Question for Players using TOE Other Counter

[Ormand]

I am working on things and have taken a look at the TOE feature where you can use another TOE to provide the numbering for the current TOE, so-called "Other Counter". This way, you can have formations that you want to "upgrade" to, say as new techs are researched, or to keep things ordered historically. Basically, if you select one TOE as the "Other Counter", when you assign the TOE to units without a TOE, the unit numbers will increment for units being assigned to TOEs with Other Counter set. For example, let's say you have 3 TOEs and 20 units and assign them alternately. You'll get units numbered 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. Currently, if you switched 1st to the same TOE as 2nd, it will give it the unit number name 21st. Which is not ideal, but I can fairly easily fix this so that it stays with unit label 1st.

The question comes with what to do when players change the settings, which you can do. For example, you have two TOEs that you have been using independently, but then decide to make the second one use the Counter for the first. At this point, you will have a mess since you have two unit types now linked but with previous units with identical labels. Things might work for new units, but I think that there could be a problem if the 2nd TOE has more units. I'd have to check. To some degree, this not a good thing for players to be doing, but they could. And I see this as more likely than making them the same, then making them independent, and then the same again, etc., You get my drift. Is this something that should be "fixed"? Should I check the counter names for the TOE being assigned to "Other Counter" and then fix them so that they don't collide? This would involve making a list of units with the first TOE (and, in principle, all TOEs currently set to Other Counter with this TOE) and then checking if there are any units with unit counters in the other list. If there are, then add them to the end of the list and increment the counter for the TOE that is providing the Counter # and change the counter name. In principle, this doesn't look too hard to do, but it would rename all your units. Which might be better than having units with the same unit numbers, and names.

BTW, if you are using text names, if you change the TOE, you likely have to change it as well. This could also be looked at. And, the counter # is still there and conflicting.

Of course, this is mainly addressing things not too likely, but one thing I have learned is that players will do whatever they can, I should try to anticipate and

[ernieschwitz]

For those more visually inclined... or who perhaps haven't used this neat little feature here is a rundown.

Here you have a unit TO&E as shown in the TO&E designer. I have named it Inf Div A.

TOE 1.jpg (161.74 KiB) Viewed 97 times

And here I have made a second TO&E model, for another type of Infantry division (SMGs in this one instead of Rifle). I am calling it type B.

TOE 2.jpg (165.09 KiB) Viewed 97 times

Notice the button I have outlined with the Red box. It is what Ormand is talking about. When hitting it you get up a dialogue.

TOE Dialogue.jpg (44.04 KiB) Viewed 97 times

In this Dialogue you get the option of choosing either "None" or the Type A division I also made. Selecting the Type A division will make it so that units of Type A, and B, get numbered by the same "counter".

As shown on this map, where I chose to have 2 Type A divisions, and 1 Type B division. I Applied the TO&E Model first to the two Type A divisions, and then to the Type B division. Notice how they are now numbered 1, 2, 3.. this is because they use the same counter.

TOE Picture.jpg (191.87 KiB) Viewed 97 times

This is neat, if you have several formation that are all of the Infantry type, and want them all to have different numbers.

What happens right now is that once a number has become used, it goes on to the next one. Should a unit with a number be destroyed, it will not use that number to make a new one, but instead the next one in line. This means should number 2 be destroyed in the above case, number 4 will be the next one created.This also happens when you apply to a TO&E unit that already has a TO&E model applied to it. So if I decide not to have number three to be a Type B, but want it to be a Type A, then it will get number 4.

What Ormand is asking is: Should this be changed, so that the number would be 3 instead.

This gives several headaches.

What happens if you decide to, after you've made a bunch of units using TO&E numbering of their own, and then suddenly decide to make them use a common counter. Do the ones that have a number already be renumbered, or what?

If you want to have this kind of extra detail in the feature, now is the time to write it down in this thread. If you don't probably nothing will be worked on, and other things will be addressed instead...

[Ormand]

To expound on ernieschwitz:

1) In addition to not reusing a removed unit #, if you convert a unit's TOE to one of the other TOEs using the same counter, it will not keep that unit's counter, and will add it to the end the list.

2) As ernieschwitz points out, if you remove a TOE from a unit or a unit gets destroyed, when you assign a new unit to the TOE, it won't reuse any of the no used numbers.

But, the main issues that can come have to do with:

1) you used TOEs while they are connected via Oher Counter and then decide to set one of the TOEs to use the other counter for the other TOE, things could look strange. And the counter for new units will be different. In fact, I have to check to make sure that the new counter is the maximum of the two, since they might have different counters.

2) you decide to delink the two TOEs then relink them, etc. Nothing stops you from doing this.

A question is if I should fix this when you select to make a TOE use the counter of another TOE.

Note that you can have several TOEs use the counter from the same TOE. A use along these lines would be with a Stone Age game where say you start with just rifle infantry. So, you create a first TOE and then as you research new techs, you create new ones, and then convert them over. This is where having the unit keep its counter number would be useful.