RtW: Add-On Pack 3 BETA for 3.17

Ah I get you now. Well, that's how they were deployed at that time.

If you're looking to blame someone, blame Azana. :D
 
Dale,

Just started another game of RTW, latest beta release. I have a few requests that I would like to see implemented if you get a chance.

1. I know how much winter affected the war in the east, however the time it takes for the tiles to be switched from grassland to snow really slows down the game. Months of March - November are quite quick, but Nov. - March are agonizingly slow. Could you possibly put an option in the .ini file to graphically show the changes or not, keeping the real effects in play even if the player decides not to have winter graphically represented on the map?

2. I read in an earlier forum post that you intend to do away with culture that can be captured during battles. However, after playing the latest beta, it really seemed to work good. Maybe release 2 .ddls one with culture capture and one without when you post your final version?

3. How did you get AI to build "Goods Factories" as I would like to see how the game plays when the AI builds better units. I'm not sure how long until you post a revised beta or your final version, and I can easily mod the buildings xml file, just not sure what to give the building to have the AI build it.

Also #3 brings up a good question of AI. I know from an earlier post that you don't mod AI behavior, but anyone that is into AI development, the AI does not look ahead to see what the building "opens" per say, only the instant benefits it gives once it is built in deciding whether to build it or not. Can this be fixed?

Love the new maps btw. Thanks again for the great work you have put into this mod and the many others you have released.
 
1. That's a good idea.

2. As I understand it, the culture thing led to unusual situations, like Germany winning battles against Poland causing the tile in question to be owned by the USSR. Culture and war scenarios don't mix, unfortunately.

3. Dale never did anything to the AI there. Those cities had a goods factory from the start of the game.
 
Dale,

Just started another game of RTW, latest beta release. I have a few requests that I would like to see implemented if you get a chance.

1. I know how much winter affected the war in the east, however the time it takes for the tiles to be switched from grassland to snow really slows down the game. Months of March - November are quite quick, but Nov. - March are agonizingly slow. Could you possibly put an option in the .ini file to graphically show the changes or not, keeping the real effects in play even if the player decides not to have winter graphically represented on the map?

Turn on the map view that shows the outlines of the tiles (forgot exactly what it's called). It causes each tile to have black lines around it. That will make the bitter winter tiles appear as if they were plains.
 
The only problem I have with that theory (matching history) is that I didn't want RtW to match history. If I wanted to play scripted history, I'd play certain other mods which script history and force the play to follow history.



The problem with RTW is not that players are forced to follow history but the fact that if they do they wipe the floor with an incompetent and unprepared AI ... especially when using one of the major powers.

Things like Germany not preparing for an invasion of Norway or even Russia sometimes. Or Italy not bothering to conquer Albania until 1941 because it was using its transport ship to scout the waters of America. Playing as the UK on Monarch level and being able to demolish most of Germany's planes and a fair bit of its architecture before January 1940 (largely because Germany forsook building its army to engage in long periods of putting most of its cities on research during the pre-1939 buildup phase). Just makes things look farcical.
 
What's everyone's thoughts on this? (about the culture bombs still there with the new influence setup)
Myself culture bombs never been a problem in rtw games I played, mainly Europe 39, a bit Europe 36, a bit Pacific 41, very few Global 36. In global map countries are smaller so a bomb effect is more important. In Europe map it seems fine.

About the new system, there are positive points but also negative points and if I had to choose I would prefer something more like the old system.

In the new system I don't bother prepare anymore cultural bombs and I feel they could be removed. Eventually the artists specialist could be raised a little like +1 culture and +3 gold and bomb lower even more to 10 then AI will probably won't use culture bomb anymore.

About the new influence system :
The positive:
- After first tries, once you learn better how it works, it's fun to develop tactics to use it at your advantage.
- Even if it is complex, it is linked to micro management and more easy to understand and even roughly predict than the old system that was more a management at strategy level.
- It allows fight with less army against a powerful opponent, can be good for the thrill.
- Town management related to culture now seems a little useless but it's just an apparency, the numbers are tiny but still have some global effects as the old system.
- Sometimes it let you apply some new different tactics to take and keep a town.

The negative:
- Lost an attack is even more negative, it's not cool because it's one more plus to cautious and over preparation.
- There's no more Culture cursor, not cool because that removes a possibility to manage happiness and eventually influence level.
- In general the AI seems not well adapted to the new system. For example I quote the AI going next to a town at culture border, I bet to have the strong pack of troops in the town attack and lost the +25%. Interesting tactical choice except that with the new system it was stupid. The AI just give you a culture protection by giving you the opportunity to destroy those troops.
- Defending a square becomes a doubtful choice, the AI do this error very often, that makes it weaker.
- Sometimes your action during a turn can have a weird effect on your troops during the same turn, unpleasant, always linked to a neutral country near to the fight area. Beside troops push back during the turn I also saw a pack of troop just stuck inside a town just take.
- Some actions of your allies on your territory or near to it can have weird effects when they lost a fight, rare but weird.
- Town traps was already an interesting tactic (use a town at border with few or no defense, let AI comes, crush it and retreat), now it's just too powerful by using empty towns.
- It's a little weird that if you move on an enemy square you gain no influence but if there was an army to beat here, you gain some.
- I feel it less realistic than the previous system if you consider that culture was influence and knowledge instead of Madona and Spielberg tricks. Beat an army is one thing, take control through order restore, police system, relationship with locals, terrain knowledge acquiring and so on, is totally different and requires time and more general actions.
 
To stop the AI using fishing boats as scouts. And you I see. :)
Lol, not a bad idea of the AI in fact. But it's weird I don't notice that despite I'm playing beta3, well I have the new culture stuff so I have the beta3 isn't it? Anyway I see scouting with fishing boats and in my area from countries I4m not allied with, but despite this scout use, the AI doesn't over use them.
 
Turn on the map view that shows the outlines of the tiles (forgot exactly what it's called). It causes each tile to have black lines around it. That will make the bitter winter tiles appear as if they were plains.
??? Myself I see no change from having outline or not. Ha well I'll check it. :D
 
From various play of Europe 39 Historical, Immortal or Deity level (good factory fix by disabling their destruction when a town is captured):

1 - I enjoyed a lot the new units, very cool.

2 - AI unit production is very weird. I wonder how the good factories can be the cause as the AI produce planes. But I suspect it doesn't produce any ship but fishing ships and perhaps submarines. A typical result is USA building no ships but few fishing ships and eventually submarines. No more tanks, eventually the Tank destroyer discourage the AI to produce any tank but I doubt it's the only reason. Otherwise AI is in love with Tank Destroyers, it's true they aren't bad even if they are long to produce, and is in love with Parachutists and perhaps submarines.

3 - I agree with other comments about Finland. When I played URSS, Europe 39, Deity level, it was weird how poor was the Finland resistance when you know they survive in real war.

4 - I feel the AI doesn't manage well the new culture system. For details see few posts before.

5 - I regret the lost of the cursor culture in the new system.

6 - The new culture system involves some weird effects during a turn, it's really unpleasant, old system hadn't this problem.

7 - Overall in Europe 39, time frame doesn't work well during first year. The AI seems to want have more units or more defenses before starting attacking. This result in a general AI passivity during first year with Europe 39.

8 - Something should be done to tune a bit the difficulty for the player. Ok with AI problems with the new culture system and unit production problems it's hard to say. But I feel that among major countries Germany and England seems too easy. France is better but Germany seems too passive during first year. URSS has a task a lot too easy against Finland. Even if when all side are played by the AI there's a relative balance, that doesn't work when the AI face to the player. One problem is the player playing better the fights than the AI, but a major problem is that the player know what will happen and what to expect roughly, what nation will never attack and so on. Because of this I feel that at least in both historical modes some tweak should be done at startup of the map depending of the country choosed by the player. It could be just to add a few units to some AI countries at startup and depending of the country choosed by the player.

9 - The AI seems not able anymore to manage actions related to ships, like attacking from a ship, controlling area. It seems AI seems know use only submarines and fishing ships.

10 - The AI seems ignore that let ships into an harbor can be dangerous if not suicidal. That was already true with some older version.

11 - AI seems to protect less well oil resources, not sure.

12 - I'm not sure but I got the feeling that some countries continue produce some planes despite I think they had no more oil resources, for example Germany and Italy in a game played as France.

13 - I wonder why at some point of some games, I didn't notice anymore have any of my ship intercept planes despite they are attacked and I have the right type of ship. Can't be sure about this point.
 
Thanks for a great mod Dale and all others involved :)

Now to my question, is it possible to turn off the "bitter winter" thing? It's just eating at my computer for some reason and every turn takes forever... I've tried lowering all graphic options from highest to lowest but nothing seem to help.
 
I tried to read most of the tread but still I don't have a good understanding of most of the new features.:confused:

Dale are there any sub-treads" explaining each feature so you don't have to go trought 200 posts (I tried the search also).

Is there a list of the events of all the maps or you will say - Wikipedia?

As always I can say from what I see
Great job :goodjob:
 
For the culture issue, let me revisit/review a bit. Sorry if I miss all of the nuances.

Earlier Version(s): A.I. would build culture as production, and/or boost the culture slider to an unrealistic level, and/or use artists to culture-bomb near the border -- causing borders to shift drastically even pre-war, causing loss of resources, causing persistent border-trouble long after cities have been taken, etc.

Current Version: Land can be lost and borders can shift while you are not even involved in a battle, countries can gain land while not involved in a battle (and without any international treaties/negotiations), large armies are ejected from a square despite not losing a battle.


I tend to agree that the old system worked better in the sense that one could counter opponents culture build up. I still wonder if there aren't some tweaks that could be made to the old system to make it work: 1) allow artist culture bombing, but change the amount of culture gained to something much smaller (e.g., amount a city could produce in a couple turns); 2) set a cap on the culture slider, if even possible programming-wise (e.g., 20-40% max to prevent unrealistic culture onslaughts during WARTIME -- even if we re-frame culture as 'nationalist propaganda' it is still unrealistic to be spending more on culture/propaganda than on weapons research given what is at stake); 3) disallow culture production for cities (maybe not a necessary change, though for the AI it is probably always a bad decision and even for a human it has only limited usefullness); 4) create special cultural wonders for key European cities to help hold the cultural borders as-is (this may not work, but who knows? e.g. once cities start falling will the monstrous culture of surviving cities overwelm things? or maybe it would help obviate the need to use the culture slider?).
 
Err, Dale, when I said switch around the Mitsubishi G4M and the Kawasaki Ki-32, I meant make the Mitsibishi the Improved Bomber and the Ki the basic bomber, not to change around the models.
 
Do anyone know if it's possible to turn off "bitter winter" thing?
 
Err, Dale, when I said switch around the Mitsubishi G4M and the Kawasaki Ki-32, I meant make the Mitsibishi the Improved Bomber and the Ki the basic bomber, not to change around the models.

Fixed. :)
 
Thanks for a great mod Dale and all others involved :)

Now to my question, is it possible to turn off the "bitter winter" thing? It's just eating at my computer for some reason and every turn takes forever... I've tried lowering all graphic options from highest to lowest but nothing seem to help.

There will be an option in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml to turn BitterWinter on or off. :)
 
Summary of changes from Add-on Pack 2 to this release (upcoming in the next day or so):

1. Updated to BtS Patch 3.17.
2. Added Global Assault scenarios.
3. Fixed save game bug.
4. BattleEffects only accumulate to 10 turns (but further battles in later turns will also increase BE to a max of 10).
5. UnitInfos completely redone (thanks Chamboozer et all).
6. Culture effectively elliminated.
7. All factories require Goods Factory.
8. Goods Factory not buildable in real event modes.
9. BitterWinter controllable via GlobalDefinesAlt.xml (default is 1 == on). Change to 0 (zero) to turn BitterWinter off.
10. DCM components updated to DCM v1.6.
11. Can Port Airbomb ships in forts.
12. Minor bug fixes and tuning.
 
Cool but I don't see any fix related to AI units build, that AI doesn't build anymore tanks and ships is a major problem in the last beta. Or am I alone to have this problem?
 
That fix is not a change from AOP2. It's a change from AOP3-Beta3. ;)
 
6. Culture effectively elliminated.

In my global Assault scenario I lost borders (playing as Hitler) and I had the chance to gain trough event which offered me +350 culture in each city?

7. All factories require Goods Factory.
8. Goods Factory not buildable in real event modes.

Does this mean that if I conquer Poland ( which I did ion my '39 scenario that I can't build my air and land force there?


9. BitterWinter controllable via GlobalDefinesAlt.xml (default is 1 == on). Change to 0 (zero) to turn BitterWinter off.

Can I switch it off for some time untill I reach the time for war with the USSR and than turn it back on?

Thanks
 
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