Flames and Steel (official thread)
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Mostly I didn't want to create more territories east of Berlin
I don't think you needed to have 3 territories for West Prussia, Danzig and East Prussia either. I would have suggested 2 territories there instead of 3: one being "Danzig - West Prussia" and the other one "East Prussia". The border can be really wherever sensible so long as Danzig is in the former and Koenigsberg in the latter.
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@KurtGodel7 Gibraltar working like Suez is very debatable. I would say hell no for Gibraltar and I would tend to still say no in case a single alliance owns every territory on that strait (meaning owning both Gibraltar and Morocco with your drawing to block enemy movement).
What I mean is, for example, that, if Germany would have had the Bismarck fully repaired in Brest and then moving through the strait into the Mediterranean, Gibraltar itself would not have impeded that happening (of course, the ships in Gibraltar could have).
If the question would be whether you can fully close the strait with mines once you have Gibraltar, I'm not feeling qualified enough as a miner to answer that...
(but surely no in case the strait is contended, for example the Axis controlling Gibraltar and the Allies controlling Morocco)The matter could be made some clearer with a more correct depiction of the situation, like having Spanish Morocco (maybe Tangier too, but I would consider it being part of Spanish Morocco thus avoiding having it on the map) and Gibraltar being limited to what it was rather than covering the entire European part of the strait.
I'm anticipating that the European theater of this map will feel a little like New World Order, and that the Pacific theater will feel a little like The Rising Sun. In New World Order, it's normal for there to be a naval competition between the United States on the one hand, and Germany/Italy on the other. If the Axis loses this competition, the American fleet enters the Mediterranean. At which point life becomes very hard for the European Axis.
Currently I'm concerned that the European theater could be unbalanced in favor of the Allies. If I allow Gibraltar to serve as a gateway to the Mediterranean, then that allows the Axis to get out of that naval competition--so long as it is able to hold Gibraltar. My thought is that Italy should take Gibraltar on its first turn. Then turn it into an Axis hard point, and thus prevent Allied entry. Britain and America Atlantic can still exert good pressure on Germany in the west. But not the kind of "cut Italy's throat" pressure that would have been the case with an American fleet in the Mediterranean.
If it's a choice between good game play and historical realism, I'll try to achieve both. But, if I'm pushed into a corner, if I have to take one or the other, I will take good game play.
As for historical realism: I acknowledge that treating Gibraltar in this way is a stretch. It was difficult for coastal guns to hit fast moving ships, even with late war advances in radar. Ships sailing into or out of the Mediterranean would have been within range of the coastal guns, but the majority would have gotten through. I am doing this because I think it's best for game play, not because it is a maximally accurate depiction of history.
Am I 100% certain this is best for game play? No. If it seems like this rule hinders rather than facilitates a good, competitive game, I'd be open to changing this.
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@KurtGodel7 They could probably use a bit of a buff to deter the AI from invading them right away. Germany could take Switzerland or Spain's border provinces on Round 1 with just the forces from the neighboring territories, Britain could probably do the same with Portugal, Leon, or Andalusia if it brings a transport and planes.
I think it would be good practice for invading the neutrals to require about one turn of setup by moving in enough forces from other territories, so that the enemy player might see it coming and prepare countermoves if they choose.
Also, Gibraltar having a border that extends all the way to Portugal is definitely an error - it should only touch Andalusia.
I've fixed the Gibraltar error.
For game balance, it might be helpful for the Axis to quickly turn Spain into a stronghold. Of course, Britain is likely to invade somewhere. Like NWO, that somewhere could be Scandinavia, France, or Spain. In my test game I chose for Britain to invade France, and America Atlantic to invade Spain. (Which is also what I personally would do if playing NWO.)
Britain is able to exert good invasion pressure quickly. Stronger neutrals in Spain would slow down the initial German conquest of it. Thereby making it easier for the Allies to take away Spain. If the Allies own Spain, that's a very good base from which they can push east to take more of Europe.
If the Axis is able to be strong in Spain, then the initial America Atlantic invasion would need to occur in northwest Africa. An Operation Torch, if you will. America Atlantic's income grows over time. Partly that's because of an income nerf. It's most nerfed early game, and the nerf decreases gradually. On round 10 there is no more nerf. But partly its income increases by researching new technologies.
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Why not also give bunkers the ability to fire at ships (minus subs)?
Also, the Berlin-Krakow and Berlin-Warsaw distances are roughly the same in the real world (the latter being slightly closer). I would reduce the Berlin-Warsaw distance to 2 and the Berlin-East Prussia distance to 3.
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If I recall correctly, he doesn't have an actual Bunker unit, it's a Trench one that takes hits adds defense to other units, but it doesn't actually shoot.
Giving land units the ability to hit ships is something that has to be handled very carefully because of the cost ratios. If they can be built cheaper and spammed faster than warships, anti-ship defenses will end up becoming unassailable.
The only case in TRO where I decided to give a land unit a ship-hitting ability was Italy's Marines with a Decima MAS tech, where it's an offensive action they can only do on their turn, not an anti-invasion defense.
If you want to have any sort of coastal artillery unit that hits ships, it needs to be balanced by either high price, low hit probability, or a strict stacking limit per territory that allows fleets to outscale it.
The Europe map honestly looks pretty good at this point, I think it would probably be more productive to move on to improving other WIP areas since you're relying heavily on Claude usage.
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Mostly I didn't want to create more territories east of Berlin
I don't think you needed to have 3 territories for West Prussia, Danzig and East Prussia either. I would have suggested 2 territories there instead of 3: one being "Danzig - West Prussia" and the other one "East Prussia". The border can be really wherever sensible so long as Danzig is in the former and Koenigsberg in the latter.
I agree. Two would suffice. That said, the proximate cause of the war in Europe was a disagreement about who should own Danzig. With that in mind, I wanted a territory with that particular name. This is the one instance for the entire map where I had a territory added beyond what I thought was necessary for game play.
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@KurtGodel7 Well LOL, even though I think the name "Danzig - West Prussia" is better (and would personally use that), you can just call it "Danzig" (and not have "West Prussia" anywhere). It's of course your map, but I would also say that - in this case - I think that "Danzig - West Prussia" does not actually mean "Danzig und Westpreussen", but more like "West Prussia" being sort of subordinate: the main name of the territory being Danzig, and West Prussia being there as a secondary name. Practically, I'm guessing that the name is more like "Danzig (West Prussia)". Of course, I don't actually know. It's sort of like "Muenchen - Oberbayern", where I guess they do not actually mean that Muenchen is not in Oberbayern but more like they wanted to have both names for some reasons.
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Why not also give bunkers the ability to fire at ships (minus subs)?
Also, the Berlin-Krakow and Berlin-Warsaw distances are roughly the same in the real world (the latter being slightly closer). I would reduce the Berlin-Warsaw distance to 2 and the Berlin-East Prussia distance to 3.
This would not make sense from a realism standpoint. The initial unit is a trench. Cost 3 PUs, 2 hitpoints, defends on a 0. Bunkers tech upgrades its defensive value to a 1. A word like "bunker" implies that someone poured concrete. It does not imply that anyone installed the large, powerful guns necessary to attack enemy warships.
In an earlier post I mentioned the idea of coastal guns. For an amphibious landing, there would be two rounds of combat. Battleships and maybe cruisers would fire at coastal guns, and coastal guns would fire back at the battleships and maybe cruisers. Destroyed units would be removed from play. Then any remaining coastal guns would get to fire at the invading transports. Coastal guns would be less expensive than battleships, both for firepower for the money and hitpoints for the money.
The potential invader makes up for this with mobility. A single battleship/transport fleet can threaten multiple hard points, and each hard point would potentially need to be defended with coastal guns.
As cool as all that would be, I chose a simpler game mechanic. Any units arriving by water have to wait until the second round of combat before they can fire. (Exception: Marines get to fire on the first combat round, as do Japan's equivalent of Marines.)
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If I recall correctly, he doesn't have an actual Bunker unit, it's a Trench one that takes hits adds defense to other units, but it doesn't actually shoot.
Giving land units the ability to hit ships is something that has to be handled very carefully because of the cost ratios. If they can be built cheaper and spammed faster than warships, anti-ship defenses will end up becoming unassailable.
The only case in TRO where I decided to give a land unit a ship-hitting ability was Italy's Marines with a Decima MAS tech, where it's an offensive action they can only do on their turn, not an anti-invasion defense.
If you want to have any sort of coastal artillery unit that hits ships, it needs to be balanced by either high price, low hit probability, or a strict stacking limit per territory that allows fleets to outscale it.
The Europe map honestly looks pretty good at this point, I think it would probably be more productive to move on to improving other WIP areas since you're relying heavily on Claude usage.
In a recent test game, Britain had a large fleet of transports. Germany had four hard points to prevent invasion. Britain didn't need to overcome a hard point to invade: there were other places along the coast for it to unload its units.
But, let's say I introduced coastal guns, as well as the associated game mechanic. That creates a race between Germany and Britain. If Germany wins the race (that is, if its coastal guns are stronger than Britain's battleships), Britain will just unload/invade a territory that isn't a hard point. Problem solved. Germany just tied down a lot of PUs into coastal guns which could otherwise have been spent on its eastern front. But, suppose Britain builds a strong battleship fleet, and those battleships can exert more force than the coastal guns at a given hard point. Britain's response should be to unload one unit as an invasion. The goal would be to trigger a combat between the battleships and the coastal guns, with the British player knowing this would do more PU damage to Germany than to Britain.
To avoid this problem, some would say I should limit the number of battleships which can fire at coastal guns to the number of units actually invading. Drop off only one infantry? Only one battleship gets to fire at the coastal guns, but all the coastal guns get to fire at the battleships.
Suppose Britain has 10 battleships, and drops off 10 infantry. This triggers full combat between the battleships and the coastal guns. Germany loses some coastal guns, Britain doesn't lose any battleships. Then there is combat. The infantry don't get to fire on the first round (arriving amphibiously), and they won't survive until the second round. But, the battleships get to bombard. Assume those 10 battleships inflict 6 hits. Sticky hits, so those 6 hits kill 3 German trenches. At the cost of 10 infantry, Britain has taken away 3 trenches plus some coastal guns.
Don't get me wrong. All of this would be a cool thing to add to the game. I just don't know that the game needs any additional complexity at this point.
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@KurtGodel7 The coastal guns honestly sound like more more trouble than they're worth in order to get the balance right. Unless you think it'd be a really fun enhancement to the gameplay that you're determined to see through, it's probably safe to skip it and just give the invaders the round one penalty you have in mind.
Off the top of my head, the only major WWII warships I can recall being sunk by coastal forts were the cruisers Blücher and Königsberg during the invasion of Norway. Realistically, coastal defense batteries should be able to deter small raids, but not pose a serious threat on their own to a large invasion fleet.
But, suppose Britain builds a strong battleship fleet, and those battleships can exert more force than the coastal guns at a given hard point. Britain's response should be to unload one unit as an invasion. The goal would be to trigger a combat between the battleships and the coastal guns, with the British player knowing this would do more PU damage to Germany than to Britain.
If you want to avoid this kind of cheese, you might be able to turn the Coastal Battery into a building instead that doesn't get shot at in combat but does get captured if the province is taken. That would also be a natural way to put a one per zone limit on its placement. It could have AA style fire (1 die each at up to 3 ships, or however many targets you think is right).
If you think Claude can write some more complex rules, you could have the BBs take bombardment shots at the Coastal Battery first - if they score enough hits, they don't destroy it, but instead suppress it, and prevent it from firing. You could have the degree of suppression scaled to the number of hits it takes.
For instance, you've given the Coastal Battery shots at 4 targets by default. The British BBs arrive and bombard first - they score 2 hits, so now the Battery only takes 2 shots at enemy ships.
Making it a building also allows it to be a strategic bombing target, giving the enemy an alternative way to deal with it instead of just sending their ships in to slug it out head to head.
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