ATG: Wishlist thread

[british exil]

ORIGINAL: Keke

ORIGINAL: Josh

ORIGINAL: Keke




I'd like to add that it would work best if defending artillery would support battles with a half or one third of its ArtPow-value - Again according to common boardgame artillery rules.

+1

A case in point: I'd like the red arty regiment (see screenshot) to be able to support two red rifle divisions in range (either or both), when the gray units attack on the first turn. Otherwise it is useless unless the frontline holds, which is very unlikely.

At least with an option to choose a hex, (be given orders) to defend in case of an attack.
If the rifle div gives ground the Art reg is going to bear the brunt of the follow up attack. In real life the Art reg would have all guns blazing to hinder such an attempt or have their tails between their legs and getting out of Dodge.

Mat

[phatkarp]

I like these artillery ideas.  It is problematic that artillery is unrealistically powerless if you are on the defensive.  Readiness of the units you strike with your artillery mostly recovers between turns.  So the "fringe benefits" of artillery (i.e., the effects beyond merely killing units), which make artillery a critical component of an attack, are worthless on the defense. 

[Jafele]

I wish units could have a minimun number of troops required to occupy a hex. Seems to me there are a lot of gameins out there. I suppose a hex is too big for 1 single submarine, smg, etc. A large group of microscopic units can severily block the enemy movement.

[Strategiusz]

1 PP = 5 Rifles and you need 1 PP to create formation. If you want to balance this just raise the formation cost.

Maybe formation cost should be variable and depending on map size like research cost?

[Josh]

ORIGINAL: Jafele

I wish units could have a minimun number of troops required to occupy a hex. Seems to me there are a lot of gameins out there. I suppose a hex is too big for 1 single submarine, smg, etc. A large group of microscopic units can severily block the enemy movement.

Well not really. "ant units" such as existed in TOAWIII were/are never a problem in ATG. If you make lots of 1 rifle units, it's gonna cost you a lot of PP's *and* your opponent will have no trouble at all blasting through them. Probably will have defeated that unit in a 1/10 turn battle.

[Jafele]

Anyway I think it´s almost ridiculous 1 smg cotrolling a hex. Just my opinion.

[phatkarp]

I would like a rule where unoccupied, surrounded hexes automatically change ownership if they are not connected to a hex with an actual friendly unit in it.  It's obnoxious to have these little obsolete pockets of control where some enemy unit, now dead, once passed by.  And it doesn't make logical sense, at least when it's an enemy hex in your home turf.  

[Jafele]

I think there must be a minimun number of troops to create an unit. Let´s say 10 infantry (just an example).During a battle an unit of 60 infantry receive heavy losses, they will continue fighting until the number drop to 10, at that moment the unit automatically surrenders to the enemy. This way is more logical and avoid the unrealistic "totally destroyed units".

If a player decides to build very small units (eg 15 infantry), he is taking a serious risk if the unit engage in combat. If the number drops to 10 the unit is lost. Furthermore, building very small units would be expensive in PP.

[ernieschwitz]

Not sure i like this idea, since it would basically mean that a Fleet of ships had to be very big...

Don´t forget that AT:G / AT: WW2 are very flexible with unit sizes. Also there are Mods that work with Formations being representative of much larger Formations. ie. in Bombur mod There are about 10-15 tanks in a Tank SFT i believe...

[Jafele]

10 infantry is just a proportion for infantry units, ships and other units could follow their own proportion. This rule would force players to build more reasonable and historical units.

[phatkarp]

Sometimes a 10 infantry unit is both reasonable and . . . err . . . historical. 

Reasonable -- I will often use small, infantry-only units to garrison key rear-area points, specifically to guard against paratrooper raids or surprise amphibious landings.  There is a tremendous difference between having a tiny garrison and having no garrison at all in these circumstances. 

Historical -- I've read many military histories that take as a matter-of-course the difference between well-equipped front-line troops and ill-trained and ill-equipped backline troops.  Additionally, military formations come in many different sizes, and this system simply accounts for that.

Not that I disagree with the basic problem that you identify -- ultra-small units are ridiculous.  1 SMG controlling a hex is silly.  But how often does that happen?  I don't think this is a problem that requires a new game mechanic to solve.  And, as Josh said, the other game mechanics do a good job discouraging this sort of thing. Beyond the PP cost of creating new divisions(?), a single SMG is not going to exert a strong ZOC on surrounding hexes.  The ZoC mechanic in this game is something that I don't understand very well, but it's one that seems to make a very large difference in the ability of your troops to move in space adjacent to enemy units.  (To Vic:  I'd like to see an ATG College entry on this topic!)

On a related note, though, I would like enemy divisions that have NO units in them to be invisible to all other players.  It's super gamey to put an empty vessel on a hex.  Is it empty, or do I not have sufficient recon to see what's in there?  More than once I've launched a long-odds battle against a mystery unit, only to find that the damned unit is completely empty.  

[Strategiusz]

Emty units:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... _Fortitude
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... Dummy_tank
XD

[phatkarp]

Touche.

[british exil]

Does seem gamey. But as history and the links posted here dummy units were often used. Quite often with success.
Of course in a PBEM game house rules, where no empty units can be created, can apply.

Units on board ships, well this is a bit more difficult. Prior the Normandy Landings, the fear of information being leaked as the troops boarded their ships was quite large. The area around ports was sealed off. No information gaining was possible, thus information being passed on, by informants was null.
Thus ships would have been sailing out of port but no information would have been gained as to what "cargo" was on each ship.

It would be nice of course to see what units are being transported, but I feel it's part of the fun awaiting an invasion. Not knowing if it is the real thing.
Land units can be "spied" on by recon flights, cavalry units near the frontline.

Mat

[Grymme]

Hi

I think the editor needs a ExecRemovetroops based on units

It could be ExecRemovetroops [unit] [SFTgroup -1 all] [remove x%] [+remove 0-y%]

Currently there is no way to remove troops based on unit selection, only based on hex.

Also, ill push my idea of the following again

Rulevar do disable the mixing of different peoples in a unit.
and an CheckUnitPeople [people]
combined maybe with an ExecRemovetroops [unit] [people] [remove x%] [+remove 0-y%)
and a Reduce readiness by people.

[Grymme]

Another couple of wishes for a patch/future version of AT(G)

- Ability to have different HQ sprites depending on dominant people in a HQ.
- Ability to have all different colours in action cards (like in people colour). Not only the 5 current ones.
- Ability to have several different colours in a counter instead of just one. For example the counter could be divided into 9 fields. Topleft, topmiddle, topright,centerleft, centemiddle, centerright, bottomleft, bottommiddle & bottomright. And each field could have a different colour. So that counters can have bands and different patterns.
- A shortcommand to place predefined units on the map directly from the main editor screen.
- The airwar got some new rules that made the megastack tactic less usefull. I think it would be good to have the possibility to discourage the same megastack tactic when it comes to navies. Maybe stackvalues, maybe Uboats have an easier time finding targets. It just seems that many naval wars degenerate into who has the biggest megastack.

Forgot a couple of other things i was thinking about. Might have to return to this.

[rome87]

Custom template system for units so i can create a unit template be it a armor division,infantry division etc like on hearts of iron 3 and then build from that template without having to create the same unit again and again which gets to your head when you dealing with 10-20 units at a time.

[nicodede62]

In "location type", it would be nice to put a maximum distance.
For example, I want a building can not be built at over 5 hexagons of my capital or any building.

[Vic]

ORIGINAL: nicodede62

In "location type", it would be nice to put a maximum distance.
For example, I want a building can not be built at over 5 hexagons of my capital or any building.

Another way to let players build buildings is through using action cards. Using an action card you can finetune on a hex-to-hex basis on which hexes a location can be build by the player. The only downside of this method is that it is no longer possible to link engineers spending EP points to construction of location.

best,
Vic

[Grymme]

ORIGINAL: Grymme

Another couple of wishes for a patch/future version of AT(G)

- Ability to have different HQ sprites depending on dominant people in a HQ.
- Ability to have all different colours in action cards (like in people colour). Not only the 5 current ones.
- Ability to have several different colours in a counter instead of just one. For example the counter could be divided into 9 fields. Topleft, topmiddle, topright,centerleft, centemiddle, centerright, bottomleft, bottommiddle & bottomright. And each field could have a different colour. So that counters can have bands and different patterns.
- A shortcommand to place predefined units on the map directly from the main editor screen.
- The airwar got some new rules that made the megastack tactic less usefull. I think it would be good to have the possibility to discourage the same megastack tactic when it comes to navies. Maybe stackvalues, maybe Uboats have an easier time finding targets. It just seems that many naval wars degenerate into who has the biggest megastack.

Forgot a couple of other things i was thinking about. Might have to return to this.

Adding another couple of wishes

- A capability to make different types of bridges in the editor.
- A capability to have different fonts and font sizes for text on the map and other places in the editor.
- In the map when you select a hex there is nothing except the graphics to indicate wether there is any roads in the hex or rivers bordering it. I think there should be some text to indicate this, maybe similar to in TOAWIII.