Iron War - Official Thread

Black_Elk

Ps. Just to elaborate a bit more on what I think makes a nation viable for player control (meaning I would rather select them as human than assign control of them to the AI.)

First the Nation needs at least 2 potential purchasing or attack strategies that could be pursued.

So for example, with attack it might be go West vs go East. Or go North vs go South. Pacific vs Europe etc. For purchasing it might be Naval vs Ground. Or maybe SBR vs Regular Combat units. But some split decision like that where the Nation has at least 2 viable strategies they might explore, neither of which is immediately more obvious or clearly better than the other.

The second thing I think a Nation needs to make me want to control them (rather than assign them to the AI), is the ability to eventually cross a certain production threshold through conquest. For the Axis this threshold is basically 200 PUs. For the Allies it's a bit more varied, but you're looking to at least get to 150% or 200% of whatever you started with through conquest. If the player is essentially stuck with their starting production/income with no good way to expand it beyond a middling amount, I think I am a lot more likely to see them as an AI candidate.

Or put another way, if they can't pass the expansion threshold then they are not very fun for Solo play. Similarly in a multi player PvP game, a player would need to control another nation too or find the gameplay kind of boring.

So that's the bar I'm setting for myself at game launch. With the Allies the really enjoyable Solo Nations are Russia and the USA. Going with Britain I think you really need to tack on the other commonwealth nations to get a comparable feel. Smaller nations like China or Brazil, KNIL even Australia etc need to be attached to one of the big dogs to be interesting.

On the Axis side, it's basically the big 3 Germany, Italy or Japan that work for a Solo. I think the minors there are really only interesting if attached to one of these. So I wouldn't want to take Balkans or even all the minors together as a player. But I might take Germany and Balkans together. Or Italy and Finland. Or Japan and Iraq, whathaveyou. As long as they're part of a big dog block, if that makes sense.

Frostion

@Black_Elk
I think I will add the ability to ship Iron around the map to allies, like the nations can now with PUs.

@redrum
Great feedback! Many of your issues with the map is stuff that I also have noticed and thought about, but it is first when someone else mentions them that I really accept them as problematic, so thanks for that.

Fuel: I have also noticed that the current use of fuel seems to be more of a nuisance then fun. It is also a bit difficult to calculate how much fuel is needed to move ones units around. Mostly I have just moved units in the move phase until I see the fuel run out, and it is kind of random which units get to move. I think the idea about using fuel as unit upkeep / build cap maybe be the right way to handle fuel. Iron will be used to buy mechanical units and fuel sets a cap on the amount of mechanical units. I will try this out in the next version of Iron War.

Air units are pretty OP: Yes I can see that. I think I will make them cost Iron and fuel again. I will have to see if their PU cost should go up also.

Strategic bombing is OP: Do you take into account that fighters can / should be used as factory defense? The AI does not do this, but I would think humans would.

Unit stats variety across units is too narrow + Unit attack vs defense is too balanced: I will have to look into this also. I noticed that I also seldom buy medium tanks. I do on the other hand buy SP artillery, sometimes in combination with one Infantry and one Mech-Inf. This makes three units that are able to move two territories together.

Iron: Now when fuel is to be changed, and maybe planes and other stuff should cost iron, the amount of resourses on the map will get an overhaul. Maybe to get the iron into play a bit more and make players really want iron, the medium and heavy tanks should be much stronger units, relative cheap in PUs but expensive in iron. I will have to play around with this.

@Hepps
Maybe when the Iron War fuel system is changed you should try it out and see if this works for GD. I can understand why you don’t want to implement the normal movement fuel. I like your fuel indicator idea. The first thing I thought was “WTF! What kind of mod is he running. That’s cool!”

redrum

@Hepps Yeah, tracking fuel is kind of a pain and I end up switching to the economy tab just a @Black_Elk mentions to keep track with isn't great but doable. I have a hard time wanting to put a lot of time/effort into improving fuel-based movement as I'm not necessarily sold on it being a great system and very few maps use it (though if it had better support/features then you could argue more might).

@Black_Elk Couple of responses:

I agree that trying to do fuel with air units is a nightmare and I was primarily getting at just the PU balance. Even if tanks only cost PUs, I would almost never build them since planes are only a few PUs more. I think planes need to either cost more or have reduced stats.
I'm fine with factories being destroyed on capture just not so easily by bombing.
I'm actually alright with unit PU cost. I'm more concerned about unit stat similarity. For instance, light vs medium tank price is fine for me but medium tank should be much stronger. Medium tanks in general should kind of phase out light tanks or just have different purposes. Right now the only decision is if I have too much steel and not much fuel than I buy medium otherwise I'd buy light though in reality they both are underpowered so I buy neither
I agree with most of you thoughts on minors and I think it aligns with what I laid out as well. Each playable nation should have at least some basic options which is why I think anything less than 20 PUs/turn with the current unit prices is kind of a non-starter (Brazil, Iran, Iraq, Thailand, Baltic, Finland, South Africa). I think these should either be merged into larger nations or made pro-xxx-neutral. Here are some individual thoughts on them:

Brazil - make pro-allies-neutral or merge with USA
Iran/Iraq - make pro-axis-neutral or combine them together and buff starting production to 20-30 PUs
Thailand - make pro-axis-neutral or buff starting production to 20-30 PUs
Baltic - make pro-axis-neutral or add to Germany or buff starting production to 20-30 PUs
Finland - make pro-axis-neutral or add to Germany or buff starting production to 20-30 PUs
South Africa - merge into British colonies, no real reason to have them separate

EDIT
@Frostion Glad we seem to be mostly on the same page. I like your ideas/direction and I think the only major point you didn't comment on is the plan for weaker nations.

Strategic bombing is OP: Valid point though you can use escorts to cancel that out. Makes it so the bombing player can actually place his air stack in between 2 factories and only 1 of them could be defended with fighters or each would get only half and not be able to compete (particularly problematic for say the Soviets who have lots of factories relatively close together)

Hepps

@Frostion & @Black_Elk

Yes. I love the idea of fuel... just not the current mechanics.

I don't even mind the potential for having air units consume fuel as they move because you can always play with the stats for what's available on the map as far as deposits as well as the reserves each nation begins the game with. For me the real issue is a simple visual representation that is effective.

Hepps

@redrum said in Iron War - Official Thread:

@Hepps Yeah, tracking fuel is kind of a pain and I end up switching to the economy tab just a @Black_Elk mentions to keep track with isn't great but doable. I have a hard time wanting to put a lot of time/effort into improving fuel-based movement as I'm not necessarily sold on it being a great system and very few maps use it (though if it had better support/features then you could argue more might).

I think you hit the nail on the head.... few maps use it BECAUSE it is not well integrated into gameplay. I can certainly vouch for the fact that I have not added it for that very reason.

CrazyG

The current tab system is kind of a mess and probably due for an update. Making them provide more information in an easier way would be a good start to making things like fuel more accessible

redrum

@CrazyG Agree. I would like to use the screen space more effectively and reduce the need for all the tabs. That probably entails having more info along the top and bottom then reworking the right panel. But that is really an entirely separate topic and should be in a separate thread so we can keep this thread focused on Iron War.

Black_Elk

Ok just spit-balling here... But if the total amount of resources was increased and the ability to share resources was expanded, then I think you could also consider making convoys related to resources rather than PUs, as a way to increase the naval action. Right now Convoys are set up purely as a feature of Allied income. Instead you might make it so that control of convoy lanes is what actually allows a player to share resources with their teammates overseas. So rather than granting 5 PUs to the owner, maybe they allow the owner to ship or receive 5 resource points (whether fuel or steel.) Or maybe its just 2 resource points per convoy, or whatever makes sense for the overall scale of the world economy. Since resources are ultimately the more significant cap on unit production by type, this would create a serious incentive to contest the opponent on the high seas (especially if fuel was maintenance rather than movement oriented). By raiding you could deny the enemy access to the more effective units in their roster, and screw their ability to exchange resources for strategic purchasing advantage

At present, it can be hard to justify risking a sub that costs 20 PUs and 2 steel, just to shut down 5 enemy PUs. But if that same convoy raider could shut down the resource exchange between enemy teammates (and thereby affect their total unit cap) that could be major.

I would consider making convoys significant for both teams. Germany could have one in the Baltic, Italy in the Med, Japan in the East Indies etc. The Axis minors might have them as well, with Balkans in the Black Sea, Iran/Iraq in the Persian gulf, Finland in the Baltic or the Arctic etc. The Allies would have more total convoys, clearly, but the Axis convoys could be easier for their team to defend, or be worth more in the exchange as a counter balance.

So for example, if two players on a team are separated by the sea, then to exchange resources, they need to control a convoy lane. If those two players share an overland border, then maybe they can share some smaller amount of resources, but to increase the amount they can share, convoys are needed. Something like that would really give players a reason to put their subs and warships on the move, to try and lock down their own maritime trade or deny the same to their enemies.

I'd say get the canals involved somehow too, but that might be overly complex.

I think to pull it off, more total resources in play would probably be required (more steel and more fuel in general) but that might not be such a bad thing. Just imagining that the kind of D10 nuance we see in combat is carried over into the purchasing with steel. So maybe instead of 5 steel a Carrier or Battleship Costs 10 steel? At the low end, Mech, Patrol Boats (and maybe the basic fighter) might still only cost 1 steel.

Then we get a broader range within which to set up the purchasing structure. 1-10 steel, rather than 1-5. And just have more steel overall produced in a given steel-rich territory.

Fuel is a little more complicated. The challenge there is what to do when a player exceeds their maintenance allotment? Currently if this happens the solution is pretty straightforward, the unit simply cannot move. But I am struggling a bit to figure out how it would look when we move to purely maintenance scheme. I'm not a huge fan of the idea of manually or automatically decommissioning/suiciding units to free up fuel. Since it seems like a lot of micromanagement, or else a pretty rude awaking when you start to run out of gas. (Somehow I'm remembering that awful feeling in Master of Orion II, when all your starbases would get nuked, and you just start hemorrhaging cash and watching ships disappear lol.) But if Fuel isn't relating to movement, how do we make it feel different from steel? I mean I'm definitely down to try it out. Just having some difficulty getting my head around how it would work in practice other than that MOOII example, where the unit starts costing you money once you've exceeded the maintenance needs, and if you go into the red on cash then the unit is just lost haha. For all my inability to track my own fuel consumption, I do sometimes enjoy how it forces me to make tough movement decisions. Like "do I send the tank column forward or move this damned transport?!" haha. So it would be cool to preserve something of that flavor going forward. But I'm not totally wedded to it. If we can come up with an alternative scheme that is fun for the gameplay, I'm sure I'd embrace it pretty quickly.

Maybe a simpler approach is to keep it all production oriented, but vary the primary resource requirement for a given unit? Like some units have a high fuel cost, but low steel cost, or vice versa. Maybe some units only cost fuel, or only steel. Sure it would be a clear abstraction, but might be easier to work out, and give us another way to differentiate the cost of certain unit types from others. Just as an example, perhaps aircraft are fuel hogs but have a low cost in steel, whereas mobile ground units are the reverse. I don't know, maybe a unit like Mech has a fuel cost, but their steel cost is negligible (and just overlooked) whereas a heavier unit like a tank might cost both fuel and some steel. Ships might hog both resources, you know, since they're such beasts haha. Or something along those lines? Might be simpler for the player to parse what's going on that way.

Ps. To Redrum's point about phasing out older model tanks or aircraft as time goes on.... perhaps heavy hitting late game models would get an attack advantage vs older units of the same type? Like similar to the way tank-destroyers currently work. So a Heavy Tank might get like an opening shot vs a medium tank. A Jet might get an opening shot vs a regular fighter etc. Stuff like that.

On the water, the only other unit I might introduce would be the escort carrier, which would be fun for the smaller naval powers, or to round out mini-fleets, help control convoy lanes and such. Like a cheaper carrier that only holds 1 fighter and only has a single hit in combat. Just an idea. I dig the naval unit catalog right now, but might be cool to have something at the low end that can still put aircraft in the water.

Black_Elk

Alright I've been sitting with this idea for a few hours now. And the more I mull over it, the more I think that it's not so much the basic system but just the numbers that might be a bit off.

Before scrapping what you've already built out, and trying to come up with something totally new. I'd first try a simple doubling or even tripling of the resource totals, and then tweak how those points relate to the individual units. Just to see if that, coupled with a more robust exchange, maybe solves most of the problems.

So just a few ideas that might work...

Change all convoys from hard PUs (+5), to Fuel or Steel modifiers, and then add some Axis convoys.

Give everyone the option to share resources with 2 or more other Nations on their team.

Increase the total amount of steel and fuel in the game so that going "hungry" for steel, or "thirsty" for fuel is less extreme. Just to take fuel for now, basically I think you could capture a similar essential feel of "going dry" but where the units immobilized per turn, are maybe just a couple here and there, as opposed to like a third of the total naval or mechanized ground forces for that nation in a given round.

Perhaps incorporate fuel into the initial purchasing requirements as well, as a way to differentiate some units from others within the roster.

Maybe use a 1-10 scheme at purchase for fuel and steel requirements, to compliment the whole d10 vibe we have going with combat. Basically larger totals, but with higher resource costs for building individual units. And then much lower costs (in fuel) for maintaining=moving them around.

I guess what I'm driving at, is that I don't see a real need to keep some of these numbers arbitrarily low, if increasing them might be more flexible. So 5 total steel or 50 total steel, is basically the same in my view, (if I'm already closely tracking it anyway), but the latter might give you a lot more options in developing a nuanced spread on the map, or costs within the unit roster itself.

I would consider coming up with a generic, all-purpose name for SS, CR etc. And then just giving it to everyone (or at least all the majors). I really like the concept of specialized units that you can only purchase maybe one or two per round. But right now it just feels a little curious how this resource is attached to specific peripheral territories. If anything it seems like the sort of thing that could be fixed, produced at the capital or core and nowhere else. Just to take SS as an example (I'm not the biggest fan of that designation since it has pretty negative associations historically. I like to think of them as just particularly killer versions of the regular inf or heavy tank unit, not as like actual Nazi killers, if you know what I mean). The all black Vader color scheme appeals to me though, and these seem like ideal units that you might be able to recruit based on control of Germany exclusively (esp. for the endgame play.)

I like the idea behind this SS/CR resource a lot, but I don't really dig how it competes with steel and fuel for map real estate. Seems like something that could just as easily be set at a fixed amount per turn per nation.

If it was a generic "elite manpower" type resource, then you could come up with a lot of different applications for it. I guess where it comes from is less important (you could keep the same markers and use them to relate to the gamemap, just like the others.) But the interesting thing to me, is expanding the concept so it's more general. The way fuel and steel are general. Accessible in some way to all.

US Marines could perhaps require this resource.
Japanese SNLF or Kamikazes, or Chinese Flying Tigers etc. Basically you could just pick an iconic unit or two for each of the major nations, make it nice and powerful, and then have this special resource associated with building them, as a way to restrict the total numbers in play.

Also I think when doing this it's important to recall that not everyone has access to the same purchase screen. So you can't readily just "mouse over" the enemy's unit to see exactly what it's abilities are (the way you can get details for your own units at purchase.) Someone casually picking up the game might not know that German SS units do -1 power to the enemy, whereas Italian colonials are basically just cheaper and slightly weaker infantry.

It might be cool if each of these specialized units had some kind of generic ability and unit symbol associated with it, so everyone knows at a glance what it can do. Personally I like the SS concept of -1 to enemy power. I buy those units every chance I get! Haha

The Colonial concept is cool too (cheap hitpoint spam grunt). This one could also be applied more generically, esp. to the smaller land powers. Maybe it's a choice, either a nation gets the ass kicking -1 power elite units that are more expensive, or the partisan, guerrilla, colonial type dudes who cost less and do less damage, but still give you that all important hitpoint haha.

Each nation probably fits one or the other need, depending on how rich they are to start out. The poor powers with low incomes and low resources need the spam grunt to help push hitpoints. The wealthiest powers need the ability to overcome massive enemy stacks of TUV, and could really use the -1 power aspect of the elite. So essentially they get one or the other type of CR unit, but not both.

A trick fighter would also be a cool compliment to the Spam Grunt for the poor/small nations.

Whereas a mean tank, aircraft or naval unit would be particularly cool as compliment to the Elite -1 power concept for the big dogs.

You could do a lot I think with this, and just by upping the total steel and fuel in the game. Especially if a portion of those resources are just directly in the water (convoy lanes.) Nations had the ability to share/exchange a portion of them. And CR would maybe be a cool candidate if you wanted to introduce a hard cap (maintenance type) restriction, where you can only have so many CR units at a time, at least until you cross the threshold, and start taking a bigger slice of the pie from the gamemap.

Frostion

Right now I have only two ways in mind to change fuel (as I don't see a fuel indicator being implemented in the near future

Make Fuel a maintenance resource. A land vehicle could create -1 Fuel each turn and the purchase price would be like 15 PUs + 1 Fuel. This would effectively mean that the amount of mechanical units a player can maintain would be the mount of fuel barrels he owns. If the player sees an enemy bordering territory with a barrel then he would know that capturing this would allow him to expand his fuel based unit forces (I guess infantry and artillery would be Fuel independent). Sounds pretty realistic and intuitive. But, the problem that bugs me is that a player with like +1 Fuel in his overall round economy balance could restrain himself from using this 1 Fuel and wait 1 round, then he got 2 and can use them to buy two units. In following rounds he would be spending more fuel then he gets in, and he would not be punished for being in Fuel minus ever round. I don't know if the following purchase restrictions are punishment enough since he would be locked out from purchasing Fuel units.
Fuel could just be a purchasing resource like Iron. I could imagine planes costing like 2 or more Fuel but only 1 Iron. Tanks could cost 1 Fuel and 2 or more Iron. Or something like that. Then the player would just have to think about PUs, Iron and Fuel the same way. This is basically the system in Dragon War, but I was hopeing for a more interesting and different system in Iron War. On the other hand it is very intuitive and easy for the player to understand. It would be a bit un-historical, as I don't think the Luftwaffe was the main fuel consumer compared to the panzer divisions

I think number 1 would be interesting, but the the strategy of saving up Fuel to buy more then what the economy should allow strategy bugs me. Could this be prevented somehow? @Cernel I have seen you advocate for units and resource consumption if I remember correctly. Do you have a "fix" for this problem?

Black_Elk

Little sleep deprived. I might just be rambling at this point haha. Probably going to crash in a minute here. But since I was still typing and thinking now about option 2 above.

Maybe something kind of like this then... chasing the remainder. I see it as like a mini-game that subconsciously enters into the purchasing process. Trying to match the strategic plan, with the aesthetic impulse to have a varied and cool looking force on the board with the cash on hand.

ground/air...

Major powers:
Infantry 10 PUs
Artillery 11 PUs
Mech 12 PUs, 1 fuel
SP-Artillery 12 PUs, 1 steel
"Elite" Infantry 13 PUs, 10 CR (current SS -1 power)
Patrol-Boat 13 PUs, 1 Steel
Tank Destroyer 14 PUs, 1 Steel
Anti Aircraft Gun 15 PUs
Light Tank 15 PUs, 1 Steel, 1 Fuel
Medium Tank 16 PUs, 1 Steel, 2 Fuel
Destroyer 16 PUs, 2 Steel, 1 Fuel
Heavy Tank 17 PUs, 2 Steel, 2 Fuel
"Elite" Tank 18, 2 Steel, 2 Fuel, 11 CR
Fighter 18 PUs, 1 Fuel
Dive Bomber 18 PUs, 1 Fuel
"Elite" Fighter??? 19 PUs, 1 Fuel, 12 CR
Jet 19 PUs, 2 Fuel.
Transport 20 PUs, 2 Steel
Cruiser 20 PUs, 3 Steel
Submarine 21, 2 Steel, 2 Fuel
Escort Carrier 22, 2 Steel, 3 Fuel
Air Transport, 24 PUs, 1 Fuel
Factory 25 PUs, 1 Steel, 1 Fuel
Bomber 30 PUs 1 Steel, 2 Fuel
Battleship 35 PUs, 4 Steel, 3 Fuel
Carrier 40 PUs, 4 Steel, 4 Fuel
"Elite" Fleet??? 13 CR (whichever unit type seems most appropriate by specific nation. An elite Sub could be cool for Germany or the US. Maybe for Japan and Britain its a destroyer or battleship. But basically a stand out ship, the way the heavy tanks are stand outs, or the infantry have boss uniforms to distinguish them? Just leaving open the idea of at least one CR unit possibility beyond "Elite" Infantry, whether Mobile Ground, Aircraft or Ship, with that same -1 power feature baked in and a hard limit on the total.

For the Minors
Conscripts??? (like the current Colonials) 7 PUs, 10 CR
Volunteer Pilots??? (weaker fighter unit) 13 PUs, 11 CR

Not sure on the specific abilities of any of these things, but was just trying to come up with something that breaks them apart by numbers into remainder purchasing niches haha.

Or just had another thought. What if CR was the standard resource for Aircraft (instead of steel or fuel)? So you'd have to make a choice between elite ground, or pilots for mobile aircraft?

I think it would be fun if everyone either had some kind of badass commando, or else a cheap grunt. And then maybe one other special CR unit, to round out the remainder purchase at some point along the way.

You know, for the impulsive shopper, who doesn't want to leave the purchase screen with any change left in their pockets. Trying to spend every last PU/Resource on the immediate war effort.

Cernel

@Frostion said in Iron War - Official Thread:

I think number 1 would be interesting, but the the strategy of saving up Fuel to buy more then what the economy should allow strategy bugs me. Could this be prevented somehow? @Cernel I have seen you advocate for units and resource consumption if I remember correctly. Do you have a "fix" for this problem?

I've not played or looked at this map, so I can't give very good advices.

I don't know if this is the case, but, in the moment in which you can buy or anyway pay for producing fuel (especially the Germans, historically, transforming carbon into oil, a very costly process, which was their main source), I don't think that there are any good solutions, with the current engine.

For resources you get for free (without having to pay for them, which would not be the case of a realistic representation of "fuel"), waiting up so to exceed the max you could upkeep and, then, benefitting from not paying for the costs once you hit the 0 is an issue, especially for FFA.

In this second case, I suggest doing it like the Army maximum of "Blue vs. Gray" (one of the best maps of TripleA, tho it has a few annoying issues), via triggering of dedicated resources. I'm doing about the same in a map I'm making, as well (using triggered in and out resources to enforce caps).

This has the limit that if your maximum shrinks, you can keep more than your max, but at least you can't hold off to deliberately exceed it.

Side note, since about mid 1942 the Italian battle fleet was almost totally immobilised by the virtual absence of fuel reserves, as what little fuel was provided had to be immediately used for contingent needs, mainly transports to North Africa.

Really, the only good solution is using fuel as fuel, meaning that you pay for it when you move, but that would need that a developer makes the fuel system of TripleA into something sound and playable. Plus, you should have territories free maintainment costs, as a ship should cost no fuel when in port, but should not cost 0 fuel if you just leave it in the same place right in the middle of the Atlantic (this should be done by having ships both having fuel costs and maintainment costs of the same resources, and having a territory attachment for being maintainment free when being in it).

Cernel

Also, ships should consume fuel when they are bridging. But, as said, this would need its own topic, and would require a serious developer behind, as a topic about fuel would be very great indeed. It was discussed both in the old forum and in the old tiket tracker, and veqryn was interested in the matter, but then he went afk and nothing at all came out of it.
Anyways, in my opinion, better not opening the fuel matter until after the current topic about the basic resources limits is sorted out (I hope it will be soon, as the items are not so many, there, and the only important one is the ability to test for what resources a player has). I mean this one:
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/128/resource-system-assessment-and-improvements

redrum

@Frostion If you want to avoid the 'stockpiling' of fuel to be able to buy more than you can currently upkeep then I'd think the easiest way to address that is to just 'zero out' all remaining fuel players have each round (use it or lose it). This pretty much makes it a 'fuel cap' just like many games have a 'population cap'. Conceptually this could be represented that say any additional fuel that the military didn't use is demanded by the civilian economy or that is truly is a 'fuel cap'. This would make it so you can never build more fuel units than fuel you produced in the current round (you still could potentially have more fuel units than current fuel production if your fuel production decreases but I think that wouldn't be too big of any issue).

EDIT:
If you go this route you'll need to consider that you want the 'fuel cap' to slowly grow for most nations with opportunities to grow quickly by seizing certain territories. This probably means either having oil deposits slowly grow over time or having the ability to say purchase more oil units (think improving refineries or synthetic production). So you could spend say 10 PUs to create 1 new oil unit that gives +1 'fuel cap' per turn which is kind of investing in the long term 'fuel-based' unit production.

Black_Elk

I still think it would be easier to keep fuel basically the way it is now, but just add more fuel into the game (esp via convoys) and increase the player's ability to exchange it. Stockpiling needn't be an issue here, since it's basically like a strategic reserve if it's main use is still mobility rather than maintenance, though I think it could also be added as a purchasing requirement to make the costs of certain units more nuanced.

For an overall population cap that increases or diminishes with scale over time, you could use CR or a specialized population type resource instead. I don't think every unit needs to be capped this way, just the units that are particularly OP. This makes a kind of intuitive sense, since the hardcore planes, tanks, or ships wouldn't be of much use if you didn't have enough experienced pilots/drivers/sailors to man them. These CR points could be of the use it or lose it variety that Redrum just mentioned for an overall cap.

All the resources are still abstractions, but at least this way you don't have to ditch the current way that fuel works to still get an overall cap going (at least for units that you might want to restrict per turn because they're more powerful, like esp. aircraft.)

I'd have the CR coming mainly from the core starting production territories of a given nation. Whereas steel and fuel come more from the peripheral/contested territories.

Earlier you mentioned an interest in having NPUs as a way to force naval purchasing. But what if this was all done using CR instead?
Like you could cap it out by service, with a certain allotment of the CR going to MP (manpower), NP (naval power), and AP (air power). For nations that have more than one service, the total CR amount per turn could exceed the cap for each service, so the player is forced to spread it around.

Just as an example say a larger nation gets like 30 CR per round. The cap for specialized Ground is 20, the cap for Air is 20, and the cap for Naval is 20. The player would have enough to max one service, and maybe build a few units in the others, but never enough to max out all 3 services at once.

Or the service caps could vary in total amount by nation. So maybe the Brits and US have a higher cap for air and ships, the Germans and Soviets more for ground, or whatever makes sense thematically for that nation's historical purchasing pattern. A smaller regional power (a landlocked nation like China, or an island "sea-locked" nation like Australia) might only get one or maybe 2 specialized CR unit types at most, with a smaller total CR cap. Whereas a larger world power like Japan would have a larger cap, but face the challenge of how to divide the pot, since they still couldn't build everything at a go.

I'm not suggesting a specific resource for each specialized Land, Air or Sea category, they'd all still just cost the generic CR, but the relative cap totals for each could be set up in such a way that its better for the player to do some diversifying at purchase, instead of hording this resource for future rounds, to keep churning out the same stuff time and again.

So instead of spamming nothing but SS, tanks, and fighters, maybe when they hit their limit, G would have an incentive to buy specialized CR naval units (like submarines.) The exact CR unit in each category could vary by type for the bigger nations. So perhaps for G it's subs on the water, but for Britain the CR unit on the water is the destroyer, or whatever.

Would something along those lines make sense?

prastle

@Black_Elk @Frostion maybe oil storage tank units that can be strategically bombed ? Outside box i know

redrum

@Frostion Here is my save game (0.1.8) where I played for 4 rounds as Axis vs Hard AI as Allies (no bonuses). At this point, I already have +130 production lead over the Allies and it would only get worse for them from here. I'd probably hit 600 production or 15 VCs within the next 2-3 rounds: 0_1497383875418_Iron_War.tsvg

Since I've already commented on the current mechanics/balance, I'll just add some notes around the AI based on this game (ranked by impact they seem to have):

AI doesn't handle land/air transports for defending or attacking
AI doesn't understand multiple capitals and the fact that capitals don't seem to actually matter
AI doesn't understand how to manage fuel
AI attacks neutral players too often
AI doesn't consider resources besides PUs when purchasing, calculating TUV trades, or valuing territories
AI doesn't understand interception
AI doesn't handle the expensive unit set as well as standard A&A and Seig maps that have cheap fodder

While the AI took a beating on all fronts, the biggest problem was the German-Soviet front just instantly collapsing. The Soviets pretty much lost everything in just 4 rounds. The biggest reasons for this are not understanding land transports and trying to defend capitals that are meaningless. That being said, the front is a pretty tough one but a better AI or decent player would have an organized retreat and should be able to hold at least one of the 3 capitals for a few more turns.

Question: Is there a purpose for capitals in Iron War? Or was it something you initially defined that is no longer really used? While in theory the AI should be able to understand capitals seem to have no value, it currently doesn't so they have a significant impact on its play.

Frostion

@redrum
The "zero out" of any Fuel players don't use during purchase, I guess right after purchase, is a good idea. I think I will use it.

Concerning capitals. They are mostly their to move the players view / the camera to one of the player's main cities at the start of turn. This does not seem to happen without capitals. I think this is important to notify the player that it is his turn. It is a bit annoying that the capture capital sound plays when capturing capitals as I would prefer that it was played when capturing VC as this is a win condition of Iron War. I hope that some day the AI could appreciate Capitals, VC and Convoy Zones and value them as targets

Edit: Concerning AI attacking neutrals. The neutrals in Iron War are only neutral in name. For example, Axis neutrals are actually at war with Allies but the player AI-Axis-Neutral has its combat move and non-combat move steps removed.

@all
It will probably be a while before a new version of Iron War is released (with the Fuel as mechanical unit build cap) as this change pretty much changes any balance drastically. I will have to make a version that is at least playable. But I do think the current layout and starting units do make a good base for a fuel dependant unit system.
Even if the build cap system should not work well, I think it is best to at least try it out.

Cernel

@redrum Not handling land/air transports is likely to be the first issue in whatever maps having them, unless they are a marginal element or not usable for moving into combat.

Black_Elk

@Frostion Just out of curiosity, if burning the fuel at the end of each turn is the plan, are you considering moving the Aid phase so that it is after the purchase phase (instead of before it?)

One of the things I like about the phase structure of Iron War, is that it minimizes the need to prognosticate about the purchase phase (at least compared to A&A) because the combat phase comes before the purchase phase. Currently the aid/exchange phase comes between these (right before the purchase phase), which isn't a too big a deal to manage, but I think it would become a much bigger deal once fuel shifts to a maintenance requirement. It could be kind of frustrating trying to predict in advance how much fuel might be left over after purchase, and available to share with a teammate, before actually making the purchase.

My guess is that using fuel in this way could present an even more extreme version of the "chase the remainder" phenomenon I mentioned earlier. Because unlike PUs which can be saved, here the remainder in fuel would be permanently lost if not used immediately. Not sure if you were still planning to allow the sharing of this resource under the new scheme, but if so, I think it would result in passing the buck, trying to concentrate the team's fuel in the hand's of the nations which have the best chance of using all of it before the round is out.

I'm certain I'll hop on board with whatever, but right now I don't really have to think too much about fuel, I try to conquer as many fuel territories as I can, and just deal with the consequences when it runs out. Using fuel for maintenance however is a pretty dramatic tweak. This would make fuel tracking way critical. More critical than PUs or Steel. The sort of thing you'd have to really keep in mind at all times. I guess all I'm saying is that the game-play enjoyment or strategic depth it provides, really needs to be proportional to the added micromanagement requirements here, or it might end up causing some unforeseen headaches.

@redrum Regarding Capitals. In my view the rules surrounding capitals and liberation are among the most bizarre and potentially confusing of all the standard A&A rules. Understanding how they work in the deep endgame is really what separates expert play from novice play (e.g. knowing how to play the game post capital-collapse, when the liberation rules allow players to directly claim a fallen teammate's territory to maintain income/production parity.)

I like that Iron War ditched the looting idea, the no-income collect aspect, and even the capturing of enemy factories, because ditching these greatly simplifies the game, with less emphasis on a one dimensional race to smash the weakest enemy capital. But it still has that relic about the post capital-collapse liberation rules in there. So you will see sometimes for example, that the Soviet Far East eventually starts going to Britain or the USA, when they trade territory with Japan there, after all the other Russian +5 capital territories have been taken. I suppose having more capitals is preferable to having just 1 per nation only, but maybe it would be more straightforward for this particular map if the concept of the capital was ditched altogether? Not just for AI purposes, but for ease of use in PvP too. The default capital/liberation rules out of A&A can be kind of tough to explain anyway.

I guess the screen orientation thing is hard to avoid. What happens with the AI I wonder if there is only one capital per nation, like on their highest production territory (presumably the one they will try to stack/hold the longest)? If the one gets taken, does it then just revert to A&A rules for endgame liberation immediately? Is there a get rid of capitals but still give a proper zoom. If not maybe we could somehow use the arctic or antarctic or lakes/mountains/tiny islands that exist around the map, to create super tiny Capital territories, and then just landlocked/cut off by equally tiny impassible tiles.

Maybe each nation has a practically invisible a capital with no PU value (or maybe 1 PU if it has to have one), that is just totally isolated and inaccessible in normal play (but reasonably near whatever production/VC territory would be good for the zoom ). So basically nobodies" capital can ever be taken out of play. Kind of a weird solution, but maybe something like that works? Or would the AI still always try to get there somehow?

I agree for sure about the land/air transport thing. The AI can't use Mech to their advantage, which is a big chunk of the starting TUV for Russia/Germany. Mech is pretty key to all the spots on the map you can reach overland. The Air transport also seems like it could really take off, if used in a concentrated way PvP, but the AI basically just suicides them for the fodder hitpoint.

I was still thinking about the CR resource. I wonder if it could work for all infantry based units, if the total CR was increased (and then the elites just cost more in CR than normal infantry)? A cap on the fodder spam overall might be interesting for a map where you are forced to purchase heavy equipment as time goes on.