Battle Reporter

[Franciscus]

Well, finaly I scraped a few minutes to try the battle reporter, version 1.1 with 1.14 RC14. Wonderful job, Caccio . Works flawlessly, gives a detailed and compreensive report, organized by armies/divisions/units, exactly as you intended and stated.

...but I will never use it again !

Why ??, I hear you guys asking ?

Well, because that's not the kind of battle report that I like to read (and that I expect in future AGEOD games, BTW). You may call me superficial, but what I would like is "juicy" reports, preferably with lots of bells and whistles. I do not care a bit about "hits", and percentage to hit, etc. I want casualties suffered and, if possible, inflicted. I want flags decorated with engagements fought during the war. I want drama, even if a bit romanticized (eg: Lo Armistead was shot dead while leading a leading a gallant charge that was repulsed; AP Hills corps arrived on the battlefield at 5 PM and bravely attacked the Union left flank, etc.). I fully appreciate that to many of the players, knowing and studying the intricacies of how the various "dices" are rolled is wonderful. But I play to have pleasure and to distract myself from RL, and I want immersiveness, the much the better.

But, again, congratulations Caccio for your great effort

[Generalisimo]

Well, because that's not the kind of battle report that I like to read (and that I expect in future AGEOD games, BTW). You may call me superficial, but what I would like is "juicy" reports, preferably with lots of bells and whistles. I do not care a bit about "hits", and percentage to hit, etc. I want casualties suffered and, if possible, inflicted. I want flags decorated with engagements fought during the war. I want drama, even if a bit romanticized (eg: Lo Armistead was shot dead while leading a leading a gallant charge that was repulsed; AP Hills corps arrived on the battlefield at 5 PM and bravely attacked the Union left flank, etc.). I fully appreciate that to many of the players, knowing and studying the intricacies of how the various "dices" are rolled is wonderful. But I play to have pleasure and to distract myself from RL, and I want immersiveness, the much the better.

But, again, congratulations Caccio for your great effort

I see your point and I agree with you... really!
Having more information is great... but also having some kind of "romanticized flavour" is also need to present that information... even if you need to cut out some low level info (a dice roll? what's that? I am commanding my unit!! )
If not, it looks too much like a computer program and not like an "immersive" game.
The ideal world would be to have a balance between both things...

Of course, this doesn't mean anything about Caccio's tools... I was talking more from the "game designer" point of view.
This tool is great and very usefull for those people that love to see the fine grain numbers and want to control every detail.
So, thanks Caccio for your great work!

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Caccio]

I'm delighted that my utility prompted this debate. As Franciscus points out, the Battle Reporter appeals to a certain kind of player. I'm fascinated by the process that takes millions of numbers running around in a box and turns them into an illusion as convincing and immersive as AACW. For me the mechanics don't destroy the illusion, but add to my appreciation of it. Yet I can certainly understand why others feel differently.

Having said that, it's my intention (when I have the time to do it) to add an option to the BR that lets the player see only the unit summaries without the blow-by-blow detail. If you like, I can also give you the option to leave out any reference to probabilities in the summaries. What's left will still tell you more about the fate of your individual units than the game's battle screen, and that (I submit) is something that a real commander would want to know.

[Jim-NC]

I'm delighted that my utility prompted this debate. As Franciscus points out, the Battle Reporter appeals to a certain kind of player. I'm fascinated by the process that takes millions of numbers running around in a box and turns them into an illusion as convincing and immersive as AACW. For me the mechanics don't destroy the illusion, but add to my appreciation of it. Yet I can certainly understand why others feel differently.

Having said that, it's my intention (when I have the time to do it) to add an option to the BR that lets the player see only the unit summaries without the blow-by-blow detail. If you like, I can also give you the option to leave out any reference to probabilities in the summaries. What's left will still tell you more about the fate of your individual units than the game's battle screen, and that (I submit) is something that a real commander would want to know.

Yes that would be great. Then the story tellers among us could spin tales about how the units fought, and what happened to them (story telling is not my gift however).

[Franciscus]

Thr problem is casualties in terms of men, horses and guns mean absolutely nothing to the game engine. They are purely "flavor" numbers determined by multiplying a variable value defined in the model definition against the number of "hits" that the model actually contains, so the only true value ever actually used by the game engine is "hits"

Well, Gray, I am perfectly aware how the game engine "sees" unit strenghts and casualties. It is just that I do not care, specially while I am gaming. Of course men, horses, guns are just "flavour". So is all the GUI, map included. The game engine does not need general's pictures and correct names. It does not need fancy maps. It does not need accurate regiment names. But without all these "little" things AACW could well be played in an excel spreadsheet (and almost nobody would buy it:bonk .

I like "flavour". I particularly like AGEOD's "flavour", BTW , the more the better.

Forgive me but to further illustrate what kind of player I am, I will now risk maybe a permanent and life-time banishment from this and other strategy/wargamer forums... but I have to "get out of the closet":
- I do not like NATO symbols
- I always tend to choose the little childish graphics of men, tanks, etc and to not buy games where there are only NATO symbols
- I do not even know exactly what some (most) of the symbols represent
-... and I do not care

There. I said it. What a relief.

[Krec]

i have tried the BR and when i try and look at a battle it stpos working. i copy the battle text into the BR folder i have and i can select on which battle i want, but then the priograms stops, any tips?

ty Krec

[Krec]

Check that last post. I found out why it didnt work. I didnt click the Error Logging box in the game options menu. All is well , looks good , works great.

ty

Krec

[TheDoctorKing]

Really well done, Caccio, thank you for your hard work.

A couple of suggestions for future revisions if you're going to keep working on this:

It would be nice if the program could find the log file for itself. I installed it in the main AACW directory and spent a little time figuring out where the log file had to be and then moving the program there.

It is unclear to me (maybe just having difficulty following all the numbers) how morale changes from round to round. Maybe if the formatting just was changed a little to separate each round with an empty line from the one before.

Thanks again!

[Caccio]

Thanks, Dr.King, for your kind post and suggestions. I considered the log lookup issue several months ago while writing the BR, and concluded that it was too difficult to anticipate every possible search path given a player's freedom to store the BR and the logs whereever he likes. Now that my mind is fresher and I know a little more about the Windows OS, I'll revisit the question and see if I can offer more options than "you gotta put the BR in the same folder as the Battle Log". As for printing the rounds on separate lines (or at least offering an option to do so), I see no problem with that and I'll include it in v.1.2.

Showing how morale, or "cohesion", changes from round-to-round is a little tougher. I was surprised to learn that units lose a couple of cohesion points every time they fire or make an assault, while defending units lose cohesion only when they're hit or they launch a counter-assault. (I doubted the sense of this for awhile, but now I accept it as a way to show the cohesion drain from staying in combat, whether or not the unit takes casualties.) I suppose I could show this for every shot, but it would make an already too-dense report even longer, and I'd have to figure out some way to distinguish cohesion losses from firing (which affect the shooter) from cohesion losses inflicted on the target.

[Pdubya64]

Well, Gray, I am perfectly aware how the game engine "sees" unit strenghts and casualties. It is just that I do not care, specially while I am gaming. Of course men, horses, guns are just "flavour". So is all the GUI, map included. The game engine does not need general's pictures and correct names. It does not need fancy maps. It does not need accurate regiment names. But without all these "little" things AACW could well be played in an excel spreadsheet (and almost nobody would buy it:bonk .

I like "flavour". I particularly like AGEOD's "flavour", BTW , the more the better.

Forgive me but to further illustrate what kind of player I am, I will now risk maybe a permanent and life-time banishment from this and other strategy/wargamer forums... but I have to "get out of the closet":
- I do not like NATO symbols
- I always tend to choose the little childish graphics of men, tanks, etc and to not buy games where there are only NATO symbols
- I do not even know exactly what some (most) of the symbols represent
-... and I do not care

There. I said it. What a relief.

Gentlemen, I believe we have a "romantic" in our midst!
Careful! There may be more of them about...

[Big Muddy]

Hi Caccio, I finally got around to applying the Battle Reporter . Would it be possible to have the Battle Reporter display an on going battle in the message box. I realize that the info would be moving fast, but once the battle is over the player can view the results at his leisure.

Since you were able to accomplish this, I think an even better idea would be to make a Supply Reporter. You could show the push and pull results from cities, rail & shipping.

I don't know if either one would be possible, it's just something I thought of viewing the Battle Reporter, again great job. I'll be expecting the Supply Reporter real soon now .

[Caccio]

Hi Big Muddy:
First I apologize for my tardy reply to your question. I've been distracted by another project for the past couple of months, but I'm back on the job now.
Second, the BR doesn't go into the AACW engine while it's running, so it can't display anything within the game. The BR works only because the game generates a stand-alone text file, !BattleLog.txt, at the end of each turn when error logging is turned on. I'm afraid the only way you can use the BR while the game is in progress is to alt-tab out of the game at the end of a turn, run the BR, and then go back to your game.
Third, the Supply Reporter is a great idea, and I'll see what I can do. Don't hold your breath, though, because like the BR it will depend on the game's producing a separate file containing the necessary info. I know that !BattleLog.txt doesn't do this, so if the info isn't in one of the save files, it probably can't be done.