Red Dawn 2.00 (Feb 2012)

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 2:51 am

Thanks. If you want any help with yours just let me know. The AI takes quite a bit to get right and even then it's not always exactly what you want. Balancing a campaign is the second part of its name - a pain!

OmegaMan1 · Post by **OmegaMan1** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:47 am

Hi El C, as you know I've been playing Red Dawn and, like Xerkis, I'm enjoying it very much. I have noticed a possible bug that may or may not be connected to your mod. In both of the first two scenarios, I notice that quite often when I move a recon unit the little green arrow for movement remains active, even when the unit actually has no movement points remaining. This only happens about half the time -- perhaps it's a particular move/attack sequence I am performing; I'll have to pay attention and see if I can cause it to happen intentionally. Have you encountered this before or is this problem unique to me?

As for the campaign, I highly recommend it. I'm currently on the second scenario (Jail Break), and it is a hefty challenge!

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 5:09 am

The green movement indicator will probably show if the recon has movement points left but it may still not have enough to enter an adjacent hex. e.g. it has 1 MV remaining in mud.

OmegaMan1 · Post by **OmegaMan1** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 6:04 am

Interesting. Has that always been the case, or is that a new feature in the 1.01 beta?

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 10:45 am

I'm only guessing the reason for the 'problem' you have described - I don't know if it's the reason. If it's the reason I think it would have always been that way, but I'm not sure.

Eltare · Post by **Eltare** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 2:51 am

Hello.

I started to play, but could not finish the 1st scenario (I did not have real-time). First impressions: If the Wehrmacht had the army, the Allies would never have been able to defeat Germany.

Also, the Allies had too few aircraft. More precisely - it is almost not present. One tactical bomber and three fighters - it's too little, and I personally doubt that it was.

Unit is really too much.

In general, as I personally think, PzC not designed to play such a large number of units - AI can not organize their interaction. So I think the normal scenario will be, computed by 15-25 units. How, for example, the first scenario, the company.

Well this is just the first impression for 4-5 first turns of the 1st scenario.

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 3:06 am

Thanks for your feedback. The thing about historical accuracy is covered in the documentation - there is no historical accuracy.

Yes, the Germans are much stronger than in reality but that is because, commanded by the AI, they are much dumber than in reality. The point about the number of units may be a good one - always hard to get the right balance there. Cheers.

Xerkis · Post by **Xerkis** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:47 am

El_Condoro wrote: The point about the number of units may be a good one - always hard to get the right balance there. Cheers.

Funny, someone just told me about too many units on my campaign.

............... Working on it.

tivi · Post by **tivi** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 10:54 am

I really like the idea of this setting, honestly I don't care much about historical accuracy, but more about how fun and balanced it is to play.

The first scenario is a bit too much to handle in imho, I could hardly even spot my core units and didnt much care about them either. Sadly. As an opener, I'd recommend something smaller to get involved with your trusted core

The second scenario is way too hard, and the victory conditions may be off. On my third try I finally managed to not lose all my units (after selling half my units and only buying the strongest tank 5 times during deployment). But even though I whittled the enemy down to 4 infantry units (that are spread across the map and can hardly be found, which increases the difficulty to get a DV), it gave me a loss.

I'd like to play the rest, but as I said, couldn't get past the second (breakout) scenario.

Hope it helps to rebalance.
Cheers

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 12:46 pm

Welcome to the forums tivi.

Thanks for your comments. I too think an opening - smaller - scenario may be good to get a connection with your core before going into the bigger ones.

With Jail Break the object is to escape to the west edge of the map. You can try to kill the enemy but it is very difficult. What makes you think the victory conditions might be out? If you can let me know I will fix it. If it proves too hard, go back to the first scenario and accept a victory rather than a DV and go to Bear Unleashed (which is also pretty hard in the initial turns).

I have tested all the scenarios and was able to get a DV in them all, so I am not just throwing them out there when they are impossible. Of course, being the designer of the campaign I have a slight advantage.

Cheers

tivi · Post by **tivi** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 5:26 pm

Ok sure, the condition for a stunning victory is "less than 5 soviet ground units on the map." I thought, I just hold position and kill everything to secure the DV, but with 4 soviet units left I received a loss.
If I have to escape wth 6 ground units (of my core total 10) to the west, and at the same time thrash the enemy to less than 5 ground units, whew, that may be a little too much for the casual player =)
Maybe adding some rounds could help? On the other hand, I am not a PzC expert (yet), so that might add to it.

Cheers

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 9:58 pm

I think you're right and I have changed the victory conditions to make it more obvious what they are. The first post has the change but I have added it here, too. Taking out Russians is not a victory condition any more but if you can get him to less than 6 units on the map you'll get 500 prestige.

Revisions:
- Changed victory conditions of Jail Break. If there are less than 6 Russian units on the map it will give 500 prestige BUT it is NOT a victory condition. Victory conditions: Victory = 6+ ground units to the west edge of map. Loss = fail to get 6 ground units to west edge by the end of the game. Catastrophe = have less than 4 US ground units on the map.
Single map download: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16283408/Panzer ... cape.pzscn.
Replace this file and go back to the last save of Last Gasp (Scenario 1 in the campaign). This is not included in the full download - I will do so when all revisions have been done.

Shrike · Post by **Shrike** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 11:37 am

Great campaign so far, but I found the third map to be a bit too hard. I started out with a core of 10 units, which was simply too few to stand a chance at this map, resulting in a loss. I like the idea of freeing Patton and all, but with the current round limit you really need a full compliment of core troops and/or prior knowledge of the map layout to succeed. I gave up at the start of the 4th map, because my core units were simply not up to the task. I may give this another shot later on though.

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 11:43 am

Hi Shrike.

It's great to free Patton - and it can be done - but the main thing is to take Budapest. Everything else is a bonus and not required to progress.

I did intend the campaign to be a challenge but hopefully not too much of a challenge. I tested it on Colonel difficulty, the default, but having a close knowledge of the campaign and the map always makes things easier. I hope you'll give it another try. Thanks for your input.

Cheers

Shrike · Post by **Shrike** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 1:28 pm

Yeah, I know Budapest is the real scenario objective. I just didn't manage to breach it in time. My combo of 4 infantry units, 3 artillery pieces, 1 strategic bomber and 2 AT units weren't enough to deal with the defending units there within the last 5 turns, let alone take on Patton's keep. Maybe I shouldn't have split up my forces ... maybe starting out without a single tank in my core was to blame. I'll be sure to try it again at some point and this time I'll have the advantage of knowing what to expect

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 9:27 pm

Definitely take a few M26s!

No tanks! You're brave. Did the starting tanks get destroyed?

Shrike · Post by **Shrike** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 11:12 pm

Heh, yeah, I got mildly scarred in the "The Bear Unleashed" scenario

Your campaign is quite entertaining though, so I've started another session. Got to Jail break and played it 5 or 6 times, looking for that "stunning victory", but no dice. When I viewed the battlefield after my last attempt I spotted only 4 Russian units left, but still got the loss. As I understand it form this thread, this is actually to be expected, but I think you may want to update the in game scenario briefing a bit, because that mention on stunning victory is a bit misleading. I figure the game has no stock screen for "stunning victory" or "catastrophic defeat" anyway

Fimconte · Post by **Fimconte** » Tue Oct 11, 2011 7:44 pm

None of the US units can be upgraded/downgraded in their "unit family". Can't upgrade Infantry to Heavy Weapons, P-47D to P-47N, M4A3 -> Any other M4A3 variant, etc.
German units seem to have retained this feature, so is this intended, or just a oversight?

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Tue Oct 11, 2011 9:37 pm

The campaign uses the standard PzC equipment file. Being a late 1945 campaign I suspect the equipment has just reached the end of its upgrade path. If not it is an issue with the setup of the upgrade 'families'.

Fimconte · Post by **Fimconte** » Tue Oct 11, 2011 11:57 pm

El_Condoro wrote:The campaign uses the standard PzC equipment file. Being a late 1945 campaign I suspect the equipment has just reached the end of its upgrade path. If not it is an issue with the setup of the upgrade 'families'.

Hmm, maybe I accidentally used a equipment file from some mod since none of the non-German nations have any upgrade families, not sure.

On Jail-Break, I also think maybe it's better to disallow purchasing at Germantown (9.5) for the Player.
Since You can purchase a large force there if you conserved all your Prestige in The Last Gasp (~5000pp).