MWIF Game Interface Design

[Froonp]

Page 2 again.

In the "Land Combat" Sequence.

The "Notional Unit" box should come just after the "Attack Declaration" Box (Rule 11.16 for the decision & 11.14 for the calculation).

Anyway, the player who has this decision to take should have a knowledge of how many shore bombardement points he has, the enemy has, how many ground support points each have.
The program should have a way to tell him the potential support.


For the Shore Bombardment, the Defensive player must announce it first (16.11), so maybe your "A/D Shore Bombardment" box should be "D/A Shore Bombardment" ?


Same for HQ Support. Defensive player first (16.11).


Maybe the "Assign Damage" box should have a daughter box labelled "Choose shattered / Retreat" to mark the moment when the player choose if shattered units are really shattered, or if he prefers to retreat them.

Then another Daughter box called "Retreat enemy units".

And then the "Advance after Combat" box.

[Froonp]

Page 3.

Port Attack is not really a Naval Air Mission.
You should not mix both, as it may confuse people.

Port Attack is more like a Ground Strike / Strat / Carpet Mission. It has a target, a move to target, defensive interception, offensive interception, air combat, AA fire, damage, and egress phases.
Naval Air Mission has no target, no interception, planes are not rebased at the end (no egress).

You see what I mean ?

The only similarity between both is that both use suprise rolls and use the same combat table (and also obviously, that both are missions against ships).

[Froonp]

Page 4 now.

The "Load Transport" box should be place at 2 places.
It should be placed before the "Move Naval Units" box AND after the "Attempt Intercepts".
Loading units in ships can be performed at both moments.

[lomyrin]

In an air action in a naval battle, both sides can choose a voluntary abort to the sea box after each set of combat resolve rolls. The aircraft so aborted are available for the next round searching. If one side decides to voluntarily abort to the sea box, the other side's bombers, if any, are automatically cleared through to bomb.

Reasons to perform such an abort would be to avoid further fighting or hoping to get a better search roll split etc. in the next round.

I believe this also requires a flowchart box.

Lars

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

The Declare War Step (Sequence of play D.2.1 / Chapter 9) is composed of (and performed in that order) :
- Declare War (9)
- Aligning minors (9.8)
You have them in the wrong order in your picture.

Maybe it would be cleaner for action B who is "inside" action A to be displayed as a box inside Action A box. Have you tried ?

Actually these two items do not have a set order in CIWF or MWIF. The player can either one first. I wasn't sure how to handle that graphically and since it doesn't appear elsewhere in the sequence of play I intended to simply include a text note somewhere - you know a little asterisk or dagger pointing to a separate "Note: ...."

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

In page 3.
The "Line Up Air Units" box and its 3 daughter boxes, should be attached to the "Air-to-air Combat" box, shouldn't they ?
The "Anti-Aircraft Combat sould be a daughter box of Commit Anti-Aircraft" box (displayed to the right), shouldn't it ?

Yes to both. Clearly a result of working on this a 1 AM.

The Anti-Aircraft Combat should have several steps, including an "assign damage".

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

In page 2.
What is "Optional Rules", the daughter box of "Place Reinforcements" ?

It should be labeled "Remove air units"

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

In Page 2 :

The "Include Sea Boxes" box (Rule 11.5.5) should be before the "Surprise Points" box (Rule 11.5.6) (after the "Search" Box).

This piece of the sequence of play has some things happening simultaneously. The surprise points box is for indicating when the are determined, not when they are used. I am thinking of adding some indication of where surprise points can be used. Indeed, I am thinking of making separate sequence of play subsections for the 3 possible naval combat types: air, surface, and subs.

Getting back to your point, as part of the search rolls, the surprise points are calculated and in some instances, the combat type is determined without either player having any choice. The player who gets the upper hand in the search rolls has surprise points available and can use them at different places in the naval combat sequence. He also may be able to control the type of naval combat and select which sea boxes are involved in the combat. I believe the order that I have is ok, though others might work just as well.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Page 2 again.

In the Naval Combat sequence.
There is no "Roll for Result" step per see. It should be "Cross Reference the Table for Results".

There is no "attack roll" in the Naval combats.

For instance 15 points of Naval Gunnery on an enemy fleet of 5 ships always does the same damage : 1 ship sunk, 3 ship aborted.

The things that make the results variable are two folds :

1) Surprise allow you to shift the column when you "Cross Reference the table for results". With 4 surprise points, the above gunnery fire could be shifted 2 columns (that is attack as a fleet with 29-38 gunnery factors instead of 15), and inflict 1 ship sunk and 2 ships damaged..

2) Damage is not automatically suffered by the target ships. They are entitled a save roll. Roll higher than their defense factor (Yamato has 0 defense factor, a CL typicaly has 7-9) to suffer a reduced damage (a sink becomes a damage, a damage becomes an abort, and an abort becomes hlf an abort).

No Roll.


The "Assign Damage" box should be followed by a "Defense Roll" box, who should either loop back to Assign damage, or go to the "Abort or Continue" box.

How about 3 boxes, in this order: Firepower Effectiveness, Choose Targets, Roll for Damage?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Page 3.

Port Attack is not really a Naval Air Mission.
You should not mix both, as it may confuse people.

Port Attack is more like a Ground Strike / Strat / Carpet Mission. It has a target, a move to target, defensive interception, offensive interception, air combat, AA fire, damage, and egress phases.
Naval Air Mission has no target, no interception, planes are not rebased at the end (no egress).

You see what I mean ?

The only similarity between both is that both use suprise rolls and use the same combat table (and also obviously, that both are missions against ships).

This is another case of all the good words already having been taken and needing to use others that aren't quite as precise. I copped out by using Naval Air Missions twice with different thoughts behind them. How about we use Naval Air Assignements for the primary box (IV)?

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Froonp
The Declare War Step (Sequence of play D.2.1 / Chapter 9) is composed of (and performed in that order) :
- Declare War (9)
- Aligning minors (9.8)
You have them in the wrong order in your picture.

Actually these two items do not have a set order in CIWF or MWIF. The player can either one first. I wasn't sure how to handle that graphically and since it doesn't appear elsewhere in the sequence of play I intended to simply include a text note somewhere - you know a little asterisk or dagger pointing to a separate "Note: ...."

Rule 1.1 says :
"We have arranged these rules in sequence-of-play order. "
In the rule, the part about Aligning is 9.8, the part of Declaring War is 9.2.

This is important that the right order be followed by MWiF.
When you Declare War on Yugoslavia for example, the Rumanian Counters are set up, and all other declarations of war are done. When declarations of War are done, you can Align ONE neutral minor (provided the rule allow you).
Thus, the Yugoslavian are set up without knowing if the German will align Bulgaria or Rumania, and so must set up its troop guessing.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Page 2 again :

The "Emergency HQ Supply" box (Rule 2.4.3, Option 13) is some sort of Joker that you can pull out whenever you want.
It is not declared in any way at the place you put it in page 2 (just after "Attack Declaration").

Typically it is announced prior to Ground Strikes (to allow out of supply FTRs to intercept the raid) or prior to Land Combats (just before the calculation, after the enemy has announced all support).

Ok. I'll treat this as a extra marker on the boxes where it can occur. I will be doing the surprise points with something similar.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Froonp
In Page 2 :

The "Include Sea Boxes" box (Rule 11.5.5) should be before the "Surprise Points" box (Rule 11.5.6) (after the "Search" Box).

This piece of the sequence of play has some things happening simultaneously. The surprise points box is for indicating when the are determined, not when they are used. I am thinking of adding some indication of where surprise points can be used. Indeed, I am thinking of making separate sequence of play subsections for the 3 possible naval combat types: air, surface, and subs.

Getting back to your point, as part of the search rolls, the surprise points are calculated and in some instances, the combat type is determined without either player having any choice. The player who gets the upper hand in the search rolls has surprise points available and can use them at different places in the naval combat sequence. He also may be able to control the type of naval combat and select which sea boxes are involved in the combat. I believe the order that I have is ok, though others might work just as well.

Yes, but you must choose the enemy sea boxes you will include in combat (if the enemy has not found) BEFORE surprise be computed. This is obvious, as surprise calculation needs to know the Higher Sea Box number of each party.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Froonp
In the Naval Combat sequence.
There is no "Roll for Result" step per see. It should be "Cross Reference the Table for Results".

The "Assign Damage" box should be followed by a "Defense Roll" box, who should either loop back to Assign damage, or go to the "Abort or Continue" box.

How about 3 boxes, in this order: Firepower Effectiveness, Choose Targets, Roll for Damage?

Great !

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Port Attack is not really a Naval Air Mission.
You should not mix both, as it may confuse people.

This is another case of all the good words already having been taken and needing to use others that aren't quite as precise. I copped out by using Naval Air Missions twice with different thoughts behind them. How about we use Naval Air Assignements for the primary box (IV)?

Great too !!! [:D]
You have a large array of vocabulary, that's usefull !!! [:D]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Page 2 again.

In the "Land Combat" Sequence.

The "Notional Unit" box should come just after the "Attack Declaration" Box (Rule 11.16 for the decision & 11.14 for the calculation). YES

Anyway, the player who has this decision to take should have a knowledge of how many shore bombardement points he has, the enemy has, how many ground support points each have.
The program should have a way to tell him the potential support. [Not part of this task - a separate isssue.]

For the Shore Bombardment, the Defensive player must announce it first (16.11), so maybe your "A/D Shore Bombardment" box should be "D/A Shore Bombardment" ? YES


Same for HQ Support. Defensive player first (16.11). YES

Maybe the "Assign Damage" box should have a daughter box labelled "Choose shattered / Retreat" to mark the moment when the player choose if shattered units are really shattered, or if he prefers to retreat them.

Then another Daughter box called "Retreat enemy units".

And then the "Advance after Combat" box.

I need to add a group box for Resolve Land Attacks. Coming off of that would be the Roll for Results et al, plus what you mention here, and also choose combat type, which got lost in the shuffle somehow.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Page 4 now.

The "Load Transport" box should be place at 2 places.
It should be placed before the "Move Naval Units" box AND after the "Attempt Intercepts".
Loading units in ships can be performed at both moments.

Ok, but I want different names for these. The first in done while in port and the second is done while at sea.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Froonp
The "Load Transport" box should be place at 2 places.
It should be placed before the "Move Naval Units" box AND after the "Attempt Intercepts".
Loading units in ships can be performed at both moments.

Ok, but I want different names for these. The first in done while in port and the second is done while at sea.

How about : "Load from shore" ?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

In an air action in a naval battle, both sides can choose a voluntary abort to the sea box after each set of combat resolve rolls. The aircraft so aborted are available for the next round searching. If one side decides to voluntarily abort to the sea box, the other side's bombers, if any, are automatically cleared through to bomb.

Reasons to perform such an abort would be to avoid further fighting or hoping to get a better search roll split etc. in the next round.

I believe this also requires a flowchart box.

Lars

What label and where do you suggest placing it?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Froonp
The Declare War Step (Sequence of play D.2.1 / Chapter 9) is composed of (and performed in that order) :
- Declare War (9)
- Aligning minors (9.8)
You have them in the wrong order in your picture.

Actually these two items do not have a set order in CIWF or MWIF. The player can either one first. I wasn't sure how to handle that graphically and since it doesn't appear elsewhere in the sequence of play I intended to simply include a text note somewhere - you know a little asterisk or dagger pointing to a separate "Note: ...."

Rule 1.1 says :
"We have arranged these rules in sequence-of-play order. "
In the rule, the part about Aligning is 9.8, the part of Declaring War is 9.2.

This is important that the right order be followed by MWiF.
When you Declare War on Yugoslavia for example, the Rumanian Counters are set up, and all other declarations of war are done. When declarations of War are done, you can Align ONE neutral minor (provided the rule allow you).
Thus, the Yugoslavian are set up without knowing if the German will align Bulgaria or Rumania, and so must set up its troop guessing.

Ok. Then CWIF, and MWIF presently, is doing this wrong, since the phasing player can do them in either order.