PBEM Tourney potential bug found

[Tigleth Pilisar]

Maybe this should be posted in the 1.07 beta topic, but it might get burried.

I don't think the calculation for Allied minors MPPs at the end of each turn where the UK has been eliminated is correct.

I'm being pasted as the Allies in the PBEM Tourney and the Axis has taken the UK. UK minor allied units in Portugal and Iraq survived. According to the patch, these minors are still supposed to have cash build for reinforcing, which is happening. However, they should be getting 30 MPP or so per turn based on the value of the resources owned, but the UK is still getting about 130 MPP per turn. UK (which is out of the game), built up over 500 MPP in 4 turns! I can't spend it, but in 10 or more turns, liberating the UK might be worth a couple thousand MPP!

I think this is a bug. It is probably not going to affect the Tourney or my current game, but maybe it should be looked at?

[JerseyJohn]

Tigleth

Agreed entirely.

It has nothing to do with either the scenario or your game or the tournament, it's an SC problem. On the happy occasions where I've been the Axis and conquered the UK I've seen that total build up without a purpose, like frozen assets. Even if you don't conquer the UK but take London and Edinburgh and block off everything but the city of Manchester Britain has a hard time making anything; I guess it would be limited to naval units at that single location and air fleets abroad, but I'm not even certain about that.

After Manchester falls it's just a dead total. Unless, as you say, the UK is liberated later on and has something like 4500 MPPs to play with!

[ June 18, 2003, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Hubert Cater]

Took a quick look at this and with Portugal, Canada and Iraq still in the war and the USSR giving full supply to Iraq the Allies should still be collecting 120 MPP's in the game which is about what you noticed. Let me know if the exact situation in your game is not as described here and I'll take another look.

Hubert

[Jollyguy]

Hubert;

What happens now is if England is knocked out of the war, but Canada survives, those Brit mpps build up but can't be accessed. Also, any Canadian units in Canada survive (I'm not sure what happens to Canadian units in England. I know US and Russian troops survive a surrender.)

If the Germans land in Canada, I believe they can get the mpps from the Canadian resource hexes, because the hexes turn grey. But if the Americans land in Canada, they do not get the mpps, and they do not turn green. In that case, the mpps just build up but can't be accessed by the US or Russians. If the Brits have Iraq when surrender occurs, I can't remember exactly what happens, but I think it turns grey. I know if the Russians subsequently occupy those resource hexes, they get the mpps, as I've done that a couple times.

Adding to the inconsistency, if the Americans (or Russians I presume) can get a unit to Ireland or Gibralter or Malta, they can get those mpps.

I've never played as the Allies and lost England while holding Portugal, but my guess is whoever lands there will get the points.

Canada is the real bug. It doesn't seem right that the Axis can get the mpps by landing there, but the US can't.

Bob

[jon_j_rambo]

Hubert --- Jollyguy is right when the UK falls thing. This has been mentioned before. If UK is fallen, any invaded minors (say Vichey France) can't be reinforced because they are the color of UK. And the cash is worthless. But on the otherhand, why should Russia get the cash?

Here's another interesting thing I found, but would need to test again.

If the Axis take just the "Port in Canada" but do NOT capture the capital of Canada, Axis subs still can raid. That's 40 MMP's/turn against a good wolfpack.

I'm not totally sure this is a defect because of definition of a defect, AND are those subs raiding the USA? Guess I need to to the rules & not trust what people say, unless it's Hubert, ZappSweden, or Terif.

Jolly, when are we going to play? I see your name on the testing credits, nice.

Rambo-Hollywood-Vegas

[ June 18, 2003, 11:53 PM: Message edited by: jon_j_rambo ]

[Jollyguy]

Rambo;

Due to my schedule, I'm 95% pbem now. TCP sessions are few and far between. I got two tcp sessions in for the pbem tourney, but that was the first time in weeks.

Would be nice in the future for SC 2 if pbem games could be downloaded from a Battlefront.com server, which would issue an impartial report on reloads, then pbem games could compete with z-league games.

Take her easy

Bob

[Tigleth Pilisar]

Hubert

In my game (custom PBEM tourney) Canada starts owned by the US. Iraq remained alive and Portugal remained alive because they had non-UK units on them at the time of the UK demise.

Iraq produces 30 MPPs per turn because Russia is activated. Portugal produces 5 MPPs per turn. So my expectation is 35 MPPs per turn, not 120. Perhaps I am calculating wrong in ignorance. I assume the number on the resource indicates how many MPPs are produced. This understanding might be wrong, and I appologize if it is naive.

[Terif]

Tigleth Pilisar:

The number on the ressources show their supply value. The mpps collected from them are the number multiplied with the value of the ressource. This is: normal cities 1, capitals 2, mines 2, oilfields 3...

Therefore Portugal produces 10 mpp/turn, Iraq 80mpp (connected to russian capital and liberated. If attacked by Allies its 8x8=64 mpp)

Canadian mpp still goes to UK and not to the US or so (Everything thats in UK colour collects for them).

So its correct, UK minors earn 80+10+30= 120 mpp/turn.

The only problem is, that these mpp are nearly useless. You can only use them to reinforce/operate/transport your remaining UK units, not to build new ones.

More worse, if you liberate England, then all saved mpp - and that can be a lot (mpps from liberated minor coutries like Norway/Sweden also go to UK): in my game against GoldenPanda where he conquered UK, the minors collected a total of some thousand mpps - are lost. The liberated UK starts with 0 mpp, no matter how much the minors collected before.

[ June 19, 2003, 05:54 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

[JerseyJohn]

Teriff

Thanks for mentioning the part about reconquering the UK; I'd always thought they went into the new UK total, but the fact they're just lost outright makes an enormous difference in how the Allied Strategy is decided. And Axis as well as it is no longer as viatal to hold London at all cost fearing 3 or 4,000 MPPs will suddenly turn into a Home Army that can't be disloged!

In a way it makes sense, that accumulated bulk couldn't in reality be transformed into instant land, air and even naval units, but losing it all outright that way is still a bit extreme!

[Hubert Cater]

Believe me it's not that I disagree, there was a request a while back that any minors should still be able to collect if they were in the game, like Canada if England falls, or Finland if Germany falls etc., so this is what I have done with v1.07. The ideas here do make sense but are just not viable within the current game engine... although definitly something to consider for future games

Hubert

[JerseyJohn]

Hubert

Thanks for that explanation, it makes a lot of this easier to understand.

It makes sense as a matter of having MPPs still produced but not being able to create new units with them! I don't know what a realistic answer would be unless the minors associated with a major power agreed to peace when the major power was knocked out of the war.

But that being the case, what would happen if the war continued with a different major still representing that side (USA continues even though UK and/or USSR is knocked out) and the former enemy declares war on the minor -- Germany declares war on Canada!

An alternative, to me, would be to reassign all the future assets of the UK to the United States if it were conquered. I think UK units in Gibraltar and Egypt, for example, would continue to fight even after a British Conquest, if the United States were in the war. It would be like the Free French but as Free English, with British and Free French units fighting under the US banner and former British territories being transferred to US control, along with their MPP production -- Free British and French would also, in effect, become US units.

However, I can understand where this may not be possible in the game engine and then the way it is now handled would be the only way to handle the post UK MPP situation. Yes, that was the long version of what you just said but I wanted to be sure I understood the situation.

I prefer the current resort to zero MPP method where accumulated MPPs vanish with liberation instead of being available for immediate use by the liberated UK Government. If the MPPs, possibly totaling a few thousand, were convertable by the liberated Government it would have to lead to absurd situations as stated earlier. A liberated country would start out at zero and be propped up by it's liberator, having to rearm itself from scratch, justifying the game method.

[ June 19, 2003, 01:00 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Tigleth Pilisar]

My appologies for my ignorance on MPPs. To repeat Terif's sentence "UK still gets all of Canada's production EVEN THOUGH ALL CANADIAN HEXES ARE US GREEN". You added Iraq's 80, Portugal's 10 and Canada's 30. If this is how it is supposed to work - then it is working. But to be honest, I can not understand how Canada can be green, and the US not get the production?? Again Canada is green because it is a custom scenario.

As far as getting MPPs when minors are alive but the major not, I think it makes sense. However, I think the max should be the full strength cost of remaining units.

Since minors can not add units with MPPs, it does not make sense to keep accumulating it. Where is it stored? The idea was to ensure minors could reinforce, not to create a big bag of theoretic cash.

So make the rule UK minors can have a max of the sum of the total replacement cost of all units still alive on the board.

So if UK minors had 1 army and 1 corps left after UK was gone, have the max at 125(army)+ 62(corps). Any MPP above that is just lost. This assumes replacement is half the cost of building and of course, minors never get any tech advances to deal with so the values would always be the same. If all units were eliminated, the war chest would therefore be eliminated. Doesn't that make sense? Where else would all this production capability, resources and so on be stored?

Bottom line: I don't like that Canadian production counts for UK when US owns it (and it is green - not being able to turn it green in non-custom scenarios is different issue). I like that MPPs build for minors when the major is dead so that reinforcements can be done. I think a max on MPPs should be set for minors to make the number more meaningful and realistic.

[JerseyJohn]

Tigleth

I think the basic problem is that by coloring Canada Green you're making it part of the USA instead of tied in with the UK. I've never done this so I'm not sure how it affects things.

I've always understood MPPs = Military Production Points, though I've never seen an actual definition, so I'm not sure if this is the official view. To me these points would represent a combination of Gold, Manpower and Raw Materials that are then utilized by either cities or harbors for production.

You're making a good point about how such an entity can be stored without actually producing something!

I'd like to see Canada and Egypt both produce units after London and Manchester are captured: that would represent the Commonwealth fighting on. In order to do this, the MPPs they produce, along with Iraq, etc., would have to be transformable at their option and not in an unusable storage capacity. But from what I understand this is currently impossible as per the present game engine.

[Terif]

Tigleth Pilisar:

I just tested it: if Canada is assigned to USA in a scenario, then the 30 mpps go to USA and not to UK. So they earn 180+30 = 210 mpp.

Therefore if in your case UK minors collect 120+ mpp, then UK owns either additional ressources than Iraq and Portugal (80+10=90mpp) e.g. Egypt (30mpp). Or Canada wasnt assigned to USA in the scenario editor before the game started.

If you mean with PBEM tourney the ongoing tourney from Disorder/JJ (Z-plan scenario): there Canada belongs to UK and not to USA. In this scenario it is not possible for USA to receive the canadian mpp. If you mean another tourney, then UK probably owns other ressources too...

About making a max for mpps stored by UK minors:

I think this is not necessary. You cant use more than half of your existing units value from this poole anyway. Everything collected disappears when liberating UK. So a cap doesnt change anything, only a cosmetical change to make the numbers look nicer . This would make some work for the programmer(=Hubert), but wouldnt change the use of the mpps collected.

[ June 20, 2003, 07:04 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

[Tigleth Pilisar]

Terif

Incredibly clear!

Thank you for testing my situation and clarifying that Canada is part of the UK even though green in the PBEM tourney I am in. I also didn't know that upon liberation, all the UK minor cash was reset to zero.

There is therefore no bug, and I agree with your assessment on the uselessness of a max for UK minors (aside from cosmetic benefit which I agree is not worth it).

What do you think, however, of JJ's suggestion of allowing minors to both build and replace units?

It does seem unfair that I'm getting 120 UK Minor MPPs/turn and can not use them. Especially when Russians are defending Iraq but can't collect anything because it belongs to UK minors. Although you have pointed out the game is working right with respect to Canada sending UK minors their MPPs even though green, would it not make more sense to be able to send Canadian MPPs to the US if "commonwealth" units can not be created? Stated another way, would it be of benefit to allow either UK minors to build units or allow minors to transfer MPPs to allied majors (perhaps at a penalty)?

[KDG]

I think that when an allie moves to the capitol of a neutral, it should take over the MPP's from the eliminated country.

Thus in Tigleths example once England is eliminated, and Russia has moved onto the capitol of Iraq and the oil wells, it should get the MPP's for Iraq.

[Terif]

I agree with both of you.

When UK surrendered, the mpp from liberated countries should go to the nation that liberated them (USA or Russia).

So far the only possibility for them to receive some mpp from their conquests is: not to take the capital. Then the mpp from the ressources goes to USA/Russia. But this is only possible in Iraq ( and maybe Canada). If the capital stays Axis, Russia can collect 60 mpp from the oil. In Norway/Sweden this would be too dangerous. With the ports, Axis could move reinforcements in the cities and reconquer the nations.

Building new units with the UK minors mpp would be nice, but is not necessary. Originally there were no mpps collected after the fall of England. Hubert only changed this to make it possible to use the surviving units from UK. I guess this could be done easily.

To allow them to build units is perhaps more difficult and would need more time to program.

[ June 21, 2003, 06:23 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]