Operational Art of War 4 Why Cant I Move Units
Battleground TIMESTAMPS
by Bob Cross[/eye][/size]
Let�due south take a trip back in time to near 2002. TOAW exists, merely as �ACOW�. You�re a newbie just starting out with the game. If you perused the manual you might have seen these few items:
Individual battles are resolved in a series of tactical rounds. Each player turn is divided into ten tactical rounds, and individual battles begin on the round that most closely corresponds to the proportion of the attacking units� motility assart expended before the gainsay. �
Battles continue until all units of one side take broken off, but not beyond tactical round 10. �
Afterward combat, all of your units will have their remaining movement allowances adjusted to reflect the highest tactical round needed to resolve all attacks. �
Your turn will cease if either of the following weather apply:
� Y'all have launched no attacks.
� The mean remaining movement allowance of your entire force is as well small to allow for successful exploitation of your attacks.
� Your strength fails a proficiency bank check.
Simply, in a huge manual, those scattered tidbits can be missed, or their importance overlooked. You lot want to go started.
Y'all fire up the CFNA scenario and outset setting upwardly Centrality attacks. One assail involves a human foot unit that has moved quite a distance:
Note that the unit has expended 23 of its 28 MPs. The 5 remaining MPs amount to only xviii% of its original movement assart. And so this unit has a Time Stamp of 9 out of ten. This attack is going to cause your turn to cease. But, as a newbie, you�re unaware of this. Mayhap y'all go on to setup several more attacks. Then you execute your attacks. After they are all resolved, you get this screen:
Yous stare at information technology in disbelief. There were a potential ten gainsay phases, and you lot only got one. And annotation that in that location isn�t even a reason given for the early plow ending or even which combat was the issue. Yous are left to gape in wonder.
This is where newbies often got off the TOAW bandwagon. Merely, even if they didn�t, and hung around long enough to figure out the deal with using belatedly units in attacks, there was another way to get the early turn catastrophe that stymied even veteran players: Attack Complexity.
As the manual said, battles connected till 1 unabridged side broke off. So, really complex combats with lots of adamant units on both sides could last several rounds � fifty-fifty the entire histrion turn. And the bigger the scenario, the more such attacks each combat phase tended to accept. Huge scenarios were thus oftentimes harried past such combats, far more so than smaller, simpler scenarios � just because they had more combats. Obviously, this didn�t make whatsoever realistic sense, and tended to sour even veterans on the game. �Why should a battle in North Africa screw upward activity in the Ukraine� was the complaint. And they were right. Something had to be done.
Move forward to about 2007 and TOAW III. Two features were added: The �Circle of Stars� and MRPB.
The �Circumvolve of Stars� reflected both the current circular, and the max first round that had been setup in planned combats. So, if properly monitored, this feature could alert players to the presence of late units in attacks. Simply it did require that monitoring. Fail to notice and you could take the aforementioned result as in the first instance.
MRPB (Max Rounds per Boxing) could put a limit on individual battles lasting very many rounds. Simply, it required designer action before information technology could have any effect. And a value beneath iii induced some strange gainsay effects (non to mention removing most of the skill required to play the game). Since most existing scenarios won�t e'er come across designer action again, and a limit of three still can waste material ii rounds, this was still not platonic.
Finally move forward to 2017 and TOAW 4. New feature: Battlefield Timestamps.
Nether the Battlefield Timestamp system, subsequently all combats are resolved, the histrion-turn volition advance to the combat round of the MEDIAN length combat. In other words, if there were seven combats that lasted 1, ane, 2, 2, iii, 3, & vi rounds respectively and so the thespian plow would advance simply two rounds, instead of the six rounds of before. Note that this ways that three combats lasted longer than the round of the new gainsay phase. This will be accounted for by placing a TIME Postage stamp in those three hexes that will equal their bodily ending circular.
TIME Stamp definition: The fraction of the actor-turn, in tenths, that has been expended. This applies to the Player-Turn itself, to Units (the fraction of their MPs that they have expended), and at present to battlefield hexes.
Motility effects of Battleground Time Stamps: Any unit that enters a hex with a Battlefield Time Stamp will have its motion points reduced until its unit fourth dimension stamp is at least equal to that of the hex.
Combat furnishings of Battlefield Time Stamps: Combats planned for a hex with a Battleground Fourth dimension Stamp volition commencement on a combat circular as if the player-plough is the same as the hex�s time postage stamp. All units that participate in a combat that results in a Battlefield Fourth dimension Postage stamp have their fourth dimension stamps increased to the resulting time stamp of the battleground.
Combat creation of Battlefield Time Stamps: If a combat lasts longer than 1 round, information technology creates a Battleground Time Stamp equal to the last round that combat expended.
In addition, if a defender was prevented from retreating from a gainsay by non-participating enemy units and then the combat�s Battlefield Fourth dimension Stamp is the greater of the time stamps of the blocking units and the time postage stamp of the final round of the combat. So, if the gainsay ended on round five, but in that location was a blocking unit that prevented the defenders from retreating and information technology had a fourth dimension postage of seven, then the Battlefield Time Stamp would be prepare to vii (and all participating units would accept their fourth dimension stamps increased to seven). Annotation that this ends the time-machine effect of blocking units that the game had endured upward to this bespeak (This part of the feature is still under evolution).
RBC creation of Battlefield Fourth dimension Stamps: Whenever a defender is forced to retreat-before-combat (RBC, too referred to as Overrun) by a unit of measurement with a Time Stamp greater than the Player-Turn�due south Time Stamp, there is a Battlefield Fourth dimension Stamp created in the hex equal to the time postage of the overrunning unit of measurement. Notation that this ends the time-machine result of overrunning units.
Battlefield Fourth dimension Stamps are shown on the map by a dedicated graphic (meet below) and their upshot on movement is incorporated into the path characteristic and shown in the unit of measurement panel. Note that there is now an option to brandish the unit�s time stamp on its counter.
Later all combats are resolved and the combat phase has been advanced, all Battlefield Fourth dimension Stamps on the map that are either less than or equal to the new fourth dimension stamp of the histrion-plough are erased. So all Battleground Time Stamps are erased by the end of the player-turn.
Note that by advancing to the MEDIAN instead of the MINIMUM gainsay length the game retains a requirement for a level of skill in marshalling the player�s combats. Players still need to try to minimize the number of combats that concluding multiple rounds to get the best amount of combat exploitation. Merely now a single skid-up or bad break won�t ruin an entire player-plow.
Now let�s try it out in a game.
Here�s a shot showing several attacks fix upwards in Kaiserschlacht 1918 (note the six gold crossed swords). Simply notation the Unit Panel: Somewhere ane of the attacks has been prepare with a belatedly unit of measurement in the attack. We know this because the Current Circular is shown as 1, while the Progress Bar (replacement for the Circle of Stars) shows four rounds set to expire upon execution. Note that the unit in the Unit Panel has moved v of its 12 MPs. It is late.
This can as well be seen by the new Planned Combats dialog:
Equally shown, of the 7 battles (there�s a seventh boxing south of the start screen shot) six have no delay � they accept been planned without late units. Merely ane has not.
But, despite the clear alert, permit�s go ahead and execute the planned attacks.
This shot shows the results:
Note the Progress Bar has one round consumed, the Current Round is 2. So only 1 round expired on the map � except in one location. Notation the vi silvery crossed-swords showing where battles took place. Just one such location also has a bronze crossed-swords in it. That is the Battleground Timestamp (BTS) symbol.
Now wait at the new Combat Results dialog:
Notation that one combat consumed 5 rounds, while the other vi only consumed one round. Remember that under the previous organization, that would take meant that the actor turn would have advanced to circular 6, not round 2. The BTS system has saved 4 rounds. Simply the one hex that had the delayed combat in it has any adverse effects. This was because the median length combat of the 7 combats was ane round. (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5). In order to get this issue, near of the combats need to be conducted correctly. The BTS arrangement volition shield the histrion from a minority of slipups or bad breaks. It volition not shield him from a bulk of screw-ups. Furthermore, note that if you have the idea that you tin trick the BTS organization with a bunch of ane-round bombardments, know that the median formation only includes bombardments if no non-bombardments are involved.
Then, skill is still required. Complete boneheaded play volition still waste product rounds.
To illustrate this, this shot shows merely such a boneheaded play: Only one assault is set up � a bombardment with a very belatedly unit. (Notation the Progress Bar in the Unit of measurement Panel).
The set on is executed. As ane would expect, this consumes the remaining rounds in the role player turn. (There were no not-bombardments in this gainsay phase, and but one bombardment � making that bombardment the median). But, unlike dorsum in ACOW, there is now a message informing the thespian why his turn concluded early:
Had the reason been a Force Proficiency Failure, that would have been in the message instead (notation that Force Proficiency Failures are not changed by the BTS organisation � they are legitimate checks on force plans based upon how organized the forcefulness is). Then, at least the role player doesn�t take to wonder what when wrong. If in that location is any doubt, the Gainsay Results dialog should articulate them up:
Note that the bombardment consumed all remaining rounds.
There is even so the issue of BTS�s generated past RBC�s. While RBC�southward are non combat, and and then volition not result in early on plough endings, they do force enemy units out of the way of friendly forces. If the unit that forced the RBC had moved a long way to get there to practice the RBC, while the nearby units available to exploit the gap forced by the RBC are fresh and unmoved, y'all tin can see the time-machine effect the RBC tin can generate. That�s why such RBC�s now generate BTS�s.
Allow�due south meet this via an example:
A number of armored battalions take moved adjacent to an enemy position. Nearly came from just across the boundary line, expending only 3 MPs. Merely 1 (the top one) came from quite a bit farther. As shown, it has expended 11 MPs.
If we at present RBC the defender with that unit, this is the result:
Notation that there is now a BTS in the RBC�d hex. That BTS is equal to the Timestamp of the overrunning unit. Every bit a event, the exploiting units behind it volition have to pay an extra toll to enter the BTS hex � equal enough to raise the exploiting unit of measurement�s Timestamp to the same equally the BTS.
Let�s await at that cost:
Note that I continued the overrunning unit�s advance, generating another BTS, while evaporating the defender. But now one of the exploiting units is trying to follow its pb. Normally, the cost to enter an empty, unconverted sand hex would be 3 for a motorized unit. Merely hither it is eleven. That�s the cost to both enter the hex AND adjust the unit�s Timestamp to the BTS. Then, no advantage was attained by using a afar unit to effect the overrun while leaving the nearby exploiting units unmoved. The BTS organization has fixed the Time-machine effects of RBC�southward.
Only 1 more thing virtually RBC induced BTS�s: If you RBC a weak unit all over the map, you�ll now leave BTS�s all over the map as well. That can leave you with a barrier to exploitation. Information technology�due south more of import than before that such small units are corralled and eliminated, instead of engaging in such silly chases.
Happy Wargaming!
Original post: Here
Source: http://dogsofwarvu.com/forum/index.php?topic=4459.0
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