Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Gentlemen,
the purpose of this thread will be to explain and discuss the process of game registration within our DOR. This process, especially the initial registration, seems to cause some trouble to not few members of the club. We hope that they can be solved in here.

The overall impression of problems that arise can be narrowed down to 3 points.
1. Basic requirements aren't fulfilled
The basics to make this process work at all are to allow your browser to place cookies for the DOR webpage, and to allow javascript within the DOR. Without cookies your login will fail and you won't get anywhere, and without javascript the entry of data will be impossible as the so called dropdown lists will not show up and you will be unable to select anything.

2. Misunderstanding the DOR concept of step-by-step
Next is the misunderstanding that the registration form can't be filled out in a single step and then just a button is pressed and everything is done. You will see in this process that section of the form are separated by titles with a gray background, usually each such section is handled individually and also applied respectively added separately. In the game registration process there are at least 4 steps:
A. Setting game type & scenario
B. Add Coalition player
C. Add French player
D. Confirming registration
And only if these are done properly a game registration is possible.

3. Misunderstanding that data has to be selected and not copied respectively typed into
When it comes to doing the above noted steps the misunderstanding of entering data comes up. Every data entered has to be selected from a dropdown list as this ensures only valid data is entered. Starting with setting the game type one might think that he can just type in "Fight", but that is not the case. The proper way is to click into the field, and then click on a game type that is shown in the appearing dropdown list. And the same way the other field are handled too. Do not misunderstand, you can enter data manually, but this is only to allow you to easier choose from the shown dropdown list. So entering a part of an officers name or scenario title makes the list small so choosing from it is easy.

4. Data with none standard English characters
Not few names, scenario as well as officer names, are using characters that aren't found in standard English. If pasted in, the system will not find a result as the character isn't recognized. In this case you use the character but in standard English. An example is our DOR Admin Dominik Derwiński, pasting the name Derwiński in will not yield any results as the system can't understand the special character ń. So in this example you would simply type in Derwinski with a normal n and the system will give you an officer to select. You do this with all deviations from standard English, be it German umlaut, tilde, the various French accent marks, etc., only then you get a result to select.


Below I will now try to explain the process, as short as possible but as long as necessary. Some additional notes at the end of this posting for registering campaign games.
Assuming you have logged into the DOR your next steps are to click on "Battle", and then "New battle".

STEP A. Setting game type & scenario
- Click in the field of "Game type" and choose the game type you need by clicking on it. The list is short enough so that no manual data entry is necessary.


- Click in the field of "Scenario" and enter a part of the scenario file name or title. The more you enter the shorter the list will be, and the simplest way to do this is to copy the title and past it in the field. It may take a second for the list to shrink as the huge scenario database has to be searched to show a match for the data you entered, but if the list is small enough you can simply select the scenario by clicking on it.


- To close Step A you will now click on the "Apply" button that is right besides the "Scenario" field.
The result is a new screen showing the red "Updated" message at the top, that means you have now set game type & scenario properly.



B. Add Coalition player
- This step takes place in the "Playing Coalition side" section, here you click in the field of "Officer" and enter a part of the Officers name. The more you enter the shorter the list will be, you should be familiar with what is rather common or uncommon and start to enter that. The list should pretty quickly shrink and allow you to easily select the officer who plays the Coalition side in the game by clicking on him.


- To close Step B you will now click on the "Add" button that is besides the "Officer" field.
The result is a new screen showing the red "Player added." message at the top, that means you have now set an officer for the Coalition side properly.



C. Add French player
- This step takes place in the "Playing French side" section, here you click in the field of "Officer" and enter a part of the Officers name. The more you enter the shorter the list will be, you should be familiar with what is rather common or uncommon and start to enter that. The list should pretty quickly shrink and allow you to easily select the officer who plays the French side in the game by clicking on him.


- To close Step C you will now click on the "Add" button that is besides the "Officer" field.
The result is a new screen showing the red "Player added." message at the top, that means you have now set an officer for the French side properly.



D. Confirming registration
- Now that everything is set you can enter a comment in the "Comment" field if you want. This is helpful in case campaign scenarios are played or other matters should be recognized. Here the data is entered manually and not selected as comments are individual entries not selected from a database. The "Registered*" field is nothing you need to bother with and you should not enter any data there.


- To close Step D you will now click on the "Apply" button besides the "Comment" field.
The result is a new screen showing the red "Registered." message at the top, that means you have now properly registered the game.


All that now needs to be done by your opponent is to confirm the game. Details for this step are not yet handled here.


Campaign games:
For campaign games you select the correct .cpd file as scenario. Afterwards it would be helpful to add scenario title as comment, just to have a clue what is played. And when the battle is done make sure to add a comment if campaign continues or if it was the last battle, that is important so we know that whether or not we can apply a campaign bonus for the players.

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Gentlemen,
the purpose of this post is to handle the point of confirming the registration. That is what you do if your opponent has registered the game. Usually you will get a notification asking you to confirm the registration, it's possible that it gets swallowed by spam measures but that doesn't matter. You can always clarify this with your opponent, and if he tells you he got it registered it's time for you to act.


Below I will now try to explain the process, as short as possible but as long as necessary.
Be aware that the screen shots will show details for a different game then in the above posting.
Assuming you have logged into the DOR, you will see this:

- Your next step is to click on the link at the top saying "You have to confirm 1 battle!".

This brings you to your battle page that list your active games and to be registered games, it looks like this:

- Here you have to click on the yet to be registered battle. Easily it is identified by two things, first it has only a number and not a letter/number code, secondly the "View" link is bold. These two things indicate a game that has to be confirmed by you.
- Your next step is to click on the link "View".

This brings you to the battle details page that list all the details of that specific battle, it looks like this:

- Here you should first check the details of the battle to see if your opponent has entered them correctly, should there be a need for correction you should contact the Commander-in-Chief or his Chief of Staff to take steps to correct the error. If the entered data is correct you can proceed below.
- Now you can enter a comment, in the field below the listed players, if you feel there is the need for it or it would prove helpful, but you do not need to.
- Now you simply click on the "Apply" button.

This changes the battle details page, it looks like this:

- Here you will see at the top in red "System started (S2021F0003)." Let me make it clear that the letter/number code is specific and you will see a different letter/number code as everyone is unique and not used twice in the DOR.
- At this point further action is not needed and you can exit the DOR.

All that now needs to be done is to play the battle to an outcome. After that the result has to be entered but details for this step are not handled here.



Question to the community is:
Is the above explanation of the confirmation process sufficient or do you still have problems with conforming games registered by your opponent?

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