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 Post subject: Fatigue
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 10:05 am 
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What are some tips for lowering fatigue? I am currently experiencing units holding high fatigue levels for long periods of time

John Ferry
LTC 2/20th Corps


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 Post subject: Re: Fatigue
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 10:24 am 
I believe that absolutely no movement, including changing formation or facing, I also think entrenching slows recovery as does taking enemy fire.. And hot chocolate with the little marshmallows.


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 Post subject: Re: Fatigue
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 11:18 am 
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Once they get over 700 you pretty much wont be able to get it much lower until nightfall. No movement I think and staying within command range I'm pretty sure. If you keep them under 300 they recuperate fairly quickly, 300-600 slower but give them a couple hours and they will be in good shape again, 600+ usually means only use if you are in a rough situation or to hold a quiet line.

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 Post subject: Re: Fatigue
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 12:01 pm 
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My rule of thumb is if over 800 it takes two nights. One to get into the midrange and then the day and next night to bring it down to 0.

Medium (upper) range fatigue, 400-600, can be gotten down overnight but you have to be careful to let it start during dusk hours and plan for maybe taking into dawn hours.

This of course assumes you are using optional recover rates. Using standard rates triple these times.

What I haven't checked into and mean too is why the old rule doesn't seem to apply to Overland Campaign. As stated in Gettysburg User manual:

Quote:
A unit may be eligible to recover Fatigue at the beginning of a player’s Movement Phase provided it has not Moved, Fired, participated in Melee, or been Fired upon with any effect from the time of the player’s previous Movement Phase.


This isn't the way it works in Overland. Units recover fatigue in almost all situations except building breastworks and trenches. I don't think they recover while doing those to actions but I need to verify that. I have verified the others. Even night movement doesn't stop fatigue recovery although it does add the Night Fatigue penalty if you have that option on. The Overland user manual does still have the above statement in it which makes me wonder if maybe the scenario somehow turned it off but I haven't played enough different scenarios from Overland to see if it still works in some.

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Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)


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 Post subject: Re: Fatigue
PostPosted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 4:51 am 
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I think it is a trick question - doesn't the pdt file determine how much fatigue is covered by the usual non-actions?

And if so then doesn't the scenario designer code the pdt table to how they see fit?

I am pretty sure that this is controlled by a pdt table in the Musket and Pike engine.

-Edited from the CWB user manual:

Quote:
Recovering Fatigue
A unit may be eligible to recover Fatigue at the beginning of a player’s Movement Phase provided it has not Moved, Fired, participated in Melee, or been Fired upon with any effect from the time of the player’s previous Movement Phase. For each such unit a random value from 0 to twice the applicable recovery rate, determined by Parameter Data associated with the current battle, is subtracted from the unit’s Fatigue value. See the Parameter Data Dialog in the Main Program Help File for the recovery rate values.


I take it this is from some other title than Overland? However if it is from Overland, couldn't you just change the PDT to whatever you wanted the recovery rate to be? And if the program is not behaving if it should as outlined in the user guide, then wouldn't you just raise the issue as a bug?

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 Post subject: Re: Fatigue
PostPosted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 7:37 am 
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Steve et al
I've been thinking it IS a bug, but I wanted to get some views from the field first. Yes, the pdt controls the parameters--hence the name--and I AM referring to Overland games, which I designed. Things just don't seem to be jiving as they should.
John Ferry
Overland co-designer.


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 Post subject: Re: Fatigue
PostPosted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 9:00 am 
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Something is wrong in the Overland version since Fatigue isn't being handled like the other games. While the pdt file controls the rate of recover and the cost for night movement and night melee, the fatigue for casualties is set by the game program as well as the conditions for recovery. It's these "conditions for recovery" that seem to have become unhinged. I just haven't had time to be systematic about testing them. I know in the Wilderness Campaign scenario it doesn't work and in the giant scenario I am playing with Jerry it doesn't work. But haven't had the time to randomly try some other scenarios and see if they also fail.

I also haven't gone back to verify it still works the other way in other games just in case it was something added to the game engine in one of the updates. Right now I assume the game was suppose to work the way the User Manual states.

For those who would like to confirm whether it is working the old way all you need to do in one of your games is make a note of the fatigue on a couple of units. Be sure to move them, then check their fatigue level in the next turn. All should have not decreased in fatigue. If you have some units that are fatigued and can be left unmoved and out of enemy fire, check them as well. They should all decrease although its random and it is possible they can get a "0" change.

I am going to see if I can find a couple of scenarios with units that start fatigued so I can quickly check it.

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Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)


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 Post subject: Re: Fatigue
PostPosted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 9:44 am 
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Decided to run some quick tests on Gettysburg and Overland, and came up with some very interesting results.

In summary, in Phased play Fatigue works like it states in the User Manual. If a unit moves it will not recover fatigue. It must not expend movement points and must not be fired on in order for any fatigue to be recovered. However, in Turn play it always recovers some fatigue whether moves, shoots, etc.

There is also an interest side observation which I haven't confirmed. In Turn play it appears that an additional calculation is taking place. The fatigue recovery for being stationary appears to be much larger than for a unit that has moved. This will require a lot more testing to verify and get some idea of how it is doing the calculation.

Summary of my quickie test:

Overland Scenario 129

Phased Play following three units:
Fatigue Level
Initial: 250 130 130
No Move: 246 126 91 <all decreased>
Turned in place: 246 126 91 <fatigue unchanged>

Turn Play following same three units:
Initial: 250 130 130
No Move: 216 79 94 <all decreased>
Turned in Place: 208 78 89 <still recovered fatigue>

Gettysburg scenario had similar results.

The other interesting observation was how much difference there was between the "no move" and "Turned in Place" recoveries for Turn play. The recover for no movement was 34, 51, and 36. The recover for turning was 8, 1, and 5. And average change of 40 versus 4.6. It will take more than one set of observations to confirm this or get some idea of how movement affects recovery rates. I have been observing better recoveries after full movement than the 4.6 I got here so this may be just a fluke.

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Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)


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 Post subject: Re: Fatigue
PostPosted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 11:58 am 
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Ken
by turned in place do you mean simply changing facing direction, or what?
J


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 Post subject: Re: Fatigue
PostPosted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 6:20 am 
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J. Ferry wrote:
Steve et al
I've been thinking it IS a bug, but I wanted to get some views from the field first. Yes, the pdt controls the parameters--hence the name--and I AM referring to Overland games, which I designed. Things just don't seem to be jiving as they should.
John Ferry
Overland co-designer.


Hi John,

All right -here is what needs to be done to track if it is the PDT or a bug - and you need to find another scenario where you are using the same PDT. . . you will have to switch out PDT files and note if there is a difference in behavior.

If there is - then the odds are it is probably a typo in the PDT ... if it performs consistently throughout other PDTs (use the generic one that they give you in the build) - then the odds are -it is a bug -however if it is a bug -chances are it will be performing in the same way in other titles. I know that during testing of Overland we uncovered the larger bug with night fatigue that impacted the series as a whole...

In a general sense, you could be talking about the same sort of situation - but I do know that the PDT's are typing intensive (personal experience -put it that way)... so I also empathize.

Take NRC as an example -there seemed to be a problem with the OOB or PDT files but it ended up being something as mundane as an updated weapon.dat file was not added -so weapon letters were referring back to the weapon.dat file where there were no letters -hence no weapon was showing up.

Best of luck tracking it down.

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 Post subject: Re: Fatigue
PostPosted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 8:49 am 
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J. Ferry wrote:
Ken
by turned in place do you mean simply changing facing direction, or what?
J

Yep. Just made the minimal expenditure of movement points (2).

From what I can tell it looks like it isn't a bug but a difference in the way the two game modes work. Why I don't know. Phased play uses the old rule where there is no fatigue recovery if the player expends movement points or is fired on during their turn. Turn style play has no restriction other than apparently building entrenchments or breastworks. In Turn play you can move and the unit will still recover fatigue.

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Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)


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 Post subject: Re: Fatigue
PostPosted: Tue Apr 01, 2014 3:36 pm 
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Gents,

I love fatigue, if you are gaming outside the norms for the ACW then you pay the price of non historically pushing your units beyond with was humanly possible. I think the gaming system doesn't punish the gamers enough when their regiments are outside command range of their leaders plus the good olde loss of BCE (Brigade Combat Effectiveness) of the Berg games. If these rules were incorporated I think the balance of the games would be enhanced and the huge losses you see in these games would decrease a lot! :wink:

Best Regards,

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 Post subject: Re: Fatigue
PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2014 6:02 pm 
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John/Kennon/Gentlemen,

Allow me to add some fuel to the fire. There are bugs in fatigue handling, let's say, in Turn-based play. I have seen and documented it -- at least for myself. I can't speak for Phase-based since I was not testing anything in that realm.

Over the past year I have been testing various aspects of Opportunity Fire in an attempt to determine how it works and, more specifically, how to change PDT values to make artillery especially more effective. Back in June 2013, Joe Meyer opened a thread involving Fatigue. I submitted a response, part of which is as follows:

I ran nearly 200 test cases (movements of individual CSA against the USA line and subsequent fire against USA regiments). I drew two conclusions. First, either the documentation is wrong, or the game engine has bugs (imagine this) when it comes to Fatigue Accumulation from artillery fire. This I recorded as fact. Second, for a given fire result (5 hits, for example), a lower-rated unit (D, for example) is more likely to accumulate fatigue at the higher end of the spectrum (3x), than a B-rated unit. I can't really say that 200 test cases is valid for making this assertion, but I don't really care to conduct 2,000. At any rate, this is not documented.

Nearly 10% of my observed fatigue results suffered from artillery fire were beyond the 3X upper limit as defined in the documentation. One CSA regiment suffered 7 hits from artillery fire and nothing more, but incurred 52 fatigue points. Anyone have an explanation for this? While I am all for CSA regiments being tagged with massive fatigue points, the whole credibility of the game engine as opposed to its documentation is brought into question
.

Now, is this part of the same problem, or are we talking two different issues here? I am describing the other side of the coin -- excess fatigue accumulation. This is not related to PDTs , and I don't see how the fatigue recovery issue is either.

That the Phased-based system does not exhibit the same problem, I guess doesn't surprise me. It has, obviously, discrete phases, whereas Turn-based play alternates between phases. From a programming standpoint there is a big difference, however. Once the Movement Phase in Phase-based play, for example, is complete all "memory", and I mean program memory can be released. It is no longer needed, because now we are in the Fire Phase. It establishes its new memory allocations. Turn-based play is a mileau . All knowledge must be retained throughout, since it allows for a mixture of all the phases. Memory management is crucial.

If what has been described in this thread is a manifestation of what I think it is -- the programming term is memory leak--, good luck in getting it resolved. In the corporate world your job might be on the line depending upon the inconvenience it is causing. Here I don't think so.

I have seen other strange things with the game engine. Up elevation is a parameter which can be changed, correct? Not so. Change them and observe the inexplicable movement increase for downhill .

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 Post subject: Re: Fatigue
PostPosted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 4:39 pm 
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My observation is -what it the point of documenting it for ones' self? Anyway unless the units that you were using on both sides were basically the same unit (same size, same morale, same attributes), -which wasn't ever actually disclosed -it seems like the tests might be off.

In other words- as units receive bonuses for morale (positive and negative) - this could legitimately impact any sort of test of this nature. At any rate it is not as much about '200 vs 2000' repetitions as it is about pairings. If a D unit suffers more fatigue loss than a B unit... is that a function of the morale modifier? Is it a function of the Fatigue system? Also is it wrong? I don't claim to know the answers -but just pointing that out with regards to the testing being mentioned.

Excess Fatigue Accumulation? Is there such a thing? I mean that in the context of if fatigue is serving its function in the game engine -which is to degrade combat effectiveness. One of the main recurring complaints about all of the grand tactical series' is about losses being far too high for battles being simulated -there have been a number of ideas spit-balled out there -but personally, it all just appears that units are consistently rated as too fresh going into a battle -and they are doing spectacular amounts of damage to their opposite numbers. I guess one way to handle this sort of thing can be a blanket dilution of weapons' effects -or... a greater application of fatigue -including slapping some on at the start of scenarios.

Seeing as you can code things that can impact fatigue in the PDTs (weapons' values being the obvious method) -it can actually be addressed within the PDT if one elects to go that route -although as there are a lot of classes of weapons which interact with each other - you are basically opening up a series of Pandora's boxes to achieve the effect of watering down fatigue application (which as I noted above I am not even sure is not only not warranted -but it probably ought to be a lot greater than what it currently is in order to achieve more realistic results on a battlefield).

Memory Leak, in my book is an empirically proven term, not one to be chucked about anecdotally - you can probably show tangible results of that happening in any programming for any sort of software -but just not on a messageboard post. That seems to be more of a conclusion based upon some anecdotal examples - but, I could well be wrong as obviously there is a lot of analysis that goes into making that sort of determination - but it really is the sort of thing that should be sent over to the support team at JTS -as it will never be addressed in any other format -like say... messageboard talking points.

I know that, say, in the M&P engine it is possible to use negative modifiers -although I don't know that I have tried any out on the PDT ratings yet ... I will have to see what happens with some weaponry ratings -I do know that I have used it in the OOB ratings - I think one of the main points is that there can be a lot of undocumented aspects of the game series... the negative ratings values are one aspect of this. In the end it all just becomes a 'what do you do with it' situation -it ends up being a: 'it is what it is' situation.

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 Post subject: Re: Fatigue
PostPosted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 9:33 pm 
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It is my observation that, far from documenting the many varied aspects of these games only for himself, Robert has constantly shared his findings with many of us in the field. His work has spared me the trouble more than a few times of finding out the same thing over again for myself, for the good of the order and the advancement of the hobby. He has explored the depths of the system, and I for one would not dismiss his work. I appreciate that he has the time--and has taken the time-- to find and express the foibles of an imperfect system, and made it better.
Kudos, Robert!

John Ferry
Overland Designer
LTC 2/20th Corps


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