Matrix Games Forums

Maybe they're not in the Manual. Let me qualify that first ... I looked and could not find it. (... it doesn't mean its not there, I'm just old with bad eyesight)

I thought it may be good to have a topic such as this.

MY QUESTIONS:

1. In the Attack planning window; when I assign support units like air or arty for an assault, sometimes the flags turn from gold to black. What is this telling me?
Key word here is "sometimes".

2. Can you make the information area at the bottom of the screen display more than 2 lines of text ?

3. If not, what's the quickest way to go back and see what happened during an attack ? (the info goes by so fast at the bottom of screen I can't read it)
I know I can turn on the detailed battle results window (in options) but that sure slows down the turn resolution plus you have to sit and click for every attack to clear the box out for the next attack. I would rather be able to open a window and scroll through all this info at the end of the turn. Any way to do this?

thanks

ORIGINAL: hank
1. In the Attack planning window; when I assign support units like air or arty for an assault, sometimes the flags turn from gold to black. What is this telling me?

The three flag colors - gold, silver, black - refer to the varying levels of cooperation, full, limited, none, respectively. Do a search on cooperation, or cooperative in the manual and read up on that for a better understanding.

ORIGINAL: hank
2. Can you make the information area at the bottom of the screen display more than 2 lines of text ?

3. If not, what's the quickest way to go back and see what happened during an attack ? (the info goes by so fast at the bottom of screen I can't read it)
I know I can turn on the detailed battle results window (in options) but that sure slows down the turn resolution plus you have to sit and click for every attack to clear the box out for the next attack. I would rather be able to open a window and scroll through all this info at the end of the turn. Any way to do this?

These two are related questions. The short answer is to take the time to read the combat reports as they are happening. You will learn a lot more to see the action and then immediately read how the engine resolved the battle, than trying to read it later.

However, if you don't have the patience to go through this learning cycle, and want to read it later, then what you should do is first make sure that you have enabled the SitRep Advanced Game rules option, and added an "uberdude" command to your command line for TOAW III. This will add the information in the SitRep that is currently missing (it was mistakenly overtightened down to PBEM levels, before release). The problem with running uberdude is that you will get a lot of debug info in the News Briefings, and if you are playing PBEM with people, both you and your opponent may have more information than you should, with respect to event activations, etc. It's a level playing field, mind you, since the info is written into the reports that both sides can see, but it may ruin the Fog of War effect for hidden event activations.

Anyhow, with an uberdude enhanced sitrep, you will have the same info that you had in the combat reports, to read at your leisure. However, I still think it's best to watch the detailed combat reports...

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: hank
1. In the Attack planning window; when I assign support units like air or arty for an assault, sometimes the flags turn from gold to black. What is this telling me?

The three flag colors - gold, silver, black - refer to the varying levels of cooperation, full, limited, none, respectively. Do a search on cooperation, or cooperative in the manual and read up on that for a better understanding.


With all due respect to Jamiam and the people who wrote the manual. many of the basic concepts are not made particularly clear unless one is familiar with past versions of this engine. (I'm not and the manual wasn't much help)

The key thing to remember is that, when you plan an attack, gold flags on all the commited units are best (i.e. no penalties); silver is OK (slight to moderate penalties) and black is bad (heavy penalties). Try to maneuver your forces and commit your supporting units in such a way that they are usually fighting battles with gold flags. In some situations, you may need to go to silver or even black, but you should try to avoid it.

ORIGINAL: PaladinSix
With all due respect to Jamiam and the people who wrote the manual. many of the basic concepts are not made particularly clear unless one is familiar with past versions of this engine. (I'm not and the manual wasn't much help)

Perhaps you missed page 26, where more than half the page is dedicated to making this concept particularly clear? Or, maybe the you missed page 65-66, where it again deals with this in length, beginning with "18.9.2 Support Levels This is a critical game feature, so information available elsewhere in this manual bears repeating here..."...?

With all due respect, I think that it was covered fairly well...[;)]

My point is simply that much of the written material seems to be designed to give experienced players access to detailed information, rather than providing a clear overview to novices.  I'm not sure if that was a design choice or not, and I guess it doesn't really matter.  However, I think you might agree that three pages in the entire manual could be construed as a little thin for a "critical game feature."
 
At least the information in the manual is accurate, as far as I can tell, which is better than most computer game manuals.  I just think it could have been organized in a more user-friendly manner.

I'll certainly agree that there is a lot for novice players to take in. And that it can be somewhat intimidating at times. That's why we're here to help. However, in times like this, I'm reminded of what my Combinatorics Professor would often say..."Always read the section before asking questions. And if you've read it once, and still don't understand it...read it again."...[;)]

ORIGINAL: PaladinSix
At least the information in the manual is accurate, as far as I can tell, which is better than most computer game manuals.  I just think it could have been organized in a more user-friendly manner.

I don't want to seem like I'm picking on you, since I'm not. You do bring up an interesting point. The question is how to present a vast amount of equally "critical" data, and game concepts in a user-friendly manner? This is particularly difficult given the situation. There are communities that have been disecting this game for years, and still have barely scratched the surface. I wish that there was an easy solution to your suggestion, but since I'm not a textbook writer, I'm afraid I don't really know much better how to present the data than how we've already done within the constraints of the manual.

Please don't be afraid to ask away, but keep in mind that when data is presented in the manual, and referring the questioneer to a particular section is easy enough to do, by firing up the manual, searching for terms, and then directing the questioneer toward the same data that we would otherwise have to cut, paste, and repeat verbatim, we are likely to just point, and let the questioneer go through the process of discovery on their own. The lesson sticks with people better, that way.

Certainly, guided self-discovery of the answer is better than simply cutting and pasting the text out of the manual. It should cause the lesson to be learned more completely.

Along those same lines, have you (meaning the guys at Matrix, not just yourself) considered posting tutorials on some of these concepts on the forums? Not so much a question and answer session, but more like a locked thread that could go through particular game concepts in detail, so that novices could actually see what was happening in a particular situation.

If it was done with screenshots or other visuals, along with some explanatory text, it might go a long way towards clarifying some of the more difficult, but important aspects of the system. I'm thinking of something like the stuff in the AAR thread, done by the designers or moderators. I think this sort of thing would be really helpful for concepts like cooperation, replacements/reconstitution or supporting fire.

Of course, you're sitting there thinking, "Are you kidding me? Do you know how much time that would take? I spend sixty hours a week dealing with you people and this game. Why would I want to do more? Don't you realize that I have a family!"

This sort of thing may not be possible, or even worth it, but I thought I'd throw it out there for your consideration.

PaladinSix

PaladinSix,
It's easy to miss, did you see the four tutorials that come with the game?

Ralph

There's also a beginner's PBEM set of games atarting up over at SZO.

http://www.strategyzoneonline.com/forum ... hp?t=42324

A suggestion. Try Rethel 40. Few units and short but it's a hornet's nest as related to unit and formation co-operation if playing the French. If you read the manual, check the combat reports, maybe set the switches to study combat results in detail, you'll see.

I think there are 2 different ways to play TOAW. Casual and expert. It's a high learning curve to get to the latter and there is no easy way- curiously rather like warfare itself. But if you put the time and effort in, you will be rewarded.

Hope this helps.

While I appreciate all the advice and pointers, I think some of this is missing the point.

I've done the tutorials, and thought that some of them were quite useful.  I've read the manual and refer to it often when playing.  Given my limited experience, I think I have a decent grasp of the basic concepts and more or less how they work.  My suggestion to JAMIAM was regarding online help was not for me in particular, but for the collective TOAW audience in general, especially those unfamiliar with the game engine.

Simply trying to find ways to increase accessibility, and thereby hopefully increase marketability.

PaladinSix


I just saw Dabb's post in the general forum about the new player workshop at SZO. This is an even better idean than the what I was thinking about. Anything that makes it easier for novices to pick up the game only increases the appeal for a wider audience.

Thanks for the reply.  I've been working a plant shutdown and been away from the 'puter since I posted this.
 
I did not mean to cause descention amongst the ranks.  I should search through the manual more thoroughly.  I just didn't know what the flags meant in the first place so I wouldn't have know to search on "cooperation" to find my answer.
 
I can deal with the manual.  Its not bad once you know what key words to look for when researching for an answer.
 
As far as watching and clicking the "detailed battle report" ... I'll try again clicking through these tonight in my pbem moves plus turn on the logging option ... if it takes an hour or more to review my opponents move with detailed reports ON, I'll most likely turn it back off and just have the engine write data to the log file for review after his move.
 
thanks
 
... I didn't mean to step on toes saying something wasn't in the manual
 

ORIGINAL: hank
I did not mean to cause descention amongst the ranks.  I should search through the manual more thoroughly.  I just didn't know what the flags meant in the first place so I wouldn't have know to search on "cooperation" to find my answer.

I can deal with the manual. Its not bad once you know what key words to look for when researching for an answer.

...

... I didn't mean to step on toes saying something wasn't in the manual

No big deal. If someone says something isn't in the manual, but it is, I simply point them in the right direction...sometimes pointedly...but never personally...[;)]

ORIGINAL: hank
As far as watching and clicking the "detailed battle report" ... I'll try again clicking through these tonight in my pbem moves plus turn on the logging option ... if it takes an hour or more to review my opponents move with detailed reports ON, I'll most likely turn it back off and just have the engine write data to the log file for review after his move.

Sorry, but I didn't understand that you were playing a PBEM game. In that case, you would not be able to see the detailed combat reports of the enemy player, during the playback of his turn. I thought you meant the detailed reports that are generated during your turn. If your opponent and you are using the uberdude command line switch, and enabling SitReps, then you two could conceivably swap the sitreps (or even toawlogs) that are generated, but then you might each be getting more information than you should (with respect to fog of war) as well as more information than you would want (with respect to a lot of very dense and tedious data).

@PalidinSix:

More than one has ended up black and blue from the Toaw learning curve, lol!

Try the SZO forums: http://www.strategyzoneonline.com/forum ... y.php?f=10

Home of the seriously fanatic Toaw sorts.

Possibly what your looking for is included in the various faq's that have been published over the years, eh? [:)]

@JAMiaM; Not that you really have the time, but a possible list of 'urls' to the really good archieves/faqs ?

http://www.warfarehq.com/index.php?page ... shtml#TOAW and similar, eh?

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM



However, if you don't have the patience to go through this learning cycle, and want to read it later, then what you should do is first make sure that you have enabled the SitRep Advanced Game rules option, and added an "uberdude" command to your command line for TOAW III. This will add the information in the SitRep that is currently missing (it was mistakenly overtightened down to PBEM levels, before release). The problem with running uberdude is that you will get a lot of debug info in the News Briefings, and if you are playing PBEM with people, both you and your opponent may have more information than you should, with respect to event activations, etc. It's a level playing field, mind you, since the info is written into the reports that both sides can see, but it may ruin the Fog of War effect for hidden event activations.

Anyhow, with an uberdude enhanced sitrep, you will have the same info that you had in the combat reports, to read at your leisure. However, I still think it's best to watch the detailed combat reports...

Could you elaborate on exactly how to add this command? Right now I get no sitrep in my save folder despite having the sitrep log on.

my 5 cents worth, used to be two cents but with inflation, I USED to know this game cold, then the game made a qauntum leap in quality and complexity and just recetly have redescovered it... and it truly shines in pbem mode....
I too have found the pages here and at the taow board very helpfull.. but there is so much iunder the hood, shock and other values I hear refered too that keep my head spining, ok, not that bad but there are alot of "tweekable" areas for designers... maybe a new super FAQ ??????

ORIGINAL: 88mmsurprize

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM



However, if you don't have the patience to go through this learning cycle, and want to read it later, then what you should do is first make sure that you have enabled the SitRep Advanced Game rules option, and added an "uberdude" command to your command line for TOAW III. This will add the information in the SitRep that is currently missing (it was mistakenly overtightened down to PBEM levels, before release). The problem with running uberdude is that you will get a lot of debug info in the News Briefings, and if you are playing PBEM with people, both you and your opponent may have more information than you should, with respect to event activations, etc. It's a level playing field, mind you, since the info is written into the reports that both sides can see, but it may ruin the Fog of War effect for hidden event activations.

Anyhow, with an uberdude enhanced sitrep, you will have the same info that you had in the combat reports, to read at your leisure. However, I still think it's best to watch the detailed combat reports...

Could you elaborate on exactly how to add this command? Right now I get no sitrep in my save folder despite having the sitrep log on.

BUMP

This link should explain how to do things and the other command line options available.

http://www.tdg.nu/download/Unsuported%20features.htm

I did find with XP home though that the option needs to be typed in outside the quotes, not inside as the article suggests, so my link which uses the toawlog option reads

"C:\Matrix Games\The Operational Art of War III\Opart 3.exe" toawlog

ORIGINAL: 88mmsurprize

ORIGINAL: 88mmsurprize

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM



However, if you don't have the patience to go through this learning cycle, and want to read it later, then what you should do is first make sure that you have enabled the SitRep Advanced Game rules option, and added an "uberdude" command to your command line for TOAW III. This will add the information in the SitRep that is currently missing (it was mistakenly overtightened down to PBEM levels, before release). The problem with running uberdude is that you will get a lot of debug info in the News Briefings, and if you are playing PBEM with people, both you and your opponent may have more information than you should, with respect to event activations, etc. It's a level playing field, mind you, since the info is written into the reports that both sides can see, but it may ruin the Fog of War effect for hidden event activations.

Anyhow, with an uberdude enhanced sitrep, you will have the same info that you had in the combat reports, to read at your leisure. However, I still think it's best to watch the detailed combat reports...

Could you elaborate on exactly how to add this command? Right now I get no sitrep in my save folder despite having the sitrep log on.

BUMP

First, a few questions:

Did you set the option in your Advanced Game options from the first screen? Did you use the default installation path for TOAW III? Are you not seeing them for solitaire games, or for PBEM?

You should have a sitrep log appear as a .txt file in the Saves folder, as you play the game. A new file is started with each turn and is used for both sides.

To add the command line switch, you need to have a shortcut on your desktop directly to the Opart 3.exe executable file, since the default installation of TOAW III has the desktop shortcut pointing to the game menu. Right click on your direct shortcut, and choose Properties. Then select the Shortcut tab. Then in the Target field, go to the end of the line, and add a space, then "uberdude". I leave the quotation marks in. You can add several command line switches, but each one needs to have a space between it and the next. Click Okay to apply the changes.

Now, when you start the game, instead of using the Matrix Games game menu, use the shortcut containing the command line instead. Alternately, if you feel that this debug mode is putting too much information in the turn briefing and news reports, then use the Game Menu shortcut for regular play.