0.62.9 or 0.70?

[Denniss]

AFAIR it was an .exe issue that used area_georgia for both regions (or georgina area was not implemented properly), it was fixed in Arma 1.3b but not in AoD. The other option it's the misuse of Georgien in the german translation for Georgia (please used Georgia) that confused the .exe

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

How about South Caucasus as a replacement displayed name?

On the general subject of Areas I think the main issue is for Air and Naval Missions. The other uses are relatively minor in effect. What I don't like in the current set up is the spread in number of provinces in areas. this ranges from 1 to at least 9. I think all of the singles are isolated islands and that makes sense. But relatively small province groupings 2-3 makes it very hard to manage air defence as there are just too many zones to cover. OTOH, a really large grouping of 8-9 contains so many provinces that the coverage inside the Area is very hit or miss. IMO what would be best would be to try and average the Land Areas to around 5 provinces. In some areas a bit smaller number may work better. But I don't think that having Texas with 9 provinces is a very desireable design feature.

mm

 

[ArmdChair]

As long as SOV don't appear in Atlanta, or USA units in the USSR, it is probably OK.

But, we can call AREAs whatever you like.

I would have to test adding to the total number of AREAs. That may, or may not, be possible. We can certainly juggle the numbers of provinces in an AREA, like I have already (thanks to everyone who chimed, esp. Zsar1).

I seem to remember that there is some Caucasus name, just spelled with a "K".

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

I doubt we can add any Areas/Regions as that portion looks hard codedd. OTOH, if we combine a pair of 2 province Areas we can split a 9 province Area. That seems like a useful thing to do in some places.

mm

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

So I did a quick review last night of the truely large Areas. There are quite a few with 7 or more. And the winner is:

14
Indochine

11
Guangdong

10
Antiles
Mongolia

9
Kazazhstan
Kuybyshev
Stalingrad
Iraq
Texas
California
Cameronian Jungle

8
Yakutsk
Austria
North Burma
South Burma
Xinjiang
Darwin
Carolines
Quebec
Montana

There are also 17 Areas with 7 zones. Quite a few arein zones actually fought over. Such as the Netherlands and Rostov. The good news is there are also a lot of 2 province Areas and a few really odd singles (such as Nicaragua). So there is plenty of fodder for splitting.

One thing I've already done is combine Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into a new Area called Canadian Maritimes. Then reused the vacant area to form North Siberia running across the norther part of the SOV through all of the impassable provinces. It looks good on the map and will keep planes from wasting time up there when assigned to defend Areas that include significant objectives.

mm

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

Also have split up Indochine into Tonkin/annam/Cochinchina and california into Northern and Southern California. Did this by combining some areas in New England.

mm

 

[ArmdChair]

Probably should decide upon the key areas to whittle down. I will work on a list of small Areas that could best be combined to make room for them.

Likely best to try to keep areas 4-6 provinces in size (depends upon the overall size), keep them "compact" (not to linear in nature), work on areas where most historical combat takes place.

Need to decide whether areas should cross 1936 national borders too. Currently, several do. I don't know what effect THAT might be having if one country is at war, but the other isn't. Or, how air missions work when one doesn't "own" all the provinces in an area.

Think about WHY the developers of the created Areas the way they did in the first place. Maybe there was a cogent reason behind any particular choice?

Oh, and perhaps best not to both be doing too much of this. I would hate to be duplicating work.

 

[Denniss]

You may also want to visit Germany. It's odd to have both north and Baltic Sea cost in a single zone, makes defending the airspace over ports hard as my fighters usually cover the opposite area of an attack. Too many ports to use fighter units in single-province missions.

 

[rwglaub]

I've noticed a problem since the first release of AoD: calling Benelux Belarus and the reverse.

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

I've already don a bunch of work on this. I'll take a look at the German coast. But Germany is generally pretty good IMO.

As far as what the designers used I'd say it was a slavish attempt to model political objects. In most cases these are subnational administrative regions that have little bearing on actual military matters. Way too many funny shaped Areas with odd provinces either sticking out or on the opposite side of a river from all of the others. And all those 2 province Areas in the USA just to make the map look like some sort of American atlas. I don't think there are any real issues with having Areas split between nations. This actually might be somewhat desireable as it would generate either combat or allied air cover.

At this point I mainly need suggestions from a player perspective. A cross check on "redundant" Areas would be nice as well. And so far I've only looked at LAnd Areas.

mm

mm

 

[ArmdChair]

Well, outside of changing Indiana to Illinois and using it for France, I have "done" nothing. So, I'll defer to your workset.

We can probably make about sixteen changes total considering the small Areas in the USA that could be readily combined (IMO).

As to your list, not sure Montana or Quebec need another Area.

The Antilles and the Carolines are both island groups, so I need to review their actual lay on the map. Could split them.

Cameroonian Jungle. I don't think that needs split. Others may campaign there more often than I.

Texas. Could be split, but not convinced it is necessary for gameplay.

Might be able to address almost all the rest, though I would suggest referring to old maps to get some period names (which you may already do).

Don't really think we should alter the seazones. I only foresee bad side effects from that. Plus, I think we should not tackle Regions at the same time (if ever).

Have to research the other comments (Denniss and rwglaub). Edit. For Denniss, we should simply realign the existing provinces and add one (somehow).

Mecklenburg: Bremen, Wilhelmshafen, Munster, and Hannover.

Some New Area: Kiel, Hamburg, Lübeck.

Rename Hannover to something else: Gottingen, Wolfsburg, Magdeburg, and Rostock.

for rwglaub: In the ID box, the regions Benelux and Belarus display correctly for me. Unless, you mean elsewhere? Please explain further.

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

I'm pretty sure we can get "enough" open areas to cover the priority stuff. Some things like Mongolia will probably remain "oversized" though. Most of the USA Areas can afford to be substantially bigger. So there are a lot of ones there. Plus there are some options in Africa as well. Another factor is we can shift single provinces to better balance numbers and appearance. This fixes a lot of issues.

WRT to the island groups the problems are the Carolines, Marshalls, and Antilles. These just cover to many Sea Areas. Already cut off PAlau into it's own area. If there are enough free Areas I'll start splitting these up further. But first we need to cover the primary European/Soviet battlegrounds.

mm

 

[Tegetthoff]

Dec,

What is the state of the 0.70 files? I see the very real possibility of the various filesets "drifting apart". So it would be good to turn your version into a basic 0.70.1 fileset, together with the gfy that Hagar has already sent me. I am off for a week of holiday in the second week of February, so now would be a good time for integrating a new version.

Regards

Teg

 

[dec152000]

Teg,

I've got a couple WIP things I'm trying to wrap up. But I should have something in relatively short order.

mm

 

[ArmdChair]

A caveat to think about regarding the island groups of the Marshalls and the Carolines. They may be constructed that way to assist the JAP AI. Breaking them up will require some AI rework, I might imagine.

I also noticed that South Burma included the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. There is probably a reason why.

It was all USA provinces I had singled out for combination. I suppose Africa could be a candidate to because not much campaigning would really have taken place across Central Africa.

Teg, I can set aside all my mapping stuff and work on integrating it to dec's work after the initial 0.70 release, I'm thinking. I am not working on Areas, except where already noted above for the new mapping in France.

 

[Tegetthoff]

ArmdChair:

Yes, this would be the best way to proceed (and you are the person most qualified to integrate your work with Dec´s).

So let´s hope Dec produces something before I head off to the mountains for skiing.

Cheers

Teg

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

I hope to have things wrapped up later today/tomorrow. There are a couple intensive file edits I'm just going to put off for a bit. They will involve every INC and every Gameplay file but will only shift a few entries. I plan to increase initial stockpiles to roughly double the current (but a new calculation) and implement a model for peacetime Oil usage by Aircraft & Ships, which currently stay in base and use Zero Oil there.

What I am finishing is the Area rework. Also reviewing Synthetic Oil production for GER. And testing a new Air AI for GER that is designed to reduce unproductive Ground Attack/Interdiction missions during "slow" periods of the war.

WRT the Area rework it's been a big task but there really are enough zones available. As for assisting the AI it's sort of a double edge thing. Adding too many zones makes the air cover too "thin" to be very effective. IMO it's better for the AI to get enough coverage over the main bases rather than spreading itself to a lot of outlying islands. I don't expect to reduce any of the island zones too much. But pairing off some islands to keep the zones compact will actually help the AI IMO. As for rework, there really is nothing to code as the Air AI doesn't reference any target zones. That is part of the problem with it.

On a related note, wondering about the possibility of one more relatively easy fix. Wadi Halfa in Sudan looks odd extending all the way from the coast to the Nile. Would it be reasonable to gut it into a river and a coastal province? Thanks!

mm

 

[ArmdChair]

Doesn't look like Wadi Halfa is too much to split. I will have a go at it this weekend.

I also hope to finish a spreadsheet that contains most of the Japanese Army info from Madej too.

I already have a spreadsheet that shows all the game period Japanese governments including some pertinent info regarding why prewar governments collapsed so often.

Any interest in expanding the list of prewar USA generals? Most not already included in the game would all be OLD GUARD, though.

 

[Zsar1]

I plan to increase initial stockpiles to roughly double the current (but a new calculation) [...]

This should help, but if we want to implement the dynamic trade events (and I see no reason not to: they definitely help - if surprisingly more ITA than JAP), it would be purposeful to choose as initial stockpile exactly the lower bound of "neutral pricing" of each resource. This would make all net importers raise their prices within the first month of game time (while they have three months to fix their deficits) and simultaneously keep all net exporters at neutral prices.

I have now tested intensively enough to arrive at definite values for the three IC resources (but not for oil; which however is less dependent on tailored triggers to begin with). Will post them tomorrow in the thread.

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

IMO Importers should be willing to pay a bit more. But Exporters should also be willing to take a bit less. It is after all a Supply/Demand curve. the initial AI files and Trades really should be configured with this sort of stuff already baked in. Ideally no new trades should be needed by the AI until it adds a Mobilization/Recovery step or makes some other shift that changes IE substantially. Doesn't surprise me that working Trading helps ITA a lot. They are one of the hardest nations to get decent AI performance as they don't have much free IC. This combined with being an importer of everything means the AI tends to back itself into a corner with Money for Resource trades that go bad when a single Resource runs low.

Generals: More is always better up to a point. There really need to be enough available for an ahistorical early mobilization. With all the Coastal defence units that is quite a few needed.


mm