Aggression 1941

RogerCooper

I like your general approach here, with your willingness to change the combat system and incorporate maintenance as an essential design element.

I have 2 cosmetic suggestions. You don't need to explain the full rules of TripleA, that is for the tutorial. Just explain what is different from the standard A&A games. I also suggest turning territory names on.

Your divisible by 10 economic values for territories remind of the original (1981) edition of the game, where every value was divisible by 10.

Schulz

@RogerCooper The default territory names don't looks really good along with stylized numbers unfortunately. Still I am fine with either way if I could find stylized territory names.

CrazyG

There is a missing connection between Queensland and Sea Zone 55.

I think this approach to fighters is really interesting, in most games fighters are a super premium unit which generally speaking you want to to the entire game without ever losing. Here they are somewhat cheap.

I think giving fighters some support to land units is a good move. I would rather build a tank which doesn't get hurt by AA fire and has stronger stats.

At sea the starting fighters are valuable, but they compare poorly to the ships (due to dying to AA fire). Carriers are too expensive at 60.

In another test game, the Axis have far more income than the allies by turns 2 and 3 when you consider convoy raiding. The UK loses so many resources to it every turn. Right now this feels very favorable to the Axis. It's really easy to knock out the UK factories around the world (if Japan gets a huge army to Australia, South Africa is just 1 turn away).

Schulz

Wrong cairo base production, suicidal trenches, missing Queensland-SZ55, wrong bomber defense number (was supposed to be 1), missing base tiles were added also the zip now way lighter which is total 11.5 MB.

Testing 5 different pure fighter vs destoyer battles of Aggression 1941 and AA50 with the same costs and LL.

Aggression 1941: 35 fighters vs 30 destroyers

Result: 4 remained fighter and 4 remained destroyer. Fighter TUV loss:930, Destroyer TUV loss:910.
0.2% Destoyer efficiency

Second Result: 4 remained fighter and 7 remained destroyer, Fighter TUV loss:930, Destroyer TUV loss:805
15% Destroyer efficiency

............

AA50: 40 fighter vs 50 destroyer

Result: 6 remained fighter and 4 remained destroyer. Fighter TUV loss: 340, Destoyer TUV loss:368
0.8% Fighter efficiency

Second Result: 1 remained fighter and 9 remained destoyer, Fighter TUV loss:390 Destroyer TUV loss: 328
19% Destroyer efficiency

A land battle comparios which attacking forces compormised with 3fig/3art/12inf againt the same TUV pure inf defenders.

Aggression 1941 results:

2 attacker fighter and 11 defender infantry remained, attacker TUV loss:510, defender TUV loss:240
125% defense efficiency (without fighter loss but could be worse up to 150% defender efficieny)

AA50: attacker loss 48 TUV, defender loss 24 TUV
100% Defense efficiency

.........

Looks like they are almost the same as with the regular fighters against navy but perform significantly worse against ground as known.

I think I tend to agree solving the issue with that;

Giving +1 attack to artillery,armour,fighter,bomber and +1 defense to all naval units except transports.

Carriers looked a bit expensive to me probably their cost will have to be reduced.

I would want to give a decent navy to England in Indian Ocean and having more historical and realistic warfare on Africa too. I just came up with these ideas to implement;

Japanese units in sz50 moves to sz57.
Adding English cruiser, carrier and fighter to sz 44.
+100 starting income to England

CrazyG

Those changes look like a good direction. Japan has some actual competition.

You could consider giving fighters artillery support to infantry, so they effectively get 3 attack on land but still only 2 at sea.

IDK about bombers. Their only advantage right now is high movement, bombing raids don't hurt the factories much.

Schulz

I'am almost certain that strengening figters/bombers alone would make them overpowered. Do you agree? They are worse at offense than regular fighters but currently mass fighters perform better than mass armours on offense cost efficiently and losing them don't hurt much despite AA rollings. Plus they are more cost effective defenders also can be used at escort/intercept.

I think giving support ability to fighters/bombers alone could render artillery almost useless and armours very situational. Or it is possible to increase artillery support ability to +2 giving +1 support ability to airs and +1 support ability for armours.

I am not sure about how good aor bad bombers are in here. But the main advatage is losing bomber in a strategic bombing campaign was huge deal now its insignificant. They were able to damage max half of their prices which is the same in here.

CrazyG

@Schulz
That fighter idea was just an idea for hypotheticals, if fighters aren't doing well in land.

I think tanks are a much better choice for land heavy combat because they can help defend. But a few fighters can be a decent buy just because it forces the enemy to build more ships while also being okay.

I tried bombing more seriously. One thing is that Germany can ignore about 15 points (so 150 PUs) of bombing damage just because the territory has such a high value.

It is really nice that the damage from AA guns is less swingy (I lose 1 artillery of PUs, instead of 3-4 artillery worth). That is a big improvement.

I haven't tried bombing anywhere else: Germany often loses it's bomber in El Alamein on turn 1 and no other Axis start with bombers.

Schulz

@CrazyG

Yes I agree fighters/bombers need an improvement in land warfare.

Tanks should remain better choice for land heavy combat as it is in all A&A games because of air's versatility.

Germany can tolerate and ignore getting bombed at certain points. I'm fine with that and consider it a small boost for Axis and deter Allies a bit relyting on only bombing in early rounds.

I have no idea what is the best deal with Africa in r1 German round. Looks like reinforcing Lybia or attacking Cairo in r1 just as good as attacking El Alamein.

Schulz

New version is just uploaded.

General

+100 American, +100 English +50 Russian starting incomes.
+1 attack for artillery,armour,fighter,bomber,tankette,siberian,h.cavalry.
+1 defense for sea combatants except carrier.
Carrier cost decreased to 50.

Germany

2 German trench moves to Crete from Norway.

Japan

Japan Navy in sz 50 moves to sz 57, l.cruiser in sz 59 moves to 64.
1 Japanese infantry moves to kwangtung from shanghai.
Replacing 1 Japan fighter with 1 bomber in the mainland.

Russia

+2 trench to leningrad.
Raising Siberian upkeep to 2.

England

Replacing English fighter in El Alamein with additional infantry.
New English factories to W.Australia and Queensland.
Adding English cruiser/carrier/fighter to Indian Ocean .
Removing English infantres from Sumatra and Java.
1 English fighter to Victoria.

America

Removing American destroyer and transport from sz51.

China

l.cavalry and h.cavalry upkeep raised to 2.

Schulz

I decided to add "draw" option other than victory/lose. Loser side will try to drag the game to stalemate to not losing hence giving a strong reason to continue rather than early surrenderings anti-climaticly.

New victory condition

Axis achieves more than 1500 production power. (Means No Axis victory without Sea Lion)
Allies achieves more than 2000 production power. (Means No Allies victory without invading Germany or Japan)

If no side achive its objective until the end of round 25, the game ends with draw.

I'm still not sure if Round 25 is way too long and harder to achieve and probably will be needed to give defensive bonuses to capitals to make it more possible outcome. If we consider every rounds to represent 2 months, 25.th rounds means mid-late August 1945 which is super historically the real ending date of WWII.

Schulz

Lack of Chinese suppresed factory images are added.
New victory and draw conditions.
German capital provides +2 defense whereas the other ones provide +1 defense.

Schulz

Hypotetical/realistic minimum victory requirements if Axis victory requires 1500+ and Allies one +2000.

CrazyG

Just at a glance, the allied conditions are much harder to achieve than the axis conditions.

I actually saw the axis take roughly that much income several times in games that were still undecided. I could easily imagine the allies win in the first picture if something was going well (say the USA was beating Japan at sea).

If the axis hold only Germany, Italy and Hungary. that doesn't sound like a tie, it's a pretty clear loss. I can see Germany technically holding in that situation (with it's plus 2 defense) but if I achieved a tie that way (so technically not a loss) it would feel pretty hollow.

Schulz

Currently Allies needs to exceed 2000 production power whereas Axis has to exceed 1500, the reason of the difference is Axis suffers more with the new factory rule.

Endings would be anti-climatic if Allies victories would be possibe without invading Germany or Japan. The same as for Axis they need to take Britain and Moscow in most cases.

I accept the round limit isn't the best but I really want to have a draw option and I would want to keep it unless I find out better alternative.

I was thinking the opposite, Round 25 is too long to achieve one of these draw options even capital defense rules.

Schulz

+100 American +100 Chinese and +50 Russian starting incomes.

Trench costs increased to 35, its upkeep increased to 2.

Bomber attack decreased to 2.

W.Sahara opened up.

Draw may occur at the end of 20.th round (though not sure if 25 is better or differentiating draw points between these rounds).

Minor changes.

Schulz

All territories are determinated to be controllable by only one nation in both sides. The new maps that added notes shows it.

Crete is Italian instead of German (Aesthetic purpose).
W.Sahara is impassable (again)
Victory and draw conditions are same, but players are free to extend it up to 25.th round.
German submarine in SZ16 moved to SZ12.
1 Japanese infantry from Shanghai removed.
British destroyer in SZ16 replaced with cruiser.
Cruiser attack value increased to 4.
Submarine attack increased to 3, movement decreased to 2
Naval unit upkeeps decreased to 2 from 3. L.Cruiser remained 2.
l.cavalry cost raised to 30, h. cavalry cost raised to 40 attack/defense decreased to 3. Both units are now transportable.
Last update dates will always be shown in the top of notes.
Unneeded images file is gone.

Schulz

Map version is corrected. I Hadn't notice that 0.1 represents pre-release.
Hawaii bug fixed which had lack of ownership rule.
Armour upkeep increased to 4, trench upkeep decreased to 1.
L.cavalry cost decreased to 20, h.cavalry cost decreased to 30.
Tankette cost increased to 40.
2 infantry from Germany and 2 trench from Leningrad are removed.

Schulz

New flags:

Schulz

The map resolution increased by 10%.
Right and bottom bars are shrinked as much as possible.
Denmark decreased to 5, S.Manchuria decreased to 20.

Schulz

I'am toying with the idea of adding Manchukuo as 8.th power, Any suggestion is welcome.

Pros

More symetrical power distirbutions which would enable to take 2 nations in 2v2 multi games.
Easier handling of capital defensive bonuses which could provide flat +1 or +2 defensive bonus instead of +2 German and rest +1.
Representation of Japan's rivalries of its land and naval forces.
Manchukuo's presenca could make the front more interesting.
Usual capital victory condition could be brough back even better considering "capture 3 capitals" sounds like more exciting than exceed x production capacity.

Cons

Slowing down the game,
Might be harder to rebalancing the already questionable balance.