Domination 1914 No Man's Land - Official Thread

Cernel

@Schulz No, you are wrong. Giving additional power to a unit that has more of it is worth more than giving it to another unit that has less of it. The only exception may be for very small battles, like attacking a single cheap blocker, where at some point a unit may become just too elite to be part of any optimal offence composition for the task.

Schulz

It is really hard to believe it for me even if its true. I do feel creeping barage is so much superior over mustard gas.

Cernel

@Cernel said in Domination 1914 No Man's Land - Official Thread:

@Schulz No, you are wrong. Giving additional power to a unit that has more of it is worth more than giving it to another unit that has less of it. The only exception may be for very small battles, like attacking a single cheap blocker, where at some point a unit may become just too elite to be part of any optimal offence composition for the task.

To clarify, that is in the case if you have both such units for the same power.

Instead, for example, if you have a game in which all units are 2/2 and another game in which all units are 4/4, if you add a 3/2 unit to the first game and a 5/4 unit to the second game the difference between a 3/2 and a 2/2 is obviously greater (twice as much) than the difference between a 5/4 and a 4/4 (while, aside from variability, it would be exactly the same if increasing to 6/4). So, if the 2/2 and 4/4 units cost the same, you should increase the cost twice as much upon giving +1 offence to the first one than if you give it to the second one (the only difference would be combat results variability and average combat rounds).

However, if you have, say, a game in which you have a 2/2 cost 4 unit and a 4/4 cost 6 unit, these two units being the only units available for every power in that game, and then you would add a 3/2 cost 5 unit and a 5/4 cost 7 unit, practically adding 1 additionally offence power at 1 additional cost in both cases, the 5/4 cost 7 unit would be a valid unit, if you only or mostly care about offence power, while the 3/2 cost 5 unit would be a virtually worthless unit, as a combination of one 2/2 cost 4 unit and one 4/4 cost 6 unit would be always better than two 3/2 cost 5 units (even in offence).

This is due to the fact that, for normal TripleA games, as the combat system is made, you have the two main elements of units numbers and total power (either offensive or defensive), with units numbers being your ability to take damage and the total power your ability to inflict damage, so you are rather better off concentrating your power in as few units as possible, so that it can be conserved longer as you take the weakest units as casualties (the best would be that all your power is on a single unit, while all the other units are 0/0 pure fodder). This is the basic reason why it is better giving more power to the units that already have more power.

Many mapmakers (and most players) don't understand this concept, with the common result of having underpowered/overcosted intermediate units. For example, as I already pointed out in the past, the combination of howitzer and mortar in Napoleonic Empires makes the artillery into a virtually worthless unit, or the combination of velites and onager in 270BC makes the legionaire into an almost worthless unit, for pure land warfare.

Cernel

@Schulz said in Domination 1914 No Man's Land - Official Thread:

It is really hard to believe it for me even if its true. I do feel creeping barage is so much superior over mustard gas.

Well, this is not what I was thinking, as here we are confronting two units that actually never battle together, since the gas deals damage and is lost before the artillery starts being active part in the battle (it is substantially the same deal as if one power has the gas and another power has the artillery, and the power having the gas attacks the turn before).

This is more like the case of confronting units between two different games or two different powers, and, in this case, you cannot have a clean comparison, as I agree that creeping barrage improves the offence of field artillery relatively more than mustard gas improves gas, but gas is all about the offensive power, while field artillery also have defensive power and hitpoints and support ability. So, your point would be valid only if creeping barrage would increase by 50% also the defence power, the hitpoints and the support bonus of field artillery (or if field artillery would be an infrastructure unit with 0 defence power and without support ability).

Coming not from a player of the game, it looks to me like these two techs are worth about the same, with mustard gas being maybe slightly the better one. Then, it all depends on the starting point (improving artillery is going to be better if the regular field artillery is already a better buy for you than the regular gas) and the combination with other technologies.

Schulz

I do believe if Mustard provided +2 offense bonuses to gases then I would say Creeping and Mustard Gas techs are almost identically good.

The same situation is exist in defense techs. +1 defense power for Heavy guns isn't good as much as +1 offense for fields. Fields get %50 while Heavy guns just %25.

But at least offense and defence techs are relatively well balanced .Creeping is so much superior but offense category also contains one of the weakest tech.

Cernel

@Schulz Since offending is all that gas do, if, like in your example, Mustard Gas would increase the offence of gas from 4 to 6, that is by 50%, this tech would be way better than Creeping Barrage, as you are increasing by 50% the complete actual effectiveness of that unit, while with Creeping Barrage you are increasing by 50% only an item of it (meaning only offence power, while you also have defence power, hitpoints and support ability), and it might be balanced only if gas would be such a bad unit as starter to make up for such a massive boost.

Increasing by 50% or more the total effectiveness of a unit is such a massive boost that the only techs that do something equal or more than that are the 2~3 dice heavy bombers (like in Classic, Revised and Anniversary OOB without the errata), that are commonly considered "broken".

Schulz

But gas has no defense power and can attack only once time. I would consider Mustard superior in this situation only if gas was just normal unit.

Cernel

@Schulz As I said, increasing from 4 to 6 the offence of gas would be a much better tech than increasing from 2 to 3 the offence of field artillery, since in the first case you are increasing by 50% the total effectiveness of the unit, while in the second case you are increasing by 50% only part of it (so you would have to multiply that by how relatively important is that part).

To balance that, gas would need being a much worse unit than field artillery, before applying any tech. So, you may be right only if the basic gas is so much worse a unit than the basic field artillery (this depends on so many items that can practically be only a personal opinion).

Schulz

I have similar doubts about tech costs. For Example +1 offense bonus for German field guns is much superior bonus for Communist creeping barrage. Germany becomes able to buy more fields and benefit much more also Commies have to relatively spends more (comparin their average incomes) to get creeping barage.

redrum

@Schulz Well all techs that benefit unit stats are more useful for the larger nations as they just have more units. The techs that give flat bonuses like +3 inf are the ones that the smaller nations benefit more from.

KurtGodel7

I personally don't see the need for any changes to the map at this time, except of course for the obvious change of making the map default to low luck and low luck for tech. Beyond that, things seem okay as they are.

To address Schulz's point, I personally think that some techs are more powerful than others. If I'm Italy, for example, and if I'm researching economy tech, I'm a lot happier to receive victory bonds or science than I am to get working women. So, that introduces a luck-based element into the game.

However, I'd argue that a much larger luck-based element is introduced via the tech system itself, even with low luck. You could buy one tech token and roll a 1, discovering a new tech. Or, you could have five tech tokens and miss on your tech roll.

Making the game luck-based up to a point increased the variety of scenarios players will face, and therefore improves the replayability of the map. But, you don't want to make the map so luck-based that games are decided by luck instead of by differences in player skill. That's why almost everyone who plays this map selects low luck, as well as low luck for tech.

redrum

@KurtGodel7 I tend to agree its in a pretty good state now and I'm not currently planning any more changes.

Its interesting as I actually prefer dice over LL but I think a lot of that is personal preference. Given the amount of luck in the tech system, dice instead of LL in battles actually isn't too bad. There are also enough various fronts and battles that even if you get unlucky in one place, you can often make it up in others. It does potentially make it so once in a while an inferior player wins but it adds in a lot more variety to the game and you potentially see different scenarios that you wouldn't with LL.

Schulz

There bugs should be removed.

Gases can take on enemy ships once deploted transports.
Miss connection British Columbia-sz153
Lame Connection of sz74-British Somaliland
Italy can buy armour without researching Tank tech.

epinikion

i agree and saying thanks to navalland pointing this obvious bugs. All (1-4) should be fixed.

Thanks, epi

Captain Crunch

@redrum no LL for battles is hardcore!

redrum

@Schulz @epinikion I should be able to fix 2-4. For #1, that is really an engine not map bug and I'm not sure how easy it will be to fix. I think the best solution for now is to make it so gas isn't transportable as this is pretty rarely done anyways. Thoughts?

KurtGodel7

@redrum

It's sometimes necessary to transport gass. Let's say that I'm the U.S., and I notice Germany is defending its Chinese territories with lots of trenches. I'll often respond by building a factory in the Philippines, then transporting gass to take out the German infantry and take the territories. After which, I'll use that factory for neutral farming/anti-communist measures.

Hepps

Coudn't this be handled with a trigger?

Meaning that couldn't you just have a simple check for Gas being in any territory defined as is sea? Then have the gas change into a cargo unit so long as it remains in a "is Sea".

redrum

@Hepps Maybe. Might be able to do something like after combat move phase trigger any gas in sea zones to be a cargo unit then trigger them back after battle phase. The challenge would be changing it back I think as I don't think you could trigger it to be loaded back in the transport.

Cernel

@redrum said in Domination 1914 No Man's Land - Official Thread:

@Schulz @epinikion I should be able to fix 2-4. For #1, that is really an engine not map bug and I'm not sure how easy it will be to fix. I think the best solution for now is to make it so gas isn't transportable as this is pretty rarely done anyways. Thoughts?

Not a player of this map, but, since gas doesn't move around on its own feet, the very high movement it has can only mean that it has so little encumbrance that can be transported around fast, at virtually no cost. Thus it would be inconsistent if you, instead, cannot load it in ships, that were by far the most cost efficient type of transportation. I would rather actually say that it would make the most sense gas having transport cost 0 (you can transport infinite gas units per ship, with any other units), if the high land movement it has is representing that it can be transported at virtually no cost, with the transportation system implied existing over your own territories (otherwise, if gas would have a sea transport cost, gas should have also a fuel cost, to represent the cost of transporting it over land, or you should have units that transport it over land, and are not sacrificed with the gas).

A related note, when I tested it in the past, if you load land units that are able to take part in air battles, they do the air battle also when being cargo.

And there is that problem that if submarines have loaded cargo, you cannot ignore them (v3+ rules).

So, in general, I think the engine should be fixed to assure the cargo always being completely ignored, for combat or movement purposes, no matter what. There are actually a series of bug where the cargo is not counted as such on all regards.