GD 1938 - Renewed and improved
Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2013 12:28 am
GD 1938 is New and Improved
Introduction
Once apon a time I had a dream to build a wargame, that would work for the whole world, and be set during the 2nd world war. This dream was born out of playing games like Rise and Decline of the Third Reich, by Avalon Hill, and other such games. So I made a wargame of my own. It was HUGE, and I was the only one playing it - sadly. The along came the Peoples Tactics game by Vic, which I picked up rather late, but I started designing for it.
I made a little scenario, I still have it, which can be said to be the first roots of GD 1938. The first version of the GD 1938 game was for Advanced Tactics: World War II, and it was a kind of cross between other scenarios and wasn´t really a game in its own rights. This has changed, with this the newest version of GD 1938, which is still in developement, but probably will be ready for its first spin this Monday.
Changes
Bombur and I have worked very hard, in each our ways to make GD 1938, a unique and intersting scenario, that is replayable, again, again and again.
The first BIG change was made because GD 1938 was running into Memory issues with some players. It was simply too big, in the sense that it had 55 regimes, and they were all eating up alot of memory each. Also there were some issues with the way people had to remember that coup cards were useless, once a regime had been conquered, and the same went for diplomatic researches. These concepts were thrown to the wind, and something new was thouught up.
Faux Regimes & Diplomacy
Instead of regimes, BWheatley and I came up with the idea of making so called "Faux regimes". What these are is hard to describe without getting technical, but I will try. Instead of using a regime for each nation, an areaslot was used instead. This meant that all nations are marked out by areaslots. The Minor regimes, were then diveded into four independent regimes, that were used only to show where borders were. (Mathematics has a theory that four colors is really all you need to color a map and still get to show all the countries). These regimes (the four colored ones) were then set to sleep and dip.blocked. They no cannot be declared war on, and neither can they be woken up, or entered into alliance with or anything else.
So with these "faux regimes" in place, something had to be done about taking over them diplomatically. For this I took a page out of Heart of Iron II and III. I made a large matrix that contained all the nations, and assigned them values, which represented their current relationship to each major regime. Then i made another similar matrix, and made a list of which direction, and how fast these nations were moving towards an alliance with each major regime. And then it was time for a function that could influence them diplomatically. Which when got over a certain level (800) would cause a chance to become part of that regime (1000-level/2 percent).
Also something had to be done regarding war with these minors. Obviously someone had to control them if they were attacked, and attacking had to be worked out. The answer, was an algorithm, checking the best friend of the attacked nation, and letting them take over the country. This would for instance put Germany to war with France, when Poland was attacked.
So the "Faux regimes" were born, and declaring war on these minor nations, can only be done via action card, and diplomacy is too handled via action card.
Victory conditions
The second big change that came along was an idea fostered by Bombur. He said, why not give each regime a victory conditon that defines their actions, and make them behave more like they did in World War II. At the time our testgames showed a huge tendancy for Germany and the Soviet Union to become permanent allies.... which was not our intent. We improved apon the idea, and gave each regime not one, but up to 5 sets of victory conditions.
These are chosen on the first turn of the game, via action card, and should be kept secret from the other players, as only 1 regime can win. There is no joint-victory option. The five different sets of victory conditions make it so that some scenarios are completely avoided, while others are more prone to happen. A good example of these victory conditions are the British ones.
Basically there is a requirement to always own the British Isles, and the dominions (New Zealand, Australia, Canada & South Africa), and then there are 5 options that can be chosen to add to this victory condition....
1). Keep the Empire (Own all production centers in the British empire, at the beginning of 1944 or later)
2). Empire in the East (Take the Chinese coastline cities, and Japan and Korea)
3). Defeat Fascism (Take and hold the production centers of the German and Italian homeland)
4). Defeat Bolshevism (Take Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Gorkiy)
5). Expand the empire (Increase starting VP´s by 60%)
Similar victory conditions exist for each regime. Some are conflicting and tensions should arise because of this. In fact we hope that we can simulate a realistic what-if by using these victory conditions.
Unique Units
One of the hall-marks of the GD 1938 scenario is the existance of its many unique and historical units. If you play Germany for instance, you WILL be using Panzer IIs as well as the other marks, and your fighters will be the BF109s as well as FW190s when they become available. Bombur has been responsible for making the SFTs and Items. I could not have made this scenario without his expertise and help.
Techs and Techbleeding
For those who have yet to play a game of GD 1938, it can right now be said that there are alot of Techs. These techs come in two kinds. The tactical and the strategic ones. The latter ones include production boosts, radar, better training, and more. These are all explained in game.
The tactical ones are the ones like Fighter I, Fighter II, Fighter III, etc. These stretch from 1938 to the 1950s. So a long game is quite possible, stretching on for more than 100 turns, without running out of new techs. A barrier has been made, so you cannot research too far into the future. No Jet fighters in 1939 for instance. This was done to make sure players try and make a balanced approach to research. A tech in general is not available before it was available in real life +2 years.
Also there is the feature called tech bleeding. Whenever a non-strategic tech is researched it becomes cheaper for the next regime that researches it, by 5%. So sometimes it pays off to keep an eye out for those tech prices, and see if something has become less costly. If it has, that is where some of your opponents, or even friends, are researching.
Special thanks
A special thanks goes out to the people who have playtested earlier versions of the game. Without their help this could not have happened.
Introduction
Once apon a time I had a dream to build a wargame, that would work for the whole world, and be set during the 2nd world war. This dream was born out of playing games like Rise and Decline of the Third Reich, by Avalon Hill, and other such games. So I made a wargame of my own. It was HUGE, and I was the only one playing it - sadly. The along came the Peoples Tactics game by Vic, which I picked up rather late, but I started designing for it.
I made a little scenario, I still have it, which can be said to be the first roots of GD 1938. The first version of the GD 1938 game was for Advanced Tactics: World War II, and it was a kind of cross between other scenarios and wasn´t really a game in its own rights. This has changed, with this the newest version of GD 1938, which is still in developement, but probably will be ready for its first spin this Monday.
Changes
Bombur and I have worked very hard, in each our ways to make GD 1938, a unique and intersting scenario, that is replayable, again, again and again.
The first BIG change was made because GD 1938 was running into Memory issues with some players. It was simply too big, in the sense that it had 55 regimes, and they were all eating up alot of memory each. Also there were some issues with the way people had to remember that coup cards were useless, once a regime had been conquered, and the same went for diplomatic researches. These concepts were thrown to the wind, and something new was thouught up.
Faux Regimes & Diplomacy
Instead of regimes, BWheatley and I came up with the idea of making so called "Faux regimes". What these are is hard to describe without getting technical, but I will try. Instead of using a regime for each nation, an areaslot was used instead. This meant that all nations are marked out by areaslots. The Minor regimes, were then diveded into four independent regimes, that were used only to show where borders were. (Mathematics has a theory that four colors is really all you need to color a map and still get to show all the countries). These regimes (the four colored ones) were then set to sleep and dip.blocked. They no cannot be declared war on, and neither can they be woken up, or entered into alliance with or anything else.
So with these "faux regimes" in place, something had to be done about taking over them diplomatically. For this I took a page out of Heart of Iron II and III. I made a large matrix that contained all the nations, and assigned them values, which represented their current relationship to each major regime. Then i made another similar matrix, and made a list of which direction, and how fast these nations were moving towards an alliance with each major regime. And then it was time for a function that could influence them diplomatically. Which when got over a certain level (800) would cause a chance to become part of that regime (1000-level/2 percent).
Also something had to be done regarding war with these minors. Obviously someone had to control them if they were attacked, and attacking had to be worked out. The answer, was an algorithm, checking the best friend of the attacked nation, and letting them take over the country. This would for instance put Germany to war with France, when Poland was attacked.
So the "Faux regimes" were born, and declaring war on these minor nations, can only be done via action card, and diplomacy is too handled via action card.
Victory conditions
The second big change that came along was an idea fostered by Bombur. He said, why not give each regime a victory conditon that defines their actions, and make them behave more like they did in World War II. At the time our testgames showed a huge tendancy for Germany and the Soviet Union to become permanent allies.... which was not our intent. We improved apon the idea, and gave each regime not one, but up to 5 sets of victory conditions.
These are chosen on the first turn of the game, via action card, and should be kept secret from the other players, as only 1 regime can win. There is no joint-victory option. The five different sets of victory conditions make it so that some scenarios are completely avoided, while others are more prone to happen. A good example of these victory conditions are the British ones.
Basically there is a requirement to always own the British Isles, and the dominions (New Zealand, Australia, Canada & South Africa), and then there are 5 options that can be chosen to add to this victory condition....
1). Keep the Empire (Own all production centers in the British empire, at the beginning of 1944 or later)
2). Empire in the East (Take the Chinese coastline cities, and Japan and Korea)
3). Defeat Fascism (Take and hold the production centers of the German and Italian homeland)
4). Defeat Bolshevism (Take Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Gorkiy)
5). Expand the empire (Increase starting VP´s by 60%)
Similar victory conditions exist for each regime. Some are conflicting and tensions should arise because of this. In fact we hope that we can simulate a realistic what-if by using these victory conditions.
Unique Units
One of the hall-marks of the GD 1938 scenario is the existance of its many unique and historical units. If you play Germany for instance, you WILL be using Panzer IIs as well as the other marks, and your fighters will be the BF109s as well as FW190s when they become available. Bombur has been responsible for making the SFTs and Items. I could not have made this scenario without his expertise and help.
Techs and Techbleeding
For those who have yet to play a game of GD 1938, it can right now be said that there are alot of Techs. These techs come in two kinds. The tactical and the strategic ones. The latter ones include production boosts, radar, better training, and more. These are all explained in game.
The tactical ones are the ones like Fighter I, Fighter II, Fighter III, etc. These stretch from 1938 to the 1950s. So a long game is quite possible, stretching on for more than 100 turns, without running out of new techs. A barrier has been made, so you cannot research too far into the future. No Jet fighters in 1939 for instance. This was done to make sure players try and make a balanced approach to research. A tech in general is not available before it was available in real life +2 years.
Also there is the feature called tech bleeding. Whenever a non-strategic tech is researched it becomes cheaper for the next regime that researches it, by 5%. So sometimes it pays off to keep an eye out for those tech prices, and see if something has become less costly. If it has, that is where some of your opponents, or even friends, are researching.
Special thanks
A special thanks goes out to the people who have playtested earlier versions of the game. Without their help this could not have happened.
