Re: Some Misc Questions (Long)

["James R. Dunson" <jdunson at vt dot edu>]

At 08:54 PM 3/13/02 -0800, Erik Jessen wrote:
>A "force pool" basically says that one can only build so many units of 
>each type available, and more of each type (or new types) become available 
>upon various conditions (time, being attacked, capturing some objective, etc.).
>
>It can get even more complicated than that, where one can build a total of 
>N units from columns A, B, C (representing limited manpower: one can build 
>a total of 10 infantry plus tank plus mechanized divisions).

   This sounds like a prime case for using materials.  The underlying 
limitation (manpower, treaty allowances, drydock tonnage, arbitrary "armor 
points", etc.) is written as a material, with construction requiring an 
appropriate amount.  For something like manpower, you can start with a 
fixed amount, and have some sort of per-side income (or per city, or by 
some other means); recycling a unit will return the material to the 
pool.  For something like drydock tonnage, you get a fixed amount per turn 
per port, say, and no unit can store the "material" - use it or loose it, 
and recycling a unit doesn't return any of the materials.

   More advanced games may track several different sorts of material; 
constructing a WWII mechanized division might require appropriate amounts 
of the physical materials of steel and rubber, the resource-allocation 
"materials" of power, heavy industry, precision tooling, skilled labor, and 
grunt labor; and the military manpower "material" of trained 
troops.  Operation would require the supply materials of diesel fuel, 
cannon ammunition, and small arms ammunition.  Obviously, most games don't 
need this level of detail.

   Recycling the unit above might return all of the trained troops, a fair 
amount of the steel and rubber, and a small amount of the heavy industry 
and precision tooling; whatever supplies it carried would go back into 
local stocks.

>Also, many games have breakdown/buildup, where the whole is often greater 
>than the sum of the parts.  And there are various restrictions on when 
>units can break down/convert/etc.

   With care, this can probably be done using something you might call 
"self materials".  Headquarters or leader units would be constructors, 
which could "build" a division out of regiments, etc.  Each low-level unit 
would have permanently 1 unit of a material based on its unit type, and 
larger units would require the appropriate number of materials provided by 
the component units.

** James **

-- 
James R. Dunson (jdunson@vt.edu)
Network Administrator, Center for Wireless Telecommunications
436 Whittemore Hall, Virginia Tech     http://www.cwt.vt.edu/