TOAW IV features

[Curtis Lemay]

I’ll now try to encapsulate TOAW IV’s new features, without going into too much detail.

I. There are a number of new naval warfare features. If you’ve seen my AARs on my Jutland 1916, Denmark Straits 1941, Pearl Harbor 1941, and Midway 1942 scenarios, you’ll have seen some hints about some of this.

• The modeling of ships has been improved. Instead of treating ships as a single piece of equipment, like a gun or a squad, they are now treated as complex systems that incur damage in combat. Only upon incurring 100 damage points will a ship be destroyed. Damage levels less than 100 affect a number of the ship’s strengths. Ships have new armor, durability, accuracy, speed, and agility parameters. These are either derived from strength and flag values, or explicitly set by the designer in a new naval equipment file. There is limited ability to repair damage at sea and significantly more in port.

• Embarked units no longer employ their own strengths in defense. Now those are fixed appropriate for a naval transport. Damage inflicted on embarked units destroys that weight of embarked equipment.

• Naval combat now evaluates attackers’ Anti-Naval strengths as individual shots/planes – employing their shell weights to determine armor penetration and resulting damage. This includes the chances of critical hits. Damage incurred is shown in the Combat Report and Unit Report.

• Sea Interdiction can now be employed by aircraft, ships, and coastal guns. There is a new Sea Interdiction mission for air units to do so. Ship and coastal guns do so automatically. Ships subjected to sea interdiction fire counterbattery back (or, in the case of carriers, counterstrikes).

• Group movement of naval units causes them to defend together if interdicted – forming an “ad hoc” task force.

• Ships and embarked units are subject to Sea Spotting, in addition to normal recon methods. There is surface spotting done by naval units at sea and land units on coastal hexes. And there is air spotting by air units set to Sea Interdiction or Air Superiority. Most such spotting is dynamic – like a land unit entering a peak hex. Presence of radar is modeled via the All Weather flag.

• Ships skirting the coastline no longer reveal land units along the coast.

• Naval targeting is modeled so that ships in a target hex are prioritized for attack by value.

• There is a Port Attack option to allow ships in port to be focused on.


II. Supply has received a few enhancements.

• There is now an intermediate supply state that falls between “Supplied” and “Unsupplied”. It’s called “Overextended”. If you’ve seen my AARs on my Soviet Union 1941 Motorized Variant or Soviet Union 1941 Early Variant you will have seen some hints about this. Basically, the designer can set a new game parameter called the Overextended Supply Threshold. That is the location supply value below which locations are overextended. Units in such hexes will function somewhat between how supplied and unsupplied units function. The result will be that it will be much more difficult for units to press on at red-lined unit conditions from such locations.

• Motorized unit movement over improved roads can be set by the designer to be less than one MP per improved road hex (for example, ½ MP per hex). If optioned, this affects supply in that supply lines traced over improved roads will extend proportionately further than over other terrain, like regular roads. Note how this would especially affect desert scenarios.

• The limit of 50% unit supply recovery per turn has been lifted.


III. There is a new Battlefield Time Stamp feature intended to address the hated “turn burn” issue. To recap, up to TOAW IV, after all combats were resolved the player-turn advanced to the combat round of the longest lasting combat. So a single long-lasting combat could burn up most or all of the player-turn. This was especially a problem for the larger scenarios because the more combats a phase resolved, the more likely one of them would suffer from being very long lasting. Beginners, especially, soured on this factor of the game. The new feature changes this as follow:

• Now, the player-turn advances to the median length combat round (instead of the longest).

• That will generally mean that about half the combats lasted longer than the round of the next phase. This is accounted for by placing a Battlefield Time Stamp (BTS) in those hexes. Each BTS has a value equal to its ending combat round.

• BTS are also created by overrunning units. In those cases their value is equal to the time stamp of the overrunning unit upon capturing the RBC hex. This fixes the time-machine effect of overruns.

• BTSs affect the cost to enter the BTS hex and the start of combats into the hex.

• BTSs are shown on the map by a dedicated graphic.

• BTSs expire and are removed when the player-turn’s combat round reaches their value.

• The BTS feature resolves the issue with late units that block defenders’ retreat paths.


IV. Other game features.

• Range Limits: Ranged units can have their nominal ranges player limited. This can be used to tailor bomber ranges to match fighter cover ranges or to make units with multiple range equipment operate within the range of the shortest-ranged equipment. The DBR will reflect the modified range.

• Deployment Recovery: Ranged units retain their deployment states after combat and ground assaulters can recover theirs if a planned combat is canceled.

• New Bridge Destruction Rules: There is an option to limit bridge hexes (for destruction purposes) to locations where the road feature graphically crosses the river feature.

• Combat Report Review. Combat reports are saved in the pbl/sal files for review by both players during their player turns.

• The new Combat Chart makes it clear how each combat consumed rounds. It is organized so that players can tell more easily which units participated and how long. And, if the player-turn ends after the combat phase there is a report that details why it ended.

• The designer will be able to preset Advanced Rules Options for his scenarios. The player will still be allowed to override his recommendations.

• Adoption of Matrix’s PBEM++ system.

• Mud drying is now optionally dependent upon temperature and turn length. This will finally allow accumulation of "mud seas". There is a designer option to vary the mud drying rate.

• Unit Dismount ability. This allows units to send their motorized transport to the pools - possibly converting them from motorized movement to foot movement - thereby allowing movement into dunes and badlands.

• Optional density penalties for unstacked units that violate the density limits.

• Steam version.


V. New Editor features.

• Various scenario parameter limits were increased:

 Event slots increased from 999 to 10,000
 Units per side increased from 2,000 to 10,000
 Formations per side increased from 400 to 1,000
 Map Boundaries increased from 300x300 to 700x700
 Number of placenames increased from 800 to 4,000
 Supply points per side increased from 99 to 399
 Objectives per track increased from 39 to 99
 Distant location limit increased from 199 to 254
 Supply Radius limit increased from 25 to 100
 Equipment list limit increased from 2018 to 5000
 Theater Option limit increased from 16 to 64
 Event radii increased from 20 to 99
 Helicopters work with dates earlier than 1955

• A unit can have an alternate icon. Primary and alternate icons combine their abilities.

• Scenario modified equipment files (including the new naval equipment file) are now saved with the scenario and save files. So, no more mismatching equipment files by players.

• Built-in Equipment Editor.

• Expanded hex-scales: 0.25km, 0.5km, 1km, 100km, 200km.

• Expanded time-scales: Whole-hour, Three-hour, Two-week, Whole-month, Seasonal, Annual.


VI. Interface Enhancements. A lot of these are still under development and what they will ultimately be is still sort of a moving target. But here are a few of the highlights either done or in progress:

• Dialogs now scale relative to font size. This allows users with huge screens to tailor the game to screen size.

• Dialogs now have scroll bars when appropriate.

• Some dialogs have sorting ability.

• There will be additional map zoom levels between the current ones.

• Control panel features will be hide-able – showing more of the map.

• Unit Panel can toggle to the Group Composition view.

• Enhanced PO Assist features to make it easier to use.

• Additional display options for the unit icon values other than the current AP and DF.

• Fonts settable within the game rather than the .ini file.

• More info on the Situation Report.

• Jump Map - shows the entire map at micromap scale - for quick map repositioning.

• Variable Initiative is now optional.

• Auto prefix detailing scenario size parameters now inserted automatically into the scenario briefing.



Other features may be added beyond these. It’s still a work in progress.

VII. New Map and Interface artwork. The graphics designer is Marc von Martial, a long-time Matrix veteran. He’s just getting started, but his sales pitch was very impressive. I’ll pass on showing any of those shots because first impressions are very important and, while those shots looked very good to me, they won’t be as good as his final versions.

[Freyr Oakenshield]

[&o]

[Lobster]

Thanks Bob [:)]

II Overextended sounds good for now. Have to wait several months for a final yea or nay. [;)]

III BTS is a welcome change. Sounds kind of what they use in Decisive Campaigns. A very welcome change.

• New Bridge Destruction Rules: There is an option to limit bridge hexes (for destruction purposes) to locations where the road feature graphically crosses the river feature.

This does not resolve the issue. Because rivers and roads both pass through the middle of the hex the graphics will show one crossing the other simply because they occupy the same hex, not because there is a bridge there. It would have been much better to create a bridge graphic and that is the only place a road can be blown. So, problem still exists but not as bad as before. Partial fix.

V Might not be enough place names. [:D]

No jump map. This is a huge pain for large to medium scenarios. Too much time spent scrolling, even with the mini map.

Badly need more counter colors. This has NEVER been addressed. Five rows per column is not enough. More columns are also needed.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Lobster

• New Bridge Destruction Rules: There is an option to limit bridge hexes (for destruction purposes) to locations where the road feature graphically crosses the river feature.

This does not resolve the issue. Because rivers and roads both pass through the middle of the hex the graphics will show one crossing the other simply because they occupy the same hex, not because there is a bridge there. It would have been much better to create a bridge graphic and that is the only place a road can be blown. So, problem still exists but not as bad as before. Partial fix.

I'm not sure what you mean. Rivers and roads don't always graphically appear to cross each other within the hex. Only those cases where they do will be treated as bridges under this option.

[Lobster]

These are 'brigdes' simply because of the limitations of the game graphics. In fact these roads run along the river and do not cross it but the game makes it look that way because both the river and the road occupy the same hex. A bridge graphic would solve any and all bridge issues.

Another thing about this, if a river and a road occupy the same hex river crossing costs are eliminated whether or not that road crosses the river simply because they occupy the same hex. This will never be fixed. I can hear it now, 'what do they want, realism or a game?" [:D]

I suppose you could place the road a hex off from the river but then it's up to 50km from where it should be. Not exactly a good thing eh?

If the place names were increased a bit more we could place our own bridge graphics with the bmp files. But since each bmp graphic is a place name, with the 4k count we might run into problems with a big map.

In any event, thanks for the update Bob.

[Falcon1]

I think it's cool that naval combat is being expanded.
This will certainly give the game a new feel.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Lobster

These are 'brigdes' simply because of the limitations of the game graphics. In fact these roads run along the river and do not cross it but the game makes it look that way because both the river and the road occupy the same hex.

You can solve that by hyphenating the river (that's the best I can describe it without a graphic - let me know if you can't figure it out). The game will work the same (unless you've got riverine forces) but will look a little funky.

A bridge graphic would solve any and all bridge issues.

Nope. It would only solve it for that tiny fraction of scenarios that can be expected to receive future designer revision. This feature affects existing scenarios.

Another thing about this, if a river and a road occupy the same hex river crossing costs are eliminated whether or not that road crosses the river simply because they occupy the same hex. This will never be fixed. I can hear it now, 'what do they want, realism or a game?" [:D]

I was working on a matrix for that, too. But I didn't want to overload Ralph.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Falcon1

I think it's cool that naval combat is being expanded.
This will certainly give the game a new feel.

Thanks. Although we've still got a way to go before we can pre-opt WitP.

[Meyer1]

Thanks for posting this. Really like the improvements of naval combat, looking forward to see how this "BTS" thing works, could be a step forward realism. Kinda disappointed about the supply, I was expecting more radical changes. Oh well.
Glad to hear that some panels could be hidden, allowing to see more map. Nice.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Meyer1

Kinda disappointed about the supply, I was expecting more radical changes. Oh well.

I try to ensure there's at least one supply enhancement per update.

[Meyer1]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay




I try to ensure there's at least one supply enhancement per update.

You mean TOAW IV future updates, or updates of TOAW IV information?

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Meyer1

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay




I try to ensure there's at least one supply enhancement per update.

You mean TOAW IV future updates, or updates of TOAW IV information?

The former.

[Meyer1]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay




The former.

Got it, thanks.

• Unit Panel can toggle to the Group Composition view.

I really hope that there will be more information in the unit panel in the main screen, regarding the number of men/equipment on hand, without the need to go to the dedicated unit screen. Many wargamens have this, shouldn't be very hard to do.

Edit: attaching screen of WITE's unit panel

[Freyr Oakenshield]

Are you going to implement supply/reinforcements prioritisation? For instance, I want Formation A to get more supply/reinforcements than Formation B...

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Meyer1

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay




The former.

Got it, thanks.

• Unit Panel can toggle to the Group Composition view.

I really hope that there will be more information in the unit panel in the main screen, regarding the number of men/equipment on hand, without the need to go to the dedicated unit screen. Many wargamens have this, shouldn't be very hard to do.

Edit: attaching screen of WITE's unit panel

Interesting. But you'll probably have to wait for that.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Freyr Oakenshield

Are you going to implement supply/reinforcements prioritisation? For instance, I want Formation A to get more supply/reinforcements than Formation B...

You can focus supply via the supply unit feature.

[josant]

Thanks for posting this, things like the new naval combat system, the increase of Equipment list limit, the increase of map boundaries limit, etc. are awesome. But I also would like to know if the land combat system has been improved, You can say something about the land combat system? Thanks.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: josant

Thanks for posting this, things like the new naval combat system, the increase of Equipment list limit, the increase of map boundaries limit, etc. are awesome. But I also would like to know if the land combat system has been improved, You can say something about the land combat system? Thanks.

There have been some bug fixes, such as that counterbattery now occurs after the battery that triggered it (instead of before). Also note the impact that deployment recovery will have on land combat: You can assign an artillery unit directly to an attack with no fear that it will be left in a non-support mode if your turn ends early. There's also the improvements to the combat report.

But most of the improvements to land combat were in the 3.4.1.9 update.

[Lobster]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

A bridge graphic would solve any and all bridge issues.

Nope. It would only solve it for that tiny fraction of scenarios that can be expected to receive future designer revision. This feature affects existing scenarios.

What I meant was something like the oil field or factory graphics that were added in 3.? that could be placed on any map. While it would be possible for a scenario designer to make their own there would still be the possibility of running up against the new 4k place name limit. I know this sounds like a lot but it's not really. There are a lot of things to be named and once you start adding factories, oil fields, bridges, etc., to the mix that 4k can vanish fast.

So, if we could get a small bump, say to 5k or 6k place names, it could only be good.

[LOK32MK]

"Sea Interdiction
Event slots increased from 999 to 10,000
Units per side increased from 2,000 to 10,000
Formations per side increased from 400 to 1,000
Map Boundaries increased from 300x300 to 700x700"...etc.

you know what this means...I will never leave my basement, my wife will leave me, and my kids will forget me.[:D]


Thank you Bob - the improvements sound just what TOAW needed.
[&o][&o][&o]