CSI Sweep: Germany East 1941-42

[bru888]

By invitation from Erik. Version 2.7.

Below is my perception of the campaign tree. I needed two pages! I said this before, but what a monster the German Grand Campaign must have been if this campaign comprised, what, one-fifth or one-sixth of the GGC?

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Please examine the campaign tree carefully. If it is not what you intended at every stage, post here and I will take a look at it again to see if I made an error in my analysis or it is an issue with the campaign tree. You usually don't differentiate between Major Victory and Minor Victory but in this campaign you did and I noted this where I saw it. On the other hand, as usual you do vary the outcomes for Draw (advance or repeat scenario) and for Minor Defeat (campaign Defeat or repeat scenario). It would take many pages of campaign tree, or one big page with tiny type, to portray all outcomes so I will assume that you had reasons for those variations and that they are correct.

I do have some things that I'd like to point out about the campaign structure. When you broke up the GGC, I know that you had to cut and paste scenarios from and to the various child campaigns. That is probably the case with Belgrade and Metaxas. They are near the bottom of the column of scenarios and Belgrade is marked as the starting branch. So when the campaign starts there, it lacks the campaign-opening event message:

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I would suggest something like this:

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As always, the following is offered merely to save you time. Feel free to use all, some, or none of this but I do believe that you should have an opening event message:

Operation 25

In accordance with Führer Directive No. 25, Wehrmacht operations in East Europe begin with the April War, the German-led invasion of Yugoslavia by Axis forces.

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[bru888]

The event message is also missing for this crossroads; it's always helpful and advisable:

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There's a visual problem at that crossroads as well. The Siege option looks fine:

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but the Assault option has a couple of extraneous Soviet flags, one of which landed in Sardinia. Thank goodness you didn't locate any communists in Corsica or Napoleon Bonaparte would be spinning in his grave!

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Would you be willing to spare a few words of congratulation / commiseration / scorn for these outcomes?

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Side note about version 8.1.0 and this laptop that I am using: What a pleasure it is to be able to click around in the Campaign Editor without the game crashing. Particularly that sweeping routine of clicking each scenario button in the campaign screen, one after another. That never failed to crash on my old laptop.

Thread to be continued . . .

[Erik2]

This campaign is a mix of the original PzCorps 1941East and 192East campaigns. Hence the size.
Here are the original campaign trees (they're included in the campaign folder).

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[bru888]

Belgrade v. 2.7

The objective fails to link to the sixth primary VP here:

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None of the briefings point anyplace which is fine but you may want to indicate where the Romanian Officers are with the third or fourth one:

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The "-1" frequency is, I think, a holdover from early Erik OOB designing days. In this context, it's superfluous as far as I know; the trigger is only going to fire once, so no harm done. What caught my eye, though, was this activation of AI Team 3 which is otherwise on Static Defense. It's obvious that you intended to release them at some point but here, it's too late. I wonder if you wanted to work this effect in someplace else:

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[Never mind. I see that you do activate them and another AI team with the "Belgrade" trigger. Indeed, the approach to and occupation of Belgrade are the catalysts for stirring up the entire Yugoslavian army.]

All of those "Bridges" triggers check out fine but the curious thing is that a Yugoslavian unit is required to be sitting on the bridge as the Axis approaches. The destruction of the bridge doesn't hurt the unit, of course, but what is curious is that in only one case does a Yugoslavian unit start the scenario on the hex and that one is part of a team on Defend Hex with a Distance of 2 which means it may move around. The other six bridges depend on luck as to whether a Yugoslavian unit happens to on the right spot at the right time. Intentional?

[bru888]

Metaxas v. 2.7

From what I have seen so far, I wouldn't be surprised to not find very much wrong with the scenarios in this campaign. It is version 2.7, after all. I will give each one due diligence but some entries could be rather brief, like one. Much to your relief, no doubt!

Heh, I was just going to leave this with the comment "I only have the same observation about the 'Bridges' triggers as I did in Belgrade" but then I looked at the next-to-last trigger, "Counter-attack," which is not set for a Target Hex. It's also set for "Amount = 0" which is probably another oversight:

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I feel re-invigorated! Let's sweep this thing!

[bru888]

Minsk v. 2.7

I found one of those circumstances that I refer to when talking about the need for CSI sweeping: An error that is not reported because players don't know what is missing and therefore cannot report it as feedback in beta. The designer does not hear of the issue, of course, and consequently thinks all is well.

There is a cool vignette in here about the "Destroy at least 6 Soviet fighter air units" objective. Its description reads "The enemy units are in the various hangars around the map. The fighters must be destroyed by turn 9. Then the survivors will launch." [Italics added.]

So in the "Soviet air" folder there are triggers for each of the 12 airstrips and when any German unit (including aircraft, by the way, since you did not specify "Unit Definition") approaches an air strip, it activates the fighter therein. On Turn 9, though, "the survivors will launch" . . . except in every "Air-XX" trigger effect, "Setup AI Team" is set for "Idle":

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I was trying to think of what you may have intended, if there was something else that was supposed to happen, and I could not come up with anything. I was also toying with testing what happens to planes in mid-air in this situation - do they proceed to land or do they just hang there? - but I decided not to waste time. The player just skips merrily along, destroying planes one by one, not knowing (or remembering, if he even read the mission description) that he is supposed to face an aerial onslaught beginning Turn 9 but it never materializes. Not what you intended, I believe.

The briefing ("Any airfield that is captured before the Soviets go on alert will be one less airfield that can launch their fighters and bombers!") gives the impression that fighters can be destroyed while still in the hangars and that could be true if the player is able to rush multiple units in and do the job in one turn. Else, the nearby presence of any land unit (or air unit) triggers take-off in the next turn. Which is as it should be.

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By the way, you actually have 13 Soviet fighters in the scenario. There are two inside Airstrip-7, belonging to AI Team 22, according to the Units List. You are going to give triskadekaphobes the willies!

I have the same observation about the 'Bridges' triggers here as I did in Belgrade. I may be repeating this comment frequently; please bear with it.

[bru888]

Minsk v. 2.7 (continued)

Here are some things to think about concerning commanders. I learned from observing your work that it is standard practice to unlock friendly commanders in the beginning of the campaign, unless they are to be earned instead, by using a trigger like this one:

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That is the trigger in Minsk, which I have the impression was once the first campaign in the scenario. It is no longer, and you now release German commanders in Belgrade:

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A couple of questions:
1) Does the "re-introduction" of commanders who are already unlocked in the campaign and probably assigned to core units, have any negative effect?
2) I noticed that you unlocked 7 German commanders in Belgrade but 15 in Minsk. Did you want to phase them in or award all 15 from the beginning?

Another question occurs about Soviet commanders:

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I noticed that these scenarios were designed in versions 7.14 - 7.18 before the new Soviet commanders were ready and back then, only those four that you have selected were available. I hesitate to suggest because I know it would be a significant amount of work (as you know, unlike friendly commanders, enemy commanders must be unlocked and assigned in every scenario) but do you want to go back into all of these Barbarossa scenarios and also use the three new Soviet generals and the NKVD commander? (The cover story is, he's the twin brother of "Commissar." )

Thread to be continued . . .

[bru888]

Smolensk v. 2.7

There are no AI primary objectives to match the human player's objectives:

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When the Germans fail, the Soviets are rewarded with merely re-opening the German objective, or keeping it open:

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In this situation, while Major and Minor Victory are possible, the worst outcome for the human player is Draw. There are no AI objectives for it to win and cause a Defeat for the human player. It depends on how stringent you want to be - you usually are quite demanding - but if you want Defeat to be possible, you need to create a corresponding Soviet primary objective for each German primary objective, and you need each "Sov" trigger to evaluate at "Turn Start / Scenario turn limit" as to whether the Soviets own the hex. If so, fail the German objective and award the Soviet objective.

Besides, the way this is arranged now, if the Soviets retake an objective, that's it, final. Then if the Germans re-re-take an objective, they get no credit for it; their trigger already fired once. You might have been better off with a "Capture/hold all 5 objectives" approach.

[bru888]

Smolensk v. 2.7 (continued)

The "Ger Krasny" has this extraneous condition that requires the hex just to the northeast of Krasny to be empty of Axis troops . . .

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. . . presumably so that the way is clear to spawn a found T34 tank. Why? If the hex is occupied, the T34 will spawn in another adjacent hex (IIRC, the spawn fails only if the Target Hex and all adjacent hexes are blocked):

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The problem is, if that adjacent hex is occupied, then that will fail this condition and prevent the trigger from firing when the VP is captured. Only if there is another Capture VP Event will it go back to this trigger and try again but that may not happen before the end of the scenario. The Krasny objective will remain open (and fail in the end if you follow my recommendation above) even though the Axis has taken the city. Perhaps you should take out this condition.

By the way, all of the "Sov" triggers in the "Secondary objectives" folder are extraneous. AI secondary objectives are not necessary for defining scenario outcomes. I would remove all of them.

I have the same observation about the 'Bridges' triggers here as I did in Belgrade.

[bru888]

Ostrov v. 2.7

See my comments in the Smolensk post about the need for AI primary objectives and the way "Sov" triggers need to be designed in order to provide for a human Defeat. (The "-1" frequency on these triggers may be a holdover from when you used to design such objectives to be swappable; i.e., the objective could change hands during the scenario. You can still do this but you nevertheless need the AI primary objectives to win or lose in the end. Lately you have been going with the "Capture/hold all 5 objectives" approach. No matter how many objective swaps, if the player ever holds all 5, he wins and the "1obj" AI objective fails. If he never holds all 5, then the "1obj" AI objective wins.)

In earlier scenarios, when the Waffen SS is active, you award both Germany and Waffen SS specialisation points. Here, with these secondary objective triggers, you do not:

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The "Transfer stuff to Waffen SS?" dialog is in here twice:

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I wondered, which one governs? I don't like the popup here, before the scenario even begins; let's see which is the one that does this:

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When I turned off "Waffen," the popup appeared at this point, which is much better:

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But why? Here is where I learned something new, which is always a pleasurable byproduct of these sweeps. In the past, I have seen the "Dialog Popup" trigger work with its "Yes/No" triggers inactive from the start. In those triggers, there would be a "Turn Start" trigger event so that even if the "Dialog Popup" trigger was set for Scenario Start, it would wait. Now, however, I finally see the purpose of the "Popup Dialog" trigger event. You have the "Transfer" trigger active from the start but it does not fire until the "Dialog Popup" trigger activates:

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So this "Dialog/Transfer" trigger tandem will work properly if you remove the Waffen trigger. However, there is one caveat: Since "Transfer" is active from the start and is set for "Popup Dialog" trigger event, it will fire if there are any other Dialog Popup triggers in the game. Another Dialog Popup trigger, just by firing, will be the event to activate this "Transfer" trigger as well, perhaps prematurely.

So I would do it this way, the old-fashioned way; it works just as well and its safer in case you ever do have more than one "Dialog Popup" trigger in a scenario:

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I have a feeling that we see this mechanism in quite a few scenarios in the future. If so and as necessary, I will refer back to these notes in this Ostrov post.

[bru888]

Novgorod v. 2.7

See my comments in the Smolensk post about the need for AI primary objectives and the way "Sov" triggers need to be designed in order to provide for a human Defeat. See the parenthetical sentences in the beginning of the Ostrov post for additional comments.

See the Ostrov thread about when the Waffen SS is active, whether you award both Germany and Waffen SS specialisation points as you did in earlier scenarios.

I have the same observation about the 'Bridges' triggers here as I did in Belgrade. Also, the two Target Hexes for "Check Unit(s) near Hex" on "Bridge-5" are slightly different. (I believe I understand what you were requiring as to an enemy unit being on the hex but I question how often that will happen. Probably quite seldom. In the past, I have seen bridges blown without any enemy units around; the assumption is that they are being destroyed by elements too small to be designated as units.)

Here again you have the same condition that nobody be in the Target Hex for the unit to spawn. And again, I don't think it's necessary as the T34 will spawn in an adjacent hex unless it really is a must that it be that particular hex and it be vacant:

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Also here is the "Dialog/Transfer" trigger tandem:

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It works, but see my caution in the Ostrov post about this arrangement. But since it does work, I will not keep repeating this comment.

[bru888]

Novgorod v. 2.7 (continued)

As Bobster indicated in your campaigns thread, "I learned during deployment, NOT to place a unit on an exit hex." Here it is:

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Is there a reason for this exit hex? From the color, it looks like a German exit hex. There does not seem to be an advantage for the player to exit units in this scenario.

[bru888]

Leningrad v. 2.7

See my comments in the Smolensk post about the need for AI primary objectives and the way "Sov" triggers need to be designed in order to provide for a human Defeat. See the parenthetical sentences in the beginning of the Ostrov post for additional comments.

The objective hex for Leningrad is not the same hex as the named hex (highlighted). Hence the name does not show under the flag. I would move the name to the flag rather than vice versa because moving the primary VP flag to the name will affect the triggers:

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In addition, the way that these primary objectives are constructed is strange. Three of them are inactive in the beginning:

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and the one this is active cannot be completed until Turn 20:

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So if the player did not pay close attention to the briefing, it is possible for him to just push into Krasnovardeysk and wonder why he does not get credit for taking the city, turn after turn:

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Finally, on Turn 20, he gets a Major or Minor Victory depending on whether he completed the secondary objectives. "Ho hum, okay," he guesses:

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I believe this is another one of those situations in which the player does not know what he is missing; that is, the other three primary objectives.

The briefing says, "Your mission is to escort 6 heavy siege artillery units of Army Group North to a number of positions outside of Leningrad. These objectives have been marked on your map as Artillery Zones Sector A-D." There are seven such guns and seven AZ sectors, A-G.

These are the hexes required for "Enable (other) objectives":

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They are not entirely the same hexes that are required for the secondary objectives:

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This is what Bobster said: "Leningrad - In my first couple attempts at this scenario I couldn't get some of the secondary objs to complete even though I placed the artillery in the correct locations. I think it happened when Soviet units temporarily reoccupied the hexes after my first arrival in those locations. Afterwards, looking at the scenario in the editor I saw a bunch of other objectives that never showed up in any of my plays, I would never have been able to compete them anyway as it always took all the turns just to place the artillery." Read on.

[bru888]

Leningrad v. 2.7 (continued)

I think this is a very good scenario in the making but it's a bit confusing, so I am going to make a bunch of recommendations:

1) Correct the briefing as follows: "Your mission is to escort 7 heavy siege artillery units of Army Group North to a number of positions outside of Leningrad. These objectives have been marked on your map as Artillery Zones Sector A-G." Also, "Once you secure one of these zones, simply leave your auxiliary siege artillery units on each of them . . ."

2) When the player takes Krasnovardeysk (it's all he sees as an objective for now), have an Event Popup message that congratulates the player for doing so but reminds him of the mission concerning the heavy siege artillery units. The scenario cannot end until those objectives are achieved. Perhaps use one of these images:

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3) Make sure the "Enable objectives" triggers are pointing to the right hexes. They all require owning Krasnovardeysk first:
Enable "Capture Kirovsk" - the first four "Check Unit(s) near Hex" Target Hexes do not point to the secondary VP's but a couple of hexes north of each.
Enable "Capture Rudanfort - the same four hex errors occur here as well; you probably cloned the trigger above and added Kirovsk ownership.
Enable "Capture Leningrad" - again, the same four hex errors plus owning Kirovsk and Rudanfort.
So, you should correct the four hex errors in each of these triggers and at least will have the objective hexes in alignment.

4) You repeat those hex ownership conditions over and over again in those triggers. That implies the game checking to see if they are still achieved at each step. Indeed, the briefing says "the Soviets will not sit idly by and let these gun positions go unchallenged, so be prepared to defend them against possible counter-attacks." Perhaps the secondary objectives should follow suit. If that is your intention, then for every "Ger/Sov Zone X" secondary objective trigger, they should be infinitely repeating by entering "-1" on all of them:

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Forget about doing the same for the primary objectives, though; I cannot even imagine how to handle that.

So only when all the stars are in alignment, so to speak, will the game allow the next primary objective to be revealed. The odd thing is, the better the human is playing, the more he may be "penalized" with another primary objective! I don't even have to ask whether that is your intention. In addition to explaining matters better and aligning objectives, you might at least consider granting a few more turns.

[bru888]

Leningrad v. 2.7 (continued)

Okay, back to the normal business of CSI sweeping.

I said above "Forget about doing the [infinite frequency] for the primary objectives . . . I cannot even imagine how to handle that." That means the primary objectives triggers all fire once, as normal. So, every "Sov" trigger in the "Primary objectives" folder shouldn't just re-open the objective. For one thing, that's only going to happen once, as does the "Ger" version of each trigger, so if the player retakes the objective, nothing will happen:

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Instead, I would leave the "Ger" triggers as they are (with the exception of adding Soviet AI objectives to fail, if you took that suggestion) but for the "Sov" triggers, they should look like this:

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Thus they can be treated as normal primary objectives. On the other hand, don't forget you are checking whether these VP's stay in Axis control for every new primary objective that is enabled by those "Enable Objectives" triggers, so that aspect is covered as well.

One more tip on the primary objectives: It might be a good idea to activate these triggers only as the objectives themselves are enabled, just to avoid complications:

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Same idea, come to think of it, for the Soviet AI objectives if you choose to use them - Krasnovardeysk on at start; Kirovsk, Rudanfort, and Leningrad enabled only as the corresponding Axis objectives are enabled.

Did you want an Event Popup to explain the sudden appearance of these two core units?

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It is almost with relief that I say once again, "I have the same observation about the 'Bridges' triggers here as I did in Belgrade." Leningrad has been a humdinger, worthy of a thread in itself. I haven't been so heavily engaged since Cherbourg in US Corps 1944-45!

Thread to be continued . . .

[bru888]

Zhitomir v. 2.7

Scenario description: "The encirclement of Kiev begins." (lower case "b")

I noticed that every square in Kiev is named "Kiev," including this hex well away from the river, except the one that has the flag on it. Hence the city remains unlabeled.

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You may argue, "The mission is to to probe the Kiev defenses west of Dnieper river, not enter Kiev itself." Well, that hex looks like part of the city, regardless. I say name the city! Name it so that it can be recognized like other spots on the map (before the FOW lifts and there is a unit sitting on the hex, of course).

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I'm thinking that some players will never see the secondary objective activated. The reason is this "Enable Objective" trigger requires all of the other primary objectives to be captured before Zhitomir:

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and it may not happen that way. If the player takes Zhitomir before any of the other primary objectives, it will never fire because once the final objective of the group of five stipulated by that trigger is captured, the scenario will be over. Here is how I would do it - notice that I borrowed a sentence from the mission description so the player has a better idea of "what's up":

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This trigger condition is missing a Target Hex:

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I have the same observation about the 'Bridges' triggers here as I did in Belgrade.

[bru888]

Zhurivka v. 2.7

See my comments in the Smolensk post about the need for AI primary objectives and the way "Sov" triggers need to be designed in order to provide for a human Defeat. See the parenthetical sentences in the beginning of the Ostrov post for additional comments.

Also, I don't recall what happens when there are no secondary objectives. Is a victory in this case automatically a Major Victory?

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Isn't there something secondary that you could offer, like "Destroy X tanks, find a usable T-60?" How about "Raid Kiev from the other side this time"?

Briefing: ". . . intelligence has reported a weakened, but sizeable, force is . . . (remove the last comma)

Zone-2 for both of these triggers? (The second one is labeled "Zone-4"):

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Poor beleaguered, downtrodden Kiev remains nameless in this scenario as well.

And I don't care if there is only one bridge: I have the same observation about the 'Bridges' trigger here as I did in Belgrade.

[bru888]

Zolotonosha v. 2.7

Sure, now that Kiev has become low-hanging fruit, now it has a name!

Here's the first test of my friendly supply Rule of Thumb. Land supply is going to be tight behind German lines (although there is another surplus of +11 on the Romanian side of the river):

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This goes back to what I said about Zhitomir; here, you are assuming the player will take primary objectives in the order that you envisioned:

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This time, the assumption is that Zolotonosha will be last but what if the player takes Zolotonosha before another primary objective? Again, this trigger will not fire in that case because once the other four VP's are taken, the scenario will be over. As I recommended for Zhitomir, I would use Capture VP Event / Check VP Count / Primary VP Value > 3.

There's a bit of difficulty with these two "Check Supply Connection" triggers:

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The initial state of things is, of course, no supply connection between Zhurivka and Kaniv. So the first trigger to fire should be "Zhurivka-Kaniv open." Yet it is the one that is marked inactive in the beginning. Indeed, among its effects are to turn itself off (it's already off) and to turn "Zhurivka-Kaniv cut" on (it's already on). Also, this arrangement implies that supply could be established, cut, established again, etc. That requires "-1" infinite frequency. See if you agree with doing it this way:

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[bru888]

Vyazma v. 2.7

See my comments in the Smolensk post about the need for AI primary objectives and the way "Sov" triggers need to be designed in order to provide for a human Defeat. See the parenthetical sentences in the beginning of the Ostrov post for additional comments.

Also, there is something strange about the "Ger Mozhaysk" trigger; it waits until scenario-end to evaluate:

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Maybe you were thinking of the "Ger Smolensk" trigger because the Germans begin the scenario holding that city, although the "Scenario turn limit" condition is missing from that one.

This is similar to what I said for Zhitomir and Zolotonosha but this time, I don't think it will fire because you are requiring ALL primary objectives to be held. Once that is true, the scenario ends and the secondary objective never appears:

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Once again, the best approach would be use Capture VP Event / Check VP Count / Primary VP Value > X.

Event Popup message: "You are given permission to do a recon in force against the outskirts of Moscow" (swap the "t" and "s")

This trigger is extraneous; this type of secondary objective does not need to be re-opened or failed. At scenario-end, the objective is either achieved or it remains opened:

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This image is not in the folder:

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If you don't have one handy, maybe you will like this one. From the web site caption, it is a KV-1 tank but it has German markings:

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I have the same observation about the "Bridges" triggers here as I did in Belgrade.

Thread to be continued . . .

[bru888]

Streets of Moscow v. 2.7

Here is further indication that my new supply Rule of Thumb is on the right track. It's not precise, but it does point one in the right direction. I took this screenshot when I noticed that the land and supply situations were only adequate at best (land) or actually inadequate (air) and that led me to notice the missing airfield supply (the usual 20 there would take care of the air supply):

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and only then did I remember what Bobster said in his notes: "Streets of Moscow - With Female Factory Labour the Germans were short of supply to deploy all their Land CP's. The airfield north of Odintsovo doesn't appear to provide any supply so the Germans start with negative air supply." Proof.

Now, "Female Factory Labour" provides for "+2 Land and Naval Command Points" and the math should have been right: 108+2 = 110 which equals the starting land supply surplus but he probably also had "War Economy" (one has played 8 scenarios previously to this) which does the same thing, thereby putting him -2 CP over the supply limit:

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Nobody is saying that you need to be overly precise with supply like this but what I will be looking for now is not just negative red numbers but situations where friendly supply is tight (or could be inadequate based on specialisation command points) and pointing them out to you. And sure, the player could just push ahead and take a nearby supply point but he is handicapped to begin with (plus the three turns it takes to activate friendly supply in the captured hex) and may not appreciate this. After all, many of your scenarios are difficult in the first place.