Iron War - Official Thread

[redrum]

@black_elk I think the only challenge with making something like pilots a resource is its starting to get to be too many different resources which becomes extremely difficult to balance.

If you have a particular save game that shows the AI choosing not to defend a factory where it clearly could have please let me know. It should in general try to defend its factories within reason though I'm sure improvements can be made.

[Black_Elk]

Yeah, although it is already listed in the resource table, so least the space is available if we wanted to do something more with it. Right now I'm pretty sure pilots are only used by Japan for their kamikazes.

I think the air spam is kind of problematic in a lot of A&A style games, especially with air vs naval and bombers running amok, so seems to me that using a resource to cap the total number of those units in play would probably serve game balance in the end - or at least give the designer some control over how quickly they are introduced. Would be pretty straightforward to increase/decrease the starting resources as needed once we had an idea of how much they might cost.

Just guessing based on the SS thing but maybe something like...

Air Transport 20 pilot points
Fighter/Dive 25 pilot points
Jet Fighter 30 pilot points
Bomber 40 pilot points

Where an average nation might be pulling down like 50 some odd pilot points on average per turn?

Least that way they couldn't just blow it out on the air spam, dropping massive bomber stacks or fighter stacks for globe trotting nightmares haha. I don't know, just an idea. Maybe stick the pilots at the capitals or something to keep it simple?

Will look back over the saves, or see if I can grab one on the next game. I think the issue is not so much that the AI backs their factories when they have a chance to defend overland, but more getting caught with their pants down on amphibious landings.

[CrazyG]

Like Black Elk said earlier, its nice to have a map where infantry are not dominant. I don't its an issue of air being strong compared to infantry (this is refreshing and fun to play), its air being strong relative to tanks. I think just a small cost increase could help out alot

[General_Zod]

@frostion

I have a suggestion on the assistance. It's a nice feature. But maybe you should charge a premium to the assisting nation. So it's not just shuffling PUs around.

Maybe a 5PUs charge on the big assists and 2 and 3 for the smaller assists. That works out to 1PUs premium for every 5PUs. Supporting reasons is it would not be free to the assisting nation to get the funds/supplies over to those destinations during wartime. Special measures would need to be taken to ensure it makes it.

Plus it makes it feel less like simple free shuffling with a premium attached.

[wc_sumpton]

@frostion
I also have a few suggestions for you:

1. add the 'endTurnNoPU' delegate for the 'Neutral' so you don't have to delete the PUs at the end of their turns.

2. Use 'each' to count the special resources, and count these only for the Nations that receive those resources. So for the Germans and the SS-Potential:
   First remove the createsResourcesList'

 <attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="SS-Potential" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
      <option name="isInfrastructure" value="true"/>
       <!-- <option name="createsResourcesList" value="1:SS"/> -->
 </attachment>

Then to count the resource for Germany:

<attachment name="conditionAttachment-German-Axis-SS-Potential" attachTo="Germany" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.RulesAttachment" type="player">
     <option name="directPresenceTerritories" value="controlled" count="each"/>
      <option name="unitPresence" value="SS-Potential" count="1"/>
      <option name="players" value="Germany:Balkan:Finland:Italy:Iraq:Iran:Japan:Thailand:Pro-Axis-Neutral"/>
</attachment>

<attachment name="triggerAttachment-German-Axis-Receives-SS" attachTo="Germany" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TriggerAttachment" type="player">
     <option name="conditions" value="conditionAttachment-German-Axis-SS-Potential"/>
      <option name="resource" value="SS"/>
      <option name="resourceCount" value="1"/>
      <option name="when" value="before:GermanyEndTurn"/>
</attachment>

Using this method removes all the placement/removeUnits conditions and triggers for each territory involved. Plus you can add/remove the 'SS-Potential' unit on the map without having to change the section of the xml.

Also if you do the same with the 'Colony' you can add/remove nations with just the adding of the 'each' count.

Doing this for the 'Commissariat', 'SS-Potential', 'Colony' and 'Pilot' would mean you would not have to delete these resources from each nation that does not use them.

Cheers...

[Frostion]

A new test version of Iron Wars is available for download right here. This version requires the latest prerelease of TripleA.
Prerelease found here: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/releases
Iron War test XML (Place XML in the Iron War “maps” folder within the Iron War zip – delete file it again at own discretion): 0_1521301000414_Iron-War-Test-XML-0.2.21.zip

Iron War 0.2.2 to 0.2.21
• Corrected a typing error in the notes (Kamikaze pilots are obtainable from round 9, not round 6).
• USA now has 6 more PU income.
• Ivory Coast is no longer a “capital of France.”
• Tank-Destroyers are now listed before the Light, Medium and Heavy Tanks, not after.
• The map now uses the resource option “isDisplayedFor” to keep nation specific resources visible only to certain players.
• Fuel system has been changed. Now ships and land vehicles use 1 fuel to move 1 territory, and planes pay half of their full potential movement in fuel when moved.
• Other minor changes.

FEEDBACK WANTED
The XML aims to balance the fuel system in such a way that most nations would want to get more fuel under control. If nations do a couple of good rounds, where they don’t lose fuel consuming units, then the pressure for new fuel gain should be felt. Of course, if a nation loses a number of fuel consuming units within the first rounds, without losing the access to fuel, no pressure will be felt. So a good test is when one is doing good.

It is not the aim that all nations feel the exact same pressure. There are exceptions like the USSR. This nation is pressed enough and already struggle to stay alive (they really need the US to send some PUs!), but their main enemy Germany needs to be thirsty for fuel. By round 3 or so most nations would need/want to prioritize their unit movement and some unit might stand still or move 1 instead of 2 moves.

Questions: Do the fuel needs seem realistic, reasonable, balanced? Are there anyone who needs a new permanent fuel barrel (+1 fuel every turn) or any nations who need to get a fuel barrel removed from start?

@General_Zod Your proposal sounds reasonable and logical. I have also thought about this before, but always ended up with the idea that the PUs would not flow as much between players if PUs were also lost. I would like to hear more from people and their experiences here, and hear how transactions cost would impact their playing.

@wc_sumpton I can’t really understand or decipher what you propose. But, any solution that would still allow anyone to edit/mod the map by removing or adding SS-Potential, and still keeping the game playable, and keeping the system where any Axis controlled territory/SS-Potential is given to Germany, would be nice. Cutting down on conditions and triggers would be nice, if it does not change the rules of the game.

[redrum]

@frostion Excited to test this out and initial changes sound good.

I'd agree with @General_Zod that there should be like 10-20% 'fee' to transfer resources and could even vary it depending on distance between nations. This makes the decision to give resources more difficult and makes it feel more realistic.

I think @wc_sumpton is just suggesting some XML optimizations to reduce the number of triggers you need and I don't think any of those would impact gameplay.

[General_Zod]

@redrum

Yep the distance aspect would make it even more realistic. I didn't want to make it sound too complex though. 20% flat seemed to fit.

The USA to China is one that distance would surely affect in a huge way. Especially since China need the help badly as I recall.

[General_Zod]

If anyone is interested in taking Iron War for a spin today slap me in lobby. I prefer a multi if possible 2v2.

[Hepps]

@frostion Well done getting this turned out so quickly to make use of the new code.

Looking forward to testing it all out.

[redrum]

@Frostion I played about a round to test it out and things seem to work well. One question I had is that I realized AA guns are essentially the fodder unit of the map instead of infantry, is that intended? It feels a little strange to mass AA guns for fodder.

[Frostion]

@redrum the AA is the cheapest and weakest unit. It is not the best cost/effective defence unit, that is the Infantry. And it is certainly also not the best attack unit. Actually it is probably the worst unit. I think that the AI choses the unit as first casualty as it has the weakest stats, 1/10 attack and 1/10 defence.

In the battle calculator the AA and the Tank-Destroyer are worthwhile units to have, in small numbers. Here are example results, that should shown this. Both attacker and defender has precisely 155 to attack with and 140 PUs to defend with:

• 10 inf + 5 art attack 14 inf = 60% defender win

• 10 inf + 5 art attack 10 Tank-Dest + 1 Inf = 38% defender win

• 10 inf + 5 art attack 20 AA = 11% defender win

(So Inf is best defender vs inf + art army)

• 7 Inf + 2 art + 1 Mech-Inf + 1 L-Tank + 1 M-Tank + 1 Fighter attack 14 inf = 53% defender win

(So mixed attack army is better than an all inf + art attack army (60% defender win))

• 7 Inf + 2 art + 1 Mech-Inf + 1 L-Tank + 1 M-Tank + 1 Fighter attack 1 inf + 10 Tank-Dest = 68% defender win

(So Tank-Destroyers are better than Inf vs mixed army)

• 7 Inf + 2 art + 1 Mech-Inf + 1 L-Tank + 1 M-Tank + 1 Fighter attack 10 inf + 2 Tank-Dest + 2 AA = 73% defender win

(So inf heavy defence with a bit of AA and Tank-Dest seems to be the optimal defence)

[redrum]

@frostion Fair points but consider some of these alternatives which focus on using AA guns as fodder and other units to provide attack/defense power:

1. Optimal 140 PU defense vs (10 inf + 5 art) attackers -> (7 inf + 10 AA) = 68% defender win
   -- Essentially uses AA as fodder and inf to add defense power

2. Optimal 155 PU attack vs (14 inf) defenders -> (4 inf + 4 art + 10 AA) = 42% defender win (only 154 PU)
   -- Essentially uses AA as fodder and inf/art combo for attack power, there might be even more optimal ways to get attack power but figure I'd keep the example simple

3. Optimal 140 PU defense vs (7 Inf + 2 art + 1 Mech-Inf + 1 L-Tank + 1 M-Tank + 1 Fighter) attackers -> (7 inf + 10 AA) = 79% defender win

Point being is that for almost every attack and defense, its optimal to have a good portion of your army as AA guns to use as fodder. This also doesn't even take into account that if you add a few planes to the opposing attacking/defending forces then AA guns are just crazy OP.

PS. For Russia turn 1, building almost all AA guns is probably close to an optimal purchase.

[Frostion]

@redrum I can try to run some calculations with the AA costing 8 PUs, instead of 7?

It would not make sense if AA had a 10 PU cost like infantry, since the AA is just 1A/1D(+1AA) and infantry is 2A/3D(+attack supportable).

[redrum]

@frostion Might be better to consider making AA more expensive but stronger so that they aren't so 'hitpoint' efficient otherwise they become 'fodder' instead of the infantry units. Something like 3 AA attack/defense and cost maybe 12 PUs. More aligned with Tank Destroyers. Or change them to be infrastructure units that don't have hitpoints.

[Black_Elk]

Looking good. Just downloaded and played a few rounds of a German solo under the new set up. One thing I noticed immediately is that Germany is under a lot more pressure to take the southern USSR right away. That whole swath around the Black Sea and Caucasus becomes really critical to war machine. Historically it makes sense, though it does push a somewhat more one dimensional play pattern on G right out the gate. If you mess around with a navy or try to go on escapades to the periphery (like Africa/England or wherever beforehand) you'll almost certainly be running out of fuel in the third round. After the starting surplus is spent things start grinding to a halt pretty quickly going that way. First 2 turns you can only move like 15 fuel units to their max range per round until G passes the 30 fuel threshold (which pretty much requires cracking Stalingrad). I think that definitely favors the infantry push dynamic, since if you move your fleet beyond the Baltic/North Sea area, or try to expand the Luftwaffe and bounce around with it to make light trades too soon, then the tanks/mech will likely run out of gas before they can drive far enough to take the Russian oil fields.Similarly trying to use the Kriegsmarine for much of anything too soon puts you in a real bind. I think it cost me 20 fuel just to clear the Baltic of Russian ships after which point the starting reserves are more or less spent. I think its entertaining trying to juggle the choices, but the learning curve might be a little steep. Anyhow here was my first run at it. Going south with the mobile ground and trying to maintain a surplus I was able to keep the fuel up pretty high vs the fastAI... Soviets are still grinding it out in the Pacific though.

0_1521537494931_Elk vs FastAI Allies New Fuel Germany 15.tsvg

If people find that the fuel costs are too rigid, I think the easiest approach would just be to increase the starting reserves slightly for whichever power might need it (rather than introducing a bunch of new oil fields points across the map or anything too drastic.) Basically that would just push everything out another couple rounds, giving players a little more time to maneuver their heavy equipment before they run dry. Or try the resource exchange/development thing. Seems pretty fun though right now at least for messing around vs the machine.

[General_Zod]

@black_elk @Frostion

Based on @Black_Elk's assessment. You might wanna eventually consider 2 modes for human players. One "historical mode" where fuel is, as is and realistic. And "ahistorical mode" where fuel is more abundant for axis. It can be done with a custom game property in game options before the game. Or if you prefer on game start with a "user action".

Another suggestion is "synthetic fuel" which the axis can lean on, to keep the war machine moving. Perhaps just let the axis purchase it out right or build refineries to produce it.

[Frostion]

"historical mode" and "ahistorical mode" is something that I would like to avoid. I would rather try to create conditions for nations like Germany, that allowed them to win with what fuel and strategic options they got.

The fuel-needs of course pressures specific players towards capturing specific territories nearby, but hopefully there can still be alternative actions to do, like using more inf/art, spending more PUs on minor nations, fortifying a turn instead of advancing/attacking, aiming for high PU-territories instead of fuel-territories etc. It would be optimal if optimal fuel income was not required to win.

Hopefully a fuel pressured nation is also fighting nations with their own fuel needs, or at least all the major nations are in some fuel need.

In regards to how nations can gain fuel, besides losing battles and fuel units to gain a fuel surplus, a player could also think about selecting units like Mech-Inf as casualties instead of Inf, or self propelled artillery instead of artillery as the units have the same combat stats and the surviving units are probably at the front line where 1 could be most likely.

Actually this process of balancing fuel is probably more complex than I first thought. Maybe it would be a good idea to make a nation list and then focus on one nation at a time. Maybe and logically starting from the top with Germany. Maybe each nation should have their "historical correct" actions/options tested as well as alternatives. And maybe when all nations have had a fuel tuning, another from the top down fine tuning would be needed, as all enemies have been altered a bit.

I would like to play a bit as Germany vs AI and also investigate black elks approach, but it will be a few days before I can play a few more games.

[Black_Elk]

I dig the concept of drilling or perhaps creating synthetic fuel (maybe that latter as a technology advance?) as a way to introduce more fuel over the course of the game.

The challenge of having most of the fuel front-loaded as part of the starting reserve is fun (since it forces you to make some hard choices), but somewhat unforgiving if don't realize what's going on. Basically if you do everything you want to do and move everything you want to move during the first 2 turns, then you'll likely run out of fuel halfway through turn 3. Whereas if you are more conservative with fuel in the opener then its easier to strike a balance to keep you running after turn 3. The trick of it is that the consequences don't come till later, so if you aren't paying close attention to what's happening and tracking the fuel consumption in the economy tab, you will probably burn through all the oil in the opener and screw yourself for the midgame.

I played a Japanese solo vs the fastAI this time to see how their fuel holds up, and the thirst is probably more pronounced with them than it is with Germany hehe. Again more historical that Japan should be immediately tripping about oil (since it was part of their reason for starting the pacific war in the first place) but they are definitely hard pressed to navigate the naval movement to fuel balance. If you move all your warships on the first turn, the way people usually do to maximize the attack advantage, that costs basically the entire fuel surplus. Just trying to shuck the 7 starting transports every turn will burn like half the fuel that Japan collects per round, to say nothing of the warships, air and mobile ground.

I think the option to develop an oil field for a cost in PU's could be a cool way to ease the pressure. A unit that could be bought/destroyed would be cool. But in its simplest formulation you could just make it another purchasing decision. Like purchasing a limited amount of fuel for a larger amount of PUs at the end of the turn, as a way to overcome a chronic shortage? Maybe if they hit a synthetic tech advance, then players can buy a little more fuel for the same cost or whatever. But basically a simple mechanism to give the player some breathing room might be cool.

In this game I left about third of the IJN fleet and most of the mobile ground in place on the first turn. Just moving the stuff at Truk out of harms way, and a Carrier+Battleship to cover the necessary transport movements to take some oil from the French Colonies and the Dutch. The Gulf of Thailand, Japan sea zone, East and South China Sea zones, are the obvious safe spots for a fleet that isn't moving much, so I figured just try to park the bulk of the IJN somewhere around there and save as much fuel as possible for the ground war in Asia. Then I built factories everywhere I could (probably more than necessary) and dropped as many infantry units as I could afford to hold onto the oil while working on the Soviets and Chinese. The 4 oil at Truk seemed especially critical so put like 100 PUs into holding it. I think the distribution of oilfields in the Pacific is pretty nice to model the historical war. It puts a big focus on China worth 3 fuel, and the Dutch and French colonies worth 5. Once you got those then its easier to move around. I think it makes it somewhat less likely that a player just guns for India or Irkutsk or Australia full force out the gate, since it costs a shit ton of fuel to diverge from the more historical play pattern. I guess balancing the game for the AI will probably need a sizable fuel bonus for the machine (such that fuel wouldn't really effect the computer opponent) otherwise I think they'll burn through it too quickly and get stuck with a bunch of TUV that can't move.

Anyhow, here is that Japanese solo game in late 44...

0_1521613055401_Elk vs FastAI Allies New Fuel Japan 10.tsvg

[zlefin]

how is the ai handling the new fuel system? I haven't gotten to play in awhile, but i'm curious, as it seems like something the ai isn' tsetup to handle well. is the ai given some bonuses to handle it? especially with moving around that's something tricky for the ai to evaluate whether it's worth it or not.