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Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.1 (04/12/13)

Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 10:38 pm
by timek28
nikivdd wrote:You probably found the solution to the problem that kept us all busy for a very long time.
I think it can be easily solved as the mod comes with a somewhat changed e-file. I drastically reduced the price of the railguns and the ships; they will be much cheaper to repair (and upstrength) and they won't weigh (so much) towards the prestige cap.
Nikki you did it again :) :)

Everything is fine now. Reducing value of rail-guns from several thousand to about 80 PP returned prestige gain to a regular one. I just hope prestige gain stays stable now. Maybe I should make a post in general section about this weird prestige behavior as it obviously doesn't have to do anything with the mod, since I'm playing the mod under 1.14 rules anyways, where this should not happen.

Cheers, take care :)

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 9:45 am
by nikivdd
THe mod has been updated.
- Text and pzloc corrections made by the mod team
- The Dunkirk scenario is far less Sevastopol like
- E-File tweak to counter the softcap early on (value of ships and railguns significantly decreased)

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 11:54 pm
by Cataphract88
Hi Nikki,
Thanks a lot for the update. :D

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 12:33 am
by timek28
Thanks for considering my suggestions for the update :)

On the side note - great campaign! Africa is tough as hell though... Constant struggle with ammo, fuel, time and prestige... I'm at El Alamain 1 right now. The scenario is as tough as it gets. Brits have infinite resources, they are pouring tanks and planes into the combat left and right... Also the terrain in El Alamain is something I have never seen before. How did you make that kind of terrain? Looks like escarpments but it is not (more like swamps in terms of movement penalty).

I entered combat with good but not good enough core for this kind of conflict. I'm considering replaying the last few scenarios in order to conserve more prestige and over-strength the units more. As usual I was too generous with replacements mid scenarios which in turn saved me only around 1500 prestige in-between scenarios, which is not enough...

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 3:29 pm
by oasis22
Great MOD,

Question to players: Operation Weserubung were we need to capture Kiruna fast or lose a lot of prestige. It takes me 8 turns to get it done, just not fast enough, my flight plan is to conservative i guess, would apreciate any suggestion...thanks

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 5:02 pm
by nikivdd
@Timek

Image

This is the ungenerated map

Image

This is the generated map

I tried to create the illusion of depressions and heights in the endless desert sea.
For the "depressions" i used swamp tile and after map generation i used desert tile overlays and desert coast overlays.
For the "heights" i used hill and mountain tiles and after map generation i used desert tile overlays and desert coast overlays as well.
It also gives the wanted effect that movement is hindered severly in such areas and to simulate that such areas were not cleared of enemy units so easily.

@Oasis

Move Fallschirmjägers to Kiruna asap, don't hesitate to deploy a few extra of your own. Let them secure Kiruna until you can link up with the bulk of your forces.

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 8:30 am
by iceFlame
nikivdd wrote:I tried to create the illusion of depressions and heights in the endless desert sea.
For the "depressions" i used swamp tile and after map generation i used desert tile overlays and desert coast overlays.
For the "heights" i used hill and mountain tiles and after map generation i used desert tile overlays and desert coast overlays as well.
It also gives the wanted effect that movement is hindered severly in such areas and to simulate that such areas were not cleared of enemy units so easily.
Nice touches. There's some real artistry at work there. So much better than most desert maps I've seen. Well done. :D

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 11:05 am
by timek28
Niice :) Although I now know where enemy is and how numerous he is :)

Doesn't matter, I will pretend I didn't see it :)

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:17 am
by timek28
Bah... I will probably start campaign all over again... it seems I cannot pinpoint the sweet spot. The campaign is relentless, and El Alamain 2 is IMO harder battle then 3 Stalingrads combined. It is basically like a 44-45 Soviet steamroller but without Tigers and Panthers. Instead I have to use PzIII and IV tanks to cover vast territory from attack on multiple sectors.I can sense it is winnable , but player needs top notch core for this one. Just when I started creating counter attack around 20th turn, AI started pouring tanks, planes and infantry again, and basically never gave up. I have a feeling that most units in the core have to be over-strengthened to the max for this one to work.

Also I think the previous cost of ships and rail guns made a huge problem for me in terms of prestige starting with Norway scenario where ships where introduced. In that scenario I think I lost around 2000 prestige because of cap. I was getting around 20 PP for VHs. With new settings I should be able to pull more prestige, and build better and more balanced core.

Come to think of it is there a workaround for me in terms of prestige problem? I would really like to do it all again in a honest way, but I just cannot afford to loose that much time again (it would probably take me several weeks to come to El Alamain 2 again). I already restarted campaign 2 times... I hate to use cheats, but is there a cheat for temporary adding more prestige? I would like to add 2000 of it for the beginning of this scenario. In this way I could compensate for problematic Norway scenario, and also I could improve state of my core somewhat. Without giving myself complete OS superiority. In this way I would have around 4500 prestige before El Alamain 2, which should give me better chances and somewhat more realistic feel in this scenario.

Nikki it is extremely entertaining mod, much better then any others that I tried from other authors :) Much much work has been put into it, and El Alamain 2 is a scenario that I cannot compare with anything I have seen in any of PC, AK or AC campaigns, as well as DLCs.

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 7:27 am
by timek28
One more thing. I noticed that AI attacks mines relentlessly in this scenario. Wasting tanks even if they have 2 SP! I don't understand this behavior and I find it erroneous. I don't mind it as it helps me out a lot in eliminating what would else be very problematic attacks. However on my complaint about AI behavior against mines, Razz1 replied with this:

"The AI considers the minefield as a unit. It considers the attack to be an advantage. Therefore it attacks until there is no advantage.
Therefore it will ignore any other unit of yours that is superior to a mine. It's just a poorly designed map with no testing."

It seems that it is not the AI's fault for attacking stupidly... I disagree with this statement though, and I cannot understand what would be differently designed map. Only with no mines I guess, but that makes no sense.

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 7:37 am
by nikivdd
I didn't place the mines by random, it gives a better insight of enemy strength and numbers. The mines offer much needed time to determine strategy while they keep the enemy at bay for a couple of turns.
For my core i kept about 70 ground units and 10 ships, if i had more, i just sold them.

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 7:43 am
by timek28
nikivdd wrote:I didn't place the mines by random, it gives a better insight of enemy strength and numbers. The mines offer much needed time to determine strategy while they keep the enemy at bay for a couple of turns.
For my core i kept about 70 ground units and 10 ships, if i had more, i just sold them.
Ah OK... Well that combined with AI clumsiness around mines definitely gives more time for user to think out the strategy. Thanks for the explanation :)

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 9:20 am
by timek28
I gave my all but couldn't win El Alamain 2... I tried 3 times spending around 15 hours in total. The last battle I played for about 8 hours till the end and defeat. I couldn't conquer last 2 hexes...

Anyways since defeat here is seems inevitable - what are my other options? I have seen the campaign path and it points for complete retreat after this point to the Germany and The End? Now I feel that The End? Is something like the twist in GTPG scenario, but I'm not sure. Nikki can you elaborate on this?

At the end I also believe that El Alamain 2 is winnable, but it just takes too much time end effort. It is an unbelievable grind. If someone can give an advice or two on how to win this battle I would be more then grateful. My thought is that here player needs absolutely superb core, OS at max, experience at max and the best equipment. Although against dozens of Churchills, PzIV or PzIII hardly can be called best equipment. I feel I'm lacking more AT guns. I only have one MarderIII... The numerical superiority of the enemy is astounding and can be handled with such core only. Also it seems that against this many allied tanks only the heaviest artillery can help (Mrs21 cm).

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 8:18 pm
by Horst
If you have already wasted so many PPs due to the prestige cap weirdness before, then edit the "El Alamain 2" scenario and add an instant prestige script action that gives you (Axis) a couple of extra points at beginning. You only have to start over "El Alamain 2" from the end of the previous scenario to make it work.

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 8:38 pm
by timek28
Hi Horst,

I actually added 2000PP with cheat at the beginning of this scenario. I did that as a last resort as I hate cheating. But arguably I lost around 2000PP because of prestige cap in Norway and half of Belgium scenarios. Although, I could have saved more prestige anyways from previous scenarios, but they are very long and I couldn't bother to "play with nerves" in order to create a perfect prestige saving mechanism. I probably did too many elite replacements mid scenarios that didn't need to happen.

So adding 2000 PP gave me around 4500PP to begin with in El Alamain 2. With this I upgraded all of my Bf109s (5 of them) into Fw190s and OS them at max (13) I also OS my 2 JU87Ds at 13 and 1 Bf110G. (13) Also my two He111 are OSd at 13. After this I didn't have much more prestige to spare so I OS only a couple of my tanks to 11. I have about 1/3 of PzIIIL and 2/3 of PzIVGs (around 14 tanks or so). Other units are: lots of combined infantry, 1 MarderIII, around 8 10.5cm artillery, 2 12.5cm artillery and 2 Nebelwerfer 42s, 3 AA guns, 2 rail guns. I also believe going for towed artillery only created a big problem for me (I'm trying to challenge my prior - SP artillery only strategy). So far I feel SP artillery only kind of works better for me, although SP artillery has arguably much less ammo then towed one which can be very visible in harsh desert resupplying conditions.

This gives me an OK core, however stopping Brits here requires superb core. I believe core has to be OSed at max (13 SP) for all tanks. And that probably requires around 6000-7000 PP in total. I might as a last resort add more prestige with a cheat , as I believe superb core is the only way to win this scenario (coupled with superb tactics).

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 9:04 pm
by nikivdd
I was thinking about raising the between scenarios PP by 25-30% and change the 1.21 panzer rules softcap to 0 for the next update. Some rules appear to be very brutal towards large cores.

A loss path was built in after Second El Alamein as the campaign is already very linear.

We do learn all the time as we introduce new elements, a smaller core, a breathable prestige balance at the deployment phase and more scenario choices in the ultimate edition. I haven't set the softcap to 0 there (yet) as i would like to see first hand the impact of this rule on a smaller army.

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 9:43 pm
by Horst
I wouldn't OS and elite reinforce so much with these increasing costs at front line units. I only OS my towed artillery and anti-aircraft which can stay out of artillery range. The slow xp cap increase allows for constant green reinforcements so far, but I'm only at Isabella-Felix at moment. I can imagine that the first encounters with the Brits can easily smash your precious core units to dust and will increase the reinforcement costs for sure. Let's see.

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 1:47 am
by timek28
nikivdd wrote:I was thinking about raising the between scenarios PP by 25-30% and change the 1.21 panzer rules softcap to 0 for the next update. Some rules appear to be very brutal towards large cores.
Well the problem with El Alamain 2 is that Brits are numerically absolutely overwhelming. The Wikipedia states that historically at El Alamein 2 there was around 2 times more British tanks then German ones (500 - 1000). Also two times more men and artillery pieces as well as 3 times more AT guns. The number of planes was about the same (500).

However in LoV scenario there is roughly around 3 times more British tanks (if not more), 3+ times more British planes (I have 10 planes, and I think Brits fielded around 30 of them). I understand this had to be done in order to give AI enough strength, but it made the battle extremely difficult even with superb tactics. Keep in mind that such overwhelming steamroller attacks where held at bay in 44' and 45' only because Germans had Tigers and Panthers which are almost invulnerable. It is very hard to form a steel wall just with PzIVGs and PzIIIls. They simply cannot stop 10+ Churchills. So the bottom line is that PP between scenarios should be increased 30% as you said. As far as I have noticed PP between scenarios never exceeds more then 1000 PP which is very low amount for core of 60 units. I'm hardly able to OS my core in that way.

In fact i will give El Alamain one more try. But this time I will add enough prestige to OS all my units to the max. I see no other way. Maybe if I replayed 4-5 scenarios prior to this one, conserved prestige at max and bought Wurfrahmen40 and Mrs21cm...

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2014 10:47 pm
by Horst
I’m currently in Africa. I like the vast versions of the already known AK campaign regions with lots of travelling involved now. The mix of large and small group, defense and enemy retreat actions is welcomed there.
In Brevity, I suddenly received a bunch of European unit upgrades: wrong theatre setting for Brevity and Battleaxe later?
In Skorpion and Battleaxe, the Italians aren’t available.
Also, the Bersaglieri from Halfaya/Brevity are Germans and not Italians. That’s maybe a bit confusing if you want to upgrade them and keep some organization among nations’ forces.

Re: [MOD] Legacy of Versailles-vanilla v0.2 (13/02/14)

Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 7:58 am
by timek28
Horst wrote:I’m currently in Africa. I like the vast versions of the already known AK campaign regions with lots of travelling involved now.
Yeah. It never gets boring with these large maps. They are what we are used to but like several times bigger maps :)
Horst wrote: The mix of large and small group, defense and enemy retreat actions is welcomed there.
Yes you can never apply only one tactic. Nikki is a genius in a way, since I think he designed more versitale scenarios then original designers. There is even one that involves naval warfare only! There was no such scenario in any game or DLC. Although, I must say - AI pretty much fails in naval combat only. That is why fictional pacific corps game mechanic would have to be overhauled.
Horst wrote: In Brevity, I suddenly received a bunch of European unit upgrades: wrong theatre setting for Brevity and Battleaxe later?
I noticed this too. Suddenly all units get grey camouflage again. For a scenario or two.
Horst wrote: In Skorpion and Battleaxe, the Italians aren’t available.
Also, the Bersaglieri from Halfaya/Brevity are Germans and not Italians. That’s maybe a bit confusing if you want to upgrade them and keep some organization among nations’ forces.
I haven't received any Italian units, except the Sahariana recon infantry. But like you said even that unit when converted looks like German infantry. I guess there is some mix-up in equipment file. Anyways, I don't see almost any use of Italian units that could have been thrown into the core. Sahariana is ok for recon purposes, but every other Italian unit is weaker then German counterpart (apart from the SP 14/11 artillery available later in the game).

A little heads up for you Horst. Try to conserve as much prestige as possible (around 10.000 or more would be good), and keep as quality and versatile core as possible in Africa. It will be tough, but with careful play it is doable. Why I say this - well you will from mid 42 to late 42 play 2 battles of El Alamain. While the first is not that problematic, the second is the biggest onslaught of enemy units since Soviet steamroller. You will need a top notch core to pull DV there, since you not only have to stop the steamroller, but to completely destroy British positions around El Alamain. And to be honest, if you don't pull a DV there the game shifts the path from the winning one to the loosing and retreating one, which is not as much fun.