Edward Nygma wrote:

On a somewhat related note, has territory specific minimum units per board been added to the feature request list?  AKA partial-abandon?

Yes this is on the list.

Global minimum setting would trump territory defined minimum the sames as for maxes.

M57 wrote:

Re: My Unit Range request..

Unit range would necessarily be a Global Setting, but from there it makes sense to have individual territory modifiers. For instance, a +1 Move Count mod on a mountainous area would make moving into that territory cost an extra Move Count, effectively slowing down or even stopping (with a higher mod) the progress of those units by further limiting their range in that turn.

It could work one of two ways (or perhaps be toggle-able).

• You can move into the territory as long as the attacking territory has 1 MC remaining
• You can only move into that territory if you have the extra requisite MCs that the mod is set to.

This almost sounds like a different game engine - limiting moves is quite a fundamental change. Presumably the unit range would need to be shown alongside the unit count to make this usable? 

tom wrote:Presumably the unit range would need to be shown alongside the unit count to make this usable? 

Aye, just like limited attacks.

Yertle wrote:

tom wrote:Presumably the unit range would need to be shown alongside the unit count to make this usable? 

Aye, just like limited attacks.

Y made this point on a different thread. 

I had an alternative solution that involved a couple of ways for players to check the numbers.

1. Have the "Movement Remaining" count in the dialog box that comes up when you attack.   
2. Have the "Movement Remaining" count in the info box that you see when you hover over a territory.

There's no question that it would be nice to see it on the board, but it might look messy, and I don't see why it's that necessary.  Usually players make all of their attacks from a stack in sequence, moving from territory to territory,  then move on to the next stack.  That is, they "remember" who has moved and who hasn't.  This reasoning in concert with the two above suggestions should be enough IMO.

Here are some ideas I just though of while editing this post.

you could have a button that toggled between unit count and MR, but it would have to be real clear which was which.

you could have a button that opens a window with a complete list of territories and their current attributes (with player filters and who knows what other good stuff).

I disagree the paragraph about players remembering unit counts M, but I like the solutions you propose and I personally think they could potentially work for displaying the info.  I don't think they would get too messy until Return to Placement/Attack is Enabled, then if you would have different counts for different units in the same territory it would get tough.

*edit because you did :P*

Yertle wrote:

I disagree the last paragraph there M

You're probably right..  Hmmm.. This may explain why I'm not a top player 

Yertle wrote:

 I don't think they would get too messy until Return to Placement/Attack is Enabled, then if you would have different counts for different units in the same territory it would get tough.

My proposal deals with this issue.  It's simple and it's much more elegant than a system that attempts to keep track of individual unit movement counts.  To Summarize:  All units in a territory share the same Movement Count - the larger number trumps the smaller one.

Consider that Movement Count emulates the passage of time.  If you have armies that travelled 4 MCs to get to a destination territory and then you fortify to that territory from another territory with armies that were otherwise stationary for the turn, in theory, the fortifying units had to "wait" 4 MCs for those armies to get there.  So after the fortification, ALL units in the fortified territory have a MC of 5 (remember, +1 for the fortify).

I would think that from a programers point of view, the units do not have any Movement Counts; the territories do.

Gotchya...and I think that sounds simpler and makes sense!

Makes sense M57. I think there would need to be a visual clue when units can no longer move - perhaps the unit color fades slightly or something.

tom wrote:

Makes sense M57. I think there would need to be a visual clue when units can no longer move - perhaps the unit color fades slightly or something.

Or perhaps a little dot could appear like it does when you place SG orders.

Hmm, the dot could change shades of grey, getting darker until it's black when the MC is maxxed.

tom wrote:

This almost sounds like a different game engine - limiting moves is quite a fundamental change. 

Yes, I believe it's a game-changer.  It not only puts controls on blitzing (a much needed feature), but it also adds a more realistic element of time and timing, which is a step that goes towards emulating a sense of unit autonomy.  Along with features like "barren", its implementation is part of my evil master plan to create maps that emulate battle conditions more realistically, like ships flying around in empty space (Ahem.. cough.. GearFight!).  It will be a godsend for designers who constantly fight the need to incorporate the neutral wall into their maps.

But what I don't see is how it is such an engine-changer.  It seems to my non-programmer sensibilities that a few separate chunks of code are required, which..

• keep track of each territory's incrementally accumulated Movement Counts as units move into them.
• deny attack and fortification privileges as territories reach their global (or local) MC limits.
• reset counts at the end of each player's turn.

Of course, the default setting is unlimited so no existing maps should be affected by the code. 

M57 wrote: It will be a godsend for designers who constantly fight the need to incorporate the neutral wall into their maps.

I'm not sure it's a cure-all, I assume this would be a global rule for the board and therefore in one area it is fine for unlimited attacks but in another area (where the neutral wall would be) is the only place where limited attacks would be needed...in which I'm not sure this would really solve much.

I still think this should be far far down in the list.  There are a lot of designer options and many of them are very very untapped, meaning there's enough to keep designer's busy for a while already (especially with the recent Factory/Barren stuff).

Yertle wrote:

M57 wrote: It will be a godsend for designers who constantly fight the need to incorporate the neutral wall into their maps.

I'm not sure it's a cure-all, I assume this would be a global rule for the board and therefore in one area it is fine for unlimited attacks but in another area (where the neutral wall would be) is the only place where limited attacks would be needed...in which I'm not sure this would really solve much.

Yes, there would be a global setting, but from there individual territories would have separate overriding designer-set counts.

Individual territories are pre-assigned initial MC values that can be "off-set" from the global setting. Default is 0.

Example: With a Global setting of 7, an initial local Territory setting of 6 creates a territory (like a mountain range) that halts the movement of entering troops.

Same as above, but "Territory setting = 3" creates a territory (like a marsh or an ocean) that slows units down. 

It's about as close to a cure-all for the neutral wall as it gets.

My vote: High on the list.  Not to hard to implement (I think), and a pretty major game changer for designers that see its potential.

This does seem like a nice feature and with its implementation (along with factory/barren), I think we need to decide the role of the review process.  These features can be hard to read and we (I) do not want to see boards that are too complicated to understand when one is taking a turn.  That is, for these features there needs to be good descriptions and probably on-board text for complicated/hidden uses.

I am really thinking about things like mountain ranges stop forward progress upon entering and the like seem very complicated (no bad with good image cues), but these things can be twisted from their intended natural use.  (I will do my best to bend these rules and the factory/barren rules into new realms of game-play, I just need some time to implement the ideas I have.  Nygma will take these things new places as well and as I am sure that others will.)

*edit - The colored dot idea seems good to me to depict movement remaining (start white and then shade to black).

Here's a tweak to my colored dot idea.  Think of a red light at an intersection. The dot is YELLO/ORANGE, and it's percentage of transparency is..

100 * (1 - Local MC / Global Limit)

Once the number reaches  or goes below 0, a RED dot is displayed and further attacks are disallowed.

Using this formula, territories with a default MC of 0 start out with no dots; 100 * (1 - 0/GC) = 100% transparent (invisible).

Example:  Global MC = 5.  A default 0 territory has been moved into, the transparency of it's yellow dot becomes 100 - 1/5 = 80% (faintly visible)

The brightness of the warning dot will precisely reflect the amount of movement those units have used.  Of course, hovering over the territory will reveal the exact number of movements taken and/or remaining.

Come on, Y.  We all know how much you love the neutral wall.

My colored dot idea may need further tweaking because of the potential problem with player colors.  Alpha's white to black idea works against any colors (although it could get a little confusing against a white or black background).  Perhaps a multi colored dot that utilizes all of the above elements could be designed, like a white base with a black border, and the transparent traffic light is superimposed on top of the white part.

Alpha's comments regarding the review process are timely regardless of whether or not tom gets around to implementing this feature any time soon.   WG still doesn't have what I would consider to be "solid" guidelines for the for board members.  In the absence of these, I would think that it should understood and communicated that existing ad hoc standards need to be pre-emptively high. 

I didn't want to hijack, but only to suggest that the other discussion does seem linked.

I want it on a territory by territory basis.  I just want to have some territories that are abandon, and some that aren't.  Abandon is vital for some small features, but drastically changes gameplay on the rest of the map.  I really want to be able to have some territories with a minimum of 0, thus, abandon-able, while retaining the minimum of 1 unit per territory for the rest of the board.

Random suggestion with regards to Luck Stats.  How about compiling a players overall luck, so you can see how lucky a player has been over time, or on certain maps, etc.

kloponarock wrote:

Random suggestion with regards to Luck Stats.  How about compiling a players overall luck, so you can see how lucky a player has been over time, or on certain maps, etc.

This has been discussed.  The way luck stats currently work, the stat is less meaningful the more you play (Divide it by the number of rolls taken and it will approach 0).