💥 1941 Global Command Decision - Official Thread

[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.
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[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.

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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"

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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!

[Black_Elk]

ps. Oh also, just thinking about ways to tutorialize that first round of gameplay, or perhaps to do a set up type round... Even though tripleA is pretty limited, cause we can't really do like a tutorial campaign mini-game or things you might see in other grand strategy fair, I thought an idea that might be interesting would be to use the round prompts like a tutor. So like instead of doing it all historical/thematic like in say Iron War, it might be done with a more nuts and bolts approach. Sorta like, "this is how this game is played" with stage set more like that. Instead of a little reel that says "Germany 1941" with a timeline spiel or whatever, it could be like "Germany: Round 1 Tutorial" with a little clip highlighting what's going on in the exact moment, like right there in the current phase where the player's at, to clue them in. And it could perhaps go like that for the entire first round, with the gameplay proper actually starting in round 2, when you'd get the Historical intro themed stuff to highlight the overarching narrative Dec 1941 or whatever. Perhaps it could skip past once you've done it, purely optional but geared towards a first outing? Or maybe just ding a zero round type thing where all nations make a buy first and get a quick primer with a unique opener round would work?

Done that way an initial purchase round, or a simplified movement/combat phase in a zero round, we could prime the player and get them invested in what's happening, but kinda staggered and deliberate. Sorta easing it in with that clear first step. The overall gameplay would be more variable that way, with variable unit starts, but that might not be a bad thing. To familiarize the player with stuff like unit caps, and just the placement mechanics, like how factories work it could be cool to have that come before the combat phase minutia. Purchase/Combat or Combat/Purchase, either way the player is going to be in the dark on one aspect while engaging with the other, and I do like Combat/Purchase more overall. But if done with a zero round type thing first-purchase or pre-purchase, where afterwards it goes to regular combat/purchase would probably do the trick. Basically building the bid into the game more or less, but with more variation, since it'd be much larger (more units placed basically). I know I said earlier that I dig combat move first for the overall play pace, but when the map is also new and other aspects of gameplay, an intital starting unit set up round could be cool. Sorta like being a kid an opening the box for the first time, where you can oggle the units right at the start, and try to come up with a basic warplan through that first purchase while getting grounded.

Anyhow, just another random thought kicking around. Once you actually see the game open, tooling around with everything seems so much more epic! However it ends up cooking. This one will be rad, for sure! I can tell

Aces!

pps. Oh also, for the Command icons, I think I should maybe try a transparency blend around the circumference of the circles for the little portrait icons. Instead of a border which didn't quite hold, maybe just doing a really tight opacity blend? Something to soften the edge slightly in the purchase screen display. For some reason I think tripleA does the upscaling for unit images differently in the purchase screen menu than it handles the same images on the general map display. Units never look as clean there for some reason, or in the unit help menu for some reason, though not really sure why. Seems like these would be the places for tripleA to do 1:1 for the graphics, if anywhere. I see the same phenomenon in pretty much all the tripleA games though, so not really sure how it works where the graphics.

Here's a really tight detail on the purchase window so you can see what I mean.
Here I have the unit display on the map set at 100% (so there's some overlap), but with the purchase window open at the same time for the side by side you get the gist. If you look at Rommel's little circular portrait, or the battleship on the map and compare to the purchase screen you can see it's got that pixilation or visual judder that makes it appear more choppy, like there's no blur, when the unit graphics are the separate window.

In the Unit help window the effect is more pronounced, with the image appearing extra compressed and pixel-y. You can tell at a glance just comparing the image quality of the Tanks from the map view to the unit help view. Not really sure why though. I think this same thing happens for all tripleA games right? Bizarre

[TheDog]

@black_elk
Thanks for the first impression feedback, very insightful.

I dont play A&A much, as can be seen from my TripleA map making, this is my first WW2 map, maybe a bit too ambitious, but with help ...

So this map does not do the conventional A&A style of play, this is good and bad, so I will let others judge.

The Game Notes font is Calibri 10 and is intended to be just that Game Notes, it is in Word, see here
C:\Users\%username%\triplea\downloadedMaps\1941_global_command_decision\map\doc\images\Orginals

This is copied into paint and saved as a png and saved here for TripleA to display;
C:\Users\%username%\triplea\downloadedMaps\1941_global_command_decision\map\doc\images

So change for your benefit.

The manual proper can be a pdf and maybe you or a volunteer could produce it.

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Uboat Notifications
Perhaps its best to set the following,
Game> User Notification

This will show where the Uboats have manged to escape to in the Atlantic.

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The turns sequence is;
Resources (PU from previous turn), Combat Moves, Non-Combat Moves, Repair Ships/Industries, Purchases then Placements.
This is not what TripleA ww2 players are used to, it favours the AI and to some degree the players who purchase units, then place what they have just bought and saves time and the grey cells.

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.

Yes its a trade off. Im hoping that after the initial shock of the size of it all the players will settle in to the game play.

.
A big change in play style is the use of TripleA AA mechanic not only for ground AA, but also for Fighters shooting other aircraft down and Anti-Tank guns firing at armour.
It is a shame that the TripleA Unit Help panel does not display the unit types the effect is against. But see the actual unit tool tip with text beginning with a "-" like - Good v Armor & Motorized Infantry

A Fighter 1/1/4 has two attacks,
1st one using the TripleA AA, so 2in6 verse other Air units and
2nd Attack 1in6 verses anything else like ground units.

The Anti Tank gun is similar 1/1/1 has two attacks
1st one using the TripleA AA, so 2in6 in Defence and 1in6 in Attack verses Armour & Motorized Infantry and
2nd Attack 1in6 verses anything else like ground units.

I will read your ps & pps later.

[beelee]

Right Arm ! Map is Freakin Huge !!! LOL Cool AF