Campaign Franklin: Problems

[bkosar19]

If anyone is thinking of purchasing Campaign Franklin then I'd pass until it is patched beyond the 3.0 version.

It currently has two major issues that seriously diminish its gameplay.

First, in its non-weather scenarios all of the army or corps level commanders have unlimited command radius.  You don't have to worry about command control above division.  (This bug was reported and acknowledged over six months ago.)

Second, there is no parameter data for the Spencer in any of the scenarios.  Thus, the numerous Federal cavalry units armed with that weapon are not able to fire.  They have no range.  (I did a search here to see if anyone else has noticed this, but couldn't find anything.  I also reported this issue to JTS.)

I know these are niche products and Franklin is undoubtedly one of the least popular titles, but still it is frustrating to come across such stuff especially for games that are neither new nor cheap.   How did such obvious issues get by the testers?

EDIT: Campaign Atlanta also has the same issue with the missing parameter data for the Spencer.

2nd EDIT: With notepad I was able to get the Spencer back into both Campaign Franklin and Atlanta. There is no uniform weapons stats between games or even in games themselves with stats changing according to whatever .pdt file is used for a particular scenario. So, I couldn't just cut-and-paste the Spencer stats from another game. Well, I could, but that would have resulted in an inferior weapon that performs worse than even the ordinary carbine because most of the small arms stats in Overland and Petersburg are weaker than those in Atlanta and Frankin. Using various stats for the Spencer found in Campaigns Overland and Petersburg as templates, I made-up stats that I thought would fit Franklin's and Atlanta's parameter data. Anyway it works.

I was told that a patch is being worked on, but it won't be out "any time soon." So, this DIY fix is for now our only resort.

I wonder if I can also fix the army/corps leader command radius issue?

[krmiller]

OK I don't like mysteries and this bugged me so I loaded and updated Franklin.

This is an older game, Corps and Army Command had unlimited ranges in the early games.
The Corps and Army Limits didn't come in until Version 3 pdts.
If you use the Menu Help/Parameter Data
You'll see 0 for command radius for Corps Army leaders,
the engine reads that as unlimited.

I looked at the Franklin pdts after all updates.
All of them show version 2 so I'm guessing none were updated, thus no limits for Corps/Army CO.

Also none of the pdt's I looked at had an entry for the Spencer, probably was not used when Franklin was put out and they probably used the generic A for Repeating Rifle.  
On one of the updates someone changed that in the OOB's to the letter z for the Spencer which was added in a later game without checking to make sure it was in the pdt weapons list for Franklin.
By the way the values listed in Antietam and Chick for the Spencer are 
7 at 1
4 at 2
1 at 3 hexes
The rifle musket in Franklin is the same as that in Antietam so those numbers should be good for Franklin.

So the Spencer will probably be fixed in the next patch whenever that comes out.
As to the command ranges, that will require updating the pdt to version 3 and adding ranges for Corps and Army.

[bkosar19]

Thanks for the reply and the info.

In Campaign Franklin, the weather version scenarios actually do have army/corps commanders with the updated command radii. They work like in all the other Civil War games. It was while attempting to play one of weather scenarios that I finally noticed the missing Spencer issue.

For the Spencer's stats? A 7-4-1 would make it only marginally better than Campaign Franklin's carbine (7-3-1) which I don't think is realistic especially at one hex range. A highly prized repeating weapon barely outperforms the weapon it was designed to replace? In most other games, the fire value of the Spencer at one hex is usually two digits higher than the carbine.

In the Nashville scenario, the carbine is 7-3-1. The repeater: 9-5.5-1.5-.5. The breech-loader is 7-3.5-1.5-1. It's those weapons against which I measured the Spencer. To make it better than the carbine but not as effective as the other two at range I settled upon:
8 at 1
3.5 at 2
1 at 3

[Partizanka]

If anyone is thinking of purchasing Campaign Franklin then I'd pass until it is patched beyond the 3.0 version.

It currently has two major issues that seriously diminish its gameplay.

First, in its non-weather scenarios all of the army or corps level commanders have unlimited command radius.  You don't have to worry about command control above division.  (This bug was reported and acknowledged over six months ago.)

Second, there is no parameter data for the Spencer in any of the scenarios.  Thus, the numerous Federal cavalry units armed with that weapon are not able to fire.  They have no range.  (I did a search here to see if anyone else has noticed this, but couldn't find anything.  I also reported this issue to JTS.)

I know these are niche products and Franklin is undoubtedly one of the least popular titles, but still it is frustrating to come across such stuff especially for games that are neither new nor cheap.   How did such obvious issues get by the testers?

EDIT: Campaign Atlanta also has the same issue with the missing parameter data for the Spencer.

2nd EDIT:  With notepad I was able to get the Spencer back into both Campaign Franklin and Atlanta.  There is no uniform weapons stats between games or even in games themselves with stats changing according to whatever .pdt file is used for a particular scenario.  So, I couldn't just cut-and-paste the Spencer stats from another game.  Well, I could, but that would have resulted in an inferior weapon that performs worse than even the ordinary carbine because most of the small arms stats in Overland and Petersburg are weaker than those in Atlanta and Frankin.  Using various stats for the Spencer found in Campaigns Overland and Petersburg as templates, I made-up stats that I thought would fit Franklin's and Atlanta's parameter data.  Anyway it works.

I was told that a patch is being worked on, but it won't be out "any time soon."  So, this DIY fix is for now our only resort.

I wonder if I can also fix the army/corps leader command radius issue?

Any updates on the issue with Spencers in Franklin?

[-72-]

[quote pid="441233" dateline="1608046927"]
Any updates on the issue with Spencers in Franklin?
[/quote]

I just checked my copy --- same version as what is showing on the publisher's site (3.0) --- Got Spencers ...showing no range at all - so I am assuming, not done yet.

And I mean I hear you, seeing as it is late war, and a fair amount of the Union cavalry is armed with it ... sorta breaks the game, one might argue (?)


..and just noticed --- the unit portrait for the CSA's 'Ballentine's Miss' ... is Bloody Bill Anderson ... for what it's worth - he got killed in October 1864 ... in Albany Missouri (Ray County- just next to Clay County ... which is basically the Kansas City MO metro area today ... or ... not that close to Tennessee (Any part of it) ... pretty noteworthy Missouri guerilla ...

[Partizanka]

[quote pid="441233" dateline="1608046927"]
Any updates on the issue with Spencers in Franklin?

I just checked my copy --- same version as what is showing on the publisher's site (3.0) --- Got Spencers ...showing no range at all - so I am assuming, not done yet.

And I mean I hear you, seeing as it is late war, and a fair amount of the Union cavalry is armed with it ... sorta breaks the game, one might argue (?)


..and just noticed --- the unit portrait for the CSA's 'Ballentine's Miss' ... is Bloody Bill Anderson ... for what it's worth - he got killed in October 1864 ...  in Albany Missouri (Ray County- just next to Clay County ... which is basically the Kansas City MO metro area today ... or ... not that close to Tennessee (Any part of it) ... pretty noteworthy Missouri guerilla ...
[/quote]

Thanks for your response. Yes, I knew there was no official update. I thought some modified pdt's might be out there since this was an old problem.

[Compass Rose]

Yesterday, I fired off a email to both Strela & Berto from WDS, about this issue.


Hopefully, they will respond to it soon.

[-72-]

I would think that this would be a known issue. The updates' purpose was to tie together all of the weapons' values and make them a common rating across the entire series.

Someone somewhere there would have played Franklin within the past two years and mentioned it to them -- it just feels like it isn't a priority. I mean they had a nice big folder on their development boards for this project.

If I had to guess, I'd say it is one of those issues of kicking the can down the road until the next title is ready ... however, if you look at the hot fixes on the Tiller site- they've actually put them out for smaller issues... this one looks like a missed rating somewhere.  If it were Musket and Pike it would be a PDT issue (And it might be here too).

If that's the case - sure it takes a little time to update all of the PDTs in that title -- but I mean that would literally all that it is. Granted (bad pun --- and it just happened), Civil War series uses different coding in different places to Musket and Pike/Napoleonic series.

[-72-]

Found the answer to this one:

http://www.wargame.ch/board/acwgc/viewto...es#p113709

Last post - and there is a download of PDT files.  It's a bit unclear why, at the very least, a hot fix was not put out, instead of deciding the handle this only if someone emailed them directly.