The New Victory

[RTGRuss]

Hmm, had one other idea. How about adding a simple "Research" cost to the game. Folks can put as little or as much money per turn into it that they want.

 

In addition to the amount of money dumped into research, I'd make 'luck' a random factor in it as well, but the research could eventually lead to the discovery and production of super-weapons. V1's, V2's, Nukes, Jet Bombers.

 

Items could be extremely expensive to produce once discovered and likely only towards the end of the game. You'd also want to diminish the effects of some of the weapons (nukes for example) just to make it so the first person to get them doesn't actually wipe the floor with everyone else or make it so the 'super weapons' are one shot. You discover the atom bomb, but once you use it, that's it for the rest of the game.

 

That's a concept that I've always liked if you guys would like to think about that and see what you can do to expand on it. V1 and V2s are good, maybe speeding up the delivery date of a given unit by a few turns, opening up units that might not be available otherwise (Graf Zeppelin CVs for the Germans maybe), ASDIC and/or ASW special weapons, Radar (ground, airborne, ship), special gear for night air combat (I'd like to see night bombing and night fighter interceptors brought back into the game), etc. It could definitely spice things up and add in a lot of interesting things that might be hard (or less interesting) to incorporate otherwise.

 

Concepts like nuclear weapons are definitely on the board as a possibility but as you note - you always have to be careful with things like that so they don't get out of control. Limited numbers (maybe one or two - Hiroshima/Nagasaki), high expense, air delivery only (and maybe only if there is no fighter cover/interception response), usable on cities only?...a number of ways we could attack that. Later on when we are considering variants that go well past 1945 we'll have to come up with more extensive nuclear weapons rules but it shouldn't be too bad at first.

 

Hearing lots of good ideas on the other posts as well - just wanted to jump in here on this research concept. I'll be getting more active here as the we go along and start adding more structure. Right now I'm just enjoying listening to the ideas and comments

 

Russ

[Ronald]

- How about adding another target type to Coastal Bombardments to allow for the attacking of enemy ground units stationed in the province or city being bombarded. The Americans contantly shelled Japanese positions (and vice versa) in the Pacific.

 

These coastal bombardments also proved very ineffective.. by the time of the 2nd world war the age of the big ships was over.

But there is a point.. ships are relatively seen very expensive, they have a limited functionality and are easily destroyed by airplanes. This might be realistic, but from a game point of view it severely disadvantages countries that must build navies and as a result usually quite early in the game run out of cash.

 

 

Perhaps ships could be made a little cheaper in regards to credits?

Furthermore sea areas are very big and it should be a lot harder to find ships in it without radar.. this would increase the survivability of ships, without reducing realism of a few planes crippling a big ship.

[LenLorek]

What I would like to see:

-- no limit to the number of orders issued each game turn

-- allow an "Army" to be composed of Divisions with individual battalions -- historically, Armored, Artillery, Self-Propelled Artillery, AA/SPAA, SPAT, Reconnaisance and Motorized Infantry battalions, as well as Engineer and Transport companies, were held at Corps level to be attached to Divisions as the Corps commander saw fit; a Transport company could allow an Infantry Division to move (but not fight) as a Motorized Infantry division, an Armored battalion could allow an Infantry Division to fight (but not move) as a Motorised Infantry division, two Self-Propelled Artillery battalions could allow a Motorised Infantry division to fight (but not move) as a Mechanised Infantry division, etc;

-- more realistic divisions available at the start of the game (supposedly equivalent to September 1939): only Germany and Russia had Armored divisions; the British Army was entirely Motorised Infantry divisions;

-- the gaining of experience (Green, Line, Veteran, Elite) to be more sophisticated: units can gain experience in different areas (eg, general offense & defense, as well as specific urban fighting, mountain fighting, fighter escort, air interception, naval patrol, coastal bombardment, etc, etc, etc) so that a Fighter aircraft unit can be Veteran in air interception but still green in fighter escort; the experience is diminished as replacements are drawn;

-- as well as a limit to rail movement (reflecting the physical limitations of the rail network in a province), also have a limit to non-combat road movement (reflecting the physical limitations of the road network before the roads get jammed): allow non-combat road movement to be twice plains/desert speeds regardless of terrain up to a certain number of divisions/battalions (or give each division/battalion a "road" factor that uses up part of this road limit), after which movement is off-road and therefore subject to terrain as normal -- note that all combat movement (eg, advance-to contact, deliberate assault, etc) should never use this non-combat road movement;

-- allow more than one Army and more than one Air Force to occupy a city or province, that can be given separate orders;

-- a proportion of aircraft shot down over home territory can be retrieved -- in the Battle of Britain, shot-down surviving German pilots were imprisoned, but shot-down surviving British pilots were given a new plane; a damaged plane that has to make an emergency landing in home territory can be repaired and returned to duty, but a damaged plane that has to make an emergency landing in enemy territory is lost;

-- Russian ground units historically suffered from a lack of radios, so once an attack order was given it was carried out regardless of loss or change of circumstances -- this could be reflected by reduction of combat effectiveness of Russian Army technology, but also a random 0%-5% degree of attrition when not in combat but bordering an enemy Army (ie, an attack is ordered then cancelled, but a battalion or two did not get the cancellation order and so launch a suicidal attack on their own);

-- Air attacks on ground units should be much less effective unless aerial reconnaisance has reported the ground unit's positions -- the fewer the ground units (modified by type, eg Armored vehicles are less easily hidden than trucks or horse-drawn carts) the less likely they are to be detected by bombers;

-- make unit losses more sophisticated: an attacking Armored unit would tend to lose it tanks first, all units in ground combat would tend to lose its Artillery last, air attacks would hit vehicles first, etc, ... thereby affecting a surviving unit's effectiveness (eg, an Armored division with no Armor is handicapped when conducting a Pincer Attack but is less handicapped than usual when attacking a City) and also replacements should reflect this;

-- allow surrounded ground units to try to fight their way out (hasty attack) via their declared retreat route rather than just surrender where they are -- only when their fighting retreat fails do they surrender;

-- not allow a single LDB to stop an ATC by many Divisions -- LDBs must outnumber attacking Divisions by at least, say, 6 to 1 in order to stop an ATC otherwise they are "over-run", but some or all (depends upon National Morale?) of any "over-run" LDBs join Partisans in that province.

 

What I would not like to see:

-- French or Italian units: French units were OK in 1939, but stopped developing after the fall of France in 1940 -- after this time, the Free French used British equipment up to 1943 and US equipment thereafter; theoretically, Italian units stopped developing after 1943 but in practice stopped developing after 1940;

-- Japanese units -- unless the game map is extended to include the Pacific theatre of war (including Western USA & Canada, Australia, New Guinea, China, Korea, Manchuria, Indo-China, India).

 

/Len

[Predator]

-- change starting locations of certain countries arm factories such as lowlands, trans jordan, etc. they have so many start the game in a port city an early CB practically cripples these countries. I would suggest starting all countries unemployed but add enough cash to the treasury and cp's to the stockpile for a country to build it's starting factories wherever they want.

 

--making army units smaller (only ten div strong) won't work because airforces can wipe that out in one turn. If my 3 bomber groups attack and then my allies airforces come in even just P-47's would wipe out 10 mech divisions with no problem.

 

--I also would like to see some of the air force tech packs adjusted to get more of a diversity of aircraft more involved in the game. There are alot of aircraft never used like the douglas A-20a. Why build that when the B-18a has double the TAS rating, triple the strategic rating and is only 51 more air points to build. Same for the B-26A flies one more smr than the B-18 has 20 fewer tactical rating but is 105 more air points to build. I would never upgrade the P-36C to the P-39D even though it has 3 more smr in range because you lose so much in the air to air rating.

[Glamdring]

-- Japanese units -- unless the game map is extended to include the Pacific theatre of war (including Western USA & Canada, Australia, New Guinea, China, Korea, Manchuria, Indo-China, India).

 

/Len

 

This dovetails with Predators concern in the next post about the ability of an AIRFORCE to destroy stacks of armies. I maintain that airpower alone CANNOT destroy an army. It can remove it offensive ability but a core part of its defensive value will remain intact no matter how many bombers are sent against it. The theory being that only another infantry soldier can enter a bunker or cellar and eliminate an enemy force in hiding.

 

I have to wonder if Victory II should start as a Pacific theater game and a later variant go back and become the European theater we are all so familar with.

 

My theory is that the game is to unbalanced in reagrds to a fighters ability to stop or hamper bombers that unless once goes through the "excercise" of trying to recreate the Pacific theater you canot ever get the balance correct. For instance can anyone, under the present rules, see a way that carrier based fighters can even partially have a hope to defend a fleet of aircraft carriers? Can anyone see how a couple of groups of P-40's could stop some Betty bombers from totally eliminating a Marine Divison on Guadacanal Island? I can't even think how an airbase on Gualdacanal could survive a coastal bombardment from a single Japaneese Cruiser.

 

Given the extremely stong and delicate balance between Air, Ground, and Sea forces in the Pacific I think that you have to START the design with this theater if you wish to have any hope of getting the Eurpoean theater to match. The journey to a good game must often take the most diffucult road. The current game is way to out of balance between land, air, and sea to entirely salvage. I say start over in the Pacific. Put a hold on European development.

 

At Least deveolp the Pacific combat modules and THEN finish the Eurpean theater for release first but you most have a solid theory of how the Pacific will be balance before you can develop an overall combat algorithm.

[Marklen X]

A few things that I would like to see.

 

Most important, make countries build infantry. Infantry was the core of every army the world has ever seen, but in Victory! by turn 30 you see nothing worse than Marine divisions. If no more than 10% of your troops are allowed to be armored, it would be a good thing.

Change ants rule, so infantry costs .5 perhaps.

 

Certain planes in the game have no relation to the actual value they had historically. The Sturmovik was the most heavily produced plane in the war, yet is virtually useless in Victory!. Bombers should be allowed to rebase as a non mission order, and then run a turn.

 

Allow Fighters to perform both an offensive and a defensive mission every turn. A fighter group that bombs a railway station should not be prohibited from intercepting a raid on it's base.

 

Add a FDU radar. The British should get it in '40, the Germans and Americans in '41, and it should get better as the game goes on.

 

New units available should include a Russian artillery division, American and British airborne divisions after 1939, and the US Marine divisions should be tougher. Also make the Russian infantry smaller, and cheaper with a less nts rating.

 

I like that ships are vulnerable to land based air power. It is historical, even the US fleet avoided land based air when they had more than 20 carriers.

 

To solve the ship SMR problem, allow a force that is just moving to move double SMR.

[don]

Many good ideas, I would add some limitation the ability of TAS to completely destroy ground forces. Bombers should be able to destroy the offensive capability but not the defensive. Also they should be able to reduce the movement capabilities but not destroy the units completely. Look at the Japanese in WWII. All the tactical bombing in the world would not reduce their divisions to nothing, certainly their offensive and movement capablities could be destoyed by TAS.

 

Being able to divide a ground unit to have different divisions perform different functions is a must. A 18 division army should be able to send one division out on an OMG.

 

A unit forced to retreat into a occupied square should only result in a reduction of units in excess of 18 with the weakest excess divisions being destroyed.

 

Don

[Harbinger of Death]

I have a few items to add to the discussion, some have been mentioned, some have not:

 

- Allow DSM to work in the opposite way for TAS....that is, Armored units are easier to destroy than Infantry-type units.....while perhaps not historically accurate, it would balance the game an make other unit types have some value.

- Rework the unit table to balance the units and make it so that every unit has some reason to be used. Right now, there are many units (especially aircraft) in the game that are never built because they have no appreciable advantage over another unit in the same tech branch. It may mean moving slightly away from historical accuracy, but it would improve the viable options for players in the game.

- Rework the tactics table to make each tactic (both offensive and defensive) have some advantages and disadvantages. Right now, several of the tactics have little if any use, and others have benefits against every other tactic (e.g. Mobile Defense). This would add alot to the tactical side and build in some unpredictability when you don't know what your opponent has planned.

- Significantly improve the performance of F against non-F aircraft. Historically, if FE was not employed, bomber groups tended to get mowed down by enemy fighters. That simply doesn't happen with the current game mechanics except in rare circumstances. Perhaps double or triple Fighter effectiveness if no FE is present.

- Significantly improve the performance of CHAB and CLAB, or significantly reduce the cost and allow players to build more per turn. Ditto for HAA/LAA....it is too expensive for its effectiveness, especially on naval ships.

- Decrease the number of planes in each ground based division in half. This would improve LAA/HAA effectiveness as well as improving the impact of Carrier based aircraft.

- Allow more than 100 (10%) rail capacity increase each turn. Perhaps allow 100 or 10% per turn above a cities starting amount, but if any has been lost below starting amount it can be rebuilt in a single tech period. Rail strikes (although not used that frequently in my experience) can be devastating at certain spots on the map, and recovering the rail capacity takes an unrealistically long amount of time.

- Allow NF to intercept during both day and night.....as it stands now, I have never encountered a player who has built them.

- Correct the TAS order so that a mission against a location with no valid target triggers the primary mission flag (no more multiple TAS missions)......increase the utility of Strike Recon! It was a valuable technique in history, but is not necessary given the current mechanics of multiple TAS missions. This would increase the need/value of reconnaissance aircraft as well as interceptors to prevent recon.

- Correct the RPD order to cost $ whether successful or not, but increase the effectiveness of being successful. Perhaps the minimum find should be 25 or 50 points. That would allow nations with little or none of a given resource to slowly build some capability (e.g. Iceland and PET) if they are willing the spend the money.

- Deficit spending should not be allowed for certain orders (EM, CF, etc.). Simply have the order fail if the player has a negative treasury. That would significantly balance "dead positions" being played for intelligence only.

- Allow TA's to provide FC for each other.

 

A few comments on other suggestions people have made:

 

- I like the notion of capitals being better than regular cities.....an extra ring on their AIC's sounds like a good addition.

- I hate the notion of eliminating the NTS limits. One of the balancing factors when players get big leads is the NTS limits. In reality, a country could not produce unlimited units because training and manpower would become the problems if production was not.

- I like the notion of other unit branches (Japanese or Italian in particular). However, in my opinion, it is more important to balance the one's we have and make all units have value in certain roles.

 

 

Looking forward to Victory II....but hoping Victory! gets back online.

 

Jared

"Harbinger of Death"

[dageraad]

Most issues with Victory can be fixed by adding a few rules or slightly changing others.

I do not favour drastic changes in the game. This would take far longer to balance and design.

Going for a Victory in the Pacific would require a whole new map and a total new calibration of the game balance to produce something remotely like the real war.

 

Simple but drastic solutions for big problems:

 

 

Eliminate the NTS scheme. Scrap LDB's, Eliminate coastal bombardment on factories,

 

Naval:

Reduce fuel consumption by half and $ cost by half.

Let warship construction consume CP. This represents armor and heavy machinery that can only be made in specialised heavy factories.

Extra naval order: allow a close blockade on a hostile harbor. This reduces taxation and production of the city by half when the defending party does not have any surface warships on patrol in the sea area bordering on the harbor.

Allow amphibious landings by non-marine units but severely limit theri effectiveness while landing.

Reduce the resource requirements, $ and CP costs and output in SHIP points of shipyards by 75%.

 

Army:

Let Motorized, Mechanized and Armored divisions require the spending of CP and Fuel.

Allow a greater variety of regimental units, as the Allow for a maximum of 18 regimental units in any location.

(in reality a lot of "special units" were of battallion size)

Allow for

- fortress regiments: cost ARM, CP and remain static, but do not require supply or upkeep. They are stronger than a LDB.

- Marine regiments: can land while keeping their effectiveness at 100%. If a nation still wants to build a large amphibious army it is still possible, but it will take effort.

- Heavy armor regiments.

- Artillery regiments. Movement 0 but strong. Require a substantial amount of MUN, however. And requires CP to build.

- Mobile artillery regiments (Katyusja's etc) Movement 2, requires a large amount of MUN. And requires CP to build.

- Engineering regiments. An Engineering regiment will build up to 100 rail in any city with less than 500 rail, up to a maximum of 500. Automatically. THis solves the tactical rail strike problem.

- Fixed AAA regiments. They reduce the effectiveness. Movement zero, they do cost CP. More effective as AAA divisions,

Each city is defended by a permanent militia unit with a defence of Population times ten. This unit is immune to air attacks, does require no upkeep and only fights if attacked by enemy armies. This solves the problem of para regiments conquering big cities and symbolises the advantage of fighting behind the cover of buildings.

reduce the cost of fortification by half

reduce the cost of ARM factories in CP and $ by 20%.

 

 

Airforce:

Reduce the cost of airbase to 2 CP, but reduce the size of each air unit to 20 units. This reduces the lethality of air strikes.

And strengthens the usefulness of carriers.

Fighters, recon, ground attack units require only 1/2 base levels. All other air groups require 1 base level.

(basing levels of carriers should be adjusted for this)

Building lots of planes was far easier as training lots of pilots. Make a link to the training levels used, e.g. medium bomber air groups/turn = Tac Air level x2, etc.

Reduce the effectiveness of air strikes by the % damage the unit has got already. So an aistrike on a unit that is already at 50% does only half the damage.

Damaged ships however are easier to hit.

 

Economy and logistics:

Double the resource consumption of heavy industry.

Any friendly unit in a city belonging to the original home country does not consume General supply.

Allow for a limited number of standing orders like MCR's.

 

Intelligence:

Let nations with a negative morale suffer a negative modifier on the effectiveness of their espionnage efforts.

[MacFreek]

I like many of the suggestions. Looking at these type of games, there are generally three topics that are covered:

* Military Growth

* Economic Growth

* Research Advancement

 

Victory is currently focused on the first, with some economy thrown in. I can propose a lot of changes to make the game either easier or more complex, but I think Dageraad nailed it:

 

The main appeal of the game is the strong "armchair general" feeling from the LACK of information. You can ponder over your orders for weeks, send them in, start biting your nails for days and then eagerly await each envelope or email from RTG.

 

This means that the game should allow people to follow multiple paths to Victory -- you should ponder about your orders for a long time, and it should encourage you to think "are this my best orders, can I still improve it, or better attack somewhere else?"

 

Rather than repeating some new cool features, let me concentrate on how to simplify the game. The game is in my view slightly too complex -- For example, I find myself working too long on MCR orders for larger countries, instead of thinking of better strategies.

 

Remove:

• Remove ANTS. I set it once, and never bother. I presume it is there to favour small countries, but I don't think it is very effective at that. A better and more natural mechanism would be to add some overhead to larger countries (e.g. in tax or otherwise).
  
• Remove weather mission cancellation. It is just an annoyance, which does not add to the game play, since there is no interaction with other players (unlike e.g. minefields). Weather effects are fine.
  
• Remove quirks (Multiple OMA TAS, Free RPD, ...). They only annoy novice users, and
  
• Reduce naval complexity. I really like ground force attacks. I have found them to be quite realistic, and they are the highlight of the game. When I plot these, I really feel like a general making an assault plan. I do not have that feeling for naval attacks, and find myself mostly either cargo transport or for diversion (just annoy other player by sending a lot of boats, see what happens).
  
• Have Victory conditions the same for all. Having to pick a set at the start of the game does not really add to the gameplay. (I only reason for this seems to add some custom goals to the game. I don't need that. I have my ALL and TA for that, which is much more fun).
  
• Make SDG/DRG for army, air force and navy more equal. It is annoying that supply draw for air force works differently, and repair for fleets works differently. This only adds complexity, while it does not enhance the gameplay. I like the suggestions about automatic SDG/SDN orders, a bit like the supply draw for air force.
  

 

About the AIC system, I hear a lot of suggestion to expand the AIC network to 4. I strongly disagree. The underlying motivation is presumably that the MCR orders are time consuming to make. I agree. It now takes me MCR 10-15 orders, while at the beginning of the game (turn 16).

 

Instead, I would propose to split the two functions of the AIC network. The first function is to serve as a distribution center for goods, e.g. if not enough ARM is available in the currently location, it is fetched from the upstream location. I would suggest to keep this function intact. The other function of the AIC network is as an automated MCR order, where good produced downstream are transported to the central hub. I would recommend to remove this function alltogether, and replace with "standing order" MCR commands. Thus, every time a factory is build, a new standing order should be given to transport the output to another location. That would consume rail capacity, but would allow transportation over longer distances (e.g. to a different distribution hub instead of the local one). This would still force players to calculate rail movement, but since it can be done as a standing order, it does not need to be repeated. (Unless of course someone likes to take a few hours and recalculate it all). I think this would remove the tediousness of MCR orders, and would instead provide a much more interesting way to use the MCR and AIC network.

[Harbinger of Death]

Another must have in any new version is an automatic turn processor. For those of you who may recall the World Conquest and Modern World Conquest games, that company had an excellent system for turn execution where you uploaded your turn to their site (and could confirm it online) and it processed at a set time. There was no manual intervention (unless there was a problem). No backdating of turns or concern over which day a turn would run.... For Victory! it would mean that turns could run automatically at midnight CST (or whatever set time) every night. Emailed results are generated automatically and sent to the players. Simplify Russ' effort substantially and let him focus on enhancements, problem resolution, etc.

 

Jared

[miraeng]

Hmm, had one other idea. How about adding a simple "Research" cost to the game. Folks can put as little or as much money per turn into it that they want.

 

In addition to the amount of money dumped into research, I'd make 'luck' a random factor in it as well, but the research could eventually lead to the discovery and production of super-weapons. V1's, V2's, Nukes, Jet Bombers.

 

Items could be extremely expensive to produce once discovered and likely only towards the end of the game. You'd also want to diminish the effects of some of the weapons (nukes for example) just to make it so the first person to get them doesn't actually wipe the floor with everyone else or make it so the 'super weapons' are one shot. You discover the atom bomb, but once you use it, that's it for the rest of the game.

 

G'Day Meatball

You have put a lot of thought into this

I would like to see naval forces to be able to do Tactical Strikes

They did duing WWII

It's an added element for the navy

[Predator]

--With all this talk of super weapons one concern I would have is the ability of a nuke to wipe out a countries entire airforce. If someone has 4 groups of ju-88's at an airbase in the city that is nuked that is alot to lose. I also agree with the person that suggested all these random airdrops all over the map stop as well. Maybe change the airborne troops capabilities to what the rangers currently do such as target individual air groups, assasinate commanders, etc..People are currently airdropping all over the place as kamikaze's just to cause chaos in aic nets and along rail lines or more importantly to interrupt fighter cover routes. This is not how these troops were used in the war...

 

In Russ' post to open this forum he said he wants to keep what works and improve on it. I am all for that and alot of what I have been reading needs to be incorporated. But at the same time there are alot of suggestions that would change the face of the game completely so much so that I don't think it would be recognizable anymore. While it is a game based on WW II it still has to function as a workable and playable game. While I can appreciate what it must have been like during the war I still understand that certain aspects of the game have to be in place for game play and may not reflect exactly how things were in war time...

[Limburgia]

Rethink all limit currently in game.

Why have only 50 armies possible?

Why only 18 divs in 1 army and have a 1 army limit, the one with the 18 strongest tanks will have the offensive power to kill the other army?

Why 60 mission limit till turn 25, if you have a good start then the 60 missions will limit immensely, especially when using groung, naval and air power.

Some people have 600 air factories in game at some point what to do with all those air points, the NTS limit prevents them from building a whole fighter group.......

 

I think some in game limits should be changed or removed.

For example NTS 4 = 10 divs build for every x ARM factories above x you get 1 bonus army NTS more or something or at turn x you get 1 more.

 

The make capitals more powerfull suggestion needs some good thinking because some capitals are better located then others.

 

Make the game more balanced by letting all countries start with the same population.

Remove the 99 pop cap.

 

-----------------------------------------

Some suggestions I have read I like others I do not like, but the Game Master should make the rules and they should be fair.

Some things seem smart now but will be a trouble later on or a game breaker.

 

I think the game should be based on the current game with all the good and bad things, BUT every thing should be open for debate again.

Why is the rule the way it is, was it because of printing / processing cost or because the programm code had to be easy or .......

Rethink the game on every aspect, but if you make many changes you get another game.........

 

For example add more nations you need to add more turns in the game because of the time it takes to get a smaller group of nations to end the game......playing a game that takes 73 turns is very long if the game is going for 100 turns the game will last another year.

 

---------------------------------------------------

Suggestion I would really like:

Make a zero turn and give all players a huge pile of CP's and higher treasury with ALL pop unemployed.

Spend the cp's the way you want.

Give all players 1000 ARM + 240 SHIP points and let them spend them also the way they want and where.

Maybe some rail points or other things to set the nation how you want it to be.

 

This way every game will be a bit different

 

Then start the game, let the war start turn 3 as always

[miraeng]

Russ,

 

How about instead of ending all the current games at the current stage, but rather putting them on 'hold' until a viable solution is achieved?

 

Hi Russ

I think if it were possible I'd like to finish Game 82

I was ready to take over the lead