Territory Naval Base and Air Base Info

CrazyG

@general_zod
I would double check because I remember making a post pretty much identical to yours on the old forum. Turns out I was just missing a global property (I think Cernel is the one who corrected me)

I really hate how many things do nothign without those properties set because if I spent an hour adding naval bases to the XML, I pretty clearly want them on.

General_Zod

@redrum

The main cool component is +1 movement from base to base on NCM only.

RogerCooper

@general_zod You can use an infrastructure unit that gives a movement bonus for the same effect, like Naval bases in the Global 1940 game.

General_Zod

@rogercooper

Those will give +1 movement during all phases.

I want +1 movement only during NCM and only if moving from naval base to another naval base.

There is no other way to achieve this effect.

Hepps

@general_zod It's funny... the POS2 XML references the Pacific game... but I could not find any game in our repository named Pacific that uses this rule set.

Hepps

The only map I found that looks like it should have these rules... appears not to have them.

The original Pacific edition.

the map name in the list is...

Pacific

It has images embedded into the map itself for naval and Air Bases... but it then also has actual naval and airbase units in those corresponding territories. Also the behavior is not supported in the game play. So I am curious whether this was a feature that Veq had been working on but never completed. I also have not as of yet looked in the XML to see if the territory attachments are even in there at all.

redrum

@general_zod Honestly, I'm not aware that it ever worked and if no maps use it then probably no way to know. You could try grabbing an older version of 1.9 or even 1.8.0.9 if you believe it did work before. I can try to take a look at it this evening.

General_Zod

@redrum

Ok. So either I recall it incorrectly or something has changed. The naval base and air bases features do function as described in PSO2.xml. However they do not list the naval base/air base in the territory (I thought it did before).

redrum

@general_zod The feature appears to actually work. The only map I found that uses it is Pacific 1942 which isn't even available from in-game downloads: https://github.com/triplea-maps/pacific_1942

I had to fix a missing flag image but other than that the map seems to work and allow just what the POS2 XML says:

navalBase - values: works according to original pacific rules: it increases the non-combat movement of naval units by +1 IF they go from friendly naval base TO friendly naval base
airBase - values: works according to original pacific rules: it allows free movement between the land territory and any connecting water territories, which potentially gives an air units +2 movement if they move from airbase to airbase and both airbases have water connecting to them on the route (or are islands)

General_Zod

@redrum Correct, they function as described. However they currently do not list the presence of the naval base /air base in the territory tab.

Which might not be a bad thing. If you want the abilities to be attributed to something else.

Anyways, I wonder if these abilities would not be better, if they were unit attributes in addition to territory attributes or instead of territory attributes.

Units are more flexible in most situations. However, being a territory attribute has one big benefit of not creating clutter on the maps.

redrum

@general_zod Oh. I mean if you are close to releasing a legit map using these and want the territory tab to list like "Is Air Base" or "Is Naval Base" then that can easily be added.

General_Zod

@redrum ok cool, I am seriously looking at naval bases, so that be good. I will let you know once I firm on it. Thanks

Cernel

@redrum Yes, this used to work fine, except that if you would have naval bases near each other, you would be able to keep moving on (so, for example, if all territories are naval bases, then you would be able to keep moving on till you have naval bases at reach in all the following sea zones), so I guess this was coded for games having naval bases scarcely spread enough on the map, so that would not happen (I guess it was not intended), but that would be better be adressed (if not intended), as it is a big limit on this option.
I guess I'll try testing this feature with the latest prerelease on some the few games that use it, to see if it still works, as it used to.

Cernel

@redrum I'll test it on one of the maps that are available for download and fine, just to double check.

Cernel

@redrum I confirm that at least in "Global War 2" (gettable in Experimental) this feature appears working as I believe it always did.

This doesn't necessarily mean that this feature works fine, as it (still) presents a behaviour that may or may not be an issue, and doesn't appear reasonably intended.

The matter is that when you have movement 0, you can still move 1 if the conditions at this option are satisfied, which I think it is a cool option itself, as, this way, your can have movement 0 rafts, or something, that need naval bases to move at all.

The problem is that you can still move 1 more if you reach movement 0 after having used the additional 1 movement for this option, potentially allowing infinite movement, for as long as you have nearby naval bases.
Assuming this is not intended, as I can't see it is, my suggestion is to rework this feature as giving the bonus only once per phase.

You can easily test this by launching "Global War 2" and skipping till "Japanese Non Combat Move".
Then, moving the Japanese Cruiser to 64.
You can do this, as it is a movement 2 move.
Then, you can move it to 65 (so, total 3 moves).
You can do this, as you have a naval base there (the anchors display the naval bases).
However, then you can see you can keep moving back and fort between 64 and 65, endlessly, as both having naval bases.
This means that, if you have a chain of naval bases, you can move through the whole chain (by making subsequent 1 movements at the price of 0).
What reinforces me in the belief this is unintended is that this works also in case of naval bases touching multiple sea zones (you can get more than a +1 movement, from a single final-destination naval base).

This is actually a cool option, and one that I considered using, by making each and all land territories into naval bases, so to represent the fact that it is easier to move when aided by a coastline you own (think especially to galleys), but gave up since this limit appears to make this option sensibly workable only in case all naval bases on the map never touch a sea connected to another sea touched by another naval base and they all touch no more than 1 sea zone each (huge limitations).
However, I never filed anything about this, as I was not sure I wanted to use this option, and didn't see this matter as very important.
I can just confirm the behaviour appears to be the same in years.
If this gets solved, I can just say that I'm not sure if I would use this feature myself, but I can see it being of some interest. I believe it has been some years since anybody used this option in a custom map, tho I can't be sure.

Even if this matter is not engine solved, it would be still good to document if this is an unsupported unintended limit (like the fact that you can go over neutral territories with air in two steps), and document it in PoS2 or somewhere, so that "Global War 2" etc. players may know they should not do it and the matter is left open for future developers to add support for.

Also, having a phase steps to set, for each phase, if this option applies or not (instead of always during NCM and never during CM) would be cool, similarly to the current existent step that define if bonus movement is given or not, on the phase. From pact of steel 2:

giveBonusMovement 			= true/false resets and gives bonus movement (default is true at start of phase if delegate ends with "CombatMove" but not "NonCombatMove")

Cernel

Since we are talking bout Territory tab info somewhere else: another issue of the option is that it doesn't get displayed in the territory tab, if that is an issue (just other things like this are usually displayed in there).

redrum

I added info to the territory tab to display whether territories are naval or air bases. PR: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/3329

General_Zod

@redrum

Only concern I have at the moment regarding it being displayed in territory tab is. Maybe naval base / air base is not the best things to call these attributes, since it can be used in alternative ways down the line.

For example I was considering using the naval base in my under water sea zone / submarine naval model. Where only the subs would get to the benefit of the + 1 movement on NCM because the underwater sea zones would utilize the naval base attribute. The logic being that the subs can move stealthily and further under the surface vessels if they are on non combat missions.

(Although @cernel does bring up potential issue with the perpetual +1 movement deal, but I think I can work around it.)

However to the player it might get confusing to see a naval base (per territory tab) in the middle of the oceans, in sea zones (underwater) that only submarines can enter.

This is only one example, but who knows what others can imagine. Anyways ideally, it would be nice to have the ability to change the displayed name per xml or another .properties file.

redrum

@general_zod Fair point though I think some territory text indicator is better than nothing. We can potentially reword the text if maps use it in more unique ways.

General_Zod

@redrum Ok