Coder Diary #14 -- Dynamic Day/Night & Visibility

[berto]

Coder Diary #14 -- Dynamic Day/Night & Visibility


From the Vietnam War, the Battle of Ia Drang (depicted in the film We Were Soldiers):

The Battle of Ia Drang was the first major battle between regulars of the United States Army and regulars of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN/NVA) of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The two-part battle took place between November 14 and November 18, 1965, at two landing zones (LZs) northwest of Plei Me in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam (approximately 35 miles south-west of Pleiku) as part of the U.S. airmobile offensive codenamed Operation Silver Bayonet...

Representing the American forces were elements of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division: the 1st Battalion and 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, and the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, facing elements of the B3 Front of the PAVN (including the 304 Division) and Viet Cong. The battle involved close air support by U.S. aircraft and a strategic bombing strike by the B-52s. The initial Vietnamese assault against the landing 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at LZ X-Ray was repulsed after two days and nights of heavy fighting on November 14-16. However, the follow-up surprise attack on November 17 that overran the marching column of 7th Cavalry 2nd Battalion near the LZ Albany was the deadliest ambush of a U.S. unit during the course of the entire war. About half of some 300 American deaths in the 35-day Operation Silver Bayonet happened in just this one fight that lasted 16 hours.

Just one of many, many multi-day/night battles that the Campaign Series was unable to model ... until now!

We have implemented a new feature, Dynamic Day/Night & Visibility:



In the screenshot, you will observe (from Crossroads' forthcoming new East Front scenario of the Winter War, Arctic Front: On Familiar Ground):

[*]Turns (circled in red): 1-6[n] 7-30[d]
[*]Visibility (circled in blue): 1-2[2] 3-3[3] 4-4[4] 5-5[5] 6-6[6] 7-30[7]

That is to say:

[*]For game turns 1 through 6, it is night. Beginning with game turn 7, and extending through the remainder of the game until turn 30, it is day.
[*]For game turns 1 & 2, visibility is 2. For game turn 3, visibility is 3. As dawn progresses, Visibility gradually increases to 4 ... 5 ... 6 ... until it maxes out at 7, the daytime Visibility for game turns 7 through 30.

For the first time ever in the Campaign Series (without having to resort to kludges, as in players hand editing the save game files), scenario designers will be able to specify day/night cycles to simulate:

[*]Dawn battles.
[*]Dusk battles.
[*]Day/night/day battles.
[*]Night/day/night battles.
[*]Multi-day/night battles lasting for as long as the historical situation requires.

The scenario designer will have complete freedom to expand and compress turn times and day/night durations as he sees fit. No more enslavement to the "turns are equivalent to approximately 6 minutes of real time" "rule". (Which, in the traditional game, if you think about it, has never really applied, is "more honored in the breach than the observance.") Turn real-time equivalents are entirely subject to the scenario designer's interpretation, and can differ from one scenario to the another, from day to night, even from day to day.

As Crossroads stated it:

I particularly like this as it allows short days or nights when history tells us not much action took place.

In conjunction with Dynamic Day/Night, the scenario designer may now also exactly specify Dynamic Visibility, to simulate:

[*]Day to dusk to night diminishing visibility.
[*]Night to dawn to day increasing visibility.
[*]Changing lighting, as in sunny skies giving way to overcast skies; or, in night scenarios, the rising or setting of the moon.
[*]Changing weather, as in fog, rain, snow, dust storms, etc.

When specifying Turns and Visibility, they must be one or a sequence of

#-#[d] or #-#[n]

for day/night, and

#-#[#]

for visibility.

No spaces! except those separating one turn segment from the next.

You might see Visibility segments like (as in the example above)

3-3[3]

meaning from turn 3 to turn 3, Visibility is 3. I considered simplifying that to

3[3]

but I chose not to, because it complicates the coding. I could have over engineered this, permitting all sorts of fancy variations, and allowing for all sorts of input errors. But: the fancier we get, the harder it is to code, and the greater the chance for bugs. It's usually better to KISS it, unless very good reason not to. Also, specifying day/turn & visibility in scenario design is not something that the great mass of ordinary players will do; only a small, select group of scenario designers will do it. If they can handle scenario design, they can surely handle the "complexities" of the Header Dialog.

Here is the older-style scenario editor Header Dialog:



Comparing with the newer-style Header Dialog above, you will observe some layout changes:

[*]No more Night Scenario box, as you specify day or night (and the number of turns for each) in the expanded Turns box (formerly the Length box).
[*]Flares, formerly known as "Starshells", have been moved up to the Air/Ammo/Smoke boxes. "Flares" is a more generic (and shorter!) term to represent all manner of airborne illuminations.

Some important points:

[*]CS 1.04 & before will not be forward compatible with new-style scenarios created in the 1.05 & later scenario editors. You will have to update your game installation to play newer scenarios.
[*]1.05 & later EXEs will still maintain backward compatibility with 1.04 scenarios and before. So both updated and older game installs will still be able to play older scenarios.

Over the years, computer power has increased exponentially, and capability to simulate ever larger historical battles is possible. Division, corps, and even army level scenarios have been developed to fulfill the promise built into the very first East Front II Organization Editor. Bigger OOBs, larger maps, longer battles. Building on capabilities always inherent in the Campaign Series design, and soon also with Dynamic Day/Night & Visibility (and other new features still to come), imagine the possibilities!

Until the next time...

[berto]

ORIGINAL: berto

No more enslavement to the "turns are equivalent to approximately 6 minutes of real time" "rule". (Which, in the traditional game, if you think about it, has never really applied, is "more honored in the breach than the observance.")

Lest anybody think that the traditional game slavishly adheres to the "turns are equivalent to approximately 6 minutes of real time" "rule":

Here is a rather complicated Linux(Cygwin) command* to determine the longest East Front scenarios, in hours:

---

$ for f in `ls -1 *.scn | egrep -v ' '`; do head -n 3 $f | tail -n 1 | egrep -v '\['; done | awk '{print ($4/6)/10}' | sort -n | tail -n 20
2.5
2.5
2.5
2.6
2.6
2.7
2.8
2.9
2.9
2.9
3
3
3.2
3.5
3.5
3.8
4
4
4.5
5

---

That is, even the longest East Front scenarios are, supposedly, no more than 4-5 hours in duration. Does anybody think that all of the depicted battles really lasted, from start to finish, just 5 hours or less?

For West Front:

---

$ for f in `ls -1 *.scn | egrep -v ' '`; do head -n 3 $f | tail -n 1 | egrep -v '\['; done | awk '{print ($4/6)/10}' | sort -n | tail -n 20
3
3
3
3
3
3.5
3.6
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
5
5
5.5
6

---

In West Front, the longest battles are, supposedly, just 5-6 hours.

In Rising Sun:

---

$ for f in `ls -1 *.scn | egrep -v ' '`; do head -n 3 $f | tail -n 1 | egrep -v '\['; done | awk '{print ($4/6)/10}' | sort -n | tail -n 20
2.5
2.5
2.5
2.5
2.6
2.6
2.6
2.6
2.8
3
3
3
3.4
3.8
4
4.4
4.5
5
6
6

---

All depicted battles max out at 6 hours or less? [8|]

Obviously, in the Campaign Series, time is an elastic concept, and "turns are equivalent to approximately 6 minutes of real time" is not the Gospel Truth. No, not at all.

[* For ease of computation, I have excluded scenario names with embedded spaces. Gives Linux(Cygwin) the fits! It matters little for this analysis. All, or nearly all, Campaign Series battles finish in 6 hours of simulated real time or less. Or so you might be led to believe.]

[MrRoadrunner]

Could care less if you do not "feel" that six minutes was set for the turn.
The entire game's scale is based upon it. From movement to gun ranges.

And, yes I still agree that some of the bigger scenarios are also the longest in time. Some custom designers put so many turns in that they could not compensate for night and day either.

Stick to the scale. It will guide you.
Change it and it will blow the game apart.

RR

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: berto


Just one of many, many multi-day/night battles that the Campaign Series was unable to model ... until now!

We have implemented a new feature, Dynamic Day/Night & Visibility:

This is no doubt quite an exciting new feature, enabling scenario designers to more accurately represent certain events that do not fall into the basic category the Scenario Editor has so far supported.

The scenario I have struggled with time and time again has been the modeling of the Kuuterselkä breakthrough during RKKA's Summer 1944 Offensive at Karelian Isthmus. The events were a hodgepodge of attacks and counterattacks, confusion, and general mayhem:

The Kuuterselkä battle begun at 0800 hrs on 14 June 1944, after a two hour artillery barrage. The two pincers RKKA put on managed to break through a weak sector of the Finnish main defense line during the first hour of combat, but particularly with western pincer a series of local and limited counter attacks delayed the Red Army for the morning hours, as the battle see-sawed there. As the Eastern pincer gained momentum however, the defenders retreated in the western sector as well. By 1200 hrs, the whole sector of the defensive line was firmly on the hands of RKKA.

What followed then was according to RKKA doctrine of the time an advance to their immediate target objectives, where they dug in to weather the counter-offensive that they knew was to come. Only a major counter-attack never took place, as the RKKA 109th AC had indeed managed to decept the IVth Finnish AC who were expecting the major push further in the West, by the major Viborg highway, an area that was a proper tank country, Kuuterselkä being rather a desolated, marshy forest.

RKKA western pincer, showing independent thinking, or perhaps advancing to their next target sector, proceeded to roll to Northwest, while the Eastern pincer again advanced a bit and again dug into a hedgehog formation to resist the counter attack they were still expecting to happen at any time. Still, nothing happened, as Finns were feverishly allocating reserves to the sector where there were none.

After a relatively quiet evening, the Finnish counterattack suddenly exploded on them at 2245hrs, with support from strong artillery, and with airforce bombing the area, particularly heavily at 2350 hrs.

To regain the initiative, RKKA launched a local counter attack of their own, at 0045 hrs, and the confusing battle went on and off during the white nights of June. By 1000 hrs on June 15, Finns realised it was a lost cause, and manage to disengage by 1200 hrs.

My scenario research at AHF.

( [8|] Hmmm... I realise the original unit war diaries were not digitalised and published into Internet then yet. I need to download a few of them, still some unanswered questions remaining... )

All in all, that is some 28 hrs to model on a scenario, with a day - night - day sequence to portray. Also, the white nights of Nordics were a no-go earlier.

No longer:



Turns: 1-12[d] 13-22[n] 23-30[d]
Visibility: 1-12[8] 13-13[7] 14-14[6] 15-15[5] 16-16[4] 17-18[3] 19-19[4] 20-20[5] 21-21[6] 22-22[7] 23-30[8]

... although I think I will throw in some five turns more for this scenario, with emphasis on the darkest part of the night...

ORIGINAL: berto

In the screenshot, you will observe (from Crossroads' forthcoming new East Front scenario of the Winter War, Arctic Front: On Familiar Ground):

[*]Turns (circled in red): 1-6[n] 7-30[d]
[*]Visibility (circled in blue): 1-2[2] 3-3[3] 4-4[4] 5-5[5] 6-6[6] 7-30[7]

Actually, that is not the 1st battle for Vuosalmi of Winter War, Feb-March 1940, but the 2nd one of August 1941. Yes, there is a 3rd Battle for Vuosalmi as well [:)]

The Finnish 5th division managed to pull off a quite daredevil regiment strong night crossing of river Vuoksi, catching the RKKA forces of the sector totally off guard, as they were expecting the major push some 10 kms more to the east, at Vuosalmi itself.

Previously, this would have been a dawn attack, with day appearing as dice will roll as of turn 6, while the lights would be swithched ON, into a full day light.

Instead, I can model the night phase to last exactly as long as I wish, and then introduce the gradual dawn in a manner of Variable Visible Done Right.

I have another 1941 scenario in the making, a more classic Dawn attack this time. Again it is appreciated I can control the day-night change and the visibility just as I wish to! [:)]

ORIGINAL: berto

• For the first time ever in the Campaign Series (without having to resort to kludges, as in players hand editing the save game files), scenario designers will be able to specify day/night cycles to simulate:
• Dawn battles.
• Dusk battles.
• Day/night/day battles.
• Night/day/night battles.
• Multi-day/night battles lasting for as long as the historical situation requires.

This should be exciting, there's already some really impressive large scenarios out there, where it was required to manually manipulate the scenario file to control the day-night change. No more of that, hopefully!

ORIGINAL: MrRoadrunner

Could care less if you do not "feel" that six minutes was set for the turn.
The entire game's scale is based upon it. From movement to gun ranges.

Yes, the units are modeled with the classic six minutes - 250 meters - platoon level units metrics. What has often caused confusion is to conclude that according to this, a certain amount of game turns would always equal a multiply of six minute turns: 30 turns = 180 minutes = 3 hours.

However, there is no strict correlation there, it all depends of the battle to be portrayed. In the Kuuterselkä example, I've succesfully modeled (as in being able to achieve the historic objectives) a 28 hour battle in 30 turns, although it could perhaps use another 5 turns in it.

There is no easy way out to figure out what the proper correlation would be. Instead, lots of hard work, trying out different variations, and then testing and more testing!

At least that's what I've observed so far.

[Hoplite1963]

This is really interesting. Is there any limit to the number of consecutive day /night changes that could be set up for a given scenario ? For example in theory would it be possible to do a monster scenario covering the whole of the battle of Dien Bien Phu drawing on the likes of GDW's "Citadel" board game for the OOB's and reinforcement schedules etc?

Many thanks
Ian

[Crossroads]

Ian, there should be no limitations as such.

(Unless the text box in the header has some string limits. Good question, I will run a test to see if there is. )

Otherwise, sky's the limit [:)]

EDIT: Yup, you are good to go:

[font="Courier New"]1-10[d] 11-20[n] 21-30[d] ... 781-790[d] 791-800[n][/font]

That's 40 days and 40 nights for you, at least. Did not test any longer text strings. How may days were you thinking of, this good enough? [8D]

[wings7]

Wow! [:D]

[MrRoadrunner]

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

ORIGINAL: MrRoadrunner

Could care less if you do not "feel" that six minutes was set for the turn.
The entire game's scale is based upon it. From movement to gun ranges.

Yes, the units are modeled with the classic six minutes - 250 meters - platoon level units metrics. What has often caused confusion is to conclude that according to this, a certain amount of game turns would always equal a multiply of six minute turns: 30 turns = 180 minutes = 3 hours.

However, there is no strict correlation there, it all depends of the battle to be portrayed. In the Kuuterselkä example, I've succesfully modeled (as in being able to achieve the historic objectives) a 28 hour battle in 30 turns, although it could perhaps use another 5 turns in it.

There is no easy way out to figure out what the proper correlation would be. Instead, lots of hard work, trying out different variations, and then testing and more testing!

At least that's what I've observed so far.

If you were to stay in the scale of the game you would, or could, have designed shorter turn length scenarios as a "series".

To me, stating that 28 hours equals 30 turns is farcical at best. It also displays a lack of understanding what scale means.
This kind of thought has been growing for a while. Each month someone validates the idea off the wrong thinking of someone months before.

The earth rotates, establishing night and day. You cannot slow down the rotation to make time slow down. Time will move on the same. The definition of a day will change. That's for sure.

Nor, can you just say that six minutes and 250 meters do not mean what they are.
Six minutes and 250 meters determine how far a gun can shoot and how far a unit can move. You can think that you are creating a one hour per turn scenario but you are not.

The battle of San Jacinto, which was the end of the Texas Revolution, and facilitated the creation of the "country of Texas", through the capture of Santa Ana and his subsequent signing of their independence to gain his freedom, took three CS turns. I would not want to simulate the battle by using CS game scale. Not many players want a three turn game?

Some events cannot be simulated using the same scale. It is probably why there is Squad Battles, CS, and OpC series games that cover different scales?

And, there are "devotees of the games" who want to design CS level sized scenarios in SB and those who want to make OpC sized battles in CS scale.

I've heard this argument and the faulty reasoning behind it ... for years. Sadly, some of it has become embedded in CS by hasty actions that were not well thought out.
Not saying that you are doing anything hasty, or not well thought out. I just think that you should not change the game's scale to create something that should not be within the scale of the game.

Believe me. If someone wants to create D-Day June 44 in the scale of the game I say go for it. It matters not how many units are on how large a map. Just do not tell me to play a forty or four hundred turn game that recreates the entire day or more. (Yes, night and day would help, but what's the point?)

Just sayin'!

RR

[OttoVonBlotto]

Time, space, distance, etc, are all scale and are all related to one another. Mess with one you mess with all at your peril.

Edit This is not in reply to RR but the topic in general as I agree with him on this.

I'm quite happy for the coherent movement of visibility hexs due to battlefield conditions, (as long as it is changed on even turns) opposed to what we have now with VV but the random disregarding of scale that the game was built for is just daft, as far as I am concerned. I would much rather see a series of battles covering a large time scale, than a single large game that is totally out of scale and trying to do things the game wasn't designed for.

If someone wants to create a 480 turn game to cover a 2 day battle then crack on I have no problem with it as long as the distance scale of 250m per hex is adhered to, but I seriously doubt I would have the time to play it but someone would so why not.

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: Otto von Blotto

Time, space, distance, etc, are all scale and are all related to one another. Mess with one you mess with all at your peril.

Your post made me thinking. Happens rarely I know! Let us try to break scale into its components. I honestly feel the scale of the game is solid, it would be next to impossible to break it. But is it so?

What are the components that create scale?

ORIGINAL: MrRoadrunner

If you were to stay in the scale of the game you would, or could, have designed shorter turn length scenarios as a "series".

To me, stating that 28 hours equals 30 turns is farcical at best. It also displays a lack of understanding what scale means.
This kind of thought has been growing for a while. Each month someone validates the idea off the wrong thinking of someone months before.

The earth rotates, establishing night and day. You cannot slow down the rotation to make time slow down. Time will move on the same. The definition of a day will change. That's for sure.

"28 hours equals 30 turns", ie. Battle Duration

ORIGINAL: MrRoadrunner
Nor, can you just say that six minutes and 250 meters do not mean what they are.
Six minutes and 250 meters determine how far a gun can shoot and how far a unit can move. You can think that you are creating a one hour per turn scenario but you are not.

ie. Basic scale. Map, and units.

ORIGINAL: MrRoadrunner
The battle of San Jacinto, which was the end of the Texas Revolution, and facilitated the creation of the "country of Texas", through the capture of Santa Ana and his subsequent signing of their independence to gain his freedom, took three CS turns. I would not want to simulate the battle by using CS game scale. Not many players want a three turn game?

Some events cannot be simulated using the same scale. It is probably why there is Squad Battles, CS, and OpC series games that cover different scales?

ie. Scenario Design

ORIGINAL: MrRoadrunner

And, there are "devotees of the games" who want to design CS level sized scenarios in SB and those who want to make OpC sized battles in CS scale.

ie. Scenario Size

ORIGINAL: MrRoadrunner

I've heard this argument and the faulty reasoning behind it ... for years. Sadly, some of it has become embedded in CS by hasty actions that were not well thought out.
Not saying that you are doing anything hasty, or not well thought out. I just think that you should not change the game's scale to create something that should not be within the scale of the game.

Believe me. If someone wants to create D-Day June 44 in the scale of the game I say go for it. It matters not how many units are on how large a map. Just do not tell me to play a forty or four hundred turn game that recreates the entire day or more. (Yes, night and day would help, but what's the point?)

ie. Conclusions

ORIGINAL: MrRoadrunner

Just sayin'!

Certainly Ed. And I am just posting my observations

So let us proceed:

Basic scale. Map, and units.

Each scenario is played on a unique map with five "view modes." Most scenario maps are based on historically-accurate 1940-era 1:50,000 scale maps actually used by Axis and Allied commanders during the war. Combat is performed on a "hex grid" map that has defined wargaming for over three decades. Each "hex" represents 250 meters; with 4 hexes to a kilometer or 6 hexes to a mile. Turns are equivalent to approximately 6 minutes of real time.

Now we all know this. This is the classic scale of the game, the same my beloved Panzeblitz and Panzer Leader board games used for an example. It is really difficult to break things within these parameters, the proof of this is all the hundreds and hundreds of scenarios that are out there, that all feel "right" in themselves.

For a scenario designer to be out of scale, the option to do so is to design maps that are of wrong scale. One hex is 125 meters? One hex is 1 kilometer? But that is not an issue, no one is doing that.

Units are modeled per their capabilities within a turn, nothing a scenario designer can do there to make things wrong. Given their chance, the units will only do what they are capable of. From the beginning there has been abstractions for actions that would take longer than one turn, like creating an Improved Position. A dice roll is introduced to make the action take a longer time then.

All in all, we are in good hands here.

Scenario Size

In the beginning the scenarios represented Bn and Regt sized battles. The computers of the time could perhaps not handle larger scenarios, the displays were small. Over time your typical home PC has become a super computer as far as JTCS is considered, and we have plenty of Division and Army Corps sized scenarios nowadays. They make great team games, and are very popular.

So no issues here.

Scenario Design

What battles to represent, then? I used Kuuterselkä as an example, a very decisive battle that at the time meant RKKA was able to break through the main defence line on a run. It is a rather large scenario, with elements of an Army Corps on one side and elements making up a Division on the other side. Everything said, given the amount of playtesting and suggestion I have received from a great number of experienced players, it has turned into a rather interesting scenario, that allows you to see if you can make it better than what was the historical result there.

Is it out of scale given the components we have discussed so far? Absolutely not.

However...

"28 hours equals 30 turns", ie. Battle Duration

I guess this is the main observation I have made over the time. The arguments have often been semantic rather than what we see with the scenarios. With Kuuterselkä, my observation was that recreating the battle that had many quiet phases takes about 30 - 35 turns. How is that?

The units, modeled within the scale, never tire. They keep doing what they do, from one turn to the next. Given this is a computer game, all the platoons know the overall situation perfectly, and they add to the overall situation exaclty as wished for. This needs to be taken into account, and that was the observation I tried to point out with my previous post.

Let us use another example. Let us say you want to recreate a scenario where Easy Company performed a heroic foot march to relieve St Lo, over a distance of 90 kms.

You draw the map with the right scale, where the distance from point A to point B (St Lo) is 360 hexes. with a paved road. Rather a long map, but certainly doable. Then you calculate the unit capabilites. A Parachute Infantry Platoon can cover 4 hexes of paved road in a normal manner, and 5 hexes with double speed. Given the Easy Company historically marched 30 kms per day, you need to allow for three days of action. One click per turn, one day would be 30 turns. Then, you would expect three days of action is represented by 90 turns, in this case. You set your victory hexes accordingly, so that the Major Loss - Major Win targets can be set to reflect whether the unit made it to St Lo or not.

This is the nature of the game. This would be the correct design for that particular battle. The units never tire. Allowing 720 turns for three days would be just plain silly.
And this is what I meant that semantics are the confusion here. My Easy Company Scenario does not equal that 24hrs/30 turns = one turn is 0.8hrs. It just means that to correctly simulate the battle, recreating one day of battle would require 30 active turns for the units in the map to do their stuff.

Here is the confusion.

Conclusion

The scale never breaks down. It is what it is. A scenario designer can do next to nothing to break it. [:)]

[Crossroads]

Hmm. Gave this some more thought. I will try to conclude again.

First, let us try to define scale. In my first attempt, scale consists of

1) Scale Basis. 250m / six minutes / platoons

2) Scenario Size. Bn, Regt, Bde, Div, Corps size and so forth.

3) Scenario Design, or, Scenario Basis. How to select the battle, or part(s) of one, to model in a scenario. Can a battle be just one scenario, or is it rather a series of scenarios. What are the victory levels, how are they put into game. Etc.

4) Battle Duration. How many turns should a battle consist of to model the historical elements and to give some time buffer and alternative tactical options to player.

Am I missing anything here?

Then, let us see where the difference in views lies within.

Scale Basis? I think we all agree what the Scale Basis for JTCS is.

Scenario Size? There are preferences. Some prefer larger battles, some smaller ones. But there are no issues as such with scenario size, right?

Scenario Design? Would be a bit off topic, apart from the fact that the designer must adhere to scale. See what I did there? With a good intention, I might add!

Huib, who has over 50 scenario designs under his belt, put a series of scenario design documents together years ago. You can view them HERE. Mandatory reading for any scenario designer, points raised there should be at least considered.

Interestingly, none of the documentation touches the last item on the list, of Battle Duration.

I think Battle Duration truly is the core of the issue we are discussing here.

Consider this:

Q1: How many JTCS turns would be needed to represent a battle that lasted for 24 hrs?
(a) 240 turns
(b) It depends, and you need to find out.

Then, consider this:

A infantry unit can cover one kilometer of paved road on foot per turn. Tirelessly, from one turn to next. In 10 turns, they cover 10 kilometers, in 20 turns they cover 20 kilometers, and in 50 turns they cover 50 kilometers. In 240 turns, they would cover 240 kilometers, on foot.

Thus, should 240 turns always equal 24 hrs of real time, we conclude infantry easily marches 240 kms a day. More, when using double speed every other turn.

Realising this,

Q2: Is there something intermittently wrong with JTCS engine as such?
Q3: Or, is the Foot Infantry Platoon put together with wrong data values?
Q4: Or, is this rather just something that a Scenario Designer would need to take into account when designing a scenario?
Q5: If so, how? What would be your advice?

Here's my quick answers:

A1: You need to find out.
A2: No.
A3: No.
A4: Yes.
A5: Study the battle. Draw a plan. Experiment, playtest. Observe, ask for observations, then take them into your design. Playtest. Rinse and repeat.

Looking forward for hearing everyones thoughts on the issue [:)]



Edit: typos.

[Hoplite1963]

To do the whole of Dien Vien Phu we would need to be able to run to 57 days and nights. Its worth noting for scenario design purposes that included in the HPS Squad Battles Dien Bien Phu game is a map of the entire valley at a 40 meters to the hex scale. There is also a similar map for Na Sam. I also see from elsewhere in the Matrix form that "On Target Simulaitons" are going to use the same 250 metres to the hex scale as the "Modern Wars" series for their next game which will also cover the Vietnam War.

Looks like 2104 will be a good year tor re read "The Last Valley".

[Crossroads]

Go for it Ian!

The map should not be an issue with 250m hex scale. The length of the scenario, reinforcements, all that? Now the engine can handle it, if the scenario designer only has the persistence to model it all [8D]

Then, how to test such a monster? With the new automated test feature perhaps: Coder Diary #11

[berto]

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

Then, how to test such a monster? With the new automated test feature perhaps: Coder Diary #11

Hey, I hadn't thought of that!

Indeed, the ability to have the A/I auto-play a scenario from beginning to end will be a great help to scenario designers.

Of course, the game play will be somewhat wacko, it being the A/I directing both side's play after all. Still, it will reveal things, like: will each side kill off the other half-way through the allotted time? Will one side or the other typically, without exception win victory by turn 50 of a designated 150 turn scenario? Or conversely, will A/I auto play reveal that a scenario's turn count is way too short? And so on.

[kool_kat]

ORIGINAL: berto
Obviously, in the Campaign Series, time is an elastic concept, and "turns are equivalent to approximately 6 minutes of real time" is not the Gospel Truth. No, not at all.

Gents: [8D]

"Each hex represents 250 meters; with four hexes to a kilometer or 6.5 hexes to a mile. Turns are the equivalent to approximately 6 minutes of real time." - p. 2 (East Front II user manual)

All of the Talonsoft / JTCS games (EF2, WF, RS) were developed using this scale. Units' movement and combat ranges were based on this scale. Terrain features were based on this scale.

Now, when a developer makes a statement that "time is elastic" - what happens to scale? [&:]

Example: I decide, that instead of turns being approximately 6 minutes, I want to make each turn = 24 hours. Great! I make that declaration and develop a 15 turn scenario. Now I have a 15 day scenario... but there is a "slight" problem. The units still have the same movement allowance and range as when the scale = 6 minutes of real time. Should not the units' movement range be greatly increased in a scenario that features "elastic" time and each turn = 24 hours? Obviously, units should be able to move farther in a 24 hour period than in a 6 minute period. Unless, in addition to when the elastic time declaration is made, the hex scale (250 meters) is changed too? Gets kind of "messy" when you throw out scale - does it not? [;)]

Finally, the rational given to introduce elastic time because ALL JTCS stock and custom scenarios do not adhere to a strict "6 minutes of real time," is simply wrong. I can rationalize a scenario depicting a "portion" of a longer battle much better than making an arbitrary declaration that in "scenario ABC time = 24 hours per turn", but in "scenario DEF time = 6 minutes per turn."

One other note: another company associated with Matrix is developing a WW2 Pacific game. They recently revealed screen shots that showed individual capital ships firing at targets, land units, and terrain with a projected release date in 1H2014. I asked on their forum, what was the game scale. One of the developers replied that they have not decided on a game scale yet!!!!! [X(] How does a game company get to that stage in the development of a game and NOT have made a decision on scale? Should that not be one of the first considerations in the concept?

Please, please, please. Just because you can try to force fit elastic time into a scenario design, does not make it right for the depicted scale.

[Crossroads]

Cheers Mike [:)]

ORIGINAL: mwest
Example: I decide, that instead of turns being approximately 6 minutes, I want to make each turn = 24 hours. Great! I make that declaration and develop a 15 turn scenario. Now I have a 15 day scenario...

[:D]

Guns do not kill people. People do.

But I am sure you would not attempt such a scenario.

ORIGINAL: mwest
Please, please, please. Just because you can try to force fit elastic time into a scenario design, does not make it right for the depicted scale.

I don't think there is anything in the new code that changes the scale at all. If there is, I am sure Berto will reply. The scale is what it is, and what it has been since the beginning.

Out of the things that make scale, two stand out as the usual suspects:

First, New Units. Does the new unit fit the Scale Basis? Lots of examples of discussions of this, where no punches are saved. But that is not what you are worrying here are you.

Then, Battle Duration. Semantics, mostly. This what you meant? The Scale Basis is what it ever has been. The units perform their stuff every turn just as they are designed, as they ever did.

As a scenario designer yourself, wanna help out the new ones and answer my Five Questions?

[Crossroads]

On another note, related to OP, I started a new DAR with 1.05beta, to showcase the new dynamic day / night visibility. Scenario introduction done, the battle itself won't start until after Xmas though.

[Jason Petho]

ORIGINAL: mwest

ORIGINAL: berto
Obviously, in the Campaign Series, time is an elastic concept, and "turns are equivalent to approximately 6 minutes of real time" is not the Gospel Truth. No, not at all.

Gents: [8D]

"Each hex represents 250 meters; with four hexes to a kilometer or 6.5 hexes to a mile. Turns are the equivalent to approximately 6 minutes of real time." - p. 2 (East Front II user manual)

All of the Talonsoft / JTCS games (EF2, WF, RS) were developed using this scale. Units' movement and combat ranges were based on this scale. Terrain features were based on this scale.

Now, when a developer makes a statement that "time is elastic" - what happens to scale? [&:]

Yes, all scenarios were developed using the scale for the map, but even Talonsoft used an elastic time scale, where even their scenarios use approximately as an extremely loose terms.

For example:

Using the top five most played, Talonsoft scenarios, I thought it might be interesting to see how the original Talonsoft designers used the time scale within their scenarios.

Tank Graveyard at Minsk by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 18 = 108 minutes
Actual Battle length: ~10 hours (being generous as it lasted nearly 2 days) = 600 minutes
Designer modified time scale: 33.3 minutes per turn

Giants on the Vistula by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 20 = 120 minutes
Actual Battle length: 9 hours (being generous as it lasted nearly 36 hours) = 540 minutes
Designer modified time scale: 27 minutes per turn

Rest Steel at Fedorovka by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 14 = 84 minutes
Actual Battle length: ~11 hours (being generous as it lasted nearly 3 days) = 660 minutes
Designer modified time scale: ~47 minutes per turn

Storm 5-5-5 by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 12 = 72 minutes
Actual Battle length: ~4 hours = 240 minutes
Designer modified time scale: 20 minutes per turn

The Battle is Joined by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 20 = 120 minutes
Actual Battle length: ~8 hours (being generous as it lasted nearly 16 hours) = 480 minutes
Designer modified time scale: 24 minutes per turn

These portray only the time frame that is given by the description, order of battle and the objectives available in the scenario, I'm not including the entire battle from start to end - just the relevent time that the designer chose to represent.

Can I find scenarios that use strictly 6 minutes per turn to portray the battle? You bet.

I can find more that do not - especially from the original designers at Talonsoft.

Jason Petho

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: Jason Petho

Designer modified time scale: 33.3 minutes per turn

Actually, this is exactly what I meant with semantics in my previous posts [;)]

With the risk of being accused of Poisoning The Well tactics, I would say the counter argument for this would be: No, scale is not 33.3 minutes per turn, but 6 minutes per turn. That's what it says in the manual.

Semantics.

This is why I struggled to define a terminology for this. Battle Duration [&:]

How about: Active Turns ie. how many active turns (that follow the Scale Basis) would it take to model this-and-that battle?

One thing that is for sure is that the larger the scenario the sooner things start to go out of whack in regards to actual history.

The real units just didn't have the exact situation awareness, the absolute obedieness and courage, the endurance and the fire power to put in these turn-in-turn-out performances that they do in the fine battle fields of JTCS.

Or that at least is my observation so far.

[Crossroads]

Scale Wars. Been here since 1977, when Episode IV, A New Hope came out.

We've all seen them, enjoyed them, and, perhaps now, are just about to start becoming bored with them. I mean, The Dark Side must be strong in Them.

Scale Wars. I think I can finally put my finger as what the issue is. It all boils down to this:

How Would You Know?

First, let us revisit 1977. The year we all thought Princess Leia is a hottie (well I thought so at least [X(] ).

Panzer Leader 1940 Situation 22: Chehery - Guderian Attacked.

Available for WF here: LINK.

May 14, 1940. The French 213th Infantry Regiment and the 7th Independent Armored Battalion attack the 1st Panzer Division's bridgehead across the Meuse river

15 turns. Meaning: 90 minutes? How Would You Know?

All I can tell is that it's a classic PL Battalion sized situation, with a French Infantry Bn + Tank Platoon attacking Two Coys worth of German infantry supported by a Tank Coy.

But is it 90 minutes, strictly speaking. Perhaps? We will never know. But given the size and duration of the scenario, if the Panzer Leader scenario designer indeed intended it to be a 90 minute snapshot then JTCS (and Panzer Leader) does a pretty good recreation of the battle.

Many of the original Talonsoft scenarios are this size, and since they never told us whether the scenarios were exact snippets from a certain battle, or representing events that happened during the battle, or even: a long battle as a whole, it is difficult to tell. How Would You Know?

The thing is that my scenarios tend to be not Battalion sized but Division sized scenarios.

Let us revisit Kuuterselkä: one Axis Division vs a couple of Allied Divisions. Tanks, Arty, Air attacks. Now, if I wouldn't have happened to spill the beans and revealed that the scenario represents events of a 28 hour period in 30 turns, Would You Know?

Lots of experienced JTCS veterans have chipped in in its design, and now it flows really nicely, attacks and counter-attacks come and go. Seriously: Would You Know?

But I can reveal, it absolutely does not represent a sequence where 30 turns = three hours. Absolutely not. Nor do any of my large designs. Things do go out of whack really soon with larger scenarios. If I'd attempt to remodel an actual timeline into a scale where sequential-turns-equals-actual time, the results would be just plain silly.

Which lead me to often think: How can anyone say 20 turns is two hours, when it so obviously is not?

But. How Would You Know.

Well I do. For my scenarios. For most parts I do know where each battalion was at each period of time, what they were doing, how things were panning out, what where they thinking, what where they expecting, what were they waiting for. And the turn-based JTCS does not remodel this at all. That is why there was a need to come out with a new language. Battle Duration. Active Turns. As time does become elastic from 10-turns-equals-one-hour point of view.

Therefore, if you do prefer to only play sequential-turns-equals-real-time scenarios, I have bad news for you. Somewhere, with Regiment sized scenarios perhaps, sequential turns stop to represent real time. And quite from the beginning. That is how it is.

Of course, if you view scenarios in a manner that there is no direct correlation - as I do - well I need to realise there's a lot of scenarios out there that do a really good job at representing real time instead. Smaller ones. But equally fun ones.

Scale Wars. When sides view JTCS from their own context, they often are right - within that context. But if either side tries to insist their view is The Universal Truth well it isn't.

Luckily, if you can put your personal preferences of Battle Duration aside, you can probably still enjoy most scenarios. Because: How Would You Know.

With this olive leaf, I go off-line for a week (apart my iPhone) and wish everyone a Very Merry Chrismas Period!