Iron War - Official Thread

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.

Frostion

@all
I have made the first attempts at changing the fuel system (no new version release yet!), and it seems to work OK. I can see that the map has to aim for some balance between how much fuel is available and how precious / how much iron is available. When / if a player gets hold of a new fuel depot, then he should not have like way too many Iron resources and always go for a heavy tank.

I have noticed that the different players seem to unavoidable have more or less access and need for Iron. This will be interesting to try to balance.

As the map is now, USSR quickly “unlocks” much fuel in the first rounds because of unit loses. If the German and British fleets collide it also unlocks around 5 new fuel unit sports for these nations, while the other nations have around 0-3 spots free atm. I don’t think it is a problem that big battles end up unlocking spots as the nations would probably need these new units after loses. USA is the only player that starts out with more free spots from game start, as they need to build transports and units to go enter the war.

The steel resource is now called Iron, as in “Iron War”. I guess I should have named the map Steel War instead for the realism, but I think I will stick to Iron War. Also there is no “Oil” anymore as this resource is just called “Fuel”.

I have also made the graphics to the naval dedicated PUs that I have talked about implementing. I imagine infantry, land and air vehicles costing PUs and all the other resources, and Fleet units costing Naval PUs (NPUs??? What would be a good name?) I will try out letting ships cost NPUs and Fuel, and hope this would bring the Axis out into the water and battle the invasion fleets. My first thought about how to implement this without destroying the current obtained balance level is to:

Remove 1 PU on the map for every added NPU. So like if Berlin has 50 PUs now, it would have maybe 30 PUs and 20 NPUs after implementation. The NPU resource would mostly be placed in major and important territories, but of course all the small nations should also have a few.
Some nations would of course have more initial NPUs, like USA, and nations like USSR who struggles to survive on land already will have smaller amounts of NPUs.
I am thinking about an overall equal amount of NPUs to the Axis and the Allies. Like the map’s total NPUs is placed 50% / 50% on the map, with some nations, like USA, UK, Germany etc. being strong.

Anyway, another subject, the newest version will have all pictures of units, flag, resources etc. slightly outlined with black border. I think this improved the visibility of the units. Here is a preview of the “enhanced” graphics:

@Black_Elk
Right now I am keeping SS German only and CR the resource of colonial powers. If anything was to change here it would probably be in the direction of nation specific resources. I once thought about a special resource for US Marines, so that the US was hindered in spamming only maries, and actually had to prioritize where to ship them, Atlantic or Pacific. I just don’t know what this resource should be and named?

I have not really thought about the Fuel exchange possibilities, but it would be logical and reasonable to ship fuel around the map. As units need fuel only to be bought, a player shipping fuel to another player actually gives that player an opportunity to unlock another fuel using unit for purchase, and since I have made it so that all unspent fuel is removed from a player right after purchase, so he gets a new reset fuel amount after his EndTurn, any shipped fuel not used is wasted … but of course it is also wasted if the original owner does not use it.

I was thinking of making Iron a resource for shipping also. But, like Fuel should be, still restricted to 1 unit per shipment. But now as NPUs is implemented should this also be shippable? This would make PUs, NPUs, Iron and Fuel shippable. The aid window will surely be expanded whole lot.
But concerning shipping resource, that I have not really implemented yet, if I am not mistaking, the TripleA engine only allows PUs as payment when doing an action in the Action and Operations screen. Unless this has changed? So it is a bit difficult to implement a shipping system, unless it was to work like the Iraq, Iran and US unit based shipping old oil system, that I have removed in the next version

@redrum
I didn’t even know that the AI takes capitals into account when playing, if this is the case.

redrum

@Frostion Glad to hear the fuel changes are coming along and definitely like the black border on units as it really makes them pop out a bit more. Nice work! NPUs is an interesting idea though I think you need to be careful to leave player enough flexibility in purchases and the more different resources you end up with the harder its going to be to balance. Honestly, if you did only PUs/Iron/Fuel (ignore NPU, CR, SS) and have a solid map resource distribution along with interesting unit set that would probably be enough. Too many resources tends to clutter the map and add lots of complexity but not necessarily depth and interesting choices for the player.

Regarding the AI, it does consider its capitals and in general will be willing to lose a lot more to hold them. Its mostly programmed around traditional A&A rules where nations had 1 capital and lost all its PUs if it falls.

Black_Elk

Just a couple quick thoughts after a long and grueling weekend at work haha...

Its still kind of tricky for me to envision what a generic resource for SS/CR might be named or exactly how to apply it. But I guess it's just hard for me to see the need for nation specific resources, when a generic resource could probably do a pretty similar job (on a basic functional level) if the resource was concentrated in one or two core territories rather than being distributed across many peripheral territories. It could be that SS/CR just aren't a major factor for me in choosing an expansion pattern, since I'm more concerned with PUs or Steel or Fuel, and SS/CR tends to be located in places I want to conquer anyway. So it's kind of an afterthought or added bonus for doing stuff I'd want to do as a matter of course, with most of them cinched up pretty quickly out of the second round. I suppose from the opponent's perspective they could act sort of like land convoys (where you are trying to deny the resource to your enemy) but again, tends to take a back seat when targeting, to the important production/resource considerations, so I just don't really prioritize them in the same way. In other words, I'm not usually thinking to myself, "damn I need to hold France to snake those SS points", usually it's production or steel/fuel in the forefront of my mind.

I like the -1 power and the cheap spam concept for units, and think these are pretty easy to parse at a glance across the map or during combat. The suggestion to ditch the Schutzstaffel acronym for the German resource name had more to do with avoiding unsavory associations. The unit graphics/abilities are already putting an exclamation point on it (anyone who knows much about the period will recognized those black suits), so just not certain that we get a whole lot from underscoring it even further with the SS designation front and center. Sure, glossing over it is kind of revisionist, and you could no doubt find plenty of examples of fucked up things done systematically by other nations/paramilitaries, but that one just has some particularly heinous baggage weighing it down, which people may not want to be reminded of when playing a simple WW2 game for fun.

One of the things some peeps like to imagine when playing, is how the war might have been conducted or how it might have concluded with a different outcome, if the less extreme elements hadn't prevailed in the long term. Or if the military proper had some kind of moderating influence on subsequent events. I think its almost implicit in the game (coming out of A&A) that when you take the Axis side you're playing Germany and Japan "as if" you (the player) are at the helm, sans the crazy ass ideologues or politicians messing up your war plan. So I'd be wary of arguments that try to equivocate or play the historical realism card overmuch. Clearly in the popular conscience, some stuff stands out as more tainted than others. So even if you could point to the Kempetei too, or things done on the Allied side by the NKVD, SIS, OSS, or more generally with their gulags or firebombing or whatever, the fact remains that our primary audience is probably way more familiar with the shade cast by Germany and the SS in this regard. So just seems like a potential can of worms that might be better left unopened. Again though, I don't know, its not a huge sticking point for me. I'm sure some others will have a different attitude towards it, but my thought would be to just steer clear of the issue altogether and pick a generic resource name that allows for similar combat units for every nation so its less of a stand out.

Right now SS is the first resource column listed in the Economy tab. I think this should really be PUs, followed Iron, followed by Fuel, with only a single column for whatever resource is used to purchase the national "special" units coming at the end (far right column). Even if people could care less about the specific resource names, just from a layout standpoint, it's kind of an inefficient use of space in the Economy chart to have a separate resource for a single nation, when they could all fit in the same column and be easier to read at a glance.

I like the change from Steel to Iron. You can't have the former without the latter, so it makes sense to me. I was already imagining that the stuff we were extracting from various Steel territories was just the Iron ore anyway, since steel is an alloy and the raw materials for it have to be refined before it can be used for anything. So I just figured this was part of what was happening at the factory anyway. Iron War is a cooler name in my view.

Fuel seems sufficiently generic, and I guess it doesn't matter really what you call these things, as long as the naming convention is consistent. Fuel could really be anything I guess, petroleum, coal, chemicals, could probably even extend it to include things like heavy metals or rubber with a stretch haha. So yeah, I'm with it.

For NPU's its also kind of hard for me to say, since I haven't really played a game that uses a system like that yet, but it seems like having another form of income attached to land territories might make it feel a little redundant. I think what would be more interesting is if you had this income in the water, with production for ships in coastal sea zones (rather than coastal land territories), since that would give warships a real reason for existing independently, not just subservient to the transport unit or the ground game generally.

The current convoys do help to give the warships some purpose of their own (beyond just guarding or killing transports), but in relative scale their influence on the total world economy is pretty slim. Right now all the convoy zones taken together only account for like 5% of the total money in play, and it all goes to the Allies. Controlling every convoy zone on the map barely nets you the replacement cost of 2 submarines in a given round (and really not even that if you add in the steel.) So something closer to 25%, with a more even split by teams, might provide an incentive for naval purchasing without even requiring a separate type of income. Just shifting more cash into the water overall.

Taking a little break until the next big roll out. Can't wait to play under the new scheme! Great work so far man.

Even if the AI doesn't understand half of what's going on, I still think this map is highly enjoyable to play against the AI. Its probably the main appeal for me I'd say, that there is enough fun stuff going on that I don't even need another opponent in there to make me want to go on the march and crush haha.

Catch you in a few.

Frostion

@Black_Elk and @All
I plan on releasing next version very shortly.

I tried Navy PUs as a resource for buying ships, and I didn't find it very interesting. So I removed it again. The Fuel upkeep seems to work OK though and is in the next version. After hearing people's concerns about NPUs I also asked myself why I wanted to implement them. I think I mis and would really like to have more naval action going, especially get Axis building ships. And also, even if humans might think of challenging Allies for the convoy zones, the AI Axis seems to never think about building ships.

To get the importance of defending / attacking convoy zones up, I think the first step can be to change them from 5 to 10 PU zones, and removing some land PUs. I hope, but don't know if the AI will be lured into building more navy because of this? (@redrum)

Concerning a Generic Resource for all special units I think that would be a good approach on many other maps than this WW2 themed. The territories that provide SS potential is in no way territories that could help USA build more marines, Japanese more kamikaze and Colonials more colonial troops. As I play many other PC games displaying swastikas and letting players play SS, SS-Panzer, Hitlerjugen, throwing napalm and nukes around (Hearts of Iron and Steel Division 44), I am pretty much against any censorship that would remove realism for the purpose of not offending anyone. In my mind, people should not play any WW2 games if they are afraid of being reminded about how the world was anno 1939-1945.

The order of listing resources in the column also irritates me. I would also like the PUs as the most important resource to be displayed first. But I have not found a listing order or any indication of what controls the order of listing resources in the XML. Any hint about how to specify the order of listing resources would be greatly appreciated!

Now that NPUs is out of the game, and I got this nice anchor unit made for all nations, I am open for suggestions that could make use of this unit picture and at the same time add some incentive to do more navy combat. Fleet HQ? Port? Sea or Land unit? Something that is placed and unbuildable and gives bonus? Makes resources?

redrum

@Frostion Putting more PUs in sea zones won't affect how much the AI focuses on land vs sea production. I actually felt the existing convoy zones and their values are pretty good as I found myself trying to capture/defend them especially in the Indian Ocean.

I'll have to take a look at resource order but my assumption is it should match the game XML ordering of resources.

Frostion

OK, here comes version v0.1.9. A surprise change is the addition of a new USSR unit, the Commissar! Please be advised, I have not tested this version fully through, so I don’t know how balanced it is. Here are all the primary changes:

• Removed USAs, Iraq’s and Iran’s “Fuel unit” purchase and support system.
• Implemented Fuel as an upkeep resource. (All Ships and Land vehicles now need fuel)
• Made it so all nations always have at least 1 Fuel to spend, so nations can not end up in a “locked” situation where all Fuel is used by land units and therefore makes it impossible to build a Transport to attack overseas.
• Strait of Malacca added to the map and is controlled by Malaya.
• Almost half of all convoy zones are now 10 PU territories instead of 5 PU.
• Many ship prices changed.
• Fighters, Dive-Bombers and Jet-Fighters now cost 2 PUs more.
• All pictures of units, flag, resources etc. have been slightly outlined with more black border.
• ANZAC now has turn before KNIL.
• Added nation unique music for British-India.
• New USSR infantry unit picture.
• Added a new USSR unit, the Commissar. This unit can give 3 USSR infantry +1 attack and +1 defense. A new special resource called “Officials” is needed to create a Commissar.

Frostion

@all
I have just played a USSR game, and I started to think about the value of the AA gun.

Is the AA gun worth buying? The AI buys it sometimes, but as a human player could buy a fighter for 20 PUs, is the AA gun not a little lame for the 15 PUs price? If the territory is attacked/bombed, the fighter defends/intercepts on 6/10 (60% kill) but can also die from a lucky 2/10 shot from a bomber. And the attacker could bring his own fighters as fodder alongside his bomber. The AA kills on a 1/10, but has a lucky chance to actually hit the bomber instead of the fighter. Maybe the AA gun should have more than one shot?

Here are the stats in the unit purchase screen. Even if people do not play the map, maybe people can use the stats to determine what the AA gun should be worth. I find it real hard to set a value on AA guns:

@Redrum I have had the “Withdraw planes” error pop up again. This time I have saved the game. I was playing USSR and it happen after combat step of Britain in the last round of this savegame. Do you have time to look at this save and the error? (It is an Iron War v0.1.9 save)

0_1497924625424_BritainWithdraw.tsvg

Error:
triplea.engine.version.bin:1.9
Loading map: iron_war, from: C:\Users\David-Corsair\triplea\downloadedMaps\iron_war
Loading resources from the following paths: [C:\Users\David-Corsair\triplea\downloadedMaps\iron_war, C:\Games\TripleA_1.9.0.0.5043\assets]
Loading map: iron_war, from: C:\Users\David-Corsair\triplea\downloadedMaps\iron_war
Loading resources from the following paths: [C:\Users\David-Corsair\triplea\downloadedMaps\iron_war, C:\Games\TripleA_1.9.0.0.5043\assets]
jun. 20, 2017 1:22:13 AM games.strategy.triplea.ui.BattleStepsPanel setStep
INFO: Could not find step name:Britain withdraw planes?