Xbox 360 ToW at Turn 16, War 2:

What the f*** is going on here?

JSF wins by a landslide at USS Reagan Seabase, yet we are STILL fighting there AGAIN?

PLUS JSF wins JFK Space Center, yet loses it anyways. JSF is connected to Maxwell, which JSF defended, so the "supply lines" still connect the two.

The results are clearly displayed on BOTH the official tracker and supad's more accurate tracking:

http://endwargame.us.ubi.com/tow.php

http://www.supad.net/endwar/stats/index.php5?gs=XBOX360&w=1&t=15



I like to be respectful, I like to give credit where it is due, but I can not take this s*** anymore. Seriously, has anyone at Ubi even played this game?

Yeah I was wondering that earlier once I saw that JSF won EVER battle they were in but still didn't push in from reagan and lost JFK...

game hates JSF its the only answer!

What neither of those tell you is the origin of the attack. To do that you either need to
A)Identify a lack of an incoming attack arrow on the in-game ToW.
B)OR trawl through the XML feeds yourself.
C)OR get ATOMS, which shows this data.

In the case above, the attack was a 'nowhere' attack. In defeating it you merely defended the territory for that turn, and obviously could not counterattack.

Besides, you guys are probably doing a lot of damage to the EFEC in the long term, they're losing so horribly it'll be amazing if any of them have units left by tommorow.

Oh, for turn 16, the attack is also from Nowhere.

As far as JFK goes. You must consider that territory as a whole.

JFK launched two attacks and was also under attack. It only won its attack on Okefenokee, but this was also it's Most Significant Front (it has the highest total score) (PF)

It won and pushed forward there, and in winning it became immune to the lost defense and also a counterattack from Maxwell.

A dev really needs to sit down with QPK and spell out every single peculiar rule that the TOW is running on and get something succinct, precise, and accurate handed out to those of us who are watching the TOW closely.

We need to get an explanation on battles from nowhere which just make no sense at all...

And this "immune to attack just because the PFL was successful" doesn't seem quite right either.

edit: I've credited you for this explanation in my latest turn report, TT.

1) What the heck is an ATOMS, where can one find one, and why the hell is that not included in the game itself somehow, in a CLEAR, obvious manner that does take an NSA cryptologist to decipher?

2) If a side can "attack from nowhere," why can not SGB attack Paris "from nowhere" right now?

3)

quote:

JFK launched two attacks and was also under attack. It only won its attack on Okefenokee, but this was also it's Most Significant Front (it has the highest total score) (PF)

It won and pushed forward there, and in winning it became immune to the lost defense and also a counterattack from Maxwell.

quote:

...wha?!?!

does this help?

TURN 16: The Russian's primary frontline was an attack on Okefenokee out of JFK. This attack was successful, which means that the JSF attack on JFK out of Maxwell air base did not secure them the territory even though the Russian attack on Maxwell failed as well. Furthermore, since the attack on U.S.S. Reagan Seabase by the Euros originated from "nowhere", the JSF did not receive the defensive spoil of Glen Albyn. They did, however, win at Pascagoula against the Russians to gain more ground in their occupied south. Meanwhile, the Spetsnaz successfully defended both Shenandoah Valley and Chattanooga to receive Pamlico as a defensive spoil from the EF, though they failed to defend against the raid on Ft. Campbell so will be without army support in the U.S. for the near future.

RSGB: 20 (+1)
EFEC: 12 (-2)
JSF: 7 (+1)

N.B. Insight on this turn report was kindly provided by TThomaso

Source: http://endwar.xenocidic.com

ATOMS is TThomaso's "Atlantic Theatre Overview and Management System" a very cool app that combines the TOW viewer with the XML data...

http://www.hotlinkfiles.com/files/2121460_jg5ip/EW-ATOMSv1.1.zip

So............

...JFK was not JSF's PF (Primary Frontline)?

Assuming that JFK was JSF's PF, and Okefenokee was SGB's PF...what would happen then? JFK still gets screwed out of JFK?


If anything, things are getting stupider by the minute.

...and when do we get our "attack from nowhere" on Paris?

I dunno =]

Waiting on an explanation on "attacks from nowhere" myself.

Let's toss PF out the window. It is confusing.

Instead, allow me to introduce MSF.

The Most Significant Frontline for any territory involved in multiple battles is the one that receives the highest total score.

If it wins on its MSF, it will be immune to other attacks and counterattack.

If it loses on its MSF, it's other attacks (if any) will fail.

Consider JFK. It had three fronts. Its MSF was a victory (Okefenokee) thus it became immune to counterattack.

Consider Maxwell. It had three fronts. Its MSF was a victory (defense of the base from JFK) thus it became immune to counterattack.

An MSF result will override the basic rules.

So the counterattack from Maxwell on JFK fails, because JFK is immune.

Maxwell, would've been immune to attacks counterattacks, but it gained immunity from defeating the attack in the first place, and there were no counterattacks against it.

---

PF wants to join the group again.

Hello PF.

The MSF is the battle with the highest score for a given territory. The PF is the battle with the highest score for an entire faction.

The PF additionally decides where there will be frontlines next turn. (I think)

I hope I have been enlightening, but mostly I hope I'm not wrong

did you deduce this MSF dynamic from research?

if so, can you provide us some of the examples that prove that the MSF is not simply the same thing as the PF?

for example I hypothesized that the PF was poorly explained and worked more like the MSF you describe above...

Yea man wtf is wrong with this sh*t ubi does not want U.S to win for sh*t. Look, so far were winning all of our battles again. But tomarrow we'll only be getting 1+ instead of like 2 or 3..whatever ubi.

In responce to xeno:
Yes and No.

Mostly though I've just rephrased the PF rule to eliminate the ambiguous bit that comes from...erm: A collision of primary front lines. Yeah, that.

If you reduce it to just considering the territory in question, you can eliminate that problem.

The MSF is basically what the PF explanation is, (reread the sticky post with MSF in place of PF, the example given is mostly MSF actually) but the PF also seems to come with that added extra about how it affects the advance of fronts which has confused everybody since they get confused between the PF as a rule about where fronts should advance and the MSF part which resolves the outcome for territories involved in multiple battles. Hell it confused me too but I've got the advantage of being able to code and test what I like.

In the explanation given, I was under the impression that a victory at the PF would give an attack front there next turn, which is the difference.

I've got it built in ATOMS right now, I just need to see if it actually does hold up, my instinct is that it will.

I was on board with the PF thing until now. Why have us attack a territory with a chance we won't get it? All it did was thin out our players so we couldn't pad our wins on other territories. I haven't seen the PF go in our favor once and I know the other factions advantages didn't come from clever planning it came from luck. Don't take me the wrong way. The SPZ have great players and probably good planning. Same with EFEC but I know that stuff like this wasn't in your orginial plan. Its like icing on the cake.

@TT, Yea, pretty much what I thought.

Do we have any examples of a failed PF actually causing an entirely unconnected battle to fail?

If not then your MSF theory holds a lot more water.

That would make no sense!

It certainly doesn't fit in with anything that's been observed. If has ever a PF caused an unrelated fail, even us two, who seem to understand the rules to some extent, would've been going: "WTF!" when it happened.

To prove it
A)We'd have to find an unrelated failure that wasn't due to another rule
B) Show there was a failure on the related PF.

A)When has there ever been a failure we couldn't put down to something else?

B) See above.

---

The only thing I ever see coming up is if there is a tie between fronts for the most significant, god knows which gets priority then.

yea, i figured maybe we (and by we, i really mean you ;> might be able to find somethign in the PS3 war since it's been going on for f'ng ever =}

quote:

Originally posted by TThomaso:
Let's toss PF out the window. It is confusing.

Instead, allow me to introduce MSF.

The Most Significant Frontline for any territory involved in multiple battles is the one that receives the highest total score.

If it wins on its MSF, it will be immune to other attacks and counterattack.

If it loses on its MSF, it's other attacks (if any) will fail.

Consider JFK. It had three fronts. Its MSF was a victory (Okefenokee) thus it became immune to counterattack.

Consider Maxwell. It had three fronts. Its MSF was a victory (defense of the base from JFK) thus it became immune to counterattack.

An MSF result will override the basic rules.

So the counterattack from Maxwell on JFK fails, because JFK is immune.

Maxwell, would've been immune to attacks counterattacks, but it gained immunity from defeating the attack in the first place, and there were no counterattacks against it.

---

PF wants to join the group again.

Hello PF.

The MSF is the battle with the highest score for a given territory. The PF is the battle with the highest score for an entire faction.

The PF additionally decides where there will be frontlines next turn. (I think)

I hope I have been enlightening, but mostly I hope I'm not wrong

TT, I have to read these explanations of yours about 7-10 times before I can comprehend what you are trying to say. I mean these rules are beyond your capability to explain them, because they are that f***ed up.
__________________________

Question 1:
Now let's say that JSF is attacking SGB-controlled JFK Space Center from Maxwell, and also attacking Grissom Air Base from Springfield. JFK is JSF's PF. If JSF loses JFK, but won Grissom, they would NOT get Grissom?

__________

Question 2:
Anytime that two battling factions do NOT have their PF/MSF/whatever the hell you want to call it meet on the same territory, it is then in the interest of the defender of that territory to NOT fight there at all, since as long as the defender wins wherever they are attacking, they CAN NOT lose the territory they are defending?

e.g.: (theoretical situation)
JSF holds Maxwell, EFEC holds Pascagoula, and SGB holds Okefenokee. JSF's PF is at Okefenokee, and EFEC's PF is at Maxwell. EFEC wins at Maxwell, but since JSF wins at Okefenokee, EFEC does not get Maxwell.

What would happen if SGB wins Okefenokee, thus getting Maxwell as part of the "counter-attack", but EFEC also wins Maxwell?

Probably easier to see it in action.

Anyway:

A1) Losing at a PF or a local MSF will not affect battles occurring somewhere else. Grissom is taken, because JSF won it.

A2) An MSF occurs at every territory involved in a fight. The MSF is the frontline that matters most to the territory involved, regardless of owner.

However, this does lead to a good tactic a bit like you say:

The territory involved is attacking and winning at X, but losing horribly trying to defend itself from an attack from Y.

What do you do? Play the defensive map to try and claw it back to a win? WRONG. Play on the attacking map, win like you already are and make it the MSF instead of the defense.

If you win the attack and it's a MSF, then you'll be immune anyway.

If you play the defense, it'll almost certainly become the MSF, and it you don't claw back a win you lose your territory AND the attack you were making will fail.

Handy stuff that.

A3)You're confusing PF and MSF, I think that's the problem here.

The whole point of separating PF and MSF was to avoid an issue where you have a collision of interests from PF's.

It will depend which fight has the MSF at Maxwell.
If the defense of Maxwell from EFEC is the MSF, and EFEC win, Maxwell's attacks are made losses regardless.
If the attack on Okefenokee is the MSF for Maxwell, and they win. Then Maxwell is made immune to attack counterattacks.

Its really all well and good that TT and Xeno go out of there way to explain and understand the TOW.


But it doesn't change the facts of the matter. Which are simply UBI (and I hate to complain like this) has done a **** poor job of transparency on the rules of engagement in the TOW.

The fact that Reagan had 4141 battles fought there would suggest by the TOW rules posted that it was clearly the EFEC's PF. Since EFEC lost handidly, they should have also lost Glen Albyn.

This whole "attack out of nowhere" thing doesn't fly. At least not with me. Every other cross continent engagement has a result it should except this one.

Why QPK and anyone else has yet to come on despite NUMEROUS people clearly not understand the randomness of TOW is beyond me.

I know I don't feel like playing much today, because I don't know where to be effective.