💥 1941 Global Command Decision - Official Thread

[TheDog]

Mustang is now m6 for 9pu

Lend-Lease-Depot
Are you familiar with my The Shogun map, it has Mon/Flag unit ownership flag always flying from a reliefTile flag pole.

This works because the Mon/Flag has

<option name="isAA" value="true"/> <!-- is always 1st unit slot in place.txt -->

In Lend-Lease-Depot terms we (thats you Black Elk ) can put a road or rail graphic on the reliefTiles and place/end it so that it butts up to an icon of the Lend-Lease-Depot .

eg. the Persian Corridor rail/road would start at the coast travel through 4 TTs and end in Baku. (One long snake like graphic on the reliefTiles).
Then by careful positioning of the 1st slot coordinates in the 5 TT and shuffling the rest of the TTs coordinates, a Lend-Lease-Depot icon can appear on the rail line and not be randomly placed.

The only downside is that when the Lend-Lease-Depot is destroyed the 1st slot over the rail/road would be occupied by a random unit.

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Industry and Industry TTs
So Im happy with the restrictions of the 4 Factories production capabilities, so are you both?
Armor-xxx matches the Industry that produces it, currently by design. One reason that I wanted to change Bomber-Lgt.
Industry-Med came from looking at what Wales, South Africa and Australia could produce in the war. The British were mean to India (Industry-Lgt) and did not invest heavily in Industry, but invested in South Africa (Industry-Med)

As an aside Im thinking of removing Medan W.Sumatra Industry-Lgt, the AI spams Armor-Lgt, as not very historic. A player/AI can build a Industry-Lgt later, the TT Pu stays the same. To compensate put a Base-Camp in Palembang from the start.

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Themed Reinforcements
If your are reasonable happy with the balance of the game we can add in 'themed' reinforcements;

• China Fighters
• Pacific-Allies have their Industry-Hvy earlier to simulate Lend-Lease from the US.
• ...

ps. Could add pu to a nation thats homeland has been invaded to simulate scrapping the barrel for equipment or gifting armor-lgt Fighter-Early etc?

[wc_sumpton]

@thedog

Re: Long-Lance, Japan's Destroyers and Cruisers. Adding "tech" and "tech_activation":

<delegate name="tech" 				javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.delegate.TechnologyDelegate" display="Research Technology"/>
<delegate name="tech_activation" 	javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.delegate.TechActivationDelegate" display="Technical advancements"/>

Then adding:

<step name="gameInitDelegate" delegate="initDelegate" maxRunCount="1"/>

<!-- Only needs to happen once at the beginning -->
<step name="JapanTech" delegate="tech" player="Japan" maxRunCount="1"/>
<step name="JapanTechActivation" delegate="tech_activation" player="Japan" maxRunCount="1"/>

Now the techs:

<technologies>
         <techname name="Land-Transport" tech="mechanizedInfantry"/> <!-- Note the name change for display -->
          <techname name="Air-Transport" tech="paratroopers"/> <!-- Note the name change for display -->
         <techname name="Long-Lance"/>
</technologies>
<playerTech player="Britain">
	<category name="Technology Advances">
		<tech name="Land-Transport"/> <!-- Name change is only used here for each player  -->
		<tech name="Air-Transport"/> <!-- Name change is only used here for each player! -->
	</category>
</playerTech>
...
...
...
<playerTech player="Japan">
	<category name="Technology Advances">
		<tech name="Land-Transport"/>
		<tech name="Air-Transport"/>
		<tech name="Long-Lance"/> <!-- New tech added here -->
	</category>
</playerTech>

Trigger add to Japan's Tech:

<!-- ======================================= Tech Japan Kamikaze Plane $KamikazeSZ$ $All-Surface$ 11 for 1 ======================================= -->
<attachment name="triggerAttachment_Long-Lance" attachTo="Japan" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TriggerAttachment" type="player">
  <option name="conditions" value="conditionAttachment_Always_True"/>
  <option name="tech" value="Long-Lance"/>
  <option name="uses" value="1"/>
</attachment>

Then the Technical Addvancement add at the bottom:

<attachment name="techAbilityAttachment" attachTo="Long-Lance" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TechAbilityAttachment" type="technology">
  <option name="attackBonus" value="1:Destroyer"/>
  <option name="attackBonus" value="1:Cruiser"/>
</attachment>

Note this does not change!

<attachment foreach="$All-Players$" name="techAttachment" attachTo="@All-Players@" javaClass="TechAttachment" type="player">
	<option name="mechanizedInfantry" value="true"/>
	<option name="paratroopers" value="true"/>
</attachment>

Now when one mouses over Japan's Destroyers and Cruisers the tool tip displays "2/1/3" and "3/2/3" respectively. I still think some sort of display, like on the Armor-Hvy, should be used.

Now on the "Players" tab under "Technologies" there are "Land-Transport", "Air-Transport" and "Long-Lance". I think it reads better than "mechanizedInfantry" and "paratroopers".

Cheers...

[TheDog]

@wc_sumpton

Now on the "Players" tab under "Technologies" there are "Land-Transport", "Air-Transport" and "Long-Lance". I think it reads better than "mechanizedInfantry" and "paratroopers".

It certainly does.

Worked first time.

Thank you for another Master Class

[Black_Elk]

All sounds good to me!

Oh I like that idea for the graphic keying off the first place. Seems like an interesting challenge. Lend-Lease is replaced by the bunker if destroyed I think, then infantry in the place order right? In general it doesn't matter if it's the infantry hopping around, cause they look pretty good wherever they land. Even if he was on a railroad track, probably would still look alright hehe, but factory and base units are a bit beefier and might look wonk if they jump position. Like when all the infrastructure is destroyed. HQ and Bomber units can also clip in a bit cause they're pretty large, fighters less so but they're still fairly wide.

To indicate a kind of objective (associated TTs on the map visually) probably something pretty subdued like a simple dotted line would look ok. Probably wouldn't want it too large/busy or might become visually distracting. I can tool around see what we come up with. Current relief doesn't have the dotted blue lines for the canals. I could add them back in, but was thinking it might make sense to go for 1 TT canal control. Basically so that Egypt alone controls Suez, Istanbul alone controls the Turkish straits. That way all the straits and canals are handled in the same way. Removing Sinai, Smyrna and Ankara from the requirements to pass through those waterways, pretty much all like Panama. I think that'd be more straightforward. For Suez in particular the counterplay around Sinai (like TransJordan in A&A) can be a bit gamey. Anyhow just a thought, could use a similar dotted line motif for the aid corridors instead. Though I'd have to tinker with it see if it looks cool.

For the production spread, I think the 5 PU value is the real entry level here, like for the spots that are going to be the most hotly contested by both sides. I think 5 PUs (Industry-lgt capable) would be analogous to a territory worth 2-3 PUs in A&A or the v3/5 games etc. Basically a spot that could support a factory hub. In v5 you can place them anywhere with value of 1 or more, but to get a decent return you basically need 2 PUs in production to make it a worthwhile investment. Often in the pacific the only spots that made sense are the East Indies, Philippines or Coastal China, which has the effect of putting the big magnet on that part of the map in A&A. Like that's where Allies want to get to shorten their lines, or where Japan wants to camp to secure theirs, which means the islands in the central Pacific sorta playing second fiddle to what's going on with India or East Africa or the Middle East vis a vis Japan. My thought in A&A was always to just raise the value of all the islands in the Pacific like Iwo and such to 2 PUs so they could function like that, to counterbalance the strong pull of the Axis center crush. This artificially inflates the value of those peripheral TTs, but I think mechanically it would work better, since you sorta need a production bait like that to persuade the player that getting drawn into the Pacific backfield isn't just a doomed play. Otherwise I think the default is to sort bypass everything and only gun for the spots that are a real production focus. Since Industry-Med is currently the entry level ship/air building factory, I think it might make sense to have a few more of these scattered around the map. I think N. Chosen might make sense for a Japanese Industry-lgt hub on the mainland, since the IJN can shuck there from home waters. Probably a bit easier to defend if sz 19A is being contested. I think having Iwo and Okinawa at higher values would be more about giving the USA a softer underbelly type target, as opposed to just dropping into Mainland China to try and take Mukden or Shanghai for USA production, while also giving Japan a reason to be on guard. Right now AI Japan seems to struggle a bit defending the home waters, why I was thinking maybe Iwo and Oki being higher might give em a more of a reason to hold position in those zones. I think a lot of spots could just be worth 5-7 and I'd be fine with seeing the players choose whether to build up in those spots or trade em for income, while the AI just gets a few freebies. With the new flak adjustments it's harder to just wipe factories off the map, so the AI does a bit better now, though it'd still be cool if they could bonus in the factories, since that would probably change the playpattern a bit and needing fewer production spots from the getgo. The Industry generating 3 or 5 bucks a pop is a nice way to boost income, so perhaps fewer on the board at the outset, but also few more spots available for the mid/endgame scale up would iron out the kinks, but not sure how to make that happen. If the HardAI would purchase factory replacements the way they drop bases we'd probably be pretty set haha. Speaking of which, I noticed the AI will leave bases undefended for enemy walk ins. Perhaps they should get a hitpoint so they can block?

I think this map is about as good as I've seen for a production spread. Like the elements are pretty much all in place. I dig it

Played a couple games as Axis to get back in the groove. Fun stuff! Nice work!

Anyhow, let me know what needs doing, like for added chevrons or tech stuff. I can make a list of stuff to try and tackle graphics-wise hehe

Catch ya in a few!

ps. one more thought on Factories... So comparing Industry-Hvy to Industry-Med, the availability of units in the national purchase rosters means that it is more advantageous to take some spots with certain nations as opposed to others. For example it's often better for Britain to take over Industry-Hvys from German/Italian TTs, because they can produce Armor-Hvy at those locations, while USA would be stuck spawning Armor-Medium. Pacific-Allies are stuck at Industry-Medium till later rounds, so if there's a risk of the factory being destroyed in the attack they wouldn't want to go after an Industry-Hvy. Similarly Germany can make better use of Russian Industry-Hvy TTs than Italy, since they can spawn Armor-Hvy. Stuff like that. Not necessarily a bad thing, but just something to note. I think typically any of the nations can make use of an Industry-Hvy capable spot, even if they can't build at the max level from there, but could shape the playpattern a fair bit when deciding who to lead with, or where to gun.
I think if most of the tech type unlocks were advance a round or 2, by the time you hit the endgame those sorts of issues would be less pronounced. I think the NAP between USSR and Japan might break a bit sooner as well, especially since AI USSR stacks a lot of units in the Far East and sorta holds them there. If they unleashed a bit sooner, could make things interesting on the Pacific side of the board. I think by like round 8 or 9 most of the tech type stuff should be in play, since that's when the big moves are happening. Rounds 5-7 feel 1943-44 ish to me just based on where USA can be at that point in the game, so I feel like the meat and potatoes is sorta right there and I kinda imagine the later rounds as just an expansion of the closing years of the war. Like the longer the game goes where 1945 just sorta stretches out indefinitely at that point heheh

[TheDog]

@Black_Elk

Lend-Lease is replaced by the bunker if destroyed I think, then infantry in the place order right?

I think its a first in first out, but it it still random depending on the order of the initial xml units being placed and player movement.

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@All
Currently the timeline is 4-ish turns per year, Tech is linked to that, also if following historic ww2 the game should end Turn 16-ish.

In my games, I only play one nation at a time, tend to be 16-ish turns.
Black Elk your Axis or Allies 21vp games tend to be 8-12 turns ?

We could compress the timeline, meaning;

• Tech release is shorter
• Combat should increase to 7,9 or infinite rounds.

.
We could leave the timeline as is, but increase the combat rounds ?

Thoughts ?

[Black_Elk]

Sounds good to me

Yeah I think to 21 VCs usually before round 10 for me. Here's an example of the Allied position from my last game at the close of the 9th round. I was playing to 25 VCs which is a bit longer.

2023-6-5-1941-Global-Command-Decision v95 Elk vs HardAI Axis round 9 USA.tsvg

Increasing the combat rounds would likely prevent some of the stalemate weirdness. You can see from the save above, how the Brits were able to hold out in Formosa for a few turns, then build bunkers and a dude from the base camp to cling to life hehe. Did the same thing in the last round at Hamburg. I see stuff like that on occasion where the combat is prolonged a fair bit cause the TTs remains contested when the round limit is hit.

I'd imagine in a game where most players are controlled by the AI that the VC win would take a few rounds longer and provide a different sort of challenge, but I like controlling the entire team just cause it makes the game round feel a bit more engaging to me with less downtime between turns.

[wc_sumpton]

@black_elk

When trying to attack a territory with multiple bunkers, bring in artillery and bombers-tac, their support stacks, nullifying bunker defenses.

I added "transportCapacity" 2 and "isCombatTransport" to capital ship and subs. Also added "isAirTransportable" to all land units, plus "canInvadeOnlyFrom". For conscripts, trained and towed I made transport and all move 2 land units. For all armor and halftracks left at transport only. Elite is still all.

Just some different dynamics.

Cheers...

[Black_Elk]

Sounds good to me! I'll definitely try that on the next out for sure!

Oh also, I just noticed that Vyborg was missing a terrain icon. Should be Forest.
Okinawa as well.

Here is a relief with those graphics added...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qaizzsaaiykebui/1941_relief_vyborg_okinawa_fix.png?dl=0

[wc_sumpton]

@black_elk, @TheDog

More Information on 2.5 Air Battle error/warning message. It seems that Hard AI is not selecting defensive units to participate. This is OK, the air battle will not happen, and all units will join in on the regular battle. In 2.6 there seems to be an error in the engine which does not allow defensive units to be selected for an air battle, thus all units participate in the regular battle.

Will keep all informed.

Cheers...

[Black_Elk]

Right on. I was curious about that because on occasion I did see a dogfight/intercept option but not consistently. It happened to me once in a naval battle as well and kinda threw me for a loop. It'd be hard for me to say when maxing into an air battles as the defender would be advantageous without having a greater number of fighters, since the potential instant loss of the TUV can be kinda steep. Also there's that sort of psych effect of risking your air up front, vs foot dragging it into reg combat. Attrition for aircraft feels pretty high, though the cheaper cost and somewhat weaker ability of fighters compared to A&A or relative to other units in the roster mitigates that a bit. Aircraft in v95 are still pretty powerful especially for fleet screening.

I've seen the AI airblitz on land as well or during amphibious, but the casualty selection/targeting means you can't airblitz in quite the same way as you might in A&A. For example, you can't choose to hold a tank as the last casualty, cause the hits are assigned by type. Same deal on the water, like you couldn't take the hit on a fighter before a destroyer to clear a zone or ensure a block or whatever. On the whole I like this, because the vanilla A&A airblitz is pretty OP and there's no capital capture dynamic here that would make a proper airblitz more essential. Still gunning with all air attacks can be pretty effective, since the units are harder to eliminate via flak than they would be in reg A&A style combat. What I see the computer do often is mount an invasion or amphib assault, then continue to press the fight after the ground units are killed rather than immediately withdrawing, often wiping the remaining defender units with their aircraft, but failing to take the TT. As the player you can do this pretty effectively. I think an overall unit cap may help, like the 100 per tile idea.

A number that's sufficiently large for the scale, but still a ceiling at the very high end. For aircraft an overall cap might also work, though I'd highball it, cause the earlier cap was frustrating. I think it was 20 initially right? To me that was way too low for the number of starting aircraft in play, like I'd do at least 30 or 40 there if trying it again. Also because air caps create logistics and phase separation issues (between com and non com), since the cap presents a hard restriction against entering a tile during movement once that cap is reached. This means that the order of movement becomes significant, e.g. which units moved first during combat movement is actually consequential and may determine which aircraft can still move afterwards on Non Com, which can be a real headache if the cap is too small and units are being trapped by caps. I think the cap should be treated as just that, like an ultimate limit for the totals per tile, but have that number be pretty high. Basically so it's not a constant impediment to the flow, but a feature that only comes into play for the Godzilla game towards the end. Once a stack hits 100 hp, that is sufficient room I think for the player to still manage their mixed forces and not be edging it constantly or all stuck trying avoid hitting the invisible cap/wall during their movement phases. I might do the same for sea zone tiles. Or perhaps capping the total for air or naval units at 50 per tiles or something like that. Though the AI don't seem to have much problem spreading with their fleets, it's more the air/ground that the AI likes to consolidate.

My main concern with an overall cap on units per tile, is that this will make it hard for the defender once the cap is reached. For example, how to defend Moscow when both teams are fielding forces at the cap. Usually the attacker has the initiative to bring greater numbers, to overcome the defenders advantage in power, but a ceiling could complicate that. Just imagining 2 or 3 stacks at 100 HP dancing around each other at the center, cause nobody can press a numbers advantage to come out ahead on the attack or the counter-attack. This would be hard to see in advance, but I can imagine it being an issue towards the endgame. Managing a cap is going to be tedium at any scale once it's reached, cause then the player has to try to cycle hitpoints around to try and max their power/reach at whatever limit. Anyhow, just something to keep an eye on if going that route. I'd definitely start on the high end if capping.

Last pair of Solos I managed 21 VCs inside of 12 rounds, but that was playing as Germany and then USSR. I think for the big 6 it'd probably be between 12-16 rounds as you said. Just sorta depends how many VCs the faction can target. USSR and Japan are a bit restricted since they can't go after each other till later rounds on account of the NAP, which puts a lot of the focus on the map and faction starting location. Japan has many more targets and directions they can press, since they have like a dozen VCs in their neighborhood that they can contest, from SF to Cairo. USSR is sort of more 1 dimensional. The movement restriction on team Allies regarding USSR means that USA and Britain can't really support any of the Soviet VCs if they're being contested. This is a big change from A&A, where pretty much the entire game revolves around pushing hitpoints to support Russia directly. I think this feels better honestly, though there are some kinks, particularly in the middle east were convergence is more likely. I've accidentally trapped a large British/USA army in Finland or in the Caucasus with no way to move the units out after the TT was liberated for the USSR. Basically if you advance more than 1 tile into original owner Soviet territory you can be easily cut off, since you'd need Axis to come right up to your border to escape a prohibited interior TT. I think this would mostly come into play with Britain and USSR, since they're operating in closer proximity initially.

For the small fries, China and Pacific-Allies, I couldn't really see playing them as an independent faction in a Solo, cause there's not enough action there really to hold my interest, but for the big 6 I think it works fine. Italy seems like it could be pretty fun as well in a solo. After playing the first round which takes a while, things moved at a steadier clip, so I had fun!

Looking forward to the next out

[Black_Elk]

ps. Another method for achieving an overall unit cap (per tile) might be to increase the cost of maintenance over a certain threshold, rather than a hard limit on how many units can enter a tile at any given point. So for example, perhaps every unit over the TT cap costs double in maintenance or something?

Say at 100 units they all cost 1, but if you go to 101 units in a tile, then you start hemorrhaging cash in maintenance, cause you're fielding over the limit. Not sure what the AI would do with that, but you could always just give the AI more money to compensate if it makes sense for the challenge. This would allow the player/AI to go over the cap if needed, but with a trade off in the ultimate cost of camping with a massive force. Just trying to think of a way to pull this off without messing up the movement thing too hard, since the effect would come into play during the income/maintenance phase rather than the movement phases. I'd just like to avoid a situation where the player is constantly trying to manage the overall unit cap at the extremes, and switching out units or trying to attrite units jus to make room for placement, where I can imagine it become a nuisance or shifting pieces on the board around a chore. But I do think it would help the AI to have sort of max, since it likes to stack to the ceiling and conserve TUV by default hehe.

Just some more thoughts to chew on. Still digging it quite a lot. Nice work!

[TheDog]

Up and coming in the next release probably is; (Im still testing but the AI (and player) is forced to de-stack)

• Trying another stack limit variant to help the AI, each Allied Air & Sea unit type limited to 20 of each unit type, each Land unit type limited to 40 per per TT/SZ

So in English only 20 Tac Bombers & 40 Inf-Conscript allowed per TT etc.
Also 20 Transport & 20 Destroyers & 20 Cruisers & 20 Tac Bombers per SZ etc.

We tried total stack limits per TT/SZ last time and it was too messy/hard for the player, maybe this time with a different method ...

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Also in other news, Southern Ukraine gets a refresh, this benefits Italy and later USSR if they manage a counter offensive.

[TheDog]

Latest version 100 ready for download from 1st page 1st post

If using faster 2.6 remember to minimize the error box to the taskbar, to stop it it reappearing (this is only a warning error please ignore it)

• Trying another stack limit variant to help the AI, each Allied Air & Sea unit type limited to 20 of each unit type, each Land unit type limited to 40 per per TT/SZ (thanks Black Elk for the reminder)
• Combat rounds now 7, was 5, to reduce draws/contested, as was too many draws, still want to limit rounds to encourage over-kill, as a draw is bad for the attacker
• territoryEffect supports having reevaluated in the light of WC Sumption post on this, I have adopted most of his work (except Desert land values). and updated terrain modifiers on the tool bar (thanks WC Sumpton)
  .
• Fixed 4 Lend-Lease-Depot logic (thanks WC Sumpton) - changed 0ENDTURN code for Lend-Lease-Depot
• rename Bomber-Lgt to Bomber-Tac
• Updated pu_place, reliefTiles (thanks Black Elk)
• P51 Mustang move 6, was 8, 9pu, was 11pu
• Anti-Tank get Flak 1 in 12
• Base-Camp defence=1, removed in error
• Industry-Med & Industry-Lgt gets "attackAA" to 2, same as Industry-Hvy (thanks WC Sumpton)
• Britain, Germany, Japan, Pacific-Allies get additional free Armor-Lgt & Fighter-Early when they get Conscripts

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WEST

• Italy/USSR Odesa gains Industry-Hvy & 9pu (Black Sea shipbuilding)
• Italy/USSR Kherson now 7pu was 4pu................(built Transport so can build Industry-Med)
• Italy/USSR Mariupol 5pu, was 4..............................(magic 5 for Light Industry)
• USSR Tula 5pu, was 3..................................................(magic 5 for Light Industry)
• USSR Omsk gets Industry-Hvy ...............................(As 2 Tank Factories relocated here)

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EAST

• Removed 045 A Sea Zone to Hollandia-Dutch New Guinea (thanks Black Elk)
• Fixed JapanPolitics (thanks WC Sumpton)
• Japan Long Lance Tech (thanks WC Sumpton)
• Japan Advanced (yellow stars) Destroyer, Cruiser, HQ-Fleet - for Long Lance Torpedoes
• Pacific-Allies removed Industry-Lgt in Medam W.Sumatra (in my testing the AI does buy/place Industry-Lgt)
• Pacific-Allies get Industry-Hvy turn 9, was 11 (this simulates US Lend-Lease equipment to Australia & then their Industry-Hvy upgrade)

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TODO

• Conscripts only when occupied, code like Kamikaze
• supportAttachment supports
• Balance

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Link to 1st post that has the download link
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3326/1941-global-command-decision-official-thread

[wc_sumpton]

@thedog

Nice update. Digging some of the new settings.

For your "TODO cannot stop Air from landing as want them fly over it." for "marsh" territoryEffect. Handle this the same way as PUs reset:

<!-- Allow air units to enter marsh during combat -->
<attachment name="triggerAttachment_Marsh_Allow_Air" attachTo="Germany" javaClass="TriggerAttachment" type="player">
	<option name="conditions" value="conditionAttachment_Always_True"/>
		<option name="territoryEffectAttachmentName" value="TerritoryEffectAttachment" count="territoryEffectAttachment"/>
		<option name="territoryEffects" value="marsh"/>
		<option name="territoryEffectProperty" value="unitsNotAllowed" count="-reset-$All-Move2Land$:Artillery:Anti-Tank"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:GermanyCombatMove"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:USSRCombatMove"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:ChinaCombatMove"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:ItalyCombatMove"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:BritainCombatMove"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:JapanCombatMove"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:USACombatMove"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:Pacific-AlliesCombatMove"/>
</attachment>

<!-- Reset marsh to prevent Air Units from landing -->
<attachment name="triggerAttachment_Marsh_Reset" attachTo="Germany" javaClass="TriggerAttachment" type="player">
	<option name="conditions" value="conditionAttachment_Always_True"/>
		<option name="territoryEffectAttachmentName" value="TerritoryEffectAttachment" count="territoryEffectAttachment"/>
		<option name="territoryEffects" value="marsh"/>
		<option name="territoryEffectProperty" value="unitsNotAllowed" count="-reset-$All-Air$:$All-Move2Land$:Artillery:Anti-Tank"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:GermanyNonCombatMove"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:USSRNonCombatMove"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:ChinaNonCombatMove"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:ItalyNonCombatMove"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:BritainNonCombatMove"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:JapanNonCombatMove"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:USANonCombatMove"/>
		<option name="when" value="before:Pacific-AlliesNonCombatMove"/>
</attachment>

For bunkers, base-camp, and industries use "unitPlacementRestrictions", in their "unitAttachment", with a list of territories. This way "Florida" and "New Orleans-Louisiana" could be left off the list, to allow some construction.

Cheers...

[TheDog]

Your such a time saver, thanks!

[wc_sumpton]

@thedog, @Black_Elk

Some basic information:

                 O/V   P      H/M/L/B
Germany         91/4  211     11/7/3
USSR            88/5  318     7/1/3/1
Pacific-Allies  46/3  135     0/1/2
Italy           27/3  136     6/2/2
Britain        134/4  343     5/3/5
Japan           40/4  211     6/2/4/4
USA             61/5  300     9/0/2
China           19/1   63     0/1/1/4

Allies         348/18  1159   21/6/13/5
Axis           158/11   721   23/11/9/4
Neutrals       100/0   146    

Japan cannot produce the Inf-Motorized. Germany and Italy cannot produce Carriers. Germany may produce Armor-Hvy, but that's only after research, British and USSR start with it and USA can do the research.

The Inf-Motorized is 2/2/2, 6PUs, can carry, and may blitz when stacked with armor. This is a very powerful unit, and not letting all players produce it sets them at a disadvantage. The inability for Germany and Italy to produce Carriers in the Atlantic Gives the Allies the advantage in the west. Also allowing Allies Armor-Hvy IMO is another imbalance.

Just some thoughts.

Cheers...

[TheDog]

As you have gathered the sides are deliberately asymmetric. I am trying to be as historical as possible.

However, as I dont play A&A games, (I have only played it 3 times a long time ago) I am open to suggestions, as to what players want, especially Black Elk and you WC Sumpton as you have made this map possible.

All nations could build all 'tech' but that's not really what I'm after.

In 1945 most nations were war weary.

Black Elk has suggested going non-historic/fantasy whatever you want to call it, I think that's for another variant, maybe of this map.

What are the the O/V columns?

[wc_sumpton]

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

What are the the O/V columns?

Number of territories Owned/Victory

Cheers...

[Black_Elk]

I think I kinda laid out most of my views on the units/balance earlier in the thread, but just to reiterate, I think some asymmetry for flavor is fine, provided there is an overall parity by sides, though I think that's a bit of an open question with some nations/units currently for reasons WC mentioned. I'm very much an A&A player though, so I lean towards the familiar in that regard. On the one hand I can see how it makes sense from a realism standpoint, that say Germany or Italy wouldn't have a carrier... They both had plans to build one sure, but the Graf Zep and Aquila were never completed during the course of the war, so I get that... on the other hand, I don't really think of the carriers and battleships as a 'carriers and battleships' per se, but rather as abstract game pieces that might stand in for other stuff. I have the same attitude towards the production spread.

Basically I think it's sometimes a choice between realism or consistency for the constituent elements vs an overall playpattern that feels 'realistic' (realistic meaning something like, 'feels like the WW2 movies you got in your head' hehe), or where the right story beats are hitting at the right time. But while still being entertaining and dynamic in terms of the actual gameplay. I also rather like the idea of a WW2 game that explores the what if element, as opposed to just a simulation of what went down historically. I think for that, perhaps something similar to what that dude Kurt floated initially for progressive technology. So just for example, take the Graf Zeppelin. Rather than treating it like a run of the mill unit purchase, perhaps the German or Italian player has an option to invest in this as an unlock?

I don't know, maybe it costs 100 PUs or something, and so the player may be less likely to go that route, cause it's more unconventional, but just having the option might be cool. Or another way might be to do a sort of Flagship, where each nation has a themed badass naval unit, though not necessarily the same visual design. The current carrier has a very important but also niche role, basically because it's related to the aircraft in play and how players can spawn/transit or just generally make use of their fighters. Another approach might be to have the fighters built into the carrier directly or something. Conversely, you might have a unit with the abilities of a battleship, but which looks like a carrier, like for the vibe. Something like that could work I think, to give a similar visual flavor like you want, but where the actual unit might have abilities that make them more even that way.

For the Inf-Motorized, I think I mentioned earlier, but I feel their attack power should be at 1, in line with other infantry units. The tow is extremely powerful, I would have that be a feature exclusively of the armor. Elites I'd drop to 1 as well except if on amhib or air transport, and probably rework the trained-inf amphib malus so it's not as hardcore (AI seems to struggle there.) I think the Armor-lgt should have the tow ability rather than the Inf-Motorized though, which would make the pricing seem more sensible to me. I think Infantry Motorized should be just infantry that moves 2 and is supported by artillery or whatever the reg infantry abilities are. It's main advantage being that it can spawn wherever infantry can be built and at m2 reach. Terrain makes all the m2 units somewhat harder to use, so armor and inf-motorized can both hit the snags that way, or when moving off rail, but I think they'd both still be useful.

To me Inf-Motorized is analogous to Mech and uses similar graphics like trucks or half-tracks, jeeps whatever, so I think the unit could be available to all factions. Rail movement supersedes the m2 for regular inf types and artillery currently, so the trade off I think is just in managing the terrain. I don't know that a Mech drive from Japan would be all that common anyway when they can push inf/elites/art at m3 more effectively from factory tiles. To me the Armor-lgt right now is sort of a novelty purchase. At 7 with the current abilities the Elite seems a more attractive buy, so sometimes I find the AI kinda curious building so many light tanks the way it does. If the light tank had the tow it would be much more useful, especially for the transport capacity. I think I'd buy more tanks. Anti-Tank is another tough one, because it's restricted to the Heavy-Industry locations for placement. Probably would open that one up to Industry-Med or something, so there are more placement options for those. Or perhaps giving them a transport capacity more like the infantry. Since a lot of the terrain types affect those units like with a defense bonus and such, I think they'd be attractive, just sorta tricky to get em out into the field for some factions that need to transport from the main industry hubs. The factions like Germany and USSR they're a bit better buys I think than for say USA. Or at least until they take an Industry hvy from Axis. Though I feel like once you do that, you'd be wanting to build tanks or battleships and such with those slots rather than Anti-Tank units hehe.

I also like the idea that the heavy tanks would stage in giving the Mediums more time to be a factor. Even though there is an incentive to purchase them from Industry-Med, I think they could be at the top of the pile for a while, which would make the hit 4 heavies feel a bit more intense when they arrive. Though I do kinda dig how the Tank slog is a feature of the Eastern Front sooner than it becomes a factor elsewhere. The timing on how they enter play for each I think could be staggered like you have. Overall as a single player experience I've been able to find ways to get each faction to do more or less what needs doing, and don't mind how the rosters are a bit different. In PvP I think exploits or handicaps based on what's available in the unit roster would be more pronounced and may weigh more heavily on the balance by sides.

Hahah yeah I still think something WW2 aftermath with Aliens would be amusing!

[TheDog]

@black_elk
Some interesting points & observations. As the map is focused on solo play and I dont play PvP I will leave that to others.

@All
Overall I think that in 2.6 the AI buys less Inf-Elite then 2.5, so in the next release they will be cheaper 6pu, was 7pu. Still overpriced unless used in their specialist role of marine/paratrooper.

@wc_sumpton
Interesting table, below is my additions

It shows that Pacific Allies need a few more Base-Camps from turn 1.