Enjoying it! Some questions and comments.

[Grotius]

I played the heck out of GGWaW, against the AI and especially in PBEM, so AWD is certainly familiar to me. But there's enough new stuff here to have rekindled my interest in an excellent game. I'm enjoying the new diplomacy features, war readiness, random events, intel, etc. I have a couple minor questions, though:

1. It's now much more important to see the little messages that fly by after combat: "Hungary is now Pro-Axis," or "x ships y resources to z," or "Border war with Finland." I know I can slow down their speed; I've done that by setting message delay to 4 or 5 seconds. But even so, it would be nice to be able to review these messages at my leisure. Is there an "Ops report" or some such I can consult? (E.g., in WITP, such things are collected in one place and can be viewed all at once.)

2. What are the little numbers in white circles that appear, generally, in enemy territory? I assume they're intel estimates of enemy troop strength there? Can't find the answer in the manual.

3. I know I saw this in the manual, but I can't find it now: what's the green arrow from Gibraltar to Spain mean?

4. Why do I see messages that "x shipped y resources to z"? I don't recall that from the first game. Is this the "gift" and "free trade" flow that we never used to see?

5. One little thing: I am very glad you made the "number of units" number a bit larger than the "Rail points remaining" icon. A tiny thing, but this used to confuse me no end in the first game, even after many playings.

Anyway, back at it. Thanks for giving us a worthy sequel.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: Grotius
1. It's now much more important to see the little messages that fly by after combat: "Hungary is now Pro-Axis," or "x ships y resources to z," or "Border war with Finland." I know I can slow down their speed; I've done that by setting message delay to 4 or 5 seconds. But even so, it would be nice to be able to review these messages at my leisure. Is there an "Ops report" or some such I can consult? (E.g., in WITP, such things are collected in one place and can be viewed all at once.)

It can be vital. For instance, if there is a coup in some country and they are going to declare war on you, and you miss it, then you will be upset.

For example, if you ignore Greece, and eventually they DOW Germany. As Germany, you should see the pop-up and be able to respond before the WA can actually do anything with them.

I recently slowed mine down a little further, so I am hopefully less likely to miss it.

Unfortunately, there is no screen to give you, on your own time and under your own control, all of these information tidbits as they arrive. Since they come only in these pop-ups, you need to catch them when they come (or scan the map for all of the secondary effects).

ORIGINAL: Grotius

2. What are the little numbers in white circles that appear, generally, in enemy territory? I assume they're intel estimates of enemy troop strength there? Can't find the answer in the manual.

Sounds like the Strategic Points for the region, e.g. 6 for Moscow. These get added to production to give the Victory Points compared against the high water and AV thresholds.

ORIGINAL: Grotius

3. I know I saw this in the manual, but I can't find it now: what's the green arrow from Gibraltar to Spain mean?

One way ferry. It is a "ferry" from Gib to Spain, but normal land link from Spani to Gib. You must own both Spain and Gib to move troops directy from Gib to Spain, but troops can move from Spain to Gib without owning both.

This models the fact that it would be very hard to mount an effective invasion of Spain from tiny Gib, but it would be very easy to take Gib from Spain.

ORIGINAL: Grotius

4. Why do I see messages that "x shipped y resources to z"? I don't recall that from the first game. Is this the "gift" and "free trade" flow that we never used to see?

This is free trade. There is no equivalent notice for Gifts (Gifts happen at the turn start, before the German turn, when resources are created).

[Grotius]

Many thanks for the reply! I guess I'd better slow down those popups. Lotsa important stuff there. Devs, would you consider collecting this info in a .txt file or something for us? Perhaps a modder could do that?

For what it's worth, the AI does seem better. Either that, or I've gotten worse. Um, in my first game as the Axis, I managed to lose Western Germany in Winter 1940. That has to be some kind of record! I er invaded the Low Countries but kinda left West Germany's defenses a bit light. Ouch. Five destroyed factories. And mind you, I had a quite good won-loss record in PBEM with the first game...

[Forwarn45]

ORIGINAL: WanderingHead

Unfortunately, there is no screen to give you, on your own time and under your own control, all of these information tidbits as they arrive. Since they come only in these pop-ups, you need to catch them when they come (or scan the map for all of the secondary effects).

In PBEM as the Allies, it seems that the replay doesn't show the special events, like Italy goes Axis, Winter War, Italian border war with Greece, etc. - or am I missing something? If not, I think this really should be added to the replay so you don't miss something.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: Forwarn45
In PBEM as the Allies, it seems that the replay doesn't show the special events, like Italy goes Axis, Winter War, Italian border war with Greece, etc. - or am I missing something? If not, I think this really should be added to the replay so you don't miss something.

You're right.

I think that what would be nice would be for a list of events for the turn to be maintained. This should include the random political events, the tech breakthrough events, the neutral shifts, the WR increases, etc. Everything that pops up. Every time one of those things comes up, add it to the list. And have a special screen you can go to to view the entire cumulative list.

[GKar]

ORIGINAL: Grotius

5. One little thing: I am very glad you made the "number of units" number a bit larger than the "Rail points remaining" icon. A tiny thing, but this used to confuse me no end in the first game, even after many playings.

Agreed, both on the enjoyment factor and Grotius' point above. [:)]

A further suggestion though: How about splitting the unit count to land, air and sea numbers (maybe optional)? It can be confusing to see lots of "divisions" in e.g. England or Italy - but then most of them turn out to be ships and planes. If there was enough space left on the map, this change would help to understand force distributions a lot.

[Grotius]

I think that what would be nice would be for a list of events for the turn to be maintained. This should include the random political events, the tech breakthrough events, the neutral shifts, the WR increases, etc. Everything that pops up. Every time one of those things comes up, add it to the list. And have a special screen you can go to to view the entire cumulative list.

Exactly! This would help a lot. I have no idea how hard it would be to patch in. It doesn't strike me as a huge coding challenge to gather a few lines of text and stick 'em in one file, but displaying that file might be another matter. An in-game display would be optimal, but I'd settle for output to a *.txt file on my hard drive, which is part of what War in the Pacific does.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: Grotius

I think that what would be nice would be for a list of events for the turn to be maintained. This should include the random political events, the tech breakthrough events, the neutral shifts, the WR increases, etc. Everything that pops up. Every time one of those things comes up, add it to the list. And have a special screen you can go to to view the entire cumulative list.

Exactly! This would help a lot. I have no idea how hard it would be to patch in. It doesn't strike me as a huge coding challenge to gather a few lines of text and stick 'em in one file, but displaying that file might be another matter. An in-game display would be optimal, but I'd settle for output to a *.txt file on my hard drive, which is part of what War in the Pacific does.

I've got to disagree there. This should be in-game.

Actually, thinking through it more, I woulnd't save just the turn. I would save the entire game here, and in the full text also include the season/year/player turn, so that the history of these events can be reconstructed. That would seem best, but at least saving your own turn would be OK.

[Grotius]

Hehe, ok, you convinced me -- put it in-game. I wouldn't think it would be hard to paste the .txt from the popup screens into some screen we could view somewhere. What say ye, Matrix?

[JanSorensen]

ORIGINAL: Grotius

Hehe, ok, you convinced me -- put it in-game. I wouldn't think it would be hard to paste the .txt from the popup screens into some screen we could view somewhere. What say ye, Matrix?

The same issue is debated here: tm.asp?m=1286933

The only real issue I can see with saving all those messages for the full game is that it would make the save game files a good deal larger.

[Grotius]

Ah, I apologize, I didn't see that other thread. It sounds like you guys may consider doing it, which is great news. I hear your point about savegame sizes, but I can live with that. I'd like to see research breakthroughs, political events, spy events -- really everything that we see in the popup windows that currently disappear after a few seconds. I don't mind if you limit the size to the most recent 256 or 512 items or whatever.

That said, it would make my day if you also dumped every bit of info into a cumulative .txt file on the hard disk so that I could have a record of the full game's events somewhere. A .txt file is nice because it can be copied/pasted easily, as when you're doing an AAR (e.g., the way WITP supplies you with a combatreport.txt file). But I suspect most gamers aren't as interested in this as I am, so I'll understand if you go with a limited in-game report.