Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Panama

How about making a wish list specifically focused on scenario design, separate from the current endlessly long wishlist? Probably not, eh?

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Any way of deposing you? Having you locked away?

That's just how the Clippers feel about the Lakers.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: madner

This is becoming frustrating. Your logic is fallacious, where you are reading far to much into what Zetterling wrote to support a thesis that is devoid of any support in facts.

I'm not frustrated at all, since my position is iron-clad.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

At the moment, we have two different kinds of roads: improved and unimproved. As it stands, the difference between them are really rather insignificant. If the weather's inclement, unimproved roads can be worse than improved, but generally, the difference is primarily cosmetic. I can run improved or unimproved roads across the Ardennes: the German advance will progress about the same.

Also at the moment, there is a traffic factor that can make it hard to pile up units along a road without suffering penalties -- but again, this generally doesn't come into play, although there are scenarios where it works well.

So, I was thinking...

What if unimproved roads were made more susceptible to traffic effects than improved roads? Wouldn't this more effectively model the distinction? After all, the difficulty the Germans had in the Ardennes wasn't in running one vehicle across them; it was in running ten thousand vehicles across them all at once -- or trying to.

It would also help if the concern was to model the importance of securing the best road, as opposed to merely a road. After all, most places there's some meandering track that a regiment can straggle along without undue delay -- but if you want a ram a corps through, a really good road -- or network of roads -- is going to help. Such a distinction would also help to model the distinction between a road net capable of permitting a really large flow of traffic and one that is going to significantly delay the movement of large bodies of troops -- why the Ardennes were considered 'impassible.' They were a barrier -- the Germans just managed to overcome it.

If there was such a system, designers' considerations and players behavior would be more like in real life. Your choice of axis of advance would be dictated not just by other considerations, but by considerations of just how many troops could be shoved along a given road without excessive delay.

The new supply distribution method in 3.4 will start to address this. Supply ranges are in MPs not hexes. So, the mud and density penalties will accumulate supply reductions.

As to the difference between dirt and paved roads: It's not the width, it's the speed. One of my favorite "wishes" is for Motorized (or perhaps just Fast Motorized) units to pay only half a MP for each improved road traveled. This would not only affect troop movements, but supply ranges would double down improved roads. Their value over unimproved roads would be obvious.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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ORIGINAL: Panama

How about making a wish list specifically focused on scenario design, separate from the current endlessly long wishlist? Probably not, eh?

I'm not sure how one would separate suggestions for scenario design tool improvements from suggestions for the improvement of TOAW in general. After all, what one can do in scenario design is pretty much determined by what the system is. At best, I think we get two threads splitting up what should be conversations (well...) occurring in one place.

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ORIGINAL: Panama

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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ORIGINAL: Panama

How about making a wish list specifically focused on scenario design, separate from the current endlessly long wishlist? Probably not, eh?

I'm not sure how one would separate suggestions for scenario design tool improvements from suggestions for the improvement of TOAW in general. After all, what one can do in scenario design is pretty much determined by what the system is. At best, I think we get two threads splitting up what should be conversations (well...) occurring in one place.

well indeed. Keeping a thread on subject in this forum is a bit like herding cats.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
I'd be more inclined to use the analogy of educated Russians and the last Tsar. Indeed, it all reminds me of their feelings about Rasputin. I suppose your sex life isn't as good as R-dude's -- but one does begin to get the same combination of concern for the future coupled with frustration at the sheer mindless obscurantism. Then too, there's the same uncertainty about the exact extent of your influence. It's really a rather good match.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Any way of deposing you? Having you locked away?

That's just how the Clippers feel about the Lakers.

I'd be more inclined to use the analogy of educated Russians and the last Tsar. Indeed, it all reminds me of their feelings about Rasputin. I suppose your sex life isn't as good as R-dude's -- but one does begin to get the same combination of concern for the future coupled with frustration at the sheer mindless obscurantism. Then too, there's the same uncertainty about the exact extent of your influence. It's really a rather good match.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Spectacular. The planned and proposed changes you enumerate are completely irrelevant to the concerns I raised.

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ORIGINAL: Panama

Is obsurantism a real word? Just wondering. Perhaps you meant obfuscation? One of my favorites.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Spectacular. The planned and proposed changes you enumerate are completely irrelevant to the concerns I raised.

Why? Double the movement rate on an improved road and twice the stuff can be moved down it. It's going to make improved roads much more valuable. It would especially help the Desert War, as the coast road would focus supply on the coast.

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ORIGINAL: rhinobones

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
I'd be more inclined to use the analogy of educated Russians and the last Tsar. Indeed, it all reminds me of their feelings about Rasputin. I suppose your sex life isn't as good as R-dude's -- but one does begin to get the same combination of concern for the future coupled with frustration at the sheer mindless obscurantism. Then too, there's the same uncertainty about the exact extent of your influence. It's really a rather good match.

This kind of post only proves your inability to be a decent human being.

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Check out my byline for some of your earlier gems of manhood.

Regards, RhinoBones

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Spectacular. The planned and proposed changes you enumerate are completely irrelevant to the concerns I raised.

Why? Double the movement rate on an improved road and twice the stuff can be moved down it. It's going to make improved roads much more valuable. It would especially help the Desert War, as the coast road would focus supply on the coast.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
To bring the conversation back to earth, I'd look first of all at the traffic penalties and how to use them to make an improved road capable of handling significantly more traffic than an unimproved road. Second -- of course -- we actually need an actual volume-based supply system. The obstacles to getting this last might turn out to be insuperable, but that's something of an unknown. We never get that far in the discussion.

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ORIGINAL: Panama

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
To bring the conversation back to earth, I'd look first of all at the traffic penalties and how to use them to make an improved road capable of handling significantly more traffic than an unimproved road. Second -- of course -- we actually need an actual volume-based supply system. The obstacles to getting this last might turn out to be insuperable, but that's something of an unknown. We never get that far in the discussion.

One of the things you would need to correct is how the game handles 'traffic'. Currenty it appears to me that it uses the old stacking method used in old board games. Traffic only counts if something is physically there during movement. Ideally, traffic would come into play during a turn even if something had been there during the turn but no longer is.

In other words, if two units had used the same number of movement points during a turn to get through a specific road hex then they would pay a traffic penalty for that hex. The problem arises when you consider this is not a rts game. You couldn't possibly make the first unit through the hex pay a penalty when you don't even know if a second unit will enter the hex at the same time. So you could only make the second unit pay a penalty even though the first unit was in the same traffic jam...

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Sure...but only because it'll all be moving twice as fast -- and presumably, twice as fast as would otherwise be possible.

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I-5 can handle twice the traffic of US 97.

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I'd say you're seeking to paper over the central issue rather than actually confronting it. A good road net will admittedly increase the maximum possible speed of a single vehicle somewhat -- but what it will really do is increase how much traffic can travel at the same speed. Where one panzer division could move along without undue delay, now three can. It's not that any one panzer division could go three times faster.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

But there you are. In point of fact, forces as large as a brigade operated deep in the desert -- and as far as I know, without any supply problems.

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The difficulty is channeling a lot of supply out that far. That is to say, to support a force larger than a single brigade. Once again, the alternatives don't really provide satisfactory solutions -- what is needed is a true volume-based supply system.

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ORIGINAL: Panama

One of the things you would need to correct is how the game handles 'traffic'. Currenty it appears to me that it uses the old stacking method used in old board games. Traffic only counts if something is physically there during movement. Ideally, traffic would come into play during a turn even if something had been there during the turn but no longer is.

In other words, if two units had used the same number of movement points during a turn to get through a specific road hex then they would pay a traffic penalty for that hex. The problem arises when you consider this is not a rts game. You couldn't possibly make the first unit through the hex pay a penalty when you don't even know if a second unit will enter the hex at the same time. So you could only make the second unit pay a penalty even though the first unit was in the same traffic jam.

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Supply would have to be handled the same way. If an improved road is used to route supply then the more supply routed down that road the less distance that supply could reach in a turn since a larger amount of traffic on a road would reduce the overall speed any suppy could achieve. Or better yet reduce the amount of supply reaching units based on how many units a road has to supply.

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ORIGINAL: Panama

I see. The Axis on the East Front and the Allies on the West Front would have loved to have known these things. They would have had no problems with logistics if they had just stopped to reason things out. I guess they were pretty stupid, eh?

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Ever noticed how I've never initiated a conversation with you in my life? That is to say, unless it's been a personal attack, I can't recall responding to any post you've made? It's odd, too, because to put it mildly, I'm a prolific poster.

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ORIGINAL: desert

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Ever noticed how I've never initiated a conversation with you in my life? That is to say, unless it's been a personal attack, I can't recall responding to any post you've made? It's odd, too, because to put it mildly, I'm a prolific poster.

First forum I've ever seen where a little over a post a day (many of those being a sentence long) makes you a prolific poster.

I'm not insulting you, this is just a weird habit some of you seem to have: making a separate post for every point or member you address.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

I thought that's what everyone did. It seems that is what everyone does. Are you suggesting one post comprehensively responding to the posts of five different individuals?

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ORIGINAL: desert

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

I thought that's what everyone did. It seems that is what everyone does. Are you suggesting one post comprehensively responding to the posts of five different individuals?

I've never seen it done that way in any other forum. Double (and triple!) posting is usually frowned upon and offenders usually apologize for doing it.

I've seen single replies longer than most pages in this thread.

Hell, you replied to the same post twice earlier today. In the space of ten minutes. And you edited it over 12 hours later, so why would you feel any compunction about editing in the extra material in the first place?

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Why two short posts are bad but one long post is good escapes me.

I must have had two different points to make. As to editing it later, if I notice an error, or feel the wording could be improved, I certainly see it as desirable to make the change.

Anyway, if you want to write page-long posts, I won't object.