A few issues for balance and playability in Multiplayer: (1.01)
1) Japan begins the game in 1936 as a Democracy. Played in a Multiplay game with Japan, USA, and Australia it never went facist. A quick peek at the Japan event file shows no event for the government change - but the .csv file for japan shows that there should be an election in 1937 - which never happened in the game. What triggers elections? (Also two back to back solo games as Republican Spain, one had an election just before the civil war - another did not - If elections are randomized, this could be the cause of the problem).
Missing the Japan election kept it Liberal Conservative until late 1940 - when we gave up. (It was unable to make war and out of resources - see #3)
2) Technology trading - it's way too facile. As 1936 USA, I immediately shared all military techs with Nationalist China. Which enabled that AI to quash Siankang and Communist China within 2 months of start of game. Tech Trading should be limited and take time - It's just not feasible that even given the will to do it, that the US could easily communicate the tech and the means to produce to any nation it wished.
On the other hand, Mother England should likely be trading techs with the Commonwealth - and *some* techs should be swapped, as it was historically, among the Axis powers and among the allies.
in sum - tech swapping should take some resource, DI or an IC cost, or something. It should *not* be instant - maybe 1/2 normal development time (and cost?) - perhaps the effect of a tech swap should not be to grant the tech, but rather to make the cost and time of researching the tech decrease.
In our game, a nice, peaceful USA researched broadly and had most of the mid war technologies by 1940 - medium tanks, carrier air doctrine, etc. Which the allies were not grateful for at all (no influence or other messages).
3) Market manipulation. The US has a lot of oil and coal. 5 to 1 trades for 100 rubber (3-4 of them) had the world rubber supply drained rather early. Tailoring this a little resulted in a complete world strangle hold on oil and rubber - with devastating effects for the axis economies. From mid 1936 on - they were reliant on conversion and synthetics - which are just not efficient enough to do anything. The world market needs some tweaks.
4) The USA is probably way too rich overall - even with all this market play going on at hideous losses, I was at full IC all the time, running a research budget around 150 or so, putting together aircraft and infantry at a good clip (waited until 1940 for medium tanks before getting those), and cruising my fleet off Tokyo for amusment.
Game was at Normal/Aggressive - was supposed to be a test game, and the players were focusing on the Pacific Theater. (which never saw warfare, as the Japan player couldn't declare war because he was still a Democracy).
Paradox - Help!!!
~Gollwyn
P.S. The game only crashed once in about 6 hours of play over a LAN. Pretty stable, with only occasional sync problems. chatting worked well.
One player did not have 1.01 at first and could not join the game, with no explanation. Would be nice to have an "incorrect version" dialog to prevent confusion.
Thanks!
1) Japan begins the game in 1936 as a Democracy. Played in a Multiplay game with Japan, USA, and Australia it never went facist. A quick peek at the Japan event file shows no event for the government change - but the .csv file for japan shows that there should be an election in 1937 - which never happened in the game. What triggers elections? (Also two back to back solo games as Republican Spain, one had an election just before the civil war - another did not - If elections are randomized, this could be the cause of the problem).
Missing the Japan election kept it Liberal Conservative until late 1940 - when we gave up. (It was unable to make war and out of resources - see #3)
2) Technology trading - it's way too facile. As 1936 USA, I immediately shared all military techs with Nationalist China. Which enabled that AI to quash Siankang and Communist China within 2 months of start of game. Tech Trading should be limited and take time - It's just not feasible that even given the will to do it, that the US could easily communicate the tech and the means to produce to any nation it wished.
On the other hand, Mother England should likely be trading techs with the Commonwealth - and *some* techs should be swapped, as it was historically, among the Axis powers and among the allies.
in sum - tech swapping should take some resource, DI or an IC cost, or something. It should *not* be instant - maybe 1/2 normal development time (and cost?) - perhaps the effect of a tech swap should not be to grant the tech, but rather to make the cost and time of researching the tech decrease.
In our game, a nice, peaceful USA researched broadly and had most of the mid war technologies by 1940 - medium tanks, carrier air doctrine, etc. Which the allies were not grateful for at all (no influence or other messages).
3) Market manipulation. The US has a lot of oil and coal. 5 to 1 trades for 100 rubber (3-4 of them) had the world rubber supply drained rather early. Tailoring this a little resulted in a complete world strangle hold on oil and rubber - with devastating effects for the axis economies. From mid 1936 on - they were reliant on conversion and synthetics - which are just not efficient enough to do anything. The world market needs some tweaks.
4) The USA is probably way too rich overall - even with all this market play going on at hideous losses, I was at full IC all the time, running a research budget around 150 or so, putting together aircraft and infantry at a good clip (waited until 1940 for medium tanks before getting those), and cruising my fleet off Tokyo for amusment.
Game was at Normal/Aggressive - was supposed to be a test game, and the players were focusing on the Pacific Theater. (which never saw warfare, as the Japan player couldn't declare war because he was still a Democracy).
Paradox - Help!!!
~Gollwyn
P.S. The game only crashed once in about 6 hours of play over a LAN. Pretty stable, with only occasional sync problems. chatting worked well.
One player did not have 1.01 at first and could not join the game, with no explanation. Would be nice to have an "incorrect version" dialog to prevent confusion.
Thanks!
