💥 1941 Global Command Decision - Official Thread

[JohnnyCat]

@thedog COOL - THANKS FOR THAT. I do now recall seeing that "when Germany is invaded" statement but I cannot recall where I saw it.

I'll have some followups on the oil thing but GOOD NIGHT to you Sir Doggie...lol

[wc_sumpton]

@johnnycat

Armor can transport infantry, when you select the armor and infantry together it is assumed that the armor is carrying the infantry, thus they move together 2 spaces. When selecting infantry alone it may only move 1 space. Even if the armor "traveled" along the same route, by selecting the infantry by itself, it is being move unaided. As to armor-inf, it is designated as a heavy tank, with weak engines, thus can only move 1 space.

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

I am seeking all the information I can get on this Escort/Bomb and Attack options.

Depends on targets and gameplan. Are you trying to destroy bunkers with bombers then use Escort/Bomb, because bombers cannot attack bunkers. Are you trying to capture an industry, then use attack so you don't damage the industry.

No tac-bombers cannot escort, nor can they scramble.

Most of the time the AI will retreat from an air battle prior to it beginning. Also, most air battles will be between fighters, and if it does happen, can go very quickly because causalities will be just fighter so there is no need to select, so the battle happens quickly. @Black_Elk had this same problem.

[JohnnyCat]

FINAL QUESTIONs FOR TODAY - and an important question at the end to see what you guys want and, specifically, if you like my idea of implementing a new in-game summary manual ASAP...

=================== Q1 =====================

Attached is a game I just started. I call your attention to the British Turn 1 invasion of Normandy. 9 Bombers and 4 fighters and 1 trans with an Army HQ unit (cool) and 2 Inf-Trained invade Normany which Germany defends with 2 Bunkers, 4 Fighters, 1 HQ-Air, 1 Industry-Lgt and 2 Inf-Traineds

As I have said many times earlier I have found the choice of "SCRAMBLE YOUR AIR UNITS TO THEIR CERTAIN DEATH AND IN NO WAY INFLUENCE THE BATTLE" to ALWAYS be best when answered with NO.

In the attached file you can see that the first time I sent 4 fighters and the Nazi Luftwaffe Superhero, TO INTERCEPT THE FLEET which resulted in nothing to stop the invasion. They damaged the BB but that is all. And this is expected.

If I choose to NOT intercept the boats, however, I am given the option to intercept at Normandy. So I selected that and sent in my 4 amazing fighters, all flown by Aces from Richthofen's School of Great Fighter Pilots, as well as the German SuperHero, Van Clauswitz von SuperFlighter.

THE FOLLOWING MUST BE A BUG:

But this time I was ALSO IMMEDIATELY ASKED to Intercept AGAIN - this is very confusing.

So I said NO and I received the best result possible: the Brit air units: 6 Bombers and 3 Fighters win but the territory stays in the hands of the defender.

IN ANY CASE, the notion that 4 fighters ON DEFENSE (which should be an advantage I would think) and an Air HQ unit should have some impact but having run this many times the Germans are lucky to take out 2 or 3 British Air units. This does not feel correct to me but I really don't know. I just wanted to call attention to this so that I can better understand what are reasonable results and/or if there may be some tuning needed here.

I assume that the land battle for Normandy happens NEXT with any surviving British air units pitching in. Is this correct?

And the fact that the land battle is not affected by the air battle is logical because in all cases the Brits end up with air superiority there.

SUMMARY Q1: I JUST FEEL LIKE THESE INTERCEPTIONS NEVER DO ANYTHING AND I WONDER IF THIS NEEDS TUNING. Maybe the defenders should ALL GET A +1 because they appear to need it.

=================== Q2 =====================
I should ask the following in a separate forum but I don't want to forget so...

I rarely notice any sort of in game announcement simply because I would have to work hard to actually see such announcements in this game - and I am too lazy for that.

But now that I am writing a manual I have to pay attention so please inform me about what is going on here but ALSO what else along these lines I should know about::

AFTER TURN 1, I saw the Allies had won the game via some sort of economic victory condition. Is this correct?

In looking into the game history notes for that victory condition thing I then noticed the following :

"Trigger rolling is a failure (Rolled at 1 out of 3 Result: 3 for Trigger Germany Research Armory-Hvy Chance"

Is there some sort of table of these things and the odds? I assume that this is planned and might go something like: "Germans Get Hvy Armor on Turn 6 or whatever, but Turns 2-5 have an X-percent chance of them getting it earlier."

It would be most beneficial to me to get a complete set of notes/docs on this type of activity. I saw some of this info BY GOING BACK TO THE SELECT GAME MENU but what's there appears way incomplete.

I am referring to the window that shows the following at the top:
The only text is in the beginning :

"Version 1.175 For the latest download and discussion, copy and paste the link below https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3326/1941-global-command-decision For tips to improve game speed of bigger maps like 1941 Global Command Descision, 270bc Wars, Gundam, Shogun, Shogun Advanced, Warcraft War Heroes https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3133/get-ready-for-our-new-game-the-shogun-coming-soon"

I will call this the SELECT GAME USER MANUAL.

Under the Italy section under the Technology Row, the text says, "Turn 1, Italy can Blitzkrieg, the close interaction of Fighters, Bombers, Armor and Infantry."

Ah, that doesn't even sound like good English. Is that some sort of abbreviation? WHAT IS BLITZKRIEG??? I have asked that question a few times now and still don't feel that I know.

In any case there is much information for our upcoming new manual from this SELECT GAME option under the TripleA window.

I notice that the content here is ALL PICTURES and not text. Was this done to discourage people copying?

After the beginning text which I included above, only images of text on a white background follow. Because of this I cannot search the text. And this is unnerving !!!

So I would love to get the text for this.

SUMMARY Q2

IS THERE AN EASY WAY TO DISPLAY SOMETHING NEW IN GAME?

One of the first things I will want to do before finishing an actual manual is to get some sort of USEFUL but CONCISE in-game manual summary to pop up. WOULD YOU GUYS LIKE TO SEE THAT?

IN ADDITION to the request to show an in-game manual, could I also add various popup windows and such to help further the player's understanding and education?

THANKS AGAIN FOR LETTING ME DO THIS - of course we've yet to see any results but its awesome to me to feel that such a manual would be appreciated ...

Cheers

[JohnnyCat]

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

because bombers cannot attack bunkers.

ARE YOU F KIDDING ME?

That means that myself and friends have been "bombing" things that were completely unaffected by the bombers... FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR, LOL. hahahaha

So please restate this so that it is clear because now I am testing this and just getting confused by the results since I CAN bomb bunkers...
????????

[wc_sumpton]

@johnnycat

You miss quoted me sir... What I said was:

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

Are you trying to destroy bunkers with bombers then use Escort/Bomb, because bombers cannot attack bunkers.

Escort/Bomb vs Attack vs Bunkers = Escort/Bomb, because if you choose to Attack vs Bunkers Bombers cannot hit them. Go ahead and bomb away. Bomb! Bomb!! BOMB!! but don't attack.

Cheers...

[beelee]

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

@johnnycat
You miss quoted me sir.

[wc_sumpton]

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

Attached is a game I just started

I think you forgot this, because I can't find it.

Cheers...

P.S. And yes bomb those bunkers!! Bomb! Bomb!! BOMB!!

[TheDog]

@JohnnyCat
#1 You said noticed that Bunkers and Base-Camps cannot be placed in a marsh tile
Placement is not limited by Terrain, but by PU value.
You are referring to the Prypriat TT (TT is the short form of territory) it has 0PU and therefore Bunkers and Base-Camps cannot be placed in a 0PU TT, because Bunkers and Base-Camp require a 1PU TT (as the Tool Tip displays for both)

Other Marsh TT have different PU values, so Bunkers and Base-Camps can be built, eg. Cambodia

.
Q2 Block of questions

Original Documents
As mentioned in this post below is the windows path to the original documents that you can copy and paste from. (scroll up a little)
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3326/1941-global-command-decision-official-thread/828?page=42

I will repeat it here again.
On a windows PC here (just paste the link below into Windows Explorer)
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\triplea\downloadedMaps\1941_global_command_decision\map\doc\images\Originals

.
Blitzkrieg
If you dont know what this is, google it.

In TripleA terms it is in the manual p11, repeated below, its the +1 to Atk when paired units attack for those nations listed.

.
Allies achieve economic victory
This is a gamp/map option that I will remove in the next version and the PU values displayed on the right for axis and allies are not meaningful to the player

.
Trigger rolling is a failure
Probabilities for success or failure, the player does not need to know, its random should be good enough. For those players who must know then they should read/understand the xml code to get that answer.
But to answer your question, about 25-33% chance of success, there are lots of buts and exceptions.

.
IS THERE AN EASY WAY TO DISPLAY SOMETHING NEW IN GAME?
Depends, there are;

• Tool Tips for units,
• Status Bat for TT(territories)
• Pop-ups in game that the player must acknowledge

.
IN ADDITION to the request to show an in-game manual
Selecting Help> Game Notes
In TripleA terms the above is the only way to display an in-game manual, its either graphics/picture (as now) or html
So a pdf is probably the best option for you.

.
could I also add various popup windows and such to help further the player's understanding and education?
You could by writing xml popups with triggers.
I am unwilling to do this component, as this requires a lot of time and effort and I could be doing something more productive.

Besides the current help is just enough to start playing and enjoying.

On a plus
A proper manual is ideal and better than my terse notes manual.

Thinking more about it your manual, as a pdf, would replace my current pdf and I can link to its location on Select a game panel.

[Black_Elk]

Helpful info! Nice work

I think perhaps some confusion there because of how the term "Blitz" is used in other A&A games. There a "Blitz" is when a unit can take or pass through an unoccupied enemy territory in order to attack an adjacent one at the M2 distance, during the Combat Move phase. In pretty much all versions of A&A this is an ability exclusive to Tanks, but in G40 Mech can also Blitz under some conditions. Basically it's a combat movement ability, allowing those units to move at max distance (usually M2) into the Combat. The thing described in the table above would probably be called "Combined Arms" in the A&A lingo. That's a v2-G40 deal where certain units provide a bonus in power to other units when paired. Main example there being the artillery unit when paired with infantry introduced in Revised, but also Tactical Bombers working together with Tanks and such in Global. Sometimes the wording in tripleA will be different depending on the scenario I suppose but I just mean like the standard World_War_II.

[Panther]

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

I think perhaps some confusion there because of how the term "Blitz" is used in other A&A games. There a "Blitz" is when a unit can take or pass through an unoccupied enemy territory in order to attack an adjacent one at the M2 distance, during the Combat Move phase.

Just a small correction: A blitz move is defined as "moving through an unoccupied hostile territory as the first part of a move that can end in a friendly or hostile territory. "

[Black_Elk]

@panther

Good call!

Yeah, a very common example would be where a Tank 'Blitzes' to take an adjacent territory then returns to their starting position during the combat move phase. This is advantageous because in standard A&A the collect Income phase comes towards the end of the phase order sequence, so the idea there is to take a territory for the cash, but without having to risk any TUV to hold it vs counter attack. Here collect income comes first so it's not really as relevant for the player's cash, but still useful to disrupt the opponent's or their movement or placement options. Probably main example here would be to clear an enemy's factory territory of combat units, so that a teammate's tank can then capture or destroy the factory on their next turn up. Factory Rail allows most ground units to make these sorts of moves in GCD 1941, but I'd probably still think of the Blitz as something for mobile ground units mostly.

There is another common expression "Air Blitz" but that's not from any manual. For that turn of phrase I usually take it to mean 'attacking a Territory with mass Aircraft in order to clear it of enemy ground units', which then allows a teammate to Blitz to/through on their next turn. Or a similar move to take an enemy Capital or VC, where a single ground unit must survive to capture the TT. So for example attacking Berlin with a bunch of fighters and bombers, but maybe taking the casualties on the aircraft before the last ground unit if necessary, or to set up a multi-nation attack, to take the win for the team. Anyhow, just semantic terminology stuff I suppose, though I can imagine potential hang ups since it sounds similar.

[JohnnyCat]

Hey GCD wunderkind! Apologies for being away from building the Guide/Manual the past couple weeks but other priorities came up.

Back at it now so here are some questions:

1. I am seeing the need for a traditional well documented user manual/Game Guide that would be many pages and include many graphics. But I also see the need for a more concise guide.

How does this sound to you guys and are you interested in me putting together some sort of concise in-game Guide/Manual that can be accessed easily and provide more of a concise view of the instructions/Manual? Or should this be just one new long details manual?

2. I continue to be stumped by some of the game's behavior and need to clarify some of the mechanics such as why Germany and Italy can invade Spain, but the Allies cannot invade ANY of the neutrals anywhere after turn 3 or 4.

3. And Air Battles are very confusing to me as well. In particular, the game does not seem able to handle air units being "caught on the ground". As seen in the graphic, the Chinese got the drop on some poor game play by the Japanese but instead of wiping out the air units, which is what I would expect, they are instead invulnerable from damage and get to fly away. It would be helpful to know the air battle policy or sequence.

4. Thanks for all the previous comments - I understand Blitzkrieg well enough now, but in addition to noting that tanks can carry one other unit each up to 2 tiles, I still do not understand why tanks can SOMETIMEs blitz through a tile to invade a tile 2 away, but other times their movement is stopped at one tile. I assume this is related to terrain but having to decode this has proven elusive so if there is some rule in place that describes this please share it.

THANK YOU all for the help. If you want the concise guide ASAP, I think I can get a PDF file draft done within September and then I can share that and get your comments. Assuming that is a wanted thing, then I guess you guys would figure out where to put it but I am thinking it would be under the tabs: RESOURCES, TERRITORY, PLAYERS, ACTIONS.

[wc_sumpton]

@johnnycat

I will leave 1) manual and 2) neutrals to someone else as this deals with a specific game design rule.

To understand about air battles, maybe a better understanding about the relationships between each type of unit, and how the engine handles battles.

Air Battles only consist of air units and happen prior to the main land/sea battle. GCD defaults to a 3 round air battle with the defender being given the chance to retreat prior to anything happens. (The defensive AI does this a lot, which makes it feel like nothing happens, which is quite true.) If the defensive player "scrambled" in, those air units may not participate in the upcoming main battle. Air units that were present at the start will be able to fight.

The main battle is broken down into different phases/steps, and attacker always goes first.

1. AA fire (fighter 3/6 vs air, armor/elite/trained 1/12 vs air, conscripts N/A)
2. Combat (fighter 1/5 vs non-air/non-infantry units, armor/elite/trained/conscripts 2-1/6 vs non-air)
3. repeat

During the AA step is the only time Air units can be attacked. The game engine tries to handle many things, like if there is only one type of unit (fighters) and casualties need to be taken, the engine will take from that pool of units without asking.

So, this might be why you are having problems with "air battles". What you might be seeing are not "air battles" but regular combat in different steps.

Cheers...

[TheDog]

@johnnycat
The current terse set of notes, is just enough to get by if you know TripleA well.

If you are willing to do the

1. Concise version
2. Detailed version (this will contain the Concise version)

Then please do what you are willing and I add it to the download.
The concise will be used to replace the current version, so in png format. So this will be where the current version is Help> Game Notes
The detailed version will be a stand a lone pdf version.

.
Politic Relationships
So back on page 39, I posted this
Here is a first draft of the Politic Relationships.

It is complicated, but so was the politics of WW2.
Your question #2
I continue to be stumped by some of the game's behavior and need to clarify some of the mechanics such as why Germany and Italy can invade Spain, but the Allies cannot invade ANY of the neutrals anywhere after turn 3 or 4.

The simple answer is, its a design choice by me. Also tempered by what the TripleA engine can do, like;
USA needs to be in a certain relationship state to absorb allies on rounds 1-3. I could of tried to hide this fact, but for those that can read the xml and there is usually notes says what I & WC Sumpton code does, so why bother.

One reason why the allies cannot invade neutrals, is for history sake, because they usually did not, yes I know Britain invaded Iceland and then the USA took it over. But the allies were having a hard time fighting axis why would they start yet another war with a neutral.

Also the allies AI needs to focus on the axis otherwise it will literally lose focus.

I have only played the A&A boardgame 3 times many years ago, but Im guessing from your questions you want it to be almost a free for all where every neutral can be invaded by any nation.

1941 GCD is trying to be a simulation of the period, with some of the constraints that the WW2 powers had.

#4 I still do not understand why tanks can SOMETIMEs blitz through a tile to invade a tile 2 away
Yes the difficultly is related to Move 2, Blitz, Railways move 3 and terrain effects and their interaction with each other, individually the components work, but all together, I have not tried to work it out.

[JohnnyCat]

@wc_sumpton OK that is good to know, there are phases to air combat. And clearly the air battles get resolved before the land combat.

Follow ups:

1.What happens to scrambled air units that survive? Where do they go?

2. What does it mean for a bunch of armor units to attack a tile that ONLY has planes?

3. What are the fractions ? "fighter 3/6"? meaning? I sort of feel this is like a dice roll? so 1, 2, 3 on a 6-sided die means a hit? What does a hit mean? Does it kill or wound?

4. Same with what you wrote on number 2: "Combat (fighter 1/5 vs non-air/non-infantry units, armor/elite/trained/conscripts 2-1/6 vs non-air)". What are these fractions ?

5. Finally, what happens (in detail) if a bunch of planes of EVERY type "attack" a tile with units in them including bunkers?

6. And what happens when the planes "bomb/escort" a tile with units in them including bunkers?

Cheers

[JohnnyCat]

@thedog OK. This is awesome and I fully expected your answers but had to double check. And YES, I did not even realize that I was expecting a free-for-all, lol... So I think it might be best to add some of your text on the matter to the new manual regarding GCD trying to factor in some historic perspective. Otherwise folks might just sort of assume things like I was doing :). Many of us do indeed come from the boardgame background I would guess.

Well I think I can proceed now with trying my best to make both the concise/terse and comprehensive manuals now.

The only other questions I really have are more about the heuristics themselves and why the AI does bizarre things such as: attacking a stack at 1 to 10 odds when not attacking would be the long term better move. Or why the US will hover massive hoards of invaders in the atlantic... only to leave them there and not really assist England's invasions on the continent.

THX

[TheDog]

@johnnycat
The AI does bizarre things, because it is a general purpose AI designed to mimic the A&A boardgames with their low unit count and their rules, it is probably over 10 years old.

The Hard AI does a better a better job at attacking but will still leave reinforcements off Europe.

That said the AI is still viable and will give the gamer a good beating every now and then, whether it is fantasy, historic or Sci-Fi.

[wc_sumpton]

@JohnnyCat

Good morning! Nice set of questions!

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

1.What happens to scrambled air units that survive? Where do they go?

Scrambled air units which survive, not retreat, an air battle are allowed to participate in the land/sea battle. Scrambled air units which survive/retreat the land/sea battle, or that were retreated during the air battle, will be returned automatically to their original territory, unless that territory was captured by an opponent. These air unit will be allowed to move one space to an appropriate landing territory. If no such territory exists, there will be destroyed.

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

What does it mean for a bunch of armor units to attack a tile that ONLY has planes?

Armor can only attack during the AA phase at 1/12. The planes defend only during normal combat at 1/6.

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

What are the fractions ? "fighter 3/6"? meaning? I sort of feel this is like a dice roll? so 1, 2, 3 on a 6-sided die means a hit? What does a hit mean? Does it kill or wound?

Yes, fractions mean to-hit/dice. Most unit can only suffer 1 hit, but there are some units, like bunkers, that can absorb more the one hit prior to their removal.

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

Finally, what happens (in detail) if a bunch of planes of EVERY type "attack" a tile with units in them including bunkers?

During the AA step, ground units (accept conscripts) defend against the air units (accept nuclear-bombers and V-2 rockets) at 1/12 and defending air units at 1/6. Attack air units can attack only air units at 1/6.
During the combat step the bomber and bomber-tec can attack all ground units at 1-2/6. (This means bomber at 1 bomber-tec at 2.) The nuclear-bomber at 6/6(10). (This means to-hit/dice (number of dice)). V1 and V2 rockets can only hit factories at 1/6, but factories are infrastructure and cannot be targeted. Fighter attack ground units (accept infantry) at 1/6. Defending ground units cannot hit air units during this step.
Rinse and repeat.

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

And what happens when the planes "bomb/escort" a tile with units in them including bunkers?

Once they have completed the SBR step all "bomb/escort" units will be allowed to retreat during the non-combat movement.

Cheers...

[JohnnyCat]

Please help me to understand how to best take this territory.

I have tried using the planes for bombing... disaster

I have tried attacking... disaster.

I keep getting stuck against a wall with this game despite having played it hundreds of times now. and beating it regularly.

But battles like this make absolutely no sense to me.

So please explain how you would take this territory and why my 10 to 1 odds still results in complete wipeouts of the attacking force.

Thanks

[TheDog]

@johnnycat
I assume you are talking about Anhwei?
If so, then you are are attacking a defended forest with Inf-Trained & Bunkers, they defend at 3
Most of your attacks are at 1
Even the Battle Calculator says dont do it.

.

.
You over committed your forces to take Hong Kong, your HQ-Army and more Infantry and Artillery should be fighting in Anhwei. The Chinese will counter attack so you need forces to defend for the following turn.

The forces that were in Shanghai should be used for attacking inland, that is taking Anhwei. Currently they are literally at sea, so for this turn not effective.

Remember Japan/China do not have the Blitzkrieg tactical advantage of Germany.
They do have Inf-Elite so make lots of sea borne attacks with support from Battleships & Cruisers.