Land phase skipping

[Dancing Bear]

I’m still on my quest for speed. I t hink one relatively easy way to speed up the game would be to expand skipping to the land phase. All that is missing is a way to account for the cost of supply, and then, in most circumstances, the land phase could be skipped, like any other phase.

Sounds easy and I think it might be, with a few restrictions:

1) Only have a skip next land phase, so no one could skip all their phases forever (no continuous land phase skipping button)
2) If for some reason, like there is a DOW against you, your skip land phase setting is removed, like the other phases, but you also get a refund.
3) This would only be work if all your units were in supply or could auto-forage. If any unit has to roll for foraging (or is at sea), then this can not be selected (the standard out of supply or excessive supply cost or not enough money messages would boot you out of this option).
4) The money would be subtracted during the last non-skipped phase before the land phase.

I’m hoping that an expansion of an existing feature (skipping) will not require significant coding (I can hear the programmers laughing). I think all we would need is to be able to use the auto-forage subroutine to be accessible at the end of other phases.

This would really kick in to high gear, when we get simultaneous diplomacy phases. When a player is not up to much, he could select to skip all his phases, except the one simultaneous phase, allowing the game to leap forward. For now, it would be useful for an inactive GB just doing a naval phase, anyone at peace placing reinforcements, and others that would rather continue to submit diplomacy phases just to hide their intentions.

Am I right? is this straight forward to expand skipping to the land phase?

[borner]

Anything heps as fr as speed is concerned. Simultaneous diplomacy phases - or other phases, eco, reinf, would be the best way, but it depends on what Marshall can code, and does it cause any bugs in doing so?
 

[Dancing Bear]

Obivously the speed gains from this would not be the same as a sim dip phase, however, they would be more than just marginal. Combined with sim dip, the ability to ckip all other phases, would be a leap, and allow the game to fly through those long periods of peace that you get in every game.

[MarshallEllis]

Sorry guys but I have looked at this and it is going to be difficult. Reason is that when I skip, I am skipping absolutely. This skip would force me to do a partial skip (execute and resolve supply, have rule sets for who forages, assault prompts, etc) There is a lot of code that needs to be looked at here!

[Dancing Bear]

Hi Marshall
I think that is getting too complicated. The last time we looked at this, the idea was to have the AI play some functions instead of the player (like forage losses, etc). This time, I'm proposing we strip it down to the bear bones, where an absolute skip would be fine.
The only things you would need to allow absolute skipping are a) to determine if a nations units are all eligbile to autoforage, and then b ) if so, how to subtract the supply cost. This would all happen during the last non-skipped phase before the land phase (and since we only allow you to skip your next land phase, this means in either the dip, rein, or naval phase of the month you plan to skip your land phase).
If you skipped your land phase, you could make no assults, no attacks, no movement, nothing, so you'd only do it when there was nothing going on. You would not need any of these functions, and an absolute skip would be fine.
What other players do to you while you are skipping happens in their land phase, so shouldn't be a problem, or have I got this wrong?

[MarshallEllis]

I think the next logical step would be to somehow implement the simul diplomacy and eco phases.

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

I think the next logical step would be to somehow implement the simul diplomacy and eco phases.

YES, I agree. A lot of these threads are getting ahead of the game (which is cool so long as it's not distracting). Simul eco and dip will DRAMATICALLY i(way more then the "skipping" feature) ncrease he speed of this thing.

[Jimmer]

I agree with Neverman and Marshall: It's OK to keep track of these ideas, but some (including this one) are more for "down the road a bit".

Actually, as long as we're on the subject: If there were a way to input commands to the game, land phases could be pseudo-skipped. Specifically, let's say there's a construct created in the game that remembers the last set of forages/depot supply that a player made. Then, if the phase were marked as "skip" by the player, the game would check what happened last turn (in this construct I'm proposing). If every "land" counter the player has on the board is in exactly the same place (including depots at sea), AND the war situation for this player has not changed, then the same series of steps could be applied against the current land phase.

Think of it as a sort of "setup routine". Most software apps allow one to create a configuration file that answers all of the questions the software will ask during installation. Typically, setup.exe is the running program, and setup.ini contains the "answer list".

If the same kind of file could be generated at the end of one land phase, it could be applied to the next.

For example:

Great Britian doing land movement. She has 3 British corps on the map (1, 3, and 5). 1 is sitting on a depot. 3 is on shore somewhere with a depot at sea giving it supply. And, 5 is one space away from a depot on land. She also has the Swedish 1 corps somewhere in a 1 forage zone, and she chose to forage.

The qualifications are absurd for a typical GB player, but let's assume (for the sake of argument) that the above is the layout, and GB did not move any ships this turn. The INI file might read:

I corps: supply from depot in london
II corps: off-map
III corps: sitting 1 space NW of London
IV corps: off-map
V corps: sitting in Portsmouth, drawing supply from a depot at sea in the Channel.
VI corps: off-map
Cav: off-map
Sweden I: Sitting in one of those 1-forage areas between Sweden and Finland
Sweden II: off-map
Sweden III: off-map

Assuming no fleets moved and no wars broke out, and GB chose the "skip land" option, the above would then be applied to the current turn (with no actual movement, of course). Note that if GB received troops, this would not change. However, if she had to add a corps in reinforcement, the two status files would no longer match, and the skip would be aborted.

[obsidiandrag]

I like this idea but have one issue with it.. if it is truly a "SKIP" as Marshalle mentioned the Sweedish corps would not have to roll again.. and would not suffer losses even if it went into winter as these steps would be skipped.. so the only way to actually skip is if nothing changed to include the season and all corps are on depots or direct supply lines.  AND - the cost would be skipped also as it is outside the routine so it would have to be tracked in the .ini file and subtracted for each recorded skip when the skipping was done.
 
Otherwise, sounds like not too far from future .. say 1.09 ish.. (lol)
 
OD

[MarshallEllis]

I may have to start putting the "ish" after my version numbers! LOL!

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: obsidiandragon

I like this idea but have one issue with it.. if it is truly a "SKIP" as Marshalle mentioned the Sweedish corps would not have to roll again.. and would not suffer losses even if it went into winter as these steps would be skipped.. so the only way to actually skip is if nothing changed to include the season and all corps are on depots or direct supply lines.  AND - the cost would be skipped also as it is outside the routine so it would have to be tracked in the .ini file and subtracted for each recorded skip when the skipping was done.

Otherwise, sounds like not too far from future .. say 1.09 ish.. (lol)

OD

With the idea I proposed, it wouldn't truly be skipped. The game would just not prompt anybody for the mechanics, but it would perform exactly the same steps as the previous turn (just invisibly to the player). It would "follow the script".

[Dancing Bear]

Jimmer, this is a good idea, but we got to keep it simple to start. I spend 90% of my land phases pushing the "autoforage" button and that's it. No movement, no attacking, nothing. Surely a bunch of college grads can figure out a way to automate this, without things getting complex?

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: Dancing Bear

Jimmer, this is a good idea, but we got to keep it simple to start. I spend 90% of my land phases pushing the "autoforage" button and that's it. No movement, no attacking, nothing. Surely a bunch of college grads can figure out a way to automate this, without things getting complex?

Excellent point: During peacetime, the land phase is almost a no-op for most nations (GB and France generally excepted).

This gives me two ideas:

Forage table
Requirements:

- A table that included all on-map corps and besieged garrisons.
- Column in the table showing what the current forage-value is. This would be the maximum number of troops that could be lost due to foraging. Examples:
- - a corps with 3 movement remaining in a controlled 0 area is 2
- - same corps in a controlled 1 area is a 1
- - same corps in any other controlled area is safe, auto- or 0.
- - a corps with 0 movement remaining in the winter and in a 3-value enemy territory would have a value of 5.
- Extra corps currently in an area would be counted against these values.
- A check box stating whether the player wanted to forage each corps (line-by-line)
- A method by which the contents of the above table could be implemented for foraging
- Table would "remember" previous forage choices, provided the corps did not move this turn.
- Table would auto-prompt the player at the end of the turn if there were any corps not on "auto-forage".

If the above table were implemented and a way created to actually use it, this could be a boon to speed in the land phase. One would still have to ship a PBM file, but the mechanics would be much simpler (during peacetime, anyhow).

Movement steps stacked

By "stacked", I don't mean "move a pile of guys". That would be a good idea, too, but not this one. This idea is to stack the steps of movement. So, let's say I want to move a Prussian corps from the far east side of my territory to the far west side, I might choose to "send it there". The game would then auto-move the corps at the end of land movement (prompting the player first if a forage situation is expected to arise as a result of the move). It might take 2-3 full movement phases to get to its destination. In games like Civilization, Age of Empires, Empire, and things like that, these are frequently referred to unofficially as "auto-pilot". Specific names vary ("Go to", "All units go to", "go here and then perform this action", etc.)

If this is at all feasible, it must be allowed to choose the path, at least until the game engine can properly calculate the "best" path. By "choose a path", I mean be able to say "first, go to warsaw, then go to ...", in sequence.

Marshall's AAR arrows would work nicely for this, to be able to see the final path, but perhaps in a different color (for "future movement"). Obviously, only the owning player should be able to see THESE arrows.

[Dancing Bear]

I dunno Jimmer. This sounds like a lot of work (maybe not the table as there is already the text report table of units, so a extra column could be added for acceptable losses, but then there would have to be a mechanism for dedcidng which corps foraged first (at better odds), and what losses to take (miltia, then infantry, I guess)). The other idea about the pathing would add even more variables to program.

Most of the time, most land phases involve no land movement, and no chance of foraging losses, as in peace time, players move their corps to the best forage areas and spread them out. Your ideas are good, but add a lot of work, for the very few times where a player at peace actually makes a forage roll (I'm assuming that players at war would always want to do their turn, except for the paper war between GB and France).

Can we keep it simple for now? Cover the 90% of land phases where there is no potential for forage loss, by allowing an "absolute" skip, plus a minor reduction in money during the next or previous phase to cover supply costs. How hard can that be?

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: Dancing Bear
I dunno Jimmer. This sounds like a lot of work (maybe not the table as there is already the text report table of units, so a extra column could be added for acceptable losses, but then there would have to be a mechanism for dedcidng which corps foraged first (at better odds), and what losses to take (miltia, then infantry, I guess)). The other idea about the pathing would add even more variables to program.

Good points. You may be correct.

For "which ones to lose", I would say the game should use one simple algorithm, and abort if there are any discrepencies. Militia, then infantry, then abort is probably the best answer. Note that this determination would have to be made PRIOR to the actual rolls, or the player would gain an unfair advantage.

ORIGINAL: Dancing Bear
Most of the time, most land phases involve no land movement, and no chance of foraging losses, as in peace time, players move their corps to the best forage areas and spread them out. Your ideas are good, but add a lot of work, for the very few times where a player at peace actually makes a forage roll (I'm assuming that players at war would always want to do their turn, except for the paper war between GB and France).

It's not so much when they make a roll, but avoiding making any rolls at all.

Still, you may be correct: This may be more work than it is worth.

ORIGINAL: Dancing BearCan we keep it simple for now? Cover the 90% of land phases where there is no potential for forage loss, by allowing an "absolute" skip, plus a minor reduction in money during the next or previous phase to cover supply costs. How hard can that be?

As he stated already, an absolute skip is an impossibility. He MUST run through the phase.

My proposal is basically the same as "let the AI run it", but allowing the player to initialize the process with some preferences/requirements that the AI might not get correctly (in the player's opinion).

[Dancing Bear]

I'm all for "let the AI run it", but we tried that tack before with the Marshall and it didn't get us anywhere, hence the attempt to try a restricted absolute skip.

[NeverMan]

I would not want the "AI" doing anything for me, period, regardless of what it is, JMO.

If I need to move some of my forces then I'll play my own turn and if I don't then I'd be satisfied with doing any/all auto-forage and just paying for the rest.

For countries which often skip the Naval Phase I doubt land phase skipping would be of much use, unless there is some kind of enforced peace throughout the lands...

I could see an opponent using this against someone. For example, what if Au was skipping Nav and Land in one phase and you "knew" (aka suspect) this? You might be able to take advantage of this during the Reinforcement phase, I'm just saying.

[MarshallEllis]

Yea, this would be ugly (skipping land).
 
Neverman: Can you elaborate on the "taking advantage of" you mentioned? How? I would like to know more here...
 

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Yea, this would be ugly (skipping land).

Neverman: Can you elaborate on the "taking advantage of" you mentioned? How? I would like to know more here...

I just mean that it's possible to get two moves on an opponent before he gets one (providing you go before that country in the land phase).

For example, take country A and B, B goes before A in the land phase and B has a hunch A is skipping the land phase:

B gets into position to attack A.
A skips even though he sees B is in a good attacking position.
B DOWs A.
B attacks (A didn't have a chance to really get his army into a defensive position, thus an advantage for B)

Does that make sense?

It's not a HUGE advantage, but it's not something I'd be willing to take a chance on, I'd probably never skip my land phase.

[Dancing Bear]

Guys, if your opponent moves after you anyways (as France always does), then what possible difference does it make?

And Neverman, you once siad that you would never skip any phases, but I think even you have benefited from seeing players skip their reinforcement phase. So perhaps this is a case of never say never?

As for let the AI run it, we mean let the AI handle the foraging.