Map switching utility - beta release

[dwbradley]

My map switching utility has progressed a bit and I’m feeling good enough about it to make a beta release which you can get from the link below:


http://rapidshare.com/files/292182315/Launcher_0.4.zip



I have no illusions that this is bug free but I’m hoping to get some good feedback in order to improve it enough for eventual use with AE Patch 02.

One of the goals with this utility has been to make it easy to use. The result of trying to achieve that has been a program that is more complicated than I might have liked to have to build and the inevitable risk of more bugs that come along with the added complexity.

I’m very much hoping for feedback in two main areas, functionality and content. I give some details about what I mean by those two words in the next post but of course I welcome any and all comments. You can post here, PM me, or email me (email address is in the install docs somewhere, can’t remember just where right now).


Dave Bradley

[dwbradley]

Functionality.

What I mean by that is simply, does the program work as designed? Although I welcome comments on the design and I’m not unwilling to change and improve it, my highest priority is making sure it doesn’t crash itself or anything else and that you truly do get modified maps at the turns accumulate.


Content.

By content I mean the map effects themselves. The map effects included with the beta release are a good faith attempt by me to have map effects that show some of the range of what can be done. Historical research and artwork are not my strong suits as will be obvious when you review the effects. A brief description of the effects is included in Appendix A of the User’s Guide. In the main, it is my view that the map changes should be focused on substantive changes (as opposed to chrome) that will have some useful effect on how the game works and how you must play the game with these changes coming into effect.

An example is the Burmese monsoon effect. Part of the evaluation of this utility is the evaluation of each effect itself. I really cannot say at this point that what I have done will mimic closely the difficulties each side faced if they tried to mount an offensive during the monsoon. I am hoping some testing will give some clues on how to improve this and the other effects.

I am also very much hoping to attract the interest of folks who may have ideas for other effects. I would not be surprised to find that one or more folks here would have some expertise on the buildup of roads and RR in Australia or India during the war period, as an example of things that could be added. I am certain there are more areas for growth in the set of map effects.

Dave Bradley

[dwbradley]

I have found an error in the pwhexe_switch.ini file that defines the Kyushu Tunnel map effect. The tunnel was connecting 103,57 and 104,57. It should be 104,58 and 104,57. This only comes into play when the tunnel is completed, that is, for turns starting 11/15/42. This will be corrected in the next release of the Launcher/Switcher but if you want to fix it before then the corrected file is in the attached zip. It should go in your C:\<my folder>\Launcher directory, where <my folder> is the name of the folder where you have installed the Launcher/Switcher. Just unzip and drop in it in there, overwriting the previous version of the ini file.

I would severely discipline the person responsible for this error, but he’s family and works cheap, so what can I do? [;)]

Dave Bradley

[dwbradley]

I thought I would share the results of some testing I have been doing the last two days on the Burma Monsoon effect. The effect degrades roads in a fairly large area of Burma and turns some clear terrain into swamp. The effect normally comes into play from June 1st until September 15th of each year, but for the purposes of my test I changed the start date.

The goal of the test was to get some rough measure of the impact of the monsoon. What I did was start a Scenario 1 game with both sides controlled by the computer. The map was set for game start, that is, no monsoon. I let it run until the Japanese were just beginning their invasion of Burma. In the test game this turned out to be March 24, 1942. Moulmein has fallen but nothing else in Burma. I saved the game and then restarted it (still no monsoon), monitoring it from time to time until Mytkyina fell to the advancing IJA. This date was May 15,1942. I noted that Akyab and Cox’s Bazaar had fallen also.

OK, with that as a baseline, I then changed the map to turn the monsoon on and restarted the previously saved game at March 24,1942. I let the game run until May 15, 1942 and then observed the IJA positions. The IJA had taken Mandalay and Swebo and advanced one hex beyond Swebo, which is six hexes from Mytkyina. Both Akyab and Cox’s Bazaar remain in Allied hands.

With this one single test it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions. It is encouraging that there was not some great, unexpected result. In fact the delta is not that much different from what you might predict, namely, that the IJA advance would be slowed down. So, qualitatively, a guarded thumbs up. Quantitatively? There are too many variables for me to even hazard a guess.

It does seem that a human player would have to take into consideration the potential impact of the monsoon on operations in the affected area. This may be most important for the 1942 season. If the Allied player can delay the Japanese advance until June he may be able to withdraw to India and gain something of a respite until the monsoon lets up in September.

Dave Bradley

[dwbradley]

I’ve added another feature to the Launcher/Switcher. It already allowed you to organize the glut of report files into separate folders and concatenate them(Append option) to yield less total files. Or you can keep them all if you want. The new feature provides a rudimentary text search feature for the concatenated files. So if you wanted to know what information you had for a particular unit or ship you could search for that. After a few months of game time there is a lot of data so I’m thinking this may be useful.

You can get the latest version at the link below. It has the corrected map effects file (pwhexe_switch.ini) and a fix for the re-install bug. So you can run this and install over your current installation, but you may have to re-sync.


http://rapidshare.com/files/299277610/Launcher_0.5.zip


This is still a beta release. I am thinking this will be the last beta release. When Patch 02 comes along in a few weeks I plan to incorporate any map updates and then release a 1.0 version of the Launcher that I can use along with the PBEM game I will be starting soon after.

Cheers!

Dave Bradley

[dwbradley]

You can now get the beta version at Spooky's

http://mathubert.free.fr/

If you already have the beta there is no need to download from Spooky's site but if you haven't given it a looksee just yet this may be a more convenient way to do so. Rapidshare is ok but is at least mildly irrritating at times.

I am continuing work on the non-beta release, which I hope to have soon after Patch 02 is out.

Thanks to Marc (Spooky) for the kindness in hosting the utility.

Dave Bradley

[stuman]

Looks interesting. Thx !