Day of Infamy Take 47 - a v3.2 PBEM Hans vs Strawb

[deVada]

Hi Commanders !

I am delighted to read Your story. After two weeks of being almost cutten off the net - such dose of heavy action was a balm on my soul bored in the office after two weeks of vacation.

The cause of noncompatibility is P R O A B L Y (!!!) simple.
I have called it: "multiresolutioning".


See this:

1. Japanese player cannot afford loosing any of his major ships like big flattops and battleships.

2. Major naval clashes are causing looses (sometimes ). The temptation to try again is sometimes too strong, even for real reality lovers.

3. Japanese player can do as many resolution phases as he wants, [I have proposed recomposition of turn and execution phases (EP) in order to have allied player resolving the EP in secrecy (unable to see the results) then the VCR should be available for Japanese side to do the turn, but noone important was iterested ?]

4. After first mulitresolution - the price is noncompatibility. Japanse player sees always the right video (VCR) and the right battle reports (BR), but the program seems to use some differently randomized values while showing the VCR to Allied player, giving him even false BR sometimes (battles that Your Japanese opponents have to describe to You because You don't see them anywhere). Never had enough patience to count it and make further studies.

5. After first "multiresoluting" there is no known to me way to restore things like they were before.
(I haven't tried to back up one turn and put the savefiles in "freshly" downloaded game directory, eventually cleaning up the system registry.)

If theory described above is correct (it explains also why the bug is showing after major battles) there's no way to make it solved forever until the VCR is done by Japanese side or done and visible by allies [WIR is having 100 times better bug, but that's a topic for another story ]

Second explanation may be that the game itself goes corrupted after certain amount of turns under PBEM game. Mikka should be able to check it out I believe. As stated before - I'm not patient enough even to try a game against myself.

Maybe somebody got other idea ?

Who cares anyway! We are playing for fun.
Long live the Pacific War !





Silence over this grave ?

/This post isn't intended to suggest anything to anyone, it's just it's author's a point of view, acquired after several games/

[strawb]

deVada

I do NOT multi-resolve the turns , as this is CHEATING and against house rules.

Indeed I don't want to because my resolutions are generally fab in this game and all the reruns we did to test issue in this turn I came off worse (in damge done to him not damage to me!)

My view is that this is one of those VCR issues BUT NOT a combat calculation failure ie we hit what we hit and that is reflected in eg the sunk table, if not VCR.

As I said to Hans - I agree VCR sometimes makes no sense and agree other issues - but that still, I suggest goes, with my line that vcr is bent but not the actual combat result which was feasible/'real' in terms of actual hits and numbers of aircraft in strikes ie 130+ japanese, with lots getting through vs <30 US strike which got less than 20 through (as I recall sems along time ago) and lots of luck for me with torp hit criticals. C'est le guere

I am not sure Hans is so convinced and he still investigating, hence pause in play.

Probably best reinstall game exe as start and then go from there. The ONLY potential issue is that I may open up turn and reslove it one machine then write orders (WITHOUT another resolution)

I obviously wish to press on (no bug hunter me) but stay tuned...

[deVada]

I didn't intended to hurt or blame You. There are many other possible sources of this problem.

I did mulitresolving once as Japanese player and the effect was the same as described in this thread, so that's my experience.

I'll be delighted to know a way how to fix things back. Believe me!

In meantime - I do not care about VCR while having no SURE idea what the problem causa is. I am playing for fun.
On other matter - Japanese player has worse role and position in all scenarios, so this "extra portion of luck" isn't disturbing.

Btw - after viewing 12 or more resoultions of the same turn (I was curious how it is working) You'll discover what is random and what is not in the Pacific War.

Good luck exploring !
Peter

[Hans-Brink]

Hi guys!

Sorry for my silence, real world events have kept me busy.

At present time Strawb and I are experimenting, in order to find out if the VCR issue is related to a possible memory/configuration problem. Or at least, rule it out.
At the same time, we have had a minor misunderstanding in our communication. I mailed Strawb last Saturday, and as I haven’t received a reply, I thought he was busy, or out of office.
Half an hour ago, I realized that he never received my mail in the first place.
I have just re-mailed it, and hopefully this straightens things out.

So, status is
I’m waiting for Strawb to send me two different compilations of the infamous turn 29. When I receive them, I’ll study them thoroughly, and hopefully we have solved the problem. Hence Allied VCR = Allied Battle reports.
If not, we will continue the game, based on the original compilation of the turn.



Concerning the bug-hunt, I’ll be back within a few hours. Actually I’m considering opening a new thread for that discussion, as I really want Jeremy, Mikka or another with insight, to comment on it.

Btw
DeVada (welcome back to cyperspace)
I have no reason to believe Strawb is cheating. Actually I haven’t even been in the neighbourhood of that suspect ion.
If that were the case, we would never have reached turn 29.

[boba]

Just to add some info on VCR issue.
In my PBEM game an interesting thing happened. In resolution phase my surface TF got real beating by American surface and CV TFs resulting in 3 BBs and 2 CAs sunk (American surface TF achived surprise). At a same time, my CV TF sunk british CV and CA and damaged one BB. Ok, so what's the point?
Well, for the first time (as Japanese player) I decided to watch VCR, mainly whishing to watch with longer delay and trying to spot how many and which American carriers were involved. Guess what? I saw completly different action in which I lost 2 BBs and 1 CA for 1 BB, 1 CA and 1 CL on American side (this time Americans did not achieve surprise?!) and no British CV was sunk but same BB which was damaged was sunk...
So, no re-run of resolution phase and compleltly different VCR report than what happened. Interesting enough, my opponent saw same VCR as me (whit less loses for Japanese) so only thing I can think of is that something is wrong in "recording" VCR, and all the problems starts when combat resolution is "converted" in VCR file...

[Hans-Brink]

Originally posted by boba
so only thing I can think of is that something is wrong in "recording" VCR, and all the problems starts when combat resolution is "converted" in VCR file...

My words exactly.
By the way, what date (turn) did that happen?

[boba]

Originally posted by Hans-Brink
My words exactly.
By the way, what date (turn) did that happen?

Hm, not sure exactly but I think it's in February '43, turn 62 or 63 .
Maybe it happened earlier (situation I described in earlier post) but, as I said, I never checked VCR reports as Japanese previously...

[AdmNelson]

The turn was 2/7/43. And for first time the results were better than the VCR for the Allied player.

[boba]

Whis it wasn't
Seriosly, this is (by far) the most interesting game I had. And it's far from over...

[Hans-Brink]

AdmNelson
boba
DeVada
Graham Smith
And any other PBEM gamer reading this thread

For the last two weeks I have been doing some research concerning the VCR issue. Maybe you guys can help me on this.

In my game versus Strawb, the VCR has functioned flawless until turn 29 (6/21/42). Before yelling bug, there are a few issues I’m trying to clarify.
I’ll be grateful if you would answer the following questions.

1) What OS do you use?
2) How much available memory do you have for DOS programs?
3) Which version of Pacwar do you play
4) Did the VCR function from the start of the game?
4a) If yes, from which turn did the VCR start acting “funny”? (Approximately will do if you don’t remember)


Also it would help, if I could have a printout of your DOS configuration files, or a description of them. Feel free to mail it to me at hansbrink60@hotmail.com

Finally!
Testing would be a lot easier if I had access to both IJN and US passwords and files on my own PC.
For obvious reasons I cannot ask Strawb for his password, as we both want to continue our game.
Therefore, if some of you have saved the game turns, and two opponents from the same game agrees on it. It would be a great help if I could have passwords and a copy of a turn (Preferable ver 3.2).


Thanks in advance
Hans

[boba]

Originally posted by Hans-Brink
1) What OS do you use?
2) How much available memory do you have for DOS programs?
3) Which version of Pacwar do you play
4) Did the VCR function from the start of the game?
4a) If yes, from which turn did the VCR start acting “funny”? (Approximately will do if you don’t remember)

1) Win98 SE
2) I have to check, but I think it's set to "automatic"
3) V3.2
4) I think that differences appeared very early in a game, AdmNelson could probably be more specific

As for savegame files I don't mind to send it to you (with password ofcourse), if my opponent doesn't object.

I'm also very interested to get to the bottom of this problem wich can be *very* annoying for Allies (and takes out the most enjoyable part of the game, IMHO).

[Hans-Brink]

Originally posted by boba

I'm also very interested to get to the bottom of this problem wich can be *very* annoying for Allies (and takes out the most enjoyable part of the game, IMHO).

I agree
Though it takes a lot of time, I start every turn by watching the replay, with max display/delay settings.


BTW
To check your available memory for DOS.
1) from the start menu choose programs/MS DOS prompt
2) In the DOS window, type “mem /c” and <enter>
At the line reading “Largest executeable program size”, how much memory does it say?

Sorry my fault!
I should have mentioned this before.

[deVada]

I haven't the time to check it out by myself, but there are some clues:

1. check the influence of stopping the turnmaking by saving game and loading it back to finish the move,
2. check the influence of doing half of the turn in one computer and then finishing in on other computer,
3. play a PBEM against Yourself and try to multiresolute.

System configuration hasn't much to do with the matter I am almost sure, until the computer takes random values from system config, what is proably not being used by any known program.

Good luck!

[strawb]

First up some apologies for some general UPPER CASE grumpiness in recent posts due to our techie issue. Testing continues....

Meanwhile if you want to see me getting my a**e kicked go to Dan vs Strawb thread. Japanese utterly stalled in drive south on New Cal, Pearl Harbour assault now a black hole comparable to China (in fact more divs on islands than active in China!), stalled in India , no attack on Aussie yet, every BB still afloat in dry dock. Upside - US down to one (1) operational CV at the moment, so counter offensive delayed I hope. I have er.. several CV active plus few more in dry dock (it's triple time working at Yard No37 I can tell you).

S

[strawb]

It seems (subject to any response from Hans) that this game, and thread, will end due to understandable and amenable differences of opinion over a corrupt file/bug issue/vcr quirk/extreme luck issue.


It was fun.

Strawb