ORIGINAL: Skanvak
The idea is to load file one time when it is our turn to play. What people are disturbing is that they receive and load file and do nothing after. May be the number of file is not important, and only a trick that make the program load all previously not loaded file itself without asking the player would be sufficient.
Agreed.
Marshall, there is an analogue to this that happened once before. Originally, when you clicked the button for the next turn, it prompted you to tell you whose turn it was (with game graphics) and, after you replied, it would present you with a Windows dialog asking for the file name. I suggested you remove one of the two prompts, and you did.
What we're asking for here is a way to do that with multiple files at once. Maybe an example will help:
Let's assume you are using my ease-of-coding/management suggestion and that two full months worth of data are present in the file. It's March 1805, at the end of econ, and all of both February and March are in the most recent file. At the very end of March, the game would truncate the file such that all of March is present, but not February. So, at this point, there are 35 sub-files in this monolithic file. I'll call this file 35 for brevity.
The first player in diplo starts his turn by loading the file (let's ignore the details right now; it's the later players who are of interest). There are now 36 sub-files. I'll call this the file 36, for brevity.
Player two loads in the file from player 1, does his turn, and posts the file. There are now 37 sub-files. I'll call it the file 37, and so on below.
Players 3 and 5 check out the web site and download the file. Player 3 takes his turn, puts data into the file, now we have 38 pieces of data, file 38.
Player 4 loads in file 38, does his turn, and outputs file 39.
Stop there, and return to player 5. Player 5 grabbed 37 file. I did not state whether he loaded it or not, and will deal with that now.
Let's say that, while he downloaded 37 file, he didn't do anything with file 37. That would make file 37 obsolete. But, he has both 37 and 39 in the folder. The game should check the latest file and load in the pieces of data added to the end of files 36, 37, 38, and 39. This should be done all with one mouse-click (or, two, if you decide to offer a confirmation box).
On the other hand, let's say player 5 loaded in the data from entries 36 and 37 when he downloaded the file. Now, the game only needs 38 and 39 from the most recent file.
In either case, the action the game peformed is this:
0) Player clicks the button to enter turn files.
1) Open the latest file.
2) Figure out at what point this game is up to, chronologically. In the first example, it has loaded 35. In the second, 37.
3) Calculate which data entries are newer. In the first example, that would be all of 36-39. In the second example, only entries 38-39 are needed.
4) Game loads the correct list of files, all at once, bringing the local game up to date.
Notice that this is EXACTLY the same as how we do it now, with two exceptions:
First, the files are all being handled in a single monolithic data file, rather than up to 13 individual player-phase files.
Second, the game is loading into itself (locally) all of the player-phase files at once, rather than one at a time.
I think what we are saying is that we would like both of these. However, you CAN do them separately, the second one first. Here's how:
The game proceeds as normal. Nothing changes. So, on my turn, I have from 1 to 12 phase-files from the other players to load (depending on where I am in the order and where I was before). Let's use France in the reinforcement phase, since that makes the biggest swing.
France needs to load turn files from all 6 other players for diplomacy, and again all 6 files for reinforcement. Currently, that would mean I, as France, would click that button 12 times, after I had loaded the 12 files for the phases between my last phase done and the current one (France goes first in diplo -- if my memory is wrong, change the names; it's not important).
Change number 2 would simply be that when I click the button, all 12 files load all at once, rather than having to mash the button 12 times.
Now, the "in-between" issue comes up. Let's say I downloaded the first 5 files a few days earlier and looked over the situations on the map. Well, I would have done 5 of my clicks then, and would have to do 7 more now.
With the change, I would click once the first time (5 files) and once again the second time (7 more files).
So, change #2 becomes nearly trivial to implement. All you do is load every file you can find in the commin folder, in order, whenever the button is clicked.
But, what if I wanted to see the first guy's move (ignore the fact that I can't see his diplo until it's all over -- this is an example)? The way it is now, I just load the one file after the player posts it. I can do them one at a time.
With the new model I wouldn't have that choice. BUT, the code COULD prompt before loading in all 12 files (assuming I waited the max time), and ask me how far to go forward from the start data. The default could be "all". Or, I can choose to load some number of files less than 12 (presumably by name of nation, not by number).
Sound OK?
IF the last stuff above is implemented, it's only a short distance (coding wise) between that and having all of the sub-files be in one monolithic file. The biggest issue would probably be size.