The Great War, new gameplay and advices needed

[iancanton]

to avoid confusion when using the word map, i'll refer to the 1914 map as image 1 and the 1915 map as image 2, which combine to form the great war map.

at first, my understanding was the same as urs, so that the troops on most image 1 regions representing a capital or town needed to be transformed to reach an image 2 region, except for the initial attack on an image 2 capital. each capital and town must be in the xml twice, once for image 1 and once for image 2. my understanding is that the neutral image 1 regions never disappear because they have xml coordinates, so the n99 troop counts must appear somewhere on image 2.

on the other hand, if each region on image 2 corresponds directly with a region on image 1, then we can use stages to make the xml much simpler and less than half as long because, in most cases, each region appears in the xml only once and mostly without transformation. on image 2, a place can have exactly the same borders (easiest) or slightly different conditional borders (for example, after image 2 has been triggered, lithuania cannot attack west russia, but can attack army g8). here, it's impossible for berlin 1 to attack berlin 2 because the xml has only one berlin. troops do not move from image 1 to image 2; after a player holds an entire state, image 2 simply replaces image 1 and all image 1 troops become image 2 troops by default.

ian.

[Oneyed]

to avoid confusion when using the word map, i'll refer to the 1914 map as image 1 and the 1915 map as image 2, which combine to form the great war map.

at first, my understanding was the same as urs, so that the troops on most image 1 regions representing a capital or town needed to be transformed to reach an image 2 region, except for the initial attack on an image 2 capital. each capital and town must be in the xml twice, once for image 1 and once for image 2. my understanding is that the neutral image 1 regions never disappear because they have xml coordinates, so the n99 troop counts must appear somewhere on image 2.

as whole map2 will be invisible to the time when it will be unlocked also map1 will be invisible when it will change to map2. yes?
I do not understand why you need think about map1 when map2 will be unlock. for me it is simple and clear - after any player conquered entire state in map1 we can use transfromation for:
1, all troops from map1 in towns and capitals will be transformed to the same towns and capitals in map2 (there is no problem, the towns and capitals are the same and have the same coordinates)
2, all the rest troops on map1 will become neutral

as I wrote, the regions from map1 will have no connection to the map2, so why we must care about map1 regions once the map2 is entered? they wil beno more visible - whole map1 will be no more visible.

on the other hand, if each region on image 2 corresponds directly with a region on image 1, then we can use stages to make the xml much simpler and less than half as long because, in most cases, each region appears in the xml only once and mostly without transformation. on image 2, a place can have exactly the same borders (easiest) or slightly different conditional borders (for example, after image 2 has been triggered, lithuania cannot attack west russia, but can attack army g8). here, it's impossible for berlin 1 to attack berlin 2 because the xml has only one berlin. troops do not move from image 1 to image 2; after a player holds an entire state, image 2 simply replaces image 1 and all image 1 troops become image 2 troops by default.

ian.

this is impossible to do. how you can imagine armies from map2 to map1? I can do towns, capitals, regions also seas and fleets the same, but no armies. and I like the difference between maps, in 1915 was positions changed and also there are other importances in map2 as in map1.
to have xml simple, when we started with this, we knew that it wiould need any work on xml. stages is not easy thing, there are easier "normal" maps with advanced xml. I am afraid that try to economize on xml would kill the map.

maybe there is something what I wrong understand about stages. will invite bigWham here, we need to be sure. but on the other hand, I think that I found clear and good way how to unlock map2. and it will be done in each game in different time and in different conditions.

Oneyed

[bigWham]

to avoid confusion when using the word map, i'll refer to the 1914 map as image 1 and the 1915 map as image 2, which combine to form the great war map.

at first, my understanding was the same as urs, so that the troops on most image 1 regions representing a capital or town needed to be transformed to reach an image 2 region, except for the initial attack on an image 2 capital. each capital and town must be in the xml twice, once for image 1 and once for image 2. my understanding is that the neutral image 1 regions never disappear because they have xml coordinates, so the n99 troop counts must appear somewhere on image 2.

as whole map2 will be invisible to the time when it will be unlocked also map1 will be invisible when it will change to map2. yes?
I do not understand why you need think about map1 when map2 will be unlock. for me it is simple and clear - after any player conquered entire state in map1 we can use transfromation for:
1, all troops from map1 in towns and capitals will be transformed to the same towns and capitals in map2 (there is no problem, the towns and capitals are the same and have the same coordinates)
2, all the rest troops on map1 will become neutral

as I wrote, the regions from map1 will have no connection to the map2, so why we must care about map1 regions once the map2 is entered? they wil beno more visible - whole map1 will be no more visible.

on the other hand, if each region on image 2 corresponds directly with a region on image 1, then we can use stages to make the xml much simpler and less than half as long because, in most cases, each region appears in the xml only once and mostly without transformation. on image 2, a place can have exactly the same borders (easiest) or slightly different conditional borders (for example, after image 2 has been triggered, lithuania cannot attack west russia, but can attack army g8). here, it's impossible for berlin 1 to attack berlin 2 because the xml has only one berlin. troops do not move from image 1 to image 2; after a player holds an entire state, image 2 simply replaces image 1 and all image 1 troops become image 2 troops by default.

ian.

this is impossible to do. how you can imagine armies from map2 to map1? I can do towns, capitals, regions also seas and fleets the same, but no armies. and I like the difference between maps, in 1915 was positions changed and also there are other importances in map2 as in map1.
to have xml simple, when we started with this, we knew that it wiould need any work on xml. stages is not easy thing, there are easier "normal" maps with advanced xml. I am afraid that try to economize on xml would kill the map.

maybe there is something what I wrong understand about stages. will invite bigWham here, we need to be sure. but on the other hand, I think that I found clear and good way how to unlock map2. and it will be done in each game in different time and in different conditions.

Oneyed

hi guys, i was asked to comment here. not 100% sure of the whole context of the discussion, and i don't to derail things, because as much as anything, it's been so long since i created stages i'm longer sure of the minute details of it myself. the best source would be whatever is published, though of course i can work things out from the code as needs be... it just can take time.

having said that, i do believe that in stages, map images do not disappear, nor does the xml that defines them... so if you want a stage to be unusable i believe you will need to code something, probably using transformations, to arrange that.

finally, talking about this is the abstract is very difficult... i want to encourage, again, for us to get some operating version of this map onto the beta site so that we can work together more efficiently in getting it finished. then i think we can save time on some of the confusion about how things work, which is understandable since there has never been a functioning version of stages before (beyond a very simple test i did using the Island of Doom map).

[iancanton]

i do believe that in stages, map images do not disappear, nor does the xml that defines them... so if you want a stage to be unusable i believe you will need to code something, probably using transformations, to arrange that.

this is why i think, if we have the same city twice, then we must have two maps side by side or one above the other.

how you can imagine armies from map2 to map1? I can do towns, capitals, regions also seas and fleets the same, but no armies.

in stage 1, there are army regions that start neutral with, say, n1, which have conditional borders and cannot be attacked. in stage 2, the conditions have changed, so they have normal borders.

and I like the difference between maps, in 1915 was positions changed and also there are other importances in map2 as in map1.

stage 2 can allow for differences, for example poland changes size, becomes part of the germany bonus, mutates from purple to brown and has different bordering regions (conditional borders). i do not see why the number of regions must be different, when it's so much simpler for the number to be the same.

stages is not easy thing, there are easier "normal" maps with advanced xml. I am afraid that try to economize on xml would kill the map.

it's not about economising, but about avoiding unnecessary complexity.

hmmm, i think that this is the critical part:

"...transformations transfer all troops from petrograd 1 to petrograd 2, moscow 1 to moscow 2 and so on..."

while this may be possible with the existing rules, i fear that it is probably require a massive amount of effort, and even then will not work well. because there is no concept of "transfer" in the rules i think you would have to specify a rule for every combination of army and army count. fundamentally, transformations and stages were not designed for this concept of "phases" that you are trying to do.

above is a quote from an early comment by bW when i asked whether it was possible to transfer troops by using transformations. at that time, i thought that the image 1 troop counts are hidden from view during stage 2. i believe now that all troop counts are always visible.

finally, talking about this is the abstract is very difficult... i want to encourage, again, for us to get some operating version of this map onto the beta site so that we can work together more efficiently in getting it finished. then i think we can save time on some of the confusion about how things work, which is understandable since there has never been a functioning version of stages before (beyond a very simple test i did using the Island of Doom map).

oneyed, can u do a simple version of the map with maybe only germany and russia being playable (no armies, railways or soviet union), so that we can upload an xml with stages to the beta site to see what happens?

ian.

[Dukasaur]

For a long time I hoped that Oneyed would come back and finish this. Sadly, I think it's time to stop standing on the battlements and looking wistfully out to sea. This old rat needs to be shovelled into the Abandoned file.