What Do You Think Needs to be in World In Flames PC Game

[BumMcFluff]

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1

What I was stating when I said that, was if 90% of those clamouring that an AI is imperitive get their way, and it is likely it will be so, then the 10 percent will have the opportunity to say I told you so. If indeed, the AI accomplishes nothing.

That's right...IF

Greyshaft: Yes I have been told I am easy to goad. Guess they were right.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Seamonkey who let you in here hehe.

And stop telling people how I suck at Strategic Command (even if it's true ).

[Caranorn]

Heh, just to repeat myself. I also don't think an ai for CWiF will work. Therefore I am also of the opinion that it might be better to publish the game without (or only with the tutorial ai some mentionned). Unless my memory fails me alltogether that was also the case for most active users of teh WiF mail list afew years ago.

I also would't count on non wargamers to buy CWiF. The first market for this game should be experienced wargamers. That is players who can assimilate the massive load of rules required. Will either look for human opponents or play solo (just the way they play their board games solo today). The same people who will trunce any average ai after at most a week's time. Other gamers probably won't be drawn to CWiF in any case, at least not if they research the debth of the game first. WiF simply never was an introductory level game (though I hear it has been used as such, but that would only work in a large group where a newbie gets to play China or just to push counters on one front while otehrs take care of the rest of the world).

Yes, if you create the best ai ever I'd love to play against it. But I doubt that can be achieved any time soon. I hope CWiF will be published long before that.

Marc aka Caran...

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Marc likely hit the nail on the head.

I have actually not realised his point till he just mentioned it. But I most assuredly agree. cWiF is not likely ever going to generate sales amongst any but totally fanatic hardcore counter pushers like myself.

With that in mind, the usual arguments vis a vis newbies or those wishing newbie friendly conditions do seem a bit pointless.
Granted though, not all grognards look like me, or have my preferences.

The place to work on newbies, or non total grognards like myself, would likely be more in the realm of Strategic Command or Gary's new project World at War.
You will never be able to make a game like WiF board game or computer option "simple".

If done well, cWiF will easily become more complex than HoI will ever be capable of claiming to be. Complex is not the end of the world if done right. But doing it right requires a high order of true genius.
It probably is the reason the market after all these many years, only has basically Third Reich and Wif out there as substantially well known and well liked grand strategy designs.
Because making one, and making it any good, is not something you accomplish routinely.

The computerization of Third Reich (which I think most will call the "simple" version TR of the series), was mostly a let down due to it's AI. I have the game, and its graphics were adequate, and its interface acceptable. But it had a lot of troubles incorporating the involved nature of the board games design.

Like I think I have mentioned earlier. If it was indeed so simple to just make an AI for this game, then I think it would not have been on the drawing board this long already.
Computerising WiF could easily have been done the same way they computerised A3R with the Warplanner software.

Personally, I think it would be easier to market it as a board game that comes with software intended to be used the same way Warplanner is used.

I don't know this to be the case, but I would not be surprised if the Warplanner crowd was laughing at the WiF crowd's efforts.

[Cheesehead]

Does anyone know how many copies of WiF have been sold to date?

Could we then assume that at least as many copies of CWiF would sell? Using myself as an example, I was aware of the WiF boardgame years ago but never was interested in buying such a physically large game when I lived in apartments, or had small children, and didn't know anyone else that played. It was only the news that a computer version was in development that I became interested. (Ironically, I bought the board game so that I could start learning the rules). If I'm representative of the typical wargame customer, might we assume that sales of CWiF will exceed WiF?

What are the numbers for a computer game to go "gold?"

What are the numbers for a computer game of this magnitude to make a profit?

Are there plans for CWiF to hit the shelves of mainstream software stores next to all those silly 1st person shooters?

[Zorachus99]

I've been playing the boardgame WIF for over 10 years. I'm sure you are getting input from the designers, but as a long time player my opinion matters since I've spent over $1000 on the game during that time. No Joke. This game has been revised, improved, and new counters were made time and again. I'm including replacement counters as well.

The game in it's current for is complex to say the least, however me and my human wargaming buddies have been playing for a long time and here is the hardest problem you have barring an AI that can figure out how to launch a successful buildup and naval invasion.

I look at an 7x12 foot board we have laminated our map to. All the counters are in full display and you can make strategic conclusions just based on a glance at the stacks in theatres. No real calculation needed. This kind of overview is still neccessary but you don't have a monitor that is 7x12 feet. Assuming you everyone has a 21" monitor is unrealistic, and yet still insufficient to display this kind of breadth. I wish I had suggestions but this is important while the player is trying to deduce what action they will take. I cant stress how important this idea is.

The clearly worst thing about playing a game with counters is that you can end up wasting time aguing about rules, calculating odds, and trying to sift through tall stacks all packed close to each other. Supply calculation, hex ownership and tracing resources for the UK are the hardest things of all to keep track of. A computer can really help in this area

Additionally almost every aircraft and ship have different capabilities - determined though a lot of research. This must be kept. Removing the Picture Profile of the counter or It's name, is removing a ton of enjoyment in the game. You want to know it was the Yamato task force that sank the Iowa task force, no two ways about it. Anything is possible in the game.

As for real suggestions:

1) make unit stacks slide out as you mouse over the stack so you can quickly determine exactly what is in the stack. I don't want to click to find out a stack contents. They would slide back in after you moved the mouse elsewhere.
2) By clicking a menu I want to sort every stack on the map so that either aircraft, land units, or ships are on the tops of the stacks. This is back to the overview idea. Flipped units should stay on the bottom unless so selected.
3) Make sure flipped units are very distinguishable, but examination is still possible without many clicks. I hate the colored box idea on whether a unit is used or not. There are a lot of ways to do this with palette changes.
4) Don't change the way the units look from the counters in the game. This will cause major confusion for people who are used to the counters and are willing to pay $200 for a game in the non-computer state.
5) Keep the maps included in the game as they are, making everything european scale is just not neccessary and bloats the map out of control.
6) Clicking on a unit should select it and show its movement possibilities as well as any out of supply hexes that it might end up in. Make this part easy. Returning a unit back to where it was before movement as a change of mind is also critical. Automatically blow the map up to a higher scale if you cant see where a unit can go when selected.
7) The combat phases make sense. Do not remove them. It might complicate PBEM, but the phases within a turn or even a combat are there because they make sense. Yes there can be multiple phases before land combat is resolved and that's a nightmare for PBEM. Don't remove them because it's the easiest thing to do.
8) While within a sub-phase such as intercept missions for air units AUTOMATICALLY sort all units to the top of a stack that can be involved that are within range. Additionally they should GLOW as to tip you off that they are selectable.
9) Automatically blow the map up to a higher scale if you cant see where a unit can go when selected.
10) Have a player have a specified preferred view of the map that things revert to after blowing the map up or down.
11) Land Units have up to 7 movement points. There should be a display setting so that if you center on a hex, you can easily inspect all the land units that can make it to that hex thus changing the odds. Without this people will get very annoyed trying to determine odds.

That's what my freinds and I consider critical.

Hope you read this.

Best regards and good luck!

Zorachus99

[Greyshaft]

So Caranorn... you have joined the evil Les in denying the existance of the CwiF AI? Oh, ye of little Faith thou shall be verily smited at the Time of Beta Testing when the strength of the Almighty CPU shall blast thou Panzers into tiny little bits that even the cat can't find.

But seriously... I'm sure that Matrix had a number of long conversations with Harry and Chris before they agreed to this project and so they are well aware of the problems which scuttled the original CWiF. Yet they still promised they will produce an AI. Why shouldn't we believe them? I'm not too worried about the ramblings of Les the Luddite throwing his silicon sabots but I'm surprised that others would hold themselves up as experts on what Matrix can (or can't) achieve. They think they can do it. More power to them!

[Cheesehead]

"Try, try not....Do, or do not."

--Yoda

[BumMcFluff]

What Greyshaft said.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

No I am not going to dance merely because someone looks like they share some of my notions That would come off sounding wrong no matter how I tried to say it.

In the long run, I think what will make cWiF succeed or not, will be the same issue that makes games succeed or not that also possess large sums of detail.
I have MOO3, and looks like a nice game. But it is just such a lot of work. Probably explains why I have hardly played it.

My first encounter with cWiF is still managing to scar me. The interface was horrid.
If it becomes entirely true to the board game, but is still an effort to enjoy, odds are I will just get over it and perfect a storage option for the board game. And pass.

With these level of games, it has to be easy to run at the interface level, because it is already complex enough at the learning to play level.

Zorachus99 made a lot of comments which I would gladly support.

The AI is important if enough need it.
The original nature of the game is important, if you actually want to call it WiF.
It has to be easier to play it on the computer in order to get anyone to put aside the board game.

Lastly, I am unsure if how many board game units sold is any real useful data. It was popular during a time when you played board games or didn't play wargames. But today with computers every bit a real option, the variables and conditions are just not the same.
A good board game, poorly ported to computer, will not sell just because it was based on a good board game automatically in my opinion.

[Fred98]

[quote]ORIGINAL: Caranorn

That is players who can assimilate the massive load of rules required.

[/quote]

Computers have to be utilised to make improve wargaming.

I have no intention of digesting the “massive load of rules”. Rather, its better that a tutorial shows me how to do things and then if I try an illegal move the computer stops me from doing it.

If it is otherwise this wargamer will have no interest in an excellent game.

[Caranorn]

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1

Lastly, I am unsure if how many board game units sold is any real useful data. It was popular during a time when you played board games or didn't play wargames. But today with computers every bit a real option, the variables and conditions are just not the same.
A good board game, poorly ported to computer, will not sell just because it was based on a good board game automatically in my opinion.

I wish I remembered the sales numbers from a few years back. I recall they were mentionned on the WiF mailing list. Someone had misunderstood and thought Harry must be a millionaire with all the sales of WiF Deluxe. The obvious problem was of course that those sales numbers were for all versions and modules combined (WiF 1 to FE, FA, DoD I-III etc.).

That problem will of course count for CWiF as well. Many veteran players of WiF own multiple copies of the game, or at least multiple versions (I own WiF 4 and FE, 3-4 copies of DoD (I & II) etc.). At least in the first time, even the most devoted players probably won't buy more then one copy of CWiF. On the other hand, a gaming group that used to play with a single copy might have to buy multiple copies of CWiF (this might need to be taken into consideration, maybe offer multi licensing). Then obviously not all who bought WiF FE will be interested in CWiF (some still don't own a computer, others might consider buying WiF FE a mistake and don't want to invest anymore in a game they don't like). On the otehr hand, some players apparently decided not to upgrade from WiF 5 to FE, those might now be willing to buy CWiF. Other gamers yet never bought WiF in any form because of the game's physical size, time needed to setup and play or the extent of the rules. CWiF will not have that problem, or only at a much lower level, accordingly those players might chose to buy CWiF now (that's also the category needing a tutorial ai).

So at least from my outsider's perspective there is no way to tell how large a market CWiF might attract. Even having the sales numbers of WiF would not help much in that aspect. On the other hand I really doubt that many non hardcore wargamers will be attracted to CWiF (maybe some players of HOI or such, simpler, games will try out CWiF).

Marc aka Caran...

[Caranorn]

ORIGINAL: Joe 98

Computers have to be utilised to make improve wargaming.

I have no intention of digesting the “massive load of rules”. Rather, its better that a tutorial shows me how to do things and then if I try an illegal move the computer stops me from doing it.

If it is otherwise this wargamer will have no interest in an excellent game.

The computer will help you with the rules. But in the end, to play well you will have to understand the rules of CWiF just like you have to understand the rules of WiF now. Otherwise you will have a few nasty surprises along the way when things don't work as you thought they did. In the worst case you will just be pushing counters without ever understanding why things don't work (I don't suppose most of us will fall into that trap, I obviously know the rules even though I haven't player WiF in over two years (except teh CWiF beta), I expect most other gamers will learn the rules sooner or later). But someone who thinks CWiF will be an easy game to pick up and learn in a matter of a day will be sadly mistaken (and might very well never again buy a wargame or buy a game from Matrix). In that sense, not every sold game is actually good for a company, selling CWiF to the wrong person might well mean never selling any games to that person afterwards (while selling an introductory level game to the same person could have the reverse effect).

Marc aka Caran... who learned to play (push counters at first, heck I was 8 years old or so and did not read english;-) with Panzer Blitz

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Ok first off I am a veteran Advanced Third Reich player, and you can bet your last dollar you better be great if you think you can play grand strategy against me unprepared.

Second Strategic Command as a game has an idiot simple interface, and a new player can be playing the game in mere minutes. A tutorial for SC would be a waste of the designers time. If you can't figure that game out intuitively, then you might want to reconsider wargaming as a hobby

But even as simple as SC is, it still requires the player to sit down with the manual and actually see where the real difference lies in deploying two corps units instead of an army or whether an armour is worth the expense.
And no, the tutorial is not going to really teach you that. It will merely teach you how to buy one, or refit it from damage or how to move it.
Big deal, that knowledge is not going to help you beat your opopponent.

If you were to sit down with a completely computerised version of some games at the grand strategy level, you are simply going to have to spend some time understanding the game's systems and the logic behind the game's design.

Which is why, I wish all those wishing the AI to teach them good luck, because your first human opponent is going to give you such a thrashing if he has read the manual and you have not.

[Mziln]

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1

If you were to sit down with a completely computerised version of some games at the grand strategy level, you are simply going to have to spend some time understanding the game's systems and the logic behind the game's design.

Having started with the old AH Stalingragd many decades ago. I use the AI of a computer game as a tutorial and try to figure out why the computer does this or that.

In the demo I got the hang of the ground war, air war, production, transporting troops arround the Mediterranean, figured out how to do a amphibious assult, convoys, and resources easily. I was still working on optimum convoy routes. But the actual naval war was still a mystery.

I tend to agree with Les, some what. But with any AI made available by Matrix. I think you will need to either read the instructions, do some test games to get the hang of some options, or you will have to content yourself with the basic game even.

I would think a program, that could be edited by players, to allow some what of a scripting for the AI might solve the problem of a inteligent AI system. Some could be randomized start ups or triggerd situations. This would also allow the players test their offensive and defensive stratigies.

[Cheesehead]

Compare the AH games 'Squad Leader' and 'Advanced Squad Leader.' SL had programmed rules that worked like a tutorial. You could play the first scenario 20 minutes after punching out the counters. With each additional scenario you learned new concepts and rules. This tutorial approach made a complicated game very easy to learn. ASL threw the book at you all at once. The rules (They called it a manual) didn't even come with the first module. They were an entity purchased separately. They modeled this manual after a U.S. Army field manual... and they were just as dry reading. I started in reading this manual, and after about 5 hours later I found something else to do. I never returned. The game has been up in my attic, untouched for the last fifteen or so years. I guess you have to be pretty motivated to learn a massive game like this without a tutorial. I hope CWiF takes the "small bites" tutorial approach.

[Greyshaft]

I know this was asked previously but it may have been in the pre-Crash Forum.

Can we get a printout facility that will give a 3-4 page summary of game status with mini-map? This will help us when plotting moves during business meetings, lectures, train trips etc when having your laptop displaying a CWiF map might be a bit too obvious.

[Fred98]

Instead of “rules” we should say “features”

Under the rules I am not permitted to drive a panzer division across the ocean. But there will be a feature that allows me to load it aboard ship and sail across the ocean.

So long as every feature is explained in the tutorial, I have no interest in the rules.

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Sigurd Jorsalfare

LAN play and a respectable AI.

LAN play is vital. Most people on this forum and on the EiA forum seem to disagree with me and apparently you also, however, I think that the major point of making a computer game is so that it can be played with other people the same way the boardgame is without the people having to be there. PBEM can be played with or without a computer game so why spend the extra money on a computer game when you can just use CyberBoard for free and do the EXACT SAME THING. Matrix doesn't seem to understand this for some reason, I don't know why.

I would love WiF to be a straight port with all of the "in flames" expansions and a new rule set. If, working with Rowland, Matrix discovers some new rules should be implemented or some things fixed, that's great, however, I don't trust Matrix with the ability to do these things on their own, considering what it seems they are doing to EiA.

[Greyshaft]

PBEM can be played with or without a computer game so why spend the extra money on a computer game when you can just use CyberBoard for free and do the EXACT SAME THING.

Cyberboard is great for simple games but it doesn't provide:

* Hidden movement
* any form of calculation or controls for movement / combat / production gearing limits / anything at all
* combat resolution
* enforcing sequence of play ie reminding you that its now time for the Water Distribution Phase (or whatever)
* multiplayer complications... house rules might help but better if the game does it eg limits on transferring resource points between countries.

I'm not knocking Cyberboard but I think its out of its class here.