Here’s the Armies vs Navies idea I came up with!
G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread
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Hasn’t been decided yet - let’s wait for the decree from on high
who cares what they decide, we know it’s clearly a printing mistake and they acknowledge that (if not explicitly, at least implicitly by requesting play testing). they haven’t decided yet because they’re worried about how it might affect game balance, but we all know the standard ed isn’t balanced anyway. if we wait, what we’d be waiting for would be all the play-testing against the standard ed, which doesn’t help BM ed much.
what i see it would mainly affect for BM is the scenario when the axis don’t go vichy and hence FWA remains french.
anyway i’m just suggesting the mod squad look into it as well.
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ya ya, but it would be nice if it’s the same for both. That’s my whole point. It sounds like they’re going to decide very soon. It’s not that big of a deal anyway
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Gentlemen,
After much deliberation, soul searching, and reflection, the Mod Squad has decided to release Balance Mod 2.0. This will be an updated version of the mod based on feedback we received, here and elsewhere on the forum. I’m putting the finishing touches on the XML now, and the release will likely happen early next week.
The changes might be described as modest Some have already been discussed on this thread. They’ve undergone play testing. We would like to submit them for comment one last time before the release is finalized.
Here are the changes:
1. Correction: XML corrected to award 5 PUs for USA’s Vital Forward Bases objective (was incorrectly coded to award 4).
2. Vichy France Revision: Vichy French conversion of territory can only be prevented by non-French allied land units. Any non-French allied air units on French territories that convert to Vichy French are immediately destroyed.
3. Revised German National Objective: 5 PUs if there is at least one German land unit in either London (the United Kingdom) or Egypt. (This modifies Germany’s “Presence in Egypt” objective).
4. New German National Objective - Control of Balkans: 2 PUs if Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, and Crete are Axis or Pro-Axis controlled.
5. Revised UK Pacific Objective: 3 PUs for UK Pacific when at war with the Japanese if Malaya and Kwantung are Allied controlled. (This modifies UK Pacific’s “Malaya and Kwantung” objective.
6. Revised ANZAC Objective: 3 PUs if ANZAC is at war with the Japanese, controls all of its original territories, and Malaya is Allied controlled. (This modifies ANZAC’s “Control Original And Malaya” objective).
Note: With these changes, all UK and Anzac National Objectives are now worth 3 PUs.
Would appreciate feedback, particularly from folks who have played/are playing the mod.
thanks all
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I like the Crete addition for history sake. It would be helpful if you can put all of the NOs in the game notes, including both new and revised ones, and any original ones. thanks
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Great tweaks except for one in my opinion.
I don’t like the added German NO, especially the Crete part. Crete is already now a part of a UK NO and an Italian NO. I really don’t think the Germans need any more money, especially for territories they’re normally going to get anyway. Also, there is already incentive for UK to get Greece, as part of a new NO of the balanced modIn my opinion, the first “finalized” balanced mod, that we’ve been playing, is actually slanted a tad to the Allies. Backing down India’s Hong Kong NO and ANZAC’s Malaya NO is…… well I think it’s a great idea. But I don’t think this should be compounded with giving Germany +2 - I think Germany gets a tad too much in the NO department already, and this would partly nullify the needed boosts to Russia
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1 more thing, since I didn’t know that 2.0 was suddenly a thing
I haven’t had many rounds in mid-late game scenarios, but man I am starting to think that China guerrilla rule might be a bit too strong. Especially that the USA can snipe infantry units, and each one destroyed makes a China infantryman and a +1 income for China right away without China having to do anything……
I am just starting to experience the effects. I was able to snipe a Japanese infantry with American planes in a key territory (Kwe, when my Chinese army was in Sik) where I needed a blocker for my Chinese stack to move into She. USA air is able to strike areas the Chinese couldn’t even get to, and a Chinaman pops up, blocks all the mech/tanks, takes away a landing space, and a +1 income for China and a man right on the key territory - that seems like a bit much to me. I know dialing back the Yunnan NO compensates, but not when Japan successfully cuts off the Yunnan NO early - then losing the +3 doesn’t make any difference to the Allies.Honestly, I cringe to even take the Axis in the balanced mod because of the China guerrilla rules. I think a little change like you made with UK air landing in South France to stop the Vichy transition would be appropriate. Let’s see… what if the check was made at the end of Japan’s turn instead of the beginning of China’s???
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Gamer, what you’re doing in your game with Nerq is precisely what was envisioned with the Chinese Guerrilla mod: sending US air to support Chinese ground operations. So much historical goodness! Putting the Guerrilla spawn at the end of Japan’s turn would remove that cool element. And I’ve seen enough Balance Mod games (both in League and in the TripleA gaming lobby) where China was effectively contained or crushed, to know that the guerrillas do not present an insurmountable obstacle. Getting American planes into China early enough to make a difference requires sacrifice elsewhere. TBH we don’t see it in that many games.
As mentioned in a prior post, boosting Germany helps Japan, by requiring more US investment in the Atlantic. This is one of the reasons why the NO was added for Germany. The other reason was to give some assistance to Germany in dealing with the Russian Bear. The Balkans NO has a historical basis, so we went with that. We also discussed the possibility of an “Atlantic Wall” NO. But that idea was rejected by the squad for various reasons. So there you have it.
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Well I did really enjoy using that tactic to advance my Chinese stack to the very strategic Shensi
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With these changes, do you think you will still be inclined to give up Allied NOs in games where u play Allies?
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No, but I will still want to take the Allies
I would be willing to give up a Med NO or 2 of the UK’s, and possibly the US one for Europe if I had to, so I guess yes, but would give up lessNot the North African one plus the Normandy one plus one of ANZAC’s. So yes you made a step in the right direction and sure I would go for Allies straight up, but I would give up a minor NO or 2 to get the Allies.
It is close to balanced.
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That rule of not being able to raid a capital more than once is big for the Allies too
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Indeed, its one of my favorite innovations. My general impression is that, in BM games, Allies choose to liberate France earlier and more often than in OOB games, which gives me all kinds of warm fuzzies.
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A little something in this discussion section that allows no edits, cause I’m the worst typist/speller ever.
:-DOne quick annecdote for encouragement. So back in 2004 when tripleA was young and Sean, Logan, Nekro and all those guys were still trying to get Revised to play on a computer, we had a group of players that decided to make a mod. It was the first mod for an official game in TripleA, based on the idea of adding Italy to Revised as a player nation. It took endless nagging and persuasion, but eventually we got the original designers of tripleA to add the necessary code to the engine to allow nations other than big 5 into the game (which until that point were all hard coded.) The name of the mod was Pact of Steel, because of course that sounded catchy right? And the whole point was to get some silly Italians into the fray.
Little did I realize the obvious alternative meaning for PoS! Haha
And although of course that mod was a PoS, by the current standards of the engine, at the time it still moved the ball forward. AA50 followed hot on its heels, and tripleA was able to quickly adapt for that, in part because the prior groundwork had already been laid with that mod.
Shortly thereafter we got that cursed takedown notice, when TripleA went dark for almost half a year, and just at the point when it was truly peaking. Damn. The original designers went off to do other things, and we had to regroup.
But it came back! As of course it would, because core A&A fans need a digital game. Other people cropped up, dusted things off and passed the torch GPL style, so that the project could continue to grow and play a role in digital arena for A&A.
Now you got a mod called “BM.” And people tacking BM onto the saved games, in much the same way, that back in the day, people would tack PoS onto a save game! I fucking love it.
It hilarious and apt, and seems a sure sign of victory and true destiny for the mod. I think this mod will be the one that wins for the global game rehash. BM! or G40b if you go that route, but you’ll still have that winning original acronym in spirit.
And I’ll tell you this much, the crew right now with Veq and Redrum and all the rest, have done more for the engine in the last few years than I’d ever have imagined possible a decade ago. Despite the limitations of the gameplay format, the engine just gets more and more adaptive and expansive all the time. And the sort of things players can do now just with xml editing, and edit mode options on the fly is so glorious, when you back on how things started.
All this is just to say aim high! Don’t let people get under your skin or steamroll it, stick to what you dig and make it for the players who want to actually play. Through sheer force of will, sometimes even the designers of the official games end up listening, or at least examing things for proof of concept, and trying out ideas first proven in a mod. If it can happen with Italy going from Revised to AA50, maybe it can happen for Vichy France etc in Global.
I’m really impressed with the work that’s been done here already and aplaud the effort actually get something up and running. I hope it keeps people playing for a long time to come. Again, great work.
Best
Triplelk -
Indeed, its one of my favorite innovations. My general impression is that, in BM games, Allies choose to liberate France earlier and more often than in OOB games, which gives me all kinds of warm fuzzies.
Yes, I’m sure it is liberated more often - I don’t think I have progressed that far yet though in any of my few games so far :-(
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That reminds me, from those of y’all that have played many games, does doing a KGF strategy make sense under the BM rules? I’ve tried it a few times, but it hasn’t gone well. As always, you need to put some naval pressure on Europe, but I wonder if anyone has made it their primary focus while just holding back Japan as best as they can.
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Yeah, that sounds like a bad idea since Japan just needs India +1 to win
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BlackElk, what a great post. Thank you for that. Once the version 2 (G40 Balanced) is released on the forum, we will package it to be listed as a standalone tripleA map for download, and petition for it to be included with the next build of TripleA. Sky’s the limit, brothers!
ShinJi, I’ve seen both KJF and KGF used successfully in the mod. I don’t think the changes really tilt it one way or the other, that much. So much depends on what Axis does.
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Well I did really enjoy using that tactic to advance my Chinese stack to the very strategic Shensi
good tip, thank u, i just used that against infrastructure hahahaha
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Neglected to mentioned one anticipated tweak in Balance 2.0. In the current version, the Game Notes specify “[W]hen not at war with Russia, Japan may not move its units into any originally Russian territory controlled by European Axis.”
That restriction will be expanded to apply to all Axis powers. Therefore, Germany may not move its units into Italian-controlled Russian territory (for example), unless Germany is at war with Russia.
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