1.00.05d1 eh 2 ehhh 3 testing thread, hold on to your hats!

[AlvaroSousa]

How did you do it?

[PanzerMike]

Two subs were at sea already. I selected two more subs in Bordeaux and moved them to the ocean hex.

Hmm, I also receive the message that the max is 3 when I try again later in my game. So, it is intermittent somehow. Probably hard te reproduce, will keep an eye out on this.

[Franciscus]

I cannot reproduce this. I can "stack" more than 4 subs in a port, but not at sea, and I cannot sail from a port more than 3 subs stacked.

Game started with 1.05, now on latest beta

[Franciscus]

Athens (garrisoned by an Italian unit) was bombarded by Allied AI. So far so good.

But see the attached pic, that does not make much sense.

Apparently the Iceland Coastal Command is operating in the Med [:D][:D]


(probably not a bug, just a strange relocation by the Ai, but worth a few laughs...[:'(])

[AlvaroSousa]

They shouldn't be relocating that unit.

[PanzerMike]

ORIGINAL: Franciscus

I cannot reproduce this. I can "stack" more than 4 subs in a port, but not at sea, and I cannot sail from a port more than 3 subs stacked.

Game started with 1.05, now on latest beta

It is a bit elusive it seems. It can happen bit do not know yet how. I succeeded once, so something is off.

[AlvaroSousa]

I figured out the sub thing. It was always there the trick. I fixed it for next beta update. I forgot to adjust a line in the code.

[PanzerMike]

Good. One less bug. The discussions on the invasion mechanics of Warplan are very interesting. Players hardly talk about bugs anymore, but of the game mechanics and play balance instead. That is a good sign I would say.

I have not done Sea Lion yest against the AI. I always go Barbarossa, so my experience with invasions is limited to Norway, Malta, Greece and Crete.

But that invasions are too easy right now seems obvious to me. How to remedy that is another matter.

There was a reason Sea Lion never materialized IRL. Same for Dieppe 1942. The Allies limited themselves to Torch; they were not ready for an invasion of mainland Europe until 1944 (Italy excepted of course).

For game purposes too much restrictions maybe make the game boring. But too much freedom and silly things like invading Germany itself in 1942 seem to happen.

Alvaro, what do you think at this moment?

[PanzerMike]

Fear not, I do have another bug yet [:D]

The 0 merchant marine bug is almost fixed, but not quite:


Minus 4 merchant marine, that ain't right. What is right, is that I no longer see combat reports sinking non existing ships. So that is good at least.

The save:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pn7f87f8lw8wp ... 5.sav?dl=0

All in the latest beta of course.

[Franciscus]

I think the “night move” rule should be ditched or changed somehow. I think that it is one of the main reasons of too much easy amphibious invasions.

What do you think ?

[AlvaroSousa]

I was thinking 2 things.

#1 can't unload in a port that has no supply - prevents a div from invading then dumping 5 corps into the same port.
#2 when you invade the enemy air basically intercepts that land unit on the opponent turn as they land.
#3 if a fleet has a land unit it can't night move.

[PanzerMike]

#1 good idea. Further more, perhaps also limit the number of corps you can subsequently disembark there at first, due to demolition of the harbor facilities.
#2 good idea, doing an invasion with enemy air units in the vicinity and no air superiority should be very risky. On the beach they are very vulnerable to air attack. Without fighter cover it should be suicidal.
#3 good idea, an invasion fleet is a large juicy target that you can not hide easily. So fleets with land units on board should not night move.

Perhaps some sort of naval interception by fleets on alert? The Royal Navy would surely have intercepted should the Kriegsmarine have entered the Channel for invasion, even if the RAF would not have air superiority. But with auto interception you always have the baiting problem. Perhaps only do auto intercepts if the enemy fleet contains land units. Tricky one.

Also, the fact that you can practically obliterate even powerful land units by mass air attack is something too look at. Perhaps impose a limit of some sorts. Even the Allies with their mighty air Force did not have the capability to obliterate enemy units (they tried on a small scale for the Cobra outbreak of Normandy). Instead the Allies focused on limiting the mobility of the enemy (so less operation points for enemy units in this case I would guess)

Update: I found this very interesting https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-nav ... sable-lst/

[AlvaroSousa]

Amazing little ship.

So in this next beta I am doing this.

Units can only unload in a supplied port. Before they could unload in any port. What this does is force the invader to buy more landing craft if they want to dump a mountain of units inland quickly. This I choose because I realize it was possible to land a corps, force a port retreat, then dump 6 more corps all in the same turn assuming only one unit was defending that line. That's 500,000 men in effectively an instant. The Allies had to build that up for D-Day once they got a shore and it took a little bit.

Fleets with land or air units can't perform night moves. What this does is allow the fleet to be intercepted by air units as any other fleet would entering a location. The reason for this was that I forgot that air units can't intercept invading fleets if they move very close. Originally I had intended this as a Tokyo Express which can still be done for supplies.

These two fill all of the above without breaking the code.

I also did a full update of the engine to hopefully get rid of some of these direct X crashes people are experiencing. The latest Unity Engine update for my edition was this month. Crossing fingers.

[Franciscus]

ORIGINAL: Alvaro Sousa

I was thinking 2 things.

#1 can't unload in a port that has no supply - prevents a div from invading then dumping 5 corps into the same port.
#2 when you invade the enemy air basically intercepts that land unit on the opponent turn as they land.
#3 if a fleet has a land unit it can't night move.

Seems good, let’s try it

[PanzerMike]

Sure you don't want to limit the number of corps you can dump on the port (once it is supplied) in one turn? Relate it to the size of a port. It will make a big difference if the conquered port is a small Channel port, or let's say Rotterdam.

Maybe this could be an extra change if it is needed after testing your changes. Small steps are probably wise. And the simplest solutions are always best.

[AlvaroSousa]

I don't want to limit the port sizes because then I will get a flurry of why can't I unload my units? posts. Originally I had that you can only unload in a port itself. But players didn't like that and wanted to unload in the 6 hexes around it.

[PanzerMike]

I get that, but I mean that for a size 1 port you can for example only unload one corps a turn, but for a fully operational Rotterdam that would be 9 corps a turn (spilling into the hexes surrounding the port). Something like that.

[Franciscus]

Taking into account the time scale of each game turn, unloading a full size corps in a port in one turn does not seem unrealistic...but unloading 9 full corps seems completely unreal even in a big port, in war conditions.

Of course, gameplay balance and fun are not necessarily realistic...

[PanzerMike]

Yeah I agree, I was just giving an example. Perhaps it would be an idea to do something like port size * 10 per turn. That would mean 1 division per turn for a size one port. Rotterdam would accomodate 9 divisions in 2 weeks that way, or 3 Corps. Just thinking out loud here, how to differentiate a very important port like Rotterdam or Antwerp from a minor one like Lorient.

[AlvaroSousa]

The above requires a lot more complex coding and data than you think it does.