Suggestion: breakthrough notification

[QuinnMallory]

In multiplayer, it's not uncommon to see a major shift in the whole game to happen just because of what somebody happened to be looking at - or not. This obviously makes zero historical sense and can lead to really stupid, unsatisfying endings to games. (Though I personally would rather play multiplayer on 2 speed for this reason, and so people have time to think and it's not just a reaction time contest, I seem to be in a distinct minority there.)

Hence, my suggestion. They added an alert for "dangerous naval invasion" to fix this type of issue for seaborne invasions. I propose a similar thing for regular land war, to be called "Frontline Breakthrough", "Unopposed Enemy", "Undefended Front" or something to that effect. If at any location there are none of your or allied divisions in tiles you control, that are neighbored by one or more enemy divisions, you would get an alarm, and be able to click on the notification for the view to be taken right to where this is the case. There would probably have to be some qualifiers to the general rule there to keep it from going off spuriously (tile is not surrounded by enemy-controlled tiles, you have in field or training enough divisions for it to be possible to cover the entire front, etc.). But in general, this would really help, for instance, Soviet or US players trying to manage multiple fronts in not losing huge amounts of defensible territory because front/fallback lines did something weird and they didn't notice Axis divisions rolling ahead unopposed.

 

[KRonn]

Some good ideas. I play SP and even there with multiple fronts I sometimes get surprises on one front while working with another front. Especially if I have game speed faster than level 2. The game does have some warnings as I do see/hear warnings for enemy invasions or if a capital warship is in trouble. Also for air zones where the enemy has a strong superiority.

 

[pheonicia]

I have genuinely no idea how you would could a "breakthrough" alert to not either go off all the time or basically never. Determining whether something is a breakthrough or not is a very subjective thing and I believe to only be possible for a human. I don't feel this would be an easy or reasonable thing to implement.

 

[QuinnMallory]

I have genuinely no idea how you would could a "breakthrough" alert to not either go off all the time or basically never. Determining whether something is a breakthrough or not is a very subjective thing and I believe to only be possible for a human. I don't feel this would be an easy or reasonable thing to implement.

The alert would trigger under all of the following conditions:
There is a tile you control with none of your or allied divisions in it, moving into it, or being forced to retreat out of it, that is neighbored by any number of enemy divisions
The tile is not an island or on an island
The tile is not surrounded by enemy-controlled tiles and/or bodies of water
There is a continuous path consisting only of tiles under your or allied control, and bodies of water, between your capital and the tile
You and your allies have in the field or in training sufficient divisions to cover all existing front lines with at least one division per tile

The above probably wouldn't cover every case, and you're right that it would be tricky, but with testing it could probably be made reasonable. There could also be a setting in the options menu allowing you to change the conditions under which it goes off or disable it entirely.

 

[pheonicia]

Under the rules you give, this tile would trigger the alert despite obviously not being the result of a breakthrough.

I'm absolutely certain that for any given set of rules to try and determine a breakthrough, there would be too many edge cases and exceptions to make it useful. Only a human can make the necessary value judgment.

 

[Kryndude]

An alternative is to add camera hotkeys as numbers. Currently it registers units but units move and you often have to re-register them. If you could register camera positions it would be much easier to cycle through multiple fronts.

 

[QuinnMallory]

Under the rules you give, this tile would trigger the alert despite obviously not being the result of a breakthrough.

View attachment 586472

I'm absolutely certain that for any given set of rules to try and determine a breakthrough, there would be too many edge cases and exceptions to make it useful. Only a human can make the necessary value judgment.

I'd say that the example you give is actually intended behavior in some cases: those are unprotected tiles, which you might not be aware of, and might want to try to defend, depending on the situation. For the case where this is a deliberate result of a fallback line (as you're suggesting here), just add the rule that the alert does not trigger if all direct paths (that is, those which don't take more tiles than necessary) between the tile in question and the nearest friendly VP go through a friendly fallback line with divisions assigned to it. There wouldn't be very many such paths in most cases so it wouldn't lag the CPU.

 

[SophieX]

I respectfully disagree.

You are the Commander in Chief of your whole forces. Not all your marshals and generals will inform you, when they discovered a situation, which probably could end in a breakthrough. They do not like to report bad news to their chief, especially when they are responsible of that coming situation. They still "hope" it will not happen.

That's life....

 

[QuinnMallory]

I respectfully disagree.

You are the Commander in Chief of your whole forces. Not all your marshals and generals will inform you, when they discovered a situation, which probably could end in a breakthrough. They do not like to report bad news to their chief, especially when they are responsible of that coming situation. They still "hope" it will not happen.

That's life....

There is no way the French government wouldn't be made aware of it, even if not through official channels, if an Italian motorized division broke through in the south and had driven most of the way to Paris from there. That is the sort of thing this is intended to prevent.

 

[Dalos]

What about "is your newly lost province adjacent to province you own that is not defended by any division? If yes, raise an alert. "?

 

[Riekopo]

Also for encirclements please.

 

[pheonicia]

I think the other part people forget is that there would be a huge computational burden in checking every province (and province paths) on a regular basis for the huge set of rules that are likely needed to determine if a province is involved in a breakthrough or encirclement.

What about "is your newly lost province adjacent to province you own that is not defended by any division? If yes, raise an alert. "?

Still would give false alerts in a lot of situations like the example I presented above, plus not give alerts if you have divisions being pushed from province to province without regaining org or being overrun.

 

[Harin]

How about an alert for whenever you lose a province and the alert is up top as an icon, the same as when you are low on raw materials? There is plenty of room up there and it is no more distracting as when all your allies alert you they want that they want to join your war, but a lot more important. You left click it to take you to the tile or right click it to dismiss it.

I know it is a lot more alerts than for a breakthrough, but it is much easier to program, not a CPU hog as ownership is constantly being monitored anyhow, and the alerts are out of the way up top.

Of course, give the option to turn it off for those who don't want it and everyone could be happy.

 

[QuinnMallory]

I think the other part people forget is that there would be a huge computational burden in checking every province (and province paths) on a regular basis for the huge set of rules that are likely needed to determine if a province is involved in a breakthrough or encirclement.



Still would give false alerts in a lot of situations like the example I presented above, plus not give alerts if you have divisions being pushed from province to province without regaining org or being overrun.

Clear path to capital is already checked constantly as part of the supply system, so it could just use that data.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

I think the other part people forget is that there would be a huge computational burden in checking every province (and province paths) on a regular basis for the huge set of rules that are likely needed to determine if a province is involved in a breakthrough or encirclement.

Province ownership change already makes the game recalculate front lines along adjacent provinces. Passing an alert when there's no front line assigned doesn't require additional calculation, and breakthrough on an existing front line isn't complex either: check if there are divisions along the new front line as the game is updating it.