Mega New Elk WIP
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UHD WIP 1940-45 1.38.8.zip
New starting setup @Black_Elk@black_elk said in Mega New Elk WIP:
I'm heading up the mountain to watch my dad's hounds this weekend
You have fun.
Cheers...
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@wc_sumpton Cool digs!
Just got up here, fired up the first game to poke around haha
For now I think the issue I'm running into is that the $AllPlayersNoCaps$ attachment seems to be allowing all the players to over place at their factories.
So for example, Japan can place a bunch of dudes into Peking and just slam, or Germany can drop a big stack in Algiers, making it pretty hard for Allies to snap up a foothold. Rather than just the 3 units at a minor, they might be placing like a dozen units, so that can be pretty distorting for the play pattern that emerges. Probably cause I kept going back and forth on the desire for China rules hehe, but I think it crept into just the regular purchasing too. Anyhow wasn't sure if I nixed the line if it would go haywire or spit off an error when national capitals start falling? I think for now we could prob just go back to the vanilla situation for that, now that we got China behaving more like all the other factions.
Just ordered Pizza!
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Hope you enjoyed the pizza! I've made a few changes to the "China" style recruitment. I'm going to run more test, but I'm sending you this new change to test.
mega_new_elk_1940.xml
Changes to purchaseNoPUCheers...
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Just finished a 'quick' 5 round all Hard AI (not really 'quick', but you get the idea). After which I scanned the placements. Everything seemed in order.
Hope your test run as well!
BTW good catch on that placement bug!
Cheers...
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Nothing major:
UHD WIP 1940-45 1.38.10.zipTech Development is uncheck, can be checked in Game Options
@beelee "Welcome" message will now display if any player is not 'AI'Cheers...
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@wc_sumpton I'm just coming up on round 5 over here too haha
This is actually quite nice! I was concerned it might be a blowout for one side or the other, but so far so smooth. The lines shaped up really well! Must have been some lightning in that bottle!
Here my first trial HardAI vs itself at the end of the 4th round, pretty solid!
2025-3-29-UHD-WIP-1940-45_France_4.tsvg
Good times!
ps. Just grabbed the new one. Will use that one for tonight!
Thanks dude -
Nice! Just managed to log back in. I tried this morning couldn't reach the forums, but it seems Roi was on it! Coming clutch haha
I did have some time to play a few games during the downtime. I was curious to see how the computer would purchase position now, and think I have a good idea for how to cinch things up. There were a few spots that surprised me, like how the Computer was using some factories. Example would be like in India how they'd place at New Delhi but then move and stack Punjab, where I just figured those units would advance towards Burma, instead they hang back. Few other situations like that across the map, where including an additional starting minor factory sorta shifted the placement logistics pretty markedly. So I think I may take this into account for the next round of tweaks. Sorta same deal for the fleets, like to fine tune any German breakouts into the North Atlantic or Axis control of the Med. Or similarly spots like New Guinea where I may have made it a bit too easy on Anzac to hold the line there. But for the most part things were feeling good.
I just played openers to round like 5-10 or thereabouts. Here's one to round 7 HardAI vs Itself, on China's turn...
2025-3-29-UHD-WIP-1940-45_China_7.tsvg
One thing I had not fully considered with the extra factories, is whether having more targets might result in a smaller faction getting bombed beyond their income to repair. I think this could be a factor for nations like China, Italy, Anzac, where their purse is smaller, so that might be something I need to crank on. Although I was pleased to see just how often the computer attempts to SBR. Good times!
Will check back in when I get home tomorrow
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Alright I ran a couple dozen games and made about as many edits at least haha
The last one I was running felt pretty cool. I repositioned the IJN and tried to go lighter footprint with their starting aircraft so it wouldn't take as long to calc it's first turn combat move. Just did a lot of trial and error trying different combination of tuv till they started to make the moves.
Here's the Edit Mode save with starting unit tweaks, there are quite a few...
2025-3-31-UHD-WIP-1940-45_test_27.tsvg
I concentrated on Japan for the most part. I think this should produce a somewhat more consistent J1 playpattern. Has HardAI achieving lines that roughly suggest Dec 1941 to late January/Early Feb of 42 on Japan's opening turn. Goal was to have them advancing on Hong Kong, Philippines, Borneo, Guam, New Guinea, Gilberts, Wake etc. The usual suspects. It's hard to get them to make a complete push on J1, so think a 2 turn sprawls is somewhat simpler to work out.
To achieve this required several transports, mainly on account of how many different target territories there are on this board compared to a vanilla G40, and hard AI using them somewhat inefficiently or losing them to attrition, To spread around quickly Japan needs something like a dozen plus transports, but then hardAI will almost always try to hold a transport or two in reserve to make a series of noncoms, so in order for them to move out efficiently I went with 15 transports ready to roll. With this I get them to do something that felt pretty satisfying, but that is also a lot of transports for a PvP where the player is more likely to concentrate them and magnify them in consolidated attacks.
This means I needed a pretty good excuse (or a pretty high value target, something that will be consequential or annoying if the player just leaves it alone to focus soley on something else). For that I think the most consistent was the bomber or the aagun(depending on how variable the defense). AAguns alone are somewhat less interesting for the combat drama, but sometimes to just to get the HardAI to push they seemed to do the trick.
I tried to go with a bit of a balance where it wouldn't just always be a walk in type thing, but it's hard to model everything. Where the defender might have a chance to roll hot and have an impact. So out of I don't know maybe 14 times I ran it I think I saw it go down maybe twice or three times where the a bomber survived the round. Then on account of high transport attrition there can definitely be some impacts from the variability but for the most part seems to work out how I'd imagined it might. Should have several pockets, and something interesting to do in each region of the board now, emphasis more on the central pacific.
It's tricky to fully model the exact attack route for Japan, also because we tried to keep a few force groupings familiar from the G40 arrangement, I had to modify many of those, but basically where they have a cluster around Formosa and then another around Truk as sorta the main staging points in terms of transport actions, with a more limited target range up North vs USSR, since they will just go ham up there otherwise. USA is effectively in the opposite position, fewer transports at the start and having to react in both theaters. This made me really want to put down another pocket point in Central America at panama, both as a target and to give the player some flexibility in which theater to enforce, which seemed to recall the classic in my mind. I tried to fill out their eastern seaboard with a few more hitpoints so that the delay on USA entry into either theater is not as pronounced. I think goal would be a round 3 where they are making move outs.
Since I don't think I've ever really seen the computer purchase subs, I also tried to add a few more of these. It's a challenge since each addition may change the attack pattern so I've been trying to keep it focused on the first two rounds how the AI will position, but basically with Germany hopefully having a couple uboats surviving the initial fireworks.
This may change slightly based on the results of individual battles but broad strokes trying to get the computer into an alright position. Beyond the opener they may need an income modifier to be competitive for the solo, but pretty good for a start. Now the challenge is trying to anticipate what players would do with all the stuff we've laid down to get the computer to open well, but that will take a while I think haha.
I had considered using a combat move/purchase/combat phase sequence, but I do think having the purchase screen first will be helpful. And also gives the player a slight pause to survey the board after each hardAI turn, while it's making it's calcs. We can always do both or adjust later, but I found it helpful like a little breather after the pretty involved turns. Also because the income is generally higher, I think it's somewhat entertaining to have to prognosticate in advance and really puzzle over what to buy. The HardAI takes longer than it would if we went straight into the combat move and then had the purchase sandwiched between the move and the battle phase, but this is mostly a feature of the first round, which is also the most involved. We'll keep pushing it, but I think it's getting pretty close.
Quickie Screens
Example HardAI J1 combat
Then their position on USA1
There's some variation in whether they fully take FIC or which secondary spot in Celebes or Borneo they might snap up, but for the most part pretty close. I tried to tamp down the early slam into USSR, they may skirmish but just not as hardcore, since their transports and main fleets are grouped more around Truk now. It will probably need a little tuning for the Allied response USA/UK 1, but hopefully a bit more on theme
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Haha right on! I got the bonus for staying up extra late
I suspect that when removing a lot of the Air around Tokyo I may have given USSR a bit too much breathing room, but it should be easier to balance now that I got a better idea of how to get that spread vs the Dutch.
New Guinea and Guadalcanal is a bit of a balancing act, if I let Japan in with too much they stomp, if I don't give them enough than Anzac can get pretty insane hehe. Not that it isn't fun to see Allies bang wild after the last few Axis monster crushes, but I think the ticket might be to have Japan break through and take Guadalcanal, but Anzac hangs onto New Guinea production so they can sorta tit for tat that way, till USA regroups.
I was curious to see whether having more of a presence in central USA would help USA to position vs the Med, and I think it sorta does the trick, though it puts a bit more focus on Sub Saharan Africa than I think is really needed. I think USA calculates that it's path of least resistance is to push up through the Free French Zone, and into the USSR backfield where it sorta slowly creeps down towards Manchuria. I think the ideal would have that remain a factor/possibility but not necessarily the go to for stackfest push. I'd like to see then in North Africa a bit sooner, but that's also a bit of a dance since Axis need a round or two before they're just getting pressed from both directions. I tried to sorta connect the Atlantic gap all the way down, so that the eye would follow and not lose track of too many subs down south. I felt like Germany just needed more to work with or the battle of the atlantic in round 2 sorta lackluster hehe.
I'll keep chipping away at it though. As I've tried to find pattern that kicks alright, just also trying to include some thematic bases where they made sense. Everything is an abstraction, but you know to sorta capture the whole AB/NB push and pull on top of the minor factory contest. Hopefully should feel G40-ish enough, even without a bunch of new bases being bought necessarily. Starting TUV will be a bit deceptive since it's more the TUV that survives into the second round, but I think production capacity is a good proxy and also like how many total naval hitpoints for Axis vs Allies, at least in the main zones of conflict need to be comparable.I'll probably have to add back in a Japanese fighter here or there to counter China/USSR potentially gunning forward, but they definitely add to the calc time for each air unit, strat bombers a bit moreso. I think it might make sense to recalibrate Manchuria and Coastal China with a bit more ground to offset what I gave to Allies, but that's sorta the pendulum back and forth each iteration I guess. Long as it gets a bit closer to the vibe into the second round I think shouldn't be too hard to carry it over the line.
Once the starting forces are sorta keyed out, we can probably rework the place a bit to beautify it and get some of the bases into spots that look a bit nicer for the quick read. Then maybe start thinking on a tech tree or token scheme, or potentially simplified objectives and things of that sort. I think since there is so much going on generally in terms of map scale, it might be helpful if doing objectives to just have it be like a single objective per nation so it's easy to track. Or perhaps something more generic related to VC control, but nothing too complex there I wouldn't think. Like having 2:1 Axis compared to Allies for objective haul might make sense, since there are more on team Allies. Right now I think it would just be to add a slight boost to pattern that already emerges, just so the computer can hit the right beats on that.
Anyhow, should be fun. I got tomorrow free so I imagine I'll just do the same thing going down the turn sequence with the rest of the gang. G1 and J1 I think are the hardest to key up, so hopefully the rest goes a bit faster with the quickie trials now that the balls rolling
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ps. Oh cool! Using that one I was finally able to get computer Japan to go the full distance! hehe
Not bad for like only one iteration out.
Hit on an idea to add some infrastructure to the Dutch East Indies, which I think might help Japan stabilize in the central Pacific. What tends to happen is the fleets will sort break apart and strand themselves, so I think having these extra spawn point will help them from getting overwhelmed by transport clips. Sorta works the same way for both sides eventually. I think It's pretty close at any rate. For the soviet far east I added back a pair of fighters so Japan has a bit more to hold the line vs counter. Didn't seem to add too much time to the calc as they just sorta use them forward. I removed 1 USA transport from Alaska so their push over isn't as immediate and dropped one more central closer to home. Few other minor tweaks, couple tanks to see if USA would drop into Morocco a round sooner, it tends to depend on some of the early casualties and how Paris shakes out I think. Anyhow, just sorta riffing but I think it was pretty nice hit on something that quickly. Took me like an hour last night to get them on Rabaul lol. Much steadier progress this time haha
Quick Edit save with those adjustments. I'll trial that one tomorrow see how it shakes out to 10 rounds.
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Working with @beelee, but I have made your changes:
UHD WIP 1940-45 1.38.12.zipCheers...
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Fantastic! Looks good!
I feel asleep on the couch running computer games last night lol. I did the whole like nod and yawn just straight into the full snooze.
Running that last was pretty enjoyable. I feel like every iteration I learn a little bit more about what HardAI is trying to do for itself, or where it stalls out typically. Sometimes when I've tried this on more moderately scaled maps the puzzle is a bit of a black box. So I'll ask myself like ok 'is the reason HardAI does something consistently, because of the opposing TUV, distance from capital or production, something in the map design geometry, some other X factor, like a butterfly flapping it's wings air battle?' etc. hehe But since this map isn't tethered to an OOB and it's pretty easy to make adjustments on the fly, I've just been sorta running it all like a continuous experiment to see what can be achieved using very simple means.
One behavior which seems fairly consistent across the board and regardless of faction, is that the computer really doesn't want to run a Naval battle and then an Amphibious assault as part of the same combat move (into the same sz). So where a human player might go for broke and do a joint naval/amphib action, the computer seems to really prefer only running the naval battle or only the amphib battle. It will wait until the lanes are cleared of ships before actually positioning it's transports more foreword vs the enemy. This means that a single enemy destroyer can deter the Computer from making an otherwise very sensible attack, say vs a starting factory territory. Or they'll clear a sea lane, then wait for a teammate to link up with them. This was a little tricky, because initially I wanted to use Destroyer blockers to limit fleet movements since it's the cheapest unit that will create a hostile sea zone, but the computer will get hung up, and often fail to run amphibs in round 1 under those conditions> It really wants a clear path for it's transports.
Similarly, I've noticed that when the computer manages to stalemate itself on the water, it can then fall into a pretty insane naval arms race, where amphib and airblitz starts to take a backseat, to like mass fleet spams. This is actually pretty interesting when it happens, since we then start to see a literal ton of naval TUV entering the fray each turn, but then what happens is the computer will move it's fleet away from coastal production and then get a bit marooned.
Sometimes having a starting factory near a main warfront, ends up complicating the logistics and working against the computer's play pattern. So this can also happen when a lot of naval TUV is staring the enemy down in a hotspot, that the computer will sorta foot drag and then get snafu'd by it's own purchase placement. To me it just indicates that I may need to give the Allies more/less naval TUV based less on the production capacity balance for reinforcement, and more on direct pressure from ships and air. So like rather than shortening the reinforcement logistics in a given spot, we may need to get an earlier breakthrough, or at least where that doesn't take dozen turns to materialize.
Here the balance in the Med and Baltic is particularly narrow, mainly on account of Germany now stepping into a Vichy-esque role for the Axis ships that coalesce in the Western Med. Vichy is hard to model under these very simplistic rules, because I think the basic game has that sorta angle where it wants to make Free France the deal, as opposed to France becoming a neutral Axis aligned power, which would be more accurate. I think it still works reasonably well, but I think the clapback vs North Africa needs to be a bit more immediate, just so USA doesn't get too hamstrung or where it's no longer building out the Eastern Seaboard for it's main push. I think after G1/J1, the timeline will become more extended. So maybe round 1 covers a full year, but then each year after that the actual timeline is much more flexible and based more on what players are doing, rather than an external clock keeping time per game round. I think ideally by round 5 we start to see some big maneuvers and the lines sorta 42/43 vibes where the Allies strike back.
Should be fun!
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heh heh you actually slept. I haven't got around to it yet
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@beelee Ok dude, check this out hehe
Just because I was like a gpu masochist last night and trying to see if I could run GIMP more intensively while the Machine beats up on itself in 10 round games.
What I wanted to do was clean up the unit graphic fields so that they will display nicely with Flag view On > Large. Mostly this meant just sorta noodling the field by like a couple pixels in either direction depending on the unit shape or its standard orientation. Goal was just to get the puck to look a bit better for that presentation. Should be pretty clean I think for players who like that look.
I started with Japan and USA just to see if I could get something cooking
It will end up looking more like this under that view... I still need to resize the USA subs, cruisers and transport etc, but gives a sense for where I was aiming. Basically for some beefier naval or ground units I just reduced the scale by a couple pixels and shifted a little till it would display to one side or the other rather than like behind the tank or battleship Should be able to see more of the flag at a glance once I dial em all up.
So just to get a little more of roundel to show behind the units at a glance. Should help I think in differentiate the units by nation if peeps need a quick survey or like to play more zoomed when multi national units are grouped together.
For the place optimal I think would be 96x62 to avoid clips, and so the overflow is ok with the slight extension of the fields. Some of the clips we see on occasion I think may just place overlaps, or where the place juts up against a tile division like from the base/relief tiles maybe. Not entirely sure, but it looks pretty good even with the current place, so that was the goal.
Probably will take a few days to do em all the factions, but then at least we'll have an easy option for that from the view tab
Should work for the UHDs as well I think, or if using the vanilla Flag roundels instead of the more elliptical ones. I'm trying to key it off the oval though since those give me a little more play in the width.
Just started in on Germany and USSR, I'll attached the unit folder zip once I get them all sorted
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@black_elk said in Mega New Elk WIP:
Should work for the UHDs as well I think,
F yea ! I don't use the flags myself but most of the other UHD/Boxes guys do. They'd totally dig it
I wish i woulda kept the ones you did when we were first doing UHD but ...
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@beelee I ran into a kink with the battle view menus. Using the method I was trying it's possible to extend the width of the canvas to the right pretty far so that the puck will offset. This won't show clipping if the player is attacker, but will if they are the defender, since it changes the orientation on screen it will clip. We don't really have a way to flip orientation on the fly, so I think that may be a bust. Like it looks ok on the map view, but in the battle window sorta janky.
The large flag display draws more centered and behind the unit, so it needs a bit deeper of an offset, the small flag uses the very tiny images which have the design more for the stats screen.
My initially plan was to double the canvas (only width since height will clip beyond the current, which is right at the ceiling) but the width is a little more flexible. To me if it clips at the stern that doesn't look too bad, but nobody likes a nose clip hehe. Sorta the issue with the tiny flags I think. Another possibility might something like redesign of the small flag to do something similar but those paint in front of the unit rather than behind which looks a bit off to me. Might have to backburner it for now till I can find a better solution. I tried a few different variants. Allies to me looked better this way I think for the unit orientation there.
I'll try to get it figured one of these days. BIMP doesn't work with the new GIMP 3.0 so I think I need to find a different solution, otherwise it was relatively simple to just expand all the canvases at once by some set amount say 100px or whatever. But then when units flips to defender position that will do a clip depending on the orientation of the unit, so sorta only really works right on the map view and not as well in the battle screen. Unit purchase/Notes still looks fine, it will just crop out the extra canvas, but battle menu has a different visual and that tight ceiling
ps. yeah not sure it's going to work. Probably the best I could do is provide a separate unit set that has them drawn on, but then those will also display in the battle screen, unlike if using the flags on/off option. In order to look decent the pucks sorta all have to be at the same height I think otherwise when they're on the overflow, it'll look weird with the pucks jumping up and down. Something like this I guess, but I had to those all manually which takes a while. Probably will have to table it until I get some kinda big burst of energy or can find a decent Bimp alternative to do it all as a batch thing, but even there I think it has to adjust per unit type depending on how wide the canvas can go, or where it crowds. I think it's more visually appealing if using these that they tuck up by the units but needs a pretty wide canvas to be serviceable for everything all at the same height. Anyhow I got through USA so might just bang it out at some point but for now I think the national tints will have to do.
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ps. here's another option. I think I prefer this if going for a roundel style visualization...
Compared to the oval flag design feels a bit cleaner to me.
I'd just have to do something in that style for each faction, plus tech or optional variants. It doesn't take too long, but I think the key is to have them all on the same height line so when they line up the roundels all basically look identical in terms of their relative position on the canvas
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some tech types and such, done up in the same way.
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