Over the Top- new WWI mod
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There are some things I question about this scenario.
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The West Front inset box has strange effects. The fastest route between France and Germany now goes through Austria & Italy.
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What is the point of showing the railnet? Almost every territory is on the railnet. Why not just make units faster? And what does that railroad in North Africa represent? There has never been a railroad in Libya.
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What is the point of the US & Bolshevik entry tracks? Events could achieve the same effects more easily.
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Why mix different years of the war? If you want to start in 1915, show the 1915 situation all over the map.
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Istanbul is in Europe, not Asia. And the city was called Constatinople (or Kostantiniyye) at the time.
I liked the unit art, the large territory size and keeping the map at reasonable number of spaces.
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Hello. I quite liked the game and recently started one game. Some impressions/thoughts;
- The calculator does not work well to calculate trenches as notes said, I think its possible to solve the issue temporarily by removing their 2HP ability and increasing their defensive powers. Otherwise manually adding them in the calculators really slow downs games.
- Ottomans should be the orginial owner of Gallipoli. For example it shouldn't be turned into German territory if Germans take it.
- Factory could have shipyard's abilities as well.
- Enabling retreat in combat move 1 by adding another unit in combat move 2 is confusing rule, not sure but sounds like a way to breach the nature of combat move 1 phase.
- My major concern is it requires too much time to complete turns. I'd prefer cutting half of incomes of all nations cutting 2 of 3 starting TUV's. For example Italy which has only one major and narrow frontline does not really need 82 units in the set-up.
- I'd prefer unit images without flag icons.
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@RogerCooper Thank you for your questions, feedback and incite, they are very much appreciated!
1-You will find that a bottleneck takes longer to break than a wide front; play-testing has reflected that the Western Front is quicker to break through. Of course, if you can find a way to circumvent going through Italy....all the better
2-Railroads are for added gameplay and dynamic for transporting troops and are placed in a certain way to create important intersections and hubs(not placed to reflect historical accuracy). Making ALL units go faster EVERYWHERE is not the objective and defeats the purpose of trains; allowing only portions of your army to be transported quickly and intentionally IS.....it requires coordination
3-Map aesthetic purposes....dividing insets....creating an easy connection with the map vs programming
4-It's an alternate scenario map, like it says in the notes
5-That was intentional to create a lock at the straights, making it more difficult to capture vs being butted up against the main capital starting off. And yes, Constantinople is correct, that was my bad/lack of research
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@Schulz Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it!
1-Yes, trenches are a little "dicy" to work with but that's what we got lol. I'm not the brains behind this operation, I'm just the visual artist/designer. My co-worker John makes all the programming wizardy happen.
2-That is a very good point, and the original owner SHOULD be ottomans, that's added fix
3-We wanted them separate as to make it more difficult to build ships....versus everywhere. Plus, if you get enough battleships/cruisers you can blast the shipyard off the map....creating another dynamic.
4-Combat move #1 should be strictly reserved to maneuver 'shell carrying units' into position to fire, otherwise just skip the first combat phase
5-Perhaps an alternate setup can be made by another modder, but as for my team.....we like lots of units ;). Infantry in particular is meant to be vast, inexpensive and expendable, and given the nature of the trenches and the protection they provide, you will need excessive amounts of infantry to break through.....welcome to WWI
6-Flags were put on units that are less distinguishable from one another......I'm not a fan of the 'hue washing' for units.
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@Schulz the way we implemented trenches is novel (as far as I know) and adds realism and fun by not having them "shoot" by themselves (with a non-zero defensive power) but just absorb hits. This means you have to have some unit in the trenches to have them be useful (and to not have them be easily captured). To achieve this, I had to use triggers to change their attributes between combat move (when they are able to be captured) and combat (when they should participate in battle). I'm dealing with the limitations of TripleA by putting one trench per faction at the top of the board near the "Over the Top" logo
to ensure that it's always present in the battle calculator. Changing the 2HP and adding defensive fundamentally changes the battle simulation and the odds would no longer be accurate (changing hit points to defensive power makes the battle very different). -
Also forgot to mention there should have been victory conditions and draw option would be a nice addition as well.
Without draw option, I feel games end mostly anti-climaticly because of the cumulative nature of the A&A, turning the tide of wars after seatback rarely happens hence there should have been a strong reason to keep the loser side in the game instead of forcing them to surrender early rounds. Hence loser side will continue to pursue draw rather than victory at that point.
Of course its hard to represent draw option but I believe there are plenty of undiscovered ways to represent it. For example, draw occurs in my game if no side achieve its economic victory within 20 rounds.
BTW i would like to learn how to generate territory names exactly like this.
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@Schulz Yes, draw options are definitely a good suggestion. I never really thought about that; I've always been bent on complete destruction of the enemy and nothing less
. I'm not sure what would constitute a draw in our game though without the winning side being 'cheated' out of victory.The text is created on the relief tiles map as an overlay. The triplea territory labels generated by the game are just hidden.
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Actually there could be another ways to prolong games like giving bonus incomes to loser side one time when their production capacity reduced to certain level. Just I wouldn't want loser side to be forced surrender too early due to early blunders.
We played 1 multi game in the lobby which ended in r2 with Entente victory. Too early to say but the game looked us to significant Entente advantage or probably Central powers have not much luxury to make mistake in r1.
What is the optimal Central Power's openings?
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We played 1 multi game in the lobby which ended in r2 with Entente victory. Too early to say but the game looked us to significant Entente advantage or probably Central powers have not much luxury to make mistake in r1.
A game that is decisively over in round 2 does not bode well for game balance, unless the round 1 moves on the part of the Central Powers were catastrophic blunders.
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@Hepps @Schulz Wow, that is unusual! @GenerationKILL , another tester, and I are on round 13 of our game and Central Powers are actually looking very good. They are always behind in TUV and income, but Allies have a very hard time mobilizing and gaining ground. I do think it's true that Central Powers has to be very careful the first two rounds so that has something to do with it.
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@djabwana Could you share your load game?
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@Schulz @Hepps
French Round 14.tsvgHere is our current game. I'm playing the Central Powers (as usual). The first couple rounds are most certainly crucial. I've never lost decisively in 2 rounds though, but then again I know this game inside and out so I know what to watch out for. I can't tell you the "perfect" opening moves as I've done something different each time, some more successful then others. The bid creates new opportunities to explore as well, so it's really about where and what you focus on in Round 1
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@GenerationKILL @Schulz Heads up that you'll get an error when trying to open this file because the map is "over-the-top" in this game instead of "over_the_top"
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Is there any way to make it loadable? I would just want to see particularly openings and how does Entente react.
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@Schulz No, this is because of necessary changes I had to make because of the particular way the engine expects things to be named, so all of our previous testing games can no longer be loaded on the "real" version you download through the game now. We'll just have to start another game and we'll definitely share the file (or you and @GenerationKILL can play directly!)
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Of course, I will post load games if I will be able to play it on the lobby again.
My suggestions:
- Bonus incomes once to loser side via trigger/draw option or both as I said. It is the most important thing for me as casual player I would definitely want it.
- Adding victory conditions to both engine and notes.
- Adding notes a strategy guide that mostly emphasize optimal round 1 movements.
- Its hard to check zeppelins due to their 8 movement power.
- Gallipoli should really connect to Istanbul.
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Hey General. Put the sword down and grab something 30 caliber.
You should play a game in the lobby. You need some visibility.
This is a Monster Game just waiting to take off : )
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@Schulz @GenerationKILL I just released a new version of the map, though I haven't opened a new pull request to bump the version so you'll have to delete and re-download if you want to try it.
I fixed some issues (sub vs. air logic, emplaced artillery repair, simplified train "battles") and added projection of power, total, and economic victory options.
We're playing another game now with this version and will post the load game soon as soon as we're in a couple rounds. As Central Powers, I committed most of my firepower to break through the Alps and into Italy. We'll see how it goes!
