Maps for MWIF

[Manic Inertia]

Dammit I never had a problem with those rail lines until this Tape Worm thing .. looking at them now makes me feel queezy. Maybe Shannon, you could make them grey instead of, well, sort of faecal? One could argue that that's a more 'realistic' colour anyway...

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Manic Inertia

Dammit I never had a problem with those rail lines until this Tape Worm thing .. looking at them now makes me feel queezy. Maybe Shannon, you could make them grey instead of, well, sort of faecal? One could argue that that's a more 'realistic' colour anyway...

It's easy to pick on any icon and misinterpret it in a negative way. I could do it with everything you see in that picture, and for most other pictures too.

For example, barbed wire rail lines do not appeal to me. The choice of adjectives, similes, and metaphors can be used in either a positve or negative way to make a point. Political ads are full of this stuff, ..., actually all advertising is, now that I think about it.

I have almost no interest in this sport though. Using word-play to make a point just becomes a game of word-play: who can push more powerful emotional buttons.

By contrast, my own criticism of the rail lines is that they should be thinner, to be more in balamce with the rivers. Or the rivers should be thicker. It would be nice if the rail lines could be sharper with cleaner delineation between their outline and interior (compare them to the rivers). Of course, I tried to correct those items and found the minute number of pixels I have to work with a real constraint on alternatives.



The work play stuff is tangentially related to one of my personal rules: "Never argue with a comedian, they are professionally trained to humiliate their enemies."

[hakon]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

3 - when factories are destroyed, the blue factories are destroyed before the red ones. Nothing is said about printed versus created blue factories. I am going with the understanding that the newer factories are destroyed first.

This appears to not always be the case in RAW. In particular, factories destroyed by strategic bombing, must me "usable" factories. My interpretation of this, is that if Paris is bombed while in german hands, only the red factory can be destroyed, not the blue ones.

It is a reasonably important in Paris and Lille, since these factores are reasonable easy to reach even with early british fighters, so they will often see a lot of bombing.

[pak19652002]

ORIGINAL: hakon

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

3 - when factories are destroyed, the blue factories are destroyed before the red ones. Nothing is said about printed versus created blue factories. I am going with the understanding that the newer factories are destroyed first.

This appears to not always be the case in RAW. In particular, factories destroyed by strategic bombing, must me "usable" factories. My interpretation of this, is that if Paris is bombed while in german hands, only the red factory can be destroyed, not the blue ones.

It is a reasonably important in Paris and Lille, since these factores are reasonable easy to reach even with early british fighters, so they will often see a lot of bombing.

I agree with Hakon on the "usable factories first" principle. The example in option 30 actually spells this out nicely.

But, I'm concerned about the idea that that newer factories will be destroyed before older ones. The rules indicate that you can't repair new factories, only printed ones. That means rebuilding a destroyed new factory is much more expensive (4 BPs) and takes longer (2 turns) than a printed factory. If it is RAW, then so be it (I can't find a reference either). But, if not, then I think the issue should be vetted through the main Yahoo! board or at least considered carefully here since it is not a trivial issue.

Peter

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: pak19652002

ORIGINAL: hakon

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
3 - when factories are destroyed, the blue factories are destroyed before the red ones. Nothing is said about printed versus created blue factories. I am going with the understanding that the newer factories are destroyed first.

This appears to not always be the case in RAW. In particular, factories destroyed by strategic bombing, must me "usable" factories. My interpretation of this, is that if Paris is bombed while in german hands, only the red factory can be destroyed, not the blue ones.

It is a reasonably important in Paris and Lille, since these factores are reasonable easy to reach even with early british fighters, so they will often see a lot of bombing.

I agree with Hakon on the "usable factories first" principle. The example in option 30 actually spells this out nicely.

But, I'm concerned about the idea that that newer factories will be destroyed before older ones. The rules indicate that you can't repair new factories, only printed ones. That means rebuilding a destroyed new factory is much more expensive (4 BPs) and takes longer (2 turns) than a printed factory. If it is RAW, then so be it (I can't find a reference either). But, if not, then I think the issue should be vetted through the main Yahoo! board or at least considered carefully here since it is not a trivial issue.

Peter

Only usable factories get destroyed. I'll make sure the code works that way.

As to destroying printed blue factories before newly created factories, or vice-a-versa, the case can be argued both ways. The code needs to implement just one though. I detest the idea of an optional rule for this minor point.

If you want to provide more input on which way this rule should go, I would be glad to hear opinions. It is trivial to modify even after it is coded.

I, on the other hand, am not going to take the time to do a definitive study on this topic. It is a very minor item.
Consider: how many new factories are created in a game? How often are they strategically bombed to the point of destruction? How often are destroyed factories repaired/rebuilt. What is the total effect on the build points for repairing a factory versus rebuilding it? Does one side suffer more from this difference than the other? I think the total impact might be equal to a single INF at most.

[Norden_slith]

with a zoomlevel like that, could units laid out side be side in each hex, instead of becoming very large?

Norden

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Norden





with a zoomlevel like that, could units laid out side be side in each hex, instead of becoming very large?

Norden

I just read your post after replying to your other one in the units thread. The answer is yes; and I elaborated on that point n the other thread.

[Norden_slith]

In reply to both answers:

SOLD!

Norden [:D]

[Manic Inertia]

I'LL tell you what can be done with a magnifications like that:

Print off the whole map to a size where it'll cover 3 of the four walls of my spare room, then wallpaper it over the 3 custom fitted steel sheets that currently make the room look like the inside of a new oven.

Then take high quality photocopies of all the WiF counter sheets to a corresponding size, then take 'em all down to your local printer who'll copy 'em onto magnetic 'fridge-magnet' plasticard for you to then cut into counters. Thousands and thousands of 'em.

I have been waiting for the whole WiF world to appear in richly coloured, nicely geographed euro-scale: I've been waiting for wallpaper. Stepping into my spare room shortly after the birth of MWiF will feel like orbiting the planet.

Amen.

[ASHBERY76]

I mean no disrespect to the people involved but I expected the graphics to be much higher standard than what has been shown.It looks like games from the early 90's.With such a well known name like W.I.F, I expected Matrix to really be on the ball in this area.

[mlees]

Umm, it was my impression that MWiF is going to be a direct "export" of the boardgame (which has had 5+ editions now) to a PC game. The ruleset will be followed as close as reasonably possible.

Where you expecting 3d models/map like this?:

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
I mean no disrespect to the people involved but I expected the graphics to be much higher standard than what has been shown.It looks like games from the early 90's.With such a well known name like W.I.F, I expected Matrix to really be on the ball in this area.

There are trade-offs. Some of the considerations are:

1 - What hardware does the player have? If you assume they are running a high end machine (3+ GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM, fast graphics card with a lot of memory) then you can display more detail.

2 - Map size. If your entire map consists only of Europe, then the memory required for the map is much smaller. Or if you are limiting play to the Pacific, where almost everything is ocean, then the requirements for graphics processing speed is substantially reduced.

3 - Zoom. If you restrict zoom to a small area at a time (magnifying glass effect), then the memory and processing speed demands of the program are much less.

MWIF is designed:

1 - to be playable by players with less than state of the art hardware. The minimum requirement for the screen is 1024 by 768 resolution.

2 - to cover the entire world (360 hexes by 195 hexes)

3 - to provide 8 levels of zoom so the player can obtain: different views of the battlefield (high levels of zoom) and theater of operations (medium levels of zoom), or a continent perspective (lowest levels of zoom).

==============

Though it would be nice to do a loving bitmap for each hex, there are 4 major difficulties in achieving that: memory requirements, screen refresh speed, reducing map distortion when zoomed out, and the labor to draw them. There are 70,200 hexes in MWIF and roughly 60% have land of one type or another. That is 40,000+ individual hex bitmaps if you draw each of them as unique. We have elected to go with doing the coastlines in detail, which gives us only 5000+ individual bitmaps to draw. The river/lake overlays add 7000+ more. The 5000+ coastal bitmaps require over 240 MB of memory. I am doing tricks with the code to reduce the 7000+ river/lake bitmaps to under 50 MB. The units make additonal demands for bitmap storage (3000+ counters).

Basically, MWIF is a monster map and rendering it on a 17 inch screen so that players can play the game is non-trivial. As it is, we are pushing the limits of the hardware more than I would like. I worry about the players with lower end systems having to modify how they play the game because of the speed of screen refresh.

If the market for wargames were as fierce as it is for first-person shooters, then perhaps we could aim for the high end of the market and force players to upgrade their systems if they want to play the game. Sadly(?) that is not the state of the world. And anyway, a person's lust for more and better (I am no exception) is unquenchable.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: mlees

Umm, it was my impression that MWiF is going to be a direct "export" of the boardgame (which has had 5+ editions now) to a PC game. The ruleset will be followed as close as reasonably possible.

Where you expecting 3d models/map like this?:

Your picture reminded me, how about stacking in a hex? Some ports in MWIF routinely hold over 20 naval units. The limits on land units are 3 per hex, plus up to 3 air units, plus the afore mentioned limitless naval units. For example, Leningrad when under seige.

[mlees]

Your picture reminded me, how about stacking in a hex? Some ports in MWIF routinely hold over 20 naval units. The limits on land units are 3 per hex, plus up to 3 air units, plus the afore mentioned limitless naval units. For example, Leningrad when under seige.

*nods* I got this screenshot of (SSI's?) Panzer General 3D to address the same poster you did. In PzGen3D, there is no stacking. One ground and one air unit per hex only, if I recall correctly...

If you were to try to do the same graphics for MWiF, then I guess you use reduced sized 3d models to make room for the additional stuff in the hex up to a certain limit. After that, use a generic "overflow" model, than have the hex contents displayed in another window.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: mlees

Your picture reminded me, how about stacking in a hex? Some ports in MWIF routinely hold over 20 naval units. The limits on land units are 3 per hex, plus up to 3 air units, plus the afore mentioned limitless naval units. For example, Leningrad when under seige.

*nods* I got this screenshot of (SSI's?) Panzer General 3D to address the same poster you did. In PzGen3D, there is no stacking. One ground and one air unit per hex only, if I recall correctly...

If you were to try to do the same graphics for MWiF, then I guess you use reduced sized 3d models to make room for the additional stuff in the hex up to a certain limit. After that, use a generic "overflow" model, than have the hex contents displayed in another window.

I own a copy of that game. Besides the fact that it was unplayable because of bugs that crashed the system, I found determining the location of the air units on the map quite difficult to determine.

Back in July and August of last year, when I started work on MWIF, I posed the question to the forum members as to how to render the counters. The use of 3d models was discussed then. Finally, the consensus was that if I could get the counters to look as good as the cardboard ones, the players would be very happy. Ecstatic? No. Very happy? Yes.

The forum members really wanted to maintain the look of WIF FE too. That has evolved quite a bit, but clearly the current map's graphics are direct descendents from the WIF FE graphics.

An even more important design considerations than fulfilling the desire of current players of WIF to keep the map graphics comparable to WIF FE, were the items I listed in an earlier post today: hardware constraints.

[mlees]

Hehe! Your preaching to the choir! (in other words, I was already converted long ago.) I'm on your side on this one sir!

I hope you dont think I was asking for 3d models! I was showing ASHERY76 that shot, and asking him if that type of graphics was his hopes...

Note to self: I gotta work on my communications skills...

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: mlees

Hehe! Your preaching to the choir! (in other words, I was already converted long ago.) I'm on your side on this one sir!

I hope you dont think I was asking for 3d models! I was showing ASHERY76 that shot, and asking him if that type of graphics was his hopes...

Note to self: I gotta work on my communications skills...

I understood you perfectly well.

My reply to you was more an addendum to my post to Ashery.

[TheDishwasher]

Why are graphics so important with a game like WiF? To me, a decent, full and easy to use interface and good game mechanics are far more important.

[Froonp]

Where you expecting 3d models/map like this?:

This 3D map is ugly, and those 3D "counters" are a joke !!!
If MWiF was proposed to be this way, I would not be interested.

[mlees]

This 3D map is ugly, and those 3D "counters" are a joke !!!
If MWiF was proposed to be this way, I would not be interested.

Hehe! I remember liking it when it came out. *shrugs* Now, of course, technology has moved beyond it.