Another ways to solve huge stack issue

tinfoil666

Could there be a limit placed on the number of units that get to roll dice, so that extra units in a stack serve as cannon fodder but offer no combat capability?

That would somewhat discourage big stacks, and makes some sense, as not all 'reserves' would fit at the 'front'.

Alternatively, packing in huge numbers of units in a single space should make them more vulnerable. Engine-wise, give the opponent hit bonuses proportional to the number of opponents.

Schulz

3.5 gas cost with 5 inf cost makes gases really worth melting enemy inf stacks without being broken. I am not advocating making gases only be produced at capitals as much as I want to show how bad are they currently.
That would be just my proposal if gas would be broken or something. Its not necessary. A useful but restricted gases would be far better for centrals than unlimited but cost ineffective gases.

RogerCooper

@Hepps If you want to restrict special units, either use MaxBuilltPerPlayer or make them non-buildable and bring them on with events.

Cernel

@Hepps I recall that, back then during early development, I reiterately tried to have Imbaked making the gas into a tech, like tanks. Instead, he insisted that he wanted gas available since start game, but I don't recall what was his reason for it. The problem with techs that unlock units is that they have a fixed cost for unlocking, thus they induce spam, by making the unit relatively less expensive the more you buy it (as the research cost will be divided amongst more TUV, lowering the markup). So, basically, the risk is that either the tech is not good to get or once you get it you need to spam it a lot to make it worthwhile. This is likely the root of the problem of the current NML Mustard Gas and Working Women tech combo.

With this said, unless the map goes a bit the way of Civil War, and you have manpower vs manufacture, so that, for example, you cannot spend all your income in spamming infantry (hence the gas would be alternative to other materials, not much to infantry, reducing the need of having a quite strict mathematical comparison between the TUV cost of the gas and the TUV cost of the infantries it is going to grind down), I would rather suggest gas being limited by the number of targets, that would represent the fact that is not a weapon of annihilation. Regular gas may hit at 1 and mustard gas at 2 (and possibly another level of gas that hits at 3), and only infantry or infantry-like units, with possible maximum rolls limited to the number of targets (as said). However, the problem with this is that, then, you may end up just sending exactly a number of gas equal to the maximum hits you can roll, each time, that would be some dumb management. The best would be that gas has a sort of mechanics that becomes less and less effective the more you use it on a same target, and the more effective the bigger the target.

zlefin

I was thinking about this issue again; how much interest is there in experimentally trying various solutions to the stacking issue? We could certainly mod some existing maps to try various methods pretty easily; but how many would wish to test such changes is unclear. I have a hard enough time finding games as it is, finding people to test modded versions might be too hard.

Are stacking issues lessened when people use dice instead of LL, and if so by how much are they lessened?

Schulz

First depucling incomes of all territories, starting Pus,tech costs but still keeping the original production capacities. Then cost/upkeep ratio becomes somewhat like this;

Conscript: 20/2
Infantry: 30/3
Cavalry: 35/3 (m.warfare provides carrying inf ability)
Field: 35/3 (with ww)
Heavy 45/4 (with ww)
Gas 30/2 (with ww)
Fighter 80/5 (with ww)
Trench 30/2
Zeppelin: 140/5 (new stats are 2/1/5 instead of 1/2/5)
Colonial: 30/3
S.Trooper: 30/3
L.Fighter: 100/5
Transport: 60/3
Sub: 60/3
Destroyer: 80/4
Cruiser: 90/5
Carrier: 120/6
B.Cruiser: 140/6
B.Ship: 200/9

djabwana

@Schulz Our map has a lot of anti-stack stuff, including gas. The way our gas works though is that it's a "shot" fired from a heavy artillery that is a suicide air unit with "AA" against soft targets (bypassing trenches). We also have railguns and emplaced artillery that can shell a neighboring territory. So you do see people start to stack up infantry and trenches in capitals, but the attacker can use 2-hit tanks, gas munitions, and railguns (as well as powerful support combos with zeppelins, bombers, etc.) to counter the stack.

Schulz

@djabwana I'd like almost every way to solve the stack issue and really liked the anti stack features in Over the Top as well. Giant stacks slow down games, makes everything more irreversible plus its unrealistic.

I'am personally big fan of unit upkeep which I do believe should be between %3-%10 of unit costs and its benefits are just invaluable.

It is the simplest way to counter stacks.
It is realistic.
It makes losing units less bad which mean higher reversibility.
It adds another dimension to units without adding complexity.
It speeds up games.
It can be integrated to games as optional rule as well.

SilverBullet

@Schulz many good points! but some people like huge stacks, as do i, and if you play the game different, going after different objectives etc, or attacking more often, stacks are not such a problem. so if any of these options are put into action, i would want two of that same map, say "nwo", one regular and one with the new anti-stack options.

Schulz

@SilverBullet It is still possible to have huge stacks in spite of upkeep because base incomes are already high. For example USA in NWO could easily mobilize over approx. 280 units if upkeep rates are low enough (but also high enough to prevent it to pass 300).

SilverBullet

@Schulz thats good to know.

RogerCooper

@SilverBullet I have been working on a mod for AA50 that uses upkeep costs. AA50-41-Maintenance.xml

All units cost 1 per turn except battleships costs 2 while transports, factories and AA guns are free. I gave each player 15 extra PU's/turn & 1 tech token/turn. The US gets an additional bonus = to the turn#. The Chinese get random units.

I find that the game does work. The flat extra income makes Russia less vulnerable to being steamrolled. Upkeep can be useful in game, but you need to balance it with income.

One surprising effect for upkeep costs is the defeated powers can bounce back more quickly. When I last played as Russia, Moscow fell after a tough struggle with the Germans. The British will able to retake it and without any units to pay for and flat extra income I was able to build units more quickly than the Axis.

SilverBullet

@RogerCooper i am used to "upkeep" in Magic: the Gathering, but not this game! i am willing to try it, just gonna take time to get used to it.

TorpedoA

@Schulz
I have up to 2000 units on my NWO map (4 Nations).
And there is only one thing i would ever consider to use against too much units, which is subjective, its upkeep.
Works like a charm.
My problem atm is not about the upkeep relationship within the units, but the upkeep in relation to the construction costs. But thats another story.
Furthermore i tend to see attack potential more valuable then defensive passive approach like bunkers. To give more potential to a defensive strategy, i came up to my following rough system of upkeep:
A totally defensive unit like a bunker (2HP!) costs 1 upkeep, and therefore is the cheapest upkeep but is not as cheap to construct.
Bunker (2HP) = 1 upkeep = 0.5 upkeep/hp
A unit like my Entrenched Infantry can move but only in noncombat. So its less passive, hence more upkeep.
Entrechend Inf = 1 upkeep = 1 upkeep/hp
Normal units, which can combat move are the most expensive ones.
Any normal unit = 2 upkeep (4 if 2 HP) = 2 upkeep/hp

In short:
Attacking is more expensive than defending, because attacking is more difficult (in reality) hence more demanding.
Defensive strategie is then a good way to save money. Moving needs more energy, sitting not.

As Germany on a NWO map, you have sometimes alot of ground to cover, at least in my mod, so you have a real option of going bunkers and Entrechnments to save money, to get enough hp to cover all directions.

Another big plus of upkeep is the fact that if one side looses a huge army stack (in my case i lost around 140 hp in one battle), it frees up alot of upkeep. In my case around 250 worth of production. That means that games are much more intresting and not over in one big decicive battle. Helps alot for AI btw, it recoveres so to speak. Therefore one tend to play more aggressive in a way, whether its on the defensive side or the attackers. Yes, you can play a from rushing to a passive aggressive strategy lol.
Blitz and then dig in and Bunker (Atlantic Wall)

Schulz

@TorpedoA I would want to try these games with upkeep as well especially wondering how would these high upkeep rates work.

Its dubious for me how could 1 upkeep work for infantry in NWO when infantry cost is already 2. It would be perfectly fine for me if infantry and armour had the same upkeep since NWO unit set up is already more defensive oriented than A&A series. Otherwise I can see a major rebalance would be needed if upkeep was added to NWO as optional rule.

So I would favour of either increasing base incomes or folding in ten unit prices and territory values then assigning upkeeps. Factories definitely do not need upkeep. AAguns might have lower upkeep per cost than air units similar to the bunker situation. I would prefer higher upkeep rates as much as possible without decreasing tactical options since higher reversibility is great thing which makes games more interesting.

TheDog

@Schulz I would keep Upkeep very simple and not worry about the ratio of the purchase price to Upkeep.

I think of Upkeep as the supply of POL (petrol, oil, lubricants), ammunition and food and water, each turn.

An Elite infantry unit will consume the same Upkeep as a Raw Infantry unit.

Generalising I would advise 1 Upkeep per Hit Point per unit, so usually 1 per unit.

In designing my games almost no rebalancing was done because of the addition of Upkeep, so give it a try.

The best thing about Upkeep is its just a one liner in the xml for each unit.

Adding Upkeep gives extra dimensions to the game;

Super stacks of units consume a lot of PU in Upkeep for the gain of just one territory, so is that worth it?
Do I delay buying units as I will save PU?
If I commit many units to a battle front overall I will have less PU to commit to another front.
The more I defend, the less PU I have to to spend, so it encourages aggressive play.
In one game I was so defensive I had too many units consuming Upkeep I could not buy any more units.

Schulz

It would be fine for me 1 upkeep per hp if the game achieved decent balance among sides and units. I even prefer any kind of upkeep to no upkeep at all.

My concern for 1 upkeep per HP is its really high upkeep especially for cheapest cannon fodders. It may be not problem at all for maps which logictic and base productions are less important. USA might be really crippled too in some WWII maps since it would mean losing 33%-50% value of infantries before even moving them somewhere assuming USA is incapable of crossing Atlantic in 1 round.

TheDog

Im sure this has been said before, but just in case.

"The gross national product of the U.S., as measured in constant dollars, grew from $88.6 billion in 1939 — while the country was still suffering from the depression — to $135 billion in 1944. War-related production skyrocketed from just two percent of GNP to 40 percent in 1943 (Milward, 63)"

Taken from here.
https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-american-economy-during-world-war-ii/#:~:text=The gross national product of,1943 (Milward%2C 63).

So thats a 50%-ish increase in PU from 1939 to 1944 should be factored if using historical figures.

This can be coded as a National bonus, a few maps have done this, including my Settler maps.

TorpedoA

@Schulz
Short view of some unit costs i have which are considered by the AI balanced, proven by the purchase by AI itself. Means, that close to all of my priced units are being actually purchased by AI.
Because if the AI doesnt buy it. There is something wrong with the cost. Thats my approach to pricing, because i play only AI games, shame on me.
One thing to note here is that i have exessive amount of support attachments. Like really exessive. All units have multiple strenghts and weaknesses additional to the base values. Bare that in mind. Thats because the costs below, are only consistent and balanced around that fact above.
It would be too much to talk about it now, but i tried a heavy Rock Scissor Paper to implement into it.
Here we go: (att/def/mov/cost)(unit names are generalized, i have most of them with unique names like Ju87, P-47, Matilda etc)

Infantry 1 2 1 = 4 PU
Elite 1 3 1 = 5 PU
Stormtrooper 2 3 1 = 6 PU
Hvy Infantry 2 4 1 = 7 PU

Mot Inf 1 2 2 = 6 PU
Mot Elite 1 3 2 = 7 PU
Mech Inf 2 3 2 = 8 PU

Arty 3 1 1 = 5 PU
Katyusha 3 1 2 = 7 PU
Mech Arty 3 2 2 = 8 PU
Light Tank slow 2 2 1 = 5 PU
Light Tank fast 2 2 2 = 7 PU
Medium Tank slow = 7 PU
Medium Tank fast = 9 PU

(below i only view the normal combat values, because air att/def is not recognized by AI purchase, btw aircraft costs are the most difficult ones to set right for AI)
Fighter short 2 2 4 = 11
Fighter medium 2 2 5 = 13
Fighter long 2 2 6 = 16

Attack aircraft and Hvy Fighter
short 3 3 4 = 15
long 3 3 5 = 18

Heavy Bomber medium 4 1 5 = 19
Heavy Bomber long 4 1 6 = 23

From another post i made, yet got no answer but ingame there is a function which could be more insightfull about unit costs i guess.

Ingame: Debug -> Hard AI Settings -> AI Logging
->Efficieny values !?

Gathered data from different basic unit example variations out of AI Logging to help reading:
Example land units (movement ignored: doesnt change Efficiency)

A/D @ PUs = hitPointEfficiency - attackEfficiency - defenseEffieciency
1/1 @ 1 PU = 1.4 ---------------- 5.0 --------------- 5.0
1/1 @ 2 PU = 0.7 ---------------- 2.5 --------------- 2.5

2/2 @ 1 PU = 1.8 ---------------- 8.0 --------------- 8.0
2/2 @ 2 PU = 0.9 ---------------- 4.0 --------------- 4.0

1/2 @ 1 PU = 1.6 ---------------- 6.0 --------------- 7.0
1/1 @ 4 PU = 0.35 --------------- 1.25 ------------- 1.25
1/2 @ 4 PU = 0.4 ---------------- 1.5 --------------- 1.75

I see a pattern, but........math is not my strength

beelee

@TorpedoA which nwo mod