Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Empires in Arms is the computer version of Australian Design Group classic board game. Empires in Arms is a seven player game of grand strategy set during the Napoleonic period of 1805-1815. The unit scale is corps level with full diplomatic options

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Dancing Bear
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Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by Dancing Bear »

Hi all
In the thread on speeding up the PBEM game, Borner suggested combing the reinforcement and diplomacy phases into a single phase. The merits of Mr. Borner’s suggestion are discussed in the Speeding up the PBEM thread, but how would everyone feel about combining the economic and diplomacy phases? Basically instead of having a separate economic phase, we’d do our economics during the first month that follows an economic month.
This would be even better than simultaneous economic phase, as it actually eliminates a phase, rather than simply compress it. Since as players, we don’t learn anything until the end of everyone’s diplomacy phases anyways, I can’t see any disadvantage to combining the economic and diplomacy phases. The game would be set up so you could not skip a diplomacy phase when there are economics due. I also imagine that essentially eliminating the economic phase as a separate phase would speed up the AI game as well.
Any thoughts ladies and Gentlemen?
Grognot
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by Grognot »

There are troops that get placed in economic phases, and whose placement might reasonably affect the diplomacy phase.
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borner
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by borner »

No disrespect Grognot, but any reinforcements are placed in that phase, eco is just accoutning activities, creating free states, sending minors to other nations, ext.  Unless there is something I am missing?
Grognot
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by Grognot »

Feudal corps.
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DCWhitworth
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by DCWhitworth »

ORIGINAL: Grognot

Feudal corps.

Only in December I think
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Dancing Bear
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by Dancing Bear »

Feudal corps are effectively a concern of the Russian's and maybe the Austrian's only. We could get around the Feudal placement concern by making Turkey's dilpomacy phase before the Russiana and Austrian. In this game, the diplomacy order makes no difference (although it is best if France goes first, so they can combine land and diplomacy phases)
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Marshall Ellis
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by Marshall Ellis »

Hey guys:
 
The Eco phase is only run quarterly and the Reinf phase is every month??? Which gets changed?
 
Thank you

Marshall Ellis
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obsidiandrag
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by obsidiandrag »

Actually if you look real close at the game map (in EIA we always used to have to announce the builds after the econ phase) the ship builds should be on the map before reinforcement which may change a little with the England and France tactics for reinforcements.  I still think there should be something giving builds as an overview for manpower etc that you can go to a screen and have there to look at.  At least listing the ship build places so you don't have to scroll around and look for them.  Although I know for PBEM this would speed things up so I am not against it for that but think that might be better as an option rather than a done deal.  As for the change, I would suggest the option change the econ phase to take place durring the diplomacy every quarter and just not have that phase.
NeverMan
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by NeverMan »

I think that if you have simul Eco and simul Dip separately, the speedup is minimal compared to a combined simul Eco/Dip and the change in gameplay is quite different.

Personally, I'm all for IP (I can dream can't I?) but I don't think that combined simul Dip/Eco is necessary. In a 24 hour turnaround game you are only going to be saving a day real-time every 3 months game-time. Not really worth the headache IMO.
Dancing Bear
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by Dancing Bear »

ORIGINAL: NeverMan

I think that if you have simul Eco and simul Dip separately, the speedup is minimal compared to a combined simul Eco/Dip and the change in gameplay is quite different.

Personally, I'm all for IP (I can dream can't I?) but I don't think that combined simul Dip/Eco is necessary. In a 24 hour turnaround game you are only going to be saving a day real-time every 3 months game-time. Not really worth the headache IMO.

Neverman: I was thinking that if programming sim eco phase was too difficult, then a combined eco-dip phase might be an easier alternative.

Marshall: the reinforcement and eco phases would be seperate. The concern with troops in the eco phase, is the levy step.

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borner
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by borner »

IP is fine if you find 7 players close together. personally, every gam I have been in has players from the US, to Germany to Australia. How is IP going to help in that situation?
Grognot
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by Grognot »

True about the ships.  There's also the Cossack levy, potentially every economic phase, and the voluntary transfer of provinces and kingdom formation.

The ships and Cossacks don't seem particularly likely to me to influence an immediate war/peace/alliance decision (especially the Cossacks, considering that 'respawn dead Cossacks' is pretty much automatic when legal -- they don't even cost maintenance or supply, and there's no PP for automatic trivial combats), but quite a few might care about the Turkish corps (Prussia doesn't really, and France is most likely to know already if he really cares, but for instance Spain and Great Britain might be keen on learning whether feudal corps in North Africa are suddenly recalled to the homeland -- considering that Turkey would be at a severe disadvantage returning, should any untoward accidents happen to its fleet).  A newly founded Poland might also make for a tempting target.

Combining the phases when it's not December, and when there's no legal Poland formation (is any other kingdom likely to influence a decision?  It's the only one that can be bulk-conquered -- take and hold Warsaw), and the risk of resulting problems seems low.  I suppose the problem with checking Polish formation is that Poland is legal from the get-go, as Masovia + Posen enables it.


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Jimmer
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by Jimmer »

It's the changing of hands for provinces and minor countries that really would impact things by combining econ with diplo. Picture Prussia owning Poland and ceding it to Russia just before France can put troops into it. This might easily get France to immediately declare war on Russia (assuming he is handling Prussia acceptably at that point).
 
If you really want to speed up the game, put an enforced timer into the game. If 24 hours goes by and you haven't taken your turn, the host system automatically takes the turn for you. It would have to have an override for special circumstances, but this would go a long way towards speeding things up. In CleverDevils2, the biggest problem was with people who weren't on top of their email. And, we weren't very picky about enforcing the 24-hour limit.
 
Make it optional, of course.
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bresh
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by bresh »

Removed :)

I need to think more about this.

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Bresh
NeverMan
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by NeverMan »

ORIGINAL: Jimmer

It's the changing of hands for provinces and minor countries that really would impact things by combining econ with diplo. Picture Prussia owning Poland and ceding it to Russia just before France can put troops into it. This might easily get France to immediately declare war on Russia (assuming he is handling Prussia acceptably at that point).

If you really want to speed up the game, put an enforced timer into the game. If 24 hours goes by and you haven't taken your turn, the host system automatically takes the turn for you. It would have to have an override for special circumstances, but this would go a long way towards speeding things up. In CleverDevils2, the biggest problem was with people who weren't on top of their email. And, we weren't very picky about enforcing the 24-hour limit.

Make it optional, of course.

I don't really believe that this is needed, although it would take a big burden off of the host when time limits are strictly enforced.

IMO, there were bigger problems with CD2, most of which were bugs that took weeks to get resolved (several of them in fact).
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Jimmer
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by Jimmer »

ORIGINAL: NeverMan
I don't really believe that this is needed, although it would take a big burden off of the host when time limits are strictly enforced.
Yeah, it's really a way for the host to not be turned into the bad guy.

But, the override should exist. If all the players say "override", due to extenuating circumstances or whatever, then it can be delayed.

You're right that it won't save much time. But, it WOULD cut down on the biggest time-uses, by definition. Granted, it only knocks off the end of that time span, but, still, it would be something. And, it doesn't change the underlying game to do it.

One thing I forgot: The time increment should be variable. I'm using 24 hours because that's the most common number, but any number might be picked.
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NeverMan
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by NeverMan »

There are two things:

1. How is the comp (technically speaking) going to take the turn of the guy and upload the files, etc. If the host has to login anyways then it really doesn't save much time.

2. What if the player just forgets? He loses his turn because he just forgot? Call me a softy but I think that's a bit harsh.
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Jimmer
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by Jimmer »

He loses a PHASE if he forgets, not a turn.
 
There are two ways to do it that I can think of: First, one player (or host) "owns" the timer. This means that that player has to keep checking. This is the option you posed, with the further restriction that it be the host. This would be the easiest to code, most likely.
 
The other way would be that each player-phase would know when the 24 hour clock has expired, and move on to the next phase. The timer wouldn't actually expire until the next phasing player loads up all of the turn files. When he gets to player X (who is just before him), the game creates a turn file for player X and adds it to the mix for player Y's phase.
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bresh
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by bresh »

Hi, Jimmer i do  agree with Neverman.

I dont think its a good idea of forcing moves, the delay can have various reasonable reasons. Bugs, internetprovider. I know in 1 pbm game Googlegroup was acting up.

Then there is the difference in imporantance of nations.
Automatation is evil, what if host forgets he agreed to wait, what if the delay is because of battles and fileexchange, but he just forgot to remove the auto-skip ? You can ruin a game that way.
If the host is unavaible to help, you can easy loose players. And if the host is avaible, he could as easy run the skippings. What if it was host who had problems with his internet-provider.
Also i doubt the game can run any automation unless the game is actually running on a pc.

Regards
Bresh
NeverMan
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RE: Combined Economic and Diplomacy phases

Post by NeverMan »

ORIGINAL: Jimmer

He loses a PHASE if he forgets, not a turn.

There are two ways to do it that I can think of: First, one player (or host) "owns" the timer. This means that that player has to keep checking. This is the option you posed, with the further restriction that it be the host. This would be the easiest to code, most likely.

The other way would be that each player-phase would know when the 24 hour clock has expired, and move on to the next phase. The timer wouldn't actually expire until the next phasing player loads up all of the turn files. When he gets to player X (who is just before him), the game creates a turn file for player X and adds it to the mix for player Y's phase.

That is what I meant by "turn", sorry, I was using the term loosely.

so this "timer" has to be updated in real time?

1. If it's the host then it's basically the same thing as now with added compication.
2. This is going to be technically challenging for Marshall I think and I still don't really see the advantage.

EDIT: Bresh brings up some good points. What if it's a crucial land movement phase in a big war that will effect the rest of the game?
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