TripleA standardization

Romulus,

I play games in real time with ABattlemap all the time!

Make your move, roll your dice, finish your move, send map.

5 seconds later your partner gets the map.

He makes his move, rolls his dice, finishes his move and sends the map back.

This might actually be faster than tripleA too because you don’t have to fight the program to move the units where you want to move them and correct errors in the programming! (Especially if you want to use any house rules!)

TripleA is just too inflexible, it’s a burden to use and on many systems, it does not function properly. Not all, not a majority, but on many systems.

@Cmdr:

Romulus,

I play games in real time with ABattlemap all the time!

Make your move, roll your dice, finish your move, send map.

5 seconds later your partner gets the map.

He makes his move, rolls his dice, finishes his move and sends the map back.

Yes, but you are Commander Jennifer not a simple soldier…  :-D  :-P

Other can not do the same…  :roll:

@Cmdr:

This might actually be faster than tripleA too because you don’t have to fight the program to move the units where you want to move them and correct errors in the programming! (Especially if you want to use any house rules!)

TripleA is just too inflexible, it’s a burden to use and on many systems, it does not function properly. Not all, not a majority, but on many systems.

Seriously, what I mean is that TripleA alows to make this without a supporting forum, or email or exchange of file. It is a synchronous way of operating while the solution adopted with ABattleMap is essentially asynchronous. Other programs require additional programs to be run: web browser, email client, account on a forum and so on. TripleA do not need all of that it allows two copy of the program to connect and interoperate.

ABattleMap maybe used in situation in wich more flexibility is needed but it seems to me that it is not self-contained like TripleA so it is useful in specific situation. Speaking of standardization, I think that a single self sufficient program like TripleA seems best suited.

About editing, house ruling and specific setting you are right, TripleA is not well suited for them, at moment maybe in the future. For standard match with standard rule I believe it is better.

Okay, so TripleA and Hasbro both are completely internalized and allow for games to be played over the internet without any support from outside the game.  (Technically so does the physical board, but you need trust there, with Hasbro/TripleA you don’t need trust.)

:-D
TripleA all the way!
No one else does it better IMHO  :wink:

@Cmdr:

Romulus,

I play games in real time with ABattlemap all the time!

Make your move, roll your dice, finish your move, send map.

5 seconds later your partner gets the map.

He makes his move, rolls his dice, finishes his move and sends the map back.

This might actually be faster than tripleA too because you don’t have to fight the program to move the units where you want to move them and correct errors in the programming! (Especially if you want to use any house rules!)

TripleA is just too inflexible, it’s a burden to use and on many systems, it does not function properly. Not all, not a majority, but on many systems.

I really don’t understand your crusade against triplea.

All of the arguments about play-by-email apply to triplea as well.  You can send triplea files just like battlemap files. And by the way, that’s not Real-time unless you can see the opponents moves as they do it.  Actually Triplea is even more like real-time because if you get a file emailed to you, you can go into the history and see the moves and the turn played out again, as if you were watching it live.

I don’t get what you are saying about having “to fight the program to move the units where you want to move them”  The one potential problem area is with figs and carriers, but that is a minor nuisance in rare cases at most.  the mechanics for moving units is FAR better than battlemap in that you can potentially move entire stacks (including multiple unit types) with a single click instead of having to drag 5 or 10 units of a single type at a time.  Have you even used the program lately?

Now, your point about house rules I can see, but otherwise I’m not buying most of what you’re selling.  Just say you haven’t been able to get it to work on your machine, and quit making up complaints about the rest of it.

And that doesn’t even begin to address the actual features triplea has that an automated map tool doesn’t, like cash tracking, turn history, integrated calls to diceys, and many more.

I gotta say I like TripleA. I just got it. I can see that it is kinda cheesey in some aspects. But if you want play a game without setting up a board it’s really nice.

And, yup you were so right Jen when you said the AI sucks. It is great for kicking around ideas though.

The other plus I see is the fact that most of the guys I play with have ‘Grown-up’ lives, that’s not a slam to anyone, but when people have careers and kids it can be hard not to have ‘Jr’.come take a swipe at the board with his rattle.

An added plus is that you can have the game or a movie on while you alternate around the computer. While this doesn’t replace that ‘table on the board’ experience. It’s a great tool in my opinion.

Tim:

You cannot always send files with TripleA and get them to work on another computer.  Switch tried to send me his file and it wouldn’t open on my home computer, laptop or work computer.  He tried sending it like 3 times too.  TripleA is somewhat okay when it works, if it works, but it’s just “Plug and pray” whereas Battlemap is “Plug and Play.”

Honestly, I don’t understand the TripleA cult out there.  It’s completely inferior in every way imaginable.  It is unflexible.  Half the time it doesn’t even apply the rules.  For some reason the AA Guns in it have almost a 90% accuracy (slight exaggeration, very slight).  The AI completely sucks, the Iron Blitz AA would wipe the floor with it in a heart beat, hell, my TI-30Xa scientific (not graphing) calculator could wipe the floor with the TripleA AI and that’s with the broken rules and buggy program.

Funny part is, after round 20, it’s a crap shoot.  Game usually locks up and forces you to open task manager to kill it.  Assuming you are on any flavor of Windows that is.

To anyone who has not tried TripleA yet,

Please do not let Jen’s tirades against the program dissuade you from giving it a try.  I’ve never encountered any of the problems she’s described in my use of the program with two exceptions.

1. The program does not implement the rules for carriers and fighter range properly, in that you can not tell the program “I’ll move my carrier here in non-combat to pick up surviving fighters.”  TripleA calculates legal fighter moves based on where your carriers are, not where you plan to move them later.  A fairly minor issue with a number of workarounds.  Black_Elk already went over this in great detail in a post on page 1.  I’m not aware of other instances where it does not “follow the rules” for the AAR OOB rules.

2. The AI is awful.  But the TripleA makers never made any claims that it was any good.  They have always acknowledged that the AI was something they threw together and improving it is fairly low on their priority list.

If you do encounter the other issues she describes, post here.  I’d be interested to know if they are common, or rare (I suspect rare).

They’re probably rare, doesn’t mean they don’t exist or that TripleA is some magical gift from the gods. :P

I just want people to have realistic expectations.  TripleA is not conducive to house rules, it’s difficult to edit when you do need to edit it, in other words, it is very inflexible.  You get what you get, in this case, you get exactly what you paid for.  (What really sucks is that because it is very inflexible, it won’t even allow you to follow the rules!)

TripleA has SERIOUS issues with D-Link and Cisco Routers, especially ones with built in firewalls.

If you have your Windows optimized (I suspect it is because I optimized it so it wouldn’t crash at all, even when some program does something stupid, it won’t crash like Mac OS will crash or an unmodified Windows will) then odds are good you won’t be able to load someone else’s saved games. (note, you should also ensure that everyone is using the same flavor, there’s a couple dozen flavors of TripleA out there, unlike Battlemap or Mapview.)

The dice seem to be very skewed.  Seems to me the first couple to first dozen AA shots seem to have a very high hit rating with the AA Guns.  Not sure, but it would be interesting to actually count them, now that I do a lot of SBRs against the computer (because the computer is an idiot.) I’d be willing to make a small wager that the AA Gun hits are around the 80% mark though at least in the first few to dozen shots.

Basically, if I was forced to use TripleA, I’d require my opponents to roll their dice at Frood or another proven statistically neutral dice server because TripleA dice don’t have a good track record of being accurate.  1/6 does not = 80%.  It doesn’t even =30%.  It’s less than 20% but it seems like 5 bombers attacking result in 3-4 bombers being shot down by the TripleA dicey.

Top this all off with the absolute ease of use and ability to modify the game you find in programs like Mapview and Battlemap and you really should wonder why anyone would use TripleA for online game play.  It’s an okay program to kick around ideas or to waste some time fighting the computer. (I like to see what happens when the AI plays me and I have a rule of no more than 1 infantry purchase per nation per round for myself….normally, you’d lose in a heart beat, but the AI is SOOO STUPID it can’t win even when you handicap yourself!)

All in all, if you could only put one system on your computer, hands down, without hesitation, I would recommend Battlemap.  It’s the standard for online game play at all the major gaming clubs (though they permit other mapping utilities if all sides agree) for a reason.  It’s 100% reliable.  It’s 100% compatible with the rules.  And it’s 100% easier to adapt to rule changes like LHTR, LHTR 2.0, house rules like AARe, AARHE, and custom house rules.

The only downside, if you can consider it one and I don’t, is that Battlemap does not have a built in dicey. (Which means your opponent can’t crack the server like they can with the TripleA dice servers.)

AI is not used in Battlemap because Battlemap is so superior it does not need an AI to get players to use it.  TripleA’s only feature to get new users to use it is the AI and Dice rolling features.

And for the record, I did say I was exaggerating slightly.  I also clarified it seemed to be a bug that only effected about the first dozen or so bombers on SBR missions (not on attacks which I find funny too.)

Honestly, AxisOfEvil, I think you need to go back under the rock you were hiding under and stop trolling the boards making slanderous attacks based on unfounded facts and assumptions.  You’re as bad as Switch.

I try this program many years ago.  I have problems with it.

I have program crash while roll combat.  I restart program and roll combat my opponent get two rolls and cause problem.  Choice for dice site sometimes work sometimes not work.  Site I use post file go out of business and game not able to continue.  Program allow illegal moves.  Program not follow any game rules way they are written.  Not follow the rules in game.  Not follow rules I find player online use.

I like way map look with color change to owner.  Problems to many to use program.  I change to map program friend tell me about.  It work better as map but need place to roll dice to use.

Not find perfect game program yet.

Good point F6FHellcat.  I forgot that feature, which I agree is very nice.  Much better than a control marker which you could miss when trying to count up your IPC.

(BTW, Battlemap will track your currently owned land totals as well as composite army and navy strength two features I miss when I do kick around ideas with TripleA.)

Actually, it is my hope that some of the more convenient features of Battlemap will make it into the next incarnation of Mapview making that program the far and superior gaming platform on the internet.  (A listing: Army and Navy values, Auto-tracking of IPC values held instead of adjusting the chart yourself, and moving units 1, 5, 10, or a stack at a time like in battlemap.  Those features move to Mapview and it’ll be the pinnacle of Axis and Allies gaming for a while to come.)

F6FHellcat,

Sorry to hear you had stability issues, but if you last tried it several years ago you might want to check if the current version has fixed any of those.

@F6FHellcat:

Program allow illegal moves.  Program not follow any game rules way they are written.  Not follow the rules in game.

Can you please give examples of the illegal moves the game allows?  The only thing I can think of is it allows moves that are technically “non-combat” moves in the combat move phase, but that is hardly a game-breaking issue.  Can you give an example, other than the fighter/carrier thing already talked about, of a legal move not allowed?

@Cmdr:

(BTW, Battlemap will track your currently owned land totals as well as composite army and navy strength two features I miss when I do kick around ideas with TripleA.)

Umm, TripleA does track your land totals, unless I misunderstand what you mean.  It also tracks your TUV and total number of units, but does not divide them up between army and navy.  That actually would be a pretty good feature.

I have problem with fighter attacking navy beyond range of AC by non combat move that is allowed by same turn navy battle.  I not use program in many year so that only move I remember.

Have problem with posting site solved?  Have problems with dice place solved?  Have rules been set to online rules?

Map program not have these problem.  Just need play with other site dice that send email.  But more sites do this now than before so less problem than was.

@F6FHellcat:

I have problem with fighter attacking navy beyond range of AC by non combat move that is allowed by same turn navy battle.  I not use program in many year so that only move I remember.

Well, if you can’t rememeber any illegal moves it let you make, you probably should not have claimed it let you make any.  The legal move that TripleA does not allow regarding the fighters and AC has already been discussed on this thread, including the workarounds for it.  And that comes up so rarely that to complain about it is really a just a quibble.

Have problem with posting site solved?  Have problems with dice place solved?

To be honest I didn’t really understand what you meant by these issues so I can not really comment on them.

Have rules been set to online rules?

I don’t know what “online rules” means.  It supports out of the box rules, and some LHTR rules.

Map program not have these problem.  Just need play with other site dice that send email.  But more sites do this now than before so less problem than was.

Map programs are fine for what they are.  You can use them to track moves, but nothing more.  They make no attempt to verify that the moves are legal.  They won’t run the game for you like TripleA will.  You need to run the game yourself with a Map program.

one question : is Abbatlemap available for Linux users ?

I mean without using a windows simulator (which need to be installed, and so root access)

Otherwise, I do not play a lot on the net. I only play with friends and we use tripleA. I do not have problems with it, since in case of the plane’s randge with AC, you can also use the edit mode to fix the problem (and such problem occurs only in few examples). I never encoutered any problems with AAguns on bombers, you must be cursed Jen ^^. After all, bombers dice are the same dice then dice for battle, and you can see the statistic of the game to be sure that the randomness is quite good…

TripleA is Java. Java technology is one of the most used technology for developing enterprise and business application in the world. Some years ago Sun estimated more than 5.000.000 of programmers using Java, nowadays their number is much greater and increases continuously.

Java slogan is: “Write once and run everywhere!”. I work with Java and I routinely test my application using: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Ubuntu, CentOS, and also Mac… I have never had technological problem in running a Java application. Why? Because there is always one Java application that run on the Java Virtual Machine. The JVM is the component that is customized for the specific architecture and that allows Java programs to be executed on every electronic component able to run the JVM.

Exchanging file with Java and not being able to open them or other problems? TripleA print a stack trace of the error (Exception) that may be used to identificate the problem and to look for if other users have had the same problem. This methodology works well for more complex Java libraries or frameworks it works also for TripleA. If the file is corrupted or transferred in a wrong way TripleA has not responsibility for not being able to open it.

Problems with rules? TripleA offers OOB and LHTR, other than the carrier and fighters problem already discussed here, there are no problems with rules that I know. TripleA do not support House Rules? Yes, but asking TripleA to be able to support the house rules, that are countless, is too much IMHO. By the way the Edit mode of TripleA allows for resolving all this issues.

TripleA games save the history of each turn in the game, it is possible to see which moves the opponents mades, and how they made them.

TripleA estimates the running statistics of the rolled dice, and it is possible to check them, using the command “Dice Stats” in the “Game” menu. Next time that an AA gun performs 90% of successes a check of those stats and a screenshot may be used to signal a problem to the TripleA developers… if it exists. Also I would like to see such kind of results.
Bugs identification is an appreciated contribute in application testing.
Generating random numbers in application is made with pseudorandom numbers generated by algorithm that are not written by the TripleA programmers but are already available in the Java APIs. This method has always been used in Computer Science and also dice rollers on the web uses the same algorithm (and I suppose that some of them are written in Java as TripleA one).

TripleA is updated continuously. TripleA of two years ago and nowadays TripleA are greatly different: bugs and problems have been resolved, new features have been added. Maybe a complaint for a feature of an older version has already been resolved.

TripleA is Open Source. One user may open the code and see what it does and how it does. Heck, user may even contribute to the project writing the code or suggesting something to do.

TripleA AI is an open project (in the sense that it is working in progress), there are person working on it for passion and are trying to solve this challenging aspect. Make a joke of their work is disrespectful of their efforts, their are making the best that thay can, and no one claimed that TripleA has an AI, there is only the option to play against a prototype of the AI, as a demo of the program functionalities.

TripleA and ABattleMap are two completely different programs they do not even play in the same league. TripleA is a gaming engine useful for playing A&A series of game but it may be customized and adapted also for playing other games.

ABattleMap uses a picture of the board on wich you can add or subtract small images that appears like set of pixel grouped together. What ABattleMap does may be done also with PhotoShop or another image editing program. There are online community at FantasyFlightGames forum that plays game PBEM, A Game of Thrones or Twilight Imperium III, and uses image editing programs.

And now I go to take a cup of Java coffee, and after I will continue to work on the testing of a Java Application!  :-D

Thanks, AxisOfEvil!

I am not directly involved in TripleA development but I have downloaded the source code for looking it trying to learn something!

I work with Java but I am involved in business application, with service oriented architecture. The TripleA developers are doing really a great work. No offense for the ABattlemap programmer. I have read my post and it seems that I am against ABattlemap. No, I am not. It is a good program but is totally different from TripleA for many reasons.

Now I hope that forum users will try to give another chance to TripleA and if it have still problems they may note them and then signal the list to the TripleA developers.
If I have not misunderstood there are some TripleA developers that are members of this forum!

Romulus wins this topic.

….albeit a shared 1st place with the actual developers of TripleA. I find it amazing that they take the time and effort to create something, and not ask anythig for it in return, allowing the A&A community to be even more alive and kicking.

Anyone feeling the need to bash such an effort, should remove the stick from their a…never mind.

:oops:

Karma +1 for AxisOfEvil and Woodstok!  :-)

I have only tried to give my contribution!

Note: I have edited my post to solve some grammar errors i found (debug) … now I have “released” the version 1.1 of it…  :-D
Anyone could contribute to improve the quality of my posts. Thanks in advance!!! :)