Erik's campaigns & mods

[ctskelly]

One of the comments still stands: Avranches is not winnable.

2) Avranches: To win, you have to exit ten units but with only 24 turns and two exit points, it's impossible. That means you have to get through those heavy German defenses and capture one of the exit points by turn 14, or both by 19. I could get 10 units below the river by scenario end, but just being able to exit two max per turn, could not get ten off the map. I suggest you add more exit points or reduce the number needed to exit.

WAIT! I was wrong. It is possible to win once you find the right strategy (I did, but just barely), and it requires all the tactical tricks Erik's scenarios are so good for. Don't change anything. It is an excellent scenario for us buffs! Bravo, Erik, Bravo!

[Erik2]

ctskelly

Thanks for correcting the first feedback and glad you found a way to beat the scenario.

[bru888]

Erik, CSI Sweep: Germany East 1941-42 v. 2.7 is complete.

Before I go further, I have messages for two guys and the general public:

Two guys (Dwightd and Bobster66), your comments on this campaign were very timely. They came just about the time Erik invited me to a CSI sweep on it. I addressed every one of your reported issues and they came in very handy as things to look for. I'd like to think I would have found all of them myself but your comments were helpful in that regard and saved time. Thanks.

General public, make no mistake about the quality of Erik's work when contemplating the length of that CSI sweep thread. We all admire the quality, and quantity, of Erik's work. Four things:

1) This game is very complicated. That is, it can be very complicated with a high level of design sophistication. Erik strives for sophistication.
2) What I find in my sweeps are often things that should be, but fail and are not evident. That is, designer and players "don't know what they are missing."
3) I am a perfectionist. I admit it. Much of what I talk about is nitpicking nonsense, like spelling corrections. I can't help it; it comes with the Bru package.
4) I'm also a windbag, as you can see here. I need to get out more.

I am Erik's biggest fan, which may account for why I do these jobs. I am collecting his stuff and I want it to be even better than it already is.

Okay Erik, now that I am done buttering you up, I did find a good amount of the usual things; please use your discretion as to which should be acted upon, including my occasional design suggestions. By far, the biggest challenge that you have with Germany East 1941-42 is with scenario objectives and their associated triggers. Following is a summary of what I uncovered:

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES

• No AI objectives, meaning Defeat for the human player is not possible.

• Questionable use of "-1" infinite frequency for primary objective triggers.

• Mixing German scenario-end conditions with repeating "-1" trigger frequency.

• Soviet triggers that reverse German objective attainments, and with finality.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES

• Unnecessary AI secondary objective triggers. (Usually, either secondary objectives are fulfilled (Major Victory / Minor Defeat) or left open (Minor Victory / Major Defeat). Only occasionally is it beneficial for the player to know that a certain secondary objective has been failed.)

• Not using "-1" infinite frequency when necessary. (If it is a "back and forth" situation, then corresponding sets of triggers are necessary. However, these must be marked with repeating "-1" frequency.)

• Rewarding goodies repeatedly. (If it is "back and forth" with "-1" frequency, then the German rewards can be inadvertently repeated.)

Some of these ideas were developed as I went along in the thread. You may want to at least skim through it all before deciding what to do in the earliest scenarios.

[Erik2]

Bruce

Once again, a big thank you for another excellent sweep.
Germany East 41-42 is a rather old campaign, no wonder you found some 'standard' issues there.
Good timing that other player's had just reported back some play issues as well.
I've been updating scenarios as soon as they were swept, so a campaign update is not too far off.
It is funny that two grown-ups are the greatest fans of each other's work


Erik

[Erik2]

Germany East 1941-42 2.8

Campaign updated after the infamous Bru CSI sweep.

Link updated in first post.

Campaign:
Added events

General scenario edits other than Bru's recommendations:
Added new Soviet commanders
Added Soviet unit experience at a slightly faster rate (from the 3rd scenario)
Replaced substitute units with new Guards etc
Bridge blowing: The ‘unit-on-the-hex’ requirement is to add a random element. This means Soviet bridge blowing will be pretty rare.
German air/land exits: These were an earlier request from players probably needing a way to salvage units.
Note that I some times use neutral ownership to prevent initial deployment in/around certain objective hexes in a number of scenarios. This to create a more historical realistic scenario start.

[nono hard et heavy]

Hello Erik.
I took the liberty of doing this for your Road to Moscow campaign.
Greetings.

Road to moscow 1.jpg (432.27 KiB) Viewed 2588 times

Road to moscow 2.jpg (423.06 KiB) Viewed 2588 times

[Erik2]

Hi there, nono hard et heavy

Thanks for publishing these campaign trees.
I'll add them to the campaign folder.

Erik

[Bobster66]

Bru, not nessecarily.
1) Specializations can add additional CP not reflected in the editor.
2) There are defensive scenarios where you will lose frontier objectives and supply points before the player even has a turn to react.

Well, upon some application of my "Rule of Thumb," I find that your number 1) can easily be accounted for by adding "+4" for land and "+2" for air to the calculations. According to specialisations.txt, the only specialisations that mention command points are these:

• Female Factory Labor

• Jerry Can

• War Economy

• Wehrmacht Canister

Of those, "Jerry Can" and "Wehrmacht Canister" appear to be vestigial entries, left over from some ideas that never got off the ground - they are not listed in specialisations.csv - whereas "Female Factory Labor" and "War Economy" both provide for "• +2 Land and Naval Command Points| • +1 Air Command Point." Moreover, their effective dates are "1941" and "/" (always) respectively, and they are available to all factions, so I would bet they are both going to be used in most scenarios and campaigns.

Regarding your number 2), that's harder to spot but if I do, I will point it out in my CSI sweeps. Thanks for this input.

This reply is a little late, but I've been busy playing through Germany East 43. One other Specialization for the Germans add a whole lot of new CP's to the pool, and that of course is the Waffen SS. This affected starting supply for a good number of the 43 scenarios.

[Bobster66]

Here are my notes for Germany East 43. Played with an imported core on standard difficulty and scenarios to me are considered balanced if 5 or less turns are remaining before achieving a minor victory.

The following scenarios suffered from insufficient starting supply with War Economy, Female Factory Labour and first stage Waffen SS:
Orel
Yakovlevo
Oboyan
Kursk Armoury South

Kharkov - I got a Major "Vicotry" in this one. Typo aside it was otherwise balanced.
Belgorod - Balanced.
Orel - All Russians destroyed with many turns remaining. It seems impossible to prevent a loss of an Italian unit.
Yakovlevo - All Russians destroyed with 10 turns remaining.
Oboyan - Balanced.
Kursk Armoury South - Balanced.
Prokhorovka - The free Tiger on turn 3 put that sector into negative supply, but otherwise all Russians were destroyed with 10 turns remaining. No achievement was awarded for destroying the SU152.
Dnipropetrovsk - There is nothing the player can do to prevent the loss of Auxiliary units on the first turn. Due to the neutral zone hexes around Stary Kodasky the Germans went into negative supply on the first turn even though no supply hexes were lost at that point. Once again all Russians were destroyed with 10 turns remaining.
Kremenchug - The amphibious assault would not land. So while the rest of the Russian ground forces were destroyed with almost 10 turns remaining, those remaining turns were used to bomb the transports and build back up the experience of the Luftwaffe.
Kiev 43 - All Russians were destroyed at the halfway point of the scenario.

Although many of the scenarios were completed with plenty of turns remaining, the opening turns are extremely punishing on the German forces and a soak up a lot of RP's. Of course that is the way it should be.

Thanks again Erik, for your excellent work!

[Erik2]

Bobster

Thanks for the feedback.
I got a lot of Germany East 43 stuff to work on. Maybe it is time to do something about it

[GabeKnight]

I'm playing "US Corps 1942-43_1.1" at the moment and I've got to say that the Bruce-Erik design/CSI team did a hellovajob with the workings of the campaign.

Although I've been too pampered playing vanilla campaigns and forgot how difficult (and frustrating ) Eriks stuff can be at times, I'm really impressed how well all the triggers are working now. I've got almost nothing written in my notes!
(I'll post my suggestions later, I'm updating my mod right now)

So, I'll say it again, GREAT JOB and THANK YOU Erik and Bruce for the new quality standard of the custom campaigns!!!

[Erik2]

On behalf of myself and my little helper (just kidding Bruce...), thank you for the kind words.
Players enjoying these campaigns make it worthwhile spending a few hours with them

[bru888]

On behalf of myself and my little helper (just kidding Bruce...)

No, no. That is so. Take it from me, one who has designer's block: Building a scenario is hard work, especially against the AI. You have quite a lot of skill and fortitude for which we all admire you, Erik. Add to that a library of campaigns which will be played over and over again and I feel quite recompensed for what I do, even though I am like the fellow who sweeps up the studio after Michelangelo is done sculpting for the day. But thank you, Gabe, for including me in your accolade. Much appreciated.

[Dwightd]

Interesting. I think this is the first player feedback stating a US Corps scenario is too easy

Ok, after clearing my head, I may have to take back some of my typing I continued with my Blizkrieg ways clear through Avranches. I was always out of rp and could not keep experience in my corp units. I was crashing headlong into every defensive position I could find Each new scenario I would have to give myself rp just to get my core back to full strength. So I pondered the wise words of ctskelly and decided to start over with a patient mind set. The second time I started the campaign, I went slowly and softened up each defensive position and moved in while they were weak to mop up. That worked perfectly for every scenario up to Avranches. My core was taking far less abuse. Each scenario took the full number of turns, and I always had rp for repairs and even an upgrade or two.

So the US Corp 1944-45 is a completely different playing campaign, patience is the key. Once again Erik, you have challenged me to learn a new way to play. Nice job !

I do have one note on Carentan. I completed all of the objectives but only got a minor victory, no biggie.

Carentan.jpg (337.38 KiB) Viewed 2375 times

Keep up the good work (You too Bru) !

[bru888]

I do have one note on Carentan. I completed all of the objectives but only got a minor victory, no biggie.

I have good news and bad news. The good news is, to fix this, just delete the "Check Turn" condition and make it "Combat Event" as there is no reason to wait to evaluate it until the end of the scenario:

Screenshot 10.jpg (216.02 KiB) Viewed 2361 times

The bad news is, well, let me make a separate thread and link to it. Here it is: What does "Scenario turn limit" mean, exactly?

[Dwightd]

While cleaning my rifle between scenarios, I wrote down a few more notes

US Corp 1944-45, V1, Cotentin, medium level

This was a good one with the changing objectives. First off, there is a lonely german AT gun stuck in the sand. All he can do is sit and watch the whole US army roll past

Also those changing objectives did not all wash out clean in the end. The scenario went full turns. I made sure I had ground units in all the spots on the coast marked A, but did not get credit for it. Also did not get credit for putting the Luftwaffe to shame


As always, love the content!

[Dwightd]

Heh, seemed to drop my second image

[Dwightd]

US Crops 1944-45, Cherbourg, v1, medium level.

Erik, are you keeping secrets from us. Are you hiding objectives from us

All of the objectives are completed, but it was only a minor victory. This one went full turns also.

[bru888]

I bet that's another manifestation of the What does "Scenario turn limit" mean, exactly? thing.

The secondary objective is waiting for the end of Turn 28, which includes the German turn #28, but you ended the scenario on your Turn 28 (you move first in each turn) by completing one or both of the primary objectives:

Screenshot 1.jpg (205.95 KiB) Viewed 2317 times

Screenshot 2.jpg (223.45 KiB) Viewed 2317 times

Screenshot 3.jpg (219.68 KiB) Viewed 2317 times

Now, why would the game mark the secondary objective as completed but only give a Minor Victory? Who knows? That's programming. It could be that the game evaluates Major/Minor Victory first, sees the secondary objective is still open, then says "Minor Victory" but when it closes out the scenario, it ends Turn 28 and that, finally, is the "Scenario turn limit." Hence the green check.

I'll say this for the second time today: "Who the heck ever knows with this game? "

[GabeKnight]

Now, why would the game mark the secondary objective as completed but only give a Minor Victory? Who knows? That's programming. It could be that the game evaluates Major/Minor Victory first, sees the secondary objective is still open, then says "Minor Victory" but when it closes out the scenario, it ends Turn 28 and that, finally, is the "Scenario turn limit." Hence the green check.

If it's not some mix-up with the texts in the settings, I think it's EXACTLY as you've observed/described. I'm quite sure I've ran into this at least once before. Only happens if the scen ends on the very last turn.

You have to make sure to not mess up the conditions and trigger events. And internally, I think that even the order of the triggers (which comes first in the list) may have influence on the execution.