PBEM Standing Orders

[Hortlund]

Hm Im notincing that some of my observations have already been made...oh well, that is the peril with reading the thread from the first post and answering them as they come. I hope you can bear with me if Im repeating stuff that has been said before.

I believe one thing is important to remember though. We are looking at standing orders here, not a mini-AI. I get the impression that some people will want to create horribly complicated standing orders, but I dont think that is productive or necessary.

Will return shortly with more observations as I read on.

[Hortlund]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

There seems to be some confusion by what I mean by default.

The default setting (for a SO Location) is what happens if the player has never set a SO for that location at all. You might find it easier to think of the default as the one the AIA starts the game with. I do not expect the default to be very clever at all. It is just something quasi-reasonable so the AIA knows what to do in case the player has done nothing.

I think it would be better to have "do nothing" set as default. Otherwise the player might get into a situation where a unit he really doesnt want to move this turn, does something because of the default SO. That would be bad.

Default should be "nothing", and if they player wants to change, he has to make the active choise, you should not be forced to do an active choise to do nothing.

[Hortlund]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
The biggest hurdle remaining is designing the interface for the player to enter the conditional part of each SO. Some of the SOs do not need conidtionals (e.g. reroll for the initiative). Others require elaborate conditions to decide what to do (when to send fighters up as interceptors). I haven't had any bright ideas how to do this yet, and I am open to any and all suggestions. I thank you all for your continuing help.

I believe it is better to focus on what the SO-player can see when he gives his orders, and use that as a starting-point.

So instead of a horribly complex "if..then" formula you can get the same results much easier.

How about:

1 you click on your fighter, bring up the SO menu, a shaded area appears on map showing the range of the fighter.

2 Player selects in which phase the fighter will fly, this will determine if you use the fighter as a defence against groundstrikes or strategic bombing or air transport or whatever. You rank the phases 1, 2, 3 etc in order of priority.

3 For each phase, the player selects the most important hex
click in the hex, and it is marked with a "1" This is the first priority hex. Then select hex 2, 3, 4 etc, these marks the secondary choises if nothing happens in a hex with higher priority.

This way, you wont have to have a SO that looks like a small book. And you dont have to add criteria like oil, factory, resources etc...all these facts are already known to the player, and they are the basis for his hex-priorities. You also dont have to have complicated if-then formulas to decide whether to intercept a ground-strike or a port strike.

The dominating order is what phase to fly in, the secondary order is what hex to focus on. Meaning that your unit that is supposed to protect a HQ unit from a ground-strike will not fly in the port-strike phase, unless you have set port-strike as priority 1 in the phase menu.

Alternatively, you can do a separate hex-priority for each phase, meaning that you set X hexes for port-strike intercepts, Y hexes for ground attacks.

This also means that it becomes pretty impossible for the opposing player to "milk" SO:s, meaning that he cant send a 1-factor tac to "lure out" a gigantic interception, since he cant possibly know how the hex-priority looks for the defending player.


Example:

CW player has a Spitfire in London. It is at the height of the Blitz. In range there are 2-3 German fighters, 2-3 Tacs and 1 ATR.

Player decides that during this turn, there is little risk for a paradrop, he suspects that the Germans will try to attack to flip CW airunits though, and sneaky Jerry might try to invade..but that is not very likely.

So, he selects ground strike phase as prio 1. He sets his own hex as prio hex 1. That means that the Spitfire will intercept any stuka attempting to attack his onw hex.
CW player then decides that there is a risk those stukas will attempt to flip a Hurricane that is in the next hex. He selects that hex as prio 2. These are the most important units right now, and if the Germans just want to attack and flip a land-unit in another hex, thats not really a big deal, so the CW player does not set any prio 3 hex.

Ok, what is also important this turn? The CW player is concerned that the Germans might try to invade in a hex without defence. So he selects land combat-phase as prio 2 for the spitfire, and select the hex as prio 1. He selects aircombat as mission (since this is one of the spitfires with a 1 tac factor).

This means that if neither hex 1 or 2 is attacked during the ground-strike phase, the spitfire will fly in land combat phase if there is an invasion in that hex.

To ensure that he can beef up the defences, he takes a tac bomber and sets it to prio 1 for land combat, and sets the same hex as prio 1. So if there is an invasion this turn, he will have a tac bomber there, with escort from the spitfire.

After that, the player is satisfied, and emails the turn to his opponent.



Note here that we can add more variables here if we want. Another layer if you will where we can set parameters like "do not fly if facing more than X enemy aircraft" or "do not fly if enemy tac factors are lower than Y" etc. That is completely up to you, but it fits pretty well into the general mechanism described above.


Btw, I just realized something while doing this example... SO must be set AFTER the phasing player has chosen what type of impulse he is doing. This is *very* important.



Opinions?

[Froonp]

I like what Panzerjaeger Hortlund proposed.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
The biggest hurdle remaining is designing the interface for the player to enter the conditional part of each SO. Some of the SOs do not need conidtionals (e.g. reroll for the initiative). Others require elaborate conditions to decide what to do (when to send fighters up as interceptors). I haven't had any bright ideas how to do this yet, and I am open to any and all suggestions. I thank you all for your continuing help.

I believe it is better to focus on what the SO-player can see when he gives his orders, and use that as a starting-point.

So instead of a horribly complex "if..then" formula you can get the same results much easier.

How about:

1 you click on your fighter, bring up the SO menu, a shaded area appears on map showing the range of the fighter.

2 Player selects in which phase the fighter will fly, this will determine if you use the fighter as a defence against groundstrikes or strategic bombing or air transport or whatever. You rank the phases 1, 2, 3 etc in order of priority.

3 For each phase, the player selects the most important hex
click in the hex, and it is marked with a "1" This is the first priority hex. Then select hex 2, 3, 4 etc, these marks the secondary choises if nothing happens in a hex with higher priority.

This way, you wont have to have a SO that looks like a small book. And you dont have to add criteria like oil, factory, resources etc...all these facts are already known to the player, and they are the basis for his hex-priorities. You also dont have to have complicated if-then formulas to decide whether to intercept a ground-strike or a port strike.

The dominating order is what phase to fly in, the secondary order is what hex to focus on. Meaning that your unit that is supposed to protect a HQ unit from a ground-strike will not fly in the port-strike phase, unless you have set port-strike as priority 1 in the phase menu.

Alternatively, you can do a separate hex-priority for each phase, meaning that you set X hexes for port-strike intercepts, Y hexes for ground attacks.

This also means that it becomes pretty impossible for the opposing player to "milk" SO:s, meaning that he cant send a 1-factor tac to "lure out" a gigantic interception, since he cant possibly know how the hex-priority looks for the defending player.


Example:

CW player has a Spitfire in London. It is at the height of the Blitz. In range there are 2-3 German fighters, 2-3 Tacs and 1 ATR.

Player decides that during this turn, there is little risk for a paradrop, he suspects that the Germans will try to attack to flip CW airunits though, and sneaky Jerry might try to invade..but that is not very likely.

So, he selects ground strike phase as prio 1. He sets his own hex as prio hex 1. That means that the Spitfire will intercept any stuka attempting to attack his onw hex.
CW player then decides that there is a risk those stukas will attempt to flip a Hurricane that is in the next hex. He selects that hex as prio 2. These are the most important units right now, and if the Germans just want to attack and flip a land-unit in another hex, thats not really a big deal, so the CW player does not set any prio 3 hex.

Ok, what is also important this turn? The CW player is concerned that the Germans might try to invade in a hex without defence. So he selects land combat-phase as prio 2 for the spitfire, and select the hex as prio 1. He selects aircombat as mission (since this is one of the spitfires with a 1 tac factor).

This means that if neither hex 1 or 2 is attacked during the ground-strike phase, the spitfire will fly in land combat phase if there is an invasion in that hex.

To ensure that he can beef up the defences, he takes a tac bomber and sets it to prio 1 for land combat, and sets the same hex as prio 1. So if there is an invasion this turn, he will have a tac bomber there, with escort from the spitfire.

After that, the player is satisfied, and emails the turn to his opponent.

Note here that we can add more variables here if we want. Another layer if you will where we can set parameters like "do not fly if facing more than X enemy aircraft" or "do not fly if enemy tac factors are lower than Y" etc. That is completely up to you, but it fits pretty well into the general mechanism described above.


Btw, I just realized something while doing this example... SO must be set AFTER the phasing player has chosen what type of impulse he is doing. This is *very* important.

Opinions?

Excellent ideas for SO 5 (Defensive Air Support for Land or Naval Units and Factories). As always, I want to beat on them with a large hammer for a while to see if they hold up to all the game situations that might arise. I also just finished up how to do SO 9 (Return to Base) and if at all possible, I would like SO 5 and SO 9 to have similar interfaces. So let me ponder about both of these today and by this evening, I should get back to you on them.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

SO 9 Return to Base Interface (as of August 20, 2005)

The player selects one of the mutually exclusive sections 1 to 6 below. Within that section he selects a subsection and in some
cases, a sub-subsection. Note that only section 1 gives the player direct control over where the unit returns to base. In all other cases, the AI
Assistant makes assessments to determine where the unit returns to base. For section 7, the player sets a priority for each subsection as
either: 1 (crucial), 2 (somewhat important), or 3 (not important).

Code: Select all

 1.	Move unit to a specific hex, or a prioritized list of hexes.
 	1.1 	Back to the hex it came from
 	1.2	To the hex it is protecting
 	1.3	Any other hex
 
 2.	Move unit in a general direction, or a prioritized list of directions.
 	2.1	North, south, east, west, NE, NW, SE, SW
 	2.2	Towards capital
 	2.3	Towards nearest city (friendly or in home country)
 
 3.	Move unit so it can be transported or retired.
 	3.1	To a port (nearest, farthest, any)
 	3.2	To a home city (nearest, farthest, any)
 
 4.	Move unit so it can be reorganized during the turn.
 	4.1	To where an HQ can reorganize it (specific, nearest, farthest, any)
 	4.2	To where a TRS can reorganize it (specific, nearest, farthest, any)
 	4.3	To where an AMPH can reorganize it (specific, nearest, farthest, any)
 	4.4	To where an ATR can reorganize it (specific, nearest, farthest, any)
 
 5.	Move unit so it can be reorganized at the end of the turn.
 	5.1	Towards an oil source (specific, nearest, farthest, any)
 
 6.	Move unit for a purpose
 	6.1	To attack next turn (in front line, near front line)
 	6.2	To defend next turn (just in range of our frontline, in range of as many hexes of our frontline as possible while being 1, 
                    2, 3, 4, or 5 hexes from frontline)
 	6.3	As part of a general retreat (far from the frontline or enemy land units)
 
 7.	Other concerns to be taken into consideration for hex selection.
 	7.1	Keep the unit in supply
 	7.2	Avoid stacking where stacking is only possible do to current situation (e.g., HQ present, leader present, lake/swamp frozen)
 	7.3	Good defensive terrain against ground strikes
 	7.4	With a land unit (or avoid stacking with land units)
 	7.5	In a friendly ZOC (to be safe from partisans)
 

The player needs to make one big decision: whether to use sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. Once he has decided that, the subsections
are displayed for selection. Section 7 is available at all times and can be set for individual air units. However, the settings last used are
always the default for section 7, so they really only need to be set once.

Each of the sections can be important in certain game situations. Here are a couple of “not so obvious” examples.

1.2 is useful for repositioning air units (avoiding the limitations on air missions that the phasing player has to deal with).

2.1 is a good way of returning bombers from naval air missions.

3.1 can help get the German air force out of North Africa when things look bad.

7.4 is best (i.e., the choice is to not stack with land units) because it avoids presenting the enemy with a juicy target for a ground
strike the next turn.

This looks pretty good to me. Do you see any holes?[/size]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
There seems to be some confusion by what I mean by default.

The default setting (for a SO Location) is what happens if the player has never set a SO for that location at all. You might find it easier to think of the default as the one the AIA starts the game with. I do not expect the default to be very clever at all. It is just something quasi-reasonable so the AIA knows what to do in case the player has done nothing.

I think it would be better to have "do nothing" set as default. Otherwise the player might get into a situation where a unit he really doesnt want to move this turn, does something because of the default SO. That would be bad.

Default should be "nothing", and if they player wants to change, he has to make the active choise, you should not be forced to do an active choise to do nothing.

In general I agree. The problem is that some SOs need a decision. SO 9 Return to Base is one example. Which combat table to choose is another. It is easiest to just go through all 24 of the SOs one by one and make the most passive response the default.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
So, let me propose the following:
(1) The capability to require an email instead of a SO will be part of MWIF.
(2) This capability can be turned on or off for each of the 22 SO locations.
(3) The on/off flags can be set either at the beginning of the game (like an optional rule), or dynamically modified during play.
(4) To modify the flags during play requires the unanimous agreement of all the players in the game.

Well, that's my instant analysis. Does it hold water or sink to the bottom like a concrete canoe?

I believe it sinks. A player that insists on that level of control should be directed to TCP/IP play, and told to accept that with PBEM comes some changes from head-to-head-play. We are only creating a conflict-source between the players if we add the ability to demand emails for the non-phaser, not to mention that it goes directly against the purpose with the standing orders.

First let me say, we currently have 24 SO locations.

I actually agree with you that the SO should be a fixture and not optional. But that is my opinion as a player and not as the developer. As a developer, I worry that I am too authoritarian at times, making decisions that I think are best but that some players might find very annoying decisions. This is one case in point.

Your argument is that you don't like the SOs being optional and believe it will lead to conflict between players. My repsonse is that this only needs to be discussed at the beginning of the game. Once each SO is set as either mandatory or optional (i.e., the player can set it as requiring an email in lieu of a SO), none of them can not be changed during a game unless all the players agree. That last bit is me being authoritarian. Basically, I am imposing my control as the developer to say: "Discuss this issue at the beginning of the game and once the decision is made don't raise the subject again."

Do I hear you saying "Why make it optional at all?"? Well, I know there are players who will want a somewhat greater level of control in a PBEM game. Indeed, there was a post specifically to that point. It might be for sending out air missions for ground support. That would only require 1 extra email per impulse. It could be for choosing the land combat tables. I don't know what, which, or where - mostly because I don't agree with replacing the SOs with emails. However, it is just as easy to make all the SOs optional as it is to make 1 of them optional, so I decided to put them all up for grabs.

Which brings me back to the crucial point. You resolve this issue before a game starts, just as you do all the other 70+ optional rules. Then you forget about it, and play the game as it has been configured.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
The biggest hurdle remaining is designing the interface for the player to enter the conditional part of each SO. Some of the SOs do not need conidtionals (e.g. reroll for the initiative). Others require elaborate conditions to decide what to do (when to send fighters up as interceptors). I haven't had any bright ideas how to do this yet, and I am open to any and all suggestions. I thank you all for your continuing help.

I believe it is better to focus on what the SO-player can see when he gives his orders, and use that as a starting-point.

So instead of a horribly complex "if..then" formula you can get the same results much easier.

How about:

1 you click on your fighter, bring up the SO menu, a shaded area appears on map showing the range of the fighter.

2 Player selects in which phase the fighter will fly, this will determine if you use the fighter as a defence against groundstrikes or strategic bombing or air transport or whatever. You rank the phases 1, 2, 3 etc in order of priority.

3 For each phase, the player selects the most important hex
click in the hex, and it is marked with a "1" This is the first priority hex. Then select hex 2, 3, 4 etc, these marks the secondary choises if nothing happens in a hex with higher priority.

This way, you wont have to have a SO that looks like a small book. And you dont have to add criteria like oil, factory, resources etc...all these facts are already known to the player, and they are the basis for his hex-priorities. You also dont have to have complicated if-then formulas to decide whether to intercept a ground-strike or a port strike.

The dominating order is what phase to fly in, the secondary order is what hex to focus on. Meaning that your unit that is supposed to protect a HQ unit from a ground-strike will not fly in the port-strike phase, unless you have set port-strike as priority 1 in the phase menu.

Alternatively, you can do a separate hex-priority for each phase, meaning that you set X hexes for port-strike intercepts, Y hexes for ground attacks.

This also means that it becomes pretty impossible for the opposing player to "milk" SO:s, meaning that he cant send a 1-factor tac to "lure out" a gigantic interception, since he cant possibly know how the hex-priority looks for the defending player.

Example:

CW player has a Spitfire in London. It is at the height of the Blitz. In range there are 2-3 German fighters, 2-3 Tacs and 1 ATR.

Player decides that during this turn, there is little risk for a paradrop, he suspects that the Germans will try to attack to flip CW airunits though, and sneaky Jerry might try to invade..but that is not very likely.

So, he selects ground strike phase as prio 1. He sets his own hex as prio hex 1. That means that the Spitfire will intercept any stuka attempting to attack his onw hex.
CW player then decides that there is a risk those stukas will attempt to flip a Hurricane that is in the next hex. He selects that hex as prio 2. These are the most important units right now, and if the Germans just want to attack and flip a land-unit in another hex, thats not really a big deal, so the CW player does not set any prio 3 hex.

Ok, what is also important this turn? The CW player is concerned that the Germans might try to invade in a hex without defence. So he selects land combat-phase as prio 2 for the spitfire, and select the hex as prio 1. He selects aircombat as mission (since this is one of the spitfires with a 1 tac factor).

This means that if neither hex 1 or 2 is attacked during the ground-strike phase, the spitfire will fly in land combat phase if there is an invasion in that hex.

To ensure that he can beef up the defences, he takes a tac bomber and sets it to prio 1 for land combat, and sets the same hex as prio 1. So if there is an invasion this turn, he will have a tac bomber there, with escort from the spitfire.

After that, the player is satisfied, and emails the turn to his opponent.


Note here that we can add more variables here if we want. Another layer if you will where we can set parameters like "do not fly if facing more than X enemy aircraft" or "do not fly if enemy tac factors are lower than Y" etc. That is completely up to you, but it fits pretty well into the general mechanism described above.

Btw, I just realized something while doing this example... SO must be set AFTER the phasing player has chosen what type of impulse he is doing. This is *very* important. Opinions?

I have a lot to say in response but I want to refer to an earlier post I made in the Game Interface thread. Here is the part of the post about the left hand column that is relevant to this discussion:

My more interesting idea is the interface for setting SOs for air unit missions. What I think might work well is to have all the air units that could be given SOs placed in a column running down the left hand side of the screen. I have written about this column before, using it for placing units on the map during the set up and reinforcement phases. Its original purpose was to identify off-map tactical air units that could fly missions to a specific on-map hex. Anyway, I now have a fourth use for the column of units running down the left hand side.

When the player clicks on SO 5 (on the SO location bar), he is saying he wants to either review or set SOs for “Defensive air support for land or naval units and factories”. At that time, the left hand column of units would be populated with the air units who are eligible to fly defensive air support. Now, next to each unit would be a set of 10 boxes. The boxes would correspond to the enemy air missions the unit might defend against:
(1) port attacks,
(2) naval air combat,

(3) strategic bombing,
(4) carpet bombing,

(5) air transported land units,
(6) paradrops,

(7) ground strikes,
(8) ground support,

(9) air resupply (ATR reorganization of land units), and one last box for
(10) fighters escorting bombers.

The above grouping into pairs is to show that there would be a grid two boxes wide by 5 boxes high. Each box would be 1/5 the height of a unit. Bombers would only be capable of flying missions #2 and #8. Fighters could fly all of the missions.

Each box would indicate whether the air unit has a standing order to defend against that enemy mission type. Indicators would be:
(A) Unit should not respond to the mission type,
(B) Unit has a SO for the mission type, but it is from a previous impulse or turn (it’s stale),
(C) Unit was given a SO for the mission type this impulse (it’s fresh).

Note that there are 10 different status flags for each fighter. This is part of the reason designing the interface for SO 5 is so difficult. The fighters have a lot of options.

By clicking on a box next to an air unit, the player activates the interface to set the SO for that air unit against the corresponding mission type. Several units could be selected simultaneously. This is to permit the player to give several units the same SO at the same time. In particular, this would be useful when having some fighters fly as escorts (#10) for bombers (#2 or #8).

Entering the standing order starts by clicking on one of the boxes next to an air unit. The program will immediately jump the cursor to the air unit on the map. If the air unit is not on the part of the map that is visible, then the map display will be redrawn so that the air unit is in the center of the screen. The player then ‘flies’ the air unit to the hex (or sea area) that he wants protected. What we have accomplished so far is set an unconditional SO for air units to defend hexes against each possible mission type.

Somehow I want to let the player review the SOs for each air unit. One way to do this would be to have the player click on the air unit in the left hand column (as opposed to one of the 10 boxes alongside it). Clicking on the air unit could light up each of the 10 little boxes in turn and draw a line from the unit’s position on the map to the target hex. While the first box was lit, the line would be shown for a few seconds and then the next box would light up and another line drawn. Lines would only need to be drawn for the mission types for which the air unit has a standing order. Alternatively, all the air units defending against port attacks (or whatever) could be shown in sequence. The goal here would be to visually show the player what the standing orders are with a minimal number of mouse clicks or key presses.

I agree entusiastically, completely, and whole heartedly with the goal of making the SOs visual and NOT a bunch of text/rules.

Clicking on a fighter and bringing up a shaded area that indicates its range is fine. I am not so sure about doing the same for bombers though. When a bomber has a range of 10, the whole visible screen would be within its range. I would like to have the same system for both fighters and bombers, so maybe this would be a game interface option that the player can set separately for fighters and bombers. I would add that clicking on the fighter unit on the map or in the left hand column (same unit, same unit picture) would have the same results: the hexes within range of the fighter would be indicated (shaded or something).

As for bringing up the SO menu when the unit is clicked on, I prefer having it displayed as part of the left hand column. A pop up menu obscures part of the screen, especially one that has 10 options. The left hand column display provides a lot more information and has the same menu choices permanently available for selection.

Prioritizing which phase the fighter flies in is not possible. The sequence of play dictates the priority. If you give a fighter a priority of 2 to defend against a port attack, it has to make the decision right away and can not wait to see if the phasing player is also going to do ground strikes. 9 of the 10 choices for SO 5 are for different phases of an impulse - the only exception being flying escort. However, you raise a good point. How about I have the 'priority' number automatically generated and displayed in the left hand column? What I mean here, is that if you gave a fighter a SO to defend against a ground strike and another to defend against a port attack, then the port attack box would have a 1 in it and the ground strike box would have a 2. If the enemy does a port atttack on a hex the fighter is protecting, then the fighter will fly against that mission. If the port attack doesn't happen, then the fighter will protect against the ground strike. The missions are 'prioritized' but it is determined by the sequence of play, not by the player.

I would like to expand on your next idea of how the hexes are selected. When the player clicks on a mission type against which to defend, only the viable target hexes are highlighted. The shaded area for its range is removed. What you now have identified are those hexes for which a SO makes sense. A viable target hex is not only within range of the fighter, it also has target units that the enemy can attack with that mission type (naval units in port for port attacks, naval units in the sea area for naval air missions, etc.), and the enemy has air units that can fly that mission type against those hexes. If no such hexes exist, then that mission box would simply not be selectable for the SO. Now the player can set priorities for each hex as you described. To assist in that decision making, I would have a dynamic description of each hex appear when the player moves the cursor over the target. The dynamic description would list the attackable units/resources in the hex, the enemy air units that can attack it, and the other fighters available to defend it.

Your point about adding more variables is in keeping with my general goal of providing the player with flexibilty. On the other hand, this system seems pretty solid already. I think maybe a couple of other optional settings: (1) don't fly if the odds against surviving are too awful, (2) send only 1 plane against 1 plane, (3) send more than 1 plane against more than 1 plane, and (4) don't fly if the enemy mission is too weak to do any damage. These might be a pop up menu that is displayed once the player has set the priority for the target hex.

Now as to your last concern about when to set standing orders. There are 3 ways to do this. The first is what I currently have outlined in the PBEM system. The players enter SOs at the end of a turn in preparation for the next turn. During a turn, they get to update them at the end of each of their impulses as the phasing player. If any of the enemy Major Powers chooses a Combined Action, then the non-phasing player will get an opportunity to revise his SOs before strategic bombardment and again before ground strikes. The second design is one I just came up with in repsonse to your LARGE TYPE. It is still young and fragile. All major powers would enter their action choices for the first impulse of a turn during the initiative phase should they have the first impulse the next turn - this would be a new SO. Each turn would start with the non-phasing player updating his SOs, then the phasing player could start moving his units. This design only adds one extra email per turn but it does nothing about setting SOs before every impulse. The third design addresses that. Specifically, the third design is to start every impulse with two extra emails. The first email is the phasing player stating what his action choices are (one per major power). The second email is the non-phasing player setting his SOs.

As usual ideas breed ideas. I am happy with this design. The only bits missing are the bombers flying naval air and ground support and the fighters escorting them.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is a prosed interface for SO 4. It builds on the SO 5 description immediately above.

============================
SO 4 CAP
(as of August 21, 2005)

We can use the same interface as for SO 5 (Defensive air support for land or naval units and factories), making just a couple of changes. There would be no need to fly escort, nor would we need to worry about bombers for naval air missions and ground support. Another factor that should be added is whether the target hex is only within range flying CAP or if it can be reached as an interceptor (using SO 5). The latter is usually preferred since it doesn’t commit the fighter unless the enemy actually flies the air mission against the hex. Sometimes the player wants to fly CAP as a means of rebasing a fighter (1) without using a air mission when he is the phasing player or (2) if the end of turn is imminent and he might not get another chance.

There are some additional factors which could be woven into the decision rules that the AI Assistant uses: impulse number, estimated number of impulses remaining, current weather, and expected weather next turn. Rather than clutter up the decision rules though, I propose to just assume these are part of the knowledge the player has when setting the SO. Therefore, they will not be taken into consideration by the AIA.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is my proposed interface to SOs 11 and 14.

=======================
SO 11 Naval Movement Interception & SO 14 Naval Combat Initiation
(as of August 21, 2005)

Both SO 11 and SO 14 relate to the non-phasing player initiating naval combat. In particular, SO 11 Naval Movement Interception is in PBEM 10.3.3 Naval interception (Rules 11.4.6) and SO 14 Naval Combat Initiation is in PBEM 10.5 Naval combat initiated by non-phasing player (Rules 11.6). I propose a common interface for these SOs. In addition, I propose that after setting one of these SOs, the player can automatically have the other set to be identical (two for the price of one!). In many cases, that will be all the player has to do. However, at times, the player will want one of them to be slightly different. Using the feature to automatically make them identical will still be very useful. Essentially, it will clone the first one, and the player will then only need to make small modifications to the second.

Following on the way the air units are handled with all eligible air units placed in column running down the left hand side, we will have eligible sea areas running down the left hand side. For each sea area that: (1) has friendly naval units that could intercept, (2) where the enemy might incite naval movement interception or naval combat initiation by the non-phasing player, and (3) where the weather permits naval interception/combat, the name of the sea area will appear in a column of small boxes on the left hand side of the screen.

The player can place the cursor over any of these sea areas to bring up a display of what units both he and the enemy have in those sea areas. The display will also include any naval air and fighters that either currently have, or could be given, SOs to join in a naval combat in that sea area. And lastly, the enemy units (both naval and air) that might attempt to run through or be placed in the sea area will be shown. If the fog of war option is being used, the potential enemy units won’t contain much solid information. This is not only because the strength factors of the enemy units are unknown but also the range of the enemy units is unknown. What that means is that the AIA might show 2 carriers that can reach the sea area - if they are carriers that have a range of 6. In reality, the carriers might have a range of 4 and could not participate in combat. But that’s what the fog of war is all about.

The other piece of information that will be shown is the sea boxes that the units are currently in or could reach. This is crucial for making a judgment about whether the search rolls will succeed and the number of surprise points each side might garner. Note that so far, the AI has only supplied data that the player could put together himself if he checked out all the units in the vicinity of the sea area. Based on all these ‘facts’. The player decides whether to intercept or initiate combat. The player also specifies the unit(s) that will perform the search. In the case of interception, there might be several interception attempts if several enemy naval groups wander through the sea area. Intercepting units are given a priority (1st, 2nd, etc.).

In order to give the player a little more control, there will be a few conditional parameters the player can set. These concern two elements: a desire to attack weak or valuable enemy units (transports containing infantry) and a desire not to get slaughtered (don’t commit suicide).

The interface will let the player set what the acceptable odds are for engaging different enemy units: (1) AMPH, TRS, or SCS loaded with land units that can invade, (2) AMPH or TRS loaded with other units, (3) empty AMPH or TRS, (4) carrier, (5) battleship, (6) subs, and (7) other. For each of these 7 cases the player can set minimal odds for engagement or that the unit type(s) should be avoided. This lets the player go after enemy carriers, battleships, and subs or avoid engaging them.

The odds will be a simple calculation rather than something that takes into consideration all the possible permutations of air. surface, and sub combat in different sea boxes with different surprise factors including weather. The goal here is to give the player a sense of how good or bad the combat outcome is likely to be, not a precise mathematical statement of probabilities of inflicted and incurred build point losses as a ratio. It either looks good or it doesn’t. That’s how a player makes the decision over the board anyway. The ratings will be: double plus, plus, equal, minus and double minus. You might want to risk a double minus against an invasion task force but only go after the carriers if you have a double plus.

To calculate the what the outcomes (double plus, et al) are likely to be, the AIA will
∙ make a judgment about which sea boxes will be involved,
∙ which type of combat will be used (air, surface, or sub), and
∙ the likely casualties for both sides in terms of X, D, A, and AA results.

In doing this, the AIA will assume that the type of combat chosen will be air, sub, and surface in that order. So, if an air combat is possible, given the units in the sea boxes engaged, then the AIA assumes it will be an air combat. And a similar determination will be make for sub combat next. If neither air nor sub occur, then it will be a surface combat.

Expected AA losses will be translated to X, D, and A. After converting the AA losses, the AIA will calculate all losses and evaluate each X as 4 points, each D as 3 and each A as 1. The expected type of unit that suffers the loss will NOT be taken into consideration. If the expected enemy losses are 10 points more than yours, then it is a double plus combat. 5 to 9 points more is a plus combat; 4 to -4 is an equal combat, -5 to -9 is a minus combat and lower than -10 is a double minus.

One last bit, the player will need to specify if he intends to use his subs or not. That will let the AIA use that information in the above calculation. Note that this does not commit the subs to the combat. The non-phasing player gets to decide that in a separate email. The information about the player’s intentions to commit his subs in the SO do not force him to commit his subs during the actual combat. The player provides his intention for the sole purpose of making the odds calculation more accurate.

I think that wraps this up, at least until play testing points out it weaknesses. Or perhaps you see something stupid about this approach that I missed?

[Froonp]

This looks pretty good to me. Do you see any holes?

Playtest will tell.

anyway, there's point 6.2 where I'd like the SO to also give the choice to rebase so that it can defend from strategic bombings next turns. 6.2 talks about frontlines, maybe it could talk either of the frontline, or the factories.

[Froonp]

Your point about adding more variables is in keeping with my general goal of providing the player with flexibilty. On the other hand, this system seems pretty solid already. I think maybe a couple of other optional settings: (1) don't fly if the odds against surviving are too awful, (2) send only 1 plane against 1 plane, (3) send more than 1 plane against more than 1 plane, and (4) don't fly if the enemy mission is too weak to do any damage. These might be a pop up menu that is displayed once the player has set the priority for the target hex.

Or it can be like point 7 of the Return to base SO, that is something always visible in the SO interface.

[Froonp]

Here is a prosed interface for SO 4. It builds on the SO 5 description immediately above.

I'm sorry, I can't find the SO 5 immediately above.

[Froonp]

There are some additional factors which could be woven into the decision rules that the AI Assistant uses: impulse number, estimated number of impulses remaining, current weather, and expected weather next turn. Rather than clutter up the decision rules though, I propose to just assume these are part of the knowledge the player has when setting the SO. Therefore, they will not be taken into consideration by the AIA.

One thing that might help the player, would be some sort of "Air Threat Calculator".
That would be an interface that the player would be able to call at any times. In this interface, he specifies an hex (or a sea area) and an enemy air threat (ground strike, Port attack, Strategic bombing, Ground Support, Naval Air, Paradrop, have I forgotten any one ?), and the game tells him (better : shows him the actual units by shading them on the map) the total factors that can threaten the designated hex with the designated attack type.
The Calculator could also tell you on a given hex the maximum potential Air to Air Combat value that the enemy can have, and better yet, also tell you own maximum potential Air to Air Combat value.
I think that such a "Air Threat Calculator" can be a good addition to the game, both for assessing the SOs and also for regular play.
Regards

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Your point about adding more variables is in keeping with my general goal of providing the player with flexibilty. On the other hand, this system seems pretty solid already. I think maybe a couple of other optional settings: (1) don't fly if the odds against surviving are too awful, (2) send only 1 plane against 1 plane, (3) send more than 1 plane against more than 1 plane, and (4) don't fly if the enemy mission is too weak to do any damage. These might be a pop up menu that is displayed once the player has set the priority for the target hex.

Or it can be like point 7 of the Return to base SO, that is something always visible in the SO interface.

This item, conditionals on when to fly / not fly, is specific to a selected air unit and a specific mission type. If it were always visible, which unit and mission type it related to would be unclear. That is why I had it as a pop up menu, that appears once an air unit has been selected to defend against a mission type.

Where the menu should appear I hadn't given any thought to. It could be where ever the cursor is (like most pop up menus) or in a fixed location attached to the left hand column. Since these are part of each SO 5, your suggestion is a good one. It should always appear when a player is reviewing his SOs! That leads me to placing it to the right of the mission type boxes attached to the left hand column. It would be a 'flyout' display that changes when the player places the cursor overs a mission type for a specific air unit. It would disappear when the player moves the cursor off the mission type. Expanding on this thought, perhaps the player could have a control button that would make the settings for all the air units appear for a specified mission type. That is, "show all the conditional settings for when to fly / not fly for the mission type "ground strike". The program would then display these settings for every air unit.

Just to review, the left hand columns would be, reading from left to right:
1. Small buttons for changing the map view (POVs)
2. Units under consideration (these could be units being placed on the map during set up, or, in the case we are discussing here, air units being given SO 5 for defending against enemy air missions)
3. 10 boxes for each air unit that indicate whether the player has / can set a SO 5 for each of the different enemy air mission types for that air unit, and
4. a fly out display for each air unit that shows the conditional settings for when the air unit flys / does not fly to defend against the enemy air mission type.

It seems like a lot, but only the first column would remain once the player stops entering/reviewng SO 5 settings.

The more I think about SOs the more I want to give the player the ability to fine tune them. At some point I lose patience, and say, "Enough, no more details". At the same time, the decisions a player makes as the non-phasing player are not trivial. They can make a major difference in the outcome of a game. This leads me back to finer detail. And then I hear the echo of players saying: "I don't want to write a book, I just want to play the game", which brings me back to less detail.

In the end, I hope the system (1) permits fine tuning but doesn't require it and (2) has an interface that lets the details be controlled and reviewed painlessly.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Here is a prosed interface for SO 4. It builds on the SO 5 description immediately above.

I'm sorry, I can't find the SO 5 immediately above.

My mistake. I was refering to post #62 and my reply #68 which were discussing the interface for SO 5, Defensive air support for land or naval units and factories.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

There are some additional factors which could be woven into the decision rules that the AI Assistant uses: impulse number, estimated number of impulses remaining, current weather, and expected weather next turn. Rather than clutter up the decision rules though, I propose to just assume these are part of the knowledge the player has when setting the SO. Therefore, they will not be taken into consideration by the AIA.

One thing that might help the player, would be some sort of "Air Threat Calculator".
That would be an interface that the player would be able to call at any times. In this interface, he specifies an hex (or a sea area) and an enemy air threat (ground strike, Port attack, Strategic bombing, Ground Support, Naval Air, Paradrop, have I forgotten any one ?), and the game tells him (better : shows him the actual units by shading them on the map) the total factors that can threaten the designated hex with the designated attack type.
The Calculator could also tell you on a given hex the maximum potential Air to Air Combat value that the enemy can have, and better yet, also tell you own maximum potential Air to Air Combat value.
I think that such a "Air Threat Calculator" can be a good addition to the game, both for assessing the SOs and also for regular play.
Regards

Yes. Indeed, like most good ideas, it is obvious now that you mention it. I need to code this for the AI Opponent anyway, so letting the player call it up doesn't require much more effort.

I will copy this post to the Game Interface thread, just so I don't lose the idea amongst all the SO discussion.

[c92nichj]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

The more I think about SOs the more I want to give the player the ability to fine tune them. At some point I lose patience, and say, "Enough, no more details". At the same time, the decisions a player makes as the non-phasing player are not trivial. They can make a major difference in the outcome of a game. This leads me back to finer detail. And then I hear the echo of players saying: "I don't want to write a book, I just want to play the game", which brings me back to less detail.

The part of the standing orders that I am most concerned about is, the one you mention above. I definately don't want to write a book, and I don't really want my opponent to write a book either. Instead of tinkering with what each single air unit should do, I would like to give a general order to a theatre, you can then use that general order, as input to whatever code you are writing for the AI. In this way you could reuse the same code for the AIA and the AI.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: c92nichj

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
The more I think about SOs the more I want to give the player the ability to fine tune them. At some point I lose patience, and say, "Enough, no more details". At the same time, the decisions a player makes as the non-phasing player are not trivial. They can make a major difference in the outcome of a game. This leads me back to finer detail. And then I hear the echo of players saying: "I don't want to write a book, I just want to play the game", which brings me back to less detail.

The part of the standing orders that I am most concerned about is, the one you mention above. I definately don't want to write a book, and I don't really want my opponent to write a book either. Instead of tinkering with what each single air unit should do, I would like to give a general order to a theatre, you can then use that general order, as input to whatever code you are writing for the AI. In this way you could reuse the same code for the AIA and the AI.

I have several thoughts in response to your post.

The concept of a theater of operations (TOO) has come up several times. In fact, I use the term myself a lot. How to identify a TOO is something I hadn't resolved. Trying to base it on historical TOO runs into the problem that the geographical region of a TOO evolved over time, with rear areas becoming front lines and vice-a-versa. So I think a simple way might be to let the player set the detailed map to encompass what he considers a TOO at any point in the game. Given that the map can be resized and the scale of the map changed using zoom in and out, the player can simply modify the current point of view (POV) until he has just what he wants to consider a TOO displayed on the screen. It would need to be a rectangular shape, but it could be tall and narrow (Germany - USSR front), short and wide (North Africa), or square-ish (China). By assigning a POV code/name, the player could bring up that POV/TOO whenever he wants, at the click of a button. He could also redefine it easily as the game progresses.

This resolves the first part of your idea, selecting a theater (and the units therein) to which a general order applies.

Choosing a general order from a list is the part I have the most difficulty with. Even in the most obvious cases where a general order would apply (USSR at the start of Barbarossa: Retreat!) there seems to always be exceptions. 90% of the army, navy, or air force may be following one general order while the other 10% is doing something quite different. If the AIA applies the general order to 100% of the forces, that is exactly when the enemy can exploit the AIA doing something stupid (Why did the AIA retreat from Leningrad? OR Why did the AIA hold on to that overextended part of the front line when the enemy clearly could isolate it?). Similar laments could be made about how the air units are handled. I used the examples about the land units because they are easier to understand.

One of my petty complaints with computer systems in general is with things being done 'automatically'. What that really means is that some programmer somewhere at some time decided how things were going to be done for you, and you now have no say in the matter, regardless of circumstances. I try hard to not be that programmer. But that doesn't help solve your concern about not wanting to write a book (or waiting for your opponent to write one).

On the plus side, most standing orders will evolve over time. That is to say, the players will be starting from their previous standing orders and just updating them to reflect changes in the position. The most obvious time for updates is when reinforcements arrive at the front line. However, even then the majority of standing orders will probably remain unchanged. You will still want to defend (or not defend) against the same things you defended against last turn: strategic bombing, port attacks, ground strikes, and so on. I guess what I am saying is that the book will not be written each turn but merely edited. One of the worst cases will be starting Barbarossa where there are numerous units on both sides and absolutely no existing standing orders. Other places where a lot of SOs will need to be written are when the US enters the war, or whenever war is declared on a major power. I sort of think that is the way it should be though. Those are situations where the players take a lot of time in over the board play. To my way of thinking it is mostly about "getting your head on straight" to deal with the massively changed circumstances.

What I can provide in lieu of a "general order", is the ability to select a group of units and give them all the same SO. You could start with a TOO and maybe exclude some of the units to which the SO will not be applied. You then enter the SO and voila!, all the selected units are tasked to do the same thing. You still need to make detailed decisions (say, identifying and prioritizing which hexes in the front line receive ground support) but each decision can be applied to a bunch of units at once. I can also let you 'clone' a SO: taking the SO of one unit and copying it to another unit. Being able to clear all SOs for a unit will be of help too. Still, all I am doing here is making the entry and editing of SOs easier. I am not giving you the ability to simply give a "general order".

I just keep coming back to the fact that a "general order" will need to have too many specific details to be considered general. You could make your case for general orders stronger if you could give a bunch of examples of what they would be, situations where they would apply, and how the AIA should process them.