Play by Email (PBEM) for MWIF

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Play by Email (PBEM) for MWIF

Summary

This post starts a discussion on PBEM for MWIF. It contains four sections: motivation, random numbers, cheating, and minimizing the number of emails.

You might wonder why I am choosing to start a thread on PBEM before one on the game interface. After all, the game interface is much more interesting and everyone will have opinions on good and bad features. The reason PBEM comes first is that it will probably require a different processing logic (i.e., code) to support a sequence of play that minimizes the number of emails. I need the design of the sequence of play locked in before designing the game interface. The interface will support the sequence of play and for that reason depends on the definition of the sequence of play.

The question for this thread, and it’s future associated threads, is how to do PBEM for MWIF. I have some ideas. For purposes of this discussion I am assuming that there are only two players: A and B. If PBEM can be worked out for two players, then extending it for multiple players shouldn’t be that hard. These ideas are not as well thought out as I would like, so feel free to be critical, but be gentle in your critiques. Hopefully we can evolve all our ideas into a final design for PBEM.

Motivation

There are some players who believe working on a PBEM capability is a waste of time. Two reasons are usually given: (1) most players will have little interest and (2) the game would have to be changed too much to make PBEM viable. Indeed, as Greyshaft commented, to follow the WiF sequence of play exactly could make a PBEM game play in real time - that is, it would take 6 years, plus or minus a couple of weeks, to complete a game.

However, there will be Players who value the PBEM version because it gives them flexibility in scheduling their playing time. This applies to individuals who live in remote areas of the globe and will have difficulty finding opponents within their time zone for simultaneous play over the Internet. This also applies to people who can only fit in an hour or so during lunch or in the evening rather than the 4 hours (suggested minimum) for an on-line session playing the Internet version.

As for how long one game will take, I use to play chess by snail mail and I would typically have 2 dozen games in progress at any one time. With only one move a week, each game would take over a year, but I was playing chess every day because of the sheer number of games I had going. When I played Diplomacy by email, I had two games in progress simultaneously, which kept me busy communicating with the 6 other players in each game. It seems likely to me that some players will have more than one game of MWIF going at once and I intend for MWIF to be able to identify which emails are for which games and keep everything straight without the players having to worry about such matters.

Random Numbers

The first problem is how to generate random numbers for the myriad of dice rolls such that each player’s MWIF copy performs the rolls identically yet neither player can ‘test’ different actions using the computer to see how the dice are going to land. MWIF has to be able to roll the dice and yet it cannot be able to roll the dice, lest it permits a player to cheat. I have not played wargames by email (only Diplomacy once upon a time, which does not require a random number generator) and I am not familiar with the current approaches taken to this problem. Given my ignorance, forgive me for putting forth one solution that I believe is viable.


But before I do that, let me digress into the issue of random numbers. If you have no interest in the randomness of random numbers, I strongly suggest you skip ahead to the next paragraph! On random numbers in general, I was trained by a PhD in statistics to be very leery of the randomness of pseudo-random number generators (RNGs). When I need software to create random numbers I use two random number generators and a matrix. Just to get started, I have both random number generators produce several thousand random numbers which I discard immediately. I then have the first (RNG1) produce 10,000 numbers which I place in a 100 by 100 matrix. When the simulation needs a random number, RNG2 produces an I index (0 to 99) and a J index into the matrix, and returns the number it finds at that location. RNG1 produces a new random number to fill the hole in the table. The use of two RNGs and the matrix look up procedure add another level of disassociation from the internal workings of the CPU’s hardware. My paranoia is that the hardware will loop after only a small number of iterations instead of (2 to the N) minus 1, like it is suppose to.



Cheating

I have a way for MWIF to generate dice rolls without either player being able to cheat. Player A sends a set of decisions to Player B via email. When B‘s copy of MWIF reads the email containing A’s decisions, it will automatically generate a random number (based on time of receipt) for the dice roll(s) and send an email to A containing the dice roll(s). The important thing here is that MWIF will not show neither A’s decisions nor the result of the dice roll(s) to B until after it is sure the email with the dice roll(s) was send to A.

A needs B to roll the dice; the dice depend on time of B’s receipt; and B doesn’t know what has happened until after A is assured of seeing the same dice results. I think this is bullet proof against the standard cheat of saving a copy of a game before rolling the dice and restoring to the older version if the results don’t go the way you want them to.

Another possibility is as follows. During a game, A and B will be exchanging a lot of emails. MWIF could always embed random numbers in the messages at time of transmission so they would be available if needed. This would all be invisible to the players; they would not have to record any numbers on paper or some such. Internal to the game in progress, or saved game, MWIF would keep track of all these numbers and use them for dice rolls whenever necessary. From the players’ point of view, they would simply be unable to get the dice to roll until the opponent sends back an email.

Minimizing the number of emails

The PBEM version should offer the option of changes in the sequence of play to reduce the number of emails needed to play through a turn. Using this option would mean that the game would not be a ‘pure’ replication of WiF, though we should be able to get it reasonably close.

If the players agree that a strict adherence to RAW 7 requires too many emails to resolve a turn, then MWIF could offer the option of “standing orders”. This seems to be a viable alternative for committing, for example, fighters. Each fighter (either by unit or stack of units) would have standing orders to perform certain actions in response to the phasing player’s actions (i.e., the opponent’s move). One action might be to defend a hex, or area, against strategic bombing, paradrops, port attacks, etc.. While making these assignments for all your air units might seem a daunting task at first, it would occur incrementally during play with players merely modifying previous standing orders as new units arrive or conditions change. During slow turns (e.g., winter weather conditions) very little would need to be done. A player could specify up to three or four standing orders (with a priority list) for each unit/stack of units. This would take the non-phasing player out of the communication loop for decision making.

However, he would still need to be involved for generating dice rolls. We don’t want the phasing player to be able run test attacks to discover what the standing orders are. To that end, the standing orders for the non-phasing player’s units would have to be encrypted with the non-phasing player providing the key once the phasing player commits to a set of attacks. MWIF might have to encrypt the standing orders multiple times using a different key for each action segment. This means that the phasing player would learn about fighters committed to port attacks only when he attacks ports. Even after attacking ports he would not know what fighters were committed to defending ports except for those he attacked. When he goes on to the next action segment and commits more of his planes, he would receive the second key from the non-phasing player for, say, defending against strategic bombing.

The way I see this working is the non-phasing player issues standing orders and sends them (encrypted) to the phasing player. The phasing player proceeds through the action segments and he commits to a set of attacks. He sends them to the non-phasing player who returns one of the keys for the standing orders, as well as the dice roll(s). Both players can then resolve combats. The phasing player then proceeds to the next action segment. The non-phasing player does not have any decisions to make; he is simply providing dice roll(s) and the keys to his standing orders as the phasing player proceeds through all the action segments.

I hope I can find a way to have email automatically answered without human involvement. If I can, then it will be the non-phasing player’s mailbox that acknowledges receipt of attack orders. The non-phasing player would not have to be involved at all. The phasing player could proceed merrily away conducting all his attacks and discovering the non-phasing player’s standing orders along the way. Meanwhile, the non-phasing player’s mailbox would be accumulating all the phasing player’s attack orders. When the non-phasing player next fires up his copy of MWIF, the program will automatically go to his mailbox and retrieve all the orders that have accumulated there and update his copy of the game.

Stepping back a bit and looking at the game sequence overall, I see a few quick emails between players to bring in reinforcements, decide initiative and weather, and place convoys. The meat of the turn will be the action segment where the players alternate being the phasing player: declaring war, choosing action types, conducting naval operations, land operations, and reorganizations. If we can minimize the number of emails needed for naval and land impulses, we will have done a good job.

I don’t believe we can hope to merge the naval and land actions into a single email because invasions depend on the outcome of naval combats and so does supply for land units. If we try to compress these further, we would be making substantial changes to the game and run the risk of making a big mess of things. WiF evolved over many years and I was very impressed with the care taken to make the evolutions incremental improvements without damaging the early structure of the design. I guess I come down on the side of minimal changes to the rules. Where we propose changes, it would be best if we gave the players the option of using the changes or staying closer to the rules in WiF.

Conclusion

I would like your opinions on all of this. If I have not made my ideas clear, let me know that too. If we can get a master design for PBEM (e.g., standing orders) then we can go on to define what the individual elements should be. For example, what would be the standing orders for the non-phasing player’s air, land, and naval units. I don’t want to venture into those details though until we reach agreement on the master design.

I thank you for your attention and involvement.

Steve

[Froonp]

If the players agree that a strict adherence to RAW 7 requires too many emails to resolve a turn, then MWIF could offer the option of “standing orders”. This seems to be a viable alternative for committing, for example, fighters. Each fighter (either by unit or stack of units) would have standing orders to perform certain actions in response to the phasing player’s actions (i.e., the opponent’s move). One action might be to defend a hex, or area, against strategic bombing, paradrops, port attacks, etc..

Just one remark to add to the eventual "to do" list.
If the "standing orders" are to be coded into the game, you need to also code some sort of copy / paste of those "standing orders" between units to allow a player to quickly assign already existing "standing orders" to newly arrived units, or to other units. You also need to have some sort of printer friendly report of all "standing orders" assigned to all units.

Anyway, basically, even if I do not intend to play MWiF by email, I am seduced by the "standing orders" approach (which looks like the "non-phasing menu" already proposed by Panzerjaeger".

I'm not finished reading the post, I go back to it.

Regards

Patrice

[pak19652002]

I would like to add my voice to those who believe PBEM is an important option to include in MWiF. I can only speak for myself, but I believe the majority of my playing time will be PBEM and I would be willing (reluctantly) to sacrifice certain game elements to see a workable PBEM function come to fruition.

Reasons:

1) I cannot commit a regular block of hours to play the game. I must squeeze in playing time around work and family.

2) Many of my group (Cyberboard) are overseas, making it even harder to schedule common playing time.

3) WiF is (arguably) more fun to play with more than two players. Coordinating playing time with four or five other people will magnify scheduling difficulties even further.

4) I don't mind games "dragging" on for several months. I'm sure there are those who do, but I'm not one of them. I simply play several games at once and my dance card is easily filled!

So, I am very glad you are making a strong effort to include this capability. Keep up the good work!

Peter

[c92nichj]

I have spent the last two years playing WIF over PBEM, first using CWIF and now I use cyberboard. I also been a frequent PBM player using snail mail in the past everything from sportgames to Diplomacy. As you havent played WIF using PBEM I try and explain what communication typically is involved in a game turn.
An email is with a game file attached is typically only sent once/impulse and once for each side during end of turn. So for a long summer turn with 12 impules, 6 Axis moves and 6 Allied moves plus 1 Allied EOT and 1 Axis EOT would be sent.

But the interaction does not stop there, the non-phasing player do need to have some to say about the phasing players actions. It doesn't not happen every impulse but some impulses it happens more than once. Occasions when you would need the other player:

- How to spend suprise points in a naval combat and if you want to abort it.
- Sometimes intercept's against more important groundstrikes/portattacks/stratbombing.
- If you want to defend an important hex that is being attacked, HQ-support, Ground Support, defensive shore bombardment

This type of communication is usually not in the form of an attached game file but rather a quick email, chatwindow or a phonecall.

I like cyberboard more than CWIF in regard to the EOT moves, specifically because you have the opportunity to not strictly follow the sequence of play, much like how you do it in a face to face game, each player does it at his own speed, building, final reorg, return to base, also reinforcements are done in this file.

This was a rather long post I will get back to your questions in another post.

Regards,
Nicklas

[Gaius Varro]

Shannon,

As to the question of getting die rolls back and forth between e-mail clients, there are a number of cryptographic based protocols that are made to deal with this type of problem. One source of a few of these protocols that I remember reading a few years back was from a book called "Applied Cryptography" by Bruce Schneier. (It's still available last time I checked). It's a monster book, and I'm sure there are others out there.....

These techniques can be used in the TCP/IP version as well, as there are a few ways to intercept and cheat those protocols as well.

I would recommend you take a look at a text on these trusted protocols and information verification techniques, rather that just guess at a protocol on your own. There are insidious ways to spoof many things, and like most things, experts do know best.
IIRC, that book also has a section on random number generation.

Good luck on this. The topic is not an easy one!

Gaius Varro

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: c92nichj
I have spent the last two years playing WIF over PBEM, first using CWIF and now I use cyberboard. An email is with a game file attached is typically only sent once/impulse and once for each side during end of turn. So for a long summer turn with 12 impules, 6 Axis moves and 6 Allied moves plus 1 Allied EOT and 1 Axis EOT would be sent.

But the interaction does not stop there, the non-phasing player do need to have some to say about the phasing players actions. It doesn't not happen every impulse but some impulses it happens more than once. Occasions when you would need the other player:

- How to spend suprise points in a naval combat and if you want to abort it.
- Sometimes intercept's against more important groundstrikes/portattacks/stratbombing.
- If you want to defend an important hex that is being attacked, HQ-support, Ground Support, defensive shore bombardment

This type of communication is usually not in the form of an attached game file but rather a quick email, chatwindow or a phonecall.

I like cyberboard more than CWIF in regard to the EOT moves, specifically because you have the opportunity to not strictly follow the sequence of play, much like how you do it in a face to face game, each player does it at his own speed, building, final reorg, return to base, also reinforcements are done in this file.

Nicklas

I intend to start 4 additional threads on PBEM: Air, Land, and Naval (movement and combat), and Other. Your help in identifying areas of these which are particularly sensitive in a PBEM game would be appreciated. But ...

First I want to define a structure for PBEM communications. For example, you state that the attached game file should only be sent once per impulse. I see that as part of the structure. Another part of the structure you mention in your post is the "quick reply". And lastly, having the End of Turn (EOT) handled in a looser fashion than in WIF, so it can be done in a single email, also relates to the structure of the PBEM communications.

What are your thoughts on "standing orders" for the non-phasing player? Is there something comparable to them that you currently use? How do you determine what the dice rolls are?

[macgregor]

I have a fear that no matter what player A programs his units to do, a pattern will become visible to player B, who will ultimately be able to take advantage of this. The only way I've seen this work for PBEM games is when both phasing and non-phasing players are forced to select from various mission types. In TOAW these would be 1-air superiority(half the planes attack anything that flies going after fighters first),2- ground support(!/2 planes support attacks/defense on the ground) 3- Interdiction(planes attack units moving along roads -try to avoid air to air combat) and 4-rest(recoup losses). First an overall air superiority ratio is determined based on air to air strength totals within range of a given hex.Forgive me Steve, but I don't see how MWiF can compete with a game like this, designed from the outset as PBEM. If you're lucky, you'll wind up with a global TOAW with something like...CCAW for the naval aspect. All I ask is that at some point, you get around to making a decent World in Flames for the computer using TCP/IP for synchronous play because in my opinion, you're either going to get something with alot of 'horses for the course'-i.e.-cheater loopholes, laborious to continually re-program -to avoid being exploited,or you're going to have to change the game quite drastically. Whatever you do on this I figure I'll still have to buy it along with the game I want -and I'm not happy about that. Maybe I'm just a TOAW player. But so far, you haven't shown me anything that'll come close to that for PBEM. Though maybe that's just me. I should probably keep my mouth shut.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: macgregor

I have a fear that no matter what player A programs his units to do, a pattern will become visible to player B, who will ultimately be able to take advantage of this.

...

Player A can change his standing orders at the beginning of every impulse if he wants to. They do not have to stay the same.

I see standing orders more like making the decisions on how to respond before the opponent moves. When playing WIF, and waiting for the other player to decide what to do, I usually figure things out in advance.

For example, as the CW I have a stack of ships sitting in England dedicated to the task of intercepting the German navy if it should put to sea. As the German I have some fighters sitting in Germany for the express purpose of intercepting strategic bombing raids. When fighting in France, I have my tactical planes slotted for either ground strikes or ground support and some of them are for this impulse while others are for the next impulse. Of course, in over the board WIF I can always change these planned assignments on the fly (pun intended) to either take advantage of openings or prevent an unexpected disaster from occuring.

Most of the dynamics of my moves take place when I am the phasing player. As the non-phasing player I am more of a gadfly trying to annoy the phasing player. It is rare that I get an opportunity to do anything exciting as the non-phasing player. Because of this, I believe taking the micromanagement of units out of the hands of the non-phasing player and requiring him to give standing orders will not have that much impact on the game dynamics. I am not certain of this though.

---------------------------

As to the amount of time PBEM adds to get MWIF on the market, I have put about a half a month in the schedule for writing the PBEM capability and testing it. Most of the work is in the design, not the coding. If the design is good then debugging it should be relatively easy. The way PBEM, or any other aspect of MWIF, could throw a wrench in the production schedule is if the design doesn't work out. Then, I would have to go back to the code and either rip out what has already been written or else try to mend (I believe the term patch might be familiar to everyone) the existing code.

Right now I am instigating and monitoring these threads - which should be visible to everyone. I am also reading through and commenting CWIF and making some small changes to the code - which should only be visible to Chris, if anyone.

I can't really start making major changes in CWIF, turning it into MWIF, until I have a much better understanding of how CWIF stores every aspect of the game in progress and performs the thousand of steps required to support the game mechanics. It will probably take me into August to get a good enough understanding to start on major modifications - such as coding changes to how the map and units look on the screen.

My little self-hypnotic mantra is: "make the design good, eliminate rewriting the code, make the design good, eliminate rewriting the code, ..."

[Greyshaft]

For purposes of this discussion I am assuming that there are only two players: A and B. If PBEM can be worked out for two players, then extending it for multiple players shouldn’t be that hard.

I disagree on this point. In a two player Axis/Allied game the game state is simple binary logic… either it is my turn (I do some stuff) or it isn’t (I wait). I’m not sure that assumption fully covers the following scenario:

* Three human players on the same side, say CW, USA and USSR playing against the AI which is controlling Japan and Germany/Italy. How do you handle CW and USSR both trying to move a land unit into the same hex in Germany?

* Going to the other extreme with all Nations controlled by separate players could create quite complex air battles since all players involved in an air battle must assent to the queuing of their air units. How do you confirm that all players on (say) the Allied side have assented to the combat queue?


Random Numbers:
I used a system of taking the computers date.time when I roll the dice and then taking (say) the 10th significant digit of that number. That would give me a number corresponding to milliseconds which would be impossible to predict or duplicate even for the fastest mouse-clicker. Maybe I missed something about the way computers process date.time?


Cheating:
I like the automated email idea but it might stumble because there can be an awful lot of dice rolling in a single impulse and many of those rolls must be consecutive rather than simultaneous ie you can “roll” all ground strikes at the same time but land combats cannot be done until the final result of all the ground strikes is known. Therefore you will still need to generate multiple (dozens?) of emails per impulse. Not sure how this will work with disconnected play while travelling by train etc. Also need to ensure compatibility with different email systems so the whole email process is transparent to the user.

Perhaps preventing game saves in the middle of an impulse will persuade players that its not worth cheating. You might succeed in your desperate attack on Leningrad the second time around but since you would be forced to replay the ENTIRE impulse then there is a chance that you would lose the favourable Strategic Bombardment attack which succeeded so well the first time. I’m not sure I’m completely in favor of this idea but maybe its worth discussing.

Possibly allow a game setup option to permit the AI to handle all player decisions in resolving air combats including abort/kill/abandon combat decisions. The player then just throws his planes at the hex for a ground strike just waits for the final result. This permits players to play the realtime (6 year!) game by deselecting that option, but also allows other games to proceed more quickly.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft

For purposes of this discussion I am assuming that there are only two players: A and B. If PBEM can be worked out for two players, then extending it for multiple players shouldn’t be that hard.

I disagree on this point. In a two player Axis/Allied game the game state is simple binary logic… either it is my turn (I do some stuff) or it isn’t (I wait). I’m not sure that assumption fully covers the following scenario:

* Three human players on the same side, say CW, USA and USSR playing against the AI which is controlling Japan and Germany/Italy. How do you handle CW and USSR both trying to move a land unit into the same hex in Germany?

* Going to the other extreme with all Nations controlled by separate players could create quite complex air battles since all players involved in an air battle must assent to the queuing of their air units. How do you confirm that all players on (say) the Allied side have assented to the combat queue?


Random Numbers:
I used a system of taking the computers date.time when I roll the dice and then taking (say) the 10th significant digit of that number. That would give me a number corresponding to milliseconds which would be impossible to predict or duplicate even for the fastest mouse-clicker. Maybe I missed something about the way computers process date.time?


Cheating:
I like the automated email idea but it might stumble because there can be an awful lot of dice rolling in a single impulse and many of those rolls must be consecutive rather than simultaneous ie you can “roll” all ground strikes at the same time but land combats cannot be done until the final result of all the ground strikes is known. Therefore you will still need to generate multiple (dozens?) of emails per impulse. Not sure how this will work with disconnected play while travelling by train etc. Also need to ensure compatibility with different email systems so the whole email process is transparent to the user.

Perhaps preventing game saves in the middle of an impulse will persuade players that its not worth cheating. You might succeed in your desperate attack on Leningrad the second time around but since you would be forced to replay the ENTIRE impulse then there is a chance that you would lose the favourable Strategic Bombardment attack which succeeded so well the first time. I’m not sure I’m completely in favor of this idea but maybe its worth discussing.

Possibly allow a game setup option to permit the AI to handle all player decisions in resolving air combats including abort/kill/abandon combat decisions. The player then just throws his planes at the hex for a ground strike just waits for the final result. This permits players to play the realtime (6 year!) game by deselecting that option, but also allows other games to proceed more quickly.

I had never considered multilpe players against the AI, though it is a logical possiblity given the design I envision. Taking your comments in turn ...

Two allied players try to move land units into the same hex when the land units cannot stack. My knee jerk response to this is to prevent both the units from moving, and any repercussions that result from that. The thought is that the allied players should coordinate better. A more generous response might be to have a team leader even for PBEM. MWIF running on the team leader's computer would check for these kinds of things once it has seen everyone's orders and kick them out for correction before making the moves definitive.

You have a good point that there are some instances where allied players need to communicate and coordinate, even if they are the non-phasing side. I would place the responsibility for resolving the combat queue instructions in the hands of the team leader. Even if the team leader has examined all the standing orders there may still be problems.

So let's suppose that the defenders are flying ground support with fighters to protect an important hex and the total number of planes involved exceeds 10, a mix of fighters and bombers for both sides. Now if there were only one player per side, the standing orders should take care of this situation. We could even force the phasing player to enter the equivalent of standing orders so he doesn't have an undue advantage. But how to handle two players on the same side, each of whom has issued standing orders for his planes? Essentially the question is how to make the decisions of which of our planes, and the opponent's planes, to kill, damage, abort, and clear through. Also whether to continue the combat or call the whole thing off. I don't have an answer at the moment. I would propose delaying further analysis until we can work out in detail the possible standing orders for planes. Therefore I would like to move this to the thread on PBEM Air - coming soon to a computer near you!

I still like the idea of a matrix that is filled, and kept filled, using a psuedo-random number generator. Your suggestion of the date.time millisecond is a good one and could be used as the seed for the second random number generator (which sets the indices into the matrix). I am reluctant to only use date.time for random numbers because of the need in some cases of drawing several random numbers at once.

The Indy10 email routines are pretty straight forward. They use SMTP (System Mail Transfer Protocol) and Pop3 (Post Office Protocol, version 3). The former sends emails and the latter retrieves them. Am I naive to assume these will work with most email systems? Creating dozens of emails should not be that big a problem unless players' mailboxes get too full. The emails would all be quite tiny, so it is a question of the number of emails rather than the disk space they take up.

I'm sorry, but taking Leningrad (or Gibraltar) is worth any other bad rolls that happen during a turn. Given the option, I would be sorely tempted to keep trying to roll the perfect dice to achieve either of those goals, regardless of other outcomes. And my honesty is legendary![:D]

The option of putting all the little decisions in the hands of the AI strikes me as a good one. The players should have the ability to select and deselect that option as the game progresses. There should also be other alternatives to choose from.

Good ideas, thanks. If we keep kicking this around, maybe we can find/design something that will work well.

[c92nichj]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
I intend to start 4 additional threads on PBEM: Air, Land, and Naval (movement and combat), and Other. Your help in identifying areas of these which are particularly sensitive in a PBEM game would be appreciated. But ...

Air: Normally my opponent would do the intercepts and battles alone, using trying to do what is best for me: Say for example that a my opponent strat bomb Berlin and I have a fighter based there, it is pretty lilely that I would have intercepted with it and fight out the battle, so my opponent does that for me (in a computer game the AI could do it). However there are cases when things are not that clear cut, for example a fight over Gibraltar with lots of planes on both sides, do I save some until next impulse, do I continue the air fight even though my odds are not that good, Gibraltar is at stake here, I might want to take bigger risks. It is difficult for a computer to understand if a hex is important or not, Maybe it could be possible for to mark certain hexes for air battle where I don't allow the AI cannot take control (my opponent doesn't have to know which hexes). If I also can state at what odds level I want to continue a fight and change it on a a hex basis, for example abort the fight if odds at +2/-2


Land:
There are not many things that the non-phasing player needs to do during land movement, the only thing I can think of is HQ, Art -support during attacks. But I typically know if I want to do defensive support before my opponent move, so a standing order would work well here.

Naval:
Based on experience this is the area which is most difficult to deal with, since it takes ages to build new ships and a sunk CV or Transport loaded with troops have a big impact on the game. Maybe you also could mark sea areas where you don't want the AI to handle seabattles, and instruct your fleet to intercept units that are weaker/equal/marginally stronger than your fleet.

What are your thoughts on "standing orders" for the non-phasing player? Is there something comparable to them that you currently use? How do you determine what the dice rolls are?

Standing orders are ok, we don't really use them but in a computer game I think it would be fine.
Dice rolls have been done in two ways, first when I used CWIF, we just trusted each other to make the roll, now when playing on cyberboard we use ACTS http://acts.warhorsesim.com/index.asp which rolls dies for you on an internet server and makes it impossible to cheat on die rolls, I like that better. Not that I dodn't trust my opponent earlier on but that it is impossible to cheat makes it easier accept a 10% chance success on invading Gibraltar.

[c92nichj]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Minimizing the number of emails

The PBEM version should offer the option of changes in the sequence of play to reduce the number of emails needed to play through a turn. Using this option would mean that the game would not be a ‘pure’ replication of WiF, though we should be able to get it reasonably close.

If the players agree that a strict adherence to RAW 7 requires too many emails to resolve a turn, then MWIF could offer the option of “standing orders”. This seems to be a viable alternative for committing, for example, fighters. Each fighter (either by unit or stack of units) would have standing orders to perform certain actions in response to the phasing player’s actions (i.e., the opponent’s move). One action might be to defend a hex, or area, against strategic bombing, paradrops, port attacks, etc.. While making these assignments for all your air units might seem a daunting task at first, it would occur incrementally during play with players merely modifying previous standing orders as new units arrive or conditions change. During slow turns (e.g., winter weather conditions) very little would need to be done. A player could specify up to three or four standing orders (with a priority list) for each unit/stack of units. This would take the non-phasing player out of the communication loop for decision making.


Stepping back a bit and looking at the game sequence overall, I see a few quick emails between players to bring in reinforcements, decide initiative and weather, and place convoys. The meat of the turn will be the action segment where the players alternate being the phasing player: declaring war, choosing action types, conducting naval operations, land operations, and reorganizations. If we can minimize the number of emails needed for naval and land impulses, we will have done a good job.

I don’t believe we can hope to merge the naval and land actions into a single email because invasions depend on the outcome of naval combats and so does supply for land units. If we try to compress these further, we would be making substantial changes to the game and run the risk of making a big mess of things. WiF evolved over many years and I was very impressed with the care taken to make the evolutions incremental improvements without damaging the early structure of the design. I guess I come down on the side of minimal changes to the rules. Where we propose changes, it would be best if we gave the players the option of using the changes or staying closer to the rules in WiF.

Keeping down the number of emails will be key to get the game to progress at any speed, even with only one email/impulse. In my current game we are at 80 gamefiles passsed around since 9th june and we are doing EOT for M/J -40 (And we are playing at quite high speed with two mails/day).
Another game I am spectator at had 103 files since mid March and they are only in M/A -40.
[>:]

WIF PBEM takes long time to play.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: c92nichj
...

Standing orders are ok, we don't really use them but in a computer game I think it would be fine.
Dice rolls have been done in two ways, first when I used CWIF, we just trusted each other to make the roll, now when playing on cyberboard we use ACTS http://acts.warhorsesim.com/index.asp which rolls dies for you on an internet server and makes it impossible to cheat on die rolls, I like that better. Not that I dodn't trust my opponent earlier on but that it is impossible to cheat makes it easier accept a 10% chance success on invading Gibraltar.

I logged into ACTS but couldn't see anything about World in Flames or automated dice rolls. Do you have more specifics?

[c92nichj]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
I logged into ACTS but couldn't see anything about World in Flames or automated dice rolls. Do you have more specifics?

From: Peter Kanjorski
Sent: den 12 juli 2005 08:52
To: Peter Kanjorski; Hjalmarsson, Nicklas; Kenneth Crist
Subject: ACTS: Generic Game Module: 'KNP's WiF Game': Sir Peter action

Die roll request
Request: 10-sided die x 1

1

Message from Sir Peter:
MJ40 Allied 10: Strat bomb brussels with 4 factors. +1 due to no intercept.

A typical email we sould get from the ACTs server would look something like this. There is nothing specific to World in flames, you only send an email requesting a number of die rolls and write a message what they are for. The british bombraid on Brussles wasn't very succesful this time around.
Try and se if you can access this link to view how our game have been performing so far,
http://acts.warhorsesim.com/dynamic/jou ... p?id=11175

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: c92nichj
Try and se if you can access this link to view how our game have been performing so far,
http://acts.warhorsesim.com/dynamic/jou ... p?id=11175

This worked just fine. If you wanted to use two 10 sided dice for each roll, I see you could just ask for 2 rolls each time.

There don't have to be any emails to the players. The results of all the die rolls and simply posted where everyone can read them.

If possible I would like to have MWIF be self-contained and not rely on any third party for random numbers. This would also enable the drawing of the US Entry chits to be kept hidden from the Axis. Though I could probably come up with something to accomplish the latter using the ACTS die rolls.

[pak19652002]

Steve:

I read that you are a PBEM expert, but I can't remember if you have ever used Cyberboard's WiF gamebox. But, if not, you could spectate Nicklas and my game. It might give you some insight into the ebb and flow of WiF and ACTS in a multi-player (3) game. You would also see some of the problems we stoically tolerate to play WiF online in any form and some clever short-cuts that have been devised (not by me) to help speed things up!

If you are interested, contact me off the board and I'll send you necessary files. If you have already been there and done that, then you already know what we're going through!

Peter

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: pak19652002

Steve:

I read that you are a PBEM expert, but I can't remember if you have ever used Cyberboard's WiF gamebox. But, if not, you could spectate Nicklas and my game. It might give you some insight into the ebb and flow of WiF and ACTS in a multi-player (3) game. You would also see some of the problems we stoically tolerate to play WiF online in any form and some clever short-cuts that have been devised (not by me) to help speed things up!

If you are interested, contact me off the board and I'll send you necessary files. If you have already been there and done that, then you already know what we're going through!

Peter

Lies, lies, they are all lies. I am not a PBEM expert. Do you want to play for money?

Actually, the full extent of my credentials in the PBEM world are convered in the few postings I have made to this thread. I am relying you, and others like you who have played wargames by email, to help with the design for MWIF PBEM.

Let me know what has worked and what hasn't. If you have ideas and suggestions, even if you think they might be considered foolish by some, please post them here. I am a devotee of a strange school of thought that believes that even the worst ideas contain elements of insight into a problem - and thereby insight into possible solutions. It has worked for me countless times in the past.

As to following your game, there are a vast number of things demanding my time at the moment. For example, there are some people who would like to see MWIF released before they die (I read that in one of the posts to this forum). Since I don't know the state of their health, I feel I should probably focus on writing code as much as I can lest I end up hearing his widow say: "He would have so much enjoyed playing this game. If only he were alive today." when MWIF is finally published. I'm really no good at all at funerals.

Past the word along to others in the PBEM world to visit this forum and tell us what they think. The more the merrier.

[Greyshaft]

I think that the air combats will be comparatively easy to resolve and in the end could be simplified to where the attacker throws a bunch of attacking air units at a list of factory hexes/ports/ground units etc and then the defender throws up some fighters and then the AI figures out the results and lets the players rebase the surviving units.

The part that I am avoiding is discussing the Naval combats since each moving Naval stack could involve multiple movement * interceptattempt * movement *intercept * pickseabox * add air units * do combats * pick casualties * rinse * repeat phases, each of which requires player input. It may be possible to set up some scripting for the simple decisions but it will be a decision tree which puts a Banyan vine to shame

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft

I think that the air combats will be comparatively easy to resolve and in the end could be simplified to where the attacker throws a bunch of attacking air units at a list of factory hexes/ports/ground units etc and then the defender throws up some fighters and then the AI figures out the results and lets the players rebase the surviving units.

The part that I am avoiding is discussing the Naval combats since each moving Naval stack could involve multiple movement * interceptattempt * movement *intercept * pickseabox * add air units * do combats * pick casualties * rinse * repeat phases, each of which requires player input. It may be possible to set up some scripting for the simple decisions but it will be a decision tree which puts a Banyan vine to shame

Curious turn of phrase. The name of the building I live in Banyan Tree Plaza.

I will start 4 more threads on PBEM tomorrow: Air, Land, Naval, and Other. We can ponder each of these in detail then.

[Greyshaft]

http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/banyan1.htm

"The banyan tree grows throughout Cambodia. It may reach a height of over 100 feet, and as it grows, new roots descend from its branches, pushing into the ground and forming new trunks. The roots grow relentlessly; many of the ancient temples of Angkor have toppled as these roots have become embedded in the cracks and crevices between their massive stones. A single tree might have dozens of trunks, and it is often impossible to tell which is the original."