Posts made by rjclayton

Backwards Compatibility.

The new TripleA Beta is not backwards compatible with old TripleA savegame files.  It might be good if we allow backwards compatibility, (but obviously not forwards compatibility).  Basically I’m thinking something along the lines of a user prompt if they are trying to open an old save game file that tells them the file is based on an earlier version, and if they make changes and save the file it will no longer open in the old version.  Then figure out a way of loading the old save game files, even though the file structure has changed.

Thoughts?

@frimmel:

One TRN from the EUS into SZ12 stalls that a bit. It is a sacrificial lamb to be sure but it blocks the link for a turn or puts it where it doesn’t want to be giving the US and UK time to get more boats in the water.

I don’t think this block works.  Luftwaffe can take out the transport during combat move, and still allow the link in non-combat move.

So let’s paint this picture…

Russia has fallen and Germany controls Karelia
UK takes Karelia from Germany (and gets paid for it).
UK moves the AA gun from Karelia to Norway (also UK controlled)
Moscow is liberated
Therefore Karelia returns to Russian control

-> Who owns the AA gun in Norway???

Yeah, I’d agree that if one player is using ABattlemap and the other is using the new TripleA, then the players would probably want to choose one program that they both can use instead of having to keep both programs up to date.  However, I’d hazard a guess that once people try these changes to TripleA, they would prefer to both use TripleA vs. both use ABattlemap.

@tonez:

The overall goal is to make TripleA the easiest way to play PBEM games, even if your opponent chooses not to use TripleA.

I’d like Tonez to expand on this point a little bit, if possible.  By making TripleA the easiest way to play PBEM, even if my opponent chooses to not use TripleA, there needs to be a really simple way to update the map each turn.  Was this going to be part of the free-form editor?  Or was the idea to play the turn out through TripleA and fix the battle outcomes?  Or something else?

It might be difficult convincing people that TripleA is the easiest way to play versus an opponent playing say ABattlemap and willing to email you the map each turn.  If you used ABattlemap in that situation you would already have an updated map, but with TripleA you would have to update the map yourself.  How is TripleA easier than ABattlemap in that situation?

Thoughts?

Crazy Straw’s analysis shows that it doesn’t really take that long for the inf to get to the front.  Yes on the second turn you would have 3 inf in UKR with the IC and none without the IC, but on the third turn you would have 6 inf in UKR either way.

Actually Jen, it’s 4X the offensive punch (or 3X more punch).  4 art @ 2 + 4 inf @ 2 = 16 vs. 4 inf @ 1 = 4  16 vs. 4 = 4X.

In a game with no referee, a move is not illegal if both parties agree.  Although controversial, it does happen.

Example 1:

@atnt64eb:

wow maddog, the only thing lighting up in my email seemed to be german fighters from british naval flak - oh, and montgomery’s pitiful defense.  You have no fighters left after that turn, which pretty much f@#$s you.  Your other rolls went very well (especially egypt).  I don’t think even you can win without any german fighters, so I’m willing to continue the game with the same results, but with you saving 2 fighters from the uk sz battle, which is still a bad result, but makes for a decent turn on the whole.Â

Example 2:

@Avin:

Ok, at this point I’m pretty far sunk. Not that I think the game is completely unwinnable: that depends on both our play, but having never played you before I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps I can still pull it off but I’m not so sure it would be too enjoyable to either of us to try. The problem is not with Russia; I think I’m doing fine there despite not being able to retake with the UK on UK1 like I had hoped - that was a minor setback to me but I was able to recover. The problem is with the naval battles. Losing my sub to your transport on UK1 after I had already committed my armor to blitz back to Egypt meant that I was going to lose Egypt, and thus I split my navies to send a US force to Africa, as you see. I was capable of protecting both fleets, with some calculated risk for the northern fleet that I didn’t really think you would attack because I figured you wouldn’t want to lose your fighters, but that was assuming I would take out your baltic fleet with my fighters. I was prepared for the unlikely outcome that I might lose one fighter in the process since I still had another fighter in MOS that could come to the support of the fleet instead of going to NOV where I moved it now, but I never thought that I would lose both fighters to a transport.

Now I cannot protect either fleet, given your transport as fodder. So I figure we have a few options:

1. You can accept my surrender in the interest of restarting. I firmly believe that my defense was essentially sound and would not play it much differently a second time. We can do LL again or even NoLuck.
2. You can adjust that Baltic battle from A2 to a different outcome. I normally don’t like suggesting this when I was the one to get screwed, since I would rather be generous to my opponent and more strict with myself, but this is definitely a case where one battle may have lost the game for me.
3. We can continue this game as it stands if neither of the above options are acceptable to you.

TripleA.  This one is not just a mapping utility, but a game system as well.  Comes with all the maps.
http://triplea.sourceforge.net

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ABattlemap.  This one comes with all the maps for A&A.  It’s not the prettiest but it does have some nice features.
http://wartime.3.forumer.com/index.php?s=59fd42b6d1e201c058f239accd63dde6&showtopic=104

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Mots Mapview.  Looks like because of copyright issues, it is difficult to get the modules (maps) for Axis and Allies for this program:
http://www.motcreations.com/mv_download.html

Here is a working link to download the Mots Mapview AAR Module (AAMC links are dead):
http://www.geocities.com/aa_4online

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Here’s a pretty good how-to

http://p078.ezboard.com/ftheofficersclubfrm49.showMessage?topicID=1.topic

@froodster:

If the opponent is not using TripleA, how do the results of their moves get put in? I guess that’s where the “Map edit” feature would come in.

Map edit would be one way.  Parsing the text from a forum posting would be another.  We have had design discussions about both approaches, but I’m not sure where Tonez is at with this one.

@froodster:

Why does that need to be auditable? When people update their board or ABattlemap, nothing is auditing them in that.

If you have used the TripleA history (I think you go to the View menu -> Turn History) you know that TripleA logs every single step of every single game.  By auditable, we mean that any edits will be logged the same way so they can be audited by the next player in the TripleA log (“Hey, how come you added 5 more men to East Europe?!?”)

@froodster:

Rather than a map edit, why not just add a feature to enter number of hits manually instead of rolling dice? Then you can take the number of hits rolled by DAAK by the other player and just move the game along that way.

We tossed around numerous ideas for this.  I have only been visiting this board for a few months, but already I’ve witnessed 3 situations where edits might come in handy:

1. Attacker didn’t ask defender for OOL and completed his turn.  Defender complains.  An edit function would let us “fix” the battle so the correct result is acheived (we might have to manually re-roll some later rounds of combat as a result, but we can edit the units and possibly even territory ownership to fix this).
2. A player forgot to move a unit and his/her opponent agrees to let him (ie. a lonely infantry mopping up Africa, obviously the player would have moved the unit except he forgot)
3. The dice turn on a player in a crucial battle, and his/her opponent negotiates a more reasonable result for the battle to allow the game to continue

There are probably other situations too, and each situation may have had a different fix (ie. manual dice, re-roll combat, etc.)  We decided on an edit feature to take care of all situations in one shot (plus any that we haven’t thought of).  This should give players the flexibility to do whatever they want with the game (same flexibility that the physical board or a mapping util gives them now).  We just thought this was the neatest solution.

Guys,

So that we don’t completely hijack this thread, I’ve created a new thread for these discussions on TripleA changes.  Please post any further comments here:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=8259.0

@froodster:

If the opponent is not using TripleA, how do the results of their moves get put in? I guess that’s where the “Map edit” feature would come in.

Why does that need to be auditable? When people update their board or ABattlemap, nothing is auditing them in that.

Rather than a map edit, why not just add a feature to enter number of hits manually instead of rolling dice? Then you can take the number of hits rolled by DAAK by the other player and just move the game along that way.

@tonez:

Being the aforementioned brother “currently working on some coding”, I guess I can provide an update.

I’ve been working on a number of PBEM improvements to TripleA, with success.  Our test game has been at a stalled pace for some time because I am generally busy, and have been putting any free time I get into hacking TripleA instead of playing it (no really, it’s not because I’m getting spanked in that game!).  As a result, I expect to have a new jar file for TripleA (Stable 0.8.2.2) for beta testers to play with by the end of the weekend. I am currenlty putting on some finishing touches.

The overall goal is to make TripleA the easiest way to play PBEM games, even if your opponent chooses not to use TripleA.

Here’s a summary of work done so far, for those interested:

• new screenshot and turn summary / history log features
• auto-post end-of-turn screenshot to a public image server
• auto-post end-of-turn summary, save game file, and screenshot link to A&A.org Games In Progress forum
• improved the UI behaviour for default selections when moving units and loading/unloading transports

There have been some comments about TripleA not being a map editor. The ability to freeform-edit a game-in-progress in an auditable fashion is next on my list of things to tackle.  This is a tricky undertaking and I am engaged in design discussions with Sean Bridges (the TripleA author/maintainer).

Stay tuned this weekend for an initial beta of my current changes.

This is a thread to track the changes made to TripleA as we endeavor to make it a better interface for PBEM.

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2006/11/30/video-game.html

“A chainsaw-wielding killer and blood-splattered shooting rampages are featured in some of the 10 video games that a media watchdog group says should be avoided by kids and teens….”

Frood, I PM’d you my email.  Anyone else have a AAC module (classic)?

I need to beg a copy of Mots Mapview A&A module from someone.  I can’t find it on the Mots Mapview webpage, and I scoured the AAMC site to no avail (all the AAMC links to it from this site are now broken).

Does anyone have this module that they give it to me?  (looking for both Classic and Revised)  :?

Very unlikely.  In order to be able to use it with someone using a board or different map util, TripleA would have to parse the turn summary that’s posted in the forums to figure out what happened on the other player’s turn.  A) That’s a lot of coding to do, and B) the other player would have to follow a strict format when posting (right now everyone kind of posts a little different).

Still, how much money do you want to bet that the first 8 people that read this thread and decide to start SBRs again discover their bombers have met with the afterlife prematurely :)

Interesting.  I’ll have to experiment with this.  Sounds much better the ABattlemap.