Rework Purchase Units...
-
...and Place Units too.
Since most units require a factory in the territory in which they are to be placed (or adjacent to the sea zone in the case of Naval units); wouldn't it be prudent to purchase units by clicking on the production facility (or unit) which is expected to build it. Thus the item being produced will automatically be placed in the territory where that production facility (or unit) is located (or adjacent sea zone).
I put it to you that way; as I have (or will soon) an engineer unit (aka Sea Bees) that must be in the territory where an Airfield or a Harbour is to built.
That leaves the question as to how much such a change will potentially impact existing maps. I can only hope that it will actually help to simplify things.
Your thoughts?
-
@Stohrm Would probably be a massive unwelcome shift in how existing and entrenched (A&A) players use the game. It would deviate from the die hard adherence to Larry's law.
That being said... and as I am not one of those... it is an interesting proposition. I just wonder if it would be user friendly... having to go around the map and purchase everything individually at each production facility. Feels like the purchase and place phases might take potentially longer by this method. Having played quite a bit of CIV at one time, I had always found this kind of mechanic really tedious.
-
@Stohrm interesting idea could definitely help preventing mistakes with some complicated maps although it does make small purchase adjustments possibly a little more cumbersome.
-
@Stohrm The game should certainly work this way (instead of having separated purchase and placement phases) for all games in which the placement phase immediately follows the purchase phase.
However, unless someone will implement the Zombie version of a well known board game, there are no "core" games that do this. So, this would be a matter of supporting custom phase orders (TWW comes to mind).
I think the easiest way to realize this would be just having a placement cost (like the fuel cost, but for placing) and allowing placing infinite units of purchase cost 0. This way, you would just define a purchase cost 0 for all your units and set the placement cost you want, instead (but you could also have a hybrid system, in which you pay both for purchasing and for placing).
-
@ubernaut & @Hepps Okay, so rather than actually having to click on the facilities/units themselves (individually), Have the purchase picker separated into columns for each and click to activate a column where the production is intended to take place.
Hopefully I've said that correctly and you're able to follow my train of thought.
-
@Stohrm that purchase window is already too big for many screens on complicated maps but maybe if there was a row which showed production capacity there could be a way to have the best of both worlds so to speak.
-
@Cernel I think I understand what you're saying; but from my perspective: if the units were placed right away they would be invisible and unusable. They would then be made visible and active at the end of the turn (as before).
-
@Stohrm also there might already be some related logic in the code whenever you select a sea zone as your production site the engine auto distributes the production between any adjoining land territories with production capacity.
-
@Stohrm said in Rework Purchase Units...:
@Cernel I think I understand what you're saying; but from my perspective: if the units were placed right away they would be invisible and unusable. They would then be made visible and active at the end of the turn (as before).
This would be still a purely custom ruleset, as in all core games you can purchase a carrier before combat, then decide if this carrier is being built in England or in Australia (for example) when you have to place it.
-
Another benefit of such feature would be to support all those cases not covered even by the warning of having purchased more units than you can place (since with this method the player itself would be restricted by placement on what it wants to purchase). 270BC comes to mind.
On the other hand, this system would not work with movement phases in between, if the units allowing placement are mobile. 270BC comes to mind, again (the legionaire placing the fort).
-
yea so when Placement comes up it just shows your factories w/e that can place, in the right side area where your buys show up, and then you click on those individually which would take you to the main purchase window where you purchase for that factory/we. Is that what you're thinking ?
If so, as Cernel says above, if I understand him right, it would require another step/phase. Idk if that's a big deal or not as far as java code goes. Sometimes stuff is real easy. As in doesn't take a lot of time to do : )
-
This or some for of this has been discussed a few times in the past.
Most likely if we did implement it, it would be essentially optional where you could buy without specifying place location or have a way to click on the territory where you intend to place them when purchasing (mostly would just be a way for players to more easily purchase and track where they intend to place). Then when you actually have placement phase, it would default to placing those units where you indicated but you could always undo and place elsewhere.
-
@redrum said in Rework Purchase Units...:
This or some for of this has been discussed a few times in the past.
Most likely if we did implement it, it would be essentially optional where you could buy without specifying place location or have a way to click on the territory where you intend to place them when purchasing (mostly would just be a way for players to more easily purchase and track where they intend to place). Then when you actually have placement phase, it would default to placing those units where you indicated but you could always undo and place elsewhere.
I don't see much merit in having such a facility if it is optional for the players. However, if it's optional at a map maker level (perhaps allowing a map option to use it) then it opens up possibilities which make total sense. Strikes me as a limitation in the A&A games that you can buy something intending to use it in one place but then (say if a battle goes against you) mobilise it somewhere else.
One thing which does irk me about the place units phase is that for powers with only one potential place they can mobilise it still asks me whether I want to do it, even though mobilising is mandatory.
i have no problem with the idea of a placement cost because that has no effect on existing maps. My guess is that it would work like Edit|Add Units.
-
Of course, the fact that you have to decide what you are producing before rolling the dice, but you don't have to decide where you are producing it, doesn't make sense, realistically speaking (extreme example, for v5 or v6: you buy 1 battleship before rolling the dice, but decide if you are building it in the United Kingdom or in India only when you mobilize it (beside the fact that India was not able to build battleships, for real, of course)).
Having a way to determine both what and where, instead of only what, before rolling the dice for the turn, has my moral support, but now it is becoming very unclear if this topic is only about usability or about adding a custom rule (for realism or whatever).
-
The other arguably extreme example is producing a CV which is the only landing spot for an attack but then placing it elsewhere.
-
@simon33 You could probably achieve this in the current engine by moving the purchase and place phases to the beginning of a turn. But instead of buying units you buy a placeholder unit for each individual unit type. You would place those holder units beside the respective factory then add triggers at the end of the turn that changes those into real units.
-
Wouldn't that need triggers in every territory which could accommodate a factory? Or not?
-
@simon33 Yup
-
So possible, but unwieldy. I suspect you also need a separate trigger for every type of unit. So if you have 13 unit types as in Global 1940, and I estimate 30+ territories, 390 triggers.
-
@simon33 No. You just need those units producing the final units (at end turn). Then, you just need a general trigger per player, removing them anywhere from the map. I'm actually doing something like this in a map I'm making, but, of course, this is a work around. Also, there is at least the matter of placing in hostile sea zones, if not placing in your territories with enemy units in them (in case the map has politics). In my game, they are just like the regular units, except that cannot move. You could also doing it by having all units at movement 0, but receiving a movement bonus during CM, as long as the new units are placed after that (in this case, no triggers needed, but the battlecalculator won't work well).
