The New Victory

[Mickey]

Vulgaria?!?

[dageraad]

This map is from the economist and is related to this movie

 

[Spartan]

CLASSIC! I love it.

[The Saint]

This map is from the economist and is related to this movie

 

 

Thanks for that link! a cute video. Now I understand the humor surrounding the movements. Spongie will feel a bit disappointed to learn that not a word was wasted on Denmark.

[dageraad]

Another idea:

 

We're still thinking in the snailmail age. Email is cheap and email is fast.

 

It should be possible to link a mailer to the program, so that the results are mailed automatically to the player and each of the positions that he or she choses. From that setup it would be easy to implement a system in which each player will recieve the current battle reports of his country as they happen.

 

So, if Lowlands attacks Germany on a certain day, Lowlands will recieve his turn on that day and Germany will recieve the battle reports on the same day. Germany will still recieve his battle reports as part of his turn later on.

 

This should be relatively easy to implement and will vastly increase the chances for lone wolves to hold their own. It will also prevent some o the need to delay, and in that way lose some turns.

[jpd]

That goes from the assumption that every single one that plays this game is using e-mail.

 

It that's the case, then no problem.

 

If not, then you're putting the players with the snail mail option at a disadvantage.

 

Sort of like with good old DEC-War, where the players with access to a VT100 terminal could shoot the crap out of a player using a TTY terminal, before his initial empire status even had been printed ...

[dageraad]

I wonder how many players are still using snailmail.

[dageraad]

To make things less abstract:

 

Change to the game:

 

RG (Reogranise ground) will now be possible while an army is located in a city or a province. It creates a situation were two or more armies can share the same location for the duration of the turn only.

 

If there are different armies in the same location they merge back into a single unit at the end of the turn, with higher number armies merging into lower number ones. Divisions in excess of 18 are lost. When there are more than one divisions that are lost, the reverse DRG order is used to determine which divisions are disbanded first.

 

When a division is disbanded this way in a city, or in a province of which the owner owns the city, the unit is disbanded and its intrinsic stockpiles are placed in the city. When a division is disbandend while the city is not owned by the player, the unit is destroyed.

 

After the turn, the only place were two armies can occupy the same place is on board of a transport fleet.

 

An example.

 

The Baltic Vth army holds 4 armored, 4 mechnanised and 10 para divisions in the city of xRiga.

All of them Line.

The player uses 3 RG orders, in which he creates a VI, VII and VIII army.

The composition of the armies in xRiga is as follows:

V: 9 AIR divs. This army does not move

VI 2 ARM, 2 MECH This army attacks Riga

VII 2 ARM, 2 MECH This army attacks Vilna

VIII 1 AIR, This army was planned to make a paradrop, but the order cancelled.

 

At the same time, a stack of 10 green INF ( the 3rd army) move from Madona into xRiga.

 

After this move there are 3 armies still in xRiga: the III, V and VIII for a total of 10 + 9 + 1 = 20 divisions.

The green INF divisions would be reinforced after the Line Air div's, so 2 of the INF divisions are disbanded.

The IR and AR are added to the stockpiles in xRiga.

All divisions merge into the 3rd army. At the end of the turn there is one army in xRiga: the 3rd. It has 10 AIR and 8 INF divisions.

 

This rule change should be relatively easy to implement, as it does not use new orders, order formats or algorithm's

[Inspector Gadget]

I like the above idea.

 

As for the question of how many players still use snail mail, there can't be very many, but Russ has made clear that there are at least a few. My opinion is that improvements to the way turns cans be submitted for processing and how and when the results are returned must be planned with the future (and present) in mind. Virtually everyone plays this game via PC (email, the turn entry program, etc.) and that is not going to change. Any new people that come to the game will be people that also use PC's to play.

 

The potential updating and improving of the game should not be held up by a very small minority that is undoubtedly shrinking. I understand that many of those in this small minority may be very faithful and dependable customers, but once again, it is not in the games, or the majority of the players best interest or future success to not make the needed changes because of that small group that still uses snail mail.

[dageraad]

Well, I surely hope that Russ reads this discussions

 

You can change a game like this in two ways: revolution or evolution. In this case, I am all in favour of evolution, Small, but continuous changes. But this game has'nt evolved anything in the last 15 years. The last patch did improve the game enormously

 

(as a follow up on the discussion in game 89)

 

I do not think that Victory lacks any amount of Fog. It has more than enough fog already. And let's not start about the definition of "cheesy move", as we soon would find out that our preferences differ. One man's bug is another mans feature.

 

But don't come up with the advice to stop playing because this is a wargame and this is all part of it. The two examples used have nothing to do with simulating a war. A system in which all turns run simultaniously and were a stack of 18 mech and armored divisions can't be stopped by a single flag someone put there (the CL trick) would be a far better simulation of a war.

 

We can debate if this would make it a better game.

 

My reason for wanting to change to a simultanious setup is the way that I plan my week. I often do not have the time to spend a few hours changing a turn just because my opponent delayed and I do not like delaying a turn just for the sake of my allies information. I do so anyway, because I am part of a team. Changing this aspect of Victory would require another game setup alltogether. (Revolution)

 

The CL trick is something that has nothing to do with wargaming. It is not documented. It can completely ruin a position and could easily be fixed by prohibiting a CL of a province without owning the city. (Evolution)

[Inspector Gadget]

If you're referring to turns being done simultaneously as they are in SN, Victory is definitely NOT the same game. Unlike SN, what each player does in Victory is FAR more interconnected to other players actions. To try and plan for that within a turn would be near impossible. With very few exceptions, almost all war games are organized so that each player takes their turn or at least a certain step in the turn process (moves, then attacks, then builds for example) and the other player then does his turn next.

 

In victory, if all turns were run simultaneously, as a few players have lobbied for, the amount of 'contingency' orders that a player would have to factor into their turn would be mind blowing and in the vast majority of cases a HUGE waste of a significant amount of their actions each turn. Planning effectively, most notably in the kind of war that the Central and Northern group are engaged in right now, would be almost impossible.

 

Again, assuming that this is what you were suggesting (and if not, ignore my post), please correct me where I'm wrong.

[Hamish]

Ideally, I'd like to find a compromise between the fog of war and the insane mist that now covers your own country sometimes. Sure, you don't need to know everything that goes on in the world, and neither would you need to know exactly the amount and effectiveness of troops attacking you as is the case now; but I do think that even if you are fighting on your own without any total allies, you should be able to have a general idea what has happened to your country between your turns. (Like for example paratroopers taking one of your major cities.) The best solution would be to give a general indication of the forces encountered (type of divisions, total estimated firepower) and the outcome of the battle.

 

This would of course require a major change in the game, since I would have to be sent battle reports between turns, or should be able to view them on a website. So it's more in the "revolution" corner I guess.

[Inspector Gadget]

I understand and agree that there may a number of very interesting ideas that could be categorized as 'revolution' scale changes. In my opinion though, some of these changes that are being promoted are such fundamental changes to the game that implementing them implies that the game is fundamentally flawed. I don't agree with that characterization.

 

I'm more for fixing and or streamlining the existing mechanics of the game, rather than changing the fundamental mechanics of the game like some are advocating.

 

There are a number of ideas I and others have put forward that do more to fix rather than make a new game all together. That aside, I still think the most obvious change/improvement that needs to be made, even if no other rules or mechanics changes were made is the following:

 

Design a means of submitting and processing turns so it is all automated. Those turns that are submitted before their run date are processed in random order starting at 12:01 AM one after the other on their run date. All other turns that are submitted on their run date are processed immediately and the results in all cases are returned to the players via email right after the computer processes them.

[Mickey]

When there are more than one divisions that are lost, the reverse DRG order is used to determine which divisions are disbanded first.

 

 

I like most of your post Dag, except the quoted line. I know you intend it to mean to destroy greens before elites, but you'd also destroy a 99% green before a 60% green, as well as destroy a 99% veteran before a 6% elite. Howevr, such details would be worked out.

 

I wonder what the mechanism is now, as i hear sometimes of weird things happening in case of armies retreating into a city where an already present force would cause overstacking.

[brogan]

 

- While I hate mission cancellations, the Weather / Attrition system is pretty good now.

 

 

I have been thinking a long time about the mission cancellation process and it really kind of sucks in Victory. I hate that it is an all-or-nothing action. What I would change are two things. One, Base Transfer orders NEVER fail. One turn = one month, there has to be one nice day in any one month you can fly to your new home. Two, I would keep the percentages for missions cancellations based on season and location, but instead of having a certain percent chance to fail to fly, I would like apply the percent to a temporary attrition factor for the force. So for example, if the mission cancellation percent for your force is 10%, you would fly to the mission, and your pay load (SB/TAS rating) would be reduced by 10%. This would reflect 10% of your planes not flying due to weather related issues.

 

- Andy