BrucErik CSD Studio

[bru888]

God help me, but this is the first time that I looked at an outline map of Finland and actually saw Cool's "Maiden of Finland." Suomi is getting to me!

Suurin_Suomi.PNG (24.04 KiB) Viewed 2686 times

The maiden's skirt or gown is more voluminous than usual because the image caption is "The furthest advance of Finnish units in the Continuation War."

[CoolDTA]

Whichever name was official at a particular time was just a matter of which side owned it at that time; the winner would trot out its preferred name. Who knows, maybe it will be Viipuri again someday.

It is the same name just in different languages. It is and will stay as Viipuri for Finns (Viborg is the Swedish name). One can only wonder what it would look like nowadays, had the city stayed as a part of Finland.

God help me, but this is the first time that I looked at an outline map of Finland and actually saw Cool's "Maiden of Finland." Suomi is getting to me!

You could do worse. And it is interesting to know something of one of those 'here be dragons' -countries, yes?

[bru888]

And it is interesting to know something of one of those 'here be dragons' -countries, yes?

Yes, and the journey is not over yet!

[rafdobrowolski]

I was referring to the mod picture. Ya, I think it is San Diego...

[CoolDTA]

I was referring to the mod picture. Ya, I think it is San Diego...

You are correct.

[rafdobrowolski]

I was referring to the mod picture. Ya, I think it is San Diego...

You are correct.

I see my house from here....

[conboy]

Positively 32nd Street Blues... (sorry, Bob)...

conboy

[bru888]

New theory/procedure about campaign specialisation points.

1) Select the specialisations to be included for each faction. Note: This may not be every specialisation that the game makes available to the faction as some may not be appropriate (you did a good job of that in CW1941).

2) Extend the campaign-ending date to ensure that all available specialisations will be shown in the specialisation tree (in this case, 31-12-1942 works nicely).

3) Total up the specialisation points needed by each faction to purchase them all.

4) Decide how many specialisation points to award each faction at start. This is highly subjective. It need not be associated with the beginning year of the campaign, as in "Oh, surely by 1941 the Wehrmacht should have Tank School." Not necessarily, if the designer chooses to award only one or two specialisations in the beginning and make the player earn the rest. But this decision is key.

5) Set a rate of specialisation points for each scenario by faction so that each faction will have a chance to purchase all specialisations by the final scenario. In a ten-scenario campaign, that is nine scenarios times the specialisation rate.

6) Bonus specialisation points earned for completing objectives are intended to allow the player to purchase specialisations sooner; that is all. This takes the guesswork out of determining how many points to award and how often. Of course, some simple calculations are in order so that the player is not swamped and disincentivized by surplus specialisation points.

So, this is what I calculated for Continuation War 1941. Notice this gets each faction "over the finish line" by the end of Turn 9 without bonuses:

Image0341.jpg (20.02 KiB) Viewed 2609 times

[GabeKnight]

Normandy UK & Canada 1944, v2.4, continued

I'm almost through with it, and my summarized conclusion would be like this: Difficulty seems okay for level 3, maybe even on the easier side. Should be doable on higher difficulties, too. I had no problem with RP balance, mostly you were quite generous here. Overall I'd say that difficulty dropped significantly in the later scens, and my suggestions will reflect that: I'll try to formulate my suggestions to keep the level-3-balance interesting.

07JunoD2

It's a large map and I have many units, but it seems empty. I'm not a sucker for large maps, but I thought of giving it a go nonetheless. After 7-8 turns nothing happened essentially, so I skipped the scen. Yeah I know, I'm impatient. Sorry, but I can't give any meaningfuly feedback here.

08Mesnil

- played good, maybe add 1-2 turns

19Carpiquet

- not enough player supply for all CP (-10). And I think I could've had even more with some of the WarEcomomy (and similar) specs. Add about +15, I guess
- enemy AA perfect, but I have too many airCP
- please add more enemy armour and infantry! I had like 130-140 land CP available. That is a HUGE army: Mission objectives achieved by turn 11, Tabula Rasa by turn 20

The downside when playing with the Canadians remains. It's a pity they have no units in the vanilla game to buy basically. No new units, no upgrades, no recon planes, no nothing. For the rest of the playthrough, I chose my British core from the other branches.

You really have to be really creative to make the FreeFrance campaign work like this! It's annoying playing a campaign without being able to change your core force composition even a little bit on your own....

25Verrieres

First I've used #warbonds to subtract myself about 10000RP (seriously!), that I've accumulated when "nuking" though the larger scens. I guess no RP worries in this campaign...
I've kept about 1000RP left - after repairing all units - for mission RP start-end-balance comparison. I'm always elite repairing and had no RP problems for the rest of the campaign so far. All's good here IMO.

- add more supply for the Germans, they went into undersupply after the first VP was taken
- I'd suggest about 9 landCP less for the player

27Beny

- no scen issues, maybe add 1-2 turns for convenience

30Bonfait

- some supply locations seemed arbitrary, better use city/town hexes
- balance suggestion: get rid of one enemy arty and add some attack on my flanks as well. It's a purely defensive scen and the Germans need more infantry and armour! I think it's a bit easy like this

26Bois

- there're two (German) Hotchkiss tanks on the field. They are named "...StuG". Intended?
- only one (the leftmost) of the air-exit hexes actually works! And BTW, the RP-damage on the planes I've lost due to them being unable to exit the map was the most damage the enemy has done to me in this scen....
- you can easily increase the sec. obj. damage to 24 or even 30 damage.
- the southern enemy column (Point 192) could use some armoured vehices & a (weak) arty unit
- without increasing the player's landCP, you could add some flanking attack to my north-eastern territory as well
- with no enemy air opposition and no enemy AA, I'd suggest to (at least) halve the player's airCP points.

29Bistiere

- add some supply to "La Graviere"
- add some turns to allow achieving the sec. objective, please. It's hard as it is to destroy units in OoB, especially when they're running away in transports that are faster than my units (without)...and additionally I made the "error" of placing a couple of mines on the road, that delayed them too much...
- maybe remove the "forward" deployment hexes to deny the player the opportunity to place mines...

32Gaumesnil

- I'd suggest to reduce player landCP by 9-12

This campaign is well done! Thanks, it's fun and plays superb!

[bru888]

Salla was a breeze. Good map, decent scenario description, and sufficient prep work to start with. Only one scenario so far, but if this is an indication, CW1941 should not take much time.

[bru888]

You know I use a spreadsheet for calculating command and resource points. Admittedly, it's not perfect; for one thing, it is geared more toward large, multi-faceted armies than bands of infantry in smaller scenarios (which probably explains why you are seeing excessive RPs in Winter War 40 because buying and maintaining a bunch of Finnish ski troops doesn't cost very much and they have limited access to armor and artillery).

I was thinking for CW1941 that I would just go with what you have but then I saw this in Scenario 2:

Screenshot 11.jpg (228.7 KiB) Viewed 2501 times

I uttered my customary "My goodness, is this man a lunatic? What does he mean by this?" Three infantry units at best versus 11 Soviets (which turns out to be 9 and a handful of foxholes and mines)?

Fortunately, it turns out that you ramp up the Axis over several turns. Whew.

Yet, that looks like 14 more Axis units, going by your "Change Income" effects. So, then we have 17 Axis units vs. 9 Soviet units. Looks a bit easy to me, even by my generous standards. Also, it's a good-sized map which could stand a few more units on both sides. This is where I feel the need to get creative, especially since nothing is planned here for the AI which seems to invite such creativity:

Screenshot 12.jpg (311.41 KiB) Viewed 2501 times

So I believe what I will do is to continue to adjust your AI units count up or down a bit if I deem advisable (in Viipuri, for example, you had 73 units; I cut that down to 62; here in this scenario it will increase from 9). Then I dial in the CPs and RPs using my spreadsheet which uses a suggested rule of thumb of the number of friendly units as .75 of enemy units.

I think I have been getting the units right; just overdoing the RP's. This procedure will get us in the ballpark to start. Then, in beta, we will determine what those RP's should be. If you think CP's should also be adjusted, we will do so as well. As I have mentioned previously (and will again), I favor doing that rather than adding or deleting AI units which have been choreographed.

This arrangement is working well, I believe. You are laying out the general direction of these scenarios - for example, I see what you intend in this one; start the Axis attack off slow with just elements of Kampfgruppe Nord in the field, then phase in more of them and Wehrmacht in later turns, building up the attack. I will paint by number and make our artwork look colorful.

[GabeKnight]

Normandy UK & Canada 1944, v2.4, continued

31Totalize

I was a bit afraid of this one, as it's again a huge map. But with the tight 24 turn limit, it rather played like a "Blitzkrieg". Nice battle, played great.

And by the way, you can remove the Brit/Canadian "advanced aeronautics" specs from the campaign altogether, as it does nothing. Well, never did, actually.
(I changed that in my mod for the Meteor, but it's the wrong timeframe anyway).


33Worthington

Well, guys, I don't know what to say but "Wow!" and "Thank you!" . Wasn't expecting this. Played excellent. Actually it was so much fun to hold the lines against numerous attacks (on all flanks), that I chose to not use the northern reinforcements from turn 15 and play with what I had from the start. Thanks again guys, you made my day....

Screenshot 91.jpg (975.1 KiB) Viewed 2482 times

It's one of those scenarios that in my opinion show the real strength of custom design. And again, it's only my opinion, but I think you shouldn't care that much about player's RP, rather be a bit more generous. Careful RP balance and spec point calculations are for stock scens and require beta tests and feedback from a variety of players. What I came to love about (mostly Eriks) custom scens is the added challenge with the AI actually being able to repair its units due so some decent AI income and the usual really spot-on AI/player unit balance.

The best scens I've played with your campaigns were those, where I had tons and tons of cash in the bank and was still struggling to win. My fondest memories are the scens where a seemingly overwhelming force rushed onto my frontlines, but somehow I was still able to hold the lines. Sometimes barely, but always doable. It was actually very fascinating, as I did not believe it myself that it could be possible to hold the lines against those odds...

Screenshot 92.jpg (941.66 KiB) Viewed 2482 times

[GabeKnight]

PS: I did not lose a single unit in that mission, but was wondering what the secondary objectives counter was actually counting ...?

[bru888]

33Worthington

Well, guys, I don't know what to say but "Wow!" and "Thank you!" . Wasn't expecting this. Played excellent. Actually it was so much fun to hold the lines against numerous attacks (on all flanks), that I chose to not use the northern reinforcements from turn 15 and play with what I had from the start. Thanks again guys, you made my day....

I guess we must be doing something right, eh, Erik?

[bru888]

You know I use a spreadsheet for calculating command and resource points . . .

Regarding resource points, we may not be in fact that far apart in our calculations over the length of a scenario. My system awards more initial resource points up front so that the player can outfit an army to his liking, subject to command points of course. But after that, he gets no resource points unless a scenario calls for a higher amount of command points down the line. Then he gets only the amount needed to purchase those theoretically incremental units.

So, for 27 Werhmacht CPs and 118 Waffen SS CPs, my spreadsheet wants to award 686 and 3,000 initial resource points respectively, total 3,686. You have only 400 and 1,725 = 2,125.

But I looked ahead. In this campaign, according to my spreadsheet (and barring any edits), there will not be any higher amounts of initial CPs in any future scenario. So 3,686 is all that I am giving the player.

On the other hand, you award another 220 in Scenario 6, 820 in Scenario 8, and 380 in Turn 10. Your total, then, is 3,545. Not much different from what I am doing.

My theory is, make the player balance having extra hardware for his army versus saving for a rainy day (you haven't said yet whether your RP bankroll is declining in Winter War 1940). I like this idea and my confidence in my system is restored.

You will be the doctor for the official version, as we agreed and with my wholehearted confidence in your system.

[Erik2]

Bru

The resources I award at the start of a scenario is the resources needed to purchase new units if the command points are higher than in any earlier scenarios.
I actually use OOB to calculate the CPs and resources at the start of every scenario using the very handy 'Allow Custom Starting Force' option in the editor.
If the new resources number is higher than any previous ones, I add the difference to the new scenario.
This is only a starting point of course, but works nicely.

BTW, since you started on the Cont war much earlier than anticipated I didn't get the chance to check the scenarios.
So there may be missing stuff in this campaign like AI tasks....sorry about that.

Real life is catching up on me. I'm involved in a large project at the broadcaster and must attend 2 workshops a day with a bunch of Canucks for the next 4 weeks.
So it will be a bit more difficult taking time offs for more important projects

[GabeKnight]

And last but not least:

34Falaise

On middle difficulty this played too easy. The enemy units within the pocket were overpowered and surrounded quickly, I've closed them in on either the first or second turn. The eastern German supply and exit-hexes were almost undefended, respectively most of the German units were fleeing anyways. There were only some Waffen-SS arty/Nebelwerfer units there. I was able to take them too quickly.

I've Tabula Rasa'ed the map by turn 10 or so. All supply hexes in my hand. That was not intended by scen design, as there were still German reinforcements incoming.
Then the real "fun" began. Like a lottery, trying to predict the location of the enemy reinforcements spawns and crush them as fast as possible. Okay, it was kinda funny but not in the least a challenge. I've lost many units like that, as some German Panthers beamed directly next to some infantry in transports...

- I'd suggest to decrease the player's starting aux. armoured force substantially as well as the US infantry and/or...
- increase the enemy starting strength in the pocket to 6-7.

Screenshot 93.jpg (507.46 KiB) Viewed 2387 times

[bru888]

Erik, when you get a chance, will you do me a favor and run some simple tests on the Check Unit(s) Near Hex condition? It's not working in your third CW41 scenario to deploy the Soviet Marines on the island and I cannot get this condition to work in my own tests. Note - I am still using 8.3.0. Can you still test it in that version as well as 8.4.0?

[Erik2]

Erik, when you get a chance, will you do me a favor and run some simple tests on the Check Unit(s) Near Hex condition? It's not working in your third CW41 scenario to deploy the Soviet Marines on the island and I cannot get this condition to work in my own tests. Note - I am still using 8.3.0. Can you still test it in that version as well as 8.4.0?

Will do.
(I have not actually tested any of the CW41 scenarios yet).

BTW, those Sov costal guns are off-map support in the original scenario.
I just put them on-map in a suitable location to add some flavour.

Edit: I noticed that all the 'Check unit(s) near hex' conditions are lacking the target hex info..
I'm pretty sure these were in place earlier...

Could you please place a copy of your 03Bengtskar scenario in the Back-to-Erik folder?

[bru888]

The difficulty that I am having is with your original version. Try running it a few times with #orbitalcommand and observe. On one iteration (the southern invasion, I believe), the ships don't go anywhere. In the other (western), the ships arrive at their destinations but nothing happens. I just thought of trying to place Soviet deployment hexes which I didn't think would work, and they didn't. I am stumped with this one. Maybe a fresh pair of eyes will find the problem.