BrucErik CSD Studio

[CoolDTA]

Aura no mora.

The Finnish Maiden
The 'Maiden of Finland,' the personification of our own country, has triumphed over the Russian Eagle, a somewhat less complimentary symbol of our enemy than 'Mother Russia' in our eyes. Triumphed for today at least. Tomorrow is another day in this war.

Great! Thanks.

Also, I can imagine you chuckling over this:

Image0273.jpg

Yes, it might sound like fantasy but is actually true. The maiden had two arms but then the bear ate the other one.

Happier maidens below.

[bru888]

Forgive my ignorance, but do all females in your country have such short arms? ( )

[CoolDTA]

Forgive my ignorance, but do all females in your country have such short arms? ( )

I guess only the most patriotic ones.

[bru888]

This scenario has been tough to design. First there was the challenge of ensuring that the Soviet tanks would have a path of opportunity going up the road and that they would take it. When that was resolved, the situation flipped. Basically, Finnish infantry units at this time do not have the firepower to take on T-28C tanks in open ground and I was not about to forest the entire road to enhance their chances with increased cover. Even the two types of AT guns available now are not very effective and it's too early for the 75mm Pak40.

So to even the odds a bit, I created a "Bomber Engineer" module for each of six Ambush Points:

Screenshot 5.jpg (415.72 KiB) Viewed 2852 times

Screenshot 2.jpg (444.52 KiB) Viewed 2852 times

An ambush can only be used once and there are three possible outcomes for each:

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The odds are 1 in 3 for a successful attack so on average, the player should be able to destroy 2 of the 4 tanks needed for the "Destroy at least 4 tanks" secondary objective in this manner. He may get lucky or he may get unlucky. Those are the breaks. For the rest, he will have to look for weakened tanks to pounce upon.

[CoolDTA]

This scenario has been tough to design. First there was the challenge of ensuring that the Soviet tanks would have a path of opportunity going up the road and that they would take it. When that was resolved, the situation flipped. Basically, Finnish infantry units at this time do not have the firepower to take on T-28C tanks in open ground and I was not about to forest the entire road to enhance their chances with increased cover. Even the two types of AT guns available now are not very effective and it's too early for the 75mm Pak40.

So to even the odds a bit, I created a "Bomber Engineer" module for each of six Ambush Points:

Very innovative and also historical mechanics, Bru. Good job! And yes, way too early for 75mm Pak40 (first ones were received in May 43).

[Erik2]

Bru

I've created a 'Winter War pics' folder in the dropbox.
I've added about 125 png pics. Good hunting

Added 13 maps to a 'Winter War maps' folder as well.

[bru888]

Thanks. Winter War 1940 is coming along, although that last scenario was a nutcracker. I managed to get it into a semblance of playability but dense forest is tough to work with for a number of reasons. I'm looking to finish Winter War 1940 in another week, then put it out to beta.

[GabeKnight]

This scenario has been tough to design. First there was the challenge of ensuring that the Soviet tanks would have a path of opportunity going up the road and that they would take it. When that was resolved, the situation flipped. Basically, Finnish infantry units at this time do not have the firepower to take on T-28C tanks in open ground and I was not about to forest the entire road to enhance their chances with increased cover. Even the two types of AT guns available now are not very effective and it's too early for the 75mm Pak40.

So to even the odds a bit, I created a "Bomber Engineer" module for each of six Ambush Points:

Again one of your intricate trigger creations...

I was just wondering (and I hope this consideraton may help your scen design) what is there to prevent me laying some mines of my own onto that forest road? Because the dense forest hexes are inaccessible by all tank units, they are a "natural" blockade. I've never used that many mines in a campaign as I did in the first WinterWar1939 of yours. Very effective to completely stop the armoured advance. Many AI columns had no engineers assigned and the slow heavy inf. units arrive too late anyway (or won't get through as other AI units would block access to the mined hexes). No other AI unit can clear mines (expections are the Jap. tank whatever its name, and I've modded the Brit Churchill AVRE).

Make sure that sec. obj. reward for destroying the tanks is worth the effort. Otherwise it may be real simple to win the scen by dropping a mine on the right road hex and do nothing else. Saves many RPs, if needed. I myself would try to mine the road (or the supply hexes), then arty barrage some of the tanks into oblivion and then attack with AT and (heavy) inf. from the dense forest hexes, where the tanks can't attack themselves.

Another consideration regarding supply hexes, esp. huge, singular supply dumps: It wasn't really bad in the first WinterWar1939 campaign, but with many of Eriks maps it's quite easy to sneak a fast unit past the enemy advances to capture one (or two) large supply hexe(s) behind enemy lines, mostly unguarded. Such move usually wins the scen in a very easy way.

Forgive my ignorance, but do all females in your country have such short arms? ( )

According to this reliable source posted a few days back, they at least seem to have normal lenght right arms...

[bru888]

Gabe, regarding the mines, that gambit comes under the heading of a nebulous concept that I have in mind which is crystallizing slowly over time: "Player cooperation for the sake of his own greater enjoyment."

Sure, if the player has a core engineer and a few resources (or he can even use a bomber engineer with which he is provided), he can place a mine in the road and shut the scenario down. However, at that point, he gets to either sit there for the rest of the turns (30 in total, I believe) or use #igotnukes when he gets bored looking at the tanks building up sand bags.

The fun is in trying to stop those behemoths from getting through and the premise is that there are NO real Finnish engineers in this small, ragtag outfit. The premise is also that the tanks are forced down this gauntlet by the dense forest. They are coming on fast and there is no time for placing more mines.

The issue is they have no other way around mines placed in their path so I had to create possibilities for them to fight their way through foxholes instead. I needed to "thin out the herd" of AT guns and foxholes to get the tanks to move with alacrity. (Another issue is the pencil-thin supply line which is also constrained by dense forest and easily cut. As you saw, I tried to work around that one.)

(Thoughts: I will revise the term "bomber engineers" to plain "bombers" in the scenario and I will use partisan units instead of engineers. Sure, the player can still use a core engineer for this purpose but at least this will remove the immediate temptation. As a result, you did indeed "help [my] scen design" so I thank you.)

So, player choice. He can choose to play the scenario the way it is designed and have fun, or he can put a stopper on things, get bored, say what a bad scenario this is, and move on. I see no way of completely preventing the cheat that you describe and still have the column/gauntlet effect given the terrain and game mechanics.

[bru888]

(Thoughts: I will revise the term "bomber engineers" to plain "bombers" in the scenario and I will use partisan units instead of engineers . . .)

Done. Also, all messages revised accordingly:

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Funny thing about that last image. Allow me to wax philosophical for a bit. That image is probably the first, and probably the only one that I have used that shows dead bodies. Well, maybe one or two elsewhere have corpses but not in the foreground like this one.

Why do I shy away from depictions of death in a war game? That's the philosophical thought. Why is it that I can enjoy a game about human beings killing other human beings when I don't want to see actual death in it?

I have always thought that my interest in military history is about the altruism and sacrifice, the strategy and tactics, the history for the sake of history. Those things are true.

But I do prefer to remain at this atmospheric level; no closer, thank you. I am definitely not a fan of first-person shooter games. Never have been and never will be.

Ah, idle thoughts on a dreary day. Back to OOB designing, which takes my mind off such thoughts and a bunch of others not healthy to think about too much.

[GabeKnight]

I see no way of completely preventing the cheat that you describe and still have the column/gauntlet effect given the terrain and game mechanics.

You sure you have to use dense forest for that scen? How about the "usual" forest? I'm not sure about the movement of the tanks you've used in the scen (some with lighttreaded traits/chassis can be quite speedy even in forests), but if you have those types that can only move 1 hex/turn inside forests/swamps, the effect would be the same without the possibiliy to completey block-off the Soviet armour units. They would choose the road/open terrain first, run into the mines/foxholes next and only then turn into the forests.

PS: Agree about pics of dead bodies. Even if about war, it's still a game where I move little figurines around. Nobody dies inside my computer.

[timberwolf15]

This scenario has been tough to design. First there was the challenge of ensuring that the Soviet tanks would have a path of opportunity going up the road and that they would take it. When that was resolved, the situation flipped. Basically, Finnish infantry units at this time do not have the firepower to take on T-28C tanks in open ground and I was not about to forest the entire road to enhance their chances with increased cover. Even the two types of AT guns available now are not very effective and it's too early for the 75mm Pak40.

So to even the odds a bit, I created a "Bomber Engineer" module for each of six Ambush Points:


Screenshot 5.jpg
Screenshot 2.jpg


An ambush can only be used once and there are three possible outcomes for each:


Screenshot 3.jpg
Screenshot 6.jpg
Screenshot 7.jpg


The odds are 1 in 3 for a successful attack so on average, the player should be able to destroy 2 of the 4 tanks needed for the "Destroy at least 4 tanks" secondary objective in this manner. He may get lucky or he may get unlucky. Those are the breaks. For the rest, he will have to look for weakened tanks to pounce upon.

Persons that get concerned about things would be benefited if they would try and make their own campaign just 3 scenarios in order to REALIZE how making a scenario and campaign can easily be a headache that requires a LOT of thought, playtesting, and trade offs - Ok having mentioned that I was wondering ... I am in the middle of this Winter War 1939 Campaign so in order to play it using these upgrades or changes your going to do ... can I just install the updated campaign and then load a saved game from say the 3rd battle or 8th battle or will I have to restart the entire thing ....

[bru888]

gunny, two things:

1) I appreciate the comments about the difficulty of designing scenarios and campaigns but by no means do I feel negatively about what Gabe, you, or anybody else suggest for improvements. As designer, it is my prerogative to pick and choose the suggestions that I follow. For example, Gabe brought up about the engineers laying mines. I took out the engineers on the map and substituted partisans but I am not trying to figure out a way to deny the player using a core engineer instead to lay mines. Similarly, he suggested using regular forest instead of dense forest so that tanks could divert off the road and avoid mines but this defeats the premise of the scenario so that is not happening. But all feedback is appreciated and I don't look at it as burdensome.

2) From your comments, I think you may not realize that what you are looking at in recent posts here is Winter War 1940 which has not been released yet. Winter War 1939 has been released and Erik is in charge of it now. Check the version number for Winter War 1939 in the beginning of this thread and make sure you have the latest version.

[bru888]

Bru

I've created a 'Winter War pics' folder in the dropbox.
I've added about 125 png pics. Good hunting

Added 13 maps to a 'Winter War maps' folder as well.

I just looked at this collection of photos (I need yet another "destroyed soviet tank" image) and was amazed that I had not seen the vast majority of them before despite scouring the internet these past couple of months. This is good, because I have been "running dry" and I'm trying to use each image only once . . . in two, perhaps three Finnish campaigns! I'm trying to think of a way to use even this one.*

Female volunteers Lotta Svärd aerial observations.png (502.89 KiB) Viewed 2670 times

The maps are always helpful, especially in pinning down location names. Those, and dense forest, have been the biggest challenges in these two campaigns.

EDIT: *You know what? I am going to use it, if not in this campaign, then the next one.

EDIT 2: Heh, I already have enough images to do a small Lotta Svärd campaign! It would be somewhat light on the combat action, alas for us but fortunately for them. Lotta Svärd will make an appearance at some point, though; that is for sure.

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[Zekedia222]

Hey Bru and/or Erik, you could use a trigger that reads if a unit of besides what you want is deployed! They do something like this in the Chindit scenario, in Burma Road.
You could use that idea of triggers to check your deployment hexes for engineers, and if they do, undeploy them, with a message like: With their heavier equipment, they could not make it in time.

[bru888]

Okay, but what prevents the player from trying to redeploy them the next turn? (Erik and I have been providing for a measure of in-game deployment to accommodate subsequent purchases and dead unit revivals.) Sure, the "no engineers" trigger could repeat but that would be an immersion killer, like the designer sending a message that he doesn't want that type of unit in the scenario even if it is in your core.

[Erik2]

I think a note in the scenario description 'if you want to play historically, do not deploy engineer units etc' should suffice.
Maybe adding that it will be a more fun scenario if the player follows the advice.

[bru888]

Hey Bru and/or Erik, you could use a trigger that reads if a unit of besides what you want is deployed! They do something like this in the Chindit scenario, in Burma Road.
You could use that idea of triggers to check your deployment hexes for engineers, and if they do, undeploy them, with a message like: With their heavier equipment, they could not make it in time.

I think a note in the scenario description 'if you want to play historically, do not deploy engineer units etc' should suffice.
Maybe adding that it will be a more fun scenario if the player follows the advice.

Ahhh, the old Operation Loincloth. I mean, Longcloth. Here is how he did it; note the "-1" infinite frequency:

Screenshot 1.jpg (264.25 KiB) Viewed 2596 times

Alright, I'll do it. That is, I will use both of your ideas, thanks. My trigger will be much simpler; I merely need to exclude engineers (and maybe heavy artillery, come to think of it). Tanks and other treaded vehicles are excluded from deployment by the dense forest.

This scenario is subtitled "Soumis, Satchel Charges, and Sisu." Sisu, indeed. On the part of the designer! ( )

[bru888]

Wow, that worked better than I thought! Here is my version; I use "Undeploy" rather than "Exit" just in case, to save core units from harm:

Screenshot 5.jpg (293.15 KiB) Viewed 2587 times

So, I'm Gabe. My fertile brain figures, "Gee, here's an exploit. How about some untouchable heavy artillery to pound the column from safety? Hee, hee!" ( )

"Here I go!"

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"What the?!?"

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"Why you, Bruce! I'll foil you yet. You left a loophole with that in-game deployment hex at the end of the road." [Which I forgot about when I made my comment about no tank deployment in dense forest.] "Take this!"

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"Whaaaaaa? Foiled again! This scenario sucks!" ( )

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This module will be used again in the future. I really like this studio thread. Special thanks to Zeke.

[CoolDTA]

This scenario is subtitled "Soumis, Satchel Charges, and Sisu." Sisu, indeed. On the part of the designer! ( )

You of course meant 'Suomis', right? Nice pic of Lottas in an air-raid warning post.

Bru, the embodiment of Sisu for sure.

"Whaaaaaa? Foiled again! This scenario sucks!" ( )

But don't underestimate Gabe's imagination...