Matrix Games Forums

I am sure many of you work in offices and you receive email regularly. Often emails have a file attached such as an Excel file.

To view these file we all click on the file. This causes Excel to open and then the file opens.

Enough of work – lets move on to wargaming.

When we receive a PBEM turn by email, most games require us to

- save the file to the hard disk
- start the game
- Open the PBEM file and begin playing.

SSG games have a better way!

When the email arrives, click on the file. The game opens the scenario opens ready to play! Just like the Excel file mentioned above.

Further, to end turn, you hit the End Turn button. This saves the PBEM file, opens the email, attaches the file and the email as ready to send! ( When you begin a PBEM game you need to input you’re opponent’s email address in one of the cells)

This is taking advantage of computing to make wargaming better!

As for the file structure, please arrange the file structure in the following format:


MWiF/ Save_Game

MWiF/ Play_PBEM

MWiF/Send_PBEM

This is to split the normal save game files from the PBEM files

And the PBEM files are further split between PLAY a turn and SEND a turn.

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We haven't coded this yet, but my design for PBEM does not include sending entire saved games. Instead, much shorter files are sent, containing just the new decisions taken by the sending player.

Rather than Sent/Received subdirectories, I prefer Axis and Allied, and these will be within a subdirectory for the game (i.e., a separate subdirectory for each game - that holds all of the emails for each side).

I am not so keen on having clicking on the file in the email processing program automatically starting MWIF. There could very often be times when a player wants to store the file onto disk and come back to it later to actually play the game. In general, you will find me extremely reluctant to program 'automatic' things for a player, since occasionally those actions are not desired and can be a major annoyance.

But double clicking on a saved email to automatically start the game is a good idea. We'll think about how we might accomplish that.

The opening program screen lists saved games that can be immediately started. I'll give some thought as to how to modify that to list emails received in PBEM games so they can be started by clicking on the email. It is not inconceivable that someone might have multiple PBEM games in progress at the same time. (I use to have 24 - 36 PBM chess games going simultaneously).

Sending out the email for a completed PEBM turn should be doable from within the program, without any other action required. At least that is the design we are programming to.