I'm playing the Antarctica map right now, and getting random ideas on how to make better use of it.
1. Coalitions. This would be an easy change. Just allow coalitions of 2-4 players to win together. The map is big enough, comparable in size to Homefront or Pacific.
2. Navy. It's unusable, but players still waste resources on navy research and construction, especially after they get taken over by the AI. Is there a way to disable the navy tab altogether on this map?
3. AI air forces. This is not specific to the Antarctica map, it's a general problem with the AI that builds units it doesn't know how to use. The map would be more challenging if the AI could not build air units at all. Just disable the air force tab for the AI, and this one change will immediately make all CoW maps more challenging.
4. Make it do the garrison can't leave. Otherwise it's very easy to wait for them to come out and shell them to pieces. After a day or two, the only thing that's left are undefended artillery and RRG units, which are easy to finish off.
5. Give the garrisons stacks of RRG. In my current game, the central garrison had 2 RRG while the peripheral garrisons had none. It was too easy, especially once the support units all left.
6. Flip the roles. It would be fun to play as a garrison, responsible for defending home base while also having to take the other garrisons. Sort of like the zombie mode mini games in Plants versus Zombies. Super fun! This would also make better use of the ring of unassailable countries. Make them all AI controlled, and juice their industry and recruitment from the start, so they are pumping out more units.
4 Replies
9 Jul 2023, 04:02
1. This was actually implemented once. On Christmas, they had a Christmas themed Antarctica map that I won. To “spread holiday joy” or something along those lines they allowed coalitions of three on that map. It’s been done before so if more players want it’s possible Bytro could do that more often.
2. Possibly, but I think it would be more on the player to be smart and simply not use them. Any player who was gonna use naval on this map was not a player who was gonna win anyway, lol.
3. Maybe on this map, but disabling it all together? It just wouldn’t make sense for AI to not have air forces, why would a country do that? Either way I think it would better to improve the AI’s use of air rather than strip it entirely.
4. This is smart. Simply make it so the starting AI units here don’t leave, while newly built ones can. Something like that would make it much stronger.
5. This would need some testing to see if it was too difficult. Since they are all Axis giving them that doctrine of RRG’s may be too strong. But there would be ways to beat them. Guess it depends on how it goes if you test this.
6.I love this. Some sort of map where all the players work together to hold off something like a zombie attack would be such a fun event! Something like hold on against the zombies for 30 days until the cure is made (with some central AI controlled province that you can’t let fall to the AI) would have my name on the petition immediately!
CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate
9 Jul 2023, 04:49
Totally support all of these points.
“A battle fought without determination is a battle lost.” - Josip Broz Tito
10 Jul 2023, 23:26
Carking the 6th wrote:
1. This was actually implemented once. On Christmas, they had a Christmas themed Antarctica map that I won. To “spread holiday joy” or something along those lines they allowed coalitions of three on that map. It’s been done before so if more players want it’s possible Bytro could do that more often.
Thanks, I didn't know about this, need to check it out.
Carking the 6th wrote:
2. Possibly, but I think it would be more on the player to be smart and simply not use them. Any player who was gonna use naval on this map was not a player who was gonna win anyway, lol.
3. Maybe on this map, but disabling it all together? It just wouldn’t make sense for AI to not have air forces, why would a country do that? Either way I think it would better to improve the AI’s use of air rather than strip it entirely.
In practice, the AI only knows how to use land units, and even then it can only be trusted with infantry, guns, and tanks. It does a terrible job of using and protecting its artillery, so it's better off not having them. And it has no clue what to do with ships or planes.
In a perfect world, all these things could be coded, but in the real world, that's not going to happen. In that case, just disable the functionality and let the AI muddle along with more basic units that are easy to use. An AI with 3 light tanks is a lot more useful than an AI with an artillery, a ship, and a plane.
Also, think about all the resources the AI wastes on useless construction. Every kind of factory. Rural fortifications. Propaganda. Airfields. Disable all of it, make the AI use its energy on building more units, so they have something to fight with. The easiest way to fix these problems is to disable features the AI cannot handle, which is to say, most features! AI countries should only research and build stuff from the first 3 tabs, and that includes construction. Do that, and the game immediately becomes more challenging, and this costs very little effort. Compared to actually making the AI "smart" about what it builds, where, and when.
11 Jul 2023, 00:15
That’s fair enough. But AI will still be getting their hands on them when they go inactive, so there still needs to be something done in the future to improve them. Maybe with all the improvements that are happening with AI recently it will become easier? We’ll see. Until then I can understand disabling features the AI just cannot use for the most part. Or at least do that with elite AI. They simply can’t make use of things like propaganda offices (which are already basically useless) and fortifications. Let alone entire unit branches.
