💥 1941 Global Command Decision - Official Thread

[JohnnyCat]

@black_elk said “ The idea is twofold, first to prevent double dip trading of territories (eg. what you'd see in A&A with France trading maybe hands 3 or 4 times in a single turn and thus generating more way income than it's actual production value), and second to ensure that the movement phases are grouped together. ”

I have two quick questions

1. I don’t see how this game’s phases does anything to prevent the situation you mentioned where France changes hands.

2. What does the following mean ?

“ and second to ensure that the movement phases are grouped together. ”???

3. Did you say factories GENERATE INCOME????

-JC

[Black_Elk]

1. Lets say a spot in France is worth 6 PUs. When income is collected at the beginning of the phase order it means you must have held the TT for an entire round in order to collect that 6 PUs. Simply attacking and taking the territory isn't enough, it must be held till the beginning of the next turn. In A&A you'd get the cash each time the territory is taken, awarded to the controlling nation. So multiple factions could collect that same 6 PUs in the same round. Here the income is nerfed to whatever you own at the beginning of your turn.

2. It means that the player can focus on the Combat move/Combat immediately and then on Non Com Movement as the very next thing. Whereas in A&A you would have that interrupted by a Purchase phase somewhere along the way. It's not so hard there because the purchases are smaller in A&A (less money, fewer units) but here with dozens and hundred of units in play the phase order is a sort of designed so that the purchase/place will come more naturally after all the moving of stuff is done. Less guessing about what you might need, or padding for whatever might happen in combat, because it's already occurred. Just meant to speed things up a bit from the player's point of view.

3. Yeah each Factory unit creates PUs per turn for that Nation. The heavier factory types produce more income. It's in part how Axis is balanced against team Allies, since they have those heavy production cores. By purchasing new factories you increase the totals on income per turn. So for USA purchasing industry each turn scales up the economy. Most nations have at least a couple spots where they can increase their PUs from factory buys, but it's a bit limited. Like mostly Small Factories. That's also a bit of the offset for bomber attrition because if the factory is killed those are PUs the opponent isn't collecting, along with being unable to place from that location, or move at M3 the next turn. The factories also have certain restrictions for units that can be built there. So the smaller factories are focused basically on ground units. The Mediums can build basic air and the entry level ships. The large factories are for all the rest, and the heavy hitters. The lone other unit that can produce is the Base Camp, but that is basically like 1 inf type unit per turn. The idea there was giving the player a way to establish toeholds on pretty much any tile, but where the impact would be somewhat limited and requiring an investment up front to get the base up and running. They are useful for shoring up the infantry logistics especially in areas of the map where there aren't a lot of factory capable territories, but maybe many low values tiles together can get a force going with several bases each producing 1 dude per turn. Those Base Camps don't provide any bonus to movement. Pretty much everything else is a drain on the cash from maintenance, but the Factories can add to the cash here, which is definitely different.

[TheDog]

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

@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...

Currently isStrategicBomber Artillery could SBR for 1 round and not fight for the rest of the 7 rounds, yes?

With your new property true
isStrategicBomber Artillery could SBR for 1 round and also
fight for the rest of the 7 land rounds, yes?

I was testing artillery "isStrategicBomber" and it got left in.
In the early days of GCD there was a Artillery-Hvy unit, but it did not have enough difference with Artillery-Med, so they were merged in to one, Artillery.

My thoughts on Artillery isStrategicBomber

• The current Artillery could have isStrategicBomber
• USSR/Russians could use what you are proposing Artillery-Hvy with the ability of "isStrategicBomber".
• Germany on the eastern front could benefit/deliberately destroy Industries, so could use Artillery-Hvy
• The other nations need the Industries they take over, so are unlikely to use isStrategicBomber

Also outside of WW2 other maps might use the ability to represent siege artillery & warfare. I have a few fantasy maps that would use it.

[JohnnyCat]

@black_elk Understood - THANK YOU again for expounding upon this. I feel silly now that I did not initially understand that PU thing - but I HAD NO IDEA ONE had to hold the territory for an entire round to get the PUs...

OK and now that I know that FACTORIES PRODUCE PUs I look forward to a new play style where I can see buying lots of those factories now - and SBR units.

By the way, I had no idea that factories generated PUs, so maybe put that into the end of turn announcements and highlight it.

I do not want to criticize but I really believe that you guys know this stuff TOO WELL so-to-speak and possibly cannot see the need for better docs/tips/explanations like I do...

I mean that I have been shooting in the dark for a year with this game trying to sleuth out the game play mechanics AS I WOULD DO ANY SUCH GAME. But that is not a viable way to learn THIS game.

And a TRUTH FOR ME is understanding ALSO that this game has WAY MORE DEPTH than Axis and Allies which, let's admit, is checkers to this game's Chess/Go in terms of complexity and strategy. Thus, I need to adjust my expectations accordingly.

The Problem with having this game be a part of TripleA sadly DUMBS DOWN the situation here.

To put that another way, this game deserves its own platform !!! And ideally would not be directly associated with such a simple game play mechanic such as the Axis and Allies Local Majority Wins simple game play mechanic.

Anyway this is all the more reason why someone impatient to learn, like YOURS TRULY! lol, should write your user manual... cause I will be the advocate for the less knowledgeable and lazy gamer... hahaha

[JohnnyCat]

CAN you wonderful "Map Makers" add a little rule???

The Proposed NEW RULE: Inf units can, under certain conditions, "MAKE" a bunker instead of paying 5 PUs.

For this game I find myself constantly looking at the benefits of involving various neutrals for position and/or to block.

So imagine 1 inf taking a place like Svalbard - maybe via airborne.

Now some turns have transpired and that 1 inf is still there. I propose that he could "make" a bunker if he was there for 2 turns doing nothing else.

I would think this easy to implement but I don't know the code at all so I don't know.

Anyway, I know many of you discount and even discourage the involvement of the various neutrals but I feel that there are many good strats that involve these little guys. Cheers

[TheDog]

@JohnnyCat
It is possible to do, but the AI struggles with this type of 'build', so it is really for the Player only. That is one of the reasons its a no.

The tools for you to modify/mod the xml are available, it is a steep learning curve and you are free to use what is in the download.

[Black_Elk]

@johnnycat I think that's a totally fair criticism, since I struggled with the same thing too, like just trying to get my head around some of this stuff that felt way different to me. I spent the first year or so testing the openers by just taking control of the entire team and assuming a more PvP type match vs the computer 1v1, like granting the computer a larger income bonus or bid and thinking about it in terms of that sort of challenge.

Until I finally realized that what theDog had in mind was more like taking control of a single Nation and then having the FastAI teammates almost like an albatross hanging around the neck. Or almost as a randomizer, like have an unreliable teammate basically hehe.

The FastAIs deficiencies are offset a bit by the bonuses they are granted when controlled by the computer, so they just get more to work with than the player would. I think this still leaves room for a match where the player can control the entire Side (say Axis, or Allies) just without any of the built-in bonuses being awarded to their side, and perhaps some additional resource modifier to the FastAI (more income per turn, or less cost for maintenance). But the FastAI definitely struggles when trying to coordinate multi-nation attacks or multi-nation defenses vs a human being. Like it just doesn't really anticipate the double hit to take a VC or Factory, or plan for that type of stuff when calculating it's moves, so having that kind of edge over it as the human just leads to blowouts.

The downside to controlling just a single Nation is that the game round feels like it takes much longer, since it's mostly the computer making moves. Sometimes I feel like the battle windows and rolling dice are quite distracting, and often I wish I could just minimize all that out of view to survey the map in a particular area without the camera jumping around to show me what the FastAI is trying to do. I don't mind the pop-up battle screen when I have to give actual input, like a decision to scramble, or to select casualties as defender, but I just mean the sort of 'observer mode' we get thrown into when only controlling 1 nation as opposed to a whole team. Upside I suppose is that you can just sorta tune out and walk away, come back 10 minutes later after the Gymnastics Event Finals have concluded lol. It's just a slightly different gameflow and a different way of painting your nation's colors around the map.

Some of this stuff remains very opaque to me. For example just how exactly to overcome a particular force when say amphibiously assaulting a territory that has Bunkers and dug in defenders. I mean you can just run the battle calc on some stuff to see how things shake out.

Example might be defender has 4 infantry and 2 bunkers. How many units as the attacker, and which unit types to bring to overcome a force like that at odds?

Like I started with 6 infantry Elites all coming along on Cruisers to bombard, odds to the attacker 0% lol

Then I add another Elite, an artillery unit and a tactical bomber - still very low, maybe 2% odds to the attacker. So I keep adding more units and watch how the percentages for a Draw begins to climb, but the chance for Attacker to actually win is still hovering at only like 10% odds.

Then I add in an HQ and suddenly it's like a 50/50 coin flip, even though as the attacker I have way more hitpoints, the attack value penalties coming from Amphib assault make it very challenging to just ballpark it. As the forces get larger towards the cap the numbers tend to stabilize, so the larger engagements are much less swingy (similar to what happens in A&A where the curve flattens and the odds become more predictable) but going in with light forces anywhere has that sort of fuzzy head math getting in the way. In A&A you can quickly count pips to get a ballpark, since there are lots of units that hit at 2s or 3s and you can sorta LL to parse the odds. Harder to do here because there's just a lot of +1 or -1 along the way to complicate the bean counting. I like A&A for it's elegance, but it's also a board game, so the counting house stuff has to kinda assume a playscale that works for ages 12+ and up there, and also that many players probably won't have a calculator on hand. Here the battle calculator is a given, and so we have a bit more flexibility to scale up.

I also really enjoy that idea of building out bases and production on the front lines! Like getting a smaller force into position and then having to hang on by the finger nails. It's probably coming from the old Classic strats from when I first learned how to play Allies, like double factories for India and China, or the factory in South Africa vs like all-in on Carrier builds. That sorta trade off in grand strategy, between expanding frontline production or just building from the safe spots in the backfield and moving into position. One thing I particularly enjoy here is just that there are more tiles capable of supporting production, so the player can build as they go. The FastAI was supposed to be awarded factories as part of their bonus units, but I just don't see them place very often. I think it would change the bombing dynamic a fair bit if the FastAI was consistently trying to build factories on any tile that could support one. But usually what I see is that once a factory is destroyed, they don't really replace them. Why the Bomber SBR becomes very OP to me in the mid game, once there are many Bombers grouped together, all focusing on a single target. Even losing a bunch of Bomber TUV to Flak, if the computer isn't going to rebuild those factories, to me that would be a reasonably efficient use of the bombers for the cost. Just since they can bomb the FastAI off the board or trap them in awkward positions that way, and it's harder for them to coordinate counter attacks at M3.

[JohnnyCat]

@black_elk I both CARE and APPRECIATE your comments mate.

But sadly I think was not able to understand some of the first half of your comments.

To help here please tell me what you are referring to when you stated “that’s a fair criticism you struggled with …”

We’ve got a few threads going on in parallel so I’m just not making the connection - besides that I’ve been “criticizing” a bunch now lol

In your comments I’m a tad lost by your reference to the “fast ai”. What does the selection of the fast/easy vs hard/slow have anything to do with anything here?

You said you “took over a team”. What team ? Are you referring to the selecting the “full team” as on playing Italy, Germany and Japan together versus just one nation ?

Miraculously I DO understand your statement : “what theDog had in mind was more like taking control of a single Nation and then having the FastAI teammates almost like an albatross hanging around the neck. Or almost as a randomizer, like have an unreliable teammate basically hehe.”

But I also do not. It sounds like you are claiming that TheDog’s (one of the authors of this game) intent was for us to play as only one “team” such as Germany, while letting the stupider heuristics (Fast AI) run Italy and Japan.

So what ?

Why is this even something to discuss ? How does it fit into the discussion ?

You stated: “ Sometimes I feel like the battle windows and rolling dice are quite distracting, and often I wish I could just minimize all that out of view to survey the map in a particular area without the camera jumping around to show me what the FastAI is trying to do. I don't mind the pop-up battle screen when I have to give actual input, like a decision to scramble”

And I couldn’t agree more !!! Are there any plans or options to remove this jumping around mechanic ?

Finally you stated, “ I also really enjoy that idea of building out bases and production on the front lines! Like getting a smaller force into position and then having to hang on by the finger nails. It's probably coming from the old Classic strats from when I first learned how to play Allies, like double factories for India and China, or the factory in South Africa vs like all-in on Carrier builds. “

WE CAN MAKE DOUBLE FACTORIES ???? Where? WHat game?

Please correct me if wrong, but I feel the theme of your entire post was about learning to feel how the game plays… ie the intuition for the game mechanics.

And that is basically a mirror of what I’m experiencing right now as I “get to know and get a feel for the game mechanics.”

I’ve now done hundreds of permutations on simple attacks and defenses to get to know what the units are good/bad at.

And I am VERY HAPPY to report that after going through a steep learning curve, and direct access to the actual developers of this game (which is NOT practical for the public at large) I am finally feeling comfortable with it and now able to move on to game balance and user manual creation.

For the past year I was both TOTALLY LOST BY THIS BADLY BROKEN GAME and TOTALLY IN AWE BY THIS WONDERFUL GAME THAT IS A WORK OF GENIUS!!!

I was getting frustrated by my not being able to readily understand and play it. It was NOT Axis and Allies and, I feel this now more than ever, it seems to me this game should be a stand alone thing and in no way related to TripleA.

The game def had issues. Always crashing. Often freezing. And much more.

But now most of that has been fixed!

And I sort of knew all along that the issues were primarily my lack of knowledge for this game complicated by the fact that I did not know any other game that was similar - and again I see it used TripleA as the game engine, but I feel it has almost no connection to it.

So again I thank all of you for being such active members of this forum.

I now have played three actual non modded GCD games and I’m happy to report that each game felt balanced and fun and challenging !!!

So I’m onto the user manual. But I will take my time for that one.

Cheers

[JohnnyCat]

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR !!!

What the heck is this? Turn 8 or so and Japan has taken the border tiles with India then ALL OF A SUDDEN these Chinese popped up there!!!!

And the game log does not even show any evidence of these units being placed.

Can anyone explain this?

[Black_Elk]

@johnnycat not sure haven't seen anything like that occur of late. Unless they were hiding somewhere in the backfield and moved from a factory spot? Might be a bug

Here's another game with USA showing the Factories thing, scaling up the money. I basically just bought a couple Medium Factories every round and placed them in the territories worth 7 PUs.

As USA my plan was to cross the top of the board and invade Japan directly. Right now I think it's too easy to pull this off, since Kyushu is sort of an Achille's heel for Japan. It would be less impactful for USA to just slam into them if that TT was only a Small Factory like the one up on Hokkaido. Like you can see if I had been forced to try and take Tokyo in order to claim a major factory from Japan, then they'd have had a counter attack option. Also it would make the conscript infantry units more of a factor to protect the main island group with tiles that share a border overland.

On the Atlantic side I wanted to push north towards Iceland and Scandinavia, but it feels like putting USA out of position to do that when France is much easier to reach. Here I just took Brittany to give the Germans headaches. I think having Iceland as something like a Medium Factory might give the USA more of stake up north and encourage the fleet to head up that way before just making a B Line to France. Right now you can basically push against N. Africa and France from the same position with the transports but that might pull them more into two groups, like one for France and the North Atlantic and another route more North Africa Med.

2024-8-1-1941-Global-Command-Decision USA round 6 rematch x2.tsvg

ps. Oh sorry didn't see that other post above. Yeah basically you got the gist of what I was aiming at. Like my experience as a player, since most of the unit stuff and the design of the scenario was stuff TheDog set up. While I was drawing a map he cooked up the xml for the game and set the stage as it were, so most of the time I'm looking at it from the players POV as like a perpetual newb trying to get my head around how it all stiches together. Oh also so for the FastAI or HardAI thing. Currently when you launch the game HardAI will be the default, but FastAI is the one I've been playing against. Controlling a single nation basically and letting the FastAI control all the other nations. So as Axis I'd just play as Germany, or else Italy, or Japan, rather than all 3. Assigning whoever I wasn't playing to the FastAI. My sense of the difference is that the FastAI prioritizes destroying enemy TUV, whereas HardAI prioritizes conserving it's own TUV. So basically FastAI is more reckless and tends to move it's units around in more chaotic ways, which to me feel somewhat more challenging. It's erratic but unpredictable, and sometimes the FastAI stumbles into a better play than the more cautious HardAI would. The HardAI also takes a lot longer to calc its turns on my computer, so the game would just kinda drag for me playing that way as a Solo (one nation everyone else HardAI.) I think the game would probably function fine for a PvP game, except that the inherent swingy-ness of the combats might be a little frustrating. In the solo for a surprise loss I just sorta take it on the chin, like well the FastAI must have beat me to the punch. I can just imagine 2 players head to head though, each feeling like they got robbed by the dice gods all the time, just because there is so much more variability built into the combats.

Oh also, for that game, since I was stacking units pretty hard in Brittany I think the overflow line should maybe start a bit further to the left of the territory. It was a little tricky to see some of the units especially when the Brits joined the party just cause the line was cutting back across them.

An interesting idea for Japan's production might be to locate a Medium or Heavy Factory 1 tile off the coast in the Manchuria area. So like Jehol, Harbin, or Manchuria TTs, if the value of one of those was increased. Then Japan could have that as a fallback at least as a spot to build fighters and such, if they're overtaken on the water.

[wc_sumpton]

@johnnycat

Without a save game, it is very difficult to explain what happened. If you have it, please post it. If not, the next time you see something like this, please save the game, and post it.

Cheers...

[beelee]

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

please save the game, and post it.

yep save games are the way to go

[TheDog]

@johnnycat said
So I’m onto the user manual. But I will take my time for that one.

Thanks for volunteering to do a manual.

My original documents are located here
triplea\downloadedMaps\1941_global_command_decision\map\doc\images\Originals

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

The files are in Open Document format, I use Libre Office, its free and very similar to Microsoft Office.
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download-libreoffice/

There will be a September release, with cosmetic changes, minor game play changes and a new page for Politics in the manual.

[JohnnyCat]

@thedog ABSOLUTELY AWESOME!!! I recently switched all my open office stuff to libre office

And I just completed a 150 page manual for another game using Libre.

Thanks for the links !!!

[JohnnyCat]

Here is the game where German 8 - all of a sudden a bunch of Chinese units populated India.

This is very weird.CHINESE POPPED UP IN INDIA G8.tsvg

[JohnnyCat]

@wc_sumpton I just posted the game save that shows all these random Chinese units popping into India...

Oh and THEY ARE NOT REALLY THERE - of course. Its just some sort of graphics bug

[TheDog]

@johnnycat
No they are there, fleeing from your Imperial Japanese advance. So all good.

.
Turn 5 - fleeing

.
Turn 6 - Scattering

[wc_sumpton]

@thedog

Nice catch, this is why save games help when answering these types of questions.

Cheers...

[Black_Elk]

Right on. That makes a bit more sense then, especially since China moves last in the turn order sequence. If they got a move in when the player wasn't looking, it could easily seem like they just appeared randomly. Although not a bug, it's potentially still a source of confusion for the newer player, esp. if one is used to China rules in v3 or Global, where the Chinese can only operate in specific territories. I'm not sure if the open/closed borders concept was introduced into TripleA specifically to accommodate the way China and Pro-Side Neutrals work in G40, but seems likely.

@johnnycat I was referring to the situation in Classic Axis and Allies, where the UK player would purchase an Industrial Complex in India and the USA player would then purchase a second Factory in Sinkiang (team Allies would then use the 'double factory' buy in Mainland Asia as a way to Kill or Contain Japan) for a Kill Japan First game. I was not referring to GCD 1941 there, but rather a standard opening buy from Allies in the A&A game from 1984. Alternative openers might be the British player buying an Industrial Complex in South Africa, or a Carrier build where the USA flies in support in that game.

I worry that I'm not really the best person to describe the nuts and bolts on some of this stuff for the GCD. I don't want to confuse anyone, or speak for TheDog in terms of the design intention. A lot of times I will be critical of the way a particular unit works here or suggest an alternative approach, but I don't want my opinions on how a given thing might work to be conflated with the explanation of how it's currently set up. I also have pretty hardcore dyslexia too when typing, so there's that as well hehe. I was trying to respond to your Qs regarding bombers and factories by highlighting where the AI is deficient, since it just can't really do the sort of stuff to us, that we can do to them. It's relevant to the extent that the game is framed as a single player experience rather than a PvP one. Meaning that you're supposed to play it basically vs the computer. This came up very early on when deciding how the challenge for the single player should be approached, with the TheDog deciding on set bonuses awarded to the computer when they are being played by the AI. I think there are different ways to frame the bonuses if the idea is to play as the entire team vs the computer, rather than a single nation vs computer, both of which will be different than a PvP where two players go head to head, each controlling the entire team/side, Axis or Allies. Right now that last option seems the most fraught, since a lot of the design thus far is trying to push the behavior of the FastAI. For example there are hidden capitals and things like that are used to 'persuade' the computer player to adopt certain play patterns on the first turn, or in the midgame, where they are propped up with bonuses. In the same way, when the FastAI is controlling a teammate nation, those bonuses will stabilize the fronts a bit so that it's not a blowout when the AI is fighting itself (other computer players) rather than the lone human.

[JohnnyCat]

@black_elk much appreciated content. Thx

But back to teleporting Chinese troops circa 1944: why are there a bunch of Chinese in India ?