regarding some of the recently posted ideas:

Travel into Future card - an intriguing idea, but I'm not sure it really makes sense; would anyone actually like to play in a game where all their plans and strategies suddenly get sent to hell by the AI playing a few turns for them? Just doesn't seem practical/fun, but complexity-wise, if it's possible (I'm not sure yet) it's medium; have to ensure the settings for players to turn into AIs is enabled, figure out to turn players into an AI for some # of turns (this is the part I'm not sure is possible yet), then how to undo them going into an AI (or just require them to reclaim control on their own; 1 player would have to remain non-AI to prevent the game from auto-ending); but more importantly, does this mechanic work? would people want to play a game using such a mod?

Travel back in time card - this is interesting; it's been asked for a few times now so I'm considering it; but I do ask - who among the player base would:
(i) actually create games using this mod?
(ii) actively join games that use this mod?
(iii) enjoy this functionality in a game if this card was played and impacted your moves? (ie: you have to redo your moves of the previous turn, keeping in mind that the turn # can never go backward, but the state of the map/cards/etc could theoretically be rolled back

the complexity to implement this is HUGE, it literally requires a rollback of every component of the game for all players for all territories/cards/gold/armies/etc for each turn in the rollback; it would have to ignore all mod functionality b/c mods can't transfer information between each other, but even limiting to core WZ mechanics, it's not 100% possible, but it could be done to some reasonable degree (restoring armies/gold/cards/territory ownership, etc); eliminated players for example can not be brought back to life with the currently available API

delayed blockade - a legit good request, need to think through how it would exactly work

While I think reverting turns is a cool idea, the frustration it might bring to all other players in the game, in combination with the numerous implementation challenges (interacting with other mods, not having enough mod storage to store all game data needed, etc) should probably be enough reason to consider it failing the "C check".

Edited 5/9/2025 09:02:39

Delayed Blockade Card I could do in an about 2 hours (including testing, excluding card image design). Main delay would be making an authentic card image. Community doesn't seem to want to provide card design images or even card design ideas though - https://www.warzone.com/Forum/814662-custom-card-design-suggestions

@JK, yea that's my main aversion to it tbh; seems like it'd be fun for the person playing it, but annoying for everyone else, esp when there are multiple cards being played in the same game, may have to replay the same set of turns multiple times, feels like it'd drain the fun; the high complexity of it, and the seemingly low satisfaction of having it used in a game makes this kind of unattractive -- and yet the idea keeps coming back up, lol

but yea the mod data storage definitely be a factor here; would have to store not only the army counts on each territory but the actual SU objects themselves, b/c they can't be recreated w/o the PNG files associated to the mod

so yea the more i go through the details, the more this aligns to category (B)

Could maybe use game order custom to tell a mod with special units to create one of its special units

Wouldnt that require knowing:
1. what other mods there are in the first place
2. how to format the orders for that mod

can we even automatically get that info somewhere?

that's definitely possible (and tbh I do this in a couple areas among my own mods) but no other mod maker has shown any interest in inter-mod collaboration

RE: JK's points

1) sort of yes, sort of no; you don't necessarily need to know what mods the game uses, but do need to be prepared to interact with a mod if the sign is given that it exists

example: (this is in place already)
- Resurrection detects attacks where Commanders die & player holds a Resurrection card, then protects the Commander and respawns it somewhere
- Airstrike performs a manual attack on a non-contiguous territory that can kill Commanders but Resurrection would never know about it
- So Airstrike detects if a Commander death, it checks if the Resurrection card is defined & if the Commander owner holds one; if not, let the Commander die; if so, protect the Commander & send a custom order to Resurrection to respawn the Commander next turn

Other possibilities: (these aren't in place)
- Airstrike send a custom order for Dragon breath strikes
- Airstrike sends custom orders to Late Airlifts & Transport Airlifts to not block airlift operations used for Airstrike
- Factions sends out custom game orders to show faction memberships so other mods can implement the some controls for Factions similar to how mechanics work for Teams (allow unit transfers, don't encircle Faction-mates, etc)
- Any mod that changes a common mechanic in a clear way can send out a custom order on T1 that just notifies other mods that (A) the mod is in play, (B) some config info; and the mod cancels the order itself so it never shows up in the list but as we know, each mod receives it regardless

2) This isn't difficult, can typically see it by observing either the LOC that submits the PlayCard and/or custom game order -- but I'd recommend that instead of submitting a native order to mimic the mod (ie: tricking the receiving mod so it thinks the order came from itself), that it's a special order marked to complete operation X from another mod, so the receiving mod handles it appropriately (b/c it may need some difference from the normal operation)

But anyhow no one showed any interest for it so I'm just doing it among my own mods

2) The payload format could be standardised. I thought this detail would be obvious. Shouldn't have to do mod-specific payload format.

lol I just read all that

You're getting really inspirated.

I wouldnt want to play any. I am only here for the ideas.

lol

and that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid, creating mods that are fun ideas but not actually fun WZ mechanics