Peninsula Campaign (WIP) - 20K Words (+6K word update 9/27)

Yeah, these are good ideas. I suppose that I could add temporary choices on the beginning and have the player fill in what they did manually. It definitely seems important to have some carry over between games.

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It will also be easier for people when bullrun is officially released and we get to to see all the choices in action. :smiley:

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It does make me excited to see just how far ā€œoff scriptā€ weā€™ll be able to go. McClellan had chances for success during the campaign even if he probably wonā€™t be taking advice from some captain to achieve it. Will we be able to seriously change any battles or are we still just fighting for personal reputation?

My personal perspective is that our first real chance for history changing would be Chancellorsville. General Hooker would know us well enough by then that a high reputation MC could make Lee pay for taking such a big risk. Assuming we managed to survive Burnsides Fredericksburg as part of Hookers Center Grand Division that is. Or maybe an impressive showing running a Corp at Antietam could have us replacing him instead of Meade just in time for Gettysburg.

Sorry if Iā€™m pressuring you. I know Iā€™m looking way to far down the line here. This game just has me nerding out harder than most.

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No worries! I love seeing the interest in the game.

Iā€™ll try to give a general idea of what Iā€™m thinking/planning now. All of it, including the Peninsula Campaign, is somewhat dependent on my financial situation. But, letā€™s look at best case scenario lol.

So, Iā€™m already running into conflict between player agency and historical accuracy. I try to lean player agency whenever the two come into conflict. For that reason, Iā€™m considering multiple outcomes for the siege of Yorktown. Of course, the real outcome was very long delayed and anti-climactic, so Iā€™m thinking of making it dependent on some player choices. Maybe an early success will let McClellan know the enemy is weaker than he thinks and trigger an assault on the fortifications. Maybe I will have the rebels stay one extra day and get shelled to pieces instead of bailing one day before it all kicked off.

As for the whole Peninsula Campaign, I donā€™t think I will let the player turn the campaign into a total victory. I donā€™t expect them to take Richmond. I am most interested in the Seven Days Battles, which were a series of defensive battles that were mostly tactical victories for the Union. Sure, McClellan bungled the operational command, but thatā€™s above the playerā€™s pay grade. For each of these battles, I intend to build in a variety of paths and outcomes. For example, defend the town or fall back to behind the creek, when to deploy reserves and to what part of the line? That sort of thing. But, I think I will have a series of battles that resemble the real Seven Days Battles.

Hereā€™s a little look ahead, Iā€™m writing the Battle of Dam no. 1 right now. I am writing two alternative main strategies, both of which have pros and cons, so there is no one right path. Then, I will have a sort of check toward the end which tallies up how many good choices you made and have that decide the degree of success. And of course, your casualties will carry forward to the next fight. I originally wanted to allow the player to choose which regiment is deployed here, but it became way too much work to be worth it, since I am inventing multiple new characters for this part of the battle, and there will be ripples down the line.

Yeah, something like this seems right. You couldnā€™t win First Bull Run, but if we get as far as Chancellorsville, I think the player will be a Corps Commander. I have to let them change the outcome if they are that important in the army. :slight_smile:

Definitely a division commander by Fredericksburg, if not Corps Commander.

My general premise is to keep expanding the player agency as the war goes on, and as their rank goes up. Iā€™ve found that true player agency is really difficult and time consuming to plan and to create, but I try to balance it as well as I can. I think the Peninsula Campaign is already significantly better than First Bull Run, because I am getting better with practice. If I finish it, it will make Bull Run look like the tutorialā€¦ Probably shouldnā€™t hype it that much lol but I am aiming much higher this time.

Your obedient servā€™t,
Dan Rasmussen

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Yeah but if the enemy force is 3 times my army size due to unit scaling Iā€™ll send you back to Fredericksburg right away (come away), right away.

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Generally speaking, when youā€™re writing a series, theyā€™ll let you set up an import/export system on the server.

Note that this system imports all of the global variables from the previous game under their existing names, which means you might have some problems if youā€™re using a new variable with the same name this time around for something else.

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I thought it would be something like that. What I mean is until both games are released, I donā€™t see how I could do an import. The only way I can think of is a manual input where the player selects what they did in the first game.

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Thatā€™s basically what I do, but mostly as a backup feature for people whoā€™ve lost their saves or want to start mid-series for some reason.

Of course, by now, thereā€™s so many variables to keep track of that I actually canā€™t do that for Wars of Infinity onwards - leaving only import and premade characters.

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