Axis Minors force pool

[WanderingHead]

I think that the words of caution should be taken seriously.

When I said I would start with the goal of making it as flexible as possible (adjustable offset for every tech of every unit type of every nation), I meant I would make the mod-ability that way. I wouldn't suggest an actual scenario tweaking every little detail (but if someone wanted to do it for play in his circle, he could ... assuming it happens at all). If anything I'd suggest (and implement Global Glory) only a very simple implementation.

In fact, the more I think of it the more I think I would just classify nations as Major Powers or Minor Powers, and have a penalty for Minors. It would be much easier for the player.

Rules like this are actually, in general, not all that hard to implement. But implementing a good UI to compliment it is very difficult. So it also has to be something where some simple text pop-ups are adequate (and don't feel like an obvious downgrade from the beautiful UI that already exists). If the rules are simple I thought some text in the unit (V)iew popup would be adequate.

Thanks for the comments. I only want to do things if it interests ya'll. This triggered my interest because it is a topic that comes up repeatedly.

[midgard30]

From a beginner point of view, I agree with the idea of keeping these new rules and UI as simple as possible (major, minor nations would be a good one, IMHO). The learning curve is already steep enough even for someone that had a small experience with the previous game. One of the strenght of this game, is to have a simple mechanic to play complex strategies.
 
But even without any penalty to units, having their nationality would add a nice historical value to the game.

[WanderingHead]

Having thought about this a bit more and contemplated code ... the easiest thing would be simple evasion adjustments. Largely because it can be leveraged off of the existing evasion adjustments.

Also, for simplicity of implementation as well as simplicity of play I would only classify nations as one of two types. I'm actually not sure what to call them ... roughly "Major Power" and "Minor Power", but that doesn't quite capture the essence when there are "even more Minor" Powers that only produce militia. I welcome any naming suggestions for this.

Anyway, the mod-ability would be limited to the following:

• for every nation, its units are either degraded in capability or they are not
• each unit class (land/naval/air) can be selected to have degraded capbility or not (militia would never be degraded).

A penalty is suffered only by those units of both (i) a degraded nation, and (ii) a degraded unit class. If a degraded unit is firing, the fired-upon unit gets a +1 evasion bonus. If a degrade unit is fired upon, it gets a -1 evasion penalty.

In terms of how I would like to configure the GG scenario with this, I would apply the penalty for land and air units only (I would not include naval).

For nations, I would say
major

• USA
• UK
• Canada
• Commonwealth
• Germany
• Spain
• France
• China
• Japan
• Russia
• Netherlands

minor (with infantry/armor/fighter builds allowed)

• Italy
• Rumania
• Turkey
• India (this would be new ...)

BTW - There is already a hook to individually per-nation turn the flag displays on (like currently exists for France and Italy). So in addition to my recent change to allow the player to view every nation, the scenario can force display of only the pertinent nations. A little less cluttered.

[runyan99]

Looks good to me. I might put Spain in the minor camp, but it's not important. You forgot to list Hungary.

There seem to be a limited number of 'boxes' in the production screen, so I wonder if seperating India from the Commonwealth, for example, causes an interface problem in the unit build screen.

[Lucky1]

I look forward to playtesting!!! (I am generally quite excited, but will voice some concern about Italy churning out 2 or 3 armour per turn. Even at the penalty rates described, these will be a formidable addition - hence my suggestion that they lack armour like Japanese tanks as well....)
 
p.s. I would agree with Runyan's Spain comment.

[WanderingHead]

Regarding Hungary, what I meant, sort of implicitly, was ...
"major"

• USA
• UK
• Canada
• Commonwealth
• Germany
• Spain
• France
• China
• Japan
• Russia
• Netherlands

"minor" (with infantry/armor/fighter builds allowed)

• Italy
• Rumania
• Turkey
• India (this would be new ...)

"insignificant" (only militia allowed)

• Hungary

I don't have any particular objection to moving Spain, France, China, Netherlands, or Hungary around in this list (for China - the reason is the rare and subtle effect of national factories falling under friendly occupation ... if China takes India, or Russia takes China). This is just what I came up with as a first pass.

Runyan, your obervation on the production screen running out of room is quite observant ... there was a little problem which actually prevented me from doing this a year ago. In fact, it is a problem whenever you have more than 7 nations producing (where all captured enemy factories are collapsed into one "Captured" nation), which could happen even in a regular game. But it must be massively infrequent, since noone has ever reported that problem (my example: USA UK Canada CW France Netherlands Turkey Captured, could only occur near the end of a Allied victory after Germany invaded Turkey).

Anyway, I fixed the issue. If the number of nations exceeds 7 then the tiles will now start to double up in two rows, so you could in principle show 14 flags.

I made a toy example by having Germany attack TLC and Italy to make them join the WAW.

[SGT Rice]

original: WanderingHead

Having thought about this a bit more and contemplated code ... the easiest thing would be simple evasion adjustments. Largely because it can be leveraged off of the existing evasion adjustments.

This sounds like a very exciting change to implement; I look forward to trying it out.

Seems to me that once players get used to this idea, many will want to fine tune the OOBs somewhat to give the game more historical texture. So I would strongly suggest allowing more flexibility in the application of the evasion adjustments; i.e., allow modifiers to be selected for each unit type (INF, ABN, ARM, ART, etc. ...) and for each evasion modifier itself to be selectable (i.e., -2, -1, +1).

This might head off some unintended consequences like the one Sean mentioned ... Italian armor. Historically the Italians definitely possessed armor units on an AWD scale; they were a permanent fixture on the North African battlefields. They also were decidely inferior to the British armor they faced. But with only a -1 offensive/defensive evasion adjustment (to the baseline German EV/LA levels), Italian armor units would be equal or superior to WA armor for most of the game.

Another example is the Rumanian/Hungarian force pools. All of my eastern front games include corps-level infantry & mechanized formations from both countries. But the Hungarians are almost always given a clear edge in unit quality/firepower. My first impulse would be to make all Hungarian units -1, but make Rumanian INF/ARM units -2.

None of these suggestions deals with the potential problem of the Germans being able to pump up their armor unit numbers, perhaps decisively changing play balance be making the combined arms combat modifier more available to the Axis and less available to the Allies. I would suggest that another requirement would be to leave armor units off the Italy/Hungary/Rumania build menus, but place a limited number (1-2 each) of unbuilt armor units on their production spirals.

But I think its a nice step forward regardless of the implementation; thanks WH for taking it under consideration.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: Lucky1
concern about Italy churning out 2 or 3 armour per turn

I'm not concerned about this. It is a huge amount of production into reduced capability units instead of research. That's what I think is nice about making this change, it allows the player to make an interesting tradeoff of unit quantity over quality (which is a bit subtle since the quality impact is less research).

ORIGINAL: SGT Rice
Seems to me that once players get used to this idea, many will want to fine tune the OOBs somewhat to give the game more historical texture. So I would strongly suggest allowing more flexibility in the application of the evasion adjustments; i.e., allow modifiers to be selected for each unit type (INF, ABN, ARM, ART, etc. ...) and for each evasion modifier itself to be selectable (i.e., -2, -1, +1).

I used to agree (somewhere near the beginning of the thread) [;)].

The kicker here is that if I keep it simple then I might be able to squeek it in quickly with save compatibility. Also, there will be limited GUI support. The Evasion modifier will be reported as usual in combat, and the national "minor" penalty will be mentioned in the unit [v]iew mode (select unit and hit "v"). I think that would be adequate, but if the implementation gets more complicated it may warrant a better GUI which I could not support.

Honestly, I've been working on this game for a long time making it more complicated [8|], but here I think that it would be good to limit the extra complication.

I suppose I should change my proposal, since there was support for moving Spain and since Hungary was weird (and for crying out loud, my father in law is Hungarian... I shouldn't insult him).

"major"

• USA
• UK
• Canada
• Commonwealth
• Germany
• France
• China
• Japan
• Russia
• Netherlands

"minor" (with infantry/art/armor/fighter builds allowed)

• Italy
• Spain
• Rumania
• Turkey
• India
• Hungary
• maybe every other neutral, even though they don't have factories

I'm still sort of tempted to move China into the "minor" camp (and correspondingly adjust their starting capabilities). It would prevent the building of odd super-powered Chinese nationality units when the USA lands there or odd under-powered units when China takes India. But those events are so rare that maybe I should ignore the nice consistency it would buy.

[Lucky1]

I agree with WanderingHead about the desirability of choice and that, properly implemented, the available range of options will be neutral in their relative impact. As with artillery, my concern is that one choice becomes so compelling as to limit variety in practice. But again, this is somewhat premature without actually having seen the changes in action. I am heartened to see the activity in the forum and think that a balanced range of views are being heard, so I am optimistic that we are moving in the right direction. Very exciting.

[runyan99]

I wouldn't make the Chinese a minor because they are already handicapped by their inability to afford tech and improve their units. 

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: runyan99
I wouldn't make the Chinese a minor because they are already handicapped by their inability to afford tech and improve their units. 

What I mean is do all three:

• make China a minor
• increase Chinese start evasion by 1
• increase Chinese start land attack by 1.

So the net effect in most cases is roughly zero.

I'm just trying to address some of the oddities of the fact that (in the current implementation, without the changes under discussion) all technology status is entirely determined by Player identity and not Nation identity.

Perhaps this is a subtletly much more on my mind as the (current) programmer. What the implementation means is that the Nation China is does not have bad tech levels, the Player China does. A different Player can build Chinese National units, if they take Chinese factories and are not hostile to China.

Example:
WA infantry are Ev=9 LA=9
CH infantry are Ev=4 LA=5

The WA capture Chungking from the Japanese. Now the WA can build Chinese units with Ev=9 LA=9. These units are Chinese Nationality, but WA Player.

With this "minor nation" penalty, a similar funky thing happens if Player China takes an Indian factory. Player China would be building these Indian units with cruddy China tech levels, and on top of that they would suffer the minor penalty for being of Indian Nationality.

If you make China minor PLUS add 1 to Chinese evasion PLUS add one to Chinese land attack, then it actually makes the oddities less odd.

But it is rather subtle, and almost never comes up in a game. Maybe it has never come up at all yet, I don't know.

Long explanation, hope it makes sense.

[rjh1971]

Good thread, Brian are these changes going to affect all scenarios or just global glory?

Bty I would definetely make Spain a minor, I never understood why Spain can produce fighters and not Italy, we didn't have the industry to do so, nor models of our own.
Spain was just out of a Civil War with most of it's infrastructure damaged or destroyed.

As always if you send me the new exes I'll try testing Brian (internetrjh@telefonica.net).

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: rjh1971
Good thread, Brian are these changes going to affect all scenarios or just global glory?

Just Global Glory. Joel stated long ago that he didn't want to change things after players were used to it, but I've always said Global Glory is a "living scenario". Not ossified yet!

Also, I still like to think of Total War as basic AWD, and Global Glory as "advanced". Learn on TW and move to GG once you want a little (not a lot) more depth and variety. That was my idea, at any rate.

I was, however, thinking of adding a 1942 Global Glory scenario. It gives folks something else to play with, but it is also just convenient for testing in development. For example, it makes it a lot easier to set up surrender events and try things out that are pertinent to mid-game instead of early-game.

I expect I'll have a test version of the national capabilities modifier sometime before the end of the year.

[runyan99]

Speaking of Spanish fighters, I would remove the ability to build new subs from Italy, as someone else pointed out that they historically made very few, were short range, and if allowed in the scenario Italian boats will be just as good as German u-boats. Italy can keep the one sub unit they start with.

[goodtimes]

Just adding to the pool of thoughts..  Could you use the regular/veteran/elite system to create inferior units?  (IE.  'under- strength'/regular/veteran/elite?)    [Some nations could start with some 'under strength' units that have attack or evasion penalties.]

I had some other ideas on this 'under strength' theme
say, 
          'green under strength':    new, or inferior unit, with opposite modifiers as Veteran. (15% or 30% chance to upgrade to Regular with battle success) [[as in American units early in operation torch]]

          'yellow under strength':    Units that suffer high suppression,(say 90+% of amount needed to damage unit), and/or  near damage,(say 90+% of attack roll needed to damage), would have a chance to be downgraded [elite to veteran, veteran to regular, etc.]-(a higher chance if both 'highly suppressed' and 'nearly damaged' conditions exist), (and say triple the chance if unit is unsupplied)  A downgrade from 'Regular' would be to 'Yellow Under Strength', and the unit could be brought back to 'Regular' by a penalty/repair of extra supplies [[as in the german army trapped in Stalingrad]]

          'blue under strength'    Units of 'minor' countries could be slow to get the major powers' tech advances (one turn behind), this handicap could disappear next turn. [[as in Canadian ships slow to get British radar technology onboard]]


Anyways, adding a lower level to the Veteran/Elite system might give you a way to add penalties to 'minor' nations simply.

[WanderingHead]

Thanks for the suggestion goodtimes.

I went back to my orginal thinking in terms of code implementation ... fully flexible tech level modifiers which can be specified individually for each nation if desired. Only techs that impact combat are effected by this, however, because all offsets are computed only deep inside combat routines.

There is also a specifyable "lower limit" for each tech, so a modifier won't take effect if it makes the resultant level below that limit.

Unfortunately there was no way to sneak this in and preserve save compatibility. So save compatibility is out the window.

That is the code capability (for people interested in modding). In terms of the scenario, I will only include "Major" and "Minor" nations as indicated before. I will definitely not be individually tweaking every nation. And I will set the "lower limit" to be the same as the Neutral play capability. Which means two things: (1) the player can easily see what the lower limit is, (2) a neutral nation's capability will usually not become worse when it joins a major power (exception China, since China has base levels even below neutral).

The combat reports clearly display the modifier, like any other modifier. But I'm still trying to think of a good concise way to show this to the player outside of combat.

[SGT Rice]

ORIGINAL: WanderingHead

The combat reports clearly display the modifier, like any other modifier. But I'm still trying to think of a good concise way to show this to the player outside of combat.

Perhaps you could display the modifier in bold type as part of the flag icon that displays on each unit?

[rjh1971]

Brian how difficult would be to be able to upgrade militia to infantry spending 5 supplies and one turn?
Think of it as a training program, what do you think?

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: rjh1971
Brian how difficult would be to be able to upgrade militia to infantry spending 5 supplies and one turn?
Think of it as a training program, what do you think?

I'd rather allow recapture of population when units are disbanded. Then if you have the excess production you could disband militia and put the pop into infantry.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: SGT Rice

ORIGINAL: WanderingHead
The combat reports clearly display the modifier, like any other modifier. But I'm still trying to think of a good concise way to show this to the player outside of combat.

Perhaps you could display the modifier in bold type as part of the flag icon that displays on each unit?

Since there can be many modifiers of different values (e.g. evasion -1, land attack -2, ship attack -3, etc), this doesn't work universally.

Here is what I have come up with.

• a light grey bullet if the lowest modifier is -1
• a dark grey bullet if the lowest modifier is less than -1
• full information in the unit view popup. Note that this is only available for the Player's own units (those he can select).

Here is what it looks like.

Note that for illustrative purposes I gave Italian armor -2 land attack so it has the darker bullet, all the other units shown have a minimum modifier of -1 so they have the lighter bullet.