Domination 1914 - Meat Grinder

[Hepps]

Also out of curiosity, why include the placement limit if you are essentially making it infinite?

[scallen1]

@hepps yeah I caught my typos after posting

[scallen1]

@hepps didn’t know the typeAA thing

I’m not worried about being redundant and was worried that if I didn’t explicitly state it could move during combat it’s AA status would make it not work in combat moves.

The build limit is just a placeholder in case during balancing I decide to limit it to a realistic number.

[Hepps]

[scallen1]

I love that image and will find a way to incorporate that into the game oh my god

Update - This is going way better than I anticipated. I have significant entry level coding experience so I expected I'd get through this eventually but with the help from this group and the very useful guide material you can find here my progress report is pretty good.

Every unit I wanted to make is coded in. Most map changes I wanted to make are coded in - the ones that haven't been coded in are things that will be affected by balancing questions and the politics tech category. And work has begun on my revamping of the techs.

What I have left to do:

1 - Figure out how to make one tech unlock another tech - I'm sure I can find this in the XML for TWW so I'm not worried - and then build my tech trees.
1 B - get the politics tree set up. I got good suggestions here and only a nasty cold has kept me from getting this step 1 done over the past weekend. Will likely have step 1 and 1B done tonight though my cold hasn't gone away.

2 - Make sure I have an image for each new unit (this will start with me really just reusing existing images from existing games). I assume this doesn't take long.

3 - Try to run the game and start finding bugs. Debugging in every other coding project I've ever done has been my strong suit so I'm confident in this one. I'm expecting bugs with how artillery and politics techs work. Hopefully I won't see them.

4 - Balance the game by playing against myself until it feels like the two sides are even when they are both in my hands and that the game fits my theme.

5 - get someone to play test it with me to see how it works in an actually competitive game.

[Hepps]

@scallen1 said in Domination 1914 - Meat Grinder:

I love that image and will find a way to incorporate that into the game oh my god

Was just a quick doodle. I can do something much nicer if you want.

I also have a bunch of WWI unit images.

[scallen1]

I'm also going to publish my balancing goals and expected problems and resolutions here

• Allies are too strong
  If this is the case (probable) I have a couple planned fixes.
  1 - if they are too strong on water I will strengthen the sub techs of germany and the starting fleets of Austria and the Turks.
  2 - if they are too strong because defense has too much of an advantage so the US's entry comes invariably before the Centrals make any significant gains. If this happens I will make artillery ammunition less expensive. One way I might do this is by adding an infrastructure unit that produces an ammunition resource which can be used to purchase artillery shells. I might do this idea anyway. In addition, I might just give the germans a better starting hand and change trenches from being a 2 hit cannon fodder unit to a one unit that lends defensive support to infantry. Or something like that.
  3 - if something else I will cross that bridge when I get to it But here I will list another idea I have that would effectively weaken the allied powers and I like very much as a balancing agent - making transports slower and more expensive.

• France/Russia infantry spams and Germany artillery shell spams
  I'm ok with this. It fits the meat grinder pursuit of the game. As long as units keep dying its all good.

• Techs are OP
  Again this is ok I will just have to make sure that this doesn't advantage the allies and their greater productive capacity. I might make research token prohibitively expensive but also automatically generated by each nation's capital city. Note - this is not ok if the game just comes down to who gets the best tech rolls. But I do want good tech rolls to give momentary advantages

• Techs too weak
  I'm not ok with this but the solution for most of them is simple

• France doesn't build Artillery. Germany doesn't buy trenches
  I don't like this. I'd like there to be a balance between France striking a defensive pose and France using some artillery to counterattack Germany. Basically - I'd like western front armies to be at max efficiency when both are being used even if the germans use more offensive units and the french more defensive ones.

• Russia doesn't build artillery. Total infantry spam
  I'm just entirely ok with this.

• One form of artillery shell is just so much more efficient than the other 2
  This would be immensely easy to solve if I institute the ammunition factory system by basically being able to just fiddle with prices of the ammunition until there's balance. It is only likely in the case that one makes multiple advances on the poison as tree and even then poison gas only affects bio units so you'll still need explosive shells.

• new techs lead to spamming newly available units
  The syngergies that units have in supporting each other and the general usefulness of infantry as cannon fodder should make this not happen but I have an eye out for it. Tanks are the thing most likely to be spammed.

• Centrals are OP
  LOL this won't happen

And with all this remember game goals

• casualties every turn and in large numbers from artillery
• sea battles matter and persist through the game
• centrals have between a 45 and 55% chance of winning if players are evenly matched
• tech arms race gives you temporary advantages that over time strengthen the offensive position on the battlefield. Tech arms race shouldn't usually decide the game though.

[scallen1]

How I want each theatre to look

Atlantic - British and US ships fighting German U boats in mid and late game. British trying to protect shipping lanes to their island and blockade Germany in the baltic.

Western front - shells fired every turn - preferably by both sides, keeping stacks from growing too quickly. Us does not enter in any major capacity for like 10 turns. France responsible for self defense with minimal help for a few turns.

Italian front - Early stalemate. Late game one side breaks through but not necessarily one side or the other.

Switzerland - so OP as a neutral that you won't dare attack them

Eastern Front - optional push by germany that if focused Russia can't repel but that focus requires sacrifices in the west or atlantic

Serb front - slow costly Austrian victory

Caucuses/Persia/Egypt/Arabia - Stalemate unless one side commits heavily. Weakening Entente forces on one or more of these fronts is a balancing option.

Pacific - Stalemate unless Japanese politics tech just swings this to a swift German defeat

Africa - costly Entente victory unless Cairo falls

Latin America - Neutrality respected.

[scallen1]

Update: More in a mood to play than work on the game so I am playing 1914: Blood and Steel

Might get ideas from this. Might steal code from this. Might just take my unit set and convoy zones I've created and put it in this game. Seems to have a political set up I could build on and like it a lot

[Schulz]

Hello scallen1 I am huge fan of this game and I had several attemps to improve the current dom 1914 for years but I did generally failed. Then I really realize what dom players (or TripleA players) want to see and what they don't want to see in the game. You can improve any game greatly but in term of the taste of people that's another story.

These are general opinions of most dom 1914 players (or big map players) (including me)

1. Historical accuracy: It is not as important as you think coz nobody really care. Also making these map historical would make the game significantly more unbaşanced.

2. Declaration of war: Another bad idea. Every nations definitely should always start in the first round. These triggers slow downs speed of game.

3. Increasing the importance of techs: Not good idea because some players can prefer playing it without techs and the current tech rolling system is already very dicey. Boosting these techs makes the game more aleatory.

4. Different units/costs for different nations: People usually don't like it. They like great variations of units but generally better to give every nations to the same units.

5. Too many country: Again, it just slow down games, they don't provide more strategic options.

I would liek to see to share more my opinions if you are interested in.

Thanks.