CW Trade - Convoy Nightmare

[paulderynck]

I have had more success using the form lately if I clear any pre-existing defaults and overrides, then set all the defaults I think are needed, and then just press Recompute once. If the result still has something wrong, then I set a default for what is wrong and Recompute again.

IMO the statement: "Steve has been reluctant to take the plunge and fix this programming nightmare." is unfair, false, and misleading. My experience is that Steve is never reluctant try and fix anything. The true situation is: Where do these fixes stand in overall priority on the list of things Steve has to work on? When a game-stopping bug is found, won't that have to be priority one? And it would seem NetPlay has to be next highest priority.

Sure, we all would love to see something fixed sooner than later, but there may be nearly as many "somethings" as there are posts in the Tech Support forum.

[Cad908]

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

I have had more success using the form lately if I clear any pre-existing defaults and overrides, then set all the defaults I think are needed, and then just press Recompute once. If the result still has something wrong, then I set a default for what is wrong and Recompute again.

I will second what Paul suggested.

The first turn for the CW using Oil Rules I typically idled all the resources and then setup defaults for only the Oil. My default routes would save Oil around the globe (Canada, UK, India and Burma) and have the remaining used for production in the UK. When this was finished, I would recompute, adjust the default Oil routes as needed until I liked the layout. Finally, I would organize the non-oil resources and do them in chunks until everything was perfect. With logical defaults in place, the only adjustments needed were when lending resources / BP began.

The system was still frustrating, but I could usually get something close to my plan. I have not tested this approach on the latest iteration of production planning, but it might help you get started.

-Rob

[brian brian]

enforcing Trade Agreements doesn't ring true as a very serious issue to me. a manual system could be built that locks in only the Trade Agreements, of which there is only one to really deal with that goes overseas, and there is no other trade going on those routes simultaneously and should have zero impact on anything done manually (and yet I read that the one and only Trade Agreement the automatic convoy system has to keep straight … is not kept straight). in all other rules-based Trade Agreements, the Major Power receiving the resources is responsible for supplying the convoys to pick them up. if they botch that, they simply don't get the resources.

I have no idea how programming Search&Seizure would work. I have played entire games of World in Flames with out there ever being a Search & Seizure. It would be a nice rule to code, sure. Many, many, many other rules are more important.

Building an automatic convoy system is a worthy goal. However, it is not necessary. I get the impression that an automatic system has been attempted to please new players of the game, but this has come at the expense of experienced players. Somehow, "Over 2 Million Hours of World in Flames have been played" (quote from ADG recently) by players keeping track of convoy routes all by themselves, with just cardboard counters, a paper map, and a bit of paper and pencil. Surely we can be trusted to do it ourselves.

[David Clark]

On that note, the impact of this bug (and many others) could be reduced if the developer would expose even a subset of the debug menu functions. I would be thrilled with the ability to simply assign production points manually to the powers during the production phase. I'm happy to keep track of resource/convoy/factory allocation outside the game, and just plug the results back in during the subsequent turn. This functionality exists in the debug menu; it's been hidden (I'm guessing) to reduce the complexity of bug report handling.

May I suggest that this decision be slightly modified by giving players partial access to this menu?

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

enforcing Trade Agreements doesn't ring true as a very serious issue to me.

Sometimes you can get strange things happening where FREX a lend to Russia is announced but by the end of the turn the CPs that were in the Arctic Sea zone for that purpose have been sunk or aborted. If a path for some of that lend exists going around Africa and into the Arabian Sea then it must be used for the lend. I can recall having to RTB some CPs so the lend became impossible because otherwise too much havoc was caused with the transportation of other resources.

Players over the board might not always see a path like that but the game is supposed to enforce the rules of the game. The program cannot selectively enforce the rules of the game.

[AxelNL]

ORIGINAL: David Clark

On that note, the impact of this bug (and many others) could be reduced if the developer would expose even a subset of the debug menu functions. I would be thrilled with the ability to simply assign production points manually to the powers during the production phase. I'm happy to keep track of resource/convoy/factory allocation outside the game, and just plug the results back in during the subsequent turn. This functionality exists in the debug menu; it's been hidden (I'm guessing) to reduce the complexity of bug report handling.

May I suggest that this decision be slightly modified by giving players partial access to this menu?

That menu is prone to create serious problems if not handled very carefully. To make that foolproof is a major effort. I have stayed out of it, and only used it when there used to be more blocking issues before the release in order to test what happened afterwards.

[brian brian]

Well I have to wonder then if the program enforces advanced designating of the resources being shipped somewhere. Traditionally, if a convoy line is broken, there is nothing in the rules that forces a player to have already declared what resources are being sent somewhere. So if the U-Boats completely wipe out the convoy line in the Arctic Ocean, the CW can just declare that the Malayan resources don't make it to Russia, even if the CW has no convoy connection to Malaya at all right then. Unless, of course, I have always just Played It Wrong, which is always entirely possible with World in Flames. If they were sending Build Points and they are now sitting at the bottom of the ocean, then you don't get them. Checking that one MP receives their lending and another MP doesn't use it seems simpler than trying to compute routes across a completely not mathematical net of sea zones around the world, with break points and movement restrictions and all the rest. That sounds crazy difficult, and I have worked with data structures, a long, long time ago.

So I don't know. I am about 3/4 done with cleaning out a laptop and getting it ready for a system OS upgrade, before I load any more material on it. Reading the board lately has me back to playing WiF solitaire, with Cyberboard, instead of making progress on that topic. I'll also be picking up the maps, after the discount is off, which I expect it might already be, so I can support this project. 100% rules enforcement is a nice goal. 100% not letting the owner of a game control their own game is not. Perhaps now that the product is out, it's time to start adding some things for the owners of the game to make the game do what they want.

But overall it looks like we are likely 6 months or more out from having an easy to use convoy system, if NetPlay is the priority. I would like to play this game at a high level. If I can't use the Oil rules or the Lend-Lease BPs rule, then I can't. Ultimately, MWiF will have to offer players the ability to just play the game with the counters on the map any way they want. If it doesn't, why would anyone pay a lot of money for it, over the free ways to do just that? The basic combat/movement game engine will have to be separated from the scenario engine. I'm sorry that is 'feature creep', but it is a feature a lot of players will want, and will expect. NetPlay Barbarossa and Guadalcanal will be fun. Global War without Oil or BP deliveries to Major Powers in the midst of sinking, will not. (And more Allied MPs will sink if saved Oil doesn't start working).

We all know a Debug feature could break the program. Not letting the customers access that is the antithesis of Open Source software, but then software is moving back to the completely closed direction with the rise of the mobile OS. Maybe giving the customers a powerful Debug override would include setting a header line in the game file that says Debug = ON. Any saved game that came in for a bug report with that line could be automatically deleted on the potential that everything is all jumbled up now. Any player that turned it on could have their NetPlay opponent, or someone loading a saved game from someone else could be notified. I don't see a huge problem with opening it. But of course, there is. It is probably yet more work to set it all up for the players to move the counters however they want.

And perhaps Russia can receive a BP or resource or Oil from the Allies now, I admit I don't know. But can it receive some of each from potentially 3 or 4 separated Allied portions of the map (UK, North America, India, Australia) through 3 or 4 separate ports of entry (Archangel, Murmansk, Persian Gulf, Vladivostok) into 3 or 4 separated pockets of Russian control? Breaking the world into separate worlds is another level of challenge programming to be sure, and sounds incredibly difficult. But it can be a part of playing a game of WiF.

[Centuur]

The debug feature for MWIF is not something which I would advise to go into the game at this moment. It takes a lot of time before you are getting to know when you can and when you can't use the feature (it might cause the program to crash if you are doing something which the thing isn't made for...). It would also need documentation on when you can use it and when not. It isn't entirely bug free either (but useful enough for beta testing).

But for the distant future: why not...

[markb50k]

Big picture, and this is just my opinion, warts and all, I am able to use the Production/Convoy functionality with acceptable effort and is not a game breaker to me. I've played a with-oil Global War to 1942 and now playing a no-oil-rule version and in both cases, you can make it work with some patience and attention to detail.

Just my $.02

[ashkpa]

I am also having trouble with CW convoys. In my case SO39 (first turn), I cannot get the two NEI oil (both in Palembang)to go straight to the East Indian Ocean (and then to Australia). One wants to go through the FR convoy in the S. China Sea every time (keeping the FR from getting the Indo-China resource). During set-up, everything seemed to work as I wanted, but not in the early production phase.

Thanks,

Pat

[paulderynck]

You should be able to use the Route function in Production Planning to select which convoys are used. This is described in the thread in WiF School.

[joshuamnave]

ORIGINAL: ashkpa

I am also having trouble with CW convoys. In my case SO39 (first turn), I cannot get the two NEI oil (both in Palembang)to go straight to the East Indian Ocean (and then to Australia). One wants to go through the FR convoy in the S. China Sea every time (keeping the FR from getting the Indo-China resource). During set-up, everything seemed to work as I wanted, but not in the early production phase.

Thanks,

Pat

Did Germany conquer the Netherlands in SO 39? I have trouble with having to manually reroute NEI convoys each turn after the Netherlands are attacked.

[celebrindal]

So my 2c on the subject.

1. We need to be able to manually override and keep those overrides regardless of what we have setup in trade agreements. The manditory agreement between USA and Jap is the only one that should have ramifications for shipping. In the scenario you get a vp for every convoy not in place, so something like a chit being removed or something similar for games where folks aren't using VP's. Otherwise let folks manually move stuff. Like a previous poster stated, we've been doing it via pen and paper for years we should be able to figure things out

2. Regarding comments about if a series of cp's get shot and the route used is gone..well in the pen and paper game the resource was wasted wasn't it? In real life if I'm shipping supplies via that particular convoy and it gets splatted, last time i looked materials didn't magically appear from somewhere else.. they were gone!

3. There are just way to many bugs and things you can't fix that you should be able to with the automatic system. A case in point in our current game I couldn't figure out why my caribbean convoys all of a sudden were short 1 cp and my line from india was all buggered up. The USA took the option to loan resources to china and setup a trade agreement to ship one resource.. blam the resource comes from the states via my car cp and uses my line all the way over to burma... and I can't cancel it!!

So things like that make me think we should go to a more manual process, or at least once someone has overridden things the program should NOT correct it. If need be have a popup showing a trade agreement problem perhaps but otherwise...

Thanks.

FYI, been playing since the ol paper game of 3rd edition and it was always a simple matter of x resources going through the sea areas, put x convoys.. we should be able to get to that stage?

[Linkowich]

I bought a game here for 150 bucks. The most expensive computer game I ever bought in my entire life (40 years old).

They should freakin hire more ppl and finish this game properly with netplay and fix all bugs and AI etc.

Every time I hear that one person ( Steve ) should fix this or fix that it gives me a shiver down my spine......

[Dabrion]

ORIGINAL: Linkowich

I bought a game here for 150 bucks. The most expensive computer game I ever bought in my entire life (40 years old).

They should freakin hire more ppl and finish this game properly with netplay and fix all bugs and AI etc.

Every time I hear that one person ( Steve ) should fix this or fix that it gives me a shiver down my spine......

+1

[Numdydar]

Why?

Many games these days are developed by just one person. Minecraft comes to mind. The Operational Art of War III is another one as is Strategic Command (although there is one programer and one helper involved if I understand the srtup there properly). These games are not being developed with massive amounts of money like Rockstar or Blizzard games. This is a very niche area so I am just happy someone, even if it just a single soul, is developing these games at all. Otherwise, we would not even have them at all.

[Centuur]

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

Why?

Many games these days are developed by just one person. Minecraft comes to mind. The Operational Art of War III is another one as is Strategic Command (although there is one programer and one helper involved if I understand the srtup there properly). These games are not being developed with massive amounts of money like Rockstar or Blizzard games. This is a very niche area so I am just happy someone, even if it just a single soul, is developing these games at all. Otherwise, we would not even have them at all.

+1

Sure, we would like to see things different, but except when someone opens his wallet and contributes a huge amount to the development of MWIF, we won't see a lot of people working on it....

[Dabrion]

How about it's not a $15 pledge, but a $150 purchase of a release (what does that even mean in your book?) software? TOAW comes from the same shithole and SC costs twenty bucks. Both titles don't random a license!

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: celebrindal

So my 2c on the subject.

1. We need to be able to manually override and keep those overrides regardless of what we have setup in trade agreements. The manditory agreement between USA and Jap is the only one that should have ramifications for shipping. In the scenario you get a vp for every convoy not in place, so something like a chit being removed or something similar for games where folks aren't using VP's. Otherwise let folks manually move stuff. Like a previous poster stated, we've been doing it via pen and paper for years we should be able to figure things out

2. Regarding comments about if a series of cp's get shot and the route used is gone..well in the pen and paper game the resource was wasted wasn't it? In real life if I'm shipping supplies via that particular convoy and it gets splatted, last time i looked materials didn't magically appear from somewhere else.. they were gone!

3. There are just way to many bugs and things you can't fix that you should be able to with the automatic system. A case in point in our current game I couldn't figure out why my caribbean convoys all of a sudden were short 1 cp and my line from india was all buggered up. The USA took the option to loan resources to china and setup a trade agreement to ship one resource.. blam the resource comes from the states via my car cp and uses my line all the way over to burma... and I can't cancel it!!

So things like that make me think we should go to a more manual process, or at least once someone has overridden things the program should NOT correct it. If need be have a popup showing a trade agreement problem perhaps but otherwise...

Thanks.

FYI, been playing since the ol paper game of 3rd edition and it was always a simple matter of x resources going through the sea areas, put x convoys.. we should be able to get to that stage?

Would you mind zipping and uploading to this thread your game save from the start of, or just prior to, the preliminary production phase near the end of the turn in question? Also list any other resource transport/production problems you have with that game.

The production GUI is not friendly, but I've played around with it quite a bit and I'd like to see if it can be made to obey your wishes.

[Numdydar]

ORIGINAL: Dabrion

How about it's not a $15 pledge, but a $150 purchase of a release (what does that even mean in your book?) software? TOAW comes from the same shithole and SC costs twenty bucks. Both titles don't random a license!

Just wondering why you bring up price when my point was discussing just a single person developing games? So it is ok for a $40 or less game to be developed by a single person versus a $100 one?

It is way obvious you are upset and blame/hate Matrix which is your right, but would it not be better to try and help to fix things or not be so negitive versus some of the stuff you post? But if you find posting like this makes you feel better, then go for it. I have no issue with anything you say as it definately provides me with a different viewpoint than my own [:)]