Matrix Games Forums

A couple of thoghts:

--- People ask me what I do for a hobby, and when I reply "wargames" they roll their eyes and chuckle. I think they assume that all of us are playing Mario Brothers or Tomb Raider at every opportunity. In nearly thirty years of wargaming I have had to learn thousands of pages of very detailed manuals. In order to improve the gaming experience I've purchased dozens of books for additional background information. I have conversed with a large number of highly intelligent fellow gamers and have benefitted from their experiences. The brain exersize will probably stave off senility for a few years (with any luck), so I don't feel at all ashamed of having spent so many hours gaming.

--- In the old days of board gaming I used to dream of having a pc that would do all of the administrative work (logistics, dice rolls, etc.) that made the larger games so tedious. Of course, it didn't hurt that a pc did not require a 4X8 sheet of plywood for a map base, either. But I find that in a lot of the "big" wargames -- WITP, AACW, the HPS campaign games, etc. -- the gamer has to keep an armful of notes and charts handy in order to keep a handle on the game. I think that AACW is excellent as is, but a few player aids, such as the one proposed by LRRP above, would be a great help. I don't think it's AGEOD's responsibility to provide them, necessarily (and they have done a fantastic job in supporting the game), and I'm sure there are other players who will come up with solutions. My everlasting gratitude will go to those who do.[&o]

But it is much easier for the programmers to facilitate a remedy much easier than an outsider.

In both AACW and FoF case, either one is easily "windowed" back to the desktop to use whatever addt'l notekeeping program that you have available on your computer, including but not limited to Notepad, Word, Excel, etc. So in the case of FoF and AACW, I would much prefer the programmer(s) concentrate on improving actual gameplay than reinventing the wheel for data storage. If the capability to "window out" was not in these games, then I would agree with wanting "in game" note capabilities, but as it is, I would rather the programmers spend their time on improving the gaming aspects and bug removal.

ORIGINAL: Gray_Lensman

In both AACW and FoF case, either one is easily "windowed" back to the desktop to use whatever addt'l notekeeping program that you have available on your computer, including but not limited to Notepad, Word, Excel, etc. So in the case of FoF and AACW, I would much prefer the programmer(s) concentrate on improving actual gameplay than reinventing the wheel for data storage. If the capability to "window out" was not in these games, then I would agree with wanting "in game" note capabilities, but as it is, I would rather the programmers spend their time on improving the gaming aspects and bug removal.

True enough up to a point ......
It assumes that the programmer built in the means to extract game info into some other tool for the "players" to manipulate. In most cases they do not, for a variety of reasons. I believe alot of complaints would stop (or at least change to other topics [:D]) if the game data (for some portion of it) was exportable to Excel ......

A lot of game data is available to Excel, especially tab delimited text files. You just have to know how to use Excel to load up delimited .txt files which is not so hard to figure out. Both of these games (FoF and AACW) are great examples of programmers making game data directly available to the gamer to observe and/or modify. Now, the point about getting at the savegame information, is well taken, and WITP was a great example of gamers coming together to develop useful utilities to get at that type of information, so I have no argument against making something available to extract that type of information, but to suggest that the programmer(s) add notekeeping capabilities, etc., when the gamer can do it himself, with at a minimum, Notepad, is a bit too much to put on the programmer(s), especially in the admitedly small market niche that our wargaming hobby is in, sales wise.

Scout1, exportable data is what I'm after, and it would be more for AAR/Post-Game Monday morning quarterbacking than for in game notekeeping.

I've always enjoyed being able to review a game I've played, in the form of a IL-2 track, box score for a sports sim or the screencap gifs in TOW III. I sure don't use it as a serious tool for improving play, for I'm the definition of a duffer at these games.

BTW, Mr. Boats, the BloodyBucket moniker is for my dad, 110/28th, 2nd Bn, "E" Co.
He was a BAR gunner, survived the Hurtgen Forest battle, was made a POW during the "Bulge". Sort of a small tribute.

ORIGINAL: TheBloodyBucket

Scout1, exportable data is what I'm after, and it would be more for AAR/Post-Game Monday morning quarterbacking than for in game notekeeping.

I've always enjoyed being able to review a game I've played, in the form of a IL-2 track, box score for a sports sim or the screencap gifs in TOW III. I sure don't use it as a serious tool for improving play, for I'm the definition of a duffer at these games.

BTW, Mr. Boats, the BloodyBucket moniker is for my dad, 110/28th, 2nd Bn, "E" Co.
He was a BAR gunner, survived the Hurtgen Forest battle, was made a POW during the "Bulge". Sort of a small tribute.

Actually, looking at one of the *.trn files, it is a txt based file. Just pulled it into Excel for giggles. Turn file was too big as is to bring all of it in, but one first step would be to identify just what the various fields/cells represent. Once you know what you have and where it's at, slicing and dicing in Excel isn't too hard .......
Has anyone posted/listed what the various fields represent within one of the trn files ?

ORIGINAL: TheBloodyBucket

Scout1, exportable data is what I'm after, and it would be more for AAR/Post-Game Monday morning quarterbacking than for in game notekeeping.

I've always enjoyed being able to review a game I've played, in the form of a IL-2 track, box score for a sports sim or the screencap gifs in TOW III. I sure don't use it as a serious tool for improving play, for I'm the definition of a duffer at these games.

BTW, Mr. Boats, the BloodyBucket moniker is for my dad, 110/28th, 2nd Bn, "E" Co.
He was a BAR gunner, survived the Hurtgen Forest battle, was made a POW during the "Bulge". Sort of a small tribute.

BTW, I forgot in my last post ...... My compliments to your Dad and his effort [&o]