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gdpsnake -> (8/7/2001 9:05:00 PM)

Let me offer another possibility along with the slider bars. I'm reminded of ADG's World in Flames and SPI's WWII game production systems where you collect resources and apply them to builds. If the idea of sliders I mentioned earlier was used combined with a 'pool' of available units to build (Ships, plane types, etc.) then you might solve the question of 'hidden computer coding'. You 'spend' the OP points to build a BB or 5 BB's assuming they exist in the 'pool' (Preselect at game start a pool mix based on EXACT HISTORY for those who wish, OR based on variations based on realistic shipyard/industry capacity, OR completely whatever the heck you want to spend your points on based on how many/how well you do in the game collecting the resources/building industry). YOU spend the OP's and lay those keels. You spend the OP's to launch/refit as the final product (Could change a BB keel to CV for example). You spend the OP's to crew/train/make operational fully capable or send it in without any sea trials (be prepared for breakdowns! Reminded of Bismark vrs Hood and King George? class BB which was not ready- working on turrets/had dock workers on board if I remember right-Jap CV's going into battle w/o planes). Research would put newer class units into the pool. Changing of the slider bars would incur a delay to represent retooling but you would see that in the monthly output. Expansion of Industry/collection of resources improves OP amount and how much can be built per turn. I like the idea of monthly production 'turns' to make these decisions. With a 'unit pool' to build from a player will see the cost and time to build the unit for each stage of production. A player could 'pay' for a BB for three months and skip a month (still pay a very small fee to keep it in drydock), pay again etc. The ship gets ready as you put effort into it! Maybe accelerate a little bit with a much larger increase in spending. For those who just can't help themselves, you could have the options of super carriers, jets, etc. in the pools. This is my three cents worth! Does anyone else play WIF and like their production? WWII? The old SPI spiral?



Doug Olenick -> (8/7/2001 9:49:00 PM)

The primary problem I see with this level of production detail is getting the correct information, such as total tonnage of steel available say. Then there are other items to consider. How much of this steel is dedicated to building ships slotted for use in the Pacific? The questions go on and on. Also, how far down the supply road do you go. Technically speaking it takes quite awhile for a nation to greatly increase its steel capacity. Japan had a finite amount of manufacturing capacity and it could not be switched around on a whim. Just look how hard it is for a airplane manufacturer to switch from making one type of plane to another. When Grumman stopped producing the F4F to make the F6F it took months and to ready the assembly line and train the workers. So while I agree that production can be better controlled, I think a lot of thought has to go into where you want to take this approach. The old KISS, keep it simple stupid, approach might be best. In addition, this game has to be marketable to those not entirely familiar with WWII. A game that has to much minutiae will be impossible for the average person to play thus unprofitable.



Adnan Meshuggi -> (8/7/2001 10:27:00 PM)

Well, i have to disagree... if you want, you can manage the stomach problems of F.D.R. , but i think you miss apoint. We can handle SOME production changes without studying 5 semesters of economic... If for example the japs liked to produce subs instead of huge battleships, let them do so... the nightfights will show, if they did well... or the USA produce 4 Montanaīs, 10 Iowas and only 2 Essex CV, because the player like the idea, so what... normally he will loose, but this is the interesting thing, you can switch and decide, like you decide to fight in the solomons with 2 CV or 6 (as a japanese) and forget about midway... or do you only want to refight the history ? Sorry if this sounds offending, that isnīt what i want...



Doug Olenick -> (8/8/2001 12:28:00 AM)

Adnan, I agree with the level of production you propose. Actually, if you scroll back a few days worth of posts you can see a couple things I wrote on the topic. I just think getting too far into the nitty gritty of production would be too complicated for the average person.



Croaker -> (8/8/2001 2:37:00 AM)

I may have not been clear enough in trying to communicate the idea about the matrix approach. I would definately not want to be dealing with matrix analysis every turn. What I wanted to do was to have the players able to adjust production and that their limitations for this would reflect their current logistic/infrastructural/technological situation. The matrices would be informational. You would know how much you could produce of what mixture of stuff and when it would be ready. This could be done at several levels. I put my copy of Imperialism II back in the machine last night to remember how that played. Imp II is, like the Civ-xx series, sort of an economic/technological sim with a rudimentary military component. Nonetheless Imp II (BTW Is that Joel Billings in the helm on the cover?) has several levels of economic, diplomatic, tech-research and other management features which can be abstracted by turning them over to computer control. Running with all of that staff under computer control makes it more of a game and less of a simulation and it is more fun to play. Running with all of it turned over to player control allows you to tighten every nut and bolt and is more immersive. This is the sort of thing that we need to face. Different ones of us prefer different levels of complexity. I personally find that I prefer different levels of complexity at different times. Having this sort of adjustment may make the game more broadly appealing and thus better for all of us. I personally see these games as being on a continuum from "Toy" to "Game" to "Simulation" to "God Jr." I prefer games in the Game+ to Sim+ categories. OK maybe sometimes I like to play "God Jr." too. I admit it. PzGnII was more of a "Game" on this scale. PzGn III was more at the "Toy" end of things. "War in Russia" is more of a "Game+" with the limited ability the player has to adjust production. The entire Pacific war is a gigantic project with a huge time scale. As a player I would want to have the ability to control some aspects of it and to allow the computer to manage other aspects. I prefer to play war-games and war-sims not pure sims or higher. If you wanted to play something on this scale as "God Jr." I think you would be at it a long time and eventually go crazy. "I don't know Doctor, he said he had just adjusted all the ammunition loads on the ships in the Saipan invasion fleet when he ran off screaming!" :D



byron13 -> (8/8/2001 6:26:00 AM)

Okay, Mr. Croaker, I feel that last message was directed at me. Your level of desired immersion generally sounds like mine. However, I would like the <



byron13 -> (8/8/2001 6:49:00 AM)

Skeets: You're probably right about resources. Too much hassle to run down historical availability figures. I would like to see it, but realistically it won't be done because that is not the focus of this game. I disagree with you on the marketability of the game. First of all, no one is probably going to pay that much attention to it when they're reading the cool sales pitch. Second, this alternative production is an <<<<



byron13 -> (8/8/2001 6:51:00 AM)

Aw, rats. the <> things in the previous posts were supposed to say OPTION. Guess they're pretty unintelligible.



Ringbolt -> (8/8/2001 10:32:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by Chiteng: Some of us play to learn.
On that note, I feel my useful contribution to this thread is at an end. Im going to go play Pong now. Ringbolt



Adnan Meshuggi -> (8/8/2001 8:55:00 PM)

quote:

Originally posted by Skeets: Adnan, I agree with the level of production you propose. Actually, if you scroll back a few days worth of posts you can see a couple things I wrote on the topic. I just think getting too far into the nitty gritty of production would be too complicated for the average person.
Err... sorry, i lost it... can you forgive me ?



gdpsnake -> (8/8/2001 10:21:00 PM)

So nobody likes the my idea of OP points allocation into generic pools and selecting units out of the pool?



Croaker -> (8/8/2001 11:08:00 PM)

The only things I would like involve the player's ability to use different levels of depth in the production department and to have this reflect what was really happening on the battlefield. If you lose all your oil or food or something critical that should eventually bite into your ability to make stuff. This way too the military dimension is somewhat tied to the economic dimension. That would be a plus for realism. The software part of the game could quietly keep track of how much "strategic materials" were coming in and going out. It would be good to have specific locations for important production items such as big boat keels as these can be blown up by air raids. A good use of air resources. How the interface would work is up to the designers. You could have an Admiral King sort of level of abstraction and just tell the Production AI "I want to have 6 type-I battleships and 20 type-III cruisers etc. by March of 1943.." and let the AI figure if you can do it. I do not think I would want to too minute a level of management on this every turn. It would detract from running the war. It does seem that the overall consensus is emerging on this issue however. See if I have it right: Players want some level of control over production. Some of us want more than others. We seem to be thrashing around the details. Is this correct? :)



byron13 -> (8/9/2001 12:37:00 AM)

I think some of the earlier posts indicated that some players don't really want to worry about production at all. Just make it historical. I think they've pretty much dropped out because we're wrangling over issues they don't have an interest in. I think the rest of us are coming closer together on what an optional production system would look like. Like you, I would prefer to have something more detailed rather than less, but it looks like we're coalescing around some form of generic resource system rather than being worried about steel, rubber, etc., as discreet resources that have to be worried about. Mr. Snake has (I think) suggested the simplest of systems in which you would have 300 points to spend on whatever. A battleship would cost 100 points and a sqadron of a/c 35 points. The item is placed on a production spiral and barfs out in October of 1943. This would be the minimal acceptable to me, and only then if I could define the class or model of item being produced. I would prefer to have something more detailed. Separating material resources from manufacturing resources makes sense to me and even separating shipbuilding from other manufacturing. You may opt to produce a bunch of something that was resource intensive and find that, while you've still got some manufacturing capacity, you've run out of resources. Or vice-versa. It forces some balance into the equation. Let's face it, you can't build only ships because only a certain portion of your total production capability is actually shipyards. Boeing's Seattle plant just can't build destroyers. Separating the two also makes holding on to resource rich parts of the map important for Japan. While I'd like to see the resources distinguished (oil, rubber) so that you can direct attacks against a particular resource (and make production more challenging/realistic), I think the consensus is that it would make the production system too complicated. So, as in most board games, a resource rich area would simply have a certain number of generic raw material resource points attributed to it. It also forces the Japanese to ship resources and maintain a merchant fleet and also allows Allied subs to have an impact in a non-abstract way. Finally, separating raw material resources from manufacturing resources would allow what you want to do: target manufacturing. I would think that for most of the war you would be out of range of most manufacturing unless you place a lot of bombers in China. But it should still be allowed for. And, as I stated, if you separate shipbuilding from other manufacturing, it places a realistic cap on manufacturing ships, aircraft, or something else. And I have to emphasize that I don't think that have constant access to production rather than once a month would detract from the game. There would be no need to access it daily, and the computer would clip along by itself. But I see no reason whatsoever for not allowing someone to change some production on a Thursday if he wants to. It's not more difficult to program and, just as it would be optional whether a player used the alternative production at all, it would be optional how often your accessed it. You could look at it once a year if you wanted to. But why not give me the OPTION of changing something whenever I want? Finally, we're probably close enough that sliders v. a matrix is just a presentation issue. I prefer a matrix with priorities, but sliders work too. Does this, in general, work for you all? Remember, the alternative production system is an OPTION that you don't have to use.



gdpsnake -> (8/9/2001 1:02:00 AM)

Byron, Don't count me out of the more is better catagory, and call me snake! I just want to introduce a system that can be very simplistic (Here's your OP points, spend them) or more complex (Events like industrial capacity, resources, research, etc.) where a player can be more functional in guiding his country's goals. See my earlier posts. The complex possibilities of how much control a player wants can be preselected at the start. I still like the monthly cycle although I agree it would be nice to put your production requests in at anytime but the 'model' runs on a monthly scale. Day to day production issues would be a bit too much for most. I wish the designers would chime in and give us a feel for which direction they are leaning toward but I have the feeling they're working the other games and are only superficially plugging on this one. No doubt most of the game will use much of the system from the solomons campaign game.



byron13 -> (8/9/2001 4:35:00 AM)

Snake: Yup, would be nice to get some feedback. They're probably concentrating on the other game so aren't bothering with us right now. If they've already got screen shots up, my guess is that the production system has already been decided upon. As to your comment about the "model" being on a monthly cycle - what model? What's the magic of a monthly cycle? Liberty ships were cranked out in less than a month as were all aircraft and other lesser items. Capital ships took a heck of a lot longer than one month. A monthly cycle seems as artificial to me as anything else. I'm not sure how you would change ship production whether on a daily or monthly schedule. I would guess that you have to wait until a ship is launched (thus freeing up a berth) before you could change to something else. But aircraft are cranked out in a matter of days; why should I have to wait until the end of the month to request that the factory be retooled? Any theory about lag time to burn through work in progress is just as applicable to a monthly cycle as a daily cycle. I just don't see it. I'm all for more detail and specialized raw materials, but I don't see much support in this forum for it. It would have to be a gift from Matrix. I'm not sure if you were suggesting two separate production systems - one simplified and one detailed. If so, I doubt we'll see it. Our only hope is that Gary is a real details kinda guy, and he might want to incorporate a very realistic production system in the game. Keep your fingers crossed. And how about some feedback, Matrix!!!??



gdpsnake -> (8/9/2001 8:28:00 AM)

Byron, I guess model was a bad term. I used the word to refer to the production routine or spiral. I'm sort of thinking of some WWII boardgames production concepts that I think would be perfect for this game. I suppose I thought of monthly terms because shorter times for shipbuilding seems bad. I have no complaint with weekly production turns, I guess I was just trying to brainstorm ideas to all the different 'camps' out there. A/C and smaller industry would certainly lend itself to weekly turns. I wouldn't want to be involved on a daily basis because of the lack of activity from day to day. Like some have mentioned on turn length: Have weekly strategic turns that go to daily or bi-dayly?(is that a word?) when an engagement occurs. The battle itself goes to a tactical battle environment somewhat like the Shogun game. Guess we'll have to wait till the south pacific game is done to see any more action on this game. I just can't wait....So loooooong....



Adnan Meshuggi -> (8/9/2001 3:45:00 PM)

Well, i think we should have the "change everything" thing in the game, maybe hidden, but only playing the history is still boring. For the american side, you can live with it, if you wait until 43.. for the jap its boring.. Maybe we can make an other production plan on different layers... The fine tuning is the one thing... i like many Unryo-Carriers because they are cheap and i need many... so i can order them... On the other side, couldnīt we manage a development "ladder" ? Like the japs recive in 1944 plans of the XXI-subs and you decide to develop them ? or the US loose in 42 no carrier and you get an bonus of "developmentpoints" for carriers ? Other example, the US has 3 big carriers with heavy damages in the engines, so these big engines were needed for the actual ships, the next carriers have an delay BUT after some months of retooling, the US industry can produce more engines faster... and so on... Only some thoughts...



byron13 -> (8/9/2001 8:44:00 PM)

You notice there's not activity on the other threads? Where'd everybody go? I haven't really paid much attention to the other threads nor the Solomons game. To the extent people are worried about two turns a day, I've got to say I'm concerned too. I remember about twenty-five years ago (yes, I'm dating myself) reading a spoof in either the General or Strategy & Tactics about the ultimate board game. It was some ridiculous scale like squad- or even individual-level. It was set up in a gym, and you had to be suspended from the ceiling by a trapeze type hook-up to access all of the board. I can't remember what the point of the spoof was, but it seemed to address everyone's desire for more and more detail and accuracy. Personally, I love massive games with control going to low levels. Wacht am Rhein and Highway to the Reich were my favorites, and now I'm immersed in one of John Tiller's Panzer Campaigns series. But the entire Pacific and China/Burma/India theaters at two turns per day? I can see where nobody would ever finish. This is all a long way of saying that it would be a good idea to do the Shogun type system. Since the nature of the fighting was sporadic - especially during the monsoon season and when the Marines weren't invading some island - some kind of speeded up system would seem to be warranted for those weeks or even months when you just don't want to do anything too terribly active. It seems that Gary may be going that way since I see you set squadron priorities, e.g., CAP, bomb airfield, etc. That may be preparation for giving squadrons orders and then letting them run themselves for extended periods without input. They'll just do their thing and run missions against Rabaul from Guadalcanal until told otherwise. Your scouts would continue to scout without input. You could let your ships refit without player input until the scouts report a sortie by the enemy. Finally, the ground forces may have an attrition mode where they just continue to lob shells and probe without player input. So it could very well be that Gary is designing in a way to let the game run in a hand's off, speedy mode for periods. As for the dreaded production cycle, maybe you can have a split cycle. Ships would be monthly, which would make sense. Since the minimum time for cranking out the smallest of ships was about a month for liberty ships, and since you can't really start one ship until you've launched one and free up berth space, you could decide what kind of ship you're going to build in available berthing space on a monthly basis. Other items could be changed on a less-than-monthly basis. I guess you could do everything else on a weekly basis. Any kind of production changeover would take several weeks or months, so you really wouldn't be penalized for not being able to change on a daily basis. Okay, I'm coming around to your way of thinking. My only real concern was, considering the massive scope of this game, I would probably only be able to do one turn a day (unless there is an low level of activity autopilot mode). But if I'm in a high intensity period and cranking one turn a day (one-half day in game time), it's a problem. If I have this brilliant production idea, I might have to wait two weeks in real time before I can implement it. You know, there has to be an autopilot mode. At two turns per game day, the game cannot be finished. It would take years. They must be designing in an attrition mode where units continue fighting a fairly low level without input. You would slow the game down when you sortie ships, step up intensity in the air campaign, or actually conduct a ground assault. I noticed the screen shot for the aircraft was basically borrowed right from Twelve O'Clock High: Bombing the Reich. In that game, Gary had designed in a way to have the computer assign missions to your air groups/squadrons. He also had a way to limit the groups available to the computer by limiting the groups to be assigned to only those that had a morale of X or above, and they would only be assigned to targets within X miles and would only fly on days with X or less percent cloud cover. He's probably doing the same sort of thing here. On autopilot mode, the 1st Fighter Group will strafe enemy airfields on any day in which it has X serviceable aircraft and morale is over X. That way you can let the computer run indefinitely without accidentally bleeding yourself white. You know, this issue might be the subject of a new thread!



Croaker -> (8/9/2001 11:35:00 PM)

It sounds like most of us would be satisfied with an optional system which could be fully put on autopilot to run "historically" or with different degrees of player involvement. One question I had was: How many sides are there in this game? The US and Japan certainly however there were other players ranging from the ANZAC-Canada-Royal Navy to the Soviets, possible South American and some bit players. How many of these would have independent command structures? I would think that the Commonwealth would possibly. Are the minor players subsumed under the US?



byron13 -> (8/10/2001 12:30:00 AM)

Guess I should have read the prospectus on the game a little closer. A phase is one day, and a "turn" consists of one to seven phases at the player's option. So clearly they realize that there will be times when there isn't much going on and you're just sitting around massing assets. My guess is that in the speeded-up mode (one turn = seven days) there will still be attrition going on, but not much real movement to react to. I also assume that it will stop and alert you when the other side's fleet is moving. As for the C&C of the allied nations, I'm betting it will be very similar to PacWar. Gary did it in PacWar and did the same thing in BTR, and the system works pretty well. You would separate chains of command, any one of which could be placed under computer control. Can't remember the official designations, but ANZAC, the Commonwealth headquarters in charge of India and Burma, and the Chinese would probably all have a separate chain of command that could be placed under computer control. I don't know how far down the chain you could still split control, e.g., computer control for ANZAC land forces but player control over ANZAC naval forces. My guess it's all or nothing but with the ability to cross-attach units to a player-controlled headquarters. I assume the bit players would fall under the headquarters under which they historically fell. Thus, the 1st Mexican Royal Armored Commando Regiment could be under the HQ of Southern Pacific, if that were historical, and would be treated just like another U.S. unit (though with different coloration on the "counter"). Or are you asking whether this would be a true multi-player game ala the traditional board game? I would think a true multi-player game would be hard to do because I don't know how each separate allied player could react to Japanese moves (say, intercepting Japanese fleets on the move) and then get all of the separate reaction moves crammed back into one file. Doesn't really seem possible to me as long as there is real-time reaction as opposed to a purely turn-based system with no human reactions possible. Multi-player would be possible if you had a PacWar system of automatic fleet intercepts, but hopefully the new game will be nice enough to ask me if I'd like to intercept or not.



moore4807 -> (8/10/2001 8:31:00 PM)

The production question is a good one. The vision I had was each area be given those materials that were native to it, ie; Pittsburgh=steel Virginia=coal and an approximate representation of amount, 1 ton=1pt (these are only generalizations please!)now transport becomes a value because if you want rubber from India's area to go to USA you have to have shipping to handle it. Now say a 10 ton freighter is assigned to take it to SF to unload, transit time 10 days- broken down by 1.5 days to load, 7 24 hr days at 10kts (24rs X 14 mph) 1.5 days to unload. The round trip is 14 days or 2 trips per month- ergo 20 tons of rubber shipped in a month 20 pts of production rubber for making planes ships or whatever requires rubber. You would'nt have to actually play this out since a matrix or slider bar can do this computation. but it would now have an impact on production if the shipping is stopped (sinking, port seized etc.). Now byron I know you object to the monthly cycle, but if I'm correct most production was done by contracts with a time/production quota (ie; 50 P-47c in 6 months) Now by going weekly am I going to wait 3 weeks to finish out the contract or stop production for a month to re-tool and re-train with only about 35 fighters made because I can now make P-47d's ? (maybe this is a choice necessary ,but I probably wouldnt make it...) believe me I'm not criticizing, you have had several good ideas here and I'm out here with my own ideas which may not hold water... I think that what has been talked about here has merit- I'm sorry if it is uninteresting to others but barnstorming ideas is the best way I've found to make progress and even disagreeing is productive if you get to formulate and prove theories, or conversely disprove them. I have enjoyed reading others ideas and opinions and have learned a little about each one of you from your messages about a game we all enjoy playing (and its offspring coming soon!) I hope we continue to post and keep this topic alive and sooner or later its sheer mass will be noticed by matrix if for no other reason... Just my thoughts Jim



gdpsnake -> (8/10/2001 9:49:00 PM)

Byron, I remember that article about WWII fought on the 'single man' scale. Hilarious! I think a production system of player control is important in order to answer the question of game viability. I think most posts here agree that we want a system that could change events in the Pacific War to see if our strategy would have an impact on the outcome. If you are relegated to the same historical choices then the game will likely always proceed along the same course and end the same way (Different times perhaps with different losses but the victory question is still the same answer.) As one post said "Boring for US until 43, boring for Jap post 43." The production issue may allow for more 'fun' and definitely more 'what if'. That's why I would like to see a system like I mentioned in earlier posts where I can perform research to get different units in a force pool and buy out of the force pool using OP points that I 'earn' with my resources/oil. The depth/detail of such a system seems to be the issue. I still maintain a system that can be as simple as a player wishes ('Here's your OP's spend them' selection at start) or as complex (This BB costs x steel, x resources, x men, takes x time, needs x research, etc.) I think other marketed games, board and computer, validate this approach. Up to my five cents worth! Are you out there Matrix? Is anyone there?



byron13 -> (8/10/2001 10:36:00 PM)

Mr. Moore: Your contracts argument has made me reconsider my argument. We may have been talking two different sides to the same coin. I was looking for the ability to access the production routine TODAY when I had the idea driving home from work. The game would design in delays in the implementation of those changes, which would account for retooling, possible unforeseen problems, and I guess time to let an existing contract run its course. The delays are built into the back end after the change is made. It sounds like maybe you are seeing some of the delays being built in to the front ende BEFORE the changes are made. The decision to change production is delayed (by allowing changes only once a month), but that delay accounts for things like allowing contracts to expire. Sounds like the new planes could starting rolling off the assembly line on the same date regardless of which system was used. I just wanted to access something NOW when I had one of my distressingly few good ideas and it was still fresh. But, seeing that the game apparently has a speed up mode allowing one turn to be seven days, you could get to the end of the month fairly quickly (assuming you didn't have active operations underway). So, I'll cave in (as if Matrix cares). I guess it doesn't matter. Snake: I'm all for detail. I hope you're not suggesting that I actually have to load rubber in India onto ships. I don't think you were, and I wouldn't want to do that in any event. The computer could certainly handle that in the background. But it does sound like you'd have to actively allocate part of your merchant force to have that done, unless a portion of your merchant fleet is never seen by the player and is assumed to be hauling stuff. In other words, the U.S. has 1,000 merchant ships on the West Coast in real life 700 of which are hauling raw materials from South America to the U.S. Maybe the player only sees and deploys 300 merchant ships with the other 700 ghosts running your materials. Of course, if the merchant shipping is abstracted, then the attrition of the merchant shipping by sub warfare is also going to be abstracted to some degree. I forget how it works in WiP, but that might be a good model. Maybe you have a merchant pool and a screen that tells you how many merchant ships you need in the pool to ship all of the resources around the world that are available. Don't provide enough ships to the merchant pool (because they've been diverted to build up supplies in Australia), and you end up shipping fewer resources, which in turn reduces production. Problem with that is that, if you have different resources to ship like rubber and oil, then you've got to allocate merchant shipping to each one. That gets kind of laborious. I don't know. There are so many ways you could handle it. I'm fairly confident, though, that Matrix is only going to have one system. In other words, I doubt there is going to be both a simple and a complex resource model. Jeez, where is Matrix? I think they're not paying any attention to this forum because they're concentrating on the other game. What's funny is that there is virtually no discussion on that forum. From the descriptions of the games, it looks like both are going to use the same engine, so most questions on WiP:SAJ could be answered by how the other game handles it. Unfortunately, since the other game only runs for eighteen months, production is the most likely exception. And did you see where 2by3 is looking to produce a 1941-45 Eastern Front game at a scale of 10 miles per hex? We're getting closer and closer to the "ultimate" wargame. I don't know, it's only about 1,000 miles between Moscow and Berlin, so that's only 100 hexes. We've seen game much larger than that - look at HPS's sims. Or WiP:SAJ for that matter.



Croaker -> (8/10/2001 10:54:00 PM)

I was looking for clarification on the production issue. If we have several minor players would they all have their own production schedules? If this game scale is daily then we would need some type of (variable complexity) production targeting system or it would drive any player crazy eventually. My interest in this thing is to have a nice wargame-warsim not a hypercomplex economic development game. Military and economic actions are the same thing in war. many would say they were the same thing n peace as well.



byron13 -> (8/10/2001 11:34:00 PM)

Aaaah, I see. Sorry. I would think that most of the things that we're going to be building in the game were built and supplied only by the Americans, the Commonwealth countries, and China. So the Mexican Royal Armored Commandos would have been equipped with either American or British tanks, and equipping them would take place just like equipping a formation in the producing country's military. China, the U.S., and Commonwealth are probably the three separate production systems. Maybe the Soviet Union. That raises and interesting question about ahistorical production. If you produce twice as many Marine divisions or aircraft groups than were produced in real life, how do you number them? Sequentially after subtracting out real units that did not participate in the Pacific (so, for example you would not get a 56th Fighter Group or a 106th Infantry Division since they were in Europe)? How do you name ships that were never built? Would you build a database of state names for battleships and cities for cruisers that the computer would draw from? Or do you just number them BB-15 like in some board games? Hmmmm.



gdpsnake -> (8/11/2001 12:12:00 AM)

USS Goombah? Snake's Seabees? Heck Byron, I'd be happy to name the ships and units anything as long as I get to build what I want. I like the merchant pool idea, I mentioned something similar in an earlier post concerning sub allocation. I thought the 2by3 was 41-44? Still looking forward to it. Been watching the release date slide and slide and ..... Standard industry fare.



showboat1 -> (8/11/2001 11:05:00 AM)

A data base of names would be good. States and cities are pretty easy, but what about IJN criteria? RN cruisers were mostly cities if I remember correctly and battleships and carrier had some great names (Warspite, Indomitable, Royal Sovereign). How about US carriers. Most were named either after old US sailing ships (Enterprise, Wasp, Ranger, Essex) or important battles (Yorktown, Lexington, Saratoga, Bunker Hill) with a few historical figure thrown in for good measure (Franklin, F. D. Roosevelt, Langley) I have always liked to use my editor in PACWAR and rename ships acording to my own tastes.



moore4807 -> (8/11/2001 10:39:00 PM)

Byron, I have only one answer to the merchant shipping priority question. Use priority ratings ! 1 thru 10 priorities for imported goods and exported goods, you pick em-computer sims em! Its simplistic but effective especially if you are going to "ghost" (I like the term!) the shipping and production in the game... I do understand its a fine line in not taking anything away from the wargaming, but equally important is the decisions that scripted the war out. Do you spend more R&D on an existing fighter or bomber or go for broke making the experimental "wizard" plane? (especially if you are the Japanese?) The other wish list I have is the upgrade feature for planes... Say you have a standard P-47 I feel there should be a way to use your production points to improve the existing and new production aircraft, for example (b)base score (m) max score engine- (b)=100mph 1pt+25mph (m)=375mph airframe- +1pt to durability, range, turns, climbing, dives, to base score weapons- 1pt upgrades MG's bombs etc. improves performance and reduces % of jams, higher cal.weapons,cannon & bomb carrying ability. Now before anyone imagines Zeros with all armor plating... there would have to be a way to compensate for adding hundreds of lbs of steel to a wooden fighter or throwing a Pratt & Whittney 1200 double wasp engine in a P-40. I was thinking some squadrons in the war did mods to thier aircraft in the field... some of those things (turbos, P-38 dive flaps etc.)could be represented here along with normal R&D improvements. Finally to the question of historical names & squadron numbers, I lean towards just numbers with ET (Euro Theatre)and PT (Pac Theatre)to allow the computer to disqualify the ET units from the game while still allowing thier formation to occur (send em to an invisible hole in the corner of the world-just like PacWar did with our shipping! P.S. Going back to KOEI's PTOII there was a place to pick ship names for upgraded ships too -so maybe the other way isnt so bad... Maybe a Word Doc. like found in Basball mogul wouldnt be bad- even choose squadrons names then... hmmm Just a LONG thought Jim



Marc -> (8/12/2001 5:31:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by showboat1: A data base of names would be good. States and cities are pretty easy, but what about IJN criteria
Light cruisers were named after rivers or streams and heavy cruisers after mountains. Mogami, Mikuma, Kumano, Suzuya, Tone, Chikuma are rivers/streams because the cruisers were planned as CLs with 15" guns. I think BBs were named after provinces but I am not sure about that. Kaze in the name of Destroyers means wind. They have names like sommerwind and so on.



byron13 -> (8/14/2001 1:04:00 AM)

Gosh, so much to talk about - if only Matrix were listening. HELLO!!?? ANYONE THERE??? I hadn't considered actually being able to choose the name of a new ship, and I like Showboat's idea of being able to assign names from a database that's provided (alternative: name it whatever you want, e.g., the USS Suzy Q, the HMS Beavis Butthead, or as suggested, the USS Goombah). It wouldn't be that hard to determine the various nations' naming conventions and to provide a database of not only actual, historical names, but possible names as well based on the conventions. So, if the British use gallant names like the Courageous and Audacious, you could add to the historical list additional names that fit the convention and could be selected like, say, the Contagious, the Outrageous, or the Flirtacious. Just kidding. It would seem to be easy to provide sufficient spare names based on naming conventions that you could assign to ships. Destroyers would be a pain, though. And would you still reserve the name for a particular class of ship? For example, could you assign the name Essex to a Yorktown class carrier, or would the class name be reserved for the first ship of that historical class? Personally, I would opt for the latter. You might even restrict the use of historical names to the class that it was historically used in. For example, if you built more North Carolina/Washington class BB's (whatever that class was), you might not be able to assign the names New Jersey or Iowa to that class. But that still leaves a lot of states, cities, rivers, admirals, battles, or whatever that would be freely assignable and historically feasible. Mr. Moore: Yes, I'm a fan of the priority system. Maybe be able to set absolute priorities or select with a button the option to reduce all classes of raw materials shipped by X% if your shipping is reduced by X%. No, that doesn't really work either. The problem with the former is that you may not receive any of your lowest rated raw material. That's not realistic. Reducing everything by X% doesn't really work either because you may want to ensure that you get a certain minimum amount of steel to build your planned ships. Seems to me you'd after to actually be able to set the quantities shipped for each type of raw material - if you use different types of raw material. I think you could still have a ghost merchant fleet, and the computer may even be able to calculate the relative ease with which different materials were accessed. For example, rubber may take more ships because (I'm guessing) it had to come from longer distances than something else. You could even assign various hexes or regions with points for each raw material. If the closer regions were captured before the farther regions, the number of ghost ships required to ship a point of raw material would increase to account for the extra shipping time. This could all be done in the background without having to see what was going on. Jeez, I'm living in a fantasy world; we'll never see this. So, if you use the ghost fleet, would you be able to augment it by assigning non-ghosts to the ghost fleet? Or, if you had to start shipping major quantities of men and materiel to Australia as a prelude to a major operation, could you draw ships out of the ghost pool? I guess you would - that was pretty much the premise in WiP. Pretty basic. I only agree with your comments to a degree on your models/versions. A lot of what you're asking for could be accomplished by subsequent historical variations on the aircraft. Spend enough R&D points, and you can get the -D version of the P-47 sooner than was historical. I think it would be difficult, though, to have a system where you could actually design aircraft. Throw enough R&D points into the B-17 and you get the B-17J with a 50% increase to range and payload. If you did that, you or the computer would be responsible for naming the variant, and the beloved B-17G may not have any of the historical qualities that were associated with it. Somehow, this crosses a line for me that I don't want to cross. The game would lose its historical flavor and just become a generic war game in the Pacific with weapons being used that have no relationship to what actually was there. I understand the the idea of optional production would be to alter the historical outcome, but I would rather do this by accelerating the introduction of historical models rather than introducing ahistorical models designed by me. In any event, I think the issue is already moot. Gary's technical database is already so large from having done WiP and Twelve O'Clock High that he's just going to use the existing database to cut down on design costs. The screen shots already show that he's pretty much co-opting the Battle of Britain/Twelve O'Clock High way of doing things, so I don't think we'll be able to vary the qualities of the aircraft. But I'll bet that it will be possible to accelerate the introduction of particular models because he's already done that (by assigning the equivalent of R&D points) in Twelve O'Clock High. Place enough resources into R&D, and the German can have the Me-262 much earlier than was historical.



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