ORIGINAL: Terminus
The Wiki concept has never really taken root in the WitP community. I think it's because a wiki would attempt to fill a void that is already comprehensively filled by the forum.
well, I know a few other games where an active forum coexists with a very good wiki.
I think -but it is only my opinion- that the difference in this case is that the code behind AE is very complex and hard to understand. So it's difficult to contribute anything definite to a wiki, because the forums don't have an answer yet.
For example, I used to play a freeware but closed source game which had no manual to speak of, and a quite steep learning curve, but it had a wiki that acted as manual, learning guide, etc.
The
big difference with AE is that the wiki in question could provide definite explanations on game mechanics in general terms, even if the code itself was not public.
For example, it explained that the melee combat routine was
- attacker rolls to hit
- defender rolls to parry/block/dodge
- successful parry/block allows single counterattack
- if attack hits, random location is struck
- process armor if any
etc.etc.
Even if no one knew what the dice rolls were (linear? gaussian?) or even how the stats displayed actually meant (was the value shown actually in a logarithmic scale? or maybe the formula used it squared or square rooted?), you had a decent grasp of what in-game choices made sense.
As an example based on the example above, since no hits could be "partially" parried/blocked/dodged (it was either parry/block/dodge or hit at full strength) there was no real point in maximizing both armor and parry/dodge (armor weight led to mobility decrease, thus parry/dodge decrease) except on some specific cases (i.e., expecting a mix of attacks that could be parried and attacks that couldn't).
Compare this with AE's surface combat, so far we know much less, as far as I understand everyone is using his own approach, without any clear understanding of the consequences.
For example, I usually place at least 1 CA in each invasion TF, while many witp veterans only place ASW escorts in invasion TFs and prefer a stronger surface combat TF in the same hex. It's not just a matter of "what's better", but of a number of question like:
- does the CA make the invasion fleet easier to be spotted?
- will it allow the transport to escape while it engages any enemy SCTF? (this seems to be hinted by the "xAK so-and-so screened from combat by..." messages)
- might it deter weak enemy SCTF from engaging at all? (the "allied/japanese forces avoid combat" message)
...and so on
Some other aspects of AE are even less understood, first and foremost research. As far as I understand some people were recently very surprised when a dev said that HQ range 1 means adjacent hexes, apparently since WitP everyone understood it to mean only the hex the HQ was in.
So I guess it's too early to have an effective wiki, it needs either a lot of dedicated tests and benchmarks or that the developers themselves clear up some points (like in the HQ range example).
