TOAW IV USER INTERFACE

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This can be seen on the map as well:



Note that that formation no longer has the purple stripe.

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The third button on that row calls up the Air Unit Report:



New is the Health Icon replacing the Health Dot, and the Unit Icon.

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Also note that clicking on the column headings causes the list to be sorted by that heading:



Most dialogs have some sorting ability in this fashion.

The last button on this row has already been discussed back at the Counter Values Editor section. It cycles through the display of the Planned Combats, Combat Review, and Battlefield Timestamp displays. Generally, all three should be activated. But, they can cover Unit Values, so there will be times when you will want to toggle them off temporarily.

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Finally, we come to the bottom row of buttons. The first one calls up the Planned Combats Dialog:



This is a new dialog that helps the player keep track of his coming combats. It makes it easy to tell what the predictions are, what the AR is, what the cooperation is, and if there are late combats. Note from the shot that late combats are reflected in the Progress Pane on the Unit Panel (just like on the Circle of Stars from earlier versions). Note also that I dragged the dialog to get it into the frame with the Unit Panel: Dialogs are now draggable.

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Clicking on any of the buttons on the dialog brings up the Combat Planner for that combat. Click on the last combat’s button:



The Combat Planner has a number of new features:

There is an overall Cooperation pane in the upper left corner, that shows the cooperation factor.

There is a Defender Support Estimate Pane in the lower right corner, that allows the player to insert his estimate of the expected support the defender will receive. (Fog of war prevents the game from providing this info, but player experience, especially from combats in the general area, will give him some insight into what this value is expected to be).

There is an escarpment pane in the lower left corner (not shown in this shot, since there are no escarpments).

Finally, there is a Net Odds pane. This section calculates the Net Odds based upon separating armor vs. AT and Soft vs. AP factors for each side, with the defender’s values scaled by terrain factors. The Defender Support value is included in this calculation. The cooperation factor is not included (defender cooperation is unknown so neither is included to be consistent).

The older Attack and Defense values are still shown, but these are not scaled by terrain or separated into hard and soft factors. The predictions are as in earlier versions as well, also not so scaled or separated.

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Here’s a Combat Planner from CFNA that includes the escarpment pane:



Note that the combat had a major escarpment in the 3 and 5 hexsides (bottom and northwest), and a minor escarpment in the 4 hexside (southwest).

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Note that planned combats are shown on the map with gold crossed swords:

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Now let’s execute the combats. Note that the Combat Reviews are indicated on the map via silver crossed swords. Also, any battlefield timestamps are shown on the map via bronze crossed swords:

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Click the second button on the last row:



The Combat Results dialog is invoked. This is another new dialog. Note that it summarizes the combat results for a number of factors.

Note the effect of the new BTS rules: One combat lasted six rounds, but the game turn only advanced one round (see the Progress Pane on the Unit Panel).

Note that there are buttons on the bottom that allow switching sides and going back one turn. (So two turns of each side’s combats are stored for review.

Finally, each button on the location column recalls the Combat Report for its combat.

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Click on the bottom combat’s button:



The Combat Report is invoked. The changes are in the number of lines shown per page, and there is now a scroll bar available if there are more than 34 lines in the report. The codes shown in the text are for the benefit of a new dialog – the Combat Chart. (Much more on that later).

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First, let’s look at the Loss Report:



New features are the Scroll Bar, the Damage column (used for naval combat results) and the Disabled and Destroyed columns. Note that combat losses always have returned a fraction of losses to the Replacement Pools (about 25% generally), unless the participants were unsupplied. But the combat report never distinguished such losses before. Now it does. “Disabled” losses are those that are returned to the pools. “Destroyed” losses are those that go to the dead pile. “Total” losses are the sum of the two.

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Here’s a loss report for an unsupplied defender:



Note that there are no “Disabled”. All losses are “Destroyed”.

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Now let’s look at the Combat Chart. Click on the Combat Chart button:



Compare how much clearer this dialog is compared to the wall of text contained in the Combat Report. Clearly, units listed with the Blue color are from the blue side, red from the red side. It’s clear which unit delayed the combat five rounds. It’s clear which units attacked and which supported. It’s clear which units advanced and which one retreated. It’s clear which round(s) the combat took place and for how long.

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Note the last button on the bottom. That is the “Legend” button. It calls up the Legend for the Combat Chart:



The Legend explains what the codes in the Chart mean.

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Let’s look at a naval example:



Imagine trying to decode the above mass of text (and notice the scroll bar – there are about six pages of such text).

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Here’s the Loss Report:



Note that here is where the Damage column is used. But there were three Lion Class Battlecruisers engaged – which ones got the damage?

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Now let’s look at the Combat Chart for this battle:



Much clearer! Note that the damage each vessel has received is clearly shown. You can even tell when critical hits occurred (the !).

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Here’s one more Combat Chart that shows its page system. The chart has a maximum of 17 units per page. If there are more than 17 units per chart, then the chart is broken up into pages. The up and down buttons added allow stepping by line with left-clicks and stepping by page with right-clicks.



The cooperation of the combat is shown in the first column, while individual unit cooperation is shown in the second column (so you can tell which units accounted for any cooperation issue). And you can see how the Very Dark Gray cell color shows rounds that had been expended in previous combat phases.

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Now let’s change the Button Panel’s tab to the Map Tab. The first button is the Supply view button. Click on it to change to the Supply Trace Display:



This is the same as in earlier versions of TOAW, except for the font color: Now, if the location is overextended, the font color is blue. In this scenario, any location with less than four location supply is overextended.

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The rest of the buttons work as before, except for the Battle Visibility button, which has already been discussed above. But note the bottom row of buttons. The last two buttons change the map scale up or down. (That’s an improvement over earlier versions where only two levels could be toggled by one button). But new is the Y-Zoom. This is a graphical zoom level.

First, here’s a shot with no Y-Zoom: