TripleA Logo TripleA Forum
    • TripleA Website
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Groups
    • Tags
    • Register
    • Login

    Proposed Map: Domination 1941

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Maps & Mods
    496 Posts 11 Posters 693.5k Views 7 Watching
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • B Offline
      beelee @Black_Elk
      last edited by

      @black_elk said in Proposed Map: Domination 1941:

      Making a new map is pretty ambitious though and kind of a grind. If doing the legwork, I'd want to make something that we could also use as the basis for a Global 1940 baseline revamp, you know, get the same projection going for the main A&A games v3, v5, Global, maybe with Frostion's units. Then it would feel like it was worth the effort and I might be more likely to see it through, instead of burning out like I tend to do heheh

      Go Elk Go !!! 😀

      SchulzS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • SchulzS Offline
        Schulz @beelee
        last edited by

        I think NML has more strategic options than WAW but not because NML is better drawn. It is because WW1 scenarios have more potential to have more viable strategic options than WW2 scenarios due to this reasons.

        • WWII default Axis strategy will be almost always taking out the Soviets first if it starts after the Barbarossa. WaW is IMHO somewhat more successful to diversify the default Axis strategy by making cannon fodders very cheap and splitting Japan. Whereas WWI CP doesn't have a definitive default strategy.

        • WWII USA is somewhat very railroaded. If it is closer to Japan than Germany, KJF becomes the default USA strategy. I think USA in NML is more interesting.

        I also think having Manchukuo as separate country is better idea if China does exist.


        I am also working on a new map (albeit very slowly). I could maybe borrow these ideas. It is just sketch.

        https://i.ibb.co/94TWf0R/awwiiworldmap-H.png

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • K Offline
          KurtGodel7 Moderators @Black_Elk
          last edited by KurtGodel7

          Very good post!

          The best version of the map I've seen is Hepster's redrafting for his Power of Politics 1914 idea, but I'm not sure if he's still working on it.

          I agree that does look like a very good map. If you're comparing it with the map used for NML, I'd say the Hepster version is considerably closer to being usable for a WWII map.

          I noticed what appear to be trade routes depicted on the sea zones. Do you know if he had rules in mind for those? One idea which comes to mind is to have each of those trade route things produce income. They could be subject to capture, in which case they would produce no income until being retaken.

          One thing I look at is the number of spaces which separate San Francisco from Tokyo. In NML those territories are 3 sea zones apart. That's fine for a WWI map, but unsuitable for WWII. In Hepster's redrawing, those territories are six spaces away. My ideal is around 8 or 9 spaces, but 6 would still work.

          The other thing one looks for in a Pacific theater is more islands to fight over. The islands in NML are fine for a WWI map, but you'd want more than those for WWII. Hepster has gone a little in that direction, for example by dividing Sumatra into two pieces. My hope would be to have 8 - 10 more Pacific island type territories to fight over than in NML. Also, converting some of the 0 PU islands to 1 PU islands would make sense from a game play perspective. Ahistorical, granted.

          Another thing I look at is Belarus and Don. In NML, Russia successfully defending Belarus usually means Russia successfully defends its entire Western front. Failing that, Russia will often defend Don, on the theory that Don is a sort of poor man's Belarus. All that seems just right for a WWI map, but for WWII you want something different. Hepster has altered the Russian front, and I think his alterations are just what a WWII map would need.

          It's been a while, but I could probably work a new baseline if you got a lot of ideas. That's relatively straight forward. Carving it up with the utilities and center pickers and whatnot to make the baseline into a playable map is that part I'm less familiar with. Usually someone else would step up for that part lol.

          That sounds good. I've provided some thoughts thus far. If you want me to provide additional input or ideas definitely ask! 🙂

          I feel like that might be addressed with rules somehow, prohibiting "friendly" units from camping out in territories under friendly control, but A&A is kind of built around that concept, so it's tricky.

          I envision the Axis consisting of Germany, Italy, and Japan; and the Allies of the U.S.S.R., the U.K., the U.S.A., and China. Hopefully that lessens the above concern. In WAW, for example, Japan is divided into 3 pieces, you have Finnland, Romania, ANZAC, the Dutch, and France.

          If doing the legwork, I'd want to make something that we could also use as the basis for a Global 1940 baseline revamp, you know, get the same projection going for the main A&A games v3, v5, Global, maybe with Frostion's units.

          In what ways would this be the same as the existing Global, v3, v5, etc.? In what ways would it be different?

          Black_ElkB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • Black_ElkB Offline
            Black_Elk @KurtGodel7
            last edited by Black_Elk

            @kurtgodel7 Yeah he had a lot of cool ideas about convoy lanes and the politics and the revolution stuff. It's one of the more elaborate maps I've seen for tripleA, but I only have the wip.

            So my thought would be to take that world projection, and basically do a contour of it for G40. That way we'd have a version for the 1940 game which is consistent with the v3 shape, but just much larger, since it'd be modelled on the same basic world projection I used for v3, but like 3 times as large. Hepps has a lot of detailing in coastlines that I dig too, and mountains and stuff like that. Just the shape of everything is cleaner, he went over the entire world with the finer toothed comb hehe. Some stuff is definitely 1914 and he took it pretty far along that direction, like the way the tiles are divided up and such. I'd think for a 1940s WW2 style map probably some detailing would be extraneous, but it seems like what might be desirable is just Domination draft style map that is more interwar era in the territory divisions and kinda stripped down. So for that stuff I'd just aim for something where the map maker could remove borders rather than drawing them in, if that makes sense. Or with sea zones to create whatever divisions make sense for their idea. So you start super detailed out to the Nth degree on land, like Hepps has, but then could collapse some stuff into single tiles just with the eraser rather than the pencil, or divide other TTs up into whatever the map maker has in mind, with those draft guides to go off of. You know like having North Borneo too, or splitting an island chain or whatever, it's easier when you have the surrounding info as a guide.

            His map at scale is slightly larger than the current Global at 7944x3646. The one I did for Dom was 7556 on the long side, but I made it with a lot of ocean compression esp in the Atlantic, like as narrow as I could possibly manage for that one lol. So basically the stretch is just kinda moving the continents further apart if you want more ocean, and respacing the islands, which is easier to do than morphing the shape of the continents. Hepps cleaned it up quite a bit, all the border lines are smoothed out and a lot less jagged than Domination, so I'd want to follow his contours. Once it's drawn I mean, it's easier to move stuff than it is to reshape stuff, if that makes sense. Anyway that would be my thought, just to do something consistent for G40, like legacy style.

            Basically the world looks like this... and then we divide it up again. For G40, and then whatever other idea that's more like Domination flavor, super divided etc up but WW2 theme.

            triplea_world_projection_elk_and_hepps1920x881.png

            Here it is at scale... which is too large to attach on the boards, but I mean the for essential shape of the continents. The shape of the world basically, so it's more like that (and still closer to OOB G40) than Mercator, just with a somewhat more realistic look to the contours than we have currently for the 1940 game.

            https://www.dropbox.com/s/le1ijw4qtq457v1/triplea_world_projection_elk_and_hepps.png?dl=0

            I'd actually want to upscale it again probably. Like here it is 9999x4588 just to get some more room... So there the Baltic and the Med would be about the same scale as current Global, but with the surrounding land TTs a bit larger (with more room for units, or maybe to house larger unit sculpts more like Frostion's set). Or we could probably push it even larger if there are areas that are too tight still, or on the current G40 map, to try and make it more play friendly like that.

            https://www.dropbox.com/s/k706nnhyglmpl0c/triplea_world_projection_elk_and_hepps_x9999.png?dl=0

            Basically you'd want to figure out what the standard size/scale of the board is going to be and then retrace everything at 1 pixel, for at that size, like for all the black lines, all the TT/SZ divisions etc. The contour is easy, cause you can just isolate the blue or the white and then add in the black at 1 pixel. It's the TT divisions that take longer, but once you have a guide it's simpler. The trick with G40 is more the labelling of the TTs, cause even with the warp it's still hard to make Archangel touch Belarus or whatever sometimes hehe. For that stuff you probably just blob it, but it's easier to make the blobs once you know vaguely where stuff is relative to the other stuff. You can always move lake Bakail a bit north or shift the Caspian further to the right or whatever, and kind of subtly reshape the whole slant of Eurasia that way, if you need china bigger say (basically the current G40 approach). But I like the way Hepps had it dialed and split up, with all the cool mountain ranges and such added in. I feel like those could go into G40 for flavor in some spots, even if they don't really effect the gameplay, or like same deal grouping smaller islands into larger island TT 'zones' where that makes sense, for the simpler map I mean.

            For WAW you can basically get the baseline from the PolygonsImage
            It's 9921x3815 there, so around the same height at scale, but a fair bit wider. Here it is rescaled to x1920 on the long side so you can compare.

            waw_1920x738.png

            current V3 at x1920
            v3.png

            current G40 at x1920
            G40.png

            Kinda just depends how large you want Europe and the Pacific relative to the rest of the globe, or what you're willing to trade in relative scale vs accuracy lol.

            TheDogT 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
            • TheDogT Online
              TheDog @Black_Elk
              last edited by

              @black_elk and others
              The Shogun Advanced map works well with 11264x6290=71million px and
              Frostions Warcraft War Heroes is 9500x8500=81million px

              I would go for a world map of 13000x6500=85million px or similar and use a units.scale=1 of 1.25. This will be helpful if a player has a 4K screen.

              Check this out, a new way to make a map.
              https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3318/easier-map-making-with-inkscape-reusable-art-assets

              https://forums.triplea-game.org/tags/thedog
              https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3741/curated-best-top-maps-triplea-guides

              Black_ElkB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • Black_ElkB Offline
                Black_Elk @TheDog
                last edited by Black_Elk

                @thedog Yeah that's such a better idea!!! Let's make it like that! I think the original I did in like MSpaint lol, but it seems like using inkwell to create a vector and then some kinda system that's more user friendly like you laid out to modify would be the ticket. The world projection is kinda tricky, cause some of that is personal preference. My only beef with mercator is that for A&A you really have a situation where the gameplay recommends heavy distortion, and just cause the A&A map that's the basis is so abstracted. You get the idea that Larry was looking at those same two page spreads in the history book where you see the European theater and the Pacific Theater at a zoomed in scale and just kinda wanted to stitch them together hehe.

                I think the way that the world is split on the gameboard also lends itself to some wonkiness. Like the real split should probably be in the middle of the Atlantic, you know with Europe/Africa on the far left of the gameboard and the Americas on the far right. Cause that sorta disguises the distortions. I liked how Hepps included that curved inset element at the top, because that's kinda how I made the initial warp. Basically I tilted and blew out Europe and kinda wrapped the Siberian arctic zone around almost like an ISO view or something, but it seemed to work hehe. Anyhow I just liked how it carried that suggestion through, since it was kinda deadspace and seems like maybe a good area for graphics or illustrationy stuff.

                For unit crowding some of those north Atlantic tiles could probably be raised, since Allies tend to stack there. Basically getting the Baltic and some of the E. Front territories to be as large as possible without making it look goofy, is sorta the aim lol.

                Anyhow, just reading through that other thread, and I like that approach. Basically something that is easier for others to come along and still work with, without having to go back from the ground up to make the indexed raster base.

                I have inkscape, I used it once for some illustration stuff. I hadn't considered it for the maps, but that makes total sense! Good call

                ps. I always thought the og Classic projection was basically a riff on this one. But where the map was split down the center, and the two sides of Eurasia just kinda slid into one another. Then the Americas were scaled down and Europe was scaled way up to give basically a theater map there, and that's essentially the look of the classic board lol. Like even some of the TT divisions and the labelling seemed to follow. Sorta like a playable version of that one haha.

                sundberg_map_world_at_war_1942.png

                TheDogT 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                • TheDogT Online
                  TheDog @Black_Elk
                  last edited by TheDog

                  What about using Goode's Homolosine Equal area Projection and use the sea zones to correct the distances between land masses?
                  or
                  Robinson Projection and use the zea sones to fix the Pacific distances?
                  No tracing of this map required
                  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blank_map_of_the_world_(Robinson_projection)_(10E).svg

                  .
                  d4846c65-4a03-492d-8e21-94116af0cb12-image.png

                  https://forums.triplea-game.org/tags/thedog
                  https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3741/curated-best-top-maps-triplea-guides

                  Black_ElkB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • Black_ElkB Offline
                    Black_Elk @TheDog
                    last edited by Black_Elk

                    @thedog Yeah I've always been partial to that one as well. I think I used Robinson for the earliest ballparks, before warping it out like a madman lol.

                    Couple things have changed since then though, in the intervening decade, the biggest one probably being the center mouse zoom we got going in the pre-release now. Once you have a smooth and convenient zoom I think it makes some of the scaling distortions less of an issue. Or similarly, like when a map is fucking gigantic, but the gameplay is organized around a more theater/zoomed-in view anyway, some of the issues you get in A&A seem less pronounced, cause you're not really needing the survey view at a glance when the gameplay focus is tighter on the area view throughout.

                    In Classic or Revised or AA50 etc, at the time I felt that scrolling/drag-to-view was the enemy, and that what many people wanted was the max zoom distance, or at least as zoomed out as one could get while still being able to see what's going on (ie legible the font, and still being able to distinguish the units at a glance.) And it seemed like a bit of a bummer that most people would just be playing the games at like 75%-50% map view, even though that crushes the graphics and makes everything worse, just because 100% was so inconveniently large that it was almost unplayable. That's why v3 was relatively tiny, cause I was shooting for something players wouldn't have to reduce in view. Screens were smaller then too, with many still using the 4:3 aspect ratio on desktop, whereas now 16:9 is undeniably the norm for everything hehe. But just that idea that people didn't want to drag around a bunch of deadspace, having Africa or the Americas be all realistically massive or Europe realistically tiny, seemed ill advised cause none of the official A&A maps actually looked like that lol.

                    I recall being impressed around that same time with the approach taken by Empire Total War, you know where you had basically 3 theater maps that were integrated into a pseudo world view. I was disappointed that Napoleon Total War reversed course and didn't expand on the Empire connected theater idea to give views for Africa or the Far East, or the rest of S. America etc, but just went back to a Europe map like MTW. Shogun was probably my favorite game for ages, another reason that post caught my eye! haha

                    Anyhow, I think when it comes to original TripleA games, using the latest features, it'd be a lot easier to create a world map that works well without massive distortion. But then you still got the issue with the legacy tripleA games based on A&A, which are still probably the reason most people end up discovering tripleA in the first place. I always get nervous anytime the franchise is sold. They just sold it again, like yesterday, right? Hasbro farmed it out to Renegade for the table top stuff. Hopefully they keep it cool. It was so demoralizing when AH pulled the rug out from under TripleA when AA50 dropped. I wasn't around when Veq and the gang relaunched TripleA and created Global, otherwise I'd probably have worked on the baseline there, but I was so bitter about AA50 getting the can that I didn't come around again for a while after that lol.

                    SchulzS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • SchulzS Offline
                      Schulz @Black_Elk
                      last edited by

                      I think Mercator is the best projection but everything above Leningrad definitely should be cut to preserve realism. Because Mercator enlarges Europe to fit more units plus it preserve the original shapes of land masses and north-south direction.

                      Without any cut, I'd go with Robinson.

                      Black_ElkB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • Black_ElkB Offline
                        Black_Elk @Schulz
                        last edited by Black_Elk

                        @schulz yeah Mercator is the best you're going to get for the standard map projections if what you want is just a larger Europe. The Classic A&A board projection is sorta like Mercator, except that you have two very large theater insets basically, but they're handled as like invisible telescoping distortions, just grafted on. Also on the first classic board, you had a few insets at the top that kinda hammered the impression home further. But the handling on the main board was to sort of just pretend I guess lol. Europe is easily like 3 times the size that it should be on the Global A&A board compared to even Mercator hehe. But then they didn't have any rescaling option for units or the map. I can't remember but I think tripleA didn't have them either for a long while at the start.

                        triplea_world_projection_elk_and_hepps1920x881 with inset telescope.png

                        pic4492802.webp

                        It's funny to look at now, just how mappy that map is. I mean since it's gone in a bit of a different direction since then.

                        pic922076.webp

                        just snagged those right quick from boardgamegeek for the glancing comparison.

                        RogerCooperR 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • RogerCooperR Offline
                          RogerCooper @Black_Elk
                          last edited by

                          If we are talking map projections consider, equirectangular

                          d4f68151-071f-4295-93ed-fd126eb00ecd-image.png

                          No problem with infinite polar regions.

                          Black_ElkB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                          • Black_ElkB Offline
                            Black_Elk @RogerCooper
                            last edited by Black_Elk

                            @rogercooper yeah that one's got charm too. I think it probably comes down to whether or not the mouse scaling is smooth enough in gameplay to overcome the shift to view on Europe and the South Pacific. Like I don't know about others, but I'd prefer to zoom in/out to hop around the map rather than drag-and-pull in most situations, like unless I'm in the middle of the movement phase and issuing orders. I mean more for the glancing view. I guess it's also a trade off between fidelity to the gameboards and the desire for something that has more realistic contours.

                            Here's another map that essentially has the approach of G40, with that kind of warp. Its pretty large, I'd say a good 5 ft or more across. Like it's basically taking up the whole folding table lol, but here it is just laid out on the floor. At that scale, you can just about get it working with official sculpts/hbg expansion unit stuff, but even then, it can still be pretty tight.

                            hbg_global_war_1936-45.png

                            hbg_GW_1936-45_map.png

                            I think a lot of the WW2 themed games are shooting for a playscale with a lot more TT and SZ divisions, a bit more like that, or even more carved up. Doing something like domination on a standard projection would mean a pretty big jump to scale from the play view to the survey view, like going from a Europe/Med view to the Global view. Not being able to play at max zoom-out is a definite downside I'd think. Like you kinda want to be able to issue commands while zoomed way out too, but the font and icons and such start getting pretty tiny.

                            RogerCooperR 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                            • RogerCooperR Offline
                              RogerCooper @Black_Elk
                              last edited by

                              This XKCD cartoon is worth looking at. What your favorite map projection says about you.

                              Black_ElkB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • Black_ElkB Offline
                                Black_Elk @RogerCooper
                                last edited by Black_Elk

                                haha! That's a good one!

                                I mean this works for me provided the scaling is smooth...

                                https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/BlankMap-World-Equirectangular.svg/2560px-BlankMap-World-Equirectangular.svg.png

                                It's already in svg format, so like the Dog mentioned we could upscale that to 13000 or whatever for the high def. I'd probably crop at the Antarctic just for a tighter zoom at whatever height. Then isolate by color to add in the basic borders from there. That one shows modern political boundaries, so you'd still have to decide how to divide stuff up in Europe for the 1941 theme or for the larger TTs like USSR, USA, India, China etc. Prob on a separate layer with the SZ stuff (pacific would be quite large there), or terrain features like mountains or deserts etc done the same way so it could be revisited or revised later.

                                K 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                • L Offline
                                  luhhlz
                                  last edited by

                                  @KurtGodel7 @Black_Elk
                                  bad ass! Agree the Pacific theatre in WAW/Rising Sun is one of the most dynamic and interesting theatres in all of TripleA! The island chains being connected by 'canals' is a key ingredient.

                                  @KurtGodel7
                                  Elite infantry at 5PU? Needs amphibious +1 modifier and/or 1PU reduction.
                                  I almost never buy 14PU bombers. 16 is too high. Am I missing something?
                                  otherwise, kudos on tech and PU balancing. I started to complain about some of the other choices until I read through it all.

                                  country-specific units look fun! My nephew loves stuff like that. Assault rifle and jets and megaships :zany_face:

                                  Tangent - can someone make a fix so that 1 destroyer does not negate infinite subs? A tech scale would be cool, like the battle of the atlantic, in september Germany gets n+1 tech, subs are much more effective, in october the allies get n+1 tech, sink 30 subs

                                  B K 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 3
                                  • B Offline
                                    beelee @luhhlz
                                    last edited by

                                    @luhhlz said in Proposed Map: Domination 1941:

                                    Tangent - can someone make a fix so that 1 destroyer does not negate infinite subs?

                                    This been a Feature request for many years. Maybe you can persuade one of the ISU kids to take it on 🙂

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                    • K Offline
                                      KurtGodel7 Moderators @Black_Elk
                                      last edited by

                                      @black_elk said in Proposed Map: Domination 1941:

                                      haha! That's a good one!

                                      I mean this works for me provided the scaling is smooth...

                                      https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/BlankMap-World-Equirectangular.svg/2560px-BlankMap-World-Equirectangular.svg.png

                                      It's already in svg format, so like the Dog mentioned we could upscale that to 13000 or whatever for the high def. I'd probably crop at the Antarctic just for a tighter zoom at whatever height. Then isolate by color to add in the basic borders from there. That one shows modern political boundaries, so you'd still have to decide how to divide stuff up in Europe for the 1941 theme or for the larger TTs like USSR, USA, India, China etc. Prob on a separate layer with the SZ stuff (pacific would be quite large there), or terrain features like mountains or deserts etc done the same way so it could be revisited or revised later.

                                      You've posted several maps to this thread since I last posted, including a Global War map; as well as the above-quoted equirectangular map. The Global War map definitely has some merit to it, but the Pacific is way too small a percentage of the total map. (At least for what I'm looking for.) On the other hand, the Pacific is plenty big enough in the Equirectangular map. Perhaps even too big. I mean, it takes up roughly half the map! Yeah that's realistic, but not ideal from a game play perspective. The Pacific needs to shrink somewhat. Not too much though, because it still needs to be a nice, large area for plenty of naval and amphibious war! 🙂

                                      I'd love to help get this off the ground in any way I can, so by all means let me know if you have any questions or if there's any input you'd like me to provide.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                      • K Offline
                                        KurtGodel7 Moderators @luhhlz
                                        last edited by

                                        @luhhlz said in Proposed Map: Domination 1941:

                                        @KurtGodel7 @Black_Elk
                                        bad ass! Agree the Pacific theatre in WAW/Rising Sun is one of the most dynamic and interesting theatres in all of TripleA! The island chains being connected by 'canals' is a key ingredient.

                                        @KurtGodel7
                                        Elite infantry at 5PU? Needs amphibious +1 modifier and/or 1PU reduction.
                                        I almost never buy 14PU bombers. 16 is too high. Am I missing something?
                                        otherwise, kudos on tech and PU balancing. I started to complain about some of the other choices until I read through it all.

                                        country-specific units look fun! My nephew loves stuff like that. Assault rifle and jets and megaships :zany_face:

                                        Tangent - can someone make a fix so that 1 destroyer does not negate infinite subs? A tech scale would be cool, like the battle of the atlantic, in september Germany gets n+1 tech, subs are much more effective, in october the allies get n+1 tech, sink 30 subs

                                        It's funny. The high cost of elite infantry has been eating at me ever since I posted that OP. Instead of 5 PUs each, 4.5 PUs would make more sense. I want elite infantry to provide less bang for the buck than regular infantry, but not too much less. They are intended to be the right tool for certain circumstances.

                                        To be honest I'm a bit concerned about redundancy. Does an elite infantry fill a substantially different role than a heavy gun? If not, it might be necessary to eliminate heavy guns.

                                        Why do bombers cost 16? My reasoning is as follows.

                                        1. In NWO, I'll sometimes buy 15 PU bombers for the U.S.S.R. Do I use those bombers for strategic bombing? No, not unless my opponent has a nearby factory with no aa gun. But think about back-and-forth battles. You could spend 16 PUs for 2 early fighters, or 15 PUs for one bomber. Either way you're getting 4 firepower on attack. The early fighters give you a lot better defense, and more cannon fodder if you're looking to sink Germany's Baltic fleet. The bomber gives you more range, more flexibility, and has the threat of strategically bombing someone.
                                        2. If you take a close look at my proposed tech system, the "combined arms" tech makes all your aircraft provide artillery support for infantry. Once you get that tech, bombers become better than NWO bombers, and so should cost more.
                                        3. I'm not a huge fan of strategic bombing raids, because they are luck-based. If you're getting bombed and your aa gun keeps missing, there is literally nothing you can do as a defender. I don't want strategic bombers to be overly affordable, because then I'd be encouraging players to emphasize an aspect of the game which comes down to blind luck.

                                        If you look closely at my tech system, you'll see that early fighters start off costing 9, but get reduced to 8 with working women. Working women tech does not reduce the cost of bombers. Combined arms allows each of your aircraft to support an infantry or other supportable unit. In the above example where it's either 2 early fighters or 1 bomber, this means that the 2 early fighters will, together, benefit twice as much as the one bomber. At least in most circumstances. In some back-and-forth battles there will be more air providing support than there will be infantry to support. Admittedly you're nerfing the bomber at least a little in relation to the early fighter. But I think the additional range of the bomber still justifies it as a unit purchase, because you never know when that extra range will come in handy.

                                        All this being said, I'm not wedded to the idea of 16 PU bombers. Depending on play testing I could come down to 15 PUs. But I would not want to go any lower than that, due to my concern about making strategic bombing too viable an option.

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                        • K Offline
                                          KurtGodel7 Moderators @zlefin
                                          last edited by

                                          @zlefin said in Proposed Map: Domination 1941:

                                          There's also TWW for larger maps, which has just as good a tech system as NML.

                                          Your post inspired me to take a closer look at TWW. It does have a very good tech system.

                                          One could argue that the most important characteristic of a map is the ratio of complexity to strategic depth. In TWW, there is a chart which lists 208 different interactions between units and terrain types. That does far more to increase the game's complexity, than it does to provide strategic depth. Terrain effects are just one of a number of things which make game play more complex than NML or WAW. The bad ratio of complexity to strategic depth is why that map isn't played much. It's unfortunate that the map's creators didn't do a better job at paring away complexity, because that map does contain a number of good ideas. The strongest of which is the tech system.

                                          So adding another larger map wouldn't necessarily help things if it doesn't get played much. It's not easy for a new map to get played alot.

                                          You are right. It is not easy for a new map to get played a lot.

                                          What I'm focused on now is being part of a team which creates a map which people fall in love with once they play. A map which has a great ratio of complexity to strategic depth. A map which is unique and memorable. Will people play it a lot? That's not something I can control.

                                          Tech is a double-edged sword; while it can spice up a game, it can also make for pigeon-holing in much the same way you describe WaW strats. The tech in nml tends to not be well-balanced, with some very strong trends pushing it in certain ways.

                                          Are there cases where your critique of the NML tech system makes sense? Absolutely. Smaller nations, for example, should generally go for the resource-producing techs first. However, the same is not necessarily true of larger nations. Let's say the German player wants to make a heavy push in Africa. He should research innovation tech, because increased factory placement capacity and the ability to build tanks will both be very useful for conquering Africa. If he's going for Paris, land offense tech might be the right choice. Creeping barrage and mobile warfare are both very useful for that! If he's pursuing a more generic strategy, the income-producing techs from the economy and land defense categories will be what he needs. Land defense also helps defend against British amphibious attacks. If he seeks a naval showdown with Britain, he'd be well-advised to research either or both naval tech categories. Tech strategy and military strategy are deeply intertwined.

                                          Tech systems often have a problem of pushing towards excess focus on specific units.

                                          Granted.

                                          I look at every unit as a tool. Each tool should have a purpose--a circumstance in which that unit, and no other, would be the best-suited for the task at hand.

                                          I generally wanted nation-specific units to be better than the standard equivalent. I'd be perfectly happy if the U.S. and Japan eschewed standard battleships completely, instead building Iowa and Yamato battleships.

                                          Other than stuff like that, however, I want to see all the units get built. If in the course of play testing it becomes clear that some units just aren't getting built at all, or stop getting built after certain tech are researched, it might be time to tweak things a little.

                                          If you want more strategic variety in waw, it'd seem to make more sense to fix the balance problems in it that make certain strats too effective compared to others.

                                          I've played WAW maybe once or twice in my life. My two favorite maps are NML and NWO. Most people who play both WAW and NML say that NML is a significantly better map. My goal is not to make a better WAW. It is to take the things I love about NML, add to them, and migrate them to a WWII map.

                                          Z 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                          • L Offline
                                            luhhlz
                                            last edited by

                                            @KurtGodel7

                                            I have small disagreements with (2) but I don't want to get hung up on something I think is an incredibly small issue. The gameplay difference to me from 14/15/16 is almost nothing since I think attempting to extract tiny amounts of PU gain from mass SBR is a losing strategy compared to investing those PU into typical power projection (compound growth >>> arbitrage).

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1

                                            Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.

                                            Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.

                                            With your input, this post could be even better 💗

                                            Register Login
                                            • 1
                                            • 2
                                            • 3
                                            • 4
                                            • 5
                                            • 24
                                            • 25
                                            • 2 / 25
                                            • First post
                                              Last post
                                            Copyright © 2016-2018 TripleA-Devs | Powered by NodeBB Forums