The_Good_Captain (Axis) vs. VictoryFirst (Allies) | North Africa, Rommel's Last Push

[The_Good_Captain]

@VictoryFirst said in The_Good_Captain (Axis) vs. VictoryFirst (Allies) | North Africa, Rommel's Last Push:

@The_Good_Captain How is that video going actually? Did you start recording?

No, not yet. Doing this helps you with cleaning up the module and it helps me gain confidence in using it which will make the video look and feel smoother. My intent is to make it look simple and easy and that anyone can master it so practicing in this/these games with you help a lot.

[VictoryFirst]

Btw I don’t know if you know already but I added some pop-ups for the players when certain events happen. This one is for the British. You will get some too as the Axis once the USA joins the war :)

This will help new players to bring attention to special events!

[VictoryFirst]

@The_Good_Captain said in The_Good_Captain (Axis) vs. VictoryFirst (Allies) | North Africa, Rommel's Last Push:

@VictoryFirst

we are sharing ben-tob; one mine is yours, one is mine. i saw the notes section but wasnt sure best way to record it.

G4.tsvg

The moment you place mine, you should go to view>Show Comment Log. If it’s already enabled but not showing you have to disable it and then enable it.

Then write: “1 mine in BIR-BRE comes from Mersa Brega”
Then place the next mine and write: “1 mine in BIR-SIW comes from Bir Hacheim”.

This way it is clear in which territories these mines are. If it’s not specified I would have to dig in the history to figure it out.

[VictoryFirst]

Looking at the German turn, I can see one mine must have been placed in Tobruk and the other in Bir Hacheim.

Just like with the Italian turn, you can write “1 mine in BEN-TOB comes from Benghazi”.

Another way to record this is to specify how many mines there are in a territory.
Benghazi: 1
Tobruk: 1
Mersa Brega: 1
Bir Hacheim: 3
Mersa Matruh: 1
Cairo: 4

If you know this information, you can also deduce which mine belongs to what territory. I am not sure what works better, but we can always try both.

[The_Good_Captain]

@VictoryFirst regarding your pop up. Very cool! The game refers to them as Shermans so I don’t think you can change it but those were actually M3 “Grants”, not Shermans.

But like I said, the game refers to them as Shermans and the piece itself is a Sherman so it should stay Sherman.

But when I make my YouTuve video series, they will be the Grant tank, hah!

[The_Good_Captain]

@VictoryFirst also, just in case you didn’t see it bc it got buried: It’s UK turn.

[VictoryFirst]

@The_Good_Captain Thanks! I will move here once I have moved in my two games against Gamerman (Classic and G40). Otherwise those games would be going too slowly. And apologies in advance if my turns take very long. I am taking more thinking time for turns than I used to take and with 6 games I don’t have enough free-time to play quickly everywhere (that’s why I didn’t move for 6 days in our Classic game).

I tended to play here more quickly because I don’t care so much about strategy and that makes the turns easier. However that has resulted in me not playing in some of the other games. So I will probably switch between playing fast/slowly in all of the games to make sure each game eventually gets the same amount of attention.

[VictoryFirst]

@The_Good_Captain LOL about the LL tanks! I didn’t know that. The game is teaching me incorrect stuff lol. For fun, I could mention that in the pop-up. “The Americans have lent-leased two of their shiny M3 Grants to us that have magically transformed into Shermans!” 😂

[The_Good_Captain]

@VictoryFirst I think Renegade just wanted to use a sculpt that already existed. So they went with the historical inaccuracy. I’d just let it be. It only irks ww2 nerds like me I think.

Then again, your comment is also a fun “Easter egg” that might get players googling.

And I totally understand about the amount of games. I have four games going and a fifth starting soon. I too was playing this one quickly because it was more for familiarity and devlopment than being competitive. Take your time. No rush. You and I are “in the same boat”.

[VictoryFirst]

Just moved in my two gamerman01 games, so this game here will be next.

I am noticing that it can become pretty confusing who controls which land mine and where they are placed if you have a lot of land mines. The comments in the comment log don’t help as much. I find the way the module currently handles mines is annoying to work with and could therefore scare off new players.

For now, I recommend to use the following way to keep track of land mines. First state the territory, then list the border territories in which the mines in that territory are dug in. This way it is clear 1) in which territory the land mine in question is in 2) who controls the land mine.

If you just list the number of land mines, it isn’t clear WHICH land mines are inside the territory. For example, Bir Hacheim has three land mines in it but the module shows five mines adjacent to Bir Hacheim and then it is very easy to lose the overview.

So for our game it would look like this:

Benghazi: BEN-TOB
Tobruk: BEN-TOB
Mersa Brega: BIR-BRE
Bir Hacheim: BEN-BIR, BIR-JAL, BIR-SIW
Mersa Matruh: BIR-MAT
Cairo: 4x CAI-MAT

I am bringing this up because I was debating whether to move into Bir Hacheim this turn, and this decision depends on the number of land mines I will capture by doing this. However, with five land mines bordering Bir Hacheim, some in Bir Hacheim and others from other territories, I got really confused and had to look through the history.

I think it’s best if both sides keep track of this in a text file and send that along with the turn, and update it whenever mines get placed or detonated. Or players could keep track of it independently of each other. A text file works better than the comment log because as far as I know, you cannot edit or delete messages in the comment log and then you would have a lot of outdated information there.

This new method helps a bit, however it doesn’t completely solve the problem. Players still have to look carefully at the txt. file and go back and forth between it and the game to understand the distribution of the mines. It would be best if you could extract all of this information just by looking at the board (as you would in an OOB game).

That’s why I think the idea of splitting all border territories into two would be best. If you have mines in one territory, they are placed in the first border territory. If they are placed in the other, they are placed in the other border territory. Now all information is immediately clear, and with some imagination you can even imagine the mine sitting along the border of the territory.

The drawback is that this isn’t a quick thing to implement. It will take a decent amount of time. Also due to some trickery, I was able to make the map look nice again (no “ghost” borders in El Agheila or JAL-SIW) but if there are changes made to every single border territory, the same problem would appear there as well and I would have to apply this “trickery” also to every border territory and that will take a massive amount of time. Or I need to figure out how Black_Elk made the reliefTiles for our game. Then it wouldn’t be too bad. Sadly he doesn’t respond to my messages and all my attempts of creating reliefTiles myself failed miserably.

Just let me know what you would like. I think to make the module completely perfect, the mine issue has to be solved, or at least mitigated enough. However that will take some time unfortunately.

[The_Good_Captain]

@VictoryFirst i agree that the mine issue will be problematic. I believe if you can solve it with the “two boarders” solution, it would be worth it. As for the time it would take: I will do the ‘how to video’ with the next version of africa. when/if you finish the mines update, we will simply update the download links. to that end, i will mention in the video that there is work being done to make the mines work better.

that’s how i feel about it anyway. also, we need to work out how we can direct folks to donate. should you send me a link?

[VictoryFirst]

@The_Good_Captain

Thanks! Your opinion is very valuable. I will upload version 1.5 with some small fixes (adding the connection between Malta Convoy and Malta, and explaining how to deal with the mines in the game notes) and then reserve version 1.6 for a complete rework of the border territories.

That way, if version 1.6 takes too long, you can use version 1.5 to record your video. Version 1.5’s clunky part would only be the land mines so it is still good enough to cover the rest of the module.

Good you mention the donations. I did some research and figured out how to set up donations via PayPal. I will share the link with you via Discord. Anyone can click on it and will be directed to a page where they can donate any amount to me.