Matrix Games Forums

There's a discussion about TOAW's FitE etc versus WitE over the War in the East forum. For those of you who have missed it or are interested. And no, it's no flame war.[:-]

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ORIGINAL: Telumar

There's a discussion about TOAW's FitE etc versus WitE over the War in the East forum. For those of you who have missed it or are interested. And no, it's no flame war.[:-]

tm.asp?m=2643789&mpage=1?

I really don't see why anyone would bother to compare the two. It's like saying WitE doesn't do France '44 very well. [:D]

Yes, but the initial comparison was between TOAW's FitE and WitE.

Thanks, I'm always curious to see what people say. For the next full version, I'm thinking about adding in a new way to do events, possibly using C#/Python/Whatever, but I doubt TOAW will have a full strategic layer for many years. I also may add in the ability for a scenario to enforce house rules. I haven't spec'd it out yet though so I don't know if it will make the cut for 4.0. If I let you write events in C#, adding in house rules may be simple enough.

Between those, someone totally dedicated might be able to graft on a strategic layer, but it won't be simple, or as flexible as games built from the ground up for strategic play.

A lot of game design is knowing what NOT to put into the game, so I'm not sure that TOAW will ever have more than a simple strategic layer. There are several good games in that space already. While TOAW is a swiss army knife, I'd like to make sure it isn't like this...

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/tools/8b97/

Ralph

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
For the next full version, I'm thinking about adding in a new way to do events, possibly using C#/Python/Whatever,

That would be soooooooooo cool. Scripting is the next best thing to having it designed that way on purpose. Better even....because it's so powerful and flexible. The only limits would be those imposed by the game engine and the designers imagination. A strategic layer COULD be done that way.

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
...but I doubt TOAW will have a full strategic layer for many years.

I'm already thinking about it.

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
I also may add in the ability for a scenario to enforce house rules. I haven't spec'd it out yet though so I don't know if it will make the cut for 4.0. If I let you write events in C#, adding in house rules may be simple enough.

House rules is what happens when the game engine isn't quite as flexible as it might be or the scenario designer wanted something really special. Or something. But it WOULD be cool to be able to enforce house rules. I'm forever moving the Finns south of the stop line just north of Leningrad.

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
House rules is what happens when the game engine isn't quite as flexible as it might be or the scenario designer wanted something really special. Or something. But it WOULD be cool to be able to enforce house rules. I'm forever moving the Finns south of the stop line just north of Leningrad.

Yes, that's where I'm going to have to survery the house rules and see if I can figure out how to enforce some of them. Possibly something like a 'PreMove' routine that would be called out to that would pass in the unit number and the would return whether the move was allowed and possibly a string that showed an error or something like that.

I'll have to sit down and spec out the interface that make sense if that's what I do. To do that, I'll probably have to expose the units, maps, formations and possibly other structures. If I'm allowing scripting for events, then allowing this should be not too difficult in this case.

How to make it secure for PBEM is a different matter I'll have to think about.

Yes, the events ARE TOAW's greatest shortcoming at the strategic level. Like, for example, there's really no good way to implement the mud turns in FITE. There are been several ways tried, but none of them a model it very well. And, I've tried to mod it myself, but have no real luck doing any better with it either. So, I think there need to be new event-triggered effects added to account for things like this.

Yes regarding the Russian Rasputitsa, the engine has several shortcomings. What additionally (to existing means) would be required is: Better Weather Control for Scenario Designers, Movement Bias that can be changed with the Event Editor (not necessarily - depending on the amount of Designer Weather Control as movement (and supply) is already difficult in muddy hexes), something like Mechanical Attrition (similar to Pestilence, but affecting mostly vehicles). And most important the ability to limit such effects to certain (designer defined) areas. Though the existing means are not too bad: Reducing Supply Level, Reducing Supply Radius, Shock penalty (land and air), Pestilence. Maybe reducing rail repair.

Looks like 'scripting' and user programmed 'events' could serve such purposes well. That depends on what Ralph would allow us to do with it..

ORIGINAL: Telumar

Yes regarding the Russian Rasputitsa, the engine has several shortcomings. What additionally (to existing means) would be required is: Better Weather Control for Scenario Designers, Movement Bias that can be changed with the Event Editor (not necessarily - depending on the amount of Designer Weather Control as movement (and supply) is already difficult in muddy hexes), something like Mechanical Attrition (similar to Pestilence, but affecting mostly vehicles). And most important the ability to limit such effects to certain (designer defined) areas. Though the existing means are not too bad: Reducing Supply Level, Reducing Supply Radius, Shock penalty (land and air), Pestilence. Maybe reducing rail repair.

Looks like 'scripting' and user programmed 'events' could serve such purposes well. That depends on what Ralph would allow us to do with it..

Limiting shock and other effects to specific formations would be a good one.

How about a scripting function that would prevent airports with "bad weather" ( rain, snow, sleet, fog, etc. ) from allowing flights from them in those scenarios where such a rule is historically accurate ( like WWII and earlier ).

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

How about a scripting function that would prevent airports with "bad weather" ( rain, snow, sleet, fog, etc. ) from allowing flights from them in those scenarios where such a rule is historically accurate ( like WWII and earlier ).

Yep. And to differentiate between airfields (take the field literally) and airports with hangars and such. Makes a real difference in extreme cold.

Back to bad weather: Didn't Bob recently state there is such a thing within the combat model? Undocumented. I could be wrong though.

What scenario designers might help would be a better documentation of such undocumented features.