Terms: Nation - Resolved -

[Cernel]

@cernel said in Terms: Nation:

At least one Convoy Zone must be controlled by the same power that controls the land territory for that power to gain the income from the land territory.

You see that, for example, in this case already present in PoS2, if it would say "player", instead of "power", some noobs might think that it is saying that, if I'm playing 2 in-game players, that thing works with any of the in-game players I'm playing, as they are all controlled by me, as a "player".
But, of course, any experienced mapmakers know what it means anyways.

[General_Zod]

@cernel

The battle calculator uses the power term, so I don't think that's the best choice here. I'm leaning toward player at the moment.

[Mahks]

@cernel The XML defines player as an element within playerList, both of these will be used by the engine. If they are changed then all XML files would need to be changed. I doubt if that is preferred.

So if those terms remain, using power to refer to them is problematic.

[Cernel]

@general_zod If not "power", "country" would be surely better than nation, in my opinion (even tho not necessarily perfect).

[Mahks]

@cernel In your example of uses of "power" when referring to die rolls, the term should be "value" as it is referring to the attack value as defined in the XML (or defense value), is that correct?

[Cernel]

@mahks Not really. The "value" is the "basic" "strength" of the unit. For example, a supported infantry has attack value 1 and attack strength 2. Power is the sum off all strength; so, if that infantry would roll 2 dice, it would have attack power 4. But that can be removed and, instead of saying "power", like in the battlecalculator, we could say "total strength".

[Cernel]

@mahks But not a big deal. I'm fine with keeping "player" (not great, tho). I'm just quite strongly against "nation", as that is so specific (and wrong most of the time), so I would just say rather "country", if going that way (but it seems you are not, anyways).
In general, here the most vague the term the better.

[Frostion]

As the XML should support mapmaking of many designs and plots, it would not be fitting IMO to use Nation, Country, Civilization, State etc. These terms might fit a earth history map but not necessarily if the map is of creative design.

The Power term might be the hardest word for non English speaking people to understand as it is not a word used that much in gaming communities. Could possibly also be confused with strength, posses control or similar strategy game related stuff.

Player is probably the best, most used and widely understood term for a game participant, IMO.

[Mahks]

XOB UPDATED:

• All occurrences of nation changed to player
• changed power to strength

[Cernel]

@redrum Since I almost never read Axis&Allies.org, but for some reasons I did read it a bit in the last hour, I want to make another effort to convince the developers to adopt "power" instead of "player", for the in-game players, reserving "player" only for the human or AI players (like in "waiting for players" that you see when hosting a game).

From:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=28562.2595

This is an interesting question. My gut reaction was the same as P@nther's - that the territories of a friendly power would not be friendly while your power is neutral. This makes sense from a point of view of the dictionary definition of "neutral", but not everything in war makes sense. Let's look at the relevant rules.

According to the definition of "friendly territories" on page 8 (Europe Rulebook), they are "controlled by you or a friendly power", while the definition of 'neutral territories" indicates that they're "not controlled by any power, or controlled by a power on the other side with which you are not yet at war". Further, the definition of "neutral powers" on page 15 states that powers on the opposite side of neutral powers are not yet enemies, but it doesn't say that powers on the same side are not yet friends. This seems to lump territories controlled by a power on your side while you're neutral into the "friendly" category (though you're explicitly prohibited from going there while neutral). This is reinforced by with the explicit restrictions on the movement of neutral powers' units (rather than simply declaring all other powers' territories neutral while you're neutral).

The upshot is that the territories of a friendly are technically friendly while your power is neutral, but they're pretty much treated as neutral for all practical purposes. However, they do meet the requirement of being friendly since the start your turn once you're at war.

From a thematic point of view, while the US or USSR might be officially neutral, the old adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" still applies, unofficially. While a neutral power can't do anything to provoke a power on the other side, such as openly aiding another power, it can still be prepared to join the war at a moment's notice. This took a little digging to sort out, and it is a little counter-intuitive, so it's easy to come to an incorrect conclusion when "shooting from the hip". I didn't think through all of the ramifications of this situation yesterday when P@nther asked me about it. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused!

In this post the user Krieghund uses the term "power" to refer to the in game players.
If you try to substitute all occurrences of "power" with "player", you will see that the matter becomes a lot less clear, as you would be wondering all times if he is actually talking about the people playing the game or about the powers featured in the game.

So, let's do the same, I suggest: changing all occurrences of "player" with "power", when referring to the in-game ones.

This, of course, would also mean dropping the use of "power" with the meaning of att/def "strength" multiplied by the number of "rolls", like you have in the battlecalculator. That one can be substituted with "total strength", that I think would be also clearer.

Not reopening to go in circles; just pointing out an additional element of consistency we might have overlooked (not sure how many around here read Axis&Allies.org a lot, beside @Panther).

p.s.: A good alternative would be "potentate", that means "power", but more specifically with the meaning we want, but I guess that is rarely used a word.

[LaFayette]

It does get a bit confusing in the code as well. I think the problem is 'player' is not right. If you ask, which players are in bot102, the answer is not "UK, USSR".

Changing this naming is pretty prohibitive, so it perhaps a moot point. If we start to rename things and it is out of sync, that could be worse than generally agreed on poor names.

With that said, "faction" might be the right term we would be looking for. I've personally been using 'nation' quite a bit.

"Power" IMO is not bad, but it's odd to talk about the "neutral power", when the neutral's almost by definition wield no power (but they kinda do as when you attack them, they do shoot back).

[Frostion]

TripleA is a game. In computer games there are players, sometimes divided into human players and bots/AI players. People playing games know and expect this, so naming players anything else than players might "fix something that ain't broken" and maybe even confuse people.

Also the term "player" is very generic, so it easily fits map themes and player slots, from managing chess pieces to dinosaurs, from single unit players (if a map should have this) to intergalactic federations, etc. Terms like countries, nations, powers might not fit all current and future maps.

[Panther]

@lafayette said in Terms: Nation - Resolved -:

"Power" IMO is not bad, but it's odd to talk about the "neutral power", when the neutral's almost by definition wield no power (but they kinda do as when you attack them, they do shoot back).

Not really, at least not in A&A. In wwii_global1940 a "neutral power" is a power that starts the game being neutral and will join the Allies during the game (USA and Russia). This is different from "neutral territories", which are "not controlled by any power (for example Spain), or controlled by a power on the other side with which you are not yet at war".
At the game board powers (starting neutral or not) are represented by human players as indicated in the rulebook.
Every other nation present on the game board (or in the rules, for example the Dutch) is not a power and is not represented by a human player, though TripleA sometimes assigns them "players".
So rules-wise we have a clear definition about what a "power" is, and a "neutral power" is as subset of those.

[Cernel]

@panther Actually, just to clarify, @lafayette was talking of the "Neutral" player of TripleA (a TripleA invention, not present in the "traditional" games) that is called "Neutral", but it is actually never neutral, but always at war (hostile) with everyone (look at the "Neutrals" of World At War). That is another case of very bad naming on the side of TripleA, in which we have a neutral relationship and a neutral player that is not neutral at all. It would be good to rename the TripleA null player as something else, but this is not really part of this topic (using the term "player" instead of "power", I prefer, because this is what it is in TripleA). Nation is way too specific to be a good term, as I pointed out in here (rather better the more generic "country"). Faction might be confusing, as you'd think you are talking of a whole alliance (like all the Axis).

[Cernel]

@lafayette To be clear, the U.S.A. is surely a Nation (at least since the end of the Civil War), so there is the use of using the term nation that way. However, by the more correct/strict meaning of the word the U.S.S.R. or the British Empire are not Nations (actually, the U.K., let alone India (formally an Empire on its own right) etc., might be considered not a Nation, but the sum of the 4 nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).

[Panther]

@cernel Thank you for the clarification. I just wanted to emphasize that the rules give (more or less) exact definitions of terms used in the game. Personally I would welcome it very much, if TripleA reflected those terms/definitions, too.

[LaFayette]

@cernel Neutrals are not one nation, but many nations. "Nation" does not cover that example. The problem here is we are trying to come up with a name that would fit many cases and all maps. In some maps "nation" works well, in others "power" works better. IMO "alliances" or "factions" fit best.

@frostion said in Terms: Nation - Resolved -:

TripleA is a game. In computer games there are players, sometimes divided into human players and bots/AI players. People playing games know and expect this, so naming players anything else than players might "fix something that ain't broken" and maybe even confuse people.
Also the term "player" is very generic, so it easily fits map themes and player slots, from managing chess pieces to dinosaurs, from single unit players (if a map should have this) to intergalactic federations, etc. Terms like countries, nations, powers might not fit all current and future maps.

Yes, but TripleA is not consistent about what it calls Players. To make matters worse, what is typically called a Player in game, TripleA calls a "node". For example, this sentence should make sense: two players are playing TripleA, Bob and Sally. They find another player to do a 1v2, and then they find TripleA and can add an AI player to do a 2v2. Unfortunately, except for in the one place, lobby column count, TripleA would have you say that same sentence replacing the word 'player' with 'node'. To TripleA, a player is "USSR" and has no connotation if it is played by an AI or human.

Notice that the the lobby uses this terminology to refer to "players in a game":

But, when you get to within a game, the terminology changes, players are called "Nodes", and nations/factions/powers are now called "players"!

IMO it is between 'faction/alliance/power' as what to properly call what TripleA majority case calls Player. That's why it's confusing in the code. PlayerMap does not necessarily contain any of the 'player names' and it can be played by the 'null' node, which makes little sense (and this does makes the code hard to work with).

[Cernel]

@lafayette said in Terms: Nation - Resolved -:

IMO it is between 'faction/alliance/power' as what to properly call what TripleA majority case calls Player.

So, my suggestion was "Power", and it stays.

Regarding the alternatives given:

Alliance: I surely advise against it, as that is already used to mean the Alliance. For example, in the picture you posted, you can see that you have the "Alliance" column, on the right (for example, "AntiRomanAlliance" is an "Alliance" (redundant naming there; it should have been called just "AntiRoman")).

Faction: This is a possibility that I wouldn't exclude outright, but I think it is not a good pick, on the account that it usually means either an alliance or, more commonly, a subset of an alliance, or anyway a plurality of actors (like a clique), not having a specific sound to it. For example, if you say "Neutral Faction", I would think you are talking about an alliance of some sort of all the various powers that are currently Neutral, politically. Of course, there are, instead, cases in which faction would sound just right; for example the Americar Civil War or the Chinese Warlord Era.

Power: This was and is my favourite pick, even without weighting in the fact that it is the Axis & Allies usage. However, this is breaking one thing to fix another; so I want to remember that, in this case, it is also needed to reword all the current occurrences of "Power"; for example the "Power" value you get in the battlecalculator (rename it "total strength").

[Cernel]

@lafayette In start game screen, like in the picture you posted, the column called "Name" really needs to be renamed, because "name" of what? Aren't the entries for the Alliance "names" too? So, under the current naming, that column should be called "Player", while under my proposal it should be called "Power".

Also, the "Stats" tab has recently been renamed as "Players".

[LaFayette]

@cernel said in Terms: Nation - Resolved -:

Power: This was and is my favourite pick, even without weighting in the fact that it is the Axis & Allies usage. However, this is breaking one thing to fix another; so I want to remember that, in this case, it is also needed to reword all the current occurrences of "Power"; for example the "Power" value you get in the battlecalculator (rename it "total strength").

I'm not in favor of this for two reasons:

1. Would be confusing in the code, there are other things called 'power' (defense power, attack power, total power, etc.. seeing something named "powerMap" is not likely to mean what you would think)
2. Rarely used in common parlance. "Which power do you want?" seems an unnatural question.

Faction does not necessarily mean an alliance of multiple, it can be a " a party or group" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faction. I'm pretty convinced that is going to be the best fit for what we are looking for.

Yet.. this is moot. The term player is used instead of faction just about everywhere in the game. It's not going to be easy or necessarily worth changing.

Also, the "Stats" tab has recently been renamed as "Players".

That's significant and good to point out as it is building on a confusing naming. I think the problem is basically, the single player game was first, basically, network is made to be transparent and as an add-on to single player (it came later). So in the first iterations, in single player the term "player" was originally adopted to mean "nation/faction/power/alliance". Without seeing this in contraSt to "player" being used naturally for "how many players are in your game?" to mean something else, it's very easy for this to fly. Then, network/multi support was grafted on top of this, and so "player" can mean different things compared to which context you are in (not very good considering it has a pretty well defined meaning no matter which context).

I'm thinking going back to 'Stats' might be best move there, in multiplayer games having that tab be called 'players' would be confusing.