G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread

@Infrastructure:

A third option could be that if vichy requirements are met any turn after turn 1 that you ignore the, “3. There are no non-french, Allied units in Southern France.”  If at any french turn after turn1 there are allied units in southern france the territory becomes hostile, but since germany cannot move into southern france, the ftr/units get a turn to move out and all they have accomplished is delaying vichy 1 turn.  Probably too hard to code though…

Probably unnecessary since it is extremely easy for Germany to air nuke Southern France on round 2 (if it really wants to), and there is little reason for UK to keep supplying southern France with fighters to prevent Vichy after round 1, since the strategic benefits of Vichy France go down considerably after the first round (most of the French units, including the fleet in sz 93, will move out on the first round).

That said, Vichy France does occasionally happen on the second round. An example is my ongoing game with Shin Ji.

@regularkid:

An example is my ongoing game with Shin Ji.

. . . my ongoing game against Mr. Roboto.**

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=37496.msg1514464#msg1514464

We’ve tried to avoid changing unit starting setup for reasons discussed above (that’s what bids are for).

Jdow take you up on yer offer of a game yet?

Hey all. The Mod Squad has been wrestling with the idea of adding a +5 National Objection for German occupation of London. We’ve heard Axis-Dominion’s reasoned objections to it. And we’ve also played a couple Sealion games since the proposal was made.

The concern is this: a +5 bonus may make Sealion too attractive in borderline cases (maybe even overpowered), especially when coupled with Vichy France, and the requirement of using UK lland units to counter Vichy French conversion of territory. On the other hand, it does seem that something is needed to keep UK honest the first couple of rounds.

So here’s another proposal for a Sealion-related NO: Germany gets +5 if it has a land unit in either Egypt or the United Kingdom. This, obviously, would replace Germany’s existing Egypt NO.

What do you guys think? Axis-Domion?

@Shin:

I’d say it’s a bit on the weak side, but I’m fine with it.

One thought that occurs to me, perhaps the Germans could get 3 IPCs for any round where the Atlantic did not have transports?  Historically, U-Boats sinking commercial shipping was pretty important.

Hrm.  Maybe Germans can get a bonus of 3 IPCs anytime their U-Boats are convoying in the Atlantic?

Interesting ideas, but they ain’t really Sealion specific, which is what we’re trying to address.

Axis-dominion, while your idea could certainly work, it does increase the total amount of PUs Germany can obtain from NOs by 5. Do you think this idea is more or less ‘overpowered’ than the idea of keeping the total amount of Germany’s NO Pus the same, but making the Egypt NO  easier to achieve (by adding the UK route)?

Also, would your proposed NO include Ireland?

well, regarding UK’s island NOs in the med, removing one (or even requiring allied occupation of crete, which would, in most games, delay achievement of the NO by several rounds at least) would substantially impact the balance of the game I think. Judging from the current win/loss ratio, Axis doesn’t really need all that much help.

The idea behind the proposed UK/Egypt NO for Germany is really not so much about balance as it is about gameplay. The aim is to dissuade ‘greedy’ UK1 purchases that seek to take the med out of play from the get go, by making Sealion a more viable strategy long term.

Also, its worth noting that, if you remove the +3 med-island NO, from the start, UK europe would actually make less than in the vanilla game.

Thanks, variance. We don’t have any imminent plans for changes to the mod. Just soliciting feedback for possible tweaks down the road.

As for the current Axis/Allied win ratio, it is interesting that Axis have won more games, even though the perception seems to be that the Mod leans in Allies favor. One thing to that skews the ratio a bit is that Mod co-creator, Adam514, gets stuck playing Axis a lot in BM (since folks understandably want to try out the new Allied NOs), and he is simply a beast at the game. if you exclude those games, however, the ratio is pretty much 50/50.