European War
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Ok first observations:
Everything thing east of Sinai on the map should be Ottoman territory, also UK should control the rest
of the Egyptian territories.French and Italian colonies in North Africa should be represented to give more weight to controlling the Med.
It's odd that Belgrade is only worth $1.
I think Bulgaria should be German territory, not Ottoman to open up some possibilities.
Your concept of high territory values + high unit costs is interesting but there is a flaw to it. Namely, factory production is tied to territory value. It seems that you've roughly multiplied everything by two. To see how this affects the game, consider Cairo. UK's base income is $300, infantry cost 6, and Cairo produces 10 units / turn. So just spamming inf, UK can spend $60/turn there which is 20% of its income. Cutting the numbers back down, UK would make $150, infantry would cost 3, and Cairo would produce 5 units / turn. Spamming inf, UK can spend $15 / turn for only 10% of its income. What this does overall is concentrate unit production in only a few territories which is counterproductive considering the presence of trains.
Also change the sea zone color to something lighter, it looks like Russia is underwater.
A distinctive feature of WW1 maps has been air that move only 3. The jump between 3 move and 4 move is very large partly due to how they affect naval movement. Currently between advanced fighter and bomber, I guarantee that German strategy will be to stack up a bunch of planes in west Belgium and deny UK any ability to land troops in France. The 3 move planes force them to have a very localized impact meant primarily for trading versus them being a source of significant force projection.
There also should be more naval diversification and some tuning. Planes should not be able to match ships dollar for dollar or be close to doing so. Ships should be the most efficient units for naval combat. Planes already have a significant advantage in being able to threaten both land and sea while not remaining in territory after attacking.
Destroyers should not have high combat stats. If they have high combat stats, then a fleet only ever needs to have a single destroyer in the fleet to counter even a very large number of subs. If they have low stats, then people would have to build more destroyers to handle larger fleets of submarines.
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Sinai peninsula was under the control of the UK in 1914. Algo giving relatively high value to sinai gives the ottomans some opportunities to press the UK. And attacking and trying to hold sinai more easier for Ottomans.
I made neutral French and Italian colonies because If I add African colonies, I will have to reduce the mainland incomes of France and Italy. And in this situation, French and Italian mainland Pus distributions would be similar to russian PUs distribution.
Kosovo is capital of Serbia instead of Belgrade because Belgrade is too vulnerable.
UK can product 10 infantries in cairo in every rounds but I don't think so it is good tactic. Because levant territories are worthless.
I don't know how to change sea zone colours.
It is v3 rules and indeed fighters are stronger than ships. But one battleship consumes only 1 Pus for every round but 2 fighters consume 2 Pus. Axis starts in disadvantaged position so Axis needs to benefit air units.
2.nd update
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@schulz You might want to add naval bases so ships can move faster under some circumstances. You might also consider penalizing units conducting amphibious invasions, as such invasions were quite difficult in WW1,
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Well another thing that Cairo's production matters for is navy building. When combined with navy building, Cairo by itself can outspend the entirety of Turkey, none-the-less if UK builds a second factory over there. When UK has naval dominance in the med they'll be attacking a lot more than just the levant since Turkey simply can't match a full naval purchase out of Cairo.
Now regarding the Africa colonies, you can just pull some income from the Toulouse region of France and the Naples region of Italy to move it to Africa. It can just be $1 per territory, because currently CP don't have a reason to fight for naval control.
Also Portugal was a minor player for the Entente. You could pull some money from Ireland or Wales for it and just make it British like in GW.
Regarding Belgrade, it's still an important city and the whole of Serbia should be worth more than $12.
Is there going to be any tech for this map? If so have you thought about using d12 base stats instead of d6.
I am hesitant about upkeep mechanics. If you're concerned about stack sizes, then all that will do is make income even more important to pushing since richer countries can support larger stacks. The way to trim down stacks is to elongate fronts. How Russia currently looks is a good example of this. At the very least the upkeep mechanic needs to be documented in the game notes.
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10 could be a bit high production value for cairo but in dom 1914 no man's land, UK is able to product 10 units againt the Ottomans plus +4 French production but in this map. UK is alone in the Middle east. If I find it unbalanced sure I can reduce it to 8. Or I can decrease total UK power. But 6 could be very low. Because the Otomans starts with 1 battleship+4 cruiser (destroyer) + 4 late fighter+15 land units, UK starts with only 2 infantry.
If I make Serbia more valuable, Rushing Serbia would be only good Austrian tactic but in this situation, Austria can decide to rush Italy or Russia, Austria can also decide to ignore Serbia because it is not very valuable.
No tech because I find it classic tech system is very aleatory.
Upkeep mechanic is simple that designed to prevent huge stacks. I will specify them in the notes.
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@schulz Be careful about the use of upkeep. It favors the attacker as you no longer have the classic A&A situation of the defender building up while the attacker reinforcements need to catch up with the front. You need to compensate the strategic defender with other advantages.
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Upkeep is the only way to prevent stacks. It slighly favours attackers but heavy guns are already exist and trenches do not consume any Pus per rounds.
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Upkeep doesn't prevent stacks. Upkeep doesn't encourage me to spread out my troops, it just limits the total troops. At best, upkeep encourages people to buy more expensive units over cheaper units. The way to reduce people's propensity to stack is for all troops to have some kind of scramble for defense mechanic where troops from adjacent territories contribute to defense.
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@erik542 I think he means absolute stacking, while you mean relative stacking (relative to the total units per player).
Practically, he doesn't really mean stacking vs spreading, but just total units numbers. -
Upkeep is only way to prevent huge stacks. How many unit do we really manage correctly? For example Italy starts with average 90 production power and Italy really does not need to create more units. Big stacks slow down game speed and decrease manageability. Upkeep does not decrease strategic options. Vice versa it increases.
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@schulz Trenches seem rather expensive at 6, considering they are suicide units, with no intrinsic combat capability. I would suggest making them regular units at least.
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I think 6 is good because they have no upkeep.
Also maybe battleships upkeep should be 2. And the Netherlands should be neutral like Albania?
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Since stored money gives no function, the proper strategy is always to build men until you run out of money. All it does is push people to build more expensive men.
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@erik542 Not necessarily. For example, if you have infantry at cost 2 and upkeep 1, while the pricey choices are much more cost inefficient and not well substitutive (not good fodders), even in a 1v1 you may prefer to hold off a few money to buy some infantries more in the future, but I would agree even in such a case it would be quite marginal. Of course, if you have good units choices at high cost/upkeep ratios, this dynamic would all but disappear.
Holding off money, building up a treasury, would be surely a factor in a FFA, but this is off topic. -
@schulz I don't see how trenches will be useful, given the ability to destroy all the trenches by moving a single unit in. Don't overestimate the effects of upkeep costs. Units can be burned through pretty quickly. For 6 PU's I can have 1 trench or build a conscript and maintain it for 2 turns. The conscript can move, attack and fire on the defense. The only advantage of the trench is taking 2 hits. And the enemy can sacrifice 1 conscript unit (costing 4) to destroy a trench costing 6.
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Well, conscripts can attack but they can't receive attack bonus like infantry. Sometimes I think that conscript cost should be 3. Because they are also slow. They need trains for to go to fronts.
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2.nd update.
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The trenches are appropriately priced. On NML, they cost the same as infantry and honestly have very similar levels of effectiveness. They're only a bit OP in the early game because you can play 3 per territory per turn instead of one.
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Well I have completed 6 rounds and it is pretty playable and Allies were slighly ahead but they have got some good dices.. Of course I have changed somethings and I would like to upload this load game which contains the first phases of the game.
On the paper allies have +170 Pus advantage but Axis will take more land from France, Romania,Russia and Italy. Also Axis still dominates seas and oceans
Sebia is doomed to fall to Austria in round 3.
Rushing Paris strategy definitely does not work. Also Allies unable to stop early German advantages in the front.
Germany 14 should be 15 or 20 I think and Russia should not start with Warsaw factory.
I am thinking to increase Axis power but I am not sure. But I believe that neither Axis nor Allies have huge advantage in the game.
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AI does not use trains in the map. Is there any way to fix it?
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