commanders always seemed to have extra momentum pulses and my >units had multiple attacks heaped upon them (I played at Normal >setting). May be it is a way for the computer to compensate for a >non-thinking AI. You mean there are games with thinking AIs? Alan Turing would be pleased. > > >Everyone has his own tastes, to be sure, and I'm not one to dissuade >another from his fun. Admittedly, my patience level is not high >(perhaps a mental atrophy coming from the C&C affliction), and if the >first go of a game isn't to my liking, then I won't wait for the game >to "grow upon" me. Unfortunately, Alexander fell into this latter >category. If everyone agreed, the world would be a boring place. Please remove asterisks if replying by e-mail. Mike Hussey mike@falconry.demon.co.uk