TripleA 1.5.0.0 and US/Chinese turn

In my test game

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=26522.msg926857#msg926857

all American and Chinese actions are not posted, except the Chinese placement.

I found out that I can view all actions using the “Show History” feature in the “Game”-menu.
So this has no impact on the gameplay.

Is this a bug or is there something special behind the US/Chinese Movement that I missed so far?

I am also missing the US Territory Summary in the post. And the Americans PUSummary is wrong.

Also I was not asked about what nation should be moved first.
US’ turn happened strictly before China’s turn.
Is this the way it is intendend to be?
As a result the savegame file is named containing “C1” instead of “US1” or something like that.

Thank you!  :-)

Thank you again for your explanation.

I will try and edit the map-XML the way you suggested and see what happens.

:-)

Please take a look here:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=26522.msg927219#msg927219

What I did was changing the following part of the XML:

into this:

I went quickly through G1 up to I1 simply doing nothing. Then - as expected - China started with it’s Combat Moves
I moved Inf and Fig to Kwa attacking the British Inf there. But the battle did not occur. What instantly occurred was the Chinese NCM .

After that the US turn went as expected. But when loading the turn summary I got some error messages. And the “Post Turn Window” did not close
although the turn was already posted.

Could you please give me a clue what I may have missed?
Thanks again.
:-)

@Veqryn:

China and the British are on the same side, so there is no reason for a battle to occur….

Ouch….I was so focussed on testing that I did not even care about that.
@Veqryn:

here is what you probably want for the xml, which I think is what you have above (thought i did not double check):
…

Thank you, it is the same.
I will do some more tests this evening.
:-)

Before I continue testing I have got - out of curiosity - another question.

In the original XML the order of phases is:

…

So this means that the American NCM occurs before the Chinese Battle.
According to the rules

The U.S. player must complete the Combat Move and Conduct Combat phases for Chinese forces before beginning the Combat Move phase for U.S. forces, or vice versa.

Following this the NCM of China and USA take place after the battles of both countries.

This is of practical relevance:
Following the rules an American unit could (in NCM) enter a territory the Chinese have captured/liberated just before (or vice versa of course).
If -as indicated in the XML - America does it’s NCM before the chinese battle, an American unit cannot enter this territory in NCM,
because at this moment it is hostile.

So for meeting the rules the XML should contain

…

Am I right? Or are the rules (especially the China rules including battling and NCM) in fact hard coded in any other part of the program?
I am very interested in this question because it is relevant for my tries to seperate American from Chinese phases.

Either it is: “For the purpose of having accurate Chinese and American turn posts forget about the exact rules.”
or: “Forget about the exact turn posts and stick to the rules.” (that would include the NCMs happening after both battles, which is only a very small exchange of lines in the game-xml).

Maybe it is all a bit theoretical. But I really like TripleA v. 1.5 and just am balancing reasons about accurate rules on the one hand and (maybe) gameplay on the other hand.

Thank you  :-)

Looks fine at first glance.

But I experienced a bug when testing.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=26522.msg927641#msg927641

I’m going to test again to see if I can reproduce that.

The bug remains.

The US bomber moved four steps to SZ 13 and destroys the Transporter.
In NCM it should land in Gib.

After the Chinese sequence - when it comes to US NCM, the Bomber is away.
Game history says it was destroyed because it could not land.

I can’t say if this is realted to the changes in the sequence.

If not this sequence is a well balanced compromise between rules and turn post information.
The most important thing here is that the NCM both happen after both nations’ battles.

It would be even better to embed the US lines in the chinese lines as I think.
I am going to try this next.

I found out what causes the bomber issue:

For any reason the American bomber in SZ 13 is destroyed in the Chinese NCM.
That means that the program considers that bomber as Chinese.
Therefore it cannot land and is destroyed.

That is strange.

See
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=26522.msg927675#msg927675

This is definitely caused by the changed sequence. It happens when after the US battle the Chinese NCM occurs before the US NCM. This results in the bomber becoming Chinese.
I don’t know how this can be corrected.

@Veqryn:

ah, ya, i know why that is happening

basically, you are not supposed to have turns interspersed, or they may be weird effects

essentially, the game keeps track of which territories are conquered for a turn, but it doesn’t do so on a per player basis,

in addition, the game validates where units can land at the end of noncombat phases, unless you have purchased a carrier and are validating fighter, etc etc, complex stuff

OK, I understand. So this is how TripleA is coded - and this is not an issue of the Game-XML itself.

@Veqryn:

anyway, i suggest you either have the Chinese and American turns COMPLETELY separate from each other

OR you leave the game xml as it currently is (since it works well already)

I honestly do not think this affects the game at all, because China gets completely destroyed in the first 2 turns anyway.

In 3 years of people playing this and testing it (AA50 is the most popular game on triplea, and there are at least 20-60 games of it played every day), noone has ever noticed this “bug” or reported it.  So that means it does not affect any ‘real’ games.

Yes, I agree. Personally I would tend towards seperating China from America completely as is is much more comfortable and clearly arranged.
( see for example   http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=26522.msg927681#msg927681  ).

Either this or leaving the XML as it is - of course - is not rules-compliant. But as you pointed out this does not really matter in the games that are played.
And - players can use the Edit Mode to correct or change some issues. So all in all for PBF-Purposes I would vote for transparent information in the turn posts.

But - I think that in a game the players have to use the same XML, am I right? Or is it possible that for example the Axis player plays with the downloaded XML as it is and the Allies player uses a modified game-XML in which turns for China and America are separated?

@Veqryn:

games always use the hosts’ xml
and after the game starts, the xml you started is in the game data (memory), so you do not even need the xml after the game has started

Ah ok. The player who moves first ist host then?

@Veqryn:

i think in the future, i will move the chinese and american turns to be separate

what is better, China then America,
or America then China?

I would prefer China then America.

Thanks  :-)

Yes, true for hosted games.

But when playing by forum - for example here in the “Play Boardgames”-section, no one connects to a host.
Both people use their individual TripleA containing the game-xml and exchange only savegames after each turn via the forum.
So in this case they must be sure to use the same game-xml, right?.
Or is it - in forum games - possible that for example the Axis player plays with the “standard game xml as of Map Version 1.4” and the Allies player uses a “modified Version 1.4-game-xml” in which turns for China and America are separated?

ok, thanks  :-)