💥 1941 Global Command Decision - Official Thread

Black_Elk

Haha yeah, well I suppose it's not exactly 'simpler' to adjust the map over adding a tech/unit, though in terms of the work on my end wasn't too tough. But I'm not the one who has to tango with the xml heheh.

I get it though, cause if theDog wasn't feeling the USA m3 for transport movement, this would accomplish something similar for the Atlantic crossing, if a bit more focused. Fewer knock on effects elsewhere. Basically by collapsing 102 A/B into a single tile, the optimal transit/float tile shifts from sz 90 to sz 103 as the prime spot. Sz 102 becomes the secondary spot I think, for transports spawned at Texas. I think it could work well though. Whatever's clever hehe

TheDog

Im a bit of veteran with adding and removing TT/SZ having done it a few times in The Shogun, so I dont shy away from it.

TheDog

Latest version 110 ready for download from 1st page 1st post

If using faster 2.6 remember to minimize the error box to the taskbar, to stop it it reappearing (this is only a warning error please ignore it)

MAJOR CHANGES

To help the AI, each Allied Air & Sea unit type limited to 10 per TT/SZ. Each Land unit type limited to 20 per per TT, was 20/40 (the sweet spot for AI & player might be 15/30)
New unit Bomber-Med 1/1/6 11pu for Germany, Italy, Japan, USSR, and later Pacific-Allies (thanks WC Sumpton)
Tech table on the Players tab now shows the tech as they are research (thanks WC Sumpton)
Neutral Bunkers have a tuv of 1 to make them unattractive to the AI, needs testing (thanks Black Elk)
Neutrals have new defence units and a maximum of 2 Bunkers (thanks Black Elk)

.
WEST

SZ 102 A & B merged into one, Transports now take 2 turns not 3 (thanks Black Elk)
Britain, Gilan TT now Britain, was USSR, allows Britain to take back Baku, so can fight over the VC (thanks Black Elk)
USSR Baku gets Industry-Med and 7pu (thanks Black Elk)
USSR Caspian Sea get a Flotilla (1 Transport & 2 Destroyer) (thanks Black Elk)
USSR reasearch Armor-Hvy Tech T8+ (thanks WC Sumpton)
Switzerland is now impassable
Bordeaux-Gascony gets a forest icon on reliefTiles
Brittany & Calais-Picardy & Provence-Marseille get Industry
renamed P51-Mustang to Fighter-LongR & Britain can also produce Fighter-LongR when the USA developes it.

.
TODO - The Dog

Balance

TODO - Black Elk

New icons Armor-Hvy_hit
New USSR Armor-Inf (KV-1) Icon & _hit (Yellow man?)
New Britain Armor-Inf_hit Icon (Yellow man?)
Britain shading for Fighter-LongR (US built 2500+ for Britain)
Neutral Fighter-Early remove roundel & shadow

.
Link to 1st post that has the download link
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3326/1941-global-command-decision-official-thread

Black_Elk

OK here are the fighters

I used the hit WC provided, but downscaled 75% since some of the digi sculpts are kindy beefy, and played with the levels a bit. Tried to make it look like they just sorta got pinned as opposed to a kill shot hehe.

For the Japanese armor medium a noticed a hanging dropshadow and also for the reg british fighter near the prop, so I nixed those.

Here's the hit/flip in case you want it for the meds

I'll have to cook something up for the KV-1 and the icon you mentioned. Tiny Gold man might be kinda tricky unless it's like very stick figure-ish, but I'll see what I can do.

Just downloaded 110, about to try a German solo

ps, for the gold man I was thinking maybe something that uses the generic tripleA dude. I can almost get it to register, but probably needs a gradient to make it look right. Maybe just a slightly larger. I'll play around with it

here's a neutral dude with the chroma dialed back to sorta look like the others in that set.

wc_sumpton

@thedog said in 1941 Global Command Decision - Official Thread:

New unit Bomber-Med 1/1/6 11pu for Germany, Italy, Japan, USSR, and later Pacific-Allies

USA and Britian start with Bomber +2 to movement, it shouldn't be another unit/unit definition:

<!-- ======================================= GO TECH =======================================  -->

<!-- Japan Long Lance Torpedo Tech -->
<attachment name="techAbilityAttachment" attachTo="Long-Lance" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TechAbilityAttachment" type="technology">
	<option name="attackBonus" value="1:Destroyer"/>
	<option name="attackBonus" value="1:Cruiser"/>
	<option name="attackBonus" value="1:HQ-Fleet"/>
</attachment>

<!-- USA/Britian Long Range Bomber Tech -->
<attachment name="techAbilityAttachment" attachTo="Bomber-LongR" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TechAbilityAttachment" type="technology">
	<option name="movementBonus" value="2:Bomber"/>
</attachment>

Then add the tech to USA and Britian, add to USA Carrier-Fleet Start at turn one. Create Britian Start at turn 1 with Bomber-LongR. Put a star on USA and Britian "Bomber" image. Remove Bomber-Med.

'Long-Lance' and 'Bomber-LongR' are technical advantages, no other player can research to obtain them. 'Carrier-Fleet' is an advantage for USA and Japan, but Britian can research them. Also USA and Japan can still purchase Carrier, while Britian cannot after research. Armor-Inf has to be a separate unit because techAbility cannot do "bonusHitpoints", also 1 has a square the other a diamond.

Starting to get a little confusing. :anguished_face:

Cheers...

wc_sumpton

@thedog

From PoS2: Side: ...The side the attached-to unit is on when giving this support.

When the attachTo unit is on offence/defense, x number of allied/enemy units receive x dice bonus.

<!-- Bomber-Tac v Bunker (Suppress ENEMY Bunker) -->
<attachment name="supportAttachmentBomber-Tac" attachTo="Bomber-Tac" javaClass="UnitSupportAttachment" type="unitType">
	<option name="faction" value="enemy"/>
	<option name="unitType" value="Bunker"/>
	<option name="side" value="defence"/>				<!-- reduces enemy strength Def -->
	<option name="dice" value="strength"/>
	<option name="bonus" value="-1"/>
	<option name="number" value="1"/>
	<option name="bonusType" value="Bomb-Bunker"/>
	<option name="players" value="$All-Players$"/>
	<option name="impArtTech" value="false"/>
</attachment>

Reads as: When Bomber-Tac is on defence, 1 enemy Bunker receives -1 strength bonus. (The Bunker must attack the TT with the Bomber-Tac.)

I know it's confusing, I had to remove all territoryEffects and analyze the battles to get a handle on how supportAttachment work.

Cheers...

TheDog

@wc_sumpton
Thanks for checking my code, you are correct. I will change the defence to offence.

Luckily the other two suppressions work only because they had both offence:defence

Black_Elk

Some quick thoughts/questions about this concept for an Armor-Inf unit...

So currently, for Germany, the entry level tank is the Panzer III. I know since I made that one on the fly hehe. Chiefly because Cernel requested something with an earlier design than the Panzer IV (which had those extra armor plates/shielding over the tracks.) So I threw a Panzer III together for v3, since that game begins in 1941 and anyway Panzer II didn't make sense there to me. Either the Panzer IV that Frostion had (it's a little hard to see, but we figured it was that just with turret kinda wonky) or the Panther III I made would properly be considered Medium armor, but I'm pretty sure the convention Frostion used in his labelling "Light, Medium, Heavy" was adopted pretty interchangeably with Early, Middle, Later period armor. It also appears as though his Armor units there were scaled for emphasis over accuracy, i.e. the better/later model tanks are always larger, the earlier/weaker tanks are always smaller. It was a little tricky for me to parse, hence that initial labelling Armor I, Armor II, Armor III cause I wasn't 100%.

For the USSR, it's a bit harder for me to tell (especially since all these tanks are in forced perspective with a top down view, making them somewhat harder to identify) but it certainly looks like it's meant to be a T-26 right? If it's not a T-26, then perhaps it's a KV-1 already? I honestly can't tell what it would be otherwise. T-26 definitely fits the bill for a light tank.

But then if keeping the scale for emphasis convention, an Armor unit that's meant to be sorta worse/weaker than Armor-Lgt should probably be smaller? But then I don't know, if it has 2-hits that's still a pretty badass unit. At M1 the tow and terrain wouldn't be a factor for movement, but it'd still be like a land battleship/roving bunker, so not sure there. I guess the Q would be how large to make it? And also if you think that little golden infantry dude registers as distinct enough? Also raises another Q more generally I guess, if the unit is exclusive to only two nations USSR/Britain, if the unit would be mistaken by players playing one of the other nations, that can't see those specs at a glance via their own purchase screen.

Anyhow, until I can make something better, here is a KV-1

And here's a KV-2 just for kicks

They don't match the orientation of the other Frostion armor types, both just taken from the Wiki, but they'd work for placeholders. Perhaps if this unit is meant to be easily distinguishable from other armor variants the change in orientation might actually be fine? I think I need to crank the brightness like 5%, but got the tint pretty close.

This is what I came up with for an icon... Trying to match the colors used for the various chevrons and such. Still trying to get the gradient right, but here it is at 36px and then 24px, which I think is about the size you'd want if trying to pull this off.

For something that ends up looking sorta like this...

But not really sure if it carries. Is that the sort of thing you had in mind here? Perhaps it is unnecessary to have an icon? In other words that the armor units sans chevron would just be understood to be this one, and when you get your stripes that's like m2? Might be simpler.

ps. Here I think I got the tint a little closer. And with the battle damage hehe

Here's a quickie Churchill done the same way, from the wiki

also the US/China Fighters-Early and Tactical Bomber cleaned up some artifacts leftover from the shadows. Should look a little tighter if people hit the 200% zoom in 2.6 which is how I'm catching some of this stuff now.

TheDog

@Black_Elk
Icons in game.

I think we need a mini icon for the infantry tank, the other tanks (lgt, med, hvy) have stripes and players can easily id the infantry man as a move 1 unit.

Whatever icon we go for it needs to be 16-18px to be in keeping with the other mini icons.

If you are unhappy with the aspect of the tank images, search for isometric KV-1 or top down isometric KV-1 or similar.

TheDog

@wc_sumpton said in 1941 Global Command Decision - Official Thread:

USA and Britain start with Bomber +2 to movement, it shouldn't be another unit/unit definition:

I changed the xml for Britain & USA to have a tech upgrade, then realized that the PU cost of +2 movement is free. Looked in the PoS2 I could not find a way to increase the PU cost by 2, so do you know how I can do that?

wc_sumpton

@thedog

<productionRule name="buyBomber">
	<cost resource="PUs" quantity="13"/>
	<result resourceOrUnit="Bomber" quantity="1"/>
</productionRule>
<productionRule name="buyBomber-LongR">
	<cost resource="PUs" quantity="15"/>
	<result resourceOrUnit="Bomber" quantity="1"/>
</productionRule>

The same could be done for Japan's Cruiser-LongL and Destroyer-LongL to increase their cost by 1PUs.

Cheers...

wc_sumpton

@thedog, @Black_Elk

Speaking about the Infantry Armor icon, what about the USSR Artillery ? There is a nice icon on @Black_Elk stickers: (I put a artillery shell inside the gold square to designate all artillery pieces.) There is also the Mobile Artillery , and the Tank Destroyer .

Just some thoughts---

Cheers...

P.S. The Mobile Artillery attack should be 1, since artillery buff infantry, thus it cannot self buff. But be allowed to buff 2 infantry.

Cheers...

Black_Elk

I dig it! Looks cool!

For the KV-1/Churchill I wasn't totally sure how big, but I figured we could always downscale so I started a bit larger. Usually they need a second pass to dial the contours and make sure they got a nice edge when viewed against the map/background, but I was pretty happy with the first pass. Kinda matches what someone would catch if they googled the hardware, except tiny and with the tint hehe.

I like that idea to create a quick icon that easily differentiates the artillery (esp from the Inf-motorized, which might be confused in the soviet case with the Katyusha's since they both got that truck/halftrack sorta look). Nice work!

Here's a quick pass for that Tank Destroyer with the drop shadowed dialed back...

wc_sumpton

@TheDog, @Black_Elk

Some thoughts on icons and naming. There is Armor-Hvy, Carrier-Fleet, Fighter-LongR and Submarine-Adv. These are researched/advanced units and all called "-Adv", with the gold star. The Bomber, USA/Britian and Cruiser/Destroyer for Japan are advantages that cannot be researched, thus the gold star. So Armor-Adv, Carrier-Adv and Fighter-Adv.

There is also Fighter-Early and Armor-Lgt both with gold diamonds, so "-Early" or "-Lgt" for both?

Talking about these "-Early" units; USA, Britian, USSR, Japan and Italy, should have these unit on the board at the start, with their production showing the purchase of the regular units, Fighter and Armor replacing them. Britian and USSR could have some Armor-Inf starting out, and be allowed to purchase both Armor-Inf and Armor. Germany should have a mixture of Armor-Early and Armor. Production of the Panzer III was slow. And maybe moving Armor-Adv to about turn 4.

Regular units should replace "-Early", with these unit only being produced during times of need and removed when not needed. The exception here being China and to some extent USSR, both can only produce Conscripts and Elites (I think Inf-Elite should have the gold star also).

"-Adv" units are additions to production with regular. This gives a player a choice between the heavy-hitters and nots. The one exception would be Fighter-Jet which would replace Fighter-Adv and also have a gold star.

In this case all regular units would be called Fighter, Armor, Carrier and Submarine and would have no icons.

Also infantry could be called Conscript, Infantry and Elite.

These are just my thoughts---

Cheers...

TheDog

One of the reasons for naming the units as they are is the Unit Help being in alphabetically order keeps all the Armor and Inf etc close to each other.

As I dont come from an A&A background I dont feel the need to name the units as such, I tend to name from history.

Having said that maybe they do need a little realization.

On the theme above should Transport be renamed Convoy as it includes Corvettes and Frigates?

Black_Elk

Sounds pretty good to me.

OK special request here. This is left field, but we have a lot of tanks and little dudes. I think it would be cool to have a specialist unit that looks like this...

Allies

Axis

Call her ops, espionage, cryptography, radio, command support, resistance, whatever, but I think it would be fun to have something like this. Even if it was like the Air HQ and each nation only had one or two or whatever. I have no idea mechanically what would be fun, but it's at least as iconic as a tank right?

Perhaps the unit might give a bonus to defense, or reduce maintenance, or something situationally useful like improved scramble defense, or can conduct some form of economic damage? Could be transported on the air transport like an elite, that would be thematic for USSR especially, but basically in a versatility type role I think would be cool. Perhaps they can target other units of the same type or something to get some dynamism there. Or maybe a high power unit that you want to hold in reserve or guard at the Homefront. An espionage/sabotage role would be cool if front lined. All purpose agent?

TheDog

I think she is for the advanced or PvP version

But joining in the brainstorm, in Britains terms

M16 operative, acts like a resistance unit -1 Def/Atk to 3 enemy units
MI5 finds and attempts to kill a foreign agent on home soil.
007 femme fatale attempts to kill an enemy HQ command, see The Shogun Ninja code for this.

Black_Elk

Yeah that's pretty much what I had in mind. I think it'd be fun!

For the KV-1 I punched up the contour and increased the contrast a little bit just to give it some more edge, think it might register a bit cleaner against the map that that way when scaling.

Let me know if that feels better

wc_sumpton

@thedog said in 1941 Global Command Decision - Official Thread:

On the theme above should Transport be renamed Convoy as it includes Corvettes and Frigates?

It's a design decision. It's takes away the power of the sub. Now the player doesn't have to escort because the escort is built in. It could also be said that Carriers, Battleships and Cruisers had their own entourage, so they all could be isDestroyer units.

Giving every unit AA capabilities is also a design decision. If the attacker has 12 units and 2 aircrafts vs 12 units. The aircraft don't help much as all 12 unit get a separate chance to attack them. With an attack power of 1/6 it almost better so not buy them. Maybe some Bomber-Tacs, but still have to get through that overwhelming AA fire.

But these are design decisions. I may not care for them, so I edit them out. But that just me.

Cheers...

wc_sumpton

@TheDog, @Black_Elk

You want Dog Fights:

<property name="Air Battle Defenders Can Retreat" value="false" editable="true">
	<boolean/>
</property>

By switching this property, the defender is forced to enter air battles prior to normal combat. Try it, place a couple of air units in Pskov and Vitebsk:

<unitPlacement territory="Pskov" unitType="Fighter-Early" quantity="2" owner="USSR"/>
<unitPlacement territory="Vitebsk" unitType="Fighter-Early" quantity="2" owner="USSR"/>

Even if both Germany and USSR are set at 'HardAI' if Germany attack one or both, USSR must engage in the air battle prior to the land battle.

Really changes the dynamics!!

Cheers...