Flames and Steel (official thread)
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China's build phase
11 conscripts, made possible by having 11 manpower points on hand. But China doesn't have many PUs, so its PU units consist of three heavy guns and an anti-tank gun.
Unit placement for China. China is allowed to place up to two conscripts in any Chinese territory, so long as it owned that territory at the beginning of its turn. Hankow was conquered this turn, which is why it's a different color than the rest of China's territories. Units which cost PUs can only be placed in China's factories. China is allowed to place up to two conscripts in a factory territory without having them count against the factory's unit placement.
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America's first turn. Research.
America gets good income bonuses from its USA tech. That's why USA is a primary focus of one of its research centers. The other research center's primary focus is on fleet carrier. The U.S. starts off with one star towards fleet carrier tech, so this would be a good opportunity to unlock an advanced unit for the U.S. to produce. The U.S. chose Advanced as a secondary focus, in hopes of being able to build Special Production Centers (SPCs) to produce advanced units. The U.S. is allowed to have up to four SPCs, tied with Germany for most in the game. The other secondary focus for the U.S. is Piston Aircraft. You need extended range to start with, but after that there are some good piston aircraft techs available.
One star towards Extended Range. The other research advance was shipyards. That's a 1 PU reduction in the cost of your transports and cruisers. Also that builds towards other good surface ship techs. This is very good news for a nation which will soon be in a naval war against Japan.
The U.S. build screen. The U.S. has limited building ability while at peace.
U.S. unit placement: 2 trenches for Manila. Trenches can be placed without a factory. But only 2 trenches max per territory per turn. The trenches won't stop Japan's invasion of the South Pacific, but they might slow it down. The rest of the U.S. units were placed in the Pacific or in San Francisco. The U.S. is unable to move units while at peace, so it went straight from unit purchase to unit placement.
The U.S. collected income of 36 PUs and 4 MPs. Okay, that's not much. Granted. This is the U.S.'s peacetime income. At the end of its third turn it will collect 50% of its true income. At the end of its fourth turn it will collect 60%, then 70%, and so on, until it has fully ramped up. How much will America's income be once it's fully ramped up? 227 PUs, 13 MPs. Plus whatever income it is able to add to that through neutral farming or technological research.
Currently Germany's income is 142 PUs and 15 MPs. Japan's is 94 PUs and 8 MPs. Germany hopes to expand its income at the expense of the Soviet Union. Japan hopes to grow its income through conquest in the South Pacific, China, and southeast Asia. Japan isn't looking to invade the Soviet Union any time soon. Japan would be content with a stalemate between the Soviet army in Vladivostok and its own army in Manchuria.
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Germany's second turn:
Air phase: strafed Soviet land units adjacent to the Germans. Damaged the Red Army. The Soviet Air Force is not strong enough to challenge the Luftwaffe at this time.
Research phase: gained Extended Range. In future turns German dive bombers will be able to reach further in to Soviet territory. Gained Advanced tech 2. Now Germany can build up to two SPCs. That wouldn't do it any good right this instant however, because Germany hasn't yet unlocked the tech for any advanced units. Germany's third tech advance was chosen at random, and is the V1 rocket. The V1 has no game effect. But there are other techs further down that tree which do.
Germany's build was all land. It was going for quantity, so lots of anti-tank guns. Its income has risen to 163.
Soviet second turn. Research phase. A tech chosen at random, going towards strategic bomber tech. Ouch. But, an advance towards unlocking KV-2 tech (heavy tanks). Only one star left to go on that one. However, the Soviet Union has not unlocked any Advanced tech, which means that it cannot yet build any Special Production Centers (SPCs). The KV-2 heavy tank is useless until the Soviet player has at least one SPC with which to build KV-2s. Not that the Soviets have fully unlocked KV-2 tech just yet.
Soviet build phase. It had a lot of leftover MPs at the end of round 1, giving it 46 MPs to spend for round 2. 46 conscripts. Also it collected full income at the end of round 1, giving it 192 PUs to spend for round 2. It has plenty of cannon fodder (conscripts), so it needs firepower to go along with that. Field guns, heavy guns, and tanks are good options for firepower.
Place new units. One unplaced conscript. The Soviet Union could have placed it well to the rear. Instead it will save the conscript for next turn, when it can be placed a lot closer to the front. The Soviet Union has large unit placement capacity, even after the loss of Leningrad.
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Japan's second turn. One star towards late war production (Japan tech category). That was the final star needed, unlocking that tech. Bonus income for Japan! The other tech advance was shipyards. Less costly transports and cruisers. Japan is very pleased with this research phase.
Japan is invading Cochinchina, a territory in southeast Asia which would make a decent spot for a factory. It is building a factory for Bangkok. It also invaded Tonkin, another decent spot in southeast Asia for a factory.
Its build was largely land units, plus a transport and three destroyers. Also a medium bomber to send to China.
Britain's second turn. It researched "Canada" tech, which provides a free infantry each turn in Canada. Also one star towards industry tech. One more star, and it will add +2 to the unit placement capacity of its factories. Very useful for a nation with a far-flung empire.
British build: Italy's constant strafing of Britain's North Africa force is getting annoying. To solve the problem Britain is building four fighters. Also more land units and transports for Africa, India, and the Indian Ocean. Some destroyers for the North Atlantic.
Italy's second turn. Tech chosen randomly. One star towards Mechanized Infantry. Not what Italy had wanted.
Italy is growing its force in North Africa. But it is not yet time to attack the British. One problem: Italy's unit placement capacity is mostly in northern Italy. But it would wish to exert offensive pressure to the south, in north Africa. This is creating a situation where units are being placed in North Italy, then plodding their way south for a bit before they can be shipped.
U.S. turn. One star towards fleet carrier, with only 1 star left to go! One star towards Wartime Production, with only one star needed. A good American research phase, even though there is no instant gratification.
Still limited peacetime income. Its spending all went to the Pacific.
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Round 3: Japan's air attacked Pearl Harbor and damaged the U.S. Navy.
Germany continues to push east. Germany's income (170) and Soviet income (171) are now virtually tied. In the research phase Germany gained a star towards Panther tanks tech. One star left to go.
In the Soviet research phase, the Soviet player gained Advanced 1 tech. A very good advance for later. It also had a randomly chosen tech give it one star towards Improved Sub. Useless. The Soviets must withdraw from Smolensk, as the Germans in that area are too strong. If the Germans stack Smolensk, they will be only two moves away from Moscow. The Soviet Union loses all its cash when Moscow falls for the first time. But after that, the Soviet Union is allowed to collect income normally. All the same, the Soviets would strongly prefer not to lose Moscow. If Moscow does fall, the Soviet Union would be reduced down to one research center, at least until it can be restored.
Japan continues conquering southeast Asia and building factories there. However, Tonkin is under pressure from the British. Japan chooses not to build a factory there as it would be too much risk. Japan has finished off the fleet at Pearl Harbor. Also it has conquered Manila, despite the trenches the U.S. had been building there. This was important, because now the U.S. no longer has a good spot to build a factory in that region. The U.S. is prevented from building any factories while at peace, which is why there was no American factory built there thus far. Japan continues to make slow progress in China. It conquered Hong Kong. It would have liked to begin its invasion of the East Indies, but its local transports were needed to ship units to Tonkin, or to invade Manila. Japan built four more transports, because there were too many units not being shipped off Japan.
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Good Action
Have you considered using the Frostion units ? Think it makes for a better visual. GCD and UHD both use them, along with some Elk units and a few others.
And of course Frostion's Iron War
This a test game against yourself ?
Keep up the Good Work
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It seems very interesting but not easy to learn, do you plan to write a good manual ? Game Notes inside TripleA at least to explain all the new features respect to classic A&A games ?
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@kurtgodel7
Wow, TripleA, but not as we know it! 🤯
So many hours to get to this stage.Which AI are you using ?
Can the TripleA AI use your new AI interface or is it currently PvP ?
In future is the plan to share your map ?
If so, what would we as players need to install ?Sticky Hits do they change the Atk/Def, if say they reach 1/2 original HP ?
Does the Yamato currently have the most with 8HP ?Keep up the good work!
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Good Action
Have you considered using the Frostion units ? Think it makes for a better visual. GCD and UHD both use them, along with some Elk units and a few others.
And of course Frostion's Iron War
This a test game against yourself ?
Keep up the Good Work
I'd give the Frostion units very high marks for beauty. In terms of artistic quality they are much better than the units I'm using now.
However, for unit icons I value clarity more than beauty. A casual glance at a NWO map, and I quickly know what's going on. That's why I wanted the units to look like NWO or WAW units instead of Frostion units.
In answer to your question, this is a test game against myself.
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It seems very interesting but not easy to learn, do you plan to write a good manual ? Game Notes inside TripleA at least to explain all the new features respect to classic A&A games ?
I should write a good manual later. In the meantime here is a description of some of the new features.
New resource type: manpower points (MPs). These are used to build infantry type units. A nation such as China can be rich in MPs but poor in PUs. This means plenty of conscripts, with a few PU units to go along with them.
Advanced units. These are units which cannot be purchased with PUs. Instead, you receive one advanced unit per turn for each Special Production Center (SPC) you have. Examples of advanced units include heavy tanks, fleet carriers, and jets. The number of SPCs you have is limited. The U.S. and Germany can each have four SPCs, the U.S.S.R. and Japan can each have three, and Britain can only have one.
Research. Each nation except China starts the game with research centers. These are an abstraction, and have no physical existence on the map. You choose a primary focus and a secondary focus for each research center. There cannot be redundancy. If you have two research centers, you will choose four different research categories. Each research center produces one advance per turn. There is a 40% chance of that advance being its primary focus, a 20% chance of it being its secondary focus, and a 40% chance of it being chosen at random.
A research advance produces a bright yellow star. For example, take heavy tanks tech. It starts with three dull grey stars. An advance in tanks tech replaces one of those with a bright yellow star. Once you have all three bright yellow stars you will unlock heavy tanks tech. Your SPCs will now be able to produce heavy tanks.
Sticky hits. This is a nerf for units with multiple hitpoints. If a hit is applied to a unit with multiple hitpoints, additional hits are automatically applied to that unit until the unit is killed or until combat ends. This nerf allows me to make multi hitpoint units more common, without them being overpowered. For example, a light tank takes 1 hit to kill, a tank takes 2 hits, and a heavy tank takes 4 hits to kill.
Air phase. This is the part that's most different from normal TripleA. There is an air phase at the start of each game round. This is the only time when air units participate. The air phase begins with each player secretly allocating his bombers to different theaters. Germany, for example, could allocate bombers to Eastern Front to fight against the Soviets, to Western Europe to fight against Britain, or to the Mediterranean. Or even to Bomb Britain or Bomb USSR if he wanted a strategic bombing campaign. Once all bombers have been allocated, allocation decisions are revealed. The next step is to allocate fighters (including fighters, advanced fighters, and jets). These are air superiority units. They can only shoot down other enemy aircraft. They can never attack land or naval units.
The next step is a dogfight. A dogfight lasts two combat rounds. All air units get to fire here, but your fighters will be superior in a dogfight to your other air units. AA guns get to fire, and fire on a 2. Each aa gun gets to fire only once. Any bomber-type aircraft which survived the dogfight get to attack surface targets. Dive bombers fire at twice their normal combat value when attacking land targets. Torpedo bombers fire at twice their normal combat value when attacking surface ships. Medium bombers are a jack of all trades, master of none. They have significantly longer range than dive bombers or torpedo bombers. Medium bombers do 2 PUs of damage when strategic bombing, and strategic bombers do 5 PUs of damage. Damage is capped at double the territory value. Most early game aircraft have 2 hitpoints, except for strategic bombers which have 3. The advanced fighter (unlocked with technology) has 3 hitpoints. Jets have 5 hitpoints. But these are unlocked with technology, and are advanced units which cannot be built with PUs.
Imagine this: German and Soviet air fight over the Eastern Front. Both nations lose some air during the dogfight. Any German bombers which survived the dogfight then get to attack Soviet targets. Any Soviet bombers which survived the dogfight get to attack German targets. This is limited by range, so the targets getting attacked will be close to the front. Medium bombers can go deeper behind the front than can dive bombers or torpedo bombers. If the individual territory being attacked has aa guns, those aa will get to fire before the bombers can strike.
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@KurtGodel7
Great ! Go on working, whenever you'll need a playtester consider me !
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@kurtgodel7
Wow, TripleA, but not as we know it! 🤯
So many hours to get to this stage.Which AI are you using ?
Can the TripleA AI use your new AI interface or is it currently PvP ?
In future is the plan to share your map ?
If so, what would we as players need to install ?Sticky Hits do they change the Atk/Def, if say they reach 1/2 original HP ?
Does the Yamato currently have the most with 8HP ?Keep up the good work!
I am using Claude.
The game is currently PvP. At some point in the future I may allow the AI to use my interface. The problem here is that even though I have a paid Claude plan, I've used 75 - 85% of my weekly usage for the last three weeks on this. Enabling the AI to understand the new rules will require a lot of my weekly usage. Which means it will have to wait a week or two.
My plan is to share the map in the future. I want to make some adjustments to game balance before sharing. There are also a few additional tweaks to the GUI I'd like. The game, once shared, will need additional balance changes, but at least I want it to be farther along than it is now.
There is a separate version of the TripleA engine which must be installed for you to play this game. I will share the engine version when the time comes. I have the normal engine on my computer, as well as the separate engine.
The Yamato has the most hitpoints of any naval unit with 8. (As opposed to 5 for a normal battleship.) The Yamato can be purchased with PUs.
All starting land units have one hitpoint only, except for trenches and tanks. (Each of which have two hitpoints.) Italy and Japan can build light tanks, but not tanks. They can overcome that limitation by researching tanks tech. In my test games, neither of them actually wanted to research tanks tech. Italy was focused on income techs. Japan wanted to improve its income, it wanted to start creating advanced units, and it wanted to improve its piston aircraft and its naval technology. Japan's invasion of China consisted of dive bombers, a medium bomber, infantry, mobile infantry, anti-tank guns, light tanks, and field guns. This was a perfectly good unit mix without the need for tanks.
The heavy tank (U.K., U.S.S.R., U.S.A.) and Panther (Germany) each have 4 hitpoints. These are advanced units, and cannot be purchased with PUs. They are only created by SPCs. Also, you must research heavy tanks tech or Panther tech before you can get them. Late game, Germany can research King Tiger tech. King Tigers have 6 hitpoints, and are the strongest land unit in the game.
Starting game air units consist of fighters, dive bombers, torpedo bombers, and medium bombers. Each of these have 2 hitpoints. The U.S. and Britain start the game with the ability to build strategic bombers, which have 3 hitpoints. All other nations must research strategic bomber tech to be able to build strategic bombers.
Research can unlock the advanced fighter (3 hitpoints), which can be built with PUs. For Germany, the U.S., and Britain, jet research unlocks the jet (5 hitpoints). For Japan and the U.S.S.R., jet research unlocks first the early jet, and later on the jet. The early jet only has 3 hitpoints, and is about equal to an advanced fighter. Advanced fighters, early jets, and jets are all air superiority aircraft. They fire during the dogfight phase only.
The United States has a nation-specific special unit: the Superfortress. This has 5 hitpoints and does 13 PUs of damage when strategically bombing. Germany has the flying wing. 7 hitpoints--the most of any air unit--and does 6 PUs of damage when strategically bombing. If an SPC is set to produce Superfortresses or flying wings, it produces 1 unit every other turn.
Nations' options for special unit production
U.S.S.R.: heavy tanks, early jets, jets, fleet carriers
U.K.: heavy tanks, jets, fleet carriers
U.S.A.: heavy tanks, jets, fleet carriers, Superfortresses
Germany: Panthers, King Tigers, jets, flying wings, fleet carriers, Type XXI U-boats
Japan: fleet carriers, early jets, jets -
The next step is to allocate fighters (including fighters, advanced fighters, and jets). These are air superiority units. They can only shoot down other enemy aircraft. They can never attack land or naval units
Ok for a different approach but... this will decrease their utility. If I understood fighter can only help during Sbr (when defending or playing an attack) but not on land or naval battles... They should cost fewer IPCs...
Res.Cen. are not located on the map so hey cannot be bombed, Aa can hit whan attacker tries a Sbr plus, structures located deep inside enemy's lines are very hard to be reached and bombed so...
Also, Aircraft carrers, why should I still land planes (not defending) on them ? -
The next step is to allocate fighters (including fighters, advanced fighters, and jets). These are air superiority units. They can only shoot down other enemy aircraft. They can never attack land or naval units
Ok for a different approach but... this will decrease their utility. If I understood fighter can only help during Sbr (when defending or playing an attack) but not on land or naval battles... They should cost fewer IPCs...
Res.Cen. are not located on the map so hey cannot be bombed, Aa can hit whan attacker tries a Sbr plus, structures located deep inside enemy's lines are very hard to be reached and bombed so...
Also, Aircraft carrers, why should I still land planes (not defending) on them ?These are good questions.
Imagine that Germany builds some dive bombers and Japan builds torpedo bombers. Germany plans to use its dive bombers to strafe the Red Army. Japan plans to use its torpedo bombers to attack the U.S. Navy.
It's very difficult for the Soviet player to defend against this threat with aa guns. If he had 6 aa guns in a territory, those would automatically take out one German dive bomber. (The 6 aa guns would produce 2 hits, and a dive bomber takes 2 hits to kill.) The problem the Soviet player faces is that he might have several armies which would need to be defended against dive bombers. Germany can choose which army to strafe. Unless each army had a bunch of aa guns, Germany would just choose to strafe an army that didn't have a bunch of aa guns. Or he could strafe individual Soviet units which weren't part of a larger stack. Land units do not fire back against air, except for aa guns firing. Therefore, it's very tempting for bombers to strafe land units. Dive bombers are especially good against land units, but really you can use any type of bomber for this.
The Soviet player has two options in a situation like this. 1) Concede control over the sky to the Luftwaffe, and absorb whatever damage the German dive bombers deliver. 2) Build air superiority planes, such as fighters, to fight back against the Luftwaffe.
Suppose the British player decides to dump cash into strategically bombing Germany. There are a number of German factories within range of British strategic bombing attacks. If Germany wants to defend against this using aa guns only, it would need to have 9 aa guns on each factory territory within range of those British bombers. Those 9 aa guns would generate 3 hits, killing a bomber per raid. Germany's other option would be to put fighters on the "bomb Germany" theater, thereby defending all its factories at once. A fighter costs 10 PUs, has a dogfight value of 3, and takes 2 hits to kill. A strategic bomber costs 18 Pus, has a dogfight value of 2, and takes 3 hits to kill.
There are three types of air theaters. Land, coastal, open ocean. To allocate air to a land theater, you need a landing spot within range of that theater. To allocate to coastal, you need either a land location within range of the theater, or carriers in that theater. For open ocean, it's carriers only.
Take the Pearl Harbor attack for example. Japan brought 6 carriers with it to Pearl. Those carriers allowed it to have 8 torpedo bombers and 4 fighters present for the battle. Had there been a dogfight, those 4 fighters would have played an important role. (Fighters dogfight on a 3, compared to a 1 for torpedo bombers or dive bombers.) After the (nonexistent) dogfight, the 8 torpedo bombers attacked, doing 8 hitpoints of damage to the Pearl Harbor fleet. All this happened during the air phase. On Japan's turn, its navy came in to finish off the Pearl Harbor fleet. But, without those carriers, Japan could not have launched the air attack on Pearl.
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@KurtGodel7
Ok, I need to know more about rules to avoid silly questions but...
Bombers of each type... they can only bombard or can also partecipate to battles involving land(naval units ?
Because when you say about your scenario, Russia is forced to purchase fighter thet will be used just to defend against Sbr, while (maybe, I am asking) german bombers can play battles.Also, if Ger has a lot of bmb, then Russia purchase fighter, and then Hitler move his bompers to Uk leaving Stalin with a lot of useless and expansive fighter (Russia will never be so rich to buy bombers so fighter will be useless)
germany can force 2 different powers to spend on fighters investing less money (I dunno teh costs but 6 bombers will cost less that 6+6 fighters I suppose) -
Take the Pearl Harbor attack for example. Japan brought 6 carriers with it to Pearl. Those carriers allowed it to have 8 torpedo bombers and 4 fighters present for the battle. Had there been a dogfight, those 4 fighters would have played an important role. (Fighters dogfight on a 3, compared to a 1 for torpedo bombers or dive bombers.) After the (nonexistent) dogfight, the 8 torpedo bombers attacked, doing 8 hitpoints of damage to the Pearl Harbor fleet. All this happened during the air phase. On Japan's turn, its navy came in to finish off the Pearl Harbor fleet. But, without those carriers, Japan could not have launched the air attack on Pearl.
Still, sorry if I say something wrong, need more infos but...
If I know that Us fighters can dogfight VS my japanese attacking planes so... I will try to attack Us fleet with naval units only, probably a lot of subs.
I do not think india and Chine will purchase a lot of bombers so fighter won't be a valid purchase until usa has a strong fleet and move it across the pacific ocean so not before round ? 6/7 maybe ? Ite depends on map and other factors that I still ignore -
@KurtGodel7
Ok, I need to know more about rules to avoid silly questions but...
Bombers of each type... they can only bombard or can also partecipate to battles involving land(naval units ?
Because when you say about your scenario, Russia is forced to purchase fighter thet will be used just to defend against Sbr, while (maybe, I am asking) german bombers can play battles.Also, if Ger has a lot of bmb, then Russia purchase fighter, and then Hitler move his bompers to Uk leaving Stalin with a lot of useless and expansive fighter (Russia will never be so rich to buy bombers so fighter will be useless)
germany can force 2 different powers to spend on fighters investing less money (I dunno teh costs but 6 bombers will cost less that 6+6 fighters I suppose)Bomber attacks fall into one of three categories:
- Attacks against armies
- Attacks against ships
- Strategic bombing raids
There are different types of bombers depending on the job you need done. Dive bombers are your best bet for attacking armies, and can also be used to attack surface ships. Torpedo bombers are great at attacking surface ships, and can also be used to attack land units or subs. Strategic bombers are at their best when strategically bombing, but can also be used to attack land armies. Medium bombers can be used against armies, surface ships, subs, or for relatively weak strategic bombing raids.
Consider the air war between Germany and the Soviet Union. Neither nation is attempting to strategically bomb the other. Instead, each one wants to use dive bombers to strafe the other's armies. Unlike traditional Axis and Allies maps, armies don't get to fire back when being strafed. To the extent one side is able to assert control over the sky, it can use that control to strafe the armies of the other.
To take the example you gave, suppose the Soviet Union builds a bunch of fighters to prevent Germany from having control over the eastern front. The Luftwaffe then exits the eastern front and goes elsewhere. This makes the Soviet Union happy for two reasons. 1) His armies are no longer being strafed by German dive bombers. 2) Now the Soviet Union can build dive bombers of its own to strafe German armies. For each dive bomber the Soviet Union builds, Germany will lose 1 infantry per turn on its eastern front. In my example game the U.S.S.R. had an income of 171 PUs and 22 MPs at the end of round 3. There's plenty of money in that for the Soviets to build some dive bombers.
Think of the air war as being fought separately from everything else. Building air superiority aircraft is a big part of winning the air war. To the extent you're able to gain air superiority, you can use it to either a) inflict punishment, or b) defend yourself from the punishment someone else would inflict. The punishment being inflicted includes strafing armies, strafing surface ships or subs, as well as strategic bombing raids. Your bomber aircraft will always be able to inflict punishment of some sort, as long as they're in range.
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That was helpful to see. Your new rules on air combat systems are particularly interesting.
The conscript spam problem is one you might have several ways to address. Fundamentally, you have two routes to look into: making it easier to kill them, or throttling the production pipeline.
The way to make them more killable would be giving some of the higher value units multiple attack rolls so they can potentially kill two or three of them at a time. However, that’s going to have severe ripple effects on the balance of the entire combat system, so it’s probably the least attractive option.
You could raise the MP price by 1, or lower the MP budget for the presently overpowered nations. Raising the MP cost may of course make the unit no longer economical to produce, and nerfing Soviet and Chinese MP too much may handicap them from building enough of their normal units if those are also using MP.
Putting a flat population cap on them is the simplest band-aid fix that won’t fundamentally alter the balance of the game. I included a Militia unit based on the House Rules one in my draft of a total overhaul of the A&A research and tech system, which I’ll be posting a thread about sooner or later. It has more or less the same combat profile as your Conscript (A0/D1/M1) but can’t get artillery support, and a 2 PU cost. I decided to impose a flat production cap of 12 on the map at a time per nation to control spammage. The use case for them in my meta is emergency defense - the enemy is sitting one territory away from your major factory and you want to put the maximum amount of cannon fodder there at the lowest possible price - that and I tied them in to the mechanics for Chinese and Soviet partisan spawns. The difference here is that I explicitly wanted to make sure my Militia would never became a mainstay unit that would displace Infantry from its role as the backbone of your army - but you actually want your Conscripts to do that for your select group of countries. The main downside of flat population caps is that they feel very artificial and arbitrary for the players, like running into an invisible wall.
One more solution that might work for you is separating conscripts from standard Factory production infrastructure to keep a tighter control on the number players can place per turn. Consider this: Conscripts are built out of a separate building altogether (call it a Recruiting Center, Training Ground, Army Base, or whatever else suits your fancy).
Recruiting Centers are cheap (maybe 4-6 PUs) and each one allows 3-5 Conscript placements. The Soviets, Chinese, and Italians would start with a few on the map, allowing some immediate Conscript placements, but not enough to just dump their entire surplus MP budget into Conscript buys every turn. They can do that, but they’ll have a bunch stuck in the queue because they don’t have enough spawn points to place them all. They can solve that problem, however, once they buy some additional Recruiting Centers - but that requires a PU investment, so they need to divert some of their budget from normal units in order to achieve their maximum potential on conscript spawns.
It also gives enemy players some options for counterplay against Conscript spamming - they can try to bomb or overrun your Recruiting Centers to limit the spawns.
That option seems like the most promising one to me, but you’ll have to do some experimenting with how much the Recruiting Centers should cost / how many conscripts can spawn at each to figure out what would play best.
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@Vendetta If you want to prevent unit spamming, TripleA has a number of straightforward solutions.
- You can set a maximum number of units built
- You can set a stacking limit
- You can have units that launch AA-style attacks against every unit
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That was helpful to see. Your new rules on air combat systems are particularly interesting.
The conscript spam problem is one you might have several ways to address. Fundamentally, you have two routes to look into: making it easier to kill them, or throttling the production pipeline.
The way to make them more killable would be giving some of the higher value units multiple attack rolls so they can potentially kill two or three of them at a time. However, that’s going to have severe ripple effects on the balance of the entire combat system, so it’s probably the least attractive option.
You could raise the MP price by 1, or lower the MP budget for the presently overpowered nations. Raising the MP cost may of course make the unit no longer economical to produce, and nerfing Soviet and Chinese MP too much may handicap them from building enough of their normal units if those are also using MP.
Putting a flat population cap on them is the simplest band-aid fix that won’t fundamentally alter the balance of the game. I included a Militia unit based on the House Rules one in my draft of a total overhaul of the A&A research and tech system, which I’ll be posting a thread about sooner or later. It has more or less the same combat profile as your Conscript (A0/D1/M1) but can’t get artillery support, and a 2 PU cost. I decided to impose a flat production cap of 12 on the map at a time per nation to control spammage. The use case for them in my meta is emergency defense - the enemy is sitting one territory away from your major factory and you want to put the maximum amount of cannon fodder there at the lowest possible price - that and I tied them in to the mechanics for Chinese and Soviet partisan spawns. The difference here is that I explicitly wanted to make sure my Militia would never became a mainstay unit that would displace Infantry from its role as the backbone of your army - but you actually want your Conscripts to do that for your select group of countries. The main downside of flat population caps is that they feel very artificial and arbitrary for the players, like running into an invisible wall.
One more solution that might work for you is separating conscripts from standard Factory production infrastructure to keep a tighter control on the number players can place per turn. Consider this: Conscripts are built out of a separate building altogether (call it a Recruiting Center, Training Ground, Army Base, or whatever else suits your fancy).
Recruiting Centers are cheap (maybe 4-6 PUs) and each one allows 3-5 Conscript placements. The Soviets, Chinese, and Italians would start with a few on the map, allowing some immediate Conscript placements, but not enough to just dump their entire surplus MP budget into Conscript buys every turn. They can do that, but they’ll have a bunch stuck in the queue because they don’t have enough spawn points to place them all. They can solve that problem, however, once they buy some additional Recruiting Centers - but that requires a PU investment, so they need to divert some of their budget from normal units in order to achieve their maximum potential on conscript spawns.
It also gives enemy players some options for counterplay against Conscript spamming - they can try to bomb or overrun your Recruiting Centers to limit the spawns.
That option seems like the most promising one to me, but you’ll have to do some experimenting with how much the Recruiting Centers should cost / how many conscripts can spawn at each to figure out what would play best.
An important facet of this game is its tech system. There are 55 techs the Soviet Union can research, 52 for Japan, 65 for Germany. A number of those techs require multiple stars to research. I will grant that not every nation needs every tech. The Soviets, for example, do not need fleet carrier tech.
Even so, my goal is for the outcome of the game to be undecided on round 20. This will give the tech system time to unfold. If someone concedes on round 7, that means I have failed. The effect of tech is small for the early game and grows over time.
In my test game, Japan was slowly conquering China. That was exactly what I'd wanted. The Axis needs to expand to counteract the Allies' advantage in early game income. But I didn't want the expansion to be too rapid.
The way I've conceived things, some territories produce manpower points--but only for their original owners. As Japan took Chinese territory, China's MP income was slowly reduced. This meant Japan's invasion was starting to gain momentum. I want the Axis to conquer enough to keep it in the game economically, but not so much that it delivers a quick knockout punch.
The European theater of my test game was a different story. Despite the Soviet Union's ability to spam massive amounts of conscripts, Germany was able to stack Smolensk on G4. Smolensk is two spaces away from Moscow. Barbarossa was a little too strong. What was required there was a little bit of a nerf of Germany's starting units. As the Soviets lost territory to the Germans, their manpower points declined. By round 3 their MP income had been reduced to 22, or 22 conscripts per turn.
I'm perfectly happy with the Soviet Union or China spamming large armies of conscripts. There is nothing at all wrong with that. They had large armies in the real war, they may as well have large armies in this game. The tricky part is balancing the game, such that the game lasts a long time before the outcome is decided.
Infantry-type units
Conscript. Cost: 0 PUs, 1 MP. Move 1, attack 0, defend 1.
Infantry. Cost: 1 PU, 1 MP. Move 1, attack 1, defend 2.
Sturmtruppen. Cost: 3 PUs, 1 MP. Move 1, attack 2, defend 3.
Mobile infantry. Cost: 3 PUs, 1 MP. Move 2, attack 1, defend 2.
Mechanized infantry. Cost: 5 PUs, 1 MP. Move 3, attack 2, defend 2.Conscripts can only be built by the Soviet Union, China, and Italy. All nations except China can build infantry. Sturmtruppen are Germany only. Mechanized infantry can be built only after researching the appropriate tech. Tech can also be used to upgrade your mobile infantry to movement 3 and defense 3. The "assault rifle" tech for Germany adds +1 to the attack and defense of its Sturmtruppen. All infantry-type units can receive support on both offense and defense.
The nation with the most MPs is the Soviet Union. But even the USSR, with its massive MP income, ran out of MPs before it ran out of a need for cannon fodder. That's why there's the anti-tank gun, available for all nations to purchase. Cost: 3 PUs. Movement 1, attack 1, defense 1, receives support on defense only. Anti-tank guns can receive support on attack also, if you research "unrelenting attack" tech.
Let's say the Soviet Union is on defense. It has lots of conscripts as cannon fodder. It has some anti-tank guns to provide additional cannon fodder. But then it needs something to "crown the stack" as it were. Something with really good defensive firepower. That's why there's the heavy gun. Cost: 7 PUs. Attack 2, defend 4. Provides support on defense only. Its defense value can be upgraded to 5 with rail guns tech. Its cost can be reduced by 1 with working women tech.
Another good defensive unit is the trench. Cost: 3 PUs, movement 0, defends on a 0, takes 2 hits to kill. Trenches can be placed on any territory you owned at the start of your turn. They do not count against factory placement limits. A maximum of two trenches per territory per turn can be placed. Their defense value can be upgraded to 1 with bunkers tech.
Let's say I'm the Soviet player and I'm defending Moscow. I'd want lots of trenches. Lots of conscripts and anti-tank guns to soak up hits. Heavy guns, both for the defensive firepower they offer in and of themselves, and also because they provide support on defense. If I have 20 heavy guns, that means 20 of my conscripts or anti-tank guns are getting +1 to their combat rolls on defense. If I need to bring in units from a distant factory, and if I need to get them to Moscow quickly, I'm bringing tanks. A tank costs 8 PUs, attacks and defends on a 3, has two hitpoints, and a movement of 2. If that movement of 2 is a must-have, tanks give you good hitpoints for the money, and give you good firepower on both offense and defense. Soviet tanks can experience a 1 PU cost decrease with the "simplify the T-34" tech. British tanks can gain +1 to offense and defense by researching the "Comet" tank tech.
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