Admiral's Edition General Thread

[Hortlund]

How about another mechanism to add PPs if there is a huge victory? If I sink an enemy CV, I get +100 PP...etc

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

How about another mechanism to add PPs if there is a huge victory? If I sink an enemy CV, I get +100 PP...etc

Might work either way in a "Democracy"--either people get depressed, or they get angry. For the Japanese can't see any political effect at all. It was a military dictatorship in most ways, and "made up" victories whenever it wanted (and refused to admit defeats). Might make more sense for the Japs if the victory were really "HUGE" and not something as meaningless as sinking a ship. Like "having siezed ALL of the SRA, you now get a PP bonus to reflect the IJA's increased willingness to engage it's troops elsewhere". Problem is that the game's PP's already allows the IJA to be more active/involved than it was. Miss Portman is adorable..., but this idea has a lot of warts.

[hbrsvl]

jwilkerson- First time in the AE forums. Some questions:
1. Is AE an oder of expansion magnitude 1, 2, or 3? By this I mean, are we going to have to go through a learning curve as bad as or worse than for original WITP? " It's not a learning curve, it's a cliff!"
2. I'm a bit confused-Will AE have Allied production?
3. The way I play WITP, it takes about 10-12 minutes to cycle through the turn after "end order phase ? "cue. (I don't run the combat scenes.) Is AE going to be about the same?
4. I'm contemplating a new computer. Will AE run on Vista?
5. Will we load AE on top of original WITP? If loaded on top, can we continue on-going scenarios? Or is it like A. Brown's map-start all over again?

I'll have more later on. I AM excited about this-wish it could come out sooner.

Many thanks, Hugh Browne

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: hbrsvl

jwilkerson- First time in the AE forums. Some questions:
1. Is AE an oder of expansion magnitude 1, 2, or 3? By this I mean, are we going to have to go through a learning curve as bad as or worse than for original WITP? " It's not a learning curve, it's a cliff!"
2. I'm a bit confused-Will AE have Allied production?
3. The way I play WITP, it takes about 10-12 minutes to cycle through the turn after "end order phase ? "cue. (I don't run the combat scenes.) Is AE going to be about the same?
4. I'm contemplating a new computer. Will AE run on Vista?
5. Will we load AE on top of original WITP? If loaded on top, can we continue on-going scenarios? Or is it like A. Brown's map-start all over again?

I'll have more later on. I AM excited about this-wish it could come out sooner.

Many thanks, Hugh Browne

(1) The magnitude of the change may be in the eyes of the beholder. It is a new map, new OOB and 100s of enhancements. Tactics that work in the current WITP may not work in AE and vice versus, so in this sense we should have some "fun" aspects of the learning curve in terms of trying to figure out what tactics will be successful and which ones will not. So, in this sense, more like going back to the beginning of WITP. But the overall scheme, the screens, etc. will be totally recognizable to experienced players. So the basics of how to conduct a move, issue orders etc. will be already known by experienced players.

(2) Allied production will be just like it is now.

(3) How long it takes to watch the "replay" will be dependent upon the machine. We have made some things more efficient, but as we are adding more bases and units, that tends to offset the savings. At this point I'd say it takes a little bit longer (10%?) on my machine. But things will still change in this arena before the release, so I can't say exactly what the delta will be at release time. But a bit longer would be a good guess.

(4) AE will run on VISTA.

(5) AE will install into its own set of folders and thus be a separate install from stock WITP. You will be able to run both on one machine, but not from one set of folders. You will have to have two separate installs to run both on one machine. Existing WITP games will not load into AE. AE games must be started from scratch.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson
AE games must be started from scratch.

So "put the pedal to the metal" in all your current PBEM's so you will be ready to start some new ones next Summer....

[drw61]

[font=verdana]To help the inevitable mods that will be coming out using AE, will the slots that have been hard coded for a certain function be documented?  Or better yet removed?[/font]

[Andy Mac]

There are now very very few hardcoded slots.

So far we have reserved the last 50 on the allied listing and the last 20 on the Japanese for any funnies we need.

30 ofd those are tagged for the invasion scenarios and will be documented.

I want to keep the others just now in case anything else comes up when we get deep into the AI  - but I dont expect it will.

So out of in excess of 7,000 (nearly 8,000) slots a few HQ's are hardcoded in the 1 - 256 range - (the old favourites ABDA etc)

The rest are in the discrete range at the end.

Andy

[drw61]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

There are now very very few hardcoded slots.

So far we have reserved the last 50 on the allied listing and the last 20 on the Japanese for any funnies we need.

30 ofd those are tagged for the invasion scenarios and will be documented.

I want to keep the others just now in case anything else comes up when we get deep into the AI  - but I dont expect it will.

So out of in excess of 7,000 (nearly 8,000) slots a few HQ's are hardcoded in the 1 - 256 range - (the old favourites ABDA etc)

The rest are in the discrete range at the end.

Andy

That’s good news, the fewer hardcoded slots the better.

[madgamer2]

am sure you have had multi ideas about the combat displays for sea, land, and air. There needs to be a graphic change to make them look better and perhaps to allow player input as to who shoots who and where the ships go,etc
I will limit my post to the nevel display. In the center is a small mini map showing the ships in line or formation. Only the ships that can be seen would show up depending on range,sighting conditions, radar, etc. Along the left and right edges are graphics of each ship in the fleet with a nember of box's for each of the three types of damage. each hit would mark off that kind of damage so the the ship would become less effective as it takes hits. When enough damage is taken the ship sinks or can't fire or move depending on the damage type.
There is a old DOS game called "Action Stations" which was a tactical level simulation of small to medium fleet actions in WW 2. The graphics were navel plotting symbols used at the time. It had a great AI and would be worth a look just to see how damage was done and how the ship movement was displayed. I might have a copy on an old 3.5 disc
somewhere I could send you. It is worth some time to look at it.

Lawrence

[JeffroK]

Maybe we should resurrect the system used by SPI in "Rifleman", I have a copy I can send.[:'(]
 
But I am not interested in playing a tactical shooting game, I have other games to play if i want to do that at Sea, in the Air or on the ground.
 

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: madgamer
There is a old DOS game called "Action Stations" which was a tactical level simulation of small to medium fleet actions in WW 2. The graphics were navel plotting symbols used at the time. It had a great AI and would be worth a look just to see how damage was done and how the ship movement was displayed. I might have a copy on an old 3.5 disc
somewhere I could send you. It is worth some time to look at it.

Lawrence

"Action Stations" as a program is still a better recreation of WW II tactical surface action than anything else ever done. I've hoped for years it would be re-released with updated graphics. But as I understand it, the designer sold the rights to some fellow who then dissappeared of the face of the Earth..., and no one will touch it for fear the "owner" will re-surface and sue.

[Speedysteve]

Didn't know that Mike. A shame as you say. I also liked Action Stations a lot.

[duckenf]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

ORIGINAL: hbrsvl

5. Will we load AE on top of original WITP? If loaded on top, can we continue on-going scenarios? Or is it like A. Brown's map-start all over again?



(5) AE will install into its own set of folders and thus be a separate install from stock WITP. You will be able to run both on one machine, but not from one set of folders. You will have to have two separate installs to run both on one machine. Existing WITP games will not load into AE. AE games must be started from scratch.

Sorry to be dense, but if AU installs in its own set of folders, has different data and configuration from WitP and runs separately from WiTP, then why do you have to own WitP in the first place? Does it track back to anything other than a serial # check for WitP? Seems like that limits the potential market. I own WitP, but will I have to keep WitP installed on my machine to run AE? It takes up a certain amount of space and if all I'm going to be doing is playing a superior AE, then it's not clear why I would need WitP on my drive anymore.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: medck
Sorry to be dense, but if AU installs in its own set of folders, has different data and configuration from WitP and runs separately from WiTP, then why do you have to own WitP in the first place? Does it track back to anything other than a serial # check for WitP?

Because of the difference in map scale and much of the data, none of the old WITP games will play on AE (and vice versa). However, the same basic "game engine" drives both. Think of it as a farmer's tractor. He can pull a plow with it, or he can pull a harvester. He just can pull both at the same time.

The basic game engine is the tractor, and both WITP and AE will require it---but it only comes in the WITP "package". So AE will need WITP to play. You're going to have to wait for WITP II to get a new "tractor".

[rjopel]

It would be nice to see in the combat reports the names of the ground units involved in combat.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

I asked this few weeks ago when WitP AE was first publicly announced but I think I didn't get the answer...


Are leaders still "teleportable" instantly over the map just as it is in current WitP?


Thanks in advance!


Leo "Apollo11"

[Kull]

Will AE provide a graphical display that shows Air Attacks on Naval Units in Port, something akin (or identical) to the Air vs TF graphic? This is currently the only graphic that is actually worse in WitP than PacWar.

[VSWG]

ORIGINAL: rjopel

It would be nice to see in the combat reports the names of the ground units involved in combat.

I would prefer to NOT see the names of enemy units in the ground combat screen... [;)]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: VSWG

ORIGINAL: rjopel
It would be nice to see in the combat reports the names of the ground units involved in combat.

I would prefer to NOT see the names of enemy units in the ground combat screen... [;)]

I would prefer:

1) All information shown on any graphics or replays should also appear in the reports (so you don't have to watch the graphics to get all available information).

2) That sometimes you get intel from combat, sometimes you don't, and sometimes you get wrong intel!

[Reg]

ORIGINAL: Speedy

Didn't know that Mike. A shame as you say. I also liked Action Stations a lot.

I totally agree. I played the original tabletop rules (cutout cardboard slide rules anyone...) but found the necessity to graph every ships compartmental structure to calculate list due flooding to be quite daunting. (that and with 1:400 scale models the historical engagement range was in the next room...)

When I found someone had computerised it, it was a Godsend. However, I bought the Amiga version which (crudely) used it's GUI interface with it's pull down menus etc. Unfortunately that machine is long gone but I have located an IBM version of Action Stations which I can run on my current PC. But.....

What a heap of S#!% the IBM version's user interface is!!! No where near as good as my old Amiga version and arcane to the point of uselessness. Even the low-res graphics (compared to the Amiga's NTSC/PAL video) makes the displayed data incomprehensible... With all the information this game uses, this really is one program that needs it's user interface dragged kicking and screaming into the twentieth century!!!

However the gameplay itself is still fantastic. There is nothing more satisfying than maneuvering a destroyer into position to put a normally non-fatal salvo of torpedos into the side of a light cruiser and watching her immediately capsize due to excessive list from multiple compromised compartments on one side before the crew can counterflood.

Hopefully someday someone make something of this great game. [:(]