G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread

[oysteilo]

@regularkid:

Responding to the Med Island concerns:

By either or both standards, the current configuration of med island NOs easily passes muster. Is there anyone who seriously argues these NOs do not create more action in the Med? Or that giving Germany and Italy the extra income in the Med creates an imbalance in Axis’s favor (no, to the contrary, the emerging consensus has been that the BM advantage goes to Allies. While it comes down to a matter of opinion, to some extent, I feel that the med Island NOs create naval engagement in the Mediterranean that is more interesting, more varied, and more intense. It expands strategic choices and opportunities for both sides.

Okey, I will leave this alone now after this post  :-D

I don’t really disagree with what is written above, my point has the whole time been it is unreasonable that holding for examble cyprus with Italy removes two objectives for the British, the convoy lanes and the original territories. This violates with how all other NOs are set up in the game If it is important to add the extra money in the med then replace the convoy lane objective with a Crete objective, such as +3 (or+2) for British if Crete is Allied controlled.

[Adam514]

Indeed we did it on purpose not to associate a lot of NOs (income) on the same territory for obvious reasons. However, we don’t think it’s fair to say that losing Cyprus or Malta means losing the original territories NO, since it is by no means the only way to lose it. That’s why we don’t really consider that multiple Allied NOs are associated to the Med islands.

Russia has 2 NOs for Berlin  :wink:.

[gamerman01]

@Adam514:

Russia has 2 NOs for Berlin   :wink:.

Sure, that one is a terrible idea too and also violates how all other NO’s are set up in the game (Oysteilo’s language)

The original game designers apparently didn’t design NO’s to encourage action in certain areas, but you guys clearly design them to manipulate players into playing the kind of game that you want.  I’m really not saying this critically, I’m saying it factually.  Apparently the intent of the Harris team NO’s is to spice up the game with historical realities and to add more income to all powers.

Key examples of OOB NO’s
Germany gets bonuses for the most major Russian cities
Japan gets bonuses for the most major Allied strongholds, and controlling all money islands
Italy gets bonuses for dominating the Mediterranean - new “Roman empire”
UK gets bonus for keeping the empire intact
US gets major bonuses for being the US (They could have made the US territories worth more IPC’s, but that would give the Axis that much more money if captured - although Japan would get 15 for WUS)
Russia gets NO’s for expanding into Europe
China for Burma road
India for Malaya and Hong Kong

The NO’s of the designers were pretty much restricted to major national objectives, pretty much indisputable by anyone (except for the nutty loophole that Russia could rake in money from Iraq, 4 Italian African territories, and Med islands which the mod team rightly eliminated)
The mod team went way beyond that by using NO’s to balance the game and then to encourage the type of action they wanted.  It’s your mod, you can do whatever you want with it of course, but I just wanted to point out that the philosophy behind your NO’s is very much different than what we’re used to with AA50 and G40 by the A&A game designers

[axis-dominion]

after having played a good number of BM games with both sides, my simple opinion is that the NOs as is works great and is a lot of fun. the fighting in the med over the islands is interesting and fun. i really don’t see the problem. so what if UK loses two NOs after having lost malta or cyprus…that’ll just mean they might want to get their act together and prioritize more on italy’s submission…which is usually a good thing to do.

[Adam514]

NOs are actually an elegant tool for balance. In a game with politics, you need require NOs (or some other system) in order to influence the DOW turn. Something else that NOs achieve is increasing the value of a territory without changing its PU value on the board. This makes it easier to give money to Germany for example for control of Novgorod, while not giving anything extra for Russia. And this in turn makes it a lot easier to balance the game (you can switch the NO around if it turns out that Russia is the one who needs the extra income).

We did the contrary of “manipulating the players into playing the kind of game we want”, so you’ll need to give examples of how we did that if you want us to believe you.

[gamerman01]

I couldn’t care less whether you “believe” me about anything.
You seem to have a god-complex and are unable to see anything less than perfection in the works of your hands.

I have been merely offering up my point of view about the game from my experiences - we all enjoy doing that on this website, and have for many years.  Take it or leave it, I don’t care.

Please re-read the last sentence of my previous post.  It seems to me you were upset by the second to last sentence and didn’t really get what I said after that

[Adam514]

@Gamerman01:

I couldn’t care less whether you “believe” me about anything.
You seem to have a god-complex and are unable to see anything less than perfection in the works of your hands.

I have been merely offering up my point of view about the game from my experiences - we all enjoy doing that on this website, and have for many years.  Take it or leave it, I don’t care.

Please re-read the last sentence of my previous post.  It seems to me you were upset by the second to last sentence and didn’t really get what I said after that

Why post something on this thread if you don’t care what we think?

Assuming things won’t achieve anything.

I re-read your last sentence, I don’t see what’s special about it.

[simon33]

I think the Iraq loophole was fun. The African & Med ones were silly.

I’ve now got a fair few BM games played and I still notice a USSR DOW on Japan in a serious minority of games.

BM improves in a lot of areas, like breaking up the Pacific airfields NO in G40 and particularly the SBR rules. It isn’t perfect though.

[gamerman01]

@Adam514:

Why post something on this thread if you don’t care what we think?

We all enjoy posting our thoughts on A&A.  Making the case is most of the fun, that’s why.

Assuming things won’t achieve anything.

Do you even realize how condescending you are?

I re-read your last sentence, I don’t see what’s special about it.

Why am I surprised

[regularkid]

@Gamerman01:

@Adam514:

Why post something on this thread if you don’t care what we think?

We all enjoy posting our thoughts on A&A.  Making the case is most of the fun, that’s why.

Assuming things won’t achieve anything.

Do you even realize how condescending you are?

I re-read your last sentence, I don’t see what’s special about it.

Why am I surprised

Adam’s not condescending! He’s just French.  :-P

[gamerman01]

Is that why we have all these complicated Vichy rules?  :-)

[regularkid]

Ha. No, that was mostly me, with extensive fine tuning by the squad

[Adam514]

Back to more important things: any objections (with a reason) as to why we shouldn’t remove the Russian NO for taking Germany?

Reason to remove: useless NO, and takes up space in the objectives tab.

[gamerman01]

No objection here - I’m all for that

[gamerman01]

Another question about marines -

Can you load a marine onto a cruiser/battleship in the combat movement phase and not unload it in an amphibious assault that same combat move?

[Adam514]

@Gamerman01:

Another question about marines -

Can you load a marine onto a cruiser/battleship in the combat movement phase and not unload it in an amphibious assault that same combat move?

No, it acts like a transport in these cases.

[simon33]

@Adam514:

We did the contrary of “manipulating the players into playing the kind of game we want”, so you’ll need to give examples of how we did that if you want us to believe you.

Well sea lion is weaker and barbarossa is stronger although the med is probably more dynamic in BM.

[Adam514]

@simon33:

@Adam514:

We did the contrary of “manipulating the players into playing the kind of game we want”, so you’ll need to give examples of how we did that if you want us to believe you.

Well sea lion is weaker and barbarossa is stronger although the med is probably more dynamic in BM.

You think Sealion is weaker and Barbarossa is stronger in what version?

In BM Sealion is stronger and Barbarossa close to the same.

[simon33]

I think BM makes Sea Lion weaker, because if you attempt it USSR gets some extra strength. Barbarrossa is made more urgent to whittle down those extra NOs.

[Adam514]

@simon33:

I think BM makes Sea Lion weaker, because if you attempt it USSR gets some extra strength. Barbarrossa is made more urgent to whittle down those extra NOs.

How is it different from USSR getting extra strength in vanilla if Sealion happens?