Bitter Glory

[Anraz]

And here comes another part:

Two quirks and a unit

Hi. Hard weekend behind, light weekend upon us. One of the biggest surprises of this weekend was to find out that the first Chinese mechanized division (200th) was formed in 1938. Some further research might be needed, but it seems to be very refreshing. I really didn't know such one even existed that time in that part of the world.

The other interesting quirk is connected with so called "programmer's art". Have you ever heard about it? I guess most of you didn't. For example if we have features which need a graphic representation, it is easier to make a temporary ersatz or instead of a well-rounded graphics place a "comical image". (I heard that for some time in the developer versions of the best Polish game (over 1mln copies sold) a fish with pink texture "acted" as a sword). Lately we had the same situation connected with making "Bitter Glory", I mistook a temporary graphics for a flag, but in fact it was to act as a city, but intentionally it was a drawing of a factory and it looked like a ship. Don't ask me to show it to you Also you will not find it in a final version of the game...or maybe as a kind of a leftover or even Easter egg (as it is always interesting to look behind the curtain).

I wonder what are your expectations concerning creation of new units?


To create a unit is a kind of order, not especially connected with real situation. Why not to give an order to create dozen of Panzer divisions while defending the last stand? Orders have nothing to do with real situation and industrial production. So we may give an order, but what if there are no tanks at hand?

Let's start from the beginning. First we choose unit's type and scheme, rather natural, but in the second step we place this unit on the map. Just at once...But will this unit be ready at once? NO. If we do it while the game is paused the unit will have no platoons and no stats. If we release the flow of time, the unit will communicate with its logistic center and send a kind of a request for specific platoons (it happens without players` knowledge in the lower layers of the game).
So we may place a unit anywhere we wish in our country as long as it is in our supply range or abroad on a hex with our logistic center. It means you may form units at allied countries, but first you have to send some equipment there...

Fast and simple. Clever and realistic! By few clicks we place units or even corps on the map and only the contents of our warehouses determine what we get of what we wanted.

So lets summarize - units are formed, equipped, trained and organized on the map, so a player may sent his units anywhere at any moment, but totally fresh units are almost useless - low number of platoons cause low stats, new units also has low condition so they are only able to perform temporary defensive missions and without support of “adult” units they usually are doomed to failure.

Of course ships are build differently, this set of rules is only for land and air units.

I talked a bit about not beautiful graphics, but when a real graphic artist starts to work... (a wallpaper):
http://screen.bitterglory.com/in/09-02/kddmjlfcx.png

[wosung]

Well, was 200. Mot. Div. of Chinese National Revolutionary Army really a Mechanized Div?

It was was built in 1938 (when Russia supported GMD instead of their Chinese ideological brothers, so that Japan should stuck to the Chinese quagmire instead of attacking Sibiria.)

It was built with Russian equipment: (70xT-26, 4 BT-5 and 20 CV-33 tanks plus 50 BA armoured cars). Hardly a Mechanized Division. However in 1938 it had beaten Japanese Army at Kunlun Pass.

But don’t forget that China then was still a very poor country without much heavy industry, despite German armament efforts. Poorer than even Japan. They hardly produced any trucks themselves, and no tanks. In the 1930s China still was the dumping place for militray crap equipment from all the world. This meant: It had to be imported and maintained. To 1941 most of the Chinese import routes (before the Burma route), which deserved the name had been cut by the Japanese.

Bottom line: 200. Div arguably could best be represented as a one shot tank brigade.

Regards

[Anraz]

Well, was 200. Mot. Div. of Chinese National Revolutionary Army really a Mechanized Div?

It is a good question and that is why I wrote “some further research might be needed “.

It was was built in 1938 (when Russia supported GMD instead of their Chinese ideological brothers,

Right, but in the unit also was some German, Italian and American equipment.

Also we could call the unit "motorized", or maybe even "semi motorized". In fact all names are only labels. They are not the most important because of equipment oriented approach - stats are based on equipment present in the unit. Labels are for productions schemes and for players` fun.

But don’t forget that China...

I do know it and remember it. We are trying to show it in the game....

[Anraz]

Hi. Every week brings a new portion of questions and issues to deal with. The questions of a recent week were:

- does the Kertch strait need sea transport to cross?
- how many capes should be placed in Cyprus and some other islands and coasts
- what is the best way to represent Danish straits

A stranger could think it is a kind of geoproject, not a game!

I said a lot about land units building and its schemes, only slightly touching air units. The screen below shows an early panel of schemes. But in this part I'm going to say a few words about shipbuilding. A few because I'm to reveal very important thing.


In my opinion the best place to build a ship is a hex, a precise hex which belongs to the map, and this means that the ship from scratch is on the map! Not somewhere in a safe spot out of sight and range of your enemy, but on the map! It is obvious choice, if we want to add something new and refreshing to the grand strategy games. It is obvious choice if we want to map the real war.

The process of building is simple (someone said that from designer's point of view everything in his game is simple, but when it time to do the actual coding things start to get complicated). First a player has to choose a ship of his design, or pattern made by AI, then choose number of ships to build at once, and length the series, and finally chose a proper hex with suitable level of port and industry. The bigger the ship is, the bigger are her requirements.

Placing of an emerging ship on the map has some weighty consequences. She may be bombed, she may be sabotaged and she may be captured! Also if a production is canceled a unit won't disappear, but stay as it is. Furthermore a player may continue such production (does it remind you of something?) or scrap a ship, or even sell

To name a few examples, Germany seized a shipyard in Nikołajew in Ukraine where soviet battleships were constructed and Frenchmen blew up their Joffre a carrier right on the slipways to prevent she from being captured.


***


http://screen.bitterglory.com/in/09-02/pmnobvbbg.png

[V22 Osprey]

This game looks ALOT like Hearst of Iron, but has more of wargamer feel with the hexes.

[dogancan]

this game looks really promising, and seems to me that it may be much better than HoI3. The idea of producing units on the map is perfect, and so simple!

[wosung]

does the Kertch strait need sea transport to cross?

So how did you solve this one?

German Kriegsmarine operated a few transport ships, Marineprahme and Siebelfähren in the Black Sea for sea transport. The two latter ones were used at Kertch in summer time. In Winter the ice was passable even for heavy vehicles for a few months.

Regards

[Anraz]

In fact we haven't. One of reasons is a feature that allow land units to enter to frozen sea hexes. The feature hasn't been tested yet (and it is not sure if it is in final version of the game), so it is hard to make the final decision.

[wosung]

Well, if it would be a decision between passable - passable only by sea transport, then there are probably more reasons for allowing land movements. Both sides, Ger and Sov, from time to time were moving troops through costal Black Sea, without the other side being able to interfere constantly or massively, Luftwaffe and Sov Black sea Fleet nonewithstanding.

Aside the winter problem, Kertch situation is like Street of Sicily, isn't it?

Of course more detail surely is appreciated by WW2 strategy fans.

Regards

[dogancan]

Strategic games of this theme and scale begin to be way too similar with each other, although I believe there are significant opportunities for a fresh game to differentiate itself and improve the standard. Although military aspect is always naturally at the centre of the focus of all games, IMO economic and political aspects (which really rose most challenging problems for the "governors" of states of relevant period) are unnecessarily abstracted to a point of childish "selections".

Take take issue of economy: in HoI, as far as I remember, you are "buying" factories for your provinces to increase your production, and have full control on the production of luxuries, food and guns. Moreover, any changes you make have instant effect: "you want to increase your luxury production? no matter, just left-click to the bar and with the next morning the country will begin to produce more luxuries!"

I am aware that these are just “games” and they meant to be played with ordinary gamers, but I do not see a reason to create a little more sophisticated economic dimension for these games. Let me explain: If you are playing with a capitalist country or a fascist one, to improve your luxury production, you should need to lower your import tariffs on these, should lower any luxury-consumption taxes, and wait for a couple of months at least. Likewise, to improve your military production, you may either choose to increase political pressure on unions, or start social campaings, or if you are still in 30s, may just pay more to create an incentive for people to join the business of gun-production. Is it too hard to code such a system? It does not necessarily be too complex, but will surely add much depth to game, and create a need for making economic plans for the next months, and years. Also, with a sophisticated economy model, in the big campaing starting from thirties, players will need to be tackle with the effects of depression, with inflation, social problems and etc. (wouldn't it be fun to choose either to imply or not the Keynesian economics and see the outcomes?).

Moreover (if that was the historical case) making auctions for military armamanets, and say choosing to whom out-sourcing tank or battleship productions (to the lowest bidder or another company with more experience) will be fun. And those 'exactly known' amount od resources and required-time for producing a shipshould definitely be gone. There may always been delays due to the laziness of contractors, or strikes caused by your social policies!

Think I made my point on the simplicity of economy modelling in these games. But one another issue is polics, especially internal politics. I heard that in HoI3 there will be some improvements, but still, there should be more interaction with the player and 'his society'. Creating hitler-youth, and choosing money to be allocated for it, should be based on the decision of the Germany player, and must have some outcomes for instance. Or one playing with france in 30s, while trying to get the country ready for the coming war, should struggle to win the next elections, raise campaings, must be able to prepare propaganda films (either based on patriotism, or the superiority of his party). May be, with playing soviets, you may even choose to send lots of many to communist party of USA to help them against trockists, or empower them enough to quarante a social pressure in USA society toward interfering in case of an attack to USSR

To summarise, in my opinion, without these two key areas sufficiently improved, it is really hard to make a game like this, which will be significantly different and better than HoI series. Not that I don't like your approach, I read whole your developers diary, and will probably be one of your customers. Platoon based approach, and to desing your plattons are nice ideas. But I would really like to see some substantial improvements in Bitter Glory. I hate to “buy factories, select ministers, produce a DD in 237 days for 1.2$ per day”. And I believe computers have long been developed enough to simulate more.

[Widell]

Well, at the end of the day the designer will have to make a trade off between what the core of the game is, and based on that will have to make trade offs in none-core areas. I'm all in favour of managing lots of detail, and enjoy micromanagement heavy games. However, a game that require micro management of "everything" would most likely be seen as a total fluke by many gamers. For example: You have to manage national economics and politics to the same extent as you manage units and fight battles. Of course the reverse would be true as well. The one context where this would work would be some kind of multiplayer setting, probably online with different players managing different aspects of the game.
 
On the other hand, I would be happy to give a game with WitP:AE doing the naval stuff, maybe even switching to Harpoon level for certain combat action, TOAW for land battles and ToE levels, Eagle Day to Bombing of the Reich to deal with air op's and probably elements of AGEOD:ACW involved in building units and deciding on chain of command. Then add some Panther Games engine to play select land battles real time just like Harpoon would deal with fleet and certan aspects of air battles. Finally add the tech tree's (and some other parts) from HoI and the events and editor capabilties from AT. If you want economics included add stuff from the Capitalism series. I'm drooling already, but still.... would it make sense and be fun to play?

[Anraz]

 

ORIGINAL:  wosung   Well, if it would be a decision between passable - passable only by sea transport, then there are probably more reasons for allowing land movements. Both sides, Ger and Sov, from time to time were moving troops through costal Black Sea, without the other side being able to interfere constantly or massively, Luftwaffe and Sov Black sea Fleet nonewithstanding.   Aside the winter problem, Kertch situation is like Street of Sicily, isn't it?   Of course more detail surely is appreciated by WW2 strategy fans.   Regards

  The Strait of Messina (I guess you thought about this one) has one significant difference- it doesn`t congeal.   Anyway we have to check Sea of Azov as the last important factor, I mean to check if there were ports, actions or just presence of Soviet fleet worth of (players`) interests.   For now I`m to set it as land hex with strait on its edge. To set it on west or east edge...? This is a question... Fleet will be allowed to move through the hex, the hex owner is to control the strait.
 

ORIGINAL: dogancan

  Very interesting post...
 

I hate to “buy factories, select ministers, produce a DD in 237 days for 1.2$ per day

 
...but have you any batter idea of production than the one based on time and cost? Whatever is to produce it takes time and resources (its cost)... The alternative is to produce without players` involvement or even out of his influence(such option probably will be included), but this also must   take into account time, cost, etc...    

ORIGINAL:  Widell at the end of the day the designer will have to make a trade off between what the core of the game is, and based on that will have to make trade offs in none-core areas

 
..and at the end of the day the designer have to judge what for  use the power of player`s PC  and what could be scarified in order maintain reasonable hardware requirements...

[doomtrader]

Hi. Part number 13... Do you believe that 13 is a jinxed number? I don't since I graduated university at 13.

I decide to move diary from Friday to the weekend. Lately so many things happen simultaneously that I has to limit my on-line time, or rather “on-PC”, time and now instead of teen hours per day on the PC I spent something like 8-9 per day, and Friday Night is the best moment to gather my thoughts, and write a few clear sentences.

Paradoxically meanwhile I have a bit more time for reading, and through last week I read three books regarding World War Two, three out of eight which I has bought this week In one of those was an interesting event connected with withdrawing of the Red Army from Baltic States in 1941. It was about sinking about one thousand (~1000!) freight cars to prevent the Germans from taking them. Nonetheless, the Germans fished almost all of them out of the water. I don't think the engine of “Biter Glory” will allow to them do the same, unless we add a chain of events to manipulate the railway transport pool. Regarding the events there are something like two or three thousand of them, even for the smallest countries there are tens of them . But there is a catch - they are in Polish Now they are, but it is going to change during the following months.

Beside railway transport pool (which allow to move your units via trains, and transport goods and resources between logistic centers) there are three other transport pools: truck transport pool ( which deliver goods from logistic centers directly to units, and may become part of any unit as simple platoons of trucks), air transport pool (which allow suppling cutoff units, transport airliftable units and paradrop airborne units) and sea transport pool (which allow to transport goods, also bought/sold ones and units). Out of pools are draught animals, slow and unlimited.

I have a request for you – how you would name a trait which describes a person who usually use continuous frontal attacks, and doesn't care about losses? Such trait would have more disadvantages than advantages (high attack bonus to led unit, but even higher defense penalty to reflect heavy loses). I'm not to hide that this trait will attached to Soviet generals (e.g. Zukhov in mind). I have a linguistic issue here, because for some reasons it must be a noun. The best one I have now is “ram”, but I don't feel it is a perfect choice. So will you help me?

http://screen.bitterglory.com/in/09-02/ngumcdjvv.png

[dogancan]

ORIGINAL: WidellWell, at the end of the day the designer will have to make a trade off between what the core of the game is, and based on that will have to make trade offs in none-core areas. I'm all in favour of managing lots of detail, and enjoy micromanagement heavy games. However, a game that require micro management of "everything" would most likely be seen as a total fluke by many gamers.

Totally agree. But expecting a little more complexity in economics (like choosing the Keynesian 'doctrine'), letting player of USA 30's to tackle with the aftershocks of the economic crisis and adding some randomness to the impact of these should not be micro-management.

[dogancan]

ORIGINAL: Anraz

I hate to “buy factories, select ministers, produce a DD in 237 days for 1.2$ per day

 
...but have you any batter idea of production than the one based on time and cost? Whatever is to produce it takes time and resources (its cost)... The alternative is to produce without players` involvement or even out of his influence(such option probably will be included), but this also must   take into account time, cost, etc...

two points: first, of course everything should based on time and cost. BUT, they are never ever absolute amounts in real world. I thus believe the value of adding randomness to an extent to production as well as to battles. (can anyone be 100% sure about the exact day of ending of the construction of an aircraft carrier? they may even be subjected to delays of years. And due to organisational defects,this can happen even with all necessary resources available.)

Second, the approach of "purchasing factories by the player" may accurately reflect the economic structure of Soviets. But not so of other Allies, or even Axis states. Adding a differential approach to this may add depth to the game, although it is quite through that micromanaging everything can be a pain...

[Anraz]

two points: first, of course everything should based on time and cost. BUT, they are never ever absolute amounts in real world. I thus believe the value of adding randomness to an extent to production as well as to battles. (can anyone be 100% sure about the exact day of ending of the construction of an aircraft carrier? they may even be subjected to delays of years. And due to organisational defects,this can happen even with all necessary resources available.)

  Nothing is certain, but the larger scale of production is, the more predictable is time of production of a single unit, and the sum of all random effects goes to zero, so it is out of play. Statistics is ruthless.
  Anyway  would a delay of launch of a single carrier change the course of whole ww2? IMHO not, but such feature implemented into the game could consume a little bit more power of your PC.

[Widell]

ORIGINAL: dogancan

ORIGINAL: WidellWell, at the end of the day the designer will have to make a trade off between what the core of the game is, and based on that will have to make trade offs in none-core areas. I'm all in favour of managing lots of detail, and enjoy micromanagement heavy games. However, a game that require micro management of "everything" would most likely be seen as a total fluke by many gamers.

Totally agree. But expecting a little more complexity in economics (like choosing the Keynesian 'doctrine'), letting player of USA 30's to tackle with the aftershocks of the economic crisis and adding some randomness to the impact of these should not be micro-management.

I fully agree. My statements was only related to the trade off between being playable and being realistic whatever we choose to put into these two little words [:)]

ORIGINAL: Anraz

two points: first, of course everything should based on time and cost. BUT, they are never ever absolute amounts in real world. I thus believe the value of adding randomness to an extent to production as well as to battles. (can anyone be 100% sure about the exact day of ending of the construction of an aircraft carrier? they may even be subjected to delays of years. And due to organisational defects,this can happen even with all necessary resources available.)

  Nothing is certain, but the larger scale of production is, the more predictable is time of production of a single unit, and the sum of all random effects goes to zero, so it is out of play. Statistics is ruthless.
  Anyway  would a delay of launch of a single carrier change the course of whole ww2? IMHO not, but such feature implemented into the game could consume a little bit more power of your PC.

Well, look at the US situation in the Pac up to Midway. They were counting CV's and days until new CV's could be commissioned. Same for damaged CV's under repair and this is true for Japan as well. Anyone who has played WitP know this for sure [;)]. This is IMHO also true for HOI, specially for the units that represent a strategic choice, i.e going for a strategic bomber force as Germany. You then need to 1)invest time and money in R&D and then 2)wait a very long time to produce the units after which they 3)must gain experience before actually providing any strategic value to your campaign.

On the level of the "bulk" production like standard arms and units, what you say about statistics is more or less true unless you introduce more levels of production and start getting into bottle-neck constraints like certain raw materials, refining capacity, parts requiring special machining etc. For a game with the ambition of Bitter Glory, I'd hate to see production abstracted to the level of "it's all statistics and the sum of all errors is zero". You can use this type of simplifications in other types of games and still come up with very enjoyable games, don't get me wrong, but if you spend the effort that you are spending on creating a very interesting and detailed game when it comes to units and unit creation, you should not take an "Axis and Allies" approach to production and research (again, not saying A&A has a bad approach, rather the opposite for that game).

[Anraz]

Well I think we should make a few steps back and separate random effects and other factors which might influence on time of production. If we do so, we may see that even without random effects (for example) a carrier of the same design in different countries not necessarily will be produced for the same amount of time. Also prototypes are more costly than serial builds. Maybe for some players it won`t be enough, but it is impossible to meet everyone’s needs.

[Widell]

That is a true statement...

[Anraz]

Hi! We created another tech-demo of our game this week. Another portion of functionality to be examined. At this stage of the game the amount of final graphics is negligible and the “programmer art” is dominant, in effect it is difficult to make a nice screenshot. But it’s very pleasant to observer how the logic of the game keeps growing. On the other hand, before the release of the game many different screenshots will find their way to the Diary so there will be something to look at
Well, you have to trust me that work on the game is moving forward

Last week I’ve indicated a certain issue. I’ve asked you about a name for a trait assigned to commanders who are using frontal assaults without finesse, attacks forcing soldiers into extreme exertion and completely wiping out the unit. After reviving pros and cons the “Attritional Assaulter” seems to be the best proposal (proposed by xt828 on the CORE forum).

After gathering and supplementing bits scattered around a couple of forums, today I’d like to answer users’ questions. I will focus on the leaders.
In “Bitter Glory” leaders’ traits are graded and have five levels, which, after a couple of linguistic consultations, look as follows:

Novice
Skilled
Experienced
Veteran
Elite

In practice those are prefixes describing successive levels of mastery of a particular trait. For example:

Novice Paratrooper
Skilled Paratrooper
Experienced Paratrooper
Veteran Paratrooper
Elite Paratrooper

or:

Novice Artillerist
Skilled Artillerist
Experienced Artillerist
Veteran Artillerist
Elite Artillerist

Traits can be gained and developed during the game according to what a particular leader does. Though some of them will be assigned to some leaders from the beginning of a scenario. A development of player’s cadre will depend only on his luck and choices, including those traits to which a particular general/admiral has predispositions. Traits influence different parameters of units (e.g. air attack), including non-combat ones (e.g. unit’s speed) and units’ efficiency during a fight (e.g. chances of surrendering). Simultaneously to traits, every leader will also be characterized with experience, just like every unit is.

A couple of land leader’s traits:

maneuver practitioner
systematic leader
comrade
flak general
panzer general
military instructor
hammer & sickle.

In total, dozens of traits for every army type.

If someone would like to count how many hexes are here and there…

http://screen.bitterglory.com/in/09-03/jwrsdmuqi.png