Matrix Games Forums

TOAW IV USER INTERFACE
By Bob Cross

Assuming one has successfully installed and set up TOAW IV (including choosing a language), this start screen will appear upon running the game:

This article will detail the User Interface of TOAW IV, game operation, only (I’ll have another article later on the Editor UI). EDIT: That other article on the Editor is here: tm.asp?m=4387350


So, after clicking on the “NEW GAME” button, this screen appears:



Note that the game starts out in the Tutorial Folder. Let’s select a different one. The button on the left enables that choice.

Clicking on it brings up the Select Theater dialog:

Select the “WW II – West Front” button to open that folder:

Before going any further, let’s go over the “Advanced Game Options”. Click on the “Game Options” button:



The Game Options Dialog appears. Note that the bottom three buttons are new for TOAW IV. These buttons affect both players equally. So, they may not be changed after the game starts if the game is a PBEM or PBEM++ game. After setting buttons as desired, click the check mark button.

The Player Options – Page One dialog appears:





This is about the same as the Player Options dialog from TOAW III. These buttons only affect the current player, so they may be changed at any time. The top buttons control the appearance of Tool Tips and the appearance of the Movement Menu. I’ve set it up above for the traditional method, with the Tool Tips basically turned off and the Movement Menu automatically appearing

But TOAW IV has more options. Click on the right button at the bottom and page 2 appears:





This page sets the Alpha and Opacity levels of dialogs and turns on various logs as desired. But at the bottom are buttons to invoke several Additional Option Editors. Click on the “Edit PBEM++ Data” button:

This dialog allows the user to set the parameters necessary to use PBEM++.

Next, invoke the “Edit DBR Colors” button:



The DBRs (Displayed Bombardment Range) are for various different ranges that can be displayed on the map. (The Unit Visibility button sets what DBRs are displayed). The dialog also controls whether such DBRs are circular or hexagonal.

With the check box unchecked, the DBRs are circular:



Veteran players should recall that this was how they appeared under TOAW III. This mode is best for telling where the DBR originates from.

But the hexgrid imposes that the actual ranges are hexagonal in reality. So, there will be times when hexagonal DBRs are preferred:



In this mode, you can tell exactly how far DBRs extend. But the ranges tend to merge together so that it can be hard to tell what unit is creating which DBR if all DBRs are shown. That’s why we’ve made both modes available via this Editor.

Now invoke the “Edit Counter Values” button:



Initially, it is set up with the “Basic Defaults” applied. This is the same as it was under TOAW III. There are only two options, Strengths and Movement. Strengths are AP and DF.

Click on the “Advanced Defaults” button:



Now there are six options that will be cycled through. The first and fifth options are the same as under the Basic Defaults. But now there are four new options: One stack option, a fording option, an engineering option, and a Unit Time Stamp option. Six options are the max that can be active, and two is the minimum. The check boxes can activate/deactivate four of the options.

Let’s take a look at what the above options mean:



Here is a shot from my Soviet Union 1941 scenario. The units are displaying the first option of individual unit AP and DF.

On the Button Panel, with the Unit Tab selected, on the third row, the fourth button cycles through the options. Clicking on it switches to the second option:



This is the Stack AP & DF display. This shot shows the cumulative AP and DF strengths in each stack. You can imagine the value to players that this view will have.

Click the button again to go to the third option:



This shows minor and major ferry values of individual units. This is useful for movement planning.

Click the button to go to the fourth option:





This shows Engineering and Rail Repair values of individual units. You can clearly see which units have engineering and rail repair capability.

Click again to go to the fifth option:



This is the Movement Remaining display – just as it was in TOAW III.

Finally, click one last time to go to the sixth option:



This is a new display that shows each unit’s Time Stamp. You can imagine how useful this will be for combat planning. (Every unit is at zero in this display since no units have moved yet. As units move, the values increase until, when all movement allowance has been expended, the value will be 10. (Timestamp is the combat round that the unit is on). Note that it takes quite a number of clicks to go from the first option to the timestamp. However, right-clicking the button cycles in reverse. So a right-click can take you from the first option directly to the sixth one.

But users are not limited to the default values as far as strength displays are concerned (the first four options). On either of the buttons on the first four options, left-clicking on the button cycles through the strength options. But that can take quite a while to reach what you desire, since there are 44 options. A better choice is to right-click on the button. That brings up the Counter Values Menu:



Note that there are 22 individual unit options and the same options for the entire stack. Players will want to experiment with these values to find their most preferred set up.