Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge
An interesting strategic digression, but not directly related to the point at hand. The Italians had roughly two divisions operating in East Africa, (Not counting the Askaris) and were able to make an attack against admittedly weak opposition, and occupy an area some 130,000 km squared in size. In WiF terms, they'd be isolated the second war broke out, flipped the first time they'd try to move, and never be able to turn face up again in option 47.

This is correct. I handle this in one of a couple ways.
Option A: Taking Suez is obviously an easy solution, but not practical. However, threatening it while investigating option B can be effective.
Option B: Building Territorial Units is a tricky but potentially interesting option.
Building territorials (which cost 2), you attempt to create a connection through the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to connect to Libya's border directly. From there, if the rule worked correctly, Italian units can trace back to Italy through Libya if you had convoys in the Med.
However, even better, the territorial unit is always in supply in its home country, and this is valuable. Additionally the territorial, reorganizes if it traces to the capital of it's home country, not Italy. I have seen territorial warfare take large swaths of Africa by moving your territorials once a turn while out of supply. Nearly everyone forgets about Africa, although the CW has a decided advantage being able to provide naval supply while Italy cannot.
Option C: Transport Balbo to the Supply Unit. That will allow you to take an entire turn fully in supply to accomplish some goal. A turn is two months no matter how many impulses you get. That allows you to reorganize oil dependent units (The HQ), and all your Italian units again. I've never tried it, but it can be done.

With proper planning however, I'm sure you could establish an Italian colony in Ethiopia easily, if you only took that pesky Suez canal...

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge
And while it's an admittedly minor theater of the war, it's something that the game's all or nothing approach to supply does not model well; clearly the Italians were able to procure or manufacture enough stuff to keep them going, at least for the limited duties they were performing in that campaign. Here we have an example of Option 47 making the game less realistic, not more.

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge
True, but not what I was getting at. I slapped this picture together to get at what I was saying.


Bock and those three inf with him are all out of supply. He can still reorganize, and in doing so, can reorganize his out of supply buddies. Aside from 47, the concepts of "Supply or out of supply" and "reorganization" are not linked ones. I suspect for this more than any other reason is why it's an optional rule, to keep conceptual complexity to a minimum.

I was actually wondering if you were describing this situation.

In this situation you actually have a few options:

1) Use the HQ to re-organize your units,
2) Save the HQ to prevent the Soviets from attacking by providing Emergency HQ support, so that your land units are in supply when attacked, preventing the penalty of being face down and out of supply,
3) If the surrounded group gets some air support, you could drop a supply unit on the HQ and the HQ would get all those benefits of being a primary supply source, etc, for one turn.

For a new player, and perhaps other people, I can certainly see how this would be too complex. Your mileage might vary.

Usually the Italians in East Africa that go on the offensive are the Territorials. They draw supply from any city in their home country and are actually quite tough to isolate, if played properly.

It used to be the Ethiopians were useless once Italy went to war with the CW, because the Suez was closed and they could not trace to a primary source. But that all changed with the FAQ Q22.4-29.
Q: What is the home country of a TERR of a conquered country?
A: Itself. This is the only circumstance where a unit may trace to a friendly controlled city of the conquered major power or minor country.

Steve task is to try to code the boardgame. So he really should code option 47 the way it is in RAW7...

If that's not possible, than we should discuss on how or what is needed.

There are a lot of rules in World in Flames which on the one hand seem reasonable, but on the other hand...

Isolation is one of them. Limited Overseas Supply is another one. First you say: let's play with them... Than you find that there are situations which are quite strange with the rule in use (or not in use...).

ORIGINAL: Centuur
Steve task is to try to code the boardgame. So he really should code option 47 the way it is in RAW7...
If that's not possible, than we should discuss on how or what is needed.
There are a lot of rules in World in Flames which on the one hand seem reasonable, but on the other hand...
Isolation is one of them. Limited Overseas Supply is another one. First you say: let's play with them... Than you find that there are situations which are quite strange with the rule in use (or not in use...).

Your suggestion is valid.

An option like Unlimited Divisions is an example of a good idea.
It was never in the board game. It was coded for MWiF. Beyond what was in CWiF.
Before other more deserving options.

In practice Unlimited Divisions can be exploited. Not enough time was spent looking at the long term ramifications.
There should have been Nation limits on the number of broken down units. Beyond what can be done without the option.
What the limits could be are worth talking about. If the option was to be modified.

That goes for any option in the game.

No one says a flawed option has to stay flawed. Just because it is in the board game that way.

After some playing I believe this option should be slightly different - whereas units totally unable to trace unlimited path of supply (or an extended version) are not reorganizing; but units able to trace supply to an extended or unlimited range, could.

An example is troops fighting in Ethiopia or those locations where supplies could be scarce - but with lack of HQs to dedicate to the area, the operations in the sector would be minimal (not to add, probably entirely negligible - heck not even a resource there!); but it would make sense that if a unit moves, gets out of supply and then disorganizes by moving further, assuming it could trade even of 8 hexes to a supply hex, it would regain organization in the next turn.

Just how I see it - still fully agreeing pocketed units should not reorganize, besides if they're oil dependant or not.

The question you can also ask is this: what does a unit need and isn't that available in the area it can trace too. The Italian INF in Ethiopia is out of supply if the Suez Canal is closed. If it moves, it gets disorganised. But why shouldn't it be reorganised end of turn? Personally, I think option 47 is to rigid.

I think the rule should add: "you also reorganise units who can trace towards any secondary supply source which isn't in the ZOC of an enemy unit and if the supply route traced to that source is totally free of enemy ZOC. The secondary supply source itself doesn't need to be in supply to provide for this, except when they are HQ's".

That seems to be more logical and not as rigid.

ORIGINAL: Centuur

The question you can also ask is this: what does a unit need and isn't that available in the area it can trace too. The Italian INF in Ethiopia is out of supply if the Suez Canal is closed. If it moves, it gets disorganised. But why shouldn't it be reorganised end of turn? Personally, I think option 47 is to rigid.

I think the rule should add: "you also reorganise units who can trace towards any secondary supply source which isn't in the ZOC of an enemy unit and if the supply route traced to that source is totally free of enemy ZOC. The secondary supply source itself doesn't need to be in supply to provide for this, except when they are HQ's".

That seems to be more logical and not as rigid.

ORIGINAL: Centuur

Steve task is to try to code the boardgame. So he really should code option 47 the way it is in RAW7...

I agree on that Paul... But just as you have some thoughts about certain rules, so have I.

Steve has to code Option 47 as it is written. He can't deviate. Perhaps in the future, far, far away, we might see an added option 47b....

I've posted multiple times about disorganized units reorganizing when isolated. The core mechanic of supply is broken in my opinion. There isn't a pocket in the game that you can isolate. It's hopelessly frustrating.

Let's not forget that Rome wasn't built in one day, nor will MWiF be perfect for a long while. We should just have more patience with what items Steve picks to fix first. While getting Option 47 is important I think we can wait a while longer until Steve is ready to perform the programming fix. I don't think this option not being fully functional is a real deal breaker, I mean how many times does this happen in a typical game?

Omnius

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: CrusssDaddy

It's a wonder anyone else has made a working computer game in under 10 years.

warspite1

Why's that then?

Steve is worried about Cycles?

No, Steve is worried about IPC.

The number of instructions per second and floating point operations per second for a processor can be derived by multiplying the instructions per cycle and the clock speed (measured in cycles per second or Hertz) of the processor in question. The number of instructions per second is an approximate indicator of the likely performance of the processor.

In computer architecture, instructions per clock (instruction per cycle or IPC) is one aspect of a processor's performance: the average number of instructions executed for each clock cycle. It is the multiplicative inverse of cycles per instruction.

The useful work that can be done with any computer depends on many factors besides the processor speed. These factors include the processor architecture, the internal layout of the machine, the speed of the disk storage system, the speed of other attached devices, the efficiency of the operating system, and most importantly the high level design of the application software in use.

Do not confuse IPC with computer speeds:
IPS - Instructions Per Second.
KIPS - Thousands of Instructions Per Second.
MIPS - Millions of Instructions Per Second.

Steve is using "Ye Olde" computer term "cycles" when what he really means IPC.

Meanwhile Crussdaddy is expressing his deep disbelief that this option cannot be coded.

ORIGINAL: Extraneous

Meanwhile Crussdaddy is expressing his deep disbelief that this option cannot be coded.

Happy to hear Crussdaddy believes it can be coded.

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

ORIGINAL: Extraneous

Meanwhile Crussdaddy is expressing his deep disbelief that this option cannot be coded.

Happy to hear Crussdaddy believes it can be coded.

It saddens me that you don't think it can be coded. [:(]

Well technically ANYTHING can be coded. The issue is how long will it take and is the cost worth it? If it would take six months and only impact a small percentage of game time versus using that same effort to do something that would have a bigger impact then it would make sense to have this feature way down on the list of things to do.

Personally I can live just fine without this ever being coded. Especially if it meant other items would be delayed that I would much rather see, like DiF for example.

Well it's Netplay next so I can't see this being coded in the near future.

Perhaps if and when Steve looks at coding missing optionals, this should be first on the list?

Maybe have a poll of what people want coded - say their top three - and go with the majority view?

Personally I want ASW units in play.

ORIGINAL: Extraneous

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

ORIGINAL: Extraneous

Meanwhile Crussdaddy is expressing his deep disbelief that this option cannot be coded.

Happy to hear Crussdaddy believes it can be coded.

It saddens me that you don't think it can be coded. [:(]

Then - be happy! [;)]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Well it's Netplay next so I can't see this being coded in the near future.

Perhaps if and when Steve looks at coding missing optionals, this should be first on the list?

Maybe have a poll of what people want coded - say their top three - and go with the majority view?

Personally I want ASW units in play.

This is why I'm not beta testing the interim releases. I'm sure I could help report bugs, but honestly, I'm not going to be able to play this game when netplay releases either.

I've had games hinge on supply, and as implemented, all of those things are well-nigh impossible to do. Getting an opponent to agree to disorganize his units, when they are organized isn't easy. Tracking units for supply manually is insane, i bought the MWIF to do this.

Worst of all, this so called optional rule 47, only screws up supply once a turn. At the end of the turn. It's not like this calculation is done more than one time a turn and will screw up the game with a huge number of new on-the-fly instructions.

And yes, I would like ASW units myself, but currently, since I bought the bloody game, convinced someone else to buy the game, I consider it my right to post comments about this issue.

Who said you don't have the right to post????

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Well it's Netplay next so I can't see this being coded in the near future.

Perhaps if and when Steve looks at coding missing optionals, this should be first on the list?

Maybe have a poll of what people want coded - say their top three - and go with the majority view?

Personally I want ASW units in play.

Changing a project plan by directing a software project by poll results is a poor idea.
The time for that kind of input was prior to the start of the project.

Letting Steve follow his plan will return the best results, IMHO.

ORIGINAL: flipperwasirish

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Well it's Netplay next so I can't see this being coded in the near future.

Perhaps if and when Steve looks at coding missing optionals, this should be first on the list?

Maybe have a poll of what people want coded - say their top three - and go with the majority view?

Personally I want ASW units in play.

Changing a project plan by directing a software project by poll results is a poor idea.
The time for that kind of input was prior to the start of the project.

Letting Steve follow his plan will return the best results, IMHO.

warspite1

Given what is to be done, I would be very surprised if there is a set plan for the optionals and their order of completion at present!! If you think that "kind of input" or detail has been made and mapped out I think you may be a tad off base (although I am only guessing like you) [;)]

The "plan" has been evolving since launch. The current plan is netplay next. After that is gotten into half decent shape (and I have no idea what that means exactly (and even less idea how long it will take)) I do not know whether it is on to optionals, AI, single map scenarios or what first. I am sure we will be told once the issues around netplay become clearer.

However, optionals are important to some - 47 seems particularly grating to a few and all I am suggesting is that when the time for optionals does come around, an order needs to be mapped out - and finding out what is important to the paying public may be a way to go about it. After all, that (customer wishes) is why netplay is getting looked at next before further bug fixing.