Axis Ascension

[Schulz]

@cernel They are crazy numbers . Game would be unplayable due to impossibility of naval calculations. :astonished_face:

[Cernel]

@schulz I've actually been very conservative. If you would take a speed of 10 knots for transports, that would be 27,000 km in two months. Going from Scotland to Alexandria around Africa is a voyage of about 22,000 km and in your map that would be a movement of 17. Multiplying 17 per 27 and dividing it by 22, you could say that transports should move 20 spaces per turn, and then you could set units like cruisers and aircraft carriers (which move about 3 times as fast as a transport) at moving 60 spaces per turn. My previous proposals are really the minimum movements, calculated in a very conservative way. So really nothing crazy at all.

[Schulz]

@cernel Game also has no railway. All units move on foot. It makes sense to me to reduce the speed of naval vessels to balance slowed down land units. 20 moving transports would make landings on enemy territories unrealistically way too easy. Maybe we should take into account the speed of naval vessels in 1700s.

[Schulz]

More accurate names are welcome.

[ubernaut]

@schulz really coming together seems kind of odd greenland should have so many territories tho

[Schulz]

@ubernaut Considering the Germans did invade Canada during WWII (https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-secret-weather-station-the-germans-built-in-labrador-during-wwii-1.5357840) Greenland can be a very important battlefield.

Joke aside, its the same reason why Brazil isn't a single territory. Its just aesthetic and coherence.

[Schulz]

I was appointing hypothetical values for territories. The goal is compromising realism and playability asap.

• In 7 Dec 1941 (Japan will need to be the first to play) Japan is just as powerful as Italy (Both are 25 Pus). Japan can become 2 times as powerful as Italy with the following historical conquests (Japan reaches 50 Pus)

• Japanese controlled Chinese Territories, Korea and Karafuto are worthless to represent the non-existent Chinese front.

• Germany (100 pus) is two times as powerful as Italy and Japan combined.

• No upkeep this time, but units will be two times more expensive to reduce massive stacks. (infantry=6, artillery=8, armour=10 etc...)

• I tend to not make USA ships faster than the other ships. But considering the massive distances (There will be probably no Hawaii factory), USA transports should be really a lot cheaper. I think ideally a USA transport can be 4 Pus while the other 12.

• I have no idea yet how to distribute the Allies income to have a relatively balanced game considering lack of China and Soviet-Japanese war.

[Schulz]

I've tried several times to create a relief tiles. But I couldn't make anything.

Is it easy to get AA50 style relief tiles?

Here is the full map.

https://i.ibb.co/XkRccZ5/aaa.png

[Black_Elk]

I'm not sure, but I think the pattern used in Revised v5/6 Global might be a built-in? I replaced my v3 relief with WOPRs version for AA50, since I like that one a bit better than seeing the political leaders. Though some of the graphics in the standard one were kinda cool like if it's showing fighters or ships or whatnot, but I found the faces distracting hehe. I'm not sure there's a quicker way to do it, but basically you'd take your map image into GIMP or PS or Inkscape and get transparency layer going where you can add design elements or images and then play with the opacity. What ends up displaying for the player would be that stuff when they have the details turned on.

[Cernel]

@schulz said in Fortress World 1942:

I've tried several times to create a relief tiles. But I couldn't make anything.

Is it easy to get AA50 style relief tiles?

Here is the full map.

https://i.ibb.co/XkRccZ5/aaa.png

It may be advisable waiting on making relief tiles until the map is extensively play-tested. Relief tiles are, unfortunately, a huge burden in redrawing the map once they are done and may discourage further tweaking.

[Schulz]

This is how Europe looks like without relief and with a fake relief.

I have still a few doubts about balance.

Here is the stats of Dec 1941.

Japan: Starts with 25 ipc but becomes 50 ipc power after completing its historical conquests. Has an unbreakable non-aggression pact with the Soviets. No Chinese front.

The Soviets: 50 ipc. Allies units cannot enter the Soviet soils.

Germany: 100 ipc (50 ipc from Germany but probably need to be changed due to the vulnerability of strategic bombing.(Allies can abuse strategic bombing if Germany worths more than 20 ipc) 20 ipc can be removed and 2 German subs could be randomly spawn in the North Atlantic. I am not sure if the AI can handle this. Another method is making Germany 20 ipc and adding 30 ipc as a national objective.

Britain: 100 ipc but will lost 21 ipc if Japan reaches its historical conquests.

Italy: 25 ipc.

USA: 75 ipc.

[Schulz]

I think I'have made a decent relief for sea zones. But creating a relief for land territories is a whole other beast for me right now.

Here is the new base image

https://i.ibb.co/ZG2zgyM/fortress-world-sea-relief.png

And an incomplete relief with stroked lines only.

https://i.ibb.co/xMT8KW0/fortress-world-transparent-stroke.png

[Schulz]

I think adding the Danish straits is necessary for gameplay reason. Same as having ANZAC part of the US rather than the UK. Sydney worth only 3 ipc so USA would still need to use California factory to reinforce the Pacific.

Balance is the complicated part. I mostly try to mimic v6 set up. But still progressing.

[Schulz]

• Kuybyshev is the capital of the Soviets.

• Incomes are collected at the start of rounds.

• Iran had to be impossible otherwise AI Britain tries to reinforce the Caucasus even though they are not permitted to enter the Soviet soils.

• The flagged sea areas are naval points which has a 25% to spawn a submarine each round. Unfortunately they spawn at the end of rounds to not break AI compatibility.

• At what point should the Axis start outproducing the Allies for a balanced gameplay in your opinion? Currently; If Axis holds all their starting territories, takes Baku, Rostov, all the Mediterranean and a few extra Pacific Islands, they start outproducing the Allies.

[Schulz]

Could anybody provide me the location of major power's navies and their situations based on April 1942? Maybe I could implement it in my scenario.

My second question is; Was being defensive in naval warfare advantageous as much as it was in land warfare? For example, it is realistic for destroyers, cruisers and battleships having the same attack and defense values?

[RogerCooper]

@schulz It was advantageous for fleet to be operating close to its bases primarily because of air cover. Scramble rules for air bases show this well.

You may want to give a large movement bonus to ships starting at a friendly naval base.

[Schulz]

@rogercooper I was thinking the same too. I will definitely add them.

[Schulz]

I would like to mention about two semi-bug.

1. If an unit cannot be bough and doesn't present in the map, they don't appear in calculator. I do believe they should appear in any situation.

2. If incomes are collected at the start of rounds, it is not possible to reduce enemy incomes by bombing their factories. Because they already start with 0 income.

[TheDog]

2. True, but they will also be unable to repair anything with a cost. Short of having negative income, although not ideal, the current situation is a reasonable balance.

[Black_Elk]

Yeah it's kinda rough, particularly the battle Calc thing. The tension is reflected in the tagline: "Community built maps, Axis and Allies game rules." The last part being the sticking point hehe.

TripleA has been bent pretty far to do some cool stuff, but there are things it couldn't really have anticipated when it was being put together. For example the A&A phase order is something that hasn't changed much since the thing launched in the mid 80s. The one big thing that happened was that a damage/repair aspect was introduced to SBR in v3 the ruleset. Prior to that bombing just removed money from the opponent's purse directly, with no intermediate input from the player, or any choice there about whether or not to repair, cause it just didn't work like that back then in A&A.

Similarly, units being in the game, but not part of a universal purchase roster, is something that would have been hard to see coming. Outside of the Iron Blitz PC translation of Classic technology advances, or China post v3, the only A&A game to mess with that idea was A&A Pacific in the early 2000s, with the introduction of the USA's Marine unit. And that one was sort of a one off.

For my part, I find that having different unit rosters for different player nations makes a game much harder to parse at a glance. It means you have to be familiar not just with your own unit roster, but all the unit rosters of every other player nation, in order to play effectively. It can work alright if all you have to worry about is one nation getting Marines, but the more units like that you have, the harder it is for the player to make sense of what they're seeing displayed on the board when they launch. Especially if going in cold.

I would caution against designing the balance of a scenario around features that are busted, or which don't currently exist, cause there's no way to know when someone might be able to address that stuff. Like it could be a while, if ever, so just something to consider when planning out the broad strokes.