Slitherine

@Kossatx: try reinstalling the V3 mod and the V3.3 update again, I suspect you missed an update.

@Zombo: Please provide a savegame (autosave.endturn) before the crash or the ctgw.log after the crash. Those are usually to be found in your "my games" or "games" folder. The Flight bug should already be fixed in V3.3

A little update after doing my turns: I pulled a nasty trick ( which shouldn't be allowed in my opinion): AH surrendered, so all German units were eliminated(?) sent somewhere else(?) , then on my turn I just re-declared war and overran the rest.
My guess is once you accept a surrender you shouldn't be able to re-declare war.

Another thing: I kept (as the Allies) Antwerp or the whole game, so when I recaptured it I had like 150 Belgian PPs, ( not much to spend them on) and could build 5 Belgian infantries instantly. I suggest the maximum PP you can keep should be 100% or maw 150% of your prod total.

I'll try and find that save file

New update V3.3.1
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0N7V ... 0prd0F2dnc
- fixed some missing arab NATO unit counters

@Zombo: I'll include a special check for Belgium since I'm not sure whether a general hard limit of double the maximum of starting production for every nation is unproblematic because of convoys and other bonus PP via events.

As a sidenote, here are the current production values for all nations:

ENTENTE:
france PRODUCTION IS:112
britain PRODUCTION IS:116
russia PRODUCTION IS:196
italy PRODUCTION IS:75
usa PRODUCTION IS:67

= 566pp

CENTRAL POWERS
austria PRODUCTION IS:99
germany PRODUCTION IS:161
turkey PRODUCTION IS:86

= 346pp

MINORS
serbia PRODUCTION IS:32
belgium PRODUCTION IS:22
bulgaria PRODUCTION IS:35
romania PRODUCTION IS:37
netherlands PRODUCTION IS:15
sweden PRODUCTION IS:23
denmark PRODUCTION IS:15
finland PRODUCTION IS:0
greece PRODUCTION IS:42
spain PRODUCTION IS:41
portugal PRODUCTION IS:15
switzerland PRODUCTION IS:11
norway PRODUCTION IS:13
arabia PRODUCTION IS:0
persia PRODUCTION IS:24
colonies PRODUCTION IS:0
red_finland PRODUCTION IS:0
egypt PRODUCTION IS:0

Hi Robo,

in my Entente game ( still on 3.0) I just realised (I'm sorry, maybe I should have noticed that before) that since Romania entered the war ( something like four turns) it stays at 0 PP...

( as un scientifical as it may seem, the crash at the beginning of the game seems to happen if I press "replay" too quickly . If I don't it doesn't happen... If you still want me to retrieve that file thing, I'll try and find that "my games" folder)

Romania has

5 infantry = 20 upkeep
5 garrisons = 10 upkeep
1 cavalry = 2 upkeep
1 arty = 1 upkeep
2 labs = 6 upkeep
-------------------------
= 39 upkeep

while having 37pp max production and 25 pp in reserve when entering the war.

That's why.

About the replay button: oh, great, so that won't need fixing.

Cool

BTW, about the pop? The Serbs sat for like 6 months away from the frontline because of the exhausted pop, but the pop never moved. (It's hard to imagine that in 6 months they wouldn't be able to scrape some barrel bottoms)
I do remember something about pop increasing a bit every turn... was it in Sabratha's mod?

No, that in my mod too: 4 mp per turn for major nations, 1-2 for minors...bit of a trickle since a turn means a whole month now starting with 1915. I'll double that.
Also I'll add an extra D6 per turn of Serbian manpower after "Macedonia Warzone" has triggered to reflect allied reinforcements to the Serbian army (or what's left of it).

Robo, this thing is getting close to perfection. I've enlisted another couple of friends or I bet they won't be the last. You should be on Slitherine's payroll

BTW, any thoughts on how the handle Kaiserschlacht? I think that if you include something like mandatory Verdun and Somme offensives, a last gambit in the West if Russia has caved in should be included too, for the same reasons.

(I still find Russia's production crazy high... higher than Germany's! )

Kaiserschlacht:
indeed, this is missing and in fact at one point I pondered about including it as a chain of events, but then other things got in the way. So, what should be the prerequisites for it to happen and what should be the consequences? Let's brainstorm that:

Conditions:
- the game is drawing to a close
- Germany is nearing collaps or the army is nearing exhaustion, same for France
- Ludendorff is in play
- Paris is still not taken
- US have entered the war

Effect:
- a number of German infantrys get upgraded with infiltration tactics for free
- German units get an attack bonus
- morale bonus for every French hex taken within a certain time limit or a morale penalty if failing to do so. Maybe automatically have France surrender once Paris is taken within the time limit.

That what comes to my mind right now, not quite original I must admit, there should be some genuine feature to represent the cataclysmic proportion of the event. Suggestions?

Production:
I'm open about any suggestions about redistributing PP among all the nations. One must however not forget that sticking to the historic numbers is problematic.
For example Turkey: the Ottomans have more production than Italy which in my opinion is totally unrealistic but necessary to give them the ability to keep Britain occupied by threatening the Suez and Abadan and defend against the Russians in the Caucasus at the same time.
Same for Russia: Russia must be capable to tie down Germany and pretty much smash AH at the same time which is pretty impossible when Russia would be given the historic amount of industrial capacity. Though I would think that lowering Russian PP to about maybe 150 would be in order in multiplayer. The AI however would spectacularly fail with anything less than that it has now.

If anyone can come up with new proposals for PP/manpower values for the nations I'll be happy to implement them. Maybe changing unit costs would also help.

Kaiserschlacht: I would add to the conditions that Russia must be somehow neutralised, at least by the Bolshevik revolution, if not out of the war for good.
I don't see however, the need for an US intervention condition, although it's pretty likely that they would be intervening at that point anyway.
I'd say that it should happen when:
Russia is neutralised ( need to transfer assets to the West to justify that attack bonus)
Germany is on on the brink of disaster AND/OR France is on the brink of disaster

the mechanisms could replicate the 1914 drive on Paris. Once the attack is halted, Germany loses 2 collapse points if Paris is not taken.

I'm not convinced France would have automatically capitulated if the US are in the war, unless the UK also reaches its collapse limit.

infiltration for free is an excellent idea. I don't know if it's moddable, but I would make Infiltration tactics very hard to get (to represent the fact that it didn't fit Allied doctrine - they prefered tanks) and give Germans events and such to gain the tech

In multiplayer games, France is always capable of investing more Infantry labs than Germany, which makes her reach the Tactics before the German (including all those the German actually reached first- that is, most of them)

Russia in multiplayer is a brute, a serious PP decrease would be most welcome. Russian units could get, to compensate, an attack bonus against AH (because of the high proportion of Slavs in the AH army)

(Also, is it possible to modify the route of the German baltic convoys, so that the Russian navy actually has to sortie to attack them, rather than having them move into Russian waters, ( not a very plausible itinerary) making their protection over-costly for the German navy?)

Again, I don't know if it's moddable, but what about making Infantry units (not Garrisons) more expensive for Russia and Turkey, to represent their generally more rudimentary army? They could still field a good number of units, but would be less resilient.
Also, I don't know if it's feasible, but making the Sinai (until the pipeline is built) and the desert all the way to Kut more expensive in terms of effectiveness attrition would help Turkey without having to inflate artificially its military capabilities.

I would also reduce Portuguese and Greek PP a bit

just a few thoughts...

Okay, I'll implement the Kaiserschlacht for the next update, though I believe a scenario where BOTH France and Germany are on the brink of collapsing at the given time (Russia surrendered) is a rather rare bird. I'll see what else will flow into the formula.

I've reduced Russia's PP by about 15 but will give an extra PP bonus at game start, roughly equalling two infantry. In my opinion Russia should still have more total PP than Germany because of its vast size, which should be able to overwhelm Germany by sheer strength of numbers, a feature that can not be expressed by the manpower value alone.

AH already suffers vs Russia via the "Ethnic Revolts" event, which brings in Slavic discontent to fight vs Russian units. I'll prepone the first effects to the moment "Austrian Border overrun" has occurred.

I'll also include an event for Germany to speed up unlocking of infiltration tactics,just like the "Fokker" event for fighter planes and the "Bruchmüller" event for artillery. That way Germany will have a chance to unlock "infiltration tactics" before France once it has applied 2 or more labs to infantry techs.

I can't mod in Russian/Ottoman land units to have different stats to other units without modding in specific Russian/Ottoman kinds of infantry/garrison etc., which in my opinion is not worth the hassle. The "one-fits-all" approach of the engine regarding unit stats makes this very complicated.

Modding in higher movement-point costs for desert/dune hexes should be easy.

Regarding Swedish convoys in the Baltic: I'll just move around the Russian ports a bit to the east so the "home waters bonus" area will be reduced.

Cool

I guess messing with the production will make the update incompatible with the present version, right?

I'll have to tell my pals to hold on until it's out ... they're going to riot

(btw, it's a detail, but I really think Greek prod is too high)

Zombo wrote:(btw, it's a detail, but I really think Greek prod is too high)

Come on, at least make a suggestion where and how many PP should be reduced.

okay, okay

Greece: 20 PP (possibly at start units exp level 1 because of the Balkan wars)
Netherlands 18 PP (and I would place one of its armies in the capital - the German currently can go straight to the capital and bypass the armies)
Switzerland 15 PP
Persia 15 PP
Portugal 12 PP (to prevent it from sending too many troops abroad - one army is enough)

I guess the "non-red" Finland is the newly-independent Finland of December 1917, it may deserves few PPs of its own

I would also create a "Russian desertions" event, based on the same mechanics as the Turkish one ( without the penalising effect of attacks - inactivity was an accelerating factor of decomposition in the Russian Army) , it feels appropriate and historical (desertions were endemic in 1917 ) , and it would help play balance

for chrome, and to give the Germans a little more punch in Prussia, what about a one-hex von François leader ?

kirk23 wrote:

Robotron wrote:Trenches are a no-go, not possible on 1st turn a nation joins, sorry. But I will reinstall infantry in Brussels, had removed it to help CP AI.

Hi, I'm really impressed by the massive amount of changes in the Events Lua, I started a game as the CP, but soon realized that my normal method of game play won't work using the mod. As both Austria and Germany's morale was extremely low, and I was still only in Dec 1914 ? So I closed the mod down, and I'm now in the process, of investigating the scripts to see what is going on with morale now.

As for the problem of players building vast armadas of Zeppelins, which was totally impossible to do, for Germany during WW1. There are 2 ways to solve this unhistorical Zeppelin use, 1 is alter the Zeppelin unit script, so that all they are good for was Recon and Anti-Submarine warfare, because their other land Bombardment effects are reduced to virtually zero. The other way to go I was thinking about, was having MAX build limit, implemented into the game scripts, so that no more than 3 Zeppelins could be on the map at any one time for example. This game limit could also be applied to other unit types, as deemed necessary, to enhance the general game play.

Been trying to catch up on the numerous posts in this thread, alas came across this one post (in quote) plus others concerning the same subject. Absolutely: "Spamming Units" ruins the game", without a doubt..!!! Recently started playing the game (vanilla) again in SP (it was a joy), then moved on to MP matches, with very few exceptions, "spamming" was the style of play of the day (forcing opponents to spam, like it or not). This spamming business turns this game into an "ABORTION"..!!! Now I am going to continue to read posts from the one below onwards, for there is a lot of interesting discussion going on here.

@operating: thank you for your interest in this mod, it's been (and still is) a hell of work for me to get everything right the original design lacked.

We had droves of Stuka-style fighter planes that reduced whole armies to rubble, we saw armadas of Zeppelins bombing the hell out of the enemy, we cringed at the AI being unable to do anything but rail-moving its units in a permanent display of ineptitude.

I did my best (with varying success) to fix that stuff in my spare-time by learning to alter the scripts as a complete newbie (I have some basic understanding of programming, but the LUA scripts were new to me).
However: WW1 is about trench-warfare, not Blitzkrieg-like manoeuvres of encirclement and glorious Schwerpunkt-style breakthrough actions (at least on the Western front). The game only has a very small number of hexes in the crucial areas and forbids unit stacking, which leads to deadlock pretty soon. This is a basic design flaw that can't be changed by modding, you'd have to recode the whole game from the start to fix this.
So unit spamming to make sure you have a second line of attackers/defenders available at all time is in order in my opinion given the premises of the game design.

For the next update (among other things proposed by fellow CTGW enthusiast Zombo) I'll raise the upkeep cost for infantry from 4 to 5. This seems like a rather minuscule change but it will actually prevent nations from spamming infantry all over the place quite a lot.

I'm sure you are aware of the SCWWI game, however it does not have fluidity of this game, however I like SC's map scale. If there ever was a marriage to be made it would have to be SC to make it happen and if SC has been observing your work (likely) perhaps something could happen. Think they both have lua files. I just think this game is more exciting to play than the other, but if joined it would be the game of the year and then some, that's my gut feeling. The new SC3 game is getting a huge amount of attention, from my view a lot has to do with going from tiles to hexes, which would be fundamental to a marriage of SCWWI and CTGW. It's a pipe dream, alas, HOPE was the last to come out of the Pandora's Box...

From my recent studying of the Romanian campaign, it appears that the success of the campaign ( led by Falkenhayn, but devised by the H-L duo) was as much due to its brilliant conception as to the very deficient combativeness of the Romanians ( never the world's most intrepid warriors) - faced with veteran German troops. This makes me feel that the Romanians might be a little bit too strong in CTGW...

I have played a few games with your MOD, Robotron, and I think you have improved someway the AI for ground units very well. The naval units, however, are still not smart enough. The Entente tries to disembark in albania too much colse from AH navy and, often, attacks with a few ships the german or the AH navy in their harbours. Do you think the same? It is possible to improve the naval AI?

Zombo wrote:This makes me feel that the Romanians might be a little bit too strong in CTGW...

Again this is too vague, please make specific suggestions what should be changed about Romania. I'm busy fixing the singleplayer-AI,so I can't divert time to that right now. Please give me hard numbers and I'll implement those.

@Kossatx: if I knew how to enhance the naval AI I'd done so long ago. To re-engineer the whole AI engine is very time consuming to say the least and I'm not sure whether any of you guys will be around anymore once I put my head around it. So, for the moment, please be patient.