"Board Warfare" version 6.0 last updated Jan 8, 2007 Loosely based on warfare strategy boardgames. FREEWARE. Requirements: Linux, VGA graphics. Pentium CPU. Distributed as a tar archive. Now with many additional terrains and unit types. Visit Board Warfare's home at http://personalpages.tds.net/~mcozart/games.html for the very latest release. What kind of game is Board Warfare? If you're seeking a shooting game with interactive combat this is not the game for you. "Board Warfare" is a strategy game designed to automate the tedious gameplay of traditional board wargames. Board Warfare is turn based or phase based and does not require input from a player while their opponent is moving or attacking. Those not familiar with board wargames might think of them similar to chess but much more complex in several regards. For example, the playing board has hexes rather than squares to define locations for the player pieces. The hex board allows 6 directions of movement from any hex. The hexes represent locations on a map and possess various terrain attributes such as mountain, woods, or rivers. The terrain attributes affect the distance (or speed) various units may move in a turn. Units have attributes as well. These unit attributes include strength, a movement factor, attack factor and defense factor. Most of these factors are affected by the terrain of the hex in which the units are located. The result is a game in which there is a vastly greater amount of information for the players to consider and track while playing. Board Warfare seeks to automate the playing of a board wargame as much as possible freeing the players to deal with the strategy of the game more than the complex rules for movement, combat, and so forth. A traditional board based wargame might be played on a cardboard map about 2 feet wide and 3 feet long containing thousands of hexes with the opposing armies represented by hundreds of half inch square cardboard player pieces. Players could easily spend 10 to 15 hours playing one game moving the pieces around with tweezers all the while hoping a sudden breeze, sneeze, or the household cat would not completely rewrite history by destroying the arrangement of the player pieces on the board. Those who enjoy strategy board games know how difficult it can be to find an opponent. An opponent who is willing to spend the hours necessary to play, knows how to play, and is a competent player is a rare find. Board Warfare provides a computer opponent which never tires and moves quickly. The computer programming necessary to create an intelligent computer opponent is extremely difficult as one might guess, since strategy wargames as a rule are much more complex than the game of chess. Chess has been used as a benchmark to measure computer player skills for years and just recently are computer chess players able to match or possibly overwhelm (disputably) the Chess Grandmasters. I might add that these computer chess players are not powered by PC class computers. Some files included in the distribution: BW.EXE - The main executable for the game. Run this to play. README.TXT - This document, also in WORD format README.DOC ATTFILE.DAT - Attrition table. UNITPARM.DAT - Parameters for the various unit types. GAMEDESC.DAT - Descriptions for the saved games. MURPHY.TXT - Murphy's laws of combat Several .bwm files - the game maps. .PCX files in the pics directory - shown in the pregame demo .WAV files in the snd directory - battle sounds .bmp files in the bmps directory - bitmaps used for units and objects ------------ STANDARD DISCLAIMER ------------ In no event will the author be liable for any damages, including any lost profits, lost savings or other incidental or consequential loss or damages arising out of the use or of the inability to use this program -- even if the author has been advised of the possibility of such damages. The author will in no event be held liable for direct, indirect, or incidental damages resulting from the omission of any part of this product, including this document. The author makes no warranties, either expressed or implied, respecting the software, its quality, performance, merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose. "Board Warfare" is freeware in the public domain and may be distributed freely if the following rules are followed: 1. No fees are to be collected from the distribution or use of this software, not even for shipping and handling, without the author's permission. 2. The program and associated files may not be distributed in a modified form. "Board Warfare" is being distributed with the freeware concept in mind. "Board Warfare" is a FREE game. Send no money but please let me know what you think about the game. mtcozart@tds.net ------------ CONTACT ------------ Mike Cozart 259 Cedar Creek Drive Mount Juliet, Tennessee 37122 USA phone: 615-758-9914 email: mtcozart@tds.net http://personalpages.tds.net/~mcozart If there are any oversights or errors in the documentation or any part of this game please feel free to let me know. I welcome constructive criticism and comments. Board Warfare is free but I need the encouragement of those who play to continue work on this project. I would be happy to hear from those who try the game. Release notes are found at the end of this document. Mike ------------------ INSTALLATION ------------------ Select the download Board Warfare Button from the Board Warfare website: http://personalpages.tds.net/~mcozart/bwdnld.html Copy or download the tar file BW60.tar.gz into a directory or folder of your choice. For example /temp cd /temp unzip the tarfile gzip -d BW60.tar.gz extract the game from the tarfile tar -xf BW60.tar This will extract the game into a directory named "bw" inside the directory where you extacted the tarfile. --------------- STARTING THE GAME --------------- This game is a linux application. from a terminal on your linux display cd /temp/bw ./bw.sh or to skip the introduction demo ./bw ------------ ESSENTIAL INSTRUCTIONS ------------ For those who are patiently impaired, as I am, and will not read instructions, these are the only keys in the program which do anything: Menu: left mouse button, s, r, n, e, q. Map editing: 1, ..., 6, q, w, e, r, a, s, d, x, m, t, v, g arrow keys. Game play: enter, y, n, x, m, c, e, arrow keys, mouse buttons. Miscellaneous: p will capture the window as a 256 color bmp file. The introduction or demo at the start of the game can be stopped at any time by pressing any key. The demo requires SVGA graphics, the game requires graphics that can display 1024 x 768 resolutiuon. To play the game without the introductory demo use a command line parameter nodemo. run bw.exe nodemo Note: BW60 has no demo, it has not been ported to linux. I have tried to stick with a standard of the 'x' key to stop any phase of the game and 'm' to exit to the menu. The `z' key will toggle graphics on and off during computer players' play, I use this feature for rapid debugging of the game, but one could use this feature to speed up computer play. Terrain types: clear, desert, swamp, water, light woods, woods, jungle, hills, mountain, rock, snow, road, beach, city. Terrain attributes: Movement factors - cost to enter a hex of the terrain type Defense advantage - a factor which is multiplied by a unit's defense strength if in this terrain Blocks LOS - if the terrain blocks Line-Of-Sight (LOS) Unit types: Infantry, Mechanized Infantry, Armor, Field Artillery, Engineer, Air Assault, Airborne, Marine, Ranger, Cavalry, Armored Cavalry, Air Cavalry, Anti Tank, Fighter aircraft, Tactical Bomber, Medium Bomber, Strategic Bomber, Air Transport, Supply, Anti Aircraft. Unit attributes: movement factors - how far the unit can move each turn air movement factors - how many hexes the unit may move by air in one turn attack factor and defense factor - when attacked a unit's defense factor is compared to the attack factor of all attacking units to determine attack odds strength - same as unit's defense factor weapon range - the distance in hexes over which a unit may attack another unit loose ZOC - if the unit may move freely in hexes adjacent to enemy units which are not loose ZOC Other features: The cost to pass through friendy units - cost in movement factors Air Move Cost - the cost to fly one hex in air movement factors, the cost is to 1.0 factors Mines - cause random amounts of damage to units which pass through mined hexes, after two units pass through a mined hex the minefield is considered deactivated and removed from the game Airfields - units which are capable of moving by air may move by air only if they begin a turn in a hex with an airfield or a city hex Fortified hexes - float the defense strength of a unit in these hexes Movement costs: Movement cost varies with the unit moving and the terrain they are moving into. For example an infantry unit moving into a mountain hex costs 3 movement factors, but armor moving to a mountain hex costs 6 movement factors. Air mobile units when in a city hex or airfield hex at start of a turn into any hex: 1. Moving through a friendly unit costs .1 movement factors. After BW release 2.5 the movement costs may be changed using the terrain parameters edit feature and any unit type can be assigned different movement costs for various terrains. Unit types description: Infantry - X in the unit marker Marines - MAR in the unit marker. Field Artillery - big dot in the unit marker (probably your most valuable and potentially deadly units) Armor - Oval in the unit marker. Engineers - Horizontal E in the unit marker. Airborne - X in the unit marker with a little w (wings). (infantry with special movement abilities) Air Assault - Oval with a little w in the unit marker (armor with special movement abilities. Mechanized infantry - X with an oval in the unit marker. New with version 3.6: Ranger - X with RNGR. Cavalry - Slash. Armored Cavalry - Oval with slash. Air Cavalry - Horizontal 8 with a slash. AntiTank - Inverted v, ^. Fighter - Horizontal 8, with FTR in the marker. Tactical Bomber - Horizontal 8 with TAC. Medium Bomber - Horizontal 8 with MDM. Strategic Bomber - Horizontal 8 with SAC. Air Transport - Horizontal 8 with TRN. Supply - Resembles a wheel with spokes ( I hope). Anti Aircraft Artillery - AA under an arc. Line-Of-Sight (LOS): 3 Line-Of-Sight game options, Off, Partial, Full. Off - all units can see into all hexes on the map. Partial - Units can see until a hex which is a city hex, mountain, woods, rocks, jungle, or hill block their line of sight. Hexes not in the line of sight of any unit are marked with a white slash. The small master map shows all units. Units not in the line of sight can be targeted if they are found by searching hexes manually. Full - The small master map shows no units which are not in the line of sight. Units can not be targeted unless they are in the line of sight of some unit. Zone-of-Control (ZOC): 3 Zone-of-Control game options, Off, Loose, Full. Off - All units have complete freedom to move into and through hexes adjacent to hexes occupied by enemy units. Loose - Units designated as having Loose ZOC have complete freedom to move into and through hexes adjacent to hexes occupied by enemy units which are not Loose ZOC units themselves. All others must stop moving immediately after moving into a hex adjacent to a hex occupied by an enemy unit. Armor, and air Assault have Loose ZOC by default. The Loose ZOC setting for any unit type may be changed on the unit parameter edit screen. Full - All units must stop moving immediately after moving into a hex adjacent to hex occupied by an enemy unit. ------------ COMPLETE INSTRUCTIONS ------------ Game basics. The game consists of 30 turns. Each turn has the following phases: 1 Team one, "blue", ground unit movement 2 Team one, "blue", air unit target selection, bombardment and movement 3 Team one target selection 4 Team one combat 5 Team one, "blue", movement after combat 6 Team two, "red", ground unit movement 7 Team two, "red", air unit target selection, bombardment and movement 8 Team two target selection 9 Team two combat 10 Team two, "red", movement after combat The player pieces have attributes associated with them. These attributes are movement factors, attack strength, defense strength, and weapon range. Airborne, air assault, ranger , and air cavalry units also have air movement factors. At the start of each turn all units are allotted their full movement factors. On the first turn the Blue team is limited to half their movement. Moving units from one hex to another deducts a portion of the moving unit's movement factors. Some terrain deducts more movement factors than others. Certain unit types are not allowed to move into some types of terrain at all. Units may move through other units on the same team. When all of a unit's movement factors are used the unit can move no more during that turn. There is no combat on the first turn. The unit' s attack strength, defense strength, and weapon range are used during battle or combat. After a player moves all of their units combat may be initiated between their units and any units on the opposing team which are within range of their weapons. Weapon range represents the maximum number of hexes a unit can be from it's intended target unit. A very important strategy of the game is to attack one unit with several units. This is important since the outcome of battles depends on the odds of the attack. Odds are calculated by adding the attack factors of each attacking unit and dividing by the defense strength of the defending unit. Some terrain types give the defender an advantage by increasing the unit's defense strength. The higher the odds, the more likely the attack will inflict damage and cause the defender to retreat from it present location. Damage inflicted on a unit reduces it's strength. The unit's strength is measured by it's attack factor and defense factor. If a unit is forced to retreat as an outcome of battle and the unit cannot retreat then the unit is completely destroyed and removed from the game. A unit cannot retreat if it is completely surrounded or the only empty adjacent hexes are also adjacent to enemy units in Zone of Control play. Sometimes as a result of combat units are given additional movement factors which may be used by the player in the movement phase following combat. The goal of a player is to win the game by scoring more points than his opponent or completely eliminating all of his opponent's forces. Points are awarded to each team at the conclusion of each turn based on the number of city hexes owned by their units. Additional points are awarded to the team with the greater team strength. Occupation of a city at the end of a turn gives the occupying team ownership of the city, provided there are no enemy units in the same city if the city is multi-hex city. After establishing ownership it is not necessary to leave a garrison in the city to retain ownership. Ownership will not change until an enemy unit ends a turn in the city. Multi-hex cities occupied by both sides are owned by neither side. Each city hex owned by a team scores 10 points at the end of each turn. Cities are shaded gray if not owned, blue if owned by team 1 and red if owned by team 2. Game menu. "save" and "restore" - Eight games may be played, saved, and restored. If you leave a game during play you will return to the menu where you may optionally save the game. To restore a game to the same point of play when you exited the game first you must save the game, then restore. You may save the game then "quit" and return later to restore the game. Following is a list of the game details which are saved and restored: changes to the playing map made by engineer units, scores, current turn and game phase, team strength and unit locations, editable unit attributes. The game cannot be saved during the combat phase. "Game" - To save a game first select a game from the main menu. When you press save the game will be saved and you will be prompted to enter a description for the game you just saved. To leave the description as is just press the enter key otherwise key in a new description then press the enter key. If you intend to restore a game already in progress then a game must be selected. "Map": Choose from several pre-designed maps or load a randomly generated map. The menu map shown in red on the main menu will be selected for new games. Select different maps with the "Next Map" button. Any maps added to the Board Warfare directory will automatically be made available for selection in the menu. Maps are files with a .bwm suffix. All maps provided with the game may be previewed at http://personalpages.tds.net/~mcozart/bwmaps.html "Random" generates a map with varying terrain types, cities, roads, and rivers. No map will be generated with a river completely across the map. A minimum spanning tree algorithm connects the cities with roads. You may edit the randomly generated maps to add finishing touches and city names if you like. Use the "Next Map" to select the random map if you desire to edit the last randomly generated map. Any map may be edited by first loading the map from the main menu but when saved the map will be saved in the player map file, USER.BWM. One may copy and rename the user map file, USER.BWM, to save various maps using the "COPY USER" button. Optionally you may save different maps in the saved games. The current map is saved with a game when a game is saved. To reload the maps from saved games for editing or for new games restore the game with the desired map, then use the "Map" option to edit the map and save it in the player map, user.bwm. Please email in any nice maps which you may design to mtcozart@tds.net. If I use the map you will be given credit. Anyone with a good source of battlefield maps pertaining to mechanized warfare please email me, mtcozart@tds.net. Map editing: Terrain is changed with keys 1-0,-,=,+, roads are installed with q, w, e, a, s, d. r erases roads. Text, map labels, or city names can be entered and anchored to a hex with the t key. The g key will remove the anchored text. After pressing the g key some text remains on the screen so do not be alarmed. The text will not be saved and is removed completely if the hexes displayed are changed by scrolling. Up to 30 text labels can be inserted, the labels and should be less than 40 characters long. These keys are shown on the map editing screen. To exit the map editor and save the changes which have been made use the x key. To exit without saving changes use the m key. The v key will display the entire map on the full screen until any key is pressed. Terrain types can be changed for multiple hexes in a rectangular area by using the right mouse key to select 2 corners of the area. Road removal can also be performed on multiple hexes using the r key. Roads can be automatically drawn between two points with any road key using the multiple hex option. Keys for these functions are shown on the map edit screen. Initial unit placement for new games can be controlled in the map editor using the "h" and "j" keys. Hexes may be designated as a starting hex for one team. The h key when pressed will draw a large blue dot in the selected hex or hexes indicating this is a candidate hex for initial unit placement for team 1 at the start of a game. "h" removes the designation as a starting hex for team 1 if the hex is already a starting hex. `j' performs the same function for team 2 with red dots. If the number of initial starting hexes for one team is greater than or equal the number of initial units the units will be placed only in starting hexes (randomly). If the number of starting hexes is less than the number of initial units, then the units will be randomly placed around the starting hexes. Presently the most units one team can possibly be given at game start is 110. This is for a computer player at the highest skill level. If there are no designated starting hexes for one or both teams the game will place the units at randomly chosen starting locations on the map. The blue and red dots designating initial placement hexes may be viewed only from the map editor. "Weather": Weather for each turn is determined by the selected climate and season for the game when started. Climates: temperate, cold, tropic, desert Season: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, all (the plays through all seasons with about 7 turns per season) The table in the file weather.dat contains the percentage chance that each weather event which will occur on any turn during a given season and climate. You may edit the file, it is read in each time bw starts a new game. The weather table is saved in the savegames. weather - effect on operations rain - movement 50% - No air operations - Line-of-sight 50% snow - movement 50% - No air operations - Line-of-sight 25% dust storm - movement 50% - No air operations - Line-of-sight 25% overcast - No air operations fog - No air operations - Line-of-sight 20% fair - normal gameplay A reminder of the weather on each turn is provided by using different masks on the hexes which are not in Line-Of-Sight. Raindrops mark hidden hexes during rain, a whitewashed hex marks the hidden hexes during fog, top half of the hidden hexes are whitewashed for overcast, yellow washed hexes indicate dust storms, and snowflakes indicate snow. During fair weather a slash marks the hidden hexes. "gamespeed": changing this option will increase or decrease the speed at which units move across the screen and the length of time messages are displayed on the screen. I recommend the default setting, "medium" until you have learned the rules regarding unit movement then for the fastest possible gameplay pick the "no delay" setting. When "Line-Of-Sight" is turned on the units move across the screen more slowly than if the option is off. "skill": 5 skill levels are provided, "rookie" to "supreme". The rookie setting provides fewer units to be moved for both players and gives the human player a numerical advantage in units. The higher skill settings will reduce the quantity of reinforcements the human player will receive and increase the quantity for the computer opponent. It is quite difficult to win a game at the "supreme" skill level. If anyone is victorious at this setting please let me know. Ryan Fishman from Australia found that a good river defense combined with airborne attacks on enemy artillery provides a formula for victory at any skill level. Monuments: Flags and monuments show battlefields. Flags are placed wherever units lose strength; monuments are erected where units are destroyed. The monuments are not tombstones, although tombstones do qualify as monuments. These markers do not alter the game play in any way, they merely allow a player to view a history of the conflicts and carnage of combat. These markers may seem distracting to some players so they may be turned off from the main menu. Additionally a wrecked vehicle monument is displayed on roads where units are destroyed to depict rubble which would impede traffic. Road rubble floats movement cost for all units along roads. Passwords: The password option is used only in human versus human play and is intended to provide security for email play of the game. When a new human versus human game is initiated by player 1 the game prompts for passwords and provides instructions. Both passwords must be exchanged by players before actual gameplay begins. At the start of each player's first move phase in each turn the player is prompted for their password. These passwords will be required to proceed into the first movement phase for each player the duration of the game. Now two players can exchange a save game file via email or floppy diskette (sneakernet). The game file to exchange for email games are those with the same numerical suffix. For example if two players are playing a game via email and playing the game saved as game 1 the file to be exchanged is savegame.01. The file is encrypted to eliminate the possibility of cheating if the LOS option is on. Games to be exchanged via email should be saved following completion of a player's move after combat phase. Initiating a password protected game: 1. Player 1 starts a human versus human new game with the password menu option selected and any desired options which are configured from the main menu. 2. Player 1 enters a new password for the game. The game will automatically return to the main menu after providing instructions. 3. Player 1 saves the game, then emails or sends the savegame file with the same numerical suffix to player 2. 4. Player 2 copies the file they receive to their Board Warfare directory. 5. Player 2 executes BW.EXE then restores the game with the suffix of the file they received. 6. Player 2 enters a new password for their team. 7. Player 2 saves the game, then emails or sends the savegame files with the same numerical suffix back to player 1. 8. At this point the initial password exchange is complete. 9. Player 1 receives the files, copies them to their Board Warfare directory, runs BW.EXE, restores the game with the suffix, enters the the team 1 password when prompted, and plays the entire team 1 turn 1. Player 1 then saves the game, and sends the files back to player 2. 10. Player 2 now does for team 2 what player 1 just did for team 1. 11. Player 1 and player 2 play their respective turns and email or send the file back and forth to one another. The above procedure is really simpler than it appears in written instructions. Board Warfare detects conditions which may be symptoms of cheating in games which are password protected, usually email games. These conditions are: 1) Restoring a game more than once from the same saved position. A player could be trying to replay their turn after learning the placement of enemy units, or trying to get better random combat results. 2) Attempting to save a game before a password has been entered. 3) Fooling around trying to discover some way to avoid the cheat detection. It is possible a player had an interruption in the game while playing, power was cut to the computer, or the cat hit the menu button while you were playing. It can happen. There is nothing a player can do to restore the game after a cheat condition has been detected except: email your opponent, beg for forgiveness and explain why you need them to: a) restore the game at the point they last saved it. When prompted for their opponent's password they must enter their password, not their opponent's password, they immediately will be taken back to the menu and may save the game again. They will not be allowed to save the game again unless they enter THEIR password. In no way is their password compromised. b) save the game again c) email the savegame to you again Players may save the game as often as desired but may only restore once from each save. I understand these instructions are rather complicated. All problems can be avoided by simply playing the game as if your opponent was watching over you shoulder. Security does add complexity. Aircraft: The aircraft option determines whether air units (fighters, and bombers) will be used (or available for use) in the game. This is a feature for advanced players. Line-Of-Sight (LOS): 3 Line-Of-Sight options - "Off" "Partial" "Full" The line of sight formula provided with Board Warfare is reasonably generous. Woods, City, Mountain, Hill, Rocks, and Jungle terrain block line of sight unless adjacent to a friendly unit. LOS is not available for COMPUTER versus COMPUTER play. "Off" - all units can see into all hexes on the map. "Partial" - Units see the contents of hexes until a hex which is a city hex, mountain or woods block their line of sight out to a distance of about 20 hexes. Hexes not in the line of sight of any unit are marked with a white slash. The small master map shows all units. Units not in the line of sight can be targeted if they are found by searching hexes manually. The COMPUTER player will use this extra targeting capability as well. Think of the extra targeting capability as a penalty for the ability to see all the units on the master map. "Full" - The small master map shows no units which are not in the line of sight. Units can not be targeted unless they are in the line of sight of some unit. Full LOS is the most challenging setting. Zone-of-Control (ZOC): 3 Zone-of-Control options, Off, Loose, Full. ZOC has no effect on terrain movement rules or unit movement factors except when adjacent to enemy units. With ZOC some or all units are required to stop moving when they move adjacent to enemy units. Off - All units have complete freedom to move into and through hexes adjacent to hexes occupied by enemy units. Units may retreat into hexes adjacent to enemy units. Loose - Units designated as having Loose ZOC have complete freedom to move into and through hexes adjacent to hexes occupied by enemy units which are not Loose ZOC units themselves. All others must stop moving immediately after moving into a hex adjacent to a hex occupied by an enemy unit. Units with Loose ZOC may retreat into hexes adjacent to enemy units which are not Loose ZOC. Armor, and air Assault have Loose ZOC by default. The setting for any unit type may be changed on the unit parameter edit screen. Full - All units must stop moving immediately after moving into a hex adjacent to hex occupied by an enemy unit. Units cannot retreat into hexes adjacent to any enemy units. "Unit Parameter Edit": The parameters for all unit types may be changed using these 2 menus. Editing unit parameters is a feature intended for advanced players. The movement factor, attack factor, defense factor, weapon range, airmove factors, and Loose ZOC for units may be edited. The menu will not allow insane values to be set. Only ground unit types airborne, air assault, ranger, and air cavalry may be assigned air movement distances. Unit parameters may be reset to the original settings with the "Reset" option on the menu. The original settings are saved in the file unitparm.bak, please don't delete or edit this file unless you intend to alter the default settings. After changing the parameters for units the changes will NOT be used or kept unless you press the "save" button. Unit parameters are saved with games. To use new settings you must start a new game. The unit parameters are restored to a particular game's settings when a game is restored. Of interest, weapon ranges greater than 1 for any units other than Field artillery can lead to rather unrealistic gameplay when the units direct fire over or through mountains or woods. A unit's attack strength decreases with the range to a target, except for Field Artillery. Attack strength is discussed in the weapon range section. In release 3.3 the unit parameters menu was altered to allow setting parms for each team separately. Now a scenario can be created where each army may have unit weaknesses and advantages. For example armor on one side may have more mobility but less firepower than the other side. When selecting "both teams" to edit the current parameters for team 1 are shown but if settings are changed the settings for both teams are changed and set to the same value. Only the parameters which are actually changed from the menu will be altered for both teams. "Terrain Parameter Edit": Parameters for all terrain types may be changed from these 2 menus. This feature is intended for advanced players. One may change the cost to enter any terrain type for any unit type. Terrain parameters may be reset to the original settings with the "Reset" option on the menu. The original settings are saved in the file ternparm.bak. Please don't manually delete or edit this file unless you intend to alter the default settings. After changing the parameters for terrain the changes will NOT be used or kept unless you press the "save" button. Terrain parameters are saved with games. To use new settings you must start a new game. The terrain parameters are restored to a particular game's settings when a game is restored. In the Terrain Parameter edit menu there are two settings and sets of buttons which control all unit types and terrain types. These settings are air move cost and the cost to pass though friendly units. The air move cost controls the cost the move one hex while in air transport mode. The cost to pass through friendly units affects all unit types while not in air transport mode. The cost to pass through friendly units cannot be set to 0. Ideas: If you wish a certain unit type, armor for example, to be unable to enter mountains, then set the cost to enter mountains higher than the movement parameter for armor (default is 6). Of course the unit parameters may be changed also so you will need to check the unit parameter menu if you have altered unit parameters. If a unit is not able to move into a certain terrain type (like armor into water hexes) and the only hex available for retreat is that terrain type then the unit will be eliminated if it is forced to retreat as a result of battle. Retreating units automatically are given enough movement points to retreat into empty adjacent hexes. If you intend for certain unit types to be able to ford or cross rivers then set the cost to enter water hexes less than or equal to the movement ability for those unit types. An excellent variant from the default settings is to set the entry cost for infantry, marines, and perhaps airborne units entering water hexes to a value the same as their movement factors. This allows those units to cross rivers. The display: Above the large game map is a line used to display information about the gameplay and instructions. To the right of the large game map is information about each team's strength in units and total unit strength and the team's score. Beneath the team strength is information about a selected unit: moves remaining, strength, attack factor, defense factor. Under the defense factor is the defense factor with terrain advantages considered, the effective defense strength. When in the attack phase the same information is displayed for a targeted unit under the attacking unit information along with the current attack versus defense odds on the particular unit highlighted. Odds information may be viewed for any opposing units using the arrow keys or right mouse to move the hexagonal cursor among these units. Also displayed below the unit information is the range or distance in hexes from a moving or targeting unit to a hex selected with the right mouse. All units have a balanced attack and defense factor except Field Artillery which has an attack factor float it's defense strength. Weapon range for most units is 1 hex, Field Artillery which has a much greater range, about 6 and armor usually has a range of 2. Weapon ranges may customized to your preference using the "Unit Parameters Edit" menu option. Note: a new feature provided with version 2.5 and newer decreases a units attack strength with range to target if the range is greater than 1 hex. This attack strength decrease affects all unit types except Field Artillery. The formula for attack strength provides that the attack strength decreases by a factor of 1/(weapon range) for each additional hex to the target beyond one hex. For example if a unit with a weapon range of 4 hexes and an attack strength of 4 attacks a unit 4 hexes away then it's effective attack strength is 1. If the target is 3 hexes away the strength is 2. If the target is 2 hexes away the strength is 3. Note: No attacking unit will suffer damage resulting from combat if the range to the target is greater than the weapon range of the target. This had been the rule only for Field Artillery prior to BW36. Unit strength is indicated with a horizontal bar on the lower portion of the unit marker. A bar the width of the unit represents a strength of 10. All units begin the game with a strength of 4 or 6. The game may be saved by exiting to the menu with the m key and using the save game option during any phase except combat. Restoring the game will return to the same game phase. To restore the game to the point where you just left first you must save the game. Initial unit placement for each team is randomly determined unless there are initial placement markers in the map. The map editor may be used to view and change the initial placement markers. Any units which are "accidentally" placed in water hexes at the game start will be permitted to move out of the water hex. A game may be played between a computer player and a human, two humans, or two computer players. The player choice is made when the "new game" option is chosen. If a human plays a computer player the computer player will be given an advantage in numbers of units for skill levels "good" and "master". Unit selection: At the start of each game human players are presented a menu from which to choose the units they wish to use at the start of the game. Any combination of units may be chosen. Each unit type has a cost which depends on the attributes of the unit. Each unit type's cost is calculated from the unit parameters such that the cost increases more rapidly for each additional movement, attack and defense factors, and weapon range. There is also additional cost for loose Zone of control, and air movement. The total amount of points allowed to purchase units varies depending on the average unit cost. Players are also presented with the unit selection menu for reinforcement unit selection on every 4th turn if they possess a city or a reinforment hex. Points available for reinforcements vary with the skill level. Points not spent to purchase units are added to the next reinforcement unit purchase opportunity. There is no control over the playing skill of the computer opponent. In a game between 2 human players the skill level changes the number of units given each team at game start: the higher the skill level the more units given each team. There is no input required or permitted to alter gameplay on a computer defender's part during movement and combat. You may interrupt the computer gameplay with the m key and go to the menu, however, there may be a few seconds delay. Mouse: The left mouse button is used in the game to navigate the menu, select units to move, their destinations, their targets, and to scroll the map. Click in the hexes to select a hex or the unit contained in the hex. The right mouse button will show information about any unit in the clicked hex during the movement phase and during the target phase will move the target cursor to the clicked hex without selecting that hex as the target allowing the player to study odds and strength on the enemy unit there. During movement phases right clicks will display information about the terrain in the selected hex including movement cost information if a unit has been selected previously with a left mouse click and not moved. Generally any function which can be accomplished with a mouse click can be accomplished with the arrow keys and the enter key. There is a small master map in the lower right corner. Mouse clicks on this map will position the game play map where the mouse was clicked. This is by far the best method of scrolling the screen. Gound unit Movement: Click on a unit to move then click on a desired destination, the shortest path will be found and the unit moved as far as possible. The human will have to choose destination hexes carefully for his units to achieve maximum movement while the computer player will try to stack it's units automatically. This feature is most obvious when moving lots of units down a road. You'll see what I mean very quickly. I prefer to pick how my units are bunched up, not let some simple code do it for me. Armor, Air Assault, and Mechanized Infantry have default movement factors of 6. All other unit types have movement factors of 4. The exception to this is airborne and air assault units which begin a turn in a city hex or a hex with an airfield, then they have a movement factor of 30 and terrain does not affect movement. Air movement costs 1 movement factor per hex. That turn the terrain has no ill effect on their movement. The airborne and air mobile units are moved in the ground unit movement phase. Note: Airborne and airmobile units may move only once using the air movement ability, after the move the unit may move no more until after combat or the next turn using regular movement rules. Following battle Air cavalry and Air assault units are permitted to move by air once again. When playing with LOS on if you pick a destination for your airborne unit and there is an enemy unit in that hex, then your airborne unit will not land in that hex and probably will not end up where you desire. This feature is not unlike the real world. Air unit Movement and bombardment: Click on an air unit, Fighter, Tactical bomber, Medium Bomber, or Strategic Bomber, that is to be assigned a target and/or destination then click on a desired destination or target. If the selected hex contains an enemy unit or is out of the Line of sight it is assumed to be a target hex and the unit will be assigned that hex as a target. If the selected hex is an airfield or city hex, either empty or occupied by another air unit on the same team, then the hex is assumed to be a destination hex. If an air unit is already in the destination hex then it must be assigned another destination. If no destination is assigned the unit will return to the original hex after it's mission. You may select a target hex, a destination hex or both for any air unit. When selecting targets and destinations the distance to the target and destination is instantly calculated. The player is not permitted to select targets or destinations which cause the flight of the entire mission to exceed the maximum movement range of the air unit. Air units will not be allowed to fly in fog, rain, wind storms, or snow. The artillery may be used in these weather conditions during this phase. Fighter escort. If you select the same target for fighter aircraft as bombers then the bomber aircraft will be "escorted" by the fighters and any enemy fighter interception strength will be reduced by half. This occurs after the routes of the fighter and bomber aircraft converge en route to the target hex. This feature will improve. In addition to air unit target hex selection the Artillery units may also select target hexes within their maximum weapon range. Artillery units are not permitted to move during this phase. After selection of targets and destinations press the x key and the rest of the phase will proceed automatically. Units move to their assigned targets and are subject to be intercepted by enemy fighters and anti aircraft artillery fire. Enemy fighter intercept and AA fire occurs automatically. Enemy fighters only intercept once per turn. Fighter weapon range is 1 hex, and AAA range is 3 by default. All units attacking the same hex will be moved to the target moving from hex to hex and each units initial movement will be timed so they all arrive on target on the same move. Note that all air units are in the LOS of all enemy units when in flight. That is the air units in flight are seen by their enemy. This is different from the ground units LOS rules but is necessary to allow fighter interception and AA fire. After planes land they are removed from LOS if they land in a hex out of the LOS of enemy units. After all air units are over their target the bombardment commences, attack strength is the combined strength of the attacking air units and artillery attacking the target hex. Defense strength is the target unit's defense strength adjusted for the terrain of the hex. Damage done to the target unit is randomly 5 to 15 percent of attack strength/defense strength. Fighter intercept and AA fire odds are calculated similarly. Odds calculation may be adjusted in future releases. After bombardment the attacking air units return to their destination hexes. Following all bombardment missions the air units which are only changing bases are moved to their destinations. note: Any air unit's defense factor is always 1 when attacked by ground units. Airfields are built automatically where air units begin the game. Battle: After the first movement phase for a team each unit on the team will be permitted to select a target within range of it's weapons. This is the target selection phase. Each unit is presented sequentially and the player is prompted for a target. To attack no target press "x" or "c", to end the target selection phase for all units press "e". After each unit has been presented to the player or "e" is pressed the player may choose to change some of the attacks and will be prompted to do so. If the player chooses to change the attacks each unit is once again presented and the unit's selected target (if any) is highlighted. At this point the "x" key will leave each unit's attack as is and the "c" key will cancel a unit's attack. Again, the phase may be ended at any time by pressing the "e" key. Battle starts instantly after the player selects not to change any attacks. While choosing units to attack a player can see the current odds on any enemy unit with the arrow keys, or with a right mouse click on the enemy unit. During battle no input is required or permitted to determine where units should retreat. If a unit is forced to retreat and no retreat path ( an empty adjacent hex not in the Zone of Control of an enemy unit ) is available it will be eliminated. All units ( human and computer, attacker and defender) retreat automatically. Following victorious combat attacking units are sometimes given additional movement factors. These are added to any movement factors unused in the movement phase up to the maximum movement allowed for a unit. The additional movement may be used in the movement phase following combat. Presently all units which are forced to retreat automatically retreat one hex. No attacking unit will suffer damage resulting from combat if the range to the target unit is greater than the weapon range of the target unit. Only engineers and a few other unit types such as marines and rangers are allowed to move onto water hexes, until they are bridged. It costs 2 movement factors for an engineer unit to move onto a non-bridged river hex. A bridged water hex is a road hex. Engineers can build bridges on river hexes after moving into them or destroy existing bridges. When engineer units move onto a water hex the human player is prompted about building or destroying existing bridges. Computer players always build bridges when engineers cross rivers. Engineers: Engineer units may construct airfields or fortifications, or lay or defuse minefields. Engineer units may be directed to perform these activities with the "e" key during movement phase. Fortifications double the defense factor of a hex. Airfields or cities may be used for air units (airmobile or airborne ... also). Minefields cause a random amount of damage when units move into them, from 10% to 100% damage. After two units move through a minefield it is no long effective and removed from the map. Airfields, mines, fortifications are features which may be added to hex terrain with the map editor. At the start of every fourth turn reinforcements are placed around a city owned by each team, the owned city nearest the center of the team's units. If no city is owned by a team no reinforcements are provided for that team. The higher your selected skill level the fewer reinforcement points provided for unit selection. The game length is 30 turns. After 30 turns one team is declared the winner based on points unless one team is eliminated before 30 turns. One may continue to play beyond 30 turns. Up to 50 turns of information for plotting, scores and strength, are tracked and saved when games are saved. There is no code controlling supplies or a supply path to units. There are fictional maps provided with this game that have absolutely no historical or geographical basis. Some maps included do have historic significance. Humans are required to hit a key after each battle, so they can see the results before they are scrolled off the screen but computer players will complete all battles without interruption. Odds: There is a very simple table controlling ground unit battle results, simulating die rolls and determining results. This was one of my biggest headaches about board games and it is completely automated, random, and fair. The better the odds in an attack the greater the chances of inflicting damage to the opponent and forcing them to retreat. Odds changes occur at whole numbers. These are some of the important odds, 5 to 1 and the defender will definitely retreat, 7 to 1 and the defender will be eliminated. Adjacent units do not have to attack so the 1 to 5 and 1 to 6 odds (soak off attacks in traditional wargames) aren't necessary. Attacks with odds less than 1 are not recommended but sometimes inflict damage on the opponent, but rarely as much as inflicted on the attacker. Below is the odds table: A: Percentage of attacking units' strength points eliminated B: Percentage of defending units' strength points eliminated C: number of hexes attackers may advance, negative means retreat D: number of hexes defender may advance, negative means retreat Simulated die roll: 1 2 3 4 5 6 ODDS ------ # A B C D A B C D A B C D A B C D A B C D A B C D -- --- -- -#-- --- -- -#-- --- -- -#-- --- -- -#-- -- -- -#-- --- -- - 1 to 6 # 40 0 -3 1#20 0 -3 1#40 0 -4 1#40 0 -2 0#40 0 -2 0#60 0 -2 0 1 to 5 # 40 0 -3 1#20 0 -3 1#40 0 -2 0#20 0 -2 0#40 0 -2 0#60 0 -2 0 1 to 4 # 20 0 -3 1#20 0 -2 0#20 0 -2 0#40 0 -2 0#40 0 -2 0#40 0 -2 0 1 to 3 # 20 0 -2 0#20 0 -2 0#20 0 -2 0#20 0 -2 0#40 0 -2 0#40 0 -2 0 1 to 2 # 0 20 1 -2#20 20 0 0#20 0 -2 0#20 0 -2 0#40 0 -2 0#40 0 -2 0 1 to 1 # 0 40 1 -2#20 20 0 0#0 20 0 -1#20 0 -1 0#20 0 -1 0#40 0 -2 0 2 to 1 # 0 40 2 -3#20 20 0 -1#0 20 1 -2#20 0 -1 0#20 20 0 0#40 0 -1 0 3 to 1 # 0 40 2 -3#20 20 0 0#0 20 1 -2#20 40 2 -3#20 20 0 0#0 40 3 -4 4 to 1 # 0 60 3 -4#20 20 0 0#20 40 1 -2#0 40 2 -3#20 60 2 -3#0 60 3 -4 5 to 1 # 0 80 3 -4#20 40 0 -1#0 60 2 -3#20 40 0 -1#0 40 1 -2#0 80 3 -4 6 to 1 # 0 80 4 -5#20 40 1 -2#0 60 3 -4#0 40 2 -3#0 40 3 -4#0 80 4 -5 7 to 1 # 0 100 4 -5#0 100 4 -5#0 100 4 -5#0 100 4 -5#0 100 4 -5#0 100 4 -5 Note: Retreat of one hex is all that is required and implemented. Losses in strength points are rounded off to the nearest point, for example if a unit with a strength of 6 loses 20% it will have 5 strength points after combat. If a unit with strength 6 loses 60% it will have 2 strength points after combat. Of interest is a unit with strength of 1, it must lose more than half it's strength before it is eliminated. With multiple attackers if some damage is sustained by the attackers then the units each loose strength if they are within weapon range of the target unit. No attacking unit will suffer damage resulting from combat if the range to the target is greater than the weapon range of the target. The computer player is coded with one primary objective, hunt down and destroy the opponent's army. The computer player will also try to occupy cities since it is required to own one city to obtain reinforcements and score is partially based on the number of occupied city hexes. When and if the computer player's opponent gains the upper hand the computer player will attack a little more cautiously. For you tactical geniuses out there. If you block all short routes for the computer player to take to get to your armies it will look for a route no matter how long it is. This can make game play very slow on older PCs, slower than pentiums. The game is probably too CPU intensive to play on 386s any longer. Graph: On the right edge of the screen, just above the master map, is a graph showing the score and strength of both teams for each turn completed in the game. The light blue and light red lines show the scores for the blue and red teams. The dark blue and dark red lines show the strengths. The graph y values range from 0 to the highest score and the greatest strength attained. Strategy? Watch your retreat routes and protect your field artillery. Computer players don't make the best use of their air mobile and engineer units but they can surprise you if you ignore that capability. Standard tactical guidelines will be of benefit as well. A few hints come to mind immediately, "git there firstest with the mostest", don't leave gaps in your lines of defense, set up lines of defense in favorable terrain, and don't make attacks with poor odds. You need to kill off enemy units faster than your units are killed off so a purely defensive strategy may not yield victory. Sound: Battle sounds and/or music may be turned off at the game start. In Board Warfare 6.0 and newer if you want music then play a CD. The sound files are monaural at 11000 Hz. You may wish to replace the wav files with sounds of your own. If you do so keep the duration of each file under half a second or so and use the same file names as those provided with the game. Record them at 11000Hz monaural. Should anyone annihilate the computer player on the most difficult skill setting please let me know. ------------ HISTORY ------------ I began the code for this game in 1994 to see if I could draw hex patterns on the screen with a C program. The work evolved into a wargame similar to the old Avalon Hill board games such as "Blitzkrieg." The game was written originally using the old DOS graphics library and CauseWay for 32 bit code. In 2006 I decided to port it to Linux as I felt I could improve and support the game more easily in a UNIX environment. This is freeware. I firmly believe there are enough programmers in the world interested in games that there should be plenty of freeware games available. Is there anyone else in the world who shares this feeling? The game requires a screen resolution of 1024 x 768. Originally the game supported EGA graphics cards but those days are gone. The Artificial Intelligence for the computer opponent is not the best but continues to improve with each release. There's no learning performed on the computer players' part. The computer player is driven purely by AI. I've started to include some neural networking (vector quantization) in this game but at the moment it contributes little to the gameplay and is still in early stages of development. One nice feature of the computer player moving based only on AI without regard to what map is used is that map changes can be made without need to change the computer player code. I am constantly trying to find new ways to make the computer player more formidable. I strive to make the computer player formidable without needing to give them a unit or strength advantage. Mike ------------ TO DO LIST ------------ Not in any particular order: Line-of-sight - done More terrain types - done Skill levels - Done Sound - Done, needs improvement Aircraft - in the works Unit and initial position selection - units done, positions semi-complete. Cybernetics - in the works Map and unit storage in memory for faster scrolling Improved short path calculation - Faster processors took care of this Unit division and recombination More unit types - done Better name for the game - Too late, the name "Board Warfare" grew on me. Bells and whistles Removal of a couple of irritating display bugs - Done Removal of the movement bug (feature) which lets the computer cheat - done Battle graphics and sound - Need improvement Change the map designing keys for roads so the keys help indicate which road section will be installed - Done Countries and politics Supplies Increased capabilities for engineer units: blow bridges, minefields - done ... ------------ RECENT RELEASE NOTES ------------ Release 2.5 - 5/10/98 Added random map generation and the option to save 8 games. - Corrected a glaring bug in the LOS code which had caused numerous runtime problems. - 5/15/98 Improved the appearance of bridges built by engineers, making the bridges connect only to land and other bridge hexes. - 5/28/98 Enhanced the hex selection from mouse clicks so it is no longer necessary to click inside an imaginary box in a hex to select that hex. Recommended by Jussi Vuorinen - Corrected a bug in the map editor which altered hexes when scrolling the map. Also reported by Jussi Vuorinen. - 5/31/98 Increased the number of cities the computer player will attempt to occupy. The computer player was too easy to defeat on points. - 6/10/98 Corrected a bug which crashed the game when c was pressed to cancel an attack for a unit which had not previously selected a target. Reported by Vuorinen Jussi and Peter T Gehris. - 6/10/98 Changed the crude bitmaps for mountain, woods, and water terrain to present the terrain as a view from above. Altered the color pallette to use several more colors. Suggested by "Martin Lorentzon". - 6/18/98 Suggested by Vuorinen Jussi , when units have weapon ranges greater than 1 hex their attack strength decreases with actual range to target. This is true for any units except FA. - 6/25/98 Changed the pregame demo to SVGA graphics which permitted 640x480 resolution. The game requires only VGA. Corrected a bug in the map editor which kept map text labels from previous maps when random maps were generated. - 6/29/98 Suggested by Stefano "vercelli", really helpful for older CPUs, the computer player will not attempt to move any unit or find a destination for a unit which cannot possibly move into an ajacent hex because of low remaining movement factors. - Converted terrain movement costs from constants to a table which allows each unit type to have separate movement cost for each terrain. This will be used in the terrain parameter edit menu. Release 2.6 - 7/6/98 - Adds the terrain edit capability. Massive code changes to support this feature. Corrected a few computer playing bugs which should speed up the play and improve computer opponent some. - Allowed the last attack odds to remain in the information window during the prompt for changing attacks to allow a player to see the odds for the last attack set. Suggested by Scot in Dubai. - 7/7/98 Changed line of sight initialization at start of move phase for each team to prevent hexes which were temporarily in LOS in the previous phase from remaining in LOS for the duration of the next phase. Problem discovered by Stefano "vercelli". - 7/10/98 Eliminated or altered the programming which used a movement cost of 999 for unbridged water hexes to assist computer players. - 7/11/98 Attacking units not in LOS no longer are shown being destroyed when eliminated as the result of a failed attack. Also solved problem with saved game description changes not being saved. - 7/17/98 Added the right mouse click option to select an area in the map edit screen to change multiple hexes instantly. Suggested by Stefano Vercelli. 7/18/98 expanded this option to include road removal and automatic road drawing between two poiints. - 7/24/98 Added ZOC and Loose ZOC options to main menu and added unit parameter Loose ZOC to edit unit parameter screen. Suggested by Scot in Dubai. - 7/25/98 Corrected the bug allowing computer attacks with poor odds, added a blank screen between turns for human vs human play with LOS, requested by Stefano. - 7/27/98 Corrected a bug with restored games with LOS if saved and restored in move after battle or target selection phases. No units were displayed initially, the bug was introduced 7/25/98. - 7/28/98 Changed skill level menu to provide varying numbers of units on each team in human vs human play. Requested by Stefano. Release 3.0 8/9/98 - Since the game no longer resembles the 2.0 release it is time to release a new version, 3.0. - Added flags and monuments to show battlefields. Flags are placed wherever units lose strength, monuments are erected where units are destroyed. - Now saving up to 50 turns of information for plotting, scores and strength. Previously only 30 were saved. - 8/10/98 Corrected a bug showing a blue flag at the hex where text is anchored on old maps. Release 3.1 8/17/98 Corrected a few remaining LOS display bugs. Encrypted the savegame files. Added passwords to the human versus human play, Mark "CoolAdams" recommended the password option for email games. - 8/25/98 Added a message to the player when a menu action is selected which may destroy an unsaved game. Select the same action button again to proceed. - 9/2/98 Corrected a bug with passwords pointed out by CoolAdams. Now passwords must be exchanged by players before gameplay begins. - 9/10/98 Fixed these problems: Monuments were not being shown in restored games, the game always played the same tune when starting, the FA did not attack with poor odds. Computer FA should always attack if no chance of counter-attack. Thanks for the FA report, stefano. Playing an email game with CoolAdams, many email problems are discovered and LOS hidden units are found to be compromised too much by airborne units scouting. Working on these problems. - 9/25/98 Added more features to the password protected games. Cheating is nearly impossible but if cheating is detected the game is locked and only the noncheating player can unlock it. See bwcheat.txt for details. Release 3.2 9/27/98 - 9/27/98 Combined the three files for savegames into one. Savegame.01, savegame.02, ... This will simply the process of emailing games. Corrected a nasty bug on the map editor for text entry. Finishing touches made to the password protection. - 9/29/98 Finished the airborne movement changes. Airborne and air mobile units now fly over enemy units and do not open LOS blocked hexes. This prevents airborne units being used purely for scouting purposes. Airborne may be moved only once per turn using air movement. - 10/3/98 Code added to provide a means to specify starting locations for units. Edit the map to specify unit starting locations. - 10/04/98 Corrected a terrain parm change bug causing erratic parm settings. Mark CoolAdams found the bug in the terrain edit changes. It is not known when this bug was introduced. - 10/09/98 Changed the order units are presented to the player prompting for targets. The old method tended to jump around the map making it difficult to track what units were attacking which target. Release 3.3 10/14/98 - The format of the savegame files has changed again so a new release is necessary. Changed the unit parameters menu to allow setting parms for each team separately. Now a scenario can be created where each army may have unit weaknesses and advantages. For example armor on one side may have more mobility but less firepower than the other side. This change was requested by CoolAdams. - 10/20/98 Stefano reported a glaring error with attack factor updates for units which had changed attack and defense factors. Attack factors were not correctly updated following losses resulting from combat. Unit strength is the same as unit defense factors, attack factors may be set different and now will be decreased from combat loss by the factor of the original attack factor divided by the original defense factor times the number of strength points lost. This error existed in all previous releases of BW which allow unit parameter changes. - 10/28/98 Unit selection menu is working for initial placement and reinforcements. Finally the most requested enhancement has been provided. - 10/29/98 Added a display of the game phase and game settings to the screen under the main map. - 10/30/98 Corrected a problem causing the game to crash when restoring saved games. The cause was the game settings display code added the previous day. - 11/08/98 A memory allocation problem was found. This could have caused any number of problems but none had been found or reported. ENG units are no longer allowed to bridge lake hexes. Lake hexes being water hexes with more than 3 adjacent water hexes. Idea from "Max" Max had many other suggestions, this was the quickest to code. - 11/12/98 Bug found and corrected. The problem is much more severe but the symptom is unlimited ENG movement on roads. The bug could eventually cause the game to crash and corrupt savegame files. Problem reported by "Tor Bernhard Gausen". - 11/28/98 A bug was corrected with password protected games. The bug, reported by Tor, allowed terrain parameter changes while an email game was in progress. Floating point data was not being converted to type DOUBLE when read in from a savegame file. - 12/04/98 Another suggestion from Tor, Zone Of Control rules now are used to control or restrict retreat routes. Previously a unit could retreat into any empty hex which was terrain into which the unit could move. - 12/12/98 A bug was reported by Peter T Gehris which allowed enemy unit information to be seen in LOS play. The bug allowed a player to use the left mouse click to see unit info in hidden hexes and has been corrected. - 12/19/98 "John P. O'Brien" reported a bug which was caused when maps with many large bodies of water of were used. The bug was corrected by increasing the stacksize of the executable. A major change in unit strength loss resulting from combat is put into effect now. This change was suggested by Tor. Rather than loss of a specific amount of strength points resulting from combat losses are now taken as a percentage of strength. - 1/13/99 Improved the random placement of units on initial placement hexes. Prior to this placement wasn't very random at all and often initial starting hexes were ignored. Release 3.4 1/20/99 - 1/20/99 Massive change to the appearance of river and lake hexes. Water is no longer drawn to fill an entire hex. The terrain types from adjacent hexes automatically is drawn around the water to fill in a water hex. Rivers appear more like rivers. Water for lake hexes fills most of a hex to distinguish them from river hexes. Lakes cannot be bridged. - 1/23/99 Further improvement to river/lake appearance. Corrected a bug preventing computer player from moving airborn and air assault units by air. - 1/25/99 Improved screen refresh rate for water hexes, lakes and rivers. Added some flashing to highlight a unit being attacked. Release 3.5b 2/8/99 - added 7 new terrain types to the game. Maps from older versions of BW can be used and changed to incorporate the new terrain types. Board Warfare 3.5 and higher releases cannot be played via email with older releases. - 2/11/1999 Changed right mouse click during movement phase to show terrain parameters: terrain type, LOS, defense factor, and move cost. - 2/14/1999 More improvements to terrain information display, now includes movement cost for a selected unit to any queried hex. - 2/18/1999 NOTE: changes in gameplay have resulted from the following change. Defense factor (advantage) for terrain types are now configurable, meaning a player can change the defense factor for any terrain from the terrain edit menu. The defaults settings have changed making mountain and rocks more defensable than any other terrain and road and water less defensable. Defense advantage for any terrain with road or bridges will use the defense factor for road. After all - the main reason a unit goes to a road hex is to use the road. This change alters the savegame format so any savegames saved from any release of BW prior to 2/18/99 will NOT WORK with this release. - 2/28/1999 Bug affecting movement corrected, symptoms of a problem were the inability of a human player to move a unit just one hex but being able to move multiple hexes. Also corrected a bug preventing game saves during reinforcement turns. The movement bug corrections restored some computer player's intelligence which had been lost as a result of the bug. - 2/29/1999 Airborne units now can fly over enemy units. Added rubble to the display where units are eliminated. This rubble on road hexes doubles road movement cost, rubble in cities changes city movement cost to that of rocks. Rubble does not affect other terrains. - 3/9/99 - Units, monuments and rubble are drawn from windows bitmap files (.bmp) now. The files are stored in the bmps directory. This allows players to design their own units if so desired by changing the bitmap images. Note: Windows paint won't get the job the done, it does not preserve the color pallette. A better image edit program is recommended, such as paint shop pro, www.jasc.com. Do not change the size of the images, the type of image (RGB encoded bmp file), or the number of colors. Color changes in the pallette will be ignored by the game. The darkest green color is transparent in the game. Changed city display in snow fields to light gray rather than white. Changed snow display on the master map to white. Added bitmaps for all units intended to be supported in the near future. Not all are in use, yet. Computer players randomly select different numbers of some unit types. Release 3.6b 3/18/1999 The following unit types have been added to the game: Ranger, Cavalry, Armored Cavalry, Air Cavalry, Anti Tank, Fighter, TAC Bomber, Med Bomber, SAC Bomber, Air Transport, Supply, Anti Aircraft. All units may be chosen for play but the game does not support play properly for Fighter, TAC Bomber, Med Bomber, SAC Bomber, Air Transport, Supply, Anti Aircraft. Maps for the game now have a suffix of .bwm rather than .dat. The old maps can be used by renaming them. This change will allow future releases of BW to select any .bwm file from a menu. - 3/21/99 Half a dozen nasty bugs identified by Tor were corrected. Ranger airmovement could not be altered. Display errors on the second unit parm edit menu, clean up of numerical figures on the second terrain edit menu. Reinforcements now use selected units from the new set of unit types. - 3/23/99 Added a feature to the main menu allowing any maps to be selected from the main menu, and a feature to copy the user map to another file. - 3/25/99 Added an option for full screen display of the entire game map in the map editor. . - 3/26/99 Changes after suggestions from Tor. No attacking unit will suffer damage resulting from combat if the range to the target is greater than the weapon range of the target. This had been the rule only for Field Artillery. Changed the anti-tank units so their attack strength is doubled when attacking an armor or mechanzied unit, armor, armored cav, mech inf, or supply. - 3/28/99 Airfields, mines, fortifications are features which may be added to hex terrain with the map editor. Engineer units may construct airfields or fortifications, or lay or defuse minefields. Eng unit may be directed to perform these activities with the "e" key during movement phase. Fortifications float the defense factor of a hex. Airfields or cities may be used for air units (airmobile or airborne ... also). Corrected full screen view of map in map editor so changes to the map are not lost when returned to map editor screen. One more bugfix to the second unit edit menu so changed values are shown on the correct line. - 4/4/99 Altered the movement of units so they no longer move back after moving, as they did when they moving through friendly units and depleted all movement points. Activated minefields in the game. ENG units for computer players do not lay minefields yet. Corrected a bug during unit movement which kept the cursor on units after moving by keyboard rather than mouse. - 4/7/99 ENG units bridge building and destruction prompt is no longer automatic, it's now in the engineer activities menu, used with "e" key during movement. - Units in air movement, airborne, etc ..., were taking casualties from minefields, this is now corrected. - Improved distance to hex calculations for right mouse click. Release 3.7b 4/8/1999 - A nasty bug found by Tor required a new release to correct. The format of the savegame file had to be modifed to correct the bug allowing (or forcing) unit parameters to be read from the settings on the players menu instead of from the savegame file. Thanks Tor, for finding this oversight. - 4/10/1999 Corrected a bug causing the game to crash. The bug had been introduced with a change in the program on 4/6/99. - 4/11/1999 **** Tremendous **** improvement to speed of computer player's movement phase achieved by not scrolling screen to units which do not move. Detected a bug with the air movement and the cost per hex for air units in air movement. Changed computer player movement to avoid mined hexes unless detour is very long. - 4/14/1999 Minefields are hidden from the opposing team when placed in a hex not in the LOS of any unit on the opposing team. Human players will not have their units move through known minefields any longer unless the minefield is the hex selected for the destination of the unit being moved. When a known mined hex is found in the path of the unit eing moved the unit will simply return to its starting location and the player will be prompted to go around the mined hex or select it for the destination. This works ok unless there is already a unit in the mined hex. When a unit finds a hidden minefield by moving into it the minefield is no longer hidden. Computer player will only avoid known mined hexes. The computer player engineers are building airfeields and fortifications and laying some mines now. Minefields are not allowed on bridges or in water hexes. Airfields are not allowed on mountain or water hexes. Fortifications are not allowed on water. - 4/15/1999 A suggestion from Tor about mines has been included. Minefields which are removed or destroyed by one team appear to remain to the other if the team has no unit in LOS of the minefield when it is removed. The mine symbol simply vanishes when a unit passes into a hex which appears to be mined but is not. - Cleaned up a few minor bugs related to Engineer features. - 4/16/1999 More bugs corrected, Airmobile units move over mined hexes once again when using air movement. Bridges may be mined now, then when crossed by non engineer units the mines destroy the bridge, so the bridges are booby-trapped. - 4/19/1999 units retreating into minefields will suffer the consequences. Skill level now controls the number of units in computer vs computer games. Hexes where units are destroyed will lose their fortifications, if any. - 4/21/1999 Cleaned up cursores on units which were not being removed during computer player moves. Changed the cursor or highlighting of units and hexes, some players reported difficulty seeing the highlighted hexes. Need feedback on this change. - 4/22/1999 The bug causing the game to seem to hang after moving a unit has been FIXED. This bug was most noticeable after moving Engineer units. Thanks to everyone who emailed in the symptoms and key combinations which caused this bug, Tor, Jacques Bayman, Philip Lyons. This has been a nagging bug for well over a year. - 4/23/1999 Engineer units now have the ability to build roads. The option is selected just as bridge construction is selected. Mines detonated on roads now destroy roads. Perhaps the use of artillery on units which are subsequently destroyed should also destroy road hexes? - 4/25/1999 The small master map is now real-time and is updated as units move. Minor change to the display of battles to suppress a graphics problem which could cause the game to hang. - 4/27/1999 Maximum Line of Sight distance was reduced from 20 to 15. An alternative Line of Sight rule was added to the game, the new rule is an option selectable from the main menu. With the alternative LOS rule each hex along the line of sight removes a percentage of the LOS, when the total removed is 100% hexes are no longer in the LOS. With this rule it is possible to see through some terrains such as woods for a short distance. These values are not configurable but I am quite open to suggestions for change. Terrain % blocked WOODS 75 L_WOODS 50 HILL 50 ROCKS 50 SNOW 10 MOUNTAIN 100 CITY 100 JUNGLE 100 SWAMP 50 BEACH 10 CLEAR 10 DESERT 10 WATER 5 This change required a change to the savegame, so any games saved previous to this date will not be playable. I have now built in much reserved space in the savegame to prevent the need to change savegame formats so frequently in future releases. - 4/29/1999 Thanks Tor, for finding the errors in this document. Corrections were made. Made the `z' key available for general use. The `z' key during computer play will turn off graphics, vastly speeding up gameplay, when a human players turn comes up the graphics are turned on again. The graphics will stay on until the `z' key is pressed again. The z key's function toggles graphics on or off, it won't be effective while the screen has the message "please wait" and may take several presses to to get the graphics back on before human play. - 5/2/1999 Changed the cursor for units being prompted to move or select target to blink. Laptop players reported trouble seeing the cursor. - 5/5/1999 Added more AI for the computer player, they avoid roads near enemy units since they are a very unfriendly place to be when attacked. - 5/6/1999 Suggested by Jacques Bayman, fortifications are not shown unless in the Line-Of-Sight. It was too easy to track the position of enemy engineer units with fortifications shown. - 5/12/1999 Bugs corrected: hexes the last two columns of the game maps sometimes displayed the wrong terrain. Units were left on the game with no strength sometimes if the z key was used to turn off graphics. The blinking cursor was improved to stay on the proper hex in case the screen was scrolled. Mines were not being saved in the maps when placed in the map editor. Thanks to Tor and Jacques Bayman for reporting these problems and providing details. Battles proceed a little more quickly in the "no delay" speed setting. Unit no longer are allowed to retreat into hexes where they normally cannot move if they posses their full movement factors, for example armor cannot retreat into swamps. Still in effect: no units may retreat into water hexes. - 5/23/1999 Inspired by a suggestion from Tor: units which are forced to retreat now fall into one of two categories, those which retreat and those which are routed or do not make an orderly retreat. Units which retreat or are routed are limited to half their normal movement on the following turn. Routed units may not attack on the following turn. No air movement is allowed on the following turn for units which have retreated or been routed. The probability of retreats being routs increases with higher attack odds. Routed units are marked with a prominent white R. Previously, at game start frequently the blue team has had an advantage since they are the first team to move, they move into all the cities and favorable terrain. Now the Blue team is given a penalty of loss of half their movement on the first turn. There are no attacks or combat for either side during the first turn. - 5/26/1999 Minor change, City hex which has a rubble marker now has the same movement cost as rocks terrain, there was an error causing cities to cost the value of rocks plus the normal cost to enter the city. This prevented most if not all units from entering a rubbled city hex. - 5/27/1999 Bugfixes. 1. City hexes with or without roads are treated the same in movement and combat, as if they had no roads. 2. Blue team half movement on turn 1 now. 3. Air mobile units now have no air movement the turn after being routed. - 5/29/1999 Bugfix, units not in LOS no longer are seen (or heard) passing through minefields not in the LOS. - 5/31/1999 City possession or ownership rules change. Occupation of a city at the end of a turn gives the occupying team ownership of the city, provided there are no enemy units in the same city if the city is multi-hex city. After establishing ownership it is not necessary to leave a garrison in the city to retain ownership. Ownership will not change until an enemy unit ends a turn in the city. Multi-hex cities occupied by both sides are owned by neither side. Each city hex owned by a team scores 10 points at the end of each turn. Cities are shaded gray if not owned, blue if owned by team 1 and red if owned by team 2. - 6/1/1999 Airborne units now set off mines when they land in minefields. Map designers will be prompted to be sure they intend to leave a map in the map editor without saving changes. - 6/6/1999 Small correction in LOS. The area of potential LOS for any unit had been square which was far too generous, now it's hex shaped as it should be. Weather added to the game! Weather for each turn is determined by the selected climate and season for the game when started. Climates: temperate, cold, tropic, desert Season: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, all (the plays through all seasons with about 7 turns per season) The table in the file weather.dat contains the percentage chance that each weather event which will occur on any turn during a given season and climate. You may edit the file, it is read in each time bw starts a new game. weather - effect on operations Rain - movement 50% - No air operations - Line-of-sight 50% snow - movement 50% - No air operations - Line-of-sight 25% dust storm - movement 50% - No air operations - Line-of-sight 25% overcast - No air operations fog - No air operations - Line-of-sight 20% fair - normal gameplay - 6/7/1999 A bug was corrected which provided additional movement for units after batte as if the weather was always fair. All seasons is the new default for the main menu. A bug was corrected causing airborne units to not have any LOS after landing in a hex out of LOS. This had been introduced with the fix to allow airborn units to trip mines when landing on them. - 6/9/1999 A minor change so restored games will have the current season displayed at the bottom of the screen when playing with all seasons. - 6/12/1999 BW37b is copied to BW37 and uploaded as the production copy of Board Warfare, replacing BW34. Release 3.8b 6/20/1999 The skill levels "average" and "good" are made slightly more difficult in human vs computer play. The skill level "expert" is made slightly less challenging. Added another skill level, after a request from vgoudzen@indiana.edu. The new level, now the most difficult is called "supreme". The game will prompt only once, at turn 30 to continue playing, after declaring one team the victor. Previously the game prompted after each turn past 30. Up to 150 turns of plotting information is provided, previously only 50 turns were plotted. Recently added new features left the computer player AI somewhat lacking. AI improvements have been made. - 6/22/1999 - Routed units no longer have a ZOC (zone of control). Computer players will no longer build airfields in cities. Units entering minefields lose 2 movement factors or their remaining movement if less than 2. Engineers lose 2 movement factors or their remaining movement only if they remove mines. - 6/28/1999 - More AI improvements, mainly for Engineer units mine removal. Corrected the map editor multihex mine placement/removal feature, it works now. - 7/5/1999 - Installed some components of neural networks to help with the AI. More memory used, very experimental. Air mobile units were not able to move in the 2nd movement phase if they had moved bu air in the 1st movement phase, this is corrected. - 7/11/1999 - Unit cost calculations have changed. The price per unit increases at a greater rate with each increase in movement or strength points. This should eliminate the tendency to load up on FA units. ENG units are given a much weaker default strength to reduce their cost, allowing more ENG units to be purchased and employed in the game. - 8/12/1999 Numerous minor changes to the computer AI. The computer units attack regardless of odds if beyond range of return fire from target. So computer FA should always attack something, regardless of odds, except enemy FA ... Tor, you were right! The computer player minimum odds for making attacks was increased. Computer engineers build more roads now. Computer FA units get a little closer to the action now. Air Cav units no longer set off mines when using air movement. Rubble no longer stays in a hex after a road is destroyed. Unit cost has been changed following a suggestion from Tor. Unit cost is determined by the units movement, defense and attack strength on a scale which lets slower weaker units be very cheap and faster more powerful units be very expensive. This now rule is very useful for cheaper Engineer units which now have much less combat strength and are very inexpensive. - note: special considerations for AT units attacking, if the target is ARMOR ARMORCAV MECH or SUPPLY then the AT attack factor is doubled. - 8/19/1999 AIR CAV and AIR ASSAULT no longer need be in a city or airfield hex to have air movement capabilities. These unit types also have air movement after combat if even if they moved by air in the first combat movement phase. Still the units may move only once by air, this to keep players from using the air units to scout out the enemy units hidden out of LOS. This change is to satisfy numerous requests to make the air assault and air cav movement more realistic. AIRCAV and AIRASSAULT also have air movement in overcast weather, unlike AIRBORN and RANGER units. - 8/22/1999 Engineer units now can destroy roads, use the same ENG function key, e, after selection an ENG unit during movement phase. Eng units automatically clean up rubble in a road/city hex when they pass through them. Points for unit purchase which are not used are carried over into the next unit purchase. Units which are below their initial strength and are in city hexes at the end of their opponent's second movement phase are reinforced by one strength point if there are no enemy units in adjacent hexes, provided they have neither retreated nor been routed during the previous turn. Unit which have air movement are marked with a small white a in the lower left corner of the unit marker. Units which have retreated (their movement is halved for the turn) are marked with a small white r on the unit marker. Units which have been routed are marked with a large white R, this is not a new feature. - 9/2/1999 A bug in the supreme level of play allowed many computer attacks to be ignored. Thanks to Tor for reporting this bug. The correction requires more memory to be used for the game, it's up to around 5 Megabytes now. - 9/12/1999 When the game is paused displaying a message such as "There are no attacks in the first turn" striking any key will cause the game to continue immediately. I recommend using some key such as the space bar which is normally not used for game control. The delay showing the message BW running without the intro demo no longer pauses (if you run boardwarfare from a command prompt c:\bw> bw nointro). A new message is shown prior to the first movement phase for each team on the first turn, "There will be no combat on the first turn." ENG units can repair bridges over large bodies of water in places where only one section of bridge (one hex) has been destroyed. Computer ENG units no longer build roads/bridges or clean up rubble or minefields when retreating into hexes. Unit initial placement is much faster now. Some initial starting hexes were not visible in the whole sceen view in the map editor, this is corrected. Sorted map names in the menu. Air unit note: When an airborn or air mobile unit is moved and the destination hex is one which is illegal for the unit to occupy for any reason then the unit backtracks along it's flight path until it reaches the first legal hex to occupy. Depending on the terrain and presence of units this can lead to some interesting air drops. At some point I may add some random misdrops for the airborn and ranger drops. On the first turn the blue team's air mobile (air assault, air cav) (airborn and rangers if they were lucky enough to start in city hexes) movement is cut in half. - 9/14/1999 All maps have been moved into a maps directory. Copy and maps (*.bwm) to this directory if you wish to save or use them. - 9/23/1999 Airborne units (not air cav or air assault) had no air capability after combat. This bug has been corrected. - 10/3/1999 Version 3.8 is no longer beta. The next beta release will be 3.9. Bugs corrected in the bw3.8 release: Airborne has no air movement in after combat movement phase. On the first turn air assault had air movement and max distance of 3, corrected to half of normal air movement, 15. Improved AI for Engineer and FA units. Release 3.9 10/7/1999 Encouragement from Al Huber resulted in vastly improved retreat route selection. Previously the retreats were nearly random and consideration was given only to the defensive qualities of terrain for selection of a hex into which to retreat. Now the retreat hex is chosen based upon a complex combination of defensive advantage of terrain and the proximity and direction of enemy and friendly units. 10/10/1999 - Battles are now carried out in random order. Hexes may be designated as reinforcement hexes for each team. Much the same as initial placement hexes are selected in the map editor the reinforcement hexes are toggled on or off with the j key for team 1 and the l (lowercase L) key for team 2. If reinforcement hexes are not designated for one team then that team's reinforcements are placed in the city hex that team controls nearest the bulk of their forces, just as before this release. If reinforcement hexes exist for that team then the reinforcements are placed in and around the reinforcement hex which is not occupied by enemy forces and is nearest the bulk of the team's forces. If no reinforcement hex is found that has no enemy forces in it then reinforcements are not provided for the team. BW4.0 12/13/1999 - Preferences such as sound, music, ZOC, skill,aircraft, game speed are saved when exiting the game and restored on startup. Fighter and bomber aircraft and antiaircraft artillery are used in the game. This feature will undergo much improvement. 12/27/1999 - To prevent unit types such as AIRASSAULT and AIRCAV from moving illegally into river and lake hexes it is necessary to set the cost to enter such hexes for these units higher than the previous default of 10, 99.75 will do nicely since this figure is larger than the maximum moves the units are allocated. Many more bugs with the new air units have been uncovered and corrected, the new version, 4.0, will be released in a day or so. 1/1/2000 - Thanks to John Szuch for reporting a nasty bug in bw39 and bw40, the bug caused BW to crash just when a computer opponent is nearly eliminated and the computer player moves an engineer unit. The bug has been corrected. 1/3/2000 - John found more bugs which have been corrected. Saving a game when no game is in progress will no longer save something which causes BW to crash when that game is loaded. In the new air/FA bombardment phase FA units were highlighted when attacking and the highlighting remained after the attack was completed. 1/5/2000 - Improvements to computer player's air units AI. 1/7/2000 - Adjustments to the air unit movement to match the game speed selected by the player. 1/23/2000 - Added a feature allowing the hex grid to be turned off. Selectable from the main menu. Some like the hexes, some do not. 2/5/2000 - Corrected a bug which shaded the entire screen when playing with a human player and the hex display was turned off. Aircraft now open the LOS. Airborne and airassault units do not open the LOS except on the last hex of movement. 8/6/2000 - Jacques Bayman and Michael Berkics reported a bug with purchase points when playing by email (passwords). Corrected. Password protected games reported cheats incorrectly. Corrected. Units purchase, when playing without the aircraft units the cost of aircraft units is not factored into the allowed purchase points allocated to a player. Before, the allowed number of units which could be purchased was higher since cost of aircraft units is very high, even if aircraft were to be in the game. 9/5/2000 - Added help menus which can be pulled up from any menu, and during human player turn phases with the "h" key. Added the full screen view of the entire map during gameplay, pulled up with the "v" key. 9/10/2000 - A reminder of the weather on each turn is provided by using different masks on the hexes which are not in LOS. Raindrops mark hidden hexes during rain, a whitewashed hex marks the hidden hexes during fog, top half of the hidden hexes are whitewashed for overcast, yellow washed hexes indicate dust storms, snowflakes indicate snow. During movement of ground or air units the distance calcuated and display for right mouse clicks now works correctly when the right click is on an enemy unit. 9/13/2000 - A major change to the computer unit selection was made. Now the computer player purchases units based on a cost system just like human players rather than being allocated a number of units to select. 9/14/2000 - Corrected a bug with weather in games longer than 90 turns which could cause the game to crash. 3/3/2000 - Installation method changed to setup factory installable file. Release BW4.1 beta Unit type descriptions added when units are selected for movement or information. Bombardment odds are shown for selected targets in the aircraft/bombardment phase of the game. Recent changes to the unit purchase points algorithm force a new release. Release BW4.2 Converted the 32bit extender to CauseWay and retired DOS4GW. A bug which was revealed in windows 2000 and presumably in NT as inability for human players to select any units from the unit selection menu was corrected. It was a variable which had not been initialized = 0. 9/20/2002 Version BW5.0 Graphics converted to 1024 by 768 by 256 colors resolution requiring VESA VBE2.0 support from graphics cards. The sound library was changed to Midas. Hex graphics were changed from 8 bit bitmaps to picture bitmap files. Most graphics are performed by copying .bmp files to the screen. VBE calls are not supported in windows XP. This will be the last DOS release of the game. Newer Microsoft operating systems, (XP) no longer allows DOS applications access to write directly to video hardware. 1/8/2007 Version BW6.0 Ported to linux. Compiled with GNU C version 3.2.3 on RHEL AS3 2.4.21-32.0.1.EL Graphics and sound use the SDL libraries from http://www.libsdl.org/index.php SDL libraries used are SDL-1.2.11, SDL_draw-1.2.11, SDL_image-1.2.5, SFont-2.03, and SDL_mixer-1.2.7 Porting the old DOS graphics calls meant rewriting most functions using SDL. It was an interesting challenge. Now that the game is ported I should be able to focus on improved AI. END OF DOCUMENT