Buzz's Fite Mod

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
If I was following all this correctly, I think the effect we were trying to get was to have rail units restricted to rail lines. I won't go over all that again, but if you are running a PO/PO, I think the test would be to eliminate about twenty of the 'bautrupps', change the remaining ones to an 'armored train' icon, and set the automatic rail repair value to say 25 instead of 8. I am only guessing at all this, but the new rail units should be restricted to rail lines, and the computer should automatically repair rail lines nearest these units. After a few turns we should be able to see if this is working properly, unless the new rail units go willy-nilly all over the map with their new 210 movement allowance!

Thanks Mr. Fulkerson, and if you don't want to try all that, I was intending to do it sometime in the future, as the possibilty intrigues me.

So um....this is embarrasing to admit but I don't know how to use the editor all that well and the changes you speak of are probably over my head. It's probably because I have minimal brain damage or something. Maybe I'm alergic to the evil editor. And anyway, the PO v PO contest has already started. It's on turn 3 already and it's only been running about 4 hours now. Here's the first two turns :

[Zort]

Rail repair units. I like the idea of increasing the auto repair and decreasing the units. What I would like to see is auto repair by sectors, ie divided by german army groups, since there was a euro gauge rail line in the baltic states the germans only had to repair it. So have different auto settings by areas. (SMKs wish for weather/supply sectors)

The soviet rail line from archangel didn't start being built until the finns cut the rail line in the south and then it took almost a year to complete I think. (Hey SMK another house rule. The line from archangel can't be built until it is needed, ie after the Finns cut the rail line in the K.... area (forget the spelling)).

I didn't put the rail repair changes in the game because I forgot for one and hadn't really thought about it for another. If I reduced the rail units to a movement of one then I don't see this really working unless I increase the auto repair. The soviets have only a few broken rail lines so the auto is easy to see. As for the germans I often wonder where the auto repair is.

Changes to FITE, my premise has always been for two average players to be able to play it out for the entire 400 turns. I have only tried to make it a little more of what I consider historical. So far (except when I break the events) I have only played around with the early part of the war. I have been impressed with Freeboy's games and how far they have gotten. Karri is getting ready to hammer me in our game. My german losses are enormous and it's just about time for mud. SMK once pointed out that supply should be the limiting factor for the german offensive not the total depletion of the army squads. In DNO I see that the designer gave the germans a pool of 20k HRS with a 200 per turn replacement rate. This gives the germans the ability to attack longer at higher HRS strength then in FITE.

Supply question: In FITE the supply rate per hex when out of supply range is 9. Is there a way to reduce this in the editor? I was thinking of making it 1. I would like to also see is if the game could restrict replacements to units in supply not in the supply range (I think it's 12 hexes in FITE). This way when a unit is isolated but not in enemy ZOC's it then does not get replacements and supply build up is next to nil. Hope this is understandable.

[SMK-at-work]

the Soviets get 10 rail repair units - and have 100% rail destruction - so they have to repair every hex - when/if the start going on the offensive it'll be much harder for them to keep up than for het axis over a given distance.

[Zort]

And the german rail destruction goes to 100 during the winter offensive so they are equal after that. Not sure what you are saying. Fact is the rail line from archangel took a long time to build vice 4-6 turns in FITE.

[SMK-at-work]

I'm saying that he Sov's are more limited in the offense than the Axis, because they have fewer rail repair units, hence they'll be unable to keep supply up as close to teh front as the Axis can.
 
there's nothign much you can do about the Archangel route AFAIK - auto-repair will get it fixed sooner or later anyway.  Perhaps remove the Soviet rail repair units altogether and bring them on as reinforcements might be a possibility?

[sPzAbt653]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

[Maybe I'm alergic to the evil editor. And anyway, the PO v PO contest has already started. It's on turn 3 already and it's only been running about 4 hours now. Here's the first two turns :

Neat. How long do you plan to let it run? I think in theory it should progress close to what happened historically. So if the Russians are in Berlin by, say, turn 150, I would think that is an indication that something is 'off'. But can you let it run on its' own for so long?

I'll try that rail repair thingy soon, it should only take 3-4 turns to see if it is working properly.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
[Maybe I'm alergic to the evil editor. And anyway, the PO v PO contest has already started. It's on turn 3 already and it's only been running about 4 hours now. Here's the first two turns :

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
Neat. How long do you plan to let it run?

Theoretically there's no limit to how long it can run since I can open another copy of TOAW to do my PBEM turns and can program ( in JAVA ) while it's still running. I'm running Windows XP Pro and my cpu has hyperthreading and so I'm not limited ( theoritically ) to how many applications are running simultaneously as long as I have the space on the hard drive for swapping in and out the code pages. I've got 750 Megs of RAM and about 60 gigs of hard drive so that shouldn't be a show-stopper either. I've let it run for about 6 hours now and it's on the sixth turn already. I've posted turns 4 and 5 below. There would be more turns but the limit is now 200KB instead of the usual 500KB.

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
I think in theory it should progress close to what happened historically. So if the Russians are in Berlin by, say, turn 150, I would think that is an indication that something is 'off'.

But can you let it run on its' own for so long?

Sure, I'm going to let it run all night and all day tomorrow and report back where it's at and stuff.

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
I'll try that rail repair thingy soon, it should only take 3-4 turns to see if it is working properly.

[Zort]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

I'm saying that he Sov's are more limited in the offense than the Axis, because they have fewer rail repair units, hence they'll be unable to keep supply up as close to teh front as the Axis can.

there's nothign much you can do about the Archangel route AFAIK - auto-repair will get it fixed sooner or later anyway.  Perhaps remove the Soviet rail repair units altogether and bring them on as reinforcements might be a possibility?

Well we can change the auto repair but not sure if I can do it by side. Heck if we can figure out the auto thingee then we can remove most but not all the repair units. Now the player will not be in charge of what he repairs as much as he has now, boy I can hear the complaining now!!

[sPzAbt653]

ORIGINAL: Zort

Well we can change the auto repair but not sure if I can do it by side. Heck if we can figure out the auto thingee then we can remove most but not all the repair units. Now the player will not be in charge of what he repairs as much as he has now, boy I can hear the complaining now!!
[/quote]


In the event editor there is a 'rail repair 1' and a 'rail repair 2', so each side can be changed. And it can be changed by turn so it can be increased or decreased over the span of the game. I like having less rail repair to contend with but I understand some might like to be in charge of it.

The Russians never had a supply and distrubution system equal to the Germans, so the Russian offensives typically ran themselves down quicker than the Germans.

I've only found one referance to the Arkhangel rail line, in Albert Seaton's book 'The Russo-German' war he states that the Russians had already started on a Murmansk-Volkhov bypass when the Finns cut the line (in August), and the new Murmansk-Arkhangel-Moscow line was operational in November.

[sPzAbt653]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
I'll try that rail repair thingy soon, it should only take 3-4 turns to see if it is working properly.

Ok, my rail experiment didn't work. I made the changes and let it run PO/PO for 5 turns. The rail units never moved (and neither did the engineer or artillery units). I checked the rail lines crossing the border and none were repaired more than 2 hexes. I know the game wasn't designed to run this way, but I've got to get the rail units moving to see if this mod works. I think I will start another game with myself as the Germans and just play the first few turns, concentrating on clearing the rail lines of Russians and then seeing if I move the rail units will they function as desired. The other option is experimenting with the support levels and orders (the units are set to Free support with Attack orders) but that doesn't sound like much fun. Maybe one of the designers will see this and can sugest a proper combination of support level and orders to keep these types of units moving calmly behind the advancing front line troops!

[larryfulkerson]

When I went to bed last night the PO v PO contest was on turn 8.  I got up this morning and the game had advanced to turn 15.  Here's the first 14 turns:
 

[Karri]

Larry, have you tried turning the unit counters invisible? Through my experience this should make the turns run faster(as there's little to no need for following the movement).

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Karri
Larry, have you tried turning the unit counters invisible? Through my experience this should make the turns run faster(as there's little to no need for following the movement).

No, I haven't tried turning the unit counters invisible. And I'm using 1 second for the delay between frames. I could shorten that period and make it run faster but then it might be hard to follow. I'll have to try that.

[SMK-at-work]

I think he meant for the game proper - not for the situation maps.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work
I think he meant for the game proper - not for the situation maps.

Yeah, I figured that out after about a 1/2 hour of thinking about it. And I did turn the units invisible and set them in motion again. I'm thinking they ARE moving faster.

[sPzAbt653]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
I'll try that rail repair thingy soon, it should only take 3-4 turns to see if it is working properly.

Ok, my second rail repair test had the expected effect. The new 'rail movement only' rail repair units can be moved along the intact lines only, and they 'automatically' repair the broken lines ahead of them. There was one instance where the broken line adjacent to the repair unit did not auto-repair for two turns. However, there were ten more broken rail lines on the other side that were repaired over those two turns. So it worked out in the end, although I can see how some players might not like this amount of 'uncontrolable uncertainty'. With the original 30 'bautrupps' in the game operating at an average 90% rail repair value, and the original pre-set 8 auto repairs, you get 32-35 possible repairs per turn. This can be handled solely by the auto-repair, with the exception that the player cannot load up on a particular line to guarantee repair. I intend to keep it in my mod so the next game I start I can monitor it over the long haul.

[sPzAbt653]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

When I went to bed last night the PO v PO contest was on turn 8.  I got up this morning and the game had advanced to turn 15.  Here's the first 14 turns:

It looks like the german artillery, engineers and rail repairs were left behind in Poland on yours too.

[larryfulkerson]

I just got up from my nap and checked on the game and it's on turn 17 and the Germans own Leningrad and the German aircraft never left Poland. It's a mess of mistakes and oversights. A cornucopia if what not to do.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work
I think he meant for the game proper - not for the situation maps.

Yeah, I figured that out after about a 1/2 hour of thinking about it. And I did turn the units invisible and set them in motion again. I'm thinking they ARE moving faster.

The problemo with leaving the units invisible and letting the game run is that the movies you are left with are just blank terrain....no little blue and red dots anywhere. So frames 16 and 17 are blanks. I've decided to stop the experiment.

[Zort]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Ok, my second rail repair test had the expected effect. The new 'rail movement only' rail repair units can be moved along the intact lines only, and they 'automatically' repair the broken lines ahead of them. There was one instance where the broken line adjacent to the repair unit did not auto-repair for two turns. However, there were ten more broken rail lines on the other side that were repaired over those two turns. So it worked out in the end, although I can see how some players might not like this amount of 'uncontrolable uncertainty'. With the original 30 'bautrupps' in the game operating at an average 90% rail repair value, and the original pre-set 8 auto repairs, you get 32-35 possible repairs per turn. This can be handled solely by the auto-repair, with the exception that the player cannot load up on a particular line to guarantee repair. I intend to keep it in my mod so the next game I start I can monitor it over the long haul.

My question is how many repair units did you have in one hex? Does more then one help with repair the line as you have set? If not then you really don't have 30 units but just 6 or 7 on the main lines of advance, so this could be a real handicap to the germans. Will be interesting to see the results of your next game.