Best posts made by Black_Elk

@barnee Yeah exactly

The nice thing is that the current default relief is already more or less dialed, like the opacity there is basically 100%, so I can change the color in the baselines for the ocean blue and it shouldn’t effect the display on the default. Unless the player is using map blends, in which case the hue for the blue just sorta keys off whatever is in the baseline map.

Then for a secondary relief style, we can have an ocean which is essentially transparent, and shows the color through from the base. Probably darker or lighter than the current for that, cause map blends passes it through base at like 50% white, but whatever was going on there could be separate from the land patterns, of which I think we’d just want 2 options - A Revised style look more block colors, darker or muted ocean, or similar to the handling on A&AO where you get those lighter hues for the national colors - and then the sorta Modern post v3 AA50 style, where the battle board is more topographical with a vibe like fighting over the terrain rather than a map.

For the OOB terrain style that color sweep is fairly dark for the topo/under-terrain and the control ownership color for overall visual is produced more by the units and roundels than anything on the map. I mean you know how it looks, a sliver of the national color along the border, but mostly it’s like mountains, trees, grass etc. There I think we’d want something more subtle than the above for a national fade to indicate the starting territories, so basically opening up towards the interior of the territories more than shown above. Like to have a transition in there from the border color into the forest/desert/tundra or whatever more at full opacity, with those national colors less pronounced.

For that some of the default HEXs are pretty variable, like the default Russian red tends to pop a bit harder and would probably need to be knocked back a bit, till it looks cleaner next to the others. Or similarly say switching China back to be green rather than tripleA purple or whatever makes more sense for actual bits and pieces. Say the chips and roundels, the regulation naval sculpts etc. To give it a more cozy or familiar feel there. Anyhow just a quickie around that size in case you wanted to see how it might hold up stretched wide for the actual plastic and cardboard.

I know right! haha

Well in case I haven’t showed the love lately… thank you Redrum! You’ve been keeping A&A alive and kicking in the digital realm for me for a while now.

Also HardAI is still rocking the house no contest from what I’ve seen thus far. Maybe you can toss some tips and tricks their way at some point, for like general principles or whatever. In its current state the A&AOnline AI feels a lot like the old AI we had for tripleA before you came along and started working your wizardry to improve it.

Started in on the terrain map. This is a quickie G40 blocking showing like halfway there. I was able to get pretty close just cause of remembering how I drew the baseline when back when lol. At this step it’s mainly about tweaking the terrain/borders shifting the flow of some rivers and mountains, knocking stuff back and painting it out, just so that the lines will all play nicely together given the general distortions of the globe we got going. This would be like the underlayer or relief skin before we clean it up and add in the fancy colored borders and such.

ps. Almost there lol
here is a preview indexed, just gotta bang out those last couple islands and clean house a bit. Shouldn’t be too much longer

ps. also, just since I was messing around earlier, here is Bung’s given the same treatment, morphed to 30x96 ultra wide for comparison at like 200 DPI for a quickie. I used one of those alt reliefs with a darker ocean just cause it was laying around in the folder.

Effectively something where the entire map is about the size of a standard closet door.

You can hold up the sculpt to the screen again between like 100% and 200% zoom to see how they’d square up there for a ballpark. For the physical sculpts I mean just to get a feel. The spacing is similar I think just with a different set of morphs for the initial map projection, more in line with the OOB look there, least for the contours.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EXqtvSdyezVVctu2Ui7bfYoD-LAEvLXM/view?usp=sharing

For the UHD what I did was basically like an inverted Mercator I guess. So in the UHD the stuff around the Equator and in the Tropics is significantly enlarged, to magnify the main theaters of ops, and the stuff towards the poles is much more compressed. Then you get a similar sort of compression along the meridian that runs down the middle of board at the theater split (basically central Asia/Mid East area) where you get similar distortions. Mainly so the TT connects could strike the right way, or at least be analogous. I think that’s maybe a good way to think of it, like a funhouse backwards mirror invert on Mercator, stretchy in the middle, compressed along the top/bottom, aiming to work off the requirements of the sculpts.

I think maybe 3 panels? That way it could also have support along a table split too, like if using 2x 6ft tables instead of a single 8 ft table.

Folded along the horizontal would probably work for like a single fold. Or 6 rigid panels basically at like 15x30 would also work.

I don’t know, somehow this seemed fitting…

Saw it floating around as a meme in a nursing group of all places haha.

Recalled to mind the various A&A digital platforms that have come and gone. Maybe a cautionary lesson in there somewhere.

Best
Elk

OK here’s a quick draft relief in case anyone wants to tool around with it…

RGB

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hv8l6j6cntfncxp/Terrain World.png?dl=0

Indexed

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gvotomlf59xg9ko/terrain world indexed.png?dl=0

Base

https://www.dropbox.com/s/27efkxfqbil6od0/G40_base.png?dl=0

See ya on the next one!
All the best

Elk

ps. I guess much of this thread is more Customization oriented now than HRs. If a mod wants to move it to that section that’d be cool. Or here I’ll just make a quick topic for the G40 stuff there, so my other ideas don’t overshadow that stuff too much lol.

I’ll probably paint the terrain up a little a bit more and just update the dropbox as I go so as not to spam the boards too hard. Basically just needs some colored borders though, and I think it could probably get a dry run lol.
:)

This is an interesting map that attempts something sort of similar in the projection, or similar sort of rotation on Europe at any rate, though without showing the bottom of Africa…

Those are clearly more recent political boundaries hehe, but perhaps something like that with an inlay box for the bottom of Africa? Like instead of distorting the shape you could just sorta crop in on Europe and do the peripheral stuff like the North Atlantic and South Africa as an inlay box to left or right side of the main playing field. If keeping a square format you could do it on the lower left like a zoom out view where the Sahara/West Africa shows below. Or could go wider on the sides to use more of the table than a square. Might work. Like you could just sorta abstract an obvious sz connection between the stuff shown on the main Europe map and whatever side panel arrangement.

https://www.theworldwar.org/interactive-map

I believe the transport loading/unloading issue you are referencing has been fixed as of the last pre-release. TripleA doesn’t put out new stable releases very often, but I’m always pretty impressed with how much gets added each time they come out.

For my part I find the beamdog UI for movement very hard to parse. I set up 4 screenshots in discord showing Beamdog compared to Iron Blitz GTO and TripleA.

HASBRO

TRIPLEA

GTO

BEAMDOG

Iron Blitz and Beamdog both have all movements of a given phase displayed visually on the map with curved arrow lines, and rely on clicking of individual units to undo move. GTO and TripleA show arrows only for the current move, with previous moves made during the phase recorded in a sibebar list, with the undo move from there as well as right click option.

Iron Blitz, GTO and TripleA all indicate combat/non com moves by actually moving those units into the territory or sz they are entering. Beamdogs is the only one that hovers along the border (which I think can add to visual confusion.)

Iron Blitz, GTO and TripleA also show all units in a stack including Transports. Beamdog has each transport separate, which I think adds to clutter and crowding misclicks.

Anyhow just thought some side by side screens might help for the discussion.

Oh damn good lookin’ out

OK here are the drive links with all the corrections made to the tile folders and the polys. I think Bill knows the drill, but should just be able to slide in the base and relief tile folders.

What I did was just to stretch Yenisey then hit the surrounding area with a bit of blur so it wouldn’t look to jank. Sorta best I could swing on short notice so I wouldn’t have to rework to much. Hopefully does the trick. I was a space cadet that first time, I mean I remember trying to fix the Novos-Kansu border so maybe that’s where I goofed zoning out. Who knows but good catch all the same! :)

Give the gang my best too! I’ve been out of town for ages. Took me a while to dig up my login here heheh

UHD map fix

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17NrUP1SFxKZsnQaNDnvhQk_qxtwomYEh/view?usp=sharing

Then I did the same for that other map UHD Boxes Expansion fix so they’d match up. Same deal there, it has the tiles already run through the breaker, but I threw the single images in too, like same thing you’d get from running the tile-reconstructor just in case. Called the zip Boxes for short.

UHD Exp Boxes

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_e54Q9_CnCBC9dl2LEfXuTWGHvHGk-5p/view?usp=sharing

Let me know if it does the trick for ya

Best Elk

Sounds good. The way I’ve been trying to work it up, the basic map material could be used to just play G40 if one wanted. Which is why I included that in the title. My goal is for this to be the standard Global map in tripleA and to be functional with that ruleset as well.

The enlarged and more subdivided map, is I guess for a scenario as yet to be determined really.

At tripleA there were requests for a new game map on the scale of the Domination game I made way back when, or which could also work with the HardAI, so I was that was sort of the aim there.

I guess it could probably just be called Pact of Steel 3 or Pact of Steel Global or whatever, for a tripleA game, perhaps with some map making type tutorials in the same way that Pact of Steel 2 taught how to create an xml and such lol.

Ideally the same world projection could service Classic or AA50 as well as Global, or any new riffs on those. Just with a different baseline for the borders. That’d be cool

Here was the thread at tripleA where people were kicking around their ideas for a digital version initially. I said I’d take it on, but only if I could do a G40 version too, just so we could revamp that stuff hehe.

I post there a bit more regularly and off the cuff.

https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3315/proposed-map-domination-1941

This thread I guess has pretty much run it’s course in this section. We can move it with a subject change or something if that makes sense.

Thanks again!
Best

Elk

Most of the criticisms I’ve been hearing of the Beamdog movement UI revolved around the difficulty of doing/undoing moves, and a lack of visual clarity regarding the current move or moves just made. Personally I much prefer vector arrows with crystal clear paths, to curved ones that bend around, but the issue there is more ease of use than aesthetic preference.

The other major issue is an inability in the Beamdog version to move units in groups (move all) or to bring up some kind of list of available units by clicking the territory or sz. It is really time/click intensive trying to move each unit 1 by 1, and the potential for misclicks is high because left click will also undo a move if the wrong unit is clicked by accident.

I also much prefer units entering the tiles rather than hovering by the border, which can lead to confusion about whether/where exactly the unit is ending up.

Another big issue is unit overlap or movement path overlap, where it is hard to actually see the unit types or the numbers involved because they are actually covering each other up sometimes even at full zoom. Other games have used the ‘push aside’ method rather than overlap to deal with unit crowding, with a line or something indicating the units actual current position on the map.

GTO and TripleA both have a fast combat window that can be accessed from the main map rather than a separate screen, so both can be viewed at the same time.

Finally one thing that jumps out immediately to me in the Beamdog version is the lack of a minimap and functional sidebar. While it does technically have a sidebar (and a bottom bar if you count the war report and VC tracker) this is only used for information tabs and offers no way to actually control stuff, like tracking or undoing moves. Iron Blitz had a different approach where the default view was full zoom and you had to click the world map button to bring up the full map. I don’t think anyone would like to go back to that, since its very scroll intensive. It didn’t really have a sidebar either, but separate screens accessed from tabs or menus.

For the actual look of the thing, I’m ambivalent at this point. Obviously I have preferences there too, some things I like and some things I don’t. But purely from a functionality standpoint I think there could definitely be a lot of improvements so its easier to read at a glance and use quickly.

For single player vs the AI the game currently only allows Standard Victory conditions, whereas many would probably prefer Total Victory for that (if they want to take Washington or whatever.) Right now the AI is middling at best and makes a number of truly ill advised moves/purchases. I can’t see it being useful for anything other than learning the basic mechanics, not something a player could look to for guidance on tactics or strategy for example. Who knows, maybe it gets better but there isn’t anything you can do to increase the challenge level in solo play right now.

Oh wow! I only just caught this right now. I get the email push sometimes. Knew it had made the rounds here and there, but league action is next level! That’s badass! Hopefully got all the connects sorted now, but if not, I guess I’ll find out real soon hehe

Yeah I think it should like totally work with all the BM right? Cause the stuff simon33 mentions for balanced mod I just ported straight from the standard G40. That was the hope at any rate, that it would function the same way, just with a bit of a glow up for 20 yr anniversary tripleA, but still working for Balanced Mod, or Oztea’s or any of the standards. Anything like that based off the main game, cause for the main XML basically just the same thing going on as vanilla. Plan was to a quick flip version that would work also for some of the 2.7 features, and also to get the map blends working. Like so the sea zones lines and such wouldn’t break when zooming in/out. I think there’s a quick skin for Revised style colors too, or to blank the terrain or switch to a pattern if some of that is distracting. Or just to snap up the unit art and throw them into the regular G40 folders, if peeps just wanted those Frostion digi sculpts tinted out for National Colors. Kept the labels the same so should be able to plug em in that way if desired. Some of it’s a little wonk for the map, like the Aden/Trucial States getting attached to a nearby tile. I think for an easier read, could probably just do a neutral thing like there like OOB if it makes more sense, or like if one wanted to the same for Sakhalin or any of those additions for stuff that’s cosmetic. The TT connects are the same as vanilla, since that was the XML used, so I think that’s just like one line in the polygons txt to do a quick switcheroo for any TT like the stuff around Arabia.

I think the next step if it works well, would be to upscale to from 11110 px to 16000 px and do a slightly larger relief, since I have the topo-under map ready at that scale. Just takes some time to go back over the lines for the borders and such to do the two tone thing, or for the highlight effect in tripleA when a territory or sz is selected. I’m running GIMP on gaming laptop, which works fine for 1080p gaming but kinda lackluster for image editing, so sometimes it lags hardcore when the map is really large, so trying to reduce the number of layers I need to make it work, before going jumbo again. I think it’d be simpler now, since the hardest part was trying to do all the morphs to get it aligned with OOB.

Sorry, been super MIA for ages it feels like. Got some RL tethers trying to help get the fam sorted, so I’ve been super light footprint. 2025 already! Time travelers paradox, good to see the old crew still rocking!

Good gaming all!

Right on! :)

IL I know you like making maps for the physical boards, this is one area where you could probably help if you wanted. Hepps is blowing my mind lately with the work he’s been doing for newer custom games, but I’d agree that many of the older WWII maps leave something to be desired. I also know you aren’t the biggest fan of the boxed 1942.2 gamemap. Sure there are limits to the baseline maps tripleA uses, but you can do a lot with skins and map details. The PDF you have posted in the 1942 sec edition section for example, that’s something I imagine could be added as an optional map skin. Same deal with the unit graphics, like if you don’t dig the default ones, alternative icons can be used. Territory colors can be adjusted using Hex Codes. Anyhow, main point is that nobody over there catches a paycheck for their contributions, and nobody is really beholden to anyone else’s views on map aesthetics. On the upside though, anyone can contribute and try to make it better, just gotta throw the hat in there.

Right now this level of functionality or customization doesn’t exist in A&AOnline, so we have to rely on their in-house art team. But it would certainly be nice if it did have some tools or ways to import custom art assets, or allow for more modern approaches to graphics.

Here’s a kind of scenario you might like. Instead of open bidding you can make a chart of openers that your group creates, and then roll to determine which one is played. For example, say you settle on 18 ipcs as a decent number for Allied bid units, you might do something like the following…
(These examples might not be the strongest possible use of a bid, but intended rather to provide an interesting challenge. A way to put the emphasis on just one of the three Allies per game, providing some randomization, but without too much distortion.)

Flip a coin or Roll 1d6
Odd/Heads = player takes Axis
Even/Tails = player takes Allies

Allied player rolls 1d6 to determine their advantage for that game.

1. Russian bomber in Caucasus, and tank in Volodga.
2. Russian fighter in Archangel, artillery in Caucasus, artillery in Karelia.
3. British sub in sz 35, tank in India, artillery in Burma.
4. British destroyer in sz 10, fighter in Egypt.
5. American destroyer in sz 11, fighter in Szech.
6. American Bomber in Greenland, inf in Szech, inf in Sinkiang.

Or you could do it in a more open way with a Roll 1d6 simply to determine which nation gets the bid pile. (More potent)
1-2 Russia
3-4 Britain
5-6 America

Then go from there, with a set amount. Or if you want a more controlled thing, you could roll 1d6 a with six possible starts for each Nation using some pre-sets. Basically making it a bit like a tech chart process, but where the game’s bid set up itself is subject to initial rolls. Others have proposed specific set up tweaks, so there are definitely multiple ways it could be approached.

The idea is that, instead using an “anything goes” model for Bid placement, you instead work with a series of agreed upon set up changes. The rolling is mainly for variety, to keep some dynamism in the process.

Things like that can help to bring some flavor, and suspense to the start, beyond just balance by sides. There is less flexibility in structure like that than open bidding would allow, but it also gives you a way to control for really one sided or overpowered bids at a given amount. So you can go a bit higher on the total amount than you might otherwise, while still trying to keep things fair for the Axis.

Yeah I get what you’re saying man. All I’m saying is that you could put your own map into TripleA and customize other things if you wanted, but you gotta do your own legwork for that to happen. There’s not any sort of team on it. Most of the people who created the artwork that tripleA uses aren’t even around anymore, and the default stuff is usually just a selection of whatever seemed popular from previous iterations of like 5-10 years ago. Not saying its the easiest thing in the world to get under the hood and alter graphics, but least there are ways to do it. If you find the default ugly, it can be changed on the fly by the user, all I was trying to point out.

(ps. Also gotta remember that we got DMCA’d a long time back, with the result that TripleA lost a large share of its user base, and some of the best graphics we had developed for the official games. We also lost the project creator at that time. I haven’t seen or heard from Sean in forever, but there was a point there where it was poised to look really beautiful. But someone at corporate must have axed us hard, so they could launch the GTO version or whatever. I honestly don’t know what happened, since I usually take long breaks from A&A and then return in a fit of excitement, but something must have gone down. I know it went dark for a few months and returned sans some of that content. I’m still kind of bitter about it. Felt like some of the most dedicated enthusiasts I knew were iced out, and nobody would touch the older mods. Which honestly is part of the reason it’s butt ugly if it is, because it was too good for its own good in other areas hehe.)

Sorry trying not to veer off topic here overmuch with tripleA. Just wanted to call attention again to the Beamdog screen that I took above, focusing especially on the movement arrows. Or here is another that I sent to their feedback site, which shows some of what I find problematic…

One thing you might notice is that the “moved” units often occupy a different position along the arrow line. Sometimes the unit rides the line where the arch of the curve is most extreme, sometimes it’s at the beginning of the line, sometimes it’s near the end by the arrow point. Often if the unit is riding a bend, it can be hard to trace the line when it picks back up again on the other side of the unit.

In general I’d say it’s just visually confusing and hard to parse. There might be an argument to be made about the visual appeal of an “attack pattern” with a bunch of arrows, or for having a kind of more organic look to the way units are grouped (instead of all straight vector lines, or units in neat rows and columns) but from the perspective of reading the UI at a glance, I just find it a tangle. It’s not that I dislike the visual per se, I just think those sort of graphics/animations could be used for something other than planning out movements. Like if it was just a flash of attack routes that took place before combat zoom, that’d be great. But trying to parse all those curved lines during the actual movement phase (when you’re trying to do/undo stuff) is really quite difficult and requires a ton of clicks.

OK also I really wanted to include a section for production expansion. This would include stuff like the land base idea, and the 3 tiered production concept for ICs in G40 (multi tier production ideas in general). Some of these have undergone several permutations, so I sense a longer winded post is needed. But before that I just want to toss out a few of the simpler production expansion concepts that I’ve tried. Some of these I am remembering off the top of my head, so I’m struggling to find discussion links at the moment. Though I’m certain these subjects have been discussed at various points.
Before talking about production expansions that require new materials beyond OOB (such as unit markers), I want to talk about ways to expand production purely via the rules. Here are a few that I’ve tried.

All Industrial Complexes have built-in production +2:
For 1942.2

Rule: Every factory on the board (including newly purchased factories), may produce 2 additional units over the printed territory IPC value on the game map. This production bonus is also included in the Max damage for a given factory, which is also increased by 2.

For example, under this HR, Karelia may produce 4 total units, Caucasus 6, Russia 10, India 5, Italy 5 etc. A newly purchased factory in Alaska could produce 4, Sinkiang or Hawaii could produce 3 total units etc.

Purpose: to expand the production spread across the entire gamemap, allowing for more possible entry points in all theaters, while simultaneously increasing the number of viable targets and max thresholds for SBR damage.

All Victory Cities may produce 1 extra infantry unit:
for all games

Rule: Any territory with a Victory City may support the placement of a single purchased infantry unit. In the case of VC territories with a factory, this infantry unit is in addition to the max production capacity of the territory.

Purpose: mainly for novelty, as a way of making otherwise low value VC territories slightly more interesting. The effect overall is comparatively minor since it is limited to infantry, but may make certain VC territories more useful, or more significant for staging even without a factory in place.

Bases may produce 1 extra unit of the associated type:
for G40

Rule: Operational Air Bases may spawn 1 purchased air unit at placement. Operational Naval Bases may spawn 1 purchased ship at placement.

Purpose: to increase the value of these bases all around, particularly bases at zero ipc territories, which would otherwise have no production potential whatsoever. The main effect is to increase the strategic value of all starting bases in both theaters, and to make the purchase of new bases more attractive. It also encourages the purchase of otherwise unattractive units in some instances (such as cruisers or battleships) owing to the strict production limit of 1 unit per base. Although it is only a single unit per base, the impact on the game-play is potentially very significant, creating new entry points for aircraft and ships and new deployment strategies across the entire gamemap.

This is really good news! Thanks man

I think for many players this will bring the board largely into balance. At least the bid in the tournament patch was much narrower.

These are great Baron! I know I can always count on you to help hunt down good discussions! It’s very helpful to have a kind of road map which shows the development of these thought processes.

This is an excellent first step to gather the info together in one place. I think to be truly usable for the more casual player who is interested in trying some HRs with their group, at some point we probably need a bit more in the way of editorial summary for some of these, like a final analysis with concrete suggestions. So for example, based on the discussions in a given thread, has any consensus developed? Or if no consensus, maybe we can at least find like the “top 3-5” ideas for a given unit.  So take the battleship or cruiser as an example, we have seen a number of different HRs in various threads that try to make this unit more attractive, so I wonder if we can make some generalizations? I can see two basic approaches here, when it comes to altering existing units.

Modified cost but keep OOB abilities.
Modified abilities but keep OOB cost.

The first is fairly straightforward, for example with Battleships using the ‘shipyards’ model for a cost reduction.

The second is more wide ranging, I’ve seen everything from adding aaafire, to combined arms, to limited transport capacity, to an increased movement rate etc.

Some of these solutions were more popular than others, but when we put together a final draft list, it might be worthwhile to consider each unit in the roster independently. First giving a suggested cost modification for the OOB abilities, followed by the top 3-5 suggestions for adjusted abilities at the OOB cost.

In addition to these approaches there are also suggestions for a total conversion of the unit roster, where adjustments to various OOB units might include changes to both cost and abilities, and which work best only when integrated together.

Finally we have proposals for new units. These likewise might be intended for use with the OOB roster, or a total conversion roster.

It’s a lot of ground to cover, no doubt, but it would be killer if we could organize all this material in a way that is easier for a “plug and play”, where players can run down the list and find the best option that fits what they’re trying to achieve. I think of all the HRs, unit mods are probably the least familiar for me, so I’d defer to your experience here, which is extensive, for suggestions about which individual unit mods are most interesting, which total conversion systems have the most promise, and where new units might best be added.

Having LHTR is a big deal for sure! All the other fixes are great, and I’d still love to see the other stuff mentioned in this section taken up in weeks to come (like for movement UI), but for my part its just a lot easier to get excited about the game now all around. I think people probably willing to endure other things, and wait longer for development to proceed when there is a new official set-up to play. Also a nice precedent I think, that could potentially allow for other set-ups down the road, but I dig how you set it up from game launch. I think it has a much better chance of gaining popularity that way and was stoked to see that happen when I hit create game (as opposed to buried in a settings tab or something.) It’s “bam, what’s this!?” so of course you gotta load it up. I honestly don’t know what kind of run this set-up received in the final, certainly many fewer games played than the boxed game I’m sure, and so maybe there are still cool strats to tease out to keep casual users entertained. I feel pretty confident that it will make for better introductions, esp when the new player or less experienced player wants to take Allies rather than Axis. Compared to OOB Allies do feel more in the driver’s seat LHTR, even if that Russian opener is still heart attack inducing hehe.

Anyhow, nice work. Thanks for pushing that out