Bunch of Campaign Design questions

[Lucky4]

Hi,

I’ve read up on all the basics of campaign and scenario creation but have a ton of what I believe may be advanced questions (well, at least, they sure are advanced for me ).

Some answers I can probably find through simple trial and error by myself, but maybe a kind soul among the veteran mod designers who’s already gone through this can save me a little time here.

So here we go:

1.) Now I understand how you can have a campaign branch after a scenario, but is it also possible to give three or more rather than just two options? Say, you wanna let the player chose between joining Heeresgruppe Nord, Heeresgruppe Süd, or Heeresgruppe Mitte.

2.) I'm envisioning a campaign where you are solely in charge of Wehrmacht units - no Luftwaffe, no SS, no SE (those will only be provided as auxiliaries). What would be the best way to implement that - never designate any air deployment hexes for any scenario, make all planes etc. nonpurchasable in the equipment file or is it possible to omit air-unit categories from the purchase menu altogether (and instead add a structures category like some designers have done)?

3.) Does the Evasion trait work for units other than submarines? Would be great for partisans and such.

4.) How exactly does purchasing auxiliaries in campaign scenarios work? In some campaigns it seems possible, in others not all. Am I simply overlooking something real obvious here?

5.) Is it possible to create a movement type that only works on snowy ground (e.g., Ski Infantry) and make the unit switchable if there is no snow on the ground?

6.) I'm looking for unit icons from the Spanish Civil War, and rezaf had a collection published here at
viewtopic.php?t=27741 , but the link provided there seems to be dead. Anyone know whether they are still available somewhere?


Many thanx!!!

[nikivdd]

1) Yes, i have already done that in one of my mods
2) Personally, the easiest to exclude certain units is to add ### in front of the unit's ID number in the equipment file; in case of SE units, you can also set the parameter to 0 in the scenario editor (same spot as with number 4)
3) Evasion trait gives a submarine a 50% chance of not being hit; not sure if this trait works with land units but it doesn't hurt to try
4) The number of auxiliary unit slots can be defined through the scenario editor; edit->scenario parameters>sides. Auxiliaries can be purchased if there is enough prestige and secondly, if open auxiliary unit slots are available
5) Not to my knowledge, you'll have to make use of what is available. You can give your Ski infantry a unique sound (efx.pzdat file) and make it a switchable unit though.
Examples are the switchable cavalry between mounted and dismounted and the switchable submarine between surfaced and submerged from Phcas' mod.
6) I'm pretty sure flakfernrohr has them in his collection. Simply send him a PN, he is a very nice guy!

[Lucky4]

Thanks for the quick reply!

1) Good to know. Does that require fidgeting around with an html-file to get the third radio button in or is it really that simple?

2) Yes, but if I understand correctly that would make them unavailable in the scenario editor as well. What I'm trying to accomplish is to still be able to place air units (and SS/SE units) as auxiliaries but not let the player purchase any. Naturally, I could set all German (or Axis) air units to nonpurchaseable in the equipment file, which would be a bit of a drag but certainly doable. Alternatively, I suppose I could just never designate any air deployment fields in any of the scenarios, meaning the player could purchase but never deploy air units (not perfect but players could be warned by a message at the beginning of the campaign). I haven't tried that yet so I'm not sure whether you can simply not designate any air deployment hexes, but that can be found out easily enough.

What PHCAS did in his campaign was add a Structures category. Some designers have done that for naval units. I think I understand how that can be done. Now, what I'm wondering is if it isn't possible to just delete the air-unit categories from the purchase screen altogether (so, in other words, basically do the opposite). That way, they ought to be treated like naval units in vanilla - available in the scenario editor but never for purchase. But the only way I see that happening is to replace the original UI/purchase/classes folder and change the purchase.htm accordingly in the original game. If I understand it right, any mod installed using GME would only add or change existing categories in its classes folder but could never just delete any existing ones, right?

3) I'll try it out. Thanks!

4) Yeah, I've been wondering about that. Not sure what exactly slots in this context means. Could I, for instance, designate 0 auxiliary slots and still place 40 auxiliary units on the map, thereby assuring no new auxiliary units could ever be purchased by the player during the scenario?

5) That's what I figured. Maybe going with the mountain movement type or creating a new ski movement type would be the way to go then. Not perfect, but it'll have to do.

6) Will do. Time to learn the PM feature on this forum anyway, I guess. Thanks again!

[Lucky4]

Well, thought about this a bit longer, and there may be a work-around for 5).

Create a new ski movement type that allows fastest movemet in frozen condition with steep penalties for muddy and dry. Then, make the unit switchable to a regular infantry unit with (faster) leg movement for non-frozen conditons.

I guess that should work, shouldn't it?

[nikivdd]

1)
<p>
<button type="radio" name="NextScn" id="Scenario X">Scenario X</button><br/>
</p>
<p>
<button type="radio" name="NextScn" id="Scenario Y">Scenario Y</button><br/>
</p>
<p>
<button type="radio" name="NextScn" id="Scenario Z">Scenario Z</button>
</p>

2)Units that should be selectable in the editor but cannot be purchased while playing, give such units the nopurchase trait. If you look for an example, check the Karl-Gerät.

4) When number of auxiliary slots is equal to 0 and there are 40 auxiliaries on the map, that is perfectly possible. Of course in such a case, auxiliaries can not be purchased. As long the number of auxiliaries is higher or equal to the number of auxliary slots, auxiliaries cannot be purchased.

5) Modding is a lot of trial and error. I suppose what you have in mind, should work.

[Lucky4]

1) Thanks! That was what I'm looking for.

2) Yeah, ok. Safest way, I guess, but it would have been nice to have the air unit categories (fighter, tac bomber, str. bomber) not even appear on the purchase screen.

4) Hmm, so if I understand this correctly, if there were were 50 aux units on the map and 40 slots, I could always buy up to a maximum of up to 40 aux units to compensate for any losses exceeding 10 aux units (assuming I had enough prestige for that). So that's pretty much the same as in PG if I remember correctly. I had hoped there'd be a way to allow a player to buy a total of, say, 3 aux units (no matter how many he'd already lost or started with), but oh well...

5) I'll give it a try, as soon as I get back to my home computer.

[Lucky4]

Ad 2) 'Just had a little time to tinker with this, and I found out how to deny players purchasing units of a specific type in a campaign without having to set the traits of each individual unit to nopurchase in the e-file. I thought I'd share it just in the unlikely event anybody out there is trying to do something similar.

All you gotta do is change the purchase.htm in the Panzer Corps/UI folder. This contains the following code for the purchase menu:

Code: Select all

<div id="ClassList" style="position:absolute; left:15px; top:205px; height:min-intrinsic; width: 160px; overflow:hidden">
<button.cls name="unitclass" type="radio" id="unitclass0"><img src="purchase/classes/0.png" />&nbsp;IDS_CLASS_LONG_INFANTRY</button>
<div style="height:5px" />
<button.cls name="unitclass" type="radio" id="unitclass1"><img src="purchase/classes/1.png" />&nbsp;IDS_CLASS_LONG_TANK</button>
<div style="height:5px" />
<button.cls name="unitclass" type="radio" id="unitclass2"><img src="purchase/classes/2.png" />&nbsp;IDS_CLASS_LONG_RECON</button>
<div style="height:5px" />
<button.cls name="unitclass" type="radio" id="unitclass3"><img src="purchase/classes/3.png" />&nbsp;IDS_CLASS_LONG_AT</button>
<div style="height:5px" />
<button.cls name="unitclass" type="radio" id="unitclass4"><img src="purchase/classes/4.png" />&nbsp;IDS_CLASS_LONG_ARTY</button>
<div style="height:5px" />
<button.cls name="unitclass" type="radio" id="unitclass5"><img src="purchase/classes/5.png" />&nbsp;IDS_CLASS_LONG_AA</button>
<div style="height:5px" />
<button.cls name="unitclass" type="radio" id="unitclass7"><img src="purchase/classes/7.png" />&nbsp;IDS_CLASS_LONG_FIGHTER</button>
<div style="height:5px" />
<button.cls name="unitclass" type="radio" id="unitclass8"><img src="purchase/classes/8.png" />&nbsp;IDS_CLASS_LONG_TAC_BOMBER</button>
<div style="height:5px" />
<button.cls name="unitclass" type="radio" id="unitclass9"><img src="purchase/classes/9.png" />&nbsp;IDS_CLASS_LONG_STR_BOMBER</button>
</div>

Now, say you don't want the player to be able to purchase any aircraft at all, you can just delete the last three entries, and they'll never appear in the purchase menu. Thus, the player cannot purchase or upgrade planes. They can still be placed as auxiliaries through the Scenario Editor for each scenario in the campaign though. Tried and tested - it does work with GME.

Personally, I find it a great way of preventing the player in a German campaign to gain air superiority in the West by loading up on fighters and bombers early and throughout a campaign.

In a one-off scenario, of course, both players would be kept from purchasing air units. I'm also not sure whether this would keep the AI from purchasing additional aircraft, though I suspect it draws available unit straight from the e-file and not from the purchase menu.

[flakfernrohr]

Lucky4 you have a private email. I have the units you wanted ready to send via email.

[Lucky4]

Hi Flak:

Thanks for your reply and effort. I've sent you a PM with my private e-mail.

PM seems currently stuck in my Outbox. 'Hope it'll be sent soon. Not familiar with how PMs are handled by this forum's server.

Cheers!