TOAW - A Pain in the Butt

[Zaratoughda]

Haven't been playing TOAW much recently.... been instead been playing Advanced Tactics random generated scenarios.... less historicity there (generic units like 'medium tank', etc) but, at least the game is fun.

But, got a bit bored so decided to try TOAW again and a scenario I had been planning on playing but had never got to.... Erik Nygaard's Weserubung (German invasion of Norway and Denmark) scenario.

And... similar to other scenarios I have played by Erik... extremely well done.

Now, I remember the old GDW game 'Narvik'.... was one I enjoyed more than others.... had a bunch of indendant actions going on.... each with it's own situation (as opposed to the typical continous front scenario)... and it was fun dealing with one then going on to the next, etc.

However.... in TOAW.... can't do that... because of the crazed MP loss situation. You can't concentrate on one area and finish your actions there and then move on... but must instead manage all the areas at the same time, and stagger what you do so you don't lose all the MPs of units that you haven't gotten to yet.

In other words.... first you must move all your units that you can (got no problem with that), but then you must resolve the first part of the Oslo attack, then you must resolve the second part of the Oslo attack... and then you can go ahead and resolve the first parts of the attacks on Narvik and Trondheim.... and lastly the last parts of those attacks along with the various other invasions you have going... but beware of doing something like bombarding in the Denmark area because.... good chance it will eat up MPs for your units on the other side of the map and screw everything up.

And.... this is INSANE! I respect the desire for historicity here but having to manage all your units everywhere on the map all at the same time..... well, that is going too far... and the real commanders in the real campaigns didn't have to do this so... why should we??

Ralph... if you still read these forums and want to do ONE THING that would revitalize interest in TOAW.... give an option to turn this darn MP loss thing OFF (!!... and the option may as well turn off the arbitrary end of turn thing as well).

Sure.... this would induce a level of 'unhistoricity' but.... at least it would make the game FUN to play. As things stand now, I see TOAW as an interesting game (particicularly with scenarios like Weserubung) but, not a FUN game to play... the MP loss thing makes it a pain in the butt to play.

So... my two cents.

Zaratoughda

[Zaratoughda]

Oh... what I should say here is that... at least for me... the ideal situation would be...

At the end of the FIRST combat resolution.... the game would calculate the earliest that a combat ended, and it would use this to adjust all MPs of all units on the map.

In other words, if there were three combats resolved in the first combat resolution and one ended on round 4, another on round 2 and the third on round 5, the game would adjust the MPs of all units on the map as if they had spent MPs equivalent to being in combat until the end of round 2.

After that... in succesive combat resolutions, there would be no MP adjustment of units not involved in the combat.

With this.... it would force players to move all the units that they could before they resolve any combats.... unless they want to lose MPs... and I believe this is historical... but then they could resolve combats and exploitations in any order they wanted (after the first combat resolution).

Whatever... IMO this would be the best compromise between playability and historicity... but it is just my opinion.

Zaratoughda

[ralphtricky]

I've thought about it. Possibly in the next game, it's a better solution that the 'maximim rounds that I put in there now. It would require a massive refactoring to track the round and make combats move one round at a time and be 'locked' to not allow the player to adjust the units. I'd also have to add another status and 'bar' to the units and make sure that status worked everywhere.

I may have to rework Elmer to understand the new way of doing things.

There's also the issue of combat results, right now the results are transient. They'd have to be kept around. You've got the potential for multiple battles to happen on the same hex, so units would need a pointer to the battle it was attached to unless you say there are no retreats onto existing battles. I'm not sure how it would impact artillery and air combat, they are probably the worst since these assets can be attached to multiple battles, and figuring out when they took casualties so they could be reported may be difficult.

It's also going to make almost every turn last 10 rounds, which isn't a good thing.

These problems aren't impossile to solve, but it may be difficult to get everything right.

There are probably other changes that I haven't thought of. It's a big change.

Listening to your description, allowing the designers to set up fronts as individual sets might be interesting too. That would help contain some of the complexity.

Ralph

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick

I've thought about it.

You can't be serious.

[damezzi]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick

I've thought about it.

You can't be serious.

I hope he is!

[Zaratoughda]

Ralph.... if I read correctly what you are suggesting.... managing the turn on a round by round basis..... interesting... but like you say that would require a lot of work on your part... and I imagine there would be some players that would like this greater level of complexity.... but, IMO, not many.

What I was suggesting was decreasing the level of complexity that players had to deal with (as far as the turn sequence is concerned). My first suggestion was giving an option to have totally FREE MOVEMENT. Uh... IMO.... if you gave this option almost everyone would play with this option all the time and it would get a lot more games of TOAW going, and it would be easy to implement (just add another option to the game options menu, have that turn on a flag, and if that flag is on, the code that decreases the MPs is just not executed).

But, you would lose a level of historicity. So, my second suggestion, just doing the MP decrease after the first combat in a turn and allowing free movement after that, would keep most of the historicity while still making the game much easier (and thus more fun) to play.

This one, would be a bit more involved to implement but still much easier than the code to manage the turn on a round by round basis.

Hmmmm.... it's a tradeoff..... more historicty or more fun. Nice to come to the best balance.

The idea of allowing certain areas to be separate as far as MP loss, etc, would be a big plus for multi-player games to be sure.

Zaratoughda

P.S. I should say here that I am of the opinion that the game should essentially force players to do all the movement and attack scheduling that they can do initially.... because in history the high level commanders had to do that. If they waited until they got the results from the field they would be losing valuable time. But, after this is done by the players, time to take on the role of the individual corps (or whatever lower level HQs) commanders and handle the situation the historical commanders would have had to handle, one area at a time.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Zaratoughda

The idea of allowing certain areas to be separate as far as MP loss, etc, would be a big plus for multi-player games to be sure.

If and when TOAW ever adds support for multi-player games (which would include partitioning the map in some fashion), then one could just pretend to be multiple players, if you want to do this. I really think Ralph was talking about something else.

[Zaratoughda]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: Zaratoughda

The idea of allowing certain areas to be separate as far as MP loss, etc, would be a big plus for multi-player games to be sure.

If and when TOAW ever adds support for multi-player games (which would include partitioning the map in some fashion), then one could just pretend to be multiple players, if you want to do this. I really think Ralph was talking about something else.

Hmmm.... I can't see what else he could have been talking about.

Ralph?

ezuezu

Zaratoughda

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Zaratoughda


Hmmm.... I can't see what else he could have been talking about.

It sounded more like something similar to item 1.15 in the Wishlist:

1.15 REVOLUTIONARY: Multiple round combats placed in “engaged” mode while other units are allowed to finish movement (but still subject to Force Proficiency check).

[Olorin]

1.15 item in the wishlist rulez! I certainly hope it will be implemented.

[Zaratoughda]

Just wanted to get back to my original point here before moving on....

It is that.... with the MP loss system as it is, TOAW is a Pain in the Butt to play.... always having to manage all your forces across the map all at the same time.... something that the real commanders never had to do (and thus quite unhistorical), so why should we?

And also that.... giving an option to have free movement.... is the easiest solution... easy to implement.... just turn on a flag and if it is on the MP loss code is skipped.

And... the bottom line here is that.... if I am not getting my point across something else will (and in no uncertain terms). Gary Grigbsy's War in the East will be coming out in a couple of months.... and it has a free movement system... and once it comes out.... the place around here will become a ghost town. Not all of the action around here is WW2, but MOST of it is... and almost everyone will disappear and be on the WitE board.

And it's sad because there are lots of good things about TOAW. The five levels of scale that you can play the game at.... no other game that I know of has this. A big plus for TOAW... as is the unit cooporation rules.

I am not personally a fan of totally free movement systems. Would prefer a system that forces a player to do all strategic stuff first (e.g. moving in re-inforcements, etc), and then allowing essentially free movement in each area.

But, ya gotta do something to make the game easier to play (and managing the game round by round is going in the other direction), and simply giving an option for free movement does the trick and is easy to implement.

Do y'all see a slow death for TOAW?

Unfortunately that is what I am seeing but... still hope things will turn out otherwise.

Zaratoughda

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Zaratoughda

It is that.... with the MP loss system as it is, TOAW is a Pain in the Butt to play.... always having to manage all your forces across the map all at the same time.... something that the real commanders never had to do (and thus quite unhistorical), so why should we?

I can't figure out what you mean here. Real commanders operated in real time. To address all the action in one section of the front before addressing another section would have required a functioning time machine.

And if this were implemented for TOAW, then players would litterally have that time machine ability - they could carry out a weeks worth of UTAH before even landing at OMAHA - assuming they still wanted to then (by then it might be better to exploit what had happened on UTAH).

And... the bottom line here is that.... if I am not getting my point across something else will (and in no uncertain terms). Gary Grigbsy's War in the East will be coming out in a couple of months....

I really don't know what we can do to prevent new wargames from being published. That's been going on for as long as TOAW has been around. TOAW has it's own merits that other games don't embody. And, we're making it better.

But, ya gotta do something to make the game easier to play (and managing the game round by round is going in the other direction), and simply giving an option for free movement does the trick and is easy to implement.

I don't see how this would simplify the game. You still have to do all the moving and fighting. How does doing the whole turn on one section of the front before going on to the next reduce any of that?

Regardless, as I said earlier, if and when Multiplayer features are implemented, this will be possible.

[el cid]

I am sure War in the East will be a great game with many followers. Bu it is not the first free movement game out there. You have all the SSG games (Battles in Italy, etc) Advance Tactics, and more.

The game engines try to simulate real life, and in a turn by turn game, thats just imposible. How do you simulate that before your units can go through town "A" you must first gain control of the town.

In TOAW you have the round system, which has its down side, because to go through town "A" you don´t need to clear town "B". But today, with all the battles taking place at the same time, is what happens.

In the SSG games, you can first attack town "A", and if you win the battle, then your units can go through it, but with a movement penalty that tries to simulate that before your other units moved, the town had to be captured. But this game system gives you an unrealistic foresight, as before you move the units in the back you already know if you been succesful at capturing that town.

I believe that what has been mentioned above in this post about "Multiple round combats placed in “engaged” mode while other units are allowed to finish movement" would be an improvement in tis respect.

[Zaratoughda]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

I can't figure out what you mean here.

What I mean... and to use your Normandy example.... is that Eisenhower and his staff handled the high level planning.... including I would think.... exactly where each unit was gonna land.... but AFTER they were done with the high level planning... they handed the ball off to the lower level commanders.... and THOSE commanders only had to deal with what was in their own area. The Utah Beach commanders didn't have to concern themselves with what was going on in the Omaha Beach area and vice versa.

So, there was NOBODY that was handling things on a detailed level all across the front. The high level commanders handled things at the high level and the lower level commanders handled the details.

But, in TOAW..... you gotta handle things on a detailed level completely across the front, simultaneously everywhere. A micromanager's heaven maybe but not historical.

Ideally, players should have to handle the high level items (the initial invasion, allocation of air and naval bombardment resources, etc) first in a turn, but then they should be able to concentrate on an individual area until they are done with their actions there. On a detailed level, what was going on in the Utah Beach area had noting to do with what was going on in the Omaha Beach area.... and the idea that players have to micro-manage both at the same time... again, may be micromanagers heaven but is not something ANYONE was trying to do historically.

So... like I said before..... the TOAW MP loss situation is a pain in the butt and is NOT historically accurate.

Zaratoughda

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Zaratoughda

What I mean... and to use your Normandy example.... is that Eisenhower and his staff handled the high level planning.... including I would think.... exactly where each unit was gonna land.... but AFTER they were done with the high level planning... they handed the ball off to the lower level commanders.... and THOSE commanders only had to deal with what was in their own area. The Utah Beach commanders didn't have to concern themselves with what was going on in the Omaha Beach area and vice versa.

So, there was NOBODY that was handling things on a detailed level all across the front. The high level commanders handled things at the high level and the lower level commanders handled the details.

But, in TOAW..... you gotta handle things on a detailed level completely across the front, simultaneously everywhere. A micromanager's heaven maybe but not historical.

Ideally, players should have to handle the high level items (the initial invasion, allocation of air and naval bombardment resources, etc) first in a turn, but then they should be able to concentrate on an individual area until they are done with their actions there. On a detailed level, what was going on in the Utah Beach area had noting to do with what was going on in the Omaha Beach area.... and the idea that players have to micro-manage both at the same time... again, may be micromanagers heaven but is not something ANYONE was trying to do historically.

So... like I said before..... the TOAW MP loss situation is a pain in the butt and is NOT historically accurate.

There is no historical inaccuracy in the way in which the units function - which is what counts, and is all the accuracy anyone can expect from a wargame.

How the players issue orders to their units is, of course, not they way it was historically done - you're not living in a tent, getting shot at, or catching the clap from a rear-area whore. Ike didn't move his units by PC and wasn't watching the NFL in HD while he did.

As a game, players are effectively made the entire command structure, not just Ike. That's not historical inaccuracy - that's wargaming. If you're playing solo, and it's one of those monster scenarios, then micromanagement is just what you signed up for. Because, in the real world, the entire front was being micromanaged simultaneously.

Now, as I've said, if and when TOAW has multiplayer support you will then be able to handle front sections separately. But that support will include map separators that will isolate the sections from intermingling of friendly units and future-time intel. Those features are necessary to prevent the time-machine issues mentioned above.

[Zaratoughda]

Look...... the owner of a game can essentially do whatever he wants. In other words, if you want to add... say..... enterprize class starships to that normandy scenario... the game owner can do that. Not too historical to be sure but it is the game owners choice.

The problem I have is having to go back and forth between completely different fronts and stagger your attacks back and forth so you don't get the turn eaten up on you. This is UNHISTORICAL in the sense that no commanders in the real war had to do that.

If something that divided a side into 'theatres' (or something along those lines) was implemented with the MP loss only applying to a given theatre... then that could essentially eliminate the problem. However, how do you define 'theatres'?? Doing it by areas on the map would be a pain. If TOAW had a complete chain of command you could do it by HQ... which would be nice... but TOAW does not have a complete chain of command. So, do you set things up so that the designer can define 'theatres' and have each formation assigned to this 'theatre' or that?? I guess that might be possible.

Hmmmm... the Weserubung scenario is a particular pain (great scenario otherwise) in the sense I am talking about. There is the Narvik area, the Trondheim area, the Bergan area, the Stavenger area, the areas on the south coast, and the Oslo area.. PLUS the various areas in Denmark. So, you got maybe 10 different areas that are essentially completely independant, but as things stand now you have to go back and forth amongst them all so you can get your attacks in without the turn getting eaten up... and this takes the fun out of the scenario and, as I said before, is unistorical in the sense I stated.

If a separate 'theatre' could be defined for each area and formations assigned to this theatre or that... I imagine that would eliminate the problem. But, you would probably need to give the player the ability to assign (or re-assign) a formation to a given area.

Hmmm.... I dunno exactly how the SS units operated on the east front but you might also need the ability to assign individual units to a theatre..... separate from the rest of their formation. Not sure about this one.

Hmmmm... Ralph... you getting this? Might actually work... and would have various other impacts like a completely separate Soviet player in World at War (?) and similar scenarios.

Zaratoughda

P.S. Just giving an option for totally free movement, turning the MP loss function off, would be easier to implement and the scenario designers would not have to do anything. But, you would lose a level of historicity to be sure. Yeah, maybe ideally it is best to leave things in the hands of the scenario designers... but, of course, they would need the function to do something like the 'theatre' idea.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Zaratoughda

The problem I have is having to go back and forth between completely different fronts and stagger your attacks back and forth so you don't get the turn eaten up on you. This is UNHISTORICAL in the sense that no commanders in the real war had to do that.

You have to go back and forth every game turn. How is that different from doing so every combat phase? Or are you now going to demand that you be able to perform the entire game in one section before proceding to the next?

If something that divided a side into 'theatres' (or something along those lines) was implemented with the MP loss only applying to a given theatre... then that could essentially eliminate the problem. However, how do you define 'theatres'?? Doing it by areas on the map would be a pain. If TOAW had a complete chain of command you could do it by HQ... which would be nice... but TOAW does not have a complete chain of command. So, do you set things up so that the designer can define 'theatres' and have each formation assigned to this 'theatre' or that?? I guess that might be possible.

If we had multiplayer support, then it would be implemented during play by the side's "Supreme Commander". He would subdivide the map up into sections however he desired, revising them from turn to turn. Then his subordinates would get to operate within the section assigned to them.

[Zaratoughda]

As far as I am concerned..... you keep bringing forth valid points which... have nothing to do with the point I originally made.... and I have tried and tried to get the point across but apparently you are not interested... so I am simply going to NOT BOTHER to respond to any of your comments from now on.

Zaratoughda

[erichswafford]

I agree with Zaratoughda on this one. I've been playing ever since the original TOAW, but the need to inch forward at every point simultaneously, while fascinating as an operational art, really does require the assistance of an entire staff to implement - unless you're retired and have nothing else to do.

I slogged through some truly amazing scenarios and I'm convinced this is the most accurate wargame ever made. But it's an extremely inefficient use of my time. The SSG games provide 80% of the accuracy, with maybe 25% of the interface complexity present in TOAW.

If anyone has some tips on how to approach this problem in a more efficient manner - I'd appreciate hearing about it.

[Zaratoughda]

I suggested offerring free movement as an option... as a simple solution... or allowing designers to define theatres that units and formations could be assigned to and the movement point reduction would only apply to a given theatre at a time (this problem is most severe in scenarios like Weserubung.... where you have 7-8 distinct areas where the actions in one area have almost no affect on what is going on in another).

Maybe it is as much the TOAW community as the support but in any case there doesn't seem to be any interest in changing/fixing this problem.

So, what are the SSG games you are talking about? I had some experience with the SSG command/control in games like 'Decisive Battles of the American Civil War' and, was not impressed (but, of course others liked those).

Yeah, I am waiting for WiTE to get released this coming summer.. but would be interested in looking at other possibilities.

Zaratoughda