Heavily inspired by a heady cocktail of Amaris' fabulous code (NAM, real engineers, etc), Richcat's object expertise, and Pip, Iain & Andrew's latest features that come with the current version of Battle Academy (v2.11), I've been toying around with some cool upgrades to the best GJS'44 D-Day scenarios...
Consequently, I'm looking for beta testers for...
Eight new (or heavily revised) maps, including:
- Sword Beach (the classic D-Day beach assault)
- Ouistreham Landings (more of the same, with a small town to secure)
- Pegasus Bridge (recreation of 6th airborne's night assault on the bridges over the Caen Canal and the Orne)
- Hillman Battery (rush to silence four deadly coastal guns in 716th's fortified HQ)
- Historic Bayeux Town (scamble to liberate the historic Cathedral town)
- Cristot River Crossing (SS panzer division waits in open plains for a fast mechanised Allied vanguard to cross a river)
- Carpiquet Airfield (Hardened SS are outnumbered 2-to-1 with the advantage of strong outer walls, and interconnected cover)
- Caen (the final battle... for this regional city and gateway to Paris, with suburbs, ports, churches, bridges and a fortified castle)
New features:
- Dynamic lighting (Sword, Hillman, Carpiquet & Caen are morning maps, with sunlight from the SE; Ouistreham, Bayeux & Cristot are evening maps, with redder tints, lighting from the SW; Pegasus is a night assault with reduced LOS for both sides)
- 152mm Coastal Guns for the Atlantic Wall (Sword & Ouistreham) and for Hillman Battery
- Royal Navy (HMS Scorpion S-class fleet destroyer, HMS Talybont & HMS Tanatside Hunt class escort destroyers) accompany the landing forces on Sword and Ouistreham
- Destroyers and Coastal Guns can fire AP or mortar shells, including smoke; however, their long range guns cannot target enemy units that are too close (<6 squares)
- DUKWs and DD (Donald Duck) Shermans for Sword and Ouistreham to give the Allies more control about where they plan to land
- Germans have two Voorpostenboote, armed trawlers, for Pegasus and Caen (WARNING: RN destroyers outclass them, and even a PIAT can punch a hole, but they're handy versus ground units from range)
- Destroyers and Vorpostenboote are significantly more vulnerable from their sides (huge target) or tops (weak armour) than from their bow or stern (small moving target)
- B17 bomber bonuses have been added to Hillman and Caen (WARNING: if you're German, use cover. It might mess up your defence but it's essential. Fortresses provide some protection from raids)
- Amaris' fabulous real engineers code (Engineers can now place/remove tank traps, demolish walls/hedgerow, cut down trees, make paths through marshland; actions cost charges/material, but may be necessary to achieve victory on some maps, particularly Carpiquet and Hillman)
- Dual-deploy code, originally developed by Merr and upgraded by Amaris (still enables players to place any of their forces anywhere in LOS, and to preload any transports, but prevents a cheat)
- Bren carriers typed as "halftracks" (to give equal road movement as 251s)
[More to come...]
Known bugs:
Please drop feedback here, and let me know about any bugs or suggestions...
- Amphibious DUKWs and DD Shermans stand too high in the water and don't gently sway and bounce like the warships do (ok, this is a nice to have, not a bug)
- To update DUKW HEeffectiveness, HEsuppression & APattack values
- Pegasus: No cover in a "French House 4" issue - 49,33 and 50,33 to be deleted and replaced
- Consider adding mortar sound/animation to Coastal Gun to differentiate when it is firing in bombard vs direct mode
- Consider locking 152mm Coastal Guns in a fixed direction (preventing turns) and limiting arc of fire
- Switch "burn" function to flamethrowers (from 'real engineers')
- FIXED v1.41b - 152mm Coastal Gun still speaks in Italian, lol
- FIXED v1.41b - Smokey mortar fire from warships only fires one round (I believe this is because there is only one "man"; am trying to figure out how to trick Merr's smoke mod to fire 3-4 rounds from "single" ships)
- FIXED v1.41b - Descriptive text for each battle flows ok on Mac/PC but runs out of space on iPad
- FIXED v1.41b - Odd crash when an enemy warship fires in reaction to your move (you will be able to reload your turn and replay that move; have posted Slith about this)
- FIXED v1.41b - Night time LOS is halved for all units in Pegasus
- FIXED v1.41b - Typhoon removed from Pegasus (persistent RAF flyer accidentally crept in)
Download in the usual way
Neat little instructional vid by fellow gamer IDjester, explaining how to download and setup GJS'44... Thanks mate. Nice!GottaLove88s wrote:1. Run BA on your Mac, PC or iPad
2. If you do not already have any GJS'44 Tournaments on your system, skip ahead to Step 8... If you do have 'em, then you have to delete the old version first (steps 3-7)
3. Choose Multiplayer (at the bottom)
4. Log in to Multiplayer as usual
5. Choose the My Challenges tab (at the top) then press New Challenge
6. Select a GJS'44 Open Tourney scenario and then Delete Campaign (bottom right)
7. Press X until you get back to BA start screen
8. Choose Campaigns (at the bottom)
9. Choose Download Community Scenarios (at the top)
10. Choose Download a Campaign Package from the Internet (top right)
11. Type http://bit.ly/gjs44tourney into the URL box
12. Click the green tick
13. Back at the campaigns list, select "GJS44 v1.4beta Tournament" and click Download the Selected Campaign (bottom centre)
14. This should download everything that you need
15. Press X until you get back to the BA start screen and choose Multiplayer
16. Log in to Multiplayer as usual
17. Either go to the My Challenges tab and click the New Challenge arrow. This list will now show the GJS44 v1.4beta Tournament...
18. Or go to the Accept Challenges tab and click the scenario that you're supposed to be fighting (if your opponent has already setup your game)
After all that, you can play GJS'44 on any platform... Phew!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvykITr5F1k
References
http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono ... orpion.htm
http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono ... lybont.htm
http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono ... atside.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Tanatside_(L69)
http://www.history.navy.mil/library/onl ... rmandy.htm
http://www.worldnavalships.com/type_iii.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorpostenboot
http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ ... ostenboot/
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 85&start=0
http://sgmcaen.free.fr/navire-allemand-canal.htm
Change list for the next update:
[Latest version v1.41b includes all current fixes]
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