Start of turn PUs
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I want to address one of the glaring issues with PUs: rewarding PUs at the end of turns. This results in the bizarre circumstance where the most productive territories are the ones being fought over, as they may give their PUs multiple times in a round.
Logically this is absurd. It would help to give realism to the game if the PUs were awarded at the beginning of players turns, so territories already lost weren't contributing to production.
I can't figure out how to modify scenario code to do this: it seems built into the basic game engine. Could this be added as a feature?
if it is already possible: I'd love to know how to set this up!
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@cebeautifulca
In general all maps PU is calculated in the endTurn phase, currently this is sort of hardcoded.I doubt your request will be actioned any time soon, as there lots of other changes the Devs have on their lists.
What map in particular are you referring to, as there are a few code changes you can make to mitigate your issue.
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@cebeautifulca Nice to see I'm not the only one in the world who thinks collecting end turn is nonsense.
I remember I was unconfortable with this since Classic (years before I knew of the other games or of TripleA), especially looking at "Ukraine S.S.R." getting swapped and giving income twice per round.
Now, that would be a very nice solution to the current Ukraine conflict...
To answer your question, it's hardcoded in the game but not in the program.
To tell you how to do it, this Topic should have been posted in the "Map Making" section (although here we are only talking of "game-making" because you need to rewrite only the game file of the map).
For example, a game of mine ("270BC Wars") has what you want for the reason you explained (whereas "270BC" does not). "Conquest of the World" has collection start turn too, though you collect the units to place there instead of the income.
I guess you can take a look at the game file of "270BC Wars" to know how it's done.
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@cernel Thanks! I'll try back and report if I can't get it to work.
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Yeah, for real though hehe. I think altering stuff like phase order/turn order is potentially the most interesting way to tweak the game without having to do much else. If collect income was the first phase, it would immediately reset the playbalance of any of the standard WWII maps. It'd be interesting to see how something simple like 1942 holds up. Probably it would focus the player on waging attacks to destroy units rather than taking territory, with the income from holding a deadzone for a whole round more like nice bonus, but not something you can rely on. It would probably accelerate the endgame I'd guess too, after the main pockets start collapsing. Germany is always sort of designed around continuously trading for like a third of it's income every round, foot dragging in spots that'd just be smoldering rubble by that point hehe. I wonder how it would effect the general gameplay? Probably more conservative play I guess, with more strafes, since there'd be less incentive to expose your forces to counter a attack and then not get any loot either.
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@cernel
Thanks for reminding me that your 270BC Wars does it differently.
@Black_Elk Im glad your interested, as I am intrigued, its already being tested in our new 1941 Command Decision/Domination map.
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Honestly it doesn't change that much in gameplay, it's still equally worth conquering the same territories every turn as you would in a typical game. Because doing so denies the enemy the income; it's just a question of whether the two nations involved each have 3 more PU to work with or not. But the relative balance between the nations remains basically the same.
There's no real need to do any dev action on this, as it's easy enough to do with existing system by changing the game xml in various ways. Iirc putting the 'endturn' phase at the start doesn't cause any serious problems, though it's been a long while so I'm not sure on that.
There's also tons of triggers these days which let you modify PU values in various fancy ways.edit: I just remembered I can use the mod tools to move this thread to the Map Making section. You could've too Cernel
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@zlefin Thanks. Moving this makes sense, as there is a means of achieving the intent.
It appears that in the 270BC Wars map @Cernel used multiple instances of EndTurn during a players turn to achieve this, modifying the actual EndTurn with an endTurnNoPU rule.
@zlefin In the narrowest sense, I agree with your logic, but considered in total, the difference this makes swings the balance of power away from players with swing territory towards those with secure territory, or with other advantages. If both lose the same x PUs in swing battlefields, the ratio of the remaining territories - and every other differential, such as SBRs, tech, unit value, strategic disposition - becomes more important. I suspect it makes denial of ownership more important.
As an example, In the original version at the start of round 2, it's quite plausible for the Axis to have more PUs than the Allies. If players take income at the start of their 2nd turn, this is less likely. I reckon on average it swings the balance from one side to the other. Sure, some players may dislike this, I reckon it makes for more sensible strategies/tactics/game-design.
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@zlefin said in Start of turn PUs:
edit: I just remembered I can use the mod tools to move this thread to the Map Making section. You could've too Cernel
I didn't say it was in the wrong section. I said it was in the wrong section to explain how to do it.
I think this was a legitimate feature request for having PUs collected start turn. An invalid one, of course, since the feature is already available, but it's not like you need to be absolutely sure that the feature is missing when you ask for one.
I guess someone needs to clarify what we are supposed to do with invalid feature requests, like requests asking for a feature which is already available.
Or, alternatively, this could have been a valid feature request from the point of view of a regular user who wants to play the basic games but collecting start turn.
And, yes, it changes nothing or almost nothing beside everyone having a less income and confusing noobs.
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It's actually easy to make this happen. Here is an example in the map file:
<step name="AquellaEndTurn" delegate="endTurn" player="Aquella"/> <step name="AquellaUserActions" delegate="userActions" player="Aquella" display="Diplomacy"/> <step name="AquellaPolitics" delegate="politics" player="Aquella"/> <step name="AquellaTech" delegate="tech" player="Aquella"/> <step name="AquellaPurchase" delegate="purchase" player="Aquella"/> <step name="AquellaCombatMove" delegate="move" player="Aquella"/> <step name="AquellaAirborneCombatMove" player="Aquella" display="Airborne Attack Move" delegate="specialCombatMove"/> <step name="AquellaBattle" delegate="battle" player="Aquella"/> <step name="AquellaNonCombatMove" delegate="move" player="Aquella" display="Non Combat Move"/> <step name="AquellaPlace" delegate="place" player="Aquella"/> <step name="AquellaTechActivation" delegate="tech_activation" player="Aquella"/>All I did was change the order of the steps, moving the "endTurn step to the top of the list. It works perfectly. You will have to do it for each player.
