Fort ZoC - Discussion + Suggestion/Idea

[Zwirbaum]

Hello, I'm Zwirbaum and I'm back with another possibly pointless thread, this time it is aimed at Fort ZoC.

First let's start with what the initial idea/concept behind ZoC according to the devs and what I assume is their goal

-Eliminate carpet sieging
-Eliminate problem of wars between middle sized countries where one battle + stackwipe following it, would decide the outcome of entire war
-Give some kind of tactical/strategical depth to the war
-Importance of strategically placed forts e.g. in mountains

Now let's face couple problems with the current implementation of fort ZoC. (feel free to add more)

-It is not the most intuitive system (I would guess a lot of people didn't know most inticracies about the ZoC system until @remanemporor made his video about it)

-Because of it not being 'intuitive' - a lot of people accuse AI of cheating, or it can lead to frustration

-Being based on 'return province' and army based it can lead to strange situations where two armies from the same province may need to go vastly different route to target province

-Merging armies may lead to being unable to move, or severly limiting it's movement, because of the 'return province' system.

-Sieging fort down may lead you to having less movement option


So I was thinking about how to improve the current mechanic - and to remove some of the problems mentioned above, while retaining the original concept behind the forts that PDS decided to implement in game and I this is what I came up with - discussion, problem pointing, criticism is welcome.

Fort Zone of Control Mechanic

First, let's change the army based ZoC movement rules to the 'tile/province' based. What that means? It means, if you can trace route from this province to designated province via 'movement allowed' rule, you can move there - no matter where you army started, entered ZoC from which direction and where, what it matters is if it can move through movement 'rules'

Now let's go to those movement rules. All provinces will have 'value/type' assigned to them, and that will dictate to what 'value/type' it can move to.
** IMPORTANT - ZoC do not project across the border **

Classifications:
HOSTILE - Provinces your enemy owns
FRIENDLY - Provinces you own + all occupied hostile forts
ZoC-Friendly Adjacent - Provinces in hostile Zone of Control adjacent to your friendly province
ZoC - Provinces in hostile Zone of Control not-adjacent to your friendly provinces.
Hostile Fort - Hostile forts + all forts their occupy, projects ZoC


How that works?
You can move from one province to adjacent province according to the allowance of movement between those two types of provinces.

HOSTILE: Allows to move to FRIENDLY, HOSTILE, ZoC-Friendly Adjacent, ZoC provinces, Hostile Fort

FRIENDLY: Allows to move to FRIENDLY, HOSTILE, ZOC-Friendly Adjacent, Hostile Fort

ZoC-Friendly Adjacent: Allows to move to FRIENDLY, Hostile Fort, ZoC-Friendly Adjacent, Hostile adjacent to Friendly

ZoC: Allows to move to HOSTILE, Hostile Fort, ZoC-Friendly Adjacent, ZoC Adjacent to Hostile

Hostile Fort: Allows to move to FRIENDLY, ZoC-Friendly Adjacent, HOSTILE, Hostile Fort if it is adjacent to ZoC-Friendly Adjacent province or FRIENDLY adjacent, ZoC only if there are no ZoC-Friendly Adjacent provinces/Friendly adjacent to this, and you can trace path with movement allowance to ZoC-Friendly Adjacent/Friendly

** Miltary Access including allies, subjects, uncolonized = FRIENDLY. Sea tiles count as 'hostile / do not spread friendly adjacency'

What it changes:

First, it eliminates the case of merging armies, and armies despite being in the same spot traveling to target province using two different paths.
More intuitive.
No longer sieging down fort would lead to having less movement options.

This is first draft, and as I mentioned earlier, feel free to add some 'edge' cases, point the 'holes' in my idea etc. If you have different idea, or want to discuss different aspect do so as well.

 

[SolSys]

In all honesty the rules were that unclear I had to make a table in Excel -- so not very intuitive [at least the explanation is not].

The idea might have merit, but it needs a better - clearer - presentation.

I do agree with the fundamentals of axing "return province" and moving to a "origin->destination" only rules.

I'll give the rest a go after some tea/work.

 

[SolSys]

Right now, I'm making improvements as I go and some changes are incoming with better presentation

The green/yellow circles in the images look almost the same.
Can you change one of them? -- more distinguishable.

 

[Zwirbaum]

Changed it*

 

[Dominion]

Nice writeup

Though I can already see something that you (purposely?) left out: You used a nice, round nation as an example. What about nations like Kilwa or Scandinavia?

Do sea tiles don't count as anything in your new system anymore? Would be nice to add that information.
Also: What if I land in these nations? I don't own a fort yet, so landing between two forts means I can not move anymore. I am locked in position in the province I landed.
Example: Anything between Kilwa and Lolo that isn't directly adjacent to Kilwa or Lolo.

Mil acc isn't defined yet, as you pointed out, but wastelands are also missing so far.

Good base idea to start out with though, I'll give you that.


EDIT: Okay, you already changed colors. Thx.

 

[Dominion]

Another problem with this system would probably be Russia with its huge swaths of land but barely any forts or a unified Italy with lots of forts. I'll grab a coffee and go over it later, but you've understandably opened with an easy example (round, few forts, close together)

Going to think about some extreme cases.

 

[Zwirbaum]

Nice writeup

Though I can already see something that you (purposely?) left out: You used a nice, round nation as an example. What about nations like Kilwa or Scandinavia?

Do sea tiles don't count as anything in your new system anymore? Would be nice to add that information.
Also: What if I land in these nations? I don't own a fort yet, so landing between two forts means I can not move anymore. I am locked in position in the province I landed.
Example: Anything between Kilwa and Lolo that isn't directly adjacent to Kilwa or Lolo.

Mil acc isn't defined yet, as you pointed out, but wastelands are also missing so far.

Good base idea to start out with though, I'll give you that.


EDIT: Okay, you already changed colors. Thx.

If you land in province between two forts, you land in ZoC province which allows to move to hostile forts. If you land in non-ZoC province you land in hostile province and as such you can move to where it allows to

 

[SolSys]

I've always assumed sea tiles and mil access as neutral; meaning, "friendly" to you.

 

[Zwirbaum]

I've always assumed sea tiles and mil access as neutral; meaning, "friendly" to you.

Military Access = Friendly, I'm trying to think about Sea right now, but I think 'hostile' would serve best

 

[Dominion]

If you land in province between two forts, you land in ZoC province which allows to move to hostile forts. If you land in non-ZoC province you land in hostile province and as such you can move to where it allows to

My bad. Not enough coffee.

 

[Afdch]

Hostile Fort - Hostile forts + all forts their occupy, projects ZoC
---
Hostile Fort: Allows to move to FRIENDLY, ZoC-Friendly Adjacent, HOSTILE, Hostile Fort if it is adjacent to ZoC-Friendly Adjacent province, ZoC only if there are no ZoC-Friendly Adjacent provinces/Friendly adjacent to this, and you can trace path with movement allowance to ZoC-Friendly Adjacent/Friendly

If hostile forts projects ZoC around it, in what circumstances you can move out of hostile fort into HOSTILE? either it should be impossible (surrounding tiles are either friendly either ZoC) or I don't see something.
Anyway, this hostile fort part requires additional illustration, I think.

 

[Zwirbaum]

If hostile forts projects ZoC around it, in what circumstances you can move out of hostile fort into HOSTILE? either it should be impossible (surrounding tiles are either friendly either ZoC) or I don't see something.
Anyway, this hostile fort part requires additional illustration, I think.

This one is a little bit tricky - I was thinking about case a) if Sea is defined as Hostile b) province occupied by enemy across the border in another war c) province occupied by you or in general from another war participant (across border so ZoC do not apply across border) - but in general this one is still a little bit tricky/iffy, and could be axed.

 

[Dominion]

Okay, coffee is ready.

So how would this system work with, say Russia?

How would I enter a fort that is situatited several provinces deep behind borders?

Please clarify before I continue. I might still be confused

 

[Zwirbaum]

Okay, coffee is ready.

So how would this system work with, say Russia?

From what I understand you can not enter ZoC under any circumstance, creating a nice block if forts are close to each other.
But how would I enter a fort that is situatioted several provinces deep behind borders?

Do I now have to siege down every Friendly Adjacent province before I can progress?

Please clarify before I continue. I might still be confused

You can enter ZoC provinces from hostile provinces. Those green provinces should be coloured as red because if there is no fort there, they're just hostile.

Idea behind my Fort ZoC system is basically retaining most if not all aspects of Paradox fort system and ZoC, with eliminating problems mentioned before (merging causing problems, different paths for armies in one province, sieging eliminating movement options etc.)

 

[Dominion]

You can enter ZoC provinces from hostile provinces. Those green provinces should be coloured as red because if there is no fort there, they're just hostile.

Yea, but how does it work?
These provinces are far away from my borders and these forts have 2 non-adjacent provinces between them.

Can I just run through? From which direction can I enter these forts? What do these forts actually block?

 

[Afdch]

> ZoC: Allows to move to HOSTILE, Hostile Fort, ZoC-Friendly Adjacent, ZoC Adjacent to Hostile

do I get this right?

Edit: Ah, I do not, you can't get to initial tile in the first place, unless you can go round end enter the pointed ZoC tile from the pointed Hostile tile, thus effectively tracing back

 

[Zwirbaum]

Yea, but how does it work?
These provinces are far away from my borders and these forts have 2 non-adjacent provinces between them.

Can I just run through? From which direction can I enter these forts? What do these forts actually block?

Probably not much, same as right now. If you would declare war on Russia in this case, you would be able to waltz through it no problem. In both my and Pdx system until Tula is taken you can't procced to Bryansk and Severia.

 

[Zwirbaum]

> ZoC: Allows to move to HOSTILE, Hostile Fort, ZoC-Friendly Adjacent, ZoC Adjacent to Hostile

do I get this right?

Edit: Ah, I do not, you can't get to initial tile in the first place

Yes if you would be in that tile you would be able to move there to CF, but as you pointed out you can't get there from Poland.

 

[Afdch]

Alrighty. So this is how initial movement/access should look like.

Blue - movement in both directions, red shows the provinces we have no access to.

Next, say, Poland captures Zemplen Fort. The province becomes Friendly with all former ZoC exclusive to this fort became Hostile. This should be right?

Now this is where movement allowance becomes complicated. The arrows show single-sided movement allowance, other are bidirectional. I feel I miss something out there.
Or am I?

 

[Zwirbaum]

Alrighty. So this is how initial movement/access should look like.

Blue - movement in both directions, red shows the provinces we have no access to.

Next, say, Poland captures Zemplen Fort. The province becomes Friendly with all former ZoC exclusive to this fort became Hostile. This should be right?

Now this is where movement allowance becomes complicated. The arrows show single-sided movement allowance, other are bidirectional. I feel I miss something out there.
Or am I?

You can trace movement to the friendly fort province from the fort in Zagreb so it is possible to retreat there. Currently you couldn't go from Szepes to Pest as well, so that one directional arrow is working as designed. The only problem is Pozsony and Hont and those are shown correctly by you, in my system one directional, however maybe with some tweaking the rule (maybe the first part of this 'there are no ZoC-friendly adjacent provinces/friendly adjacent could be removed) it could be achieved.