Mega New Elk WIP
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Ok so using my notes from last night and the new files I quickly put this together for my next round of experimentation.
2025-3-6-Mega-New-Elk-1940.tsvg
The experiment this time around was just to see if I could get Japan to target the Dutch and French territories in the Pacific if I changed their starting control to British or Pro-Allies. This worked reasonably well. J1 is basically an attack on Philippines, so this is a bit of an anachronism. I'm really not sure it's avoidable though, and so I feel like while the start of the game is on G1 1940-ish, by the time Japan is up in the sequence the timeline is considered to have advanced to essentially a 1941 timeline.
This is a bit of a puzzle, especially for the suspension of disbelief, but I actually think it is much more flexible if we maintain a total war type start.
I imagine it something like this... in my best HBO show announcer voice hehe
"Next Week on the Pacific..."
So basically J1 = the Japan 1941 highlight teaser trailer. Japan's first turn in the first round is essentially like the preview of next week's episode, if that makes sense lol
Then for Italy's first turn, maybe you can imagine that like... "Previously, on Italy" and it shows sort of a 1939-40-ish vibe, cause Italian Somaliland/Ethiopia and such is still going on. That episode may be a bit like a Fellini flick where we're not super sure of the timeline but it's got the right vibes. Now perhaps G2 is more like "Last Season on the Eastern Front" cause even though we've already watched Japan's episode on J1 by that point, here we're sorta flashing back to 1940 again.
In this way the whole 'First season' eg round 1, is basically intercut to give a recap of the war to that point. Round 2 on the timeline becomes a bit more fixed and it takes off from there. At various points, when certain thematic things happen, players can interpret this as the montage or flashback multi-episode arc, that covers whatever is going on, whenever it happens to be going on. So for example, when D-Day invasion occurs or Invasion of Italy etc, we just sorta assume that this reflects a timeline that makes sense for what's happening on each region of the board. Doesn't need to totally sync in every particular, but as long as the overall playpattern feels familiar and recognizable as WW2, I think that should be the aim.
With that in mind I put this together. Idea was that if I could get France falling just so, and Barbarossa to kick off reasonably well in the second turn, then have Japan do a more standard J1 sprawl, that things might start falling into place.
Japan did eventually start targeting the Dutch lands (when those were assigned to Britain instead) so that helped I think. It added more starting production to UK, which I think would be better to avoid, but in a pinch least Japan made some moves. It's possible they might eventually have went after the Dutch islands if I'd made those Pro Allies (like I did for French Indo), but in any case seemed to work ok for a test run. Not sure if bases for TUV might help tempt them. Or couldn't tell really what draws them more now, but they seemed to start things off on J2 there with a bit more island hop hop.
To get the USA more on board, I just assigned Mexico/Brazil etc to USA at the start. This also is an anachronism, but the handling was much simpler. USA doesn't get distracted trying to take it over on their first turn, like when I tried assigning all that stuff pro axis. I suppose it would be familiar anyway from say v3 or Classic, and was expedient for the test so I ran em that way.
Here if anyone wanted to double check the computer behavior, you can say assign all nations to HardAI and take control of France just to give an interrupt turn there by round.
Currently the HardAI/FastAI will move at the M+1 but they tend to do this mainly on Non Combat. This also works reasonably well though, since they can still push their stacks. Thematically I suppose it might make sense, so sorta like you can put your dudes on the trains, or you can rush them into combat, but can't really do both at the same time. In this way the player could just restrict themselves to the normal distances on combat move say. Just depends what the computer will do I think, if we can get them attacking at say M3 for Armor then that's different, but even if computer is moving M3 that way only on non com they still manage to get out a bit stronger. In any even it was fun enough for me to watch and eat popcorn while I try to dig up graphics for damaged bases hehe.
Here's a quick screen, just so you can see how I approached the starting control and what all I added. Basically I gave G about a dozen more tanks for their press to East on G2. And for Japan another pocket fleet near the Marshall Is just to see where they'd send them. Plan was to just keep going in this way, until the G1/J1/Italy pattern feels like something we can call home hehe
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GMgxLUlM1mjjArjSvDuIA5jWvtPiVOax/view?usp=sharing
Plan was to build up from there an iterate. So you can see I added a bit more to Germany and Japan starting TUV to see where they will move now. I'll keep laying like that until we can get something that mirrors somewhat the G40 start, or familiar patterns as we go round the map in sequence.
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idky it doesn't work for the damaged Fctry icon to show up. If I change the xml to "isFactory" it does.
But doesn't with your latest. According to POS2 what you have should be the same as "isFactory"
Idk if the last part about the variables screws it up or not. I don't understand those very well.
Maybe it's a bug ?
Anyway, it works with "isFactory" but not without it.
Edit
The units folders are the same, so all images present -
@beelee I'm not sure, but I suspect it was on me when I first transferred over the 48px units graphics, and replaced with the newer tinted 54px.
I'm pretty sure it might just be missing these in the Unit folders...
"factory_disabled" (v3/v5 compatible)
"factory_major_disabled"
"factory_minor_disabled"
That last pair following the world_war_ii_global labelling. But then because G40 handled a lot of the tech from Bases/Factories, it needed variant labels for each of those techs, rockets, radar etc. for each nation even though the graphic would be identical to _hit it still needed the _disabled copy. In the v3 system it uses AAguns for that stuff.
Basically we had this...
and then I made this...
You can see how many of the images are dedicated to factory/base graphics. It's the majority of graphics for each nation's unit folder, least in the global. I think I just must have forgotten one of those many duplicates when I was copy/pasting with the labels. So many that one must have given me the slip.
Thankfully, unlike the airfields and harbours where I did national flare, the factories are just generic. I gather that when the whole isfactory whatever is going on that it sorta skips over the missing graphic and called up the other one, but if switching that maybe just needs those 3 dropped into each nation's folder?
ps. For the mad experiments, the Fast/HardAI test runs of last night went pretty well. Once I switched the neutrals to another other faction's starting control, Japan was more active in the central Pacific.
Obviously it would be preferable if Dutch/France could just be used since it's a better visual and doesn't need more Brit production assigned for the totals. Perhaps it's because of some politics artifacts there, not sure, but if we can get everyone targeting everyone properly should work well.
I think for this map to function the way I want we need to give each player nation a way to collect income after their capital falls. Then next turn (even if the main capital is not liberated yet) in order for a Solo to support the deep endgame there. In a PvP this issue would be much less pronounced since presumably the player who gets their capital sacked may just quit at that point and conceded defeat. In a solo it's ideal to play on and have the vanquished nation recalibrate. My first proposal there was to use china unit placement rules at that point, ie player just spawns infantry on remaining tiles, with those totals determined by the TT count (same way as China works currently.) The theme there would be that China's 'original' capital was sacked by Japan prior to the start date. Or similarly that each nation which has multiple VCs or factory spots, that their backup capital might be considered the secondary VC under those conditions. The basic idea being to give the player/computer a way to play on, but in a lesser state of play. So sorta limping until their team can recover their home spots.
Here's a quick screen, from a couple rounds before computer Germany took Moscow from computer Russia. I believe it was turn 4 there for the screen, controlling France and just clicking done, to keep track round per round.
You can see the Chinese were sorta roving around and managed to take FIC and fly their fighters, something that in the global they'd be sorta restricted against doing, since China has to operate within it's sphere there. Otherwise though gave a pretty nice press, when I added whatever it was, I think about a dozen armor and probabaly as many mech to G's starting units. I think the best one could hope for is that the computer just does passing fair for the first few rounds. It'll never match the player, but with a bid, ai bonus stuff, or a resource modifier type thing going on, it should be possible to create a reasonably entertaining way to play the game solo. While waiting to take turns in a PvP game perhaps, or just as a fun distraction to learn the ropes and paint the map one's own colors. Anyhow, let me know what you guys think. The secondary capital or just some way to get the players still collecting income/placing into the endgame - after the capitals start trading hands. I think some form of purse stealing dynamic remains ideal, because it's a driver and helps push the game towards resolution. But it's also nice if factions still have some way to keep playing even if it's only a couple pips per round. Some of the VC and starting TUV can be recalibrated around how the HardAI is performing. I've been defaulting to HardAI since I imagine that would be more common, and right now computer still takes it's turns pretty quickly. I've been running till like round 10 usually then restart just to see which play patterns the computer is adopting based on what it's given.
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Good morning, all.
The factories, airfields can be left in the "units" folder. This way each player will share these graphics and only one set needs to be made. This will also decrease the download size.
MNE WIP '40 version 1.35.5
New unit starting setup
Adjustments to Improved_Mech_Inf
Japanese are friendly neutral to Dutch and French(MNE WIP '40 version 1.35.5 zip removed)
Cheers...
MNE WIP '40 version 1.35.6
Dutch and French territory ownership returned.Cheers...
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If you load this, the French still collect their income.
Cheers...
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@wc_sumpton Worked like a charm!
Computer Japan was back in action now vs FIC and the Dutch! Excellent
I think this should hold up pretty well now, least gives France something to do as a player. I can try restoring the Gabon Minor to give them that Free France hub. Should be pretty clean too, giving Axis or Allies a reason to keep playing if USSR or Britain should fall, or like Italy hanging around in some form after Rome falls. I'll run a bunch more tonight and see how they play out. So far it's pretty entertaining. Computer definitely non coms at the M+1 distance on the ground, so we still get that extra bit of dynamism in the movement. I dig it -
Still working. When a player loses their capitol, all 2+ PUs territories can be scanned for major/minor factories. If now factories exist, but the player does have ownership of at least one 2+ PUs territory, then they can be given a factory_minor to place. If the do not own such a territory, then they should be able to recruit infantry like G50 China. But still working on this.
Cheers...
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@wc_sumpton Sounds killer!
Here was a fun save from a little earlier. It had the Gabon factory added back in instead of the pocket force just to see what Computer France would build. I just set them to HardAI and let it run for 5 rounds, then checked back in with them.
2025-3-7-Mega-New-Elk-1940_France_5.tsvg
Computer Germans in that one decided to build fleet and invade Scotland!
Allies did their Torch press and Japan went after the islands again so pretty solid. Should be pretty close. I was curious if the Normandy minor would be a draw for the Allies, but here Germans just sorta used it to stack, so that one might get nixed next time. Not sure yet, it played a bit different depending on what G did with their ships vs the last out. Japan was maneuvering to take the Dutch islands now so that felt pretty solid for 5 rounds with no hand on wheel lol.
I wonder if the friendly/unfriendly neutral thing could be what's keeping Allies from taking Brazil, Persia and those other spots which are Pro Allies? France did move on Belgian Congo, so works for them. I imagine they'd get greedy and start using their transports to take Brazil in this one. Though that hasn't happened yet hehe
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Interesting, look at Italians turn 2, specifically the non-combat movement and territories Bulgaria and Varna. Italy takes both territories. So yes, the AI can conquer (neutral allied aligned) territories during non-combat. It just has to be pushed that way. These neutral territories are considered allied/friendly. The AI needs a push to get there. If there are no capitals, no enemy units, etc.. then the AI 'sees' no reason to 'attack/trespass' over allied/friendly territories. A VC in Central America another in the middle of Brazil may help!
Cheers...
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Sounds good. Probably just cause Finland/Bulgaria is more on the natural path, like where the computer wants to advance on non com already anyway.
I think this is a situation where need to just assign Mexico/Central America/Brazil to USA for simplicity. That follows the Global visualization, so probably better for that anyway. Brazil has a different treatment in G40, but this is still pretty similar to every other global scale A&A board if just going to USA starting control (understood more as sphere of influence I suppose). Not a strict timeline there of when say Mexico or Brazil joined team Allies. Having them neutral and needing USA to move down there to make it happen, might be overly involved for what it is. Once Axis is in a position to threaten, they'd probably target South America either way, but that's less likely.
Otherwise I think it felt pretty nice. I watched the fireworks for a few more rounds, then started to tinker with Japan. I think they just need to have a little flashy Pearl Attack on J1, to match everything else that's happening on J1 (invasion of Philippines, Japan advancing into FIC and vs Brits/Dutch and such), so if all that is going down it's basically 41 on that side of the board for the opener. Taken together the first round is 40-41 ish, but to me it's more important that the play pattern be suggestive of WW2 generally, like round to round, rather than just having it be a one off for the starter. I think whatever light naval exchange is needed to set the tone on the Pacific side at Pearl will be fine. I'm working it up now to be not too involved.
France was working pretty well I thought. Their income was relatively high from the far flung territories they still control, but their placement is very low, so the impact is minor. I think they should function pretty well at this scale, some entertainment value there if the Player wanted to play as France just for kicks.
I'll give it another pass tomorrow and see what feels fun, but big strides! This has been a riot hehe
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@black_elk Where is the mod available for download? I want to verify the territory names.
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On the GIT beelee put one up here so I could grab it more easily.
https://github.com/beelee1/mega_new_elkThen was using that last xml that wc provided with it
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@black_elk You have many territories with redundant names like "Philadelphia-Pennsylvania". These should be changed to the name of the region alone. I could supply a list if you like.
Some other problems are:
- Juteland should be Jutland
- The geography of the Carpathian basin is distorted.I would suggest
Cen.Romania -> S.Romania
Wallachia -> S.Transylvania
Transylvania -> N.Transylvania - Southern Africa has wrong names. The Cape of Good Hope is inside the city of Capetown.
Cape of Good Hope -> Cape Colony
Natal -> Transvaal
Praetoria -> Rhodesia - Northwester Iran
Lorestan -> Hamadan
Kurdistan -> Tabriz - Korea and Chosen are the same thing.
N.Korea-Chosen -> N.Korea
S.Korea-Chosen -> S. Korea - Corregidor is on Luzon
Corregidor-Mindoro Is. -> Mindoro Is. - Tokyo
The city of Tokyo is not showing up in the Tokyo territory
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@Black_Elk, @beelee
And with thanks to @RogerCooperMNE WIP version 1.35.1 and '40 version 1.35.7
centers, place, name_place, pu_place and polygons have been updated with @RogerCooper naming and hopefully Tokyo has been repositioned.Cheers...
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@rogercooper Thanks Roger! Good eye and good suggestions
You can probably tell that in the process of porting the Domination map to PoP 1914, Hepps made several tweaks, sometimes adding in a larger tile for some Metro area by telescoping it, other times bending some contours to say add an impassible geographical feature, or some way to split the tiles into choke points. Sometimes here you will have a redundant label, and in most cases this was me trying to get a name onto an existing tile, with two options sometimes to choose from, so as not to completely rework the projection from that point. Although I did ultimately end up having to make many adjustments along the way, removing certain terrain features like mountains for example.
In general I would say that naming by Province/Region/State etc is more reliable than labelling by Metro, since States are larger than cities, so for for example the whole State of Pennsylvania makes sense for that contour shape provided, whereas some other spot might be more suited for the metro. Or if it appears that two regions were joined together into a single tile, sometimes I'd put two states. Often times I would just add a city name, with the idea that it might be somewhere as a decorative label, though not necessarily the name of a given tile in-game. Sometimes as in the case of Chosen, if there was a double name option this may have been a solution for trying to deal with multiple time periods or Japanese renaming.
My first iteration was trying to cover an early colonial period like 1600s all the way to something in the 1950s, and that is essentially an impossibility in terms of consistent labels hehe. I believe I had something like Hanguk-S. Chosen but then that got changed to just S. Korea or whatever somewhere along the way. Issues like that, as the map morphed from a sort of colonial era thing to a more modern era thing. Or similarly like where the need to have the Dutch in South Africa for some sort of Boer conflict became less relevant to the map. Pretty sure I had originally put E. Cape Colony, as opposed to Cape of Good Hope, which made somewhat more sense for the larger zone at that time. All issues arising from trying to use different periods basically, and tiles that became a little larger with some distortions, or where we figuratively 'moved mountains' to get back to something that seemed sensible. Some solutions were less than ideal, though I think most problems can be solved with the whole 'what's in a name' approach, where we just choose a label based on the tile that currently exists, rather than reshaping the contours to match labels which may have been arbitrary or inaccurate.
I think in general I'd prefer to find labelling solutions rather than map redrawing solutions, as the later takes significantly longer and requires me to make adjustments to the relief which requires a fair bit of energy once a spot is in place for the base.
I think the Tokyo center was moved by accident when trying to move some of the PU displays the other week, and probably in a few spots where a label or PU seemed to have drifted a few pixels. Hopefully at any rate, fingers crossed.
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Do you have an opinion on Kosice-Munkacs ?
These are the names from GCD but the Dog doesn't have them place as the default. Elk said they go "city-state" in their naming, so I have been deferring to the "state" (wow that sounds bad lol) for names I don't recognize.
Anyway, I'm shortening the names as I move the PU place and adjust place so they're not on top of names.
I'm gonna update both New Elk and 1940 until I get through eastern Euro. Then just do 40.
39 can be updated when a final name thingy is done.Updating multiple xmls at the same time is not ideal imo but that's how we're gonna roll for now.
I will post a update to git after I do any signifigant changes. I will try to do them after wc has gone to bed, so we don't need to redo our work too much.
There is probably a better way to do it, but every name change requires a xml change and every xml change then makes the previous xml obsolete.
As this is a wip, some names will be changed in the future. I'm working on shortening names if needed and adjusting placement for where the PU total and name show up.
Just a heads up on the process.
Edit
I'm going with Kocice for now. It's a little shorter and Munkass seems like a stupid name to me. I'm sure the locals would argue otherwise.Anyway it's next on the map so Kocice for now. Any big name change charachter wise will mess up place so ... just something to keep in mind.
Most of Euro done, rest of map isn't.
Edit 2
I changed my mind and am going with munkass -
@beelee said in Mega New Elk WIP:
I will try to do them after wc has gone to bed
It's the weekend! Wife said I can stay up all night! (Not...)
Bedtime is in about an hour. Party
on!Cheers...zzzz
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heh heh just finished lunch
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Yea, Idk the best way to do this, but name changes derail everything. Ideally, the names would all be done and then finish everything up, but that's not the case.
Well, I'm just gonna continue on and sadly we'll lose some work. I think a list of proposed names such as Roger did is fine but when they hardwire into the xml, none of the other stuff will work .
So, I'd hold off on any future name changes for now.
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