💥 1941 Global Command Decision - Official Thread

[Black_Elk]

Curious, I scanned Shikoku in the base just now and didn't see anything there, but I did notice a rogue pair of pixels on Awaji next door. It wasn't a floater or a line break, just extra pixels hanging jutting out on either side black border. Not sure if that might be the issue, or if the update to pre-release thing works? I updated the base just now to scrub the Awaji borders

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xnvwl23sf092dia/Domination_1941_baseline.png?dl=0

Anyhow, ace work thus far! Hope the holidays and end of year festivities are finding ya well!
Catch you in a few

[TheDog]

@black_elk
Thanks, as expected it made no difference.

@Cernel

Use the latest pre-release.

Well that was a surprise it works &

.
@All
However with latest TripleA-2.6+14246 now I get this error;

My triplea.log file with a txt extension
triplea.log.txt

In the log it mentions
329975 08:39:44.852 [Thread-12] ERROR o.t.game.client.HeadedGameRunner - null

Is this related to a networked/lobby game?

[beelee]

@thedog a little off topic but since you're on the latest prerelease, does the objectives tab disappear after you open History ?

[TheDog]

@beelee
1941 Global Command Decision does not have Objectives, by design, as the AI does not understand them.

However tested The Shogun, and yes they do disappear after you open History.

[beelee]

@thedog Thanks for checking. I made a git issue when i noticed it. Just thought I'd see if others had it and wasn't Map specific.

Hopefully the Guys jump back in after the Hollidays

[TheDog]

I am working on stacking limitations, but it is getting in the way of game play, that is, when the Germans pile into Russia, the player has to faff about with adding and removing units, to maximise their attack values, so slowing the game.

The detail, 3xTT worth of units(40+ units) attack one Russian TT, the German has to remove certain units and add others in and leave some behind.

Currently I'm thinking let the ground units over stack, but limit Air units and Destroyers and Submarines?

What are peoples thoughts?

[Black_Elk]

Sounds intriguing. I'll admit to being pretty unfamiliar with the capping dynamic as I really haven't played many maps which work that way, like with a hard limit beyond the purchasing phase. I gather the idea is just to reduce the size of the forces in play overall? I'd guess a stack limit would basically force attrition over time, or to prompt players to spread forces across multiple tiles, whereas typical A&A gameplay favors the consolidated massive stacks in just a few spots. I feel like AA50s approach to China was like that (though restricted to just a couple unit types owing to the nature of that faction in AA50), but I just mean that limit on placement at 3 inf per tile. I wasn't a huge fan, cause it made it so easy for Japan to steamroll them lol.

I think production values and unit costs or first strike/aagun type mechanics can be used to mitigate some of that stuff, but clearly not all of it. Even with artillery, and maintenance or build limits on certain unit types, the fundamentals still kinda lean towards deep stackfast probably, just by the nature of the beast lol. I know it's a perennial concern for big maps with big stacks, though I suppose I don't mind so much if everything else is humming. It's hard for me to visualize, but I can see what you mean if it adds a lot of tedium with the click click or makes it so that it's hard to parse what sort of forces that the opponent can muster for a given fight.

Not sure what approach is best. Guess it kinda depends how the limitation is framed for the conceptual buy-in. Like with Aircraft you could probably rationalize it based on airfields allowing for a certain capacity per tile, sort of like a fixed aircraft carrier but which can accommodate more air units than a carrier does. Doing it like that it'd be more of a soft build cap I guess, like where the ceiling could be raised if the player purchases more infrastructure maybe? Like using the bases as the limit there, but allowing them to be improved over time for the associated unit types. I think as long as it doesn't devolve to a slogfest with the player incentivized to overproduce ground hitpoints, but where they don't have a way to make breakthroughs without enough heavy hitters to crack the fodder walls hehe. Of the standard boards, the familiar prob from Classic boards or like v6 without artillery, where the play-pace is super slow.

[TheDog]

@black_elk
My concerns are player super stacks of Bombers and Subs and the AI over producing Destroyers, so those are the ones I have gone for.

I have picked an arbitrary round 10 as the limit for Bombers, as 1000 Bomber raid = 10 Bomber units, yes I know its impossible to link to real world numbers, but you need a start point.

You can limit say Bombers and their Fighter escort and then limit the total number of air units in a TT.

Here is the current Air only code to help you visualise it.

	<option name="movementLimit"  value="allied:$All-Fighters$" count="10"/>
	<option name="attackingLimit" value="allied:$All-Fighters$" count="10"/>
	<option name="movementLimit"  value="allied:Bomber-Lgt" count="10"/>
	<option name="attackingLimit" value="allied:Bomber-Lgt" count="10"/>
	<option name="movementLimit"  value="allied:Bomber" count="10"/>
	<option name="attackingLimit" value="allied:Bomber" count="10"/>

	<option name="movementLimit"  value="allied:$All-Air$" count="20"/>
	<option name="attackingLimit" value="allied:$All-Air$" count="20"/>
	<option name="placementLimit" value="allied:$All-Air$" count="20"/>

[beelee]

Well one nice thing with "The Elk Mega Map"is there's plenty of room for superstacks

[TheDog]

@Black_Elk

"I feel like AA50s approach to China was like that"

All nations including China obey the same rules, but different have a different unit list, the xml calls them Frontiers. Also each unit on the map costing 1pu for maintenance helps reduce the over stacking.

The unit cap could be temporary we will have to see what the play testers think.

[TheDog]

Deleted.
.

[TheDog]

@thedog
Here is the latest Game Notes below.

The main differences with the last one is (see red)

• An attempt at reducing stacking of certain units
• Themed reinforcements
• Win conditions comprising Capitals, Oil Fields & Canals. (getting close to a beta release)
  .
  

[TheDog]

This map has lots of non standard ww2 units.
The most important units are the combat commands, your decision where they are used can turn a battle in your favour as they add +1 attack to five units.  Britain, Italy, Japan & USA have; 
HQ-Army x3
HQ-Fleet x2
HQ-Air    x1
However Germany has lots of HQ-Army and replaces HQ-Fleet for HQ-Submarine.  USSR only has HQ-Army x3.

Transport has isDestroyer so is capable of defending against submarines
Destroyer is 1/1/3, moves faster than a submarine
Cruiser is 2/2/3, is hopefully viable as a unit compared to Destroyer
Most Ships have an extra AA attack

Fighters base stat is 1/1/3 or 1/1/4 against all units but has an AA attack - use them for Air Superiority not ground attack.

.
Super Stacks
Currently to reduce super stacks and help the AI, it makes use of limiting unit Stacks.  The following are limited to 10 units per territory per unit type;

• Destroyers
• Submarines(includes Submarine, Submarine-Adv)
• Transport
• All Fighter(includes Fighter-Early, Fighter, Fighter-Jet, P51-Mustang)
• Bomber-Lgt (1 & 2 engined tactical support)
• Bomber (4 engined strategic bomber only used by Britain & USA)

There is also another Stacking layer of 20 units per territory per type for;

• All Air (a maximum of 20 air units)
• All Sea (a maximum of 20 sea units)
  Search the XML for "Go Stacks"

.
AI help & Victory Conditions
Use of "Capital" code to guide the AI.
The map has 20 Capital territories, these include;
7 Nation Capitals
11 Major Oil Fields
2 Canals - Panama and Suez Canals
The German attack in Russia does focus on Southern Russia, the Japanese attacks on Sumatra and Java do sometimes get distracted by mainland China.

[TheDog]

It is currently in Beta and needs testing, please note

• Use 2.5 as 2.6 crashes with "An unexpected error occurred!"
• Use Fast AI for faster gameplay or Hard AI for more considered game play
• Territory connections - need checking
• Territory terrain forests etc - need checking
• Balance - needs play testing
• Territory names & PU to be removed in the final version and are displayed for testing

See post 1 for download link and more details
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3326/1941-global-command-decision-official-thread

Your comments would be most welcome.

[TheDog]

Download 1st version.

It is currently in Beta and needs testing, please note

• Use 2.5 as 2.6 crashes with "An unexpected error occurred!"
• Use Fast AI for faster gameplay or Hard AI for more considered game play
• Territory connections - need checking
• Territory terrain forests etc - need checking
• Balance - needs play testing
• Territory names & PU to be removed in the final version and are displayed for testing

See post 1 for download link and more details
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3326/1941-global-command-decision

Your comments would be most welcome.

[Black_Elk]

Looking good! I launched it in 2.6 and threw off the error cause I got excited and didn't read lol. I'll redownload the stable to have a better look when I get a chance, but caught the quick glance. It's always fun to see a map come to life hehe

Nice work dude!

[beelee]

Are you playing just one player and everything else AI or all allied or axis players against AI ?

[TheDog]

@beelee
Testing has been all players as Fast AI or me as a single nation v Fast AI.

[beelee]

@thedog right arm I'll try and give it a go in a week or so. Looks like a lot of cool stuff to explore

[Black_Elk]

Ok so had a few hours earlier and played around a bit. Or I suppose I wouldn't call it playing per se, just kinda messing around with the UI mostly. I set all players to human, ( the default is AI, which threw me on the first launch hehe) just to see if I could figure out what was going on from the perspective of a pretty green player who mainly just plays A&A.

Step one was to check the notes, obviously, though I'll admit I had some difficulty with the font there. So I thought I'd just start with that haha.

To me it looks like the documentation font is computer pixel-7 or lazenby maybe? I can decipher the characters sure, but not without some effort and a bit of strain on the eyes lol. To me this font choice evokes computers and WarGames for sure (the1983 movie I mean, which I definitely enjoy, of course!) but to me that font is also properly green txt on a black screen background, like I'm booting DOS in the time warp hehe. When I see it black txt on plain white, I don't know, just doesn't hum the same way and doesn't quite carry for a WW2 theme.

For WW2 era compatible fonts my fav is probably Daily News Gothic for something general that looks it was ripped from the headlines in the 1940s. But I'm American, so that might color my preference lol. Like I can only go so gothic with it though.

Certainly the more stylized German typefaces of the period remain largely illegible for me, so anything too Fraktur would have to be like very sparingly used. Maybe for a title or a couple word phrase I could see it, but Daily News Gothic is just works a lot better I think, for something general like notes. Basically it looks like this...

Timeless, even into the late 60s! haha

Gill Sans or Windsor Elongated is alright too, for like an international bulletin or trans Atlantic cable type look, but not as good as Daily News Gothic for me. It's still easy to read, like Times New Roman, but whereas Time New Roman is too ubiquitous to really have a distinct vibe, Daily News Gothic still carries that sort of nostalgic news print or pulp headline sort of hauntological appeal, at least for meheheh.

I also like Kaufmann, for something more cursive, like a propaganda poster. Or maybe something like Futura Black or Basalt could be cool in some instances, but again those are kind like the Fraktur I think. Better used sparingly, short phrases or titles, for more decorative type text.

Anyhow, that was my initial thought. Just obsessing about fonts lol.

Then I figured out how to turn map details on (it's set to off by default) and just kinda gloried in how cool it is to see the map. So massive!!!

For the first impression in terms of G1, I didn't really understand what was going on with the initial phase, but figured it was probably to do with the uboats. Once I got into the combat move phase, things felt a bit more familiar. I didn't notice any kinks for the opening movements. Except that I found the distribution of starting forces hard to parse on the eastern front. It probably makes the AI faster to have all the stuff on the border TTs, but as a human player I think moving forces into position from the interior might help. Also for the first turn, it might be nice to have the players do some kind of purchase placement round or something that leads into round one proper, so they can get their bearings and also to provide a randomizer. Starting with a board that's more blank, with the player building out their positions, may help the player to feel less overwhelmed by the sheer number of units in play or to navigate the many territories and sz tiles on display.

For the combat phase proper, I had some difficulty parsing what was happening in terms of the unit interactions, just from going into it cold from A&A. Stuff is clarified somewhat in the unit help screen, but it might be helpful to suss that out in the main notes too, so players can orient themselves to stuff like how tanks will work and whatnot. Initial impression was just that I didn't really know how the units were pairing off against each other with the new features, so when the hits would roll it, was just sort of a blur, like hope for the best and see what happens lol.

Doubtless that impression will recede a bit as I come to understand the underlying dynamics more, but out the gate I'd say just having a basic familiarity with say v3 or v5, would be insufficient to dive right in on this one. Like there's just a lot of novel stuff going on. So the player would have to kinda prep and learn what's going on first I'd guess. For me whenever I play a new tripleA game, things tend to be a mystery until the purchase screen displays and I can see all the stuff side by side for the quick comparison. So it's almost like, in any A&A style game you really have to play through round 1 several times before the start position can click, and only then can start to puzzle out what to do with what's given at the outset. So still at the part over here. I'm trying to think of ways where the set up could sort of handhold the player, for stuff that's particularly different, but it took me till the end of the gameround to start getting my head around it. But then I just restarted and assigned control to the HardAI for everyone to see what would crack off. That's sorta where I'm at right now

Anyhow, fun stuff! It's cool just to see it breathe!

Not too shabby! Even doing the fit width thing for the map view, I could still make out the borders from the fuzz down to 9% so that's good! Like at least the sz lines didn't completely disappear at max zoom out, like sometimes happens with the standard world war II maps. Sweet!

Again, great work! I'll hop back in this week when I grab another night free. Catch ya in a few dude!