Over the Reich - Prof. Garfield vs. JPetroski

[Prof. Garfield]

Brest captured. I accidentally rushed headquarters there, forgetting that I couldn't switch production to something else after...

You can have the events to do with what you need to.

Changelog:
Railtrack terrain defence multiplier dropped to 50%.

Battle groups can now be damaged to 5hp with munitions. I may want to reset to exactly 5 hp if the last attack brings it below that (right now I reset to at least 1). I didn't do it before, since I thought that it would be unfortunate to attack with a munition and have the unit hp increase, but I think that with the immunity threshold so low, that is the smaller error.

For every defeat allied battle groups suffer, a depleted battle group will be sent to the allied reinforcement cities (plymouth, Glasgow, etc). Two will be sent if a full strength battle group is annihilated. For each depleted battle group sent, 0.5 of a German port is added to the battle of the Atlantic calculation, to represent loss of manpower for production. 1 port is roughly equal to half a train per turn (a port is roughly 1/9 of a convoy per turn). We can tweak the number if necessary.

 

[JPetroski]

I used cheat mode to remove Industry II and I since you wiped out Schweinfurt. I'm leaning towards the first city in Germany triggers the total collapse/loss of Bach as things are pretty bleak as it stands!

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Maybe put Bach in Berlin as 'Adolf Hitler' and have it last until the capital falls. Especially if we switch the Allies to fundamentalism.

Should we tie the Soviet invasion to a turn instead of points? I'm thinking turn 100 or turn 110. 1500 points looks like it might happen too soon. Something that just occurred to me is that the Allies will be able to use airfields captured by the Soviets once they start advancing. This is probably not desirable.

At the moment the Allies have a system to recover battle losses (I won't give myself back the battle group that I lost, since there is a good chance that the Allied player might miss the second point driven reinforcement). Do you want something similar for the Germans? If so, let me know so that I can implement it before I play again. I expect to kills some battle groups in the next few turns, so I would prefer to have the system already in place if we want it.

Do you want to give yourself back some planes or something? If you over committed your airforce earlier, we might not be getting a good picture of the tactics.

 

[JPetroski]

Maybe put Bach in Berlin as 'Adolf Hitler' and have it last until the capital falls. Especially if we switch the Allies to fundamentalism.

That's probably not a bad idea - lose Berlin and it'll be all but impossible to carry on.

Should we tie the Soviet invasion to a turn instead of points? I'm thinking turn 100 or turn 110. 1500 points looks like it might happen too soon. Something that just occurred to me is that the Allies will be able to use airfields captured by the Soviets once they start advancing. This is probably not desirable.

Well, I prefer a non-turn-based trigger simply because if we make this tied to turns, it is scripted. We can't expect every player to invade in the mid 60's, after all. Right now I think the second condition is that any city in Europe is captured and maybe we want it to be certain cities (again, I'm kind of thinking a city in Germany). So 1500 points plus an "inner" city triggers the arrival of the Soviets.

At the moment the Allies have a system to recover battle losses (I won't give myself back the battle group that I lost, since there is a good chance that the Allied player might miss the second point driven reinforcement). Do you want something similar for the Germans? If so, let me know so that I can implement it before I play again. I expect to kills some battle groups in the next few turns, so I would prefer to have the system already in place if we want it.

I think we do have a system currently in place, or at least I know that one of my battle groups regrouped after being destroyed when I attacked. I forget the actual conditions you put in, but I know that I lost a unit and it was rebuilt a short distance away, so I think this is currently in there.

Do you want to give yourself back some planes or something? If you over committed your airforce earlier, we might not be getting a good picture of the tactics.

No -- I'm making a deliberate choice at the moment and trying something out. We'll see if my choice works and can stave off defeat or not!

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I changed a typo in the Events. If you're working on them (you said you might a couple days ago), I'll fix the typo again when I next get the events. It was the Roam at Will text.

I think we do have a system currently in place, or at least I know that one of my battle groups regrouped after being destroyed when I attacked. I forget the actual conditions you put in, but I know that I lost a unit and it was rebuilt a short distance away, so I think this is currently in there.

The Allies also have the regrouping mechanism as a depleted battle group (once they have cities on the continent). The new allied mechanism, however, replaces depleted battle groups and also sends depleted battle groups when a full strength battle group becomes depleted (so force strength is eventually preserved, or even increased a little). I was wondering if there should be some sort of reinforcement mechanism for the Germans for them to recover losses. Maybe not, if the point is that they already have numerical advantage, and just have to hold out to turn 125.

 

[JPetroski]

I think you've posted the wrong saved game - all of your units hadn't moved yet (I tried to ctrl+n and it went through everything).

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I think you've posted the wrong saved game - all of your units hadn't moved yet (I tried to ctrl+n and it went through everything).

Sorry. Here's the correct save. Take note of the events.lua file, and don't copy it if you've been working on stuff.

 

[JPetroski]

Maybe I'm going crazy (all too possible) but this once again has the same save - ca_a72 which is a different naming structure than you've been using. Am I missing something?

 

[Prof. Garfield]

No, it looks like I went crazy, somehow. Or, maybe I didn't click 'replace' when I created the new zip file (of course, I deleted the zip files on my desktop, so I can't even check now...).

 

[JPetroski]

Oh.
Joy.
Mustangs.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

You were planning on changing the events a few days ago. Are you in the middle of changes, or did something else come up?

 

[JPetroski]

Are you in the middle of changes, or did something else come up?

Sorry I was unable to make the change - I have to take a look and see what is causing the F8 not to trigger any defensive fire hits. You've shot almost all of them down at this point anyway, but I'll need to look at it soon.

Edit - here is the turn save:

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Turn 74

 

[JPetroski]

Turn 74

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Turn 75

 

[JPetroski]

Turn 75

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Changelog:

Battle Groups now always have 5hp after being attacked by munitions (previously, the attack stopped once they were reduced to 5 or less).

A2A rockets are now part of the munitions that get a bonus from tactics.

I'm wondering if we should limit the amount of fuel that can be stockpiled. At the moment, I have more than 30,000, which I could use to bring much of France up to full war production over ~10 turns or so, which doesn't seem very realistic. Or, maybe, the cities in occupied Europe shouldn't be able to build Industry for the Allies, or something.

The other option is to reduce the fuel from convoys, but that might impact the early game too much.

 

[JPetroski]

I have to play a little bit later today but I tried to start the turn and pretty much every airbase got sold. I think this is because of how I had strikes against oil refineries take fuel away from me. It seemed like a good idea at the time but it's possible when you build up to knock me down to a point where this occurs. It seems like the airfields must be the first cities that "cycle" so there isn't much chance for the other ones to put some coin in the til.

I'm going to address this short term by editing the end of your turn to make sure I have about 500 fuel or so to start my turn. In the long term we probably need to remove the fuel cost for refinery strikes. It wasn't an issue until you started hitting them over several turns in force.

 

[JPetroski]

Here is the turn - jets have finally arrived so I'm back to feeling like I have some control (at least limited). It was a little dreary until they showed up but now there's something to play with! The Mustangs seem to do a great job of killing them though which is troubling. They might do too good of a job but one turn is hardly sufficient to judge.

I'm trying to figure out what to do about the fuel situation/selling improvements. I'd really like you to still be able to take out refineries and knock down fuel so I can't launch effective operations, but I don't want a situation where airfields or frankly any improvements are being sold. Here's an idea, and there's a great chance it is terrible:

What is the very first trigger that runs on a turn? Can we make sure the Germans have at least, say, 500 fuel before anything else happens?
What's the first trigger that occurs after the game runs through the cities and runs the economy calculations? Can we then take the 500 away?
Can we have the Allied attacks on refineries reduce the fuel by whatever they do now (I think 100) but never below 0?

Wouldn't these three steps allow the Allies to knock the Germans fuel down to 0 before the Germans can play without actually causing the improvements to get sold off?

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Changelog:
Damaged B17F and G are now considered in range of an airfield based on the range of the B17F and B17G (I had a couple messages about ones near Berlin that didn't defend themselves since they were 'out of range', i.e. beyond ~75 squares or so).

Depleted German Battle Groups are now moved out of airfields upon k-attack just like all other battle groups (in the table, I put in depleted allied battle groups twice).

I'm trying to figure out what to do about the fuel situation/selling improvements. I'd really like you to still be able to take out refineries and knock down fuel so I can't launch effective operations, but I don't want a situation where airfields or frankly any improvements are being sold. Here's an idea, and there's a great chance it is terrible:

What is the very first trigger that runs on a turn? Can we make sure the Germans have at least, say, 500 fuel before anything else happens?
What's the first trigger that occurs after the game runs through the cities and runs the economy calculations? Can we then take the 500 away?
Can we have the Allied attacks on refineries reduce the fuel by whatever they do now (I think 100) but never below 0?

Wouldn't these three steps allow the Allies to knock the Germans fuel down to 0 before the Germans can play without actually causing the improvements to get sold off?

The earliest event is onProduction, which isn't reliable for our purposes. What we can do is make the airfield structure cost 500 gold, so that 500 gold is generated when the first one is sold, and then replace it in afterProduction (which I think we already do) and take back the 500 gold. Since airfields are never built by the player, this should not impact gameplay.

We can have a minimum 'safe' stockpile of fuel, such that refineries being killed doesn't reduce the fuel below that amount. That would give the Germans a little 'breathing room' to manage fuel. On that topic, I'm thinking the Allies could do with a maximum stockpile of fuel.

Here is the turn - jets have finally arrived so I'm back to feeling like I have some control (at least limited). It was a little dreary until they showed up but now there's something to play with! The Mustangs seem to do a great job of killing them though which is troubling. They might do too good of a job but one turn is hardly sufficient to judge.

The way the allies are 'supposed' to kill jets is to attack the airfields, which is ill advised when you first have to kill the flak in the airfield. It is difficult enough with Jabo, but probably nigh impossible with light guns.