AA-fire/casualty selection issues in Revised (and other versions)
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@panther You appear having a higher success percentage than I do in GitHub and I'm really not personally interested in Revised; mostly I believe everything not working as supposed should be tracked somewhere, really, and not get lost, if a GitHub issue is achieving that, or people eventually get convinced that how the engine works is correct (why they should not, if nothing is documented?).
Theorically one would think that LHTR should be more important than OOB, because it's practically the latest official version of Revised, but no doubt OOB is dominating in TripleA, both as a matter of the basic game getting played, as well as a basic ruleset used in a number of other custom games (cannot think of a single custom game LHTR based, actually).
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@bayder There is only 1 person more authoritative then him.:winking_face:
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@cernel I thought we weren’t supposed to discuss religion in the forums. (You are talking about Jesus, aren’t you Cernel?)
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In all seriousness, if the triplea leaders are accepting this interpretation on AA fire, I am of course 100% onboard.
Is it too soon to start the discussion of how AA gun possession and liberation is coded incorrectly?
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@cernel said in AA revised minor bug:
Summing up the bugs are:
What the engine does:
It resolves the AA flyovers immediately, to the extreme of letting you do, not only part of your moves, but even only part of a move for a same unit, see the AA flyovers, then use whatever movement you didn't yet use of any units, even comprising already partially moved ones.Indeed, that's what the engine does, as well in Revised OOB as in Revised LHTR.
For Revised LHTR:
It should, instead, tally all the flyovers each air unit or group of air units is making, then resolve them, together with the eventual AA fire in the attacked territory, during the first Opening Fire step of the Conduct Combat phase for the battle."Together" meaning both are resolved during that step:
"Remember that whenever an air unit encountered enemy antiaircraft guns in its combat movement, it means that you will need to resolve combat in that space, starting with the first antiaircraft gun encountered. If the first antiaircraft gun encountered was not at the main battle site, then once you conduct combat for the intermediate antiaircraft gun, you must then continue on with any other intermediate antiaircraft guns and then the main battle." (LHTR, page 12).For Revised OOB:
It should, instead, tally all the flyovers each air unit or group of air units is making, then resolve them at the very end of the phase where they happened, after all your movement is done, mainly the Combat Move phase and the Non Combat Move phase (in TripleA terms, right after you click on Done to finalize all your movements). Theorically, it should also let you decide the order in which you resolve the various groups, but this may be relevant only for a Revised OOB based custom game, as in Revised OOB you don't have any advantage in choosing such order.This is not only true for the Combat Move Phase and Noncombat Move Phase but for the Air Units that have participated in an attack and land at the end of the Conduct Combat Phase, too.
Remaining item for Revised OOB:
Since in Revised OOB (but not in Revised LHTR) the remaining movement of air that took part in a battle is done in the Conduct Combat phase (currently not supported by TripleA), not in the Non Combat Move phase, I'm not entirely sure when exactly that should be resolved (after the specific battle where these air units were involved or all together at the end of the Conduct Combat phase?).The fly-over AA fire that occurs during combat phase but after the battles, when air units having participated in battles land after flying-over enemy AA guns is resolved the same way - meaning all movement must be plotted before AA fire, too. As all combat happens at the same time (implying all air units landing at the same time, too).
Remaining item for Revised LHTR:
Since it was clarified that the way you assign AA casualties is by rolling separately all shots for fighters and for bombers, then taking out the resulting fighters and bombers casualties (that means you will take out the ones having the lower remaining movement first, instead of this being completely random, as in the case you would roll a dice for each plane singularly), what should, then, happen in the moment you may have to tally up the AA flyovers from the preceding Combat Move phase, and some of those shots were specifically assigned to aircrafts with a bigger remaining movement left? Must you, in this case, roll them before and separately from the AA shots you would be rolling for the AA that are in the embattled territory?The LHTR page 12 quote started above continues as follows:
"The defender rolls one die for each attacking air unit. An air unit is part of a group when the air
unit(s) have the same planned main battle site. Within any group of air units, you roll all anti-
fighter dice at once, then all anti-bomber dice. For each type of unit, the air unit owner allocates
hits amongst the air units that are being shot at. For every roll of 1, one attacking air unit is
destroyed; its controller moves it into the casualty zone of the battle board."So all in all you roll "fly over" AA-fire separately from "battle AA" - and it is always the air unit's controller who chooses which air unit to take out - in case he has a choice.
But I must admit that I maybe do not completely understand your question, here.
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@panther I'd say you covered all my questions, and I think you can go ahead opening GitHub issues, except that maybe you should open one for Classic too, since that is the default for TripleA, and currently works the same way as any flyovers. So, practically, it would be 3 issues: one for Classic, one for Revised OOB and one for Revised LHTR, unless you can bundle Classic with Revised OOB, detailing the differences. I'm actually not 100% sure about Classic, so I'm not going to say anything about that.
Just to be sure, do the air movements made during the Conduct Combat phase (not supported by TripleA, that here works like LHTR in any case) practically work the exactly same way as if they would be made during a special Non Combat Move phase, before the normal Non Combat Move phase, in which you can move only the air that did combat? I was wondering about that mostly since it makes me think of retreat, that, instead, you have to decide and make right upon ending the specific battle, before starting the next one. Anyways, since that allows you to see those flyover casualties before making eventual pure Non Combat movements for the air that didn't move yet, that would be an unsupported item that needs to be added too, otherwise TripleA won't be fully compliant with Revised OOB flyover rules.
A last thing. The fact that you roll for all bombers and all fighters separately (instead of actually rolling 1 dice for each one) (thus taking out the ones with lower movement left first) is a LHTR change or a clarification that applies to OOB too?
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@cernel said in AA revised minor bug:
@panther I'd say you covered all my questions, and I think you can go ahead opening GitHub issues, except that maybe you should open one for Classic too, since that is the default for TripleA, and currently works the same way as any flyovers. So, practically, it would be 3 issues: one for Classic, one for Revised OOB and one for Revised LHTR, unless you can bundle Classic with Revised OOB, detailing the differences. I'm actually not 100% sure about Classic, so I'm not going to say anything about that.
I will start with Revised soon, and put Classic on my todo-list (that needs some more investigation), unless someone else takes over.
Just to be sure, do the air movements made during the Conduct Combat phase (not supported by TripleA, that here works like LHTR in any case) practically work the exactly same way as if they would be made during a special Non Combat Move phase, before the normal Non Combat Move phase, in which you can move only the air that did combat? I was wondering about that mostly since it makes me think of retreat, that, instead, you have to decide and make right upon ending the specific battle, before starting the next one. Anyways, since that allows you to see those flyover casualties before making eventual pure Non Combat movements for the air that didn't move yet, that would be an unsupported item that needs to be added too, otherwise TripleA won't be fully compliant with Revised OOB flyover rules.
You are correct. When the "pure" Non Combat Move Phase begins, the returning-from-battles Air Units have been already shot at.
A last thing. The fact that you roll for all bombers and all fighters separately (instead of actually rolling 1 dice for each one) (thus taking out the ones with lower movement left first) is a LHTR change or a clarification that applies to OOB too?
For Revised OOB the official FAQ states:
"Is antiaircraft fire targeted against specific aircraft?
Yes. In practice, you can roll a handful of dice against all enemy fighters, then roll another handful
against all enemy bombers. The reason for this rule is so that bombers will be forced to take hits
from AA guns." -
@panther said in AA revised minor bug:
A last thing. The fact that you roll for all bombers and all fighters separately (instead of actually rolling 1 dice for each one) (thus taking out the ones with lower movement left first) is a LHTR change or a clarification that applies to OOB too?
For Revised OOB the official FAQ states:
"Is antiaircraft fire targeted against specific aircraft?
Yes. In practice, you can roll a handful of dice against all enemy fighters, then roll another handful
against all enemy bombers. The reason for this rule is so that bombers will be forced to take hits
from AA guns."Once again, while LHTR is very clear on this, I don't think that OOB clarification is that clear, instead. In the moment in which it answers "yes" to the question if it is "targeted against specific aircraft" I would think you are targeting the specific aircraft. What follows contradicts the principle of targeting specific aircrafts, and looks more like something merely practical, and I wonder if it actually acknowledges the factual game changer of being able to take aircrafts with lower remaining movement out first. If you are sure that clarification means that here OOB and LHTR work the same, I'm not contesting it; just saying this OOB clarification is much less clear than what you get in LHTR (as per usual).
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@cernel OK, I understand what you mean. But actually the term "Group" of air units is already introduced in Revised OOB (page 13).
When the rulebook on page 15 states "The defender rolls one die
(only one antiaircraft gun fires) for each attacking air unit. For every
roll of 1, one attacking air unit is destroyed; "......that says: the defender rolls 5 dice for 5 attacking air units.
Rulebook says "For every roll of one, one attacking air unit is destroyed" not "that specific air unit is destroyed".The FAQ when addressing "Specific aircraft" simply separates Fighters from Bombers.
And LHTR more precisely defines what a "Group" actually is (a definition, OOB lacks).What is it that you concude from that even groups of aircraft are rolled aircraft by aircraft?
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@panther Out of the rulebook what I understand is that you would assign and roll one die for each attacking air unit and destroy it specifically if scoring a hit, differently from LHTR where you roll per group type and, consequently, will take out the aircrafts of the same type with lower movement left first. But it is not clear, and the FAQ appear hinting that, instead, it works the same way as LHTR; so I was asking for a definitive confirmation on that point.
Basically, short question is: can you surely confirm that in selecting casualties OOB works the exact same way as LHTR? -
@cernel In TripleA, how it works when you enable v2 rules is that the AA fire is targeted on the specific units, not group types.
So, I wanted to point out this matter too, while we are addressing the Revised AA bugs and inconsistencies of the program, as this is surely another AA related bug for "World War II Revised LHTR".
The matter that I substantially asked to be clarified and confirmed is if that is a bug for "World War II Revised" too, as well as the many tens of custom games supposed to work by v2 rules ("Big World", "World At War", etc.), or limited to LHTR only (which, instead, would probably mean only 1 game, as I'm almost sure no custom maps are default LHTR rules).
Of course, in solving this, it would be necessary to take care not to bug v3 off, if you can also confirm that in v3, instead, as a departure from LHTR, you target the specific unit, thus possibly taking out same aircraft types with higher movement left first (albeit also the v3 rulebook is a bit confusing on this point, as it affirms that there is no need to differentiate hits if all aircrafts are of the same type, without mentioning the case of same type but with different movement left; so I'm not 100% sure on this point, either, but almost so).
I think this would be better as a separate GitHub issue.
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@cernel said in AA revised minor bug:
Basically, short question is: can you surely confirm that in selecting casualties OOB works the exact same way as LHTR?
Yes. The defender rolls for groups of bombers and fighters, and the attacker chooses the casualties within each group.
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@panther Ok, then they are all bugged for that too (currently it is either completely random or 1 die roll assigned to each specific air unit), also comprising dozens of custom games based on v2 rules (World At War, etc.).
While it is the owner of the units that chooses casualties, I think this would be better coded as automatically taking the ones with the lowest movement left first, as it would be dumb doing anything else, tho being able to choose a unit with higher movement left can be still an item for custom games (for example, you can have multiple hitpoints air units), so that's up to the developers if they want to think in perspective, for fully supporting custom games too. One way or the other (actually choosing or always taking lowest movement left first), it should be, then, clearly documented in pos2.
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@cernel said in AA revised minor bug:
Of course, in solving this, it would be necessary to take care not to bug v3 off, if you can also confirm that in v3, instead, as a departure from LHTR, you target the specific unit, thus possibly taking out same aircraft types with higher movement left first (albeit also the v3 rulebook is a bit confusing on this point, as it affirms that there is no need to differentiate hits if all aircrafts are of the same type, without mentioning the case of same type but with different movement left; so I'm not 100% sure on this point, either, but almost so).
Actually selecting casualties in v3 is not different. You differentiate for example fighters from bombers but don't differentiate if all aircrafts are of the same type.
In this context a statement of Krieghund (from 2009) came to my mind:
See https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=12601.msg456162#msg456162We can read here, that "the authorities" have been aware that a (material) differentiation by movement points is lost because of grouping.
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@panther Ok, well then: everything after Classic and before v5 is currently bugged (Revised OOB, Revised LHTR, v3, v4 are all bugged here the same way).
I see that it is important also to specify, relatively to this bug, that in case some air units are transporting some land units they are rolled for separately. For custom games, I tend to think that means they should also belong to different groups in case they are transporting something different (doesn't matter for the basic games, as you can only transport 1 infantry per bomber and nothing else).
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I would also suggest keeping a property or something for allowing having truly random casualties selection, even tho that doesn't actually apply to any basic games.
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@panther said in AA revised minor bug:
@cernel said in AA revised minor bug:
Of course, in solving this, it would be necessary to take care not to bug v3 off, if you can also confirm that in v3, instead, as a departure from LHTR, you target the specific unit, thus possibly taking out same aircraft types with higher movement left first (albeit also the v3 rulebook is a bit confusing on this point, as it affirms that there is no need to differentiate hits if all aircrafts are of the same type, without mentioning the case of same type but with different movement left; so I'm not 100% sure on this point, either, but almost so).
Actually selecting casualties in v3 is not different. You differentiate for example fighters from bombers but don't differentiate if all aircrafts are of the same type.
In this context a statement of Krieghund (from 2009) came to my mind:
See https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=12601.msg456162#msg456162We can read here, that "the authorities" have been aware that a (material) differentiation by movement points is lost because of grouping.
In any case, are you sure you can absolutely confirm that v3 AA casualties selection is exactly the same as LHTR (mandatorily grouping by type).
Asking because the v3 rulebook is definitely not as clear on this point as the LHTR clarifications are, and I really wonder why is that, since it comes after those, and this clarification you linked:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=12601.msg456162#msg456162The intent is that each air unit is fired upon individually. However, the rules allow for all fighters to be rolled for together and all bombers to be rolled for together, rather than rolling for each unit separately. This brings the precision to the level of unit types, if not individual units. The only material difference between one fighter and another would be how far it has travelled to get to the battle, so that's all that's given up by rolling them all together.
However, if some bombers are carrying paratroopers and some are not, there is as significant a difference between them as there is between a fighter and a bomber. They must be rolled for separately.can, in my opinion, be read as the primary intent being individual firing, thus truly random casualties selection. Just in case they are all of a same type, for easy of play, I'm allowed to roll them all together, if I so prefer, but maybe I can still decide to roll them individually, not to lose the chance to kill a same type with more movement left. Can you confirm this interpretation is outright wrong, and, if I have, for example, 2 fighters, one with 3 and one with 1 movement left, I'm obliged to roll them both toghether, letting my opponent obviously taking the one with 1 movement left first, instead of rolling them individually, if I so prefer?
What does krieghund exactly mean when he says "the rules allow for"? Does he mean that is merely optional (to speed things up when it doesn't matter) or mandatory like in LHTR?
Sorry for asking you basically the exact same thing you already answered. Just wanting to be absolutely sure here. -
@cernel said in AA revised minor bug:
...if I have, for example, 2 fighters, one with 3 and one with 1 movement left, I'm obliged to roll them both toghether, letting my opponent obviously taking the one with 1 movement left first, instead of rolling them individually, if I so prefer?
What does krieghund exactly mean when he says "the rules allow for"? Does he mean that is merely optional (to speed things up when it doesn't matter) or mandatory like in LHTR?
Sorry for asking you basically the exact same thing you already answered. Just wanting to be absolutely sure here.No, v3 and v4 did not introduce any optional rule here. You roll against both attacking fighters together and the attacker chooses.
No need to apologize. Your questions help me a lot to assure to cover (hopefully) every aspect of this complex topic with its development over different editions/rulesets.
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@panther I wish also to point out that the adoption of the true Revised (since OOB, apparently, albeit well explained only with LHTR) casualty selection, in substitution of the currently purely random one (a behavioural change due to be done, on the account that we have clarified this is the will of the creator), will add a number of additional challenges, on which you may want to give your opinion, as mostly a matter of keeping coherency. For example, in TripleA, AA gun style units may do their peculiar shots in attack too. This would add the element that you may have a same type of unit belonging to different players (world powers), and, in such a case, it will need to be decided whether a same type of units having different ownerships is to be accounted for the same group or not. My suggestion, on this account, would be that different ownerships dictate separate grouping, also since this will avoid introducing the (currently generally unsupported by TripleA) element of multi-player casualties selection agreement.
Again, I surely suggest keeping the current behaviour of truly random casualties selection as a property (I guess an additional one, since the current ones will need to be corrected), so that the mapmakers may have it, if they so wish.
On this matter, the random casualty selection for AA currently has what I would define a display bug. During the course of a battle, you have no way to know which ones of your AA hit units with different remaining movements have been shot down, that may be relevant for subsequent casualties decision (it sometimes happened to me to have this issue when I was attacking Caucasus with Germans in World War II v3 1941, having air units shot down by AA gun fire, without then fully knowing what remaining movement my surviving air units had, influencing my casualties choice (for example, not knowing if that fighter with 1 movement left that I would have to land on an exposed territory was still there in the battle or happened to be the one shot by the AA gun fire)).
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@cernel said in AA revised minor bug:
@panther I wish also to point out that the adoption of the true Revised (since OOB, apparently, albeit well explained only with LHTR) casualty selection, in substitution of the currently purely random one (a behavioural change due to be done, on the account that we have clarified this is the will of the creator), will add a number of additional challenges, on which you may want to give your opinion, as mostly a matter of keeping coherency. For example, in TripleA, AA gun style units may do their peculiar shots in attack too. This would add the element that you may have a same type of unit belonging to different players (world powers), and, in such a case, it will need to be decided whether a same type of units having different ownerships is to be accounted for the same group or not. My suggestion, on this account, would be that different ownerships dictate separate grouping, also since this will avoid introducing the (currently generally unsupported by TripleA) element of multi-player casualties selection agreement.
Do you have an example scenario that would help me better understand this case?
Again, I surely suggest keeping the current behaviour of truly random casualties selection as a property (I guess an additional one, since the current ones will need to be corrected), so that the mapmakers may have it, if they so wish.
Do you by chance know why the casualty selection has been implemented this way? I mean there have never been rules for a random selection - so perhaps some simplification?
On this matter, the random casualty selection for AA currently has what I would define a display bug. During the course of a battle, you have no way to know which ones of your AA hit units with different remaining movements have been shot down, that may be relevant for subsequent casualties decision (it sometimes happened to me to have this issue when I was attacking Caucasus with Germans in World War II v3 1941, having air units shot down by AA gun fire, without then fully knowing what remaining movement my surviving air units had, influencing my casualties choice (for example, not knowing if that fighter with 1 movement left that I would have to land on an exposed territory was still there in the battle or happened to be the one shot by the AA gun fire)).
Yes, I have noticed that, too.
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