Slitherine

quote:

These are excellent and reflect your usual thoughtfulness.

They are a schedule for what the USA would like to acheive. However, what seems to be missing is how to prioritize between which areas to keep on schedule.

For example, assume that everything is perfectly on schedule at the start of 1943. The USA now has a list of things to get done during the year. Where should it start? What if it is behind schedule in one area? Should that area take precedence over the others until they are all equally behind schedule, or should that one lapse be ignored and the rest of the master schedule maintained?

As I said, it is a question of priorities, especially when things aren't going well, or are going so well that maybe an early victory is possible.

As a player, I would probably give priority to the drive through the center of the Pacific, taking out major ports as stepping stones - but that is without giving it any serious thought. Since you have done so much on this, I expect you have a ready answer of your own.

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Steve

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Not so silly. I loved being able to play US/UK as my powers to control. I could coordinate to my hearts content. However, this leads to a level of cooperation that is simply too coordinated. Normally the two powers are played by two different people. This can lead to a degree of independance that needs to be there. Sometimes the US/UK players simply could not even talk to each other their disagreements so strong leaving the Axis side to enjoy the fireworks!

That said, there ought to be a sliding scale for the level of cooperation from game to game as well as based on the US election outcome.

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Glen

quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp
Coordination between allies is one of the keys to victory in WiF.
I talk about operational coordination, not only strategical.
A few examples of operational coordination are (speaking of WiF, not the true war) :
1) Transporting CW troops with US TRS / AMPH so that the US has a naval action and the CW a land action (or the reverse).
2) Transporting CW PARA with US ATR, thus savng the precious CW air missions of a CW land action.
3) Carpet bombing & Ground Striking with the CW bombers on the German European 44 line under an Air Offensive Chit while the US under a land offensive chit is positionned to assault & blitze the positions struck bu the CW. This is crucial. Without this, the Western allies are like a man with only one leg.
4) Sailing German ships and / or SUBs (and leaving them at sea eventually too) with a few Italian SUBS so that the Italians can initiate the searches while chooisng combined actions, and the German can focus on land actions.

Those 4 are only from the top of my head, but tactical cooperation is a must in playing some countries in WiF.

I think this can be achieved by the loaning feature of CWiF.
In 1) the US TRS / AMPH are loaned to the CW for this impulse, in 2) the US ATR are loaned to the CW for this impulse, in 4), the German ships are loaned to the Italian for this impulse & more.

Only for 3) I do not have a ready solution in WiF with a human and AI countries played as a team.

Cheers.

quote:

3) Carpet bombing & Ground Striking with the CW bombers on the German European 44 line under an Air Offensive Chit while the US under a land offensive chit is positionned to assault & blitze the positions struck bu the CW. This is crucial. Without this, the Western allies are like a man with only one leg.

(...)

Only for 3) I do not have a ready solution in WiF with a human and AI countries played as a team.

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I think this can be achieved by the loaning feature of CWiF.
In 1) the US TRS / AMPH are loaned to the CW for this impulse, in 2) the US ATR are loaned to the CW for this impulse, in 4), the German ships are loaned to the Italian for this impulse & more.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

quote:

I think this can be achieved by the loaning feature of CWiF.
In 1) the US TRS / AMPH are loaned to the CW for this impulse, in 2) the US ATR are loaned to the CW for this impulse, in 4), the German ships are loaned to the Italian for this impulse & more.

It will be important to document the "Loan" feature of MWiF (which is completely stranger to WiF) in the MWiF documentation, and to illustrate it with those kinds of examples.

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How to apply this to an AIA and human player is unclear, but a simple translation of English words (helpful, important, crucial) into CVs is one possibilitiy.

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ORIGINAL: Froonp

quote:

How to apply this to an AIA and human player is unclear, but a simple translation of English words (helpful, important, crucial) into CVs is one possibilitiy.

I think that the player should be able to request things from the AIO mainly.
The reverse is somehow less true, because I'm talking about those situations where a close teamwork is needed (US & CW in western Europe & Italy, Germany & Italy in Italy and to a lesser extend Germany & Italy in Russia). In those situations, there is usually (in the real game) a sort of team leader that decides of the long term thrusts & offensives who are carried, and the other team member provides the assets to help the strategy being carried. He also carries his own needs & wishes, but it is best if the team work is as close as possible. Both can't try to do opposite things without destroying their hopes of achieveing something. Both must be close allies, and one of them has to decide, and I think that between the AIO and the player, the Player should decide.
Hence, that's why I think the player should ba able to request things from the AIO, and the reverse is less true because the AIO should be somehow "following".

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ORIGINAL: Froonp

Another thing comes to my mind related to what I wrote in the previous post.
It is about close cooperation between allies, when one of these allies is the AIO. When it is a human it is irrelevant completely because players communicate using human means.

There is a need, at least in my conception of WiF play, for the close cooperating allies (close cooperating allies are countries which not only cooperate in the sense of the WiF rules, but also need to work as a close team -- nearly as one country -- on a given theater) to be able to have a plan (a deal) for sharing the possible objectives cities that could be conquered by the team between them.

For example, in a normal WiF real game, it is common to have the CW army mainly positionned on one wing of the Allies frontline, and the US army mainly positionned on the other wing. I write "mainly", because their armies are often deeply intermixed, with assets of one in the middle of the army of the other (i.e. for using the Air OC / Land OC ploy this is crucial to have an HQ amongst your ally army).

When this situation arise the players will often have deals to "share" the objective cities between them, and if one unit of your ally could conquer one city that would belong to your deal, it normaly avoid to conquer it and it leave it to you (provided the said objective city is not at risk of being retaken, and that you can take it immediately too).

I think that there is a need for the AIO to be able to take such deals with the player, and to stick or betray it as they see fit. The need is indeed for the player to be able to have such deals.

i.e. CW player "talking" to the US AIO : "OK, Italy & France is already completely yours (Paris, Marseille, Milan, Rome), my army is on the left wing in France, close to the sea, I would like Amsterdam, Antwerp & Kiel to be mine, and I leave to you Munich. Berlin will be for the first comer."

Do you think such communication will be possible ?

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ORIGINAL: JanSorensen

To be honest I dont think the AI should bother with the intricacies of individual victory. In all likelihood doing so will only weaken its ability to play a good team game by making it take actions that are tactically or even strategically unsound (just like it does for not so few humans).

For that reason I think it would be an error to let the AI go down that road. Forget about the diplomatic aspect and concentrate on the military one instead as those are at odds with the latter being several orders of magnitudes more important.

WiF is not Diplomacy afterall.

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For any design decision, I explore as many alternatives as possible given the time constraints. The alternatives do not need to be reasonable, and wild ideas are encouraged, to help us to think beyond any preconceived notions we might be unaware we have. I select those alternatives that seem best and develop the implications of using those designs in a little bit of detail. Then I let the forum members critique the reduced number of alternatives, arguing amongst themselves more than with me (hopefully). If it is something that has minor impact on coding time, I let the forum members decide. If it impacts the amount of effort required to implement it as code, then I'll decide after listening to all your voices. It circumstances where coding is very easy, I make all alternatives available and the player can choose which to use when he sits down to play (e.g., the flags). Once I have decided on a design and started to code it, further discussion is moot and of no interest to me. Only in exceptional circumstances will I trash code that has already been written simply to 'improve' an aspect of the game. The design flaw has to be fatal or a major annoyance, where I get to decide the level of annoyance.

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ORIGINAL: fuzzy_bunnyy

how, if at all, will a human player communicate long term strategic goals to the AI? I find that especially when playing the Axis all 3 countries should decide on what to do. If Japan decides to invade Siberia and Germany goes Sea Lion....yada yada, you get it. just wondering.

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ORIGINAL: Glen Felzien

Could the human to AIA be as easy as selecting strategy from a list? Maybe select your top three picks for the AIA for each allied nation/power and then leave the AIA to do what it can with a percentage chance that it would do one of the other picks? For example a possible list for Japan could be Garrison Gains, Fortress Japan, China Total War, China Withdraw, China Limited War, Operation Vlad, Kill the Bear, The Jewel in the Crown (India), African Riches (Madagascar), Free the Colonies (Aus &NZ), Secure the Greater Prosperity Sphere (Pacific Island Grab) etc. The human player would select three and the AIA would best attempt the first if its internal die roll succeeded (80% chance it would pursue the strategy(?)) else it would pursure the second etc

Anyway, just an idea for a later time.

quote:


ORIGINAL: fuzzy_bunnyy

how, if at all, will a human player communicate long term strategic goals to the AI? I find that especially when playing the Axis all 3 countries should decide on what to do. If Japan decides to invade Siberia and Germany goes Sea Lion....yada yada, you get it. just wondering.