Alamo Testing Thread

[Velociryx]

'k....here's a file that I'm hoping will bring things back into at least a bit of balance.

Changes:

1) America begins with 7500g

2) More forces in Washington, that are fortified. These may be moved and assigned as you wish.

3) 1 Army given back to the Americans. Can't be used till next turn, but it's there....

4) America now has Magellen's Voyage, in addition to Sistine, and Universal Sufferage (and a couple other odd ones that don't really do much....mostly in New York).

5) All of the "First Tier" forces have been fortified, meaning they can be rearranged to taste. The exception is the RA on the Front, which has been ordered to stand down.

6) Half of the second tier forces are fortified, meaning they can be arranged to taste. Again, any RA's on the second tier of forts have been ordered to stand down.

7) More naval units added. Two complete fleets (BB, 2xCA, 4x SUB, 4x DD). Additionally, five new nuclear subs have been added for the American side.

That should give the human player enough flexibility on turn one to beef up selected choke points, anyway....I doubt it's enough to stop at least a couple of places from being overrun, but it should help with damage control....good luck and godspeed!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Ahhh, one more minor change....the subs I used to lead off the attack with have had their names changed to "Fast Attack Subs 1-4" - that way, if they survive for any length of time, they don't have such bizzare names. I tried using Gram's savegame editor thingy, but got an error, so the date is still 4000bc....will worry over that one later I guess....

-=Vel=-

EDIT: Keep finding other stuff to reply to! LOL....Double checked the Stealth guys....they're unchanged from their defaults....I *did* increase their bombard strength this time around, so I'm thinking if you stick to using them to bomb enemy units that overrun your positions, they'll be more effective and not get shot down. Not sure what's causing them to get shot down so easy tho...very strange indeed! (unless another AI cheat is to ignore the fact that they have stealth?)

If the changes made above don't get it rebalanced, then the next step will be to call a halt to adding more units...as it is, I think we've got unit overkill....if these changes don't at least give the USA a sporting chance and prevent a total route, then the next step will be to begin shaving forces off of the enemy nations till we regain some semblence of balance. At this point, I'm reluctant to boost any nation's forces beyond what they already are. Time to start trimming the fat if things are still unbalanced.

-=Vel=-

[DeepO]

Vel, any news on the stealths? Most importantly, did you ran into the same problems when testing the different versions? This really worries me, but I could imagine you did it on purpose (and 'forgot' to tell me abou it )

I'll give it a quick look, but can't do a complete test run, though. If you keep this file for a day, I should have got time enough.

DeepO

[Velociryx]

Yep...cross posted with you on that....Stealths were at their defaults, though for this iteration, I did increase their bombard strength. I've noted a pretty doggone high attrition rate as well.... It has prompted me to keep them reserved for just bombing incoming units that overrun my choke points so my tank crews have a bit of an easier time.

-=Vel=-

[DeepO]

X-posted... yeah, I would suspect it to be a bug... don't like it at all, though.

If you want something else to reply to: what about my idea of having a narrow strip of land to defend, so you can fall back on the German side? On the Russian side you have, but so far I haven't needed it... there it even becomes 2 tiles wide (one of which is the spot for Panama), which would mean you can fall back, and defend fewer land if needed. Germany, however, keeps it 4 tiles, and goes up fast. undefendable if the first line fails...

DeepO

[DeepO]

Okay, I only did a quick first run, maybe I should have thought it out more carefully... I now lost 8 forts, 4 German and 4 Russian! And this with more units defending than last time... also, they did break in 3 cases through my second line of defense, which is one of the main reasons why last time went so badly. I think we still have a little tweaking on our hand. But at least the forces in my territory were not so overwhelming as last time, then it was clear from the beginning that I could not hold on. Much has to do with what seed you get, but we should make it playable with all seeds...

I did like the 'first tier free, second tier half-free' approach this is how we should proceed... but maybe we should just add more units to the second tier to keep them from breaking through on the first turn. It is a bit tricky to have them take some first line forts, making sure we keep the second...

Again, this was without drafting, I think that maybe this is the key to surely keep the forts... massive drafting. Okay, you will lose most of these units, but they can count as softeners.

Other things: I know this is a fast save, but in some respects there were better things in the last one. Having the first fight trigger your GA was one of them (now you are already in GA when starting), having modern build queues is another.

St louis is the city that should get an airport.

the stealth problem is not a constant one: I lost two this time around, one of them shot by a SAM. Others were fine, even if they didn't hit much.

The added navy: I would move one attack force (the Eastern one) to the middle of the 5 added subs, to spread it out a little more. I guess that now the Eastern side of the continent would be too easily reinforced... if you are able to move your entire force (the Vel-DeepO-Poet-Aeson one) north, the extra can be moved towards China. There is no need to have to much ships there at once, is there? It could make it too easy

Last thing: this time the Russians did an excellent job of bombing my supply lines to the front, I now lose at least 3 HP to get there. Which means that I can attack the second tier MA, but not the first one, except if I use the troops already there. Also, there is no possibiity to add MI reinforcements to the first line... maybe the reserve MA should be a bit spread out, so that bombers can damage these units, but not take out the road completely.
The same holds for the German front, however they tend to bomb resources instead of the road to the front.

The chokepoints are better like this, but maybe could use some additional tweaking. I'll think of it tomorrow. Now it's bed time, your Alamo scenario makes me lose sleep to much (4 am again...)

DeepO

[Velociryx]

I know the feeling! I had to force myself to stop...lol...but it's such FUN to have a powerhouse of an AI to play against!

I tested the game four times, each time with a different approach. First two tests, my basic goal was to hold all forts at all costs. This was (as you might expect) a costly endeavour, but doable. It also puts you in a pretty solid position WRT later game incursions from China and Japan, I would imagine.

Second two attempts, I pillaged my first tier forts if I could reach them, and fell back to the second tier, reinforcing them massively by pretty well emptying out all of my cities.

That was fairly easy to hold....only had to worry about a total of four tiles to defend, and with the army "Unbreakable" on the front (two tests saw it on the Russian front, and the other two saw it on the German), it really meant that you only had to worry about holding three squares (cos they avoided the army like the plague, except to bomb it a bit...which had little effect).

Problems I see:
1) You lose too many of your already scarce RA's. I was able to get two of my lost sheep back, but that wasn't enough. Gonna have to rethink that I believe. Perhaps we should not have the RA's stand down, and allow the human player to use RA's to bombard enemy troops on the first turn? That way, the initial force (or at least some of the units) might be banged up a bit, and not attack. Would give the Germans and Ruskies a few less pieces to play with. Alternate plan: Move ALL RA's to Washington, and allow players to place them where they want.

2) Even still, I think the initial wave of Germans and Russians are too strong. Prolly weaken them by about 2MI/2MA each. That would at least somewhat limit their ability to just storm across everything.

3) Gotta slightly reduce enemy airforces. Prolly by about 15-20% should do it. Our flyboys rule the skies, but against so many planes, it's just overwhelming, especially in light of the improved bombard rates.

4) Thinking seriously about ditching all of america's stealth planes since they're so easily intercepted anyway, and replacing them with more f-15's. At least that way we've got some more birds that can actually help keep the skies clear and limit bombing damage.

5) Gonna spread the US naval elements out a bit more. I just put them down speedily, but you're right, their placement is too bunched up at the moment. Prolly I'll break each of the new fleets into two task force elements and space them out a bit more. Might even place one slightly forward (away from the coast on the east side, and toward China a bit).

6) Will reduce Russian and German DD's and Trannies slightly, to keep them (especially the Russians) from tying up too many of their forces transporting them around to silly places when they don't really need to.

No changes planned for Japan or China....as it is, I never saw them do much beyond shuffle their guys around the board. I'm assuming they'll eventually land in force, but from what I've seen so far, they just do a lot of d*cking around. Will prolly also add two more MI and one more MA to Washington....that'll give you (if you break them up evenly) 3 MI and 2 MA on each front.

It occurs to me as I get ready to hit the hay for the night that burning down first tier forts on one side (prolly russian, cos they don't seem to press as hard), and only having to defend a two tile front on either the Russian or German side of the inland sea might be the best approach in the short run. Would simplify your defenses, and if you place your starting army on the "short legged" front, it should enable you to mass your forces for a pretty solid pushback on the other front. Gonna tweak the scenario some more tomorrow and give that a go....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

PS: Not sure what the heck happened with the GA at game start....I was surprised when I saw that, but could not place any reason to it...

-=Vel=-

[Bambul]

Stealth Fighters/Bombers

I've only played beta 1 (not beta 2) but I got quite a bit of use out of the stealth bombers, and to a lesser degree the stealth fighters. I would use the stealth bombers to attack ships comming in from the West (because of their loner range of 8). I found that this kept most of the ships off my back or sufficiently weakened to take them out with few problems. This may be different with beta 2 though.

As for the stealth fighters, I used them purely for recon, which granted would be better done by F-15's except for recon missions near AI cities where they might get shot down (most recon was sea to spot incomming ships). If they were F-15's I would have probably used them for air superiority.

But I found Stealth Bombers a valuable asset and would build them eventually if I felt my ground defence was good enough.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Velociryx
I know the feeling! I had to force myself to stop...lol...but it's such FUN to have a powerhouse of an AI to play against!

I agree completely, it is loads of fun. but lately I'm getting less then 5 hours of sleep, if this continues I'll sleep right through the release of Alamo

Second two attempts, I pillaged my first tier forts if I could reach them, and fell back to the second tier, reinforcing them massively by pretty well emptying out all of my cities.

I tried that more or less in my single try: the one German fort with one MI on plains is lost anyway, so I thought of pillaging it, and moving one. But, as I made a mistake in calculating, I disbanded the road, but not the fort itself, and left a sole MI there... which is basically one lost. I'll do it again tonight, and see if, when I be more careful, things go smoother. I expect it to...

That was fairly easy to hold....only had to worry about a total of four tiles to defend, and with the army "Unbreakable" on the front (two tests saw it on the Russian front, and the other two saw it on the German), it really meant that you only had to worry about holding three squares (cos they avoided the army like the plague, except to bomb it a bit...which had little effect).

Yeah, they would avoid it... for now. Just wait until the Germans show up with 3 MA armies in the same turn, if you don't nuke them, your army is lost (at least that is how it went in beta 1). With all the elite fighting, you can expect a lot of GL generating on the AI side, and if you're unlucky these will form armies at the time that initial armies appear at the front. It makes it more menacing, and fun, of course, but it is one of the head reasons I would really be more comfortable to have a second defense in place. With only one line of defense, it is living on the edge too much, if they get through, things escalate so quickly the only way out is a reload.

What I found to be critical is that you need to balance your defenses very carefully: if the AI sees one fort a little less defended, it will only crush this one, ignoring all others. that's why the army seem to be unbreakable (until AI armies how up): the AI will plainly ignore it as it finds an easier target. The problem is that when he finds this target on the opposite front, he will retreat, and tries to go around the inland sea (maybe it is time to name this one, I always trip over the word, and write ilnand sea... I always have to go back to correct it). Could be a bit exploitable, if you this is happening.

Problems I see:
1) You lose too many of your already scarce RA's. I was able to get two of my lost sheep back, but that wasn't enough. Gonna have to rethink that I believe. Perhaps we should not have the RA's stand down, and allow the human player to use RA's to bombard enemy troops on the first turn? That way, the initial force (or at least some of the units) might be banged up a bit, and not attack. Would give the Germans and Ruskies a few less pieces to play with. Alternate plan: Move ALL RA's to Washington, and allow players to place them where they want.

It surely is a problem. And it also is a bit fun, as it gives you heart burn when you see the next turn that 'your' RA are bombing some of your ships. What about just adding some more RA, in the middle of nowhere (IIRC, there is still some bit of rough terrain in your territory where it would take 2 turns to get to the front lines), as a reserve? I find it very cool that you basically are not allowed to keep all your initial RAs (or you'd need to draft MIs in the first turn), but in some way we should offset it a little.

The problem with giving the player full access to his RAs the first turn is that it makes things too easy: if you concentrate them all on one side, you can scare the complete invasion force away. But maybe one first improvement can be to stand down more RAs in the second tier, instead of nearly all of them in the first. Then the players can still go for several tactics.

2) Even still, I think the initial wave of Germans and Russians are too strong. Prolly weaken them by about 2MI/2MA each. That would at least somewhat limit their ability to just storm across everything.

True, certainly true when facing a bad seed. So far I did not want to suggest it, though, as I really dig the idea of losing at least one fort, and having to fight to regain control. So my alternative is to have 8 more MI standing down on the 4 second tier forts, which will still mean that some of the first line will get taken, but there is no way the AIs will break the second line as well. But of course, this will only decrease the total underdog position we're in now, 8 extra MI would mean we are in a better then 1 to 20 ratio of troops to the AI

3) Gotta slightly reduce enemy airforces. Prolly by about 15-20% should do it. Our flyboys rule the skies, but against so many planes, it's just overwhelming, especially in light of the improved bombard rates.

I can agree on that. Or you can beef up our F15s by 15% (a few in Washington would really help) However, when reading the thread of alexman on AI civs build preferences: only the Rus are set to build air forces often. It might be a good idea to at least do this for the Germans as well. Once the bombers are depleted, we need some AI reinforcements, or all of our F15s are sitting idle, wasting money.
Do the AIs have access to stealth? Might be an idea to make it an american-only tech. The same reasoning: when you're wasting money each turn on those F15s, you want them to shoot something too.

4) Thinking seriously about ditching all of america's stealth planes since they're so easily intercepted anyway, and replacing them with more f-15's. At least that way we've got some more birds that can actually help keep the skies clear and limit bombing damage.

I hear ya. The stealths have very limited use, as you cannot savely use them in enemy territory. Sure, bombing your own territory is possible, and also against ships they have some power, but this would also be possible with old fashioned bombers. At least you expect of these you'd lose them if used behind enemy lines.

5) Gonna spread the US naval elements out a bit more. I just put them down speedily, but you're right, their placement is too bunched up at the moment. Prolly I'll break each of the new fleets into two task force elements and space them out a bit more. Might even place one slightly forward (away from the coast on the east side, and toward China a bit).

All good ideas...

6) Will reduce Russian and German DD's and Trannies slightly, to keep them (especially the Russians) from tying up too many of their forces transporting them around to silly places when they don't really need to.

The Germans were not concentrating on going over sea that much in my game, but most likely this was a result of having breached my lines already. I can expect the same problems there in other games, though.
While you're at it, reduce the Japanese and Chinese nannies too. They don't need 20, and from what I saw the Japanese were sailing towards me, you'd need every single ship to just get rid of the stack of DDs, which means that the trannies can row right through. I'm already reserving a nuke especially for these guys, I do not need a force of >80 MAs and MIs inside my territory.

I want to play it out further, as to see when the invasion forces are arriving: if the Chinese conincide with the Japanese, I guess the only effective way of stopping them is nuking them both. I know the Chinese will spread out over 2-3 turns (their main force, that is. there are some loose trannies coming your way in between (I guess the original ones)), but last time I saw 2 major stacks of Japanese invasion forces. There is a big chance this will all come to you in the course of 3-4 turns, fighting off 40 destroyers and 40 trannies might be too much for your navy, certainly after all the beaten it has gotten before that.

Another idea in this respect: could we maybe have 2 nuclear subs, with loaded tacticals, and mod them so you can't unload these? I'll gladly give in 1 ICBM for 2 tacticals, and it would give a huge advantage at sea. The reason why I would mod them un-unloadable is that it would add the tension even more: do you use your subs for fighting / scouting, knowing you can lose one of your tacticals? Or do you keep him behind, but lose an additional active sub?

No changes planned for Japan or China....as it is, I never saw them do much beyond shuffle their guys around the board. I'm assuming they'll eventually land in force, but from what I've seen so far, they just do a lot of d*cking around. Will prolly also add two more MI and one more MA to Washington....that'll give you (if you break them up evenly) 3 MI and 2 MA on each front.

the extra forces are not a real luxury, you'd need them in the coming turns. What Japan/China is concerned: see above for my comments regarding the nannies.

It occurs to me as I get ready to hit the hay for the night that burning down first tier forts on one side (prolly russian, cos they don't seem to press as hard), and only having to defend a two tile front on either the Russian or German side of the inland sea might be the best approach in the short run. Would simplify your defenses, and if you place your starting army on the "short legged" front, it should enable you to mass your forces for a pretty solid pushback on the other front. Gonna tweak the scenario some more tomorrow and give that a go....

In the short term, that surely is the best decision. However it is very risky: if they manage to break through, there is no way in holding them back anymore. That's why I still prefer to go for the longer, but safer border approach, the experience with beta 2 surely has traumatized me a bit... grrhh, I had more then one dream last night seeing masses of German tanks rolling into my territory, only to wake up sweating, and feeling so helpless

DeepO

[DeepO]

Re: Stealth Fighters/Bombers

Originally posted by Bambul
But I found Stealth Bombers a valuable asset and would build them eventually if I felt my ground defence was good enough.

Do you ever get to a point where you found your ground defense to be good enough? wow. in beta 1 I found them to be adequate from time to time, but good... no. And in beta 2, the added marines will mean your ground forces need to be even better: I was perfectly happy of leaving all my cities empty in beta 1, placing all available force on the coast (so there were no surprise invasions), but that has changed now.

I agree that there are some very good uses for your bombers, and taking on the navy seems to be one of the better ones. But, for testing, I have used all my stealths begind the enemy lines exclusively, and in the first 2 betas they were shot down immediately. I fear there is something at work here we don't understand, and I'm sure it was introduced in the last patch. A bug, perhaps.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Velociryx
PS: Not sure what the heck happened with the GA at game start....I was surprised when I saw that, but could not place any reason to it...

Forgot to comment on that one. I know what happened, or at least I think I do. We now build Magellan, don't we? And it gets build in the first turn, before we can move... Magellan is expanionist, while Manhatten is also industrious; thus our GA gets triggered.

This reminds me: do other Civs get their GA as well? the Chinese sure have a lot of wonders, they too might be in their GA (can't check it right now). Maybe this is a bit too much, and you should mod the wonders so they are all commercial... the Chinese already have Hoover, good AI production is good, but don't over do it

DeepO

[Velociryx]

'k...had some time to sleep on it, and here's *I think* how I'll configure the game for the final release (might change a bit more when I get home tonight, but here's what's in my head just now).

1) Remove all stealth fighters. In their place, give the human player 2 additional stealth bombers and four additional f-15's (placed in Washington)

2) Leave 2RA's (with orders to stand down) on each line of first tier forts (Russian Front and German Front). These, we run the risk of losing in the initial attack.

3) Move the rest of the USA's RA's to the mountain containing the coal in the eastern US. This will cause them to not be able to arrive on scene for a couple turns.

4) Upgrade all USA forces on the front. Veterans become elites, and regulars become veterans (or maybe just make them all elites) That's as good as giving them 1-2 extra units, as far as Hp's are concerned, which should help some.

5) Remove 10 Marines and 5 DD's from Germany. Remove 20 Marines and 10 DD's from Russia. Remove 10 Marines and 8 DD's from both China and Japan.

6) Remove all RA's currently defending enemy cities to get the unit count down some....we've got a hateful number of units on the map as it is, and I suspect that it's the main reason that the game loads so slowly.

7) Unbuild Magellen's voyage, and give America a GL at game start. You can rush it on turn one if you want it, or jumpstart your spaceship production, or build a second army....interesting choices, all....

8) Remove 5 Jets from both the German and the Russian Airforce. Remove 10 jets from both the Chinese and Japanese airforces (again, to reduce unit count). Set Germany to build air power often (thought I had them set to do that, but will double check it!)

9) Move 2 more MA's into Washington, with orders to fortify (meaning they'll be available to move around on turn one).

10) upgrade half of America's "regular" MI's defending her cities to Veterans (this will still leave America with 8 regular MI's, but give them 24 Veteran (with a couple of elites tossed in) MI's if you empty your cities out on the first couple turns to bulk up on defenses. Not a bad haul....

11) As mentioned previously, spread that navy out a bit more....break it down into various strike teams.

12) Name more of the ships....that's kinna cool...

13) Reduce the initial German/Russian attack wave marginally (2MI/1MA, or something like that).

Will also play around with the tactical nuke idea...I like it! Not sure if it'll work as advertised, but it ought to (I should be able to do it just by unchecking the "unload" flag....we shall see!).

Taken together, those changes *should* put us just about where we wanna be....

Did I miss anything?

-=Vel=-

[DeepO]

Vel, so far I can think of one thing, but will look into the thread again going over the comments on what could still be improved.

Do you intend to give the Chinese their GA? otherwise you (or I, as I will be home faster) should look into the different wonders they have, ad check that it doesn't fulfill their traits.

Further, I like all the changes, especially the GL = army or Magellan decision. You might want to start the build of Magellan in the worst production city, placing the GL in there just to make the player aware of the dillema... (GL standed down, of course)

Oh, one question: did you make the uranium not movable (like horses)? It would not be fun if it would disappear from the island, and go into the middle of enemy territory. Or if it would jump into your own...

DeepO

[Velociryx]

Morning bud! Yep...I'm hoping that by piling all the wonders on, that China will start the game with their GA. I figured that since they're the most remote of the three, letting them have it wouldn't be *too* unbalancing, and it should have nicely run its course before they get too much advanced terraforming done, which is a good thing and should blunt its overall effect a bit.

And yep....the Uranium has been set to not vanish out from under you...I'm cruel, but not THAT cruel...

Will do, on the pre-build of Magellen's...and will put the GL in that same city....I'll be interested in seeing who does what with the choice!

-=Vel=-