Iron War - Official Thread
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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-NeutralThis 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.
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@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?
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all bots updated and ak's thxs @AmericanKnight
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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.
- Germany Axis
- Slovakia Axis
- USSR Allies
- Greece Allies
- Finland Axis
- Hungary Axis
- Britain Allies
- Canada Allies
- Romania Axis
- Iraq Axis
- France Allies
- China Allies
- Italy Axis
- Croatia Axis
- South-Africa Allies
- British-India Allies
- Iran Axis
- Bulgaria Axis
- ANZAC Allies
- KNIL Allies
- Japan Axis
- Thailand Axis
- Brazil Allies
- 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...
- Germany Axis
- Slovakia Axis
- Hungary Axis
- USSR Allies
- Greece Allies
- China Allies
- Finland Axis
- Romania Axis
- Iraq Axis
- Britain Allies
- Canada Allies
- France Allies
- Italy Axis
- Croatia Axis
- Bulgaria Axis
- South-Africa Allies
- British-India Allies
- ANZAC Allies
- Japan Axis
- Thailand Axis
- Iran Axis
- KNIL Allies
- Brazil Allies
- 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...
- Germany Axis
- Slovakia Axis
- Hungary Axis
- Iraq Axis
- USSR Allies
- Greece Allies
- Britain Allies
- France Allies
- Italy Axis
- Bulgaria Axis
- Croatia Axis
- Finland Axis
- Canada Allies
- South-Africa Allies
- British-India Allies
- ANZAC Allies
- Japan Axis
- Thailand Axis
- Iran Axis
- Romania Axis
- China Allies
- KNIL Allies
- Brazil Allies
- USA Allies
AI-Neutral
AI-Pro-Axis-Neutral
AI-Pro-Allies-NeutralThis 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.
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@Black_Elk ... I don't know which one of the "block" idea are best, but I think it would be good as you say for Play By Email and Forum games to bundle players. I would never have thought of that by myself. That mixed with some UK/French cooperation in regards to invasion of Europe. I will have to play around with the turn order list myself a bit.
I know it is a shame that the music control in Triplea is so primitive. I like to have music in my maps, and especially Iron War has a nice music collection. A great feature would be if music of each nation played for all players and was just cut off when a new player started a turn. I don't think sound effects mean that much to most players, and the trigger that plays the music (start your turn series) is probably not meant for music. In regards to sounds and music the options are pretty few.
I am thinking of removing the Balkans are German thing. Instead lower the PU values of the countries to around 2-5 and remove the Balkan countries dependency on factories, and let them place in their territory with no use of factory. I mean it is supposed to be German produced gear anyway. This way there are not five 5+ PU territories in the region, Maybe only one for USSR to take control of.
I made Greece and Albania for the Europe map, so they could also enter the World map. But I am not sure. This could introduce new burdens of micromanagement, even though it would be Italian and UK maybe.
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For turn order I think the most important thing that creates game play interest is who will can-open in sequence, or similarly who can provide air defense in sequence.
What usually happens is that Japan will try to fly over to Italy or Germany or vice versa, where you get kind of gamey moves on D, but its usually too potent to be ignored. Similarly for the can-opening, big plays usually involve Germany or Japan breaking the line, and then somebody else blitzing about. It's fun even if it leads to the checker board expansion pattern.
One thought I had, was that by giving each player block something to do across multiple regions of the globe, it will help them to focus on global coordination. Since each dude on the team would have at least one minor in his block, on either side of the map. Mainly for variety each turn, but also to help keep people trained on all the various contests across the gamemap, so each block has like one or more Major, and at least one Minor farther away from home base. Trying to give each block like a couple areas to focus on.
I don't mind the +5 in the Balkans so much myself. I think its kind of cool how if you can somehow get forward with the Russians, or land in the Balkans with the Western Allies, that it opens up factory options for them. Usually its like the reverse where G is forward, and the Balkans dudes back them up. Not sure how not needing factories would effect how they work, but I think it might be kind of confusing for units to enter play here in ways that are substantially different than for elsewhere on the map. Guess I'd have to see it in action, but I don't really think the Balkans need a special treatment. As Allies its kind of fun to torch their factories if you can manage hehe. Unless the no factory thing somehow works elsewhere too, so it's not like a one off. I kind of like it how everyone has the same basic treatment, and enjoy how the factory unit works and can be destroyed. Gives me something to do with the bombers, or the tanks/mech to try and make clutch blitz maneuvers. Was never a big fan of special China rules for example hehe, so I'd be for like more factories probably rather than fewer, if only to serve as targets for the other side.. But so far I dig it, whatever the plan, I'm sure it will end up pretty glorious.
Oh one other thought, is that the turn order blocks give some good options for canal control. Right now its pretty simple for Axis to gain control of all the major canals and naval choke points pretty quickly. Opening Instanbul or Suez, or closing Gibraltar is pretty big time. Maybe Singapore should be a canal? This would give British India or Anzac a reason to really focus on it.
The straits of Malacca could control movement between the Gulf of Thailand Sz and the Bay of Bengal Sz. Would give both sides an incentive to put Singapore into contention, to disrupt naval movement between the Pacific and Indian Ocean, similar to the way Sumatra works right now with the Sunda Strait.
All I can think of at the moment haha. Gotta crash for work tomorrow. Catch you next round!
Great work on this one! Its my favorite way to spend the insomniac hours right now. Just finished downloading the latest pre-release to try again with the AI.
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@Black_Elk I also prefer all players to play by the same rules for simplicity. At the same time it does seem kind of troublesome to have that many tiny Balkan nations on the World map. I personally would just let the AI handle them but it seems that some players don't like the AI to be involved in their games and want all players under human control.
I also thought about making the five balkan states into one big "Axis Affiliates" or "Balkan states" player with capital in Romania. They could have an alternative version of the German flag (Maybe a green version?) and use the Romanian infantry. (I read that Romania lost 370,000 men on the eastern front) What would you think of that idea?
The Balkan states will ofcours be implemented in the European map, so the unit and flag work will not be totally discarded
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Yeah I dig having Romania in there. A Balkan block in Green would be pretty cool. I think that might be more compelling for the gameplay than just giving them straight to Germany. Provides a way to control the production in the area and probably simplified the turn order.
You can still get some nice groupings for the turn sequence, even if going down from like 24 nations to 20. I guess if you wanted to keep the teams somewhat equal, you could do a Balkans block for the Axis and then one for the Allies (Yugoslavia could be teamed up with Greece maybe? and just have a capital in Athens or something?) You could have like a little Balkans brawl there, where the Axis block are likely to prevail, but has to earn it a bit, by knocking off the Allied Balkan block. This could potentially get you down to a 4 gamesave exchange in PBEM/PBF play. Which is like the fastest you could probably do using this spread.
Here each Axis block has 4 nations, and each Allied has 6.
Germany Axis
Romania Balkans Axis
Finland Axis
Iraq AxisUSSR Allies
Greece Balkans Allies
Britain Allies
Canada Allies
South-Africa Allies
France AlliesItaly Axis
Iran Axis
Japan Axis
Thailand AxisBritish-India Allies
ANZAC Allies
KNIL
China
Brazil
USAAI-Neutral
AI-Pro-Axis-Neutral
AI-Pro-Allies-NeutralI'm not sure how it would feel pacing wise in a live game, but PBEM could be popular. Live the turns might be a little longer, but I expect that many will game vs the AI, or perhaps us AI for a co-op, so it would probably be fine.
I think somewhere 4-6 exchanges between teams would be ideal, its kind of the sweet spot where PBF play is still reasonably efficient, but the pace doesn't lag too hard live between turns. I think currently the turn order of the last Iron War oob sequence is 9 exchanges, which while dynamic live is kind of a lot for PBF/PBEM.
Or if wanted to you maybe switch Thailand and Finland, or Italy and Romania or something like that, but so each Axis block really something going on at either end of the board.
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Ok. Here is a new version of Iron war. The main new stuff is that the Balkan minor players are now one new player called “Balkan”.
Also, the map has a rearranged turn order that tries to make the map PBF/PBEM-firendly, and at the same time make it a bit easier for UK and France to cooperate when invading France. This new turn order tries to also move from theatre to theatre across the map, so it moves from Europe to Africa to Pacific to USA and so on.
I am considering making the straits of Malacca a trait controlled from the “Malaya” territory. But I think I will do a little work on the Europe map now, and let these new changes sink in first
V0.1.7 changes
• VC moved from Egypt to Somalia.
• Removed the Map Option “Balkan states are German”.
• Added player “Balkan” and removed the small Balkan players from the game. (They will return in Iron War: Europe!)
• Changed the colors of some nations
• Changed the order of play to have player turns be clustered in 3 axis and 3 allied phases.
• Some other minor changes and start setup. -
Just played a trial round to get my bearings. I dig it so far! Something aesthetically pleasing about the new color scheme. I like the look of the Balkans and the way their fleet in the black sea feels more cohesive. I like the new composition of the German fleet with fewer patrol boats too.
Also like the new color for Persia and British Colonies, much easier to read at a glance and on the mini-map (though I'd still wish for Canada instead of British Colonies haha.)
Have you given any thought to the whole Canada idea?
Right now the British turn is one of the fastest in the game round, and I feel like there just aren't a whole lot of interesting decisions for them to make. If their fleet is attacked by Germany it basically comes down to how many aircraft to buy, and where to position them. But even if their fleet survives, they have no starting transport capacity, so they can't really make a breakout. Compared to British-India for example, the British in Europe just feel kind of stuck with no real way to get in on the early action, other than air support to the Soviets. After the early push by Italy, British Colonies is basically reduced to just whatever they can get going out of Nigeria. There's not enough money to do much with British Guiana, and the British themselves are pretty strapped so it would seem kind of hard to justify sending any of it to the Colonies even if that was an option (which it isn't currently). I guess my attitude towards them is that any potential target territory in range of the lone British-Colonies transport is just better left to one of the other Allies.
This creates a really weird strategic situation, where all I want is for the British Colonies to be destroyed by Italy as soon as possible, so that a more effective Allied power can then reconquer these former British-Colonies territories and use the production directly. I think this could also be abused PvP, where you'd have an incentive to intentionally lose with the certain Minors, just so a Major teammate could gain their production later on. Or on the flip-side, where your opponent has an incentive not to take over one of your territories (that they might otherwise take in a heartbeat) because they don't want to "open up" this production and put it into play for an enemy Major to take over.
In a lot of instances I have the same feeling about Pro-side Neutrals, where what I really want is for the enemy to conquer these spaces, so I can retake direct control of them. This can seem a little weird, like where the Allies actually want lose Egypt or Riyadh or Mongolia, or the Axis are happy to lose Sweden or Afghanistan or Morocco, just so they can retake them later with a more effective nation. I think it might be simpler overall if there were no pro-side neutrals, even if this might require some re-balancing of the starting resources locations/amounts so that the starting economies still function properly. Right now, there are just a lot of places on the map where it is better overall for your team to lose control of a territory temporarily, so you can reconquer it later, rather than fighting to defend the territory from being taken in the first place.
Just for example, if I'm the USA, probably the best thing that could happen, would be for the Axis to foolishly take over British Guiana, Nigeria etc, so that I could then come crashing in to reconquer them and build a bunch of shiny new US factories in those formerly British-Colonies territories. Same deal with KNIL and the French Colonies, where what I really want is for Japan to eradicate them, so I can then retake their territories with the US. Similarly with Norway, it's almost better for the Allies if Germany overruns it early on, so you can then reconquer Scandinavia and increase income for the British or Americans in the process.
With that sort of stuff in mind, the notion of using British-Colonies to take a high value territory for production purposes to somehow make them more interesting to play (like say Morocco) just seems like a complete non-starter. Even if they start out with a dozen or so units, these are all scattered around, which makes it hard to think of using them for any real purpose other than as blockers or to help prop up France. So of course I just assign this player to the AI, (which I suppose is the idea), but it does seems like the British major could handle all these territories without making the play-pace drag, and might make the British turn a bit more engaging.
The British holdings in North America just kind of seem like an expedient for the UK having more cash or resources. But it doesn't really become relevant as a production center unless London is taken. If, on the other hand, the Canadian production was going to a separate Allied nation, maybe you could get a more consistent build up of naval forces in the N. Atlantic? Just a thought.
Otherwise I'd say this turn order and distribution of powers is pretty ideal.
Nice work man!
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ps. Quick heads up. The Japanese attack on the US fleet at Hawaii can be increased from around 60% to 80% if you bring the bomber from Tokyo into the fight.
Not sure whether this sort of attack is meant to be legal (the bomber has no landing spot without a carrier). Frankly I kind of like the simplicity of being able to crash into the sea if one wanted, as opposed to having hard restrictions on movement, so I don't really mind allowing for "kamikaze" type plays. My preference is for consistency and universal rules that work the same way for everyone.
In any case, I think for a newer map its hard to make anything player enforced, if the move is allowed, then its basically fair game. So I would expect to see this attack as pretty much scripted. Definitely knocks the USN down, since that's a lot of TUV to replace. It would take several rounds to rebuild a comparable fleet. My thought might be to split the USN fleet in two, so its a tougher decision on Japan. Do they knock out the Pearl Fleet but risk getting hit on the counter attack, or forego the attack and wait to see what happens? Similarly, the US would have to make a choice if they get attacked at pearl, on whether to counter attack, or cut their losses and rebuild somewhere in safety. So you'd have a little bit more dynamism built in there.
Here is the attack I mentioned... It's possible to make this play without committing the carrier, since you can bring it into position on non-combat if the Pearl Attack succeeds, or not if the Pearl Attack fails. This is rather similar to the Pearl Design of v5, which some have complained is kind of gamey, since it uses a carrier movement exploit that might not be immediately familiar.
The way it is now, the US fleet is almost guaranteed to put up at least one hit on defense, so if the Japanese sacrifice their bomber it's a pretty good trade, and they don't even have to move the carrier on non com for the move to still be technically "legal."
0_1496640841999_Iron War Elk Axis vs Hard AI Allies x25 income Japan 1.tsvg
Using the pre-release TripleA-1.9.0.0.4520
The simple solution would be to move the Japanese bomber. But I still think it would be more interesting if the US fleet was broken up, so it's less of a do or die situation. I like the idea of at least something remaining of the USN, even if the Japanese made a clean sweep at pearl.
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Pps. One final thought for the night. I think it would be better to just eliminate the dates during the film reels. I don't mind the idea of a start date, but I think it's kind of unnecessary to have a strict ongoing timeline.
Without dates, you don't have any issues with anachronisms (like Pearl Harbor occurring in 1940 instead of 1941, or D-Day happening in 1943 or whatever.) By not having scripted dates the player can imagine that a game round equates to whatever they want. More freedom for abstraction and flexibility for the narrative aspect. It would also get rid of the issue about whether a game round needs to be a season or a month or whatever, when you move from the World map to the Europe map.
You could do all the same sort of things, like tech advances, it just happens with a more vague Round "such and such", rather than a hard date line.
I think the first round could say "Round 1, early 1940," but the second should just read "Round 2." The third just "Round 3" and so on.
Done like that you don't have to answer the question of whether a given event occurs at a historically accurate time or not. The game round itself could expand or contract based on the players imagination rather than dictated by the prompt. So for example a Japanese attack on Pearl or the US entering the war early might not seem out of place, because Japan and the US are among of the last nations in sequence. Maybe the first round is accelerated? Maybe the second round represents a narrower slice of time? If you don't tell them "hey it's 1944 now" then there's no real issue, and they are free to come up with there own imaginary timeline to suit the individual game.
In other words, I don't see any real need to have consistent time frames such that the game round always represents the same amount of actual time (whether that's a year, half a year, a month or whatever.) If all you say is round 2, 3, 4 etc. it could be any of those slices of time. The player could then picture a timeline that matches their game, rather than trying to make their game match the timeline, if that makes sense.
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@Black_Elk
I want to keep Canada British on the World map as I can't see what player Britain should be doing if not administrating the whole of the North Atlantic.I know that the AI likes to build in British Columbia, and it is a bit strange to prioritise that. Maybe it is because Germany does not build fleets, I don't know. I made the option so humans players could have some strategic options.
Now was the Balkan minors issue has been handled, I have been thinking of removing the concept of minor players totally. This would mean strengthening the three colony players again and letting them keep regained lost territories. This would include giving other players options to support them with PUs
Alternatively the three colony players could be named like "AI-British-Colonies" etc. and have them all ways be AI controlled.
What do you think about that?
A totally game changing thing I have thought about is to implement the split PU and Navy PU thing that I have thought about doing in the Europe map. But this would be a major game changer thing.
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Well I guess the issue I have from a gameplay standpoint, is that the administration of the North Atlantic is kind of one dimensional right now. It doesn't really matter where the money or resources are coming from (basically Canada in this case), because when the time comes to place, the units are going to get dropped into England. The basic goals and target territories for the Allies in this area are such that is just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to purchase out of Halifax in the long term. You're better off for the most part just spamming aircraft in England and saving up (or trying to expand production somewhere closer to home like Morocco or Iceland) until the Americans arrive to do the dirty work on the water. Once you have a couple transports in position off Europe, Canadian production becomes almost totally irrelevant to the campaign in Europe, since it's just too much distance for viable transport shucks.
To my way of thinking the British turn would be a lot more fun, if they were oriented more on Africa and the Med. Trying to hold onto Suez and Gibraltar and developing air power along the West African Reinforcement Route, or building up naval TUV to protect their global trade routes to the home island. The Royal Navy had basically 6 regional Fleet Stations during the War...
Home Fleet: Home waters, i.e., North-East Atlantic, Irish Sea, North Sea, English Channel (sub-divided into commands and sub-commands)
Mediterranean Fleet: Mediterranean Sea (based at Alexandria for most of the early war).
South Atlantic Station and Cape of Good Hope Station: South Atlantic, West Africa and South African region.
America and West Indies Station: Western North Atlantic, Caribbean Sea.
East Indies Fleet: Indian Ocean (excluding Africa Station, Australian waters and waters adjacent to Dutch East Indies).
China Station / Eastern Fleet: North-west Pacific and waters around Dutch East Indies.
Taken together, these represented the largest combined fleet in the world at the outbreak of the War, spanning basically the entire globe, but administered essentially by Britain.
The Australian navy and the Canadian Navy had separate structures, and somewhat separate regions of opperation (often with coordinating commands). The former in the South Pacific, the latter in the North Atlantic.
Right now most of the British Royal Navy fleet stations are present in some form or another, even if the ships themselves are depicted (somewhat innacurately) as extensions of British-India, South Africa, or the British-Colonies. Notably absent however is the Mediterranean station, which was the largest fleet after the Home fleet, and the most prestigious command after the Home station.
I think part of what makes the British turn feel a bit dry is that they just don't have a whole lot of units to manage in a given round of play. And what they do have to work with is pretty narrowly focused on the region immediately surrounding England itself. In gameplay terms it makes them feel almost like a Minor Power rather than a Major one. Compared to Italy, which has a ton of stuff going on, Britain feels like a small fry. This is a little unfortunate because it would be nice if the British and Italians could duke it out, in the same way that Germany and Russia duke it out, where you have a kind of gameplay rivalry to concentrate on in the early phases of play.
I guess I still just feel like the Canada thing is a bit of a snub. Maybe it wouldn't feel that way if there weren't so many other commonwealth nations in the game. But when you have 2 in Africa and 2 in the Pacific, it just feels kind of weird that Canada is administered directly by Britain, when all these others are separate.
I suppose calling the Colonies, "AI-Colonies" is one way to go, if you really want to stress that they are not intended as true players. But I think that may be kind of tough for some people to accept. Having AI players built in by default puts some serious limitations on how the map can be played, since to my knowledge the PBEM/PBF system and the BOTs in the lobby aren't really capable of handling AI players right now.
And of course, some players are just kind of control freaks (especially if you are coming at it from a table top perspective strictly PvP, rather than a solo or co-op TBS computer game versus AI opponents) and so some might find the whole idea of ceding control to the machine just completely anathema to their style of play.
I don't know it's kind of a conundrum, but I guess I'd just be careful not to underestimate the aversion that some people might have to an active AI messing up their plans. It'd probably be a little different if the AI was passive, or if these nations were more like inactive neutrals. But if they're designed to be on the move, and can claim enemy territory, I think many would prefer to just take direct control. And in that case, it's ideal if each has some special gameplay interest that sets them apart.
Just out of curiosity, was there a particular reason to avoid having the British Colonies just being British, or the French Colonies just being French? Like I can imagine that if you wanted to force the player to build stuff in these regions (as opposed to just concentrating the income/resources in the primary region) there might be other solutions to that using production caps/bonuses with specialized 'colonial units' or 'colonial factories/bases' that can only be placed in territories that have some kind of Colonial marker (like with special flags or whatever) similar to the way you have CR territories in some places.
Then you could effectively force units to enter play in those territories, without requiring a separate player or a separate economy to make it happen.
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Ps. Another idea, if you wanted to give Britain something else to do, is to re-consider the treatment of Egypt. Even if it was declared unilaterally independent decades earlier, there were still thousands of British units stationed here, and the Italian campaign in Egypt was largely a battle between Italian and British forces (rather than the Egyptian army.) As soon as Italy invaded, the British snapped right back into the area with a quickness.
The way it is right now, Italy can amphibiously invade Egypt and take the Suez canal on their first turn, with no serious opposition either on land or at sea.
Because of the ease with which Italy can take the Suez canal their first turn, the round 1 script globally is built around a largely ahistorical play pattern. It's as if their campaign in 1940 was a stunning all out route of the British, with Italy virtually guaranteed to control the Eastern Med immediately. This leaves them free to do things that, had these occurred in the actual war, would have been major strategic victories for the Axis... Like closing off the Med at Gibraltar, taking over the entire Middle East, or forceably opening the Bosphorus to enter the Black Sea and smoke Southern Russia. All this happens as a matter of course currently, so Italy becomes pretty massive, sometimes eclipsing Germany as the preeminant Axis power in Europe.
Maybe if Egypt was British, and the fleet at Alexandria was represented, the play balance here would feel a bit more realistic historically? And then Britain would have plenty to keep them pre-occupied, enough that it might accommodate the inclusion of Canada to truly round out the Allied team.
Certainly by this time in 1940, Britain was doing basically whatever it had to in Egypt. Regardless of what the stated political situation might have been, the reality was that they were stationing troops and naval forces here, as if Egypt was still a crown colony haha.
Egypt/Cairo as a Pro-Allied neutral might be novel as a political/historical geography lesson, but it's kind of distorting for the overall historical play pattern and creating a realistic script for the start date.
Having Egypt as a starting British territory on the other hand, might also make the Italian gameplay more interesting. Currently Egypt is a blowout, and so Italy is free to reorient immediately on campaigns out of Somalia, to rock Africa or the Middle East, or to assist Germany against Russia or Japan against India. What should probably be Italy's primary achievement in the game (taking Suez and linking Italian East Africa with the rest of their Med empire) invariably happens within the first two turns. So it's kind of like, all the big fireworks here are over before it even gets dark outside haha.
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Ok rather than try to explain it in words, I thought it might be simpler to just edit some stuff and then make a game save for the visual.
Here I I gave control of Canada (with the exception of Newfoundland and Labrador) to British-Colonies. And then reassigned all of the British-Colonies territories (and Egypt) to the British.
Added a British-Fleet to the Eastern Med, and a starting British factory for Egypt. It's just a draft concept. Not sure what the exact unit distribution should be, but since the British move first, it seemed like Italy should have a considerable TUV advantage. The difference here is that Britain has something to work with to counter it. Also gave the British a fighter in Nigeria to represent the W.A.R.R. (West African Reinforcement Route) which was a supply chain that brought British fighters into the region.
These alterations created a new basic production spread with 38 PU's for Canada (British-Colonies) and 67 PU's for the British, both of which seemed slightly low. So I increased the starting income for each to make up some of the disparity and then assigned a 33 percent bonus, to try an represent what it might look like if they had like more valuable capitals. My solution for an actual re-draft would just be to increase the value of a couple core territories, to make each player-nation more viable.
0_1496695369273_Iron War with Egypt British and Canada separate G1.tsvg
That was a the concept that I thought might be fun...
In any case this seemed like an interesting way to test stuff out. I'm currently running an AI simulation where I gave the British and Canada (British-Colonies) a 33% income boost just for them and left all the rest as normal. Set everyone to AI control except Balkans, just so I'd have a point in the round to make a convenient save hehe. I'll report back with how it ends up after a couple rounds.
Here below is what the AI did in the first round...
Basically the British Med fleet pulled back to the Indian Ocean to destroy the Italian fleet off Somalia and then built ground defense for Egypt, while Italy advanced on Alexandria and Syria in the Med. Somehow it already feels like an interesting contest and somewhat historically grounded here in the Med.
Canada (British-Colonies) on the other hand, spent all their starting cash on fighters in Victoria. I think this may demonstrate what's going with the AI currently. Because the route from Victoria into the Soviet Far East is much shorter than the route from Halifax across the Atlantic to Europe/Africa, I suspect that the AI is always going to push this direction. My solution would be to remove the starting factory (while still keeping the territory at +5.) This would allow a human player to expand production if desired, but might help to keep the AI focused in the right direction. I may run another first round test soon just to see what happens if the Victoria factory is removed.
0_1496695937018_Iron War with Egypt British and Canada separate AI test Balkan round 2.tsvg
Using TripleA-1.9.0.0.4564
OK I tried it again, this time with no starting Factory in Victoria. The Canadians (British-Colonies) immediately purchased 5 fighters at Halifax, so hopefully this will finally jumpstart the Atlantic. Fingers crossed!
I'm not sure what might happen if the AI decides to buy a new factory for Victoria (as I suspect once that happens they might revert to the old pattern.) I think what you will have to do if that keeps happening is maybe reduce the value of Victoria to 4 PUs, so that it is no longer Factory viable, otherwise I don't know if we can get the AI to consistently do what you want and develop naval TUV for the Atlantic. If needed, I might offset the loss of this factory by increasing the value of USA Northwest to +5 and giving them the factory instead, so that they can manage a proper defense of the West Coast.
*Note how even the Japanese AI will bring their bomber into the attack on the US fleet at Hawaii (that exploit I mentioned earlier.)
But for right now, getting rid of the Victoria factory seems to be doing the trick, at least for the opener. Anyhow here is the game save after the first round...
0_1496698067083_Iron War with Egypt British and Canada separate No Victoria Balkan round 2.tsvg
Hmmm OK back to the drawing board. The AI keeps sending fighters from Halifax to California. But I gotta say the Med situation is going pretty awesome. Things are building up to be pretty epic around Egypt. Still, without figuring out this Atlantic situation, I think the Allied AI is pretty much screwed. So I need to come up with something different.
0_1496700051251_Iron War with Egypt British and Canada separate No Victoria Balkan round 4.tsvg
Alright I have another idea for maybe persuading the AI to send their aircraft across the Atlantic (since they don't seem to realize that Greenland is a good transit.) My idea is to give the Canadians a starting carrier, and see if they will use it for fighter launching. Going to test it now. Will report back later
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I think its okay for Canada to be under British control. Because of how tripleA handles different nations attacking, having it as a separate nation is just awkward for gameplay. Especially since Brazil is in the game.
I say this a native Canadian. If you want to encourage units to be placed in Canada and brought over by sea, I'd use a special resource, like the colonials.
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@Black_Elk - Concerning the Japanese bomber that the AI always uses in a kamikaze run towards Hawaii, and the Russian European fighter seems to do the same thing against the German Baltic fleet, I don’t know what the heck is going on? I have not noticed the AI do these kinds of attacks earlier on. Are you also using TripleA or later?
@redrum - Have you altered the AI behavior in the v1.9.0.0.4520 (and later) version of the game? Like altered the will to do air attacks and crash into the sea? Also, I see the AI making some pretty new and futile moves suddenly, but maybe I am imagining things. In the case of what I am seeing with a Russian fighter doing a suicide run, the fighter moves 3 of 4 moves to enter a battle and the last move cannot bring it to a safe place to land. There is no theoretically chance of the fighter to survive but still it attacks ... Unlike the Japanese Bomber thing, where there is a theoretical chance for it to survive, but even when I see it surviving the attack on Perl Harbor , the Japan AI does not bring in the Carrier so the Bomber just dies.
@Black_Elk – As I see it, making a British powerful presence in Egypt and the Mediterranean will not work for this map. The only chance human Axis players have to win this map is to clear the Mediterranean of allies and go for Gibraltar and make ready to counter Allied landing in Morocco, before the hordes of African Allies presses upwards from the south. The German and Italians does seem to have trouble standing up to the pressure from all sides. Having a UK power in Egypt would totally ruin the Axis chances to win. But this is just my initial thoughts. I can try it out. Maybe it could give the British a decision to make toabout either keep Egypt alive or start building a French invasion force. I am in the midst of rearranging the powers of nations, so that the colonial players are worth playing again. Maybe a British Egypt could be tested out also. In the coming Europe map the British will surely be a power in the Mediterranean.
Concerning the use of Colonial-British and what's theirs and what is true British, I am aiming for an easy management of the nations, meaning that the French have a pretty straight forward overview when starting their turn, not having to manage all four corners of the earth simultaneously. Same goes for British and British-Colonies. Right now the British-Colonies only have stuff to do in Africa, unless it falls and they move operations to the Americas, or if they capture Somalia they can work out of this place.
The factory in Victoria, Canada will be removed in the next version of Iron War.
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@Frostion I don't know if this will just muddy the waters further... but Egypt could be included as part of the British Colonial holdings in Africa.
The way you have designed the map I can see the why behind many of the decisions you made... but it does really seem weird that Italy simply steamrolls all of North Africa and then can press in multiple directions while the British have little to no presence.
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@CrazyG Well I won't belabor the point. But I do feel that with 24 nations already in play, whats so awkward about Canada in the mix? Its essentially no different than British-Colonies in terms of turn order stuff. You're still dealing with multiple powers coordinating. Just from my last couple play throughs, the AI seems be doing much better with Canada separated off from the British.
In this last game I gave them a starting Carrier, and they've already started to make an Atlantic crossing towards Africa...
@Frostion I don't know, if hordes of African Allies from the south are the problem, then maybe we could do something to weaken them directly, instead of strengthening Italy ahistorically?
I just see all your glorious efforts to create a truly awesome game map, (one which is streamlined and plays elegantly, with great potential to create a historically satisfying play pattern), that to then turn around and have the balance of the whole thing hinge on the Axis overrunning Egypt immediately as a matter of course, seems kind of rough. I'm sure we could find a way to provide for Axis victory without having to give up an interesting role for the British in the Med or North Africa.
I can see what you're going for by trying to break game-play into more manageable slices, by having a regional focus (where the player doesn't have to do much scrolling around the map). I just think that in some instances the focus becomes so narrow as to lose its primary gameplay interest and just winds up like a frustrating extra step I have to get through before I can get back to controlling the "fun" guys haha. I feel like this is what is going on right now with the British/British-Colonies.
@Hepps This is my feeling as well, though honestly if Egypt was British-Colonial under the current scheme, it would create basically the same issue I mentioned earlier... Where all I want is for an Axis nation to kill them off, so I can come in and take it over with Russia, or British-India, or some other Allied nation that can actually make use of it.
I see the basic problem with Pro-Side neutrals and the weakest Allied Minors as essentially the same. They create incentives to lose and reconquer the territory, rather than incentives to defend the territory from ever being conquered in the first place. If Egypt was British I think the Allies would actually try to fight for it, and this might pull them away from other things they might wish to be doing. So I see it as a potential trade off on balance. Sure it might piss off Mussolini, but perhaps it would give Japan or Germany more breathing room elsewhere, by virtue of the fact that now the Allies have another choke point/production center that they have to worry about and send TUV to defend?
Right now there is a lot of action going on in central Africa with an endless back and forth between Italy and the weaker Allies, such that you'd think this was like a major theater of War, on par with France or Eastern Europe or something. But of course we know this wasn't really what happened. What happened was a slog in North Africa, where the Italians and then the Germans went toe to toe with the Allies in the desert, you know, sand and sea, blood and mud. Not like down in the jungles of the Congo hehe. I don't mind if Italy gets there eventually, after they put in some work, and kick the shit out of Egypt. I just don't dig how its given to them as a gift.
Anyhow, here is another save, showing what happened out of North America when I gave the Canadians a carrier. They still wanted to send their first fighters against Japan intitially, but started to get with program on round 2. Building transports out of Halifax and moving their fleet towards Africa.
The British meanwhile are focused on Egypt. Which is fast becoming a sinkhole for their TUV. I suspect something similar might happen in PvP, where because Britain has another priority to worry about they may be less inclined to just flood Leningrad with fighters (which is what I'd do every time when I control Allies.) So perhaps even if Italy suffers, Germany and the Balkans might get an edge against the Soviets, as a counter balance? Or similarly if the British have to choose between the Canal and the Home Island and start splitting their resources, this could create openings for Germany to make a breakout in the Atlantic or against England itself.
