New Leaders

[GaryChildress]

I'm in the process of adding a couple new German commanders to the game. What would be a good rating for this commander as far as leadership, attack and defense?

Herman Hoth


Thanks for any help.

EDIT: Also what are people's thoughts on adding new leaders to the game as far as balance and fairness are concerned? Should each country receive a boost in leaders to make the game more balanced?

[GaryChildress]

Also, how do you add leaders to the game? Is it possible to add additional leaders?

[BuddyGrant]

You can edit the abilities if the existing leaders in the leader.txt file, as well as change their order, but the number of leaders per side is hard coded into the game. The Grand Strategy scenario folks are able to add/subtract leaders by decompiling & recompiling the game, but it's not an edit option otherwise.

[GaryChildress]

You can edit the abilities if the existing leaders in the leader.txt file, as well as change their order, but the number of leaders per side is hard coded into the game. The Grand Strategy scenario folks are able to add/subtract leaders by decompiling & recompiling the game, but it's not an edit option otherwise.

OK. Thanks. I guess editing the leader list will have to go on the wish list for CEAW II.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

It's possible to add leaders to the current version as well, but you need to know how to do it. You don't have to change any code, but you need to alter all the leader files the same way. You need to create a link to the bio in the message files etc. It's quite a bit of work, but certainly doable.

We've added several new leaders for each side (including Hoth) for GS 2.0. Leaders are cheaper and leader range is not fixed to 8, but same as leader quality - 2. So you need more leaders to support a front line.

At the moment we have the following numbers:
Germany: 21 (including SS generals Hausser and Dietrich)
Italy: 12
UK: 19 (including leaders from CW countries)
France: 7
USA: 12 (including deGaulle and Leclerc that can be put on Free French units)
USSR: 21

[GaryChildress]

Sounds awesome! I can't wait for GS 2.0 to arrive!

Another question: What are your thoughts on making turns 15 days instead of 20? What I've done in my current game of GS 1.06, I've lessened armor movement to 5 hexes and infantry corps movement to 3 hexes and turns are 15 days instead of 20. Otherwise, to me, the game goes by too fast.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I don't think the game is too short. You need to play more than 100 turns to complete it.

Changing the turn length is not simply because it's not only about movement, but more about production, game balance etc. With 24 turns instead of 18 turns per year you get more turns to get production and that means the Allied war machine will overwhelm the Axis too soon unless you do something about the production.

Offensives will last longer because you have more turns of good weather until you have to dig in for the winter. So that will also change the game balance.

So if you wan to change the turn length you need to change many things you don't think about (like triggers for when certain events happen) and re-test the game quite a bit to make it balanced. It's a lot of work.

Some people think that it takes too long to complete the game (100+ turns) so I think 20 days per turn is a pretty nice compromise. An alternative could be to let the Spring / Summer turns be 14 days and the winter / fall turns be 28 days so the total number of turns would still be 18. That's similar to the impulse system in WIFFE where the impulses advances faster to turn end during the winter so you can actually do less before the turn ends. But I think people are so used to the 20 day time period that messing with it will only confuse the players.

[joerock22]

I don't think the game is too short. You need to play more than 100 turns to complete it.

Changing the turn length is not simply because it's not only about movement, but more about production, game balance etc. With 24 turns instead of 18 turns per year you get more turns to get production and that means the Allied war machine will overwhelm the Axis too soon unless you do something about the production.

Offensives will last longer because you have more turns of good weather until you have to dig in for the winter. So that will also change the game balance.

So if you wan to change the turn length you need to change many things you don't think about (like triggers for when certain events happen) and re-test the game quite a bit to make it balanced. It's a lot of work.

Definitely. I think CEAW has a good turn/game length. If you implement all the changes Borger talked about, it would be like an entirely new game instead of a mod based on something we’re familiar with. At the tactical level, you'd have to basically relearn how to wage warfare because many of the small-scale tactics that work now would not work with reduced movement. I think you'd end up with a less flexible game.

[GaryChildress]

This is true. There would need to be changes to some features to balance out a change in turn length. However, I guess coming from games like War in the Pacific where a single year of a 5 year game is 365 turns, I tend to equate longer game = more fun. Granted, I'm not saying the game should be 365 turns. Basically it would come out to about 170 turns total at 15 days per turn. To me that is a good length. As it stands now it just seems like the game is too short to me. CEAW is one of the funnest games I own and I just would like to see the fun stretched out a bit more.

[BuddyGrant]

It's possible to add leaders to the current version as well, but you need to know how to do it. You don't have to change any code, but you need to alter all the leader files the same way. You need to create a link to the bio in the message files etc. It's quite a bit of work, but certainly doable.

Thanks for the tip, that was very helpful. Here is some additional related info for other modders: It's actually very easy to add leaders:-). You only have to make the changes in the language version you use. For Grand Strategy changes you guys want all language users to be able to see new leaders in whatever language they prefer so it would be more arduous, but for people that just want to edit the files for their own use they don't have to deal with the extra work.

For example, for me using the english version of the game I just have to append my new leaders to the end of the 'leader.txt', 'message_eng.txt', and to be safe, the 'leader_eng.txt' files. Make sure you match the format of the preceding rows and increment the Biography number by 1. The easiest/safest way would be to copy/paste a preceding row to the end of the file, then manually edit the name and strength. Note that you cannot edit the price - that calculation is hard coded based on how powerful you make your leader. If you want to fool around you can create super leaders with 10+ Leadership, attack, and defense modifiers. For a super leader effectiveness shoots up to well over 100 for the impacted units, and you will see insane attack odds like 42-to-0 when you up the attack value. Potentially good for some fun scenario's, obviously not useful for historical scenario's though!

I think the initial errors I saw when trying these edits myself were due to me trying to insert new leader rows instead of appending them to the last rows of the 'leader.txt'. Seeing the 2 new GS leaders (degaulle and leclerc)at the end of the file should have tipped me off, but I'm glad this type of edit was brought up again in this thread.

The leadership range can be edited in the general.txt file, but you only are able to select 1 range for all leaders. I believe the upcoming GS changes have varying ranges for leaders, not sure how they will do that but obviously a pretty useful thing to edit.