RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (Full Version)

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Ullern -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (8/10/2010 7:23:14 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is an oddity the automated routine found that I bet no over-the-board player has ever come up with. It stymied me for a while because I have the animation routine (first working version done today) for routing resources overseas to factories just showing the source, departure port, sea areas traversed, arrival port, and destination factory. What the program found for the Commonwealth in the second impulse of the war was: Cyprus, Famagusta, Eastern Med., Alexandria, Warsaw![X(] That probably won't hold up until the end of the turn though.[:D]


Oh.
You'd be surprised about all the oddities that happens all the time.

Last time I played France, Germany DOWed Yugo SO39, Yugo aligned with France, but Germany refused to align any of it's neighbouring countries. At end of turn Germany didn't take either factory city (unlucky attack roll on Zagreb), but had gotten around to ZOC both places.
_ And I produced pp in both factories. I figured I'd just send the resources -> Sofia -> Bucharest -> Budapest to avoid the ZOC. Actually there was an Italian unit next to the rail line I had to use into Zagreb, but Italy was at War with CW only, so I claimed I could transport it through his ZOC.

By the way: Also common that CW get's a pp in Brussels in our games.



Orm -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (8/11/2010 9:04:29 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is an oddity the automated routine found that I bet no over-the-board player has ever come up with. It stymied me for a while because I have the animation routine (first working version done today) for routing resources overseas to factories just showing the source, departure port, sea areas traversed, arrival port, and destination factory. What the program found for the Commonwealth in the second impulse of the war was: Cyprus, Famagusta, Eastern Med., Alexandria, Warsaw![X(] That probably won't hold up until the end of the turn though.[:D]

I find it a promising sign that the program found this route. [:)]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (8/22/2010 12:31:54 AM)

Here are some screen shots of the current rendition of the Production planning form.

I have added the global map - whcih can be toggled with the detailed map. The program also will show the routes the resoures take, and when it does that, it doubles the size of the map area and adds the list of hexes traversed on the left side of the form. If the route does not go overseas (e.g., 2nd screen shot from the left), then every hex is shown. If it is an overseas route, then only the originating hex, departure port, sea areas, arrival port, and destination hex are shown (e.g., leftmost screen shot). The animation is very simple at the moment, simply recentering the map on each hex in the route list, with ~1 second delay for each hex.


[image]local://upfiles/16701/33A86FFD6C96438887209C1151618CC8.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (8/22/2010 12:33:10 AM)

Post 2 of 2.
--
These other two screen shots show the other permutations of this form and how the filters work. I think of this form as having 3 layouts: Summary, Expanded List, and Routes.

Now that I have the global map appearing correctly, I can write the code for using it to reroute overseas resources/build points.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/0765E12E03014792AEE8C44408106DBE.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (8/22/2010 12:42:00 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Orm


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is an oddity the automated routine found that I bet no over-the-board player has ever come up with. It stymied me for a while because I have the animation routine (first working version done today) for routing resources overseas to factories just showing the source, departure port, sea areas traversed, arrival port, and destination factory. What the program found for the Commonwealth in the second impulse of the war was: Cyprus, Famagusta, Eastern Med., Alexandria, Warsaw![X(] That probably won't hold up until the end of the turn though.[:D]

I find it a promising sign that the program found this route. [:)]

About the routes that the program finds, [:D]

When routing an oil from Persia to Bombay, it took the oil overland to Egypt, then routed it through the Med, across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, across the Pacific, took the southern route around Australia, and up through the Indian Ocean to Bombay.[X(] Hey, those convoys were available![8|] And yes, there was a convoy sitting idle in the Persian Gulf.[:D]



lomyrin -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (8/22/2010 2:42:51 AM)

On the Rhodesia oil for the Comonwealth it went from Cape S Vincent to N Atlantic and Faroes Gap to Glasgow. It ought to have gone from Cape S Vincent to B Biscay to Liverpool so as not to use up N Atlantic convoys needed for America and Caribbean reources to ship.

Equally the Persian oil going around all of Africa is a waste of convoy spaces. It could have gone via rail to Cairo and be saved there using no convoys at all or via the Med to Cape S Vincent to B Biscay to Liverpool.

I do not know what logic is uesd but the results shown are about what the CWiF program did before the routings were adjusted by the player, although the procedure there was quite clumsy.

Lars



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (8/22/2010 9:32:53 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

On the Rhodesia oil for the Comonwealth it went from Cape S Vincent to N Atlantic and Faroes Gap to Glasgow. It ought to have gone from Cape S Vincent to B Biscay to Liverpool so as not to use up N Atlantic convoys needed for America and Caribbean reources to ship.

Equally the Persian oil going around all of Africa is a waste of convoy spaces. It could have gone via rail to Cairo and be saved there using no convoys at all or via the Med to Cape S Vincent to B Biscay to Liverpool.

I do not know what logic is uesd but the results shown are about what the CWiF program did before the routings were adjusted by the player, although the procedure there was quite clumsy.

Lars

The order in which the resources are routed makes a difference. For instance, the Bay of Biscay may have already been depleted of unused convoys if the US/Canadian resources were shipped through there already.

The logic required to optimize use of convoy is non-trivial because there are several different criteria involved. I'll do that for the AIO, but the players are on their own - mainly because whatever logic I devise will be criticized by someone.

---
Revising the CWIF process for rerouting convoys is my ultimate objective for this form. My goal is to let the player click on a resource and then click on a series of sea areas. If you need to specify a different departure/arrival port from the one the program has chosen, then switching to the detailed map and clicking on a port will do that. Most of the time, it will just require clicking on sea areas.

I need to add some more buttons for enabling all that - which is why there is room available above the Units radio box list on the right. What I am thinking of is 'removing' a convoy route to free up convoys. Then the Unused convoy global map can be used. You could theoretically 'remove' all existing routes and start with all convoys unused (available). Hopefully the progrram will get most of the routes reasonably close to what you want.
---
Getting the global map to appear within the form was difficult to do. I had to reorganize a couple dozen variables and procedures in the Global Map form. In CWIF there was just one global map, which was always shown within the global map form. What I have done is split out the global depiction from the global map controls (i.e., showing the weather, hex control, etc.). I now need to add the extra buttons and wrte the code to respond to mouse clicks on the insert maps.



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (8/28/2010 9:44:37 PM)

Here is my latest on Production Planning.

I have replaced several buttons that were used to switch between layouts with a set of 4 radio buttons that let you choose which to use.

- Summary is the main layout (examples in previous posts).
- Expanded shows double the number of resources at the expense of not seeing the summary info.
- Route is what is shown here.
- Trade shows the default, last, and current settings for trade resources. That lets you see and modify which resources are used to fulfill trade agreements (I'll post a screen shot of that in the near future).

The other change here is that I have added a column to the resource list that shows the number of convoys used to route the resource. In this screen shot you can see the 7 convoys used to get the Inidian resource to London.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/411364A80ADD46258C991BE52F79EFB6.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (8/28/2010 9:59:47 PM)

First in a series of 3 posts on Land Combat Resolution.

At the request of many beta testers I have added more information to the Land Combat Resoloution form explaining the column shifts and die roll modifiers. The whole gory story isn't told, but there is enough that even a new player should be able to see why the final odds turned out the way they did.

Here there are screen shots from the Land Combat Resoultion phase of 3 different scenarios. The top two use the 2D10 CRT and the bottom one uses the 1D10 CRT. You can tell which CRT is being used by the button "View 2-D-10 Charts"/'View 1-D-10 Charts".

The attack on Warsaw shows cumulative terrain & city modifiers and HQ support (von Bock, not von Leeb).

The attack on Brest-Litovsk is not during the surprise impulse, so the river is halving the 8-3. Fractional odds are always shown as zero until the die roll is made.

At the bottom, the 1D10 CRT shows column shifts as well as die roll modifiers. Weather effects are net the use of snow units. For the 1D10 CRT, this form always lists all the possible column shifts, even if they are zero. Note that Germany has flown ground support (+1 above the list of defending units).

[image]local://upfiles/16701/DC95A2180C074CB18357F340B27F9D08.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (8/28/2010 10:02:47 PM)

Post 2 in a series of 3.

This game is using the 1D10 CRT. These are very poor attacks, but I wanted to show the use of defensive HQ support. The attack on Kharkov has defensive HQ support as shown by the 'D' in the hex. Things didn't go well for the USSR as shown inthe Result panel.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/D44E178A0FE840868EB1D61683623745.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (8/28/2010 10:09:28 PM)

3rd in a series of 3.

Here the USSR is choosing between the Blitz or Assault 1D10 tables. The weather effect is determined by the attacked hex.

This is the only screenshot in this series where the Column Shifts panel shows the total net shifts at the top. It should always show that - I've fixed that bug since I took these screenshots.

It takes a lot of time to code this level of detail. That's mainly because the variables that make up the different panels have to be placed in a "game record log" so they can be sent to the other players and they can view the same information.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/41DBE77E57B548E596A47DAEBBF4F941.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/7/2010 8:14:48 AM)

1st in a series of 2 posts.

I am finishing up the Production Planning form. Here are two screen shots showing my latest layout for the form.

The one on the right is the Summary Layout. Besides tidying up the entries for the statistics, I have added hints for each of them. That provides an explanation for what the statistics mean. I have also made them executable. When you click on any of the statistics the resource list below is filtered to show the resources/factories that make up the number. For instance, clicking on the 2 in the left column for Idle Factories, reduces the resource list to just two entries: the idle factories.

In these screenshots I used no filters (as you can see by the button No Filtter being lit in the Filter radio buttons group.

The left screenshot shows the Route layout. That alwasys shows the route in the upper left. Because the Convoys radio buttons group has route clicked, the global map is only showing the route for the selected resource. That's true for both screenshots. Clearly the route across the Atlantic is poor. Taking the side trip to the Caribbean must have been to visit Bermuda or something.

The screenshot on the right doesn't provide the list of the route stops, but it does let you see the summary page - although only having half the global map visible can be annoying.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/D7A5F47ECAD246B59A1FCF460C744133.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/7/2010 8:26:24 AM)

2nd in a series of 2 posts.

The left screenshot shows the Expanded layout. Notice that the filter is set for overseas, resources being routed overseas. The far column lets you see the number of convoys required.

The global map shows resources and factories as small colored pixels. Green for factories, brown for non-oil, and lavender for oil. The gray indicates enemy controlled hexes, where railing resources is not permitted.

On the right is the 12 convoy route to get the Indian resource to Australia. Actually, this isn't that bad a route, since there are missing convoys in the West Indian and East Indian sea areas, so the short path wasn't possible. To see this entire route, I switched to the Route layout so the global map would be larger.

===

The last piece of work have to do to finish with this form is enable modifying the routes. That will be done by using the Route layout (see the screenshot on the right) and clicking on the first entry that you want to change. If you want to change the depature port, Bombay, click on that. If you do so, the rest of the route will disappear. You then use the detailed map and click on a new departure port. If you are changing the convoy route, you click on the the first sea area you want to eliminate, and then click on the sea areas you want to add. The global map updates as you make changes, so you can see if your changes were what you intended.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/BFA5EB438EB6418C92EB7B8720E068C1.jpg[/image]



jomni -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/7/2010 8:40:47 AM)

Interesting screens.  Definitely like what I'm seening based on content.  But can the graphics be improved (or even modded) to more modern standards to draw new players?  This still looks like a Win95 game. :D




michaelbaldur -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/7/2010 2:57:42 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: jomni

Interesting screens.  Definitely like what I'm seening based on content.  But can the graphics be improved (or even modded) to more modern standards to draw new players?  This still looks like a Win95 game. :D




I think that it is planned that way ... to give the right wif feeling ...



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/7/2010 5:57:58 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: jomni

Interesting screens.  Definitely like what I'm seening based on content.  But can the graphics be improved (or even modded) to more modern standards to draw new players?  This still looks like a Win95 game. :D



There is always a trade-off between content and gloss. WIF is heavy on content.

For example, how would you modify your avatar (and the 4 other figures in your post) to reflect their: range, fighter capability, tactical bombing capability, strategic bombing capability, ability to fly at extended range, ability to fly as fighters or bombers (and which is currently active), and all the stuff about being able to paradrop units of different size, deliver supplies via air, fly at night, ... The visual has to communicate that information at a glance, since there are likely to be over 100 units visible at a time and you do not want the player to have to take any action (e.g., no clicking on a unit to reveal hidden information) to comprehend the unit's ownership, capabilities, and status.

All the units have similarly dense information, although admittedly the naval and land units aren't as bad as the air units in this regard.

The map also has a lot of information, and, more importantly, there are 70,200 hexes.

Consider any of the POV games with 70,200 locations for combat. While the POV depictions are quite ornate and detailed, in reality they are mostly a static image. From the programmer's point of view (pun intended) you design the 'arena' as a cube with graphic images representing content, add software to change the player's point of view from within the cube, and you're done. The characters appear as overlays against this 'scenery'. The high resolution graphics cards have enabled this to be a viable product, but the players have to buy the advanced graphics cards to run the program. The process is pretty much the same for tactical combat games with land units or aircraft.

To do the same for MWIF would be hard to envision. The simulated decisions are not being made by an individual person in combat, nor on the scale of everything a battlefield commander can 'see'. The scope of the smallest decision is ~90 kilometers (1 hex). What is being shown on the strategic map screen shots are thousands of KMs.

But them perhaps you haven't see the other graphics? The single global map view for routing resources is intentionally barren, to show the individual hexes for resources and factories as 4 colored pixels. There are 4 other global map views that depict terrain, weather, et al. Those are more colorful, but I am betting you would also deem their graphics to be Win 95.

The detailed map is much more diverse in presentation, but still the map is a map, not a simulation of what a human eye sees when it looks at the world.

As the designer/programmer I am constrained by the monitor capabilities of the player who has the least capable system within the intended market of customers. This has been judged to be 1024 by 768 pixels. That's not a lot of room to work with. I've done the best I can given that constraint, and the MWIF specifications to reproduce WIF FE.

In a nutshell, dazzle has taken a back seat to necessity.[:(]



brian brian -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/7/2010 10:17:14 PM)

[this is a complete tangent, but I hadn't thought of this before....MWiF will have the resource in Dutch Guiana, always? A lot of people play WiF using the AiF map of the Americas, but then ignore that resource as it is not there on the 'mini-map' of the Americas. I'm sure this was discussed years ago, but it does look like a +1 for the Allies.]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/8/2010 2:40:11 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

[this is a complete tangent, but I hadn't thought of this before....MWiF will have the resource in Dutch Guiana, always? A lot of people play WiF using the AiF map of the Americas, but then ignore that resource as it is not there on the 'mini-map' of the Americas. I'm sure this was discussed years ago, but it does look like a +1 for the Allies.]

Here are the British controlled resources as of Sept/Oct 1939. TS indicates resource they are sending to other major powers. TR indicates those they are receiving.

So the answer to your question is Yes (line 7 of the left screenshot).

[image]local://upfiles/16701/9CEFA6CCA36E4E75B24A3411A863EB83.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/8/2010 2:43:14 AM)

2nd in a series of 2.

Here are all the resources controlled by neutral minor countries at the start of the war. I want to eliminate the TS entries from this list (and will probably do so in the next hour).

[image]local://upfiles/16701/10348494CE694E73B28672BB55885026.jpg[/image]



paulderynck -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/8/2010 5:28:38 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Post 2 in a series of 3.

This game is using the 1D10 CRT. These are very poor attacks, but I wanted to show the use of defensive HQ support. The attack on Kharkov has defensive HQ support as shown by the 'D' in the hex. Things didn't go well for the USSR as shown inthe Result panel.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/D44E178A0FE840868EB1D61683623745.jpg[/image]

For 1D10, there has to be a roll for the HQ support. Only a 1 or 2 would give a defensive column shift. With 1D10, a roll of 3 on 2-1 down 2 columns would yield a loss fo two attacking units on either Blitz or Assault.



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/8/2010 9:50:47 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: paulderynck


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Post 2 in a series of 3.

This game is using the 1D10 CRT. These are very poor attacks, but I wanted to show the use of defensive HQ support. The attack on Kharkov has defensive HQ support as shown by the 'D' in the hex. Things didn't go well for the USSR as shown inthe Result panel.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/D44E178A0FE840868EB1D61683623745.jpg[/image]

For 1D10, there has to be a roll for the HQ support. Only a 1 or 2 would give a defensive column shift. With 1D10, a roll of 3 on 2-1 down 2 columns would yield a loss fo two attacking units on either Blitz or Assault.

The combat ratio is 19.5:5 => 20:5 => 4:1. The 2:1 shown is after/net the column shifts.



Froonp -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/8/2010 9:18:12 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

[this is a complete tangent, but I hadn't thought of this before....MWiF will have the resource in Dutch Guiana, always? A lot of people play WiF using the AiF map of the Americas, but then ignore that resource as it is not there on the 'mini-map' of the Americas. I'm sure this was discussed years ago, but it does look like a +1 for the Allies.]

MWiF will have the resource in Dutch Guiana, always.

Harry Rowland considers the AiF map as a progress compared to the WiF FE USA minimap, so should we be guided by people who play with the minimap's resources ?
Maybe you could also consider that playing with the minimap is a -1 allies, and that using the AiF maps' resource is evening the odds ?

Anyway, anyone lettered enough in computing will be able to remove resources and add resources. However, to play in network games, there might be problems for him.



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/9/2010 4:28:30 AM)

Here is some of today's progress on the Production Planning form.

The left screenshot shows the new highlight for the secleted resource with its path as a text list on the left and as a global map graphic at the bottom. Notice the two reosurces with green and blue entries in the Action and Destination columns.

The green means that Default settings are being used to determine where the resource goes and what it does when it gets there.

The blue means that the Override settings are being used. Default settings persist from turn to turn, until you change them (or clear them). The override settings take precedence over defaults if you have both defined.

The screenshot on the right shows the default settings for the Belgian Congo resource. Clicking a radio button in the In Situ and Rail/Ship radio button groups causes the Default settings to change. The override settings work the same way. Clicking on the all-capitals word COMPUTED cycles to DEFAULTS. clicking on DEFAULTS cycles to OVERRIDE and thence back to COMPUTED.

The intent with the defaults is to enable you to set up a quasi-permanent strategy for what resources go where and whether they are saved (oil only) or used in production. The overrides let you define temporary (current turn only) settings. All these settings are just 'hopeful'. The program tries its best to fulfill your wishes, but if it can't, it tries to find idle factories to which to send idle resources. When a Default or Override setting was unfulfilled, it is colored red.

The default Country entry is for specifying which resources are used to fulfill trade commitments. There is no override Country.

I have now completed all the side issues for this form and have just changing routes left. You will be able to set both default and override routes for resources that go overseas. When those are in effect I will color the convoy number (far right column) green/blue.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/52AD4C5EF70847F49B3AA32603BEDF7E.jpg[/image]



paulderynck -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/9/2010 6:00:24 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

quote:

ORIGINAL: paulderynck


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Post 2 in a series of 3.

This game is using the 1D10 CRT. These are very poor attacks, but I wanted to show the use of defensive HQ support. The attack on Kharkov has defensive HQ support as shown by the 'D' in the hex. Things didn't go well for the USSR as shown inthe Result panel.


For 1D10, there has to be a roll for the HQ support. Only a 1 or 2 would give a defensive column shift. With 1D10, a roll of 3 on 2-1 down 2 columns would yield a loss fo two attacking units on either Blitz or Assault.

The combat ratio is 19.5:5 => 20:5 => 4:1. The 2:1 shown is after/net the column shifts.

Thanks. So the roll for the HQ Support took place before the point shown in the screen shot?



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/9/2010 6:20:15 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: paulderynck


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

quote:

ORIGINAL: paulderynck


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Post 2 in a series of 3.

This game is using the 1D10 CRT. These are very poor attacks, but I wanted to show the use of defensive HQ support. The attack on Kharkov has defensive HQ support as shown by the 'D' in the hex. Things didn't go well for the USSR as shown inthe Result panel.


For 1D10, there has to be a roll for the HQ support. Only a 1 or 2 would give a defensive column shift. With 1D10, a roll of 3 on 2-1 down 2 columns would yield a loss fo two attacking units on either Blitz or Assault.

The combat ratio is 19.5:5 => 20:5 => 4:1. The 2:1 shown is after/net the column shifts.

Thanks. So the roll for the HQ Support took place before the point shown in the screen shot?

Yes. Here is the sequence of play. Notice that declaration of HQ support occurs well before land combat resolution. 

    pInvasion,                // RAC 11.14.
    pParadrop,                // RAC 11.15.
    pLandCombatDeclaration,   // RAC 11.16.1.
    pIgnoreNotional,          // RAC 11.14.
    pEmergencyHQSupply,       // RAC 2.4.3.
    pShoreBombardmentD,       // RAC 11.16.2.
    pShoreBombardmentA,       // RAC 11.16.2.
    pHQSupportD,              // RAC 11.16.3.
    pHQSupportA,              // RAC 11.16.3.
    pGroundSupport,           // RAC 11.16.4.
    pLandCombatResolution,    // RAC 11.16.5 & 11.16.6.


The rolls for HQ support occur at the very beginning of the Land Combat Reosultion phase, before the subphase Land Combat Selection. 

// ****************************************************************************
// Land combat resolution subphases.
// ****************************************************************************
  TLandCombatResSubPhase = (
    LCRspLandCombatSelection,  // RAC 11.16.5.
    LCRspDefSnowUnits,         // RAC 8.2.7.
    LCRspAttSnowUnits,         // RAC 8.2.7.
    LCRspChooseCombatType,     // RAC 11.16.5 & 11.16.6.
    LCRspLandCombatResolution, // RAC 11.16.5 & 11.16.6.
    LCRspAssignLosses,         // RAC 11.16.5.
    LCRspConvertShattered,     // RAC 11.16.5.
    LCRspHexControl,           // RAC 11.11.6 (overruns)
    LCRspRetreats,             // RAC 11.16.5.
    LCRspAdvanceAfterCombat    // RAC 11.16.5.



brian brian -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/9/2010 3:50:11 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Anyway, anyone lettered enough in computing will be able to remove resources and add resources.



that's good, as Harry wrote a long time ago that the best way to balance the game to a group's taste isn't through adding or subtracting rules, but via adding or subtracting resources from the USA.

I wish though that ADG would have been a little more clear over the years on that resource in Dutch Guiana. I would wager that few of the players of the paper and cardboard game are using it in a 39-45 game right now.



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/23/2010 9:34:38 PM)

1st in a series of 3 posts.

I think I have made the last mods to the last form.[sm=innocent0001.gif]

Here are 7 screenshots for the Production Planning form documentation, which is written except for today's additional feature.

The 2 on this page show the summary form. If you have been following the development of this form, the new items are the convoy counts in the lower roght corner of the summary panel. I've also changed the labeling, replacing Shipped and Overseas with Convoyed. That way the same word is used consistently when referring to resources that are shipped overseas using convoys.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/467ABCF2130B4C54BF3DDE6BFD73B9E2.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/23/2010 10:00:53 PM)

2nd in a series of 3.

The two screenshot here show the expanded layout (left) and the route layout (right).

The expanded layout shows all the oil resources that the US controls. The insert map shows the heartland of the US oil production.

The screenshot on the right shows today's new feature.

The global insert map is showing all active Allied ships at sea. The first number in each sea area is the number of convoys in the sea area. What I have done is clicked on the West Med, which filters the resources/factories list to show just those resources that pass through the West Med. The Convoy column of that list (far right) shows to whom the resources belong. That is, Fr is using one of the convoys and CW is using 4. Of the 5 Allied convoys in the West Med., 3 are CW and 2 are French, so the CW is using one of the French convoys.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/7AD197F59FFF45F5A3AA438FB6EE93C0.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (9/23/2010 10:06:12 PM)

3rd and last in a series of 3.

Here is the process of changing the route for a resource. The upper left of the upper left screentshot shows the Belgian Congo resource going throught the North Atlantic - requiring an extra convoy.

The right screenshot show the route in the process of being changed. You just click on the sea areas you want in the route. You have to click a second time on the last sea area so the program knows that is the terminal sea area.

The bottom screenshot show the route completed. The program works out which ports to use for departure and arrival and finds the rail link to the source/destination too. If no port or rail link can be found - it complains.

[image]local://upfiles/16701/0DA2B4DE72C940248EF53F0DCC4396C5.jpg[/image]



Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (10/19/2010 12:38:08 AM)

I reinstalled Theme Engine yesterday morning so I've spent a day retaking screen shots for the Players Manual of all the forms that have been modified over the past 6 months.

Here is a sampling of those. First in a series of 14.
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[image]local://upfiles/16701/441E32373C23440B919B6678C67AC5E3.jpg[/image]



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