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markb50k -> RE: World War III VERSION 2 (7/12/2020 6:30:44 PM)
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UNIT MECHANICS
Essentially, where programming can differ than an establish Game like MWIF is that we aren't limited by things like a force pool and unit counters.
Once i built the app, I realized that i can break things down to the more atomic level for simplicity but with some subtleties that add some strategy.
BUILDING
For mostly aesthetic reasons, I wished to have a single unit counter represent the power in a hex, so the app keeps track of how much "unit" is in a hex as a unit, with a size from a scale to 1 to 100 (I'll get to how much factors that translates to in a bit). So if we use the MWIF model that a hex can hold two corps size units, and a corps costs 3 BPs for INF and 6 for ARM, then we can say that 1 bp builds 1/6th of a hex power of INF, or 1/12th of hex power of ARM.
So, when i spend a BP in the app, it produces that much onto the production cycle (I also spread that over the turns to produce, so when you spend a BP on ARM, for instance, it creates 8.25 points of "unit". It splits that into 4 (build time of ARM corps), and so you have a portion of that arriving each turn.
To add another variable, the country chosen from the force pool drives that as well. I have approximately 130 countries represented in the app, and when you build it chooses from the possible countries for each side, weighted by how many 'points' of INF and ARM each country has (which is configured in a csv file I load into the game). So for the East side, USSR and PRC are most likely to be chosen, how likely is dependent on which type of unit you are purchasing, INF or ARM (USSR has a preponderence of the ARM units and PRC is more even in terms of INF points)
Each country also has a relative strength of their unit types, all normalized against a scale of the country with the highest ratings, in this case, the USA.
Each side also has a country by which all units are normalized to, US and USSR as expected.
So for instance if the game produces a US or USSR ARM unit, it produces the 8.25 points as mentioned above, but if it say produces a Pakistani ARM unit, Pakistan has a factor of say 50% of the USSR factor, so the app would build 4.125 points instead. This normalization allows me to easily transfer "unit" portions between units in a consistent way. So in essence as the East player you hope that USSR gets picked more often as they are the strongest units, and odds are you do since USSR has largest number of ARM points per the CSV file.
COMPOSITION
In a single unit you can have up to 100 points of "unit" in it, either INF or ARM (10 INF, 90 ARM or 50/50 or whatever). This drives alot of things, including Movement, and Unit counter type, and strength.
<25% ARM of total size => INF unit type
<50% ARM => MOT
<75% ARM => MECH
>= 75% ARM => ARM
TRAINING/XP
Units can only hold up to 100 points of unit size, but there are ways around that. Each impulse and during each autocombat and combat units can gain XP, up to half the unit size (so a unit with only 20 pts of INF, can only have up to 10 pts of XP).
XP pts contribute additional strength, so a maxed out unit will have up to 50% higher strength due to XP.
It takes a while to earn XP. But units can also transfer portions of their 100 unit size to become XP points during each battle. By transferring size from the 100 size bucket to the xp bucket doesn't make the unit stronger, per se, but it does make room in the 100 size bucket for you to reinforce the unit. So a unit gets stronger by getting XP which is a net gain, and by transferring (training) normal size to the xp bucket, which makes room for more size to be added by transfers from other units.
You'll notice some units in the screenshots show names like ">" or ">>" etc. Those are ranks which show how much up to the 150% max strength of unit the unit has.
ELITE UNITS
Any amount units have in their Xp pools contribute greatly to attacks. XP amounts aren't halved in invasions, or are x3 in mountains vs normal (x2). They are basically considered elite portions of the unit.
If a unit is a smaller unit (up to 25 size) and has nearly maxed xp for its size (near 12.5 xp) it is put on the map as an elite type unit (Marine or AirCav for INF, and Armored Cav for ARM units). The unit is gifted max movement (7) and infantry elite units can be used for air assault and marine movement across coastal hex sides.
HQ UNITS
There are no formal HQ units in the app in the current incarnation. However, one function that HQs provide in MWIF is carried over into the game. Supply is normally only provided from home country cities to a range of 4, or extended by rail lines, or by ports to areas not connected by a land path to a home country city. Here, high rank units (near maxed out units in size and xp) on a coastal hex can act as a port. In the scenario screenshots above, Chinese forces have finally reached the point where one of their units has achieved Colonel rank, and as such it can provide supply up to 4 hexes away, which essentially puts the entire invasion force into supply which removes the 50% reduction in strength and 1 movement factor penalty for Out of Supply units. The invasion of Taiwan has been very costly, but it has resulted in many highly trained units, and now with a Colonel ranked unit, all of them are now not halved anymore.
STRENGTH
As mentioned above, all units of a side are translated into their equivalent sizes of the leading countries of each side, the USA and USSR. Globally however, the app translates the size of the unit into a strength when writing to the game file so that the unit counters have factors. Long story short, while the East side has an advantage of many more units to start the game, the West units have more strength per size, which is the prevailing strategic challenge of the game for the East side. To capture enough cities and resources to produce enough units to balance out the higher quality Western units.
In the current incarnation, here are the relative strengths of a 100 size unit:
NATO
- ARM - 10 strength
- INF - 4.23 strength
WARSAW PACT
- ARM - 7.37 strength
- INF - 3.42 strength
since the Warsaw Pact are doing more attacks early in the game, and you gain more xp for attacking then defending, much more East units are higher rank at this point in the game, so this counterbalances the quality gap. As shown in the screen shots in Taiwan, there are 9 strength armor units for the Chinese which is because they are higher xp due to the volume of attacks which has raised ranks to Captain (II) and Colonel (IIII)
UNIT DIVERSITY
Finally, by running combat and supply and movement mostly through the external app, unit types normally not produceable in MWIF are achievable in the app, like Heavy Weapons units and Air Cav. Most of this is purely for aesthetic as honestly those unit types on the map just look cooler.
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