Allow user to specifically choose amphibious offloaded units in battle chooser
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Currently, if you have amphibious offloaded units together with non-amphibious offloaded units, it is not possible to designate whether the amphibious units should die before the non-amphibious units.
I'm proposing a change to the battle casualty selector to indicate the difference. Looking at the code, the easiest would be something like:
I used "amph" as a placeholder. I could potentially put an image there instead, but I'd need someone to come up with an image that is generic.
Would a simple string work? Something like "amph" or "off"? Would an image be better and any ideas on what a generic image would look like?
This was requested over at github - https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/8855
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@trevan If you like this
http://www.clker.com/clipart-28076.html
and if I'm understanding correctly that it is freely usable with no obligations, I can post a resized version of it if you tell me how many pixels should the image be. -
@trevan I strongly suggest NOT using the term amphibious in any such cases at least for what displays to the user. Use "sea-borne" or "landing", instead. Also since TripleA might eventually implement the Revised rules for calling off landings, "landing" might be the better term. Other terms would be "offloaded" or "unloaded", but I fear this might induce some to think we are also comprising units each of which was land or air transported into the zone of the battle.
While amphibious is indeed militarily used to describe operations from the sea onto the land, I believe it is more properly used to describe a unit which itself can operate both on land and sea (which is currently possible in TripleA for air units with zero carrier cost).
If, in a military context, I see a unit called as "amphibious", what I'm going to think is that the unit is something like a DUKW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DUKW -
@cernel said in Allow user to specifically choose amphibious offloaded units in battle chooser:
@trevan If you like this
http://www.clker.com/clipart-28076.html
and if I'm understanding correctly that it is freely usable with no obligations, I can post a resized version of it if you tell me how many pixels should the image be.I don't think that icon works. Say a map has
Partial Amphibious Retreatdisabled but still has marine bonus. Knowing which units are getting the marine bonus because they "landed" is useful in the casualty selection. -
@trevan It would be implied that the units that cannot retreat are those receiving the amphibious assault bonus.
I think we need to consider the different dimensions that make units 'different' in terms of casualty selection. Today the only dimension considered is damaged or not. I'll suggest to make that list complete we would need to add:
- movement
- can retreat
'power' arguably belongs in that list but in all cases I'm aware of it would be redundant to 'can retreat'.
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Correction, good point when all units are lumped in with cannot retreat, that would be a case and an argument for including 'power'.
We should consider auto-casualty selection as well, any additional grouping of units reduces cases where there is auto-selection. Game play speed is incredibly important.
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@trevan In the case of no partial retreat and marine bonuses, it might make sense going ahead automatically selecting the non-offloaded ones if the bonus is positive or the offloaded ones if the bonus is negative even if the intended rules might be that you should be allowed to take out the stronger units to no other effect but to lower your total strength (I'm not sure about this since the only basic game having marines is Classic Third Edition, so I guess you need to find someone or something that can confirm you the behaviour there is the same as v3 because I cannot).
So, we might prefer applying this new feature only in case of partial retreat, regardless of whether or not there are any marine bonuses/maluses. Personally, I'm not sure about this, since I guess TripleA should allow you to take out non-offloaded marines first even in Classic Third Edition, if you can, even if nobody (sane) will actually ever do it.
After all, nobody sane would ever take an armour before an artillery in Revised, yet you can do it. So let's say that, while I believe this feature is very important for v3 and following, I don't have a strong opinion about Classic Third Edition (meaning about any game having marine bonuses yet no partial retreat option beside air units only). -
@cernel said in Allow user to specifically choose amphibious offloaded units in battle chooser:
@trevan In the case of no partial retreat and marine bonuses, it might make sense going ahead automatically selecting the non-offloaded ones if the bonus is positive or the offloaded ones if the bonus is negative
You have a good point. I'll need to make sure I handle this case when I code it up. So that image should work. The default image width/height is 48 and we probably want this smaller than that. So maybe something in the 30s?
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@lafayette said in Allow user to specifically choose amphibious offloaded units in battle chooser:
We should consider auto-casualty selection as well, any additional grouping of units reduces cases where there is auto-selection. Game play speed is incredibly important.
The grouping actually works with the auto selection. When I tested, the non-retreatable units were auto selected over the retreatable units. I'm not sure if the casualty ool handled that or it was just a luck of the original order. We might want to improve the casualty ool to sort non retreatable units first.
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@trevan said in Allow user to specifically choose amphibious offloaded units in battle chooser:
@cernel said in Allow user to specifically choose amphibious offloaded units in battle chooser:
@trevan In the case of no partial retreat and marine bonuses, it might make sense going ahead automatically selecting the non-offloaded ones if the bonus is positive or the offloaded ones if the bonus is negativeYou have a good point. I'll need to make sure I handle this case when I code it up. So that image should work. The default image width/height is 48 and we probably want this smaller than that. So maybe something in the 30s?
To be clear, I'm not suggesting it nor am I suggesting against it. Personally, I'm mixed on the matter when it comes to things that you can do yet I believe you would actually never do and, in this case, I'm not even sure if in Classic Third Edition you are supposed to be able to pick between offloaded and non-offloaded marines (but I guess most likely you are).
A strong argument in favour of offering the option also for Classic marines is that, as I said, in Revised you would never take an armour instead of an artillery, yet TripleA doesn't force you to take artillery before armour. So, one might argue TripleA should always offer you the ability to do something you can do even if you would never do it.
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@lafayette I've just created a PR that separates out movement for air units - https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/8924
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@trevan said in Allow user to specifically choose amphibious offloaded units in battle chooser:
The default image width/height is 48 and we probably want this smaller than that. So maybe something in the 30s?
32 pixels on both axis:
(I'm sure that it would be trivial to change the image at any point in the future, so I would encourage any map-maker to propose one or more other images.)
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@trevan said in Allow user to specifically choose amphibious offloaded units in battle chooser:
@lafayette I've just created a PR that separates out movement for air units - https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/8924
That is just another case in which I'm mixed. It is so extremely rare that you might want to take out air units with higher movement left first that I'm not sure whether or not it would be advisable TripleA always taking out units with lower movement left first.
However, both in this case and in the case of Classic marines, the arguably useless option has the benefit of displaying the current situation (giving information on how many units have a marine bonus or what is the remaining movement of every unit, respectively).
If TripleA is going to allow you to take air with greater movement left first, I would argue that it should also allow you to take out non-offloaded marines first even if you can retreat neither. In this case, you would still need an image for telling apart offloaded units when them all cannot retreat. Any ideas on what it should look like?
As far as the basic games go, the two images would never display together, as only (the very rarely played) Classic Third Edition has marines and it doesn't have partial retreat for land units. For custom games, I suppose the images can both display in case the game have both marine bonuses and partial retreat for land units (the offloaded units without marine bonus would get only the "non-withdrawable" image, whereas the offloaded units with marine bonus (possibly negative) will get both images).
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To be explicit, it's better to have faster game play than it is to allow for a manual selection that no "sane" person would make. Game play speed is one of the highest priority items we have in all of TripleA. So if there is a case where you can't retreat, and there are just marines, and we have to choose whether to show a retreat prompt or to auto-select, then auto-selection is better (particularly if this also avoids misclicks).
The case where it really makes sense to choose if you are trading off between units that can retreat vs those that cannot but have a higher strength.
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@trevan We may have gotten ahead of ourselves. I suspect the only unit differentiation that we need to show is 'can retreat' vs not.
For movement on air units, the engine selecting always the least first is I think very sufficient. That allows for auto-selection to occur and in cases where there are many planes keeps a simpler UI (and avoids misclicks).
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@lafayette I think it is fairly obvious that having a positive marine bonus is normally preferable and being able to retreat is normally preferable, so the typical case would be indeed when you have some units which have a positive marine bonus and cannot retreat and some other otherwise identical units which have no marine bonus and can retreat. However, even in this case, the choice is fairly obvious: I suppose you would virtually always take out the offloaded ones first if you intend to retreat on that same round and the non-offloaded ones first otherwise.
However, I believe there are no basic games having both marines and partial retreat for land units.
Case 1: positive marine bonus while every land unit cannot retreat if one or more of them have been offloaded.
In this case, I believe you will always take out non-offloaded marines before offloaded marines. So, in this case, I'm not sure whether or not TripleA should go ahead doing it (the opposite, of course, if the marine bonus is negative).
Case 2: no marine bonus and partial land units retreat.
In this case, I believe you usually want to take out offloaded ones first amongst the same-named units, but you may sometimes want take out non-offloaded first in order subsequently to retreat while leaving a desired number of units to finish the battle. So, in this case, I'm certainly against TripleA automatically selecting offloaded or non-offloaded amongst same-named units. For example, I attack a territory with 20 same-named units of which only 10 are offloaded. Once only 1 defending unit remains, I may prefer to retreat most of my units, for whatever reasons, while leaving a few of them to kill the remaining defending unit, so I may prefer taking out some non-offloaded units in order to leave some or some more units to finish the battle when I pull the retreat.
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Here's the selector with the image:
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@trevan I like the progress. I'd be interesting for other thoughts. My initial impression is the image is too large, smaller and as a subscript or as a super-script is my initial preference.
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@trevan The one you are using looks good there but, not having the white background within the sign, it may not look good. I suggest you download the lastest one I've uploaded, in substitution of what you are using (in the same post where you got the one you are using).
Also if the units are listed up to down weaker to stronger, the offloaded ones should better be in a higher position unless having positive marine bonuses, since not being able to retreat is normally a malus.
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@lafayette said in Allow user to specifically choose amphibious offloaded units in battle chooser:
@trevan I like the progress. I'd be interesting for other thoughts. My initial impression is the image is too large, smaller and as a subscript or as a super-script is my initial preference.
24 pixels on both axis (instead of the previous 32):
