4 player E-mail: AAR

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: AllenK

ORIGINAL: Dabrion

Or just change the interface to be able to point-and-click route? Should work like this:

1) click on resource/oil/factory
2) click on a port (MWiF asserts there is a railway connection from 2) to 1), if 2) is a minor port decrease port capacity)
3) click on a series of sea zones, starting in a sea zone the port 2) is adjacenton to (MWiF assert there is a convoy chain, then decreases that chains capacity)
4) click on a port in the last sea zone of 3)
5) click on a factory/port/city (MWiF asserts there is a railway connection from 5) to 1), or 5) to 4), if 4) is a minor port decrease ports capacity)

Would be nice to be able to save entire and also sub-graphs. For example, I usually design my convoy graph in a composite way, one for India, one for Africa, one for Americas, etc. And they can have different layouts depending on what stage the game is in.

This could be implemented on top of whatever logic is already in place to make the ridiculous suggestions.

You already can manually set routes by pointing and clicking as you suggest.

The only differences are you first have to tell MWiF the resource and destination factory. Delete the route MWiF has proposed. The computer checks for 1) and 2) when you click on the first sea zone in the chain and then checks 4) and 5) when you click on the last sea zone in the chain. If there are problems you get an error message, otherwise the route is set.

As long as there are CP's in the sea-zone that aren't either being used to fulfill trade obligations or already allocated to existing manual over-rides it works pretty smoothly. If there aren't enough CP's, it doesn't work.

The main trouble with this is that it works badly with joint convoy chains with Major Powers that do not co-operate. It was a serious pain with CW and France before they could co-operate.

[AllenK]

ORIGINAL: Orm

ORIGINAL: AllenK

ORIGINAL: Dabrion

Or just change the interface to be able to point-and-click route? Should work like this:

1) click on resource/oil/factory
2) click on a port (MWiF asserts there is a railway connection from 2) to 1), if 2) is a minor port decrease port capacity)
3) click on a series of sea zones, starting in a sea zone the port 2) is adjacenton to (MWiF assert there is a convoy chain, then decreases that chains capacity)
4) click on a port in the last sea zone of 3)
5) click on a factory/port/city (MWiF asserts there is a railway connection from 5) to 1), or 5) to 4), if 4) is a minor port decrease ports capacity)

Would be nice to be able to save entire and also sub-graphs. For example, I usually design my convoy graph in a composite way, one for India, one for Africa, one for Americas, etc. And they can have different layouts depending on what stage the game is in.

This could be implemented on top of whatever logic is already in place to make the ridiculous suggestions.

You already can manually set routes by pointing and clicking as you suggest.

The only differences are you first have to tell MWiF the resource and destination factory. Delete the route MWiF has proposed. The computer checks for 1) and 2) when you click on the first sea zone in the chain and then checks 4) and 5) when you click on the last sea zone in the chain. If there are problems you get an error message, otherwise the route is set.

As long as there are CP's in the sea-zone that aren't either being used to fulfill trade obligations or already allocated to existing manual over-rides it works pretty smoothly. If there aren't enough CP's, it doesn't work.

The main trouble with this is that it works badly with joint convoy chains with Major Powers that do not co-operate. It was a serious pain with CW and France before they could co-operate.

Yes, I can see that might complicate things. I usually manage to get my CW and French convoy lines working before they are cooperating major powers okay without too much hair loss but perhaps I'm not working them to their absolute optimum efficiency. I would need a critique on this.

[Orm]

Mayor disaster at sea. Both RMS Queen Elizabeth and RMS Queen Mary were lost at sea late last evening. The two liners were filled with militia from the London area. During the rescue attempt the carrier HMS Courageous was severely damaged. More to follow.


Picture from Mar/Apr '41 Impulse #6 (Allied) - Naval Combat

[Dabrion]

Well I just tried it (again). Yes, you can manually set routes since release day, but they are not taken into consideration most of the time. Choosing from a very long list is not the same as clicking on the map. The basic functionality may be there (may be not.. it feels random). If it is there, it is screened off behind an obfuscated interface that makes you spend hours for a task that should take minutes. Only to see that all your time spent is for nothing and you have to start over from square one.

If there have been any changes to this component since release, they are so subtle that I am unable to see them.

[AllenK]

Yes, I can see that pointing and clicking on the main map, rather than starting from drop-down lists, would be a good alternative. I wouldn't want to lose the drop downs, however, as I find it useful to be able to quickly scan down the lists, find what's going where, how many CP's it is taking and being able to start any amendments from the list. Each to their own I suppose. I hope at some point your idea can be accommodated.

[warspite1]

So AllenK, when you got that game save at the weekend where did you start?

Do you use a spreadsheet or some other written aide to ensure you know in your own mind what is transporting what in each sea zone?

[Centuur]

And how long did it take you to get the results you wanted. I sometimes spend more than half a day and still are not able to get things right. And that's not a fun thing at all.

No: convoy routing should give you an optimized automatic result which is correct according to the rules. If MWIF can't get that right, that part of the program is not behaving as it should.

I hate the "compute" button. And I mean I hate that button, because I have to press it and see that MWIF again makes a mess of things during the calculation that it is making...

[warspite1]

The Battle of the Straits (March 1941)

The crew of the RMS Queen Elizabeth valiantly battled to save the ship but their efforts were in vain. The bulk of the London Militia Corps - the best part of 18 irreplaceable battalions from the 47th (London) and 56th (London) Infantry Divisions were lost when the two Queens sank.

[Orm]

Axis stay at sea, I presume.


Picture from Mar/Apr '41 Impulse #6 (Allied) - Naval Combat

[Mayhemizer_slith]

Axis stay.

[Mayhemizer_slith]

About convoy lines... I hate to predict problems, but what will happen if/when one or few CP's sinks?

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Mayhemizer

About convoy lines... I hate to predict problems, but what will happen if/when one or few CP's sinks?

warspite1

Then one or more convoy lines will be cut.....

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: Mayhemizer

About convoy lines... I hate to predict problems, but what will happen if/when one or few CP's sinks?

Same thing as before. I have to spend a long, or very long, time trying to fix, or rather optimize, the convoy lines again. What I just did was just the normal CW check that is done when it is a risk that it is the last Allied impulse of the turn. I do it when things have changed and now the US convoy points was to take part of the route and lend lease had changed. Hence the extra trouble. I suspect the trouble will increase until USA can co-operate with CW and France.

And I will probably need some help as well. [:D]

Note that there has not been many turns, if any at all, in this game when Allies have had perfectly optimized convoy lines. Several convoy points are wasted every turn. But since this gave extra bonus to Axis searches I have tried harder and spent more time on 'eliminating' the need for 'extra' convoy point.

[AllenK]

Nothing used apart from the information on the screens. My main tools are the production planning display, the unused CP's display and if necessary the route display for a specific resource. I let MWiF manage as much as possible and work on the basis that if the correct number of CP's are showing for each resource route, then leave it alone. Only interfere if it doesn't look as you expect it to. I don't keep any spreadsheets or zone by zone notes of what should be transporting what.

Since I hadn't built the convoy net myself, the first thing I did was to see what resources were going where and how many CP's they were taking. This highlighted one US traded BP taking an optimal 4 sea-zone route and two taking a 5 sea-zone route. Other than that, it looked right i.e. resources from Australia taking 9 CP's to the UK, ones from USA taking 3, ones from Africa taking 4 etc.

I manually over-rode the route for the 2 traded BP's to follow the 4 sea-zone route and then checked each nations production planning to see what if anything had changed (resources going idle, taking longer routes etc) and then for unused CP's. I looked to see what resources were idle and then checked the unused convoys screen to find where there was unused capacity in the net. I looked to see what ports the spare CP's were located on the map and and filled in the gaps in the route. This was where the problems with the US CP's started showing up as sometimes they were transporting and sometimes not.

At this point I undid all the CP moves Orm had made and experimented with different combinations of US vs CW/French CP's in the routes, which showed me how the US CP's were actually behaving as opposed to how they were supposed to be behaving. In the course of all this trial and error, I noticed how MWiF was almost always correctly routing the CP's.

Once I knew how the US CP's were behaving, it was pretty straight forward to add the extra CP's into the net to arrive at the 3 French and 27 CW BP's. When Orm took it back, after a couple of minor adjustments, he was able to swap out CW CP's for US ones to give the CW a bit of a needed reserve. As I stated in one of the posts above, once I knew how the system was actually behaving and stayed within those parameters, it worked pretty smoothly and quickly.

It took all evening of trial and error to work out what was going on. The next morning, once I knew what was going on, it took no more than about 15 mins to amend the 5 sea-zone to 4 sea-zone routes and add the extra CP's to bring the remaining resources into the net.

[Orm]

What box, or boxes, does Axis prefer to include this time?


Picture from Mar/Apr '41 Impulse #6 (Allied) - Naval Combat

[Mayhemizer_slith]

0 box only, thank you.

[Orm]

Will you spend any surprise points in selecting combat type?

[Mayhemizer_slith]

No thank you, Axis choose naval air combat.

Bf110 will fly as from bomber, followed by Sparviero, Erone and Gabbiano.

[Orm]

Air to air combat odds are currently 0/0. Axis has 13 surprise points. Will any of the 13 surprise points be used now?

Note that the Italian submarines are included as in the previous rounds.

[AllenK]

Is it too late to change our minds? I was going to spend surprise points to choose sub combat.