💥 1941 Global Command Decision - Official Thread
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@TheDog DL'd the new one. What a Monstrosity this is
Good Job. That's a ton of work !Sadly my small cranium is unable to process it all.
Lol AI just started attacking ha ha ha Better pause it
Anyway, i've always struggled with the Larger maps. TWW and Iron War. Oil and Snow, although I think that just needs some more detailed Notes.
The upkeep just blows my mind apart, so i basically ignore it and just go for it lol. The spawning Subs is cool. Reminds me of how I did Vichy Ships in oztea's 1939. Although that only happens once.
And the AA shot Designated Targets are cool too. Have used them before too and I like them but it is too bad they auto Kill and can't shoot back. It'd be nice to have the option. Not saying anything specifically here but just as a triplea thing.
You might consider introducing things as Phases/Levels via Map Options so as to not have it to overwhelming at first. Probably mess with Balance, but that's and ongoing process anyway
I know there are some who play the larger maps. wirkey and redrum both played TWW a lot. It will appeal to some new people as well. I know when i first found triplea, I checked out almost all the maps lol Of course about 4 times as many maps now
So Nice Work and I'll still mess around with it a bit, but unfortunately, I won't be much help as a tester, as I'm pretty much an Intermediate A&A player at best.
Keep Kickin Ass and
Rock On Brother
Oh yea I had trouble reading the Game Notes also. It seems kinda blurry to me. And you can't boost the font size for notes, just the map, as it's hardwired into the xml.
I boosted to 22 and that made it easier to read. of course I'm an Old F too so ...
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@TheDog just remembered something else. Short term memory loss is only a myth. Yea right lol
Ok, so even though it's Mega Map, there still is some overflow on E Front. Hepps offered to show me how to change the directions for that years ago, but i stupidly didn't take him up on it.
It's done by Territory. So, could go west with Germans on E Front and east on W Front. SZs probably Big enough it doesn't matter but go West with the Brits and Yanks off W Europe.
If you know how to do it that is
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@Captain-Crunch
Yes Command Decision will be available for download when the changes slow down, Beelee caught a Linux one, missing images, that were wrongly named.When ready for TripleA download it will be stable with better balance, maybe in a couple of months.
Also available for download are;
Arena of Death
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3264/arena-of-death-official-threadMiddle Earth (in the map Download list) a rebalance map by me called;
Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring (in the Select Map Games list)
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/2919/lord-of-the-rings-war-of-the-ring-official-threadAs already mentioned by Black_Elk
The Shogun but only for 2.6
The Shogun Advanced but only for 2.6 -
@beelee
upkeep just blows my mind
Yes don't even try to calculate your ending/spending pu
PUs =
Land + SZ + Industry (3,5,7 for Hvy) + Oil Fields + conquered TT from last/previous turns - All units on the map, except Bunker/Garrisons, they cost 0pu to upkeep/maintain.
You might consider introducing things as Phases/Levels via Map Options
How do I do that?For now, to ease you into the game, untick all nations except Japan & China, fight the mainland war, try not to use the Formosia Inf-Elite/Marines
I'm pretty much an Intermediate A&A player at best.
I too am an Intermediate TripleA player, I dont analyze game moves in too much detail..
Game Notes are a png, but the source is here as a docx
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\triplea\downloadedMaps\1941_global_command_decision\map\doc\images\Orginals
For Windows users
so you will have to work it out..
Overflow
Yes lots of overflow in eastern europe, the map is too small
I hated doing it but the unit icons are at .875 and not 1, otherwise it would have been even worse.
Actually the TripleA map tools are at their limit on my screen 1920x1080, I will need a 4K screen to make a bigger map.
Yes I can make it flow left & right, did it for the The Shogun.
Reducing overflow is a boring phase 2 task, for The Shogun I did a spreadsheet that wrote out gridded cells for the place.txt file, but this only works for regular shaped TT & SZ.
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Keep giving feedback, it all helps make the game better
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Here's my second match on G2...
I was going to switch for Allies but wanted to try Axis again first. I whiffed at Pearl but did a lot better vs the Soviets hehe.
I think to hold the line Italy has to try to take Gibraltar somehow this turn. So that's what I was going to attempt.
ps. G3 of the same...
I was just barely able to pull off the Gibraltar attack with Italy. I find it hard to tell how many units I'll need in order to take a TT that has bunkers on it. Like I figure I need more than double the hitpoints which is 4 right? But it always feels like murder hehe. Anyway, the attack stalemated, but then we got lucky on defense. It seemed to me like the only viable play, cause USA entering the med, once it happened I don't know how I'd dislodge them hehe. Not sure if they will be able to hold it. You can see quite a few Allied fighters flying around in the neutral TTs, I fear the rock may not hold out for long lol.
With Japan I just ignored Philippines entirely. I think without production it's not quite a credible threat to Japan, but it's also prickly and pretty well defended, and I didn't want to waste any hitpoints on it, so instead I sailed past Philippines and did a pincer move against the Chinese instead. By transporting a bunch of units to Burma while the main IJA stack headed to Wuhan I figured I could break Chunking on J4. Trying to squeeze them from both sides basically. Not sure if it'll work, but that's the idea.
Anyway, here on the non com phase, I'm not able to land any aircraft at Gibraltar, or pass through the straight with my uboats, even though it appears to be controlled by Italy. The stalemate thing makes it hard to tell, because if control of the TT is contested I'm not sure how to tell who owns it or from when. I figured with the Italian flag displaying and no opposing units in the tile, that Axis held the strait, but the uboats appear to be locked out. On the other side of the Med the Soviets have been shamelessly violating Turkish neutrality by sending their fleet first to Marmara and then into the Eastern Med to join the Brits off Suez heheh. So something might be up with that one
Regarding the Philippines, I can see two ways to make the target more attractive, first would be to add US starting production there, because then leaving it alone would be more dangerous for Japan (USA might stack up and reinforce the tiles) Or to have exposed aircraft that might otherwise fly off to prop up a key enemy defensive position if not destroyed immediately. Basically Japan wanting to kill what it can before that stuff has a chance to build up or move away and escape. But if the cost to clear the spot is high in fallen Japanese soldiers, and the TT value is comparatively low (vs the replacement cost of the dead units) and if the spot isn't posing an immediate threat, then it seemed just better to bypass. The China moves I made I'm not so sure about, because attacking China doesn't weaken the Allied team in the same way that chipping away at UK or USA would (since China can't project into other theaters, beating them up doesn't help G) but China is also pretty rich, and the only faction that can immediately cause Japan headaches by just charging towards them at the coast. So I figure to mop Chunking first, then quickly wheel into India, while the second wave of transports takes out the Dutch territory that's unoccupied. Bunkers are a major consideration here, since they up the attrition quite a bit. The attrition rate for the attacker feels pretty high in general but bunkers make it more pronounced. Same situation sans bunkers I might think Philippines is the more attractive haul there, but with x2 bunkers it seemed too high risk when other stuff was also a priority. Esp since I can do deal with Philippines next round and not much is likely to have changed in the interim. So that's the Japan plan I think.
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@black_elk
If you did not realize your Inf-Elite are special, they are Paratroopers/Marines/Special Forces all rolled into one unit.- attack at 2, even when attacking ship to shore, other infantry are at -1
- Their transport cost is only 1, so 5 to a ship, 2 to an air transport
- You can only have 9 of them.
So for Japan keep them for transport borne attacks
Post coming about neutrals, but it will take awhile.
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Ah interesting. I did notice that I was able to transport more units sometimes but wasn't sure exactly why. In that case I may have not made the best use of them. Since I sent them for an end around, and now they're running through the jungle in the middle of China lol
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@black_elk
Well they will do a very good job of that -
@Black_Elk
Just in case you did not know, Balikpapan-S.Borneo generates 2pu has 3x Oil Fields, generates 3pu and is a Victory location so one of your 15.Medan-W.Sumatra is even more valuable 3pu, 2x Oil Fields 2pu and a Industry-Lgt and is a Victory location. (Its hidden) (Should the Industry be here?)
Where shall I relocate the Victory symbols, top left, bottom right of a TT or ...?
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Can the smaller factory be placed on TTs at value 2? Or maybe raise a few of the spots to 3 if that's the threshold. If so, I'd drop a few as anchors to lock the players into a contest over control of them. One for Manila, one or two for the rich Dutch islands, one for New Guinea or Rabaul, then Japan has to kind sweat which side of the triangle to try and tip hehe. I like that Anzac has one in Sumatra. I noticed in my game they didn't really build ships though. Maybe a few more small factories could jumpstart their logistics. Or a starting naval force with a transport to kinda build something around. I still haven't tried Allies yet, but I was about to give it a shot. German turn takes a while to start, or maybe tripleA just locked up on me.
For VCs not sure, maybe top left I suppose works.
ps. Took a while for the computer to make it's moves, but this was their G1 opener. So our situation on R1 first time out as Allies... Germans swept the Soviet line pretty much the whole distance and went after the Canadian transports their uboats.
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@black_elk
Industry-Lgt needs 3pu.
Industry-Lgt can only produce Inf-Conscript, Inf-Trained, Inf-Motorized, Armor-Lgt, Artillery-Med, Bunker, so no ships or air.I deliberated on how I wanted the Industries to scale.
For reference 5pu is needed for Industry-Med in addition it can produce Destroyer, Transport, Fighter-EarlyFor now Im going with Industry-Lgt in
Manila-Luzon
Port Moresby-PapuaVictory symbols top left it is.
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Ok that's what I thought, cause I remembered you mentioned the Tunisia thing.
I think building lily pad production is fun, but I can see why you'd want to cap the major industry to the major industrial spots. Still I think those +3 locations would be good to have at a few waypoints, so that whichever is side is pushing has a way to kinda consolidate their gains and stretch their logistics to keep the ball rolling.
I think Normandy might be a good one for Allied toeholds, like after D Day, and Holland. Morocco and Algeria might be a good for Western Med, or Syria and Greece in the Eastern Med could open up that area a bit to the mini base contest. So there's some +3s to springboard about for either side Axis or Allies.
In the Pac the ones you mentioned sound pretty good to me. I like the dynamic, cause it's sorta like pick 1 or maybe pick 2, but then the other guy can maybe sneak in to do a wedge. Or just another pressure point, to puzzle out, like whether to press for island wealth or just barrel into China hehehe.
Being restricted to building only the more basic unit types makes sense, since they're kinda like mobilization points or bases, the light factories. I just always enjoy it when a map has those little springboard spots. In A&A usually only Japan ever gets to play around with expanding the production, maybe sometimes US/UK, but I think for any power it's fun to grab a little stronghold and try to develop it into a more fearsome fighting force heheh. Pocket play
Anyhow, all sounds good. I managed out of my R1 and China, was trying to think on UK. I wanted to Dunkirk it at first, but the bunkers gave me pause hehe. I haven't finished it yet. Probably will continue tomorrow after I crash for a few.
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@black_elk
Your suggested Normandy, has made me think why stop there, the Allies invasion considered attacking most of the Atlantic Wall defences, (except Netherlands, too many Dykes/water ways), so increase them to 3pu (gives more to Germany, while they hold them)The others I will look into them, but good calls.
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Diplomacy
In game, USSR & Japan have a non aggression pact and will not attack each other. Not coded but my idea was to trigger a declaration of war when USSR occupy Poland. As we both dont want a Political phase it can be done by Triggers or as it so endgame why bother, Im not sure ?.
Neutrals
Current game has one Neutral type the world over, with this version all the;- Axis can Invade/attack (even Switzerland, could put more Infantry there ?)
- Allies(USA, Britain, USSR, China, Pacific-Allies), will not Invade/attack them but will move through them, land aircraft etc.
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WW2 had lots of facets of being a Neutral country;- True Neutral - both Axis & Allies would never invade, like Switzerland
- Pro Axis Neutral - like Vichy Southern France
- Pro Allied Neutral - like some other Vichy countries
Frostions Iron War has something very similar to the above setup.
So what shall we have for Command Decision ?
Simple is best ? -
Sounds good to me! This has been my kick in A&A for years heheh. Even though it's possible to play effectively with very long logistics lines if you plan several turns in advance, and even if buying a new frontline factory somewhere doesn't really change the underlying dynamics with that (you'll still need to plan ahead and shuck from the core regardless in order to play well), I still think it helps a lot. It gives the player clear goals with clear payoffs, and presents them with thematic TT targets to go after. I think having spots like that is just good for the gameplay, since it's accelerates the pace, and rewards the player for doing what they want to do anyway, which is to shorten the lines and push their fronts.
For Neutrals, my strong preference is the standard TripleA attackable neutral with standing armies and low PU values as a deterrent. In the older TripleA games these would be shown as having a salmon/orange hue to distinguish them from the beige 'impassible' TTs of Revised.
There have been numerous attempts in A&A to conceive of Neutral TTs in various ways since Classic. Global probably has the most complex, settling on Pro Axis Neutral, Pro Allied Neutral and True Neutral, as well as the Dutch and Mongolians which have their own stuff going on. To me that's just more moving parts than are really necessary and I much prefer a scheme where the player only has to deal with 1 kind of Neutral, and of those the attackable Neutral seems the simplest.
Frostion opted for 3 kinds of Neutral, even though I suggested many times to ditch that as unnecessarily complex heheh. The main problem with allowing movement through Neutrals, is that you invariably encourage the player to start knocking them off in order to disrupt the opponent's movement. Or you'll have situations where the enemy can just camp out stacking units in places where they can't be reached (the Brit fighters in this case).
To my way of thinking, having Spain or Turkey, or Sweden or Switzerland routinely dragged into the fight, is even less plausible than the idea of war breaking out between Japan and the USSR before the ink dries on their non-aggression pact hehe.
The Spanish landing pad in Classic is a somewhat notorious example of what happens otherwise. In the Classic game any neutral could be occupied for a cost of just 3 bucks! lol
I don't like the pay-to-play on Neutral ground dynamic though. I think if you want to discourage players from attacking the Attackable Neutral TTs, the cost of doing so has to be pretty high. Meaning a low or no value tile, where the standing Neutral army can reliably put up some hits. So an indirect cost, in unit attrition, rather than a direct cost in PUs to invade. If the tile is particularly attractive for the movement logistics, like say Turkey controlling the straits into the Black Sea, this recommends an even larger standing army or defensive force to give the player pause before going on a Neutral crush.
I would distinguish between Neutrals that become Belligerents during the later course of the war, and Neutrals who remained neutral throughout. So for example, you might have a spot like Iran (or say Belgium or Poland if the start date was 1939) that was designed to be attacked, with a smaller defensive force or a higher value if it's conquered. Whereas a spot like Switzerland, that never joined the fray, might have an artificially larger force/lower TT value to reflect that. Basically taking some stuff off the table in practical terms, but without needing a hard prohibition. Just making it less attractive to pick off the little guys, unless it's thematic to do so, more or less.
ps. One last thought on Attackable Neutrals... So even though this is my preferred type of Neutral, there are still some challenges with it. The first is that, as the game goes on, the cost in unit attrition will diminish as the number of units in play increases over time. So it could very well be that after a few rounds, just a couple hits isn't enough of a deterrent anymore, and the player may not care how much the tile is worth, if the goal is simply to open up another attack lane vs the opponent. To me this would recommend a standing Neutral force that increases over time. Like add 1 inf per round, or something similar to the neutral stacks. Of course that would also incentivize the player to kill early if they're going to kill at all, but to me that is also thematic and fairly sensible from a gameplay standpoint. Like if it's going to be a game where Franco joins the Allies, or the Turks throw in with the Germans again (ie they get conquered by the enemy) having this crack off at the start of the war rather than as a feature of the endgame would probably make sense. This also allows for the possibility for a endgame Neutral crush, but ensures that whichever team attempts it, they'll still be some kind of offset to the challenge, when the players stacks otherwise would just dwarf the neutrals by that point. Another thing to consider, when neutral become attackable is to watch out for movement exploits via strafing/retreat. This is something that came into focus for me with the very first TripleA game I ever made that used attackable neutrals (which were then a relatively new feature.) So in the Great War game I made with Surtur, the Central Powers could attack into Romania with a strafe from multiple TTs, but then retreat the entire force to a single TT which allowed the units to move further than they'd have otherwise been allowed to move. So basically you want to watch out for Neutral TTs with multiple connections to make sure they don't allow for quick skips.
Also just to say, I understand the idea behind having Allies able to move through Neutrals, while Axis must conquer them, but gameplay-wise I think this can allow for strange stuff to happen. Like where one team (Axis) would avoid attacking a spot, to prevent the other guy (Allies) from taking direct control of it. In Frostion's this would be a situation where Axis does not want to conquer Pro Allied TTs, even if that might be thematic (say in N. Africa) because doing so would then allow Allies to claim the TT directly on counter occupation.
A related phenomenon in G40 would be like Allies trying to claim a spot but having it revert to another teammates control. Like Normandy going to France after being liberated from the Germans. Since France can't really afford to build production, but USA can, you end up in a situation where Allies might not want to Liberate Paris for the French just to hold onto the Normandy factory or whatever. Or vice versa, where Germany doesn't want to conquer Normandy initially, because it's easier to manage under the French opponent than risk the TT being occupied by UK/US who can use it more effectively. Gamey stuff that can be hard to predict, but which might shape the gameplay in odd directions. That's why I like the whole original owner neutral thing for some TTs, like where we know big D-Day landing and such might occur. Obviously there are no Frenchmen here, but you know, same thing can happen with any pair of teammates. That's another reason to recommend having more than 1 potential mini-hub per region, so the Brits can take one and the Americans the other, and without the move screwing over their buddy too hard. Or in a game where 1 of those nations is controlled by an AI, and the player is competing with their own teammate to get to the desirable lily pad production spots. Might also be a reason to have more than one spot. Often in A&A you'd have a dynamic where, if Allies were going to expand production in the Atlantic, that one guy would do it Scandinavia and the other in France, or something similar. But here there are enough TTs that you could do like Normandy and Belgium or whatever, so both guys got a spot they can take and for juicing the production spread. I like it, especially if Germany could potentially retake and drive them to the sea, which is usually the danger of expanding production in the smaller scale games. Like that you're just gifting it the opponent hehe. But that stuff is all in good fun!
In general I think it will make the game more exciting for all players, since more potential targets means more expansion routes. Especially in the Pacific, where what happens otherwise is that everything gets bypassed and players only focus on the potential production hubs in the Dutch East Indies. Having more spread around could only help with that I think, and help to define the Central Pac as it's own theater instead of just playing second fiddle to the big money islands, like always seems to happen in A&A hehehe
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Gentle reminder to German Commanders
Uboat Notifications
Perhaps its best to set the following,
Game> User Notification
If you dont untick the Roll Failure (last tick box) you will be spammed with Failure notice panels requiring an annoying [OK] button click.
The success panels show where the Uboats have manged to escape to in the Atlantic.
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@thedog Ah, that's definitely what was happening to me with the sub notifications! I unclicked that option.
For more general combat type feedback, having played a few rounds now, I will say that this combat scheme seems to heavily favor the defender in just about all cases. Almost to the point where I am reluctant to run any attacks. Like even with overwhelming force hehe. Often I'd just rather force the opponent to attack me. Unless it's a super obvious wipe of a battle, where the calc is telling me 100% not to sweat it, but I still sweat anyway, even for those hehe. On land the bunker unit exacerbates this sense of the defender advantage for me, esp the 2x bunkers. It's a very potent unit for the cost, and seems to be the most important unit in any tile for determining how the battle is likely to shake down. It can be place instantly without requiring production, which makes it significantly better than infantry at the low end. Since bunkers are in many locations as a starting unit, understanding how they work is essential to playing the game, but learning the hard way how deadly they are, this might be something to dial back a bit I think.
Otherwise, most units and the general combat mechanic itself appear to hinge on the AAgun or First strike system of A&A combat for most stuff, since many units will have that sort of shot. So where a unit has relatively low odds per shot (hits at 1 or 2 on D6), but has multiple shots in a combat round per single unit, and where those shots are targeted (defender doesn't get to choose casualties/hits assigned automatically by unit type). In A&A this form of AAgun style combat is probably the most "swingy" meaning a lot of times you'll see duds, but when you do see hits these can be very decisive. In A&A this stuff is restricted to special combat rounds or special unit types, and is presented as sort of peripheral to the main/more familiar combat situation defined by the inf or whatever the main fodder unit, but here it's sort of the backbone of the scheme, since this is how a lot of the units work. But while playing my overall impression is that I'm seeing a lot of duds when I might expect hits (like from a large attacking force) or else seeing a lot of hits from a defending force, (when the total number of defenders might suggest fewer), and then also a lot of battles resulting in stalemates.
Regarding these last, I think the statemate thing kinda works against familiarity with the new combat scheme, since often the battle will force-resolve before the player can really get a sense of the interplay between attacking/defending units. I also find that it's somewhat unclear to me, while combat is ongoing, when exactly the game will force this resolution/stalemate, like when my attacking units are about to become frozen in place. As the attacker I would almost always want to withdraw before that point, to retain regular control of my units. Although the defender advantage I mentioned might recommend stalemating in some cases (attacker turns into defender on the follow up) in general I'd think it's better to retain control and freedom of movement for your own units. Still, even if it works sometimes to the player's advantage as a tactic, I suspect that many strange things are likely to occur with stalemates, when opposing teams can occupy the same tile at the same time in stasis, since I don't know that tripleA had this situation in mind really. I think it was conceived as a way to prevent really drawn out fights where both the attacker and defender are rolling low, like 1 inf vs 1 inf for infinite rounds. In that case, if a single dude gets frozen after 10 rounds of combat (destined to die on the follow up opponent's turn) that seems expedient, but here the forces can be much larger. Two large stacks can stalemate pretty easily, but even if the forces aren't particularly large, two smaller armies can also stalemate over successive game rounds waiting for a resolution. I had it happen in my last Axis game, where Italy spent like 5 rounds trying to take Tunisia, with both sides whiffing each time and firing duds.
The cap on combat rounds makes stalemates more likely to occur, so I think again I'd consider upping the number of total combat rounds. If capping, I'd also consider treating all combats the same or maybe just making this a feature of the Air war? Like coming into play to prevent "dark skies" strats, where all-Air forces are used to wipe ships or whatever. Otherwise though, I think it can be a little confusing if a battle begins with mixed forces, but then ends up with only air units remaining after a while, or where all the Air dies and only Land or Naval units are left, and in those cases I'm not sure how many more combat rounds would remain. Capping the combat rounds for air units also eliminates the airblitz as a tactic, which while gamey is nevertheless sort of a halmark move. I'm not sure I wouldn't be just a little sad to see it go away entirely hehe, but I guess I can see the rationale. Still my sense is that the cap is too low, and should probably be doubled, if only to ease the player into it hehe.
Anyhow, that's my random thoughts for the afternoon. I'm diving back in as Allies now!
See ya next round! -
If you did not know, checkout using more Bomber-Lgt/tactical bomber they have the option to Raid/dive bomb Bunkers.
Also, IIRC in your release Bunkers cannot fire on Air they need support.Im not coming from an A&A background and maybe I need to compromise on the 321 rounds v unlimited rounds, I will do some testing.
ps. Most TT have a terrain type favouring the defender and penalising the attacker, check the status bar before you attack.
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Ah! Maybe that's the bunker buster I've been looking for! hehe
I'll try it out on the next run for sure!Probably a lot of my impressions can be summarized as "stubborn A&A player, has trouble changing his patterns of thinking" lol, but still I do find myself looking for a touchstone to kinda hold onto. I definitely do like the concept of unit targeting, because the standard game is quite gamey. You know, where the answer to the question about what to buy is so obvious that it never changes hehe. Or where the solution to the opponent buying aircraft or tanks, is always just buy more infantry! lol. That stuff is admittedly silly. I definitely enjoy the idea of a dynamic where the Air fight the Air, the tanks fight the tanks, and the ships fight the ships, and if there's crossover that they at least try to prioritize their targets in ways that make sense from a realism perspective. To me a simple handling would be opening strike on land, where the air units and tank units all target each other for a single round of combat, before it goes more norm core. This to me would be more engaging than the usual fair, and still give a little swing, but would also be relatively simple to parse, since after the first combat round you could divert back to the standard pip vs pip attack power vs defense power way of thinking. This may just be me trying to pull the game in a direction that I'm more familiar with though, and doing a disservice to the novelty of the new scheme, but it's just my first impression. I think what I'm also looking for is a framework to help me parse the likely outcomes and really get a feel for what will happen.
As an example, I ran a number of calcs for the naked double bunker, just to see how many infantry it would take to reliable kill the bunkers and take the TT.
2 inf vs 2 bunkers Attacker 0%, draw 34%, Defender 66%
4 inf vs 2 bunkers Attacker 8% draw 84% Defender 8%
6 inf vs 2 bunkers Attacker 23% draw 77% Defender 0%
8 inf vs 2 bunkers Attacker 52% draw 48% Defender 0%
10 inf vs 2 bunkers Attack 70% draw 30% Defender 0%
So you can see how it scales there, and in my simple headmath you have a situation that says "to clear that tile you need to bring 3 times the numbers" to have a reasonable chance of success, and probably 5 times the numbers to have a comfortable chance of success. Just in terms of hitpoints I mean. Obviously you can up the odds by bringing more powerful units than the basic ground fodder unit, but to me the attrition cost would be the main factor. Also preventing a stalemate, cause in a stalemate those odds could then be altered, as other players could interrupt the contest over the tile and put their thumbs on the scale too.
TUV of 2 bunkers is 10 PUs
TUV of 6 inf is 20 PUs
So a pretty steep trade for the attacker. This might offset somewhat in a contest over a higher value tile, but over a lower value tile, the player is trading at a loss probably. Especially since you're unlikely to avoid a stalemate with just inf (high draw) so probably you end up exposing more TUV than that, just to ensure you clear the tile before the combat round caps. Basically bringing even more hitpoints, or heavier hitting/high value hitpoints to get high enough to overcome the draw. As the defender, under the current scheme, I think the bunker basically becomes the base fodder unit for the defender, and then everything else goes on top of that. Meaning the first thing I'd do after taking a tile is to buy however many bunkers the game would allow me to buy, before I starting stacking anything else. Also since it's treated like infrastructure and you can drop it basically anywhere for a low cost. In my earlier games I found myself buying a couple each time I advanced, but if we were playing for keeps I'd probably use all my starting cash to buy nothing but bunkers, as many as I could, and place them everywhere, because the price the opponent pays to kill them is probably way more than the 5 pu outlay up front. My solution if you didn't want to change anything else, would be to make them more expensive I guess and to have fewer on the board at the outset, so the impact isn't quite as dramatic.
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@Black_Elk
Agree something has to change regarding Bunker/Garrison.I did resist giving Artillery-Hvy targeting of Bunkers/Garrison, thinking I had already overdone the use of targeting, but as it is the role of artillery to shoot static targets, maybe we should?
Should Artillery-Med also get targeting?If I increase the pu cost of Bunkers the AI will not buy them, maybe that's OK as well, as there is a lot of them. In the next release there will be even more Bunkers as the Neutrals get them as well.
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I'm definitely intrigued by the idea that if there are fixed fortification units that these can be softened up somehow. Your earlier post piqued my interest for sure, because I didn't notice that. So is the concept to have the Bombers raiding the tiles rather than attacking them directly? I had not been using them this way, but instead bringing them into the fight. Above I mentioned the x2 naked bunkers, but since usually there'd be other stuff as well on top of that, I just figured every combat capable unit was probably needed in the battle proper. That said, the idea of bombers or artillery softening up the enemy, is quite thematic, so perhaps there's something more to this than my first impressions were giving. In the next game I will try what you suggest and see how it feels.
I like the idea of artillery being used in that way, which to me makes sense, even if I'm used to thinking of them as just the infantry boost unit hehe, that's pretty much how I'd imagine them used vs fortifications. With more tiles in play, the artillery unit could become more of the shock-fortifications unit or have that dual role along with certain aircraft. That seems kinda cool.
For the neutrals I think the bunker could definitely make them more unattractive as ready targets, since the attrition cost is high in that case. In N. Africa I could see myself going after Tunisia for that 3 spot, but otherwise I'd have had second thoughts facing the bunkers hehe. For the AI purchasing, I could see this coming into play for sure. Like if the bunker is a key component of the combat scheme and the AI whiffs it hard on rebuilding them or placing them in the right spots. At first glance I thought all TTs had x2 bunkers, because there are so many around Germany, and in China vs Japan, but later I noticed that they are less common further afield and that there were a few spots that didn't have them. If I saw that there were no bunkers (like around Denmark) I immediately thought, I need to buy bunkers for those spots so they won't be like the weak link in the Atlantic wall hehe.
ps.
@thedog said in
1941 Global Command Decision - Official Thread:@Black_Elk
Agree something has to change regarding Bunker/Garrison.I did resist giving Artillery-Hvy targeting of Bunkers/Garrison, thinking I had already overdone the use of targeting, but as it is the role of artillery to shoot static targets, maybe we should?
Should Artillery-Med also get targeting?If I increase the pu cost of Bunkers the AI will not buy them, maybe that's OK as well, as there is a lot of them. In the next release there will be even more Bunkers as the Neutrals get them as well.
Here's an example from my earlier game...
You can see the ANZAC strategy I adopted was basically to spam as many bunkers as possible. This was in part since ANZAC didn't have any starting forces and a more limited unit roster, which is where I noticed the bunker thing. My thought was how to most effectively have an impact with the limited resources, and bunker spam seemed the obvious choice, because I can place them in any spot and they're pretty cheap at 5 bucks a pop. I guess this would be like the opposite of the AI not buying them, where the player buys a ton to throw the computer into deep freeze hehe. Speaking of which, I noticed that on the German turn the AI seems to slow down to a crawl, taking a lot longer to think through it's moves than the other nations. I'm not sure if it's the sub spawn, or maybe just cause they have more stacks to move around, but here it is on G2. For me the computer takes about 4 minutes before it will begin moving usually. Or at least last few times I loaded the save from this point. It's on the hard AI's turn here...
This is the aftermath on R2...
The Germans swept my line at the center, but I figured those dudes would probably go down. The bunker I bought couldn't save them lol. But here you can see, cause Germany stacked into Novgorod hardcore. This is an instructive battle cause it's a large engagement, but also with no bunkers to add a wildcard.
Just judging from the numbers and the visual, I'd say the Soviets should have the Germans beat here, like dead to rights. But the presence of the HQ Army Commanders, and the distinction between German trained-inf vs Russian conscript-inf, tips the scales way out. Soviets taking this attack are likely to get rocked, and then stalemated.
The most advantageous play I can think of in this situation is to attack into Novgorod for 1 round of combat (praying not to take heavy losses) and then retreat the entire force to Arch where it can be reinforced. Or maybe back to Leningrad, where it just parks it. Either way, the defender advantage seems to recommend withdraw over attack. But this is an example of what I meant earlier about the skip/retreat thing. It's a legal move in A&A, so not exactly an exploit really, but in this case I'm hoping to shock and withdraw I guess hehehe.
This was the result...
Bad News for Soviet Bears! lol As a strafe this went rather disastrously. Only a couple hits put up vs the German defender, then bleeding out like a dozen conscripts and a few tank types before limping back to Arch. Perhaps it would have been better to just hold position and run no attacks. Although again, just from looking at it my instincts say it should be Red nation on that one, but I got my ass handed to me hehehe
ps. I started a second game. Here is the situation on R1...
2023-1-15-1941-Global-Command-Decision R1.tsvgThe AI German opener was largely similar to the last time, except here they concentrated more on the middle and left Lithuania to focus on Grodno with the main force. At first glance it would seem they left East Prussia vulnerable doing this, but I don't think the units in Lithuania can clear 4 bunkers. Likely stalemate, Soviets getting rocked and then stuck. The Bessarabian units are basically trapped, best they can do is retreat to Moldavia. My instincts tell me to pull away with everything and try to make a more defensible line off Smolensk as the nearest convergence point. But the last game made me think holding Novgorod through G2 might be pretty key. I'm not sure I can hold it, but I was thinking to buy bunkers for sure hehe.
This is what I ended up doing with Russia, and my UK opener... Not sure about the buys, but basically priority Gibraltar again for the British. I forgot to move the fighter off Cyprus. He's kinda hidden over there I think hehe. I flew all the UK fighters to Sweden, because that's what'd do if Neutrals allow the flyover. Sending them to help the Russians, and using the neutrals as a cushion while I transit. I think Gibraltar can hold, but if not I'd send them there instead I guess. I think I'd still prefer a scheme where neutrals were closed. Like it seems fine for the aircraft to fly over them, but landing there feels like a violation of their neutral status to me heheh. In this one Japan swept at Pearl, but stalemated at Manila. So sort of a toss up I guess. They didn't advance in China vs the tiles I reinforced, so I think that was a pretty solid move, not running any attacks with China but just repositioning stuff. I'll have to pause here to think about the USA buy a bit before making the moves.
