I've recently been thinking about a fairly complicated problem with factories in wargear, and I realized that one thing that would help is some sort of visual modeling language.   I've come up with my own version of this, but I'd love to hear suggestions for improvements, etc. What I'm showing below is WGMLv1.  I've also been watching TED talks lately, so I thought I'd structure this post kind of like that.  Without any further ado...

First thing we need to be able to do is show territories. Lots of times for these factory patterns you want to have factories that have a max of 1, so I made that a special case (it's a square/rectangle)  Territories with unlimited territories are circles/ovals, and an between you have to make a box with a 'hat', because those don't come up as often.  At some point Tom will hopefully enable per territory minimums, or abandon on/off by territory.  I haven't thought about how to show that yet.

Next we need to be able to show borders.  Here is an example of all the possible borders.  Pretty simple.

Factories are shown with "plus" or "minus" lines to indicate if they have a positive or negative affect on their target.  I guess I need someway to indicate the various types of factories.  Maybe default is assumed, and you put 'AutoCapture', etc. just below the factory line for other factories.

That's the basics, now I'll put some specific examples into further posts.

Here's an example of a simple cycle:

The territories take turns having possession. i.e. If B1 is owned by the player this turn, B2 will be owned next turn, then B3, and then back to B1.

are these auto capture? .. is the number of minus signs 1?  If so, how do they lose ownership if they are adding 10 every turn?

I assume you are talking about the cycle?  Yes, I think they would be AutoCapture.  Maybe that should be the default assumed factory type in these diagrams, since I think it is usually the most useful.

The +10 was only for the example on the factory page, because it explicitly said "10" along the factory line.  Since the cycle factory lines don't give a number it is assumed they are +/- 1.  Also, since the territories are squares, it implies they have a max of 1.

Also not shown is any sort of starting setup.  In the cycle example, exactly one of the territories should start owned by a player.  I'm not sure of the best way to show starting setup.   Maybe a colored number in the box?  The color could tell you which player & the # is the starting amount.

I think also it should be assumed that abandon is on, because most of the time that is required to make the various factories play well together.

Ozyman wrote:

per territory minimums, or abandon on/off by territory.  I haven't thought about how to show that yet.

square/rectangle with 'shorts' (a triangle hanging off the bottom). i say shorts cus diaper doesn't have any good connotation ;^P

Ozyman wrote:

Here's an example of a simple cycle:

<Example>

The territories take turns having possession. i.e. If B1 is owned by the player this turn, B2 will be owned next turn, then B3, and then back to B1.

What happens when another player steps in?

In the specific cycle case I gave, there are no other borders to the cycle territories, so their is no way for anyone to attack them, they just keep cycling forever.  Cram's Timezones map has something similar to this.  The conveyer belts on my lego factory battle map are a more direct example.

Ozyman wrote:

Here's an example of a simple cycle:

 

 

The territories take turns having possession. i.e. If B1 is owned by the player this turn, B2 will be owned next turn, then B3, and then back to B1.

In the case of this example the names of the factories are critical, right?   If B1 Turns itself off before it activates B2, you've got nothing going on.  So somewhere in your nomenclature you need to make accommodations for that.  ..or does it not matter because on the first pass, both actions are approved?

>or does it not matter because on the first pass, both actions are approved?

Yes this is the way to think about it.

Here are some ideas..

http://www.wargear.net/wiki/doku.php?id=designer_workshop:modeling_language

@Ozyman - I'm realizing that your squares are reserved for "bits." I suggested they should be placement enabled.  My first thought is that reserving squares for bits is limited.  ..and why are bits so important? Isn't it possible that a max of 2 may make a better bit somewhere down the line?  Territory Maximums are important, for sure -- but consider the future.. If I didn't know any better, I'd say territory minimums are pretty high on the designer feature list - probably in the top 3, but certainly in the top 5.

How about squares for bits and rectangles for everything larger..?

You could still have the hat/roof for "N."  Really, a hat with a 1 should be just fine.

M57 wrote:

http://www.wargear.net/wiki/doku.php?id=designer_workshop:modeling_language

I put up a few more ideas on the basic side of things (sans factories) at the bottom of the wiki.

M57.  I like a lot of your ideas.  No time to write more now, but I promise I am looking at it.  I was thinking maybe we should come up with a list of things we want to represent, and then we can decide how to do it.  Here's  a start:

Territories - abandon on/immediate/end turn, max units, capital, placement disabled

Continents - factory standard/autocapture/universal/etc., non-factory, +/- bonus.

borders - normal, attack, artillery, fortify, view

anything I missed?

Ozyman wrote:

M57.  I like a lot of your ideas.  No time to write more now, but I promise I am looking at it.  I was thinking maybe we should come up with a list of things we want to represent, and then we can decide how to do it.  Here's  a start:

I'm pretty sure I have put or alluded to solutions to all of the below with my suggestions.  

Territories - abandon on/immediate/end turn, max units, capital, placement disabled

Currently Abandon ON/Immediate/Endturn is a global setting and so not necessary for now - but these are all easily covered in the Lower Hat (as a territory minimum)   Just add a letter  to the "0"  (0/I, and 0/E).

Continents - factory standard/autocapture/universal/etc., non-factory, +/- bonus.

Check, including considerations for future features like Auto-Neutral.

borders - normal, attack, artillery, fortify, view

All border types and  +/- are pretty much covered.  I think I like "R" for Artillery because A can be confusing.

The only things that are missing are considerations for proposed features like RTFs, Token Territories and Unassigned Capitals.  But I can easily think the solutions for the last two because they are territory attributes. RTF is is trickier only because it can get messy, but even that shouldn't be too hard.

I just made a significant update to the modeling wiki page.

http://www.wargear.net/wiki/doku.php?id=designer_workshop:modeling_language

I can see where this could be useful when helping designers and collaborations are concerned..

Also references to the factory types could be included in the factory tutorials. 

Ok - Let's see if it works..   Here's a Wiki page for a simple timer..  Can someone take a crack at explaining what it does? (..on the Wiki, please)

Are there any flaws? ..suggestions?

M57 - what are you using to make your diagrams?  I did most of mine by hand in gimp, but yours look awesome.

I added a simple explanation to the wiki (I think I got it right), it could maybe use a detailed explanation also.

Ozyman wrote:

M57 - what are you using to make your diagrams?  I did most of mine by hand in gimp, but yours look awesome.

I'm using Acorn (Mac).  It's a pretty much a poor man's Photoshop/Illustrator; it has layers and lets you draw lines, squares, and circles, etc..  If I recall, paint.net can do all of that easily enough.  In fact, I had to hand draw the arrow tips.. I think paint.net includes them as an option.

Couple tricks:

• For drawing pure N/S E/W lines is to hold down the Shift key while drawing.  That's pretty universal across programs.
• Use Layers so you can copy/paste your "units/systems"

I added a simple explanation to the wiki (I think I got it right), it could maybe use a detailed explanation also.

Looks good - I'll leave the "Extra Credit" up for anyone that want's to have a go at it.

Should we use color to indicate player allocation?  Make Neutral Grey and have a standard Player Color order so you know which player has which territory.  Especially if we want to talk about team factories.