Winter War 1940 Beta Test

[Erik2]

Yep, my screenshots are from 8.4.0.
There are still a few minor issues with this version, but overall I like it.
It is much easier to actually being able to read stuff in 4k.
The screens are a tad large in my opinion, they tend to obscure parts of the battlefield.
Also, I hope the devs implement some way to hide/minimize the bottom panel since it is a bit of pain moving units along the bottom 2-3 hex rows.

[ColonelY]

There are several different units with that custom name. This is to make it easier to see which units you need to kill to fulfill the objective.

Yes, indeed.

Issue fixed! On the third sceario there are two Soviet "152mm m1938" on Komintern Tractor... I had an issue with this transport, due to some of my modifications of the units.csv file... I will be more cautious next time!

So, due to this I've seen 2 Japanese tanks on this scenario (because already deployed units with this transport mean) and the fourth scenario "crashed" at the beginning of the second turn (because spawning of artillery units - of two different kinds, by the way - again with this transport mean)...

[ColonelY]

04Hotinen

I think you can safely remove the 3 aux art units.

This scenario needs a pri obj 'end-of-scenario' condition.

Well, for the flavor I would prefer if not all of these art are removed.

Again, no recon plane allowed, despite the "War Economy" spec.?

[ColonelY]

05SummaSisu:
Great scenario briefing dialogue...

The bomber unit mechanism works fine; I've seen the three possibilities: one tank less, one poor brave Finnish unit less or nothing happening.

The Soviet tanks have a hard time making good progress. Especially as they will not advance into a mine-field knowingly (as a human player probably would do). I notice a tank knocks off about 3 strength points moving into the mines-field by accident. Maybe reduce the mine-fields to 3 points? Also, maybe add some Soviet commanders?

The lack of Soviet progress meant they never advanced enough to give the Finns a chance to cut supply. So the Soviet air supply was not neccesary.
The Soviet air supply is moving ahead of the tank column. Shouldn't it follow the tanks and resupply whenever a tank unit is out of supply?
Is it possible to start the first plane when the first tank is out of supply?

Well, I've deployed only ski troops and some other AT-gun - I like this "Unauthorized mechanism", by the way!

I've let the tanks advance, sent 2 ski troops units from the northern parf of the road directly towards the west (heading near the second supply point on the road)... I didn't really care about blocking them directly; there was indeed no hurry, seeing the number of ambushes and AT-guns waiting for these tanks to advance. Later, having checked where the supplies are (on road!), I've managed to make two nice pockets with these tanks - thus out of supplies! Finally, it was just a mobbing up operation - but it's required to be a little bit cautious, for these tanks ARE strong!

Then, I've simply watched the air supply moving with no more tank on the map, during the last turns of the scenario...

Question: Are those air supply really doing their job? Because, once out-supplied within their pockets, the tanks don't seem to benefit at all from these planes moving above them... Or, at least, I've seen no concret effect nor supply state change.

[ColonelY]

06Terenttila

The map pointer for Terenttilä points to various Strongpoint 3 locations.

After the initial attacks where the outcome was in doubt, the Soviet units was exhausted by turn 9. The Finnish counter-attack recaptured a couple of the Strongpoint 3 objs and started mopping up the remaining enemy units.

I think you can shave 6-8 turns off the total.

Another nice scenario, with a new great tank for us!

Same observations than Erik, although maybe shave "only" 4 turns, so making it more like a 20-turns-scenario... but not shorter, because if the player hasn't deployed much fighters, it may be difficult to achieve the sec obj related to planes (our airfield is far away, so refueling takes a while)...

+ few details:
-> Scenario description (first paragraph): the "Mannerheim line" should probably be replaced by "Mannerheim Line" (the L!)
-> This time, when achieving sec obj while already having the corresponding commander, we have no longer the info that it's the 100 RP as reward? (This made me double-check whether it does work or not - it does!) But still, what about adding this info, like within the previous scenarios?

[bru888]

Guys, keep going. One of you please get through the entire campaign and when you do, I will start making revisions.

Erik, preliminary question for you about 8.4.0: Are any of the messages truncated?

[bru888]

Can't wait to test my new Finnish Armoured Train. Waaait, I forgot, probably no tracks anyway. Damn historical accuracy...

You can look forward to Viipuri. Tons of railroad tracks with interconnections so that a train can approach the battlefield by one track and depart on another. You will see what I mean.

[ColonelY]

Two points:

1. Concerning this famous general Vinogradov: he appears within the first three scenarios, each time with an armored car... but with a picture (I mean, a "commander") only for the third scenario. So, what about adding this (same, of course) picture within the two first scenarios as well, so that each time we encounter the General Vinogradov's armored car, it has the same picture (commander)?

2. 04Hotinen: Each of the four concrete bunker has 25 supply points... but each time a bunker is destroyed, those points are destroyed as well. Is it on purpose?
It means that it any of our two initial bunkers are destroyed (even if quickly recaptured!), then the player will directly be short on supply (but still not completely out of supply, fortunately)... The Soviets are less likely to encounter the same issue thanks to their extra supply in the South (they start with about 40 more supply points than us).

[Erik2]

Guys, keep going. One of you please get through the entire campaign and when you do, I will start making revisions.

Erik, preliminary question for you about 8.4.0: Are any of the messages truncated?

It looks like scenario description may suffer from a tiny bit of trunciness (probably not a word..), but they are still readable.
Not a big problem, more like a small blemish. The game messages looks fine (unless i've missed any small issues in the heat of the battle).
Yes, I know you are concerned. I suggest we create stuff in 8.3.0 until 8.4.0 looks as it should do.

Shards has posted a list in the beta thread what's left to fix after Red Steel is published.
He has promised to publish update(s) soon...

[bru888]

Please advocate for addressing such cosmetic issues. Perhaps call their attention to their own DLC which will be compromised by such oversights.

I don't think Shards will mind if I replicate his message here:

Hi,

Thanks to you guys we've found a fixed a tonne of issues in this beta test. But we've had to draw the line somewhere and there are several that won't be fixed in time for Red Steel's release.

We will fix them very soon in subsequent patches though! And I wanted to list some of the more serious ones here, so you're aware of what we're looking at:

• Disband Unit Button missing
• Display Issue with objectives with large target numbers or that use "Units" as a measure
• Hotkey for Air/Ground focus can be temperamental
• Multiplayer Password box can disappear if you toggle to Skirmish
• Units with No Traits display the Commander No Traits message
• Shadowing issues with some units
• Not all fonts support all characters
• Logbook entries are repeated

There are more, but they're mostly cosmetic or very unlikely to be encountered by most users.

Thanks,

One definition of "cosmetic" is "Serving an esthetic rather than a useful purpose." The word is often used to downplay the importance of some topic. That importance, though, is very subjective. In a video game, esthetic is quite important.

[Erik2]

07Lahde

Core units:
Ski x10, inf x4, hvy inf x6, eng x6, T28 x1, 37mm AT x5, 105mm art x5, 122mm art x1, 40mm AA x3

I think you can remove the 4 aux 105mm art units.

650 supply points left over after elite repair.

There's a fighter message stating that 'air recon reports...'
So this scenario should have 1 air CP to allow the user to actually do the recon.
Then you can link the message to the Blackburn actually doing hte enemy fighter spotting.

The AF location means that Finish fighters will only have a couple of turns at the targets.

Very intense fighting for 8-9 turns. Then the Humble Hero was captured and the tide turned.
By turn-14 all objectives were met. I think it safe to shave off 4-6 turns.

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[Erik2]

08Muolaa

Core units:
Ski x17, hvy inf x6, eng x3, T28 x1, 37mm AT x5, 105mm art x2, 122mm art x1, 40mm AA x3

Air recon message vs possible Blackburn again.
The Soviet air units never made a comeback after their first sortie.
So no chance to down 2 Soviet sir units as the Finnish fighters arrived late to the party.
This of course makes it difficult to get a major victory.

Bloodiest day of the war so far.
The Finns had to perform e general retreat to the second line at about turn 9-10.
This line was never in danger of being overrun.

The knitted message states that the curch was not saved. This was not the case in my game, so I think you should replace that part with something more generic.

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[bru888]

The Soviet air units never made a comeback after their first sortie.
So no chance to down 2 Soviet sir units as the Finnish fighters arrived late to the party.
This of course makes it difficult to get a major victory.

You may have noticed me talking about this issue recently and how I have moved away from the re-spawning mechanism to deal with it. The module works, but it has two faults: 1) The exited air units come back immediately and completely refreshed, and 2) While the player will never have to down more than a certain amount of planes to achieve an objective, he may in fact face more enemy planes than the designer intended.

Therefore, I am downplaying the off-map air support option for AI planes in favor of a discreet, remote airfield hex in a corner of the map. This is a game. Let there be some stretching of plausibility in favor of better gameplay.

You will see me replacing the re-spawning mechanism in this campaign as I go back over it. Thanks for all of these comments and suggestions and please keep going to the end.

[ColonelY]

07Lahde

I think you can remove the 4 aux 105mm art units.

650 supply points left over after elite repair.

There's a fighter message stating that 'air recon reports...'
So this scenario should have 1 air CP to allow the user to actually do the recon.
Then you can link the message to the Blackburn actually doing hte enemy fighter spotting.

The AF location means that Finish fighters will only have a couple of turns at the targets.

Very intense fighting for 8-9 turns. Then the Humble Hero was captured and the tide turned.
By turn-14 all objectives were met. I think it safe to shave off 4-6 turns.

Just a splendid scenario!

As Norwegian Volunteers, there is an unit called "Nygaard", which reminds me someone.


I totally agree with Erik for the recon plane, but I would let a minimum of 3 aux art units (partly for the flavor), i.e. 1 of them near each "double concrete bunker" near the frontline...

I think that one can indeed shave off 4 turns, but not more, for it may again be difficult to achieve the sec obj related to planes... Together with a reduction of maybe 8-10 RP/turn, it may reduce a little the amount of remaining RPs (it's still good to have some in reserve, by the way)...

The bridge looks a little discontinuous with the road on the NW, but it's fine. I wonder whether there is another redeploy hex available in the top north (after the deployment phasis, I mean), along the road too?

I like the way these paratroopers are implemented. I was just a little surprised to see that these paratroopers already had one star and a half of experience... But it's fine, I guess: they have been trained to dropping and they were already soldiers before...

Little issue: when we receive a Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 as reward, it's not our AF (where our new core plane is spawned!) that is highlighted but the Lähde Road Fork location.

[bru888]

Thank you, Colonel. As I said previously, when one of you finishes Viipuri and posts his comments, I will go through all of this and make edits accordingly.

[ColonelY]

You're welcome. Understood. I'll continue.


I think it's nice, this double feedback system - one can directly compare the ideas...

Oh, and talking of ideas, there is one: 07Lahde -> instead of simply removing the 4th aux art unit, what about remplacing it by an AA unit? This may for sure be handy.

[bru888]

Not fishing for compliments, but more feedback: Are you enjoying this campaign so far? Does it have enough elements to hold your interest or are there too many popups and too many objectives?

[GabeKnight]

Also, I hope the devs implement some way to hide/minimize the bottom panel since it is a bit of pain moving units along the bottom 2-3 hex rows.

Agree, but I'd like to point out that this only happens (at least with OoB v8.3) if you play with a modified "variables.txt". Having changed the zoom levels, for example.

[ColonelY]

Not fishing for compliments, but more feedback: Are you enjoying this campaign so far? Does it have enough elements to hold your interest or are there too many popups and too many objectives?

To make it short :

1. Enjoying this campaign so far? Oh yeah!
2. Does it have enough elements to hold your interest? Yes, indeed.
3. Are there too many popups and too many objectives? No, not at all. On the opposite, this adds flavor to it!

[Erik2]

And I humbly agree with the Colonel.