WW2-Global

Anthropoid: Man, that's a lot of effort. It's one AM, and I'm not prepared or able to digest all of that at this time. Some thoughts though:

The lack of cities in the Pacific is due to the larger map caused Rocoteh to run up against the 512 city limit. The AIs from what I have seen do seem to handle this much better then earlier versions,before they would barely do any amphibious at all, in 2.1 they seem to do loads of it.

I agree with your analysis on the early naval battles shaping the war to some extent, but the AI navies are going to fight their way anyway. Not having the US fleet involved early will make things MUCH easier on the axis human player, the axis AI will probably do better as well. Trying to make it so that the US joins at a historical time is just delaying the inevitable, and ruins the balance already achieved in the 11 versions of this scenario. It was asked of Rocoteh before to change to start date to 1940/41 in order to fix the problem you see, but that would be a whole separate game then. I'm just not sure it is worth the effort. Also, not being in a locked alliance will place the US in the same category as the Soviets, and they will make peace at very inopportune times as a solo nation.

Rocoteh: Did you remove all the coastal garrisons from England in 2.1? If you didn't, then I think I know what killed the Luftwaffe...

Two items for consideration in 2.2- First, I like railroads being so expensive, I have foregone them because of the very high cost, and having to shift troops over roads alone feels right so far as redeployment goes. The AI however, spends a lot of time building them, which is hurting their economies by tying up their workers for too long. Just something to think about. I'm not sure what, if anything, you would want to do to correct that.

Second, I just got my first tank upgrade, and I see the M11/40 for Italy is 16-12-2 with +2hp, and the next tank I get down the tech tree is the M11/41, a 15-10-2 with +2 hp. I think those two got their stats reversed? Nothing I can do about it in my Italy game already going, but just to let you know about it.
 
Anthropoid,

Thank you for the long and interesting analyse of WW2-Global.

The answer will be short but it will define my positions.

I appreciate if you make the special versions you describe and
upload them here at this thread.
The special AI version I once made was met with marginal interest
(in terms of downloads) so I have no plans for more such versions.
Anyway: Go ahead with these projects!

This is my own plans for Civ 3 scenarios:

There will be no more versions of TGW, TGW-DIV or Barbarossa.
There will be a version 2.2 of WW2-Global.
Its 95% that it will be the final one.

The graphic update: Probably not.

Reasons:

When I started to work on The American Civil War scenario with Procifica
3 years ago I thought I would stay to end of 2003 and then quitt.
However, ACW become very popular and then there were other project.
BETA-Massive with Meateater. 2 new versions of The Old Empires
with Sarevok.
In January 2004 I and Sarevok released The Great War (TGW) and some
months later I made TGW - Division level.
In August the same year I and Sarevok released Barbarossa.
It was made during a very short time-period. Still I think its a very
good scenario. Hundreds of PM:s were exchanged between Sarevok
and me as we built the scenario.(The fact that Sarevok has quitted
scenario is by the way a great loss for the Civ-community.

Both Sarevok and I thought we had made great job with the Barbarossa-scenario.
Still I will always remember Barbarossa as the "ill-fated".

The reason: A couple of weeks after the release of the scenario
some main-posters started to act as they had created Barbarossa.
It was a bizarre situation since even the play-testing had been
done by me and Sarevok.
All the conflicts around Barbarossa took away my motivation for
working with the scenario. I think the conflicts had the same result
for Sarevok.
Thus when I made research for the new Order of Battle (Its still
in the final version) I made it because many players had wrote asking
for a new version.

Then in December last year WW2-Global was released.
I assure you this project consumed many, many days of work.
However I was determined to complete the project since I have
seen so many projects on this subject fail and disappear during the
last 40 years.

Version 2.1 with the huge map looks like I wanted WW2-Global to
look from the start.
However when the first version of WW2-Global was released more
then a year ago huge maps were not possible due to load and waiting time.

Then El Justo found out that by removing trade you can cut
load and waiting time by 90%.
A very important breakthrough from El Justo!
I rate him as one of the great talents with regard to scenario creation.
He is also a good friend.

Its obvious that Firaxis no longer will support Civ 3.
It appears that they will not invest one more single dollar into the game.
I find this very frustrating!
If they they just released a minor patch where for example the problem
with city-razing was solved it would increase my motivation to continue
to work with Civ-3 scenarios.

To sum it up:
I will make one more version of WW2-Global.
Scenario-work with Civ 3 after that is very uncertain.
Time and the fact that I am an old man does have impact.
With regard to Civ-4 I will probably make scenarios for it given there
will be a real editor.


"Has trade been brought back into it? The turn times seem a LOT longer than in the 2.0 version? If yes, was there a overall reason recognized to have the trade back in, because it almost painfully slow now it seems?

What happened to all the Pacific Islands? Carolines, Solomons, Iwo Jima, so many other islands which were strategically critical in the Pacific war seem to have been taken out in 2.0?"
Anthropoid

1. No. The huge map is the reason for the longer waiting time.

2. The 512 cities-limit is the reason. I did not want large "empty" areas
in Africa and Siberia. Furthermore AI anyway had great problems to
handle the war in the Pacific in a historical way.

Rocoteh
 
Despair888 said:
My 2.1 plays extremely fast. I don't think the U.S. have rubber? They should definately though.

I don't think the trading was changed at all. I agree with most of what you said, only problem is perfecting it to where stuff occurs when it should.

Iwo Jima and other cities were taken out in the Pacific because the AI is not able to handle Naval wars very well, especially the one in the Pacific.

Despair888,

US will have rubber in version 2.2.

Correct, trading have not been changed. Its still out.

You are right on the Pacific. There is also the 512-cities limit.

Rocoteh
 
Sasebo,

"The lack of cities in the Pacific is due to the larger map caused Rocoteh to run up against the 512 city limit. The AIs from what I have seen do seem to handle this much better then earlier versions,before they would barely do any amphibious at all, in 2.1 they seem to do loads of it."
Sasebo

Yes that is right. The impact on AI you describe is very positive.

"I agree with your analysis on the early naval battles shaping the war to some extent, but the AI navies are going to fight their way anyway. Not having the US fleet involved early will make things MUCH easier on the axis human player, the axis AI will probably do better as well. Trying to make it so that the US joins at a historical time is just delaying the inevitable, and ruins the balance already achieved in the 11 versions of this scenario. It was asked of Rocoteh before to change to start date to 1940/41 in order to fix the problem you see, but that would be a whole separate game then. I'm just not sure it is worth the effort. Also, not being in a locked alliance will place the US in the same category as the Soviets, and they will make peace at very inopportune times as a solo nation."
Sasebo

Again: I agree.
The current balance exists after many versions and playtests.

"Rocoteh: Did you remove all the coastal garrisons from England in 2.1? If you didn't, then I think I know what killed the Luftwaffe..."
Sasebo

Some of the coastal garrisons were removed in 2.1.

"Two items for consideration in 2.2- First, I like railroads being so expensive, I have foregone them because of the very high cost, and having to shift troops over roads alone feels right so far as redeployment goes. The AI however, spends a lot of time building them, which is hurting their economies by tying up their workers for too long. Just something to think about. I'm not sure what, if anything, you would want to do to correct that."
Sasebo

OK I will see if anything can be done to solve this problem.

"Second, I just got my first tank upgrade, and I see the M11/40 for Italy is 16-12-2 with +2hp, and the next tank I get down the tech tree is the M11/41, a 15-10-2 with +2 hp. I think those two got their stats reversed? Nothing I can do about it in my Italy game already going, but just to let you know about it."

I will change that. Thank you for reporting it.

Rocoteh
 
A comment on flavors:

Many people think one can direct AI on large number of subjects
with flavors.
However, what I know Firaxis has only confirmed that you can direct
research and construction of buildings with flavors.

Should anyone have confirmed info (from Firaxis) that flavors also
have impact on other issues I appreciate if you post that info in this thread.

Rocoteh
 
Sasebo said:
. . . Not having the US fleet involved early will make things MUCH easier on the axis human player, the axis AI will probably do better as well. Trying to make it so that the US joins at a historical time is just delaying the inevitable, and ruins the balance already achieved in the 11 versions of this scenario. It was asked of Rocoteh before to change to start date to 1940/41 in order to fix the problem you see, but that would be a whole separate game then. I'm just not sure it is worth the effort. Also, not being in a locked alliance will place the US in the same category as the Soviets, and they will make peace at very inopportune times as a solo nation. . .

I fear you are probably right. Anyway, it was fun to think it all through. You guys have been studying this ecological model for a lot longer than I, so whatever insights I might bring by having a fresh view is I'm sure offset by the hard-won experience you guys have gained through the toil of 11 versions :) But maybe, something out of what I've put together might be of use.
 
Rocoteh said:
A comment on flavors:

Many people think one can direct AI on large number of subjects
with flavors.
However, what I know Firaxis has only confirmed that you can direct
research and construction of buildings with flavors.

Should anyone have confirmed info (from Firaxis) that flavors also
have impact on other issues I appreciate if you post that info in this thread.

Rocoteh

Yeah, I fear you are correct. I had a hard look at the flavors for the first time ever last night, and I reached the same conclusion.
 
Rocoteh said:
. . . I appreciate if you make the special versions you describe and upload them here at this thread.
The special AI version I once made was met with marginal interest
(in terms of downloads) so I have no plans for more such versions.
Anyway: Go ahead with these projects! . . .

Thanks for the thoughtful responses Rocoteh. The work you and your friends and teammates have done on the various mods you've created is amazing. I've had loads of fun playing them, and even more loads thinking through the puzzles they represent. Whether you think so or not, I'd say that your work (similar to El Justo's) has been a smashing success. This success is all the more meritorious when compared to the much higher degree of realism, thoughtfulness, and effort to achieve balance and strategic intrigue for the thoughtful gamer relative to that exhibited in most of Firaxis' packaged mods for the game. Even more commendable when one considers that, you guys have been doing this for the sole reward of comraderie, and the satisfaction of seeing it done and playing it, whereas Firaxis is for-profit. Still, had Firaxis never made the game at all, all the modders would have no basis to do anything whatsoever. Thus, while one can be critical of the flaws in the game engine, etc., that come from Firaxis, one also must remain thankful for the basic groundwork of making the game which allows mods to be dreamed up, worked on and in some instances perfected.

Making mods is an exhausting, frustrating, time-consuming, and minimally rewarding experience, and I myself have ZERO success at making one from scratch. But I have tried to give feedback, ideas and to suggest alternate versions to the ones that I think are the most superlative, basically El Justo's TCW, and your WW2-Global. My intent is in no way to usurp the mod-creator's status, but simply to engage in a dialogue, to provide ideas, and potentially alternate version. So in sum, I hope my efforts, postings, and attachments are regarded as contributions, and not as a misuse, usurpation, or infringement. I myself am a professional anthropologist, though not yet retired, so I absolutely am not seeking any faux glory or anything by "besting" the mod makers. My motivation is strictly to contribute to interesting strategic simulations.

My philosophy on C3C & mods: the basic game engine is fine for ancient, and even 1GW and 2GW warfare, and the larger diplomatic mechanisms which these older forms of conflict fit within. It is a bit less satisfactory for simulating the the more complex dynamics of 3GW, and almost entirely deficient for 4GW.

The primary problem in the game engine with 3GW simulation is the almost complete lack of logistic, command & control, and supply in the engine. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir when I remind everyone that, WWII was frequently not about pounding entire division size units into powder, but about flanking, blockading, penetrating deep into enemy territory to nullify forward units fighting abilities, interdicting supply, command and control, etc. The game engine is sorely deficient for this, so we have to adapt.

The problem with 4GW is that public relations, propaganda, the impact of the media on public opinion, and the ability of citizens to disempower leaders as a result of public opinion (at least in some governments), and the ability for non-state, and even state entitites to exploit these strategic opportunities is largely lacking from the core structure of the game engine.

IMO, the best C3C scenario (not counting fan-made scenarios) is Rise of Rome. Napoleonic Europe is a distant second, WW2 Pacific is a considerably more distant third. Clumped in the middle "mediocre" range are, Fall of Rome, Mesopotamia, MesoAmerica, and the Shogun scenario. Age of Discovery is terrible.

My reasons for these ratings are not entirely based on the degree of bias I hold as far as interest in each of these historical scenarios, though that might enter into it. Primarily, I think that ROR is the best compromise between the simulating history in a fun to play game, and making effective use of the opportunities and constraints of the game engine. In short, it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to "exploit" the AI (in my experience) in this scenario, even playing the most powerful protagonist tribe in the scenario (Rome). Consequently, for me it is quite hard to win ROR on Emperor. This scenario requires a DETAILED understanding of every element in the game, constant monitoring of every ongoing event, great foresight about every action undertaken, and a balance between caution and risk-taking that can only be called intuitive. In short, it is a challenge to human intellect, and not simply a challenge in figuring out how to exploit the AI's foibles. There are few if any AI foibles which the scenario exposes.

It is considerably easier to exploit AI in the Naploeon scenario, using a sweep of diplomatic actions in the first turn playing as France. This combined with the effective use of arty by human, and complete incompetence of the AI with arty makes Napoleon easy to win by exploiting the AI, and not by engaging in the overall strategic enterprise necessary to win ROR.

While it is not exploitation of diplomacy that makes the WW2 Pacific problematic, it is exploitation of other AI foibles. Playing Japan or US, the human can effectively use naval and airpower to knock the AI out of the game. The attention to detail, and delicate balancing of Japan's starting units is really the only saving grace of this scenario at all. If you want to win as Japan, you must immediately from turn one, embark on an exquisite, elegant, and precise ballet of unit actions, production synchonization, and timing. As US it is drop dead easy to win on Sid, and as Britain, it is quite hard (though I have never actually won). China again is prerposterously easy to exploit AI with arty and attrition tactics.

The rest of the scenarios are essentially gimmicky IMO. Figure out the trick to take advantage of the AI, and you win. Once you've done this once or thrice, replay becomes irrelevant. The standard Epic Civ3 game is in many instances a "paint spill simulator," in that, the human society just keeps spreading, and spreading, and spreading, in nlarge part as a result of the AI flinging itself feebly into the breach in an attempt to prevent the human from winning. All too often in Epic games, a single milestone event determines the entire long-term outcome of the game: i.e., get hold of that iron early in the game, and it is already decided by 500 BC, and the rest of the game becomes a dreary act of tedium in defeating the AI (once one has played enough games and understands this dynamic).

The scenarios, when all the intricate elements, timings, etc. are properly balanced, provide an alternative to this fundamental flaw in the Epic games, by creating dynamic changing ecologies in which each alternative human position involves potentially shifting strategic demands through the course of the game, and potentially quite different strategic demands b/w tribes played.

So having said all of that, if nothing else just to detail my personal philosophy of what makes a good scenario, my overall take on WW2-Global.

Best scenario I've seen, along with TCW. The sheer attention to detail is astounding. So many very subtle adjustments in both that avert unbalancing effects at so many turns. However, both suffer from fundamental AI-exploitation effects.

With TCW, tile-bombing, and the unrealistic focus on conventional war-fighting and territory taking make the scenario simply a 20th century version of the standard C3C Epic Game "Paint Spill Effect" and not a simulation of the actual historical events of the Cold War.

With WW2-Global, the problem is with Navy. I have not played it as any tribe except Japan or US, but my experience here is that human exploitation of AI-naval incompetence makes playing either of these tribes unbalanced. I suspect that it would also be the case for GB, but that the scenario is much more balanced for playing Germany, Russia, or any of the other nations that were minor sea powers.

Again, not making these observations to denigrate your work, just trying to offer a useful contribution to you or whomever might continue to work on the ultimate, perfected WW2 Global scenario.

While Civ4 might seem to be a distractor to mod-making for some, in actual fact, it is going to take years for the mod-making community to achieve with Civ4 what has been achieved with Civ3. As such, for me, I think it remains worthwhile to continue to work with Civ3, and I am thankful if I have the chance to stand on the shoulders of giants like you and El Justo, by trying to create alternative versions that strive toward the sort of balance I find exemplifed in Rise of Rome.
 
ADDIT: one other change that I might consider making in my altered version; adding islands with bases and units on them controlled by Japanese in the Pacific. I understand the reason the Japanese cities were taken, but without a requisite island hopping campaign in the Pacific, the US role in the Pacific is pretty much reduced to: all-out assault on Japan. This might be a good compromise, particularly if each of the pre-placed islands is pre-equipped with an appropriate immobile garrison that allows air units to be flown, to harass enemy shipping in the area, and thus behooves the US player to take control of each of these worthless little atolls and volcano cones (just as actually happened in the war). The naval basing part of actual history is fairly inconsequential for the game because naval units do not have to be resupplied, so this might achieve a satisfactory balance, and not dig into the 512 cities limit. Let me know what you think?

Feb 4, 2006
Started up a Demi-God game as Germany and noted a few problems in setup, thus I made the following changes to the draft
"Axis Human Player" version that I still want to make about one more evenings worth of changes on before playtesting.

I have deleted the previous version which I uploaded on Feb 3 and, re-uploaded a newer version with all the changes I list below in this post.

Removed Germany's saltpeter inside Germany. Lebensraum: Germany needs to (or thinks she needs to)
conquer to be able to build the advanced growth structures.

Gave US 1 rubber in center of continent
Deleted the 1 saltpeter outside Canton, there is already one under Hong Kong, which Japan needs to take to be able to
build advanced growth structures in Chinese holdings, and also needs to create a road network linking Hong Kong to rest of Chinese
holdings to take advantage of this IF they take it. Noted a few other stray saltpeters, in US and China that I deleted also.

Question: Germany has about 6 "Germany Resources" is it indended that the Germany human player
be able to trade these to other tribes, e.g., Italy, Finland, and/or Japan?

Noted that Delhi Wonder did not stick.
Deleted League of Nations to provide room for the treasure generating building
Colonial Treasure Depot (I did not see what purpose the League building served other than reducing pollution
for its holder; given that WWII was explicitly a manifestation of the failure of the League,
having this structure in the scenario
seems like superfluous historical detail. This building slot will be used for the "Colonial Treasure Depot"
to produce treasure, to be transported by sea to
London, and/or other capitals that take control of key overseas locations.

Unfortunately, I just realized that deleting the League has resulted in all the Small Wonders being set wrong for all the cities
so I'm going to have to go through all of them again to make sure every city that is supposed to have a wonder has the correct one.

Also, just had an additional idea for resetting the victory conditions to more accurately represent the possibility of
way the way actually finished up.

Japan, Italy, and Germany did not intend to achieve global domination. There hope was to gain territory, and related power, and to
then take advantage of the Western Democracies good natures, weariness for war, in combination with making continuance of the war
too costly, to get them to accept peace terms involving substantial territorial gains for the fascists. Global Domination might have been
a long-term vision for them, but it was not something they envisaged being able to accomplish given their relative power levels at start of
the war compared to their allied opponents.

Thus, a VP win is entirely appropriate for Japan, and Germany. Playing Italy is a bit unrealistic overall, but if someone wants to play a
truly fantastic what-if, a VP win is the most likely prospect for Italy as well.

The allies in contrast, had slightly differing motives. France wanted to contain the Germans and keep them weak with alliances, treaties,
defensive lines etc. Russia also had little interest in fighting a war or gaining territory, although as the Great Patriotic War wore on,
the leaders perhaps became more and more enthralled with their own propgaganda about a global Socialist world. So, Domination is not an
unreasonable prospect for the Fascisms and the Russians, but it just does not seem like a reasonable prospect for the Democracies.

Moreover, a VP win, while certainly feasible for any of the Democracies, should be a much less appealing prospect, simply because democratic
populations do get war weary MUCH more quickly, and thus, being able to keep fighting, keep accumulating VPs and spreading control to get
either a VP or a domination win should not be such an appealing prospect to the Democracies.

An alternative for the Democracies should be something like a Diplomacy win, but this should not be doable without first taking a HUGE bite
out of the bad guys, and it might also be appropriate to relate it to the final Air 2 1945 Tech and production of atom bombs as well.

Thus, here is what I have done:
Diplomacy Win is activated.
Manhattan Project changed to Small Wonder
New strategic resource created "War Crimes Evidence"
Placed 3 of these on the map:
One just north of Nurnberg in Germany
One b/w Hiroshima and Kitakyushu in Japan
One near Kursk

Changed the improvement "Heroic Epic" to be called "War Crimes Tribunals" this Small Wonder requires Democracy
to build it, as well as Tech Air2 1945, Manhattan Project must have been built, and the War Crimes Evidence resource is required. The
War Crimes Tribunals small wonder enables the Diplomacy Victory.

Thus, a Diplomacy Victory is available to the Democracies only after they have gained the final Tech, built Manhattan Project, and
essentially beaten back either the Germans, the Japanese, and/or the Russians deep into their home territory, and taken control
of those home territories.

I have also added the Victory Point scoring to the game, and have given a lot of thought and made quite a few changes to try to make this route
a possible (though not easy) option for Germany, Japan, or Russia (in that that order). A slim possibility for GB, difficult for France or Italy,
and very very hard for anyone else (US included). Part of this overall scheme is to have Treasure units for GB, that fill the role that conquering
cities can fill for Germany, Japan, and Russia, and also provide cash to GB.

Fixed "New World Treasure Depot" (which I had added at 1 AM on Feb 3 and did not finish up properly):
made fish a strategic resource
changed name to "Colonial Treasure Depot" (produces treasure unit)
set Capture Flag Unit to ON in Scenario Settings, and set capture special unit to 500 gp and 1 VP.

reset requirements for building the Colonial Treasure Depot
requires horses and fish IN CITY RADIUS.
Costs 10 shields, costs 1 maintenance, +1 production
no required Techs
Autopros a Treasure Unit every 4 turns.

Added Treasure Unit (had to change Settler cause there are no more land unit slots evidently)
immobile flag unit, not buildable only autoproed by Colonial Treasure Depot, provides 500 gp, and 1 VP when it is returned to capital city
Added Freighter unit, costs 18 shields, sea unit requires no resources or techs
buildable only by Great Britain, and transports only Foot Units
AI strategy set to Naval Transport
ADM 0:4:1 Mv 4, transport capacity 1, and can also capture special unit (thus a single freighter could carry up to
two treasure units (by carrying a foot unit that has captured a foot unit inside it), or it might be an empty decoy, or it might only be
half full, or it might be half full with an expensive land unit in it. Even short of a convoy system, this gives the player options to thwart
Nazi U-boats overall by sending out fleets of these cheap boats.

Set horses and fish near following 8 GB cities so they will have the capacity to build a Colonial Treasure Depot
Quebec, St. John, Halifax, Trinidad (deleted Teffe, and placed Trinidad with horse and fish)
Cape Town, Bombay, Singapore, Melbourne, each of which can generate a treasure unit once per 4 turns
That amounts to a grand total (assuming 1939 is spent to simply build the Depots in each town) of 1940 through
1945 = 6 years* 52 turns per year = 312 turns of treasure production for a total of 8 town/cities for GB
Comes to a total of 2496 turns / 4 turns per treasure unit produced = 624 total treasure units to send from
Colonial posessions (read, US support prior to war) which could meet a final arrival date of roughly 1946.

But London lost Singapore quite early, representing a loss of roughly 70 to 78 possible treasure units,
commandeered by Japan.

Assuming the 36% death rate of these (which is the actual rate in the war) that means 404 of these treasure
units got through in game-relative terms in real history.

Activated VP Victory conditions, and reset victory point values after estimating approx values
given available VP locations and total game-relative durations possessed by each holder/conqueror during the war:

Reset VP values
Wonder = 0 (per cost)
Defeat Unit = 0 (per cost)
Advance = 0 (per cost)
City Conq = 1 (per pop)
VP scoring = 1 (per tile/per turn)
Capture Special unit = 1 (merchant ships from New World to UK)
Gold for capture = 500 gp (about half the cost to rush 1 machine gun battalion unit) (merchant ships)

Reset VP locations as follows at startup:
Everyone except the following control ZERO VP locations, the following are the only 18 VP tiles on the map:
GB: (4 total): Solomon Islands
Suez
Plains behind river b/w Karachi & Lahore (western India)
Forest tile, 2 tiles northeast of Broken Hill (south eastern Australia)
Russia (3 total): 3 tiles behind Moscow, b/w Jaroslavl and Gorki
tile adjacent to Stalingrad on southeast
Baku
Neth: (2 total): middle of Borneo
middle of Java
France: (2 total): both right in the middle of France, one slightly north, one slightly south
Japan: (2 total): Truk
Okinawa
Germany: 1 total: Bucharest
Thailand: (1 total): Bangkok
Poland: 1 total: forest tile 2 tiles east of Warsaw
Finland: (1 total): marsh tile southwest of Tampere
Norway: 1 total: hill tile 2 tiles north of Oslo
Persia: 1 total: on hill tiles smack in the middle two tiles from the road b/w Ahvaz and Esfahan

Relating possession of these VP tiles to who actually controlled them at various stages in the war
GB
Solomons 1939-40 = 16
Suez 1939-1945 = 308 (16 for 1939, and 52/yr for 40 through 44 =260, and 32 for 1945)
India = 308
Australia =308
Actual total of turns possessing a VP = 940 + conquered ~10 cities in 1944-45 (?)
and had roughly 74% of its merchant fleet make it to London b/w June 1940 and Dec 1945.

Russia
Moscow 1939-1945 = 308
Stalingrad 1939-1945 (except for ~5months Sept 42 to Feb 43) = ~288
Baku 1943-1945 (ROUGHLY same as Stalingrad) = ~288
Poland Jan 1945 to Aug 1945 = 32
Actual total of turns possessiong a VP = 916 + conquered roughly 40 cities b/w 1942 and Aug 1945
tile points

Germany
Bucharest 1939 to Sept 1944 = (16+52+52+52+52+40) = 264
Poland 1939 to Jan 1945 = (12+260+4) = 276
Norway Apr 1940 to 1943?? = 176
France northcentral (May 1940 to roughly Aug 1944) = (36+156+34) = 226
France southcentral (more or less the same May 1940 to Aug 1944) = 226
Baku (Sept 1942 to Jan 1943) = 20
Stalingrad (Sept 1942 to Feb 1943) = 24
Actual total of turns possessing a VP = 1212 + (roughly 50 cities conquered)

Japan
Truk 1939 to Nov 1943 = 219
Okinawa 1939 to 1945 = 308
Thailand Jan 1942 to Oct 1944 (??) = 52+52+43 = 147
Borneo Jan 1942 to Oct 1944 (??) = 147
Solomons Jan 1942 to May 1944 = 52+52+23 = 127
Java Jan 1942 to Sept 1944 (??) = 142
Actual total of turns posessing a VP = 1090 + roughly 22 cities conquered, and posession of Singapore for roughly 208 turns /4= 52 treasures
thus equivalent to roughly 30 total size ~10 cities captured

Assuming an average conquered city size of 8 (???) for the span of the entire war and whole map, here is
roughly the VPs (from tiles and city conq) that each side actually achieved in game-relative terms in actual history

Country TilePts #Cities CityPop TreasureMax TreasureActual
GB 940 10 80 634 404
Russia 916 40 320 50 0
Germany 1212 50 400 ~100 0
Japan 1090 22 176 ~100 74

If tile vp/turn; city conq vps/pop; and treasure unit vps/unit are all set to one, each nation would by 1945 have achieved
the following VPs in game-relative terms in actual history:

GB 1404
Russia 1236
Germany 1612
Japan 1266

Obviously, for the SP game, one can define whatever house rules one wants, but the key here is to set up the automated Victory
conditions to motivate all the AIs to do more or less what they did in the war, albeit with those lovely unpredictable curve balls
that the AI can send us when we least expect it.

Thus, if we wanted Germany victory to depend on doing better than it did in the actual war, by holding on to the five core
European tiles that it occupied (Oslo, Poland, Bucharest, and 2 in France) for an additional year (summer 1946) we would need to
increase the total required VPs for an additional 260 on its standard 1612 gained in the actual war = 1872, which we can round
up to 1900 VP to win. This number seems pretty challenging for Germany, and even moreso for GB, although there is the potential for the human
player to use his merchant ships wisely and win an additional 224 VP by some time roughly in 1946. This combined with a few strategic city assaults should
allow the British player to achieve a VP win by about 1946. For Japan, a VP win is going to be pretty hard, but still possible by taking over
India, Persia, and making war on Russia too.

With defeating units having zero value, ALL the focus is put on conquering cities, and taking tiles
and I think this might work to prompt the AIs to act more like they acted in the war, though no doubt,
it will still be unpredictable!

With the 18 VP tiles set as I describe above, and even with US taking over most of Europe and SE Asia starting in about
1943, it still will not accomplish as much VPs as any of these other powers, and thus it will be compelled (as AI or as human)
to rush forward to Air Tech 2 1945 before the other Democracies, to build Manhattans, and to occupy territories so it can build the
War Crimes Tribunal and win via Diplomacy. I suspect that the AI will calculate this prospect, and act accordingly, i.e., remain quiet
in its buildup until it is brought into the war, because it will calculate that it does not have much prospect of winning by VP tiles
given the starting power levels of each tribe.

This creates a situation where Japan is motivated to take territory for VPs in the following order of ease of conquest:
Thailand = 1
Borneo = 1
Solomons = 1
Java = 1
India = 1
Australia = 1
Persia = 1
for a total possible for Japan without going into Russia of 9 (6 in actual history)

in addition Japan will also be motivated to take Palembang to eliminate Neth control of Palembang wonder
to take Singapore for the Colonial Treasure Depot which will be there
and to take Hong Kong for the saltpeter (advanced growth network of China)

Italy is motivated to take territory in the following order of ease of conquest:
Suez = 1 (also motivated to control Cairo for its
France = 1 to 2
Persia = 1 (which will require control of Iraq
Russia = 1 (near Baku)
India = 1
for a total possible for Italy (assuming Italy does not move on German or Japanese prospects) of
3 (assuming Germany & Italy split the French prospects) (vs. 0 in actual history)
Russia (near Stalin) = 1
Russia (near Moscow) = 1

Germany is motiviated to take territory in the following order of ease of conquest:
Poland = 1
France = 1
Norway = 1
Russia = 1 (near Moscow)
Russia = 1 (near Baku)
Russia = 1 (near Stalingrad)
Persia = 1
India = 1
for a 9 total possible depending on how Italy, Germany and Japan divide up the pie

Deleted a couple stray saltpeters left in interior US. Done with bug hunting, and additional changes for now. This is probably all the major
changes I will ever make to the scenario structure. Next will play test these settings for the Axis Human Player Version, and if these
seem to work (without US in locked alliance), will then make the couple remaining settings for the Allied Human Player Version too.
 

Attachments

Anthropoid,

Thank you for the postive words.

"Still, had Firaxis never made the game at all, all the modders would have no basis to do anything whatsoever. Thus, while one can be critical of the flaws in the game engine, etc., that come from Firaxis, one also must remain thankful for the basic groundwork of making the game which allows mods to be dreamed up, worked on and in some instances perfected."
Anthropoid

Yes, for sure you are right. However I think one more major company
in the turn-based strategy-game section would have been positive
in general. The market have become to narrow though, so we will
probably never see such a company.

"Making mods is an exhausting, frustrating, time-consuming, and minimally rewarding experience, and I myself have ZERO success at making one from scratch. But I have tried to give feedback, ideas and to suggest alternate versions to the ones that I think are the most superlative, basically El Justo's TCW, and your WW2-Global. My intent is in no way to usurp the mod-creator's status, but simply to engage in a dialogue, to provide ideas, and potentially alternate version. So in sum, I hope my efforts, postings, and attachments are regarded as contributions, and not as a misuse, usurpation, or infringement. I myself am a professional anthropologist, though not yet retired, so I absolutely am not seeking any faux glory or anything by "besting" the mod makers. My motivation is strictly to contribute to interesting strategic simulations."
Anthropoid

I hope you will make the versions you have mentioned earlier
and that you will upload them here at this thread.
That is only positive.

"The primary problem in the game engine with 3GW simulation is the almost complete lack of logistic, command & control, and supply in the engine. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir when I remind everyone that, WWII was frequently not about pounding entire division size units into powder, but about flanking, blockading, penetrating deep into enemy territory to nullify forward units fighting abilities, interdicting supply, command and control, etc. The game engine is sorely deficient for this, so we have to adapt."
Anthropoid

Yes, I agree on that.

"IMO, the best C3C scenario (not counting fan-made scenarios) is Rise of Rome. Napoleonic Europe is a distant second, WW2 Pacific is a considerably more distant third. Clumped in the middle "mediocre" range are, Fall of Rome, Mesopotamia, MesoAmerica, and the Shogun scenario. Age of Discovery is terrible.

My reasons for these ratings are not entirely based on the degree of bias I hold as far as interest in each of these historical scenarios, though that might enter into it. Primarily, I think that ROR is the best compromise between the simulating history in a fun to play game, and making effective use of the opportunities and constraints of the game engine. In short, it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to "exploit" the AI (in my experience) in this scenario, even playing the most powerful protagonist tribe in the scenario (Rome). Consequently, for me it is quite hard to win ROR on Emperor. This scenario requires a DETAILED understanding of every element in the game, constant monitoring of every ongoing event, great foresight about every action undertaken, and a balance between caution and risk-taking that can only be called intuitive. In short, it is a challenge to human intellect, and not simply a challenge in figuring out how to exploit the AI's foibles. There are few if any AI foibles which the scenario exposes."
Anthropoid

I have not played the C3C-scenarios much, but most of what you say
above is in line with my own observations.
As general comment to all scenarios is that one should think
many times before one introduce "war-weariness".
Most of the time the inclusion of it will produce unhistorical results.

"The rest of the scenarios are essentially gimmicky IMO. Figure out the trick to take advantage of the AI, and you win. Once you've done this once or thrice, replay becomes irrelevant. The standard Epic Civ3 game is in many instances a "paint spill simulator," in that, the human society just keeps spreading, and spreading, and spreading, in nlarge part as a result of the AI flinging itself feebly into the breach in an attempt to prevent the human from winning. All too often in Epic games, a single milestone event determines the entire long-term outcome of the game: i.e., get hold of that iron early in the game, and it is already decided by 500 BC, and the rest of the game becomes a dreary act of tedium in defeating the AI (once one has played enough games and understands this dynamic)."
Anthropoid

I think the basic problem with the epic game is that not allow
more difference between the Civs.
The incredible expansion of the Mongols is for sure not easy to recreate
in the epic game.

"With WW2-Global, the problem is with Navy. I have not played it as any tribe except Japan or US, but my experience here is that human exploitation of AI-naval incompetence makes playing either of these tribes unbalanced. I suspect that it would also be the case for GB, but that the scenario is much more balanced for playing Germany, Russia, or any of the other nations that were minor sea powers."
Anthropoid

Navy is no doubt a severe problem.
Since there is no Strategic Warfare in Civ 3 the German U-boats
(for example) will fight the naval forces of Britain and US instead
of shipping and convoys.

OK I know that U-boats and Air caused most of The Royal Navy losses.
However their main goal were to conduct Strategic Warfare,
not to attack The Royal Navy.
The above is not possible to reflect within the game-engine.

Thank you for your comments and welcome back.

Rocoteh

Comment on the playtest-report later.
 
Rocoteh said:
. . .
I hope you will make the versions you have mentioned earlier
and that you will upload them here at this thread.
That is only positive . . .

Great. Glad to hear that my ideas and perhaps feeble attempts at alternate versions will be welcomed.

I think the basic problem with the epic game is that not allow
more difference between the Civs.
The incredible expansion of the Mongols is for sure not easy to recreate
in the epic game.

I think you have hit the main issue. This SEEMS to be a promising difference in Civ4, what with the Leaders, etc.

What I would REALLY like to see, are political parties, and other non-state entities that can influence the decisions that AI leaders make, else impose costs and benefits on the human player. If the machine can have the computer play out alternate identities for "France" "Germany" and "Austria," why not also have it play out Jacobins, Habsburgs, Cromwells, the Vatican, Anglican Church, etc.!? THIS would be a promising avenue in Civ4, and it would bring TREMENDOUS potential for properly representing Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) by having entities in the game that have certain powers that are state-like, but do not reside in one capital, enjoy varying degrees of affinity with population, and thus, can exert economic, and/or military/paramilitary influences appropriately. But I digress from the current focus, as I am so adept at doing . . .:blush:

Navy is no doubt a severe problem.
Since there is no Strategic Warfare in Civ 3 the German U-boats
(for example) will fight the naval forces of Britain and US instead
of shipping and convoys.

One possible PARTIAL fix for this in the WW2 Scenario is with the Treasure Units. They are only produced for GB (the primary victim of Nazi U-boat predation) and only in the 8 overseas colonies (which can be taken over by conquerors BTW, thus commandeering the trade from that port). With a total of up to 624 of these jewels possible to send to London b/w 1939 and ~1946, and at 1VP and 500gp (a number I pulled out of thin air, as it is about half the rush cost for a machine gun battalion, which seemed in the ballpark right), these are now a non-trivial economic and strategic concern. In a human-vs-human game, this simple mechanism would result in rivetting game play results I suspect. I shall see how the AI copes :lol:

BTW, what do you think will happen if I put a few single tile Pacific island air bases (but no cities) out there with US or Japanese Fortresses, militias flaks, fighters on them? Will produce the same screwed up AI effects in the Pacific as having the towns out there did?

I would like to make it virtually REQUISITE that the US island hop a bit in moving forward on Japan, and thus it seems there need to be a few heavily fortified Japanese positions b/w Hawaii and Truk, and between Truk and Okinawa.

One possible solution to this would be to add a new unit type "Japanese Combined Arms Garrison" that is immobile, has ZOC, ADM 1:25:1, +2HP, Bombard(45) range 7, unbuildable, with lethal sea bombard. One or two of these pre-placed, in concert with one additional Special Fortress, one militia and two flak on Japanese held airbase islands, might discourage US AI from sending its ships headlong into harm? and would force the human to either: island hop to limit its exposure to these as it moved toward Japan from the south, else go STRAIGHT west across the Pacific to attack Japan where it is most heavily defended.

What do you think?
 
Anthropoid,

Thank you for the report.

"ADDIT: one other change that I might consider making in my altered version; adding islands with bases and units on them controlled by Japanese in the Pacific. I understand the reason the Japanese cities were taken, but without a requisite island hopping campaign in the Pacific, the US role in the Pacific is pretty much reduced to: all-out assault on Japan. This might be a good compromise, particularly if each of the pre-placed islands is pre-equipped with an appropriate immobile garrison that allows air units to be flown, to harass enemy shipping in the area, and thus behooves the US player to take control of each of these worthless little atolls and volcano cones (just as actually happened in the war). The naval basing part of actual history is fairly inconsequential for the game because naval units do not have to be resupplied, so this might achieve a satisfactory balance, and not dig into the 512 cities limit. Let me know what you think?"
Anthropoid

It sounds interesting. Looking forward to see how it turns out.

"Question: Germany has about 6 "Germany Resources" is it indended that the Germany human player
be able to trade these to other tribes, e.g., Italy, Finland, and/or Japan?"
Anthropoid


Yes, that is correct.

"Noted that Delhi Wonder did not stick."
Anthropoid

I am not sure I understand you right here.
The Dehli wonder is present in version 2.1.

Japan, Italy, and Germany did not intend to achieve global domination. There hope was to gain territory, and related power, and to
then take advantage of the Western Democracies good natures, weariness for war, in combination with making continuance of the war
too costly, to get them to accept peace terms involving substantial territorial gains for the fascists. Global Domination might have been
a long-term vision for them, but it was not something they envisaged being able to accomplish given their relative power levels at start of
the war compared to their allied opponents.
Anthropoid

That was the situation when the war started.
However had Soviet collapsed and Britain been occupied its
possible there could have been another reality with regard to this.
Thus I mean it could fast have become a short-term vision.

Also I think US never think had quitted the war no matter a German
occupation of Britain and a Soviet collapse.
I am aware of Lindbergh and the Des Moines speech still the good days
were over for the isolationists after Pearl Harbor.

On weariness for war:

Still it was the Western Allies (and Soviet) that demanded:
Unconditional surrender.
A demand never earlier made in modern history!
It does not indicate fear for war-weariness!

"Moreover, a VP win, while certainly feasible for any of the Democracies, should be a much less appealing prospect, simply because democratic
populations do get war weary MUCH more quickly, and thus, being able to keep fighting, keep accumulating VPs and spreading control to get
either a VP or a domination win should not be such an appealing prospect to the Democracies."
Anthropoid

I do not agree on that.
Even during WWI it took long time before democratic nations
like France and Britain were hit by war-weariness.
In the end it was regimes like those in Germany, Austria-Hungary
and Russia that were worst hit and collapsed.

"Thus, here is what I have done:
Diplomacy Win is activated.
Manhattan Project changed to Small Wonder
New strategic resource created "War Crimes Evidence"
Placed 3 of these on the map:
One just north of Nurnberg in Germany
One b/w Hiroshima and Kitakyushu in Japan
One near Kursk

Changed the improvement "Heroic Epic" to be called "War Crimes Tribunals" this Small Wonder requires Democracy
to build it, as well as Tech Air2 1945, Manhattan Project must have been built, and the War Crimes Evidence resource is required. The
War Crimes Tribunals small wonder enables the Diplomacy Victory"
Anthropoid

Although an interesting idea its hard for me to see War Crimes Tribunals
as an Diplomacy Victory since they would not have been possible
without a military victory.

"Added Treasure Unit (had to change Settler cause there are no more land unit slots evidently)
immobile flag unit, not buildable only autoproed by Colonial Treasure Depot, provides 500 gp, and 1 VP when it is returned to capital city
Added Freighter unit, costs 18 shields, sea unit requires no resources or techs
buildable only by Great Britain, and transports only Foot Units
AI strategy set to Naval Transport
ADM 0:4:1 Mv 4, transport capacity 1, and can also capture special unit (thus a single freighter could carry up to
two treasure units (by carrying a foot unit that has captured a foot unit inside it), or it might be an empty decoy, or it might only be
half full, or it might be half full with an expensive land unit in it. Even short of a convoy system, this gives the player options to thwart
Nazi U-boats overall by sending out fleets of these cheap boats."
Anthropoid

A very interesting idea. However I doubt AI will understand it.

You have presented a large number of revisions and it will
be very interesting to follow how they will work in playtests.

Thank you and welcome back.

Rocoteh
 
Anthropoid,

Thank you for your comments.
(I have made my answer an separate post from the previous
to avoid confusion.)

"I think you have hit the main issue. This SEEMS to be a promising difference in Civ4, what with the Leaders, etc.

What I would REALLY like to see, are political parties, and other non-state entities that can influence the decisions that AI leaders make, else impose costs and benefits on the human player. If the machine can have the computer play out alternate identities for "France" "Germany" and "Austria," why not also have it play out Jacobins, Habsburgs, Cromwells, the Vatican, Anglican Church, etc.!? THIS would be a promising avenue in Civ4, and it would bring TREMENDOUS potential for properly representing Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) by having entities in the game that have certain powers that are state-like, but do not reside in one capital, enjoy varying degrees of affinity with population, and thus, can exert economic, and/or military/paramilitary influences appropriately."
Anthropoid

Yes if it really will be possible to mod Civ 4 in the way you describe
it should have a great future!

"One possible PARTIAL fix for this in the WW2 Scenario is with the Treasure Units. They are only produced for GB (the primary victim of Nazi U-boat predation) and only in the 8 overseas colonies (which can be taken over by conquerors BTW, thus commandeering the trade from that port). With a total of up to 624 of these jewels possible to send to London b/w 1939 and ~1946, and at 1VP and 500gp (a number I pulled out of thin air, as it is about half the rush cost for a machine gun battalion, which seemed in the ballpark right), these are now a non-trivial economic and strategic concern. In a human-vs-human game, this simple mechanism would result in rivetting game play results I suspect. I shall see how the AI copes"
Anthropoid

Excellent if AI can handle it, but I doubt that.

"BTW, what do you think will happen if I put a few single tile Pacific island air bases (but no cities) out there with US or Japanese Fortresses, militias flaks, fighters on them? Will produce the same screwed up AI effects in the Pacific as having the towns out there did?"
Anthropoid


Maybe. Its very hard to predict.

"I would like to make it virtually REQUISITE that the US island hop a bit in moving forward on Japan, and thus it seems there need to be a few heavily fortified Japanese positions b/w Hawaii and Truk, and between Truk and Okinawa.

One possible solution to this would be to add a new unit type "Japanese Combined Arms Garrison" that is immobile, has ZOC, ADM 1:25:1, +2HP, Bombard(45) range 7, unbuildable, with lethal sea bombard. One or two of these pre-placed, in concert with one additional Special Fortress, one militia and two flak on Japanese held airbase islands, might discourage US AI from sending its ships headlong into harm? and would force the human to either: island hop to limit its exposure to these as it moved toward Japan from the south, else go STRAIGHT west across the Pacific to attack Japan where it is most heavily defended.

What do you think?"
Anthropoid

Again, very hard to say. There is no doubt a chance though!

Thank you and welcome back.

Rocoteh
 
ADDIT: just had a little lunch break glimpse at "Unconditional Surrender" in Wikipedia, which led me to pages about the WWII Conferences of the allied powers. The first places the term was used in WWII context was the Casablanca Conference, but the Yalta Conference, which happened very close to the end of the war had as a central focus wringing Germany into unconditional surrender. Thus, I think the Diplomacy enabling Wonder, which I was calling "War Crimes Tribunals" could better be called "Yalta Conference." However, the resource that requires it I think should remain labelled as "War Crimes Evidence" and I think the locations are probably just about right (Nurnberg, northeast Ukraine, and b/w Hiroshima and Kagoshima), in that they represent a good balance b/w (i) the actual geographic locations where a corpus of the fascists atrocities were commited (though granted least of all for Japan); (ii) a location that will not be easy for any of the democracies to take control of in order to have the resource to build the diplomacy win enabling structure; and (iii) deep enough into the territory of each of the war criminal nations that controlling will necessitate that the nation is effectively military defeated.

Actually I just had another idea, there should be TWO resources required (European War Crimes & Asian War Crimes), and the location in USSR should have one copy of each! Yeah, that's the ticket! This will make the level of military victory needed be more realistic! in that, it will be necessary to control Nurnberg AND the one in Asia, as well as both being tied to cities that have air transport :) Okay this is making me think . . . maybe the one in Japan should not be in Japan at all, but in Manchuria where it belongs. More thinking to do on this, and would really like to think what others think of this, since I explain the whole concept at length in this post . . .

I trust your knowledge more than mine with respect to war weariness. I guess having grown up after Vietnam, I just tend to assume that the profound squemishness about war that I grew up experiencing in the U.S. has biased me about the truth of history. That is very interesting to hear you say that it was the Huns in WWI whose populations suffered from it more. I do not doubt you at all, and it is a point well taken. Amazing isn't it, how the game has sort of "revised" some of use youngsters ideas about history?

To respond to all your responses about my proposed modifications it sounds like you think that all of them MIGHT be effective, but like myself, think it hard to predict just what the AI will do. If it doesnt' give satisfactory single-player game results, not a big loss, cause I enjoyed thinking it through, and making the changes. I'll try to get the last few things I want to make changes to (the Japanese island holdings) done in a day or so, and then post it, and play-test it myself (and encourage otherse to do the same!). I probably won't play Italy, but will try Germany and Japan. Again, if any of it works, I'll keep what does work, and use it to then test the "Allied Human Version," then test GB, and Soviets, and US and possibly also France. It'll take a while, but it'll be fun :)

Re: the "Delhi Wonder:" in the course of changing the whale and saltpeter resources to be required for various structures, and then resetting all of them on the map in order to try to create a trade interdependency for b/w US-GB (oil for whales) and US-France (oil for saltpeter), I added a couple of new "city-specific wonders" (Belfast Wonder, Bombay Wonder, perhaps one or two others). None of these "stuck," and I only noticed that after I restarted and then went back to the editor. Thus, what I wrote about deleting else changing a couple of the very low significance structures to make room for the "Colonial Treasure Depot" and the "War Crimes Tribunal."

Before I play test it, I need to go through the entire list of structures, make sure that they have not gotten bugged up by me deleting some and renaming some, and then make sure that each city has the appopriate one. It looked like when I deleted League, it caused all the structures to shift UP in the list one notch, so that instead of Calcutta having "Calcutta Wonder" it now has "Belgrade Wonder" or something along those lines. I think that this is a brilliant way to have some, but limited air trade at various strategic locations around the map, so I want to make sure that I have not messed this up in my altered version before playtesting it. I see that, some of them have slightly different functions, and I am guessing that this was highly intentional.

With respect to the "Diplomatic" Victory conditions: the AI's actions are highly dependent on the VP conditions that are flagged on. For example, if you leave ONLY diplomacy on, they will be very hesitant to go to war at all. The effect of having say ONLY Conquest on is also different than having both Domination and Conquest (I hypothesize, I have not actually tested this premise). Also, if VP is activated, I do believe (again just anecdotal based on playing the various scenarios that use the different Victory Conditions) the AI will again act differently depending on the math. It would be nice if Firaxis provided, or would provide more info on exactly what the AI seeks to do in SP games (e.g., does it seek to win, or does it seek not to lose?), and whether the tribe characteristics are conditional, additive, multiplicative, or actually separate in the algorithms that derive from how the AI behaves as a result of Victory conditions. For example, only Conq victory is turned on. The only way to win is to survive with higher points, or take over the entire planet. How will Spain (religious, expansionist) TEND to handle this compared to Japan (relig, and milit) compared to Portugal (expansion and seafare) compared to Mongols (expansion and milit)? Or, do the civ attributes ONLY shape what the civ builds, what Techs it goes for first, and how it priortizes structures and build queues in general?

Maybe eventually Firaxis (or whoever owns it!) will reveal the code, or at least provide more insight into the modularity, and intermodular linkage in the AI brain. Or maybe there are already resources of this nature about which I am not aware. For me, at present it is largely guess work.

Anyway, my GUESSes are this: Domination, provokes ANY AI to want to take advantage of an opportunity to take territory, thus it will tend to prompt wars that may have a rather "random" or senseless appearance to the human. I do believe that when these "stupid" AI wars ensue, it is because the AI has been doing the math about relative risk and gains, and has decided, for whatever reason that this is a prospect to challenge the human player, by either (i) complicating diplomacy by declaring war on another AI; (ii) gain long-term advantage relative to the human by declaring war on another AI; or (iii) putting the human into some sort of strategic "bind." This is actually not a lot different than what we humans do, it is just that the AI knows EVERYTHING, ALL THE TIME, and we humans only know what we can see via the interface. Moreover, we unconsciously tend to "presume" that our "opponent" (the adaptive algorithm running everything in the game, including what our "various" AI opponents are doing) works with the same state of incomplete knowledge. But then, many of us have also come to the realization of how easy it is to actually MANIPULATE the AI as a result of its ominiscence. For example, you are at war with the Turks. You leave a city that is back behind your border with no defender, unerringly the Turkish soldiers begin to plod toward that city. You move a strong defender that is in a nearby city over to the defenseless city, voila! the Turkish soldiers do an about face. One can continue these dance ad infinitum, or at least until a new value gets entered into the equation, for example, the Turks get another unit or five built, THEN, it will start to act differently. In short, the AI is actually extremely predictable, and it only really when we do not think fully about the mathematical implications of some new development in the course of the game that its actions might seem "illogical." I have no doubt that it ALWAYS does what it does for good reasons, it is just whether or not those reasons are silly.

Given this predictability, what I am trying to do is setup the Victory conditions to prompt the AIs to go along general decision-paths that more or less are like those which they would have started out along at the outset of the war. If cumulative events lead to very, VERY different outcomes, very fun! That is what makes it fun in fact. BUT! I would just like to get all the starting values set up, so that at least the initial predispositions and trajectories of all the various players closely resemble the actual course of the war. This is part of why I want to try with US not in the Euro alliance.

In actual history, there were some rather pro-Nazi interests in ALL the western nations, and it is an interesting what-if to consider what MIGHT have happened if minor historical events had happened differently. For example Henry Ford (from what I've heard) was quite friendly with industrial interests in Germany, I wasn't aware of this Lindbergh speech about which you refer (will have to check that out!), but in any event, I think it is not unfair to speculate that, US MIGHT possibly have simply stayed out of the war entirely, had Japan not attacked it, and had Axis agreed to a more concessionary armistice in say 1941 before the Battle of Britain. GB was replete with appeasers, and had the Nazis agreed to a sort of half-way withdrawal from some of the land it had taken, who knows what might have happened?

Thus, the Victory Points: the point is to prompt the aggressor nations to take territory, but not ANY and ALL territory. Having the VP locations on the map, along with other strategic points (e.g., saltpeter under Hong Kong that, if linked by road to rest of China allows advanced growth structures in Chinese holdings by Japanese) is an intent to provoke the Japanese to try to get Hong Kong before they go off and declare war on US, or Soviets, or Brazil! Likewise the VPs in Dutch New Guinea and Indonesia are also to provoke the Japanese to strive to occupy THESE territories FIRST, before it starts getting distracted by trying to invade Vancouver, or Rio de Janiero. It might STILL pull such a "stupid" stunt, but hopefully, only after it has taken a firm grip on the most immediately available low-hanging fruit FIRST. Indeed, once it has taken the territories it actually DID take in the war, the next best targets (for a VP win perspective) are Australia and India. There is not much point with this setup I've concocted for Japan to declare war on either Soviets or US, UNLESS it has already conqured so much, and become so powerful that fulfilling the VP conditions is less of a risk and it can start to focus on total domination. Thus, in the Axis Human version, there will be no Locked in mechanism (the invisible unit scheme, developed by Surtur) to automatically bring US into the war. Maybe US will come into the war anyway (though most likely not until it has Democracy, i.e. post Air 1941), but maybe Axis can with good diplomacy keep US AI out of the war entirely! Same intent with the other VP locations in ME and Russia: provoke AIs that play these positions to try to achieve what these nations actually sought to achieve through aggression, as a first step that might then lead them to seek domination, else total conquest.

For the allied nations, the point really is about surviving, then getting the US into the war so they can ultimately triumph. It will be interesting to see how the allied nations handle the lack of locked alliance with US in this regard. Hopefully, given the complete lack of VPs in New World, and Britain, as well as the affinity between governments, and the interdependent trade, war b/w them will not be likely except perhaps under extreme circumstances. Only playing can tell. For France, GB, or Soviets, the VP win is also a prospect that goes hand in hand with them surviving Axis aggression, and then pushing back hard enough to take back those tiles. Hopefully, the effect of this (as compared to when only Domination and Conquest are flagged as victory options) will similarly be to focus all the AI on the most immediate threats and opportunities. For example, let say a human is playing Japan with unaltered victory conditions with ONLY Domination & Conqeust win turned on (but with all the other changes I've made on): it is 1940, France is Nazi occupied. Germans have pushed deep into Russia, GB suffers under a fierce air and naval attack from Germany. US is still enfeebled by its Federal Republic isolationism, and the Fascists have been more intent on taking the low-hanging fruit than on attacking US which is quietly striving toward Air 1941 over there across the waters. The human is methodically de-flowring British and Neth holdings in Pacific, and edging toward Australia, and it is a slow but steady path of loss for the AI GB in Pacific. All the AIs are trying to achieve Domination if not Conquest, and they are thus constantly calculating the "best" current options for taking steps steps toward that eventual outcome. Thus, with its lost territory in Pacific, and poor prospects to hold out, GB AI decides: "time to expand in other directions" and declares war on Brazil, or even more amazingly US!! True, while this could have happened, it is not particularly realistic. My intent is that the VP win, which is generally MORE accessible than the Domination or Conquest wins, will tend to prevent these sorts of AI decisions, and focus MOST of the action on the areas of the world where the war was primarily fought in actual history.

"Diplomatic Victory." This is not in actual fact a "Diplomatic Victory," but simply a fait accompli sort of victory, and the Diplo flag is the only one that really suits this sort of accomplishment. If some building, available in a late game hail-Mary development provided some ridiculous amount of culture or something, then it could alternatively be set to Culture Win. But the nice side effect of the Diplo win being turned on (hopefully), and ONLY available to the Democracies, is that it will prompt all the democracies (whether AI or human) to generally play nice with one another (after all, they may need those "votes" someday! if a VP, Domination, or Conquest win eventually seems unattainable).

The idea here is not that anything like the U.N. is formed, or that the whole world is otherwise suddenly engaged in a massive popularity vote. Rather, the idea is to simulate the way the U.S. actually "won WWII," i.e., she sat it out as long as possible, while all the Old World nations pounded each other in an attempt to gain a VP win, or perhaps (if any one of them had actually done better than they did) even go for a Domination or Conquest. Once everyone was pretty much depleted, and US had built itself up to be the relative super-power unequaled, she came in, and mopped up. When human plays positions OTHER than US, this should be a real risk. When human plays US, this approach to victory should be an option. In short, the US should not have to act like the Fascists or the Communists in order to "win," and really neither should the other Democracies. Achieving a late-game victory that is largely contingent on militarily defeating the aggressors but IS NOT dependent on controlling 70% of the world, or even on having a massive pile of victory points (tiles occupied, and cities conquested) should remain an option for the the Democracies. This is the actual point of the "Diplomatic" victory flag being on.

Only Democracies can get it, and it will be contingent on them being liked by a majority of nations on the planet (i.e., they'd better not be unfriendly to too many other nations, unless they intend to simply extinguish those other nations, but in even THEN they are going to alienate the other democracies). Moreover, it is ALSO contingent on lasting until at least 1945 (requires Air 2 1945 Tech), it is contigent on building an Atom Bomb (read, deploying the A-bombs that Truman deployed to establish to the world that, "resistance is futile," surrender unconditionally [to Japan] and/or stay behind YOUR side of the line [to Russia] else we'll nuke you some more/also. And lastly, building the "structure" (which may not actually be a structure so much as it is a Conference, a Treaty, and Plan, that takes its name from the city where it is constructed) is ALSO contingent on taking control of ENOUGH of either Germany, Japan, or Russia (because of where I put the three "War Crimes Evidence" strategic resources) that they have control of the necessary resource and can then build the "War Crimes Tribunal" structure (aka, United Nations). This is not meant to equate with actual War Crimes Tribunals, but with the state of uncontested victor that can be achieved by simply: (a) being ahead, or at least not behind in Techs; (b) taking a huge bite of an aggressor's territory; (c) controlling that territory long enough to use the resource there (War Crimes Evidence) to "build" a global public relations case against the aggressor nation to make ANY action against them (even armaggedon devices) acceptable in pursuit of achieving unconditional surrender; and lastly (d) building said armaggedon devices, which means that they could be demonstrated, and used to evoke the Unconditional Surrender.

Perhaps I should call the structure "Unconditional Surrender" (aka United Nations= "diplomacy" victory) instead of "War Crimes Tribunal" and perhaps call the resource necessary to build, something like "Final Democratic Resolve To Win At Any Cost" or something like that. That is a real mouthful, so if you can recommend something else please let me know.

This is too much fun, and with my prof job interview coming up Feb 19, I _REALLY_ must get back to work!!! :)
 
Anthropoid,

Now and then people write to me and ask if they can launch scenarios
based on WW2-Global.
Since their scenarios most of the time are versions 90-95%
built on WW2-Global I want that they shall to upload these versions
at the WW2-Global thread.

However I can see from the detailed posts you write that you have
a very strong ambition with your scenario.

Thus, for the first time I highly recommend you to launch
your own scenario-thread.
Just give me credit and state that you have used WW2-Global
as a base for your scenario.

Good luck with your project!

Rocoteh
 
Anthropoid, I have little time so I didn´t read your total post but only a few sections. I think it is a good but problematic idea of using such a Nuremberg Tribunal. Because in contrast to the modern international criminal courts these courts, Nuremberg and Tokio, are, unfortunately, not so suitable as prototype for these modern courts as they are often said. Indeed there are three main points to be attacked:
1. Both only talked about Axis war crimes. The Allied war crimes, here I would include Hiroshima, the terror bombings and the Russian crimes against Germans in East Germany, were not dealt. I agree it was political impossible to judge about Churchill, Stalin and Truman. But the critics have to be said here, although THIS is a minor fact.
2. The second however is much more important. In both Nuremberg and Tokio the basic law nulla poena sine lege was broken. The crimes against humanity and so can be accepted however as a kind of summaration of several existing crimes, like torture and murder. It is still problematic but acceptable. However the crime because of preapring and leading an aggression war did not exist in any of the penal laws of the belligerent nations. It was the invention by a US judge. It was forbidden in international law to make an aggression war, but it was not poenalized in any form. Also it is worthy to discuss if this crime is certain enough. There is no real definition of agression war and several other points to discuss I can´t here mention. So this point is the main point of my critics.
3. The crimes against Germany and Germans were not part of the tribunal. None of these crimes were judged. Murder, treason, theft, robbery, none.

So here are the problems. Don´t get me wrong I can only agree to most of the sentences, however parts of them are still questionable. Also I think the sentences against Dönitz and Raeder were not okay.
A last remark: Because of the said reasons no German government never officially recognized this tribunal!

Adler
 
Adler17 said:
Rocoteh, I think after the release of SOE you should make a last graphical update for WW2 Global.

Adler

Adler,

I will consider it. No decision yet.

Rocoteh
 
Now and then people write in this thread and want me
to include Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka and the other Kz-camps.
Some want to see German slave-labour.
There have also been suggestions for the inclusion of Gulag.

May answer is and will always be: No!

The reason: It have never been the intention with this scenario
to offend anyone!


With regard to the current suggestion on "War Crimes Tribunal",
my answer is that it goes beyond the scope and intentions with
this scenario.
One can also ask should there also be a special possible "War Crimes Tribunal"
aginst Soviet Communism?
Stalins terror took 80 million lives, including 4 million Jews, 3 million
German civilians and 8 million people in Ukraine.
Many of these crimes occured during WW2.

Again: It was never my intention to include those aspects (Tribunals)
in the scenario.Soon the final chapter of this scenario will be written.
I have no intention to change my previous policy.

Rocoteh
 
Rocoteh said:
Anthropoid,

Now and then people write to me and ask if they can launch scenarios
based on WW2-Global.
Since their scenarios most of the time are versions 90-95%
built on WW2-Global I want that they shall to upload these versions
at the WW2-Global thread.

However I can see from the detailed posts you write that you have
a very strong ambition with your scenario.

Thus, for the first time I highly recommend you to launch
your own scenario-thread.
Just give me credit and state that you have used WW2-Global
as a base for your scenario.

Good luck with your project!

Rocoteh

That is a GOOD idea Rocoteh! Thanks for making that offer. I'll do it!

Maybe I should call it "WW2 Historical"? What do you recommend?

I'll wait to start a thread in the draft scenarios area, and I'll also desist with spamming your thread with these multi-volume sets :)
 
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