Step 8 Balancing the Game Balancing Axis & Allies style games is a difficult task. For example in V3-1941 the Allies are ahead in every measure, but the game is reasonably balanced. Production 120 to 58 Starting PU 113 to 58 Units 124 to 105 TPV 696 to 645 Objectives 12 to 6 This is typical of A&A games, that units and TPV are close between the sides. However income obviously matters in the long run. Furthermore, vulnerable territories of the Status Quo players may actually work to the benefit of the Aggressor. As a starting formula I have: Production x 3+ Starting PU's + Units + TPV - vulnerability penalty - delayed entry penalty The vulnerability penalty is x3 the income of vulnerable territories + factories in vulnerable territories. A territory is vulnerable if they are owned by Status Quo country that is active at the game start and that is adjacent to an Aggressor country that is active the game start. The delayed entry penalty is 10% of the TPV for each turn past 1 of delay. To balance the game additional units (and starting PU's) are added to the aggressors if they are behind and additional income to the lead status quo power if they are behind. Units will be randomly added to territories with a weighting equal to value+1. The chance of a specific unit will be proportional to the inverse of its cost. In either case units will have the build caps equal to 120/cost to prevent ridiculous builds by the AI.

@VictoryFirst I think my 1 pixel idea will fail, although I haven't tried it. Reason being, when you go to "Add Units" you only got a 1 pix spot for it to find. Idk, maybe a 5 spot ? I guess I just gotta try it

Update to Version 2.61 [image: Screenshot from 2026-08-30 23-56-21.png] @trout @panzerstahl-helm-0 @alexander here's Kamikaze fix. I hate or dislike doing these back to back but since it's Tourney time lol Guess I better make a new Tourney save Wiking-Con World Tournament Qualifier 2027 Triplea Game Start Take 2.tsvg Edit @panzerstahl-helm-0 @trout @alexander-the-great @victoryfirst has finished fixing the Hvy Bmbrs DL latest triplea and you're good to go. Won't affect any of your saves and will work in your saves as well. No need to keep your old one.

@iratoric That's great. I can't wait to produce the game, but I'm so busy nowadays and don't have much time. But it will have to be created one day.

@TheDog Many thanks for the kind welcome and quick and considerate reply! I'm really blown away by the depth and customisation that this map has! Thanks again for all your work in making it happen

Latest version v020 ready for download within TripleA. In TripleA Click Download Maps Button Click Installed tab Click ** Settlers: Fallen Empire** Click Remove Button Click Yes button to remove Click Ok button (Successfully removed) Click Close (To force the map list to refresh) Click Download Maps Button............................<= new players start here Find & Click ** Settlers: Fallen Empire** Click Install button Enjoy! Settlers Fallen Empire Manual pdf unchanged Settlers_Fallen_Empire_Manual.pdf v020 Sea Zone PU collection is now working as intended It currently requires the following steps player none=Neutral must be have an initial relationship of Neutral with the Player factions, see lines 6977 etc player none=Neutral start of turn 1 is changed to War, see lines 5913-5931 Define All-SZ (Sea Zones) & All-Players required for #4 foreach to work A foreach to convert currentowner = originalowner, this allows PU to be collected, see lines 5899-5911 (#1 & #2 are are a bizzare requirement that should not exist. ) Turn placementAnyTerritory True and False, allows placement of isAI unplaced Factories, makes for a better player experience (thanks to @wc_sumpton) Link to 1st post https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/2467/settlers-fallen-empire-official-thread

Late fighters are balanced around with other units and techs.

@TheDog I have a specirfic TripleA version with some specific xml files for games like TWW and I have 2/3 curent games so it is not so easy....

@malmessi It is in game in the usual place Help> Game Notes

I put it onto github under https://github.com/triplea-maps/thehobbesians_1939. I will add to the in-game downloader tomorrow.

@TheDog said: @rogercooper Cant find Ansalon/Analon on Github maps Missing from your list, but on Github maps Settlers: Fallen Empire Shogun Advanced Ansalon was superseded. https://axisandallies.fandom.com/wiki/Master_of_Ansalon Settlers: Fallen Empire uses the Fallen Empire Map Shogun Advanced is under The Shogun Map

Interesting video, and welcome back! I think the changes are interesting. Regarding tactics I do think that having 5 levels is a lot. I think that @shorogyth 's system seems reasonable. I'd also pull the plains bonus out of the tactics system (call it "defensive tactics") and have a separate plains attack bonus. That way horses can have a bonus there, and rangers won't automatically be good attacking on plains. I know it's a third number, but I think it'll be less confusing than tactics being mostly defense bonuses but also one attack bonus. Also, can you have more than a +-1bonus on some terrains? I feel like most flying units would need more than a -1 bonus on caves, especially because tactics give them bonuses. I agree with the relentless issue. I think it's cool for some units to ignore your defensive terrain advantage, but they should be rare and therefore scary. Having basically all orcs be relentless is pretty silly and makes plains better for defense than cities. Regarding unit abilities, I don't think rock paper scissors is necessarily bad, especially because not all factions are equally strong in each. If each faction has different strengths and weaknesses, it forces factions to collaborate more, and stops things from snowballing as much if one faction falls. Eg Gondor would spam rangers because they have good defense bonuses and would kill the winged nazgul (thereby denying mordor's leadership), so you could send flanking cavalry from Rhun or harad to eliminate them. Elven archers were much stronger than the spearmen, but fell very quickly to wargs, which forced the elves to diversify more. In particular, Isengard had no ranged units, so Rohan's flank cavalry was especially dangerous since it would directly target the fires of orthanc, and so isengard had to spend a lot of effort screening its siege forces. I think ranged support feels reasonable. I like all abilities that encourage using a variety of units. Eg the galadhrim archers are one of the most powerful units in the game, but they require you to buy the weaker elven spearmen to unlock their full value. I like the change to charge, since before formation made those units a liability because you couldn't make them not charge. Eg the warg riders were essentially useless for angmar because of this and rohan suffered hard. I do like the new ambush mechanic since it encourages more diversity in unit selection. I do think it should be allowed in cities though (that was the whole siege of osgilliath), and the fact that only a certain number of units can ambush will balance it. I'm not sure I like scouting as it is though. If scouting eliminates ambush, then you just need 1-2 units with scouting in your army and you're fine. And if those units are otherwise useful (eg rangers) then it makes ambushers useless. Maybe scouting should be like spearwall? Just decreasing the effectiveness of ambush so it's less good but still useful? So maybe barrow wights would have an ambush of 6, then eg warg scouts could have a scouting of 2, rangers 3, and wizards 6x2 or sth? I feel like something missing in the game is some notion of hit and run tactics for cavalry. Cavalry is expensive and strong and excels at taking out small groups, but you often can't take advantage of this because if you do it exposes your cavalry to counterattack where they won't make up their PU values. Meanwhile air units can do this which gives angmar and mordor a big advantage. Maybe some cavalry could have an ability wherein they (and only they) can independently retreat after the first round of combat, even if there's a win? This still requires some thought, since if you don't have a win in your first round you have to decide if it's worth leaving your cavalry open to guarantee the win, and cavalry is still worse than flying units since they don't get the whole combat or a noncombat move. But it makes cavalry much more tactically interesting Also a general thought, but I think rangers need to be a higher tier of ranged unit. They have excellent tactics, mountaineer, high movement, anti-flying, scouting, ambush, support, and maybe more. And given the lore this makes sense, but also in the lore they aren't common at all - the Dunedain are solitary and dying out. So I think buffing them and treating them more like weak creatures than elite infantry would make more sense. And then you could maybe have some weaker version for gondor representing Faramir's rangers which are just elite infantry

@djggml So here is a working map.yml (remove the .txt to use it. map.yml.txt map_name: the_pact_of_steel games: - {game_name: Pact of Steel, file_name: pact_of_steel.xml} - {game_name: Pact of Steel 2, file_name: pact_of_steel_2.xml} - {game_name: Pact of Steel 233, file_name: pact_of_steel_233.xml} Note it has the version line removed.

@gr8gamerguy It has certainly been a long time since I worked on this project but I really want to finish it and condensed things down. With the advent of chatgpt I think ill come to finish it. (In case you ever see this message, thank you for all.the big reports)

UPDATED: http://john.gregorek.com/Games/Generic.zip Added caveER_png to help identify territories for removal/addition. Shifted place_txt values to represent top-left corner of unit images. Corrected polygons_txt fragments for defining territories across map borders. Not happy with glyph branding. It's optional. Still have an issue with border fragments that requires your inspection. The reliefTiles hide the map border edge well, but note the dinosaur has been beheaded. [image: tripleAbeheaded.png]