WW2T (World War II Tactics) - a new computer game based on ASL rules

[Rock SgtDan]

"smoke will also be animated and no longer be presented by a plain counter in the map!"

Please no animations or "kaboom" sounds.

 

[Rock SgtDan]

What about control via Mac trackpad? Mac Preferences allow the user to set up a lot of different responses. Could you write a widget that the user can invoke so that the trackpad taps, clicks, drags, gestures work a defined way, when the game is "on top" (ie the active app)?

 

[WW2T_Ben]

"smoke will also be animated and no longer be presented by a plain counter in the map!"

Please no animations or "kaboom" sounds.

I agree with you that for myself this also is more of a distraction than useful - though the animations add something to the visual appearance. But there are lots of players demanding those visual or sound effects. So the compromise will most likely be that you can configure in the options whether to have animations and/or sounds or not. Hope that this makes everyone happy.

Ben

 

[WW2T_Ben]

What about control via Mac trackpad? Mac Preferences allow the user to set up a lot of different responses. Could you write a widget that the user can invoke so that the trackpad taps, clicks, drags, gestures work a defined way, when the game is "on top" (ie the active app)?

Yes, that works to some extent already. You can swipe up/down with 2 fingers (like to scroll) for zooming in and out on the map. You can of course left click with a 1-finger tap and for the upcoming version you'll need a right click which can by default be issued with a 2-finger tap. For more advanced gestures I currently do not see a useful way of integrating them into the game. Probably the zoom-in/out should be used as well for the map zoom.

just give it a try.

Ben

 

[Rock SgtDan]

If I ever get the *#*@%&&#@_ taxes done I want to play around with it. And get the microwave fixed. Frickin' Sears would not sell me a Magnetron, so had to get creative with sourcing. Cost 40% more!

 

[WW2T_Ben]

Ok, cool. In 10 days or Version 0.2.0 will finally be out. It will feature many new rules (Ordnance!) and terrain types and also improves on selecting stacks and units and the visual appearance. I will announce it here when it is finished. We've started testing already.

Ben

 

[WW2T_Ben]

Did I say "10 days" in my last post Ok, to my defence I've added "or so". Well, the new version finally got released.

And this is the announcement:

---

Finally I’ve moved on to version 0.2.01a featuring ordnance and lots of new concepts and rules. Just to mention a few of them: In terms of rules, these are the most important additions/improvements to the game play: Ordnance (To Hit process, ammunition types, target acquisition, crews), hidden units, Close combat (now broken and concealed units are correctly handled), Weather conditions and changes, Wall Advantage, Crest status, Rout phase is now event based and fail safe, Unit substitution/ELR, Ammunition shortage, New terrain types (walls, hedges, rowhouses, rubble, gully, bridges, trenches, foxholes).

The fire attack tooltip now displays a chance to impose any damage on your target (or the To Hit chance in case of ordnance) . Some actions are now animated in the map (explosions, small arms fire attacks, smoke; no sounds yet). Movement Factors are displayed in a better and more accurate way during movement.

The user interface has changed in order to allow you to see more of the map: the hex inspector has moved to the upper left and will hide all location properties by default (this also addresses the confusion on how to select locations or units; now only hexes are selected directly in the map). Also the console has moved to the left hand side together with a dedicated chat window. Counters are no longer selected directly inside of the map. Instead when hovering over a counter(-stack) an overlay window will appear that allows you to select counters. Select counters from more than one location via Shift key. A Phase Bar has been added at the top to let you quickly see in which phase you are in at the moment. The setup phase now displays a dashboard to inform you about certain setup related capacities (hidden, concealed, trenches). The map editor now works visually and no longer requires you to go through the console, please see the section in the manual about how to use it. (Scenario editor is still without UI mostly).

This version comes with a new and rather long scenario Way To The Volga (loosely based on “In Sight Of The Volga”. It is the most complex scenario so far and really fun to play. Please give it a try. The (one and only) gun in it can shoot AP or HE and Smoke. It also features some rather elaborate Special Rules – I finally found a technical mechanism to exchange each and every rule for a certain scenario in case the need arises. You can see it at work in this scenario. Last but not least I wanted to say that although we did some intense testing before releasing this version it is – due to the sheer number of new concepts – quite likely that we will encounter some problems during game play. I will address these as quickly as possible and continue to develop in a more incremental way for the upcoming 0.2.x releases until we finally arrive at chapter D (vehicles).

Please give it a try and download from http://www.ww2t.com/

---

Since it has been discussed here in this forum. I managed to find a technical solution to the limitless SSR problem. For those interested: SSRs are either dedicated classes in my program or inherit from existing classes and extend those. So they do require someone coding them. But once they have been supplied (like all other rules) they can be configured to be switched on/off in the scenario files (xml). They will then be loaded at runtime via reflection. You'll find a first scenario (the new one mentioned above) in the game to see them applied.

Cheers,
Ben

 

[WW2T_Ben]

double post.... sorry

 

[Proff3RTR]

I wish this project all the luck in the world could have potential.

 

[ecz]

I wish this project all the luck in the world could have potential.

+1

Although I'm an optimist by nature I cannot figure how the SSR problem could be eventually solved.

The fantasy of the scenarios designers around cannot be predicted or confined using codes defined in advance to use or not to use by a switch on/off .
The only way I see to implement SSRs is a monumental preparatory work to code as more as possible SSRs for the highest number of scenarios possible.
Each scenario so prepared actually becomes a separate game ready for the setup.

If you instead try to code in advance all known SSR as separate cases that the player can activate/deactivate at will you risk to make a tremendous work almost useless because you will find that there is always something not already coded. Most scenarios will never be the exact clone of the real game despite any effort.

Consider that modern scenarios tend to have less SSRs as number, but they are in compensation more complex and peculiar.
Note also the current rate of creation of new scenarios (and of brand new SSRs never seen before) is many times faster than the speed of any SSR creator Team you can arrange.

These facts alone (in my opinion) make your design choice much harder.

 

[WW2T_Ben]

Hello Enrico,

yes, you are mostly right. It is not as easy as switching SSRs on and off. They have to exist in the first place. And this is how I did it: Imagine there is a rule that processes Fire Attacks. Then there is the option al Rule that Ammunition Shortage applies in this Scenario. And to further complicate matters: for a particular scenario the Ammunition Rule would only apply until a special event occurs (an ammunition boat arrives on the shore of the Volga).

WW2T comes with a standard rule (i.e. class) for Fire Attack (in fact it is not just one rule or class - it is many). I've built the "standard" SSR (weird term, I know) called "Ammuntion Shortage" which will replace a certain part of the Fire Attack rules. And on top (means they inherit from each other) comes the scenario SSR that removes the ammunition shortage constraint in case a certain event has occured. This way I can bend everything the way I want it. The scenario XML defintion then simply defines:

<scenarioSpecialRules>
<ScenarioSpecialRule>
<baseClazz>RallyPhase</baseClazz>
<ssRClazz>RallyPhaseSSR0001</ssRClazz>
<data>
<anyType xsi:type="xsd:int">3236</anyType>
<anyType xsi:type="xsd:int">87</anyType>
<anyType xsi:type="xsd:int">0</anyType>
<anyType xsi:type="xsd:int">0</anyType>
</data>
</ScenarioSpecialRule>
<ScenarioSpecialRule>
<baseClazz>WW2TFireAttackEvent</baseClazz>
<ssRClazz>WW2TFireAttackEventSSR0002</ssRClazz>
<data>
<anyType xsi:type="xsd:string">scenarioDefender</anyType>
</data>
</ScenarioSpecialRule>
</scenarioSpecialRules>

As you can also see, it is possible to configure those SSR (well, for me . They are also able to persist properties.

But you are absolutely right that EVERYTHING has to be programmed ahead in order to be referenced in a scenario. Well, but that's life... My approach is not to prepare as many SSRs ahead of time but go one scenario by the next and see what the challenges are. There is some reuse in SSRs across scenarios, but not much, I agree (but Ammunition Shortage is one example). But then it is no requirement to rebuild all ASL scenarios in WW2T. I would rather prefer to start designing new ones - with a focus on historical settings/maps and campaigns. And then we can decide on a case to case basis whether we really want/need a SSR or not.

In fact - there really now is for me no difference between an SSR or any other (standard) rule. It's all in the code. As I continue developing WW2T I always think about what's next in terms of overall importance for the feel of ASL. Since I've just managed to tackle the first chapter C concepts and all chapter D stuff is still missing I won't waste too much time on some one-time rules if it's not worth it now but rather go on to eventually see the full beauty of ASL at work.

Ben

 

[ecz]

hi Ben,
thank you for the for the rich report about your design and all the useful clarifications.

Your approach to manage SSRs is the best, and perhaps the only one possible. But I think that the variety/number of existing SSRs makes this effort tremendous at least and largely beyond the capabilities of an average human! You should have a platoon of assistants programmers, each one with a good ASL knowledge, working on this project full time one year. Then, admitting the work is completed, they should begin to implement the brand new SSRs of all new scenarios designed in the meantime that was left off in the just released version. And so on in an endless chase...

If instead almost everything is on a single person, as I think it is, I cannot imagine how and when WW2T could finally see the light for the first time in a more or less complete form.

I'll make the playtest and the "scenario-SSR-proofreading" if you accept my help.

 

[WW2T_Ben]

Hello Enrico,

yes, I still can hardly believe that I dared to start this undertaking, for sure But then I say to myself, well, this is ASL already to some extent. It definitely follows the overall concept/player interactivity like to other game out there that pretends to "be like ASL". It is extremely detailed in many ways people don't expect it to be already. It literally obeys 99% of the boardgame rules that are implemented. And there is lots of room for improvement (for example a 3D map which I will do/have to do one day because the 2D map contains so much implicit rules/rule knowledge that are impossible to explain in a computer game).

Just for your amusement: I've worked on it for 1.5 yrs full-time so far. It comprises already ~40K lines of code.

Yes, please, your help would be greatly appreciated. It is just a handful of regular players at the moment from whom I receive feedback and help with testing upcoming versions. Just to play against me or some other players and submit a log file of that match back to me or a general report would be great.

I'm primarily interested in feedback regarding:
- How accessible is the game, are you able to play at all?
- Usability flaws
- Real bugs (the program did not work as expected)
- Rule bugs (this is the least important actually, though I do fix them, but I'm not losing any players because of them like due to the things above...)

It would be great if you could register in the WW2T forum if you haven't done so yet. There you could make an appointment for a match for example (the in-game matchmaking still does not allow you to send/receive private messages...).

Ben

 

[ecz]

as I have decided in 2007 to start VASLeague having in mind from the beginning to create the most great tournament of the most complex wargame on the Earth lasting forever (ok not forever but at least until the end of my gaming days) I think we have something in common to share about daunting tasks !

I'll be happy to help

 

[WW2T_Ben]

Yes, this is a great project. I just had another look at your site. I've also always been fascinated by the competitive aspect of ASL game play. By that I mean that it does provide a "chess-like" playing experience . And with well-balanced scenarios (and if they are not you'll find out about it after x matches) it should be motivating to learn, improve and ultimately gain experience - expressed in AREA points or tournaments or leagues like yours. As you might know, I've built an ELO scoring system right into WW2T. Each rated online match will count for/against your ELO score. How do you maintain the VASLeague? Players report the outcome of matches here in the forum and you do keep track? The interviews with the winners are nice by the way... Maybe one day we organize a WW2T league ... But first there need to be a couple more scenarios to play...

 

[ecz]

How do you maintain the VASLeague? Players report the outcome of matches here in the forum and you do keep track? The interviews with the winners are nice by the way...

it's the fruit of the love
the higher part of the cost I sustain are the prizes, the site is not much expansive.
It's also time-consuming since at the end of each round, I have several hours to work for the update. But the League is organized in a way I have the little possible work as TD.
A very good computer programmer (and friend) created years ago the program I use for pairings and standings called "Caesar".

his name is Federico Corso, Fredkors here on GS. He also worked in the VASL Group improving the VASL system.

 

[WW2T_Ben]

Ok, very nice indeed. Thanks for the update. I've been in touch with some of the guys maintaining VASL. There is not much cross-pollination possible though, seems like we are on a completely different path. I've played via VASL couple of years ago of course but now have to spend every hour possible play(test)ing WW2T.

 

[WW2T_Ben]

Update July 15th - 3D map in the making

View attachment 54148

I’ve spent quite some time weighing the pros and cons of a 3D map against each other. I’m convinced now that there is no alternative to it, considering the immense number of rules “hidden” in the maps. Advanced Squad Leader is played on a fully fledged three dimensional map that is on the one hand a simplification of naturally occuring terrain and on the other a precise simulation of it. I see no better way of explaining all these concepts (multiple building levels, depressions, sewer movement, line of sight etc.) than a 3D map that also lets you explore the line of sight from the perspective of an individual unit. So this is why I came up with a first version of such a thing – still under development but I’m making rapid progress. Eventually this will lead to the replacement of the existing 2D map and its artwork because they will differ slightly. One reason for this is that the ASL scale is just absurd (ever seen a 4-5 meter high forest?), so I had to make some adjustments. The other reason is that the pixel art of the 2D cannot be translated to 3D terrain directly. But no worries: you will still be able to get a 2D orthographic (i.e. non distorted by perspective) overview of the map if you like. The screenshot above shows you an early version of the new map already with multi story buildings functionally working – means they are fully destructable level by level!

 

[Rock SgtDan]

How about a toggle that will "blank out" the hexes to which you don't have a LOS? You won't see the terrain or enemy units.

 

[WW2T_Ben]

That would be possible, though way beyond the ASL rules. I think - considering the scale of the map we are playing on - it is realistic to assume that a commander knew the terrain quite well but could not under all circumstances make out the exact position of enemy units. So I would like to limit Fog of War to the actual units like it is spelled out in ASL.