XML Export from Trusted PBEM Games?

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

It generates these files, but it also generates a .XML file in the same folder with a name like "NewGameFile" (on another machine now so I can't check). I didn't look in too much detail at what this file consists of.

I cracked open this file (NewGameText.XML), and sadly it's just a dump of all the text strings used in the game for some reason. It was generated with the same timestamp as the equipment file so it must be part of this procedure.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
It generates these files, but it also generates a .XML file in the same folder with a name like "NewGameFile" (on another machine now so I can't check). I didn't look in too much detail at what this file consists of.

I'd forgotten about that one; I think it contains all of the text used in the game, which can in theory be changed. For instance, I'd like to replace "urban" and "dense urban" with "town" and "city". But I can't figure out how to incorporate changes in this file back into the game...

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
I'm definitely interested- but for the opposite reason. I'm interested in inserting a strategic layer over the top which would handle supply levels, replacements and reinforcements etc. I've run several of these strategic level games over the past (oh God has it really been) 20 years using TOAW and mostly MS Excel, but without Trusted PBEM this is a non-started in TOAW.

Actually I will include a strategic layer as well. Basically what I'm trying to do is create a layer that will allow me to make decisions about production, OOB, command changes, etc. at the TOAW level, and then fight the battles (or at least some of them) with a tactical game.

I've been doing this for decades, I find gaming any other way incredibly boring at this point. First time I did this with Squad Leader and a hand-drawn paper map, then with Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin and VASSAL, now hopefully something with TOAW, although a lot of TOAW issues will make this difficult. Also trying to set it up so that tactical battles can be resolved with tactical such as ASL, CMBB, or Steel Panthers. Not very easy, and not sure I'll be able to figure things out.

Anyway, let me know if you have any ideas about strategic stuff.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
...there are some things in here which will be lifesavers:
1) switching unit formations quickly and without having to reset the deployment status
2) making sure everyone is a veteran (the proficiency variability range for untried units is just too large for most situations)
3) setting "ignore losses" for all static units

I actually forget if I included 2 & 3...are you saying those are in and helpful?

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
In this regard it would be good to be able to set the Reconstitution option for units in the same way.

This would probably be simple if it is exposed in the XML; is the Reconstitution option shown at all in TOAWxml? If so I'll try to add it for propagation.

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
...however 1) on its own makes this a killer app for me. I had basically decided that for campaigns I would have to give up moving units between formations because it is such a bloody nightmare. You just brought back a feature.

I've tested moving units and it seems to work...but please test it with your scenario before doing a ton of work. For old scenarios in particular, it is impossible to know what XML formatting quirks can sneak in...

By test it, I mean load the gam file back into the scenario editor, save it as a sce file, and then load the game. Again, I've done this with no issues, but I haven't gotten a lot of feedback in general other than occasional bug reports...don't hear much about what does work. Please read the instructions as well, it mentions a few things that will break your scenario in TOAWxml.

Also, I'd be interested in your thoughts on the Event Editor in TOAWxml...I've gotten zero feedback on it other than from my own limited testing.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

Anyway, let me know if you have any ideas about strategic stuff.

I've already run several of these games, although the problem with them is that waiting for multiple people to turn back orders, then to understand what they're asking for, then to process those orders, means that the game takes incredibly long. I ran a game from about 2005 (?) to 2010 with 7 players and we only covered about two years of game time in that duration before my life went haywire and I wound it up. Another guy is running a game with my old ruleset at the moment which 6 of us are playing, again very slowly (about 1/3 real time).

Anyway, various points on the map are industrial cities which come with a population which generates manpower, and a production cap which can be used to generate equipment and supplies. The player can then form the equipment into units, which then need to be trained. There's a tech tree and units can swap out their old equipment for new etc.. The whole thing is handled by an Excel file which has gone through various iterations, with the general trend towards automation and simplification as time goes on, to reduce the amount of overhead for players and GM both. At different times there have been bells and whistles for guerrilla warfare, arms trading, mobilisation, limitations on supply networks, strategic bombing, nuclear research etc. etc. etc. Unfortunately due to the long duration of the games one can invest a lot of time before it becomes apparent that the ruleset is fatally flawed, and fixing it in flight is a delicate business.

Ironically the most intractable problem has been naval warfare as most of the rest is just beancounting. I have an issue with Naval Warfare in TOAW IV: if you look at the various naval scenarios the turn length is incredibly short- a few minutes in some cases- and so obviously totally incompatible with land warfare in the same scenario. In theory you could put naval units in a scenario with week long turns but there's no Interdiction setting for naval units, so for example a naval squadron can get from Gibraltar to Malta without any risk of being intercepted by enemy naval units (though the planes will at least take a shot). I haven't experimented with this on a large scale, now sure what scenarios are out there which would be a good testbed for it.

The other problem is that everyone wants to refight WWII but it's such a worn over subject that everyone brings their own hindsight assumptions to it and act in very ahistoric ways. As such I've been running fictional or hypothetical settings since 2005. A major factor for me is to let players choose their own alliances and their own wars, so one ends up with a sort of hybrid between TOAW and Diplomacy

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
...there are some things in here which will be lifesavers:
1) switching unit formations quickly and without having to reset the deployment status
2) making sure everyone is a veteran (the proficiency variability range for untried units is just too large for most situations)
3) setting "ignore losses" for all static units

I actually forget if I included 2 & 3...are you saying those are in and helpful?

Yes and yes

I've tested moving units and it seems to work...but please test it with your scenario before doing a ton of work. By test it, I mean load the gam file back into the scenario editor, save it as a sce file, and then load the game.

OK I loaded it back to the editor but I didn't start a game. I'll do that tonight.

If this works then anything should, as this was a pretty big scenario (10MB in XML) and the legacy of it goes back twenty years or so (new map with old OOB)

Also, I'd be interested in your thoughts on the Event Editor in TOAWxml...I've gotten zero feedback on it other than from my own limited testing.

I only glanced at it. I can second the comment elsewhere that if you can allow the user to easily see the chain (event 1 triggers event 273 which triggers event 56 but is cancelled by event 902 etc.) then that would be astounding. This sort of thing needs to be tracked in a separate document today.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
...the problem with them is that...the game takes incredibly long.

Yes, but I view that as an advantage, because if a game is good I'm in no hurry for it it end. I played my VASSAL/CMBB campaign for several years before one side won. Plus I play myself, so I can always keep busy with one thing or another!

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
Anyway, various points on the map are industrial cities which come with a population which generates manpower, and a production cap which can be used to generate equipment and supplies. The player can then form the equipment into units, which then need to be trained. There's a tech tree and units can swap out their old equipment for new etc.. The whole thing is handled by an Excel file which has gone through various iterations, with the general trend towards automation and simplification as time goes on, to reduce the amount of overhead for players and GM both. At different times there have been bells and whistles for guerrilla warfare, arms trading, mobilisation, limitations on supply networks, strategic bombing, nuclear research etc. etc. etc. Unfortunately due to the long duration of the games one can invest a lot of time before it becomes apparent that the ruleset is fatally flawed, and fixing it in flight is a delicate business.

This is pretty similar to what I plan to do, although I planned to use generic resource points rather than separate manpower and production points. I don't think it would be very hard to create a front end that would do most of this by manipulating save game XML files. For instance, one of the next things on my plate will be to create something that will count every place name and calculate resource points for each side based on their possession. Then add things like "buying" more units, recon planes (theater recon), sea transport, etc.

That should all be pretty easy. What I'm struggling with now is how to add more depth...leaders for every unit, unit histories, etc. That will require joining two XML files, not sure how to do that...

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
Ironically the most intractable problem has been naval warfare...I have an issue with Naval Warfare in TOAW IV: if you look at the various naval scenarios the turn length is incredibly short- a few minutes in some cases- and so obviously totally incompatible with land warfare in the same scenario.

Yeah, naval warfare doesn't work great, and I don't expect it to. I've thought about using a different game such as CMANO to resolve naval stuff, but it doesn't have enough WWII naval stuff.

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
As such I've been running fictional or hypothetical settings since 2005. A major factor for me is to let players choose their own alliances and their own wars, so one ends up with a sort of hybrid between TOAW and Diplomacy+

This is pretty much what I do, but then fight out the battles with a tactical game. One problem with my past systems is that I've had to fight out *every* battle tactically because there was no other way to resolve battles. The main reason I want to use TOAW or some other operational game as the "strategic" layer is so that I can fight out some/most battles there and only play out the more interesting tactical scenarios.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

Yes, but I view that as an advantage, because if a game is good I'm in no hurry for it it end. I played my VASSAL/CMBB campaign for several years before one side won. Plus I play myself, so I can always keep busy with one thing or another!

This is fine and everything... but the gaps between strategic turns can stretch to months or in extreme cases years when you have to deal with multiple human players. I shifted the strat turns from months to quarters to speed up the pace of the game but it's still hard to even keep up with real time.

This is pretty similar to what I plan to do, although I planned to use generic resource points rather than separate manpower and production points. I don't think it would be very hard to create a front end that would do most of this by manipulating save game XML files. For instance, one of the next things on my plate will be to create something that will count every place name and calculate resource points for each side based on their possession. Then add things like "buying" more units, recon planes (theater recon), sea transport, etc.

Well, I'm into my realism hence there's more to it under the hood than just buying a unit and plopping it onto the map. One sets up a production line for Panzer-IIIs, after a little while they start rolling off and one can then assign them to units.

To be honest I'd be pretty interested in putting our heads together, but since you're the one with the technical knowledge to automate this stuff, you might prefer to stick to your design ideas instead of mine.

However if you're game, we could put together something really interesting- I'd be happy to GM (handling weird stuff like politics and whether a small fishing village can be used to supply eight panzer divisions) and help with the ruleset if you can make the magic happen in XML, then find half a dozen suckers to be our players.

Yeah, naval warfare doesn't work great, and I don't expect it to. I've thought about using a different game such as CMANO to resolve naval stuff, but it doesn't have enough WWII naval stuff.

If you're doing it outside the game you could just use... another TOAW scenario. I think naval is probably OK provided you're not mixing it with land warfare in the same scenario, when the scales clash. The problem with this is it means stopping TOAW every couple of turns to insert the results of the naval action. I'd rather just abstract it if I can.

[76mm]

I just drafted a long, detailed response, but got an error when I tried to post it...gone. Thanks Matrix!

I'll try to send you an e-mail.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
I've been testing this feature myself:
1. I can convert a Hotseat .SAL into an .SCE no problems- just like it was in TOAW III
2. If I try this with a .PBL or a .SAL from a PBEM game, I get a "this version cannot load" error regardless of the "Trusted PBEM" setting
3. The F11 export (thanks Larry) comes out as a .XML file but the editor wants a .GAM file. Changing the file extension here and trying to import gives me some other error

I finally got around to playing around with PBEM file and have encountered the same problems as you did. Did this feature used to work? Could you export a gam file from a Trusted PBEM game?

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

I finally got around to playing around with PBEM file and have encountered the same problems as you did. Did this feature used to work? Could you export a gam file from a Trusted PBEM game?

Prior to TOAW III, one could simply convert any SAL, PBL (or SAV or PBM) file back to .SCE and it would open in the editor- no questions asked. Then some spoilsport suggested that unscrupulous players would use this to cheat and they took the feature away. There was no concept of "Trusted PBEM" which was only introduced in one of the recent releases of TOAW IV.

[76mm]

I see...so it sounds like "Trusted PBEM" has never worked? And hotseat works like all sal files used to? Although you have to rename .sal files as .sce, so maybe I guess it was even easier before. Since the manual explicitly says that in Trusted PBEM games you can export an XML, I assume this is a bug.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

I see...so it sounds like "Trusted PBEM" has never worked? And hotseat works like all sal files used to? Although you have to rename .sal files as .sce, so maybe I guess it was even easier before.

You always had to do this- the extension has to be .sce otherwise the editor can't open it.

Since the manual explicitly says that in Trusted PBEM games you can export an XML, I assume this is a bug.

Very likely.

[76mm]

So Bob, is this a bug? Is it being fixed?

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

So Bob, is this a bug? Is it being fixed?

I don't know. And this is the first I've heard of it.

[Lobster]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: 76mm

I see...so it sounds like "Trusted PBEM" has never worked? And hotseat works like all sal files used to? Although you have to rename .sal files as .sce, so maybe I guess it was even easier before.

You always had to do this- the extension has to be .sce otherwise the editor can't open it.

Aye. I think it (the manual) merely leaves out the sal to sce step. Just need to add a few words to the manual.

Right. [:D]

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Lobster
Aye. I think it (the manual) merely leaves out the sal to sce step. Just need to add a few words to the manual.

That would be helpful, but just to be clear, you CAN'T open sal files create by PBEM games even if you have Trusted PBEM on, even if you rename them.