Canadian Resources REFUSE to be routed through the Faeroes Gap.

[rkr1958]

For the sake of my sanity PLEASE give us some ability to choose which sea areas resources are routed! At a minimum, please oh please, let us have the ability to move Canadian resources to England through the Faeroes Gap! It's maddening that we aren't allowed to do this!

By the way, I'm running MWiF Public Beta 2.9.4.

[rkr1958]

game turn.

[paulderynck]

Damn Canucks. Such a perverse lot.

[Aranthus]

Unfortunately, the problems with convoy routing and trade are bigger than this. The program is persistently inefficient in choosing resources to trade to China and elsewhere, in picking routes that actually reduce production, and in refusing to accept default or override changes. Hopefully after Net Play is working, this issue will be addressed.

[rkr1958]

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

Damn Canucks. Such a perverse lot.

Funny! I needed that ... almost busted a gut laughing!

[TeaLeaf]

ORIGINAL: Aranthus
Hopefully after Net Play is working, this issue will be addressed.

I help you hope it...
But to me it is starting to look like a prayer without an end [:(].
That the MWiF Bugs are like a multiheaded Hydra: if you chop off a head, two new heads pop up or an old one just grows back (in this case, the head called Faeroes Gap).

But yeah I'll help hoping.

[Gar-Dog]

Have you tried manually setting the routes? I see you're looking at the route. There's instructions in the Player's Manual Vol 1, section 8.7.1.17.

Right around page 227, it gets real interesting for showing how to manually set routes. You may have to temporarily set some resources to "idle" to free up convoys that are poorly routing resources. I struggled with this same problem a LOT at first, but once you force the route of the Canadian resources, the rest seem to (mostly) fall in line, even as convoys are destroyed/aborted and replaced. I haven't touched routings since 1941, and the current game is mid-1944. If you haven't already tried this, study it up... and Good Luck!

If you haven't, reply and let me know - I'll try to poke at it for you (to retrain myself too).

[Majorball68]

I have found if you remove all the default settings and over ride settings and reload the game it tends to pick the best routes. Something to consider is if you know you have spare CP and they show they are not being used when it comes to final those CP get used and your BP and resources in fact do go to where they are suppose to although it might not show this in Prelim Production. I also idle off the long distance resources as the AI tends to pick up these long routes requiring a lot of CP. Just un idle them as you need them.

[rkr1958]

ORIGINAL: Gar-Dog

Have you tried manually setting the routes? I see you're looking at the route. There's instructions in the Player's Manual Vol 1, section 8.7.1.17.

Right around page 227, it gets real interesting for showing how to manually set routes. You may have to temporarily set some resources to "idle" to free up convoys that are poorly routing resources. I struggled with this same problem a LOT at first, but once you force the route of the Canadian resources, the rest seem to (mostly) fall in line, even as convoys are destroyed/aborted and replaced. I haven't touched routings since 1941, and the current game is mid-1944. If you haven't already tried this, study it up... and Good Luck!

If you haven't, reply and let me know - I'll try to poke at it for you (to retrain myself too).

Yes, I did at setup and all was well until the CW lent two non-oil RP's to France at the beginning of turn 2. Then, that's when everything went haywire.

ORIGINAL: Majorball68

I have found if you remove all the default settings and over ride settings and reload the game it tends to pick the best routes. Something to consider is if you know you have spare CP and they show they are not being used when it comes to final those CP get used and your BP and resources in fact do go to where they are suppose to although it might not show this in Prelim Production. I also idle off the long distance resources as the AI tends to pick up these long routes requiring a lot of CP. Just un idle them as you need them.

I did try that but the problem is that the Canadian resources ALWAYS choose to route through the Bay of Biscay versus Faeores Gap if given their choice, which ROYALLY messes up resources coming from South Africa and India which needs those CP's in the Bay of Biscay claimed by the Canadian resources.

For me, if one had the power to make those Canadian resources route through the Faeores Gap instead of the Bay of Biscay then the CW convoy routing experience would improve by 100%.

[gw15]

I spent several hours on this to see if I could do better.
First off, don't try and optimize your routing during the declare war step or any other phase instead of preliminary production. It will give you strange results. Yes, I know. You want to see how to move your convoys during movement so you want to view the production form to determine the best way. My experience is it doesn't work so well. Especially if you have lending. Lending in some cases will take double the convoys if it involves BP, ie, shipping to the factory and then shipping out.
In the file you posted I went forward to the production phase.

Getting production optimized is complicated because you want to send 2 resources to France.
The first step is to chose which resources to send that use the minimum of convoys.
First one is Cyprus as it uses only 2 convoys.
the second one is harder to pick because you cannot use a resource traded to you to "retrade" to another country. I don't care what the rules say the program has problems with it. You can use some of the Indian resources but some of them are going to England for production. After a few hours of work I determined it had to come from England even though it used a convoy in the BoB.

Now, how to get the other production for England optimized.
First, idle the hell out of every other resource. This is tricky. To idle a resource you have to set to default after clearing default and overrides. It's tricky because you have to click on the "lost" button and back to the "idle" button to make sure the word "idle" is in the central box in red. then recompute.
After that start with the Australian resources and default them to Canada factories to use up the Pacific convoys.
Then send the African African resources to England to use some of the Atlantic convoys.
then set the Indian resources to Indian factories.
then any remaining Asian resources to England.
then send the Canadian resources to England.
Yes, yes, some of them while go through the BoB leaving unused in FG but it doesn't matter as all other convoys are already used and so sending other resources(non-Canadian) through the BoB can't happen as those further along convoys in St. Vincent and Med are already used.
Then send your saved oil as best as you can.
You will have 5 factories in England unable to produce.
Why? 1 English res has to go to France. You could send another resource but other convoys would get used up and produce another deficit.
You have 15 convoys between FG and BoB. You need 16. without lending it will short you 1 but with lending it will short you 2.
However, having enough convoys in those 2 places still will not work if your other routes don't have enough to get to those sea zones. that's the problem.
You need more convoys in Cape Verde for British Guyana, etc. and more convoys along the other routes.

The program is sensitive. Sometimes you think you get the thing working correctly and then a convoy is sunk or lending changes or maybe a resource is captured or oil usage effects. then you have to do it all over again for next turn.

My simple solution is for the CW to build the hell out of convoys as quick as possible and overload the network. It makes the game more enjoyable.

when I played over the board or with Vassal I never realized how complicated it is. As I said before I know I must have cheated not realizing the complications.

Oh, the program also is bad about where you save oil. Lent oil especially.

[Centuur]

In the past, I could use the route system to make a default route for the non oil resources out of Canada to make sure that they go through the FarOes gap. That's a bug in itself and should be fixed.

At this moment, it looks like one has to accept that production planning give lesser results than in earlier versions. Not good at all...

[Mayhemizer_slith]

There is "set dice" in game.

Would it be possible to create "set BPs" for turn end? Players could for example add trade received or sent to each major power so that there is no need to fight with convoys.

EDIT: or simply before final production to set BPs.

[rkr1958]

ORIGINAL: gw15

I spent several hours on this to see if I could do better.
First off, don't try and optimize your routing during the declare war step or any other phase instead of preliminary production. It will give you strange results. Yes, I know. You want to see how to move your convoys during movement so you want to view the production form to determine the best way. My experience is it doesn't work so well. Especially if you have lending. Lending in some cases will take double the convoys if it involves BP, ie, shipping to the factory and then shipping out.
In the file you posted I went forward to the production phase.

Getting production optimized is complicated because you want to send 2 resources to France.
The first step is to chose which resources to send that use the minimum of convoys.
First one is Cyprus as it uses only 2 convoys.
the second one is harder to pick because you cannot use a resource traded to you to "retrade" to another country. I don't care what the rules say the program has problems with it. You can use some of the Indian resources but some of them are going to England for production. After a few hours of work I determined it had to come from England even though it used a convoy in the BoB.

Now, how to get the other production for England optimized.
First, idle the hell out of every other resource. This is tricky. To idle a resource you have to set to default after clearing default and overrides. It's tricky because you have to click on the "lost" button and back to the "idle" button to make sure the word "idle" is in the central box in red. then recompute.
After that start with the Australian resources and default them to Canada factories to use up the Pacific convoys.
Then send the African African resources to England to use some of the Atlantic convoys.
then set the Indian resources to Indian factories.
then any remaining Asian resources to England.
then send the Canadian resources to England.
Yes, yes, some of them while go through the BoB leaving unused in FG but it doesn't matter as all other convoys are already used and so sending other resources(non-Canadian) through the BoB can't happen as those further along convoys in St. Vincent and Med are already used.
Then send your saved oil as best as you can.
You will have 5 factories in England unable to produce.
Why? 1 English res has to go to France. You could send another resource but other convoys would get used up and produce another deficit.
You have 15 convoys between FG and BoB. You need 16. without lending it will short you 1 but with lending it will short you 2.
However, having enough convoys in those 2 places still will not work if your other routes don't have enough to get to those sea zones. that's the problem.
You need more convoys in Cape Verde for British Guyana, etc. and more convoys along the other routes.

The program is sensitive. Sometimes you think you get the thing working correctly and then a convoy is sunk or lending changes or maybe a resource is captured or oil usage effects. then you have to do it all over again for next turn.

My simple solution is for the CW to build the hell out of convoys as quick as possible and overload the network. It makes the game more enjoyable.

when I played over the board or with Vassal I never realized how complicated it is. As I said before I know I must have cheated not realizing the complications.

Oh, the program also is bad about where you save oil. Lent oil especially.

I've highlighted two key points in quoting you above that I'd like to point out. "I spent several hours ..." and later "After a few hours ..". My angst is that it shouldn't be this difficult and time consuming to get CW production and convoy routes working like the player desires.

During setup, it took me 10 minutes on paper to get the production and routes I wanted and another 10 minutes to translate all that to the game. I did, at least initially, get it working in the game the way I'd laid it out on paper. Then comes the trade phase at the start of turn 2. On paper it took less than a minute for me to "trade" the two Malaysian non-oil RP's to France using the setup convoy routes which went through the Med. This meant, on paper, CW production was now down by 2 PP's from full production and the CW should have 2 spare CP's in Cape St. Vincent and 2 spare CP's in the Bay of Biscay. Mind you, this took less than a minute on paper to figure out. It should have been a piece of cake to route two oil from Canada and/or Venezuela to get CW production back to full but imagine my surprise when I saw what I actually had for CW production and convoy routes when I open the production form! It took a lot of scrambling to get CW production back to full. This included returning to base during a CW naval move 4 CP's in the Fareoes Gap, using an ATR and TRS to reorganize them and then in the next impulse putting them in the Bay of Biscay, which went from 9 to 13 allied CP's. Of course one significance of that is the axis now get a -2, instead of -1, modifier to their naval search rolls there in all but storm and blizzard. Also, I now have to worry about the longer term implication of having to move most, if not all, of those routes out of the Bay of Biscay when France falls or face grave threats from axis subs, NAVs, fighters and ships based in Western France.

[gw15]

Good point but once the defaults are set then it works from turn to turn. If you have a disruption in the convoys then you fix the portion that was disrupted.
I spent extra time trying different scenarios with your particular convoy setup.
Yes, when France falls the CW convoys get disrupted. that's why you build extra ones to fill in the N. Atl so you can move away from the BoB.
If you take your time and work through the steps it will work.

should it be easier? Probably.

[Gar-Dog]

I would be thrilled if someone were to design a new production resource/BP/lending/production convoy interface, and then someone else were to code it up... Any volunteers out there to back Shannon & Matrix up on this?

Maybe I'll take up the design as a side project... But I'm not a good coder and I'm not sure Matrix would want to publish the code to an outsider like me.

Overall, though, I'm very pleased with MWiF! Takes up far less space than a solitaire board game, and the Asian scale is much more interesting 1:1 !

[TeaLeaf]

So, about the convoy-AI, is solving this problem still on the Master Task List [&:]. It would do so much good just to know it is!

[BrianJH]

ORIGINAL: TeaLeaf

So, about the convoy-AI, is solving this problem still on the Master Task List [&:]. It would do so much good just to know it is!

Yes, I agree.

Convoy routing, is frustrating enough, but once you start lending resources and build points to other major powers, the frustration levels increase.

It would be nice to see this aspect of the game improved as part of the version 3.0.0 release!

Brian.

[Gar-Dog]

After thinking this through, I might be able to do design a routing algorithm (using existing UI) without needing to learn coding & all. Sometime in the next month, I'll take a crack at it if life doesn't interfere too much.

Assuming I get to it, I'm sure Steve will be thrilled that someone else is about to realize how hard it really is!

[paulderynck]

Most of the time we look at the connection between the resources and the ports as trivially occurring automatically, but there are cases where you'd need to consider the RR lines getting cut before the port is reached, FREX France going down but trying to lend to its Allies, UK or India being invaded, USSR getting vivisected and needing lend lease, etc.

Mind you the program seems to get the land routes right.

I've thought of doing this as well but interchanging data with the running game or even just with one of the game files would seem to be an inhibitor.

Ronnie, have you isolated where in the game file the production directives are recorded?

[Gar-Dog]

OK, I think I've got it distilled down to two major improvements:
1. DEFAULTs often don't seem to stay in the system's memory. I'd call this a bug; it's repeatable in the attached savegame [set UK's USA oil (TR) for default production in Hull, England (it's idled); change some Japanese default, and Hull will again be idled with no default noted. Tried 3x, repeatable.]
- Therefore, when they don't stick, they're not honored
- Trade especially has this problem. (TS) doesn't seem to stay with the same resource reliably, and on the other side (TR) can't be reliably sent to a DEFAULT factory.

2. Convoy optimization:
- If these DEFAULT settings were reliably routed first, before all other resources, we'd have a big improvement.
- Opportunity #2: when routing convoys and there are two equal length paths to use, avoid using a path that's on a different resource's (a) only path, or (b) shortest path. (I need to confirm this addresses most issues, but I think it does)


=====>>> Does anyone have documentation on how convoy routes are currently calculated? <<<======

If source code is available & code standards are reasonable, I think I could try some optimization... (Steve?)