MWIF Game Interface Design

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

so basically, MWiF will force the players to designate which CPs are carrying which resources where, somethine WiF:FE fails to do explicitly in the rules, leading to lots of confusing situations when it comes to Search & Seizure. That sounds good.

But wouldn't Production Planning/Final have to be after Search & Seizure? The Enemy side could Seize some of your resources, and you could cover them with an expenditure of Saved Oil, for example... ???

I thought about adding a 3rd Production Planning phase but the beta testers are already complaining about having 2 being a waste of time - rarely does anything change, so they just click on the Ok Done button repeatedly. The other problem is that the 3rd pass through which resources are used where would have to operate without changing any of the convoy assignments et al. In the end it seemed like a lot of work for a very small effect on game play. As it is now, the player has to decide whether he is going to risk depending on resources not being intercepted - with the possibility of keeping some saved oil - or whether he commits the saved oil so his factories are at maximum produciton.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

First in a series of 4.

I have made a breakthrough in the determining supply routines. There are still things that need to be straightened out but the program is correctly finding supply paths for secondary supply sources and units - and displaying them on the Supply Sources and Paths form.

Here is a sample of Warsaw tracing to Konisberg (the closest primary supply source). At the bottom are the units that trace to Warsaw (a secondary supply source).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

2nd in a series of 4.

Here is Rundstedt tracing supply back to Berlin. The algorithm starts out heading to Breslau, but favors rail hexes, which leads it to Warsaw and hence a straight line path of rail hexes to Berlin. Note that all secondary supply sources try to trace directly to a primary. Which is why the path does not stop at Warsaw.

I want to change the reporting of the Cost so it says Rail if the number of Basic Path hexes doesn't change. Once I do that, Rundstedt's path will consist of a single instance of 1R, 2R, 3R, and 4R, with the rest saying Rail.

There's also a bug I need to fix, where movement across lake hexesides is being permitted (up in Finland) although the weather isn't snow or blizzard.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

3rd in a series of 4.

Timoshenko is tracing to Cernauti, which is under the 3 unit stack in the forest hex across the Dniester River. Most players would trace to Kiev, but that is 4 hexes away while Cernauti is only 3.

What is strange here is that the 8-5 mechanized unit should trace to Kiev (1 hex away) instead of to Timoshenko. As I see it, Timoshenko should only be supplying 3 units (if you count himself). Fixing this ~bug should be easy to do.

Notice that I have checked the boxes Active and Primary. The list would be much shorter if I excluded the Primary supply sources. It would be longer if I unchecked Active, since there are a lot of other primary supply sources for the USSR. For the Germans, some of their Secondary supply sources are unused (e.g., Budapest).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

4th and last in the series.

Here are the units being supplied by the Primary supply source Cernauti. It includes all the units that are tracing to Timoshenko. Once again a unit (2-5 cavalry) is ignoring the primary supply source Cernauti - even though it traces right through it. There is no supply path for Cernauti since it is a primary supply source.

I want to add the ability to click on a unit in the list at the bottom and have the path displayed for just that unit. Then I want to be able to click on the path label at the top of the form and have the unit list refreshed with all the units using that path - which is the same as all the units in the same hex.

I know that tracing supply over sea areas works most of the time but fails under some circumstances. After I work out the few glitches in this easier test case of Barbarossa, I'll start testing using a Decline and Fall scenario, where the US and CW are in Italy and Italy has fallen.

The beta testers are anxious to start testing this but I want to fix all the obvious bugs first.

Oh, I forgot to mention, clicking on the Minors button brings up a list of the minor countries which have units on the map. Selecting one of them brings up the supply sources for the minor, including those belonging to its controlling major power.

[gridley]

Congrat's Steve. From the wording of your posts, it sounds like this was a tough component to get going. I know you mentioned it still has some work...but a breakthrough none the less.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

1st in a series of 8.

I have devoted virtually the entire month to getting my rewrite of supply to work. Finding supply paths is something I solved several years ago, but getting it to execute quickly when there are units all over the world has been really tough.

Here the Italians are tracing to a secondary supply source in Athens.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

2nd in a series of 8.

Here von Bock is keeping the center of the German front in supply.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

3rd in a series of 8.

Rundstedt is extended to the full 4 hex range to keep the southern front in supply. Note that the path traces overland to Kiev and uses rail heses all the way to Berlin.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

4th in a series of 8.

The Vichy navy is all in port.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

5th in a series of 8.

Chiang traces to Chihkiang. The 6 units being supply by that city are all cominc from Chiang. All the other Chinese units are being supplied directly from primary supply sources.

[Somehow in the last set of changes I made, I lost the Communist Chinese supply sources. One filter too many most likely. That was working correctly last week.] Sigh.[:(]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

6th in a series of 8.

Here Timoshenko supplies the swamp hexes southeast of Novgorod (the HQ is under the 1-4). Note that Timoshenko's supply path goes around the German ZOC.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

7th in a series of 8.

I am having trouble displaying the overseas supply paths (another item that worked last week). The linkage from the unit to the departure port to the sea area series to the arrival port to the primary supply source drops a link somewhere along the line.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

8th and last in the series.

Here is a minor country. On the far right is the list of minor countries. After choosing Finland, the form shows the map and supply path - which was temporarily hidden.

When viewing supply sources, the form currently shows all possible supply sources that could be used by Finland - that are also currently being used by some country. I could trim this so only the sources supplying Finnish units are shown, but I'm not real happy with that solution. Adding another button doesn't appeal to me either.

[brian brian]

Napoleon would be proud!

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I am still working on rewriting supply. Here is an example of some the difficulties the rules present.

On the left is supply for Finnish units, as indicated by the text in the top left corner of the form. I've clicked on the Primary check box so all supply sources for Finnish units are listed. The number after them denote the number of units being supplied by each source. Most of the German units trace to Konigsberg. All the Finnish units trace to Helsinki.

Note that Mannerheim traces to Helsinki and thereby becomes a viable secondary supply source to Finnish units - the 5 shown at the bottom of the form, some of which would be out of supply were it not for Mannerheim.

=======

On the right are two excerpts showing supply for German units. The label at the top says Germany and the German flag is shown in the top center of the form.

Now Helsinki is shown as a secondary supply source and it traces overseas to Stettin for supply. What this means is that in order for Helsinki to supply German units, it has to trace to a German primary supply source. The same is true for Mannerheim, who also traces to Stettin. Neither of these are supplying German units presently.

[brian brian]

I've never been able to figure out an iteration of one of the supply rules in a game, which leads to a combat rule question too. Let's say you are invading (as in over-the-beach naval invasion) a country with TERRitorial units. The TERR can trace supply to a city in it's home country. But let's say there is no connection between that country and it's controlling major power (the powerful invasion task force seems to have cut the overseas supply line). So a notional unit in an empty hex along the shoreline of the invaded country would be out-of-supply. But what about a notional stacked with a TERR that is in supply? Does this create a situation where a combat unit is in supply, but a notional unit in the same combat is not? Then what about a notional in the ZoC of such a TERR unit?

Then a simpler solution would be to think that the notional unit is in supply by tracing to a city in that country just as a TERR would. But if that is the case, would you add modifiers to the combat die roll because the defending unit is a (notional) TERR unit?

Good luck Steve.

[Orm]

Deleted.

[Orm]

But what about a notional stacked with a TERR that is in supply?

The notional is always the same nation as one of the units it is stacked with so it would then be in supply.

Then what about a notional in the ZoC of such a TERR unit?

If it is an aligned country then the notional would be of that country and in supply. If it is not then it would be OOS. Regardless of supply it gains a modifier for beeing in the ZOC of TERR.

RAC: 11.14 Invasions
....
The notional unit is the same nationality as any major power or minor country with a real unit in the hex (owner’s
choice if more than one). If there are no real units, it is the same nationality as the major power or minor country that
controls the hex.

The notional unit has 1 combat factor, modified by:
• +1 if it is a city hex;
• +1 if the hex is in the home country of the major power that controls the hex;
• +1 if it is not stacked with a land unit, but is in the ZOC of a friendly corps or army;
• + the shore bombardment modifier for each invading unit;
• -1 if it cannot trace a basic supply path of any length; and
• -1 if surprised

[brian brian]

ahh, thanks Orm, I like the thought about making a distinction between 'aligned' or not. I think this could create some trickiness for the computer code with TERR units in countries that have been conquered during the game and thus not 'aligned'. ?

The 'major power or minor country' clause in the original rules makes things hard to parse sometimes.



Edit: the portion of my brain that figures this out has a faulty bit of wiring to that portion of the memory chip as I think I have asked this before, and been shown The Way in the rules. It's much like trying to correctly remember my friends' wives or children named Lauren, Laurel, or Laura. Argh.