RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons

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RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons - 7/8/2005 5:38:02 PM

Shannon V. OKeets

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Caranorn

Counter art should be moddable, possibly giving each unit type (armour, mechanised, infantry, motorised, etc.) its own unique ID with separate graphic files (some standard format again). Possibly enable small sprites (I wouldn't use them, but some might) to be used instead of the usual counter graphics. It would be good of course if a few additional unit type slots could be left for those among us who would wish to add new ones (though this might be impossible due to the force pool system, or much more complex then needed).

CWIF uses sprites for terrain and I have an idea how players could replace the underlying terrain with their own if they want to. This would not apply to the shape of coastlines which I hope to have uniquely tailored for each coastal hex. What I might be able to provide for modifying coastal hexes is the ability to replace the land portion of the image - leaving the ocean portion untouched.

The unit graphics are more complicated. There are a lot of numbers to display and very little real estate on which to do it (i.e., very few pixels). The background colors could be easily made available for modification as could the center icon (x for infantry, / for cavalry). I don't want this to bog down development though. I believe most players have little, if any, interest in changing the artistic renderings since it would require so much work on their part. What I will probably try to achieve is a clean design that is open to modifications in the future. More capability for modifications might have to wait for version 2 (I don't want to think about that - it hurts my head - let's just get this puppy done).

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

(in reply to Caranorn)

Post #: 31

RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons - 7/8/2005 5:59:15 PM

Froonp

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quote:

The unit graphics are more complicated. There are a lot of numbers to display and very little real estate on which to do it (i.e., very few pixels). The background colors could be easily made available for modification as could the center icon (x for infantry, / for cavalry). I don't want this to bog down development though. I believe most players have little, if any, interest in changing the artistic renderings since it would require so much work on their part. What I will probably try to achieve is a clean design that is open to modifications in the future. More capability for modifications might have to wait for version 2 (I don't want to think about that - it hurts my head - let's just get this puppy done).

Please, no bizarre icons for units in MWiF, no man with a rifle, no tank, please give us the normal OTAN symbols we all like and know.

However, I'm seduced by the idea of seeing a bigger image of a counter under some circumstances, and by nice graphics when you select it or else.

I'm also seduced by a feature that would show the real life history of the unit if any, and also would show the WiF history of the unit

Like "The XXX armored corps participated in the rush to the Rhine in 1944", or, the "XLVII panzerkorps participated to the breakthrough in France 40, then to the rush into Ukraine in 1942, in the Siege of Rostov in 1942 and in the Rush to Baku in 1943" sort of thing.

I'd also like the game to log everything that happen in the game, in an interface that you could filter to see only naval events, air events, land events, political events, etc... This would be good to give game reports to friends.

Well, dreaming....

Patrice

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)

Post #: 32

RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons - 7/8/2005 6:11:49 PM

Shannon V. OKeets

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
On the topic of artistic rendering of the units, CWIF was very faithful to WiF. They look good to me. Does anyone want to see changes made to the units, or are the WiF unit depictions ok?
I disagree strongly. Every screenshot you post with original CWiF counters will work against sales. Like it or not we live in an eye-candy universe and there is a minimum bar for graphics for which IMHO CWiF doesn't make the grade. If you do decide to stay with the old graphics then put in a Help key which displays a pop-up screen with better graphic and a brief actual history of the selected air/naval unit.

Now this is serious. After all this long wait for MWIF I don't want to release something that gets immediately dumped on by the critics. In the past I learned that reviewers are weird people. They tend to fixate on some small part of a game and ignore the other 98%. What you get is some of them hate a game for all the wrong reasons and some of them love a game for all the wrong reasons. I found it to be a mind rape to read reviews - "what game are they writing about?"

So, I don't want ugly graphics, where ugly is in the eye of the beholder. To that end I think we have a reasonable plan for making the map very nice. But the units? If we produce unit art that this group likes, then I am willing to go with that.

What we might have to do is have two versions of unit rendering. A small one would be for seeing 4 units in a hex (I wrote about that in an earlier post). The small one could be comparable to what was used in CWIF. A large one could have more pixels available to make it look nice. It would only be viewable as the top unit in a stack of units in a hex, and then only at higher resolution. This would be more work but not a lot. Remember that unit rendering does not affect game play at all, so it has almost no interaction with all the rest of the program.

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

(in reply to Greyshaft)

Post #: 33

RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons - 7/8/2005 6:36:43 PM

Froonp

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From: Marseilles, France
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quote:

To that end I think we have a reasonable plan for making the map very nice. But the units? If we produce unit art that this group likes, then I am willing to go with that.

Man, if you want good looking counters, just take the WiF FE counters, they are the prettiest of all the counters of all the wargame world

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)

Post #: 34

RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons - 7/8/2005 7:19:20 PM

Shannon V. OKeets

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From: Honolulu, Hawaii
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

quote:

To that end I think we have a reasonable plan for making the map very nice. But the units? If we produce unit art that this group likes, then I am willing to go with that.

Man, if you want good looking counters, just take the WiF FE counters, they are the prettiest of all the counters of all the wargame world

Good, I think so too, based on my limited knowledge. So, I give the artist the WiF Final Edition counters as the design specification for what the units should look like on the screen.

There are 8 levels of map resolution in CWIF, from 25% through 200% in increments of 25%. I am thinking of using the CWIF unit depictions at resolutions 25% trhrough 125%. At the three higher resolutions the player could choose between: (1) 4 units visible in a hex using the small unit graphic or (2) one unit visible (the top one in the stack) using a large unit graphic. This large unit graphic would give the artist 50% more pixels to work with to make the units look nice. As in CWIF, the player could quickly leaf through all the units in a stack, getting the nice large graphic displayed.

In addition, I like Rob Crandall's idea of a popup panel that gives more detail on a unit. This could include historical information and other glitz that is immaterial to game play.

I am drifting into the realm of interface design and I want to leave that for a future thread, so I'll stop here.

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

(in reply to Froonp)

Post #: 35

RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons - 7/8/2005 7:25:36 PM

Shannon V. OKeets

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From: Honolulu, Hawaii
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

I'd also like the game to log everything that happen in the game, in an interface that you could filter to see only naval events, air events, land events, political events, etc... This would be good to give game reports to friends.

Well, dreaming....

Patrice

Even back in 1985, when I wrote my last computer wargame, I maintained a history of all the moves in the game so the players could replay the game. Rob Crandall had prepared a detailed methodology for how to implement one for MWIF. I expect to include something along those lines in MWIF for a whole host of reasons; one of which is to test any changes to the program to make sure they don't destroy previous functionality. This is a future thread though.

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

(in reply to Froonp)

Post #: 36

RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons - 7/8/2005 11:39:01 PM

Caranorn

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

quote:

To that end I think we have a reasonable plan for making the map very nice. But the units? If we produce unit art that this group likes, then I am willing to go with that.

Man, if you want good looking counters, just take the WiF FE counters, they are the prettiest of all the counters of all the wargame world

Agreed Patrice, the WiF FE graphics should at least be the basis for MWiF's graphics. That is to say NATO style (no game uses exact NATO symbology, few among us would understand it) for land units, a very limited number of ship silhouettes for naval units and a large number of aircraft images for air units...

Though I think an alternative should also exist for people with other tastes, but obviously such alternatives should come after gameplay.

Marc aka Caran...

(in reply to Froonp)

Post #: 37

RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons - 7/9/2005 12:16:14 AM

macgregor

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To chime in on the 'fog of war' issue, I would offer two options. Based on how you decide to handle this PBEM, one would be for units behind the front to undergo a check. Provided there was going to be some sort of air superiority calculation, this could be factored in as well as weather,maybe even aircraft range. The game 'Operational Art of War' seems to handle this well, allowing varying degrees of reconaissance from simply knowing there's a unit to unit type, and ultimately exact unit info. The other option would be for units behind the lines to be visible only by type, or even by existence alone. This is new territory for WiF, but if done right could be a tremendous asset.

(in reply to Caranorn)

Post #: 38

RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons - 7/9/2005 2:52:00 AM

boneyman1769

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I am throwing in for the WIF FE counters as the minimum basis for the counters.

For display purposes could you use a slanted stack? This would show the counter on top and then the edge of each additional counter. Run the mouse pointer down the side and as each edge is touched a new counter shows on top.

Maybe another option would be that when the mouse pointer is over a hex a popup appears showing what is in the hex.

Is counter stacking going to be Air, Land, Sea or will another approach be used?

(in reply to macgregor)

Post #: 39

RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons - 7/9/2005 3:50:24 AM

Shannon V. OKeets

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quote:

ORIGINAL: boneyman1769
For display purposes could you use a slanted stack? This would show the counter on top and then the edge of each additional counter. Run the mouse pointer down the side and as each edge is touched a new counter shows on top.

Maybe another option would be that when the mouse pointer is over a hex a popup appears showing what is in the hex.

Is counter stacking going to be Air, Land, Sea or will another approach be used?

Again, to bring you (and others who haven't seen the CWIF beta version) up to speed on what already exists.

In CWIF
When more than one unit is in a hex, they are stacked with the top unit visible and the others underneath it; the others are visible as almost a shadow effect taken at 1:00 PM. You cannot click on the shadow for it is way too small. Also, for naval units in a major port, there might be 20 units in a stack. At the top of the stack is a number indicating how many units are in the stack. At the bottom of the screen is a panel containing a complete list of the units in the hex underneath the cursor. That panel is updated as the cursor moves.

If you right click on the top unit of a stack, a popup menu appears, (under the cursor!), with whatever are the current options for that unit. The cleverness is that the first item on the popup menu is to place the top unit on the bottom of the stack thereby moving the next unit to the top of the stack (and therefore visible). Because it is the first menu choice, all you have to do is left click to select it and the next unit is visible. In practice this means that you right click then left click to leaf through the units in a stack. It works a lot faster and cleaner than I can explain it with text.

You always have the complete list of units in the hex at the bottom of the screen and you can use that panel to pick one out rather than leafing through them all. I actually like this design but would rather leave a fuller discussion to a future thread on interface design.

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

(in reply to boneyman1769)

Post #: 40

RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons - 7/9/2005 10:08:51 AM

Froonp

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quote:

If you right click on the top unit of a stack, a popup menu appears, (under the cursor!), with whatever are the current options for that unit. The cleverness is that the first item on the popup menu is to place the top unit on the bottom of the stack thereby moving the next unit to the top of the stack (and therefore visible). Because it is the first menu choice, all you have to do is left click to select it and the next unit is visible. In practice this means that you right click then left click to leaf through the units in a stack. It works a lot faster and cleaner than I can explain it with text.

I don't know if it has to do with my mouse or else, but on my CWiF (0.7.71) I just have to right click.

When I press the right button the pop up menu appears, and when I depress the right button, the option selected is chosen, and as you said, the option selected is "next unit". I don't even have to left click. So to swap through the units, I just have to "right click" "right click" " right click" as many times as I need.

The pop up menu is like the MacIntosh ones, that is that you have to leave the right click pressed to have the menu stay on the screen, and you depress on the option chosen. You can also depress the button outside the menu, and then the pop up mneu stays displayed and you can choose a command by left clicking.

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)

Post #: 41

Lend leased units - 7/9/2005 2:39:11 PM

Froonp

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Don't know if it should appear here, anyway I ask : What about lend leased planes ?

CWiF used to have the players be able to lend lease any plane to any ally of them, with some restriction (German cannot lend lease to Japan).
I think it is a major departure from the RAW, and I said that at the time, but it stayed like this as far as I can tell.
We need to decide how it will be for MWiF, and I am in favor of a RAW7 approach, that is that you are limited to the countermix for lend lease of planes.
Does this belong to this thread or not ?

Anyway, lend lease plane need that special graphic to exist (the band of color from the provider of the plane).

As of the colors, there is also a need to have some counters changing colors during the game, come to my minds the captured ships, and the Territorials.

As a last note about color, there should be in the game the possibility to change the color of a Nation's counters (There is a quite big support in real life for Harry to reprint the CW counters to a less dark color or a tan color).

Thanks & Best Regards

(in reply to Froonp)

Post #: 42

RE: Lend leased units - 7/9/2005 3:09:34 PM

Caranorn

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I rather like the notion of being able to lend lease any aircraft (each only once obviously). While this is obviously a departure from WiF it does neverless make sense (and would be very difficult to do with a board game wile I assume it'd be easy on computer). The question would be one of balancing, that is whetehr it can lead to drastic changes. On the other hand, I'd see little trouble with Germany lend leasing planes to Japan (I'm not up to date on RAW, but I'd assume it still requires a transfer of BP which should usually be hard to achieve between Germany and Japan (then again I know some gamers have managed astonishing results)) or vice versa.

CWiF also already had the automatic colour change for captured ships so I'd assume Steve is putting this in anyhow unless people object (I don't).

As to territorials, these might be among the units requiring an OOB review along with all African and Asian units (I just remembered that was one of the areas I modded in CWiF's OOB at one point, creating some regular units for a few African colonies whose troops played a major role in North and East Africa, Burma or Europe).

Marc aka Caran...

(in reply to Froonp)

Post #: 43

RE: Lend leased units - 7/9/2005 3:23:03 PM

Froonp

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quote:

I rather like the notion of being able to lend lease any aircraft (each only once obviously).

I would prefer either a RAW approach, as I already said, or a more liberal approach but still respecting some limits.
The limits would be that only certain models of planes would be able to be leased to certain countries, like in real life. For example, no P-51 were ever leased to USSR, and it would affect game balance if they were in MWiF (less than if Stukas were leased to Japan or A6Ms to Germany).

Regards

Patrice

(in reply to Caranorn)

Post #: 44

RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons - 7/9/2005 7:34:41 PM

Shannon V. OKeets

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From: Honolulu, Hawaii
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

quote:

If you right click on the top unit of a stack, a popup menu appears, (under the cursor!), with whatever are the current options for that unit. The cleverness is that the first item on the popup menu is to place the top unit on the bottom of the stack thereby moving the next unit to the top of the stack (and therefore visible). Because it is the first menu choice, all you have to do is left click to select it and the next unit is visible. In practice this means that you right click then left click to leaf through the units in a stack. It works a lot faster and cleaner than I can explain it with text.

I don't know if it has to do with my mouse or else, but on my CWiF (0.7.71) I just have to right click.

When I press the right button the pop up menu appears, and when I depress the right button, the option selected is chosen, and as you said, the option selected is "next unit". I don't even have to left click. So to swap through the units, I just have to "right click" "right click" " right click" as many times as I need.

The pop up menu is like the MacIntosh ones, that is that you have to leave the right click pressed to have the menu stay on the screen, and you depress on the option chosen. You can also depress the button outside the menu, and then the pop up mneu stays displayed and you can choose a command by left clicking.

Me bad. I was writing the above from memory rather than running the program to get the precise sequence of events. I could have been (and probably was) wrong about some of the particular mouse presses. I do believe I got the flavor correct. By the way, if the hex you right click on is near the bottom of the screen, then the menu scrolls upward (instead of downward) from the cursor and you need to reposition the mouse to click on "next unit in hex".

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

(in reply to Froonp)

Post #: 45

RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons - 7/9/2005 8:03:32 PM

Froonp

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quote:

I do believe I got the flavor correct.

Yes you had

quote:

By the way, if the hex you right click on is near the bottom of the screen, then the menu scrolls upward (instead of downward) from the cursor and you need to reposition the mouse to click on "next unit in hex".

Yes, I noticed that during play, but organized myself such as this never happen. If you can make this one more easy in MWiF, all the best !

Best Regards

Patrice

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)

Post #: 46

RE: Lend leased units - 7/9/2005 8:04:37 PM

Shannon V. OKeets

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Don't know if it should appear here, anyway I ask : What about lend leased planes ?

...

Anyway, lend lease plane need that special graphic to exist (the band of color from the provider of the plane).

As of the colors, there is also a need to have some counters changing colors during the game, come to my minds the captured ships, and the Territorials.

As a last note about color, there should be in the game the possibility to change the color of a Nation's counters (There is a quite big support in real life for Harry to reprint the CW counters to a less dark color or a tan color).

Thanks & Best Regards

This definitely belongs in this thread. I want to know any and all of your (that is the collective 'your') thoughts about counter mix (i.e., units) and their colors.

CWIF builds a unit depiction from a unit's associated labels and it numeric characteristics. For example, if you change the movement allowance of a plane from 4 to 5, then the depiction of the unit on the screen also changes. With this system it is easy to change any colors associated with a nationality, captured ships, etc., since they are all component parts used in the creation of the unit depiction.

The alternative is to have the graphics (taken directly from the WiF Final Edition) as static pictures. This would be the easiest way to get as good a match as possible with the printed counter sheets that come with WiF. The difference between the two methods of rendering the units on the screen is comparable to the difference between a JPG file that contains text and a text file. In the former, you cannot edit the text. Using static pictures would have all the limitations implied by the word static. You could not change the numbers or the colors.

Now a third possibility is to have some sort of composite of the two methods. The colors and graphics would be pictures on top of which the program places the numerics. This make the numerics dynamic, but not the colors. I haven't looked at the CWIF code for unit depiction, other than to note that there is a lot of it and it is complex. To get an appreciation of how complex, you merely need to think of how many of the counters in WiF are unique. Duplicate counters are quite rare. CWIF supports the creation of all the unique features of each counter: land, naval, and air for each country (major and minor).

Just to throw another variable into the mix, it would be possible to have the pictures (sans numerics) for a nationality produced in a couple of different colors. This would let you choose either the rich brown or the light tan background for the USSR units.

----

Right now we have the CWIF system for rendering units on the screen in place, completed, tested, and fully functional. However, I have no hesitation to trash it all if that is what is neccessary to get good looking units.

Making these kind of decisions is why I created these threads. Once the game design is defined, there is serious work to be done to accomplish it. I need the design to be extremely well thought out and solid. Later, when I am in the throes of debugging some especially recalcitrant piece of code, I do not want to have any second thoughts about "do I really have to go through all this bother, or can I just eliminate this aggravation from the design?". Though we are considering unit rendering in this thread, the above statements apply equally well to almost every other aspect of MWIF.

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

(in reply to Froonp)

Post #: 47

RE: Lend leased units - 7/9/2005 8:11:18 PM

Shannon V. OKeets

Posts: 22095
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From: Honolulu, Hawaii
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

quote:

I rather like the notion of being able to lend lease any aircraft (each only once obviously).

I would prefer either a RAW approach, as I already said, or a more liberal approach but still respecting some limits.
The limits would be that only certain models of planes would be able to be leased to certain countries, like in real life. For example, no P-51 were ever leased to USSR, and it would affect game balance if they were in MWiF (less than if Stukas were leased to Japan or A6Ms to Germany).

Regards

Patrice

Instead of an all or nothing decision on this issue, could you perhaps evolve the solution into two (or maybe three) choices that the players pick from as options at the start of the game? These are small details within the complexity of the overall WiF world but one of the strengths of WiF is it inclusion of many small details like this one. I take support for RaW 7 as a given for MWIF so the real question is whether other alternatives should be provided for lend lease planes. And if so, what?

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

(in reply to Froonp)

Post #: 48

RE: Lend leased units - 7/9/2005 8:37:44 PM

Froonp

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quote:

The alternative is to have the graphics (taken directly from the WiF Final Edition) as static pictures. This would be the easiest way to get as good a match as possible with the printed counter sheets that come with WiF. The difference between the two methods of rendering the units on the screen is comparable to the difference between a JPG file that contains text and a text file. In the former, you cannot edit the text. Using static pictures would have all the limitations implied by the word static. You could not change the numbers or the colors.

I'd envision unit in MWiF as the following :
The background color of the counter, as well as all the written informations on in should be modifiable. The graphic needs not.
IMHO, the counter should also be made a little 3-D, you see what I mean ? As if it has a counter's thickness. And also a little gleaming, you know, as if it was real and in 3-D albeit being almost flat.
Best Regards

Patrice

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)

Post #: 49

RE: Lend leased units - 7/9/2005 8:48:29 PM

Froonp

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From: Marseilles, France
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quote:

I take support for RaW 7 as a given for MWIF so the real question is whether other alternatives should be provided for lend lease planes. And if so, what?

This question is so much important IMO that it would need to be asked to the one who made WiF FE, the one who created the game and knows it better than anyone.

This is one of those things that gives WiF FE its flavor. Speaking for myself only, I feel that if I can lend lease Ju87s to Hiro-Hito, or lend lease Zekes to Adolf, it won't be WiF, and it will completely spoil my play. WiF is WiF because it is somehow credible, and those sorts of lend lease are ridiculous for me.

WiF is somehow historical, and MWiF needs to be at least equally historical.

The US and the British leased some planes to their "allies", but not any king of planes. They were not leasing their best planes, only what they didn't want to use themselves. British Hurricanes were leased to the USSR at first, no spitfires, and Spitfires were only leased to USSR only when the British had thousands in their squadrons, and they were no more in dire straits. Same for the USA, they only leased P-40s and P-39 & P-63 massively, no P-51 or P-61 or P-82, and very little P-47s.
That's why I say MWiF must have an historical way of handling Lend lease, and planes units should have a "leasable" attribute, with a precise recipient.

Patrice

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)

Post #: 50

RE: Lend leased units - 7/9/2005 9:55:41 PM

Shannon V. OKeets

Posts: 22095
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From: Honolulu, Hawaii
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp
I'd envision unit in MWiF as the following :
The background color of the counter, as well as all the written informations on in should be modifiable. The graphic needs not.
IMHO, the counter should also be made a little 3-D, you see what I mean ? As if it has a counter's thickness. And also a little gleaming, you know, as if it was real and in 3-D albeit being almost flat.
Best Regards

Patrice

When you get right down to it all we have are pixels. If we want to achieve the 3-D effects of thickness and gleaming, it is doable, but at a price. The price is the number of pixels devoted to each unit - more pixels enables more sophisticated effects. The downside of using more pixels for each unit is that the number of pixels for each hex has to expand as well so it can 'hold' each unit. This leads to fewer hexes visible on the screen at one time.

I live in a world of 1280 by 1024 resolution on a flat screen, which gives me a lot of real estate with which to work when looking at the map. I worry about players who are using 800 by 600 resolution being limited in how large a map area they can see at one time if we only have big hexes.

This brings me back to one of my previous posts where I suggested the compromise of simple graphics for small unit depictions and more sophisticated graphics for larger unit depictions. In that context, I think we can get close to what you want for the larger unit depictions. You just wouldn't have them available all the time (unless you always played the game using the screen resolutions of 150% - 200%).

I sure hope I'm not becoming incoherent.

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

(in reply to Froonp)

Post #: 51

RE: Lend leased units - 7/9/2005 10:01:59 PM

Shannon V. OKeets

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

quote:

I take support for RaW 7 as a given for MWIF so the real question is whether other alternatives should be provided for lend lease planes. And if so, what?

This question is so much important IMO that it would need to be asked to the one who made WiF FE, the one who created the game and knows it better than anyone.

This is one of those things that gives WiF FE its flavor. Speaking for myself only, I feel that if I can lend lease Ju87s to Hiro-Hito, or lend lease Zekes to Adolf, it won't be WiF, and it will completely spoil my play. WiF is WiF because it is somehow credible, and those sorts of lend lease are ridiculous for me.

WiF is somehow historical, and MWiF needs to be at least equally historical.

The US and the British leased some planes to their "allies", but not any king of planes. They were not leasing their best planes, only what they didn't want to use themselves. British Hurricanes were leased to the USSR at first, no spitfires, and Spitfires were only leased to USSR only when the British had thousands in their squadrons, and they were no more in dire straits. Same for the USA, they only leased P-40s and P-39 & P-63 massively, no P-51 or P-61 or P-82, and very little P-47s.
That's why I say MWiF must have an historical way of handling Lend lease, and planes units should have a "leasable" attribute, with a precise recipient.

Patrice

Your knowledge in this area is way beyond mine (which is actually rather easy to do). To implement this much detail about lend lease means that we have to have this much detail available for MWIF to access and act upon.

To do that requires: (1) a data structure that captures the relevant facts and (2) a process that uses those facts to make judgments about what is and is not permitted. This is already addressed in at least some form in CWIF (I haven't looked at that section of code yet). Let's leave this issue for a future thread about options - except for where it has an impact on unit depictions.

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

(in reply to Froonp)

Post #: 52

RE: Lend leased units - 7/9/2005 10:09:23 PM

Caranorn

Posts: 424
Joined: 8/31/2001
From: Luxembourg
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

quote:

I take support for RaW 7 as a given for MWIF so the real question is whether other alternatives should be provided for lend lease planes. And if so, what?

This question is so much important IMO that it would need to be asked to the one who made WiF FE, the one who created the game and knows it better than anyone.

This is one of those things that gives WiF FE its flavor. Speaking for myself only, I feel that if I can lend lease Ju87s to Hiro-Hito, or lend lease Zekes to Adolf, it won't be WiF, and it will completely spoil my play. WiF is WiF because it is somehow credible, and those sorts of lend lease are ridiculous for me.

WiF is somehow historical, and MWiF needs to be at least equally historical.

The US and the British leased some planes to their "allies", but not any king of planes. They were not leasing their best planes, only what they didn't want to use themselves. British Hurricanes were leased to the USSR at first, no spitfires, and Spitfires were only leased to USSR only when the British had thousands in their squadrons, and they were no more in dire straits. Same for the USA, they only leased P-40s and P-39 & P-63 massively, no P-51 or P-61 or P-82, and very little P-47s.
That's why I say MWiF must have an historical way of handling Lend lease, and planes units should have a "leasable" attribute, with a precise recipient.

Patrice

But all of that would be a player's choice in MWiF (assuming any aircraft type could be lend leased). If the Japanese want to send Zeroes to Germany (assuming a route exists to deliver the BP) they will obviously lose that Zero unit for their own OOB... As to P51's, I don't think the Soviets had a need for them though it's quite true that most aircraft they got from the west were deemed low quality by the sending countries (P39 for instance).

Now if we talk options the way I'd see it would be.

1) Limited lend-lease according to WiF FE RAW 7 (or whatever is up to date).
2) Lend-Lease of any airunits to any country not at war with (Ally to Ally, Ally to Neutral, Neutral to Ally, Neutral to Neutral, Neutral to Axis, Axis to Axis, Axis to Neutral...). With the obvious restriction that a single unit can be only lent to one country (and is then not available for the original owner until returned...).

Marc aka Caran...

(in reply to Froonp)

Post #: 53

RE: Lend leased units - 7/9/2005 10:15:44 PM

Caranorn

Posts: 424
Joined: 8/31/2001
From: Luxembourg
Status: offline

Steve what dimensions were you thinking of for the counters (the two scales you mentionned before)? I'm not sure what sizes were used in CWiF (I no longer have a copy).

Good looking 3D like counters could require something quite large.

Another question would be whether the artist who will work on the counters will be able to create good looking aircraft silhouettes within those dimensions (particularly if they are to be colour and not just 2 colour).

Marc aka Caran...

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)

Post #: 54

RE: Lend leased units - 7/9/2005 11:44:39 PM

Shannon V. OKeets

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Caranorn

Steve what dimensions were you thinking of for the counters (the two scales you mentionned before)? I'm not sure what sizes were used in CWiF (I no longer have a copy).

Good looking 3D like counters could require something quite large.

Another question would be whether the artist who will work on the counters will be able to create good looking aircraft silhouettes within those dimensions (particularly if they are to be colour and not just 2 colour).

Marc aka Caran...

CWIF uses hexes that are based on a 68 by 76 pixel bitmap.

The hexes are oriented with a vertex at the top center. The left and right vertical hexsides are 67 pixels apart. The lost pixel is due to drawing in the line that separates the hexes. The left and right hexsides are half the height of the hex (38 pixels) and centered with 19 pixels both above and below. This means that the other 4 hexsides run from the top center to the top of the left and right hexsides, and similarly from the bottom center. The four corners of the original 68 by 76 bitmap are lopped off in the process.

This is all for the 100% resolution. The range of resolutions are from 25% (hex width of 16 pixels) up to 200% (hex width of 136 pixels) with increments of 25%. On my screen (1280 by 1024) the 100% resolution comes out to about 3/4 of an inch. The units sit within the hex and are about 1/2 inch square.

Roughly, the CWIF units are 46 pixels square at 100% resolution. What I am thinking of for the larger renderings of the units would be 70 pixels square, which could be used at 150% -> 200% resolution.

I don't know if this is enough for the artist to accomplish all that our little hearts desire. I might have to (reluctantly) increase the number of pixels per hex to get the nice looking units this game deserves.

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

(in reply to Caranorn)

Post #: 55

RE: Lend leased units - 7/10/2005 1:13:08 PM

Caranorn

Posts: 424
Joined: 8/31/2001
From: Luxembourg
Status: offline

[image][/image]

Here is a sample of a counter at that size (46 pixel square). It really doesn't look all that good. Though I think the 70 pixel one would indeed be all we'd need at least for land units. I will take a look at air and naval counters sometime today.

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: I actually mangled that image pretty bad and don't have time to redo it just now (relatives for lunch...), obviously MWiF's counterart should look better then this.

Attachment (1)

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)

Post #: 56

RE: Lend leased units - 7/10/2005 4:34:10 PM

Shannon V. OKeets

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Caranorn

[image][/image]

Here is a sample of a counter at that size (46 pixel square). It really doesn't look all that good. Though I think the 70 pixel one would indeed be all we'd need at least for land units. I will take a look at air and naval counters sometime today.

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: I actually mangled that image pretty bad and don't have time to redo it just now (relatives for lunch...), obviously MWiF's counterart should look better then this.

I think I have seen this counter before. Now, was that in Tactics I or II?

Your artwork is much better than mine and is probably the best that be done with so few pixels.

You reminded me of one of the advantages of having the numbers and text drawn on the fly, rather than as a fixed picture. Microsoft, and others, have put a ton of work into creating the True Type fonts which means that from the programming side they perform all the work for rendering text at various sizes and making it look its best. Simple routines that blow up or reduce text look much worse than the hand crafted variations of a True Type font at different sizes.

I think that convinces me that the numbers and text will be layed, by the program, on top of either: (1) a fixed artistically drawn background, or (2) a background that is programmatically generated.

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

(in reply to Caranorn)

Post #: 57

RE: Units, Scenarios, Options, and Add-ons - 7/10/2005 4:44:32 PM

Shannon V. OKeets

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

quote:

If you right click on the top unit of a stack, a popup menu appears, (under the cursor!), with whatever are the current options for that unit. The cleverness is that the first item on the popup menu is to place the top unit on the bottom of the stack thereby moving the next unit to the top of the stack (and therefore visible). Because it is the first menu choice, all you have to do is left click to select it and the next unit is visible. In practice this means that you right click then left click to leaf through the units in a stack. It works a lot faster and cleaner than I can explain it with text.

I don't know if it has to do with my mouse or else, but on my CWiF (0.7.71) I just have to right click.

When I press the right button the pop up menu appears, and when I depress the right button, the option selected is chosen, and as you said, the option selected is "next unit". I don't even have to left click. So to swap through the units, I just have to "right click" "right click" " right click" as many times as I need.

The pop up menu is like the MacIntosh ones, that is that you have to leave the right click pressed to have the menu stay on the screen, and you depress on the option chosen. You can also depress the button outside the menu, and then the pop up mneu stays displayed and you can choose a command by left clicking.

Ok, I took the time to investigate what I was rambling on about.

In CWIF, when you right click on a unit (press down), the popup menu appears directly under the cursor. If you simply release the right button, the top menu choice is implemented which means that the top unit is moved to the bottom of the stack and you now see the unit that had been underneath it. This doesn't work when you get near the very bottom of the screen because the popup menu goes up instead of down when it appears. Two right clicks means you have moved the top two units to the bottom.

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

(in reply to Froonp)

Post #: 58

RE: Lend leased units - 7/10/2005 4:53:23 PM

Shannon V. OKeets

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp
This is one of those things that gives WiF FE its flavor. Speaking for myself only, I feel that if I can lend lease Ju87s to Hiro-Hito, or lend lease Zekes to Adolf, it won't be WiF, and it will completely spoil my play. WiF is WiF because it is somehow credible, and those sorts of lend lease are ridiculous for me.

WiF is somehow historical, and MWiF needs to be at least equally historical.

The US and the British leased some planes to their "allies", but not any king of planes. They were not leasing their best planes, only what they didn't want to use themselves. British Hurricanes were leased to the USSR at first, no spitfires, and Spitfires were only leased to USSR only when the British had thousands in their squadrons, and they were no more in dire straits. Same for the USA, they only leased P-40s and P-39 & P-63 massively, no P-51 or P-61 or P-82, and very little P-47s.
That's why I say MWiF must have an historical way of handling Lend lease, and planes units should have a "leasable" attribute, with a precise recipient.

Patrice

Your knowledge in this area is way beyond mine (which is actually rather easy to do). To implement this much detail about lend lease means that we have to have this much detail available for MWIF to access and act upon.

To do that requires: (1) a data structure that captures the relevant facts and (2) a process that uses those facts to make judgments about what is and is not permitted. This is already addressed in at least some form in CWIF (I haven't looked at that section of code yet). Let's leave this issue for a future thread about options - except for where it has an impact on unit depictions.

I have to consider changing my medication, ...

This is the thread about options!

I'll investigate how this option is handled in CWIF. If you have ideas about how to achieve 1 and 2 in the quoted paragraph, I am all ears (or eyes as the case may be).

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)

Post #: 59

RE: Lend leased units - 7/10/2005 5:14:32 PM

Caranorn

Posts: 424
Joined: 8/31/2001
From: Luxembourg
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

quote:

ORIGINAL: Caranorn

I think I have seen this counter before. Now, was that in Tactics I or II?

Your artwork is much better than mine and is probably the best that be done with so few pixels.

You reminded me of one of the advantages of having the numbers and text drawn on the fly, rather than as a fixed picture. Microsoft, and others, have put a ton of work into creating the True Type fonts which means that from the programming side they perform all the work for rendering text at various sizes and making it look its best. Simple routines that blow up or reduce text look much worse than the hand crafted variations of a True Type font at different sizes.

I think that convinces me that the numbers and text will be layed, by the program, on top of either: (1) a fixed artistically drawn background, or (2) a background that is programmatically generated.

I actually worked with an image from the WiF compagnion CD as that was easier then constructing a counter from scratch. And yes, it shows that it is indeed best to have the game engine create the text. Logically, if I had entered new text for that counter it would have been more legible then what my example shows now, but not much more to be satisfactory for people with high resolution screens and less then perfect eyesight...

Marc aka Caran...

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)

Post #: 60