PvP Scenario Review Thread

[RogerCooper]

@mattbarnes Good luck with your new thread.

[Captain Crunch]

deja vu no wai

[mattbarnes]

Big World 2: Rise of the Axis
by Prussia (and others)

This is a great WW2 map. It starts in 1939, with Germany, France and Britain at war, and Germany walking into Poland and the Axis taking neutral Balkans. (Starting game-map shown in image below.) There is otherwise a lot of flexibility about when other nations join the war. It is interesting, for example, for Italy to either join the Axis band-wagon as early as possible, or to defer entry and hence remain free of British attacks for a while. Similarly, Germany can attempt early Barbarossa, or build-up a bit more before invading Russia. In any case, the author makes France weak in order to ensure Germany can win its historical 1940 Battle of France. Russia have a one-turn special power to declare 'winter', stalling German attacks, and it's fun to decide when to pull that one out.

Japan need not declare against the Allies but is likely to do so in order to soak-up south-east Asia and Pacific islands. The only oddity here is that they must declare against the Allies as a whole, bringing USA into the conflict, and the Philippines invasion, 2 years early. I would have thought it within the engine functionality to include a separate mechanism for Japan-USA war independent of Japan-UK. Indeed Germany can defer conflict with the USA in the game, so Japan should be able to.

The author does try to inject a Pearl Harbour moment, materialising Yamamoto's carrier group mid-game and some sitting-duck Battleships for him to destroy. This rather blunt mechanic works surprisingly well, as long as Japan 'reads-ahead' to anticipate its arrival and positions adequate support.

There are numerous other theatrical features. I recommend reading the Game Notes thoroughly and revisiting them throughout the game. My opponent did not do so and therefore suffered some sub-optimal moments and other surprises. For example, Italy can send a unit to Germany to ask for an Afrika Korps appearance in Algeria. There are also copious Techs to think about and a lengthy list of National Objectives which are important to frame strategies around.

AA games have always struggled with modelling the Battle of the Atlantic and the map is no exception. Much of the Royal Navy is destroyed early-game but will likely later rebuild and overcome Axis ships. (I think it a mistake for Axis to try to compete at sea, diverting resources from land power.) Germany has a novel 'wolfpack' unit which acts as a mobile sea-factory, spawning a sub per turn. While feeling a bit ahistorical in its implementation, it does manage to drag-out the Atlantic battle for a historically realistic length of time.

Based on just a few PvP play-throughs, the game feels reasonably well-balanced, possibly slightly favoring Axis. Japan has significant prospects of thrusting through to Australia and Britain struggles to hold Egypt unless really focuses there, conceding elsewhere.

As I've mentioned on another thread, there is a Japanese one-shot kamikaze plane unit which doesn't appear to be working correctly as it auto-dies at the start of any battle. I have otherwise found the game to function very well.

There is also a sister map, 'Big World 2: Balance of Power". This starts in 1942, so many of the intricacies of 'Rise' have already resolved. All powers are at war and there are fewer strategic choices. As such, I don't think this offers additional play. However, it could be a good entry point - you could play 'Balance' first, to get a handle on some of the mechanics, before progressing to 'Rise' for the fuller experience.

[zoozoc]

Hi Mattbarnes,

Appreciate your comments here. To be clear, you are playing PvP on all these maps? Are you playing with friends or randoms online?

I've been playing some maps with some others and we are always looking out for well-balanced maps to play. Having this thread is useful to pool individual knowledge about maps for others to see.

You mention that the 1948 scenario for Camp David favours the Arabs. Is there a "bid" value that you suggest using to balance it out?

[mattbarnes]

Hi @zoozoc. Most maps seem pretty balanced so far, with just that one exception I noted. I'm afraid it was quite a while ago so I can no longer remember well enough to recommend a bid. I just play against one family member. We always play a pair of games on any map, simultaneously, eg I'm Axis on one game and Allied in the other. That way at least if the map is unbalanced, we would each get the stronger side once. Also, if one side consistently wins by some margin it will indicate that a bid is required. However, we tend to only play a map 2-3 times, and the first game is usually full of errors, so we don't really have the data to be scientific about bids.

[zoozoc]

@mattbarnes

Thanks, good to know.

So far my group has mostly stuck with the pretty balanced and well-played WW2 maps. But venturing into less familiar maps, it is always a question whether a given map is balanced or not and usually you can only know by playing.

I'll post any notes or thoughts here about any interesting maps we play.

[board 3659]

@mattbarnes I assume this is for 1 v 1 only right.

[mattbarnes]

@board-3659 we normally play just PvP (2 player). But there are some fun PvPvAI maps, like Caribbean or Steampunk Advanced. We’ve also played some large player count ones, like a Japan/Shogun one, where we will choose to play a single faction each, with multiple AI between. I’m writing from memory here, but will try to review them in more detail in due course.

What we haven’t done is played with more than 2 humans, just cos it’s just the 2 of us. I expect the problem with multiple humans is that it becomes more about diplomacy than gameplay, and people get ganged-up on (unless you fix 2 teams).

[TheDog]

Can I tempt you with this 1 v 1 map game?

Its a simple, low unit count, small map with lots of tactical opportunities.

Check this out;
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3264/arena-of-death-official-thread

Play against a Fast AI to learn some of the tactics and then against a human.

[zoozoc]

When I play with my group, we still play fundamentally "1v1" games, it is just that each side is a team with a faction (or 2) played by one player. So in the classic WW2 formula, a separate player is playing Russia/Germany/UK/Japan/USA and it is 3v2 (or 2v2 with one player doubling up).

[board 3659]

@mattbarnes steampunk advance imo should have one of the players be Nemo Pirates. AI isn't good with them. AI is ok with Martains but the best imo is AI Entente Central powers and the two players as the martains and nemo pirates. you could get 3 or 4 people if you want though

[zoozoc]

So I ended up play the "Aventurica" map with 3 other friends. Initially looking at the map, it seemed very skewed against the Imperials. So we decided to bid for the right to play "evil" with the bid value going to Thorwall (part of the imperial alliance) with the stipulation that units could only be placed up to the territory maximum (to allow for AlAnsa to have a good chance at capturing Brabak in the south).

(FYI, we always play "low luck" for all of the TripleA maps we play)

The bid ended up being 41 and I and a friend played as the Imperial allinace. It turns out that this map might actually be balanced or close to balanced at 0 bid because the game ended on turn 3 when it became apparent that the Imperial player would have no problem capturing Fasar (the capital of Borbarad player) with no way to prevent it.

If we had played the game as-is, it still seems like a very huge threat of Imperials taking Fasar because it has a limit of 2 production. By turn 5, Imperials would have had about a 28 unit surplus needed to take Fasar, so there is plenty of slack to defend their capital while sacking Fasar. Even with a 0 bid, it seems like Fasar could fall even with AlAnfa's support from the south, but maybe not.

The win condition for the Imperial alliance certainly seems to be taking Fasar without losing their own capital, while the other side wants to hold Fasar long enough so that their numerical advantage can be brought to bare against the Imperials.

I would like to retry the game with myself playing as "evil" with a much lower bid (maybe $15 for Thorwall) to see if I could make it work, but not sure if anyone else in my group wants to play this map again.

Here was the end-state on turn 3 at the start of the "orcs" turn in case anyone is interested in seeing it. lrx_aventurica_g1_orc3.tsvg

[mattbarnes]

@zoozoc We played it 4 times, so I was Imperial twice and Borbarad twice. During the games my impression swung between at first thinking the map was strongly in favour of one side, then strongly for the other. Your observations, eg about the fragility of Borbarad's capital mirror mine. I think that, as you say, your Bid was rather too big. My sense that Evil has the advantage follows from being able to capture Brabak on turn 1 - you made that impossible. It would be interesting to use a Bid big enough to help Imperials but too small to delay Brabak's loss (or require the bid to be spent elsewhere). In that case, I think AlAnsa moves to support Fasar and the game is more interesting when the capture of Bornland opens a new front. The Imperials then need to look in two directions and struggle to concentrated sufficiently on Fasar.

[mattbarnes]

Caribbean Trade War
by Frostion

This is a shorter review as my play of this map was some time ago and because the map plays quite ahistorically. However, the map was fun and reasonably balanced.

The scenario pits a French-Dutch-Danish alliance against a British-Spanish-Swedish. I understand that Sweden obtained a Caribbean colony in 1784 and there were several islands in the Danish West Indies. However, I sincerely doubt there is much accuracy in the alliances, relative strengths and game dynamics as presented here.

The Game Notes appear to anticipate a number of AIs playing key nations but we played as one human against the other, each playing a three-nation alliance. It remains however that the AI controls the indigenous warriors and some pirates. The latter can be instrumental if allowed to be - they are likely to grow to material strength and punish any smaller fleets or colonies. That said, the AI can become timid in later game, when the human strength exceeds theirs, almost like they fear to aggravate a stronger neighbour. A human may win if their human opponent fails to judge and anticipate the pirate actions.

Additional resources appearing from Europe is a fun dynamic. The Game Notes flag that this will happen but offer no details, so it is amusing to see the arrivals which are unexpected in timing and nature. However, these are pre-determined, not random, so can be anticipated in further games, and strategies adopted to optimise or defeat such reinforcements. Take care if your open is forewarned and you are not!

The map provides a number of theatres of combat on land and sea, sometimes between a single nation on each side, or sometimes operating in concert with allies, or disrupted by neutrals. This all generates plenty of interesting and fun battling.

[zoozoc]

@mattbarnes

Yes this map is quite "fragile", we had structured the bid such as we did because if the bid went instead to Imperials, that would simply mean they could take the capital even earlier. I think what would have to happen is a bid for Thorwall getting balanced by a bid for Borbarad as well so that they can reinforce their capital. Or perhaps simply changing the production amount of their capital to more than 2.

Or as you say, simply stipulate that the bid cannot be placed in the south so that AlAnsa can take it turn 1.

[board 3659]

@mattbarnes yeah I think it's one of my favorites.
I think the AI Indian, and Pirates also help the map from being scripted but that's me

Anyway if your reviewing Steampunk Advance, I could help play if you need more people

[TheDog]

Can I tempt you PvP-ers to comment on our new map, initial impressions or even a PVP game?

1941 Global Command Decision
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3326/1941-global-command-decision-official-thread

I know its a big ask as its still in development, but the changes are slowing down, honest

[zoozoc]

@thedog

My problem is the people I play with are very slow. But also not very adventurous. We haven't done any maps with complicated rules. So I doubt we can jump into this one, though it does look interesting.

[mattbarnes]

@thedog Hi, I'm happy to take a look. I see it's not built-in to the usual map downloader, unfortunately. I tried to manually download from your link but can't get it to work. Is it as simple as your file being "YML" and the game expecting "XML"?? Note I'm on v2.5 of the game; is that what you expect?

[TheDog]

In your downloads folder, copy the zip file to the usual place, typically for Windows its;
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\triplea\downloadedMaps

and unzip the zip file there.

You can leave it zipped but I find there are less errors if it is unzipped.

ps. ask you need more help