So, you vote second?
Just to say, this wouldnt be the final solution, to be honest its mainly about trying to give England a fair chance! Diplomatic geniuses/pedants: I know that you probably want to say that one should be able to win anyway if they are good enough, but fairs fair and the closer to rules we get the better.

Nah I vote first, it gives more opportunity for Machiavellian manouvering!

Ideally, we'd have the second. However, if this isn't the final solution as you say, and the first would be that much easier, go for it.
Although I'm not a Diplomatic genius or pedant, it is relatively easy to win as England, provided you actually use diplomacy, somthing that we don't see enough of on this site. It seems to be more about the combat than the diplomacy, and if England have to work that bit harder at the diplomacy I'm not complaining.

I vote for the first as well.

Second would be my choice - Noodlebug brought out very good point about possible problems...

It would be a good thing if you could support a convoy. It's like figlesquidge says: the closer to the rules the better. But I would vote the second option, it's not as simple as the first but if there could be a possible problem with the first then the second is obviously better... Also, a new player would be able to see the difference between a convoy support or support on a sea move when giving his orders and thus realise that it is possible to support a convoy, whereas with the first option it is not that obvious because it looks the same as supporting a sea move.

I vote for option #1.

If the 1st option can be done in a few minutes or something then I'd say go for it. Otherwise option 2 is better even though it's not exactly the same as the official rules. With option two there are still problems (though I doubt they'd be seen regularly), for instance, I may think my ally is going to convoy my unit for me so I order a support. Instead he convoys his own unit in a backstab and I end up supporting the attacker into a bad spot for me. Is it much more difficult to write A Belgium supports A London to Holland than A Belgium supports F North Sea's convoy to Holland?

I certainly like that phpDiplomacy has drop boxes for all possible moves, but I think this is a limitation for the supporting convoy issue. What if the restriction were removed and people could submit any orders they want (including invalid ones)? I guess this would allow more user error than you want Kestas, but there are official rules which cover it - if you submit invalid orders for a unit, your unit holds.

i would say option 1 because england is at a total disadvantage with no supporting convoy moves

and i like to backstab :)

As long as fleets actually have to be dislodged to stop a convoy I don't think England is disadvantaged much.

Do they? I thought simply attacking a fleet without dislodging it allready disrupts his convoying...

That was how it used to worked here, but figle fixed it recently.

He did? :o Is that a patch I forgot to install, or did I forget about it?

(or did I forget about installing it?)

I recently attacked a fleet that I suspected was ordered to convoy and afterwards the GameMaster chat said I stopped it from convoying by attacking it. So I think it probably either wasn't fixed or isn't installed yet...

I havent, but Im here talking about how things should be.
I have exams soon (ARGH!!!), but before those I would like to have down at least the logic behind the code down, if not a working adjudicator working.
This is why I've been checking things like this, because how this will work will affect the adjudicator's workings.
Does anyone think they could send me a full list of current lackings in the adjudicator ([email protected] or post below). Note: If you do, please post here so others dont also!

There are really huge deficiencies in the adjudicator figlesquidge, it would probably be faster to say what the adjudicator does right.
If you can solve some of the common gripes without changing too much code that's great, but sorting the adjudicator out will require changes that can't be done bit by bit, and so will have to be a fork point.

Well, Hippykin (#389) and I are currently looking into the pseudo-code required behind a fully compliant adjudicator. Then, once it covers everything we can think of, I'll probably put it up for comments. This should mean it covers all scenarios. It will also support supported convoy landings.
What do people think about forcing convoy's to be linear (like they are now) instead of variable (the script chooses which of multiple paths to take depending on what is possible)?

Thinking about it, I dont think that writing code for variable convoy routes would be too difficult, but using it would mean that the code might take a lot longer to run.

Ah, I thought Figle said he had written the fleets-must-be-dislodged-to-break-convoys edit. I guess I misread and he only said he was going to get it done in the future.

Yeh, sorry! Hasn't been done yet, and when looking through it, it seems to me that the easiest way of correcting the convoy issues is to rewrite the adjudicator . . .

Upon re-reading the thread, I change my vote to option #2. dangermouse - how is #2 different from the rules?

When adding this, it will be fully rule compatible, and you will just "Support Land" a unit - so you dont have to specify what sea it comes from

I think it would be best to stick to the original intention of the inventor of the game, whereas support should clearly say WHICH unit is supported. So the perfect soultion in your example should be this:

Holland [support move|v] to [belgium|v] from [london|v]

When this is implemented, it will be:
Holland [support land|v] at [belgium|v] from [london|v]
The code will see no difference between support land and support move, but if it was just part of support move, then the option lists would be impractically long when you were just after a simple support!

Second would be better I think

I vote for dangermouse's idea: A Belgium supports A London to Belgium. That is the most fair solution, and closest to official game rules.

Figle's proposal is the same as mine (and the official rules), the only differnce is some terminology I think

The workings of it would be the same as Dangermouse's idea, and that is indeed what the rules say. However, since the PHP Diplomacy uses list boxes instead of the posh syntax of many adjudicators or manually run games, it seems wrong to change the trend just for this. The [supportland|v] will be a new option type, that will have every coastal territory with an army in it's list, and so you will be able to choose which unit to support.
The difference between this and [support move] is that this means that the support move list does not have to include every coastal territory when perhaps you just want a simple support, when all the extra options would be a hassle.
Also, since its supports the offical rules in the best was in accordance with the PHPDip style, I've already started work using the support land, so I guess that might end the discussion :P

I vote for the second option, and echo the point dangermouse and others made about entering an order that specifies the unit you want supported.

Attacking a fleet that's convoying stops it from convoying, even if I fail to dislodge it. That bug is still there.

BTW, I vote for option 2.

I like option #2 more. But before you code supports for fleets... take paradoxes into account. All the rule paradoxes I know of use convoys, and you might want to cover these as well before you implement a support convoy.

http://devel.diplom.org/DipPouch/Zine/F1999R/Debate/paradox.html

That is true - all paradoxes involves fleets. Support for them has been included - although I've got to say the code to diagnose one is horrible to write!