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IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 11:54 pm
by Parkingtigers
I'm in the Hong Kong region, so the store updated here a little earlier thanks to the magic of timezones. The app is $20, and according the usage tab in the Settings app takes up only 389 MB.

It's a damn fine port, and is running very well on my original iPad Mini. Bought it 7 minutes after midnight, and 7 hours later I'm wondering how I managed to reach Jan 1915. This war ain't over by Christmas. Very impressed with the interface and game itself.

A few minor points, for the first bugfix patch. In no particular order I noted the following:

* The tutorial box for the counter battery stat still has the placeholder text "advice_counterattack_text".

* The numbers in the management tab, showing number of units for each faction is very broken. It was saying I had 81 Serbian ground troops, only one French etc. Have a screenshot if it would help.

* The tutorial box for city production still has the PC text saying you need to hold down the spacebar, needs changing to say the number is next to the city's name (I believe?).

* Sometimes the map scrolling during the AI turn is bugged out. It can be a little slow to get to the current action, and during one turn it spent the entire time focusing on random areas in the middle of Siberia so I missed all the fighting. The AI turn in general sort of belts through a ton of moves very quickly even when it does work. Would it be possible to have an option to replay it? Slow it down? I take my time on my own moves, a little more time to view the AI turn would suit some of us players.

* You can rename your own units, but not AI units. That's fairly common practice, but have you considered giving a generic name to units ala Panzer Corps? Even just 1st Infantry, 2nd Infantry, 3rd Infantry etc. Just makes long wargames a bit more personal with some form of unit names.

* The combat prognosis window sometimes has a little icon meaning a river is being crossed, so the attacker incur a penalty. I know this thanks to the AAR. The tooltip when you press it says "weather: snow".

* Could you please add a confirmation dialogue to the end turn button? Thing about touchscreens, it's awfully easy to make an accidental tap now and then, and in a long gaming session (did I mention 7 solid hours? :lol: ) it's something that could happen eventually. That one button getting a stray tap could allow the AI a free week of warfare.

* As a new player I found the tutorial popups very useful, and with the staggered start to the war it eases things in slowly enough to not be intimidating. One part of the UI is inconsistent with the rest though. For just about everything, you have tooltips and a confirmation button. Choose a research item, then a separate button to focus on it etc. The one place this isn't the same is the add/remove labs buttons. I was tapping around on everything, because everything has a tooltip teaching me how to play, but I was able to hit the plus and minus signs repeatedly, not knowing what they did, and basically bankrupting my production points on the first turn due to buying and selling the same lab a few times. Had to reload the autosave, but it really should have the same amount of introduction as the rest of the concepts.

* I would like to be able to see a commander's stats before deploying them. They are in the queue, but until I out them on a unit I can't see what specific bonuses they offer. Knowing that this dude is an assault specialist, but this one has just a modest general attack bonus etc before I deploy them would be preferable.

* Probably not possible, but I kept wishing I could close the bottom info section and just see the map filling the entire screen. In Panzer Corp you could minimise the info panel, and for the AI turn I'd usually have it closed for maximum eye candy. Any chance of doing the same here? Would make a hell of a difference on an iPad Mini screen.

Ehhhh, that list was a bit random. Feeling a little dizzy after playing the game all night. I absolutely love it. Gave you a 5 star iTunes review, and I'm looking forward to playing a lot of this game. Already my first game is taking an interesting turn. I somehow managed to hold onto Belgium so far, the Russians have taken Koenigsberg and Danzig, Serbia is in trouble but clinging on, and General Haig is in the Middle East with fighter support and armoured cars. It's only in this new year that trench warfare is setting in, had a very fluid frontline on the Western Front past Xmas. Magic stuff.

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 12:30 am
by kaisersoser
Yeeees!,

I get it ... Already released even if we still are 24th in the USA...(8:30 pm)
Thanks to Whom who have done this great job!

K.

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 12:38 am
by NumberOneBSUFan
No sign of it yet here in the grand state of Colorado. Still, will be checking every half an hour or so. :D

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 1:51 am
by iprop
No joy on the east coast...

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 2:07 am
by kaisersoser
NumberOneBSUFan wrote:No sign of it yet here in the grand state of Colorado. Still, will be checking every half an hour or so. :D
Oups!
I was so enthusiastic that I only realize on reading your comments about the release in the west of the USA, that I downloaded it from the Belgian App Store ....sorry for giving you false hopes!

K.

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 3:06 am
by iprop
Its out now in the US, Eastern Time Zone

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 4:58 am
by Parkingtigers
One more thing Slitherdudes. I didn't see a way to access the manual for the game anywhere, unless I missed it. Want to download the PDF and give it a read. There are a bunch of things I learned from AARs and Let's Plays that I haven't seen noted in the game itself, which I assume are covered in the manual. Stuff like cutting off a unit and the red dots indicating no supply route, yellow triangles for... half supply?

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 6:18 am
by Snotty128
I echo the comment that is having problems with the camera during the AI turn. Every AI turn (except perhaps the first) has had this problem. My camera jumps to the Far East or South East. When I move it back to wherever the action is it will just jump back to showing empty land. Not seeing the enemy move or attack is a significant problem! I'm playing on an ipad4

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 7:29 am
by johnnybravo
Hi guys, regarding AI camera: I think it only happens if your view is zoomed out, please zoom in before ending your turn and see how camera behaves then.

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 7:51 am
by Snotty128
That works! When I pinch before the end of my turn so I get maximum zoom in (minimum zoom?) then the camera focuses properly, for the two turns I played. Thanks for posting the workaround so quickly

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 8:24 am
by johnnybravo
Snotty128 wrote:That works! When I pinch before the end of my turn so I get maximum zoom in (minimum zoom?) then the camera focuses properly, for the two turns I played. Thanks for posting the workaround so quickly
Glad that it helped, we will prepare a patch soon too.

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 10:35 am
by Mythbuster
Hi,
so far great game. One question: Any chance to get the manual as a PDF? :?:

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 11:00 am
by Darrell999
Mythbuster wrote:Hi,
so far great game. One question: Any chance to get the manual as a PDF? :?:
I was going to ask the exact same thing--I would really find it helpful to see the manual. I looked on Steam, where they usually put up manuals for most of their games, but there's no manual on the Commander-The Great War page. :(

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 12:35 pm
by Darrell999
While we wait for a manual from Slitherine, I did find this article to be helpful at http://www.wargamer.com/article/3278/pc ... -great-war

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 1:04 pm
by lordzimoa
Hi guys,

Here you can find the CTGW Manual PC version in PDF:

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam ... 1406292810

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 1:25 pm
by Darrell999
Ok, now I can see the manual on Steam! THANKS! :D

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 3:00 pm
by kaisersoser
lordzimoa wrote:Hi guys,

Here you can find the CTGW Manual PC version in PDF:

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam ... 1406292810

Thanks,

Very helpfull.

K.

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 11:50 pm
by carlisimo
I think I'm going to enjoy this game, but it's not quite as good a port as I was hoping. Parkingtigers covered a lot of my observations, but here are some more.

- The scrollable text boxes, like in the introduction to the game, scrolls way too fast.
- The buttons are tiny, especially in the options menu.
- I'm accidentally swapping units' positions all the time. It's probably safe to assume that a lot of people buying this game on the iPad have played Panzer Corps on the same platform and will do this a lot. An undo button (for movement) would be great, though I think this should be handled by requiring a confirming second tap to complete the swap.
- A tutorial message popped up saying I could push space to see my production sites.
- It was a surprise to learn that clicking + or - in the research screen had immediate effects. For some reason I expected any changes to take effect when I closed the window (i.e. I'd be able to undo changes).
- I'm scared to send anything by rail because I don't know if it'll unload itself this turn or next. Good use for an undo button...
- Do a lot of people correctly interpret the combat prognosis display with the default "show projected kills" setting? I certainly didn't, but... well, I guess it's easily fixed anyway. Thanks for the option!

I'm only a few turns in, still early into the learning curve. Things look promising once I stop swapping units.

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 12:04 am
by lordzimoa
- The buttons are tiny, especially in the options menu.

>>> You don`t have to hit the buttons, just tab the explaining texts explain the buttons will do the job.

- I'm accidentally swapping units' positions all the time. It's probably safe to assume that a lot of people buying this game on the iPad have played Panzer Corps on the same platform and will do this a lot. An undo button (for movement) would be great, though I think this should be handled by requiring a confirming second tap to complete the swap.

>>> Swapping or attacking always requires a second confirming tab, but we do acknowledge an undo button might be good to add, just not that easy to implement, as it may cause some other problems... we will look into it though.

-A tutorial message popped up saying I could push space to see my production sites.

>>> That is a bug, as we have it correctly within the text for iPad, it should read:

The amount of PP produced in all cities are represented on the map as the numbers next to the city names. We will try and fix this asap.

- Do a lot of people correctly interpret the combat prognosis display with the default "show projected kills" setting? I certainly didn't, but... well, I guess it's easily fixed anyway. Thanks for the option!

>>> Yes, glad you found it, in the Options menu, you can choose between displaying kills instead of casualties in prognosis or vice versa.

Re: IPad Version is rolling out in the App Store.

Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 1:12 am
by carlisimo
I think making the swap icon easier to see might do the trick.