GD1938 v3

[ernieschwitz]

It works ok, on my old machine. I have not upgraded yet. I think 2 minutes is the most I have ever needed waiting for a turn to process. Which of course is slow, but I might get a few more tweaks in there to make it even faster. When you are on the map, nothing is slow, except getting out of combat, when units have been killed (that is when the counter no longer has anything in it). I believe Vic is working on a fix for that

[ironduke1955]

Slow loading is not a issue with me as I presume the game will not be suitable for serious AI opposition so multi player will be the normal way it is played and a turn that may take two or three hours to work up a couple of minutes load up is not a serious issue. IMHO.

[ernieschwitz]

Ah, yes.

I saw someone on Twitter mention the AI. I think he must have been thinking about Global Domination, not 1938. It is easy to be confused I guess. Well like GD 1938 v2, GD 1938 v3 will have no AI, except if you turn it on yourself, and then most likely only for the first turn only, since you will find it super slow. It may even cause the game to crash since it only has a limited amount of memory free. No, one of the CPUs should be dedicated to working hard on the turn before and after you decide to end the turn.

I hope my machine won't be unkind and respond to this in a negative way

[LJBurstyn]

I hope your machine does not have the same problems mine is facing. Well really not my machine but my modem. My ISP cannot figure out why I am having so much trouble maintaining my web/email connection. They now think that my antennae may have been moved by the heavy winds and cannot maintain a connection because it is not aimed at Mingus Mountain correctly. So they are sending someone out on the 28th to check it and my modem if the problem is with the modem. They say the connection strength is way below what it should be and they cannot figure out why.

I know the v3 will not be available for some time but that does not help my "patients" level. Boy I think "patients" is badly misspelled but the spell checker says it is correct.

[ernieschwitz]

The words is "patience"... the other word is what is used to describe those who are treated by a doctor for instance.

Anyway, GD 1938 v3 might be available sooner than you think. I am running out of events to code, to be honest, and Bombur will soon work his kind of magic on it then.

[LJBurstyn]

I knew patients referred to what I am to my doctor but I could not remember the correct spelling for the word I wanted....at least it is pronounced almost the same.

Well whatever the correct word is patience is what I am low in. Considering how much blood the vampires (lab) took last week I am not low on the patients list for my doctor. At least all the test came back normal except my cholesterol came in at 188...not overly high but higher than my doctor wants it to be...but I am NOT giving up MEAT.

[ironduke1955]

Considering what passes for normal these days normal may not be such a good thing. And what can be more normal than eating meat show me a animal that just eats plants and I will show you a carnivores next meal.

[ernieschwitz]

One of the things I noticed some players complain about, or think was pretty unrealistic, was the way breaking isolationism worked in GD 1938 v2. So we decided to go in another direction with GD 1938 v3.

Here is a screenshot of a card that you will see in one form or another. The card being shown here is the one the United States gets.

[ernieschwitz]

The new Isolationism system works a lot different from the one in GD 1938 v2.

A timer of a sort has been introduced. The timer counts down the number of turns that are left before the United States gets into the war. Now I made this so it would be easy to modify if I got it too long or too short a time period. But basically, if we go by history, this number of turns should be 40. Now nobody is going to wait 40 turns before they play the game, so we have shrunk that down a bit. How much I won't reveal.

So things do not get boring for the United States, they have a number of policies they can enact that either help the democracys, or hurt their opponents. Also we have put in some triggers that will reduce the time the waiting period is, if certain things happen (Like the fall of Paris). Some triggers make things take longer time too (Like the fall of Rome). One of these policies is the Destroyers for bases agreement, that the British will find very nice, in most cases.

Also, one of the things that GD 1938 v2 was guilty of was making the USA simply too strong, when it entered the war. This was because they had no restrictions placed on their economy whatsoever. Well not true now. The US has a economy that is modified according to what level of Isolationism they are under.

Yes, you read right, levels of Isolationism. There are now two levels. The first one is for when war has not been declared by anyone, and the only war is the one between Japan and China. The second one happens the moment war is declared by Germany, Italy, Japan or USSR on USSR (yeah USSR can't DOW itself), France or Britain. This basically amounts to that if the Democracys (or USSR) is at war with the Authoritarian Regimes (I could call the Fascists, but lets not), or USSR.

While they are blissfully asleep, the US is very limited in what they can do. Their economy functions at 40% of what it would be if they were at war. When they do get half awake, because of the noise that the Europeans are making, then they will have 60% of their wartime production.

Now the Lobby Congress card you see above is one that is used to influence Congress. Other nations can influence it too. If a good result for the Democracys is scored, then the counter for when US enters the fray will count down by an extra turn, if a bad result is scored then the counter may not count down at all, and if an average score is made, the turn just goes down by one.

When there is only 5 turns left, everyone will get a message that they are about to enter the war. Now that could happen very fast, or very slow, or maybe never (very unlikely). The fastest it could happen is actually 1 turn (could come about if several things that worry the US happens in the same turn), and as I mentioned never, since the Germans, Italians and Japanese could lobby congress and have it postpone it every turn.

[ernieschwitz]

Speaking of things that the US could do, here is one. They could use the card below, which allows them to increase the combat efficiency of another Major Country, by sending in advisors and personel to help train the soldiers. Every Major Power gets this card, and it can be used on any major power with less combat efficiency than yourself. That is any major power that is at war.

I imagine China would be demanding that US uses this as often as it can on China (Picture shows, a German, Japanese and Hungarian officer i believe)

[ernieschwitz]

Time for another update. Coups never really worked the way that we wanted in GD 1938 v2. Somehow it seemed wrong that a country coup just initiate one, and that several Major Countries, could each get a crack at it. Like France and Britain each trying to get Czechoslovakia under their wings.

So that too has been changed. Instead a whole new system has been put in place. But before I explain, lets look at a card.

[ernieschwitz]

Some of you hardcore gamers who were around when Tweber was doing his World at War for ATG may remember this picture, if not, then don't worry about it. The card is used to manipulate a statistic called the countries stability. This Stability can be Extremely High (so high it cannot get more stabile) or Extremely low (which cannot be lower). By sending the agents you can either help the country become more stabile or less so.

A process will be run each round, to check if there is a coup or any other event in a minor country. I just started a game, and whoops... here's one.

[ernieschwitz]

As can be seen not all events are coups. If no-one is at war with the country most in the lead diplomatically, riots and political turmoil is the result, if anything does happen that is. Everyone will be affected by political turmoil, and the results really are unpredictable, but the better your standing was, chances are, it is now worse (and the opposite is true too).

If there is a coup, something that now is random, then the most favoured Major Countries diplomatic score, and it's allies scores will be calculated, as well as the Major Countries supporters that tried to coup's allies will also be calculated. These two numbers (one of them modified) will then be compared, and a random winner chosen.

Does that mean, that a coup always results in taking over the country? Not at all. The country will however be much more positive towards the winner of the coup, and look much less favorably on the losers.

[ernieschwitz]

I thought you might all want to know that we have a functioning Alpha at the moment. Here is a screenshot from my turn one against Poland with Germany...

[ernieschwitz]

Here are the losses and kills for the turn.

[ernieschwitz]

I try to make an update every 4-5 days. I realize that last time I cheated a little, by making a post just showing something you probably had seen before. Well this time it is different. Here is a picture of a new thing that is going to be in the game. I am talking about Hulls. Bigger ships will require them (Battleships, Battlecruisers, Large Carriers). Battleships and Battlecruisers will requre BB Hulls, and Carriers will require CV Hulls.

Some of you may feel that it is strange to be able to construct a resource like Hulls in land. WaW for ATG had that problem. Not GD 1938 v3. Hulls are only producible in city types/shipwarfs that are by the sea.

[ernieschwitz]

Now why would we go to all that trouble to make a resource you had to build, why not just pay for the ships cost. There are two answers to this. First we are able to give each nation an amount of Hulls to start off the game. Thus Britain has 5 BB Hulls and 5 Carrier Hulls (which is quite historical; Bombur made the research).

The second reason is that these resources cost a fixed amount of production. So they will not become cheaper when you upgrade your economy. We felt that there simply were too many big ships in GD 1938 v2. The cost of the ship itself however has been reduced accordingly, and that makes some things very cheap. Like this Battlecruiser being built in Stettin.

[ernieschwitz]

A smaller update this time. Bombur and I noticed that some people mistook the N on Night bombers and Night fighters to mean they were Naval Bombers and Naval Fighters. Also there was a problem with one of the graphics for Heavy Fighters. Well in GD 1938 v3 this error and those misconceptions should be put to rest.

A symbol of a yellow crescent moon has been added to the picture instead of the N. This is how it looks for Night Fighters.

[cpdeyoung]

Beautiful!

Chuck

[LJBurstyn]

Too bad my eyes will not be able to make out the partial moon for units on the map...oh well,. Still don't have any patience. But don't let me rush you. Would rather have a good game than a completed "bad" game.