Over the Reich - Prof. Garfield vs. JPetroski

[JPetroski]

I noticed that the 15th AF bombers don't throw up defensive fire. I paused my turn to correct this after the first attack. They now react just like the other B-24.

You seem to have fixed the issues with the radar removal.

I see a potential bug in the combat reporting - it is showing my having killed 40 of your aircraft which I don't think is correct. I'm wondering if this could have been caused by my:

1. Saving the game, editing the events to give the 15th a defensive reaction, and then reloading; or
2. The fact that I checked my old save first to make sure that the radar wipe was fixed.

I'll keep an eye on it next turn. You might also just check to see if yours also says 40. I'd estimate it was more like 20.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

You lost upwards of 40 units according to the combat report, but I only lost 18, so it seems to be working properly.

Disclosure: I played this turn twice. The first time, I somehow forgot to save the game. Results of bombing raids were as close as I could make them to the first time I played (All surviving bombers attacked Linz, but didn't kill the refinery; on replay, a few attacked, and the rest just stopped nearby. Same number of bombers wait near Amsterdam factory as the first turn I played.). Internal movements and production orders were not necessarily the same, but those didn't depend on anything I learned over Europe.

Linz doesn't seem to have high altitude refinery tiles, though the units themselves do appear.

I plan to modify bombers generated for the special missions to have London as the home city. That way, since they all appear in one airbase, I won't have to either distribute them among airfields or distribute their home cities. (I'm not modifying the events at the moment.)

 

[JPetroski]

Turn 36

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Turn 31

 

[JPetroski]

Turn 37

Just as a reminder - your heavy bombers will NOT fire defensively at low altitude

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Just as a reminder - your heavy bombers will NOT fire defensively at low altitude

Thanks, I didn't realize that.

Updating the civlopedia is going to be a big job. I sometimes use it to check if something available is useful (e.g. good against certain reacting units), then realize it is not up to date.

Search for long range fighter is immediately available after Political Support I. I haven't researched it yet, but when I checked the civlopedia, there didn't seem to be another event tech on the way to mustangs. Maybe have a look at the tech tree.

 

[JPetroski]

I wrote X4 instead of X2 in the rules... Thanks for catching that. I'll post an update.

I can probably go through the civilopedia tomorrow and update it. I'll get a turn out a little later when the wife gets home.

 

[JPetroski]

Turn 38

I fixed the issue with the rules as well.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I'm wondering if convoys maybe give too much fuel. At the moment, they give 300 plus 300 for each refinery in the unloading city. On the other hand, I really have no idea how well you've developed, so maybe I do need all that fuel to be put into factories and refineries.

changelog

Escape into the night has been implemented, though you may want to play around with the numbers. I haven't implemented this as a reusable module, partly so I could do it quickly, and partly since I would want to link it with some other functionality (e.g. 'damaged' units) for a general release.


-- Escape into Night
-- This is the code for night fighters and bombers to escape after an attack

-- Compute the fraction of HP, the escape radius is given by the largest key value which is less
-- than that fraction of hp
-- e.g. 35% has a radius of 1, 80% has a radius of 2 in the defaultEscapeRadiusHPFraction

local defaultEscapeRadiusHPFraction = gen.makeThresholdTable({[0]=0,[0.25]=1,[0.75]=2,})
local nightEscapeUnits = {}
nightEscapeUnits[unitAliases.Stirling.id]=defaultEscapeRadiusHPFraction
nightEscapeUnits[unitAliases.Halifax.id]=defaultEscapeRadiusHPFraction
nightEscapeUnits[unitAliases.Lancaster.id]=defaultEscapeRadiusHPFraction
nightEscapeUnits[unitAliases.Beaufighter.id]=defaultEscapeRadiusHPFraction
nightEscapeUnits[unitAliases.MosquitoII.id]=defaultEscapeRadiusHPFraction
nightEscapeUnits[unitAliases.MosquitoXIII.id]=defaultEscapeRadiusHPFraction
nightEscapeUnits[unitAliases.Ju88C.id]=defaultEscapeRadiusHPFraction
nightEscapeUnits[unitAliases.Ju88G.id]=defaultEscapeRadiusHPFraction
nightEscapeUnits[unitAliases.He219.id]=defaultEscapeRadiusHPFraction
--nightEscapeUnits[unitAliases.]=defaultEscapeRadiusHPFraction
--nightEscapeUnits[unitAliases.]=defaultEscapeRadiusHPFraction


At the moment, the unit will only try to escape to a tile exactly the specified distance away. If withinRadius is set to true, then all tiles within the distance are equally likely (so if the escape radius is 2, then all tiles within 2 squares, including the starting square, have an equal chance of being selected)

At the moment, avoidStacks is set to true. This means that the plane will try to escape to an empty square first, and only stack on another friendly unit if no empty squares are available. Setting avoidStacks = false eliminates this behaviour.

Tweaked automatic unit selection. On the day maps, there is only a small penalty for being on the other day map. This way, after dropping bombs and moving the bomber, you hopefully won't be moved halfway across Europe when what you really want is to get a nearby unit at low altitude. Not sure how well this worked.

 

[JPetroski]

I'm wondering if convoys maybe give too much fuel. At the moment, they give 300 plus 300 for each refinery in the unloading city. On the other hand, I really have no idea how well you've developed, so maybe I do need all that fuel to be put into factories and refineries.

We'll see how it goes - my main concern is that you can earn enough points to invade. I have a pretty good grasp of early game balance and think it is right there, but we'll see how mid-game and late-game go.

For the escaping units, I haven't looked at the code, but I assume there is a map qualifier? The German bombers should also probably have it. Finally, nothing should escape if attacked in a city, if they currently do.

 

[JPetroski]

Here's an updated describe.txt. I caught a number of errors but am unsure what specifically you were referencing, so I don't know if I corrected it.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Here's an updated describe.txt. I caught a number of errors but am unsure what specifically you were referencing, so I don't know if I corrected it.

I didn't have much particular in mind, except that I thought that Jabo aircraft were good against flak, but couldn't find a reference to that, if I was even remembering things correctly.

For the escaping units, I haven't looked at the code, but I assume there is a map qualifier? The German bombers should also probably have it. Finally, nothing should escape if attacked in a city, if they currently do.

I made the update so that units in a city don't escape. However, I didn't add any more aircraft to the list (I'm not very familiar with WWII aircraft, so I don't recognize bombers just by the model number.). I could just add all aircraft to the list, since it is only relevant on the night map anyway.

 

[JPetroski]

I added the German bombers.

I didn't have much particular in mind, except that I thought that Jabo aircraft were good against flak, but couldn't find a reference to that, if I was even remembering things correctly.

I updated this reference. Right now they take less flak damage than other aircraft. We'll see if you find them useful (I think you will). If not we can consider having them remove ALL flak damage.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I updated this reference. Right now they take less flak damage than other aircraft. We'll see if you find them useful (I think you will). If not we can consider having them remove ALL flak damage.

Less damage is probably fine.

 

[JPetroski]

D:\Test of Time\Scenario\OTR\events.lua:5105: bad argument #1 to 'pairs' (table expected, got nil)
stack traceback:
    [C]: in function 'pairs'
    D:\Test of Time\Scenario\OTR\events.lua:5105: in upvalue 'getDamage'
    D:\Test of Time\Scenario\OTR\events.lua:5271: in local 'targetReactionDamage'
    D:\Test of Time\Scenario\OTR\reaction.lua:210: in upvalue 'individualReaction'
    D:\Test of Time\Scenario\OTR\reaction.lua:242: in function 'reaction.reaction'
    D:\Test of Time\Scenario\OTR\events.lua:5616: in upvalue 'primaryAttackReactionWrapper'
    D:\Test of Time\Scenario\OTR\events.lua:7650: in function <D:\Test of Time\Scenario\OTR\events.lua:7290>

I got this when I attacked a black mosquito.

I played the whole turn then seem to have double clicked on the mouse which ended my turn. I ctrl + alt + delete so I wouldn't see much. I only saw England which I suppose is of very little value to me.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Fixed the mosquito bug (different variable names in different parts of the reaction data tables), and gave all allied special mission aircraft a home city of London (that way, they don't overload the available support of a single airbase).

 

[JPetroski]

I have a feeling that the next turn or two is going to hurt.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Given past experience, I think there is more than a little danger that I will be the one who gets hurt.

EDIT: I had a thought that you might want to put urban squares where the aircraft factories will be placed. This will give the player some guidance about where to place airbases.

 

[JPetroski]

Turn 43

I was wondering where on earth those B-24s went.

EDIT: I had a thought that you might want to put urban squares where the aircraft factories will be placed. This will give the player some guidance about where to place airbases.

I could do it though to be honest the less players abuse the "place an airfield near an aircraft factory" the better (I want the players reliant on rail lines for resupply to the largest extent possible).

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Operation Hydra was completed this turn. The target was destroyed, and much of the town of Penemunde was destroyed also.

I could do it though to be honest the less players abuse the "place an airfield near an aircraft factory" the better (I want the players reliant on rail lines for resupply to the largest extent possible).

I deliver trains to my airfields with aircraft factories all the time. The aircraft factories are very convenient for making sure I don't have to micromanage support. I can send and disband trains and not have to worry about re-homing (I suppose this makes me vulnerable to losing those factories). I don't think I've ever built an airbase to take advantage of a factory that I couldn't also reach by rail. The production bonus is nice, but not really worth the trouble of building out of the way. On the other hand, knowing where the near rail factories are would be very nice, and that kind of information is available to the player, so 'hiding' the location of factories doesn't do much besides annoy the player.

If you don't want players building airbases near aircraft factories, does that mean that the industry tiles are mostly meant to be cosmetic?

Edit: The past few turns have been 30-45 minutes long, I'm not sure what to do about that.