Iron War - Official Thread

[prastle]

@Frostion never had the problem till the update so that makes sense. Guess we edit in a magic troop when it occurs?

[Frostion]

@prastle Can't you just edit and change ownership of territories during play when you think it would be needed?
I think the approach to fixing this unfortunate update and rules could be me making an "issue" post containing an Age of Tribes error-making xml and save that points out the original problem; that being that errors occur when air units attack a sea territory with ownership, and when "territory ownership is handed over immediately" is true. At least that is how I understand the problem.

[prastle]

@Frostion if you have a save of your original air problem with the original xml. I overwrote mine with the update. Yes multiple ways of fixing by edit are available i just found it neat that i could use an extra troop. No worries.

[DayMar]

WOW didnt try yet , but that looks somewhat awesome . Great Job .
Cheers Day

[Black_Elk]

This should really be a flagship game for tripleA. Its easily the best thing I've seen in a long ass time. Excellent work!

Even the opening reel from the very start, really reminded me of one of the cool elements from the old cd, when they'd do those little news clip images at the close of each round.

Showcases what is possible in tripleA for a WW2 setting, on a map with a very large scale. I don't think the extra phases are really all that crazy. And the political system seems more intuitive than say G40, so there's more room to think about other rules. D10 is easy enough to adopt when playing digitally like this. The supply concept is pretty quick to grasp. The unit roster is gloriously detailed. Map still looks clean at 75% and 50% (I still wish there was quick tab or hotkey that would scale the map to those values automatically with a single click somewhere front and center. I always seem to cycle between those too on the larger maps. Also just discovered the rule book, very nice.) TripleA is truly glorious lately.

This map is legit

[Hepps]

@Black_Elk Truer words have not been said.

[Black_Elk]

Yeah I'm pretty blown away at how slick it is. Totally next level.

One thing that I think it might be nice to have though, would be a game like this, but at much smaller scale. I mean a game that uses the same combat/production mechanics and basic unit roster (same unit graphics and UI organization etc), but aimed as an introduction for the larger more elaborate Iron War game. I'm pretty comfortable with G40 and the other WW2 style games for tripleA, but this one is a major leap with a lot going on.

I can imagine people taking one look at this and saying "oh shit! Lets cannibalize it and use all these dope graphics!" probably for some simplified A&A clone that doesn't even come close in ambition or scale. Maybe it would be better to get ahead of that? Like just create an Iron War "light" or a starter set, where the transition from say Revised or v3 or v5 or would be a little easier to handle? Something that creates more familiarity, even just on a visual level with units using the national roundel rather than national colors or D10 combat, but also for learning the resource and movement system, all the associated icons, or for units the basic values/abilities/pricing, things of that sort scaled down, as way to ease it in. Maybe doing it on a theater level? Like Europe with heavy Barbarossa focus, Lend lease to Russia, G trying grab the ore and black gold where it can? Just from like the Baltic to the Black Sea/Caucasus with a narrower field of play? I don't know exactly, but a smaller scale game that uses the exact same mechanics that this larger one does. So the the one can lead into the other naturally, the way v5 is supposed to lead to 1940, but using the Iron War system instead of A&A.

I mean when we have something this cool as an original work, I can't see any real reason to keep looking back at A&A for guidence. Not when the resource system presented here solves so many intractible issues present in A&A since forever ago. We could just rep this one as the gold standard going forward, for WW2 on tripleA.

That said TripleA still needs a solid original (but simple) WW2 game, that is easy to pick up and play in one session. A small map, for 5-6 player nations ala Classic, or even just a 1v1 easy to grasp and really accessible, but one that looks clean as hell like this one does. Clearly Iron War will more than satisfy any player who wants a game like HBGs Global War 36/9, or A&A Global 1940 taken to its logical extreme. But what would really seal the deal, is if there was a version of this that could do the same for players coming at it from a board more like Classic or 1942 second edition, where people could be introduced to the whole concept of resources and D10 on a map that more closely mirrors the scale of those boards. That's the only suggestion I have at the moment, otherwise it's just kicking ass and taking names all over the place. Beautifully done!

ps. the soundwork is killer! I keep grinning through the turns. Even if I forget to move Italians in Ethiopia because I'm so entranced haha.

Also this is the first tripleA map I've played where even single player vs fastAI feels really enjoyable, because there's just so much more to do. Like a total war stomp fest, where you can beef up one of the minor powers for kicks. It has all the same appeal as a world domination CA TW type game, but its better, since you can actually see and understand exactly why everything is happening. All the stats and mechanics are out in the open.

I just played my first run through past 1945. Germany and Italy are crushing (Moscow and Africa are ours for the moment) but Japan is stalled up on the water. Just bought a carrier only to watch the Americans send it to the bottom of the sea! I kept it going until 1948. Part of me thinks it might be more fun for SP to push these dates out a bit. It felt like I could have just as easily imagined it was still 1942 or 43 by the time the 10th round arrived, were it not for the reel telling me the war should have been over a few years ago by now haha.

This is the best handling of China on WW2 map I've seen. I love the choke point at the center.

I wonder about Canada, whether it might be cooler to call the British player "British-Canadians", or something like that? Since the rest of the Commonwealth is given it's own representation (with all the little flags and such), seems like it might be a bitter pill to swallow for the gang up north, who having been griping for a while that Canada never makes it into these games. Even if it needs to be attached to UK for the map to work as intended, maybe a nod in the name would be enough? Haha

Just dropped my first nukes...

0_1492173189176_39 Iron War Elk vs Fast AI J13 Aid.tsvg

I spammed infantry for the most part, and took quite a few turns just getting my bearings, but by the 1950s, Germany is still on the rise heheh. Fun map

[prastle]

@Black_Elk @Frostion ALL I CAN SAY IS WOW !

Side note make sure @all you uninstall any previous versions and use in game dl.

[Hepps]

@Black_Elk We Canadians demand more than a simple token offering!

[Black_Elk]

@Hepps Yeah their absence is a little conspicuous, what with Britain, British-Colonies, South Africa, British India and Anzac all getting their own turn+flags+units.

Maybe just bump up the British home islands so England, Scotland etc are worth more? Newfoundland and Labrador could help pick up some of the slack for income and resources. Or some of the smaller territories like Jamaica could maybe be worth a tiny bit more.

Another simple solution might be to add the British-Colonies to the British directly. As a way to offset the inclusion of Canada as a separate power, while still maintaining some substance to the British turn. I think that could be fun, since right now the British do feel pretty stretched relative to the Italians in Africa. I don't know that the British-Colonies would really be missed, with so many other Dominions getting their own slot in the sequence.

I'm currently playing my second game as Allies. I had to restart after the first few turns. Unlike the Axis (where I let the FastAI handle everyone but Germany, Italy and Japan) it feels a lot more important to take direct control of the minor powers as the Allies to get anything serious going, so that's what I did when restarting. Still feels like the British could use a bit more to stay relevant. Especially in Africa and the Med. I've been sending them max aid each turn, and it's pretty tough to make a breakthrough, since G smokes their Atlantic fleet right out the gate. Oil hasn't been a problem yet, since I don't have anything to move haha. But I'm hungry for Steel! Been building up the RAF, until more arrives.

[Black_Elk]

Noticed something in this latest game as Allies. Not sure if its helpful, but seems that the South African territories are going over to the French when they take them from Italy. Most of Africa turning blue...

0_1492217286473_39 Iron War Elk Allies vs Fast AI British-India round7.tsvg

So far Allies seem to be holding their own, but I'm having some trouble pulling together a proper Trans-Atlantic invasion force. The main issue I ran into was the inability to grab a production center for the Americans closer to Europe. I guess next time I'll make a b-line for Libya, since it seems to the only sensible spot to drop a first factory. I make the mistake of trying to get something going in Normandy, but with it going back to the French I got a bit stuck. Similar kind of situation with the UK. I guess I should have brought up more out of ground fodder out of Halifax early on, because by the time I need them I think it's probably too late. Not having a build option out of Scotland keeps it pretty tight. I should have starting ferrying sooner I guess, and doing the same on the other side of the board with Australia. By the time I realized there's no real lilly pad for a production build, I was too far behind. Russia is beginning to fold up a bit, as the Italians and Japanese keep chipping away. I got backdoored a bit on account of Mongolia and a surprisingly belligerent Shah hehe. Should have dealt with him right away. German's are about to unlock the Nukes, so it's probably time I wind down for the night.

Good times though!

ps. Got in another 6 rounds with a new game. This time the Allies seem to be doing a bit better. Or at least, the expeditionary force is ready to roll. This time we put Perisa to bed with a quickness. But the Italians invaded across the water, and the Shah is back! Now Stalin is staring over the brink.... Those German's moved fast!!!

Here it is on USA5, when we finally established a foothold in North Africa... That felt pretty damn sweet

0_1492224758043_39 Iron War Elk Allies vs Fast AI USA round5.tsvg

Did I mention how much I dig the soundwork haha. The Soviets are taking inspiration from Red October, or any hymn to calm the nerves. Save mother Russia! Hopefully it doesn't all collapse before we make 1945.

I think you could probably get away with two rounds per year instead of one, (like just showing the date clip twice if necessary), and it'd feel just about right to me for what I can accomplish in WW2 campaign terms during the time allotted. Something tells me taking down Germany in 7 rounds is way beyond my pay grade heheh. But maybe in 14 I could pull it off?

Also, here is something else I came across that is maybe just the interface glitching out on me because there are so many different unit types involved? When I go to make a suicide attack vs the Germans with my entire Russian Moscow force, the battle window gets all wigged out, and it won't show the dice unless I maximize it. If I don't maximize it won't show the casualty prompt, because it's like off screen. Not sure what's up, but figured I'd let you know, since it took me a sec to figure out what was going on...
0_1492225536996_39 Iron War battle bug.tsvg

This is what HardAI did during the first round using tripleA 2.0. I had the computer take control of everyone except Brazil. I was pretty pleased with the attack pattern that they employed since it looks very much like 1942 at this point. The computer moved for the most part according to the historical attack plans. HardAI Japan didn't sink the US battleship/Transport at Pearl but did pretty much everything else I was hoping they would. Note how they didn't slam all up into the Soviet Far east, but instead focused on Philippines and such with a Battan attack. Positioning vs China also pretty nice for a J1. I think Pearly could be incentivized with another pair of subs at Truk or something of that sort. Anyhow, it was pretty close I think for a 1941 vibe, with some polish and a little tinkering I think something like this could work. What do you think?

2020-9-23-Iron-War 1941 New Draft 0.02 Hard AI round 1.tsvg

[Black_Elk]

Stood them up!

Ok made it to the 8th round as Allies. Not sure if the war will be over by Christmas, (what with the Americans forgetting to issue orders to half their troops) but at least the miracle of Moscow delivered the Soviets from certain doom. Brilliant!

0_1492232129246_39 Iron War Elk Allies vs Fast AI Russia round8.tsvg

I think now that I have a better grasp on where the main production hubs are, its been a little bit easier to develop workable plan with the Allies. Still nowhere near breaking any of the major Axis nations (and Germany has nukes again) but at least the Allied minors are starting to make their presence felt. British India and Anzac and rolling up the South.

Probably going to call it a night here. Sorry to flood the thread with saves, but its a great map!

Take it easy all, and thanks again man, for making this one. Been waiting for something like this for a while!

Ps. Next time I'm going to take a different approach with British India. Maybe an early naval purchase can help me to contain Italy in Africa, instead of going for tanks?

I like how the limits on total steel guide the gameplay options. The relatively high starting amount allows for an interesting degree of purchasing variety at the outset, but it really forces you to adopt a broad strategy early on. Last time I used it all for tanks and gunned towards Japan. But I think transports might be more bang for the buck, since British India seems to have the best chance of doing something about those Italians before they go monster haha.
Still not sure what's up with their territories turning French when conquered. When I took Italian Somaliland with British India, it went blue too.

Will try again after the weekend

[Black_Elk]

Played a few more games, in the latest I'm trying a new strategy. Instead of focusing on the hitpoint spam like I had been, or transports (where I just got rocked), I thought I'd try an SBR game for the Allies instead. Just bought nothing but bombers for everyone in the first round and tried to knock out Axis production wherever possible. Will probably still get rolled up on the Eastern Front since I think I went too extreme with 4 Russian bombers hehe, but I think this one still might be the ticket for slowing down Germany and Italy. Now that the Americans have arrived in England with 5 bombers of their own, I think G will be hard up for factories.

I'm not sure, but I think if the Allies buy bombers from round 1, and work together they can prevent the German AI from ever placing another unit at a factory after the second round, since they can just knock all the German factories off the board before G comes up again in the sequence. Playing as Germany vs another human I think I'd buy as many fighters as I can in the first 2 rounds for intercept, to prevent something like that from happening.

0_1492375903861_39 Iron War Elk Allies vs Fast AI Russia 3.tsvg

I really like the Aid phase, I wonder if it could be extended to other major powers beyond just the US and Germany? Perhaps in a much more limited way. For example, what if British India or Anzac etc could also send aid to the UK, or if the UK could itself send some aid to Russia? Being able to trade even a tiny amount more of steel especially, might open up the strategic options. Just a thought. I think its pretty glorious, and allows a fun way (other than sending units) for the teams to coordinate.

Another thought might be to allow the direct annexation of minor territories or liberated territories (at some cost of course). That might open things up a bit, so you can gain momentum for the production spread. Sometimes its a little confusing to determine who a territory will belong to after a successful attack, until that attack has been run. For example, if Anzac liberates French Indo China for Japan, after the French Colonies have been destroyed, instead of going to Anzac it goes to British India. Things of that sort, where an option to directly annex after an attack might simplify things, even if there was an additional cost to pull it off.

Here's a different game where I also went with the bomber plan in Europe, but spent about 50% on fighters throughout. Did a pretty solid job of denying the German AI their factories haha. In this one French India went over to British India, after first being attacked by Japan. The Australians managed to snag Sumatra and drop a factory there, which felt pretty epic given what they have to work with. 1945 is fast approaching, and the best I could pull off was a sneaky airlift to take W. Germany for a single round, taking a cheap shot just to stick it to the AI. Russia feels pretty solid in Moscow, now that I have enough fighters to back down any German advance. Though Italy is starting to mess about in the backfield, after a mid-east breakthrough. Pretty fun for a quickie. The trusty fighter with a couple bombers to knock out Axis factories seems like the good bet for the Soviets and Britsh. No steel or oil requirements for aircraft. Fighters are relatively cheap, but pack a nice defensive punch, and the bombers pays for themselves pretty quickly as long as they knock out a factory or two before going down.

In this one I think I caught another bug, this time with carriers. When trying to place a British carrier in the North sea, I get a prompt asking me how many fighters I want to move onto the carrier... but rather than loading up the deck with 2 existing fighters, it tries to move an air-transport onto the deck instead (one that was already used in combat no less) and leaves the two fighters on land. Easy enough to fix with an edit, but thought it might be worth mentioning. I had been avoiding air transports for the most part, since I'm sure the AI doesn't know how to defend against them, even though something tells me they'd definitely be the most economical way to move units around the map. Anyhow, just started buying them, so this was the first time I saw the issue coming up with the carriers. Save below shows the placement kink...

0_1492406820301_39 Iron War Elk Allies vs Hard AI Axis British Round 7.tsvg

This is fast becoming my favorite map on tripleA!

Just saw an epic showdown between the IJN and USN in the East China sea zone. The scuba diving off Okinawa should be amazing 50 years from now heheh. Finally laid the smack down on Italy. My first time snaking an Axis capital by the 1945 mark. On the fast track to economic victory. Glorious!

0_1492408128728_39 Iron War Elk Allies vs Hard AI Axis USA Round 7.tsvg

[Black_Elk]

Guess I pushed us onto the second page haha. Rather than flood the thread I'll just edit any interesting saves into this last post.

I just had an idea for something in the future. It would be cool if every round there was a team score, like a final tally of all TUV destroyed + income or something along those lines noted with the reel. Then you could have a "High Score" map for tripleA, which hasn't really been a feature yet. It would be cool for a game like this in SP mode, where you could try to beat a previous score or do challenges based on achieving a certain score by a certain round.

Still feels to me like the timeline could be extended a bit, with a few more rounds before the endgame. I think it would be nice to have something like... rounds 1-10 = up till 1943, and then one year for every 2 rounds thereafter for as long as the player wants to keep it going. That would feel pretty much dead on to me.

For map ideas Have you considered any of these for historical interest or as mini waypoint island stopovers?

Malta sz: Tyrrhenian Sea Zone
Azores: Atlantic 8 Sea Zone
Bermuda: Atlantic 7 Sea Zone
Truk: Pacific 5 Sea Zone
Seychelles: Indian Ocean 1 Sea Zone
For the south east Pacific maybe Samoa, Polynesia, or Easter to cover the gap between South America and New Zealand/Fiji?

Just a thought. Might be a fun to have a few more tiny springboards, since the map is pretty detailed. For now I just pretend the some of the buoy convoy markers are indicating these, but could be cool to have a few more territories to world dominate.

Another idea might be to include the Rockies and Urals to create a few more choke points in North America or Russia.

I also love the unit pricing, the relatively high cost of infantry next to the more mobile units, means the hitpoint spam is a lot less pronounced than in A&A. At times it can be hard to spend a remainder, but I kind of prefer it this way. I usually just sacrifice a hitpoints for more attack power. I'm still not totally confident when it comes to planning for fuel consumption. Usually I deal with shortages as they come, rather than trying to manage it via purchasing beforehand. Unless I'm chronically short, in which case I start spamming aircraft instead of armor or ships for a few turns, which seems to do the trick. I really enjoy the effect of resources on the gameplay. At first I was a little skeptical, but now I'm a total convert. It's just a better all around system for the period.

I really like how the Allied minor powers work. Usually you can knock off one or two pretty quickly, but the Minors you don't concentrate can really stack up. This offset early gains in one area, with long term headaches in another. Which is good for balancing the all out steam roll.

Here's the first game where I tried a Sea Lion opener vs the Allied AI (took England instead of the Royal Navy). By 1946 the Axis starting moving on North America, with Germany chipping away at Canada. This one has been a lot of fun. Kept it going till Axis economic victory. Finally secured West Africa for Germany and Australia for Japan. The Guianas should make for a nice springboard into the Americas if we wanted to fight on into the mid 1950s, now that Axis have swept Brazil. Russia is still stacking, but the eastern front is thoroughly deadzoned now, so they should get cut to pieces here pretty soon.

0_1492449257513_39 Iron War Elk Axis vs HardAI Allies Sea Lion Germany8.tsvg

0_1492465422593_39 Iron War Elk Axis vs HardAI Allies Sea Lion Germany15.tsvg

I have another Atlantic focused game below, Sea Lion II opener... This time I burned Halifax on the way to the Guianas. I also had fun snatching up some of the tiny islands, Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland, just to be thorough. Doing so made me miss some other tiny islands. HardAI started to go a little haywire on me in the last game, so this time went back to FastAI. Also I think I figured out what's happening with the French in Africa.When Paris is liberated, many territories here go over to the French, even if they were British colonies. Same deal with KNIL territories going to Anzac if Sydney is liberated.

0_1492500865647_39 Iron War Elk Axis vs Fast AI Allies Sea Lion II Germany Round 8.tsvg

Another different game, Sea Lion III... This time, instead of taking the fight across the Atlantic after England fell, I just wheeled back with Germany against the Soviets immediately. Kept the middle East for G, but I left the rest of Africa beyond the canal to the Italians alone. Saved the German transports and the Regina Marina to just pick apart the Eastern Med and the Black Sea from early on, while the Kriegsmarine hammered away at the North. Clearly a better plan. Japanese expansion was more deliberate this game, focusing on East Indies and the islands close to home before setting up on India. Here London again went down in the 2nd round (after a preliminary invasion of Scotland on G1). Dropped Moscow in 8th. Total Victory a round later in 1947 with the 15 VC win.

0_1492658152770_39 Iron War Elk Axis vs Fast AI Allies Sea Lion III Germany round 9.tsvg

Yet another different gamesave in 1946, Invasion USA this time! Germany just went barreling headlong into Russia, while Japan made North America their number one priority. I was able to lock down western Canada in fairly short order with a Japanese factory build in Victoria to serve as a foothold. California seemed too tough to crack, so I bypassed it. Blitzed and gobbled up the interior instead, while the Americans were busy defending the West Coast against an amphibious assault. Meanwhile on the other side of the Pacific, Anzac, British India, KNIL, and China have been going pretty nuts without facing much opposition. They're starting to creep up onto the mainland! Hopefully Germany will arrive soon, now that the Russians have been pretty much flattened at the center, to help Japan hold it down.

0_1492657965920_39 Iron War Elk Axis vs Fast AI Invasion USA Japan round 8.tsvg

Another Seal Lion to Invasion USA game, this time with the Germans invading America proper. Took USA South Atlantic first, then USA North Atlantic to grab Washinton. Italy took Newfoundland for the fighter landing pad, then Halifax. Japan swept in at the last minute to stake a claim to Victoria and USA Northwest. Russia is still massive, but more or less contained at the center, while the Axis stomp around as they please hehe. Fun stuff!

0_1492678573876_39 Iron War Elk Axis vs Fast AI Allies High Castle Japan round 7.tsvg

Just tried another game and used Frostion's suggestion of playing one nation with everyone else set to AI. Italy seemed the clear choice, so I tried my best to establish a Med empire for Il Duce from Spain to Arabia hehe. I was surprised how effective the French have been at hanging on by the fingernails here in Africa, but we managed to drift around them and carve a swath across South America instead. The AI managed pretty well with Germany. Japan seemed to struggle a bit more, but was still pretty effective on the double team vs Russia. Even the Finnish AI got in on the action, with a revenge sacking of Moscow! But the Western Allies were pretty formidable too, especially Anzac. Took well into the 1950s for Axis to achieve economic Victory...

0_1492768289381_39 Iron War Elk Italy vs Fast AI Allies round 15.tsvg

Did the same thing again, but this time with the Allies. Took control of the USA and set everyone else to AI. Figured the best plan to help the team would be to just gun for Tokyo, so I loaded up on fighters and carriers and made a B line straight for Japan. I don't think they saw it coming before it was way too late. Russia is still getting stomped by the European Axis, but at least we got the Pacific more less cinched up.

0_1492831040228_39 Iron War Elk USA vs Fast AI Axis round 8.tsvg

Solo game as Russia vs AI. It definitely took longer for the Soviets to advance without Western aid or fighter support, but Allies achieved economic victory in the 8th round. I think cracking Berlin might require Stalin to start using nukes.

0_1492875276950_39 Iron War Elk Russia vs Fast AI Axis round 9.tsvg

[Black_Elk]

Went a dozen rounds before the Axis VC win, but now cannot upload the file for some reason? Figure something must be going down, maybe an update. Probably try again later, if I get any more games in tomorrow vs the machine.

Getting the following message when I try to upload it...

"ERROR
Invalid file type. Allowed types are: .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .bmp, .tsvg, .zip, .svg, .gif, .pdf, .txt, .properties, .xml, .mp3, .wav"

[0_1492940177210_39 Iron War Elk Japan vs Fast AI Allies round 13.tsvg](Uploading 100%)

Was another solo game, this time as Japan. Notable mainly for the Axis checkerboard on the eastern front, with most of minors snatching up a piece of the Russian pie, and the French ejecting the Italians from Africa, which was amusing. As Japan we went with a smack down on Anzac for the most part, and tried to get some shucks going. Now I'm thinking the 3/3 split is probably more effective than taking all 6 transports and going for the jugular. Easier to push on KNIL without as many headaches. Will probably take that approach next time I play as Axis.

[Hepps]

Had a great team game vs the AI yesterday with General Zod. Was a lot of fun. AI seems thoroughly confused most of the time and made some huge miscalculations that allowed us as the Axis to pretty much steam-role the Allies. The AI also spent copious time and resources in purchases that didn't seem to make a great deal of sense nor help the Allied cause.

Lots of interest from lots of visiting players.

Couple of things to note....

After playing multiple games as the Axis one thing that jumps out is that the German Navy seems to have the ability to totally dominate the Atlantic. Britain really doesn't seem to stand a chance. The delay with getting anything going with Britain seems to give Germany the ability to do pretty much whatever it wants. Whether this is simply because the AI doesn't get aggressive enough, I'm not sure. But the Royal Navy definitely feels under represented.

The European Axis Minors are pretty ineffectual broken up into so many individual nations... they are pretty much time eaters as player nattions and don't add much to the game experience since you can neither buy much of anything with them nor accomplish anything militarily with them other than to reinforce the German front. Spend a great deal of time managing them to very little effect. Slows down the game significantly. Perhaps lumping a few of them together might make them powerful enough to add something to the experience.

Some of these observations might be purely because we have been playing the AI.... perhaps with a player vs player match we'd get a better feel for the balance and different strategies.

Those are the main things I've noticed. Other than that there are so many cool and fun things going on around this map that it'd be hard to list them.

Great work. A real treat to play and a stunning visual experience.

[Black_Elk]

Yeah I had a similar impression of the British, and also the Axis minors. Assigning the Axis minors to the AI definitely sped things up when playing vs Allies AI, but mostly they are just adding fodder to the main German stack. I do find that for Finland, Iraq, Persia and Thailand, sometimes I would load them out as human and take control to prevent them from blitzing mech to take territories that I wanted to reserve for Germany, Italy or Japan.

My thought for UK AI, is that they are pretty easy to smoke. A G2 Sea Lion assault (Scotland G1 and England G2) is almost a shoe-in. And didn't seem to stall the advance against Russia nearly as much as I would expect. Not sure but maybe edit eliminating a single German transport would feel a slight bit more balanced. Or perhaps it might make sense to give the UK an AI income bonus (percentage or flat rate) so they have more PUs to spend? The issue with that though is that tripleA gives the bonus to all AI players equally, so it would mean taking control of the entire team, or else giving yourself an advantage too. And having to take control of all the nation's definitely drags the pace down in an SP game. Another approach might be a bid, but the tripleA logic is pretty busted there. Perhaps rather than a recurring bonus to income or pre-placement bid, it might be easier to edit the starting cash for enemy AI players?

From the other side, when playing as the British vs Axis AI, the main thing that stalled me up was more to do with the production spread around the home island, since there aren't many +5 territories in Europe/Africa that the British can reach, especially once their navy is knocked out. I still think the solution there might be to give the British Colonies to Britain directly and add Canada as a player nation.

Just curious, what did you think of the timeline Hepps? When I play as Axis it seems pretty reasonable to have 1 round = 1 year, but as Allies it seems a bit quick. I think 2 rounds = 1 year would feel better for both sides. Even if Axis make a breakout, somehow I like the idea of the average game lasting 15 rounds, and still being in the 1940s. Part of this could be that I've been going against the AI, which is always faster in terms of play pace per round, than if everyone was being controlled as human. But having a few more rounds to mess around before hitting some of those techs like Jets would be cool. Once the V2s and Nukes arrive, the game is pretty much done, because it becomes so simple to annihilate enemy factories. The AI will bomb too on occassion, but they don't go heavy enough to destroy factories, and don't seem to make use of V2s or Nukes, so it becomes a bit one sided. I think it would be cool to see the 1945 Nuclear age crack off in like round 14 rather than round 7, so the human player has to wait longer for the game changing tech to arrive.

Next time I play I think I will try giving the AI an economic boost by editing their starting cash up maybe 25%, to see how it changes things.

I love the game though. It's the most fun I've had playing tripleA in a while. Killer work man!

ps. Here that solo Japanese save from earlier...

0_1493177294476_39 Iron War Elk Japan vs Fast AI Allies round 13.tsvg

This is the approach I've been using for Sea Lion vs the British AI. On G1 I move 12 hitpoints into Scotland, and buy the Graf Zeppelin for the North Sea Zone to protect the Kriegsmarine. Take Denmark to open Kattegat and activate the 5th transport, then hit all the remaining easy targets, while staying trained on England.

This set up is producing a pretty consistent G2 attack with 95% odds and 13 units remaining on average. I think you can push it up to like 99% (using the air transport, which I always seem to botch), and buying a couple more aircraft instead of ground to ice it. Basically you give up the initiative in the East, but it's fairly simple to deadzone that front out of East Prussia until you can redirect in force. Not that this would necessarily work quite as well against the Human, but against the AI its been pretty effective.

0_1493179124697_39 Iron War Elk Axis vs Fast AI Sea Lion V Germany round 2.tsvg

For rounds later in '46, Germans vs AI...
0_1493186822822_39 Iron War Elk Axis vs Fast AI Sea Lion V Germany round 8.tsvg

Just for kicks I tried a game vs AI Allies where I gave each of the Major Powers twice the starting cash via edit. So France 120, Russia 240, British 200, British-India 160, Anzac 160, and USA 400. It was certainly a bit more challenging, at least France and India were more challenging. Russia also seemed to benefit from the boost, as it took longer to flatten them than usual. The Western Allies still struggled to get something going versus Axis though, despite totally dwarfing us in TUV. I didn't spend much on ships beyond the Graf Zeppelin on G1, and a carrier to help Italy with the Africa campaign, but by positioning the main fleet off England, we were able to hold the Atlantic in a stalemate. Germany carved up Russia from the rear, with an amphibious assault from the arctic to take Siberia, while Japan went all in against India. Pretty enjoyable.

0_1493285345578_39 Iron War Elk Axis vs Fast AI Allies x2 Starting Cash Germany round 11.tsvg

[Frostion]

@Black_Elk ... I have been spending a lot of time on dull real life stuff, and haven't had the time to look at this thread or the forum. But WOW! You have been testing a lot. I would say that you already have many more hours of experience with this map than me, and you seem to also be a lot better against the AI than me.

I can see a lot of valuable suggestions to take into account when I return and have time to work on improvements on Iron War. Some of the issues are stuff that I have had suspicions about also, like the too fast approaching year 1945, the maybe underfunded British player and the maybe too strong German starting fleet. If you keep on playing this map, you could try editing the XML and give some of the Canadian territories a bit higher PU values and try removing some of the german starting units or whatever, to balance the start a bit. Or do any other alterations that might improve and balance the game. Its nice to see that you have a lot of playthroughs that you can base your assessments on.

I am afraid that I have way too much real life stuff to do in the nearest future, and I will probably not be able to work on this map for the next few weeks, but I am looking forward to rereading all your posts again and getting back to editing Iron War!

PS: I think as this map has a lot of bombing possibilities and that the AI will always be vulnerable (or at least with the current AI limitations). It can for example not intercept. I think this map should try to find baseline starting conditions that is human vs human balanced, but then also have the AI have a default AI PU bonus income that could make up for all the outsmarting humans can do. Dont you think?

[Frostion]

@Black_Elk ... In regards to the Bombing on this map, and fact that humans can bomb the AI players to smithereens, I was thinking that the Bombers' PU cost should be raised to the limit, to the point where the AI and Humans would seldom consider bombing as the way to go. This could be an adjustment alongside a standard default AI bonus income. Do you think that the Bombers' current price should/could be raised? If so, if you do any further testing, you could try raising it a few PUs.

[Frostion]

@Black_Elk In regards to the minor powers as well as the Balkan countries, with the latest versions of Iron War I tried to make the minor nations so unattractive that humans would just let the AI control them. Obviously humans still see them as better controlled by humans. Because of the time consumption they take to manage by humans during play, and the fact that the major powers are the ones meant to play, I was thinking that with the introduction of a default AI income bonus, players would think about letting their small I AI powers be controlled by the AI. What are your thoughts on this? My understanding is that you see the small AI powers as fun to control. Maybe the Balkans are the only real problem?