Ia Drang TOAW III

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Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/8/2022 7:25:55 PM

blackknight1916

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Hey all-

Playing Ia Drang '65. I can't see the hidden objectives anywhere. If I switch over to NVA side I still can't see them. This is after turn 6 when they are supposed to be revealed. Anyone have a solution? PS-I do have floating objectives ON.

Thanks!

BK

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/9/2022 6:18:00 AM

sPzAbt653

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Um ... they are 'hidden', why would you think you can 'see' them?? lol!

I just looked at the briefing, and it says:

The NVA control four hidden objectives at the beginning of the scenario, which are worth permanent victory points to the US/ARVN. The US/ARVN player must search for these locations by moving ground units through suspected hexes. However, the victory locations do not become active until after turn 6 and the US/ARVN player will be notified the turn following the discovery of a victory location.

So by 'active', I suppose they still aren't 'seen', but if you stumble across any after turn 6 you will get a News notification, which I suppose would then reveal the location while still not being 'seen' on the map.

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/9/2022 1:42:46 PM

blackknight1916

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Well, the NVA should be able to see them as they control them. They are not visible to any player. Which makes no sense. Also, I scoured the map for them (yes after turn 6) and could not find them. Hence, my question.

< Message edited by blackknight1916 -- 2/9/2022 1:43:17 PM >

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/9/2022 3:41:42 PM

cathar1244

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quote:

ORIGINAL: blackknight1916

Well, the NVA should be able to see them as they control them. They are not visible to any player. Which makes no sense. Also, I scoured the map for them (yes after turn 6) and could not find them. Hence, my question.

What's going on is that this scenario is intended to be played as the US side. The intended NVA player is the PC, which is why there is no indication of where the hexes are.

"Hidden objectives" that can be seen by the owning sides are not a feature of TOAW.

So what the designer did is designate four hexes, that when captured by the US side, will give victory points to the US player. This is controlled through events in the scenario.

If you want to see which hexes they are, you have to open the scenario in the scenario editor and look at the events. The captured hexes that award points to the US player are listed near the end of the 80+ events.

Cheers

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/9/2022 6:12:55 PM

blackknight1916

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Thanks, that's helpful. I've played multiple times as both sides and no one has found them so I am wondering if something isn't off.

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/9/2022 7:29:14 PM

rhinobones

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quote:

ORIGINAL: cathar1244

If you want to see which hexes they are, you have to open the scenario in the scenario editor and look at the events. The captured hexes that award points to the US player are listed near the end of the 80+ events.

Cheers

No, no, don't tell how to game the system!! The designer made it as a "find the needle in the haystack" sort of scenario. Defeats the purpose if you already know where the goodies are hidden.

Best Regards

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/10/2022 12:06:57 AM

blackknight1916

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So if anyone cares, I went it, found the hexes in the scenario editor, and wrote them down.

I then played as US and occupied those hexes. Nothing happened on the following turns, even after turn 6.

I don't think they work.

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/10/2022 12:54:44 AM

rhinobones

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quote:

ORIGINAL: blackknight1916

So if anyone cares, I went it, found the hexes in the scenario editor, and wrote them down.
I then played as US and occupied those hexes. Nothing happened on the following turns, even after turn 6.
I don't think they work.

Don't know what version of TOAW was used originally, but possibly migrating up to VOAW IV broke the event structure. That assumes, of course, that the events worked properly in the original. Any chance the events have delays built in?

Regards

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/10/2022 12:57:13 AM

blackknight1916

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Well, this is TOAW III I am playing. The event says delay=0.

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/10/2022 4:00:49 PM

sPzAbt653

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Now that you cheated, they will no longer work!

Seriously though, if nobody else is doing it, I'll look at the events to see if they need a caress.

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/11/2022 9:14:41 AM

golden delicious

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Ideally you would have something in the event engine which picks four hexes randomly out of forty possibilities or something. Then you could replay it indefinitely.

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/12/2022 10:45:46 PM

sPzAbt653

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I've sort of done that by having a series of 50% chance events, so if Event 1 doesn't fire, then Event 2 will try, and so on until one hits or you reach the last one, which would be set to 100%.

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/13/2022 12:37:18 AM

rhinobones

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quote:

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

I've sort of done that by having a series of 50% chance events, so if Event 1 doesn't fire, then Event 2 will try, and so on until one hits or you reach the last one, which would be set to 100%.

What you are saying works but will not give each event the same chance of occurring. As an example, with four nested events, each using 50%, the odds of an event firing declines as 50%, 25%, 12.5% and 100%.

To give all four events an equal chance of firing the percentages need to be 25%, 33.5%, 50% and 100%. Actually, the TOAW engine seems to be non-liner with the first event favored. Instead of 25% the first event will work better at 24%.

In the example I used 12.5% and 33.5%. The event structure uses whole numbers so the designer will need to decide whether to round these numbers up or down.

Regards

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/13/2022 12:38:20 AM

sPzAbt653

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From: east coast, usa
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quote:

I then played as US and occupied those hexes. Nothing happened on the following turns, even after turn 6.

The NVA control four hidden objectives at the beginning of the scenario, which are worth permanent victory points to the US/ARVN. The US/ARVN player must search for these locations by moving ground units through suspected hexes. However, the victory locations do not become active until after turn 6 and the US/ARVN player will be notified the turn following the discovery of a victory location.

So if you occupy them prior to them becoming active, they won't trigger. Below is an example of one of them. There are other events that cancel them on turn 1 then activate them on turn 7. The trick is that TOAW will check if the location changed ownership. It doesn't check to see which side occupies a location. Play it again and occupy the locations 'after turn 6'. They will most likely work then.

Attachment (1)

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/13/2022 12:41:21 AM

sPzAbt653

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quote:

To give all four events an equal chance of firing

Yes I know, I didn't feel like typing it all. The percentages, by running tests, aren't that precise, they are a little different. I'd have to look thru notes to find out what they actually are, and I'm also too lazy to do that right now

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/13/2022 12:47:37 AM

sPzAbt653

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Oh well, since you took the trouble to post percentages, I've looked for what I used in one scenario.

AXIS OBJECTIVE TRACKS
819 Track 1 20%
1326 ev819 canceled > 23% activate ev1327
1327 Track 2
1328 ev1326 canceled > 23% activate ev1329
1329 Track 3
1330 ev1328 canceled > 23% activate ev1331
1331 Track 4
1332 ev1330 canceled > 100% activate ev1333
1333 Track 5

In the case of playing against an Axis PO, the Event Engine will have an equal chance of picking each one. For example, if you play this scenario 50 times, each track will run 10 times, with possibly about a one chance difference either way.

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RE: Ia Drang TOAW III - 2/13/2022 2:17:28 AM

rhinobones

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quote:

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Oh well, since you took the trouble to post percentages, I've looked for what I used in one scenario.

]AXIS OBJECTIVE TRACKS . . .

Your number should get you close to an even distribution. But by my calculations 100 trials would produce:

Track 1 � 20 = selected 20 times
Track 2 � 18 = selected 18 times
Track 3 � 14 = selected 14 times
Track 4 � 12 = selected 12 times
Track 5 � 36 = selected 36 times

I would set the percentages at 20%, 25%, 33%, 50% and 100%. Each track will then be selected 20 times out of 100 trials.

This can be verified using scenario 1941 Operation Mϋchen. The Russians start with Track 1 but at turn 8, events kick in to either stay on track 1 or switch tracks 2 thru 5. You would need to add a news string to events 61 to 65 to read the selected track.

Regards

< Message edited by rhinobones -- 2/13/2022 2:20:40 AM >

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