Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

ahh, thanks Orm, I like the thought about making a distinction between 'aligned' or not. I think this could create some trickiness for the computer code with TERR units in countries that have been conquered during the game and thus not 'aligned'. ?

The 'major power or minor country' clause in the original rules makes things hard to parse sometimes.



Edit: the portion of my brain that figures this out has a faulty bit of wiring to that portion of the memory chip as I think I have asked this before, and been shown The Way in the rules. It's much like trying to correctly remember my friends' wives or children named Lauren, Laurel, or Laura. Argh.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

ahh, thanks Orm, I like the thought about making a distinction between 'aligned' or not. I think this could create some trickiness for the computer code with TERR units in countries that have been conquered during the game and thus not 'aligned'. ?

The 'major power or minor country' clause in the original rules makes things hard to parse sometimes.



Edit: the portion of my brain that figures this out has a faulty bit of wiring to that portion of the memory chip as I think I have asked this before, and been shown The Way in the rules. It's much like trying to correctly remember my friends' wives or children named Lauren, Laurel, or Laura. Argh.

Key on the differences. Lauren has a N, is she the one that's Nuts? Laurel has an L, is she Lazy? Laura has no extra letter, so I would use 'b' as in blank for computer notation, or b-flat in music notation. Does she sing?

Somethings are easy to remember. My brother Lars marries Lois, I (Steven) married Shereen. Now if my sister Marie had just married Mark, we would have been all set (she married Larry!?).

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I've always suspected a 3D friend of mine named Aaron gets more 'pocket'/'purse' cellphone calls than anyone else. I get several with a name starting with 'B'. 'Aa' must get the most?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Centuur

What? Working on Christmas Day? Really, really amazing... Doesn't you're wife have something to say about this? I would probably get killed for working on Christmas day... 

Now, I'm getting a little confused here. Mac Arthur can cooperate with the CW, so Brisbane is a primary supply source.
All the rest is only of importance, when there is an US aligned country having units in Australia, tracing to Mac Arthur. Those units have to trace to the USA or to their own homecountry.
On the right part of the screen, things are now a little confusing. It looks like MacArthur traces back to the USA. What I would suggest is to add a "C" in those area's to make clear the difference of the supply line of the USA/CW units and those of other countries cooperating only with the USA.
Or do you have the thing programmed the way that if you're clicking on the left part of the screen on MacArthur 2ndary/C the other lines on the right pop up blue? If so, than things are clear to me.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

quote:

ORIGINAL: Centuur

What? Working on Christmas Day? Really, really amazing... Doesn't you're wife have something to say about this? I would probably get killed for working on Christmas day... 

Now, I'm getting a little confused here. Mac Arthur can cooperate with the CW, so Brisbane is a primary supply source.
All the rest is only of importance, when there is an US aligned country having units in Australia, tracing to Mac Arthur. Those units have to trace to the USA or to their own homecountry.
On the right part of the screen, things are now a little confusing. It looks like MacArthur traces back to the USA. What I would suggest is to add a "C" in those area's to make clear the difference of the supply line of the USA/CW units and those of other countries cooperating only with the USA.
Or do you have the thing programmed the way that if you're clicking on the left part of the screen on MacArthur 2ndary/C the other lines on the right pop up blue? If so, than things are clear to me.

My wife made a very nice dinner for Xmas. She also helped me out with MWIF by editing my task list. Trust me when I say that she and I are equally anxious to finish MWIF and release it to the salivating WIF aficionados.

There are two lines for MacArthur on the left. One is where he traces overseas (/S), whose path I displayed in the screen shot. That leads back to the US and can be used by all units that cooperate with the US. The second one has a single line entry in the path: Brisbane (not shown). It also has the label /C which indicates that it involves supply sources from countries that cooperate with the US. Counter-intuitively, the /C indicates that cooperating countries can not use MacArthur, only US units.

I only show one entry for an HQ that has an overland path to its own primary supply source (e.g., Eisenhower). In that instance, it can be used by all units that cooperate with the US, even those tracing a path overseas to reach the HQ.

The example I chose to show with MacArthur is the most unusual, where both instances restrict which units can use him as a supply source. One prevents cooperating units from using him and the other prevents units tracing overseas from using him. Yeah, it's confusing. You should try programming this mess.

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I noticed a wrinkle in the control rules that would affect supply rules sometimes I think, going back to my question about notionals.

When Major Power A declares war on Minor Country Z, the side opposite A has to align Z to a Major Power B on that side.

If A and B are not at war, hexes (and notionals) in Z are controlled by Z.

If A and B go to war, hexes and notionals in Z become controlled by B.

spinning yet?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

I was reluctant to start a new thread just for this, so I have placed it here.
=================
This is the MWIF Processing Structure for the redesign of the game engine. I had done several previous versions but this is both more complete and more coherent. All the lines without arrowheads are bi-directional.

I think of the 'player' as having two roles: Controller and Player. As Controller, he starts the game, sets up for restoring or begining a new game, and also has the option to replay a previous game or run through the tutorials. Note that in all those cases he is not 'playing' the game per se. As a Player, he is moving units and making other decisions according to the WIF rules.

So, the Controller starts MWIF (upper left corner) and then decides what to do using the Controller Interface. Say he chooses to start a new game. He gets to set the mode of play (e.g., solitaire or Internet), scenario, optional rules, and identify the players. He might simply assign major powers to players or decide to go through the bidding process. If bidding, he then becomes a Player and the program reaches out to the other players over the Internet. Once major powers are set, Game Control is in charge and informs the active decision makers (Local Player, Internet Player, PBEM Player, AI Assistant, and AI Opponent) so they can perform any preparatory analysis they want. Simultaneously, the "Player on Move" will be informed that it is his turn to make decisions.

The AIO will perform and store its preparatory analysis while waiting on the human player(s) and the human players can do likewise with "Preplanned Decisions".

There is some minor stuff not shown here, but I believe all the important pieces are identified and in place.

My follow-up task to this one is to restructure the program logic so it matches this process structure.

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

well that is all a little mysterious there Steve, particularly Preplanned Decisions, which I just can't think of a part of the game I would need this? You pre-plan everything while you look at the screen all the time. When the phase comes to push the buttons you need to push, then you do it. ???

Game Replay sounds very enticing. A little mini-movie of the war (game), complete with a Groupon coupon for some popcorn down at your local market? No, I suspect that is not what you meant. But I can only think of how Cyberboard works; all it does is manipulate little graphic objects (counters) over a graphic layer underneath (map). When looking at a move record sent from another player, the player can pause, click forward a single move of a piece at a time, even if perhaps the opponent just clicked on a piece, moved it a single pixel (not changing hexes), and then go on to the next, or the player can let it all roll by automatically. This would seem to be important for pbem. The alternative would be to look at all of your opponents pieces, click some sort of permission acknowledging receipt of your opponent's moves from the 'net, and then suddenly all of their pieces are in new places. But it doesn't seem that hard to get that done. ? The game log must have a part that sequentially changes the location of the pieces....as that is read into the log on the 2nd player's computer, couldn't it go out to the screen, one move at a time? But I really have no idea what you were hoping to have in 'Game Replay'.

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I don't think pre-planned moves is that important then. Except in Hot Seat games, but I just don't see that being a popular way to handle movement. I have had opponents I would never ever play Hot Seat against, except for air or naval combat only. Why play on the computer in real time if you have to sit there while a factor counter type player counts and recounts his factors? [factor counter players are the easiest to defeat....while they spend their time counting and re-counting factors for the perfect attack, you think deeply about strategy.] But if you can't move your units somewhat just mentally while you wait on something, you probably won't be able to play the game that well anyway. As long as you can undo moves when actually moving units, and the program enforces that as I'm sure it will.

I'm still confused on Game Replay then. Are you saying watching the pieces move can't be part of it yet? That three dozen land units will just all snap from their pre-movement phase location to their post-movement phase location? Perhaps this isn't as important either, with the program enforcing the movement costs and limits, the complete opposite of the pbem programs used today. We might could use the ability to snap back and forth with some sort of permission to end the viewing of the enemy movement phase.

quote:

ORIGINAL: mr_flappypants

These tutorials will be a godsend for someone like me. I just hope that the tutorials are written accurately. I cannot stand a tutorial that says "click on..." and that button doesn't exist, or "then this will happen..." and it never does.

quote:

Q17.2-6 17.2

Q: What happens to countries conquered and aligned by France when Vichy is declared?

A: You roll for them on the appropriate row of the Free-French chart (see WiF 17.2).