Flames and Steel (official thread)

[Vendetta]

@KurtGodel7 Fascinating. My own tech system overhaul plays closer to vanilla but has 45 universal techs and 48 national exclusives (4 each for ANZAC/China/France and 6 each for Germany/Italy/Japan/UK/US/USSR). It would be interesting to compare notes on that once I've finished getting it all written up.

[malmessi]

@KurtGodel7 said:

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

Ok it is as I said, Russia need to pay a lot for fighters just to get point 1) but this was the same in normal A&A games with one difference, russian fig can be also used to attack and take back precious territories
About point 2) it was predicted by me but I have never seen Rus purchasing bombers or battleships or other expansive units in any game over teh last 10 years playing TripleA. It all depends on the cost for those dive bombers; if a bomber costs like 4 inf it will allow to kill 4 german inf in the incoming 4 turns but on the otjher side it will be a -4 inf for Stalin too...
I am sure you balanced your game very well, my posts are just opinions of a player who did not crrated the game, did not even read complete rules, just trying to help in a construcitve way

[KurtGodel7]

@Vendetta said:

@KurtGodel7 Fascinating. My own tech system overhaul plays closer to vanilla but has 45 universal techs and 48 national exclusives (4 each for ANZAC/China/France and 6 each for Germany/Italy/Japan/UK/US/USSR). It would be interesting to compare notes on that once I've finished getting it all written up.

Yeah that sounds good. I'm curious to see the tech system you've come up with.

Speaking of tech systems, I just played a few rounds of another example game. I'm kind of learning good openings as I go along. I now believe that a good German opening involves taking Leningrad on G2. I think that Japan should start neutral farming on round 1, with the intention of building factories in southeast Asia. Japan does not go to war against the UK, USA, or USSR until round 3. But in rounds 1 and 2 it can still invade China and can still neutral farm. It was sometimes necessary for Japan to ship units out of China to achieve its neutral farming goals for southeast Asia.

While things for Japan went as they should, the situation with Germany was more discouraging. On round 2, Britain built land units and a transport for its factories in India and Africa. A couple trenches for Singapore. Other than that, it put almost all its money into strategic bombers.

The Soviet Union starts the game with nerfed fighters. Soviet fighters have a dogfight value of 2, as opposed to 3 for everyone else. To get rid of the nerf the Soviets need to research radios tech. That's a 2 star research requirement. The Soviet Union got a little lucky with its tech rolls, getting the radios tech in its round 2 research phase. This meant that Soviet fighters would no longer be nerfed in dogfights, starting in round 3. The USSR then used the majority of its round 2 cash to buy fighters. It also built max defense for Leningrad, with 7 heavy guns and 2 trenches. (The Leningrad part could have been avoided with a better German opening.)

On round 3 the air battles were devastating for Germany. Its fighter defense over the "bomb Germany" theater was largely wiped out by British strategic bombers. It only took out one British bomber in exchange. In the air battle over the Eastern Front, the Germans lost considerably more air than the Soviets. The remaining German dive bombers did some damage to Soviet targets, but not quite enough for Germany to take Leningrad. British strategic bombers did 40 PUs of damage to Germany.

My planned solution to this (once my weekly usage limit resets).

1. Nerf the strategic bomber. This means reducing its dogfight value to 1 and its strategic bombing value to 3. I might also reduce its hitpoints to 2. I also plan to nerf the strategic bombing value of the medium bomber to 1. Someone wants an un-nerfed version of these units? Great. The un-nerfed version will be made available through research in the "strategic bombers" tech category. This means that the Allied strategic bombing campaign will be stronger late game than early game. Which is historically accurate.

2. Give Germany a few more fighters. This should make it a little tougher for the Soviets to take control over that air front.

3. Require one additional star of research for the radios tech for the Soviets. Granted, they did unusually well on their tech rolls, if their goal was to get that particular tech. Even so, I think they should need 3 stars to be rid of the Soviet fighter nerf instead of 2.

4. Maybe give Germany a few extra infantry for Barbarossa.

The Soviets appear to be economically strongest for their round 2 purchase phase. Three reasons for that. 1) I didn't give them full starting cash for round 1. 2) The Germans push east for the first few rounds, reducing Soviet income. 3) The Soviets start off with an insane number of MPs. This means they don't have to buy anti-tank guns for the first two rounds, because the conscripts they buy instead give them plenty of cannon fodder. The Soviets do not need to purchase anti-tank guns as cannon fodder until round 3. If the Soviets are able to use their round 2 economic strength to take control of the sky on round 3, that would blunt Barbarossa too early.

But, I don't want the initial German push to result in a quick collapse of Moscow, because that would be too unbalanced in the other direction. The fall of Moscow causes all Soviet cash to be handed over to the Axis nation which conquered it. But that is a one-time deal only. After that, the Soviet player is able to collect income without regard for whether he does or does not own Moscow. Also, cash is handed over for the first Moscow conquest only. If the Axis takes Moscow additional times, it is treated as a normal territory. On turns when the Soviet Union doesn't own Moscow, it receives the benefit of only one research center instead of its usual two.

Non-Soviet Allied units are not allowed onto Soviet soil. Non-Chinese Allied units are not allowed onto Chinese-owned soil. In my example games, China has been able to put up a good fight on its own, without the help of other Allies.

[KurtGodel7]

@malmessi said:

Ok it is as I said, Russia need to pay a lot for fighters just to get point 1) but this was the same in normal A&A games with one difference, russian fig can be also used to attack and take back precious territories
About point 2) it was predicted by me but I have never seen Rus purchasing bombers or battleships or other expansive units in any game over teh last 10 years playing TripleA. It all depends on the cost for those dive bombers; if a bomber costs like 4 inf it will allow to kill 4 german inf in the incoming 4 turns but on the otjher side it will be a -4 inf for Stalin too...
I am sure you balanced your game very well, my posts are just opinions of a player who did not crrated the game, did not even read complete rules, just trying to help in a construcitve way

Normal Soviet behavior varies depending on the map. If you're playing Revised, the Soviets would maybe buy fighters for back-and-forth battles. But probably no bombers, and definitely no navy of any kind! If you're playing New World Order (a player-created map of the European theater), it would be somewhat normal for the Soviets to buy bombers for back-and-forth battles, or to help threaten the German Baltic fleet.

But the rules set I've created for this map is completely different than what anyone is used to. Different logic is going to apply. Fighters for my map serve a role which does not exist for Larry Harris maps. The one task of fighters is to shoot down enemy air. This, they do well. If you're building air units for a Larry Harris map, you're probably building them either to take out land targets (back and forth battles) or for naval battles. Or maybe strategic bombing raids.

For my map, if you're looking for a plane that's good at taking out land units, you want a dive bomber. For naval battles, a torpedo bomber. For strategic bombing raids, a strategic bomber. Fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo bombers each cost 10 PUs. Strategic bombers cost 18 PUs. If you're building a fighter, dive bomber, or torpedo bomber, that's essentially costing you 3.3 anti-tank guns (cost of 3, attack and defend on a 1).

In a Larry Harris map, air units cannot strafe land units. Instead, the air units fire, then the land units fire. This is not strafing. It is normal combat. In my rules set, air units are able to strafe. The dive bombers fire at the land units, the land units do not fire back at the dive bombers. The way to prevent your units from being strafed is to build fighters and assert control over the skies.

"I am sure you balanced your game very well." I like your optimism on this subject! I wish I shared it.

In my first test game things were unbalanced in favor of the Allies. I made balance corrections. Those corrections were apparently too heavy-handed, as things became unbalanced in favor of the Axis. In particular, Barbarossa was too strong. I then made pro-Allied balance corrections, and in my most recent test game things were unbalanced in favor of the Allies. I'm sure I'll get this right eventually.

[Vendetta]

One of the unique techs I outlined for Germany in my set was “Flak Towers.” The effect I intend it to have is that if facility AA has a near miss against a strategic bombing raid (i.e. rolls a 2 by default, or a 3 if you have AA Radar tech), the bomber will be forced to abort its mission and go home without dealing any damage - but it will get to fly back without being shot down.

I also outlined a “Flying Fortresses” tech which would be available to everyone, but the US would have a bonus making it easier to develop. That tech would make any hit scored by AA fire against a strategic bomber require a hit on a second roll to confirm and shoot it down. If the confirmation roll misses, the bomber aborts the mission but survived and returns. The bonus would not apply against interceptions by fighters - if they score a hit, it’s a kill.

Allowing situations where the defense can succeed but the bomber can survive struck me as a good way to play with the balance of the strategic bombing game without giving the bombers extra hit points. It works easily enough on tabletop, whether it can be translated into the TripleA engine is something I’ll have to find out.

Could be a good way to fine tune the balance in your bombing war meta without ping-ponging between either the defenders or the bombers being wiped out in one sided massacres.

It would take some extra work to make it play nice with your multiple hit point system. One thought that comes to mind is having the AA/interceptors roll two sets of dice per turn. One set inflicts damage as normal, while the other forces a retreat if it hits. That way you’d end up with a range of possible outcomes - they might get through and bomb the target with or without taking damage, or they might get sent back to base with or without damage, or they might get shot down.

[beelee]

@Vendetta

Hmm ... very interesting. What say you @victoryfirst

[RogerCooper]

@Vendetta Wouldn't make more sense for Flak Towers to reduce the damage roll for bombers.

[KurtGodel7]

@Vendetta said:

One of the unique techs I outlined for Germany in my set was “Flak Towers.” The effect I intend it to have is that if facility AA has a near miss against a strategic bombing raid (i.e. rolls a 2 by default, or a 3 if you have AA Radar tech), the bomber will be forced to abort its mission and go home without dealing any damage - but it will get to fly back without being shot down.

I also outlined a “Flying Fortresses” tech which would be available to everyone, but the US would have a bonus making it easier to develop. That tech would make any hit scored by AA fire against a strategic bomber require a hit on a second roll to confirm and shoot it down. If the confirmation roll misses, the bomber aborts the mission but survived and returns. The bonus would not apply against interceptions by fighters - if they score a hit, it’s a kill.

Allowing situations where the defense can succeed but the bomber can survive struck me as a good way to play with the balance of the strategic bombing game without giving the bombers extra hit points. It works easily enough on tabletop, whether it can be translated into the TripleA engine is something I’ll have to find out.

Could be a good way to fine tune the balance in your bombing war meta without ping-ponging between either the defenders or the bombers being wiped out in one sided massacres.

It would take some extra work to make it play nice with your multiple hit point system. One thought that comes to mind is having the AA/interceptors roll two sets of dice per turn. One set inflicts damage as normal, while the other forces a retreat if it hits. That way you’d end up with a range of possible outcomes - they might get through and bomb the target with or without taking damage, or they might get sent back to base with or without damage, or they might get shot down.

I don't know if you've played Axis and Allies Naval Miniatures. If you haven't, I'd strongly recommend it. It's a very good game.

The reason I bring it up is because it has the same "aborted" concept you are describing here. That game's combat system is a little different from normal Axis and Allies. Let's say you have an aa gun with a value of 8. That means you roll 8 dice. Each die roll is either a hit or a miss, except that a 6 counts as two hits. You then count up your hits and compare them against the plane's armor and vital armor. Maybe a plane has armor 5 and vital armor 7. If you get hits at least equal to a plane's armor, it's aborted. It lives, but it doesn't get to attack ships or subs for the rest of the combat round. If you get hits at least equal to the plane's vital armor, the plane is killed outright.

In my test games of Flames and Steel, I've noticed that most of the time air theaters are uncontested. The side with air supremacy is able to strafe the armies of the side which has lost control over the sky. But, some of the time, an air theater can be contested. In which case, things can get very destructive very quickly. I'm okay with that in and of itself. A game doesn't need 20 rounds of huge stacks building up to be a fun game.

I have two concerns about the way the air aspect of the game currently operates.

1. Game balance. In some of my example games the air part has unbalanced the game in favor of one side or the other.
2. All or nothing proposition. If a nation knows it will be the weaker party in an air theater, its best option is to avoid participation in that theater entirely. When the time does come to participate, it should do so in massive force.

I can always tweak stuff for game balance. The deeper concern is the all or nothing aspect to air combat. Axis and Allies Naval Miniatures managed to avoid that problem. The sky was generally contested every round. Every round both sides' bombers would strike naval targets. I realize that Naval Miniatures is a simulation of an individual naval battle, not a world war. Even so, the "contested sky" aspect of that game is something I'd like to bring into Flames and Steel.

The way I see it I have two options.

1. Keep my current system. It isn't perfect, and it loses the "contested sky" aspect I would have wanted. But most aspects of the game are working as intended, and that's something which makes me very happy.

2. Completely rethink my approach to air. I don't know what the new approach should be. But I do know that I want the following:

• Aircraft fighting each other for control over the sky.
• Aircraft specialized for specific roles. In my current iteration, dive bombers, torpedo bombers, fighters, medium bombers, and strategic bombers each have a unique purpose.

[KurtGodel7]

After a very interesting conversation with AI, I am now considering the following system.

1. Aircraft are allocated to theaters, as now. For example, the Eastern Front is the Luftwaffe against the Soviet Air Force.

2. There is a dogfight phase. Only air superiority aircraft participate in dogfights. This means fighters, advanced fighters, jets, and (new unit type!) heavy fighters. During the dogfight phase, all aircraft fire at their dogfight values. Destroyed aircraft are removed.

3. Then, there is an interception phase. Fighter-type aircraft fire at their interception values. Bombers fire back at their defensive fire values. Destroyed aircraft are removed. Damaged bombers are aborted.

4. Any bombers which weren't destroyed, and which weren't aborted get to bomb whatever targets they had in mind. Strafing armies, attacking navies, or strategic bombing raids.

To make this more concrete: a fighter would have a dogfight value of 3 and an interception value of 3. A heavy fighter would have a dogfight value of 2 and an interception value of 4 or maybe 5. Also it would cost a little more than a normal fighter.

I don't know for sure how this will actually work without play testing. But here is what I hope would happen. The Soviet player sees that Germany is able to allocate, say, 10 fighters and 6 dive bombers to the eastern front. The Soviets have 5 fighters, a dive bomber, and a heavy fighter they could allocate. The dive bomber hides in Siberia so it won't be shot down during the interception phase. The rest of the Soviet air are sent to the eastern front. The Soviets lose more air than the Germans during the dogfight phase. But, at least the German dive bombers didn't get to fire during the dogfight phase, so that made it a bit more even. Most of the Soviet fighters survived the dogfight, earning the chance to intercept the German dive bombers. The chance to kill or abort some of the dive bombers helps balance out this air battle. This balancing out is what induced the Soviet player to participate in the air battle in the first place, instead of hiding his entire air force in Siberia.

[Vendetta]

@KurtGodel7 said:

The system sounds elegant in theory, but one issue that stands out even before any play testing is that if you’re the weaker power, there is zero incentive to build anything but fighters - bombers of any sort seem useless if you don’t have air superiority. And while there was eventually a point in the historical WW2 where Germany became desperate enough to adopt that as official production policy, that wasn’t the case for most of it - most powers were still trying to field both offensive and defensive capabilities simultaneously.

The Soviets never parked their Il-2 fleet out in Siberia to wait until the VVS had won air superiority - they used it, constantly, accepting the heavy losses that entailed. So a system that encourages players to do that is rewarding unrealistic behavior.

A few ideas on ways to address that:

A) Shrink your air theaters. Instead of one for the entire Eastern Front, imagine having about three different air zones there (north, center, south). More zones means fighter coverage is spread thinner, creating opportunities for the weaker side to gain local superiority - the Germans might prevail in two of the zones, but the Soviets could concentrate their forces to win control over the third one.

B) Allow fighters on escort missions to take hits meant for the bombers they’re protecting, and allow those bombers to carry out their strafing missions if they make it through even if their side has lost the battle for air superiority overall. Systems with all or nothing results (only the side that wins the air battle gets to bomb) naturally encourage unrealistic min-maxing style gameplay.

C) Use your unique tech system to give the Soviets some advantages that encourage a mixed air strategy instead of just spamming fighters - you could make their dive bomb bombers harder to shoot down, or you could make them cheap enough to be worth using aggressively even if the losses are heavy. You would also have to do that for any other cases where the system is optimizing for less interesting play.

A is probably the easiest route to test since it doesn’t involve any other changes to the system, you just play out a few test games and redraw the air zone boundaries between each to see which results in the most interesting game dynamics. B is the next most promising, it also changes up just one element, but that element is one of your system’s core attributes. C is probably a development trap where you’d end up having to constantly fiddle around with a bunch of different bespoke elements you’ve come up with to patch different issues.

[KurtGodel7]

@Vendetta said:

@KurtGodel7 said:

The system sounds elegant in theory, but one issue that stands out even before any play testing is that if you’re the weaker power, there is zero incentive to build anything but fighters - bombers of any sort seem useless if you don’t have air superiority. And while there was eventually a point in the historical WW2 where Germany became desperate enough to adopt that as official production policy, that wasn’t the case for most of it - most powers were still trying to field both offensive and defensive capabilities simultaneously.

The Soviets never parked their Il-2 fleet out in Siberia to wait until the VVS had won air superiority - they used it, constantly, accepting the heavy losses that entailed. So a system that encourages players to do that is rewarding unrealistic behavior.

A few ideas on ways to address that:

A) Shrink your air theaters. Instead of one for the entire Eastern Front, imagine having about three different air zones there (north, center, south). More zones means fighter coverage is spread thinner, creating opportunities for the weaker side to gain local superiority - the Germans might prevail in two of the zones, but the Soviets could concentrate their forces to win control over the third one.

B) Allow fighters on escort missions to take hits meant for the bombers they’re protecting, and allow those bombers to carry out their strafing missions if they make it through even if their side has lost the battle for air superiority overall. Systems with all or nothing results (only the side that wins the air battle gets to bomb) naturally encourage unrealistic min-maxing style gameplay.

C) Use your unique tech system to give the Soviets some advantages that encourage a mixed air strategy instead of just spamming fighters - you could make their dive bomb bombers harder to shoot down, or you could make them cheap enough to be worth using aggressively even if the losses are heavy. You would also have to do that for any other cases where the system is optimizing for less interesting play.

A is probably the easiest route to test since it doesn’t involve any other changes to the system, you just play out a few test games and redraw the air zone boundaries between each to see which results in the most interesting game dynamics. B is the next most promising, it also changes up just one element, but that element is one of your system’s core attributes. C is probably a development trap where you’d end up having to constantly fiddle around with a bunch of different bespoke elements you’ve come up with to patch different issues.

Originally the game had more air theaters. I'm in favor of more air theaters in theory. In practice the larger number of air theaters created a GUI problem. Everything about the air phase is new, including the GUI. Without a clear, simple GUI literally nothing else matters. I think I'm up to 24 engine change requests or something, many of which are intended to make that GUI simpler to understand and easier to use. Making each individual air theater larger, so that there would be fewer theaters overall, helped with the GUI. But there's still GUI progress to be made there. One could say that the perfect GUI would allow me to have a larger number of theaters without creating a GUI problem.

As to your point, I agree that if the Soviet player is the weaker participant in the air battle on the Eastern Front, he will buy air superiority aircraft only. Fighters, heavy fighters, etc. I also agree that this is ahistorical, and that in the real war the Soviets built dive bombers or ground attack aircraft, and threw them in to the fray regardless of the losses.

I don't know if you've played Domination 1914 No Man's Land. If you haven't, I'd recommend it. The reason I bring it up is because it makes a clearer distinction between offensively oriented units and defensively oriented units than you would normally see for a TripleA map. If you're on defense your unit mix should be trenches, conscripts, infantry, and heavy guns. Plus some air for your back-and-forth battles. If you're on offense your unit mix should be conscripts, infantry, field guns, cavalry, gass, and tanks. A player who's purely on defense will never buy a tank, a player who's purely on offense will never buy a heavy gun.

I believe the problem of min-maxing game play is baked into TripleA rules sets in general. While I know that my own game is a departure from the usual TripleA game in many ways, the underlying logic which causes min-maxing still remains. I've tried pushing back against this where I can, but I still feel like I'm just nibbling at the edges of the problem.

To take your option A: under my current system bombers are allocated first, then revealed to all players, and only then are fighters allocated. If for example the Soviet player were to send dive bombers to the southern portion of the German/Soviet front, the German player would be able to see this in air allocation, before he'd allocated his fighters. He'd then adjust by moving more air to the southern portion of the Soviet front.

You could say that I could make air allocation more blind. Okay, granted. I could. The weaker party could take advantage of this by getting some strafing runs through that would otherwise have been intercepted. But the stronger party could take advantage of this as well, and could use bomber-type aircraft to do enormous damage while the opponent's fighters were out of place to defend.

I hear what you're saying about Soviet dive bombers, and I realize my simulation of air combat is in some ways less rich than the actual history deserves. But the min maxing problem is a very tough nut to crack. My map was intended to do some things well: air combat, research, special units, a distinct flavor for each nation. It was not intended to solve the min max problem. Don't get me wrong: I'd very much welcome a solution!

As for idea B: I will grant that this could gently encourage the Soviets to buy dive bombers. Assume that a Soviet dive bombing mission will generally kill an anti-tank gun, doing 3 PUs of benefit for the USSR. If the fighter takes the interception hit instead of the dive bomber, that creates a 3 PU reward for the Soviets which would not otherwise have existed. But this would work both ways. Germany would do the same thing, allowing its dive bombers to get through as well. At some point the Soviet player starts to care more about protecting his own armies from the major losses inflicted by German dive bombers, as opposed to inflicting smaller losses on German armies with Soviet dive bombers.

Idea C--use the tech system--could be a way to encourage Soviet dive bombers. Historically Soviet ground attack aircraft were heavily armored. So I could justify giving Soviet dive bombers +1 to hitpoints if they research the appropriate tech. This doesn't necessarily solve the min maxing problem, but it could help somewhat.

One idea I'd come up with to push back against min maxing was to give nations unit-specific production centers. A nation gets one free dive bomber a turn, for example, from its dive bomber production center. I have not incorporated this idea into my map, however.