I'm pretty sure I have asked about this before and the idea was dismissed because it was thought that it would be a coding nightmare, but it's still a feature I often think about as a designer.

I would like to see a designer feature that sets a restricted range for individual units on any given turn.  This would be independent of the "# of attacks allowed per turn" feature.  I've been thinking about the coding for this and came up with a potential solution.  I'm not a programmer, so feel free to tell me it's not a realistic solution.

Rather than track the individual units, just backtrack the attack route.  Example: With a  globally set unit range of 4, a player orders T5 to attack T6

• The program looks for any previous attacks of T5 in that turn, and finding T4 -> T5, then looks for any previous attacks of T4, etc.. 
• After finding  T4->T5, T3->T4, T2->T3, and finally T1->T2, any further attacks emanating from T5 are disallowed.

This algorithm would have the effect of allowing blitzing, but it would be restricted/controlled.

I am not sure what you are looking for, but by "restricted range for individual units on any given turn", I thought you were talking about having a maximum number of units per turn at first.  However, I believe you are asking of a restriction on the number of times a unit can move from one territory to another.

If the latter is what you are asking for, then I think that the coding would be difficult.  For your example above, you are thinking of the attack phase as being separate from the other phases, but if this feature were adding then it should be compatible with return to attack from fortify or return to placement from attack.   This would present a difficult problem of unit tracking, also without this in mind, T4 could have attack T5 and lost and then T6 (first attack) attacks T5 and captures.  Your logic above would say that the units in T5 could not attack (since there is the attack sequence you have described). 

Lastly, if this were implemented correctly, I think it would be very difficult to display the proper information to the player on what units can do what mid-turn.

Alpha wrote:

 However, I believe you are asking of a restriction on the number of times a unit can move from one territory to another.

Yes

This would present a difficult problem of unit tracking, also without this in mind, T4 could have attack T5 and lost and then T6 (first attack) attacks T5 and captures.  Your logic above would say that the units in T5 could not attack (since there is the attack sequence you have described). 

I wasn't clear.  What I had in mind was that the program would keep track of instances where territories are captured, and not concern itself with instances where territories are merely attacked. So when T3 captures T4, it is registered.  Then, when T5 tries to attack T6, the program looks at the log for that player's turn only, finding any case where T5 was "captured". Finding this, and determining that it was captured by units from T4, it checks to see if T4 was captured in that turn, ect..

Return to attack from fortify would not really offer a way to get game this rule.  If anything, it could potentially put restrictions on the "attacking" range of the units that join the stack.   For instance, consider that before trying to attack T6 from T5, a player fortifies T5 from T9, then returns to attack mode with the intention of attacking T6. Those units from T9 would not be able to attack in that turn because ALL units on T5 are not allowed to attack.  Think of it as day 5 of a 4 day campaign.

I don't understand what you mean when you give the example of T6 attacking T5.  How could this happen?  T6 is owned by an opponent.

Lastly, if this were implemented correctly, I think it would be very difficult to display the proper information to the player on what units can do what mid-turn.

I see no need for this. Players should be responsible for keeping track of their troop's movements.

Ok, T9 captures T6 and then the player fortifies T6 from T5.  Now those armies on T6 are allowed to make three more captures even though some of them (but not all) have already made four captures starting from T1.   So, there might be a few creative ways to milk the rules.  I don't have a problem with that.

I think you got what I was saying, and I am not against it, but I think it would be confusing to use is all. 

For the point of view that captures are all that is looked at, it seems fine and with the interpretation that fortified units are subject to the restriction of the armies present, I think this could be a usable feature (I mean that if the units in T5 have already moved 4 territories and I fortify units from T9 to T5 then those units cannot attack since the army present is exhausted and cannot go further). 

Also, I believe that the fortify should count as one of the movements (this would be a be more complicated, but not much.)

Tom will have to decide if this is too complicated to implement.

M57 wrote:

Lastly, if this were implemented correctly, I think it would be very difficult to display the proper information to the player on what units can do what mid-turn.

I see no need for this. Players should be responsible for keeping track of their troop's movements.

I agree with Alpha and I'd be surprised if the "Players should be responsible..." is a majority or even a high minority as there are many things in place/requested to help player's keep track of things (ie number of attacks/fortifies displayed, card pop-ups, undo, review orders, etc.).

Personally I still see the negative/cost outweighing the benefits of this feature.

Yertle wrote:

I agree with Alpha and I'd be surprised if the "Players should be responsible..." is a majority or even a high minority as there are many things in place/requested to help player's keep track of things (ie number of attacks/fortifies displayed, card pop-ups, undo, review orders, etc.).

Ok, agreed: The moves need to be tracked such that players can determine/check their status.  Here are some ideas:

• When hovering over a territory, the remaining range of its units are displayed in the properties balloon.
• This number could also be displayed in the attack dialog box so you can't miss it as you are placing the order.

Y, I don't disagree that it might be tricky to implement (though perhaps it wouldn't be that bad), but there are  so many design applications where limited range would make a huge difference in terms of mechanics. Appomattox and GearFight! come to mind when I think of my boards alone. 

Perhaps even more significantly (and I'm not much of a fan of the format) it seems this would be a game changer for Simulgear players.  Think of the implications for placing orders.

I like the concept but the details of the implementation sound tricky both from a programming and a user interface perspective. When I was coding SimulGear there was originally a feature in there to allow more than 1 reinforcement move per unit so you could for example bring all your troops to the front line prior to an attack. It got very complicated when you had to consider circular reinforcing, territory maxes and mins, capitals etc.

I don't think it's out of the question but I wouldn't give it a high priority when considering the time taken to implement vs the benefits.

tom wrote:

I like the concept but the details of the implementation sound tricky both from a programming and a user interface perspective. When I was coding SimulGear there was originally a feature in there to allow more than 1 reinforcement move per unit so you could for example bring all your troops to the front line prior to an attack. It got very complicated when you had to consider circular reinforcing, territory maxes and mins, capitals etc.

I don't think it's out of the question but I wouldn't give it a high priority when considering the time taken to implement vs the benefits.

When/if the time comes, I think the "rules" can be pretty simple such that circular reinforcing isn't really an issue.  A straight backwards check/count of all unit advancement (both from attacks and fortifications) should do the trick unless I'm not thinking it through properly.

I'm not saying that it should or will be easy to code, but the types of boards and game-play possibilities that would present themselves may make it worth the work.  

As for the UI, consider that 90% of the time, when players choose to blitz (or just attack through more than one territory), they do it all at once in their turns, so I'm still thinking that the hover/bubble and dialog-box-at-the-time-of-attack checks could be adequate.

Quick question.. Under Gameplay Settings in the rules, I have:

A. Number of Attacks allowed = 7

B. Multiple Attacks  = Off

What does this mean?  Does the "off" mean that I can only attack a territory once? ..even though I'm allowed 7 attacks per turn?  If Multiple Attacks = On, would that mean that I could attack a territory multiple times but it would only count as 1 attack for the purposes of the "Number of Attacks Allowed" setting?

Multiple attacks off means that 'A' and 'T' are disabled.
Multiple attacks on means that 'A' and 'T' count as one attack.