Version 3.06 under way

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter


Originally I had march battalions that had to travel from the entry point all the way to the centre of ops or directly to a corps. That was in the prototype but I ended up going with the current rule. It might be easier to just bring them back.

I think the current rule is OK, march battalions may complicate the process, I just thought that replacement at 3 hexes from LOC seemed a little restrictive and I you are going to use road march, rather than 'as the crow flies', then 2/3 days road march seems more like the original 5 hex allowance and a reasonable marching distance.

Using road march for replacements would be sensible, as receiving units may be cut-off and it would be odd to see replacements filtering through 'as the crow flies'.

[FrankHunter]

Another idea would be to allow replacements to go to any corps that is in supply and able to trace a path to its supply depot, even if that depot is not the Ctr of Ops. And also, replacements would arrive as "stragglers" which means they wouldn't join divisions until the corps had stopped at least for a day.

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

Another idea would be to allow replacements to go to any corps that is in supply and able to trace a path to its supply depot, even if that depot is not the Ctr of Ops. And also, replacements would arrive as "stragglers" which means they wouldn't join divisions until the corps had stopped at least for a day.

I would vote for keeping it simple and like the idea of corps, in supply, being allowed to call in replacements from the depot, so yes to the above, although I see your point about the importance of the LOC and I don't see replacements hanging around at every depot, waiting to be called, so I think that they should only come from the LOC, perhaps with orders and marching delay before appearing in the receiving corps OOB.

Obviously, a player wishing to ensure replacements reach a corps would only need to order a 'rest day' to ensure integration of those replacements.

I also liked the earlier idea of varying values for replacement infantry, cavalry, or artillery, which makes a lot of sense. I personally think there should also be an allowance for the quality of replacements, as elite/veteran troops should be harder to obtain than lower quality troops.

Perhaps, a replacement pool with points that could be spent on infantry, cavalry, or artillery, with a top limit on how much of the pool could be spent on elite/veteran replacements.

Wanting to keep things simple, if quality of replacements is a step too far, I would use a 'house rule' to limit the number of elite replacements that could be used in a scenario.

[Rasputitsa]

With the changes planned for v3.06, is it likely that games started in v3.05, will run in the new version.

[Tejszd]

With higher resolution monitors becoming more the norm would it possible to have the option to double the size of everything? This was recently done, though at 1.5 (which makes things blurred), for close combat Last Stand Arnhem.

For longevity are any DirectX and or Windows 10 changes planned?

Could the base game installer be updated to include the latest patch?

[FrankHunter]

I was hoping to finish changing all the game's text from being hard-coded over the weekend but I didn't get enough time. Should finish in the next few days.

I only made a few changes to the replacement rules. Instead of "as the crow flies", the radius from the Ctr of Ops is now traced by friendly road hexes, up to 6. Replacements arrive as stragglers and replacement points are charged based on type.

I also went over the march rules regarding speed, fatigue, stragglers and rest days and found a couple of issues that have now been "fixed". A "cautious" march speed should not generate much in the way of fatigue or stragglers. Forced marching should produce lots of both in return for greater speed. Divisions under an average leader should average around 2 hexes per day on Cautious, 3 on Regular and 4 on Forced.

So just a few more days, at most a week, and the patch should be ready.

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

I was hoping to finish changing all the game's text from being hard-coded over the weekend but I didn't get enough time. Should finish in the next few days.

I only made a few changes to the replacement rules. Instead of "as the crow flies", the radius from the Ctr of Ops is now traced by friendly road hexes, up to 6. Replacements arrive as stragglers and replacement points are charged based on type.

I also went over the march rules regarding speed, fatigue, stragglers and rest days and found a couple of issues that have now been "fixed". A "cautious" march speed should not generate much in the way of fatigue or stragglers. Forced marching should produce lots of both in return for greater speed. Divisions under an average leader should average around 2 hexes per day on Cautious, 3 on Regular and 4 on Forced.

So just a few more days, at most a week, and the patch should be ready.

Thanks Frank, all looks good. [:)]

[FrankHunter]

Tejszd, the game doesn't use DirectX so as long as Microsoft supports 32-bit Windows, the game should run fine. It should also work on Linux under Wine and on Mac OSX with an emulator.

I have recently changed my Linux distro to the latest lts version of Ubuntu, but I don't have Wine installed otherwise I'd check that. I'm sure it ran on my old Zorin distro under Wine however.

Doubling the size of graphics is an interesting idea I will think about for future games but the existing artwork for Danube is essentially frozen as is.

As for the installer, I don't have a hand in that.

[Rasputitsa]

Look at post#24 in this AAR, where a supply convoy of 3426 points has randomly appeared at DEGGENDORF.

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I don't know why supplies are being sent to NEUMARKT, or those convoys to AMBERG and PAPPENHEIM, which are all to the rear and have not been ordered.

I am not sure if this has happened before, because it was only the huge size of this convoy which made me notice it. I can look back over past game saves to see if it happened before.

Another consideration is that in producing the AAR I have loaded and reloaded these game saves multiple times and they may have become corrupted.

[berto]

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

Doubling the size of graphics is an interesting idea I will think about for future games...

In addition to fixing the map graphics, releasing new titles -- these would draw me more into playing, and investing my time and energy in, an expanded, and prettier, "[Napoleon] Campaigns on the ..." series. Seeing all the recent activity here gives me reason to hope.

[FrankHunter]

Rasputitsa, I assume your supply control is set to player so off-hand my guess would be captured Austrian supply wagons?

From afar there's not much else I would guess at.

[Technopiper]

Frank, in this thread someone pointed out that the 1805 second variant's start date should be the same as that of the Historical one, but is not. I also noticed that Ulm, Giengen, Gunzburg, and Neuberg are under coalition control in the Historical variant, but are under French control in the second and third variants. Are these by design?

I wish the game has a way of scrambling the 1805 variants so that, as the French, players won't know what they are walking into. The premise, of course, is that the variants should all start on the same date and have identical city ownership.

[FrankHunter]

Technopiper, yes, the start date was one of the first things I fixed in the new version. In fact its in the first post on this thread I will check those towns.

Interesting idea about being able to choose a scenario without knowing if you're getting the historical one or a variant.

[Technopiper]

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

Technopiper, yes, the start date was one of the first things I fixed in the new version. In fact its in the first post on this thread I will check those towns.

Interesting idea about being able to choose a scenario without knowing if you're getting the historical one or a variant.

Oops, I must have missed it somehow. [;)] Thanks for looking into it!

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

Rasputitsa, I assume your supply control is set to player so off-hand my guess would be captured Austrian supply wagons?

From afar there's not much else I would guess at.

Hi Frank,

Supply is set to 'computer control' and I did think that this may be captured supply, as the town of DEGGENDORF was taken, but was surprised to see such a big supply convoy (3426) and destination NEUMARKT, which is not my LOC.

This much supply has to be the AI LOC. There were other odd convoys appearing uncommanded elsewhere on the map taking supplies to random towns in the rear areas, with no relevance to current operations.

The points :

There should never be one convoy this big.

If it's captured supply (the whole enemy LOC) the AI should have an opportunity (random) to burn, or move some supplies, before capture. It's big hit for the AI to lose so much supply and a game breaker. If it happens to the player, too bad, but the AI needs a hand to protect its LOC, even if moving supply goes outside the normal rules.

Strange the supply was being sent to NEUMARKT, which is outside the normal procedure, although it is a good idea to move captured supply to somewhere safe. So if the destination was WAD, that's OK, but it was a surprise.

I don't recall a message during turn resolution to indicate that the supply had been captured.

Conclusion :

The AI may need some help to protect it's LOC, with supply depots of a certain size (or designated LOC), it should trigger an AI supply protection routine, which would randomly save and reposition a large part of the captured supply, maybe burn some and allow some to still be captured, all on a biased odds basis to ensure that the majority of the supply is saved, otherwise the AI is toast.

All this needs to happen outside the normal game timescale, as the AI cannot anticipate as the player can, and the 'supply save routine' needs to trigger on AI LOC capture.

It also needs to cover any very large depots, such an AI LOC which has moved, but leaving a large supply in a town no longer designated as LOC.

I'll try and run the turns from the Austrian side to see what happened.

[Rasputitsa]

Supply 2

Played back the game saves, was playing the AAR as French, but looked at the turns for the Austrians :

20th April Austrian LOC at BRAUNAU (4185)

24th April Austrian LOC at PASSAU (3878)

27th FRENCH convoy (3426) seen near DEGGENDORF - have to play as French to see this - Austrian LOC still at PASSAU and intact (3639), DEGGENDORF and PASSAU still in Austrian possession.

28th April Austrian LOC at PASSAU (3601)

29th April PASSAU captured by French Austrian LOC disappears, just a few enroute convoys left.

30th April, no Austrian LOC visible, CHARLES icon will not display, cannot check where the Austrian LOC is, but none visible, the Austrians only have a few enroute convoys, most have destination PASSAU, which they may lose as the FRENCH are in PASSAU.

I need to play on a few turns to see what happens, but it seems like the AI Austrian supply system is mainly gone.

None of this explains where the French supply convoy (3426), seen near DEGGENDORF 27th April, came from as the Austrian LOC was still at PASSAU and still in place at that time.

There was also a difference between turns, before and after the orders phase, at one point Austrian supply was spread between BUDWEIS and LINZ, then after orders, it was back at the correct LOC, then at BRAUNAU.

Game seems to play through OK, over these turns, but need to see what happened to the Austrian LOC after the capture of LOC PASSAU.

[Rasputitsa]

Another thought on supply,

I am running an AAR and constantly referring to back game saves, is this like the map problem (clear/muddy) where the data from one game save is being carried over to the next loaded game save and corrupting the display ?

Sometimes the (3426) French supply convoy is visible sometimes not, although it is always in the supply system info panel and also I have still to find out whether it will ever get delivered to NEUMARKT, or if I can actually use any of this extra supply.

[Rasputitsa]

The 'Label 1' issue is still around. Disappeared after reloading the game save.

[Technopiper]

Interesting idea about being able to choose a scenario without knowing if you're getting the historical one or a variant.

In "Carriers at War", when picking variants for a scenario, you can tick "Randomize" to randomly play one of the variants. Coupled with a scenario editor, this ensured endless replayability. Since you are considering to include an editor, it might be a good idea to have the option to randomize too.

[FrankHunter]

Finally completed de-hard coding all the text in the game. Will look at the stuff that's been mentioned lately now.