"Bad-Ass" 4 Nation FFA
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Link to download (updated 11.24.2018) : https://www.sendspace.com/file/57t1wb
Just place the zipped file into the C:users/your.username/triplea/downloadedmaps. The game should become available on the game list within triplea. If you have an older version of game already, either delete it or move it out of the downloadedmaps folder so the correct version is used.
The MOD is designed to give each nation a uniquely challenging, and equal chance at the win. The world is not perfect symmetry, so plan your strategy based on your geographic location, national strengths, and lastly but certainly not least, adjust your tactics as needed to counter your immediate threats and to exploit your enemies weaknesses. If the world were 100% perfectly symmetrical no one would win. So that being said, all forms of diplomatic negotiations are allowed via combinations of the chat function and the game supported diplomatic actions. From a simple agreement and friendly cooperation to non-aggression pacts and alliances of mutual interests. However long term alliances are discouraged in order to keep within the proper spirit of the free for all game concept. Not to mention your so called long term ally will certainly backstab you in the end anyways. There can only be one! -
@general_zod Strangely I already have some input.
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@hepps Yeah , your fast, how did you ever know, hehe.
Looks great thank you these will make nice markers for the 12 national objectives on the map.
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@general_zod While I have only looked at this a couple times I will say I think the starting location for some nations might make it more difficult for some players.
Russia and Germany seem to be on each others door step.... while Japan is so isolated that it seems to be able to do what it pleases with little threat from another player while at the same time being able to achieve 2 Nat. Obj. safely with little immediate threat of loosing them.
As a suggestion.... Perhaps moving the German starting territory to "Northern South America" might solve these issues.
As I say I have only briefly examined this... so it may not be a viable solution for what you have envisioned.
BTW... outstanding work on the way you made politics work. Very nice addition to the political structure.
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@General_Zod Yup KUDOS on the politics I will say again!
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@hepps Thanks guys for the politics compliments.
To my knowledge some of the features below are a first for TripleA.
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All Diplomatic overtures start and end, on the proposing nations turn, allowing for fair diplomacy for all nations. Especially the nations toward end of the turn order.
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Multi turn ,Non-Aggression Pacts I, II, III and Mutual Defense Treaties I, II , III auto expire, and revert to Cease Fire status.
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Allow a method out of unwanted multi turn pacts and treaties with War via Sneak Attack. Which can be declared while in a pact or treaty for a 25PUs or 35PUs penalty respectively.
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Each nation has ability to make one successful diplomatic action per turn, per target nation. For a total of 3 successful diplomatic actions per turn (1 success with each, of 3 opponent nations). Failed proposals don't count, however you must pay for each proposal, even failed ones.
*Diplomatic fees and upkeep structured to be most cost effective to remain at war, versus sitting safely in a pact or treaty all game and building army.
But first or not, they will certainly add to the game.
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Thanks for the input Hepps. You are correct about your observations. Germans and Russians capitals are close. And Japan is isolated. Americas do have room to accommodate a move of German capital.
This is the first mod I attempted so I searched for an existing world map to work with, ww2v3 seemed to fit my vision best, however I had to deal with exactly what you mention above and a several other issues. There were many directions I could take it, but I settled for this one.
I guess first thing to mention is when looking at the map, a player should immediately look at what are the victory conditions. My default victory condition is 10 victory cities held for one full round. However people are free to play total victory or what ever else floats there boat, since I left it player enforced, in order to allow the options.
But 10vc is the way to go for balanced game that can be completed in one evening of play. Most total victory FFA never get completed in my experience.
Ok so I wanted 2 land powers and 2 naval powers. I also wanted there to be built-in checks and balances imposed on each nation. But at same time they don't stifle each others progress to much in early game. Germans or Russians alone in Eurasia, would allow that power to explode on land quickly. Most likely triggering an early gang-up on itself, by the other 3 powers. Same principle applies to the sea powers. I didn't want this to happen. I wanted the other land power to keep their counterpart honest. This also frees up the naval powers to interact in a similar way.
I also wanted to give each nation a few viable options for strategies, in placing capitals in current locations. Then I added some canals to help create more separation. Don't know if you noticed, there are 2 canals separating Germans and Russians by sea. The finish "Finnish Straits", hold Finland, sz3 to sz4 and "English Channel", hold United Kingdom, sz6 to sz7. They seem to work reasonably well for each side, allowing for a safe harbor too.
On land I created a situation that can be used as another buffer, while at same time, it creates tension between the 2 land powers. By placing 2 national objectives, that also spawn static infantry every turn, up to 3 infantry per turn, per territory, with a maximum limit of 18 infantry per territory. What players do with these dynamics is their choice. They can be greedy and knock down all the buffers with no plan after that. Or they can reach an agreement to take one N.O. each and leave 1 infantry at border, or they can leave one N.O, standing with maximum static infantry eventually populating them. My new diplomatic actions adds even more options. They can feel more secure, with up to a III turn Non- Aggression Pact, however there is a upkeep fee they both need to pay for it.
Japan is isolated, no doubt about it, but if they don't get 10 VC before some one else, they just become 1 of 3 losers. Their tuv and military strength can be great, but still losers. So this is where the Americas come in, and also one supporting reason why I didn't include a 5th player. I setup Americas to have 4 all important victory cities and one N.O. at the panama canal, which is also a very strategically important position to hold. The PUs value of the territories in Americas is very low, but that is just because no point using overkill to draw players to the Americas. Not to mention, there is limit I had in mind as to potential income any one nation should collect. I don't want each nation to be able to afford anything they want, without tradeoffs of some kind.
So the Japanese have 8 VC available in the Pacific rim including their capital. This includes Western USA and Panama. Then they need to reach else where for 2 more VC. Perhaps inner China where there are 2 VC or invade British home turf in the Indian ocean to grab 1 or 2 VC.
I should probably mention now, that the Germans also need the VC in Americas to win, if Russia is strong. The Germans also have the best natural claim to the Americas by proximity. Add to that, the Germans have Increased Factory Production as their national advantage (+3production, -10PUs cost of factory). So a good German can build a super factory in East Canada to solidify their claim to the Americas. Assuming they are not in a major war with Russia.
So the Japanese must really reach far and into many directions to get their VC. One can even argue they have one of the hardest times to get 10VC. Will they engage Russia in inner China, or Germans In Americas, or the British in the Indian ocean, which is a setup to create the mother of all naval battles.
Once you analyze VC positions you will see all nations have to reach far to attain their10 VC. Each nation faces unique challenges in the process. Their geographic locations have advantages and disadvantages during different phases of the game. Their national technology advantages are carefully selected to match their challenges.
I should probably cover what I mean by the phases of the game too. Throughout game testing of hundreds of games back in the 1.8 tripleA engine days. There was a small grass roots following to this game even though I never released it officially. But people could save game on round 0 to have their own copies to play or join my host.
Prastle and Cernel and many others can tell ya about it. By the way, Prastle was they guy who was there from day one. I know for fact this game would never have come to fruition if he didn't help me out because I didn't know shit about map making then (early 2016). Cernel loved to watch but oddly never played himself.
So point is literally thousands of play testing hours have gone into it. I've tweaked and improved game throughout where needed. The phases that usually occur in a typical game are:
- Empire building , round 0 to approximately round 6.
- Strategic posturing, approximately round 6 to end game.
- End game, somewhere around round 10 and beyond.
During the empire building phase things are relatively peaceful, everyone just tries to get the best incomes they can and build up there military. During, what I call strategic posturing , everyone begins to really close in on their final borders and tensions rise on nearly all fronts. Wars are likely to break out, in this phase between major powers.
Depending on the personalities and mood of the players, tensions can escalate out of control, into, to the death, all out wars. Or a chess like flavor, with deliberate well thought out moves, and counter moves, where each deployment has a real purpose towards achieving and or denying nations 10 VC. Strong arming your neighbor into aiding with common interests, with a threat of war may be used often via chat negotiations and plotting. Or in most recent version, the engine supported diplomatic actions can be used to assist with gaining the needed trust from your neighbor, to make deployments away from your border and into a hotspot. Where critical VC are likely needed by someone, to be held in the end game. And end game, where players begin to launch their final thrusts to hold 10 VC. This happens late because if your perceived to be a 10VC threat. The world usually temporarily unites to push back the offender.
Bid order and regular turn order also should keep Japan honest. I purposely placed them first in bid order and behind British in regular turn order. So an experienced British player can see the competitions bid buy and make the first move in regular turn order.
To make a long story short, these are just a few of the mechanisms I tried to incorporate. To maintain balance. Take a look at last nights end game stats, all the important stats ( production, tuv, VC) are all very tight.
In this particular game , the Japanese should have West USA, in addition making their VC count 6 and Germany VC count 7. And the British went heavy on expensive bombers very early causing them to lag in Production. But still very tight at beginning of round 10. As you saw this was the end game phase. Germans made their move this turn, because Russians were in good position to also launch their own final thrust on 10VC.
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Almost forgot one point I was trying to convey. The world map has issues for FFA game play, I tried to work the issues into the game dynamics. But sure, there are issues that remain. But I'm still plugging away at it, I have more stuff planned for it. Such as the risk style, pre bid, territory selection option. Where in, I allow a handful of orange territories to be selected. This speeds up the empire build phase and into the more interesting phases. I have details in game notes on this as optional setup, but needs to be done by edit mode currently.
I can code it in, but its very time consuming method I have. I think, it might help if I could manipulate via triggers. the very seldom used" heldUnits" option. I will probably drop a request as a feature soon, once I make sure it's helpful to me.<heldUnits unitType="factory" quantity="1" player="British"/>
Also opening the North East Passage and North West Passage via Ice breaker tech would please someone tremendously, hehe no names, he knows who he is.
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@general_zod Where can I download the mod?
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Your suggestion for Northern South America . It reminds me of the capital location that I was considering for a 5th major power. I was considering Panama, but it looked like too good a location for them. From there, North and South American VC would be extremely difficult to successfully invade and hold for one turn. Maybe for a total victory, victory condition. Or with a complete VC location overhaul, it could work out well. Then I looked to Peru. but it was just a bit to close to British capital. Splitting sz25 and possibly sz21 into 2 sz each would allow it. This would give Japan immediate competition in Pacific too.
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Its still a work in progress, I have to add the text to politics buttons, descriptions, success, failure, etc..
But its fully functional.
(this link is old, see top of page for newest link) https://www.sendspace.com/file/t8eu9h
I will upload to triplea soon too.
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@general_zod after reading some of it I gotta say its a good concept and would be included in my to-do maps/mods!
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@captain-crunch
Nice. The game is very intuitive which makes the learning curve relatively low. But at same time you will discover that to be victorious is very challenging. The best one tip that I can probably offer, is to select the 10 victory cities as soon as possible. To hold 6 or 7 will be easy, the trick is in holding the remaining 3 to 4. Hope you enjoy it. -
@general_zod Here's another idea to add. Since some of the canals are hypothetical and others are not ideal for the way the map is drawn.
This may help new players visualize some of the blocking zones.
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@Hepps
Your image still not uploaded, so I can't respond to it yet.But another area that could use a new, more prominent, yet unobtrusive image is the Victory City. If you have any ideas, for this, I'd love to see them.
Victory Cities are arguably the most important locations to spot.
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@general_zod Another nice touch might be adding notifications for players once a nation is at 8 Victory Cities. As a warning.
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Here is a example of how the optional "Risk style setup" may look like before the bid, with 8PUs rules.
Complete rules details are in game notes. But basicly it goes like so.
• 1) Before the bid phase begins, each nation picks 8 PUs worth of orange territories, one territory at a time and in following order until done, New Britain, Germany, Japan, Russia.
• 2) Players can pick any combination of orange territories to equal 8 PUs, (e.g. eight 1 PUs ters or two 4 PUs ters). If picking more valuable territories, it will complete your nations picks sooner, while others continue in order til they reach 8 PUs worth.
• 3) Each newly picked orange territory, will recieve a number of free infantry which will be equal to the territory value and the free infantry must go in their corresponding territories only. Each nation will end up with 8 free infantry placed in the corresponding 8 PUs worth of new territories.
This really can accelerate the empire building phase by a few rounds. So more experienced players can get to the action quicker. I hope, I figure out how to code it into game, instead of using edit mode.
Btw, this setup can work, even if all the orange territories are picked, which is 24PUs advance for each nation. This can potentially launch game straight into the strategic posturing phase. Ideally I would like it selectable, if ever engine supported. Similar to how bid amount is selectable currently.
Could be range 0-24. (as long as divisible by 4) I need a good name for it. I'm not quite satisfied with what I'm calling it now.
Oh, almost forgot. These territory selections, in itself could make or break a game. They can be very strategically critical in the end. So choose wisely.
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Yeah, that could be helpful.
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If I do the notification for warning. I might as well include engine supported notification for victory too. But as an optional setup. So it won't pop up if some are playing some custom victory conditions.
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I'm pondering the recent engine supported diplomatic actions which I added. The Mutual Defense Treaties are cool and all. But they do have potential to really increase the length of the game.
I did include a setup option to disable Mutual Defense Treaties only, while keeping all the other functionality of diplomacy in place.
It's called "Enable Advanced Bad-Ass FFA Diplomacy", deselect to not use Mutual Defense Treaties.
