Triple A G40 - Comprehensive list of currently unresolved issues

[Jennifer]

Typical Round 1 Battle Odds for Germany:

France:

• Frood: 96.4%
• DSKelly: 99.2%
• TripleA: 81%
  Complex battle involving AA Guns and Tactical Bombers paired with tanks.

Yugoslavia:

• Frood: 100%
• DSKelly: 100%
• TripleA: 100%
  German forces here massively overwhelm defenders, but it’s a simple ground battle to reflect the difference between complex (above) and simple results.

SZ 106:

• Frood: 87.2%
• DSKelly: 87.4%
• TripleA: 86%
  This battle is similar, presumably because the attack is very small.  2 submarines vs 1 destroyer does not lead itself to much to speculation.

SZ 110:

• Frood: 99%
• DSKelly: 98.9%
• TripleA: 100%
  All three results are similar.  This is because the Attacker has massively over powering attack forces.

SZ 111:

• Frood: 100%
• DSKelly: 100%
• TripleA: 99%
  All three results are similar.  This is because the Attacker has massively over powering attack forces.

A battle for India:

• Frood: 77.1% <=== note, I assumed 2 hits on bombers to make this work, Frood can only fire at all planes or no planes.
• DSKelly: 75.5%  <=== jerry rigging Frood appears to be accurate given DSKelly’s similar results.
• TripleA: 98%  <===  again, TripleA is significantly off the two established battle calculators.  Again this is a complex battle involving multiple unit types and involving the use of an AA Gun, but this time I also involved off shore bombardment just to really muddy the waters.

Now yes, I admit these are just TWO battles, but in the case of France, TripleA might convince you to over commit to the battle and thus be short handed elsewhere.  In the case of India it makes you think you have darn near 100% odds when in reality you are closer to 75% odds, and if you go in light with ground forces, 75% odds are not that good!  If you tell he calculators you want 1 ground unit to survive in India, FROOD and DSKELLY drop your odds to 50%, TripleA drops your odds to 91% which is a 41% spread! Â

Now, why did she not give us the units used?  Because I want you to test it out for yourself.  Imagine some complex battles and run them on different battle calculators.  By complex I mean add in amphibious assaults, and/or add in aa guns, pair up some tactical bombers with tanks and fighters, send them in without pairing them. Â

Then again, maybe these two battles are just outliers and tripleA’s mathematics are sound?  I don’t know.  I just know what I’ve seen, personally. Â

[gamerman01]

I suspect there is something wrong with your Triple A calculator.  I would like to run France myself on Triple A but you have not provided the attack force composition (I know, on purpose).

A normal attack on France is normally 99% (All available ground units)

You mentioned tacs, so I threw in the 1 from Poland.

7 INF, 4 MECH, 3 ART, 6 ARM, and 1 TAC vs. FRANCE = 99%
with the Germans losing an average of 7.3 units.

After seeing many G1’s, I can attest that 7-8 infantry lost is the average, in fact.
My Triple A calculator is (and always has) working perfectly.  Something is wrong with yours, or you’re doing something wrong.  I would suggest re-downloading Triple A, or contact Veqryn and tell him you’re having problems.

[Jennifer]

Ye gads man, I can only get tripleA to function on ONE computer (out of 7 I own) as it is, I don’t want to risk breaking it on the only good one by redownloading it! lol.  Hell, I don’t even patch this computer for fear that something is going to screw up tripleA. hehe.

Yes, my calculators show all infantry (mech and non-mech) are lost in France itself.  Maybe it’s my tripleA screwing up AA guns, I don’t know.

Veq needs to fix them ANZAC/Italy colors first.  I can work without the inbedded calculator.

---

7 Computers:

• 1 Netbook (HP) crappy, but it runs on Verizon, does not run TripleA
• 1 MacBook (enough said right?  Nothing works on this POS!)
• 1 iMac Flatscreen (used, still does not load OS 10 reliably, let alone anything java based.)
• 1 Laptop (Toshiba) running windows 98.  TBH it has TripleA 1.0 something and Hasbro’s games on it, I didn’t even bother trying to load latest tripleA.
• 1 PC (HP) which I left in the corner, I don’t really use it.  It is 64 bit, but right now it’s protecting my boxed games from touching the floor, in case of flood I’d rather lose the $3,000 computer than all my factory sealed AA games!
• 1 Laptop (HP) 21" screen which has tripleA running
• 1 All in One (HP) with 19" screen that seems to be unable to run TripleA without complaining about java runtime environment (and yes I tried running it as administrator!)  This is the one I desperately need to fix because my laptop battery is fried and it’s not comfortable to use when home, not like the all-in-one is!

[Veqryn]

1. On the calculator, You need to provide an actual attack and defense force for comparison. 
Just saying that, “oh this one time i had calc results and then my actual battle and some other calculator didn’t match it”, really doesn’t give us anything to go on.
So far, in all instances provided, triplea calc has shown itself to give accurate results. 
In addition, it is worth mentioning that if another calculator and triplea’s calc disagree, it could be the other calc that is wrong.  So you should solve the battle mathematically too.

2. Are you using the “Battle Map Skin” for Global 1940?
I specifically made a map skin using the battlemap board, the battle map units, and the battlemap colors, for you and the other battlemap diehards to use with triplea. 
It is included with the “bundled” download, and I’ve posted in multiple places how to download it (if you don’t already have it) and how to use it.

3. You can change all art and all colors and all files in the map’s folder or zip, without affecting any saves or games or anything.  The only thing you shouldn’t touch is the “xml”.

[Gargantua]

On “rare occasion” when having multinational forces on defense, I have seen the battle calculator get a bit strange.  Particularily in reference to transports.

In general, I just remove the transports, because it seems to have some effect.

This has been so inconsequential and inconsistent however, that I never bothered reporting it.

[gamerman01]

I also always remove transports from calcs.

[Jennifer]

@Veqryn:

1. On the calculator, You need to provide an actual attack and defense force for comparison. 
Just saying that, “oh this one time i had calc results and then my actual battle and some other calculator didn’t match it”, really doesn’t give us anything to go on.
So far, in all instances provided, triplea calc has shown itself to give accurate results. 
In addition, it is worth mentioning that if another calculator and triplea’s calc disagree, it could be the other calc that is wrong.  So you should solve the battle mathematically too.

**Not sure what you mean.  I just took whatever two nations it spit out to run the comparison, put the attackers in the attacker spot and defenders in the defender spot and hit run.  /shrug.  Is that wrong?

As I said, tripleA seems to do fine in small battles or battles without complicating factors such as if there are no defending AA Guns or no off shore bombardments.  That’s when the numbers seem to go off and go off badly.  Maybe it’s just something where TripleA runs the AA guns and cannot figure out how to optimize the damage and a human would (ie select matching sets of fighters/tactical bombers perhaps?) I don’t know.  Just my observation.**

2. Are you using the “Battle Map Skin” for Global 1940?
I specifically made a map skin using the battlemap board, the battle map units, and the battlemap colors, for you and the other battlemap diehards to use with triplea. 
It is included with the “bundled” download, and I’ve posted in multiple places how to download it (if you don’t already have it) and how to use it.
Nope, I’ll look for it tonight, but if you would be nice enough to PM me where I can find it in the software that would rock!  My brain is pudding after dealing with Clients all night all of them saying “well I dropped my computer off to be fixed at 3pm, why isn’t it done yet?”  and me going “look buddy, we had 38 computers dropped off tonight, added to the 40 that have been sitting there for a day, it’s back to school time, why didn’t you drop your computer off last month!”  ARGH!!!

3. You can change all art and all colors and all files in the map’s folder or zip, without affecting any saves or games or anything.  The only thing you shouldn’t touch is the “xml”. 
Awesome, good to know!  Now I can have the pretty but have it in the colors I want.

Responses in dark purple.

[Jennifer]

Found the battlemap skin.  Almost as good as battlemap, not quite there, but at least it does have ANZAC/Italy colors reversed which makes life a bit easier there.

[Panther]

@Gamerman01:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cS3hFwoBP0rWr3208jw1LAtCvHYa9Ji9uU8PwbCMIwM/edit

My Triple A issues list is here

This thread is worth to get stickied IMHO.

[Jennifer]

@P@nther:

@Gamerman01:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cS3hFwoBP0rWr3208jw1LAtCvHYa9Ji9uU8PwbCMIwM/edit

My Triple A issues list is here

This thread is worth to get stickied IMHO.

Done

[Karl7]

2 issues with Tripple A, which are not errors really but annoying features that frustrate play.

1. When conducting multiple amphibious assaults from multiple transports from one sea zone, the program first prompts you to choose which trns are unloading but then prompts you again in a second prompt that I do not understand at all, and which after trying to chose the right trns invariably causes the program to block the move because it thinks you are trying to split an unloading transport.

Basically, the tripple a format is too confusing here.  There should just be one prompt to decide which trns you are unloading, not 2.

2. There should be a “back” button option in the program up to when you roll dice and then after.  I don’t know how many times I bought my units, moved to combat moves, but then reconsidered my buys but then had to just restart the game to change the buys.

[gamerman01]

#1 Does it help to move the transports in for 1 assault, unload those units to land, then move in the next transports for the 2nd assault, and then unload those land units to the 2nd territory?

#2 I deal with this by posting how I’m changing my buy, then posting the combat move to prove that I haven’t rolled dice yet, then use edit mode after placing units.  I prefer that to re-loading and re-buying and re-moving everything in combat move

[Karl7]

@Gamerman01:

#1 Does it help to move the transports in for 1 assault, unload those units to land, then move in the next transports for the 2nd assault, and then unload those land units to the 2nd territory?

#2 I deal with this by posting how I’m changing my buy, then posting the combat move to prove that I haven’t rolled dice yet, then use edit mode after placing units.  I prefer that to re-loading and re-buying and re-moving everything in combat move

yes, moving transports piecemeal can work.  It’s that much more time consuming than if the interface to unload multiple transports was more direct and simple.

A “Back” button would make all that much easier.  Obviously any back button option would disappear once you move to conduct combat.  A back button would also resolve any mistakes with ncm you made and then notice when you get to place units.

[Veqryn]

the UI for all transportation related stuff may change in the future, so that is covered

i do not plan on making a back button, because that would simply be impossible with the way the engine is coded and how it deals with turn phases

in the mean time, move the transports you want for 1 attack in, separate from the other attack.  i don’t see that taking any more time than a single ui would, since you have to select the transports at some point anyway.

for redoing purchases, you can reload from the top of the turn (which would be in the autosave or the forum save, or make your own save), or do what gamerman said

[Karl7]

Interesting,

So the program wont allow you to just erase/kill a phase and, say, go back to the start of the prior phase?

I am not a programer, BTW, so my comments are solely that of a user.

Thanks for the work!

[Jennifer]

GO BATTLEMAP!  :P

Yea, I agree, it’s annoying to load transports, move and unload into combat, then load more transports move and unload into combat.  Sometimes it’s so bad you have to move transports out, then move the other ones, and undo the move of transports out so you can move them separately.  Not sure when that happens, but it’s happened a few times now.

I just wanted to say, however, that absolutely NONE of the issues in this thread occurs in Battlemap.  :evil:

[gamerman01]

Just a boatload of typing, and you have to monitor your opponent’s moves a lot more carefully for errors.

[Jennifer]

I’ve seen cheating in TripleA as well.

And battlemap lets you pull 5 or 10 units off a stack with a simple keyboard shortcut, a feature that would make tripleA more enticing for me (it won’t replace Battlemap though, since TripleA uses a LOT of resources and battlemap uses almost none.)

[gamerman01]

You do realize you can click somewhere in the territory that is not a unit and enter the number of units you want to move?
Also, control click for a stack, shift click for everything in the territory

I didn’t say there wasn’t cheating in Triple A, I’m saying it takes a lot more time and effort in ABattlemap to check for errors and cheating.  I want to catch the honest mistakes too, like when someone buys more than they can afford, and Triple A will always catch that.

[Karl7]

I’ve really come around to Tripple A.  It’s super easy to use and cuts way down on mistakes.  My comments above were merely about improving it.

As for tripple A vs battlemap… sigh.

Tripple A’s 2 big draw backs are (1) the limited view (I don’t care what anyone says, 50% view is about as zoomed out as you can get and still tell what is happening) and (2) that the dice results are incomprehensible. (Not sure if this is just a product of the Marti server). But it is annoying when as the attacker your dice run off the screen and you can’t tell what hit.  This is particularly vexing as a defender. Looking at the Marti results tells you almost nothing without painstakingly reconstructing the battle.

BattleMap is better on both fronts but then is clunky and highly error prone. (not to mention crashes a lot).

I suppose if I were to play some major/super high-stakes game for money or something against a good player I would prefer BattleMap.  Just because you really get to see it all.  In deed BattleMap is about as face to face as you can get on line that I know of.

But for league play Tripple A is great!  :mrgreen: