Flames and Steel (official thread)

KurtGodel7

A list of recent modifications:

Vichy France added.
Japan's Night Action tech changed. Instead of improving the raw power of Japan's cruisers and Yamato battleships, it now greatly improves Yamato battleships' ability to provide support to destroyers and cruisers. A Yamato provides + 2 support to a max of three other ships.
Medium tanks can now blitz. Currently light tanks and medium tanks can blitz. Units which cannot blitz: Heavy tanks, mobile infantry, mechanized infantry, M7 Priests, Katyushas.
Gave America Pacific the ability to research USS Iowa tech. This causes America Pacific's battleships to gain +1 hitpoint. They can support 2 ships instead of 1. While a normal battleship would top out at a firepower of 4 + 4, an Iowa would top out at 5 + 5. A Yamato will top out at 5 + 5 + 4.
A four tier infantry system added. China: tier 1. Soviets: tier 2, with tier 3 as their elite unit. Japan: tier 2. Can upgrade to tier 3 with tech. Italy: tier 2, with tier 3 as an elite unit. Britain, Germany, USA: tier 3. Germany can build tier 4 as an elite unit.

This game is getting close to being ready to share with other people.

Vendetta

@KurtGodel7 said:
In New World Order, Italy is a very important Axis power. The same is not true in Flames and Steel. In Flames and Steel, Italy will pick a local project, such as defending Gibraltar, or pushing east against the British in North Africa. The value of the area near Cairo is modest, so Italian success in Northeast Africa does not create a seismic shift in favor of the Axis. It's a few extra PUs.

Italy has 6 MPs, and those allow it to punch a little above its weight. Research isn't very exciting for Italy. It wants the income-increasing techs, of course, but there's little else in its tech tree that it feels truly excited about.

The City of Reno, NV, describes itself as "the biggest little city in the world." My description of Italy would be similar: "the biggest minor power in the world." In my test games, Italy's local projects had gone well, at least for the early game. That made me feel as though Italy was pulling its weight. Italy's life would become harder once America Atlantic has fully mobilized (on round 10).

I don't think you want any of the playable powers in the game to feel boring in terms in terms of research. Italy should not be on par with the major powers, but it shouldn't feel like it's totally barren when you're playing with them.

When I was designing unique Italian techs for TRO, the themes most of theirs fell under were either getting more out of cheap units, or special operations stuff that's flashy and exciting but not really as practical or versatile as the capabilities that the big powers got.

Here were some of the ideas that either made it into the mod or were left on the drawing board that might be adaptable if you want any of them. I've changed some of the unit names around to match yours where appropriate.

Camicie Nere (Blackshirts) - Militia get +1 attack when supported by a regular Infantry [represents the M battalions]

Autocanoni - Italian Field Guns get +1 move when paired with a Mobile Infantry [https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/category/ww2-italian-autocannoni/]

Bersaglieri - Italian Mobile Infantry get to blitz when paired with a Light Tank or Medium Tank

Carri Veloci - Once per turn, Italy can purchase a pair of Light Tanks as a package for a 2 PU discount [I did a lot of these discount packages for different countries where you get 1-2 PU off per unit but have to buy them as a set]

Maiali - Italian Submarines roll two dice during the first turn of an attack on a sea zone adjacent to an enemy naval base [could simplify to some other attack bonus]

Mare Nostrum - Italian Destroyers defend at +1 when accompanying a Transport in a Mediterranean sea zone. One Transport supports up to two destroyers.

Motobomba - Italian Strategic Bombers get a powerful first round torpedo attack against enemy ships [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motobomba]

Picchiatelli - In mine, it let Germany buy a discounted Tactical Bomber for Italy if Italy doesn't have any in play; in yours it could just be Italy gets a slight discount on the Dive Bomber [The Italian name for their imported Stukas]

Sparviero - Italian Medium Bombers get an attack bonus when attacking naval units

malmessi

@Cernel said:

The Alpini are specialized mountain troops so would fit better in a game with terrains and mountain combat modifiers

Yes, like in Total World War, italian's Alpini are great

malmessi

@Vendetta said:

Autocanoni - Italian Field Guns

In italian is auto cannoni with double N

malmessi

@Vendetta said:

Maiali - Italian Submarines roll two dice

It was not submarines in general that were called "pigs" (maiali), but rather the Siluro a Lenta Corsa (SLC)—a small underwater assault craft (a torpedo steered by two operators sitting astride it)—used by the Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy) during the Second World War.

But apart from this fact, maiali means pigs, a bit offensive for italian players like me

Vendetta

@malmessi said:

@Vendetta said:

Maiali - Italian Submarines roll two dice

It was not submarines in general that were called "pigs" (maiali), but rather the Siluro a Lenta Corsa (SLC)—a small underwater assault craft (a torpedo steered by two operators sitting astride it)—used by the Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy) during the Second World War.

But apart from this fact, maiali means pigs, a bit offensive for italian players like me

Good catch on autocannoni. And correct, “‘maiali” was a crew nickname for the manned torpedo vehicles rather than their formal designation.

The bonus is meant to abstractly represent those by giving the sub a second attack on the first round, which you could take to mean the release of the SLC craft. I came up with the caveat that it only works in zones adjacent to enemy naval bases to keep it as a tool for harbor raiding.

TRO also had another “Decima MAS” tech for allowing Marines to launch special raids against enemy ships, but I figured that was too mechanically complex to suggest here, and Kurt doesn’t have a Marine unit in his lineup anyway.

KurtGodel7

@vendetta and @malmessi

This conversation has inspired me to give Italy additional nation-specific techs. Below is the current list of techs unique to Italy.

Italy tech category
Mare Nostrum: each Italian transport provides +1 support on defense to one destroyer or cruiser.
Autocannoni: allows Italy to build the autocannoni unit.
Bersaglieri: adds +1 to attack for Italian mobile infantry.

Italy's nation-specific Piston Aircraft techs
Sparviero (SM 79): Torpedo bombers' naval bonus is now 2.
Picchiatelli: Dive bombers' land bonus becomes 2. (Same as Germany's Stuka)
Aerosiluranti: torpedo bombers cost 1 PU less

The autocannoni unit is unique to Italy. Cost: 6 PU. Move 2, attack 2, defense 1, supports one infantry on attack. (Edit: the defense is now 2.) Also, this unit acts as an aa gun. In an air battle, an aa gun gets one shot only and fires on a 2. An autocannoni gets one shot only and fires on a 1. AA guns and autocannoni are the only two types of land units in the game which get to fire in an air battle. Below is a picture of a mobile infantry, a field gun, and an autocannoni.

Vendetta

@KurtGodel7 Nice! Were you using Claude for the unit images too?

Autocannoni is the plutral form, a singular unit is an Autocannnone.

KurtGodel7

@Vendetta said:

@KurtGodel7 Nice! Were you using Claude for the unit images too?

Autocannoni is the plutral form, a singular unit is an Autocannnone.

In that case, I should probably say that I have given the Autocannone an improvement to its stats. It now defends on a 2 instead of on a 1.

In answer to your question, some of my unit art came from existing maps, and some was created by Claude.

KurtGodel7

Recent modifications to this map:

Because I'm using a different version of the engine, this cannot be played on the TripleA lobby. There are other ways to achieve networked play, however, and today some changes to my version of the engine were made to achieve this.
Also, I've started the grim task of getting this ready for AI play. Step 1 was to have the AI play for 15 rounds without the game generating errors or crashing. This has now been achieved. Step 2 (currently in progress) is to have the AI make decent decisions during the research phase.

In the test games (AI vs. AI) Moscow fell on round 12 or so. China fell as well. Is this a game balance issue of the Axis being too strong, or is this the result of poor AI play? From the verbal description I was given of these test games, Britain launched some minor raids on the German coast, but not a large scale invasion of Western Europe. The descriptions were a bit vague as to what America Atlantic did or didn't do.

Also, Conscription 1 tech provides the USSR with 5 free infantry per turn (assuming it still holds the Soviet interior). This is doubled to 10 free infantry per turn with Conscription 2, and maxes out at 20 free infantry for Conscription 4. Those are in addition to the free infantry it gets each turn for its Propaganda techs. If the Soviet Union wasn't researching Recruitment--which I'm pretty sure it wasn't--then that's a huge wasted opportunity for it to have put up a better fight against Germany.

There could well be balance problems with this map--that wouldn't surprise me even a little--but I feel the AI needs to improve before it can accurately reveal those problems. I'm at about 50% of my weekly usage, so we'll see how much progress I'm able to make on the AI front before that usage is consumed.