CSI Sweep, by invitation from conboy
This is a beautiful map but one-fourth of it is empty. Hectares upon hectares of open, featureless terrain. … AFAIK, map cropping can have unforeseen consequences.
--Ok. BTW, cropping is a very dangerous business. I had one scenario refuse to start after doing so. YMMV (your mileage may vary). Erik says he never had one blow up on him due to cropping, but I did.
Mission: "Seize remaining Primary Objectives" (swap "i" and "e" - it's "i" before "e" except after "c" and in the word "seize" and probably some others )
Briefing: I suggest "Truscott here, VI Corps Commander, briefing you, the 3d Infantry Division Commander." (the "(you)" seems somewhat awkward)
Briefing: "The weather sucks . . . the roads suck . . ." This is an anachronism. Consider revising.
--Thank you.
It may be a good idea to define what these objectives mean. You may have covered them in the briefing but I was looking at my smart phone. Or, perhaps you define them in a popup message but, like the briefing, you only see the message once. The player may need to refresh his memory:
--This is a great idea! It never occurred to me to use these to convey valuable information. (This is the best takeaway from this debrief!)
//
Remove bracket from hex name. Yes, you get the nitpicking along with the critical from me. Can't help it:
So now I see what "Clear Lower Vosges <7 Hex" means. No Germans within 6 hexes of Vosges Primary VP, according to this trigger… There is a problem in the flip-side trigger, "Vosges VP Not Cleared." It appears you forgot to assign the Target Hex; I can always tell because it should show "Remove Hex" here:
--I’ll check it out but it was the only trigger that worked for a while so I’m afraid to mess with it.
When the player takes the "Phase I Objectives <Turn 11," he has the rest of the scenario to "Seize remaining Primary Objectives" of which there are 11. I arrived at this count by looking at what you pointed to in the mission. However, the "Remaining VPs Captured" trigger only looks at 10 hexes for "Check Hex Owner." By process of elimination, I found that the missing hex is this one here to the east, Gerardmer (still marked with the mission hex link but not addressed by the trigger):… Gerardmer is troublesome in another way, indirectly. Both the "Gerardmer not captured" and the "Saulxres not captured" triggers point to Gerardmer. That is, Saulxres remains unaccounted for in "Any Remaining VP not Captured":
--Thank you. I wouldn’t have found these so some poor player would have run afoul of the Saulxures/Gerardmer mix-up. Will fix.
I see that you do indeed have a popup message about the quarry (why not label it so on the map, come to think of it?).
--The Quarry was a big, very bad, surprise to the 15th regiment/3rd Division as well.
Now, the possible trouble with this trigger is that there is no Unit Definition…Which in turn means any of those U.S. planes flying nearby are going to see the quarry and activate this trigger. Is that okay? If not, you may wish to require that "Check Unit(s) Near Hex" be set for "Category: Land."
--Thank you! I did not know what those blocks were for.
By the way, it is my opinion that whenever the designer has an objective activate during the course of a scenario, that he should provide an Event Popup as you do but also include something to the effect of "NEW OBJECTIVE" at the end of the message.
-- Agreed, will comply. Plenty of room in the pop-up window.
Here's a bit of a nuance. In the triggers above, I noticed that you use "Turn < 26" for some objectives that need to be completed before the end of the scenario (Turn Limit = 25). I believe that works. Here, though, you have it as "Turn < 25" which means the player only has 24 turns to achieve this objective:
--I tried to QA this but apparently in a few places, missed important stuff. So thanks again!
//
Remove bracket from hex name. Yes, you get the nitpicking along with the critical from me. Can't help it:
10-4
//
You used "Check Turn: Turn < 26"in the following Victory Condition triggers:
Clear Vosges VP <7 Hexes
Remaining VPs Captured
L'Omet Quarry Cleared
Seize all Secondary Objectives
For each of these triggers, the Trigger Event is "Turn Start." That is quite literal; the game is going to check on these conditions only when there is a Turn Start (yours or the AI's). So if these triggers evaluate only at Turn Start, then they will last be looking at conditions at the start of the human player's Turn 25. That means if the player accomplishes the conditions during Turn 25, they may not count. I use the word "may" because it could be possible that the Germans going second in this game, their 25th Turn Start may actually activate these triggers and complete the objectives accomplished by the human player in Turn 25. But why be uncertain?
I looked back at those objectives, trying to discern your intentions. Here's what I came up with along with suggestions:
Clear Vosges VP <7 Hexes - an after-combat result; remove "Check Turn" and make Trigger Event "Combat Event."
Remaining VPs Captured - can be completed at any time; remove "Check Turn" and make Trigger Event "Capture VP Event."
L'Omet Quarry Cleared - an after-combat result; remove "Check Turn" and make Trigger Event "Combat Event."
Seize all Secondary Objectives - can be completed at any time; remove "Check Turn" and make Trigger Event "Capture VP Event."
With none of these objectives do you need to wait until anybody's next Turn Start, much less the scenario end. This way, I believe you have more precision.
--This stuff is very tricky for me, so thanks again for the lesson. I'll make these changes.
//
The "Le Gemeaux Bridge" vignette is confusing. It doesn't appear to be too important - it involves only one German engineer unit - but if you spent the time designing it, it ought to work correctly.
So when the U.S. nears Le Gemeaux, the bridge there is blown and a German engineers unit is spawned. It is assigned to the "Gemx Engineers Move I" AI team…The initial task of that team is to move one hex south. Then this trigger comes into play, looking at that hex and seeming to direct the engineers to a nearby village. The trouble is, it's requiring no engineer unit to be on the Target Hex.
Then there is this trigger that looks at the original "move one hex south" location (again, looking for no engineer unit to be in it) and tells a different AI team, "Gemx Engineers Move II," to defend the "nearby village" but there's nobody in that second AI team… It looks like this got a bit garbled during design. It might be simpler just to blow the bridge, spawn the engineer (or two) and have him (them) move to the nearby village and defend it. I think that could all be done in one trigger. Maybe two; the first to spawn and assign to a "Move to Hex" AI Team that moves to the village, the second to change its task to Local Defense.
--Roger all.
//
The U.S. player is not aware of the importance of L'Omet Quarry until he is almost right on top of it (Distance = 1). If I am the U.S. player, and I will be someday, I am not going to have my armored vehicles poking through the woods one hex at a time. I'm going to be barreling along that 15th RCT Route on my way to St Ame, Cleurie, Sapois, and Le Tholy. Even if I was focused on taking Hill 809, I am not advancing through the woods to take Cleurie (even though you may want me to, as evidenced by the nearby signpost).
--Route marker in the woods is for 15th RCT – infantry.
So this means I probably will not be taking ownership of this hex before I arrive at and attack the quarry. Even if I have a unit sitting in St Ame, whereby "Idle units will automatically capture any hexes within their zone-of-control, provided these hexes are not in the Zone of Control of an enemy unit," it's not going to capture this hex: That means the "Quarry Defenders," who are spawned up the road near Le Tholy, are not going to make it a real fight for the quarry as you surely intended. That's if they are ever spawned at all. My recommendation is that you place the Target Hex for "Check Hex Owner" maybe a couple of hexes south, on the road just to the west of St Ame.
-- There are ample defenders for the quarry in place at the start of the scenario – the Quarry Defenders are a counterattack to fend the allies away from the Quarry. It plays like I want it to but I will change the trigger to land units only.
Speaking of Hill 809, I don't see that it's defended, nor is Vecoux. Are these intended to be walkovers? Okay, I do see AI Team "Cleurie" moving to positions just behind Hill 809 but forget about Vecoux; it's just a drive-through.
--Sometimes the Germans defend Hill 809, sometimes they don’t. Vecoux is defended.
AI Team "Cleurie" gave me thought about what I said above about the "Quarry Defenders" but I'm sticking with what I said. You apparently intend for the player to fight his way through AI Team "Cleurie," stumble upon that Target Hex, and trigger the "Quarry Defenders" before I find the quarry itself. I don't think it's going to happen that way. Taking the secondary objectives is, well, secondary (especially if the prize is a phony-baloney trip to Paris) so I am going to be concentrating on "Seize remaining Primary Objectives" as I drive up the road, bypassing Hill 809 and AI Team "Cleurie." (By the way, it may be a neat trick to punish me for doing so by making another trigger that converts AI Team "Cleurie" to Local Defense with a wide enough range to induce it to hit me in the flank as I go by.)
--The Quarry and the Le Tholy road play like I want them too. At this point, I am not quite as devious as could be. Maybe in a later scenario I’ll make the AI Team switch.
Speaking of hills, here's another consideration: Hill 867. Thanks for pointing it out to me with the trigger. I noticed two things about that trigger, one minor and one major.
Minor: You base the defense of Hill 867 on spawning a unit to sit on it once the Allies (I should have been using that term instead of U.S. all along) have taken Ferdrupt (and waiting for another Turn Start - consider using Capture VP Event). The thing is, the Germans would be thinking of defending that hill, of strategic importance I am sure, long before they lost Ferdrupt which is 3 hexes to the southeast. I would think when the Allies reached Maxonchamp or Rupt, the Germans would take steps to fortify Hill 867.
-- I don’t want the allies to take the hill by bombarding it for several turns, so the Germans erupt on the close-range trigger to complicate the advance (sorry GabeKnight). Think of it as the Germans arising starting to fight from concealed positions in the mountains. I wish there was a way to conceal troops in Rough Terrain or Mountains – you have revert to Forest to hide them. I’ll put that on my wish Scenario Developer wish list.
Major: I noticed the Hill 867 is marked as a secondary victory point? The mission is to "Seize Secondary Objectives" and I would assume these means all four of them. Neither the mission nor the trigger address Hill 867:
A bit of the same idea with "High Vosges CP" in that you are requiring the Allies to own a certain hex to the south: What happens if I approach the Vosges Primary VP from the west or north? I could take that point unopposed, then move south and have the Gebirgsjäger appear behind me, which would not be realistic. They were alpine troops, not paratroopers. Sure, the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division is spawned in the south but their orders are "to attack north to Gerardmer under your command." So I would anticipate them moving north through Le Thillot and Cornimont, not west toward Ferdrupt.-- My oversight! Thank you -- I hope you’re not going to bill me for the QA effort!
--My oversight again – true on all counts. The trigger hex is in the wrong place, will fix. I don’t want the bad guys to magically appear in the rear areas. Bad joo-joo, nobody would want to play my scenarios.
One of the things I have noticed about your scenarios - and this is not intended as a criticism but a word to the wise - is that you expect the human player to follow your orders. I had the same approach in a number of my own scenarios; that is, I expected the player to do the logical things as I laid them out and they would have fun that way. Well, I found out early on that many people don't pay attention to orders and advisements. Instead, they do their own thing and upset the apple cart. That is what I am expecting here.
--The players are welcome to play it any way they wish, of course. I am trying to record the actual events and paces of the battles, as best I can given my limited understanding of the tools available. In so doing, I point out a clear way to beat the scenario, if one follows orders and plays deliberately utilizing tactically appropriate gameplay. Undoubtedly, there are other ways to beat the scenario, but in my view they would be higher risk, since I have designed the scenario to be played/whipped according to historical accounts.
So indeed, for the following triggers, I would recommend instead of "Check Hex Owner" and specific hexes, that you use "Check Unit(s) Near Hexes" with the Target Hex set squarely on the capture point in question and a certain Amount and Distance set for the number of nearby Allied units to qualify (don't forget the Unit Definition as "Category: Land"):
Quarry Defenders
Hill 867
High Vosges CP
Cornimont Defenders
--I’ll check it out in each case you list.
Don't change the way you do your scenarios based on what I just said, but wherever you can, think outside the box, anticipate the unexpected, and make some provisions for it wherever you can.
--Roger dat.
//
Here's one more thing along the lines of the player doing the unexpected. Say I flout your orders, General Truscott, (or I use initiative which I am sure Truscott would appreciate) and instead of proceeding through Noir Gueux, Eloyes, and Jarmenil north of Remiremont, I decided to take the 36th ID - or a portion of it - on an "end run" on that road just to the west, up through Epinal, Bruyeres, and down to Tendon in a flanking attack? I could run afoul of this trigger, which announces that the 45th ID is already there, undeploys any Allied unit in Epinal (at first, I thought it was all Allied units and I said "What?" but then I saw you used Epinal as the Target Hex, Distance = 0):It's all right; that will probably not happen and you graciously replace the soldiers that you may undeploy if it does, but still.
--I want the players to know that the left flank is secure for them to move ahead, this is my way of letting them know.
So on that trivial note, I have reached the end of this sweep. Look, there is a lot here. Take your time. I assume that you know I fill volumes when I do these things and that you knew this before you asked me to look at Vosges to Le Tholy.
-- Of course, thank you for the lesson and the QA effort. You pointed out several errors, so thanks again!
All of what I said aside, this looks to be a finely-crafted scenario, another fine piece of work by conboy. When it is finished, it will join the other conboy productions in my private collection. Thank you for the opportunity to do a CSI sweep on it.
-- Thank you again, Bru!
).
