Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Gary Grigsby’s War in the West 1943-45 is the most ambitious and detailed computer wargame on the Western Front of World War II ever made. Starting with the Summer 1943 invasions of Sicily and Italy and proceeding through the invasions of France and the drive into Germany, War in the West brings you all the Allied campaigns in Western Europe and the capability to re-fight the Western Front according to your plan.

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Uxbridge
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Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Uxbridge »

Lovely game. First time in many years I actually enjoy playing a strategic game vs the AI.

I have only one small request. Since I have a hard time remembering what unit is where, especially in dense situations, wouldn't it be possible to use the Soft Factor system to also show corps belonging? The lines are fine, but since they go on and off, wouldn't it be possible to show coloured corners in addition to the lines? Each corps under an army would have a specific colour and the units belonging to this corps would have the same?
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Helpless
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Helpless »

Don't know about soft factor, but there is a plan to allow players to set custom colors for the HQ structures.
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Grotius
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Grotius »

Custom colors would be great.
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Uxbridge
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Uxbridge »

ORIGINAL: Helpless

Don't know about soft factor, but there is a plan to allow players to set custom colors for the HQ structures.

Soft Factor suggestion was only because I thought it would be easy to implement. Any way you can distinguish between intertwined units belonging to several different corps would be awsome. Could you give any hint how this custom feature would work/look?
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Helpless »

It will allow to alter/set background colors for the unit counters.
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Uxbridge »

Very nice. Thanks for that.
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Uxbridge
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Uxbridge »

Tried a set of modded counters today and that made me think about this issue again. Helpless, when you wrote "background colour for unit counters", did you refer to the area with the NATO-symbols within, or the overall unit counter; i.e. will it be possible to change the American green in different variations? Whatever the case, when stacked, the units will still be hard to distinguish from each other. If at all feasable, I would still favor the option to use the soft factor corners for coloured corps identification.

Even if it doesn't seem like it, this is a very modest suggestion that should be considered only if it don't involve a lot of work for you.
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by cmunson »

It will allow to alter/set background colors for the unit counters.

Loved that when introduced in WitE recently.
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Uxbridge »

Thanks for that, Chris. I haven't played WitE for a long time and didn't realise this change was in the game. Yes, it will help greatly if the same things was done for WitW. Soft factors would have been even greater, thus you could simultaniously see all units in a messy situation without having the HQs activated, but I now realise that the soft factor is part of the unit counter image and thus can't be altered in-game.

Present WitE solution will be fine.
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Uxbridge
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Uxbridge »

Any progress on this issue?
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Fallschirmjager »

You can do this now can't you?
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Seminole »

You can set the color inside the NATO symbol square, what OP was requesting was a soft factor that utilized that color so you could identify members of a corp without clicking on the stack by looking at the soft factor.

"War is never a technical problem only, and if in pursuing technical solutions you neglect the psychological and the political, then the best technical solutions will be worthless." - Hermann Balck
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Uxbridge
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Uxbridge »

Anyway you can distinguish divisional units within an Army would be welcome. Presently, if units from 3 or 4 Corps are mixed,the game only marks those from the activated Corps HQ or one of it's divisional units. It's like living in a dark house where the lamps only work as long as you keep pressing the switch. I would like several lamps on while I move around.
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Uxbridge »

So ... will this feature be in a future patch or is i dropped?
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by RedLancer »

You can distinguish Army level units by setting the Army colour first and then doing the Corps units after that. This is not the same as the soft factors of course but I doubt that is possible. You can always see the units in the same Army highlighted using Shift-Z
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Helpless »

Soft factors are art based which is very limited and can't be used to display command structures.

Unit army (counter) color is set in the code, so color set is basically infinite (32bits).
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Uxbridge »

ORIGINAL: Red Lancer

You can distinguish Army level units by setting the Army colour first and then doing the Corps units after that. This is not the same as the soft factors of course but I doubt that is possible. You can always see the units in the same Army highlighted using Shift-Z

Wait ... you mean that this feature has been there all along. How do I change Army and Corps colour? I have searched the manual in vain, using the word 'colour', or 'color', as search criteria. Can't find anything about it.
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by RedLancer »

Not in the manual as it was a post release improvement.

First step is really easy - go to the unit detail screen and click SET COLOUR. Second step is much harder - choosing the colour you want using the displayed palette. (A piece of masterful coding by Pavel)
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Uxbridge »

Thanks. Must start and test immediately!
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RE: Extra Soft Factor: Corps Designation

Post by Uxbridge »

Oh, Beautiful. Stunning! Extraordinary!! And it was there all the time. How on earth could I have missed this? Thank you, Red Lancer, and thank you, Helpless. The game just took a giant leap forward.

Now I must create some sort of system to sort Everything out.
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