Iron War - Official Thread

[redrum]

@Frostion The initial ones I put out are available in the pre-release:
isAIDefault
isHidden

Example:
<player name="Pro-Axis-Neutral" optional="true" isAIDefault="true" isHidden="true"/>

I'm considering changing the isAIDefault to playerType with a few options based on the discussion: https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/132/handling-of-ai-players-not-meant-to-be-played-github-request/20

[Black_Elk]

Its been a busy week at work so I didn't have a whole ton of time to play, but I really like the new aagun. The cost at 3 actually makes it interesting as a remainder purchase, and moving in combat is just so much better. Probably the first time I've ever been buying them. I don't even know how they'll hold up, but at 3, I'm certainly willing to give em a try.

I dig the newer UI layout, been playing TripleA-1.9.0.0.5411, and its very helpful to have those dropdowns. Much easier/faster in a solo game to set everyone to hardAI and then choose who to play, than to assign them all individually. I also like the way the resource modifiers are handled. I tried a flat 20 to all the Allies in my newest game just to see how they'd do. Pretty fun.

Still trying to puzzle out the new German opener, now that the Luftwaffe has been nerfed haha, but overall I'm digging the unit costs/starting income/resources, at least as far as G goes. Will update this post with a save when I get a bit farther along. But so far so good

Nice work!

Here is the game so far in the 5th round. German Solo, with the Balkan/Finland block under my control and everyone else HardAI. The AI has been doing pretty well for itself with the extra 20 on the resource modifier for all the Allies. I decided to expand the fleet, and knew Germany would be piss poor in fuel with the Allies collecting heavy, so I tried a different attack plan. Pushed past England into West Africa, to try and put France to bed once and for all. Italy always seems to struggle, perhaps G backing them up while still maintaining parity in the Atlantic is better. The fuel restriction is interesting. I had a solid shot on the French fleet last round, but thought it better to take the land rather than sink the ships. Will see how it goes, but I dig it thus far. Some interesting choices on offer, and the I like how the AI has been buying a gang of aircraft. They seem to do better when they have some mobile attack flexibility from fighters.

0_1498991688848_Elk vs Hard AI Allies 20 income G5.tsvg

[Frostion]

@Black_Elk
Nice savegame It will be some time before a new version has anything new to offer. But I have two minor alterations already in version 0.2.1:

• The Commissar is no longer artillery supportable.
• Liberia is changed back to (British) Sierra Leone and PU value is lowered from 5 to 2.

The new change will lighten some of Italy’s pressure, and they seem to always need this. It will add to realism and USA still has lots of other options than pumping troops into Africa. Among the other options are Iceland, Morocco and Truk.

If you would like to test out the new XML here it is:
0_1499033346044_0.2.1.zip

[Black_Elk]

@Frostion right on. I'll check it out tomorrow after work.

My guess is that the loss of Liberia won't be too hard to bear for the Allies. Though I kind of like seeing the Italians sweat a bit. In the older versions they were just rolling up everything in sight haha.

I'll probably try Russia to see the Commisars in action next game. Would they then be the only infantry class unit that isn't artillery supportable? Right now they're kind of like a super artillery unit themselves right? Boosting 3 inf?

I dig the concept, but I'm less familiar with how they work than SS for G. I think one of the challenges is becoming familiar enough with the opponents roster to make sure you know how their units behave in combat before actually facing them down in a do or die fight. The best way I've found for doing that so far is to take direct control, so I can read the specs in the purchase screen.

The +20 to Allied AI (flat) felt pretty good in the last game, but I forgot to check it for the resources. Do we know if it's giving them +20 for steel, oil etc? If so that's probably a bit much. Anyhow will give it a go soon and report back. Catch you then

[Black_Elk]

Still haven't had a chance to switch out the xmls. For some reason when I try to modify the zip the game won't launch. I might just play through with 2.0 till the next update. I did have a couple thoughts on VCs though.

First I dig how there are more VCs to contest now. It definitely helps to shape the broader attack pattern. The only suggestion I would offer, is the same one I mentioned to Larry back when the VC concept was introduced with Revised. Namely, that without some direct connection to the gameplay mechanics (other than game resolution ie sudden death) that VCs just aren't that interesting. It would be nice instead, if they offered some sort of round by round purpose, or advantage to the nation/side that controls them.

In other games I suggested a cash bonus for VCs, even if that seems somehow overly simplistic for a game like Iron war. But I still think it could work as a universal objective thing of some kind. The game might benefit from something like this, sans capital looting, as an alternative way to prevent any really protracted stalemates.

Or along similar lines, I was curious if you've considered just attaching an Officer/SS type resource to VC territories, and making it a more generic thing available to all the player nations? To me it would make sense that the number of unique officer unit slots increases when you gain control of the major population centers represented by VCs. This might create consistency across the gameboard, where taking a VC from the enemy reduces their ability to spawn the specialized unit while increasing your own, while still having a global cap on the unit type (since there are only so many VCs on the map.) Something focused on VCs in particular, and that is easy to parse at a glance, since it works the same for everyone. I don't know, just seemed like it might be a cool way to make VCs feel more relevant on an ongoing basis.

Right now (and in pretty much all A&A style games) VCs only matter when one side or the other is about to cross the victory threshold. Until then, they can basically be ignored, since controlling them doesn't really do anything for you in gameplay terms. But that seems kind of unfortunate, since they could just as easily be a major driver in shaping the play pattern throughout.

If there was a 1:1 association between VCs and some kind of officer resource, I think it would make make them more interesting and more consequential, with players keeping closer tabs on who owns what in any given round. Just a thought.

[Black_Elk]

Ps. A few more thoughts on VCs and their locations.

I think it might be worth considering whether you want the VC win to feel distinct from the economic win. Right now the target territories involved are basically the same tiles. Since VCs are all located at high value starting factory territories, I think this might make the VC win feel a little redundant compared to the economic win. I tend to leave both boxes checked and kind of lose interest after a win has been achieved in either, unless I'm trying for some kind of personal goal like making all the map one color lol.

Anyhow, just in terms of the VC locations, thematically it would probably be more interesting if they were not conceived of as "cities" but something more all encompassing. Perhaps you could just tweak the acronym and call them Victory Centers, or Victory Conquests or Victory Campaigns of whatever, so they don't necessarily have to stand in for Cities.

This would also solve the issue of a territory like Urimichi or Romania being a VC, when there are clearly a number of cities in territories nearby that would make a lot more sense if the theme was population.

Instead I would organize them around the idea of Historical WW2 campaigns.

I think this would be more consistent than having them as like political or regional "capitals." You could ditch places like Washington/New York (which already seems lonely anyway without Rio or Ottawa or anywhere else on the continent except SF in California.) Instead you could put them in places like Hawaii. Or for Japan instead of Harbin or Tokyo, maybe you have one at a place like Iwo. Or again for British-India, instead of Bangalore (which is where it seems to be at the moment), you could have it in Calcutta or Burma or Singapore. Basically reserving VCs for territories of historical interest, and for territories which were actually contested in the war, or which were realistic wartime objectives, as opposed to having them as like administrative or production centers.

So just as an example, if Berlin/East Germany is already one of the most important territories on the map, (worth a ton of PUs, Fuel and Steel, key strategic location etc) then having VC there too is kind of reduntant. If instead the VC was on Warsaw/Poland say (a pretty significant campaign goal and historically thematic territory for both sides) then the VC would be doing something different. The VC win might be more nuanced as result, or feel different than the economic/production win or the win by concession which is always related to production capacity anyway.

Imagine that under normal circumstances G would probably prefer to turtle on East Germany and just trade Poland with the Soviets. Whereas if we suddenly included a VC in Poland, then there would be an incentive to hold it. Things like that, where you can use the VC to push the play pattern into areas which are significant historically, but which would otherwise probably be neglected in favor of the usual production/economic considerations.

Redrafting the VC spread from scratch, getting rid of political capitals, but still with 30 total in territories in mind. I might try places like the following... Just using Europe as an example...

Poland
Sicily
Normandy
Norway
Romania
Caucasus
Karelia
Greece
Tunesia
El Alemein
Benelux
etc.

You can kind of see what I'm driving at. Basically the VCs are used to push the gameplay onto tiles that are historically interesting, (each one listed above was the location of a major WW2 campaign), but which would otherwise be subordinated in strategic importance to more valuable neighboring production tiles.

You could use them anywhere on the map like this. Once the VC is separated from concepts like capitals or cities, and instead seen as a generic Victory Campaign marker. You could put them wherever it makes sense for the split by sides, using major battles from the history books as the guide to their locations. This would also be rewarding for players who enjoy the historical details, since they would have another way to parse the map outside of just the production spread.

[Black_Elk]

Pps. Played another game of 2.0 with the 20 boost to Allies. This time I took control of all the Axis nations.

Went with a Sea Lion game for G, and India push for Japan. So far it feels pretty good. I'd say it's definitely challenging to take England and still prevent the Allies from rolling up on you as a result. The payoff isn't spectacular with only 5 PUs on England, but at least this way I don't have to worry about the RAF stacking up on me. Russia has plenty to distract them with Finland and Persia and such, so managing a defense of the East is possible, but they stack heavy and with all these German ships in the water fuel is still tough to come by haha. Instead I've taken to expanding the Luftwaffe with a few bombers and fighters to hopefully help us win the battle of the Atlantic.

Somehow I still feel like the British balance is a bit off. Or rather, that they still don't have many interesting choices to make. I kind of wish that all of the possible British Altanic stuff was brought together under one umbrella. Like the colonies in West Africa, maybe British Jamaica or Guiana, or Iceland. It feels a little disjointed how "France" is basically all of French Africa, but Britain is just Canada and the UK.

My thought was that maybe the "British Colonies" should be everything east of Egypt or the cape of could hope. And everything West of those would be "British." Then just have Egypt and British-India/Pacific play as a single faction and all the British Atlantic territories as a single faction?

You could then substitute all the British-India units for British-Colonies units. I think this would help to create a nice wedge at the center South, to compliment the center North (ie Russia). And would allow to still keep the regional feel without too much scrolling around. British Colonies would then be a truly credible naval power too, to deal with what Italy and Japan are likely to throw against them.

Maybe the same could just be done for the French Colonies? Where everything on the Atlantic side is "France" and everything East of Africa is "French Colonies." Right now the British Colonies and French Colonies are kind of all across the map anyway, so it's hard to see the difference between having it happen on the major players turn or the minor colony players turn. One way or another someone is still going to have to skip across the map during their turn, but it might feel more streamlined if the divide was between Atlantic and Pacific possessions.

This would free up another faction slot for the Allies, so you could include Canada if desired. It would look clean, since you could just use the British-India stuff for Canada (sans colonials.) Their flags already look pretty close anyway, or if you wanted it to be more accurate all you really have to do is make the field solid red (with the Union Jack) instead of the India circle, or put a Canadian emblem in its place.

Or even if you didn't have Canada, at least doing it that way its absence wouldn't seem so conspicuous, since you'd have a few other colonies to help round out the "British." I might consider ditching South Africa as a separate faction. That way all the dominions and Atlantic stuff is British and everything else is British Colonies. Along those same lines, I might make dutch Guiana Pro-Allied neutral so it matches Benelux.

In any case, I still think something like that would make Britain more interesting, and still preserve all the essential unit art, just with a few tweaks.

Here is an edit of 2.0 showing how it might look. Here I have all the Atlantic stuff (including Canada) as a single British player. And British-India + Egypt and East Africa as British-Colonies. The way it shakes down the Atlantic faction has around 100 PUs, and the Eastern Faction has around 60. I think something like that would create some interesting choices for each, because then you have to decide where to concentrate your builds. For example, the Colonies would have to make a choice between Egypt or India. The British would have to make a choice between Europe/Atlantic or Sub-Saharan Africa.

0_1499363091150_Idea for British edit.tsvg

Anyhow, that was my last thought for the night lol. Meantime, still trying to get my crush on with Axis. It's been pretty entertaining thus far. This save uses the vanilla 2.0 map.
Here we are in 1942...

0_1499328138603_Iron War Elk Axis vs Hard AI Allies 20 income G5.tsvg

Here is the game after another 5 rounds. Its taken about this long for the Axis to start having an impact vs Russia. The +20 boost has definitely helped to keep the Allies in it. China and India have been holding steady for a while, and Anzac is starting to creep up into the mix. Most of Africa is under Italian control, but West Africa is still a hotbead of Allied activity. We made a solid push but got bogged down before we could crack Nigeria. Now the British Colonies are starting to fight back with an offensive of their own. A lot of aircraft waiting in the wings. I like it. Air seems to be the best bet for the AI to pull out some surprises or catch me off guard. Will probably keep it going for another few rounds, at least unit the nukes start flying lol

0_1499376477699_Iron War Elk Axis vs Hard AI Allies 20 income J10.tsvg

After 14 rounds, Axis clinched the VC win when they finally snaked India and Leningrad...
0_1499493054521_Iron War Elk Axis vs Hard AI Allies 20 income G14.tsvg

[Black_Elk]

Was on vacation for a week, just got back. Had a few hours for a German solo using 2.0 again. Left Finland and Balkans under AI control this time, and gave each of the Allies 10 for the income modifier. They seem to be doing quite well, stacking aircraft and dominating around the periphery.

Went with the Sea Lion plan as before, but kept the fleet closer to home this time. I basically just hung out up north and pushed against Russia trading England periodically. The Allies built a substantial combined fleet in the Atlantic, pushed on Africa and eventually entered the Med, before we trapped and nuked half of it. Pretty far along here, with things reorienting as Russia is getting rolled up by G. But Japan and Italy and on the brink, so maybe the Allies can pull something out yet. Almost into the 1950s...

0_1500960488223_Iron War Elk Germany vs FastAI Allies 10 income G17.tsvg

Took it another 3 rounds with Germany, but the Axis were unable to round the corner. Although Finland and Balkans are pretty impressive, Italy and Japan were never able to recover, and the sweep across Suez by the Allies has been monster hehe. Been letting the Nukes fly for a while now, and they just keep stacking up. I like the way the Nuclear weapons work in normal combat for clearing out large stacks of fodder during the deep endgame, but they are pretty expensive, so I think I've hit the wall here. Fun stuff though.
0_1500964395765_Iron War Elk Germany vs FastAI Allies 10 income G20.tsvg

[Frostion]

@Black_Elk
I'm glad that you still find it fun to test Iron War. I have also been thinking about ditching South Africa as a nation, but I haven't taken that decision yet.

I have been using my time to work on the Iron War Europe map. I don't know when a playable beta can be posted, but I am working on it. Maybe you can be a first closed beta tester?

[redrum]

@Frostion +1 for removing south africa. I still feel there are too many small nations that just have very few options and little impact.

[CrazyG]

I haven't played this game in a while, but all the small nations was a big downside for me. If playing it human vs human competitively, it felt time consuming without adding much depth

[Black_Elk]

Yeah, I'm always down! This map is damn enjoyable for a solo against the AI, it definitely passes the "next turn" click test for me hehe. I guess I've been treating it like the 4X WW2 game that I always figured CA or someone else would put out eventually, but which still hasn't materialized. So I return to it the same way I'd return to MOO or MTW, just has a certain classic charm and simplicity, and I always dig watching the map change colors for these sorts of games.

As for South Africa, I don't think it would be missed. Axing SA as a faction would probably help with the unit crowding in Africa too, which can get a bit extreme if you have quite a few Allies converging in just a few territories. Sometimes there's a lot of spill over in some spots, especially towards the endgame, when airstacks (even from midling players like KNIL or French Colonies) start dropping in to contribute to the chaos. Something similar can happen with the hotspot seazones, where a ton of smaller powers converging can create a lot of look-alikes and spill over.

Just from a UI standpoint, I think 18 playable factions might be cool (8 Axis vs 10 Allies), since that would mean that you can see all the factions on the launch screen without having to scroll down. Currently you have to scroll down to see last three slots for the Neutrals. I'm not sure which other faction I would nix though. Maybe French Colonies, since they seem like the easiest to just fold into another existing faction. I think what I'd do in that case, is weaken the current French position in Central Africa, to accommodate the inclusion of places like Indo-China, Madagascar, Puducherry as part of regular France etc. With British-Colonies becoming a much more important faction in Africa (presumably they take over South Africa?), I think it makes sense to give the French something else to do/worry about. Right now its pretty much all Africa all the time for the French, since their only active production outside of Normandy is Gabon. I think part of what makes a nation interesting to play, and big dog status is if they have the option to effect both theaters of operation ETO and PTO in at least some capacity. Clearly France wouldn't have the money to do both at once, but at least it would put more of a dilemma on them, about whether to concentrate their early builds in Africa or Asia. But yeah, whatever else is decided, I agree with you guys that I think South Africa is a bit unnecessary. I think it stands out a bit as the lone Dominion to get a separate treatment. Even ANZAC is a combination of two Dominions, so it just seems kind of conspicuous like "why S.A. but nowhere else?" I'd say just fold them into one of the larger British factions.

Only somewhat related, but I was thinking in my last game that its kind of rough getting a toehold in the Eastern Med as the Germans. I wonder if increasing the value of Syria to +5 gold, so it could serve as a production hub, might up the suspense in the area a bit? I was thinking about it more in terms of German expansion (rather than Italy or Iraq), since they could probably use a few more places to set up shop. I guess Greece or Tunisia could work in a similar fashion, but was kind of digging Syria's location strategically.

[Black_Elk]

This was the first map I came back to after taking a break from war gaming for a little while. Every so often I gotta bow out for a few months, or I'll catch a year where things get heavy and have to slow down, but usually I return when the bug catches again and this was the game I'd fire up periodically haha. It remains one of my favorite games for TripleA when it comes to the AI challenge. I bought the obligatory back up board of AA50 when it was re-issued and played a bit face to face. I always dig v3 for a live game, but Iron War has a charm that pulls me back when (as often happens) I'm the lone solider and only have a few minutes here and there to beat up on the computer lol.

In general I'd say it's pretty solid right now. One thing I do notice playing solo is that the game can feel a bit quiet (relative to a full game), especially if you're controlling just a one nation/block. That's kind of unfortunate since the sound work and music for this map is great, but you only fully experience it if you take control of all powers in the game. It would be killer if the anthems played on a loop, or played during the AI's turn, something like that, so that the long silences punctuated by movement or combat sound effects were somewhat less pronounced. I find for example, that I really start grooving when the Taiko drums are playing as Japan, or when some random anthem can pump me up to crush and heighten the level of overall immersion, and then a little sad when the music ceases haha. Anyhow, just a thought for some final spit and polish.

I dig it quite a lot though. Glad to see its made it out of the experiment section into the general download pool. Nice work man!

If I come across any amusing situations I'll post the saves here...

[Frostion]

@Black_Elk I think I have the exact same experience as you concerning the music, and I would also like to not have the music-silence for longer periods of time. Right now, the game only plays the music associated with the nation you play. If you only play one nation, you only hear that nations music. If you play several player slots, you hear their music.

Technically, the sound file played as music is triggered by the engine as a "require your turn" notification sound file to the player who has a turn to play. It might as well be a "ding dong"-sound or something. I have just made the sound for each nation one random file of 3 or 4 nation specific music sounds, and I think they are maximum 2 minutes long.

Nations like Iraq, that are very small and likely have short turns, have shorter sound files. This is because, technically, there is nothing that prevents a new music file being started while another music file is being played. The player would hear two music files being played, and that sounds terrible. This could happen if the same player controls two nations that have turns just after each other and the first nations turn is quickly done. Like Iraq and Iran. (actually a player controlling two nations with turn after each other would only hear music from the first nation (only one "require your turn"), but I have tweaked the xml with some dummy steps that allows all playing of both nations.)

I don't think any new sound options have been made to Triple A in years. I think devs have this as very low priority. But something that supported map sound tracks or supported more instances where the engine played a sound would be very welcome!

I think that I have pressed the engine to the limit concerning sounds and music, and I can't see how I could make looping music, but I would like to very much.

PS: I think my favourite nation music is also Japan.

[General_Zod]

@Frostion

I see you changed the original fuel cost concept, from a movement charge to a maintenance model. May I ask. What were the primary issues with that fuel model, as you saw them.

As I recall it was very good attempt.

I ask because I'm wondering if there was something other than the somewhat difficult forecasting of army and fleet movements.

It would be nice to someday see this model be successfully used. Especially since fuel was such major factor in WW2. Maybe with the right future feature enhancement or addition.

[Black_Elk]

@general_zod said in Iron War - Official Thread:

@Frostion

I see you changed the original fuel cost concept, from a movement charge to a maintenance model. May I ask. What were the primary issues with that fuel model, as you saw them.

As I recall it was very good attempt.

I ask because I'm wondering if there was something other than the somewhat difficult forecasting of army and fleet movements.

It would be nice to someday see this model be successfully used. Especially since fuel was such major factor in WW2. Maybe with the right future feature enhancement or addition.

My experience with the fuel movement model was that it become pretty difficult to determine how much of a fuel reserve was really needed to properly plan your purchases and combat moves, or to know in advance how much fuel you needed to send to an ally to keep them from running out of gas on the march. Initially it seemed pretty novel to have nations getting stuck in the mud or out at sea after the first couple turns, but the interest starts to wear thin after a few matches where half the ships and mobile units on the board can't move anymore.

Maybe if the fuel exchange system was more robust, or players had the ability to expand their existing oil production (like investing PUs to further develop their fields or something?) For the current game the maintenance models seems to work fairly well, although I sometimes wish there was a unit that used fuel but didn't require steel (similar to the way artillery have a cost in steel but not fuel), since often there is a remainder of fuel that can be hard to spend for some nations. Perhaps a fuel cost for aircraft might work? It would seem consistent with the unit type, but I admit that would be a pretty significant change on balance and there might not be enough fuel to go around right now.

Frostion might have some more thoughts on possible ways to re-create a more successful movement oriented fuel system, but I think the tweak here made things a bit simpler to parse, easier to pick up and play.

ps. for an example save, here is a game I just played as Japan/Thailand vs the AI...

Typically in the old system my fleet would have gotten stuck somewhere in the middle of the pacific, and I'd have to throw away transports or do random stuff like that to try and free up fuel.

The way it works currently, fuel is basically the same as steel and functions more as a purchasing restriction/requirement rather than a true a maintenance cost, since you don't really go into the red like you used to haha. Less realistic I guess, but probably more fun, since Japan is putting the stomp down on South America instead of lost at sea with no way to move hehe

0_1517629514812_Japan round 12.tsvg

[General_Zod]

@black_elk

I agree the air units should have used a fuel cost as well. As I recall it was a bit of a loophole which made air units the main operational unit, because it was so cheap to operate.

I wonder if setting up a structure of core figures would help visualize planning. Basically structuring the fuel costs of each movement point and the ratios of fuel consumptions of any given unit, in a way that has more meaning.

The concept being first establish what each unit truly represents in terms of quantities.

Eg, 1 fighter unit = 100 fighters (air wing), 1 tank unit = 500 tanks (column), 1 destroyer unit= 10 destroyers (task force) and so on.

So in the hypothetical example above, it is somewhat logical to assign, lets say...
1 fighter unit (air wing) uses 1 fuel cost per movement point
1 tank unit (column) uses 5 fuel cost per movement point
1 destroyer unit (task force) uses 10 fuel cost per movement point

So maybe it would be easier to accept and work with the figures when planning and forecasting. If there is more context to them, versus using figures that seem arbitrary. Anyways just a thought. Also limiting the amount of units on the map helps, so we don't have to try to micro mange a million units fuel costs.

This would also help with assigning unit cost in terms of steel, oil, rubber, etc...

I love the concept of making each movement matter more, as fuel cost would do. This limits the somewhat lazy and unrealistic scenarios that see the frequent redeployments of entire naval fleets, air wings or armored and mechanized columns into single massive stacks as viable strategy.

Also another cool useful element would be synthetic fuel producing locations. And depending on the timeframe of a typical game. The transporting of fuel from location to location before it enters the supply chain, would be a nice realistic touch.

[redrum]

@General_Zod Balancing fuel is extremely difficult. It also has very limited UI support. I don't think any maps have achieved anything even relatively balanced around fuel for a combination a reasons.

[Frostion]

@general_zod
Yes, my initial plan was to use fuel as a movement cost thing. Now it is just a unit maintenance/accessibility thing (and it is still very difficult to balance. Some nations seem to always have too much while others too little.). Actually I would still like to use fuel for movement in Iron War, but there were some things that seemed to prevent this from working:

• The AI did not support fuel movement. It cannot prioritize its movement, but I could actually live with this. On my maps there is a lot of random action by the AI, like in Age of Tribes where the AIs tech development is totally random, and I kind of like that unpredictability. The crucial factor was, that the AI kept flying air units out into attacks with no fuel to return, so the units perished even if they won the battle. I guess this could be fixed if the AI “reserved” some movement fuel resources for the return non combat movement. (And then we have the “should a withdrawal cost fuel?” issue)

• A human player had difficulty keeping track on how much fuel he had available. The player could ofcourse constantly click the resources tab in the right side of the screen and let his eyes find his nation and then look at fuel. But this seemed too troublesome and kind of ruined the play experience. I would realy have loved a very easy overview of fuel available. At GitHub I proposed a visual fuel indicator:
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/1804
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/1310

@Black_Elk and @all
Player “ability to expand their existing oil production” very good suggestion. One that might be given serious consideration if the Iron War fuel system was changed and updated.

The need for “a unit that used fuel but didn't require steel”. This was originally the airplanes. The main reason why they don’t require fuel now is because of the AI movement issue described above. Their fuel dependence killed the aircraft when controlled by the AI.

When I changed the fuel system to the maintenance model I could see that a player would have to invest a big portion of his fuel into his air force, the same fuel that would have been invested/locked into land and sea vehicles. For some reason I cannot really recall, I began thinking of aircraft as expensive luxury units that should just cost PUs. The only other unit that solely costs PUs is the standard infantry.

Right now, giving aircraft fuel dependence would require a rebalance of all fuel drums on the map, and possibly also the units. It is a lot of work, but it is easy to just try out by editing the XML and making airplanes require fuel. This should of course be a first step; to see if the game play and fun is better of with aircraft requiring fuel. If it is, then balancing and drum placement would be the next step. Alternately it could/should be done if the fuel system of Iron War was changed back to consumption mode.

I like the idea of keeping fuel consumption costs simple and easy to manage: 1 unit movement = 1 fuel. Meaning an aircraft would use the same fuel as a tank or a ship. It might not be realistic, but it would keep the required player calculations more simple. And yes, aircraft would use a lot of fuel, but this would then just be the penalty of using aircraft. A differentiated system (1 fighter/1 fuel. 1 tank/5 fuel. 1 destroyer/10 fuel) might work, especially if fuel consumption was displayed visually somehow, like my proposed visual fuel tracker. But we would have to try it out first.

I am very much for the devs developing more fuel support. As I see it, it is just too difficult to keep track of fuel right now, and the AI kills its own aircraft because there is no return fuel reserved for non-combat movement. I think these two issues were the primary reason why Iron War now uses fuel as a purchase/maintainance resource and not as a consumption resource.
Don’t anybody hold back on test editing and altering the fuel system of Iron War. I don’t have time atm. But at some point the fuel system might need an overhaul, and then any testing and experience would be much appreciated.

[Hepps]

@frostion Very well presented, and I wholeheartedly support the idea for better integration within the engine.