sense and the original writers are not around to ask questions about their design intent either.
Access to code does not particularly help either: the senior programmer once wrote "after two
years, I thought I had a handle on how ground combat works. Yesterday I found a branch. Today
I am sure of NOTHING." He also wrote that testing is "at least as good a way to understand
what really happens as reading code is." At least two programmers advise to trust nothing,
in particular a brand new routine just written, without testing to find out what really happens
when it interacts in the context of other code? There is no point in pretending you know what
code says. Even if you do - you may be quite wrong in your assumptions - because of the way
other parts of it interact - or even prevent that routine from being called. Nothing short of
humility and respectful cooperation is going to advance our understanding. Only he who already
knows is unable to learn more. Only he who does not believe he needs to test to be sure the
way he thinks it works is going to find out how, over time, even an originally correct understanding
has been modified, often unintentionally. And yes: many theories are wrong. I just found one
(about off map nation codes) strongly held by a programmer which turns out to be not only wrong,
but harmful if acted upon (at least in some circumstances): he had it because you cannot normally
see those codes when off map. Because the two bytes which define off map hexes are displayed instead.
That does not mean the nation code is not, never mind should not, be present. Or if present, also
is the correct one. The fact is that many things are like that: there is a system, and it is not
consistently honored. Help me understand the system if you can and will. Because I do not claim
perfect understanding. But don't confuse what you think you know with a perfect grasp. I promise,
in these circumstances, that is not possible.
As for history, it is the official game manual which claims for AE that it seeks "an accurate simulation."
Granted "simulation" by definition means "simplification of reality" - still actual historical facts ought
to matter (when not trivial). If the game does not model significant operations well, to that extent,
it failed to achieve its purpose. What we have is a relatively inexpensive model which, given its cost,
works surprisingly well. But it is not only not perfect, it is generally possible to make it better -
if we manipulate the data it must work with. To regard historical facts as 'irrelevant' is to miss the
point of modeling history. But you are not required to read my opinions. If you already know you don't
respect them, please do not. It is a waste of your time, after all, in that case.
ORIGINAL: US87891
I do not much care whether you 'generally' agree or not. The game code works as it works irrespective of (mostly false) internet historical factoids.ORIGINAL: el cid again
I generally agree -
When people are looking for information regarding the game, please refrain from confusing them with paragraphs of irrelevancies. Either you know how the game works, or you don't.
If you don't, better to say so and have people who do know help you.
Matt