AE Team

[Zacktar]

A big thank you to the entire AE team and to Matrix. [&o]

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen

ORIGINAL: TheElf

To be fair we only dealt with an online peanut gallery for a about a year and a half...though it feels longer.

Much longer....

I'd say roughly 900% longer...

[kmussler]

To the AE Team,
I first started playing wargames about 45 years ago. (And like Joe shared, I have studied the Pacific conflict for several decades and have the library to prove it.) I started by playing Avalon Hill and SPI games. Along the way I picked up (and still have) SPI's War in the Pacific. I spent many wonderful hours playing that game. Some years later, I got my first PC and was thrilled with Pac War. When I got WitP, I thought I was playing the ultimate Pacific War game. Well, gentlemen, I was wrong. Congratulations on a job well done. Your work of art called AE is beautiful to look at, yet has all the substance any true student of the Pacific conflict could want. Thank you so much for sharing your labor of love with us.

Kurt

[mussey]

Joe et al - This thread is incredibly insightful. It certainly hits the nail on the head and properly lays out your intended goals and decision-making behind the making of AE (Maybe we can make this into a reality show? [;)]). I've never seen a project with much consumer feedback. [:)] KEEP IT GOING!!

[mussey]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

AndyMac

My goodness - Andy came in rather late to the project - but has more than made up for his late arrival with his efforts. He started off taking charge of the British, Indian and Dutch (IIRC) OOBs.

When Treespider had to leave the project mid-stream (Tree eventuall returned in a different role) - Andy stepped up to take the Land Team Lead role (I'll bet he often regrets that decision!). This got him involved in most of the other Allied OOBs to some extent.

Then came the AI. Originally we thought it would be a simple matter to groom the existing scripts and plug in the new bases and units. For six months we tried this - and kept thinking "it is almost working". Then I got a call from Andy while at Origins last year - and he told me the AI was bad broke and could not be fixed. I don't recall the exact time table - but I wrote up a short 2 page spec - and sent over to Andy and James - they both liked it. I ran the idea by Erik he agreed (were we all crazy?) and we jumped off the cliff!!! We decided to ditch the AI processor - and write a new one! This also allowed us to pull the "scripts" out of the code and put them in the editor. This made scripting much easier - and now programmer involvement was not required.

Well it took about 3 months to get things "almost working" again - but now we knew we were controlling things and knew we could eventually solve any issues.

Well I won't bore everyone with the details - but here - over a year after we jumped off the cliff - we are now ready to let every one else try it out. I'm sure like any AI it can be beaten and it will get boring eventually - but it seems far more active than stock and I think it will entertain for some time. I'm currently trying Japanese against the AI and struggling

So, Andy is the guy that really drove making the AI work. I guess I was the initial "inspiration" and remained as a coach and cheerleader during the months - but James fixed the code and Andy fixed the scripts and they finally got it to work. Of course many team members contributed - especially Don - who had to keep helping out with the "nada-Naval AI"

But everyone who will play against the AI owns Andy (and James) their thanks - these guys are the ones who made the aeAI work!!!

Thanks Andeeee!!!

aeAIaeAIaeAI !!!

AndyMac Fanboy [&o]. I'm also adopting his native land as my home away from home.[X(]

[Historiker]

As I finally have the game, I have to say thank you to the AE team. Great work, really amazing!
Also thank you to Erik and Sean who helped me again and again!

[jwilkerson]

You know we should point out a fact that perhaps we take as obvious - but perhaps not everyone else thinks about. We - the AE Team - stand on some pretty broad shoulders.

Yes, we worked thousands of man hours on AE - probably many more hours than the original team - but maybe they worked more efficiently than we did [:)]. As I got into the code - I was amazed that it worked as well as it did - why? Because there really isn't that much of it - especially the "AI" code - in WITP that is. I think we wrote many more lines of code for the function points we added and changed - but then we are not Garys[:)].

As to the research, we had 10-12 guys doing what 1-2 guys did for the original and our guys (and maybe the originals) had been researching this war for 10-20-30 years in some cases. We probably win the "research" comparision - we smoothered the original effort with resources.

But when it comes to the overall efficiency of the WITP design - I would like to stand back and take my hat off to Gary, Keith and Michael Woods, the original programming team and say that I think in many ways their effort surpasses ours. It blazed the trail, it gave us the inspiration and hecque of course it gave us the code base. AE is what it is - and I think given the maginitude of changes it deserves it's "stands alone" rating - but we know we stand on the shoulders of those that came before us and we salute them!!! [&o][&o][&o]

[Admiral DadMan]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

You know we should point out a fact that perhaps we take as obvious - but perhaps not everyone else thinks about. We - the AE Team - stand on some pretty broad shoulders.

Yes, we worked thousands of man hours on AE - probably many more hours than the original team - but maybe they worked more efficiently than we did [:)]. As I got into the code - I was amazed that it worked as well as it did - why? Because there really isn't that much of it - especially the "AI" code - in WITP that is. I think we wrote many more lines of code for the function points we added and changed - but then we are not Garys[:)].

As to the research, we had 10-12 guys doing what 1-2 guys did for the original and our guys (and maybe the originals) had been researching this war for 10-20-30 years in some cases. We probably win the "research" comparision - we smoothered the original effort with resources.

But when it comes to the overall efficiency of the WITP design - I would like to stand back and take my hat off to Gary, Keith and Michael Woods, the original programming team and say that I think in many ways their effort surpasses ours. It blazed the trail, it gave us the inspiration and hecque of course it gave us the code base. AE is what it is - and I think given the maginitude of changes it deserves it's "stands alone" rating - but we know we stand on the shoulders of those that came before us and we salute them!!! [&o][&o][&o]

Concur.

While trying not to state the obvious, without WitP, there would not have been anything close to AE

[Andy Mac]

Yup what they achieved with the AI was spectaculer no idea how they managed it
 
We ended up brute forcing it

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Yup what they achieved with the AI was spectaculer no idea how they managed it

We ended up brute forcing it

Not surprising. I have a student working on a very simplified version of the problem using a very simplified model of the brain. It's enormous.

[crsutton]

I really have very little to complain about. AE is working so well for me.  Exxxceeepppppt......for maybe one thing.
 
If it can be done without major work, can the option to turn the "computer sub control" option off in the middle a pbem game be inplemented. It is my understanding that once set at the beginning you are stuck with this. I am six months into Pbemail and set computer sub control on without thinking when we started. My god, how it vexes me![:@] It is sort of like that scene in "Raising Arizona" where Nick Cage is trying to catch all of those babies. He no sooner gets one under control when three or four go scurrying off in different directions. I have found my subs in the strangest places and ugrading them is a nightmare. Please deliver me from this evil!
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2Pj_RCBhCo
 
 

[stuman]

It is sort of like that scene in "Raising Arizona" where Nick Cage is trying to catch all of those babies. He no sooner gets one under control when three or four go scurrying off in different directions. I have found my subs in the strangest places and ugrading them is a

crsutton I must admit that I would have never expected " Raising Arizona " to be used as an example in a war gaming forum. But it is a great analogy. Well done [:D]

[TOMLABEL]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Bill supported Kelley in this effort and together they have really made things look better.

ORIGINAL: TOMLABEL
And great support he has given!!![&o]

As already mentioned, Bill is just one of the great programmers we have on the team; however, he is one of several programmers on the team who understands us 'art' guys!!! We owe many kudos for his support given to all the crazy ideas us art guys came up with and finding a way (code-wise) to make it work! [&o][&o][&o]

Growing up with a professional photographer probably helped. I'm like Joe, I can't do much in the way of art, but having lived with one, I did gain some appreciation for the process of creating a visual presentation and the artwork in a game is important.

I have wondered if some people are subconsciously drawn to naval games over land games because of the calming blue map?

Doing the code was easy. I appreciate that I had someone as talented and easy to work with as you was doing the "hard part". [:)]

Bill

Bill, after over a year I have finally read through this thread thanks to Joe attaching it to his latest post.
You give me too much credit, but I thank you for your comments. Once again, I'll say that none of this was possible without your brilliant coding ideas!!!!!!!!!!!![&o][&o][&o]

[Andy Mac]

Who was it came up with the unit badges I loved those

[Skyros]

I think Halsey was a main player.

[Halsey]

There were about 6-7 main players that got the ball running on these.

They are credited in the detail notes in my comprehensive art packages.

Some specialized in naval, some in AGPs and others in LCUs.
Les has done great work with finishing touches and the Soviets.

I'm still chugging along on Allied AGPs, after almost a year.[:D]

[jeffk3510]

Where can I get those for my game [:)]

[Halsey]

Bump...

[Halsey]

Lest we forget...

To all those that sacrificed their personal lives for the sake of the best simulation ever produced.[&o][:D]

[morganbj]

Good grief, man. You make it sound like they're all dead. [&:]