Question About the Battle Screen
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Interesting clarification, that would be a significant deviation from the existing typical rules.
So in short, no, it's not possible today without modification to the game engine. Can we have more details @Schulz about how you would intend to use this and if there are potential maps that would make use of a hardcoded OOL?
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My proposal is giving map makers an option if they totally remove defender's ability of pick their casualties.
Benefits:
- Faster game.
- Preventing delays. (especially for multi games.)
- Easier calculation.
- Preventing misclicks during picking casualt stages. For example in 270bcw, it is very easy to take ballista as one of the first casualty mistakenly.
A new property which could be used to list automatic order of unit loss. It is already 99% obvious which units should be taken first as defender.
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Sounds like those benefits are actually generic and not map specific. Wouldn't having a global option for any combat to specify a way to accept default OOL cover those benefits without requiring a map XML update?
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If OOB would be customizable by map makers as unchangeable rule, then there would be no reason to allow defenders to pick their casualties.
If map makers customize OOB and creates a situation which OOB should be rearranged frequently to calculate things correctly, it means just having a unnecessary mental burden which should be constantly checked.
That's why I'am favour of giving map makers simply an option to prevent defenders to pick their casualties. It would give immense elegance, smoothness and faster gameplay without any loss.
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If we can avoid a map-specific solution for a global one, that is a win. I would like to avoid XMLs from specifying engine behavior and instead focus on game play configuration.
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At least I would want players to think one time about the usefulness of defender's ability of picking their casualties.
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@Schulz Could you provide some specific examples of such re-arrangments?
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@LaFayette In v3 rule set, here is the OOB.
- Infantry
- Artillery
- Armour
- Fighter
- Bomber
- Battleship hit 1
- Submarine
- Destroyer
- Cruiser
- Carrier
- Battleship
In land one the only exception maybe could be picking bombers before infantries in capitals if one side forget to calculate the capital properly. But the impact of picking a few bombers before dozens of other land units would be still pale compared to combination of other factors which are "attackers+other defenders+naval bombardment+AA+dice"
As cruisers nobody buy them and considered less bang for bucks compared to carriers.
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@Schulz said in Question About the Battle Screen:
As cruisers nobody buy them and considered less bang for bucks compared to carriers.
Sometimes that bombard is worth more than a carrier.
In land one the only exception maybe could be picking bombers before infantries in capitals if one side forget to calculate the capital properly
When one side is closer to defeat, the bombers are sometimes throw-away and it's not a matter of not having calculated properly(EG: you land your 3 bombers in your cap for the HP).
These examples are why I think having an option to toggle an auto-accept is a good way to go so that it can be changed as the game players out. I agree initially those OOL are generally always what a person wants.
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I do think it's a more general solution if a player can either select a default OOL algo to always use without confirmation until change, or to toggle an option to use a default OOL algo unless some condition happens where the player wishes to confirm (ie: accept default algo except when chosen unit is not the least TUV).
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Infantry vs bomber and cruiser ones are very rare situations which almost have no impact to the outcome of games compared to all other aspects.
If one side need to pick bombers first before other units to protect its capital then it means the fate of game is already sealed. The cruiser one is not even half of important of the infantry vs bomber situation.
Even if we assume they would be important negative effects, still the benefits of removal of defender's casualty picking phrase would massively outweight of them.
Really there are too many good opportunities to enhance gameplay in this area.
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@Schulz said in Question About the Battle Screen:
If one side need to pick bombers first before other units to protect its capital then it means the fate of game is already sealed.
Maybe, but as a blanket rule you cannot say that and it could be very wrong (what if both players are on the ropes and are using bombers to defend. What if the stack of 8 bombers is important HP but not worth the attack, pyrhic victory). Very rare does not mean it does not happen and means 'wrong' in those times when it does happen. It can't be mostly right, it needs to be right.
Being able to turn this on/off dynamically sounds like it gets us the benefit without a good bit of the draw-back.
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I don't even remember what was the last time I saw 8 bombers to defend somewhere. In most cases i see bombers being bought mostly one per 3 rounds which also used to take on enemy fleets and bombing campagins and they hardly be as numerios as fighters. Even if they are present, then they must be in a advantageous position even if not then they deserve to lost their capital due to relying on bombers to defend capital. Simply bad purchasing or something.
Allowing defenders to pick their casulaties due to this very extreme situation would be huge missing opportunity. Even if its still problem then what prevents map makers to add +1 bonus defense to bombers when they are in capitals?
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I hear ya @Schulz , though are you considering all solutions? You seemed fixated on the XML route, which has a lot of drawbacks. A dynamic toggle would avoid a number of those.
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They are all what I coud say about the topic after that its not my business but I would be personally happy to see any kind of improvements in this area.
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I'd really encourage us to explore any/all implications of any suggestion. Coding up such a feature is probably going to require 5-10 hours. It's a waste of valuable time if it turns out something was missed that could have been avoided with a little more design up front.
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Our map often involves highly dynamic and unusual situations that make casualty selection non-obvious. For example, our Zeppelins cost $12, have zero defense, only 1 offense, BUT can travel 8 spaces and provide +1 support to battleships, cruisers, and artillery (because of recon). Because of this, they are usually chosen early (because they are so weak) but often an attacker or defender will choose to keep them alive because they can project so much support over a wide area and are expensive (and are great for picking off undefended trains to disrupt reinforcements).
Also, when I play low luck, I manage my destroyer vs. sub casualties very carefully to preserve "groups" of guaranteed hits for first strike units (since they fire separately even on defense) in a way the default selection wouldn't do for me.
Lastly, we have several two hit units (including trenches and emplaced artillery) that require special units to be repaired. So you might actually decide to kill a cheap infantry at $2 (especially if you're managing your railroad network well and can reinforce) if you don't have a repair unit handy for your expensive artillery.
All that to say - I get that defender casualties are usually obvious for usual A&A games, but I agree with @LaFayette that we should avoid making it unchangeable for a game (unless it's deliberately part of the game design).
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One idea is to allow a per-map OOL ordering of specific units, but if a unit is not included then there will be a confirmation prompt.
For example, you could say "always take infantry before artillery", but any unit not on that list would require confirmation. To clarify, if a battle had just an infantry and artillery then the OOL ordering specified would be followed and no casualty prompt would appear. But, if any other unit were present (which are not on that simple list of two units), then OOL would be prompted.
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@LaFayette said in Question About the Battle Screen:
...Coding up such a feature is probably going to require 5-10 hours...
Idk seems like a lot of work. Think it works ok the way it is.
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