Pre-CNES: Flowers on the Working Title

[Crezth]

@Terrance: d6 is used for hits and armor piercing checks, and a d20 is used for crits and other special saves.

@Iggy: You are truly a great man.

@Thlayli: Actually, yes, I had something very much like that in mind. It keeps it simple yet introduces sufficiently flavorful nuance as not to be boring.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Needs more inland seas and straits. :3 Also the two continents on the left and the right look like vague clones of one another. I know it's just a rough draft but design input can be helpful.

Super excited about this, bros. Will have pertinent things to say later.

I am not sure which continents you are referring to, bu I am definitely going to add more of those.

All of this. Needs more major islands & island chains Iggy!

I am just working out the general shape of the continents for now, greater island diversity will be added soon.

On the left side, make the straits between the north and south continent more jagged, and maybe dot it with islands.

It's in the works Terrance.

Yeah, for the purposes of good battling, I think a largeish Eurasia-esque continent and a big island region for naval-oriented players would be good.

One way or another, I think we will have no lack of inland areas to fight over.

 

[Kraznaya]

Yeah, for the purposes of good battling, I think a largeish Eurasia-esque continent and a big island region for naval-oriented players would be good.

Yes please.

 

[Circuit]

Subscription post because I've seen ZPNESV and so wished I had the chance to play in it.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Map Preview- I've merged the two western continents, with lots of rough coastlines and a huge inland sea in between, I've added lots of small islands, improved on the archipelago region in the equatorial west, fattened up the southeastern continent considerably to make it more Eurasia-esque, and added a fairly isolated continent roughly the size of Australia. Looking up close will reveal more large islands and near-island peninsulas that closely hug the continents, although many of these were already in place. I've also done a few more passes over several regions to improve the resolution of the map- looking up close will still reveal the obvious circle tool I've used to draw islands and seas.

 

[Thlayli]

I'm a bit concerned that too many regions are equatorial or sub-equatorial leaving a premium on 'good' land. But you could easily shift that.

Here's a climate sketch to get people thinking, by no means a definitive proposal:

 

[Crezth]

Here are the first 10 units and their (current) stats. Once I finish all 18 or so, I'll post them to the front page as well as an explanation of what it all means.

Spoiler :

Certain units will only become available as the game progresses; that is, fighters/bombers will not be available at the start of the game, but biplanes will. Think ~1920 technology for the start date.

Str and Def are Strength and Defense. Depending on whether you are attacking/defending, you use Str or Def for your Hit rolls.

Eva is the stat to beat in order to score a Hit. If Str or Def+1d6 beats the target's Eva+1d6, a hit is scored.

AP is armor-piercing, and is used to determine whether a kill is scored against armored units.

Arm is armor, or how well-armored the unit is - if there is at least 1 Armor, there's a chance that a Hit will fail. It's the stat to beat for piercing checks, which are AP+1d3 versus Armor+1d3. If the piercing check succeeds (AP+1d3>Armor+1d3), then it's a kill.

AA is anti-air and represents the ability of a unit to kill flying units, which are indicated by a small wing-symbol in the top left of the display box. More AA is better air-killing (the exact mechanics are still being worked out), but generally if you have no AA then you have no great air-killing capacity.

Alt is altitude. Still being integrated, but units in higher altitudes are harder to hit by units in lower altitudes.

The yellow money sign and number is how much the unit costs, and the blue arrow and number are how far the unit can move per turn in provinces (or, if an aircraft, how much range the aircraft has in provinces).

 

[Thlayli]

Initial (mostly superfluous) comments:

You should use an older-looking visual for the artillery.

Have you given any thought to scaling/stat upgrades for units? Also, any thoughts on fortification?

Bombers seem a little skewed, both in defense levels (too high) and costs (too high).

 

[Crezth]

@Thlayli: re: artillery: yeah, I'll use a new picture for that (for now anyway)

re: upgrades: it's still under consideration

re: fortification: it will offer defensive bonuses, not sure if it should scale with time/certain units. an "engineer" unit that improves fortification bonuses might be interesting.

re: bombers: well, bombers are essentially unkillable except by fighters (at this stage), and are meant to be powerful on the attack and the defense. they're an expensive investment but, with air superiority, offer a powerful whacking stick. I may consider giving them multiple attacks, however.

 

[Circuit]

Regarding bombers: for that price, giving them multiple attacks may be a good idea. Because buying two fighters may be better than one bomber.

 

[qoou]

I feel that the 3 movement (alongside with the beastly AP/att/def) make bombers well worth the $10 pricetag. Give them a double attack, and this tech level will just turn into massed bombers stationed 3 spaces away from the borders.

 

[Angst]

AA and Alt could always work like an "extra armor stat". I know it's a simple solution, and that people have most probably suggested it before, but it's an easy tool to make a rock-paper-scissors system without spending too much time on balancing, as you'd just know how it worked.

Thoughts on possible province improvements (All numbers are of course tweakable):

Roads ($5): Allows friendly units to pass through as if they had 1 additional movement point, however, if those units are intercepted by enemies during the move, they recieve -1 evasion during the first heat of that battle. (Or something equally flavorful. You could always make the penalty last throughout the battle or not use the penalty at all - but I believe the possibility of interception would be interesting for strategizing, for both attacker and defender.)
Business ($5): Increases income in province by $1.
Industry ($14): Increases income in province by $3. (The idea is that bigger complexes
Railroads ($14): Increases income in province by $1, and grants +1 move bonus in addition to roads' movement bonus. However, grants no interception penalty on its own.
Militia Barracks ($5): Upon invasion, four Militia will show up to defend the province. ("- rather than the default two."?)
Barracks ($15): The province produces Veteran units that have +1 evasion.

Other brainstorming:
Upon conquering a player-controlled province, a unit could receive Veteran status, marking it with a little star on the sprite and getting +1 evasion.
Possibly, the research of new units would be maintained by a tech tree, but research would be "blind" and cost $20 to give a random technology of the currently available techs. Especially what those technology things would fathom, I don't know.
Also, would it be interesting to anyone if we implemented interesting "Wonders" or "Unique province improvements"? We could make riffs on Civilization wonders such as Steampunk Space Elevator, Industrial Pyramids Complex and Hovering Gardens of Babel?

Brainstorming unit abilities:
Heatseeker: Ignores the hit enemy's evasion during battle.
Blitz: Gets an extra heat to fight with before the five-heat battle begins. Like first strike or so.
Shock/Flash: The hit enemy's evasion gets -1 during first heat.
Liberator: The unit attempts fighting until the bitter end, attacking the killing unit upon death. So if the liberator unit dies, it will get an extra Heat against its killer, trying to kill its killer.
Guerilla: 2/3 chance of staying alive after the battle if losing a province you defended, becoming immobile and fighting each turn until the 2/3 chance to keep it alive is a blank.
Scout: May use enemy roads.

 

[Crezth]

Really interesting stuff, lj! You need to log onto #nes more.

I like the idea of offering a plethora of province improvements, my only concern is that I don't want to create too many layers of complexity. That being said, your proposal for veterancy is really really cool (+x evasion is such an excellent idea, I'm jealous that I didn't think of it

). The only one that's a little weird is Guerilla, but this is all brainstorming sooo...

Moving on: some good news is I've had several good ideas regarding the code that will clear up some of the road blocks I've been having quite nicely. The only really unsolved problems are balance-related, and I'm not too worried about that because it is essentially separate from the code.

Anyway, I incorporated some proposed balance changes to the units I showed earlier.

Spoiler revised units :

Spoiler changelog :

units list v. 1b

infantry: cost reduced from $2 to $1, eva reduced from 2 to 1
stormtrooper: eva reduced from 3 to 2
armored car: eva increased from 2 to 3

My only fear is that the Stormtroopers might now be a little underpowered, but I'm considering giving them something nice like a 20% chance to shake off a hit. Thoughts?

 

[Terrance888]

Maybe they get cooler veterancy stuff, if you are going to do that? If you are doing that "shake off a hit" what are you going to use? A new stat? Maybe just +1Eva attacking and be done with it.

 

[Angst]

I think Guerilla as a concept has possibilities though. You do understand how I try to make it work right? xD

 

[Crezth]

Yeah: it stays in the province as a partisan, fighting new battles each turn against units in the occupying territory. It has promise as a concept, but I'm not sure if I'd make it a promotion so much as, like, an ability unique to a certain faction or something.

 

[Thlayli]

Reminds me vaguely of the Hide/Dive functions that certain units (like Snipers and Submarines) had in the last game.

Regarding the changelog, you could lower the cost of Stormtroopers to 2 or give them that Toughness bonus.

Considering a few support units for flavor: Some type of leadership corps unit (Officers? Command Post? Etc.) that gives Eva bonuses and extra survival chances to the units under its' command, or allow 1 new infantry unit to reconstitute itself after the battle for every 2 infantry units destroyed. Or, a Medic unit which might give a percentage survival bonus to infantry/stormtrooper units that were 'destroyed' in the battle, or a Repair unit that does the same for vehicles.

 

[Crezth]

Considering a few support units for flavor: Some type of leadership corps unit (Officers? Command Post? Etc.) that gives Eva bonuses and extra survival chances to the units under its' command, or allow 1 new infantry unit to reconstitute itself after the battle for every 2 infantry units destroyed. Or, a Medic unit which might give a percentage survival bonus to infantry/stormtrooper units that were 'destroyed' in the battle, or a Repair unit that does the same for vehicles.

Oh, something like that is in the works.

I'm thinking of incorporating leadership - a la officers - in a way that mainly involves buying a setpiece that gives bonuses. And I am also thinking of allowing officers to be customized between nations (based on the cultural specificities of the nation in question), so you can have like commissars (kill their own militia or, if none are left, infantry for bonuses) among other such flavorful officer types. But that might be pushing the boundaries of I-care-enough-about-to-implement.

 

[qoou]

As I said earlier in #nes: Stormtroopers look almost ok now. Boosting AP to 2 might be a good idea. Or maybe giving them Blitz, but that seems like less of a good idea.

 

[Angst]

Higher AP than 1 should be reserved for potentially stronger anti-tank units for aesthetics in my opinion; things like explosives and bazookas.

When designing board game rulesets, have those kinds of small rule of thumbs, like "Light armor penetration shouldn't be higher than 1." 2 seems to become the limit, of course, but you know... Just sayin'.

+1 AP seems better than Blitz balance-wisely of course. Blitz fits the stormtrooper trope jollily, however.

Oh, lastly: Generally giving AP penetration to the unit doesn't seem fit to me. :/ I think that AP should be reserved for more specialized units. There should be no auto-choices for unit purchases; right now, the stormtrooper is better than the infantry overall of course, but even with the cost-effeciency, the storm trooper would often be the wiser investment for defense simply because it can work around tank armor much, much better than regular infantry. I'm not sure that's a good thing. Note that Daft the Wise used regular meatwall infantry, specialized attack-centric stormtroopers and then rocket soldiers that wrecked vehicles to pieces.