CSI Sweep: Road to Moscow

[bru888]

By invitation from Erik. Version 0.9.2

Here is the Campaign Tree in LibreOffice Draw (I am slowly learning LibreOffice now that I have cut the cord to Microsoft Office - and I'm not looking back!):

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Perhaps there is an historical perspective that you are representing here, or perhaps you wished to provide longer and shorter routes to Moscow based on a key strategic decision. In any case, the effect is that if the player choses "Guderian Moves South," he will play a total of 7 scenarios. If he chooses "Directive 35," however, he will play only 4 scenarios in all. That's quite a contrast.

I'm not recommending to change this but I would recommend that you include your now-famous crossroads road sign with an explanation of the branching choice and an indication that once branch will be much shorter than the other:

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I assume you mean "Kremlin":

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[bru888]

Just a general note before getting into the first scenario. Usually, you fortify the enemy (most unfairly! ) with every possible specialisation but in this campaign you do not . . .

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. . . except at the very end where these specialisations appear in the two Counterattack scenarios:

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I was thinking that you may be holding off until the new Soviet specialisations are officially released but then why award the Soviets those old ones at the end of the campaign? So I bring it up in case it was an oversight in the seven other scenarios.

Incidentally, there are no Soviet commanders for most of the campaign, either. Similar to the specialisations, Soviet commanders make their appearance only in the Counterattack scenarios.

[bru888]

Crossing the Border, v. 0.9.2

None of the fortresses or foxholes are assigned to AI teams, not even Static Defense. This means they will be passive and limit themselves to defending only when attacked; perhaps that is your intention, perhaps not:

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The Rogachev specialisation point award trigger points to Shlobin instead (the Shlobin trigger points to Shlobin correctly, though):

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The "Ger 8 objs" trigger is linked to the wrong objective:

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The problem with this one is that even though fortresses and foxholes are "Structures," so are the 9 bunkers that are in the scenario. This of course will make the objective much harder to achieve and the player will not understand when he destroys all fortresses and foxholes but does not complete the objective. I suggest changing the mission wording to include bunkers or changing the trigger Condition to Unit Type, Fortresses and Foxholes:

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[bru888]

Smolensk, v. 0.9.2

There is no hyphen in "vanguard":

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"Specialisation" got garbled here:

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Also, speaking of that objective, it says to "Capture all 7 objectives" but there are actually 9 secondary VP's on the map: Toropets, Velizh, Polchinok, Krikev, Slavgorod, Rogachev, Shlobin, Dorogobrizh, and Sofonovo. (My goodness, what a mouthful. Though I'm sure all of those names would go tripping off the tongue of a native Russian.) You point to Toropets in the mission hex links while in the triggers you include Shlobin but not Toropets:

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You may want to make all of that coincide by altering the mission or the triggers accordingly.

I believe this is supposed to be Turn = 3 but it's set for T2, the same as the trigger above:

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This series of German "Add Command Points" and "Change Income" triggers are rather haphazard as to the amounts. This one in particular stands out; add 40 land Command Points?:

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Thread to be continued . . .

[Erik2]

I want the player to experience the initial German successes and the set-back at the Gates of Moscow.
That is why the Soviets start with non-exp conscription units, no specialisations and no commanders.
The second scenario replaces conscriptions with regular infantry.
The counter-attack scenarios add unit exp, commanders and specs.
So on paper at least, the difficulty should be increasing.

I'm already planning some general changes to the scenarios based on a current play-through.
I will remove a number of artillery units on both sides. There are simply too many at the moment.

[bru888]

Guderian moves south v. 0.9.2

For both secondary objectives: "Get a specialisation point."

"Your mission is then to link up with Kleist's First Panzergruppe from Army Group South near ..." Where?

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[bru888]

Kiev v. 0.9.2

"The Germans have sucessfully captured Smolensk in yet another battle of encirclement." [Add an "s' to "succesfully" and drop the first "l" from "encirlclement."]

"Establish a supply line between these objectives"* [You have "Establish a suppline line between these objectives."]

* Also, I would put it as "Establish and maintain a supply line between these objectives" because this objective is evaluated at scenario-end and supply lines can be cut. But there is more about this objective and its triggers:

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This is by far the simplest way to do this; that is, with the "Seal" and the "Broken-X" triggers evaluated at scenario-end, else you would have to make each of them repeatable as supply lines are established and maintained or lost. But, the nuance here is that all of those "Setup AI Team - Seek & Destroy" counterattack orders - presumably to try to cut the German supply lines and relieve Kiev - will never happen as a result; the scenario is over.

So maybe what you want to do is to clone that trigger and remove the "Setup AI Team" effects from the original:

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and move the clone to the Activations folder and remove the "Check Turn" condition and "Set Objective State" effects from it:

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I am questioning the German land supply. First, what supply they have is concentrated up here in the northern section of the map. The front extends in a long semi-circle all the way to the south. It does not seem reasonable that German supply lines would have to reach that far or, viewed another way, that the units in the south would have pushed so far down and extended their supply lines thusly. Maybe so, according to what you have in mind, but 150 supply also seems inadequate in that it must cover the Italian aux units plus core units comprising 237 land command points:

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[bru888]

Kiev v. 0.9.2 (continued)

"Get 1 specialisation point for each objective captured (Soviet-held at start)."

There are a couple of things wrong with the objectives at the very beginning; "Capture/hold all 3 objectives" is already failed and "Capture/hold all 13 objectives" is looking for only 12 objectives:

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The problem with "Capture/hold all 3 objectives" is that both triggers are set for "Turn = 1" instead of "Scenario turn limit" and since the "Sov 1 obj" trigger comes last, it governs and fails the objective immediately:

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There are issues with "Capture/hold all 13 objectives"; either this should be set for "Value > 12":

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OR perhaps the objective should be changed to "Capture/hold all 12 Soviet-held objectives." There are 15 secondary VP's on the map; the Germans hold 3 at the beginning, these:

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and the Soviets hold the other 12 which are the ones included in the "Objs" folder and which give a specialisation point for each. The objective is really to take these 12 objectives.

However, there is an additional problem. The 3 German-held secondary VP's already count toward this objective so it could be fulfilled by taking merely 9 of the Soviet-held secondary VP's.

So you must decide what to require. Do you want the player to hold onto the 3 German VP's and all 12 of the Soviet VP's? Then the objective should be changed to "Capture/hold all 15 objectives" and the trigger should be set to "Value > 14". If you want it to be just "Capture/hold all 12 (Soviet-held) objectives," then leave the "Value > 11" and change Unecha, Mglin, and Pochep (the 3 German VP's) to just ordinary capture points, not secondary VP's.

Whew. Got all that?

[bru888]

Kiev v. 0.9.2 (continued)

Whew. Got all that?

I hope you did, because there's more! In the "Objs" folder, you include only 10 of the Soviet-held secondary VP's. Tracking that down led me to the discovery that there are actually 16 secondary VP's on the map!

Here is a visual aid:

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You link the objective to the 15 town hexes in the "Objective Hex Links" column. In the "Spec Point Triggers" column are the 10 town hexes included in those triggers; of the 12 Soviet-held town hexes on the left, you omit Priluki, Poltava, and Chernichina but you include another secondary VP, the 16th: Gadyach.

Back to Quality Control with this module, I say!

Almost an anticlimax after all that is this anomaly which appears mislabeled, out of turn, and duplicative of the previous T20 trigger:

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Thread to be continued . . .

[bru888]

Vyazma v. 0.9.2

"Your mission is to capture Vyazma and Bryansk . . ."

I'd feel more comfortable if this were just AI Team [25] Fighters. By including Unit Definition = Category/Air, you are liable to include the bombers in this condition [wrong; see next post for rebuttal]:

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This trigger is labeled "T30" but it's set for Turn = 24 like the one above it:

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[bru888]

I'd feel more comfortable if this were just AI Team [25] Fighters.

I was wrong about this. I ran a test of shooting down a fighter added to AI Team 25 and then a bomber:

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Fighter down, kill registered:

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Bomber down, kill not registered:

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So my mistake was thinking that it's an "OR" arrangement with multiple settings in one condition. It's "AND" logic instead.

[bru888]

At the Gates v. 0.9.2

"Operation Typhoon, the final drive to Moscow, was launched 2 Oct 1941 (see Scenario V: Bryansk-Vyasma) . . ." Consider deleting this extraneous reference.

"The Soviet forces have held the the facist armies at bay." Remove one "i" in "fasciist."

51 turns for this mission seems excessive, especially considering the "Capture/hold all 8 objectives" primary objective does not evaluate until the end of the scenario. This requires the player to play out all 51 turns even if the scenario is well in hand much earlier than that.

Speaking of which, there is a fallacy here:

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Achieving the "Capture/hold all 8 objectives" objective turns on the "Capture Moscow" objective. The fallacy is, the player needs to wait until the end of the scenario for this to happen! And it will not happen for that reason, of course. Probably you will want to take out the Check Turn condition and change it to Capture VP Event.

In that case, maybe 51 turns are not excessive. For one thing, the player would not necessarily need to play all 51 turns with this revised setup; with "Capture/hold all 8 objectives" completed, the "Capture Moscow" objective will produce instant victory if achieved.

[bru888]

At the Gates v. 0.9.2 (continued)

I don't know if this is intended or not but immediately, before the Deployment Phase is over, this popup message appears:

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The reason it does so is because it is set for Any Event and you have Soviet partisans placed in or near German-held Naviya and Dmiriev:

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The player is able to deploy to nearby hexes, making for instant combat, so maybe this is intentional:

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If so, then I recommend:

1) Include the picture image named "partisan" in the folder. (The screenshot above is from a "live" game and the picture is missing).
2) Focus the popup message on the visible partisans so that the player knows what is happening and where. (You have it focused off to the west.)

[bru888]

Just a reminder - please recall our previous "conversation" on this topic - that these and other new Soviet units are not officially released yet (the blank counters reminded me). New Soviet units will certainly be released with Red Star and version 8.XX, I am sure, but there could be changes between what they introduced in 7.1.8 and when they become official. The advice is, at that time, to recall where you have used these units recently (e.g., Germany East 1944) and review them to ensure that they "came through" alright. Same thing with the new commanders who are currently named "Soviet General 1, 2, and 3."

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[bru888]

At the Gates v. 0.9.2 (continued)

It's not a big deal and would have gone unnoticed but technically the unit that you wanted to remove here is missing altogether:

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[bru888]

Counterattack (07Counter) v.0.9.2

The campaign end date is shown as 31-12-1941 but these two ending scenarios could extend into February 1942 (beginning 5-12-1941, 61 turns, 1 turn per day). Hopefully this will not pose a problem.

Speaking of 61 turns, the "Hold Smolensk until scenario end" objective will require all 61 turns to be played. That's a lot if the Soviet attack peters out halfway through or so. A design decision, as always.

There's a definite supply issue for Soviet land units:

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I noticed that there is another Partisan Warning message in this scenario and I became aware that it turns on an objective. This is the same as is in the At The Gates scenario, so now I am of the opinion that the instantaneous warning was not intentional in that scenario and therefore should be corrected. By the way, the photo missing in that scenario's folder could be copied from this folder:

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[bru888]

Counterattack (07Counter) v.0.9.2 (continued)

However, continuing with the Partisans Warning message, there is a problem in this scenario that did not occur in At The Gates. The Visible Units are the Soviet army and the Viewers are German Partisans:

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Also, you neglected to provide a trigger to complete the "Eliminate all partisan units" objective. Note, however, you deploy partisans only beginning in Turn 45. Such a trigger would need to be activated at the same time as the Partisans Warning; else, it would be awarded immediately if it was active from the beginning.

The "Set Objective State" settings on the "Sov Smolensk" trigger need to be switched:

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[bru888]

Counterattack (09Counter2) v.0.9.2

This appears to be the same scenario as Counterattack (07Counter) with the exception of the additional primary objective "Hold Moscow until scenario end" and, of course, the Germans are holding Moscow in the beginning. Dealing with this added objective:

1) The objective does not point to the Moscow VP hex.
2) The trigger's effects are tied to the wrong objectives:

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These issues in Counterattack (07Counter) are the same in Counterattack (09Counter2):

1) Soviet land supply is insufficient.
2) In the Partisans Warning message, Visible Units are the Soviet army and the Viewers are German Partisans.
3) There is no trigger to award the "Eliminate all partisan units" objective; such a trigger needs to be activated with the warning message.
4) The "Set Objective State" settings on the "Sov Smolensk" trigger need to be switched.

[bru888]

Directive 35 v. 0.9.2

Here is an orphan, the only one noticed and reported in this campaign! (As far as I know - there are many Soviet units in these scenarios - but I tried my best.)

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This trigger will fail because it needs to be set for Check Turn, Scenario Turn Limit. As it is, what will happen is, when the Germans take the first VP, it will activate, find that the Soviets are still holding one or more primary VP's, and fail the objective:

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That's it for another CSI Sweep. It has been a pleasure.

[Erik2]

Thanks, Bru. You're the best.

I'll get to work on this while you move on to your next assignment