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G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread
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We don’t want to change unit values and make setup changes.
Italy can and has taken Normandy in many BM games on round 1, it doesn’t need the mech.
Marines at least make buying cruisers or BBs something to think about.
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@Mursilis responding to your points, in turn:
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Speaking from my own experience with the mod, cruisers are already an attractive enough buy at 12 IPCs (with marine transport capabilities), that I will buy them, especially with the US. I don’t think making them a “frequent” purchase is a goal, however, due to their relative obsolescence during WW2.
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Balance Mod avoids changes to the starting unit-setup, because it acts as a barrier to new players. And I don’t think we would break that rule in order to encourage ahistorical outcomes.
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The Mod does not appear to favor the Axis. To the contrary, many league games include a small bid for the Axis player. Whether, and to what extent, the mod favors either side is hardly a settled question.
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The justification for allowing battleships/cruisers to carry marines is that most capital ships usually carried a small company of marines that could carry out amphibious operations. They did not, however, carry ground infantry.
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This thread is never dead.
Have you played balance mod?
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@regularkid
Yes, I play it mainly IRL.I think that it is fantastic and if you are fine with the cruiser then all is well.
The next point is if the axis get a bid why not slightly decrease the NO dollars that the US gets from guam/islands and morroco/north africa from 5 to 3 ipc’s.
I would like there to be no bid at all really. I don’t play with a bid and i feel that the US NO’s might be the issue if the axis are getting a small bid now. OR giving an additional NO of 2 IPC’s to Italy. Something easy like holding yugoslavia and greece.
I just don’t know what the data says. I feel like japan is where it needs to be along with everyone else except italy still seems a bit weak and US a bit too strong as far as NO bonus bucks.
The vichy rule balances out italy a bit but if the uk lands an S france that vichy rule is done. So you could change it to if ITALY controls southern france and normandy or something else they receive 2 IPC’s.
What do you think?
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@Mursilis I dont think @regularkid and @Adam514 are interested in changing anything about BM right now and that is fine. The discussion about who has the advantage in BM3 is as long as this thread!
I think Axis are overpowered by a good margin in BM3, but maybe that is more because I play Allies incorrectly. I dont know. It can also be that it is much easier to play the Axis than the Allies and a competent Axis player will always make life difficult for any Allied player. So maybe it is as simple as this. I dont know
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@oysteilo Well a few posts back there was data that the axis are winning 56% of the time. But they also said that the axis was getting a bid.
So… that would imply to me that the allies might have a bit too much money from NO’s now. But I’m not sure if this is totally accurate. Feelings and hard data a two different things.
However not being open to changes or suggestions is not a good way to be. I mean what if changing a NO by one dollar dramatically changes and balances the whole game.
But again I’m not sure if there really is a balance issue or not. With the marine this makes anzac a pain in the ass for the japanese now. Get 2 of em first round and make cruisers and take islands. Cool.
I think the +5 IPC’s stated in my above post should come down to 3 for the us. I could be wrong though.
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@regularkid said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:
The Mod does not appear to favor the Axis. To the contrary, many league games include a small bid for the Axis player. Whether, and to what extent, the mod favors either side is hardly a settled question.
Hmm, just checked and there’s still a fair few Axis bid games happening.
@oysteilo said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:
I think Axis are overpowered by a good margin in BM3
Perhaps because I’ve had a few whiskeys but I kind of agree that axis have the advantage, providing that allies don’t scramble to SZ110. I think that is critical.
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What about the fact that the uk can land an infantry in S france and kill the vichy rule off. I thought the vichy france rule was vital for italy in the med.
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It’s not vital, it’s a choice. UK sacrificing a tp to block it is often a better trade than getting Vichy itself for the Axis.
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@Adam514
So if Italy can’t get vichy france and gets taranto raided, what can it do at that point? Just build up a ground army in italy and the coast? -
Take Gib, get Med islands, yeah. Depends what else is going on of course.
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And can open for Germany in USSR. Don’t forget that. Italy is often under a tonne of pressure and does indeed need a bunch of infantry to survive.
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@Mursilis said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:
However not being open to changes or suggestions is not a good way to be. I mean what if changing a NO by one dollar dramatically changes and balances the whole game.
Speaking for myself, I’m always open to suggestions for changes. We’ve actually incorporated quite a few suggestions made on this thread (e.g., +5 for Axis occupation of London, requiring Allied land unit (as opposed to air unit) in S. France to prevent Vichy).
However, at this late stage, any proposed changes must obviously meet a substantial burden. I offered the following guidance in that regard, in an earlier post:
“The Mod Squad used four metrics to determine whether any proposed change should be incorporated or not: (1) does it improve balance? (2) does it improve fun/strategic depth? (3) does it improve historicality? (4) is it simple/easy to understand and implement? If the change satisfied all of those criteria, it was a strong candidate for inclusion.”
When it comes to unit mechanics and initial unit setup, I think we are particularly cautious about making tweaks because such discussions tend to generate the most controversy among players, and we want the Mod to be widely accepted and played by the community. Also, as evidenced by similar discussions on other threads (see, e.g., G40 Redesign thread), debates about unit statistics tend to have a “rabbit hole” quality, from which there is little escape.
The types of proposals I personally would find more interesting would try to recreate historical events/phenomena. For example, a Russian winter mechanic. Perhaps soviet factories that are destroyed upon capture, or can be moved (have played tested this. is cool). Manhattan project/nukes.
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No offense I’m just going off of what that other person said. But I’m sure you have more data as to where the balance is. If the game really requires a bid, how much, and is there a definitive tilt in either the axis favor or allied favor.
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@Mursilis The League no longer maintains separate statistics for Balance Mod and “Vanilla” win/loss ratios. 2018 was the last year they kept separate statistics. I think they stopped because the overwhelming majority of League Games are now Balance Mod.
At any rate, in 2018, the ratio for Balance Mod was about 55% wins for Axis, 45% wins for Allies. Most of these were no-bid games. Some involved single-digit bids for Axis.
This is much more even than the win/loss ratio for Vanilla games, which, in 2018, was about 60% wins for Axis, 40% wins for Allies, with virtually all games involving substantial, double-digit bids for Allies.
Why does there seem to be a prevailing trend in Balance Mod games to include a small Axis bid, even when the stats arguably point to an Axis advantage? I think you’re on the right track when you suggest that the skill level of the players may have something to do with it. Among higher skilled players, the balance may be different than for lower skilled players, because one side’s advantages may take more or less skill to utilize.
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The statistics are maintained here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pYDcR_d27qG312v_rq2q35wYEEfO6mjrX-Co1nvKrlI/edit#gid=818885946
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I totally agree with most of what @regularkid said there. Remember the controversy of tanks going to 6IPCs from 5IPCs? Even changes which are quite likely to be liked, such as 10IPC tacs would attract a fair bit of controversy. Some would say why not 9IPCs! A few changes could be made but it’s highly unlikely that fiddling at the edges would see some sort of great idea. Getting rid of the most controversial rule, the guerilla fighters, would be a completely new variant IMO.
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@simon33 said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:
I totally agree with most of what @regularkid said there. Remember the controversy of tanks going to 6IPCs from 5IPCs? Even changes which are quite likely to be liked, such as 10IPC tacs would attract a fair bit of controversy. Some would say why not 9IPCs! A few changes could be made but it’s highly unlikely that fiddling at the edges would see some sort of great idea. Getting rid of the most controversial rule, the guerilla fighters, would be a completely new variant IMO.
Why are the guerilla fighters so bad @simon33? In my opinion this is the single best change of many good changes in BM3! I would by far like to see other BM3 stuff change long before this one
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I think they make gamey, unrealistic, outcomes. It’s like a deliberately created loophole, exactly why should USA be able to snipe out the garrisons? Also, they don’t make the game more dynamic IMO. They in fact make the decision to go after India as quickly as possible more clear. I also think that
Interesting that there are a couple of people that like the rule. I just don’t quite follow. I’d probably only hate it half as much if USA couldn’t bomb the infantry to create guerillas, but even so it still feels like a retrograde step back to Risk where you couldn’t allow the last unit to leave.
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@simon33 said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:
I think they make gamey, unrealistic, outcomes. It’s like a deliberately created loophole, exactly why should USA be able to snipe out the garrisons? Also, they don’t make the game more dynamic IMO. They in fact make the decision to go after India as quickly as possible more clear. I also think that
Interesting that there are a couple of people that like the rule. I just don’t quite follow. I’d probably only hate it half as much if USA couldn’t bomb the infantry to create guerillas, but even so it still feels like a retrograde step back to Risk where you couldn’t allow the last unit to leave.
The logic of the guerrilla rule is manifold.
First, the historical justification for the “sniping” as you call it. US involvement in mainland china war was primarily air support, and logistical assistance to native combatants. The guerrilla rule allows the US to have a role in supporting China that doesn’t involve boots on the ground.
Second, it slows Japan’s China crush, and helps simulate the difficulty of plunging deep into and maintaining control of inland china. It also creates an in-game justification for Japan cleaving closer to the coast, which is historical.
Third, from a gameplay perspective, it aids in balance, and presents more strategic choices to both sides.
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FWIW, the air support is already modeled by the flying tiger. And wrt Japan sticking to the coast, they already have an incentive for that with the inland territories all being 1IPC.
Anyway, it is what it is.
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