Domination 1914 No Man's Land - Official Thread

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.

epinikion

@KurtGodel7
Its not that we want to stop transport of gaz. But it should not fire in ship attacks (as all other transported units)...

Hepps

@redrum Another simple solution could be to simply add one terrain to the map for all SZ that has a -4 attack modifier to gas.

Yet another simple solution would be to give the transport a unit support ability that gives a -4 to gas.

But it really is a strange bug... the gas rolls for its suicide attack even though it is cargo... but then is not removed after its roll. Very curious behavior.

Schulz

What do you think about Russian colour from Great War?

Cernel

According to this bug report:
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/5834

It is a bug that you need to send 1 non infrastructure (usually, infantry) unit in attack, to have the gas attack/suicide. You should be able to send gas only, instead, as capturing happens after any fire.

redrum

@Cernel That is similar but different as gas is not an AA unit. Its a firstStrike suicide unit and capture would happen before that.