Wishlist

[Jafele]

@Berto: good luck with your "retirement". Only watching this wishlist it´s obvious you won´t be bored for the rest of your life. [:D]

[Crossroads]

Keep them ideas and wishes coming guys, he's got more time now [8D]

[Big Ivan]

Berto and Jason, please jump in and let me know your opinion on the following new ideas.

In another post I talked about range display in the editor and range display in a scenario for off-board artillery,
so I won't dwell on it here.

But a few new ideas that come to mind that I would like to see in future updates to CSME and the games to come down the road if possible.

1.) Scheduled dialog and Forces dialog box need to be windowed in such a way so you can change their size if the user sees fit.
These boxes in CSME/JTCS are fixed and it sure would be nice to be able to change their size.

2.) Real Fog-of-War: In almost all the scenarios in the CS series there is no provision or consideration for what is going on outside of the playing map that a user is provided.
By that I mean there is in any one scenario you play things that are happening off map that can or cannot have direct bearing on the battle you are playing.

Say as an example you are playing with an American Tank battalion & Infantry battalion somewhere on the northern sector of the Battle of the Bulge. You have your forces
on map at start, know where the objective hexes are, have a rough idea of the enemy force composition, have a little bit of basic fog-of-war at hand and finally the will to fight
so your troops move forward to engage the enemy. But just imagine for a minute that on turn 3 a Command Dialog Box pops up at the start of your turn where your
Division/Corps commander is telling you that Company C of your tank battalion and Company B of your infantry battalion need to move off board on your left flank to go
an assist an action over there that you cannot see! In retrospect if you do this by a certain turn you gain victory points, if not then maybe your point tally for getting a
minor or major victory is increased because you didn't follow orders soon enough! To further give the structure of the unknown more credence, say you execute your command orders,
get units off the board gain a few victory points and because you did this Division HQ is happy and later on (some turns down the road)sends you some random reinforcements
or even better the troops you exited return! If something like this could be done with the CS series it would make game play that much more interesting and possibilities
endless. It doesn't have to end with exiting units only. Say a command tells you to go occupy a town or a hill for a time and then return to the battle.

Don't think you could change existing scenarios but for new creations it could bring another whole facet to the game IMHO.

3.) Reinforcements: Right now they can arrive on a predetermined turn with a predetermined probability. For future series could this be randomized more by the game engine
where turn and probability are further randomized?

As an example, you are the designer and you have a tank company is a reinforcement that you want to bring on. The scenario is 18 turns long. You have the option in the
reinforcement dialog with checking a box to bring them on early (turns 1-6), middle (turns 7-12) and late (turns 13-18). Then you have a box to check for probability
of arrival at low (1-33%), medium (34-66%) and high (67-100%). On each turn then the game preforms a randomizer check to see if a scheduled reinforcement will arrive based
on the criteria you selected in the turn of play. Say you checked early and high probability then somewhere between turns 1-6 your force would arrive with higher probability
each turn that you get closer to turn 6. In this way you would never really know in what turn your reinforcement would arrive if it even arrives at all on the turn range you
selected.

4.) Random airstrike out of line of site. Right now airstrikes are plotted in your turn with ground units being able to see the hex they want to strike. Could this be further
modified where at the beginning of your next turn after plotting the airstrike hits in a hex you cannot possible see telling you in a dialog box that 2 SP's of units were destroyed on or
around a hex 15 hexes away from your nearest ground units and totally out of any line of sight. If this could be done it would add further fog-of-war to the game on airstrikes.

Thanks

John

[Deepstuff3725]

Those are great ideas, John. Thanks for sharing.

With these enhancements a scenario would have more randomness, variability, chaos, unpredictability.... Much like real warfare, I imagine. Being able to play a scenario and have it really seem like the scenario was just part of a larger picture with chaos, and a war going on outside the map at the same time, is a great concept.

Adding these as "options" would be ideal, so players can play a scenario with or without these added features.

Jeff

[Jason Petho]

Then you'll both be quite pleased with the plan ahead.

Thank you for your input, gentlemen!

[Big Ivan]

Jason,

If it would make you work faster, maybe I can ship over, past Canadian customs, a couple of liter's of Jack Daniel's to celebrate your optimistic post and to the new and vastly improved CS coming down the road.

Cheers!
John[;)]

[berto]

ORIGINAL: Jason Petho

Then you'll both be quite pleased with the plan ahead.

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: Big Ivan

... maybe I can ship over, past Canadian customs, a couple of liter's of Jack Daniel's ...

I think that ish a shpen, err, a schplendid, (hiccup), , I mean, an exsh... egshellent, I mean (hiccup), a most grand idea!

[Jadasong]

Maybe I just haven't figured out how to do it, but I'd like to see some way of knowing what actual unit is being carried by a vehicle. I'm forever transporting the wrong unit to the wrong place because I can't see if it's an Infantry platoon or ATGM in the truck!

[Jason Petho]

If you right click on the vehicle in the Unit List (the area where the units are listed on the right hand side) it will display what unit is being carried in the loaded vehicle.

[Jafele]

Is it possible a more marked hex contourns, perhaps like those in JT PzBattles? This is the only thing I miss in the map.

[berto]

We're planning to redo 2D contours something like that.

[zoikkis]

I haven't read thru the manual yet but is it possible to have the numbers on 2d counters coloured to reflect the change in values? For example when my unit suffers strength loss, that number would be shown in red when it is under it's original strength. Or when I lose morale, that number would also be shown in red but if boosted by a leader the number would be coloured blue etc. This would make it easier to quickly see in 2D view which units have suffered penalties or are getting boosted. Bit like they already are shown in the infobox but without the need to click each individual unit to be able to see the changes.

[Crossroads]

That's a neat idea, and maybe something for us to consider in the new Unit Cards that appear in the Hex Infobox on the right side.

Relying on colors (only) to show information is against design principles for developing an user interface that folks with color impairment can feel right at home too. But something like showing the value and an amount of percentage next to it might do the same perhaps. Something to consider for sure! [:)]

[berto]

ORIGINAL: zoikkis

I haven't read thru the manual yet but is it possible to have the numbers on 2d counters coloured to reflect the change in values? For example when my unit suffers strength loss, that number would be shown in red when it is under it's original strength. Or when I lose morale, that number would also be shown in red but if boosted by a leader the number would be coloured blue etc. This would make it easier to quickly see in 2D view which units have suffered penalties or are getting boosted. Bit like they already are shown in the infobox but without the need to click each individual unit to be able to see the changes.

[my original response copied from here]:

ORIGINAL: berto

Problem: Across the many nations, across the games in the Series, so many different nation counter colors. Sooner or later, there is sure to be a counter color that matches (exactly or closely) the non-black unit stat color (red, blue, whatever). Then the unit stat will blend together with the counter color, rendering it invisible.

We could try putting white (or ?) outlines around the unit stats. Or setting them inside a wider (white ?) circle. At the expense of using up additional precious counter space, leaving less room for other on-counter eye candy.

Moreover, the fancier we make the counters, like for example color coding the unit stats, the more processor and time intensive it makes displaying the counters. This will slow down map scrolls and game displays.

We need to be judicious in how fancy we get with this stuff.

But yes, good suggestions anyway.

The outlines, circles, etc. would not work at the smaller zooms, because for sure with the smaller counters there is not enough spare counter space!

[zoikkis]

I was also thinking some little box or circle behind the number. If it is eating a lot of cpu, it could be optional (Options-> Counter Stats -> Hide Counter Stats / Show Counter Stats / Show Counter Stats with coloring). Also I would say it is only needed for zoom levels "4" and "5".

Or, if the number coloring is too complicated to do in practice, maybe some other small indicator to the counter to indicate that the unit has taken damage/morale loss.

[budd]

I played a random battle last night and thought it would be nice for more input choices. Map size, force composition, can't remember if you can choose turn length or time of day but those would be good also.

Question: is there anyway to get all your reinforcements or placing your initial forces all at once? Instead of one at a time, am I missing something and this is already possible. Always wanted to ask as I have been placing my forces one at a time for years.

[berto]

The random battle generator is not original JT code. It works, more or less, but it could be improved. On the to-do list, but not anywhere near the top.

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: **budd**

Question: is there anyway to get all your reinforcements or placing your initial forces all at once? Instead of one at a time, am I missing something and this is already possible. Always wanted to ask as I have been placing my forces one at a time for years.

Not possible, unfortunately. A popular wish for sure! One day, hopefully, when we finally get to attack the Front End code, which as Berto posted, was done by an unknown Talonsoft programmer on top of, or at the front of, the core game engine.

[Jafele]

The setting of enable/disable "labels" is not memorized once you exit the game. Would be cool to fix it for the 1.03 patch.