A Solution for stack issue

butterw

@numetalfan
placementLimit only affects placement, ie you may not be able to place your purchased units in a territory.

<option name="placementLimit" value="owned:Battleship:Battlecruiser:Cruiser:Destroyer:Submarine:Transport" count="4"/>

Other limits can be used:

<option name="movementLimit"  value="owned:Battleship:Battlecruiser:Cruiser:Destroyer:Submarine:Transport" count="4"/> 
<option name="attackingLimit" value="owned:Battleship:Battlecruiser:Cruiser:Destroyer:Submarine:Transport" count="4"/>

beelee

@silverbullet said in A Solution for stack issue:

@numetalfan i have seen enough "improvements", not just at tripleA but in life, to be very afraid!!!

I'm not afraid. I'm just scared : )

Schulz

@silverbullet When did you see the last time that a random player will be able to change all map mechanics?

I think there is a misunderstanding going on. Even if the majority of players don't like upkeep it doesn't mean that the huge stack maps like NWO or WaW won't be played if they were originally released with upkeep because we cannot measure how many potential players are turn off Triplea because of very slow pace of some of the very popular maps.

When I check some popular games similar to TripleA they have either simultaneous rounds, fog of war or upkeep which TripleA lacks all of them.

Likes the smartphones. Introduction of them was obviously nothing to do with other phones but they totally changed the trend.

RogerCooper

@schulz There is room for many types of scenarios. I have been experimenting with upkeep in standard scenarios and the results are interesting.

The problem with stacking limits is the lack of AI support not the concept itself. Stacking limits are the norm in board wargames and make for better and more realistic play.

Other solutions are

Unit tiers: There is a limited supply of cheap units, then you have to pay more.

Multiple Attacks: Have units that fight like AA guns, making shots against all enemies.

Schulz

@rogercooper The problem is mods are unfortunately almost never played no matter how improved they are people who like upkeep will already prefer upkeep version of any maps and I don't think it is easy to change people's opinions about upkeep.

I agree if rushing Russia is the only viable Axis strategy then there is a problem. I'am not sure if I would prefer stack limit over upkeep.

NWO and WaW seems already solved the issue by making defense way too strong in this case Axis has no luxury rushing Russia and weakley defend all other areas.

butterw

Any approach to limit stacking changes the game and it's balance. The "maxBuiltPerPlayer" option seems to be handled OK by the AI.

Once the custom limits have been implemented, unitAttachment options are displayed in the unit tooltips. For other options (ex: playerAttachment) it's possible to add hardcoded text by creating a tooltips.properties file:

tooltip.unit.armour.Russians.append=Unseen<br/>Prefers Settlements

With regard to upkeep, the PU cost has to be integer, how do you handle it for infantry (Cost 3) ?
With the basic option, the cost doesn't depend on stack size, it's just a per unit cost per turn. On an existing map, you would likely have to provide a PU bonus to offset the extra cost when this option is added.

<option name="createsResourcesList" value="-1:PUs"/>

EDIT: It was suggested by Schulz to multiply PUs

<property name="Multiply PUs" value="10" min="1" max="10" editable="false"/>

You would need to manually change starting PUs and costs of units in xml and give a small PU bonus to each player every turn (Either through Resource Modifier at game load or with a trigger in xml).

TheDog

@butterw said
With regard to upkeep, the PU cost has to be integer, how do you handle it for infantry (Cost 3) ?

Keeping it simple all combat units should cost 1 or more ie. -1:PUs
Transports and Personalities should have no upkeep cost.

Upkeep also makes you think twice about producing. As delaying producing units saves you PU.

Im my own Settlers games
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/2399/settlers-age-of-tribes-official-thread
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/2467/settlers-fallen-empire-official-thread

I have produced too many units that the Upkeep was so much that I could not buy any more units, to me this is as it should be. You cannot turtle and build massive defensive stacks.

Schulz

@butterw Unfortunately TripleA does not recognize fractional numbers therefore multiplying everything by 10 then keeping unit cost/upkeep ratio between 5%-10% seems the only viable option as far as I researched.

Keeping upkeeps below 5% does barely prevent stack issues and higher upkeeps might force players not to spend all remaining moneys for tactical issues which AI cannot handle that plus it can be seen as unneeded complexity.

5%-10% upkeep just do really fine. But even it would break balance of exising maps of course.

Stack limit is unrealistic feature because supply is nothing to do with front lengt. Really it would be awkward to see if nations could place more troops to Lybian-Egyptian border than for example German-French border just because German-French border is shorter. I've never heard something like a nation couldn't reinforce an area more inensively because of short frontline.

Schulz

@butterw Territory values should be multiplied by 10 too along with starting incomes, unit costs and repair costs.

Unit production capacities in contrast will be 1/10 of the territory values. For example 20 Pu value territory can only able to produce 2 units per round not 20. After that no additinal feature is really needed.

Multiplying everything by 10 have also another benefits like you cannot buy 1 unit if its cost is fractional like 3.5 but with that its possible because it will be represented by 35 Pu cost.

Also it becomes possible to value territories and upkeeps with better variety.

RogerCooper

@butterw I have been experimenting with upkeep on existing maps. I add bonus income equal to total starting income divided by 2, and then split the bonus between the Axis & Allies. I don't charge upkeep for infrastructure or transports. I charge 2 for 2-hit units.

This seems to work well. The bonus income makes it harder to knock out Russia. It only takes few minutes to modify the map (unlike multiplying the production values). I have the file for World War II v4 below. This will soon be added to downloadable files.

WW2v4-Maintenance.xml

butterw

@rogercooper
It's an interesting variant. I let the AI play against itself with your mod:

Russia was lost in round 7 and the Axis won in Round 8.
The Russian Player was reduced to a single territory + a submarine in round 5.
With flat upkeep it's better to buy better more expensive units: such as armour and fighters (because there are less ressources the stacks are smaller.
But the AI doesn't understand the upkeep rule and still buys infantry.
Bombers are overpowered IMO because of increased strategic bombing Raid impact (upkeep should be 2).

If the Russian player buys 8 infantry in round 1 and does nothing, round 2 income is 24+16-40=0.

Numetalfan

@All

maybe the costs for low units like infantry, artillery..
can be reduced to 0 by a trick:

upkeep will charge 1 IPC for each unit
but a trigger function will recharge 1 IPC for each defined unit.

Yet, to do so, the trigger needs a count function to sum all the defined units of player, e.g. all infantry.

Is this possible?

butterw

@numetalfan
createsResourcesList (the upkeep) is set individually for each unitType.

Numetalfan

@butterw

no contratiction to my idea:

would be the way to charge

a trigger to recharge something like

<attachment name="conditionrechargeRussianInf" attachTo="Russians" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.RulesAttachment" type="player">
..
count..map..infantry
..
</attachment>

recharge..1PC..

</attachment>

--

if this works ( no idea for the condition and the trigger) there will be a way to not have upkeep for Infantry, but all other units will have upkeep - that was my idea

beelee

@numetalfan you could try having the first trigger fire after nonCombatMove and then another one with "+1 PUs" fire before Place.

Idk, be worth a try maybe

You'd have to switch them back and forth every turn

Schulz

Does anybody know how to incorporate fractional numbers into the engine?

RogerCooper

@butterw said in A Solution for stack issue:

@rogercooper
It's an interesting variant. I let the AI play against itself with your mod:

Russia was lost in round 7 and the Axis won in Round 8.

The Russian Player was reduced to a single territory + a submarine in round 5.

With flat upkeep it's better to buy better more expensive units: such as armour and fighters (because there are less ressources the stacks are smaller.

But the AI doesn't understand the upkeep rule and still buys infantry.

Bombers are overpowered IMO because of increased strategic bombing Raid impact (upkeep should be 2).

If the Russian player buys 8 infantry in round 1 and does nothing, round 2 income is 24+16-40=0.

The effectiveness of strategic bombing is somewhat reduced by lower production levels, so the players don't need to repair everything. The flat upkeep costs bias things a bit towards the more expensive units, but an all armor strategy is generally less effective.

I am bit confused by Numetalfan's request. If you don't want to have upkeep for infantry, then you don't need to have negative resource generation for infantry. There is no need to mess with triggers.

Numetalfan

@rogercooper

Hi, I think I misunderstood a post here.

I thought that if you start to integrate upkeep, you have to do this for every unit in the unit list.

But it seems this is not the right way. Upkeep is optional for any unit you want.

In this case of course there is no need for a trigger.
siply make no upkeep e.g. for infantry!

yet this has to be calculated well, there is a high risk to mess up for the Axis.

The game balance of most WWI or WWII scenarios is based on the fact that the Axis have a lot more units from the beginning and they move first.

However, the Allies have more space, more logistic (fleet, transporters) and of course, more income.

so even with a very simple upkeep setup like armour,cruiser,figther 1 IPC upkeep each and Bomber, Carrier, Battleship 2 IPC upkeep each, in a AA41 scenario the Japanese will have after round 1 with NOs maybe 30 IPC income and about 20 IPC upkeep, due to it's large fleet and airforce.

That makes no sense.

Maybe there should be a solution that upkeep starts from Round 4 via trigger which would tell us a story that all country had some savings of oil, fuel, ressources etc. for the first 3 rounds but then it starts to "hurt". After 3 rounds the Allies should also have build up their fleet and airforce and the Axis will have conquered a lot, so they have more income to compensate upkeep.

Still unclear if this will then help avoiding big stacks, when infantry has no upkeep.

butterw

@numetalfan:

If needed you can also create a specific RussianInfantry unit (with specific cost, upkeep, etc.). I don't know that there is a way to count units in triggers (national objectives is focused on counting territories).
Infantry should probably have an upkeep cost, but 1 PU per turn seems too much.
Being able to use a fractionnal value would be best solution
ex: "createsResourcesList" value="-1:10:PUs"
Upkeep cost in the range 5-25% would be reasonable.
Disbanding unwanted units should be an option (allowing to recoup part of the PUs, ex: 2PUs per unit)

With regard to stacking, I think there are 2 different issues:

defensively stacking mainly infantry in a capital
building an invincible defensive/offensive stack (centered around armour, fighters and bombers) which can then be moved accross the map.

RogerCooper

@butterw You can count units with triggers but you can only use that set thresholds. Checkout the "stack tax" in Greyhawk Wars for interesting example.

I don't see the engine being changed to accommodate fractional costs. You could achieve the same effect by changing territory values and production costs. Changing the engine to use TUV in events would be easier,

Disbanding units through the engine is actually fairly tricky without a creating an entire step focused on it.

If you are using a basically 1 IPC upkeep with the boardgame scenarios, you need to increase income or the Germans will be unable to build (and vulnerable to a British attack).