SO considerations

[Hortlund]

I thought Id take a look at the current SO-design. Its been a while since we discussed it, and it might be a good time to go over them in more detail. Im not going to type out the info that everyone can find in old threads, so instead I'll jump right into my questions/thoughts. I'll be adding questions as I go through the document, and everyone please jump into the discussion.

SO 6 - Defensive airsupport

Overall I really like the design proposed for the user interface here. Some questions.

1)
There is one setting here, binary, for dont fly if the odds against survival are too awful. There should probably also be another one here too. The way I have understood this, the odds are calculated based on the enemy aircraft that has been assigned to a specific target hex, if the non-phasing player has a SO to intercept at that hex during that phase, there will be an odds calculation and if it is not "too bad", the non-phasing player will intercept in accordance to his SO. So far so good.

But there is a pretty well known tactic of the phasing player using his final intercept to swamp a non-phasing player, in order to kill his best aircraft, or alternatively to kill his airforce one aircraft at a time.

Is this a problem that should be dealt with by a special "dont fly if potential odds are too big"-setting, or is it something the player should be forced to take into consideration when setting his SO? One thing to remember here is that it is probably desireable to have the SO-settings flexible enough as not to force a player to look over them after every single impulse.

2)
Is it possible to add another setting along the lines of "do not fly unless there will be more than one friendly fighter assigned to the same intercept"?

3)
Is it possible to add a "fly only if escorted by at least one friendly fighter" for a bomber with a SO to defend something. That way one can make sure that a bomber is not wasted on a suicide mission. The way I understand it, the current mechanism for escorting a bomber for the non-phasing player is to assign a fighter to the same target hex and have it fly during the same impulse. Perhaps it would be better to allow a SO-option for a fighter along the lines of "Escort bomber" and then let the player pick which bomber to escort. This fighter will then fly if and only if the designed bomber flies.


4)
Is it possible to add a "match odds" setting, where the non-phasing player will send intercepting fighters with enough combat factors to fight at the 0-column. This could possibly be tied to question 2).

[Hortlund]

SO 7 - Air combat preparation

"The player selects a theater of operation (TOO) for which this SO applies. The TOO identifies target hexes, not air units, for which this SO applies".


When a player sets the SOs, he will not know which hex there will be air combat in. Nor does he neccessarily know which airunits of his, or his opponent, that will fly there. Despite this, he is supposed to set a SO for that hex? Granted, we do it TOO-wise, but still, how does the non-phasing player know whether there will be lots of ground-combat or naval-combat in that theater?

I am wondering if it might not be better to set a SO for each phase. That way, the player can decide that during the land combat phase, supporting bombers are to be placed in rising tac-factor order, the best first, etc... while during the naval combat phase, they will be placed in rising nav-factor order.

SO 8 - Air combat results

First, same argument as in SO 7 here. When it comes to AC or DC considerations it should be more important to look at the phase than to look at the theater.

Here too, we are asking the non-phasing player to make desicions "in the dark". When he sets the AX-SO, he has no idea what the target hex is, nor the involved airunits. Therefore we should possibly add more factors. For example, Id rather kill a Stuka with tac factor 6, than a fighter with aa rating 4, but at the same time, in some instances I would want to remove the fighter (if it is alone perhaps, or if the other fighters have low aa-ratings) to force his bombers to abort or face desperate odds the next round.

I would also prefer to shoot down a fighter with low aa-rating if it has a large tac factor, rathter than shoot down a "normal" bomber.

Perhaps we could add a "weighing"-scale here, where we let the player give a couple of inputs. Perhaps we could let the player decide along these lines (italics = player selects from drop-down menu)

In case of AX or AA, remove enemy front fighter unless front bomber has factor > 4 or unless front bomber is alone or unless combat hex is a priority hex

Because there are several "unless..."-statements, they will be ranked in relation to eachother, the SO will try to fulfill the first unless-statement first and then check for the second, etc.

The relevant bomber-factor would be decided by the SO (since I want to set these per phase, instead of TOO).

[brian brian]

[uhh, just for additional readers' info, 'SO' = 'Standing Orders' ... perhaps making this the thread title would clear that up before anyone opens this]


I have a hard time with the Standing Orders concept for my own play. Tactical decisions in WiF vary considerably based on what you have on the production spiral, what hex is in question, and how combat has gone elsewhere in the turn. I understand that some SOs have to be generated to speed non face-to-face play but I don't exactly look forward to using them.

Perhaps someone who has already / is already playing some email WiF could give the best insight.

[composer99]

WiF slows down to an absolute crawl when you have to e-mail back and forth over interceptions and whatnot.
 
That said, while playing PBeM thus far, I would not really want to resort to standing orders except in very obvious circumstances - e.g. "I will attempt a naval interception here if you try to send convoys or sealift through", or "I will fly interception vs. groundstrikes on the BEF in France in 1940".
 
As you said, brian, there are too many micro considerations involved in making tactical decisions to really trust that a standing order will do what you want except in very obvious situations.

[brian brian]

I was playing the French once and my German opponent would continually waste whole impulses trying to bait me into intercepting ground strikes over non-essential hexes, I guess he was one of those players who go on emotion and would have automatically intercepted an incoming ground strike just because one of his pieces was under attack. He grew frustrated that the French always had FTR cover until the hex in question was on the road to Paris. That wasn't my fault though.

I bring this up only to hope that Standing Orders can be hex based rather than front based. Standing Orders probably would be easier to use later in the game though; early in the game there are so few pieces on the board that each decision about them is more important.

I'm hoping that when I have the time and connectivity to play WiF electronically some of these decisions can be handled via phone call or instant message.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund
SO 6 - Defensive airsupport

Overall I really like the design proposed for the user interface here. Some questions.

1)
There is one setting here, binary, for dont fly if the odds against survival are too awful. There should probably also be another one here too. The way I have understood this, the odds are calculated based on the enemy aircraft that has been assigned to a specific target hex, if the non-phasing player has a SO to intercept at that hex during that phase, there will be an odds calculation and if it is not "too bad", the non-phasing player will intercept in accordance to his SO. So far so good.

But there is a pretty well known tactic of the phasing player using his final intercept to swamp a non-phasing player, in order to kill his best aircraft, or alternatively to kill his airforce one aircraft at a time.

Very true.

Is this a problem that should be dealt with by a special "dont fly if potential odds are too big"-setting, or is it something the player should be forced to take into consideration when setting his SO? One thing to remember here is that it is probably desireable to have the SO-settings flexible enough as not to force a player to look over them after every single impulse.

Yes, but such a setting could also make a FTR never fly, because especially in the west in 1944-45, the possible odds of Western Allies FTRs are usually daunting, because of their enormous range.

2)
Is it possible to add another setting along the lines of "do not fly unless there will be more than one friendly fighter assigned to the same intercept"?

3)
Is it possible to add a "fly only if escorted by at least one friendly fighter" for a bomber with a SO to defend something. That way one can make sure that a bomber is not wasted on a suicide mission. The way I understand it, the current mechanism for escorting a bomber for the non-phasing player is to assign a fighter to the same target hex and have it fly during the same impulse. Perhaps it would be better to allow a SO-option for a fighter along the lines of "Escort bomber" and then let the player pick which bomber to escort. This fighter will then fly if and only if the designed bomber flies.


4)
Is it possible to add a "match odds" setting, where the non-phasing player will send intercepting fighters with enough combat factors to fight at the 0-column. This could possibly be tied to question 2).

Good idea.
To expand on it, why not a setting to say "come to +x/-x odds" where you would choose the odds you would like to match. That's a kind of rule that I impose myselft when I'm inferior to my enemy in quantity (i.e. often the German v.s. the western allies), that is to aim at matching a -1, and not more, to keep a sufficiently large reserve (-1 is not that bad compared to 0), to be able maybe to be superior in a couple of chosen air to air combats.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

SO 7 - Air combat preparation

"The player selects a theater of operation (TOO) for which this SO applies. The TOO identifies target hexes, not air units, for which this SO applies".


When a player sets the SOs, he will not know which hex there will be air combat in. Nor does he neccessarily know which airunits of his, or his opponent, that will fly there. Despite this, he is supposed to set a SO for that hex? Granted, we do it TOO-wise, but still, how does the non-phasing player know whether there will be lots of ground-combat or naval-combat in that theater?

I am wondering if it might not be better to set a SO for each phase. That way, the player can decide that during the land combat phase, supporting bombers are to be placed in rising tac-factor order, the best first, etc... while during the naval combat phase, they will be placed in rising nav-factor order.

SO 8 - Air combat results

First, same argument as in SO 7 here. When it comes to AC or DC considerations it should be more important to look at the phase than to look at the theater.

Here too, we are asking the non-phasing player to make desicions "in the dark". When he sets the AX-SO, he has no idea what the target hex is, nor the involved airunits. Therefore we should possibly add more factors. For example, Id rather kill a Stuka with tac factor 6, than a fighter with aa rating 4, but at the same time, in some instances I would want to remove the fighter (if it is alone perhaps, or if the other fighters have low aa-ratings) to force his bombers to abort or face desperate odds the next round.

I would also prefer to shoot down a fighter with low aa-rating if it has a large tac factor, rathter than shoot down a "normal" bomber.

Perhaps we could add a "weighing"-scale here, where we let the player give a couple of inputs. Perhaps we could let the player decide along these lines (italics = player selects from drop-down menu)

In case of AX or AA, remove enemy front fighter unless front bomber has factor > 4 or unless front bomber is alone or unless combat hex is a priority hex

Because there are several "unless..."-statements, they will be ranked in relation to eachother, the SO will try to fulfill the first unless-statement first and then check for the second, etc.

The relevant bomber-factor would be decided by the SO (since I want to set these per phase, instead of TOO).

For #7, I think it will be easy to have a default setting that can be overridden by a specific one for an air mission type (e.g., strategic bombing, naval air, ground strike, etc.). This way the player doesn't have to do an individual SO for each air mission, but can if he wants to.

I am still thinking about #8.

[Jimm]

One way of looking at this is that it is a process of tactical decision-making within a strategic level game, and defer as much as possible to the AI to decide when & what to intercept with. Perhaps with the broadest of standing orders, eg "aggressive" or "passive" or whatever.

Sure it could lead to potentially frustrating outcomes, but even with the level of detailed control suggested I cant see the computer doing what you might have done on every single occasion. What would be most frustrating - spending hours working out detailed standing orders which don't always work, or resigning yourself to the fact that as the Commander in Chief you cant expect the local commanders to make the same decisions you would.