New Icon Ideas

Here are some icon issues:

• Standardize icon format for compatibility between PGX and PGF, both in graphic format and in standardized unit slots (so we know #35 is Tiger I so that multiple efiles work with multiple icon sheets in multiple games)
• Pick a style (SSI "monochromatic" or more color? Larger aircraft icons? PG2 icons (slightly overhead view and large infantry)? Overhead view to match overhead view of map?)
• Provide information about the unit in or on the icon, such as a flag to denote "bazooka" or "'43" infantry or an airborne symbol to denote airborne guns and vehicles that will ot be evident from the information box, so you can tell at a glance of the map without having to move the mouse to the unit
• A game that reads the efile and displays tiny icons (a parachute for airborne, a mattock for mountain movement) on the unit icon will require fewer unit icons (you would not need to make another PaK36 unit icon with the airborne symbol)

Here are some icon experiments:

The first two show a parachute symbol that could denote airborne HW, mortars, ATG, artillery, and vehicles (and, for consistency, a standard infantry with new airborne symbol could replace the SSI icon of some Sad Sack dragging a white parachute across Europe).

Next is a Pack Mule transport that is similar to the cavalry icon.

The others show a single soldier to denote an infantry unit (or light artillery unit), which is consistent with cavalry or armor units that show a single cavalryman or tank (not a cluster of tanks).

The type of figure could tell you the type of unit, as indicated in the examples.


The sizes and artwork are rough for the experiment but this gives a general idea of the icons on the map.


If making the icons smaller leads to two soldiers per icon, the "lead" soldier can indicate type (conscript, reserve, grenadier, etc.) and the following soldier can switch from rifle to bazooka for "43" infantry.

However, cavalry works with one soldier and a one-soldier icon can denote bazooka with a tiny symbol or flag.

Update 12/23/09

All the icons here are no bigger (taller) than the original PG cavalry icon (within a certain margin of error). Any smaller and the horses usually look very bad and the men are close to being stick figures again:

Update 12/26/09

Here are the color single-soldier infantry icons with color vehicles made by others (different contrast levels but gives a general idea):


Here are "monochromatic" single-soldier infantry icons with standard PG vehicles (different contrast levels but gives a general idea):

Add Artillery VT Proximity Fuze

Add the revolutionary VT proximity fuze to US anti-aircraft (AA), air defense (AD), and artillery (ATY) to close another startling hole in original PG/AG and Pacific General (PACG).

The US secret weapon used miniature radar in a shell to tell it when to explode and OSRD's Vannevar Bush estimated that the VT improved US 5" AA effectiveness by 5x. The VT greatly increased the effectiveness of both AA/AD against aircraft (including kamikazes and V-1 buzz bombs) and artillery against ground targets.

• Navy ships used the VT in combat in January 1943
• The Army used the VT in Europe in December 1944

Add the VT to US AA/AD/artillery in PG/AG/PACG by significantly increasing Soft Attack (SA) and adjust costs accordingly.

Existing ship/gun units can upgrade to VT ammunition in the same way that AT gun and tank destroyer units can upgrade to HVAP/APCR/APDS ammunition.

See also:

Add radios for artillery command-control-communications

Artillery's Initiative, HEAT ammunition, and anti-tank (AT) Hard Attack (HA)

Fix Costs for Better AI

Skewed unit cost relative to combat value can cause an AI that considers cost to perform poorly when attacking or buying so use costs that reflect combat value.

Compare AGW estimates against PG unit costs:

AGW...PG
42.........96.....Polish cavalry
99.........72.....Polish (AF) 75mm artillery
78.........24.....Polish TK3 tank
45.........24.....Polish (AF) 37mm ATG
30.........24.....Polish infantry
39.........24.....Partisan
63.........12.....PzIA tank

Note:

• Polish cavalry is worth half a 75mm but costs a third more
• Polish cavalry is worth about the same as partisans but costs 4x more (Polish cavalry Ground Defense (GD) of 2 is weaker than partisans, as weak as artillery, and as weak as 1939 Polish infantry while mounted in trucks)
  
• Some units cost double what they should (Polish cavalry)
  
• Other units cost only 1/3 or 1/5 what they should (TK3, PzIA)
  
• AT units need to be discounted (discount included in $45 price) because, unlike other units, they have class penalties (AT penalty) with no offsetting class advantage but the PG 37mm $24 stills seems underpriced
  
• AT and AD costs are grossly inconsistent within their respective classes
• Efiles that raise cost for rairity or to discourage purchases will fool an AI that considers cost into making bad decisions
• An AI that generates its own estimate of combat value instead of using efile cost will avoid being fooled by efile costs that do not reflect game/combat value
  

A test of AI purchases in the PG Poland scenario suggests that the PG AI might buy underpriced units.

Instant Airfields. Blowing Bridges

Infrastructure: Instant Airfields, Blowing Bridges, Seabees, Cutting Trails, Building Roads and Railways, Saboteurs

Airfields

Add US Marsden Mat Pierced Steel Planking (PSP) for an instant airfield. Many countries took months to build an airfield, which is well beyond the scope of a scenario, but the US used PSP for significantly faster operation. The US PSP unit would be like a bridging unit but with 0 movement, organic transport for mobility, and "aircraft carrier" class.

We can add other improvised airfields if PG Forever (PGF) adds different airfield types for different types of planes:

• Aircraft carriers for carrier aircraft
• Unpaved airfields for light or Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) planes such as a Spitfire or Storch, where a moble airfield (trucked aircraft carrier) represents a unit's staff (planning, ground crew, logistics) that can operate from a grass field
  

Bridges

The PG/AG bridging engineers as a super combat unit is strange since it is difficult to build a bridge (even a pontoon bridge) before you own both sides of the river. Units like the Seabees worked under fire and defended themselves but were not elite combat units. The seabees recruited skilled craftsmen who would be considered old men for commandos. Seabees are not SEALs.

It would be more realistic for an assault unit to suffer the river penalty while crossing in boats to secure the bridgehead before a separate bridging unit gets to work.

The problem is that AG uses the bridging unit as an elite assault force even when a bridge is unecessary in Overlord despite the existence of a separate US combat-engineer unit. Therefore, it is not practical to change the bridging units much without compromising existing scenarios which have critical first turns. However, you can add a more normal, non-combat bridging unit as a supplement.

The gameplay advantage of non-combat bridging units is that you can leave them in place as infrastructure (especially for games which add supply lines) and the enemy can try to destroy them by air attacks.

Blowing Bridges

The two problems for realistic infrastructure like bridges:

• You cannot capture a bridge that is a unit, so cannot use the other side's bridge (which is OK for some applications like pontoon bridges or PSP airfields that are essentially bases with base defenses and could be demolished before surrender--but not OK for all situations)
• You cannot blow (disband) a bridge that is not a unit

We need a bridge unit or terrain that both sides can cross and both sides can attack/blow when adjacent (possibly limit bridge-blowing to certain units like engineers).

Building Roads/Railways, Cutting Trails

It would be good to have trail (through jungle), road, and rail units like the non-combat bridge units that you can lay end-to end or use to replace terrain to build trails, roads, and railroads.

Saboteurs

The ability to blow bridge/road/rail infrastructure would bring new importance to paratroopers, commandos, and partisans.

Add Glider Guns, Special Ops

Add Airborne troops' heavier equipment that they parachute-dropped or glider-landed.

German Fallschirmjager (FJ):

• 8cm mortar
• 3.7cm PaK35/36
• 2cm FlaK AD
• LG40 and LG42
• Kubelwagen recon
  

British Air-Landing (AL):

• 3inch mortar
• 20mm Polsten AD
• 2 pdr
• 6 pdr
• Jeep recon
• Tetrarch tank
• M22 Locust tank

US Glider Infantry (GI):

• 81mm mortar
• M3A1 37mm
• M1A1 57mm
• 75mm pack howitzer
• M3 light 105mm howitzer
• Jeep recon

Show airborne's glider-landed gun towers by giving the guns about half the transports' normal movement to account for limbering and unlimbering time:

• German kettenrad for 1941 Crete invasion
• British/US jeeps for 1944 Normandy invasion

You usually cannot buy sea transport so you can use paradrops to simulate even seaborne commando raids such as Operations Frankton ("Cockleshell Heroes"), Chariot (St Nazaire raid), Agreement (Tobruk), and the Bruneville and Norway raids with small commando units that have high naval attack and spotting=3:

• British/French/Polish Commando troop
  
• German Skorzeny unit
• US UDT (Underwater Demolition Team, pre-SEAL)?

The allies also dropped special agents or small teams who, unlike the typical German agent in Britain, tried to multiply their strength by organizing or fomenting local resistance, which you can represent by the following airborne units:

• Soviet Partisan Detachment, army team dropped to provide cadre of partisan unit
• Infiltrators, NKVD, MIR/SOE, OSS (pre-CIA), dropped to foment espionage and generally disrupt German control