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If I had been coding MWiF, I would not have had the preliminary production phase do anything; it would be for planning purposes only. Then, I would have split final production into two parts: trade agreements, and everything else. WiF has a rule that trade agreements must be fulfilled if possible, and if it is not possible, then the resources or build points are lost. So do the trades first, lock them in, and then have a second stage where everything else is done. If you fouled up (what? me make a mistake in production? I can't even say "Hardly ever") then you could go back to the trade step without having to go through the agony of the Stay at Sea and Return to Base steps.

Oh, well. A fantasy.

Courtenay wrote: Sun Nov 26, 2023 8:42 pm If I had been coding MWiF, I would not have had the preliminary production phase do anything; it would be for planning purposes only. Then, I would have split final production into two parts: trade agreements, and everything else. WiF has a rule that trade agreements must be fulfilled if possible, and if it is not possible, then the resources or build points are lost. So do the trades first, lock them in, and then have a second stage where everything else is done. If you fouled up (what? me make a mistake in production? I can't even say "Hardly ever") then you could go back to the trade step without having to go through the agony of the Stay at Sea and Return to Base steps.

Oh, well. A fantasy.

Well, maybe not a fantasy if you're willing to handle things "off" the books (i.e,. outside of MWIF).

Personally, I'm through with going back to SAS & RTB to get production right. I calculate what I think it should be for better or worse (i.e., right & wrong) and if that doesn't match what I'm seeing in MWIF I then edit in BPs and/or oil as appropriate to make it match. Sure, my approach is subject to miscalculation (mistake) on my part. However; I'm willing to live with that error, which is no different if playing over the board, versus having to spend countless hours wresting with MWIF and/or accepting what if finally gives me.

Courtenay wrote: Sun Nov 26, 2023 8:42 pm If I had been coding MWiF, I would not have had the preliminary production phase do anything; it would be for planning purposes only. Then, I would have split final production into two parts: trade agreements, and everything else. WiF has a rule that trade agreements must be fulfilled if possible, and if it is not possible, then the resources or build points are lost. So do the trades first, lock them in, and then have a second stage where everything else is done. If you fouled up (what? me make a mistake in production? I can't even say "Hardly ever") then you could go back to the trade step without having to go through the agony of the Stay at Sea and Return to Base steps.

Oh, well. A fantasy.

It is. Because it's not so simple as you've described here. Think about it for a moment: if you split those two things, you might not get maximum production, because the convoys could be used more efficiënt if a different resource is used for trading overseas than the program is thinking during the first stage. And that becomes even more important, when you have to trade build points overseas.

And apart from that: I am be able to get production planning to work. I have to add nothing using debug or other tools.

Courtenay wrote: Sun Nov 26, 2023 8:42 pm If I had been coding MWiF, I would not have had the preliminary production phase do anything; it would be for planning purposes only. Then, I would have split final production into two parts: trade agreements, and everything else. WiF has a rule that trade agreements must be fulfilled if possible, and if it is not possible, then the resources or build points are lost. So do the trades first, lock them in, and then have a second stage where everything else is done. If you fouled up (what? me make a mistake in production? I can't even say "Hardly ever") then you could go back to the trade step without having to go through the agony of the Stay at Sea and Return to Base steps.

Oh, well. A fantasy.

It is simple, the player should be able to do the production by himself. Without being overridden by the computer wrong designs.

That is all.

Even those that through many circumvolutions can surpass the Artificial Stupidity flaws need a lot of experience, and knowledge on how to do it. A regular player simply wont do it.

Joseignacio wrote: Tue Nov 28, 2023 1:01 pm

Courtenay wrote: Sun Nov 26, 2023 8:42 pm If I had been coding MWiF, I would not have had the preliminary production phase do anything; it would be for planning purposes only. Then, I would have split final production into two parts: trade agreements, and everything else. WiF has a rule that trade agreements must be fulfilled if possible, and if it is not possible, then the resources or build points are lost. So do the trades first, lock them in, and then have a second stage where everything else is done. If you fouled up (what? me make a mistake in production? I can't even say "Hardly ever") then you could go back to the trade step without having to go through the agony of the Stay at Sea and Return to Base steps.

Oh, well. A fantasy.

It is simple, the player should be able to do the production by himself. Without being overrided by the computer wrong designs.

That is all.

Even those that through many circumvolutions can surpass the Artificial Stupidity flaws need a lot of experience, and knowledge on how to do it. A regular player simply wont do it.

MWIF needs to enforce the rules. If everything has to be done manually, MWIF still needs to check the manual instructions. And that's not so easy, because IMHO if it was, we would not have this discussion at all.

Centuur wrote: Tue Nov 28, 2023 3:53 pm MWIF needs to enforce the rules. If everything has to be done manually, MWIF still needs to check the manual instructions. And that's not so easy, because IMHO if it was, we would not have this discussion at all.

But checking if a (manually created by the player) route is valid is much easier than finding the route by the AI and then checking it, right? Isn't the part of creating the route the one that it's creating trouble?

The player could easily assign a route from, for example, Venezuela to UK as a path of (port, sea area, ..., sea area, port, factory) and the game should only check that it's a valid "link/connection" from step n to step n+1. Why should the AI decide for me if I want to route the resource through the African coast or the American one?

I don't need an AI to make the route for me, just to make sure that route is valid, mark internally the convoys as used/busy, whatever is needed for the internal book keeping, etc...

Do players need an AI to calculate their routes when playing the boardgame?

juntoalmar wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2023 7:23 am Do players need an AI to calculate their routes when playing the boardgame?

No, but I do need a spreadsheet.

I use to do convoys by hand, but when playing through Vassal, I carry a spreadsheet to control production, to keep track of how many really arrive after conv losses or bp lost to Strat bomb, for example.