Play by Email (PBEM) for MWIF

[Greyshaft]

Your suggested sequence clarifies a lot of issues for me, however I still see a need for Air Combat to be controlled by sequential emails in Combined Turns .


EXAMPLE 1:
If my CW fleet plus some Land Based Air can retake control of the English Channel during the Naval Movement phase THEN the German Panzer sitting in Portsmouth is out of supply so I'll ground strike him THEN if he flips I'll attack him with some Ground Support from Air units. But if I can't take control of the English Channel THEN I won't do the ground strike or the land attack. If I take control of the Channel but the subsequent Ground Strike fails THEN I won't do the land attack which creates three decision points for releasing the Air units tagged to provide Ground Support.

So my SO for these air units would need to cover alternative uses for these air units all through the turn... could get a bit complex to do in just one email


EXAMPLE 2:
Another valid tactic for a Combined Turn is to perform
* Port Attacks with Land based bombers followed by
* a bunch of unimportant Naval Actions followed by
* some strategic Bombardment followed by
* Carpet Bombing followed by
* Ground strikes.

This forces the enemy to commit their air reserves piecemeal so that when the Land Attack phase comes around there are no enemy air left to throw against my Land attacks. I appreciate that much of this will be covered by SO but I still see a need to have the Port Attacks /Naval Actions /Strategic Bombardment /Carpet Bombing completed before I am forced to declare my Ground strikes and Land Attacks.

So I see a Combined Action as much more complex than merely the sum of the parts of a Naval, Air and Land action. Have I missed something in your explanation?


Preplanned Decisions:
* Can we show our current PD to our allies to assist Team planning?
* Will the PD automatically impose unit movement/combat limits per Combined Turn restrictions?
* Will there be a PD helper where you can ask the AI for their suggestions as to what you should do in your turn - great learning tool!

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft
Your suggested sequence clarifies a lot of issues for me, however I still see a need for Air Combat to be controlled by sequential emails in Combined Turns .


EXAMPLE 1:
If my CW fleet plus some Land Based Air can retake control of the English Channel during the Naval Movement phase THEN the German Panzer sitting in Portsmouth is out of supply so I'll ground strike him THEN if he flips I'll attack him with some Ground Support from Air units. But if I can't take control of the English Channel THEN I won't do the ground strike or the land attack. If I take control of the Channel but the subsequent Ground Strike fails THEN I won't do the land attack which creates three decision points for releasing the Air units tagged to provide Ground Support.

So my SO for these air units would need to cover alternative uses for these air units all through the turn... could get a bit complex to do in just one email

EXAMPLE 2:
Another valid tactic for a Combined Turn is to perform
* Port Attacks with Land based bombers followed by
* a bunch of unimportant Naval Actions followed by
* some strategic Bombardment followed by
* Carpet Bombing followed by
* Ground strikes.

This forces the enemy to commit their air reserves piecemeal so that when the Land Attack phase comes around there are no enemy air left to throw against my Land attacks. I appreciate that much of this will be covered by SO but I still see a need to have the Port Attacks /Naval Actions /Strategic Bombardment /Carpet Bombing completed before I am forced to declare my Ground strikes and Land Attacks.

So I see a Combined Action as much more complex than merely the sum of the parts of a Naval, Air and Land action. Have I missed something in your explanation?

Preplanned Decisions:
* Can we show our current PD to our allies to assist Team planning?
* Will the PD automatically impose unit movement/combat limits per Combined Turn restrictions?
* Will there be a PD helper where you can ask the AI for their suggestions as to what you should do in your turn - great learning tool!

Example 1:
Standing Orders are only for the non-phasing player. This sequence of conditionals you pose seem to be for the phasing player. The phasing player always has direct control over his units. The only exception is 10.4.15 where I have the phasing player setting a SO for whether he is aborting a naval combat at the end of a round. There were several reasons I created this exception: (1) it fits in the back and forth exchange of email sequence, (2) having the phasing player suffer a little loss of control due to setting SOs seems reasonable, and (3) the phasing player will know a lot about the circumstances of the naval combat that just happened so he should be able to decide whether he wants to fight on or not.

Getting back to your sequence, the phasing player will know if he has control of the English channel before annoucing any ground strikes. He will know the result of the ground strikes before announcing any attacks. From the point of view of the phasing player, he is going through the sequence of play just as if the opponent were sitting opposite him and making the decisions as the non-phasing player. Instead of the opponent doing it directly, the AIA is doing it using SOs.


Example 2:
However, you raise an interesting issue that I had not thought out. That is, does the non-phasing player get to change his SOs between the Naval/Strategic/Land Action Phases of a combined? Just off the top of my head, I would say yes. This would mean that for a Combined Impulse:
the phasing player completes his Naval Action (this may involve several emails - N1 => N5),
the non-phasng player gets a chance to reset his SOs,
the phasing player completes his Strategic Action, (9.4 and 9.5 of email A1),
the non-phasing player gets a chance to reset his SOs,
the phasing player completes his Land Action (L1).

I am right. A combined turn is the sum of its parts. You are right. It also has to have those parts delivered in separate emails so the non-phasing player doesn't get horn-swaggled (cheated using dastardly means).

Preplanned Decisions:
Showing preplanned decision to Allies should be doable.
I would expect to make enforcement of the various Action limits (during PD) a toggle switch that the player could turn on or off whenever he wants.
The thought of integrating PD with the AIA causes my face to go into a grimace that lasts several minuutes.

[c92nichj]

I have read the pdf file and I have to say that I quite like what you have done, this have great potential.

Just a few comments,
a) when coding please leave in hooks in the naval phase for the AIA to make some decisions based on standard orders. There might be some smaller naval battles that can be handled without the exchange of emails, or the ability to make the choices for your opponent. In my most recent PBEM game for example a french task force was trapped in the Baltic it had sunken a few CP on the french impulse but later the germans decided to come out to play with a NAV the battle could be done by one player as the choices to make were pretty obvoius.

For example mail N2 would not be needed:
- No french plane in intercept range
- No french subs
- search is handled by eMWIF anyhow
- both sides found so no choice of seabox, even if there had been a choice, he would want to battle against the convoys instead of the NAV. That choice could be made by AIA
- french ship did not get any suprise points to spend.

Mail N4 is also possible to be handled by AIA:
- Take losses AIA could easily choose the worst ships for losses.
- He cannot abort since the baltic is closed.

The same type of battle can happen in forexample an italian sub raid in the atlantic or a surface attack on some farflung convoy chain. the most important decision in those cases are usually if I want to abort combat or not.

For bigger naval battles I think your model works fine. more emails than I'm used to though.

Nicklas

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: c92nichj
I have read the pdf file and I have to say that I quite like what you have done, this have great potential.

Just a few comments,
a) when coding please leave in hooks in the naval phase for the AIA to make some decisions based on standard orders. There might be some smaller naval battles that can be handled without the exchange of emails, or the ability to make the choices for your opponent. In my most recent PBEM game for example a french task force was trapped in the Baltic it had sunken a few CP on the french impulse but later the germans decided to come out to play with a NAV the battle could be done by one player as the choices to make were pretty obvoius.

For example mail N2 would not be needed:
- No french plane in intercept range
- No french subs
- search is handled by eMWIF anyhow
- both sides found so no choice of seabox, even if there had been a choice, he would want to battle against the convoys instead of the NAV. That choice could be made by AIA
- french ship did not get any suprise points to spend.

Mail N4 is also possible to be handled by AIA:
- Take losses AIA could easily choose the worst ships for losses.
- He cannot abort since the baltic is closed.

The same type of battle can happen in forexample an italian sub raid in the atlantic or a surface attack on some farflung convoy chain. the most important decision in those cases are usually if I want to abort combat or not.

For bigger naval battles I think your model works fine. more emails than I'm used to though.

Nicklas

Excellent points. But possibly hard to code. Oh, what the heck, I'm not doing anything anyway.

I have not given much thought to the AI Assistant (AIA). Once we get the game interface thread underway (sometime in the next couple of days), it will probably come up more often. With more instances of where we want the AIA to help out, I will have a better idea of how to design it.

[Greyshaft]

IV. The Pass, Air, and Land actions are done with a single (one, 1, uno) email. Naval actions might take a lot of emails because there are several for each round of each combat.

I think I presumed from your post that the Air portion of a Combined impulse must be completed in a single (one, 1, uno) email which is (on second reading) not what you said. I now understand that your point is completely silent on Combined Actions which may have multiple air-related emails.

Sumdayz ah sits and thinks and sumdayz ah jus’ sits…

[Shannon V. OKeets]

The design for the standing orders is complete and therefore so is the design for PBEM!

I have two PDF files available for anyone who is interested: Final PBEM Design and Final Standing Orders Design. They should be read side by side, which is why I have them as separate documents. I am not going to post them to this forum because the first is 10 pages long and the second is 20.

Just send me an email [Steve@PatternDiscovery.us] and I will send you the PDF files. I do not save the email addresses of people who request the various PDF files I am creating for MWIF. That is intentional. I think of them as one time letter (email) drops, never to be used again and discard them immediately after sending out the documents. So, if you asked for and received the draft copies of these documents, you need to send me another email for the final versions.

[vonpaul]

For cheating, have you considered a audit system. An audit file is attached(or even embedded) into the saved email that has all the actions taken by MWIF (up to 100 lines?), which your opponent if could review. Closing or reloading will not alter this audit log (write to it after each action). A full audit log could itself would be embedded into the game system files and available for export.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: vonpaul
For cheating, have you considered a audit system. An audit file is attached(or even embedded) into the saved email that has all the actions taken by MWIF (up to 100 lines?), which your opponent if could review. Closing or reloading will not alter this audit log (write to it after each action). A full audit log could itself would be embedded into the game system files and available for export.

I find your use of the term "audit file" confusing, probably because of all the other connotations for the word audit that are floating around in my head.

MWIF will maintain a "game record log" which records, at the atomic level, every change that occurs during a game that affects the game state. Moving land units around doesn't affect the game state until you commit to them. Moving a naval force through a sea area where the enemy has the option to attempt an interception does change the game state, whether the enemy attempts the interception or not. I am in the process of finalizing the definitions for all the type of entries that MWIF will write to the game record log. There are over 300 unique entry types already and I haven't done all the optional rules yet.

For PBEM games, it is the new entries to the game record log that will be sent in the email. A full copy of the current game state (i.e., a saved game) will probably be sent less often (perhaps once per turn). Both of these will be encrypted for security purposes and compressed for speed of transmission. Once I have finished defining all the entries, I will post a sample of them to the forum and make the full file available as a PDF to anyone who requests it. I hope to finish it up this month.

[vonpaul]

with a game record log, you can alway reload the game. I was thinking more along the lines of a program log, recording irespective of which game is being played(thus beating reload)

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: vonpaul
with a game record log, you can alway reload the game. I was thinking more along the lines of a program log, recording irespective of which game is being played(thus beating reload)

Au contraire.

Any action that should be irreversible causes a notification to be sent to the eMWIF program which resides on a 3rd party computer. eMWIF keeps track of the most recent entry # received for registered MWIF games. If you reload after, say, trying to run a naval task force by an occupied sea area (just to see if the opponent's Standing Orders are to intercept or not) then eMWIF's record of the last entry # will not match your reloaded game last entry # and your reload will be discovered.

By the way, I believe that if all the files reside on the player's computer, then restoring to last night's backup gets around any attempt by the game programmer to prevent cheating (via reloads) by writing stuff to the disk.

[Cheesehead]

I really like that you are building in a system to keep track of reloads so as to prevent cheating. but what happens if half-way through a turn in a PBEM your computer locks up or the power goes out and you have to restart your turn? Will this look like an attempt to beat the system?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Cheesehead
I really like that you are building in a system to keep track of reloads so as to prevent cheating. but what happens if half-way through a turn in a PBEM your computer locks up or the power goes out and you have to restart your turn? Will this look like an attempt to beat the system?

It shouldn't be a problem. There might be a 60 second interval where things could be properly sabotaged but if you are that unlucky, you don't want to be rolling dice anyway.

MWIF will maintain a file on disk of moves/decisions to which you have committed. I use the word committed here to mean that you can't undo them because they somehow involve the other player, either through use of your opponent's Standing Orders or because some random event took place (dice or drawing a chit). The file on disk is the game record log and when you finally complete all the moves/decisions for an email 'eturn', it is the new portion of the game record log that will be sent to your opponent as your emailed 'move'. It will include all the random numbers that have been provided by eMWIF as you played through your 'eturn'.

If the system should crash in the middle of play, you can restore the game state from a saved game + game record log. This is what your opponent is going to do when he receives your email/eturn. Indeed, it is what you will do everytime you receive your opponent's eturn. You will also be able to undo the game record log back to the point of a "committed move/decision". Those have been sent off to eMWIF and therefore are where trouble might occur. The circumstances under which things would get messed up are: (1) eMWIF has been notified of the committed move/decision, but (2) the storage of same in your copy of the game record log has been damaged and you can't restore the game to the same point that eMWIF has on record.

I'll worry about this some more when I get to writing the code. The sequence could be: write committed move/decision to log, close log file, notify eMWIF, recieve acknowledgement from eMWIF of receipt, open new temporary log file, show results to player, player continues eturn. The temporary log would be copied to the permanent log every time eMWIF is notified. There could be multiple copies of permanent logs maintained too, depending on my level of paranoia about crashing systems. By using a temporary log, any tragedy that occurs during play would only damage the temporary log, which by definition only contains entries that did not involve eMWIF. The copying and saving of these entries and files would be very fast and occur in less than a second.

I guess I also need to provide a capability for the players to jointly inform eMWIF of a desire to reset the game record log Entry #. eMWIF will not be maintaining a record of the game, just a little bit of dynamic information about who is playing what countries and where they are in the game (year, month, impulse, phase, subphase, etc.). So, eMWIF will be unable to restore a game. The players would have to agree to go back to a mutually saved point in the game (Entry #) and restart from there. eMWIF would need both players to inform it that they want to do that. This is similar to how a game ends. Both players need to agree to the end of game (unless there was an automatic victory achieved or an automatic end of game occurred) and exchange passwords so the encrypted game record log files can be decrypted for after action analysis and replay.

These questions force me to think things through more precisely and are of great benefit to me in writing the code. Up 'til now I had a hazy understanding of what I was going to do and was just waving my hands around in the air when 'discussing' this issue. Thanks.

[Cheesehead]

Thanks Steve.

I can't say enough how important it is to keep integrity in this game. Some people might read your last post and think "why go through all the trouble" because 90% of WiFers wouldn't think of cheating. But all it takes is one bad experience where an opponent "pulls something" on you and you may never want to play the game again. That happened to me in a game I really enjoyed. I played it many times without a hint of any transgressions...and then I played a guy who I figured, after doing the math, altered the game to his favor and clobbered me. I didn't have any interest in playing that game anymore.

[paladin4me]

PRobably off topic, but I want to mention it somewhere. PBEM is a must have, minimising e-mails would also be good but if there are 6 players there could be problems - some moves by one player need to be co-ordinated with others of the same phasing side. This will impact on what interactions of the non-phasing players will have. What I would like to have is 'hotseat' capability - ie someone hosts a game and other log in via internet. Increasing fuel costs may necessitate this type of game playing in the future - the guys I currently play WiF with have to travel some distance to get to my place every Friday night. while the human interaction is an important part of playing WiF, the future may dictate that this is too costly for those that need to travel some distance. The hotseat scenario (with common and axis/allie chat capability) would be a boon. Just my 2 bobs worth (for those that don't understand this saying then you're too young [:D]).

[c92nichj]

If you have a multiplayer PBEM I would like if there was an option to select what countries are played by which players.
Playing PBEM using Cyberboard we have discovered that game takes quite a bit of time for the French and CW player to coordinte their defence.
With four players I would like if you could have thoose for sides:
- USSR/China/ChiComs
- CW/France/US
- Germany/Italy
- Japan

This setup will reduce playtime as no detailed coordination is needed between allies. Strategic coordination is still needed ofcourse.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: c92nichj
If you have a multiplayer PBEM I would like if there was an option to select what countries are played by which players.
Playing PBEM using Cyberboard we have discovered that game takes quite a bit of time for the French and CW player to coordinte their defence.
With four players I would like if you could have thoose for sides:
- USSR/China/ChiComs
- CW/France/US
- Germany/Italy
- Japan

This setup will reduce playtime as no detailed coordination is needed between allies. Strategic coordination is still needed ofcourse.

Done. There are two ways to start a MWIF game, bidding for countries or assigning countries to players. If you are not using the bidding system, simply assign major powers to whomsoever you want. Even if you are using the bidding system, the controlling major power (of, say, France) can transfer control of all his units to another player (say, CW).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: paladin4me
PRobably off topic, but I want to mention it somewhere. PBEM is a must have, minimising e-mails would also be good but if there are 6 players there could be problems - some moves by one player need to be co-ordinated with others of the same phasing side. This will impact on what interactions of the non-phasing players will have. What I would like to have is 'hotseat' capability - ie someone hosts a game and other log in via internet. Increasing fuel costs may necessitate this type of game playing in the future - the guys I currently play WiF with have to travel some distance to get to my place every Friday night. while the human interaction is an important part of playing WiF, the future may dictate that this is too costly for those that need to travel some distance. The hotseat scenario (with common and axis/allie chat capability) would be a boon. Just my 2 bobs worth (for those that don't understand this saying then you're too young [:D]).

There are several modes of play for MWIF: Solitaire, Head to head, Internet, and PBEM. See post #28 in the thread When? in this forum for a draft opening/setup screen.

You might want to read the 5 posts under Directory for MWIF Forum too, for an overview of this forum.

[dhatchen]

While going over the PBEM and SO design documents that you sent me, I noticed one thing missing, the ASW pre-fire attack allowed before surface and submarine naval combats. This also includes some of the special capabilities of the late war SUBs.

Might I suggest the following insertions to the PBEM sequence of play.

1. ASW pre-fire attack

email N3 from phasing player
...
10.4.13 Phasing player chooses combat type, when permitted (Rules 11.5.7)
10.4.14 ASW Pre-fire attack (Rules 22.4.19) - eMWiF <--- new
10.4.15 Naval surface combat (Rules 11.5.8) - eMWiF <--- renumbered
continue

There would be no need of an SO for the non-Phasing player on this. The AIA would simply always attack if allowed by the rules and the circumstance.

2. Walther aborts

May voluntarily abort to a friendly port at the beginning of any round IMMEDIATELY after the Search dice are rolled.

email N2 from non-phasing player
...
10.4.6 Non-phasing player search (Rules 11.5.5) - eMWiF
10.4.7 MWiF determines who chooses combat type (Rules 11.5.7)
10.4.8 Walther SUB voluntary abort to port (Rules 22.4.19) <--- new
...
renumber rest and continue to
email N3 from phasing player
10.4.11 Walther SUB voluntary abort to port (Rules 22.4.19) <--- new
10.4.12 Phasing player chooses sea box, when permitted (Rules 11.5.5)
renumber
...

No SO would be required for these changes as the abort choice happens right after the search results are known but before anything else is. It would be important for the phasing player in N3 to see the die rolls but nothing else until the abort choice is made. Neither player has to wait nor is an extra email needed.

This is admittedly a lot of kludge for a late war rule that rarely sees action. Adding to the sequence of play in this manner plays the same whether there are Walthers in the sea area or not. MWiF only pauses for instruction if applicable.

The game log should have entries for this, but that is another post.

[dhatchen]

I cannot remember where I saw discussion on the game log, but since the PBEM uses it to track player actions, I will put it in this thread.

Suggested additions to the game log possible actions

4.4.5 Naval Combat
...
Including units and combat type
(for Walther aborts)
Entry#, [NCWA], Transaction#, SUB Unit#, Old Location, New Location
...
Pre-fire attack
Entry#, [NCPT], Transaction#, MWIF, ASW Factors, # of Ships/Targets (naval combat anti-air table)
Entry#, [NCPR], Transaction#, MWIF, ASW Roll# (naval combat anti-air roll)
...

For the Pre-fire attack, the results are handled like AA fire. For every 10pts 'X' result, for any remaining 5 'D' result, and Sub attack factors minus remainder less than 5.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

You are right that these are missing from the PBEM and the Game Record Log designs. Neither design includes the Convoy in Flames modifications to the sequence of play. At the time I developed them, I was working on the assumption that neither Cruisers in Flames of Convoys in Flames would be part of MWIF product 1. I lost those arguments with David Heath. I did manage to keep Leaders in Flames out of Product 1. That was because each of the 113 or so unique attributes of the leaders is a rule exception. Implementing it requires going into all the rules and inserting specific overrides for certain leaders in certain situations. A rather massive undertaking on top of everything else.

Still, I would have liked to have excluded Cruisers and Convoys so my task list would be shorter. But that decision is history, not to be reenacted.