Iron War: Europe - Official Thread

[redrum]

@CrazyG Thoughts on how you'd like it to look? Just a single line for each type of resource?

The main reason it is very long is due to how @Frostion implemented 'other' resources with units rather than production. When units produce resources I believe they each get their own line in the report.

[CrazyG]

@redrum

I would say the top lines should show all the end results, thats what I care about. So something like

Collect 10 PUs, end with 10 total
Collect 5 fuel, end with 6 total

Also I might be the only person who feels this way, but I would like the option to not have the top box say "end of turn report", as I'm part way through designing a map and wanted the income to happen at the beginning

[Cernel]

@CrazyG said in Iron War: Europe - Official Thread:

Also I might be the only person who feels this way, but I would like the option to not have the top box say "end of turn report", as I'm part way through designing a map and wanted the income to happen at the beginning

Same for me.
I also believe collecting at start turn makes the only sense, otherwise, if 1 territory gets traded, it produces 2 times in a round (or maybe more if it is a 3+ sides map!), and it is just silly that war increases the output per round of a conquered territory twofold or more. With collection start turn, a territory that gets swapped twice or more each turn would never produce, which makes more sense.

[Cernel]

@Hepps

I much suggest never using the term Nation in anything hardcoded.

Nation is an oft incorrectly used term, and, in its correct meaning, sometimes vague, that I would be very cautious at using. Beside the fact, that, of course, TripleA is meant to also have maps for which the term Nation would just not make sense or be very anachronistic, the USSR is not 1 nation and it is disputable if Great Britain was a nation (which would imply Scotland was not a nation), let alone the conglomerate that in game is defined as British.

I'd rather have just:
Income Report for Germany
or
Income Summary for Germany

(I think "report" sounds a little better)

[redrum]

Let's move the resource discussion to a new thread so poor Frostion can develop his map
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/128/resource-system-assessment-and-improvements

[Frostion]

@Hepps
I have a hard time figuring out how to have USA in the map while also not having it make the map x2 bigger. Also, as you maybe also think, it can be hard to have a lot of navy warfare opportunities on the first attempt of the map. Too few sea zone and maybe too cramped. I have tried to alter the map a bit, and here is a new map.

It is still pretty distorted, but it makes room for more sea zones, makes room for a British base in America/Canada, has Greenland and Iceland represented. I have not drawn the borders, but here is a preview. Does this seem more reasonable?

When looking at real WW1 and 2 convoy routes to Europe, they all seem to go north and to Scotland, so the map would still depict this in a reasonable way.

WW1:

WW2:

[Frostion]

After looking at the WW1 convoy map I posted I think I will return to the drawingboard. Maybe try to make something similar.

[redrum]

@Frostion Yeah, while it will make the map probably twice as big, I agree with @Hepps around better placement of NA. I think NWO actually does it fairly well and I'd vote for doing a similar style.

[Frostion]

@Hepps @redrum and all.
Here is a new map. I have not drawn the borders for the Atlantic yet, but does this look reasonable? I took a look at NOW, some old maps and even google maps I think it looks like there could be both room for naval warfare and still not be too large.

[Hepps]

@Frostion It is certainly much improved over the first draft.

[Black_Elk]

Sounds rad man!

I do like the idea of that extra space in the Atlantic. One of the things I enjoy about Iron War, is the simplicity of unit movement. In G40 and other A&A games post v3, the submarine and transport don't create hostile sea zones. In Iron War its more like Classic or Revised, where those units have pretty familiar basic combat interactions (in v3 and later they can't be used block, and while that's not all that difficult to understand, it does create some weirdness for the AI developing proper choke points or pickets on the water.) I prefer the Iron War approach, but I do think it's helpful under those conditions that there's a bit more room to maneuver, which the extra Atlantic space (and the extra SZ generally across the map) should help to provide. Especially if trying to simulate the Air Gap, which is where the majority of sub/convoy raiding occurred. Ideally you'd have some space for Germany to position subs so they can't always be attacked from one heavily stacked SZ by the opponents fleet. I think the larger world map already works pretty well in that regard, so it's nice that the second draft for the Europe map follows a similar model, with a larger swath of the Atlantic to play in.

I think the NPU idea is pretty novel too, though I think if introducing more types of production or more resource types, it would be good to have these consistent across both maps. I'm not really sure what other kinds of resources beyond Steel and Fuel, might be explored, perhaps rubber? Though I've just been kind of including that under the fuel umbrella when I imagine it. I suppose another possibility might be something like "manpower" kind of like ss or colonial, but for regular units like infantry or pilots for aircraft. Though I have to admit, I kind of like the way it works right now, so I'm a little reluctant to change to much about the purchase screen. It has a nice balance right now, that sort of favors airpower (since those units aren't restricted by resources) which I think fits for the period, where ascendence in air power really defined the conflict both on land and at sea.

I don't have a whole ton of suggestions at the moment, but am definitely excited by the idea and can't wait to play!

I think bases could be interesting, but they are also extremely powerful if conceived the way they are in G40. Anything that produces a movement advantage is huge in a Turn based game. I know when we were messing around with a G40 house rules package, Beelee included an option where the types of units one could produce out of a given factory, was dependent on having operational bases. So for example to build a ship you'd need a naval base, or to build a plane you'd need an air base. Again though, I think there is something elegant in the current scheme where the production is capped at 5 units, and factories are relatively cheap and can be destroyed, so not sure how much I'd want to mess with that dynamic.

Again, excellent work so far dude. Iron War has certainly been keeping me busy haha

[redrum]

@Frostion Better though seeing Florida at the same latitude as the UK is still kind of weird to me. I'd probably make NA larger to stretch further down.

[Hepps]

@Frostion Why not a more accurate depiction?

This was just quick....

[Black_Elk]

Much as I love everything I'm seeing, and think this is a great idea for a game map (with a detailed Europe), I actually think that, if trying to accomplish the goal of a simplified theater version of Iron War, the Pacific side of the world would probably be a lot simpler to implement.

The reason I say so, is because I think you could just literally carve the existing world map in half, and on the Pacific side it would be much easier to adjust the economy to function without having to create an entirely new distribution of territories and starting units to make it work.

For example you could draw a line from Siberia down through India just to left of the Iron War logo, and another through North America basically at Yellowknife all the way down to the bottom of the South Pacific. This side of the map already functions almost independently, so if you needed to add more PU's to balance either North America or Russia vs Japan, you could just add a few simplified territories at the extreme periphery with high values and generic names (like "Russian Europe" or "United States" or whatever) where a single territory stands in for a much larger region not depicted on the map.

I see several advantages of the Pacific, but the main one is that the resource and technology system really makes a lot of sense for the war vs Japan. Especially since the game could culminate with the historical use of Nuclear weapons.

I know that the European side would offer more opportunities to create a rough balance by sides with more Player/Nations for the Axis team (Italy, Finland and the Balkans nations), but I'm not sure that it's all that necessary to have evenly weighted teams for the map to still be fun. On the Pacific side it would basically be a choice between playing one large power (Japan) vs the rest of the world, which is kind of optimal for beginners being introduced to the gameplay, or a multi-headed hydra (the Allies) that have to really coordinate in order to prevail.

Basically I just think you could get a Pacific theater map up and running in short order, and it would serve as a more effective primer for the larger Iron War world map, since less stuff would be different. Whereas starting with Europe, I think you might end up with a Map that is almost just as large in scale and complexity as the existing Iron War world map,
(which, while certainly cool, probably wouldn't serve quite as well as an introduction, since it's almost just as involved.) The Pacific war in general is also somewhat more intuitive, especially for the naval game. Where you have one major Naval Power vs several smaller naval powers that have to coordinate. Similarly you'd have one main land power vs several smaller land powers that likewise have to work together.

From a Map design standpoint, it also seems a lot easier to incorporate North America by making West US really high value like 100 PUs, and everywhere else you can pretty much use the baseline and PU distribution that already exists. That way when the player graduates from the Pacific Iron War map to the World Iron War map, most of the gameplay is already familiar.

Japan's expansion pattern in the current World map is already really well balanced, where they are being pulled in many different directions at once (like all 8 points of the compass rose each have their own interest) and Japan really can't do it all at once. The VC spread also seems like it might be more manageable here than it is in Europe. On the Europe side the land war between Germany and the USSR kind of sucks up all the air in the room, and there is a really high concentration of VCs in a comparatively small area. So instead of a constant back and forth, it's more like a prolonged build up on the Eastern front, with a really fast crescendo at the end. (This works great on the World map, because there is a ton of other stuff going on everywhere else, but as the whole show, it might be less interesting.) On the Pacific side by contrast, the VCs and production tiles are a bit more spread out, so I think more of the gamemap (especially on the periphery) would be activated in a given game. There's plenty of room in the Pacific Ocean for convoy zones too, if you need to round things out for the economic victory.

In simple terms, I think a Europe centered map is more likely to play out in a rather similar way each time, since Germany really only has one or two ways to go (into Russia, or into England), but a Pacific centered map would be different every time depending on which nation Japan elects to target first... KNIL, India, China, Russia, Australia, or the US? So like 6 different openers as opposed to just one or two.

I'm assuming there that most new players will choose Japan for their first run-throughs and set the Allies to AI. From the Allied player perspective though, resource sharing would also be pretty dynamic, since you would have a lot of tension and tough decisions to make, whether the Americans should send aid to the other Allied powers or just save it to build their USN fleet to destroy the IJN.

Just a thought, since you mentioned trying to do tandem development, I think a Pacific Map that builds up to the existing World Map, would require a lot fewer adjustments.

Finally the Pacific theater would have somewhat less competition from other existing tripleA maps than the European theater would. Personally, I just feel like the ETO has been done to death already and done well, whereas the PTO is a bit less familiar. Also, in A&A style world theater games, the Pacific Theater of Opperations seems consistently busted. Compared to A&A, Iron War actually creates an interesting production spread here, where the gameplay patterns feel somewhat more historical, and the potential for Island hopping, naval cat and mouse, resource/production management and such, is just more fun than it usually is in a game like G40 or v5. So I think a PTO game could really highlight the strengths of the Iron War gameplay, with less work in the overhaul to create a new map/xml.

[Zim Xero]

I think that a scenario that will survive the coming ages needs to be "Fun to play" first. Secondly, it should represent a major historical incident or confict in a simulatory way. Third, it can't be hard to figure out for a first-time downloader. Fourth, but not uninportaint... is that the map/scenario must have depth.

Depth can be accomplished through perfect PvP game balance -or- through complexity which makes every game feel different.

[Frostion]

@redrum @Hepps
I don’t think I want to make USA that large and by dragging USA downwards the ships would sail upwards and never go by Greenland and Iceland. It would be much easier if the real world was flat

@Black_Elk
You are right that a Pacific map could be fun to make, and that there are not that many around already. Maybe it could be the next project. As this map is nearly drawn already, I think I will finish this first. I hope that if USSR have both Finland, Germany and an Italian superpower in the Mediterranean to fight, that this map could still have some varied play options. Also I hope that we can make the Europe map Germans opertunities to focus on france, Scandinavia and USSR. It will take some time to conquer France, and maybe this map should not make it as easy to conquer France as the world map. Also I hope that the idea of splitting the navy and land/air cost will hopefully create a new focus for especially the Germans and the USSR who would normally just focus on land.

@Zim-Xero
I hope it can live up to you 4 criteria. I want it to be fun to play, simulate the battle of Europe in a balanced way, be easy to figure out and hopefully have debth. :slight_smile:

OK. Here is a new version of how the map looks like. I have made new sea zones and they are kind of uniform in seize. I think 1 turn will be one month. Then it will take a well oiled German war machine 5 months to take France. And USA/Canada will use 1 month to sail to Scotland and 1 more month to Normandy.

Denmark, Gibraltar and Istanbul will be handled as in the world map by these territories having boom barriers and controlling straits.

Don’t mind the transparency that makes small squares in all land territories. And the empty dessert will make room for a nice map logo:

[CrazyG]

Looks great so far. While the position of North America is obviously silly I think it gets the job done.

If you want this map to be good for just general purpose European wars, especially WW1, you need to divide northern Italy and Austria up more. This is the biggest problem for trying to convert many of the ww2 maps

[redrum]

@Frostion Maybe consider only showing the top half of the USA so you get them sailing primarily in the northern atlantic but don't have the weird placement of the USA.

[Zim Xero]

OR make the map one sea zone extended to the left to make room for it and put it in its place.

[Frostion]

@CrazyG
I don’t think I will divide the territories up more around Italy and Austria. The territories will become too small compared to the rest. I think realism will have to make way for practicalities. WW1 was much more static and fixed around certain dug in places and I don’t know how much this can be reflected in a map like this. Time will tell.

@redrum @Zim-Xero
I have now altered the map a bit and removed Florida. I think it looks a lot better now, and it is still lets both Canada and USA arrive at Scotland / Ireland as they should with the convoys.

In the southern part of the Atlantic I plan to place a few PU producing buoys that the Germans might go after to ruin the USA and UK production. Or maybe the Italians if they can get past Gibraltar.