Iron War - Official Thread

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.

redrum

@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)

General_Zod

@redrum
Should probably add the following as well.

Handling transportable units sounds like it would need to be addressed as well.
Either house rules or engine enforced handling to prevent kamikaze by lack of return fuel.

@Frostion

Your proposal #1804 is nice way to track fuel.

Black_Elk

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.

Black_Elk

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.

Frostion

@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 don’t 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 it’s risky / suicidal.

It’s 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 )

redrum

@frostion Good point. I created a feature thread to official track and discuss fuel improvement ideas: https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/558/fuel-enhancements. Added some of the commentary from here but feel free to add additional thoughts.

Black_Elk

Sounds cool, I will try when I get back to the house.

Just to mention though, having Britain attack neutral Norway is in line with the history. Or at least, its still well inside the realm of historical possibility... Some actual plans from the wiki of the tricks that the Brits had up their sleeves with regard to Norway...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wilfred

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_R_4

"The Allies devised a plan to use the Soviet Union's 30 November 1939 attack on Finland as a cover for seizing both the Swedish ore fields in the north, and the Norwegian harbours through which it was shipped to Germany.

The plan was to get Norwegian and Swedish permission to send an expeditionary force to Finland across Sápmi, ostensibly to help the Finns. Once in place they were to proceed to take control of Swedish harbours and mines, occupying cities such as Gävle and Luleå and shutting down German access to Swedish ore, presenting Norway and Sweden with a fait accompli.
Because of the danger of Allied or German occupation and of the war being waged on their territory, both the Swedes and the Norwegians refused the transit requests.

Meanwhile, the Germans having realized the Allied threat, were making plans for a possible pre-emptive invasion of Norway in order to protect their strategic supply lines. The Altmark Incident of 16 February 1940 convinced Hitler that the Allies would not respect Norwegian neutrality, and he ordered the plans for an invasion hastened."

and from the Weserübung wiki...

"Starting in the spring of 1939, the British Admiralty began to view Scandinavia as a potential theatre of war in a future conflict with Germany. The British government was reluctant to engage in another land conflict on the continent that they believed would be a repetition of the First World War. So they began considering a blockade strategy in an attempt to weaken Germany indirectly. German industry was heavily dependent on the import of iron ore from the northern Swedish mining district, and much of this ore was shipped through the northern Norwegian port of Narvik during the winter months. Control of the Norwegian coast would also serve to tighten a blockade against Germany.
In October 1939, the chief of the German Kriegsmarine—Grand Admiral Erich Raeder—discussed with Adolf Hitler the danger posed by the risk of having potential British bases in Norway and the possibility of Germany seizing these bases before the United Kingdom could."

...

Framed that way it seems like the invasion could have come from either side, so seems reasonable enough to let the players model it if desired. I see it as similar to allowing either side to attack Turkey. Or allowing for other stuff not strictly by the history book, but which might have happened, Japan attacking Russia would be the prime example haha. But basically for a 1940 start date it seems like Norway would be fun as an option for both teams.

I agree that if we can persuade the Germans to routinely attack this direction early on then its probably less of an issue, since that activates the theater for the Allies. Having some of that Norwegian steel assigned to the Brits would be a motivation, and the +5 spot definitely sweetens the deal. I'm not sure if it will be enough for the AI though, which will determine the single player experience.

I'll be excited to check out the latest tweaks.

Also, I hear what you're saying about things getting slow. I might end up switching back to FastAI, since going HardAI I usually have to save and restart every couple rounds or things tend to bog down. Anyhow, will report back with a gamesave in a couple hours.

Best,
Elk

ps. OK downloaded the latest update with the changes and finally got it working (took me a minute to realize that the xml was listed in two spots haha.) About to launch a new solo with the Brits. I will return in a few hours after I see how things cracked off with a gamesave.