Total World War: December 1941 (BETA) 2.8.0.5

[CrazyG]

I've yet to see a savegame where someone used rockets at all effectively. I really hesisitate to build them, now that they have a chance to do nothing at all. I am missing out?

[Hepps]

@crazyg Well people have been gun shy of anything bombing since the changes.

[redrum]

PR to fix the engine bug that non-purchaseable units don't properly read the manual TUV XML option: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/3357.

Here is the damaged-BB (17) and damaged-ACC (16) for a total of 33 TUV:

[wirkey]

there is one more thing, that is bothering me:
If the your capital is occupied and an allied liberates any of your original territories, those territories won't be controlled by the liberator, but the original owner after one turn. No way you can build infrastructure there. This is especially a problem if the Allies are trying to liberate Russia through Siberia or China coming from the Coast.

[Hepps]

@hepps I agree with Rockets. I think my oversight of that Tech demonstrates just how far off the radar it is... But Improved Hulls gets used very frequently.

Of course to say naval techs are a bigger priority for nations whose strategy is prominently reliant on naval action is pretty self evident. Not sure balance or strength of Techs could ever be fairly evaluated by looking at all the nations, but rather if those nations that can benefit from a Tech, actually use it.

As far as Rockets is concerned... I had already considered making changes to the unit costs after I changed the bombing behaviors. I simply wanted to get the bombing changes completed before going making any dramatic changes to them.

[Hepps]

It is important to note that my observations about Techs have been addressed in my work on GD. The Tech chart for GD has been increased by +20 Techs. This has been done as a way of creating more interest in some of the categories... while also extending the research process in others. It is also due in part to some of the changes that have been made to certain aspects of game-play... ie. Separate air battles.... Sub & Destroyer rule changes.... changes to how economics works... changes to Diplomacy. The changes also create more defined paths between offensive and defensive abilities so that nations have the opportunity to counter an opponent based on their position relative to them.

Furthermore I am currently working on changes to how R&D operates. I am trying to create a system where multiple Tech paths are pursued simultaneously. This is also being designed in such a way as to encourage/force pursuing each branch to yield the best results from the R&D resource you generate each turn.

[zlefin]

@hepps
when I press "I" to get info on a unit it says fighters have 5 air attack and 5 air defense; but their actual air defense value in is 6 in practice.
maybe the I generator is simply not getting the correct info, or is generating incorrect text.

oh yeah, and the I on battleships simply says 5 bombard; rather than 5x2 bombard.
so probably just issues with the text generation by the I command.

[Hepps]

@zlefin Yeah... the "I" info is lacking in some area's. In reference to the BB it is because the engine has never been set up to deal with multiple bombards per unit, so it does not know to render the info. There are always pains when you are the first to market with a concept.

I'll check the fighters.... I don't know if we perhaps changed it but never changed the manual. I'll get back to you.

[zlefin]

@hepps
on the escort role stuff;
In some cases, if I were orderin the troops, I'd say to have my fighters wait until the enemy escorts leave and then engage the bombers. thus the enemy fighters would have to stay with the bombers while over the target (and get hit by the aa), or else my fighters would engage them then.

I suppose it doesn't matter too much though from a game balance perspective, especially with how weak strat bombing is right now.
at times it felt like a weird sort of anti-synergy (which is irksome from a gameplay perspective), where having both fighters to intercept bombing, and aa guns to stop the bombers, was an inferior mix to just focusing on one of them.

[redrum]

@zlefin One thing to note is that AA is also significantly weaker against SBR so while SBR does less damage in 2.8, its more difficult to counter.

The main cause of it being better to focus on either AA or fighters to defend against SBR is due to how the intercept mechanic works. If you have more air defense from fighters than your enemy has air attack then you'll almost always choose to intercept and you get a positive TUV trade even if he does get some bombing in. If you have less air defense then your enemy has air attack then you'll usually choose not to intercept and the fighters are essentially useless. So it is a very black/white type mechanic and if you are going to try to use fighters to defend against SBR then you pretty much have to focus on them to ensure you have the bigger stack.

[zlefin]

aye; I think with sbr the problem now is more the opportunity cost than anything else.
I haven't yet faced someone seriously trying it these days; maybe i'll try it some myself, though there's few circumstances where it feels like it'd be a truly good choice.

[Hepps]

@zlefin The other reason why the escort mechanic works as it currently is... is that if the escort fighters stayed for the Bombing run and you were playing with random AA rolls... then you would likely never hit a bomber ever since you could simply obsorb all AA shots with your fighter aircraft.

[redrum]

@zlefin PR for unit tooltip and help improvements for bombard and AA info: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/3361

TWW BB and Sub

TWW AT

[Hepps]

Played last night. changes look good.

Thanks for the help @redrum .

[wirkey]

@hepps Just found some interesting new bug: Neutrals (at least Spain and Turkey) can place all units (except materials without any production facility. Not sure about the other Neutrals, too lazy to check atm.

[Hepps]

@wirkey That has always been the case. Since the Neutrals cannot move any units while they are neutral they are capable of placing units anywhere.

The reason we did this is because when the Neutrals were given full control of themselves they would do extremely silly moves. Leaving themselves very vulnerable to attack. We tried a number of different things but in the end decided to lock their unit placements but allow them to build anything anywhere. Materials were left of the list since the AI had no idea what to do with them nor bought any under any circumstance. This was the best solution to a challenging situation.

[zlefin]

I'm still seeing a battle calc with battleships. Running 10 naval fighters attacking 5 battleships thru calc shows the battleships winning 100% with many of them surviving; but the actual results of the battle should be the naval fighters winning nearly all of the time.

[redrum]

@zlefin Yeah, I just tested this and you're correct. The BC doesn't appear to handle the damaged units properly. I'll have to look into fixing this. Though this particular scenario highlights how strong naval fighters are on TWW (I'd argue OP) especially as this doesn't even include improved fighters tech which makes it even more lopsided.

[zlefin]

they are kinda OP; ever since some other changes a long way back at least. but that's another story for the balance arguing; and it's hard to get the balance just right.
then of course there's the complicated interplay between tech tree and unit balance; and the issue that tech trees can decrease unit diversity in gameplay.

as to the calc bug; from a few other test scenarios I looked at; I suspect that when it converts the units into the damaged versions it's setting them to 2 hp rather than 1.

oh yeah; that reminds me of another, lesser, issue: historically, units in triplea maps were just as tough damaged or undamaged, so automatically taking the first hit on multihp units was a good default rule (both for the cas picker default, and hence for battle calc which uses those rules), but that doesn't apply with these battleships that get markedly worse when damaged. sure you can repair them eventually, but if it's a losin gbattle there won't be a repair, and even if you win, getting to a repair location may be slow; it's often better to take hits elsewhere rather than letting the bb get hit now.

[Hepps]

@redrum Nor does it include Advanced Hulls. Nor having some Cruisers in the mix with Advanced Hulls.

Also as @zlefin has mentioned... have you run the battle paying far more attention to the casualty selection for the BB's?

*** Also it is in my view it is not necessarily a bad thing that in this example of pitting extreme numbers of single unit types against one another... that naval fighters would be capable of inflicting dramatic losses against an armada of BB... since BB are not designed to be the weapon of choice to fend off an enormous aerial assaults. Large surface vessels were shown to be particularly vulnerable to aerial attacks.***