Tutorial #5 - Naval Units

[Froonp]

About page 12, post #54 :
You stress that both the French and Italian Task Forces displayed are of comparable strengh, and you say that lot will depend of the sections they are in. While it is true that the section is important, a difference of 1 section between both is not really that important, and at this level of comparable task force strenghs and sections, what is really important is the search roll.
Indeed, at sea, A LOT depend on the search rolls, and while it is true that being in section 4 will allow you to have better chances of surprising the enemy, the search roll is much more important.
And the search roll is 95% of pure luck.

So I'd say that even if the sea box section is important, it is very far from being sufficient to be able to conduct successful naval wars in WiF FE.

I know that you won't explain all this in the Tutorial, which by that way are ALL VERY GOOD, but you should add to this page that the search rolls are important too.

[CBoehm]

maybe a comment about that if only one side has airsupport no matter how puny they hold a huge benefit since they often will be able choose whether or not to close and engage ....(ei. if the other side rolls better than you on the searchroll you call "air" even thought u might only have a fighter ...if the other side rolls badly & and you find them, then you choose "surface" )

[Arron69]

ORIGINAL: CBoehm

maybe a comment about that if only one side has airsupport no matter how puny they hold a huge benefit since they often will be able choose whether or not to close and engage ....(ei. if the other side rolls better than you on the searchroll you call "air" even thought u might only have a fighter ...if the other side rolls badly & and you find them, then you choose "surface" )

Powerful point, and one very eccensial to the naval combat system.[;)]

Andi

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Patrice, et al,

As I said when I posted page 9, these pages are doomed to be controversial.

So lets see.

You want these pages to also cover (in detail), search rolls with weather effects, optimal fleet profile/size for naval combat (which means explaining the naval combat table, or at least showing it), the German fleet engaging versus staying in port versus going through to Faeroes Gap (I assume you want to mention why they would want to be there?), maintaining reserve naval units, that moving subs requires an extra naval move (Gee, what's a naval move? Why is there a limited number of them? What's an Action? Do both sides move simultaneously? Is this an RTS game?), ...

I am using the term task force loosely here. In fact, I may never use the WIF FE definition of task force. If at all possible, I won't. That's because it is a specialized definition of a word in common usage. Those are very hard to learn and remember, especailly if you play a lot of naval war games and each one has a different definition for the word.

Instead I will try to define a task force as simply a group of ships. A task force can be formed in a port. Several smaller task forces can be moved into a sea area to make up a large task force. A large task force at sea can split into smaller groups and return to different ports. If both surface ships and subs are in a task force, then it will require 2 naval moves to move them en masse. All of this is for later tutorials where unit movment will be explained.

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

It's not entirely clear the the second build cycle of a ship is Cst1+Cst2. It would make more sense - To me, to have the first and second cycle explicitly shown instead of making the player calculate the cost of the second cycle.

The second build cycle of a ship is NOT Cst1+Cst2.
The first and second cycle ARE explicitly shown in the screenshot here.
CST 1 / CST 2 / TRNS are displayed in the detailled view.
Vittorio Veneto : 2 / 3 / 6

Where is the problem ?

I should have checked the counters first but my guess was that the cost of the littorio and other itallian 8pt BB's was a cycle cost of 2 to lay down the keel , and 5 to finish. 2+3=5. That's what I was looking at.

[stretch]

ORIGINAL: Graf Zeppelin

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

3rd and last in the series.

The wording here that the Nagato participated in the pearl harbor attack is kind of stretching it IMHO, considering the ship was in Hashirajima. Yes it was flagship and radioed "Niitakayama nobore" but as written it sounds like it's saying the BB was in the strike force itself.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: stretch

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
3rd and last in the series.

The wording here that the Nagato participated in the pearl harbor attack is kind of stretching it IMHO, considering the ship was in Hashirajima. Yes it was flagship and radioed "Niitakayama nobore" but as written it sounds like it's saying the BB was in the strike force itself.

Thanks for the correction.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here are the missing 2 pages for the 5th tutorial (naval units).

There will be a lot more about this when we get to the tutorials on naval movement & combat and, even later, to the tutorial on production. All I am trying to do with these 2 pages is show how convoy points are used.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

2nd and last in the series.

I thought about using the global map but I decided to put off doing that until the production tutorial.

[Arron69]

Maybe just tell beginners why they need resourses...

Andi

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Graf Zeppelin

Maybe just tell beginners why they need resourses...

Andi

That was done in an earlier tutorial on the map (#2) where resources and factories and rail lines were lightly discussed.

[Froonp]

Beautifull !!! [:)]

[stretch]

Maybe you could show the CP actually sitting in the 0 box of a sea area ?
 
which makes me follow up with.. you added the sea boxes on map as a preliminary step to actually showing stacked units in the boxes they occupy on map, yes?  CWIF didn't do that and I hated it.  Just wanted to ask if that's still the plan.
 
 

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: stretch
Maybe you could show the CP actually sitting in the 0 box of a sea area ?

which makes me follow up with.. you added the sea boxes on map as a preliminary step to actually showing stacked units in the boxes they occupy on map, yes?  CWIF didn't do that and I hated it.  Just wanted to ask if that's still the plan.

Background
The CWIF code for moving units is poorly structured. Validating which moves are legal is even more so. I have spent hundreds of hours trying to track bugs through those 5000+ lines of code with the results that I have concluded they need to be completely overhauled before new code can be inserted.

Da Plan
I will redesign the game engine so there is overall control based on sequence of play. That will provide the superstructure on which all processing routines will be relocated. The routines themselves will be structured using 'case' statements based on phase and subphase from the sequence of play. For instance, there will be one routine for determining whether a move is valid that will first separate the logic into the phase/subphase of the game and then within/knowing each phase/subphase make further judgments based on the units benig moved, their start and end locations, weather, etc..

Status
I have stub-end code for several of these modules but I have not stepped up to doing the complete redesign yet. I am working on cleaning up enough bugs (that I created in the redesign of the player interface) so I can upload version 3.00 for the beta testers. Once that is done, I want to put in the NetPlay/Internet module(s).

Future
I hope to do the game engine redesign starting in November and finishnig by the end of the year. Once that is done, I can redesign how naval units are placed on the map - and have them appear in the sea area sections!

[Froonp]

I thought about using the global map but I decided to put off doing that until the production tutorial.

And I think you were right, because it allow to see what the map looks like at the lowest level of zoom.
This is great !
Seems you removed the labels and the rails from the map in this shot.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

I thought about using the global map but I decided to put off doing that until the production tutorial.

And I think you were right, because it allow to see what the map looks like at the lowest level of zoom.
This is great !
Seems you removed the labels and the rails from the map in this shot.

Yes, the rails weren't needed for the point of the page. And the names can not be read at zoom level 1.

[trees trees]

this board makes me want to go back into computer programming. I walked away from C++ proficiency to move into forestry and outdoor work, but I'm suddenly missing subroutine calls and function libraries and everything else.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Bump.

There was a question about naval combat and I thought that bumping this thread back to the top would be useful.

[freeboy]

Thanks, IT seems organized, BUT the conceipt I am having tropuble getting my head arround is the one where the sides actually have combat in a three month period, I guess it really is a ? of the stages or steps used... but if you are using htis alevel of detail, down to ships in hexes, seems like a jump to be able to model an ingagemnt and then the follow up engagements that navel combat had. Task forces fought at specific sites and then moved, when surface action took place. Several battles where at night and gave a prepared early war japanees navy a huge addvantage, see Savos, sp? battle. I guess those familiar with the system seem to like it or you would be going a differrent direction, and I am not saying you should , just it seems odd.
 
How many battles could two forces in say the gilberts have in one turn?/two month period in this game? Lets say there is limited land air but good sea supply if that even exits? and both sides can reinforce there cv and cv planes, using the cv planes reules? Thanks again for the time to inspire me! looks very interesting!

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

Thanks, IT seems organized, BUT the conceipt I am having tropuble getting my head arround is the one where the sides actually have combat in a three month period, I guess it really is a ? of the stages or steps used... but if you are using htis alevel of detail, down to ships in hexes, seems like a jump to be able to model an ingagemnt and then the follow up engagements that navel combat had. Task forces fought at specific sites and then moved, when surface action took place. Several battles where at night and gave a prepared early war japanees navy a huge addvantage, see Savos, sp? battle. I guess those familiar with the system seem to like it or you would be going a differrent direction, and I am not saying you should , just it seems odd.

How many battles could two forces in say the gilberts have in one turn?/two month period in this game? Lets say there is limited land air but good sea supply if that even exits? and both sides can reinforce there cv and cv planes, using the cv planes reules? Thanks again for the time to inspire me! looks very interesting!

There can be quite a lot of naval combat, depending on the weather. The weather is set before the 1st impulse of each turn and may change every odd impulse. The effect is that both sides get the same weather for an impulse (players alternate being the phasing player every impulse). The number of impulses in a turn is a function of the weather too, with the quantity ranging from 5 to 12 typically (some exceptions). During each impulse both sides get an opportunity to try to initiate naval combat in a sea area: phasing player decides yea or nay and then non-phasing player does likewise.

So, if there are naval units from both sides in a sea area, both sides can try to initiate combat every impulse. Although a player may want to have naval combat, it depends on whether the enemy forces 'see' each other.

The search rolls depend on the weather conditions, whether air units are involved (land based or carrier based), and the sea boxes the naval fleets are in. The higher the numbered sea box, the more active the fleet is in patrolling the sea area and the more likely they are to see the enemy. To place your fleet in a high numbered sea box you have to have started your fleet in a nearby port and/or have naval units with high mobility. There is ample opportunity for surprise to occur too, either because one side just declared war on the other (e.g., Pearl Harbor) or because one side was close (US at Midway) and the other side travelled a longer distance (Japan at Midway).

If naval combat occurs, it is not over after one round. Should both players decide to stay in the sea area, another set of search rolls takes place and additional rounds of combat can occur in that 1 impulse. There can be many of rounds of combat in an impulse if both players want to continue to contest the sea area. Every subsequent impulse the phasing player can bring more naval units into the sea area, and both sides can bring additional land based air units (if there are any still available). And then they can have at it again.

I have left out a lot of details here, but the general overview is that IF both players want to engage in naval combat, and the weather is favorable for them finding each other, and they have plenty of movement points for reaching the sea area (and/or air units searching), THEN they can slug it out until one of them calls it quits. During Monsoon weather, naval combat is rare.

Naval combat also comes in 3 flavors: air to sea, surface, and submarine.