Iron War - Official Thread
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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.
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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 -
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 -
@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?
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@Frostion +1 for removing south africa. I still feel there are too many small nations that just have very few options and little impact.
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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
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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.
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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...
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@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.
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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.
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@general_zod said in Iron War - Official Thread:
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
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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 pointSo 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.
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@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.
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@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 âreservedâ some movement fuel resources for the return non combat movement. (And then we have the âshould a withdrawal cost fuel?â 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 âability to expand their existing oil productionâ very good suggestion. One that might be given serious consideration if the Iron War fuel system was changed and updated.The need for âa unit that used fuel but didn't require steelâ. This was originally the airplanes. The main reason why they donât 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.
Donât anybody hold back on test editing and altering the fuel system of Iron War. I donât have time atm. But at some point the fuel system might need an overhaul, and then any testing and experience would be much appreciated.Map maker of: Star Wars: Galactic War + Star Wars: Tatooine War + Caribbean Trade War + Dragon War + Age of Tribes + Star Trek: Dilithium War + Iron War + Iron War: Europe + Warcraft: War Heroes
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@frostion Very well presented, and I wholeheartedly support the idea for better integration within the engine.
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@frostion Yeah, I think the following 3 things need added to make fuel more playable:
- Show current amount of fuel on the main screen (how much you have)
- Show projected fuel income on the main screen (how much you'll get)
- When moving units, show how much fuel the move costs (how much you're spending)
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All sounds great. I had a thought on how to maybe make fuel consumption a little easier to manage. Its a bit gamey, but then again so are a lot of things haha.
Perhaps only combat movements use fuel?
What you'd lose in overall realism, you'd make up for in avoiding that problem where aircraft or ships get stuck with big red targets painted on their backs. Still allows for situations where the forward march could get stalled without enough gas, but at least players would have a way to handle their planning goofs with less catastrophic consequences. My guess is that this would cut the overall fuel consumption in game by half (probably more). Perhaps combined with an initial fuel cost to purchase as well, like the current scheme, which would help to rationalize or explain away the non-com stuff not consuming fuel.
A related alternative idea might be to have an opperational radius of some sort, within which non com moves are allowed free of charge. Like allowing players to move out from or return to a factory territory or coastal sea zone without consuming fuel. Again you could rationalize it as accessing some kind of strategic emergency reserve or the like, built into the initial purchase, but the practical gameplay purpose would be to give the human player a pass when they fuck up, or as a way to keep the AI competative on their home turf.
Just trying to think of some way to make the whole fuel=movement thing slightly more forgiving than what I experienced before, short of flooding the world with oil drums, which would kind of undermine it as an interesting gameplay resource.
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This isn't really related to the fuel issue, but if any further revisions of the current game are a possibility, I still think the major power that needs the most attention is Britain.
Right now the British feel kind of one dimensional compared to their Allies or rivals on the Axis side. I understand how breaking up the British Empire helps when all these factions are under AI control (since they can amass a lot more total production/TUV that way without seeming too overpowered for a single power throwing their weight around the globe). I also like the idea of a game that highlights the dissolution of the British Empire as a major feature of WWII. That said, under human control, it kind of feels as if there's not a whole lot for the British themselves to do. Compared with British-India or British-Colonies, which have some room to grow (if they can gobble up the Middle East, or take hits on Italy or Japan), the British in Europe are sort of frozen at their starting level.
Basically the way I saw it at first Britain had to push on Morocco ASAP to have any real chance of significant production expansion. Iceland seemed nice to have, sure, but Morocco was the closest factory viable territory with an overland target of opportunity nearby. Target Libya seemed somehow more attainable to me than Finland (since there is no factory viable location in Scandinavia other than the Finnish capital itself), but even going the Morocco/Libya route it's still damn tough putting enough TUV in Africa to actually uproot the Italians there. The Canadian factories feel largely irrelevant. I suppose Halifax might see a ship or two built if the Luftwaffe shuts down the coast off England/Morocco, but if it comes to that then the British game is pretty much shot already anyway. So its pretty much Morocco or bust haha. Anyhow, in the game below you can kind of see the predicament... Even if you bounce around the Med a bit, there's really not a whole lot of real estate up for grabs that the British can exploit. I think the first thing I'd do to try and make it a little more interesting is change the 3 Norwegian territories from Pro-Allies to regular Neutral. Having Norway as pro-Allies really works to Britain's disadvantage, since the Brits can't get at that steel unless Germany or Finland takes it first. This makes the Northern route pretty awkward, and easy enough for the Axis to shut down by simply not going there to begin with.
I think if Norway itself was Neutral and a +5 gold territory (factory viable) this whole northern region of the map would see more action from both sides.
A couple other alterations that I think might help...
Benelux to +5: to make a D-Day push more viable (either from Britain or the USA), since it would give them a toehold territory on the continent capable of supporting a factory.
Sicily to +5: sort of like the above, would encourage a sand and sea play pattern in the Med that is a bit more like what cracked off historically. In this case Sicily could serve as a stepping stone or toehold for the Allies to support a med fleet, since it would become factory viable but isn't threatened overland.
Greece to +5: This would also give the Brits a way into Europe from the south. Might open things up for Germany, Balkans or Italy as well with a factory build option, so seems like the advantage could go to either side there.
I suppose the basic theme behind this post is that I think the British would be more fun to play if there were more +5 factory viable territories that they could acquire around the European periphery. A few more +5 spots than currently exist here, because, given the choice between handing one of those +5s to Britain or the USA, the USA will always win out. The Americans have further to travel and more cash to throw around once they arrive, so it just seems ill advised to give any of these prime build spots to Britain. But if there were a few more possible factory locations around, maybe players would be more inclined to let the Brits get in on some of the action. Then you'd have like three interesting expansion routes for the Brits.
North to Norway: to mess with Finland (end around option to Poland, the classic Eastern Front attack pattern from A&A).
Center to Benelux: to mess with West Germany directly (liberate France and open the second front, the D-Day).
South to Libya, Sicily or Greece: to mess with Italy and Balkans (the Churchill special lol).Anyhow, just some thoughts after playing a few solos as the British lol. In previous iterations the Royal Navy would often get slammed right out the gate, so I think the last German naval tweak was an improvement, but I still think the Brits need something to make them more exciting. There just aren't that many spots nearby to take over (since most revert to French control). It would be nice to help the feeling of expansion a bit, when you see larger swaths of the map change color to your own faction. In the current set up, the only real spot for this with the British is that pocket around Libya, so that's where I was gunning till it finally panned out around 1945.
0_1517737476806_Britain Round 12.tsvg
Here is another British solo game, this time went with a Northern attack plan. I think its shows what is probably the best chance the Brits have to prevail along that route, namely trying to dead drop West Germany and snake those 50 PUs with a surprise amphibious invasion. If you nab Denmark and the straits then some exploits that open up. A bit of a cheapshot on the machine since it has trouble controlling canal zones. The target Finland plan ended up being more effective than the target Libya one, since the Germans let their guard down. In this game I left Morocco for the Americans, but they were slow on the uptake, preferring to take Spain first for some reason instead of pressing North Africa. Brits dropped Finland in 1944.
0_1517749585827_Brits northern round 9.tsvg
ps. also, sometimes it still feels like 1945 (and the nuclear age) is arriving a little soon. At least in the single player vs AI type experience, the calendar advances pretty quickly. Like usually it takes until the 1950s before I can achieve a satisfactory conclusion (at least in an Allied campaign, Axis can break out a bit faster). I wonder how a 3 round year might feel for the pacing? Like in addition to "Early" and "Late" you could maybe add "Mid" or "Middle" into the mix?
Early 1940, Mid 1940, Late 1940...
Early 1945, Mid 1945, Late 1945 etc.That would have the game reaching its natural conclusion about round 18, instead of round 12. Little more time to get stuff done before you feel like you're getting timed out, but still not quite as long as a 4 season split (which I admit seems kind of excessive) haha.
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@redrum
Please tell me that you save all the game engine and AI fuel handling ideas and eagerness to improve this aspect of the game, so you can one day bring the ideas to life
@Black_Elk
I hear what you are saying, and I can see that the British have limitations when it comes to strategies and expansion. I will not change Norway from Pro-Allied Neutral to true Neutral. I would like to keep a bit historical correctness (even though game play is important), and not have Britain attack Norway to get their resources. But I will try to motivate Germany a bit more in regards to attacking Norway. If Germany does this, then at least Britain can choose the liberation of Norway as a way to go.I have made a version 0.2.2 XML. I have tested it as human Britain vs AI Germany. With the changes, it seems that if Germany captures Denmark in the first round and both German fleets are intact, Germany can join the Baltic and North Sea Fleets in the second round and take Norway. The Hard AI sometime does this, so I guess a human player would also consider it. I donât think the Fast AI does this, maybe its too complicated a plan. I normally play with the Fast AI as the Hard AI is slowing the game down tremendously.
Of course the British can try to counter the above plan by moving their fleet and build a Battleship in the North Sea Zone (between Germany, Britain and Norway) in the first round. And even the French can try to help out by moving their two ships into the same sea zone and also build in it. But this might lead to the total destruction of the Allied fleets if the German naval forces are intact ⌠so itâs risky / suicidal.
Itâs a pretty big job to make years 3 rounds instead of 2, so that is not happening in the near future!
@all
Here is the new version. Britains navy is also nerfed a bit. You guys tell me what you think if you play it.Iron War v0.2.2 BETA:
⢠Trondheim-Narvik is now a 1 PU territory, not 2.
⢠Norway is now a 5 PU territory, not 3.
⢠The Iron Ore in Norway is moved to Tronheim-Narvik and is now British from start.
⢠Removed 1 British Patrol-Boat from Celtic Sea.
⢠Removed 1 British Oil-Barrel from Egypt.
⢠Added 1 German Fighter to West Germany.
⢠Replaced 1 French Battleship with 1 French Destroyer in Bay of Biscay.
⢠Other minor changes.
(Right click download, rename and play with this file: 0_1517780449397_iron_war.xml )
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