Beta map pack Christmas suprise and the other bulge mission

[LOGAN5]

In Christmas Surprise, since the German start out with no tanks all you have to do is take your light armor and shermans and move them out into the open, if the germans charge they will die, they have no choice but to wait for 2 more turns until armor shows up, by that time you have blown up all the trucks and game is pretty much over.

The other mission similar situation, if you setup your defenses correctly there is no way the Germans will be able to break through, and the reinforcements the Germans get will not help in the battle since 1/2 the time you get troops on the edge of the map.. This is probably the worst scenario for multiplayer....

[Acererak]

Agree with Logan (actually was the one on the other side of the battlefield...)

- Randomness is a nice idea but needs some reworking. If you just keep getting infantry on foot or loaded on trucks...frontal assault against allied entrenched positions is a suicide

- The nice idea of randomness is way less nice because of the problem (already discussed) of knowing what your opponent is moving in the replay

- Buying Time mission definitely should have more turns, as the ones provided seem also very hard to achieve the objective

- In both scenarios Axis needs more off map support (Art/Planes). Allied probably a medic

- Buying time would be much more challenging and fun for both sides if the hedgrows on the toop right corner of the map (right next to Axis start point) were deleted and that allowed for some encircling manouvers to attack the big town

Cheers

[Acererak]

Also found a Bug in Buying Time, right after i won the scenario the message with "You held the Bridge" keeps appearing and they game freezes and you need to disconnect.

I have a pending game now that cannot get rid of

[IainMcNeil]

Thanks for the feedback. The idea is that the Allied player doesnt know if there are tanks there or not so risking advance with his limited tanks is very risky.

We can make it so that if you get infantry you're more likely to get tanks next time. I can make the Axis start with a Stug or 2 so if no tanks turn up for a while you can still push forwards.

Another alternative is that you always get the same set of units just in a random order.

Opening up the maps will change the balance - you are supposed to fight through the town not bypas it so opening this up woudl spoil this map I think.

Time limits are hard to get right. The aim is the Allies will always lose and holding on till the time limit is all that matters. I thinkw e need more feedback before we change anything there.

[Acererak]

- Well, i know i repeat myself, but as pointed out in other posts as the current replay of opponents turn shows what type of units he is moving (and around where) the risks of allied forward defense is gone (and much easier to set up the correct traps). I am confident you are fixing this very soon anyway, so no worries.

- Probably sorting out the randomness to more likely armor if you got infantry would work. Sets of units in random order might make balancing the scenarios easier although would take a bit of the "no idea what is coming to me" feeling away. Should need some testing.

- Those two starting Stugs to soften up initial defenses and make allied defense more cautious are a good idea imo.

- Understood about the map. I found out you can take that outfalnking path with infantry anyway, so maybe good enough.

- Time limit definitely needs more testing and feedbak. So far (played around 4/5 games of both scenarios) seems too tight for me, but maybe solving the other issues can speed up the Axis advance, so let´s see.

Cheers

[IainMcNeil]

Yep - we need to get the axis force composition right before the time limits mean anything really.

[pomakli]

Also found a Bug in Buying Time, right after i won the scenario the message with "You held the Bridge" keeps appearing and they game freezes and you need to disconnect.

I have a pending game now that cannot get rid of

and when you loose the msg appearing and clicking on it doesn't help!

It's endless and you can't end the game, so that it appears on your games list forever!

[LOGAN5]

I have 2 "buying times" on my list that wont go away, and also an "unknown scenario"

[pomakli]

I have 2 "buying times" on my list that wont go away, and also an "unknown scenario"

Maybe they are working on the scenario?

[jhdeerslayer]

Buying Time - For me as the German's I won rather easily and had more toys than I knew what to do with. Like mentioned earlier, most units don't even get in the game really.

I went around the left side of the town and grabbed the bridge with about 3 turns left and many units left. I did not even bother going into the major part of town since only bridge VP matters which made me wonder why include the other ones?

Fun one but seems based on my one game anyway, a little tweaking is needed.

[berndN]

I try Buying time the second time as allies but I feel that to beat this will be a hard one as allies player. And a bug report. After I lost the VP as allied player and my opponent done his last turn I started the MP and I got a 'You have lost ...' or whatever which when I clicked on the green button kept reappearing. I gave up on this approach after 30 times coupled with tries to surrender etc. Only chance to quit this loop was to use ALT + F4

[shawnt63]

Buying time for the allied player is not as difficult as it may seem. You have to draw back a lot of resources to tighten up the defensive perimiter. Use hit and runs and continually displace but dont' allow the Germans to come in free. Worked for me in a couple games.

[IainMcNeil]

I've made the forces in the two bulge maps less random and added some bonuses. I've also tightened up the map a bit to force the action through the town in Bulge 2. I've fixed the repeat message at the end but still got a crash bug I cant find so passing that over to Phil.