Slitherine

Here's some pics of what I'm working on for a while. Wokr is rather slow, so I can't say when it's ready yet.

I think from the pics it's no secret that this is a Brit campaign.

That looks very good! What path will the campaign take? Also, is Dynamo the first scenario?

Dunkirk/Dynamo is the 2nd after Arras.

Then it's desert war from Op. Compass vs. Italy 1940 to Tunisia 1943, later a couple os scns in Italy and finally Western Europe.

I'll post the full path once I determined the final scns, which I have not done yet

Does indeed look nice! Sounds like a interesting campaign, looking forward to it.

bebro wrote:Dunkirk/Dynamo is the 2nd after Arras.

I was hoping for a Norwegian start, but Arras will be nice too. Looking forward to this!

Then it's desert war from Op. Compass vs. Italy 1940 to Tunisia 1943, later a couple os scns in Italy and finally Western Europe.

Are you skipping Greece and Crete?

On a graphics related front, please consider - if you have the time - adding a few more aircraft like the Gloster Gladiator for the British and Fiat G.50 for the Italians. The Gladiator in particular would be a nice addition, especially for Africa. You`d have from what to upgrade to the Hurricane and Spitfire.

morge4 wrote:Does indeed look nice! Sounds like a interesting campaign, looking forward to it.

Thx



Mark: Yeah, left out Greece/Crete because I have scns in Africa playing at the same point in time. As for unit gfx - yeah, both of those planes will be in

Just stopping by to state that more of bebros work can only be a very good thing.
I'm actually not much a fun of the british (ww2 campaign wise), but I'm looking forward to giving it a whirl anyhow.

_____
rezaf

I think that a British campaign will make a nice change.

Hurray. Another Bebro campaign in the works. Jolly good show
Of course, we expect the same quality for this campaign as it was the case with the superb Soviet campaign

nikivdd wrote:Hurray. Another Bebro campaign in the works. Jolly good show
Of course, we expect the same quality for this campaign as it was the case with the superb Soviet campaign

And the Jap campaign.

- BNC

Thx for the nice comments, guys....

Looks like some great job, as always!

I really like the new desert camo for the British units.
My only little concern is with the third screenshot: the continental style city tile looks silghtly odd in the African theatre with the church and stuff. I think it would be better to change it to the North African city tile, even if it is not on a desert hex. Other than that it looks very promising!

Cannot wait to see the Galdiator and the G.50! And if we are here, would not it be nice to restrict the player from upgrading to Spitfires early on? As I know in N Africa the British only used P-40 and Hurricans initially as the Spitfires were held back for the defense of England and it was not until August 1942, that the first Spitfire unit became operation in North Africa. (However, some Spits did arrive for the defense of Malta, earlier in March.) I think it would make a more interesting upgrade path Gladiator -> Hurrican/P-40 -> Spitfire.

bebro wrote: As for unit gfx - yeah, both of those planes will be in

Awesome! What else is in? Also, those shots from the desert look very nice with the theater appropriate skins. Do you intend to make desert versions for all the British units?

My only little concern is with the third screenshot: the continental style city tile looks silghtly odd in the African theatre with the church and stuff.

I`m guessing that`s an image from one of the later scenarios that take place in western Europe.

I have desert skin versions for all Brit vehicles and aircraft used in the scns paying in Africa, so not for everything in UK use. So far I didn't skin any towed guns, AA etc because it's quite some extra work and the standard Brit color does not work so bad IMO here.

As for units, it'sall based on vanilla of course, but there are quite a number of additions and modifications still for both combat units and transports. To give some examples:

Gurkhas 40 and 43 (elite inf, bonus only)
QF 18 pdr early arty
boosted Valentine tank line up to Valentine VIII
split Sherman Firefly into IC and VC submodels
split Spitfire main versions into VB, VC; later XIVC and XIVE submodels
added Crusader AA Mk.III incl. ground switch
more TPs like Leyland Retriever

For the axis, aside from known German units there are some more modifications of captured French types that were either used in North Africa or later in the Normandy (Marder I on H39, or sp arty on Lorraine chassis, or the halftracks I posted already).

There's way more, reworked some also vanilla gfx for existing units.

From Sicily 43 it will be possible to add Canadian core units, incl. tanks, arty, recon, aircraft - mostly known Brit types though, but at least some specific ones too.

I thought a while about allowing more core units from Commonwealth nations like Australia, New Zealand, South Africa etc. to Free French and Free Polish units, but again much of those used similar or identical Brit equipment so I left then as aux, and went with Canada only. But I filled the roster for other nations too, so they will field way more types in many scns than just infantry.

Overall the campaign has already more scns than Inferno, the difficulty is a bit lower, and prestige more generous from a certain point. Though that doesn't mean that every scn in between is easy...Mayb I also allow 2 starting points here, either France 1940, or vs. Italy in the desert from late 1940.



McGuba:

Yeah, that's a good idea with those Spits, I certainly make some of the UK equipment theatre-dependant were it makes sense. So for example you can't get 4 engine strats in Africa. I probably make the Spit I - II unavailable in the 1st dersert scns, albeit the player gets a Spit in France (since they guarded the evac from Dunkirk). I don't think most players will bother with Gadiators though, they are in, but when you can buy a Hurricane or better already I guess most people will not use a Glad as core unit. But I added them to some early desert scns vs. Italy, and there they're quite useful.

I guess I can change the city just by using another overlay manually, currently it's what came out of the auto-generation.

bebro wrote:I guess I can change the city just by using another overlay manually, currently it's what came out of the auto-generation.

Sure, you can, it only came up because the editor's auto gen thought it is in Europe because you used the green land tile and not the desert one. It is always like that. Yes, you can just put another African town hex overlay on it and that's it.

Looking forward to more info and screenshots

Here's some info on the campaign flow, some 44/45 stuff is still WIP so left out so far:


Western Europe 1940
1. Arras
2. Op. Dynamo (Dunkirk evac )

North Africa 1940-43
3. Op. Compass 1
4. Op. Compass 2
5. Easter Attacks after Op. Sonnenblume (1st contact with Afrika Korps)
6. Op. Brevity
7. Op. Exporter, allied invasion of the Vichy controlled Levante, so Syria, Lebanon (little vacation from fighting Rommel)
8. Op. Crusader01
9. Op. Crusader02
10. Gazala
11. Mersa Matruh
12. First El Alamein
13. Alam Halfa
14. Second El Alamein
15. Pursuit to Benghazi
17. Mareth Line
18. Tunis

Italy 1943-44
19. Sicily
20. Salerno
21. Volturno Line
22. Barbara Line
23. Anzio Beachhead

Western Europe 1944-45
24. DDay
25. Caen
26. Falaise
27. Market Garden
... and then maybe 3-5 more or so (not decided yet) to make it to Germany.


Why Op. Compass and Crusader two times each? Both covered large distances from the Egyptian border via Tobruk, Derna, to Benghazi and even more. So they need either a very large map, or one where distances are set to very small. In the end I wanted that distance is noticable, but does not lead to overly huge and long scns. So I basically split up those two Ops into a "breakthrough" and a "pursuit" stage.

There's one scn where you need to cover the whole distance in one, which is the "Pursuit" scn after 2nd El Alamein. But there you'll see that the Afrika Korps is in full retreat (as it was then) so with good motorization you can cover even large distances relatively quick, and don't need to fight down deep defence lines here.

Hardest part in the 1st half of the cam is happening before, from Gazala to 2nd El Alamein, with only Mersa Matruh in betweenas a little breather.

Finally another appetizer - UK tank choice later 1942. I reworked some of the stock units, not only with DCS skins, also for example to have all Churchills using roughly the same size.

Very nice!

Truly awesome work Bebro...as always

May I make a scenario suggestion?

Operation Varsity/Operation Plunder:

Operation Varsity:
The US 17th and British 6th Airborne Divisions were dropped on the German side of the Rhine (in daylight again ) to protect a 21st Army crossing

Operation Plunder:
The actual crossing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Varsity

Are we going to be fighting the Soviets at all? I think we should go to Warsaw, seeing as that was the whole reason that the UK joined the war - to protect Poland! They can't let it become communist for 45 yrs after Stalin promised a free country!

- BNC

Hey Airborne, nice to see you still around here Thx for the suggestions, these are good ideas.



BNC, i'd leave it with historic battles, after 30 plus scns the cam is long enough.