@Cernel I think you overthinking this. Remember that an air battle in TripleA is supposed to be the sum of numerous encounters, not a single sortie.

@alkexr said: @Cernel Why have you chosen to have it this way instead of having a specific starting time? Well, the War of the Ring is the obvious candidate, but there was no Arnor or Angmar at that time, so all of Eriador would be practically empty. And that's not all, Dáin's Halls and Framsburg, for example, were also abandoned by that time, along with the surrounding areas. The dragons are also all but gone, Smaug being the last truly relevant one. The orcs in the north were also decimated in the Battle of Five Armies and the aftermath, to the point of irrelevance. So a War of the Ring map would be missing too much for my liking. Sounds like having a secondary game for the map depicting the War of the Ring (maybe with a much over-powered Evil and a non-military victory condition for Good) would be very good as that would be the scenario which most people are interested in and would also provide an easier-to-learn reduced game. I guess doing that after having finished the main "all-times" game would only add a few percetage points of additional work beside the play-testing part for balance. Unfortunately, I cannot do or help with making that because my knowledge of Middle Earth is almost at average Joe level.

@Cernel said: Cool. Not sure why it was so ignored by the TripleA community then. When v3 came out, there was a lot of interest around it, whereas v5 was practically completely ignored when it came out. This would be a bit of speculation, but I guess it comes down to having many more options. If you want an "Official" game, there's classic, anniversary and global. Then there are other custom games as well. The original out of box setup is quite imbalanced. I believe almost all of the changes in TR are allied favoured. Personally, I've never played it because I always felt uncomfortable with the Indian factory and with the extremely swingy 63% win chance battle in 37 Sea Zone. What the hell is that for? Quick questions. Does Russia always attempt to conquer Ukraine SSR (at 89% Win) and to kill the German bomber on round 1, and does Germany usually take it first as casualty? Was the bomber put there just to get it killed by Russia on round 1? Basically yes, there are some alternatives, the "West Russia Jam" where Russia just overstacks WR and sends a fighter to Egypt to save Uk's fighter. But 99% of games begin with 9-12, all available Russian units to Ukraine, and the remainder used in West Russia. The bomber is basically there to die. Germany starting with one in Germany proper as in out of box is simply too strong, Allies would need some compensation elsewhere if Germany started with that. In "Online" you must set up your loss order for each power "profile", prior to finishing your turn, and it's fixed until your next turn as that power. Germany 1 is often bomber first, but I use bomber after artillery, because that's good enough that I don't really need to change my profile. I would forget and it would cost games if I had bomber first later on. Some people actually play bomber last, because although it gets fewer hitbacks and wins Ukraine less often, it makes it impossible for Russia to strafe Ukraine and also kill the bomber. If Russia can bring 3 tanks back to Caucuses while leaving only the fighter in Ukraine, that's very Allied favoured provided West Russia was also average or better. Does the British fighter in Egypt always survive, and then British attack 37 Sea Zone with everything they can bring (taking the 63% win at -1 TUV swing)? The Egypt fighter generally always survives until UK1. Germany has no good way to kill it unless their bomber is still on board. In the current meta, SZ 37 is rarely played though probably under 10% of games. It is viewed as more risk than allies want at that point in the game. It's an asymmetric risk, because it if fails, allies are in really rough shape. Japan starts with 2 transports vs the normal 1 (sz61 is usually cleared) and all of the UK fleet and air is gone from the pacific. India is very tough to hold. If the battle is won, the axis can still win if Germany can get Moscow fast enough. So it's not a "free 68% win" card for Allies. It is a resource to try and stage a comeback if you're off to a bad start though. Is this game perfectly balanced with regular dice? If so, I guess it is slightly unbalanced in favour of Allies with Low Luck because Low Luck favours the opening of Russia to be much safer (especially in Ukraine SSR). I can't really comment on Low Luck. I personally don't like it. I thin thinking about how much risk you want or don't want at various points in the game is part of what makes it fun and challenging. I'm not aware of much competitive play on low luck mode on "Online". It's in the game, but not played much since you can't play that way in ladder games. It may well be quite imbalanced and allied favoured since it makes Ukraine safer as you mentioned, as well as what it does to SZ37. you could even take East indies with relatively little risk as Allies.

Updated a few more categories to now be visible to guests. Rationale: SEO, letting google crawl the maps section is good maps can link to their forums page, and with visible to guests random players can see those pages without having to be members first. It's generally better to see those pages as guest users rather than 404 or otherwise hide them, which makes things look broken. I'm still not sure whether to move the AI, Development, and Feature Request sections back to being visible to 'guest' users.