TOAW IV EDITOR INTERFACE

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Switching to the Force pane enables units to be placed in formations:



Units can be assigned to formations on this section. Also, units can be cut from one spot in the OOB and pasted to another on this section.

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Note the flag pane at the bottom right on this section. Click on it to set the Force Flag:



Note that there are six new flags available: Confederate Battle Flag, US Civil War Flag, US Revolutionary War Flag, CSA Stars & Bars Flag, Japanese Rising Sun Flag, and German Imperial War Ensign Flag (WWI). Select the US Civil War Flag.

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While the Force Editor is open, the Force Parameters can be edited:



Note that this pull-down also allows cutting and pasting formations. And it allows setting various game parameters. The Force Overall Proficiency, Force Supply Stockpile Level, and Force Movement Bias were changed for this scenario. The Attrition Divider, Max Rounds Per Battle, Enemy-Hex-Conversion-Cost, Entrenchment Rate, Combat Density Penalty Rate, Supply Costs of Movement Rate, Readiness Costs of Movement rate, and Naval Attrition Divider were changed for this scenario.

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Now that the two forces are defined, we can finally switch out of Map Mode into Deployment Mode:

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The Control Panel switches to this view:



The two rows of buttons allow navigating the OOB – Units, Formations, and Sides. The bottom button sets the Deployment Mode. It cycles through “Place Unit”, “Remove Unit”, “Place Supply”, “Place Objective”, “Objective Value”, “Reentry Point”, and “Toggle Ownership”. Left-clicking cycles forward. Right-clicking cycles in reverse.

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Leaving the Deployment Mode at “Place Unit”, all of both sides units can now be placed:

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Reinforcements are placed via their Formation Report:



The safest way to enter entry locations is via placing the reinforcement on the map on its entry hex, then removing it. You can type in the location, but that is obviously error prone.

Also note that the above formation is in a reserve deployment, activating on turn 4. So, that’s how that is done. There is also a “Garrison” mode, which never activates by itself. It can only be released by event.

After all units are placed, Automatic Ownership should probably be run, to get a first approximation of ownership. Final adjustments will need to be done with the “Toggle Ownership” mode.

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Cycle to “Place Supply”. Right-click on the location where the Supply Point is to be placed (the supply point will belong to whichever side is the current side – and both sides can have a supply point in the same location). You will be prompted to set the supply level:



A value of 100 is full supply. But you can set a “variable” supply point – with from 1% to 250% (despite the message) of full supply.

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Once the Supply Points have all been placed, cycle to “Place Objective”. You may then place objectives for the current formation. Right-click where you want to place an objective. After this has been completed, the map looks like this:



Objectives should run from friendly areas to enemy areas – particularly enemy areas with objective values to be captured. New to TOAW IV: Total objectives per formation increased from 39 to 99.

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Furthermore, there can be up to five objective tracks:




Which track is in use is set by event. This can allow the PO to handle shifts in momentum in a scenario, or just to add some variability to the PO’s operation. But use of multiple tracks is entirely optional.

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Cycle to “Objective Value” to set objective values on the map. Right-click on the desired objective:

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You can cycle to Reentry Point if you want to set that. This scenario doesn’t have any units that reconstitute, so there was no need for a reentry point.

The forces are still not fully defined, however. Since we’re in Deployment Mode, we can finally call up the Unit Report:




Note the “Veteran/Untried” button. This is the only place where this factor can be set (that’s always been the case). But there are a number of new features:

The Unit Size button is now here.
The Color Set button is now here.
The Available System pane is now here.
The Unit Name button is now here.
The Supply/Readiness/Proficiency button is now here.
The Copy Unit button is now here.

All those Force Editor functions are now available on the Unit Report. Although not yet completed, the Unit Report is being enabled to perform many of the functions of the legacy Force Editor.

Note how the Available Systems pane has some improvements over the Force Editor:

There is now a scroll bar.
Which individual equipment sections are expanded is up to the user via the section names.
There are buttons to expand all sections or collapse all sections. (The shot shows all sections collapsed).

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Click on the formation button:



The General Orders and Orders Emphasis are for the PO only. Don’t forget to set them for each formation. Any side that is expected to be the aggressor should have Ignore Losses Emphasis. Most formations should be set to Attack – however this is where you can place the formation into any reserve deployment, with an activation turn (see the earlier formation display further back).

Again, there are several Force Editor features that have been added here:

Formation Name.
Support Scope.
Formation Proficiency.
Formation Supply.

So, all the features of the Formation pane of the Force Editor are here. This is another part of the new force editor in development.

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Click on the OOB – Units button:



A number of Force parameters are now settable here: Force Flag, Force Name, Force Proficiency, and Force Supply. This is the third part of the new Force Editor. There is still much more to add before it is fully ready to replace the Force Editor, though. (One major problem is that these dialogs can’t even be accessed until the force is defined). But these three dialogs are what have been planned to replace the legacy Force Editor. Stay tuned.

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That completes the Forces. Now open the Edit pull-down:



Note that there are still several tasks to complete before the scenario is finished.

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Click on the Environment Editor:



Note that there are new hex scales for TOAW IV. This scenario uses the new 0.25 kilometer scale. There are also 0.5 kilometer and 1 kilometer scales added at the low end. Then there are 100 kilometer and 200 kilometer scales added at the high end.

The new scales at the low end can result in non-ranged equipment having direct fire ranges beyond the hex size. The designer needs to be judicious as to what topics he uses these scales for. In this example, most fire combat by infantry was at point-blank range due to the dense woods. So, I felt the scale would work. Even so, I had to devise house rules for artillery (which was a direct fire weapon at this point in history). We’re treating designers like adults with these new scales – be responsible. There are some topics that just won’t handle these new scales yet.

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Next, click on the Calendar Editor:



Note that there are new turn intervals for TOAW IV. This scenario uses the new One Hour turn interval. There is also a Three Hour turn interval added at the low end. Then there are Two Week, Monthly, Seasonal, and Annual turn intervals added at the high end.

Also, note that the year range has been expanded to range from -3000 to +3000. Values at or below zero have “BC” appended. Positive values less than 1000 have “AD” appended.

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Now click on the Event Editor item:



The Event Editor is invoked. Note the new features: Scroll bar, “Go to event #” pane, and copy, delete, and insert event buttons. Note that clicking in an event panel no longer causes an event copy – which often happened by accident. The sort options no longer change the order of events. Instead, the event numbers are shuffled along with the event triggers and effects. There is a new sort option: “By ID”. This basically reverses any previous sort, so that the events are back to sorted by event number.

The events shown show how a Theater Option is coded.

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Be aware that left-clicking on the Trigger button cycles through the triggers. But right-clicking pops up the Trigger Menu:



Clearly, this is an easier way to set the trigger.

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The Effects button works the same way. Here’s the Effects Menu: