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Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Convoys? (12/6/2019 8:31:46 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Edorf
Been thinking about buying WIF even though it will be for solitaire play only. In the process I have tried to look around in the forum and it seems like the convoy setup thing is a bit wonky. What kind of issues are present with this system?
Just wondering.
The rules require a convoy chain to be present to ship resources overseas from their point of origin (e.g., a hex containing a resource) to a factory. All of this stuff takes place at the end of each turn (two month turns). During each turn, the player has many opportunities to place convoys at sea. They just have to be in the correct places at the end of the turn to get the resources to the factories. Each factory that gets a resource produces a production point that converts into build points. Build points are used to build new units and repair damaged ships.
Getting most resources to factories is done overland via a path of hexes containing railroads. For example, the US and Russia use rail networks almost exclusively to get their resources to their factories. The program handles these situations automatically without the need for the player to do anything.
At the start of the game, Japan and the US have a trade agreement and the game requires convoys across the Pacific linking the two countries in order to fulfill that trade agreement. You create the convoy pipeline at the start of the game and pretty much forget about it until that trade agreement starts to dissolve.
Japan has to get the resources in China and the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) to its factories in Japan. To accomplish this, Japan has to place a convoy in the South China Sea and the China Sea to ship the resources overseas to its factories. One convoy point has to be in each sea area used to ship the resource. For instance, a convoy point in the China Sea can transport one resource in China to a Japanese factory. A different convoy point in the China Sea plus a convoy point in the South China Sea creates a little convoy pipeline that can transport one oil resource in the NEI to a factory in Japan. Transporting each additional resource requires additional convoy points.
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So, the difficult task is to get the far flung French and Commonwealth resources back to France and the United Kingdom. Those resources are all over the world and unless the Commonwealth gets 15 resources arriving in the United Kingdom at the end of each turn, it will have 15 idle factories. If you get 10 to arrive, then there are only 5 idle factories in the United Kingdom.
Things get complex when players start lending resources between major powers. The USSR and China often receive resources from other major powers (Lend Lease). That is handled by creating new trade agreements. In my current game, I have the USSR sending 3 oil points to the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth sending a build point to France. France sending 2 resources to the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth sending an oil point to China. France sending a resource to China. Earlier in this game I had the US sending a resource to China. The US sending both oil and non-oil resources to the Commonwealth. That should give you an idea of the additional complexity that players can introduce in routing resources overseas.
Even at the very start of the game the Commonwealth has resources in NEI, Malaysia, South Africa, Venezuela, the Caribbean, Canada, India, and Australia that need to convoys to be used in factories. Throw in the Italians and Germany attacking the convoy pipelines, and maintaining full production can get very hairy.
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What players would like is for the game to sort that all out and optimize what goes where. Of course, optimization is in the eye of the beholder. There are good reasons why three players would have three different 'solutions' for how the convoys should be used: that is, what resources go where over what pipelines. What the program does is rigidly enforce the rule that all trade agreements MUST be fulfill before any other resources are routed overseas.
So, the program does its best - which for me is perfectly okay. The players have some control over what goes where, but the mechanism for doing does not give them absolute control (because of trade agreements). The code for this has evolved over the years. Many of the complaints you might have read about are from earlier versions of the game.
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That's my two cents worth on this topic.
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