Is the crow flying or not?

[willgamer]

Logistics: Manual p. 180, under illustration-

"Distance is calculated based on the actual route travelled(sic), NOT "as the crow flies" (arrow)".

However, when I look at my round 3 Truck Columns report for AGS, it shows the "Distance, FSB to HQ (km's)" as "210" or 7 hexes.

That is clearly not the case as the truck icons still go from Krakau to Lodz to Warsaw to Lubin to PG4 HQ just on the road to the south of Lubin (a fairly typical situation on round 3 owing the the difficulty of eliminating all Soviets of the west to east route out of Krakau through Przemysl).

The truck icon route is 20 hexes long.
The distance directly from Krakau to PG4 HQ is 7 hexes long.

The tool tip in Truck Columns states "measured as the Crow flies".

The are no warnings regarding excessive trucking distances.

Which is correct... WAD or bug? [&:]

[lancer]

Hi willgamer,

There are two different calculations here.

First is the internal ones that handle route difficulty. This takes into account the terrain and the distance of every hex covered by the truck icons.

The second is for the distance penalty which is as the crow flies.

Making the distance penalty align with the hex-by-hex route difficulty calc's wouldn't work as the route taken by the trucks (it's the optimal route decided by the engine out of all possible ones) is outside of the control of the player. Instead the distance penalty is keyed directly into the 'as the crow flies' distance between the FSB and the PG HQ.

The combination of the two ways of calculating works well as it gives the player control over both route and distance penalties. Keep your PG HQ on the transport grid and the route penalty will be minimal. The closer you keep your PG HQ to your FSB the less the distance penalty will be.

Having distance being hex by hex for the route ensures accurate internal calcs and making it as the crow flies for distance makes it straightforward for the player.

So both the manual and the tool tips are correct but how it's explained (I simplified it. I got into trouble as it was for making the manual so big) is, as you've highlighted, confusing. See what I can do.

Cheers,
Cameron

[willgamer]

Thanks! [&o]

This game's got more layers than a sweet, nutty, baklava...