Iron War: Europe - Official Thread
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@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.
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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.
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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.
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@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.
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:
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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
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@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.
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OR make the map one sea zone extended to the left to make room for it and put it in its place.
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@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.
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@Frostion
Just my suggestion,Take the northern most Italian territory and split him in half, take a little bit of land from the one beneath it if you need. There are several ww2 maps which almost work for ww1, but Italy messes everything up
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@CrazyG said in Iron War: Europe - Official Thread:
@Frostion
Just my suggestion,Take the northern most Italian territory and split him in half, take a little bit of land from the one beneath it if you need. There are several ww2 maps which almost work for ww1, but Italy messes everything up
Actually, for realism, the biggest WW2 issue in Italy would be that the Gothic line was not on the Po River, but on the Tuscan-Emilian Apennine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_Line
But having another line on the Po too is fine (I see there is also the Transimene Line, on the south); but, yeah, then the north should be split in two west and east parts, better on the Garda Lake - Mincio River, but for WW1 you would definitely want the Piave River. Also that territory comprising Trieste (the second most important shipyard of Italy) is not really representative, and I'm not even sure if you plan to have it as Italian, since it is so over-extended into Yugoslavia, even bordering Hungary.Imo, the biggest thing missing over-all is Baku, were most of the USSR oil came from, and the main objective of the 1942 German offensive, but I guess it is meant to be comprised in a border territory, as well as Stalingrad.
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@Frostion Definitely better. I'd probably take it even a little further in showing less of the southern US and sliding it down a bit but its way better than where things started. You could also consider making the southern atlantic sea zones narrower to push players to use the northern atlantic.
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@Frostion said in Iron War: Europe - Official Thread:
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.Sounds cool. I guess for the Pacific I was thinking more of Iron War lite, that could be cranked out and not need a whole lot of additional thought hehe. Since seemed like you could just carve up the existing map and xml, and knock it together fairly quickly like that. My thought there would be a map that stays essentially the same as the World one, and you just draw a line down from where the Arctic starts in Russia to where it starts in North America. You could probably add in a slice of Persia too if you wanted it be 3 vs 6.
This might allow for a somewhat more compelling turn order design. Having 9 total player nations is kind of ideal, since it would allow for alternating sequence if desired. Though for a simplified game, a 1v1 style of play, where the Axis all move together in sequence and then Allies do the same might be novel. I suppose it depends on how much you like can-opening as a feature of the gameplay. I could probably live without it, but just as an example, with 3 vs 6, you could go...
Japan > China, KNIL >Thailand > British-India, USSR, Persia > ANZAC, USA
1 Axis major and 2 Axis minors
4 Allied majors and 2 Allied MinorsGives a chance to piggy-back a bit if desired, with some nations attached to each other in sequence to give some variety to the turns, while still retaining a basically Japan vs everyone theme. Or similarly if using 2 long player positions in a 1v1 style sequence, you could go...
Japan, Thailand, Persia vs > China, KNIL, British (India), USSR, ANZAC, USA.
Either type of sequence could probably be pretty interesting. Anyhow, all I'll say for the Pacific in this thread.
Don't want to distract too much from the Europe discussion.For Europe, in terms of the Map above, might try something in the geometry of the lower Atlantic tiles to help indicate that there is a stretch/abstraction going on. Right now it has the masonry vibe, where the tiles are all kind of equally laid out. But it might be more compelling, if the zones changed shape/size the farther you got away from Europe. I like the 6 point connections for the main part of the Air Gap, but aesthetically its got a lot of unbroken right angles in this area compared to the rest of the map, which has a number tiles with 45 degree angles. Maybe a couple of 45 degree angles on the lower left would make it feel somehow more harmonious?
For air transits under the current layout, I don't see a good way to get a Strategic bomber from North America into Africa that doesn't involve carriers, (unless the plan is for Spain/Portugal to turn into a landing pad every game.) Not really sure what can be done about that. I'd say maybe include Azores (which could perhaps help indicate the stretch going on?) Really the only place it could sensibly go and still be functional for the stratB transit would be 3 tiles up from the bottom of the map, across from Portugal smack dab in the middle of the Atlantic. This would kind of screw the Air Gap abstraction, (I'm assuming this area is exactly where you'd want convoy income), but at least it would give the Americans and British a way to fly something over. Since you really can't bomb Italy from Europe.
The way it looks right now, I can imagine some weirdness, where securing coastal France/Iberia becomes a pre-requisite for sending those aircraft to fight the Italians in Africa or the Med. Either that or all the air will have to lily-pad on carriers, or be built in place. Not the end of the world I guess, but might feel a little bizarre for the north Africa/Med action.
There is a similar issue with getting transports to Africa. Basically anyway you go at it, will involve two consecutive turns with infantry as "floaters" before you can make landfall. Just for reference right now the distances across the lower Atlantic from North America to the hotspots in Europe/Africa are almost twice what they are on the Iron World Map. Whereas the distances along the top of the Atlantic (from USA to Greenland/Iceland) are one move shorter. This might make Torch pretty hard to execute as the Allies.
On the ground the territory divisions seem like they would be serviceable for a WW1 scenario, though I agree with the others about the Northern Italy thing.
Overall, with this kind of zoom-in on the European action, I feel like we're still looking at a pretty complex large-scale map, even if there are fewer total player-nations than on the World map. Similarly if the timeline is expanded from seasons to months (per turn) it will probably have a rather different play pace when compared to the World theater Iron War game. That's all cool, just a little different than what I meant when I suggested a smaller/faster map initially haha. I think its actually pretty ambitious.
Final thought would be to include Malta in the sz below Sicily. Especially since every island on the map (with the exception of Gotland) is on the intersection of 2 sz tiles. Malta would make a lot of functional sense as an air transit between Gibraltar and Egypt, since if using a 1940 start date Sicily and much of North Africa will be Axis controlled.
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OK, I have split up northern Italy and rearranged the borders a bit. I hope they could do in both WW1 and WW2.
I also made Gibraltar bigger so it has space for unit placements without being pushed into the water. If an Airfield gave +1 move to planes, then Bombers could actually fly from USA or UK to Gibraltar, and from Gibraltar to Egypt / Jordan.
I have decided to make Albania a small puppet state of Italy. Then it is not only Germany that has puppet states!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Kingdom_(1939–43)
I imagine the soldiers of Albania could be the Balli Kombetar fascist militias. So the soldier has a white fez.
Also, I am thinking of making a British presence in the Middle East with factory possibilities. So they could aid the Greeks and therefore the Greeks can become a state that Britain could support both militarily and financially.
Here are some previews:
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Looks pretty glorious man!
The Albania idea seems cool. I dig everything I'm seeing so far and can't wait to see it.
I have to admit though, despite my suggestion for the theater game, I've always been drawn most to the world map games. Just something about the idea of global domination hehe.
So the suggestion I made was basically for more ways to hook players into this Iron War resource and D10 scheme. Especially players coming from v5 or g40 who might find the unit roster, combat system, resources or sheer scale intimidating. But I think once they play it out and find the groove, they'll definitely come around.Also I had forgotten you mentioned including bases or other facilities that could confer a movement bonus, so maybe my thoughts on the Air transits or transport times was off. For experience with bases I only have global A&A to go off, and for that one I find the +1 AB for aircraft kind of rough. My thought is that +2 is a more interesting movement bonus in the air (for landings). For ground or naval +1 is cool, but with air it just kind of irks me haha. But even if it was just +1 that would get a stratB that usually moves 6 into N. Africa from the US or England. With fighters I think lily pad carrier plays are more intuitive, so the fighter transit isn't as big a deal. I think it would feel a little gamey though if the only way to get bombers to Africa was off a carrier hehe. So the base solves that prob. I kind of like the idea of an AB that confers a movement or air production advantage, but I'm not huge on the way scrambling works in G40. I think its just kind of overpowered there, and is basically the main reason to buy them in that game. I think some more generic bonus to air attack or defense might be better than a specialized combat phase (the way it works in G40). I do like the idea of somehow the Air Base becomes a critical target for SBR, in the contest for supremacy of the skies!
The NB looks clean!
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@redrum Regarding, resource list, in the End Of Turn Report. Totals per resource would definitely be helpful in the report.
Additionally a current resource totals in the economy tab would be very helpful in planning. Also, would be cool if via the xml, the map maker could choose which resources should be shown there, so as to not just create clutter with lesser data. Same concept would be cool for stats tab too.
And back to the End Of Turn Report, I also think the End Of Turn portion should be removed. So the report/summary and End Turn delegates can be placed at start or end of turn. And not look like it was repurposed. I have been using it at start of turn for some time now. People seem to like it more, and it is simply most logical position.
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@Black_Elk ExciteMENT! Begins
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@All
I am in the process of building the XML for Iron War: Europe, or I was. I have tried to start up the map for the first time, and have taken care of like 10-15 java error popups. Most errors luckily give an error report that can help determine what’s wrong.I have noticed that trying to launch a map that has some flaws/mismatches in the naming of flags and players (in the files and directories of flags and units) can result in a launch that fails and just returns to the game setup screen without creating a java popup error.
Right now I am stuck. The map will not load even though it can be selected from the map list and it allows one to set up a game. When launching it just returns to the menu again. No error message.
Are anyone willing and able to take a look at the XML, files or know how to register what goes wrong during launch?
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Yay! Finally some progress
I got the map to run without errors and open up for the first time.
Here are some previews of the map with only flags:
As you can see, the territories are a bit bigger than in the Iron War world map. I also changed the color of the British and French a bit. Also, if the territories seem a bit strange it may be because this map should be WW1 compatible:
