Iron War - Official Thread

[Black_Elk]

Right now the AI doesn't handle the fuel thing very well. I see most of the weirdness happen on non-com, like transports with floaters, fleets splitting up recklessly, newly purchased tanks or aircraft staying put etc. Even as a human player the starting fuel is probably a little low, which is why it would be cool to see some gradual influx. I like zods idea of stockpiles. It reminds me of an idea floated a while back to have gold reserves, but using fuel instead.

I think for the AI to have a chance to remain competative it should just be swimming in oil. Especially if its a naval power like Japan, we should assume that the machine will be moving those ships all over the place.

I played a few more solo games, one as the USA and the other as Russia to see how things felt on the Allied side. Will post when I get home in a little bit.

In general I'd say that the fuel=movement thing pushes a lot of the other usual stuff into the background. It drives purchasing and informs the conquest objectives more than cash or steel I think, since you can't do much if you can't move the heavy hitters. The game is probably more realistic, though somewhat less dynamic. I don't know, my rough sense of it is that the fuel probably needs to be doubled across the board, at least for the AI big dogs.

Here is the first save, as the US I just waited until I had an opening then made a B line for Tokyo...
0_1521665733124_Elk vs FastAI Allies New Fuel USA 8.tsvg

In the next game when I played as Russia you can see how the AI struggles with purchasing under the new fuel system. US AI for example has like 500 TUV in fighter aircraft stuck in North America unable to move them out across the pond. At various points I saw AI Japan crash fighters into the sea because they couldn't move their carrier on non com. A bunch of loaded transports in the middle of the sea. Stuff like that. Meanwhile with a little conservation and a focused campaign the Soviets have built up a substantial reserve (larger than the rest of the Allies combined). Might be cool if they could sell it to their buddies or something hehe.

0_1521670544947_Elk vs FastAI Allies New Fuel Russia 17.tsvg

Anyhow, I think the issue gets a bit more pronounced the further into the endgame you go, which is why it would be cool if there was some sort of incremental increase in the total available fuel, so you could unlock more reserves as time goes on.

[Frostion]

Iron War 0.2.21 to 0.2.22 (requires the latest prerelease) 0_1521675408191_IronWar0.2.22.zip
• The Anti-Air unit now costs 8 PUs, not 7.
• 1 starting Fuel-Barrel placed in Norway.

The AA gun is now set to cost 8 PUs, not 7. According to the battle calculator, the optimal defense unit composition / cost effective defense against an Infantry + artillery army is around 76% Infantry and 24% AA guns. If is like 16% or 32% AA, the odds will be more in favor of attacker. (Anyone is welcome to recalculate. I used an infantry defense army of 500 PUs where 10, 15 or 20 AA guns could be inserted and be part of the 500 PUs by removing Infantry)

I think 8 PUs is reasonable, as the AA is weaker in attack because it cannot be supported. I would like the unit to be in play, and not be an almost never used unit. As I see it now, players would now maybe build AAs to guard against bombers, air-transports moving infantry and also build them for mixed armies.

Germany:
I have done a few games with Germany again. I could see that their options, if going on a fuel grab mission, should be expanded, so I added a barrel in the Norway (http://www.norskolje.museum.no/en/vallo-refinery-closed-down/). Yet an incentive to attack Norway.

For me, the Germans need fuel, but it is not crucial for winning. There seems to be a general trend when I play Germany: Round 1-2 has fuel enough, round 3-4 lacks fuel, 5+ again has enough fuel as most units have arrived at the eastern front + without Germany necessarily sitting on Ukraine, Stalingrad and Caucasus. My play testing is probably affected a lot by my normal choices. I build a factory in East Prussia. I give 20-30 PUs away every turn to Iran, Iraq and Finland. And I keep my navy in the North Sea after destroying the USSR Baltic fleet. This probably keeps my fuel needs down. I would see it as a good thing if other players felt the urge to go historical and try to take the oil fields in Caucasus, but this is not something I go all in to do. Overall I can live with the German fuel need right now.

Japan:
I will also try to play with Japan again next time, when I got time.

Synthetic fuel / fuel purchase / capturable one-time fuel depos:
I would rather not implement new fuel sources or new purchasable stuff to the game, and this one would also complicate the fuel aspect of the game further. Right now the income concept is pretty simple, and I would like to keep it simple. It might take a few games to learn how to handle and conserve the resources, but this will hopefully just keep layers playing.

AI and fuel needs:
I know that the AI is not conserving fuel in any way. It does not think in any way about its fuel needs, it just moves and runs dry quickly. I will have to consider what way to go about this, and how to maybe give AI some extra fuel.

[CrazyG]

The AA-Gun vs Infantry thing isn't necessarily about big battles. Often you are capturing territories with a handful of defenders and lose a unit. It doesn't matter how bad the combat stats are, the cheapest unit always has a niche as fodder for this type of battle. Also as fodder for the defender in these small battles, this it makes it risky for the opponent to use aircraft to trade territory.

[General_Zod]

@frostion I don't see the Norway barrel.

[Black_Elk]

Sounds good will check it out when I get home later.

I think the main thing that happens under the fuel=movement scheme is that its a lot harder to globe trot. For example I think you're less likely to see Germany in South America or Japan in Africa etc, because it just burns up too much fuel to move a large invasion fleet that distance. Similarly its probably harder to transit a ton of fighters or bombers to prop up a buddy on the other side of the world, because of the fuel requirements. Stuff like that grounds the game as a more historically realistic scenario, though I do worry that we lose some of that world domination charm if the fuel runs out too quickly.

I think there should be enough fuel in the starting reserve to move the starting naval units their max distance every round at least until 1942. So basically running dry closer to round 5-6 rather than round 3. That way the big dogs on the water have enough gas in the tank to position their fleets for the battle of the Atlantic, and for island hopping in the Pacific.

Still just my first impression though. I'd like to get in a few more games beating up on the machine and report back. Catch you in a few

[Black_Elk]

ps. on the subject of Germany and Norway etc. One thing I've noticed is that the German AI has a really tough time dealing with Denmark and the Danish straits. The fact that the Danish straits start the game neutral and closed, means that the German AI invariably sends the bulk of their fleet north to Murmansk/Archangel rather than defending in the North Sea or trying to retreat into the Baltic Sea the following round.

I know you've said before that you didn't want to cater the design of the map to the AI's deficiencies overmuch, but I think this one is particularly rough on the game balance. The German AI is doing stuff on the first turn that falls way outside the scope of what any reasonable human player might do under the same circumstances. It got me thinking again about the timeline for early 1940.

The invasion of Denmark and Norway occurred on April 9th, 1940.

The Battle of France and the invasion of the low countries began on May 10th, 1940.

This would make it pretty easy to give starting control of Norway and Denmark to Germany from the outset, and say that the game begins immediately after the Scandinavian invasions, but just prior to the invasion of France. (The situation should be familiar from the A&A Europe 1940 game which does the same.) I think it would be a lot easier to design a sensible opener for the German AI under those conditions. Right now they just don't seem to be very interested in Denmark or defending the North Sea fleet, which should be like priority number one (even more than beating back the Russians) since it makes it easy for the Allies to set up shop in striking distance of their core territories.

Just to see how the AI would respond, I edited Denmark and Norway to German control and watched to see what the Fast AI would do. Here they made a pretty sensible decision to consolidate their fleet in the Baltic, which feels like it would set up a somewhat more historical play pattern from G heading into the second round.

0_1521694068534_AI test New Fuel Denmark and Norway edit to Germany.tsvg

[Frostion]

@General_Zod
In the XML posted above, with the ingame version name 0.2.22, there should be a Fuel-Barrel in Norway. The same version has AA gun costing 8 PUs, not 7. Have you downloaded the zip, extracted the XML and placed it in the game dir of the Iron War zip?

[Black_Elk]

Its possible Zod overwrote the wrong xml. I noticed in my master file that the xml is in 2 locations, one in main iron war map folder, and another in the games sub-folder. I just replaced both to get it working.

Just one last thought about the Norway Denmark thing... Another thing in favor of an April 1940 start date, after Norway and Denmark have been conquered by Germany, (as opposed to say January of 1940), is that this also fits somewhat better with the Pacific situation. The way the units are distributed, and because of the initial fuel limitations, Japan will likely spend the first turn trying to secure the border with the USSR in the north and China in the West. For historical framing that works (albeit somewhat asynchronously) as a stand in for the conflicts prior to the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact which was signed April 1941.

In gameplay terms Japan has like 2 rounds to flex against Russia/China before they start really heading south towards the Dutch Islands, French Indochina, and the Philippines which occurred historically in Dec 1941. Japan will probably move against French Indochina and Philippines earlier than the historical timeline, but at least we'd be 4 months further along, and a little easier to suspend the disbelief.

I think I'd still prefer it if the game rounds didn't have have hard dates associated with them, since I think it would be more flexible. But if we do have a fixed start date/timeline per round, then I think April 1940 works pretty well. After all, Japan could have gotten the ball rolling earlier if they wanted to, or went after Russia instead of the Anglo-Americans like the army wanted to. I suppose the only reference point that really matters is that first turn when Germany opens. Everything after that is suspension of disbelief territory anyway hehe. I just like how the Denmark thing works for the AI behavior.

From what I've seen, the Germans pull their fleet back beyond the straits to sink the Russian Baltic fleet, and the British and French then move their fleets back as well. Both of which seem more realistic than an instant blowout in the English channel, a massive defensive naval expansion that Germany can't really afford, or else racing North towards the White sea zone to try and get out of range of the Allies, which seems to be what happens if AI Germany can't move through the straits in the opener. After the initial pull back they start creeping forward again, but it seems like less of an all-or-nothing situation.

Here's another Japanese solo (using the edit from above.) I tried to see what kind of damage Japan could do if they gunned straight for the West Coast USA. Seems they have just enough fuel to get there, but all down to one "there will be blood" bonzai battle to get those oil fields before the whole reserve is spent hehe...

0_1521710157324_AI test New Fuel Denmark and Norway edit Japan 4.tsvg

[Frostion]

@Black_Elk
I never imagined a Japanese attack on USA mainland as a possibility in Iron War. But if Japan rushed against Pearl Harbour, built a factory and moved on from there, maybe it's a possibility? It will surly disrupt any USA plans to help in Europe/Africa. I will have to study your moves

One of the reasons I like to have a Early/Late and years is because the players then can think "How have I changed the course of the war?", "Am I ahead of the real historical events or falling behind?" or maybe "Hmmm, what actually happened in the time I am in now?"

I would like to keep the players options to choose where to attack in Europe. I hope that some day the AI can be preset to different personalities. Making Norway German because of the current AI behaviour is not on my mind. Right now the German AI does sometimes attack Denmark and more infrequently also Norway, but of course it would be nice if it attacked this area much more.

[prastle]

@frostion I just added the new xml to the maps folder. Which lists both the old and new so you can swap back and fourth in game. Seems to work fine.

[prastle]

@frostion said in Iron War - Official Thread:

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.

Bumped

[Black_Elk]

Yeah I was able to fight a pretty effective campaign in the Americas, at least vs the machine hehe. Here is another one using the standard file...

0_1521850434058_Elk vs FastAI Allies New Fuel Japan 11.tsvg

I guess I can see what you're saying about not wanting the AI's shortcomings to dictate the set-up, though I still think its a bit of a missed opportunity, since the scenario is pretty fun for a solo, and it's hard to say if/when the AI will ever be able to catch up (esp. for things like canal ownership.)

Under player control the Axis side is pretty fun and the AI Allies put up a decent fight. The AI Allies utilize a fairly historical attack pattern and the fact that there are so many centers of power means that the AI Allies have lots of ways to mass their forces together, giving the AI big dogs more chances to break out.

Playing as Allies vs AI Axis however, Germany can be kind of a let down as an opponent. Weirdly it seems to be AI Italy, more than Germany that leads the AI Axis team in Europe. AI Japan is sort of hit or miss, I think it comes down to who prevails in the early contest along that Manchurian border, and how quickly their transports get picked off by the Dutch or Aussies or whoever. I've seen games where the Japanese steamroll their way to Siberia and others where they get booted off the mainland by the Chinese. I mean most of the difficulty level stuff can be handled with an AI bonus, so its more about the shape of things out of the first couple rounds.

Even with two human players though, having Denmark neutral in the opener is kind of tough. With the current distribution of forces Germany's only sensible option is to attack the British fleet immediately. If they attack with everything in range (including the air transport) its 99% with 7 units remaining. If they don't attack, and don't build up naval defense, then the chance they survive a British attack is only like 15%, so the choice is attack or run away. For some reason AI Germany doesn't seem to attack the British fleet anymore, it just bounces north out of harms way instead where it can't be reinforced. It's a bind because, even if G did attack, spending the whole fleet on the first turn also leaves them vulnerable, because those starting units are pretty much impossible to replace.

I like having options too, since the most entertaining part of the game is the chance to make departures from the history. That said, I guess the main thing I would suggest with respect to the common timeline/start date is that under the current scheme Paris falls on G1 every game, and historically that happens on June 14th, 1940. So if that's the deal then it makes sense historically for Scandinavia to already be under German control. Or at least to set it up such that the Denmark/Norway attacks are similarly routine. Trying to get the AI to do that consistently seems like kind of a tall order, which is why I thought maybe just giving it to G from the outset. I mean I definitely prefer them true neutral to pro-side, but having them under German control is pretty similar to having them true neutral, which is why I brought it up.

Just been running some tests to see how the AI handles the German naval situation.

Here is a typical example of what the Hard AI does under the normal conditions (here the Germans do take Denmark, but move their main fleet away)...
0_1521866803081_2.2 Hard AI test.tsvg

And here is one with a Scandinavia edit (Hard AI Germany attacks British fleet)...
0_1521867081293_2.2 Hard AI Danish Straits edit test.tsvg

Here is a typical example of what the Fast AI does (sends the main fleet north to take Russian convoy zone, Baltic fleet doesn't move)...
0_1521867380933_2.2 Fast AI test.tsvg

And here is how the Scandinavia edit looks with the Fast AI (attacks Russian fleet and retreats to Baltic)
0_1521867260372_2.2 Fast AI Danish Straits edit test.tsvg

To me the edit plays feel more convincing, at least on the water. Strangely the Germans always go really light into France, taking just the bare minimum to attack Paris at advantage, but not really enough to press very hard the following rounds. When the British survive this leads to a lot of dunkirk'n about on the part of the Allies hehe. Anyhow, just messing around. Clearly a human player can put together a much better attack plan, but would be nice if the AI script for G was little more solid. I think the size of the suggested AI bonus has to go up quite a bit depending on how much TUV AI Germany destroys in their opener. Like if they regularly work the British fleet, they probably don't need as much of a bonus to be competitive, but if the British fleet regularly survives, then we probably need a bigger bonus to compensate.

[Black_Elk]

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?

My initial impression is that the total amount of fuel in contention is too low. Granted this is based purely on games played vs the AI, but I suspect the same would hold for head to head games between two or more human players.

Right now if you hit the zero point where you run totally dry, there's usually not enough of those oil drums in range to make up the gap during subsequent rounds. Sacrificing expensive units to free up fuel for movement during future turns is pretty counter intuitive, and in some cases might not be possible even if you wanted to, because here's no kill button to scrap units. I guess you can always crash aircraft into the sea, but if you want to get rid of mech or ships etc. it still requires a way to battle, and there might be no enemy units in range for that.

The question I keep returning to is whether the strategic interest created by hard fuel restrictions is overshadowing the more general sense of gameplay enjoyment? like if you hit the wall too soon with fuel, or if the options for recovery are too limited, then most of the game is reduced to units that can't move, which gets old pretty quickly. Similarly if you can't purchase new fuel consuming units and move them around, then a big part of the active game is kind of undermined/transformed into static defense purchasing (like where the heavy hitters just stay in place at the point where they spawn.) That sort of stuff heavily favors the defender over the attacker, and makes an already grinding infantry push dynamic that you see in traditional A&A even more grinding. E.g. A defender can spawn tanks and fighters without expending fuel, but the attacker might have to move such units 3-4 spaces sucking up a shit ton of fuel before they can even reach a target.

Just as an example, Germany has what like 30+ fuel consuming units and 55 starting fuel? Each of those units has a range of at least 2 spaces. This means that if Germany moves everything they can 2 spaces, then they are out of fuel before the first turn is completed. Germany's available fuel production at the outset is 30. The only real targets of opportunity on the first turn to expand that are Algeria, Norway and Normandy worth 1 fuel each. So basically 33 tops, if everything goes well. If they go full lightning war in round one, then Germany can maybe move half their fuel units the full 2 spaces in the second round, which is basically grinding to halt before the game is even underway.

Honestly I think the fuel could be doubled across the board, meaning everywhere there is currently 1 barrel, there should be 2 barrels. Players need some kind of fuel cushion to work with, one which will assume that they are going to purchase lots of new units (beyond their starting forces) and wanting to move them around, at least for a couple rounds.

For historical distribution of actual oil across the map, that is pretty tricky to model. I like the way you have it done here. I favor gameplay over realism there, and just saying that any historical/realism anomalies are due to stockpiling. My understanding is that in the period covered by this game most of the worlds oil was being produced in North and South America. I think it was something like 200 metric tons coming out of the US, Mexico, Venezuela etc. with the rest of the world combined producing less than 100. That would be too uneven to make for very interesting land grabs or oil rich territory trading. So I like the current spread, and the current locations (they all seem plausible). I just think the flat totals should be increased for everyone, to facilitate more movement and larger swings when those oil producing territories trade hands.

One other thing... its still hard to tell at a glance how much oil production a player actually controls versus how much fuel they have on hand. Since this is now the most important resource in the game (arguably more than PUs even) it would be nice if there were separate economy columns showing Fuel/Fuel Production, the way that PUs/Production are listed separately in the main stats window. I think something like that would make it easier for players to parse those screens when they are looking at the starting fuel reserves, versus what they can recoup per round.

[wc_sumpton]

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?
@Frostion I have not played this map that much, unlike @Black_Elk. So what I say can be taken for a 'New' Player perspective. (Also I like digging around in the xml to see how other tackle their ideas.) So with that being said my thoughts on Fuel:

Most of the major powers (Germany, USSR, Britain, Japan, USA and Italy) could use a 50% increase in their start reserves. This IMOA would help move the game to the mid stages before Fuel became vital for these nations. Right now it feel like fuel is to important at the start of the game. Also I would increase the '1 Fuel-Barrel' to 2 or 3 in some places in Asia and Africa. It this was done then 10+ areas could be decreased a little. (Romania at 15 barrels represent half of Germanys production, and makes that area feel as if its more important the Berlin, and I feel like I need to reinforce there instead of expanding elsewhere.)

Denmark: I can see where @Black_Elk is coming from. The unit in the North Sea and Baltic Sea can not reinforce each other until one turn after Denmark's capture. The Russian fleet is not that big of a problem, but Britain can really hurt Germany. Maybe giving Germany Denmark and reducing the combined fleet by a Cruiser or Destroyer so that Britain is still problematic.

Anti-Air Gun: Allowing it to move during CM as changed the unit from a defensive orientated weapon to offensive fodder. So I can see the problem in costing it out. Maybe removing its CM capabilities while retaining its defense of 1, or treating it more like an artillery unit (2/3/1) with a cost of 15PUs. (The German's were very quick with emplacing the 88.)

Just some thoughts

Cheers...

[redrum]

@black_elk Doesn't the bottom resource bar now show oil reserves/income? Or are you thinking about other players?

[Black_Elk]

Yeah for sure, the resources listed on the bottom left of the screen are definitely helpful for the current player. Only kink is when you want to see what the enemy is working with or what your allies have under their control. Seeing your own stuff is very helpful though since it can be hard to count on the fly otherwise, but I guess what I meant would be like reduplicating those parenthetical columns in the economy tab, so you could see not just what you have but what everyone else does too.

[redrum]

@black_elk Gotcha, that's what I thought you were getting at just wanted to be clear. I'd like to update the 'economy' tab to show both current amount and income for all resources like the bottom bar does.

[Black_Elk]

That would be sweet. Also really helpful if resource sharing (beyond PUs) was implemented in a map. Like knowing how much an Ally has on reserve vs what they can produce. Or same deal when trying to contain the opponents team. Right now my shorthand for purchasing is that, whatever my total fuel production, I divide that in half to determine how many fuel consuming units I can actually afford to field. So sort of the same deal for the enemy. If the fuel units are equal to or greater than the total fuel production it tells me that they'll only be able to move like half their stuff in a given round before running dry. So definitely useful info to have when positioning, esp. for defense.

[redrum]

@black_elk Yeah, one other thing I thought might be useful is having a 'max fuel consumed' that would show in order to move all my existing units their maximum movement how much fuel would that consume. So that I can as a player compare that to my income to determine if I want to buy more fuel consuming units or even consider taking some as casualties.

[Black_Elk]

@wc_sumpton said in Iron War - Official Thread:

Most of the major powers (Germany, USSR, Britain, Japan, USA and Italy) could use a 50% increase in their start reserves. This IMOA would help move the game to the mid stages before Fuel became vital for these nations. Right now it feel like fuel is to important at the start of the game. Also I would increase the '1 Fuel-Barrel' to 2 or 3 in some places in Asia and Africa. It this was done then 10+ areas could be decreased a little. (Romania at 15 barrels represent half of Germanys production, and makes that area feel as if its more important the Berlin, and I feel like I need to reinforce there instead of expanding elsewhere.)

Yeah I feel the same, more of the existing fuel could be pushed out from the core to the periphery so that it is in contention. But I still think the current fuel production totals are too low for the number of starting units, the scale of the economy overall, and the expected attrition levels for fuel consuming units in the early rounds.

I feel like currently the fuel production design is such that most nations will only be able to move their starting fuel units 1 space per turn, when they really need to be moving 2 spaces per turn. This is particularly the case for powers with navies (even smaller navies like British India or ANZAC.) Most nations have barely enough fuel to move their starting forces, let alone enough oil production to justify purchasing new fuel units.

If 1 fuel= 1 movement, then I think the baseline should be oil drums that are worth 2. In other words, if you take a territory with an oil drum, then you can buy a tank and move it 2 spaces every turn off that drum. Just seems simpler to read and understand at a glance.

Upping the starting fuel would definitely help, but I worry that without upping fuel production too that might just create added frustration in the midgame, when there are suddenly way more units on the board than can be moved, but players can't actually reach each other to start destroying stuff hehe.

I also like that last idea floated by redrum about the max fuel consumed thing. Basically whatever that number is for the starting units in play, then that's the amount of oil production the nation should probably have. Either that or the starting fuel reserves need to be really huge to cover the gap. Otherwise the purchasing game is kinda shot, and it becomes just about managing the starting units and less about what to buy for next round.

My feeling is that each nation should have enough fuel production such that, if they lost no fuel units in combat and bought no new fuel units, then they should be able to move their starting stuff around without worrying overmuch. That way the pacing around fuel is driven more by the new unit purchases rather than the starting units, so players can learn to manage their totals as they go, instead of starting out in the red. I think it will serve the gameplay, and help with the learning curve, especially since all the fuel stuff is kind of new. To frame it another way, a new player should experience running dry as like "damn I guess I can't really afford to move that new cruiser I just bought" instead of "oh fuck, how come half of my navy is suddenly stuck in the middle of the ocean!?!" Or again, a decision like "which should I move, that new heavy tank or that new fighter?" instead of having to choose on a mass scale between moving the entire air force or the entire mobile ground force in a given turn. Basically something more incremental and forgiving that you can learn as you go, instead of being all front loaded.