Posts made by Black_Elk

@LaFayette said in Dyeing/Colorizing Unit Images:

Just to mention, two more really great uses for this:

• help people that are colorblind. If the unit colors look similar, an option to adjust per-country hue so they can be visible would be excellent. Flags would help this, I'm sure using colors that look physically different would be even better.
• building on maps that have many nations. If for example someone wanted to mod a map that has many nations, like NWO, or anything with 10 nations+, adding a new unit is a bit of a nightmare. You have to use color-picker very well to match the existing hue and it's hard to say if the new units will still look cohesive. For example, add cavalry and heavy cavalry, that is perhaps 20 units images and for each you need to do a really great match of existing hue for it not to look just hacked on.

@Cernel I suspect the usage of this feature would be opt-in per map, or could be used as a fallback when unit images are missing. It wouldn't be the case that we'd go through all existing maps an delete units images to leave just the auto-colorized ones.

This would I think end up being the primary use of the feature. If it helps map makers in the process that's great, but I saw it as something that the average end user would find useful, either as a visual aid (if they are colorblind or are having difficulty distinguishing units for whatever reason) or just purely based on aesthetic preference. Maybe someone wants to sub out purple units for some other color, using this system you could do it on the fly. Currently its very easy to modify a nation's territory color via hex code in the map properties file, but if you wanted to change the associated units, that is more laborious and requires an outside image editing application like Gimp or PS. This might be easy for a map maker, but rather more involved for the average user.

Instead of trying to arbitrate people's individual tastes by coming up with a default unit set that everyone must adopt, this gives players the freedom to color the map/units in a way that suites their personal preferences, without requiring much legwork or stepping on anyone else's toes while you're at it, since it'd basically be a local setting.

That is the coolest little thing I've seen in a while!

The options are almostly endless hehe.

Recalls to mind the Lime Green Brits and Blue Gray Germans of revised. Or the red Japanese of the first pacific board. I think its rad. Nice work

Ps. I think it should be the default handling for the World War II games (actually seems fine to me if it colorizes things like factories or bases in the process.) Using this method you could change the core look of the maps aesthetic via editing the Hex colors in map properties and the unit dye to capture anything you like. Do we have a way to hex color the ocean tiles? I guess that would be the last piece to making a basic map totally custom. You know how some prefer the dark blue of revised, or maybe something lighter. That along with the unit dye thing would be a total coup hehe

Just playing around with this in the pre-release. I dig it. Takes up a fair bit of real estate on the sidebar but its very useful.

One thought, for the cluster of unit icons (showing multiple units in a group) it would be nice if Infantry was always in the foreground. For some reason it looks odd to me when they are behind a larger unit like a tank or aagun etc. Probably because it upends the imagined perspective somehow. On land I think Infantry first in the foreground, tank types in the midground, air last in the background would probably look best just for the relative scale of unit types within the group cluster.

For the ships looks great. Very tidy. I like how convenient this is for skipping around the map with player nation like UK in the WWII games, where you're just scattered all over and frequently forget something in the southern hemisphere hehe. Nice work man

Anytime I try to imagine a fog of war, I feel like it needs to be something kind of simple to succeed. I think whenever I've tried to pull it off, it was hidden force markers (like ghost units), or like in space games where you have a warp-point where forces can be spawned. Some hybrid of the two? Maybe the enemy knows what you got, but not where its coming at you. Doing it in A&A seems kind of tricky though. Like the opponent needs something to work off of to prevent it from just being a total guessing game. I feel like anything that might work needs to be fairly limited in scope, so it doesn't overwhelm.

That's interesting, I like that concept! capture the mechanical box would be very interesting. Units like that present some interesting gameplay choices, anytime something can trade hands.

Well not to riff overmuch in this thread, but musing on how it might work, I think for A&A style games a more limited fog of war would be better (just because of how things work, the players can't be kept in the dark about too much), so I can imagine a situation where you still have the total unit numbers, but only a partial picture of the force composition. I guess a box, where the opponent knows you have it but doesn't know what's in it, for this analogy. Its not too far of a stretch, because with infantry type units, its hard to hide such large forces or mobilizations, but with the specialized equipment it makes more sense that some stuff might be hidden. Perhaps something could be done with decoys using such a system, an empty box, or espionage units or tech advance type stuff that might reveal what's in a box. Things like that could be cool, for a WW2 game it could also make sense, even if aircraft could transit on their own more realistically there, I can imagine a use for it with other things there. Like what's in that crate headed to China? lol

Badass there on the water!

Haha thought I had was kind of logistics/fog of war oriented. Just had a flash of like unmarked crates of heavy equipment, where the opponent might not know what was purchased or is being shipped across the sea until it arrives, is unboxed and mobilized. Could work for anything non infantry I suppose. But yeah even just seeing the air box in the snapshop above, something about it just makes you want to put those uboats on the hunt even more hehe. Nice work

I'm so intrigued right now! But I love where my imagination just took this. Looks major!
A new way to handle this issue with the production/movement logistics of pushing heavy units to the front would be rad.

It is listed as World War II v3 in the maps depot

Also I definitely agree about the points made for Russia. Weirdly I think what he could have done is reorient the main Russian production center from "Russia" to Arch, make that territory larger and then just call it Northern Russia or something similarly catch all. West Russia, or South Russia would likewise probably make more sense or something generic. Or like if Arch didn't exist, but was just folded into another tile. Because then you could just kind of imagine some distortion going on where people are maybe less familiar with the scale. But yeah, the way Leningrad is set up relative to Belo and E. Ukraine and Moscow has you thinking the distortion should be going one direction, but then Russia Arch and Urals are doing something kind of different. I feel like just stretching the main "Russia" territory down from the top would probably have been easier, and a little more like how I imagined the distortions going on in the Classic board, where Karelia was like all encompassing lol. Having the main Russian production hub adjacent to sz 4 would also have been kind of fun I think for the endgame, whether its Allies trying to rush in aid, or Germany reorienting with some kind of safe harbor. But that's clearly a ship that never sailed.

Yeah I agree, esp the point on sz 7. I actually think it could be recarved in a couple places. Sort of did it on the fly, but I think Mike handled most the integration, map details like centering and such was on Zero I think. That was like my last year in school I think so I just threw together the baseline and dipped hehe. Anyone who wants to clean it up should def feel free. Some of the details like the tanks on Stalin's nose, and Il Duce's island birthmark me laugh. Might be fun to spruce up now that the board is back with that last reprint.

Not a huge fan of the map blend either, it's way too light.

ps. the equator after warping is basically riding a weird wave that crests and drops as you scroll from left to right. The only way I could really think to deal with the compression of mid east/central-south Asia and to stretch east Asia was do like a wonk half-rotation, that would at least pull Russia/China in a direction that kind of made sense to me. But yeah, not sure it was right on the money there. The compass rose would be a little confusing, with some bends in the arrow lines hehe.

Yeah more or less. I'm not even sure we had attackable neutrals as a base feature when I was drafting it, and wasn't considering mods, so just seemed like something that wouldn't really matter to the gameplay. I think when I did it I was either trying to create a more pleasing sz or tt line (avoiding diagonals that tend to look worse when the map is rescaled) or just trying to squeeze in a little more real estate for some tt or sz where I thought we could add another unit before spill over occurred. Also tried to fit more of the warp into the neutral spots when needed, like Sahara or whatever, so that other areas wouldn't have to be as blob like. Some things like that. I just wanted it to look more recognizable as the world, since the boxed A&A games use some really extreme distortions, some of which didn't seem necessary for a digital version, where you don't have to fit all the chips and such, spots like Gibraltar for example.

ps. the biggest compromises where made on the Eastern Front, since the boxed game has Moscow like 3000 miles from where it should be hehe. Even taking plenty of liberties, that's a distortion you can't really avoid the way Larry drafted it originally. But I tried to make Europe and the Med as large as I sensibly could, without entirely altering the shape of Africa or the Mid East. Same deal trying to preserve the gameboard depiction of East Asia, without totally compressing China into something that no geography student would recognize lol.

ps. Another thing that might look a little strange is just the number of islands and such. Those were basically just to indicate more territory locations that I thought might be useful later on, when I hacked up the earlier map to make the first domination ones. But here stuff is just grouped to whatever the major territory was in the AA50 map. So like Line is part of Hawaii group for game purposes, or Guam gets grouped in with whatever sz division made sense. Most smaller chains are just attached to the larger adjacent tt and serve no real purpose, except that I liked how it kind of made the world feel fleshed out, or the battle for worthless islands somehow more epic hehe.

If you mean the map design itself, that'd be on me. The main thing I tried to do was make a world map that looked somewhat less blob-like than the boxed AA50 gamemap (more realistic in terms of the relative shape of places like Africa/Mid-East/China etc), so that some of the wild distortions of the boxed map would be less pronounced. This also meant some slight re-shaping of territories or sea zone geometry, though all the connections are the same. Basically I was trying to strike some kind of balance between a map that would be able to house the requisite units wihout overcrowding, while not being so distorted as to be almost cartoonish in its blob factor, or so large (in terms of the average display) that you'd have to constantly zoom or scroll to get past large regions with near zero activity in normal gameplay. One of the things I found problematic with some earlier maps, was just that they were so large, whereas most people I knew preferred a faster drag around the globe, so I tried to find something a little bit smaller that would work.

You may notice for example that the TripleA AA50 map is actually smaller than the tripleA Revised map at 100% zoom, despite having more territories and sea zones, which was intentional. The thought was that most people would hopefully be able to play at something around 75% map zoom, still seeing the critical game info at a glance but with minimal dragging to get around the map. The original idea was to use smaller standard unit icons (also at a scale closer to 50%) but I think the centering still treat them as if they were 100%. Unit crowding is a perennial issue in A&A games, especially with multi-national stacks, but basically I thought there would be some advantage to having mid-scale game where players could view more of the map at a glance without having to zoom-in/out a lot, which is why I started with a more compact baseline.

As for rules implementation, I think if there are any departures it probably would have to do with the fact that tripleA doesn't strictly enforce a separation between combat movement and non combat movement. (Basically you can move Non Com during combat if you want, and the game engine won't stop you.) This could present a couple situations that would need to be player enforced, but on the whole I think its up to spec.

Haha! That's perfect! Next level man

Nice work!

I threw that cav unit together for the first great war game on the fly. It's got some charm to it, but I agree a lancer unit icon would be badass! I propose this iconic image for the German one... Shrunk down but still hella legit, and Vader-esque! hehe

Badass work so far man, truly

So pretty!!! All these latest glimpses got me way excited! Nice work man

The insomniac icon, just all hella bloodshot beady eyeball hehe. I'm with you I suppose, but yeah I guess it's whatever, MOON, 'that spells moon' and all. Having the feature in any form is killer. Great work

Oh nice just saw this!

Gotta say I also find that the crescent moon doesn't make me think immediately of sleep. Perhaps if going for that might try something like this... Its the spell symbol for Sleep from the old Baldur's Gate D&D games.

Basically like a closed eye. Not sure if that reads in the way you were thinking?

I'd take just the word "SKIP" if need be, since that would be very hard to confuse and only 4 letters.

Yeah I think you're right, it was kind of reaching and probably belongs in another section since I'm struggling to contextualize in reference to a specific map. Though its such a ubiquitous issue across many maps, I guess just wanted to hear what some designers might think about a way to address that checkerboarding effect. I feel like there are probably mutliple ways at it, was just trying to think of something simple that might be workable across otherwise pretty wide ranging scenarios. And also just curious what the engine can handle in terms of counting stuff based on whether its adjacent to other owned territories on existing maps, or if its the sort of thing that really needs to be built in from the getgo? I like the second solution offered with the 'attacked from' concept, but don't know the practical particulars of how that might be set up. Like if it could grafted on top of an existing map/mod or if it has to be reworked at the foundation to pull something like that off?

I guess this is an idea for a mod, maybe for some WW2 map?

The thought is to create a slight offset to the power of the can opener in a lot of these games with a slight bonus for holding larger blocks of adjacent land. On the one hand you have this hugely potent strategic advantage of having friendlies all blitzing around at the front to create those patchwork checkerboard expansion patterns, but set against the kind of silly but nevertheless innately powerful desire to have your powers all expanding in shapely ways, with like defined spheres of influence hehe. So wondering if a small PU bonus awarded for controlling adjacent territories as a connected mass would counterbalance the canopener somehow? or at least give some pause, if a player is trying to instead cash out a small amount for the connected empire.

I recall it among the options for RiskII, but seems like something that might work for A&A style games. Similar to other objectives that tie territories together, but just as like a generalized bonus for having connected TTs. Think something like that might work v3 or G40 or games at that scale and up? Not sure what numbers would make sense there in each case, but seems like something that might work in a few games. Basically a set boost based on how many adjacent territories are under the nation's control.
Trying to break up a contiguous empire of the enemy is a draw I think on any map based game hehe, but it would be easy to recognize and could perhaps be adapted into a more generalized thing.

Thought for v3 it might be interesting starting at like 5 territories? Something that might be achievable for the little guys like Italy and China, but also more reliable for the big dogs, because Allies still have the USA's relative safety in North America, while Eurasia and Africa are still pretty large for the contests between everyone else. As players try to carve out bigger contiguous blocks I think you might see some swings between the majors trying to take the 10th TT for an extra PU or two. Could encourage attrition while still being simpler to track than specific objectives.

What do you guys think?

I dig the AI, its pretty fun in the current state. Even if it doesn't really play to nuances and specialized rules, as a blunt intrument it usually cobles something reasonably effective together for a landgrab, if you can just find that threshold were a boost in income overcomes its other deficits. Sometimes that can go by side, its land/air game is usually a lot stronger than its naval game, so for maps where the balance really hinges on the water its easier to exploit the AI there. Sometimes one side is more dependant on that kind of thing than the other. A lot of times for second world war games that's the Allies, though I think in Iron War its a little inverted from the norm, since the Europe Axis side and mainly W. Germany can fall apart pretty quickly when Allies get the upperhand around the channel, whereas Japan is a little better at managing a land war even after the IJN is pushed around. I think AI Allies have the edge there probably, and its more entertaining to play as Axis because of the way the opener is set up. Not sure how the world map compares to the Europe one, but might be a fun change if you wanted to try one where AI Allies seem a bit stronger than AI Axis under vanilla conditions. But in general I think a lot of maps could probably support an AI challenge, its just a matter finding the right number for a handicap. So for WaW if the AI is doing well as Axis maybe the vanilla challenge is good for the one side, but Allies might need something extra. Usually I'd go for a modest increase (probably percentage increase for PUs at the lower end 10-20% and see if it makes a difference for their ability to trade more effectively, then just see how high you can go before its ridiculous hehe.) The spread you end up with there probably tells you a rough ballpark of how dependant the map is on specialized rules, higher level purchasing strategies and such, compared to the basic WW2 maps where the AI does pretty well for itself. So for the difference in complexity between say v2 and v3, or v5 and Global, there is probably a number for the later where the HardAI will become competative again, even if its not prioritizing added things like objectives or VCs or tech.

I have noticed more recently that the Hard AI will now bomb semi regularly, if it has enough bombers, but whether they buy them or not seems to depend more on the production frontier, like low production but high cash scenarios. Not sure a map that's overly dependant on consistent SBR for balance would work well at this point. The AI also struggles with things like intercept or scrambling where those dynamics are utilized heavily or with bases that use stuff like dynamic movement boosts. So G40 type solos really fall apart there. Objectives you can probably overcome with an income bonus but the AIs handicap in not managing an Air/Naval bounce from bases is something you can't really compensate for as well. Probably every map would have exploits when the combat mechanics rely on map position (any kind of terrain effect reducing or improving movement.) The AI will do what it can do from the current position (if it ends up on those kind of tiles) but won't build like a competant strategy around the map. Its pretty good at projecting power with air and cheap fodder though, so if bombers are cheap they will spam them pretty well for dark skies, when the income outpaces production capacity. Happens in Iron war when the AI gets backed off the front, or is knocked down to just a lone factory. Otherwise I see them mainly bought for the AI air umbrellas around island territories. The AI is actually surprisingly good at projecting air power vs enemy naval under those circumstances. They will make some clutch strikes to sink fleets, but then often don't follow up with re-establishing fleets or transport capacity of their own. See it happen to Japan at the home island or like with USA out of England which is kind of cool, but once the AI is boxed in it becomes a lot more conservative with its TUV, so its more likely to withdraw than trade TUV at disadvantage, even if a human definitely would to try and turn a game around. When the chips are down HardAI goes for like the slow bleed instead of going out with a bang hehe. But sometimes that can make for entertaining attrition endgames that last way longer than you might see otherwise.

Anyhow, yeah I like Frostion's maps for the AI, since many were built out with the idea that the AI control some stuff already. I think it works on probably any map, but definitely better where the income/production or basic victory conditions are set up more along classic economic domination lines rather than the TKO victory conditions of v2 and later. Right now the AI doesnt understand VCs, so what matters to it is really the income/production and distance to nearest enemy capital. It will knock off TUV when it has the advantage or to take over territory along the way, but won't airblitz to take a capital or secure a specific VC for the win or things like that. I think for the naval game one place where it struggles on most maps is with blocking, and also stacking (like around carrier groups for example) to cover key zones like canals or straights. It spams transports pretty wild over time and launches more than you'd think to pretty good effect, but that only gets you so far, if a particular zone is do or die for naval balance due to map dynamic movement features that the AI doesn't get. But even still, I had a good time messing around with Iron War.