Maps for MWIF

[Froonp]

Yes, I played CWiF, and you know what, I think it sucked. I thought it was completely unplayable and I cannot understand how anyone would sit through a 39-45 solitare campaign of it. And just because some feature was included in CWiF does not say anything whatsoever about whether it should be included in MWiF or not.

OK, you don't care about CWiF, and OK, you think CWiF sucks, and you are entitled to both, no problems for me.

But CWiF is what is closest to MWiF as it is, and CWiF gave us the opportunity to really test the single scale map (and the unlimited division breakdown, which was a n option you could toggle off) and its implications, and not only guess at them. So the experience gathered while playing CWiF can help making MWiF, don't you think so ?

As far as how to sit through a 39-45 solitaire campaign, we were playtesting the game, and we had to do it if we wanted the game to progress. Remember that this playtesting period lasted a few years, and a lot has been accomplished during those years. Moreover, I felt it was a fun experience, an experience that made you want to play real WiF with real people, but fun anyway.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Good. Please, thrash out the issue of divisions for MWIF. I have no opinion either way and hope you can find a resolution everyone agrees on. Is a compromise possible? We already have hundreds of specific rules relating to individual countries and special units, a few more can't hurt (too much).

I suggest that you focus on benefits and limitations of different solutions (pros and cons). Avoiding personal attacks will help the discussion. The best solution would have all the benefits and none of the limitations.

This is one of the issues I hoped to see discussed on this thread.

[Hortlund]

Well, as for the divisions.

I had always assumed that you would just take the counters from WiF (and ships in flames and planes in flames etc) and port them into MWiF. That way we will get all the units we need.

Did you have anything else in mind?

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

Well, as for the divisions.

I had always assumed that you would just take the counters from WiF (and ships in flames and planes in flames etc) and port them into MWiF. That way we will get all the units we need.

Did you have anything else in mind?

I agree with this.
But nevertheless, I found the unlimited divisions quite handy in CWiF. Corps breakdown is used the same way it is used in WiF FE, and breaking down large number of units in one's army never was an option. I fail to see the interest of doing so. Anyway, it had no downsides that's the reason why I liked it, let me just explain you why I liked it.
About the Japanese super (War) impulse and their limitation to the existing divisions, there is no problem with the rules of unlimited breakdown, because you still had to have an eligible corp to breakdown in the place where you want the division, so playing with this option needed planning as well as playing without.
Moreover, if we look at WiF's evolutions, division sized units did not exist at first, and when they appeared they never stopped being more & more numerous. I think it is a sign that tell they are useful, and the designer always add more.
Moreover, they are no game breaker, because even if you are good at breaking down corps to always have divisions to absorb the losses, you stilll have less corps on the map. In my mind, division breakdown need not to be unlimited to be a problem with soaking losses, it is already a problem without unlimited divisions breakdown.
I always thought that when playing with divisions, you should be playing with a rule saying that losses need to be corps sized, and a divisions should be worth half of a corps here too. Anyway, this is not (yet) in RAW. But I digress.

Cheers !

[Shannon V. OKeets]

One alternative that has been propsed is unlimited divisions. I know you do not like that alternative. what do you see as the pros and cons of these two choices:
(1) divisions as in RaW 7,
(2) unlimited divisions?

I could always code both and let the players select one as an option.

On the other hand, this leads back to the question of unified scale and the land war in China. What was the quote? "Never get involved in a land war in Asia."

[c92nichj]

Having played three PBEM games using the old CWIF and having a background as a programmer I would like to chip in.

First I do support a unified map scale, it does make a lot of sense that if the axis plans on attacking Russia through Iraq and Persia the scale shouldn't change half way there.
Secondly the war in Chine is dramatically different, it is very fluent and the supply problem are huge, the japaneese player have an edge early and when on the attack but so do China later in the game when Japoan had t6o focus on the allies.(one of the three games Japan conquered chine, one the chineese drove the japaneese back into the sea and one game ended prematurely but the chineese was in bad shape)
Some thing that slows the attacker down would be desirable. We didn't see an early war between Japan and Russia, so I'm not sure how that would play out.

Thirdly the map graphics definately needs to be improved if you would like to sell the game to a wider audience, CWIF is just plain ugly.

Nicklas

[Froonp]

Sorry to nickpick, but it needs to.
It is not unlimited divisions, it is unlimited breakdown of corps into divisions. The difference is important, very important. If you can built unlimited divisions, you could have abuses that you don't have if you just can use unlimited breakdown.
Buildable divisions were still limited to the WiF FE countermix.

[Hortlund]

The problem with unlimited divisions is that most players would have one division per stack, and then these divisions would absorb combat losses. Suddenly you have a bunch of corps that are immune to damage. Or you'd have many many divisions in the pacific invading out of supply places, the Jap turn one is but one example of this. Basically the game is not designed to be a division-level game, nor is it designed to have too many divisions swarming around. It becomes too easy to game the combat system that way.

Back to China. I see your point that you would prefer to code the entire map in one scale. That brings up two related issues.

1) How will you give the player the ability to get an overview? This is where CWiF failed miserably, and where MWiF must succeed. In the real world, you simply stand beside the map, looking at it, and you get an instant overview. This is very important, to be able to get this overview in MWiF, because much of what makes WiF so great, is being able to hover over the map like that and ponder your moves.

2) Does this include the Americas, Africa, Scandinavia?

Got sidetracked..China.

I see your point about wanting to make the map similar. I believe it will lead to huge problems in asia. I am not really sure yet what to suggest, Im gonna need to think about it a while.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

The problem with unlimited divisions is that most players would have one division per stack, and then these divisions would absorb combat losses. Suddenly you have a bunch of corps that are immune to damage.

Already the case to some extend if playing with ART units with WiF FE.

Or you'd have many many divisions in the pacific invading out of supply places, the Jap turn one is but one example of this. Basically the game is not designed to be a division-level game, nor is it designed to have too many divisions swarming around. It becomes too easy to game the combat system that way.

Remember that while the breaking down of corps into divisions may be limited, corps themselves are not limited, and you can't built an unlimited number in a certain lapse of time.
So if you breakdown all the corps (or most of them) to have numerous divisions, you'll have less corps and be eaten by the Chinese who has a large army.
This said having played the option.

Back to China. I see your point that you would prefer to code the entire map in one scale. That brings up two related issues.

1) How will you give the player the ability to get an overview? This is where CWiF failed miserably, and where MWiF must succeed.

I would not like you to think I always think you're wrong, and please do not think I am.
But I disagree with you here.

CWiF did not fail at giving you an overview. You could :
- Use the globe map and its layer (not the best thing)
- Use the zoom on the main map to see more. On my 17" monitor, I can see 12 rows and 14,5 colums of hexes at 100% view, which is enough to get a good picture of a theater. I can seem more at 75%, and more again at 50% and below. However, below 75% I could not read the counters enough to be confortable with these rates.
- Use the View / Next Selectable Unit / Previous Selectable Unit commands to be sure you moved every unit (there were convenient keyboard shortcuts for these commands)
- Use the Info / Unit dialog to see a list of all given units corresponding to some sort of filter, and see it in a scaled down map in the dialog.

With the last feature, CWiF is far superior to cardboard WiF FE to give you a strategic overview because you could have in a split second the list of all undirupted TRS / AMPH still docked in ports for example, and see if they were ready to load something, or see the list of all undisrupted enemy fighters, etc...

Regards

[c92nichj]

ORIGINAL: Froonp
- Use the Info / Unit dialog to see a list of all given units corresponding to some sort of filter, and see it in a scaled down map in the dialog.

With the last feature, CWiF is far superior to cardboard WiF FE to give you a strategic overview because you could have in a split second the list of all undirupted TRS / AMPH still docked in ports for example, and see if they were ready to load something, or see the list of all undisrupted enemy fighters, etc...

This feature was extremely helpful and I do wish I had it now when playing on Cyberboard.

[Greyshaft]

Everyone knows that the China war will need a detailed review for balancing purposes if we use a unified scale and part of that review will be examining how unlimited divisional breakdown affects the game. I don’t see an alternative to coding it. The option might be pulled out before the game ships but you can’t test it without coding it. Game balance might be tweaked by changing the number of divisions available to Japan but lets not start THAT religious war right now.

Map overview options aren't really a problem. There's a bunch of different techniques out there in different games and I'm sure Steve is up to the task of coding whichever one seems most appropriate - with "appropriate" being defined over time by the loyal fan base in this Forum of course[:)]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

1) How will you give the player the ability to get an overview? This is where CWiF failed miserably, and where MWiF must succeed. In the real world, you simply stand beside the map, looking at it, and you get an instant overview. This is very important, to be able to get this overview in MWiF, because much of what makes WiF so great, is being able to hover over the map like that and ponder your moves.

2) Does this include the Americas, Africa, Scandinavia?

I sympathize with wanting to see everyting at once using 30 square feet of map. I own two butcher block tables (2.5 ft by 5 ft) with stainless steel legs and custom made 1/4 inch glass tops that let me place the maps under glass and the units on top. Drinks can then be placed on the tables without getting the maps wet. Alas, these tables sit stored in a closet for lack of room (or my wife's patience - same thing).

What a player has is probably a 17 inch monitor. [Which reminds me to start another thread on what hardware and software people expect to play MWIF on.]

CWIF splits the screen into sections for the detailed map, global map, and unit information. There is also a menu bar at the top with selectable options. I like the menu bar since it doesn't take up much room and has functionality that is likely to be used frequently during play. I intend to make all the rest of the screen available for map display. Other particulars of the interface design I want to leave for a future thread.

The CWIF system permits 8 levels of zoom. On my 19 inch flat monitor I get hexes that are roughly 3/4 inch across at 100% resolution. Zooming in makes the hexes larger and they max out at double the size (roughly 1.5 inches across). The units for the two resolutions are 1/2 inch and 1 inch respectively. Zooming out to 50% resolution cuts the hex size to 3/8 of an inch and the units to 1/4 inch. That is not too bad for getting an overview of China. I would probably play at 100% most of the time and zoom in when examining the front line in Russia hex by hex. I do not see much use for the 25% level of zoom since everything is so small then. However, Chris has already written all the code for it and it all works fine so I am planning on keeping it.

One change that I think will be appreciated by the players is that I want to change how the units appear in each hex. CWIF permits stacking an unlimited number of units in a hex (to accommodate the naval units). These stacks have only the top unit visible and it is a simple mouse click to leaf through all the units in a hex. There is also a separate panel that shows all the units in the hex beneath the cursor. This works pretty nicely but has the same drawback playing over the board has: you cannot see all the units that might launch a ground attack at once. I think the computer can do better.

If you take the size of the units at 100% resolution (1/2 inch) and place them in a hex at 200% resolution (1.5 inch), you can place them side by side in a 2 by 2 grid. This lets you see four units per hex. Each land unit in the hex would be visible in its own cell in the little grid (maximum of 3 land units per hex) and all the planes could be stacked in the fourth cell of the grid. This means that you could see all the land units from Switzerland to the English Channel on the screen at once. No thumbing through each hex to see what's where. This could also work at the two lower resolutions though at 150% you would need a keen eye for the units would only be a 1/4 inch across.

In summary, a 17 inch screen will never properly replace 30 square feet of table. On the other hand, it can give you a better view of frontline combat.

[Mziln]

I favor the CWiF (A.K.A. the European scale) map scale

[Caranorn]

Sorry for not catching up on all the previous posts, here is just my opinion on the broad questions raised here.

Scale preferably the one introudced in CWiF. Having a single scale has many advantages and the China issue (which is real as became clear in CWiF's beta tests) can be fixed by rebalancing and possibly reconsidering the use of armies in the Chinese and Japanese OOB's (that is a possible new land OOB for Asian countries).

Map graphics themselves moddable as I already mentionned in another topic. That would probably mean separating the map into two parts, hexes and features (cities, ports, factories, resources, railroads etc.). Have the map itself (hexes) be fixed, preferably a single graphic file. Have features (each using a unique ID and graphic file) added over the map by the game program. Have the large map and small feature files moddable (obviously requiring the same palette size etc.) as well as the feature position etc. moddable via a CSV file (to add/remove features from the existing map).

Now if the map cannot be modded (either entirely or no adding/removing of features) that would still work for me (though it would raise some map questions concerning resources and factories as we do have 2 or 3 distribution used so far (pre America in Flames (which added some black/red factories and resources as well as the new green ones), post America in Flames and CWiF)). But I'd greatly prefer as much moddability of the game as possible and that includes the distribution of map features and map graphics.

Marc aka Caran...

[Greyshaft]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
If you take the size of the units at 100% resolution (1/2 inch) and place them in a hex at 200% resolution (1.5 inch), you can place them side by side in a 2 by 2 grid. This lets you see four units per hex. Each land unit in the hex would be visible in its own cell in the little grid (maximum of 3 land units per hex) and all the planes could be stacked in the fourth cell of the grid. This means that you could see all the land units from Switzerland to the English Channel on the screen at once. No thumbing through each hex to see what's where. This could also work at the two lower resolutions though at 150% you would need a keen eye for the units would only be a 1/4 inch across.

Alternatively consider the option of Filters to only see your choice of air / ground / naval units on the map

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Caranorn

Sorry for not catching up on all the previous posts, here is just my opinion on the broad questions raised here.

Scale preferably the one introudced in CWiF. Having a single scale has many advantages and the China issue (which is real as became clear in CWiF's beta tests) can be fixed by rebalancing and possibly reconsidering the use of armies in the Chinese and Japanese OOB's (that is a possible new land OOB for Asian countries).

Map graphics themselves moddable as I already mentionned in another topic. That would probably mean separating the map into two parts, hexes and features (cities, ports, factories, resources, railroads etc.). Have the map itself (hexes) be fixed, preferably a single graphic file. Have features (each using a unique ID and graphic file) added over the map by the game program. Have the large map and small feature files moddable (obviously requiring the same palette size etc.) as well as the feature position etc. moddable via a CSV file (to add/remove features from the existing map).

Now if the map cannot be modded (either entirely or no adding/removing of features) that would still work for me (though it would raise some map questions concerning resources and factories as we do have 2 or 3 distribution used so far (pre America in Flames (which added some black/red factories and resources as well as the new green ones), post America in Flames and CWiF)). But I'd greatly prefer as much moddability of the game as possible and that includes the distribution of map features and map graphics.

Marc aka Caran...

What I have started working towards is one large CSV file for the 70200 hexes. It would contain the base terrain type plus information about weather zone, country boundaries, sea zone, and the river and coast hexsides. As you proposed, separate CSV files would hold info on cities, ports, resources, factories, rail lines, named hexes, other names (e.g., countries). The secondary files would all be keyed by hex column and row to link them back to the large map file. This is pretty simplistic and from my 1970's computer background horrendously wasteful of disk space - which is way out of date with the availabilty of GB hard drives that are relatively cheap.

CWIF already contains code about the green factories. Were they introduced in America in Flames?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft


Alternatively consider the option of Filters to only see your choice of air / ground / naval units on the map

Definitely.

[Froonp]

CWIF already contains code about the green factories. Were they introduced in America in Flames?

Yes they were.
They are printed on the AiF maps, and the AiF maps are usable in regular WiF FE games, but you just ignore green factories.
A new WiF FE America Mpnimap was also reprinted in 2000 to show the new American factories & resources introduced in AiF, so that there is no discrpencies between games with or without the AiF maps (however, one resource was forgotten on the minimap).

Best Regards
Patrice

[boneyman1769]

I like the idea of a unified scale and would like a map of the entire world. That way it would be easy to include America and Patton and possibly a DoD version. Although I always thought the political system in America was pretty doable as an alternative to DoD.

I find this argument of China very entertaining. I showed a group of guys I played WIF6 with in Chicago, that Japan could, on a regular basis, take most of China by the end of 1941. The idea of a stalemate in China is a myth. In fact without special rules Japan should own most, if not all, of China by the beginning of 1942. I showed these guys my techinique and last I heard, I am no longer in Chicago, they were merrily bashing others that thought China could hold off Japan.

The concept of unlimited corps breakdown to divisions is amusing. I would not mind seeing this as an option. I think it is better to limit corps breakdowns as otherwise the divisions become to powerful. I do disagree with the guy that says Japanese divisions are incorrect in the opening stages of the Japanese attacks in the Pacific. In fact many of the landings were not even division size. This has always been one of the drawbacks in the Pacific campaigns of WIF. The Japanese should have the SNLF divisions available as well as marines and infantry. This would make the Pacific campaigns more doable.

Cheers

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: boneyman1769

I like the idea of a unified scale and would like a map of the entire world. That way it would be easy to include America and Patton and possibly a DoD version. Although I always thought the political system in America was pretty doable as an alternative to DoD.

From your post I gather you haven't seen the CWIF beta version (which is my starting point for writing MWIF). The map is 360 hexes east to west and 195 north to south (70,200 total). The scale is consistent throughout matching the European map in WiF. Indeed, the CWIF European map is a perfect match with the one in WiF. The map wraps around from east to west but becomes an impaasable stygian blackness at the north and the south. Thus, both the artic and the antartic are not on the map, but all the other land masses are. As you get closer to the two poles, the accuracy of the scale suffers but that is mostly a cosmetic concern since it doesn't affect game play. The scales for Africa and Asia are different from those in WiF (more hexes in both).