💥 1941 Global Command Decision - Official Thread

[Black_Elk]

@thedog

Here are some Mansteins if you want to choose one. Pretty sure one of them is already in the folder somewhere, or maybe in the UHD, probably just flipped or whatever with a different person doing the tint. You can see the first at the top is a standard colorized photograph from the wiki entry. The second is a similar image taken and used for a painted illustration

Artist Boris Chaliapin, 22 Sep 1904 - 18 May 1979 sourced from a Smithsonian article. https://www.si.edu/object/erich-von-manstein%3Anpg_NPG.88.TC46

I like the second image for it's bold graphic qualities, but 'usage conditions apply' there, so not sure if it's really above board. When cropped into the circle the graphic part of the Iron Cross is sorta lost too so that's another thing like getting it into the circle just so. Anyhow I liked that one cause it's from a painting, but probably the period colorized photograph is likely more appropriate for fair use

Then for this next pair of Mansteins you can see the difference between a period colorized photograph in scene vs one that's set against a background color field. Both from the wiki if I recall. It also depends a bit on the size of the head like if you want to show more of a hat or the features of the face with a tighter crop. In this case the images almost look like two completely different people, but it's basically just the cast shadow on his beak being slightly less pronounced in the first image vs the second, lower angle photography and probably a candid rather than staged portrait like the second one that's used for all the book covers hehe. Also like with the hat and everything, it elongates his face a bit to give the very recognizably Manstein mug. To me that's like a coin toss though, cause a less recognizable image might be preferable sometimes, like if it still fits the bill. Not sure. I'll let you make the call. I tend to just prioritize some vague quality I liked, such as overall color balance or how it looks when loaded up and sitting on the board which is harder to see without running tripleA

I think it just comes down to little things like the accent color, if it's too overpowering, or just cause one wants maybe some flash of red or something for the uniform to pop. There are a bunch for Generals like Manstein.

For the Italians the pickings are much slimmer. There is artwork for HoI and World of Warships, but I was trying to find a source to work from that wasn't like already owned by Paradox or whoever.

Here's a Bastico, it's cropped from an Italian Postage Stamp. The source image is that one where he's chillin' next to Rommel in the dugout. For the other famous image where he's wearing the cap haven't found one in color yet, aside from the paintovers from the games mentioned above. I'll keep hunting around

[TheDog]

@black_elk
Thanks a Manstein & Bastico in game for v180

[JohnnyCat]

@thedog Cool. Thanks for posting that. What does, "USA 1-3 Rounds for TripleA benefit so USA can add Gulf States &" mean??

Also where, and perhaps WHY, do the rules state that USA can invade neutrals only during rounds 1, 2, 3?

By the way, I finally played two games in full. In both I had to save and restart a few times as has been "normal" for the past year - and like I said, I am sure that this is a tripleA thing. The game will sort of freeze but allow me to save before it actually freezes or crashes so no worries.

And while I still encounter some crazy unexpected combat results even with Low Luck checked, I am now getting rather intuitive about what the units can do as well as how terrain and SUPERHERO COMMANDERS affect things.

NOTE: that for the year of play all other TripleA games had that display details option but it was cosmetic only so I really had no idea to turn that back on thus I missed the terrain type effects that entire time, duh...

Anyway, THIS GAME IS EVEN MORE TRULY AWESOME now that I have figured out how to play it as intended. So my sincerest compliments again...

The only thing that I notice, and this is no surprise, is that the game as is setup in the default, is heavily favoring the Allies. But that is easily corrected with some startup bid adjustments.

I am still interested and willing to write a comprehensive manual for this game.

-Johnny

Finally, does anyone reading this know if anyone plays the old Avalon Hill Panzer Blitz and Panzer Leader games online?

[JohnnyCat]

@black_elk Your new faces are VERY NICE. I would like to suggest, however, that all these commander icons have a collar.

Apologies for the poor quality but I just want to convey the idea here - if there is interest I would fire up Photoshop and make this very pretty. In any case I envision this to draw some attention to the commander as I found them easy to miss. I could see the Nazi's having a tiny Iron Cross... the Yanks with national colors, etc. But maybe they all have some sort of Gold Band to draw attention and standardize the unit to some degree.

Does anyone have any good suggestions for this collar thing?

[beelee]

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

the old Avalon Hill Panzer Blitz

Idk of any online version. I have the old boardgame. If you know anybody who wants it, I will mail it to them on my dime, as long as they donate the same to the site.

That and they aren't halfway acrooss the world from me Heartland of America my current locale

[Black_Elk]

I imagine there are a few Panzerblitz players floating around here or there. That one was a bit before my time. Unless I'm mixing it up with something else, that one uses hexes right? My era/speed was more like Panzer General on the computer, but I tend to gravitate towards Iron Blitz and more bare bones A&A lineage than some of the more advanced full on war games. On the PC if I wanted to go all long haul campaign mode I'd probably get into some Hearts of Iron or maybe Command and Conquer games like if it's Sega Genesis back in the day heheh. It's sorta like the Military History or WW2 section at Barnes and Noble, like "Wow, how are there two dozen bookshelves for every conceivable biography or campaign of the Second world war and everything else gets like maybe like half a shelf?' just dwarfing the other sections hehe. Same deal for the grand strategy games I think, where there are just always a gang of options for WW2.

I really think it would be helpful to have a manual that assumes a background in A&A though, and then explains what's different for the nitty gritty against that backdrop, since tripleA uses those rules as the basis for so many WW2 games. It's a bit above my paygrade here. I would defer to theDog for anything gameplay-wise.

For the collar idea mentioned, challenge there is getting something that will fit within the 68px maximum. It's already pushing the limit on height there since 54px is the space within the windows. The more embellishments around the edges, if the main image ends up too tiny and we just lose all the features to interpolation and fuzzy pixels.

Here's a design element from the 1914 game. I just isolated it out from one of hepsters relief tiles. He used a laurel and a ring for some of the convoy stuff. Might work, but when reduced in scale (here down to 100px) it already becomes sorta harder to read. Not sure

You can see things start to get very small, so I'm not sure how well it reads. But I guess the idea would be to use a different pattern or whatever to distinguish say Air from Ground or Fleet by using something like the mini roundel? I think the dilemma is that it will probably look wonky in the various battle screens because of clipping. Like on the map the display is a bit cleaner, but even there though when zoomed out it might become a lot more choppy. Right now unit sizes have a hard limit, like if they were 100px we'd have more room to noodle around, but 68px already is going to clip. Here's the same image at 54px with no halo interpolation. Already at that scale the read is sorta losing it for me. Something even more graphic would probably be needed for it to really hold up when going that small.

ps. What are the dimensions for the battle window width again? I wonder if they might just have a tank alongside them or something and have that perhaps somehow work? Never mind just tried it, had the same clipping thing happen trying to go extra wide. Still not sure of a great solution for the faces

[JohnnyCat]

@beelee I’m from Chicago but now residing in California!

How do we do DMs on this thing? I’d like to follow up on these topics but don’t think this is quite the right place lol

[beelee]

@johnnycat

hit me up in chat

[JohnnyCat]

That’s PERFECT !!! Love the little Nazi icon at the top. You totally captured the idea I was trying to convey. Let me know if you need my photoshop work. I’m rather skilled with it.

And yea Panzer General 2 is one of my favs. But as a young kid I played those old Avalon hill games and long to play Panzerbkitz again lol.

[TheDog]

@johnnycat
USA 1-3 Rounds for TripleA benefit so USA can add Gulf States &
should of said
USA 1-3 Rounds for TripleA benefit so USA can add Gulf States & Brazil

It means that I could not do what I wanted, so I had set USA to Open-Border so that the USA could gain Gulf States & Brazil as USAs own territory.
Then on Round 4, USA changes to Closed-Border like other allies.

So as a USA player if you want to be aggressive do it in rounds 1-3, but this not the intended action for the USA.

.
I know its a lot time/effort to produce a manual, even a terse one like mine. If you want to produce one please do so and I will add it to the download.

[Black_Elk]

Here is another Iachino

It's from that HOI Italy mod for the Italian generals by SteveHarrison2001 that you sent me from reddit.

I just cropped it into a circle and adjusted the color temperature so it would look a bit more like the others. Since it's relatively simple to make adjustments to the graphics in tripleA I'd just say consider these things placeholders. Or to make new ones basically you just want to fit in that 68px circle to match the ones that are already there.

A simple solution to differentiate between Air Land and Sea HQs would be to just choose a color gradient for the background and make them all the same. So for example maybe Air HQs have a blue tinted background gradient, whereas ground might be Red or Green tinted, and have that consistent across factions. For the national designation a roundel in the corner would probably be the simplest to ensure visibility. To me though I think that could be an option on similar to flags for the units.

Here's a quick example using Bock

[beelee]

@black_elk

Brock is Badass !!!

Air, Sea and Land

Edit
Not to be confused with Sea Air and Land

[JohnnyCat]

@black_elk I’ve been pondering that air/land/sea differential myself and always come up with wanting to overcome the actual graphics limitations of 58 pix or whatever it is….
But in lieu of that , your background color idea is best!!!

And I personally feel very drawn to thing having a the thin gold border and nation symbol as shown earlier. Great work mate !

[wc_sumpton]

@TheDog

I noticed that "isStrategicBomber" was removed for Artillery. May I ask why? Are you planning to add it back?

If so, what would you like to happen to those Artillery after the SBR round?

Inquisitive minds want to know...

Cheers...

[TheDog]

@wc_sumpton said

Inquisitive minds want to know...

I always knew you were in two minds

Wow a set of leading questions, you obviously have a cunning plan. (Not sure which one of us is Baldrick or Blackadder)

isStrategicBomber might have been for Artillery-Hvy which got removed, many versions ago.

If you have an army capable of taking a territory why would you want to destroy the Industry you are about to take over, unless it is form of suicide attack to destroy the Industry and then in turn your army is wiped out.

I have to admit I do a variant of the above on the eastern front, win a territory, auto damages an industry, then the Russian counter attack, auto damage and destroy the industry by them taking it off me.

What were you thinking?

[JohnnyCat]

The quest for game Mechanics and Unit INTUITION:

Dear Devs,

I’m getting deep into the play testing of this game and now have some questions about how various units and game mechanics were/are intended by the devs.

1. The first is the bomber unit. In the basic A&A game the bomber is a sort of super unit. You roll for tech like heavy bombers and you likely win the game. And, inexplicably, the bomber can be used to significantly mess things up like enemy fleets.

This game is much more refined and I certainly appreciate that but I’ve yet to find any good purpose for this unit.

Sometimes 5-6 bombers can destroy a factory and that’s a great way to use them….. except that more often than not, and without any defending fighters (and there are no explicit AA units on this game), the bombers are decimated and the factory is barely touched. Hence this is not a viable use as I found they cannot be reliably used for destroying factories.

And apparently they cannot target sea vessels.

And there is no way they are cost effective in causing repair damage.

So what good are these things? Could you please provide some examples of how these units were intended to be used ?

THANK YOU

[wc_sumpton]

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

What were you thinking?

I was thinking along the lines of what happens to these non-air-SBR units after the SBR attack. Basically, they disappear from the battle.

I've created a map property that would allow these units to patriciate in the territory battle.

Just was wondering if this was the reason for the removal of "isStrategicBomber". If I remember correctly, I seen it in 1.170, but when I went to check and test with 1.175, it was no longer there.

Just Ideas.

Cheers...

[wc_sumpton]

@johnnycat

The bomber, along with the tac-bomber, are the only 2 air units that can attack all ground units.

The bomber does between 0 and 2 SBR damage, while the tac-bomber does between 0 and 1. So even though they may survive the industry's built in AA fire, they may still miss their targets.

All units have built-in AA capabilities, so the AA gun was removed.

Cheers...

[beelee]

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

I've created a map property that would allow these units to patriciate in the territory battle.

sweet Is this new java code that needs a prerelease or a custom property that you made with existing triplea ?

[wc_sumpton]

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

sweet Is this new java code that needs a prerelease or a custom property that you made with existing triplea ?

Yep :grinning_squinting_face:

While redoing my support code, I found a way to let SBR unit be included in the main battle. So yes I created a new property, and some code, but have not as of yet submitted it for prerelease.

Hopefully answered not answered.

Cheers...