Victory 2 - What would be good updates

[brogan]

Guys, I guess you have heard the news about the old program. Maybe we players can post some suggestions for a new and improved version here on this thread and keep our fingers crossed that the new version might be up and running in 2010....

 

 

Andy Brogan

[The Happy Hun]

My suggestions:

 

1. Automated turn processing... let Russ rest! The order format is already designed to be computer readable, it shouldn't be too hard to have a central email address that can register turn submission in the .trn format. We could set it for automated 'turn receipt' as well. This would also give great flexibility in setting up games with shorter and longer turn around times.

 

The only issue I have with this is sometimes we want to position ourselves very specifically in the turn processing cycle, and that usually requires Russ' kind attention.

 

2. GUI Map. A more interactive map would be awesome. As your nation conquers, the 'thick black lines' of your national border would expand. Maybe 'mouse over' information on provinces, showing population, industry, etc. Indeed, it would be nice to click on a province and see all there is to know about it. Perhaps even a selection allowing you to choose an air group and have a shaded 'overlay' show it's maximum range. This would be even more ideal if that could be tuned into range vs. bomb effectiveness... the further out you go, the less bomb effectiveness could show. Could also have AIC nets and special rail capacities.

 

3. Automated orders. Like running cargo ships between an island and a mainland. Naturally, fuel etc would still be needed, and the route could be interrupted by subs, mines, etc, but it might help save an order or two.

 

4. Consolidated intel reports would be nice. What I mean is being able to track enemy (or neutral) divisions based on what you or your TA's see over the course of multiple turns (is that 31st Armored Division in Paris the same you saw four turns earlier in Hamburg?) etc.

 

5. If we do some automated turn processing, we could build in a little more sophisticated AI for abandoned nations.

[Race Pilsner]

I like the GUI map idea and maybe add the ability to have your TA's territories shown in different colors from yours would also be nice.

 

Defined rail routes would be awesome. Basically having the ability to name a rail route to identify the gazillion cities along it, or alternatively having a GUI turn entry program which allows you to drag and drop resources from city to city and then it builds the rail order. Either way would be awesome, but I favor the first method.

 

Standing BFDU and DFDU Orders: ex. Build SEC until this specified level or advantage over partisans reached. Should work in reverse too to disband till a target level or advantage reached. Build to a specified LDB level, etc.

 

Build on the TA concept more. A TA should be able to provide Fighter Cover for their TA's. Maybe allow Fighter Escort and Naval Escort of a TA's forces. How about Lend Lease? Maybe even licensing of a TA's tech?

We did it all in WW II.

 

Ship repair should be automated, it wastes too many orders. If a seaport has repair facilities they should just operate automatically at the end of the turn, repairing all remaining repair points that were not used up by the RS order, which can be kept and used to favor certain units if the player so chooses. Automatic repair should work on a TA's ships if there is repair potential remaining after the owner player ships are repaired to full (or absent).

 

Upgrade orders should handle dozens of units at a time, not 3 or 4.

 

There's a few.

 

Race Pilsner

[The Happy Hun]

Ah, and another thing... allow TA'd armies to move through your territory without having to cede provinces. Sort of an 'allow access' order. I know this could complicate the rules a bit, with the possibility of multiple armies occupying the same spot at once, but the rules can adapt... after all, we don't usually all move at the same time, so whomever is there first "wins".

[Grimor]

Ah, and another thing... allow TA'd armies to move through your territory without having to cede provinces. Sort of an 'allow access' order. I know this could complicate the rules a bit, with the possibility of multiple armies occupying the same spot at once, but the rules can adapt... after all, we don't usually all move at the same time, so whomever is there first "wins".

 

I do not think Russ has the knowledge to programm all that

 

the only way that victory2 will see the light of day is when he works together with one of those new company's in webbrowser games...

the concept of an addictive game is also worth alot.. besides due to it simple design it could be somewhat easy to build..

but then again will people pay for it or will the game be free with only tech 39 and a monthly fee for the other techs..

 

the joy of an automated rail calculator which sees if transport will work in combo with the rail use by allies...

the joy of just clicking and selecting your army and pointing it in the right direction .. double click to fill in some supplies.

 

then again not everything can be automated as we also want to play a bit... and the difficulty / fun of vic is in the planning and calculating every little detail

[Reece]

Two Suggestions:

 

1. Eliminate the intel sharing benefit of TA's to bring game balance back in line. TA's were supposed to be permanent but when they were made breakable then the balance was put in favor of TA's. Also the idea of having nearly exact intelligence of your enemies attacks doesn't allow for the fog of war. It would also increase the usefulness of recon missions.

 

2. Have an extra Intelligence Turn sheet. The first order on the sheet would be the turn cycle execution date. On this date the orders in the supplemental intelligence gathering Turn sheet would be executed and you would receive a second intelligence report which would show any territory that you had lost as well as what information your intelligence missions gathered. You would then be able to use these intel updates to finalize your next turn. This would be much more realistic than the idea of an ally knowing all the details of an attack against your forces and it would make individual player positions much more competitive with Total Alliances. Only select orders for gathering intelligence would be allowed on this sheet and it would not effect your turn processing date. I think it would also cause more construction of Recon assets vice just building strike assets.

[Spartan]

I fully agree with and have been lobbying for quite some time for an automated turn submission and processing program/system that enables turns to be processed minutes after submittal and returned at the very least within the hour if not minutes after submittal.

 

I know it was suggested that a more interactive map be available to the players and while that would be cool, I think that if choices must be made, whatever effort would be put towards such an endeavor should instead be focused on other player tools that make managing your nation and preparing your turn more user friendly. Example – a program that enables players to track their rail usage as they prepare their turns. That alone would alleviate a huge amount of time and effort from the job of planning and preparing a turn. Maybe one linked to an interactive map, one linked to the turn entry program or one within an Excel program that enables you to not only input a draft of your turn before you input it into the turn entry program, but that tracks rail usage as you input locations.

 

As for what is added to or changed in the game itself, I think we need to be both careful and realistic about what can and should be changed or added. I think the fundamental question and reality must be recognized and understood in planning for Victory 2 is for following. First, what is the point of the second version? Second, the chances of V2 becoming a reality are seriously restricted by the time and tools available to Russ in making this happen. The more you want to change the fundamental nature of the game, the more work it will take and the more unlikely it is that V2 will ever happen.

 

Russ has made it clear, at least as I understand his comments both to me and others, that he does not plan on remaking the game so much as he plans on improving on and or fixing existing aspects of the game.

 

So, what’s the point of the second version? Is it to fundamentally change the game into something wholly new and different? If that is your goal, assuming V2 ever happens, I think you will be sorely disappointed. Is it instead to tweak, streamline, improve, and or alter the existing game in relatively manageable ways so it becomes a better/improved version of the original? If so, I think that is a far more realistic and likely vision. Now, I know everyone has their own ideas about what mechanics need to be changed. I think what we should all focus on for the most part though is improving on or fixing the aspects of the game that are 1) most broken, 2) can most easily be changed/altered, 3) will put a positive and new spin on the existing game.

 

So, what do you think are the most overt/clear things that need fixing, can be easily fixed and will improve and breathe new life into the existing game? I’ll start.

 

1) Enable TA’s to fly FC over other TA’s territory and their forces.

2) Upgrade orders should be able to handle more than 4 units.

3) Lower the cost of HB by at least 1/3 and by as much as ½.

4) Lower the cost of all TAS capable planes with a range of say less than 10 by ½.

5) Take away the maritime strike capability from MB, HGA and HDB with a range of 10 or more.

6) Decrease the range of the Skymaster to 16, but not change its cost or only lower it slightly.

 

#3 is meant to make HB and strategic bombing a more viable choice and tactic.

#4 is meant to make what are in effect short range tactical bombers more viable and cost effective choices.

#5 is meant to 1) lower the vulnerability of ships and make navy’s less vulnerable than they currently are, and 2) once again make buying shorter range DB, GA, S, other ship based planes, etc. more viable and valuable choices.

The Skymaster is a very close relative of the Halifax A in almost all the stats that matter except range and DEF. Cut the range in half and possibly reduce the cost by a little bit to reflect the fact that it has a lower DEF value.

[dageraad]

1) Tricky. While I see why you want to do this, you run the risk of having more than two nations being involved in the same fight at the same time. You wouldn't want that.

2) Yes. And consider not losing experience for air units.

3) Better give each HB a TAS for "carpet bombing" equal to their SB value. Or something like that. Halving their cost way to much.

4) 50% is way to much. Some of these planes are competitive already. Most of these planes could land on and be serviced from a farmers field, so why not eliminate their base requirement?

5) not realistic. Most MB's already have a bad attack profile compared to dive bombing and strafing. The Ju-88a already is a problem on it's own that could be ameliorated by reclassifieing it as a medium bomber.

6) The Skymaster is one of the defining units of the American tech, one of their strongest units, for which they pay a heavy price early on in the game. Until about game turn 40 the British tech has a stronger army and vastly superior fighters and medium bombers. And technically the Skymaster was a generation ahead of the Halifax. You are comparing a very long range transport plane to a modified heavy bomber.

[Spartan]

The biggest issues players seem to struggle with (me included) when discussing changes to the game or explaining any one facet of the game as it currently stands is the ‘realism’ factor. Russ has made the point time and again that Victory was never meant to be an ‘as close to reality as we can get’ game. Some parts of the game are in place for no other reason than game balance and playability among other reasons. What is realistic and what can be translated to the game without bogging it down too much are often two separate things.

 

1) Interesting point, but if the programming mechanics can be worked out, whether you fight 50 fighters from one enemy or 50 fighters from 2 or more enemies will not matter much in the combat itself. I will admit that it could make a notable difference in a players ability to counter over the long term since it will be a lot easier for two or more TA’s to recycle their fighter forces, basically keeping fresh 50 fighters for example in any one location.

2) I could go either way on this as long as all are affected equally.

3) Halving the cost of HB, or even just by 1/3 is an attempt to make them a more palatable and regularly used unit and SB a more regularly used aspect of the game. Right now, they are a total side show if used at all in most games. Right now, the amount of effort put into targeting industry and infrastructure in general is minimal in overall game play and strategy. Why not expand the game to make it a more dynamic and varied war than it currently is.

4) Which of these planes that I mentioned, those with under a 10 range, some of which were among the most built planes in the 'real' war, are being used in significant numbers now? Also, if they no longer have a base requirement, mechanics-wise how are they targeted on the ground and how is the damage quantified?

5) I agree that the JU-88A should just be reclassified as a MB. As for the rest of my idea though, this is meant partly as a way of relieving some of the pressure off naval forces that are so painfully vulnerable to air power in this game. It's also an attempt to draw players to planes that in 'real life' were used FAR more for anti shipping than MB's where. Call it working towards greater game balance.

6) If the Skymaster is so much better technologically than the Halifax A for example, which I don’t doubt of course, then significantly decrease the cost of the Halifax A! Based on your reasoning, there is NO reason the Halifax A should cost anywhere near as much as the Skymaster, considering most glaringly the fact that its range is HALF of the Skymaster.

[Spartan]

In the end though, it may not matter. I fear the likelihood of V2 seeing the light of day anytime within the next 3-5 years, especially in it's final non-beta form, is very slim indeed. The time and effort necessary for one person to tackle such a task is daunting to say the least.

[dageraad]

The game does not have to be realistic as long as it tries to avoid situations that are compl;etely unrealistic and can easily be avoided.

 

1) The problem is in the sorting of the best 50 groups that will perform the ATA combat and finding a good mechanism when there are a lot of different groups from a lot of different nations. I won't say that it can't be done,

2? Yep.

3) You choose to make them cheaper, I choose to make them more usefull. As the Air point value of planes is based on their real world starting weight, I prefer to leave that intact. But that is more an aesthetic choice than sometning else.

4) Sturmoviks, Ju-87 D's, Hs-123A-1, ground attack Fw190's, P-39D's. The "base" level way of calculating damage is a very crude way to determine which units are caught on the ground and I do not doubtr that something could be done to improve on it.

At the moment the best way to protect your aircraft is not to buiild air raid shelters, but to built extra base levels. Wierd.

5) The vulnerability if fleets against air units is - for a large part - caused by the scale of the game. I do not doubt that a flight of 1500 Ju-88's would do tremendous damage to a fleet, and that the numbers used are realistic. But in reality no-one ever was able to collect such a large amount of medium bombers at one point. I admit that this "gigantism" is part of the game, like a nation like Iceland moving around with 20 Iowa's were the mightiest nation on earth only could build 4.

Limiting the size to 20 would give shipboard planes a way better chance to defend their fleets.

You would solve a lot of the problems by limiting each group to 20 planes.

6) This all has to do with balance. The American tech HAS to have some special units to compensate for the lack of decent units in the first part of the game.

The Skymaster is one of those units, and for probably a lot of players the most important reason to pick American Tech. Reducing it to the level of the Halifax would leave the best HT in German hands.

Howmany people would considder playing with Russian tech if you would remove the T-34, because it is a far better unit than all of the rest for 25 turns or longer?

[Spartan]

1) Maybe limit it to two TA's allowed to fly FC over any one location. That may make it more doable.

 

3) This is likely the crux of where you and I disagree. In general, I'd like to see more clearly defined rolls for each type of plane. This is due in part because of the scale of the game, but also because I disagree that the planes I specifically mentioned, not any fighters, are used only sparingly, out of desperation and usually with regret because of their relative limitations compared to planes that give you much more for your AIR points. I'd like to see strategic bombing become a far more viable and regularly used technique in the game. I'd like to see other planes like the very short range tactical bombers (JU-87 and Sturmovik's for example) become more reasonable choices because of their reduced cost. I'd like to see navy's embraced and used more without players dreading among other things their extreme vulnerability to air attacks (minus submarines).

 

5) as for taking any one tech, each clearly has it's strengths and weaknesses. Comparing the T-34 to the Skymaster is hardly fair. One is competitively priced relative to similar units and other is not. The fact is that the points system that is used to give planes their AIR cost is out of kilter. Whatever system is used, it is clear that it is formulated in an awkward, inconsistent and imbalanced way for the way the game is structured and for the way air units are used.

 

Enough of what you don't like about my ideas though. What some of the highlights of your ideas. By the way, the ones I listed were by no means my only ideas. They are just some of the ones I've thought about most often.

[dageraad]

Enough of what you don't like about my ideas though. What some of the highlights of your ideas. By the way, the ones I listed were by no means my only ideas. They are just some of the ones I've thought about most often.

 

I do like your contributions and I certainly like to discuss them with you. But as long as there is no work done on the game we can propose whatever we like, as none of it will be implemented anyway. By lack of a "rules and game balance committee" we can discuss the ideas right here. Some of my own ideas were thoroughly trashed, but other ones survived and got a lot of support, like the "spit attack" option.

 

Lets first try to reach a concensus on what the top 5 problem are: For me they are:

 

1: Vulnerable turn handling. The way the turns are processed is 20 years out of date and depending on a single computer and a single pair of hands. I have no complains about it as I trust the RTG company, but I do have worries. I do not know if my love for the hobby could survive another meltdown. To solve this, the game has to be ported to another platform.

 

2: The price of naval units vs. their vulnerability.to air atack. Price especially in fuel consumption.

 

3: Lack of use for most of the units in the game. Players tend to concentrate on just a few units as the other units don't make sense. A lot of your proposals have to do with this.

 

4. Fix the diplomatic system, especially all the cheesy moves that are possible with CL orders. I have some ideas on that.

 

5. Give land combat more detail and flexibility. At the moment it is the most important part of the game and on average it will eat most of your resources but with the least amount of detail

[Mickey]

ad the original 3, 4 and 5 and Lukas' 2: change the $-cost of planes to be in line with land units and ships, and you have far less to worry about giant fleets of Skymasters, giant fleets of Ju's attacking fleets or bombers swamping even forces of 18 divisions later in the game. Also, you can make stuff like the Hs-123, the P-39 and the Sturmovik cheaper in a significant way (stuff has to cost something to make less costly meaningful) to make to make them more attractive (or at least like again land units make the $/AIR go up more for the 'more modern' units. The difference in range of the planes is an identifying thing that shouldn't be changed, but the range-multiplier can be adjusted to lessen the impact of range/maxrange on for instance TAS.

[Hamish]

I also have plenty of ideas to improve the game, but I think most of mine would be better suited to a new version of the game instead of an improved version. And I agree that that's not going to happen anytime soon, so I'm a bit frustrated.

One I feel very strongly about is the fact that real life money buys you an advantage, since the EM order is free. I would propose a higher success chance for EMs, but a limit on how many you can issue each turn.

What also needs to be fixed is the fact that a TAS order where no target is found does not count as a primary order. Right now I'm using the cheapest plane available that has a TAS rating as a scout plane (just issue loads of TAS orders to it, something will turn up eventually) which greatly reduces the use of recons.

The game system should be such that each unit has it's place, so the dominance of MBs (and HDBs) should be reduced, and ships should be promoted. Removing (or at least reducing) the MS rating of MB/HBD seems like a good step. Increasing the effectiveness of fighters in stopping a TAS (by either increasing their ATA rating or maybe reducing the number of bombers in a group so each plane shot down results is a bigger chance of aborting the mission) also seems a good idea.