RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (Full Version)

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CBoehm -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/24/2006 7:22:49 PM)

I know I know ...well Japan does get a few cheap CLs in 42 they might build if I recall correctly. IT gets some too ...but I daubt they want to build them ...



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/24/2006 8:05:50 PM)

Here are some revisions to the first 3 pages. I added stuff about the cost and time to build, but not repair. The latter will be discussed later.



[image]local://upfiles/16701/9E8E81DAEF294F6C8E8E1E9FDDFF260C.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/24/2006 8:10:23 PM)

The carrier air units' class #s can change during the game and that information will be shown in the Unit Data panel for the air units (Tutorial #6). I expect to have a page there that will look like this one, but with the air units on the left with their Unit Data displayed and the carriers on the right.

When the air unit class changes, the unit depiction reflects the change.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/66AF66F3B83D410EA699F6364D77796A.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/24/2006 8:14:00 PM)

3rd and last in series. This is mostly the same except for the next-to-last new paragraph.

I have the graphics done for pages 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. Only #7 is missing graphics. If I can find the time, I do the writeups on some more of these today.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/F0C19C8C384D43F48346716C8096AC76.jpg[/image]



SamuraiProgrmmr -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/24/2006 8:46:33 PM)

Steve,

Everything looks GREAT!  Keep up the good work!  It is a pleasure watching you proceed on this project.  It is not often that I get to watch the workings of a programming master and it has been an education.

On the display of the unit information with labels (the part with the white background), are you using the area on the last line (where Disorganized shows up) that is directly under  'Cst 1/Cst 2/Trns/Rrg:#/#/#/#?

If not, it would sure help if you changed the arrangement to :

Cst1   #  Trns    #
Cst2   #  Reorg  #

I do have another idea and I don't want to offend.  I expect you thought about it and came to a decision, but here goes...

Since there are multiple columns in close proximity, the right justified labels may be making things look cluttered.  Do you think it would look any better if the labels Country, Year, Attack, Defense, an Type were left justified?  Also what about Name, Range and Move.  If you moved Bombardment to the same line as range and ASW Anti-Air to the same line as Move, you could left justify Oil to match Anti-Air.  If you are able to rearrange the Cst 1/Cst 2/Trns/Rrg line, you could then line it up in the same way with ASW and Anti-Air.  I sill think the values should be left justified with each other like they are.

(I use right justified labels and left justified values all of the time because I generally like them better, but when they are this tightly packed, I wonder if the other way might be easier to look at.

I know this seems like nit-picking and it is, but I think that such alignment will make the numbers jump out better. 

Just an idea and I could be wrong.




Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/24/2006 10:17:52 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: SamuraiProgrammer

Steve,

Everything looks GREAT!  Keep up the good work!  It is a pleasure watching you proceed on this project.  It is not often that I get to watch the workings of a programming master and it has been an education.

On the display of the unit information with labels (the part with the white background), are you using the area on the last line (where Disorganized shows up) that is directly under  'Cst 1/Cst 2/Trns/Rrg:#/#/#/#?

If not, it would sure help if you changed the arrangement to :

Cst1   #  Trns    #
Cst2   #  Reorg  #

I do have another idea and I don't want to offend.  I expect you thought about it and came to a decision, but here goes...

Since there are multiple columns in close proximity, the right justified labels may be making things look cluttered.  Do you think it would look any better if the labels Country, Year, Attack, Defense, an Type were left justified?  Also what about Name, Range and Move.  If you moved Bombardment to the same line as range and ASW Anti-Air to the same line as Move, you could left justify Oil to match Anti-Air.  If you are able to rearrange the Cst 1/Cst 2/Trns/Rrg line, you could then line it up in the same way with ASW and Anti-Air.  I sill think the values should be left justified with each other like they are.

(I use right justified labels and left justified values all of the time because I generally like them better, but when they are this tightly packed, I wonder if the other way might be easier to look at.

I know this seems like nit-picking and it is, but I think that such alignment will make the numbers jump out better. 

Just an idea and I could be wrong.

Thanks.

Your input on this layout (Unit Data panel) is appreciated. I inherited this design from CWIF and have only made a few small changes: increased the panel width by 5 pixels (wow!) and forced the colons to line up. Chris had used varying placements within a column which I found hard to read.

There are actually about a half-dozen problems I have with this layout and I think I might have to just make the whole thing larger. While the Unit Data panel is included in dozens (40+) forms, giving it a larger panel only really affects the display of the "Units Under Cursor" form (which can be toggled on/off). But that form is very useful when playing, since it lets you 'see' the units in a stack as you move the cursor down the line of units. It is also used for showing summary data for a stack (e.g., total naval attack strength). All in all, keeping the footprint for the Units Under Cursor small is a serious goal.

Off the top of my head, problems are (1) the visual clutter you mentioned, (2) for the United Kingdom, the country name overlies the unit name, (3) light aircraft carrier type overlies the Cst etc. info, and (4) Range overlies ASW information. Some of this is because I changed Chris' code to make the colons line up. Other problems are due to the addition of new unit types (e.g., ASW for Convoys in Flames).

Another constraint on this design is that the same panel is used for all unit types. The branching logic separates unit types into 4 groups: air, land, naval, and special (e.g., forts, oil points). The internal design is the same for all the unit types with only the parameters for column placements and fields shown changing. A lot of the inofrmation is the same for all unit types so some of the code is reusable across all unit types.

I think I will just sit down an redo the whole thing from scratch. It's possible that going to 7 or 8 rows may reduce the required width.



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 4:01:43 AM)

Here are 2 more pages of the tutorial introducing naval units.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/48217ABAFFE44C74A782EFD7BB710BA2.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 4:03:03 AM)

2nd and last in series. Halfway done with this tutorial.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/FB57BFFA857B41B984FA93858C8CA7FB.jpg[/image]



freeboy -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 5:30:45 AM)

do those cl have torpedoes as in real life?



trees trees -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 5:39:43 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets


When the air unit class changes, the unit depiction reflects the change.



nice. I was wondering how a Fulmar got an orange color on the front. But you might want to mention in the tutorial that double stacking carrier planes is only an optional rule. Since that is such an obscure one and rarely played, I think I would leave that out of the tutorial. CV plane classes are confusing enough. I do hope double-stacking is a sub-choice in the CV Plane option? Perhaps gist for the optional thread.

I also like that the TRS defense factor is 5 right on the counter.



stretch -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 5:46:17 AM)

ok dumb question.  which countersheet is the Forrestal on?  The silhouette looks like Midway class, which of course it wasn't.




Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 6:51:14 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: stretch
ok dumb question.  which countersheet is the Forrestal on?  The silhouette looks like Midway class, which of course it wasn't.


#30, Politics in Flame. I have taken some of the supplementary counters from that add-on, (but not the add-on's rules).



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 8:54:32 AM)

Skipping over the pages on convoys (7 & 8), here are 3 of the 4 pages on task forces. No controversy here, I am sure.[:D]

[image]local://upfiles/16701/9F95504334A7429A869A1165E6F66B65.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 8:56:51 AM)

One of my favorite sayings (when things are complicated and/or poorly explained) is "intuitively obvious to the casual observer, eh what?"

[image]local://upfiles/16701/0F63CAE45044479EA25FDCF9D70F2D99.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 8:58:02 AM)

3rd and last in the series.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/5293E3E1A34B452FBD929BDBD986E253.jpg[/image]



lomyrin -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 9:28:26 AM)

These last pages 9 thru 11 are great examples for the game, both graphics and text. They alone ought to get the new player very excited about playing.

Lars 



Greyshaft -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 9:38:13 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

One of my favorite sayings (when things are complicated and/or poorly explained) is "intuitively obvious to the casual observer, eh what?"

[image]local://upfiles/16701/0F63CAE45044479EA25FDCF9D70F2D99.jpg[/image]

Typo in final para... "All tolled" should be "All told" ... unless you are saying that the fleet was wiped out and there was a requiem mass afterwards [:)]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 9:40:56 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

These last pages 9 thru 11 are great examples for the game, both graphics and text. They alone ought to get the new player very excited about playing.

Lars 

Thanks Lars. I especially value your opinion because of all the contributions you have made to WIF over the years.



Arron69 -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 11:02:30 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

3rd and last in the series.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/5293E3E1A34B452FBD929BDBD986E253.jpg[/image]


I think these 3 are near well perfect. I especially like the lines on using the carriers without the carrierplanes.

Andi



CBoehm -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 12:13:44 PM)

Hi Shannon, the tutorial looks great ...I think it will really be a great help to beginners. However, I feel that in page 6 there is a few tiny places where you could be a bit more specific in order to avoid confusion.

- As I read it you imply that the French MTN corps sets up in morocco this is NOT the case.

- You write about the queens that they can transport only “infantry units” – in order to not confuse people I would stress that its infantry-TYPE units. ei. the queens can transport MOTs.

- You write that light & heavy cruisers can carry infantry divisions …but this is true of all SCS ei. including BBs …and in this case its important to stress that only NON-MOTORIZED inf-type divs can be carried.

- You write that when using the amphibious rule – only MAR units can invade from TRN, this is only true with respect to corps! ANY inf-type division can still invade from a TRN.

cheers
Claus



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 1:06:38 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: CBoehm
Hi Shannon, the tutorial looks great ...I think it will really be a great help to beginners. However, I feel that in page 6 there is a few tiny places where you could be a bit more specific in order to avoid confusion.

- As I read it you imply that the French MTN corps sets up in morocco this is NOT the case.

- You write about the queens that they can transport only “infantry units” – in order to not confuse people I would stress that its infantry-TYPE units. ei. the queens can transport MOTs.

- You write that light & heavy cruisers can carry infantry divisions …but this is true of all SCS ei. including BBs …and in this case its important to stress that only NON-MOTORIZED inf-type divs can be carried.

- You write that when using the amphibious rule – only MAR units can invade from TRN, this is only true with respect to corps! ANY inf-type division can still invade from a TRN.

cheers
Claus

You are correct on these points.

However,

1 - The mountain unit has 'Morocco' written on it. So talking abour moving it from Morocco seems reasonable. Given that setting up the Global War scenario requires the placement of hundreds of units (e.g., 81 CW convoys), I doubt that a newcomer to WIF is going to notice when he gets around to setting up the scenario. The program gets the placement restrictions correct.

2 - the subtle distinction between Infantry units and Infantry-type units [as defined in WIF] would be lost on a newcomer. Explaining the distinction would take a lot of words don't you think?

3 - Ok, I'll make it more vague about which naval units are able to carry divisions. I do not want to get into a zillion details here. E.g., ASW escorts can carry divisions but ASW carriers can not. Personally, I really dislike the SCS abbreviation used throughout the rules in WIF FE. I use the BB abbreviation because it is obvious. But in case you didn't notice, I try to avoid using the CA and CL abbreviations in the text. I am also reluctant to use CV in the text. If I were not so tight on space when explaining things, I would write out the words all the time since it communicates the meaning more readily, especaially to the novice.

4 - I'll change the wording to marine corps.

In general your comments here are about imprecision through omission of details. The imprecision doesn't bother me in the least in the context of what is being explained. I could have discussed invading into different terrain types, or added the effects of weather, or gone into excruciating details about notional units and units from different nationalities with the impact of whether the major powers cooperate or not. Then there are all the optional rules and units like armored marine divisions.

My point here, probably made a little too heavy-handedly, is that the tutorials are NOT going to explain all the details of the rules. I have said this several times already, but here it is again in different words: "Too much detail confuses and bores the reader/student. He will lose interest and stop reading/playing. It is essentail to deliver facts gradually, building upon what the reader already knows. Through repetition/reinforcement a complete picture can be presented by the end of the tutorials. Trying to explain all the details and nuances defeats the primary objective, which is to teach to the novice how to play."

I intentionally will present partial information and leave questions 'hanging'. For example, the tutorial on naval units has mentioned aspects of air units (tactical factor, air-to-air factor, ground support) without giving anything even close to an explanation as to what those terms mean. They're a tease to get the reader to go on to the next tutorial to learn what those terms mean.

In summary, what you are going to see in the tutorials is roughly half of the rules. The program enforces the rules rigidly, so a novice can play without making illegal moves. As his understanding progresses through game-play he is likely to want a better understanding of what is going on behind the scenes - the rules. Those will be available to him - hopefully through context-sensitive help so he can get the answers he wants without having to page through a rules book, muttering "I remember seeing that somewhere ...".



Arron69 -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 1:18:50 PM)

I think the tutorial are good, very much like what i would tell a new player i wanted to play with. Any thing to detailed will also be forgotten once you are through all the pages of the tutorial.

Keep going Shannon[&o].

Andi



CBoehm -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 1:31:37 PM)

Shannon,
I hope you do not take my comments as criticism as I think you do a splendid work ...and I have no problem accepting your decision ...I was merely trying to be helpful incase one or more of my points was not deliberately worded so ...but from your answer I can see that they were, and at some point in the tutorial you ofcause have to draw a line on how detailed to get ...so thats cool.



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 2:00:51 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: CBoehm
Shannon,
I hope you do not take my comments as criticism as I think you do a splendid work ...and I have no problem accepting your decision ...I was merely trying to be helpful incase one or more of my points was not deliberately worded so ...but from your answer I can see that they were, and at some point in the tutorial you ofcause have to draw a line on how detailed to get ...so thats cool.


I do want to receive comments on these, that is why I post them. And I have made major changes to many of the pages.

But it's late; I have a deadline Thursday to generate 3,500 mailing labels for our Xmas show; and I'm a bit testy.

Here is the 4th page on task forces.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/16B22275BEDA42059311A6BB0EFCE951.jpg[/image]



Arron69 -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 2:27:45 PM)

I think its an exelent naval tutorial. It covers the points you need to get startet.

[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]

Andi



Froonp -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 3:09:56 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: freeboy

do those cl have torpedoes as in real life?

Yes.
Japanese CA also had, and were deadly with them.



Froonp -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 3:11:58 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: stretch
ok dumb question.  which countersheet is the Forrestal on?  The silhouette looks like Midway class, which of course it wasn't.

PoliF. CS30.



Froonp -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 3:17:38 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
(...) here are 3 of the 4 pages on task forces. No controversy here, I am sure.[:D]

About page 5 (Post #43) :
I think I have a controversy for this one :

Quote from RAW :
*************************************
11.4.1 Definition of ‘naval move’
Each group of units you move is called a task force. A task force can contain any number of surface naval units or any number of SUBs. You can’t have surface naval units and SUBs in the same task force.
You make 1 “naval move” with surface naval units every time you:
(a) move a task force of face-up surface naval units (plus, of course, any units they are transporting) from one port, to any one destination (either to one other port or to the same section of a sea-box); or
(b) move a task force of face-up surface naval units from one section directly to one lower section of the same sea-box; or
(c) return a task force of face-up surface naval units from one section of a sea-box to one port (see 13.4).
*************************************

Bottom line is that if you want to have both Ships and SUBs in the same sea area section, you need to perform at least 2 naval moves, and the SUBs are not moving along witht he Ships.



Froonp -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 3:26:57 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Skipping over the pages on convoys (7 & 8), here are 3 of the 4 pages on task forces. No controversy here, I am sure.[:D]

About page 5 (Post #43) too :
You could also show in your tutorial, in this page, the "sum-up form" (I don't remember its real name) that shows the different cumulated factors of the whole Task Force (or of the ships selected). By reading this it seems that the player has to calculate himself the surface & AA factors.

Also, I don't know if the tutorial is meant to give real strategic or tactical insight to the player, but such task force is IMO too big for the job intended, assuming the job is only to skirmish the KM, and not a try at having a decisive battle being fought. If the job intend is the first, only 7 ships should be used (optimal target size), with 2 BB, 3 CA and 2 CV being a good repartition (or 3 BB, 2 CV, 2 CA). If the job intended is the second, it is IMO vain, because the KM won't come to meet the RN in a death trap. The KM will either try to pass through this sea area in bad weather, to fight in another sea area, or not come out at all, and the CW would have wasted the oil.
It is IMO better to take the first posture (intending only to skirmish the KM) so that the KM has an incensitive to sail out of Kiel, and then meet the KM next impulse with the rest of the RN kept in reserve. For sure, that's only my opinion.



CBoehm -> RE: Tutorial #5 - Naval Units (10/25/2006 3:40:33 PM)

I absolutely agree ...if you put that much out either the KM will stay in port OR it will try to sneak past to raid the faroegap ...where if successful the CW will have very little to counter with since they put all their toys in the North Sea ...or if the KM fails to slip by they will most likely "hide" in a lower seabox section under landbased aircover.

Naval warfare in WIF is probably the hardest thing for newbies to grasp ...ei. never EVER (unless ...bla bla bla) commit your last reserve. etc etc etc.



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