Mega New Elk WIP
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UHD I centered the PU above the name like I did here
now it's off centered.
Do we just wanna roll with as is or should I change it again ?
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@beelee said in Mega New Elk WIP:
Do we just wanna roll with as is or should I change it again ?
Sure, knock yourself out.
Cheers...
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yea I'm on it
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So, what I've been doing is running centers placement while look at the loaded map (mostly with units turned off). If the name looks off on the map, I'll adjust it location in centers. After I done maybe ten locations, I'll save centers, then copy the centers.txt over name_place.txt, then reload the map (because you are name placements, you don't have to reselect the map, just reload).
Then I'll go back and work on PUs. But really, I think just working on the position of the names should be done first.(Or we could leave well enough alone until @Black_Elk starts yelling and making faces!)
All in good fun!
Cheers...
P.S By the way, are there going to be any territory effects add?
Cheers...
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Hehe that was like me at the post office earlier today, just lines out the door
I think we can press on get all these names knocked out, later can revisit any edge cases or substitutions just so its not reduplicated efforts. Long as it's basically blocked in and not clipping into the abyss for now I think we're good.
I hadn't given much thought to territory effects yet. For the most part I figured we keep it as close to the global basics as we can get away with for whatever default thing, then other stuff to option on down the line if desired. I think the Land Base rail factory M+1 thing is pretty solid, kinda the opening pitch there to see if it catches. I think that's a fair bit to chew on by itself for a more simplified game on the jumbo, but there is also parity with what the Naval Base and Air Bases are doing operating at the M+1 in the standard, so I feel like it's a fairly easy thing to extend that concept to the ground units. Hopefully at any rate like a grab and go.
For adjustments I think mainly that would just be in fine tuning the production based on the how the opener is playing out. So say if one power seems a bit light. Maybe Germany would need a boost up to match what's coming at them, so we raise a couple spots in their interior to 2, or perhaps a couple spots in France that they take over on G1. Stuff more on the margins though, since it feels pretty solid right now overall.
I was thinking we might raise Greece to 2 PUs just to give Italy and extra hotspot, and Brits another target. Rio also makes sense to me or perhaps Greenland for an endgame Axis waypoint. I think we could probably say that every territory with a VC is worth 2, and in that way VCs will have a intrinsically higher value, so the player or computer sorta always feels it. Probably only a couple VC spots right now still at the value of 1 but we could just boost em up to see what we're working with. I put that extra Brit VC in Africa on Nigeria, but we could probably switch it to Gabon since that spot already is worth 2, and Brits don't really need more money hehe. Any additional VCs I think would need to go to Axis or at least spots Axis can take over reliably in the first round just for balance by sides. I'm not sure if they'll be needed but I'm sure we could always find another spot to fold into the VC affair if we just need to hit a good split for that.
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Sorry for the delay, was playing with name placement and PUs.
UHD WIP 1940-45 1.37.2.zip
Greece, Rio De Janeiro and Greenland raised to 2PUsPlease check for out-of-placed names, also some of the VC stars may need adjusting.
Cheers...
More visual updates.
UHD WIP 1940-45 1.37.3.zipCheers...
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No xml adjustments
centers, name_place and pu_placeCheers...
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@wc_sumpton Looks good
Here's a zip with the vc.txt I was using
I tried to get most of the stars into the right spots. Only one I had trouble moving was Cairo. For some reason when I added that entry it would either blank or just show at the center there. Wasn't sure how to get that star moving, but maybe was a labelling thing still in progress. I reduplicated it for the capital spots, so shows the star and a capital puck, but I thought that looked ok since it allowed me to move the star and the visualization seemed alright.
You can see here how Cairo is still hanging down pretty low, should be up nearer to the coast.
For the others I think should be good, or at least ball park. Moscow is of course somewhat problematic, this is because of the way the OOB A&A boards always really stretch the distance there and sandwich extra spaces into that part of the board. Classic was already pretty far off in that area, but then each board afterwards used that as the basis for further divisions, so it's all a bit heavy distortion near middle of the board there. Did the best I could on shorter notice, but I think it will always be a bit hard to find a satisfying solution for that one. I thought about just using the eraser to just blank out some of the nearby topography, so it's less distracting in that instance, but it's passing fair for now I think.
To do the all VCs at 2 PU or greater, I think E. Romania, Helsinki, Iwo Jima and Panama would be the last spots still left. I think, unless I missed something when scanning around.
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@black_elk said in Mega New Elk WIP:
Only one I had trouble moving was Cairo.
There was no Cairo listed in the vp file.
UHD WIP 1940-45 1.37.4.zip
E. Romania, Helsinki, Iwo Jima and Panama changed to 2PUs
Cairo added to vc.txtI moved the PUs value closer to the territory name in the other update. I hope that this is not problematic.
Cheers...
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Looks good to me
Nice work!
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I ran a series of HardAI vs itself games, and was pretty pleased with what I was seeing there.
It's a bit hard to compare HardAI vs FastAI in terms of the opening playpattern, since for the most part they are quite similar. Meaning both will tend to target with similar priorities, and they will both edge their attacks. In general they both trade very efficiently by the calc. The computer trades rather less efficiently with it's tanks and mech, or high TUV aircraft and ships, which I think a human is much more likely to preserve. Or similarly where the AI will attack with sufficient fodder to win in airblitz style attack (win by the TUV trade there I mean), but not with 1 ground hitpoint surviving, to capture/block to prevent enemy attacks on the following turn etc. This is sorta the computers main deficiency in my view, it will leave blockers though on the ground, and it non coms very well on the ground with that in mind. On the water rather less so. FastAI is more grab and go esp on amphib, whereas HardAI likes to do that thing where it will float loaded transports to threaten multiple TTs at once, or threaten counter attack. I remember talking to Redrum about that tactic though in the PvP game, where it's often better to just hold position and threaten many attacks, as opposed to committing to one single brawl and telegraphing to the opponent in that way.
They will also edge their defenses and bait defenses. For the most part HardAI and FastAI are very good with bomber fleet screening, and mass air defense positions. This is sorta the deal in the current with Japan vs China/USSR, so China/USSR have high hitpoint but low attack power stacks initially, Japan has a lot of very high value attack units, but with somewhat fewer hitpoints, and the need to sorta suction vacuum a lot of those high power aircraft into the stack defense role in China, so they're not roving as far initially. It's a bit of a balance act there for sure, but basically the idea I like is of China just tying down a very large Japanese army, or a large relative percentage of their TUV, since that's more or less what happened in the war. The contest there sorta hold them at that edge of the logistics limit, or where they can't sprawl as hard, for fear that Allies may move forward on the mainland, and then they need to be in a position to bounce back to deal with it. I think it makes for some nice tension.
North Africa and the Eastern Front both seem to be holding up pretty well. I imagine the human could be somewhat more effective since they have options to expand production right now via round to round purchases, but the HardAI uses what it has pretty well.
For the unit analogy, I think in the OG games you have a situation where you can sorta suspend disbelief and maybe imagine a scale reflected in the fleet composition that somehow matches. Say Japan has like 18 carriers or whatever. Maybe USA has 28 (if we just count the fleet carriers) otherwise it's probably like 100+. But then elsewhere of course Germany and Italy had no Carriers, so for that unit, I think one just has to abstract them into the game unit they are, and the role they serve for gameplay. Imagine it as a battleship or whatever I suppose hehe. Strategic bombers are similar in the way they are used. To me I often imagine that they represent something more abstract.
But anyway, I think in general the idea here is to have a map which mimics global in terms of the ruleset and combat interaction, as a simplistic way of teaching how to also play the more regular game at scale with these sorts of stacks or these sorta of numbers. Where in G40 these sorts of confrontations at this scale may occur in the deep endgame, here it's more like every other battle is at that scale, so just sorta getting used to the higher number and stack contests, but with a very similar flavor. So it remains sorta applicable in that way, to reinforce the the standard play. As an example, I think this board would be a good one to train for air umbrellas using bombers, and where every faction can dark skies to some extent, or try to crack the enigma code on the water when it's like sub stacks vs where air can reach. Should be pretty fun I think
Anyhow quick screen of what HardAI was getting up to. The big breakouts tend to start about round 5 on, and start to sorta heat up from there into the big exchange.
Here we are tapping in on Japan's turn2025-3-21-UHD-WIP-1940-45_J5.tsvg
And then here at round 8, when computer Allies started a big push in the Med, and an overland crash with KJF vibes hehe
2025-3-21-UHD-WIP-1940-45_J8.tsvg
Pretty amusing to watch how it will position vs itself. I think right now the only faction that's a bit out of sync is perhaps Anzac, since they do more saving of cash round to round, their production placement might be a slightly be low for their income per turn. They may need another Factory_Minor in Melbourne, or just a Major at Sydney, so they're not too hamstrung. France is similar, very low production relative to income, though Anzac collects somewhat heavier, so prob why there income kept climbing hehe. Anyhow, felt pretty cool. Good times!
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@black_elk said in Mega New Elk WIP:
I ran a series of HardAI vs itself games, and was pretty pleased with what I was seeing there.
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@black_elk said in Mega New Elk WIP:
I think right now the only faction that's a bit out of sync is perhaps Anzac, since they do more saving of cash round to round, their production placement might be a slightly be low for their income per turn. They may need another Factory_Minor in Melbourne, or just a Major at Sydney, so they're not too hamstrung.
ANZAC has a factory_minor at Christchurch and Sydney Canberra with a maximum of 6 production per turn. Making Sydney Canberra a factory_major would increase their production to 13. This, I think, would serve them better. A new factory_minor at Melbourne (Pt. Moresby or Guadalcanal would be better by spreading their production) would only increase their production to 9, which I think would still be constructive. I do think doing both could also be a though.
Cheers...
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@black_elk said in Mega New Elk WIP:
France is similar, very low production relative to income
The French start with plenty of production. It's just easy for Germany and/or Italy to knock them off, at which point they are given a free factory_minor. Maybe they are collecting/saving to much. Maybe, because they have no Capital, their leftover income could be removed/reduced.
Cheers...
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Makes sense to me, we can take it major for parity with the other factions. So one could assume the Chinese factory in Peking was downgraded similar to what happens to Paris on G1, and then everyone's got at least that thing going on for their starting capital location. I think its fun to have some spots that are build capable but not down at the outset, just to leave that option open. So maybe some strat where they expand buying another minor in one of their more peripheral spots that's near Japan and USA, or maybe they tuck up closer to India, or perhaps they might expand in Melbourne for more safety. Or they just work with what they have at the start and buy more air and ships and such. Seems like it should be pretty solid. It's nice that it worked out holding the production value per tile pretty low which seems easy to read. Looks nice
Only clip I saw when scanning around for the labels was on Azores, just west of Portugal where the PU/name clips outside the place.
Otherwise looks pretty good to me. I say we could lock it in and then get the unit place around these, just to have the nice read on first launch. Like just blanking or shifting the place there if it's units, or like airbases, naval bases or factories etc on top of the labels and such in these positions, and dance the unit place into swing hehe. I think the overflows are pretty good nothing jumped out too hardcore.
ps. Oh also, I think currently if launching no tech in the game options the VCs will blank back out. For the display I mean. I'd been running one with the tech option set to off, since computer was constantly rolling for it. For that one capitals would show up, and the stats still, but not the others. Wasn't sure there, I just ran a few more with the tech on to see how often it would get activated. If I first launch the game, save, then switch to HardAI or no tech development worked as normal from the save.
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@black_elk said in Mega New Elk WIP:
Oh also, I think currently if launching no tech in the game options the VCs will blank back out. For the display I mean. I'd been running one with the tech option set to off, since computer was constantly rolling for it. For that one capitals would show up, and the stats still, but not the others. Wasn't sure there, I just ran a few more with the tech on to see how often it would get activated. If I first launch the game, save, then switch to HardAI or no tech development worked as normal from the save.
I'm not seeing this. All VCs still are in placed and the column is still there, even when I select no technology.
UHD WIP 1940-45 1.37.4.zip
Sydney Canberra changed to factory_major
Chinese/French given artillery for every 8 territories owned without factory/capital
centers, name_place and pu_place for corrected Azores Is.Cheers...
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Speaking of China/France according to the '40 Pacific Rules even without a capital/factory China is allowed to make limited purchases, and are not given units by territory count (at a 1 for 2 territories, this is a deal as a single infantry cost 3PUs).
Limited purchases with free placement can be worked into the xml. For China, which territories would allow it to purchase artillery? Should the French be allowed to purchase transport/destroyers and what about artillery/tanks/planes?
Just food for thought.
Cheers...
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Looks cool!
Yeah it was weird, perhaps because I was relaunching so many times. I only saw that behavior when loading if all nations were set to hardAI and no human player.
In global, the limited artillery purchase is determined by control of the Burma road, which isn't visualized here but would correspond mainly to the territories between Calcutta and Chunking/Chengdu, so basically Yunnan and N. Burma.
But there are lots of 1 off and restricted rules regarding China, like which units and where the units can go and such. Their aircraft are meant to simulate Allied lend lease type support, Flying tigers and the like, but it's a limiting factor in their regular game, since they're really geared up to just be this kind of hitpoint wall in OOB.
France and China in the standard game are not treated so much like standard factions as they are more abstract game mechanics. So like in the case of France, more as a way to have that big G1 pile trading hands in the opener, or in the case of China as a kind of speedbump or grinder for Japan, but it's pretty asymmetrical there OOB. To hold position they tend to need friendly support, but they often can't advance or not very far, or hard to do when Japan is parking forward defensive fighters, and then Allies are doing the same trying to deadlock. I think a more simplistic way to do it would just be to have some more limited roster available to factions that have been overrun, perhaps that just includes artillery. Although it's not the most flashy unit, it does tend to get the job done when the chip are down.
I think probably we don't want the Chinese going all ham with a bunch of aircraft or warships, since in the box there were never those sculpts available, although here I gave them a full set of graphics just cause it didn't make sense to leave them off when I was tinting all the others. I suppose if trying something along these lines one could just use older games and kitbash those sculpts, but here for simplicity probably just trying to keep to the G40 set up for that. It's pretty impactful for how China works in the regular game since Axis can disrupt that artillery buy if they knock off one of the territories on the road, it's a big driver. I'm not sure we'd be able to make the computer understand though, which is why I was sorta reluctant to say draw a burma road onto the map, which is usually a little red line or a dotted line or something similar. For France somewhat similar, although I suppose it's interesting if they can build a pocket fleet, or have enough variety in their purchase since their placement is pretty low. They also begin play with more unit types and got that full set of sculpts in the box so it's kinda fun to imagine them showboating a bit on this larger thing.
It's a bit of a bind though, because on the one hand it seems appropriate to make each faction feel somewhat viable and entertaining to play even in a solo, but if the impact is too outsized it can make the playbalance and overall playpattern feel a bit off. Or if it departs to much from the vanilla thing I worry it may just introduce extra confusion rather than feel like a simplification of those rules.
Italy is sorta in a similar situation, where as Axis we maybe sorta want them to showboat a bit harder for parity in the med on the water, but then if they're too big Allies stall out a bit and rather than pressing into Italy to destroy the smaller Axis power, they jump up to France and start fighting overland. We lose a bit of that flavor like Invasion of Sicily Naples, or Germany clapping back to control the North and reset those lines. It sorta depends right now on whether Allies can just fully wipe the Regia Marina, which they sometimes pull off in the games I ran, other times Italy holds out a bit better and the Med seems to take a back seat for a while to light trading elsewhere for Allies.
Along the Soviet/Japan front, for the most part was seeing light trading across China and a sorta slow Japanese sprawl around to everywhere else, but then the big fireworks I guess would be like when USSR moves full in along that front. Or if Japan starts creeping up along the coast. Seems to take about 7-8 rounds or so, depending for the dam to really start breaking there, with the current set up. So that seemed pretty good. It's again pretty hard to model a whole total war thing for the possibility of what ifs, while also making that feel somehow delayed or somewhat inactive slower moving front, but where there's a bit of ticking clock on the inevitability of USSR crashing down across that border towards the end. Seemed pretty decent
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For a factory_major, when captured it is downgraded to a factory_minor, nothing happens when a factory_minor is captured, maybe it should sustain 3 hitpoints of damage, thus is unusable until repaired. As to the Chinese, all factories captured are destroyed. They will only be given one if they liberate a territory worth 2/3 PUs.
Just thoughts
Cheers...
