So I managed to free up an AI zone that I could use for such a script, because I like this thinking. Currently the prestige system looks like this:Thanks for considering the prestige issue. I understand what you're saying about the limited AI scripting, it's just I think it might make the game more interesting if the player has to weigh the reward versus the risk of trying to hold a city like Rome. Yes there are lots of cities like Rome in Europe, but Rome is the only one that was a partner in the Pact of Steel which IMO gives it special significance. Trying to hold it would certainly pose a risk to the troops involved but the 'prestige' of keeping a primary ally in the game might outweigh the risk.
- Axis gets 250 prestige points each turn as a basis,
- 100 pp/turn for Ploiesti oil field in Romania (as long as it is held), and 100 more for each oil field taken (if any at all)
- from early 1942 100 extra pp/turn added after Speer's appointment to Minister of Armaments and War Production
- another extra 100 pp/turn added from 1943 as German economy is finally fully geared to war production
The latter two are mainly needed as unit cost are rising - reinforcing a Panther costs considerably more than a Pz.III for instance.
- large amount of prestige (between 1500-5000) is awarded for the capture of certain key objectives such as Moscow or Malta, or for whole areas like Caucasus or England. I could only make it as these areas have their own assined zone anyway, for gameplay (battle scripting) reason. So I cannot really add more, even though I would like to.
- Axis also gets 50 prestige points (up to a maximum of 250) for each naval unit which ends its turn on the North Atlantic convoy routes.
It might appear to be a bit too much, especially compared to the above numbers, but I think the importance of the Battle of the Atlantic should not be underestimated, the U-boat peril being "the only thing that ever really frightened" Churchill in WW2. Also, while ground units can make money by taking victory objective cities, naval units cannot do the same. And because of the high prestige reward, the player is forced to use (and eventually lose) the U-boats where they were used (and lost) historically. Otherwise the player would just save them to repel the D-day landings, for example. While during the "happy times" U-boats will truly make a small fortune for the player, from mid 1943 they will be lucky to reach their area of operation in one piece, as historically. So, the available prestige per turn starts to plummet, and at this point the player has to make another decision: whether to send out the U-boats in the hope that they will somehow reach the convoy zone and generate some prestige before they are sunk or save them for D-day. Just as Dönitz, who knew that he is sending the crews to their (almost) certain death, but had little choice. New U-boats were rolling out from the factories and the green crews were ready for service, so he had to do something with them. And the propaganda machine was expecting the continued successes of the U-boats, which were the only way to strike back at the Allies who, by that time, were busy ruining German cities to ground level.
So, my idea is to leave this system as it is, as it has been tested to late 1944 and it seems to work as intended, but I could make the basic 250 prestige per turn to be based on the possession of certain important Axis cities to make them worth fighting for.
Thus, as you suggested Rome would bring e.g. 50 prestige each turn as long as owned by Axis, so as Budapest and Bucharest, being the other important Axis members, and maybe Paris as well. Or, Rome could bring 100 and the rest 50, I am not sure about the list, so some suggestions would be welcome here. I am really puzzled now, and do not know how to list the cities. The point is that the added value should not exceed this 250. And I would not include the main German cities as holding them is a condition for a victory or even for a draw, so they have to be held anyway.