1914 Sandbox games

[Camp Cook]

Dear fellow Canadian I love this game and will try my best to write this in a non critical manner.

No programmer but an experienced gamer and some acquired military history knowledge.

Owner of the old 1936 and now Ultimate.

(With lying Steam telling me I’ve played 1936 over 1200 hours.)



So . . .

I am presently on my 3rd 1914 game now (2 as Venezuela and one as Great Britain) and here are some observations.

Aggression of AI :

For the two Venezuela games Germany bolted out of the starting gate in 1918 and over ran a sleeping Belgium and France. Then, for both games during the next 30 years she took out Russia, all of the minor European neutrals Netherlands, Norway Sweden Greece.

Germany also all made extensive gains in the middle east and Africa.

After destroying Russia she was engaged in a 30 year protracted war in China against an expansive Japan. (I had a sight treaty with Japan and for all 30 years of the war it was a tank versus tank , engineer versus engineer and airship versus airship. No artillery was present, the front was 2,000 kilos long and was a glorious steampunk war of equals.)


While all the above was happening Great Britain never made a defensive/offensive move I as Venezuela was able to observe.
No attempt to support France nor to defend Gibraltar, the Suez Canal and Malta all of which Germany conquered.
In both games Germany destroyed the Royal Navy and invaded/conquered G.B. in the 30’s. (G.B. never developed a anti sub weapon and her navy and trade was destroyed. )


The USA also slept and as she was a principle trading partner of mine for goods and tech.
I was able to observe that the USA in 3 games failed to develop even the most basic war technology. Basic - no planes, guns nor tanks were on her list for research.

In the 50’s she still had no tanks nor aircraft.

Even when I gave the USA billions in tech she refused to use it or manufacture weapons.

In all three 1914 games Austria Hungry and Italy are not observably active.

For the game where I am G.B. - well it’s a non event. WWI and WWII never happened. There have been no “ thats no” world conflicts of any description on the planet.

I am a world wide pariah as G.B. has nukes and the wash from my jets on border patrol knocks their biplanes from the air. No one anywhere has bothered to develop well truthfully anything!

That’s correct Germany, France, Japan use biplanes, have no tanks and it is now in the late 60’s.

I’ll tell you how unusual this situation is . . G.B. is allied with New Zealand so I offered her for no charge a good sized collection of top 60's level tech air, ground and sea units for her defense.

New Zealand told me to go pound sand and to sell of my surplus garbage on Ebay (which is the best Easter Egg I’ve seen in years- Ebay - I love it!)


Conclusion

So I would guess that some tweaking of the AI research /allied response to aggression/national defense priory or even a basic “keeping up with the Jones” script is possibly needing a look see.


Minor Weird Things.

Tribute

Colonies – when as G.B. you build an industry like oil in a colony the original amount of oil in the colony insert only ever shows their original production. So you cannot ask them to send you product at a level you know they can provide as the screen does not show they have it. There is no good way to ascertain if the colony is sending you increased production. If you are receiving that product from multiple sources.

Running G.B. with no specialized screens on the ebb and flow of money and trade from the colonies to G.B. is management by guess and by god.

Building Facilities.
It seems in certain cases no matter the amount of the area’s supply level, industry goods and cash on hand and with the presence of engineering units in the hex. The started facility refuses to develop. 10 , 20 30 years no progress.

You have no way of canceling the project (that I know of, sry if in error on this).

This is frustrating the leader of G.B. so much so that he is contemplating sending a force to reconquer the errant colony but this has to be postponed as he wants to be in the expedition as he personally wants to be on hand to execute that governor with his own weapon.



I have built 6 ocean complexes (not oil rigs , ocean structures) off the coast of England and in high food production lit areas. However I can not seem to determine any industry that can be build on the structures. Nor was the manual helpful.

And last of all.

As a Canadian Please tweak the map and place major world class coal deposits in Cape Breton N.S. and a minor deposit around Springhill N.S.
Where coal is shown on the map in the Annapolis Valley N.S. is ahh, well there ain’t ever been any coal there ever.

All of the above being said. I love this game and the support the developers are willing to give to a project that must seem very old to them.


Thank You

Camp Cook

[GIJoe597]

Originally posted by Camp Cook:

I have built 6 ocean complexes (not oil rigs , ocean structures) off the coast of England and in high food production lit areas. However I can not seem to determine any industry that can be build on the structures. Nor was the manual helpful.

I only want to comment on this for now. Is that a typo? Are you trying to build Agriculture on the ocean? You cannot do that.

[way2co0l_2003]

Yeah, I've observed offshore food areas as well but I'm not aware of any existing facility to utilize them. Should be fairly easy to mod though. And speaking of mods, I concur that there are some issues with the existing 1914 sandbox and I'm currently in the process of creating a mod to try to address a lot of them. It's still very much in its infancy and not at all ready for real gameplay yet, but I'm working on it. As for the vanilla game, I can't speak to how likely it is to see very many changes for a lot of the behavior you mentioned but it's definitely possible. :)

[GIJoe597]

Oceanic Complex is the foundation for an Oil Derrick. It has no other use.

[way2co0l_2003]

I think there's some confusion. In truth, I haven't built offshore oil platforms in a long time, so it's possible I'm mistaken, but I believe the ocean complex is the hub that oil derricks are built around. So to build an oil derrick, you need to build it around an already existing ocean complex, or when you try to place an oil derrick down on an empty tile, it will begin construction of an ocean complex and an oil derrick. But if I'm correct, then you cannot have an oil derrick without the ocean complex. It's basically just like you need a military complex for a barracks or an industrial complex for you industrial goods facilities.

[Camp Cook]

Oil derricks around a central oceanic complex sounds perfectly correct and probably was the intent of the programmers.

However save your money - the oil derricks can be built without the need for a complex and they produce oil as required just fine. At least in the old 1936 and the new 1914 sandbox games this is the case.

[GIJoe597]

Oil Derricks cannot be built without a central hub, in this case the Oceanic Complex, same as any other facility. I do not know how to make it any clearer. I could make a video.

[way2co0l_2003]

I just tested this in the 36 sandbox, and GIJoe is correct. Attempting to build an oil derrick in an empty hex also placed an oceanic complex. You do not save any money by trying to just build an oil derrick as both are automatically built. Nor can you remove the oceanic complex without also removing the oil derricks.

[GIJoe597]

I made a quick video, I really want us all to be on the same page, as it were.

EDIT: Ignore my Georgia accent when I am saying oil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTz3v0NK4A0&feature=youtu.be

[way2co0l_2003]

Your videos are always super helpful. Thanks GIJoe. :D

[GIJoe597]

I took the time to show it in the video.

[Camp Cook]

My bad .

They are there I never noticed nor even knew they existed.

Posts above deleted.

Thanks guys SRY re that!

[GIJoe597]

There is a lot to discover about the game. Which is why I try to make sure everyone is working from the same information.

Happy gaming.

[Camp Cook]

At my age I should be wise enough to check my facts prior to posting. But . . . it seems that is not yet the case.

Sigh!

[GIJoe597]

Was a time when I had many people over 50 to play SR with. Of course that was prior Steam. The more older people the better in my opinion.