Erik's campaigns & mods

[prattaa]

US Corps '43 v1.2 playtesting feedback

Difficulty level 3 with imported core from US Corps '42

Core Import 50% experience - I disagree with this being only 50%, unlike German campaigns there are no other fronts that my core would believably be siphoned off to man plus the axis units are usually highly experienced and have superior unit stats, 75% would make more sense

Specialisations - Unable to purchase Infantry Landing Craft, Landing Craft Tank, or Proximity Fuse. They are available in the specialisation tree but the Acquire button says "This specialisation is not yet available" because start date of campaign is set to 1/1/1940. Changing start date to 1943 in campaign editor corrected this. Yes, this makes the campaign tree flat but those specialisations are important considering the first scenario is an amphibious landing. Also, a player starting without an imported core should get some points to spend on specialisations, currently set to 0 in v1.2.

- Gela - make Marine Raiders non-core; naval exit not working; wiped all enemy units by 18/24
- Gela counter-attack - wiped all enemy units by 18/24
- Agrigento - 2 naval commanders but no units to attach to; all enemy destroyed by 20/24; Outcome Event grammar MajOr Victory -> Major Victory
- Palermon - 2 naval commanders but no units to attach to; Bulgarian allies?...oh I see now;
- San Fratello - link deployment zones for consistent supply; primary objective is bugged - Capture all 3 objectives except there are 4 objectives (I believe you are counting Sant' Agata) so scenario ends prematurely; despite event message for capturing Sant'Agata no AI units attempted to exit to the east
- Troina - Insufficient supply (-6) for full deployment; despite event message that axis are retreating and addition of secondary objective to "Prevent any axis land unit from exiting the map" the AI makes no attempt to retreat and there are no exit hexes anyway; primary objective completed 14/30
- Messina - Insufficient supply for full land (-4) or air (-12) deployment at start; not a fan on the insta-spawn of a German battlegroups right in front of the player; at some point I was given a Tiger tank (either after completing the minefield or destroy Tiger secondary obj) as a core unit though it is not mentioned as a reward for any of the objectives; enemy cleared from Sicily turn 19/28
- Salerno Landing - 5 star 88 at Serre; most motorized force in the Wehrmacht ever!!
- Salerno Counter-Attack - grammar in briefing "back to the Salerno" > "back to Salerno"; partial repeat of first sentence in second sentence of briefing
- Naples - could be a few turns longer
- Anzio Landing - briefing error "when te battle ends"; German infantry '44 should be '43 as that unit is not available yet and '44 infantry is not available to the player, especially important considering the increased hard attack/defense of German '44 infantry
- Anzio Defense - the problem with many of the defensive scenarios is that the the VP's all have the same supply value, if the player loses even 1 VP they are put into negative supply and the efficiency of their entire force begins to drop making it even more difficult to defend the other VP's, I would recommend that the Anzio VP make up the majority of the available supply which would allow the player more strategic options than to rigidly attempt to hold everything; additional CP would be welcome
- Anzio Breakout - No issues.
- Volturno Line - No issues.
- Cassino Breakout - the command points allocated in this scenario, 161 land & 38 air, are a significant increase from what was available to the player throughout the campaign in other scenarios, I had to purchase a large amount of ground & air units over the core force used throughout, wiped all enemy by 20/28
- Anzio Link-Up - not enough supply (-3) for full ground deployment with specializations; warn player there are mines in the scenario; it would be better if the tank & a/c rewards for completion of secondary objectives granted the player additional command points rather than new core units with no experience, I had plenty of experienced core units I would rather have been able to deploy in the scenario

General notes:

- There were 2 naval commanders who were with me the entire campaign even though many scenarios had no naval units.
- I am starting to think your supply points should be more back loaded to rear objectives. When player is attacking taking 1 or 2 VP's is usually enough to put AI into negative supply and then it's ability to resist decreases dramatically. Same for when player is on defense that they have to hold everything or the negative supply situation of losing even 1 VP snowballs. This applies to all of the PzC campaigns.
- The campaign needs a different player reward for secondary objectives rather than using specialisation points. I finished this campaign with all specs and 114 points in the bank. Additional CP's and some RP's would be a better reward in my opinion.
- Core units as reward I am not a fan of. I always have core units in reserve that I would rather deploy plus the units given have no experience.
- Player could use additional air & ground CP in all scenarios except Cassino Breakout. With specialisations I usually had 2 air CP I could not use so +1 on all scenarios would be welcome.
- FW190F/G & Me 410 stats are absurd, hopefully these get corrected in future update.
- Another great campaign, looking forward to landing in Normandy.

[Bobster66]

Here is my feedback for my latest play though of the US Navy Campaign.

Pearl Harbor - Much improved from the first couple of times I played this.
If I could make one suggestion, instead of an impossible objective of not losing any Battleships, maybe make them all non-core units and then give a RP award for each one that you exit from the map.

Wake - 48 turns is probably too long, I forgot to record when I finished but it was all over way before then.

Rainbow - It took 28 minutes for the AI to complete the first Japanese turn, and I didn't want to go through that again, so went with #igotnukes.

Coral Sea - No problems with this one.

Midway - Got a Minor Victory right after the Briefing, even before the deployment phase.

Guadalcanal - It started off as normal with a few minutes per turn, but on turn 9 and for a few more turns thereafter it went well over 20 minutes per turn.
Although the count showed 3 of 3 transports arrived at Tulagi, the objective failed.

Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz - both were OK.

Rabaul - I managed to keep my transports alive this time. Transports 1, 2 and 3 all moved directly to port and then 4, 5, 6 stopped moving and stayed in place, which seems weird because ships never stop moving. On Turn 10 #4 finally moved and I think it was because of the approaching IJN. Transports # 5 and 6 didn't move until turn 13 which again I think was because of the proximity of the IJN.

Tarawa - It took the AI 17 minutes per turn for the IJN. There was consistently a couple of minutes of action then a long pause followed by another minute of action before the turn ends.
The biggest problem with long AI turns in a naval campaign is trying to pay attention for enemy subs, and then trying to remember where they were when your turn finally comes around. But with the big gap of non activity, I resorted to concurrently playing Civilization on my other computer.
One thing I thought was odd was the Tarawa transports were removed from the map, but the Makin transports stayed.

Philippines Sea - It started at 12 minutes per AI turn but it kept getting longer, eventually going over 30 minutes.
I was getting a bug that I recall also happened when previously paying this scenario. When attacking an enemy sub by depth charge it goes into an infinite loop with the attack sound and damage graphic, so that there is a constant rumble which persist through the AI turn. The only way to get rid of it is to load a save.

Leyte Gulf - The Primary Objectives to not lose any carriers or battleships went to Failed on turn 2. Because of that the scenario ended in a Draw, which the campaign then made me replay all over again, only to have the failed objectives come up again.
The IJN was completely destroyed or routed by turn 18, but I had to click through 30 additional turns to end the scenario.

Besides optimizing the AI to reduce the time that is required for some of these scenarios, another QoL improvement would to be to remove all transports once they reach their destinations like they did with Tarawa.

Thanks again Erik for your hard work in creating these campaigns! I'll agree with Robert though that this campaign should be considered to be in beta.

[bru888]

By the way, I've been enjoying playing your Aleutians and Oahu scenarios. They're great!

Speak not of such trash in this temple of greatness, sir, I adjure you! But thanks for the compliment, just the same. I may have something new coming out soon. More historical in nature (i.e., it actually happened, unlike those other two) yet based on a fascinating episode that I had never heard of until I stumbled across it recently.

[robertahyuk]

By the way, I've been enjoying playing your Aleutians and Oahu scenarios. They're great!

Speak not of such trash in this temple of greatness, sir, I adjure you! But thanks for the compliment, just the same. I may have something new coming out soon. More historical in nature (i.e., it actually happened, unlike those other two) yet based on a fascinating episode that I had never heard of until I stumbled across it recently.

I'll be waiting to see that one. Your scenarios are flawless and fun as hell to play!

[matthew2582]

Erik & Moderators - I am sure we are all really knocked out by how much work you have put into making these fine, free campaigns and the enormous amount of support you provide here for your creations -

My question is - what is your motivation for what is almost a full time project? If you were selling these add-ons and I am sure many would happily buy them as DLCs - then the motivation would be clear. We are all grateful for what you do..

[Erik2]

US Navy

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, the tardiness of the larger scenarios is a known issue.
I have already pruned the number of ships, but probably needs to reduce the number even more.
Naval scenarios are a quite different beast as the AI searching has to take into account just about the whole map for each AI team.
The community have come up with different theories about number of AI teams, number of units in each ships/air team etc.
I don't think there re any 'magic fix' for the AI slowness though, other than make the scenarios smaller.

[Erik2]

By the way, I've been enjoying playing your Aleutians and Oahu scenarios. They're great!

Speak not of such trash in this temple of greatness, sir, I adjure you! But thanks for the compliment, just the same. I may have something new coming out soon. More historical in nature (i.e., it actually happened, unlike those other two) yet based on a fascinating episode that I had never heard of until I stumbled across it recently.

There is a reason I asked Bruce to be my campaign partner-in-crime.
Not only is he a major bug-squasher of my follies, but his scenarios are really well-produced.
Looking forward to some new bru-stuff.

[Erik2]

Erik & Moderators - I am sure we are all really knocked out by how much work you have put into making these fine, free campaigns and the enormous amount of support you provide here for your creations -

My question is - what is your motivation for what is almost a full time project? If you were selling these add-ons and I am sure many would happily buy them as DLCs - then the motivation would be clear. We are all grateful for what you do..

I have always loved to create stuff, whether it is songs for my band or scenarios/campaigns for this community.
I started editing Avalon Hill board-game rules for my own enjoyment in the 70s and created my first PC-scenarios in the late 90s.
The help and feedback on these forums is a great motivator for continuing to do stuff. And there are so many battles left to do.

The feedback here is really the only way to improve the scenarios. Much appreciated.

[Erik2]

Germany West 1939-40 1.6
Link updated in first post.

Campaign:
Fixed specialisation end date

Poznan:
Fixed pri obj

Sedan:
Fixed supply ships

[Erik2]

Germany West 1941-43 1.7
Link updated in first post.

General scenarios:
Cleaned up AI specialisations

Etna South:
Fixed AI obj

[Erik2]

US Corps 1943-44 1.3
Link updated in first post.

Campaign:
Import core exp increased from 50% to 75%
Changed start date to 1943 to fix certain specialisations
Added ‘boot camp’ specialisations as available at start
Added enough spec points at start to purchase inf/tank landing crafts
Decreased spec point income

General scenarios:
More diverse sec obj rewards; land/air command points/resources/spec points
Any unit rewards should come with some exp


Gela:
Fixed land/naval exit
Removed US naval commanders
Changed Marine Raiders (subst for Rangers) to aux

Agrigento:
Added Italian commander
Fixed spellings

San Fratello:
Linked deployment zones
Fixed pri objs
Fixed German exits

Troina:
Fixed German exits
A bit more restricted US deployment

Messina:
Added air exit/return
Added more Allied air/land supply
Re-deployed Axis units arriving after certain US sec obj captures
Changed Axis resource income
Added Tiger message

Salerno Landing:
Fixed unit exp

Salerno Counter:
Fixed briefing
Fixed US aux unit exp

Naples:
Added more turns

Anzio Landing:
Fixed briefing
Replaced Ger inf with proper type

Anzio Defense:
Increased US supply in objectives
Added fortification to (more) at-start US aux units
Added Cps for one additional air unit
Added 100 US resources at start

Anzio Link-Up:
Added more US supply
Added minefield warning

[Erik2]

US Corps 1944-45 1.2
Link updated in first post.

Campaign:
Reduced spec point income pr scenario
Added hot/cold war graphics

General scenarios:
Replaced the bocage substitute ‘desert rough’ with ‘rice field’ as this may be more appropriate (roads are somewhat functional on rice fields). This should also prevent the AI from getting motorized stuck in ‘bocage’.
Fixed mine fields
More varied sec obj rewards (spec point, CP points, resources)

St.Vith:
Fixed pri obj
Added more turns

Torgau:
Fixed pri obj

[matthew2582]

Germany West 1939-40 1.6
Link updated in first post.

Campaign:
Fixed specialisation end date

Poznan:
Fixed pri obj

Sedan:
Fixed supply ships

Apologies if this has been asked before - but what is the method for updating an existing campaign with your new update? Just copy files over?

[Navman2854]

Germany West 1939-40 1.6
Link updated in first post.

Campaign:
Fixed specialisation end date

Poznan:
Fixed pri obj

Sedan:
Fixed supply ships

Eric, getting a 404 error for this file from Dropbox. All the other updates are fine.

[Erik2]

Eric, getting a 404 error for this file from Dropbox. All the other updates are fine.




Fixed. Works for me now.

[Navman2854]

Eric, getting a 404 error for this file from Dropbox. All the other updates are fine.




Fixed. Works for me now.

Confirmed, thanks!!

[Bobster66]

Germany West 1941-43 1.7
Link updated in first post.

Erik,

I had just started Germany West 1941-43 v1.6 but only got through the first 2 scenarios so started over with v1.7. With v1.7 it no longer let me import my army core. Is this as intended?

[prattaa]

US Corps 1944-45 1.2

General scenarios:
Replaced the bocage substitute ‘desert rough’ with ‘rice field’ as this may be more appropriate (roads are somewhat functional on rice fields). This should also prevent the AI from getting motorized stuck in ‘bocage’.

Would "difficult terrain" be more appropriate? I know visually it appears more hilly than "rice field" but has a greater effect on combat & cover. Even "forest" type might be a better substitute. I just finished Omaha Beach on 1.1 and upgraded to 1.2 for Point du Hoc for play testing.

[Erik2]

US Corps 1944-45 1.2

General scenarios:
Replaced the bocage substitute ‘desert rough’ with ‘rice field’ as this may be more appropriate (roads are somewhat functional on rice fields). This should also prevent the AI from getting motorized stuck in ‘bocage’.

Would "difficult terrain" be more appropriate? I know visually it appears more hilly than "rice field" but has a greater effect on combat & cover. Even "forest" type might be a better substitute. I just finished Omaha Beach on 1.1 and upgraded to 1.2 for Point du Hoc for play testing.

I want to use as substitute terrain something that is not already on the map.
Makes it much easier to replace whenever we get proper bocage terrain.
Also, rice field is the closest we have with regard to properties and visuals (field).

[terminator]

Another more aesthetic temporary solution would be to use Farmland as Bocage by specifying it by Location Name because I think it will be some time before we have real Bocage :

Capture d’écran (459).jpg (203.04 KiB) Viewed 2763 times