The Operational Art of War V

[macgregor]

If I were to look at the history of toaw; -and I've had every version except WGOY, it seems to me, that what this game wants to do, is be able to handle bigger scenarios. So I've done some thinking...

As one who tried hard to get a group for the beautiful looking World at war 1939-1945 I could really see why it didn't, and probably cannot work.

First -turns have to be sent to different members sequentially. This, in our case, took too long. I can envision a game where the turn is posted somewhere. Each player then downloads the turn, moves, and then uploads it again.

The posted turn can merge the moves and display when all the moves have been made, as well as which side is moving.It would be great if some sort of mppbl format could allow the turn to be uploaded anywhere and do all this without requiring a server. Discord has been working fine for us.

Players roles have to be programmable into the game. Better than units, which would be laborious to define, Predefined zones could be recognizable to the game, allowing for as many players as might want to join. So say USSR for example, could be split up. This way units can also be transferred between allies, simply by moving them into your ally's zone.

It's easy to say such a game with as many as 10 players would never work. But ultimately it will have to for SOME game, as people are generally too busy to schedule realtime game sessions with whatever VPN. So there will always be a place for Strategic level MP in PBEM format.

I would imagine WAW 1939-1945 took awhile for the Harvey Brothers to make. Maybe they're thinking along the same lines.

[Prolych]

I second the previous speaker.

Because people often fail to play large scenarios like Fire on the East or World at War 1939-1945 and suddenly disappear into the "fog of war", it is often difficult for dedicated players to find new players to continue playing the scenario.

It would be nice to develop a mechanism for playing large scenarios in PBEM, so that new players can join and "disappear" without stopping the game for those who continue playing.

[macgregor]

It would be nice if there was some way to open a savefile and merge your move with it. This way, team players could all move at the same time. I guess I'm still on the same kick. What can I say. Wars are fought as teams. For realism's sake, I enjoy playing as part of a team.

[Curtis Lemay]

My thoughts on how this could work would be that the map would be divided up into as many sections as are players on a side - by the head-player. Then each player can then operate simultaneously on their map section. When the enemy head-player gets all turn-parts, he begins the same process from his side. Each player-turn, the head-player then adjusts the map sections as he desires before all his players begin their simultaneous actions.

[macgregor]

This idea would be even better.

[rhinobones]

This idea would be even better.

As an alternative you might consider where each player plays an entire turn, but only on alternating turns. Two players (A and B) against two players (X and Y) would go like this:

Player A plays the turn. Sends sal file(s) to B and pbl file to X
Player X plays the turn. Sends sal file(s) to Y and pbl file to B
Player B plays the turn. Sends sal file(s) to A and pbl file to Y
Player Y plays the turn. Sends sal file(s) to X and pbl file to A
Repeat.

The sequence can be expanded, or contracted, for as many players as needed. I suspect this would reduce turn-around time, it’s flexible and keeps players interested in the entire battlefield. Passing sal files helps each side tune their strategy.

Regards

[macgregor]

My thoughts on how this could work would be that the map would be divided up into as many sections as are players on a side - by the head-player. Then each player can then operate simultaneously on their map section. When the enemy head-player gets all turn-parts, he begins the same process from his side. Each player-turn, the head-player then adjusts the map sections as he desires before all his players begin their simultaneous actions.

This could be a better idea, if it's not too time consuming. Perhaps once a player does this, he could save the setup and then upload it. So others could download say, 'WaW1939-1945 for 3v3' or 'WaW1939-1945 4v4.'