Iron War - Official Thread

[Black_Elk]

possibly related...

Saw something in this Solo Japan game of Iron War, where the US AI in round 3 placement phase attempts to place 2 bombers and 1 dive bomber in the Hawaiian sea zone, only to have them crash into the water because there is no landing spot available on the carrier.

So basically AI just threw 78 PU's into the ocean to no purpose hehe. I think I've seen this happen before with the AI attempting to place air transports in the water too. Often the AI's turns happen so fast it is hard to tell when it happens, but there is definitely TUV lost in the water mysteriously.
0_1495644060355_Elk Japan vs AI Allies US bomber placement on carrier error.tsvg

[redrum]

@Black_Elk There is definitely an AI bug there. It appears that the issue is the AI runs out of resources to be able to build all sea units after purchasing a few so only can afford air units in the Hawaiian SZ. It actually realizes there isn't enough carrier room but there is a bug that even though all air units have a 0% chance of being purchased it still selects one of them randomly! Essentially, this is just a rare edge case that has to do with not handling when only air units are available to purchase based on resources in a SZ and none of them have carrier space. This pretty much never happens on 99% of maps since they have cheap sea units like subs or destroyers that would always be available.

[Black_Elk]

@redrum Right on. I was wondering what it could be. Managing steel consumption for ships can be a real challenge, so I can see how the AI might botch it occasionally. Even the lowly patrol boat is a steel hog hehe.

Well, for the glory of the Empire I kept it going until Axis economic victory at the end of the 15th round. I was surprised it took so long, since Japan got pretty rich gobbling up Russia. At this point in 1947, India is like the lone hold out standing in the way of complete Japanese domination of Asia.
0_1495654071250_Elk Japan vs AI Allies Japan 16.tsvg

[redrum]

@Black_Elk This is now fixed with PR: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/1752. Please test once that is merged. I saved the game right before the US turn and used that to reproduce the bug and then verify the AI doesn't do it after the change: 0_1495673931642_test.tsvg

Hopefully, no more throwing away TUV into the ocean

[redrum]

@Frostion Thanks for opening the issue: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/1751. I'll take a look and see how much effort that would be to implement.

Also after fixing the bug @Black_Elk reported, I ran a test game with all Fast AI for 17 rounds with no errors and it was pretty much dead even on TUV.

[Black_Elk]

Just started my first game with the pre-release TripleA-1.9.0.0.4385

Playing a German solo vs the Hard AI for the Majors and Fast AI for the minors. Happy to report the fighters are now placing on the carriers as they should, and haven't had any issues yet with the bombers or air transports. Also enjoying the save after non combat feature, since I'm constantly forgetting AA guns and such, it's pretty convenient. I gave the AI Allies each a 20% income boost and they're fighting pretty well so far. I figured it would probably be smart to try and win the battle of the Atlantic, so I've been positioning for a G4 Sea Lion. Here it is in later 1941 on the eve of the Invasion of England...
0_1495874749382_Elk Germany vs Hard AI x20 percent income G4.tsvg

A few rounds later in 1944. The Soviets have just crushed Finland, but are starting to fold up at the center after I launched an amphibious invasion with German mech to take Siberia. Meanwhile Italy has just pushed through into Stalingrad, so it seems the tide may be turning on the Eastern Front at long last. On the other side of the globe Japan still has quite a bit to contend with, as the Allies now have like 30+ fighters roaming about in the backyard hehe. They were all ganging up at Midway for a hot minute, but just got ALSIB'ed over to the Soviet Far East, where they're sure to cause Axis some headaches. Pretty fun so far!
0_1495880153032_Elk Germany vs Hard AI x20 percent income G10.tsvg

[redrum]

@Frostion While fixing the choosing air units for newly built carrier issues, I decided to tackle another issue that has been around and reported for a long time regarding being able to select which factory you use when multiple factories are adjacent to a sea zone.

Here is the PR fixing the issue and once its merged folks can test the functionality: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/1766

[Hepps]

@redrum Glad you caught that. That issue has in fact been around for a long while.

And though you can work around it... a permanent solution would be a great step forward.

[Frostion]

@redrum
Yes, that is a feature people have been missing. I will look forward to testing this engine improvement. We got a saying in my country: "Many small creeks make a big stream" ...

[redrum]

@Frostion @Hepps The PR is merged so feel free to test it out the latest pre-release and let me know what you think.

[Black_Elk]

Got another match going, this time using the TripleA-1.9.0.0.4461 pre-release. Solo game as Japan vs the Hard/Fast AI. I assigned each of the Allies x20 percent income.

So far I've been pretty impressed with the German AI, not sure if they've just been randomly lucky this time, or if its the most recent AI improvements, but this is the first game where I've seen them actually gun for Scandinavia. They've also managed to be more effective with the Kriegsmarine than usual, even transporting up to northern Russia.

Meanwhile the Allies are stacking pretty deep. The Australians in particular have been developing a pretty formidable air force. They have like a dozen fighters creeping around in the Dutch East Indies, and sent a tank all the way to South Africa haha. I think this game kind of shows what I was talking about in the other thread, about how Japan really gets pulled in a lot of directions at once. I like this, because it means by the time you knock of your second minor Ally, the remaining Allies are usually pretty beefy, especially if you give em a little economic boost haha. Anyhow, so far so good, I haven't noticed any major goofs, the AI is probably still buying too many air transports and patrol boats, but they're still pretty effective. Fun stuff!

Here we are in the 6th round, 1942, about to snake India.
0_1496323436559_Iron War Elk Japan vs Hard AI Allies x20 income J6.tsvg

[Frostion]

Interesting save game. You make it look so easy to beat up the AI! It is a shame that the AI seems to not handle stacking up for invasions very well. AI seems too often do a small half hearted invasions into France and then get beaten back by Germany soon after.

[redrum]

@Frostion So the AI in general likes to trade territories (most cases its better to be a little overly aggressive than do nothing). In this particular case, the major problem is that it doesn't realize the territory ownership goes back to the French who unfortunately never collects the income as their turn is after both Italy and Germany who take it back (if the French were right after UK or if UK got ownership instead then I'd argue its probably a good move as territories in France have decent production). Turn order consideration and original territory owner is something the AI needs improvements on.

[Black_Elk]

Yeah it took me little while to adapt to the Iron War production conditions compared to the smaller A&A maps like v5. I think the AI is pretty aggressive and willing to trade units in the near term, but the exploit there is that the unit replacement rate is relatively low compared to the value of most individual territories. The big change getting my head around was how to create proper deadzones with infantry. So like in v5 where infantry costs 3 PUs, attrition back and forth over low value territories is easier to sustain, because you can draw up more cheap units pretty quickly. Even a 1 ipc tile will give you a swing that's about 1/3rds the replacement cost of the cheapest fodder unit there. But in Iron War infantry is considerably more valuable, since 1 PU gained only nets you 1/10th the replacement cost of the cheapest fodder unit and the cap at 5 units per factory also factors into it. So I think the AI is more vulnerable to stack pushing here than in A&A. Usually the strategy I employ is to try and conserve and concentrate like all my starting TUV and push it in one direction at a time, whereas the AI seems more inclined to break their stacks apart and to trade high value ground units for short term PU gains at a loss. On the water the AI will only attack at a clear advantage, so I just try to keep all my naval units together as a deterent to push them back. Usually they break formation at some point, where one of the Allied members of a joint fleet will flee the sea zone leaving another Ally exposed. So I try to pick them apart like that, using concentrated attack power when I have like 90% to 100% odds to wipe them while taking minimal casualties. Then just pull back again and save fuel while I wait for another opening to crush. Basically the best way to screw the AI is through turn order exploits, where you fly in a shit ton of fighter attack power and then spook the AI into a premature withdrawal where they leave their buddies exposed haha. I think the income boost definitely does help quite a bit though. Because the AI seems to buy a lot more aircraft of its own in that case, and factories too, when they have extra cash to throw around.

I think there is probably a number (x percent) where the AI can overcome it's usual strategic disadvantages through massive fighter spams. Probably I need to start going a little higher than 20% to really give the AI a chance. But I figured it was a good place to start, since adding a 5th of total income each round definitely allows the AI to start developing more mobile attack/defense power. I'll probably jump it up to 25% then 33% then 50%, until I get to the point where the AI can run the board half the time haha. I'm pretty sure that at 100% the AI will pull away and probably kick my ass consistently. So not sure I'm ready to go there yet, since it's kind of fun to stomp em.

[redrum]

@Black_Elk Yep, another good point. The AI has primarily been tested on A&A and NWO/WaW types units sets that have very cheap fodder units in comparison to production values. This tends to promote trading territories to get that production. The AI calculations need to take into account better how much the units are worth that its 'sacrificing' to trade territories vs how much those territories are worth.

[Frostion]

I have never really given that much thought to turn order. The only thing I have tried is to let the “colony” players be after their main player. So maybe we should try to figure out what turn order would be best fitting to Iron War and not lead to to many futile AI captures of territories and too many “leaving allies in a bad position”. @Black_Elk, do you have any suggestions? I think Germany up to USSR is fixed, but everything after that is open for discussion. And maybe also Thailand has to be after Japan. Here is a list we can alter:

Germany (Locked)
Slovakia (Locked)
Hungary (Locked)
Romania (Locked)
Bulgaria (Locked)
Croatia (Locked)
USSR (Locked)
Finland
France
French-Colonies
Italy
Britain
British-Colonies
South-Africa
British-India
Iraq
Iran
ANZAC
KNIL
China
Japan (Locked in regards to Thailand)
Thailand (Locked in regards to Japan)
USA
Brazil
AI-Neutral (Locked)
AI-Pro-Axis-Neutral (Locked)
AI-Pro-Allies-Neutral (Locked)

[Black_Elk]

I actually dig the turn order you have going currently, since it blocks the minors together with their majors thematically, and produces a nice play pattern.

The only changes I would consider would be having Brazil move right before the USA instead of right after. And shifting France to be right after Britain instead of before. On a strategic level the Brazil thing probably doesn't make any difference to the Allies, but there is something a little anticlimactic about the game round ending with a minor player nation like Brazil haha. Closing the round with USA I think might have more impact.

With France after Britain, you'd have a D-Day sequence that is basically Britain takes, USA reinforces, with France getting a chance to collect or build in the middle.

Another option would be to have France go after the US, but then you kind of end up with that anticlimax I just mentioned, where instead of Brazil it would be the French, and you'd still have their colonies to deal with. So I think French after British would probably be more fun and more pleasing for the gamepace.

The issue there is how to deal with Italy. Right now they feel pretty powerful, so perhaps shifting Britain forward would work?

Germany
Slovakia
Hungary
Romania
Bulgaria
Croatia
USSR
Finland
Britain
British-Colonies (change to Canada?)
France
French-Colonies
Italy
South-Africa
British-India
Iraq
Iran
ANZAC
KNIL
China
Japan
Thailand
Brazil
USA
AI-Neutral
AI-Pro-Axis-Neutral
AI-Pro-Allies-Neutral

This creates a break between British/British Colonies, and South Africa/India with Italy sandwiched between them. But that might not be so bad. Since right now South Africa and British Colonies feel kind of similar. Having them separated by Italy might create some more interest for each.

(Edit: I was just thinking that it might make sense to split up Iraq and Iran. They feel pretty similar right now. Maybe sticking one of them between the British and French in the sequence I proposed above would help to distinguish them each other.)

Ps. If you ever decide to add Canada, I would put it after Britain, in place of British Colonies and then just make those British instead of the stuff in North America. This might help with an issue I see from the AI, where as soon as Britain is cut off, they start spending all their loot in Victoria with a ton of TUV sent to support Russia against Japan, rather than spending it at home vs Germany or Italy.

The Victoria factory, while cool, creates a somewhat ahistorical play pattern because of this. Since during the actual war the Canadian navy was entirely oriented on the Atlantic. I suppose its not totally necessary to force that same decision on the player, but at least as far as the AI is concerned, this pacific factory becomes the main production hub for the British after a few rounds, even when they still have good build options in the Atlantic. Similarly by making British Colonies directly British I think you can offset the loss of Canadian resources, such that both become more viable as interesting players. Canada could be another Allied bulwark, assisting in the D-Day thing to prop up France, which would be cool. While the British would have some more options to fight Italy and be able support the French in Africa.

Right now there are like 50 production in British Canada, whereas British Colonies has only 25. But I honestly think you could just increase the value of England or Scotland or other British possessions in Europe to make up for the disparity.

Newfoundland and Labrador should properly be controlled by the British, since they were not technically part of Canada at this time, but administered as a royal commission, whereas Canada was a Dominion. In gameplay terms this would allow you to maintain a nice direct source of steel for the British.

Canadians are always get burned in these games. I think having Canada as a distinct player-nation might increase the popularity of the map just all by itself. If only because a lot of A&A players are Canadian, and Canada is consistently assigned to British control in these games despite a clear desire by Canadian players to have some national recognition hehe. I'm not Canadian myself, but I've heard enough about it from others to feel their pain on this one. Their flag at the time was the Red Ensign, which would end up looking rather more like British India, but the two are far enough apart that it might not make any noticeable difference, if you just duplicated the unit set, removed the Sikh colonial looking dudes, and maybe just tinted the flag to a darker shade of red or something. Their flag at the time looked like this... Which when shrunk down would probably be pretty close to the British-India flag, though the insignia crest does have a different shape, and a bit of green and blue in there, which might help to distinguish it with a pixel or two. Or you could tint the units themselves to make them easier to differentiate.

[prastle]

@Black_Elk I like has my vote. I am awaiting to see an interesting Brazil. i think they are undervalued and have big hopes and dreams

@Frostion should i try to update the bots this weekend? 1.6 the sticker for now?

[prastle]

all bots updated and ak's thxs @AmericanKnight

[Black_Elk]

I had another thought just now related to Turn order, and to the Balkans minors, (before they are fully put to bed with the German take-over option haha.)

You have enough player slots here that you could basically create a turn order that had a consistent alternation between the Axis team and the Allied team, if you unlocked the Balkans and spread them out across the turn sequence.

Part of the issue I see with the Balkans has less to do with pacing (since I usually assign them all to the AI anyway) but rather parity with other nations across the game map. What I mean is that by including a relatively tiny nation like Slovakia, it makes the exclusion of a tiny Allied nation like Greece seem rather more conspicuous. It seems somehow even more pronounced with Canada being absent. By having them all grouped together, none of the Balkan nations feels truly distinct, and thus they lose a good deal of individual interest I think, which needn't necessarily be the case.

Below is what I think might be an ideal alternating sequence...

There are 12 Player Nations on each team. These could be alternating by pairs in the overall sequence (Axis then Allies). I removed British Colonies and French Colonies from the list, since I think they are the least interesting of the lot and could be pretty easily folded into their associated Major nation. Instead I added Greece and Canada as an idea to explore, since I think they might help make North America and the Balkans a bit more entertaining.

1. Germany Axis
2. Slovakia Axis
3. USSR Allies
4. Greece Allies
5. Finland Axis
6. Hungary Axis
7. Britain Allies
8. Canada Allies
9. Romania Axis
10. Iraq Axis
11. France Allies
12. China Allies
13. Italy Axis
14. Croatia Axis
15. South-Africa Allies
16. British-India Allies
17. Iran Axis
18. Bulgaria Axis
19. ANZAC Allies
20. KNIL Allies
21. Japan Axis
22. Thailand Axis
23. Brazil Allies
24. USA Allies
    AI-Neutral
    AI-Pro-Axis-Neutral
    AI-Pro-Allies-Neutral

You could of course switch any of those around, so that they pair up differently, but the idea was that you'd have 2 Axis at a time, then 2 Allies, so the sequence is broken up evenly by teams. Or if you prefer you could do the same but have 3 Axis at a time, then 3 Allies, since 12 on each team would divide neatly by blocks in the sequence.

3 at a time might actually be nice for the flow and the play pace. I just need to think for a second what it might look haha. How about something like...

1. Germany Axis
2. Slovakia Axis
3. Hungary Axis
4. USSR Allies
5. Greece Allies
6. China Allies
7. Finland Axis
8. Romania Axis
9. Iraq Axis
10. Britain Allies
11. Canada Allies
12. France Allies
13. Italy Axis
14. Croatia Axis
15. Bulgaria Axis
16. South-Africa Allies
17. British-India Allies
18. ANZAC Allies
19. Japan Axis
20. Thailand Axis
21. Iran Axis
22. KNIL Allies
23. Brazil Allies
24. USA Allies
    AI-Neutral
    AI-Pro-Axis-Neutral
    AI-Pro-Allies-Neutral

Broken up like that, I think there is a better chance that Balkans nations (and other minors) would feel a bit more unique, simply by virtue of having a more specialized slot in the overall sequence. In a multiplayer PvP game it would be a little easier to break everyone up into blocks, so its easier to manage all the nations on offer. Or if using the AI to augment your own team, you could just pick 1 of the 3 nations in each block and play them, leaving the rest to the machine, things of that sort. Or again, you could break them into blocks of 4 if you wanted. The Basic idea is the same, that instead of thinking about individual nations, players could approach it as a player block, which I think might help to make the scale of the game feel somehow less daunting.

Hell since I'm all into making the lists. I'll draft another with blocks of 4...

I should emphasize the reason why I'm not that into the British Colonies and French Colonies, is because they just don't seem as cool thematically, when you already have Britain and France in play. Its just harder to get excited about them as "Colonies" for some reason. Or at least that has been my feeling so far. But somehow South Africa or KNIL (which offer pretty much the same style of gameplay as the British Colonies/French Colonies) each feels somehow cooler, I guess because it's named with that independent streak. You can kind of get into the narrative and imagine them becoming big dogs of their own, whereas with the Colonies its kind of like I just wish their production/income was going to the mother country hehe. Anyhow, this was my initial thought for a sequence with 4 nation blocks...

1. Germany Axis
2. Slovakia Axis
3. Hungary Axis
4. Iraq Axis
5. USSR Allies
6. Greece Allies
7. Britain Allies
8. France Allies
9. Italy Axis
10. Bulgaria Axis
11. Croatia Axis
12. Finland Axis
13. Canada Allies
14. South-Africa Allies
15. British-India Allies
16. ANZAC Allies
17. Japan Axis
18. Thailand Axis
19. Iran Axis
20. Romania Axis
21. China Allies
22. KNIL Allies
23. Brazil Allies
24. USA Allies

AI-Neutral
AI-Pro-Axis-Neutral
AI-Pro-Allies-Neutral

This last with blocks of 4 per team, would probably be optimal for anyone who wanted to try playing this game PBEM or PBF, if they went head to head against another human, where every nation is human controlled. In a PBEM/PBF game there would basically be 6 exchanges per game round. Which is pretty concise considering how massive the map is. Similarly if you were playing the game live (whether vs the AI or another human opponent) you'd have a nice 6 block sequence to groove into. I think it would help to make the otherwise lackluster Balkan minors, feel somehow more relevant to the action, if a few them were paired up with Italy and Japan, rather than all just locked into the German block.

This might also give you a cool way to do more music during each block, where instead of muting the anthems for the AI, you just choose 1 anthem per block at random, and let that play while the AI makes its moves. The thing I miss most when playing Solo games vs the AI, is the lack of music, since I think the sound work is one of the slicker things this game has going for it.

Of the suggestions above I think I like this 4 nation block sequence best, since it streamlines things quite a bit. Just feels somehow more polished to me with the player-nations being evenly distributed for each team in sequence. Again you could certainly try different groupings for each block of 4, this just seemed like one that might be kind of fun for the D-Day idea. Basically I grouped Britain with France and Russia (along with Greece which likely gets destroyed) since it seemed like a fairly quick turn. Then all the British Dominions move together in a single Block. And Finally the China/USA block (with minors Brazil and KNIL attached) to close out the round.

I think you could probably rearrange the Axis blocks in different ways to create a unique gameplay interest for nations like Finland or Iraq or Bulgaria etc depending on your tastes, but the basic idea would be to have each Axis block providing some degree of global interest. I know early on you mentioned that some of these minors were kind of designed specifically not to be compelling (so that the player would assign them to AI control) but I'm not sure that's the best way to go. Ideally if the nation is included, it should have some kind of chance to shine, at least on rare occasions, where their spot in the turn order sequence allows them to do stuff to help the rest of their team. Same deal for the Allies, with nations like France, South Africa, KNIL etc.