Winter War 1940 Beta Test

[GabeKnight]

(I'm looking at youse, Gabe, with your shenanigans: "Well, well, well. Here's an enemy airfield too close to the front lines and unprotected. What say we run a squad down there and disrupt things!" Yes, I keep picking on you but I don't mean it maliciously - I actually appreciate knowing about such things at this stage rather than later - and besides, I think you like the challenge and the recognition as an unorthodox strategist. )

Don't worry, I like those comments...
...and this time actually spot on, if you've read my post above first...

Usually I tend to go after the enemy supply hubs, if somehow possible. The gain warrants the costs. Even the slightest under-supply-situation has benefits, the resulting drop to 90% efficiency to all enemy forces is a HUGE advantage.

[GabeKnight]

Regarding the comments about "suggest some (delay) mechanic for the primary objectives' check to allow for the completion of the secondaries," I hear you. The flip side complaint is having to play out too many turns once all objectives have been completed. Starting from now, I will make it a standard practice to have at least one primary objective being evaluated only at "Scenario turn limit." Where I think excessive turns may be in store, I will either cut back the number of turns or I will include an "Early scenario ending" trigger which is much easier to do than "Delay scenario ending."

Yep, thanks, I mean, sorry, don't know how to properly say it: Just wanted to let you know that this is exactly the right direction IMO. Now I'm beginning to feel a bit obsolete with all that professionalism going around. My help's not needed anymore...

So, for example, less mines, and/or no engineer tasks for clearing them. Let the 8.3.0/8.4.1 AI figure it out for itself. We'll see. Thanks for testing and reporting.

There's an AI team order to clear mines? Or do you have to use some "move to" orders? I've always thought that this task is performed automatically by the AI.

03MakinenRoadblock
- removed four of nine mines. I think I have a handle on engineers and mines now, and I don't think it's a bug in either 8.3.0 or 8.4.1. We need to give more credit to the AI, I believe. First, a solid line of mines seems to be an impossible barrier to the AI even if you provide it with engineers and direct them to do their jobs. That much must be accepted. However, if you have a reasonable amount of mines, the AI will use engineers to clear just enough of them to make a path, particularly on a road. It will not waste resources (assuming that they use them for the job) clearing mines that are not in the way. I ran a simulation four times and each time an engineer cleared the mine in the road, which is all that I wanted. The other engineers will sit and vegetate because the AI will send the infantry into combat first, especially in tight quarters. It is not going to clear mines just because we want things to be tidy.

Interesting.

Just a quick note again on engineers and mines. We cannot depend on the AI to necessarily clear mines even when "told" to do so. The AI seems to evaluate the utility of doing so, depending on the situation, and it may or may not comply. I saw in Makinen that it did clear the one mine in a row of three blocking the road, consistently over several tests. Yet here in Muolaa, not that I tasked them to clear mines, but the engineers are bypassing or serenely gazing upon mines like visitors at a zoo ("Dangerous animals, huh. Lucky they're in cages!":

I guess the upshot is, don't bother trying to make engineers clear mines unless it is crucial and then, better test repeatedly. Otherwise, let the AI determine if and when to use its engineers to clear mines. And don't overdo mines in the first place; a sprinkling or strategic placing of a few mines achieves that delay/surprise effect but trying to wall off territory with rows of mines is counter-productive in that such an array could be too effective.

Yep, that's more what I've experienced myself.

I've run a test on the "09SummaHardestDay" scen. I've exchanged the mines back to the neutral faction and placed some "reveal" triggers in there to be able to see the AI units' movements. There's many mines directly on the paved road blocking access. And the engineers are sitting right in front of them, doing nothing but entrench themselves. Everything that's faster moves first. That means, engineers, heavy inf. and towed arty last. They will actually sit and do nothing until all other units have passed the mine fields.
Mine clearing does not cost RP. Why not do it? The only time some mines were actually "cleared" was by heavy infantry units on both primary VPs.
This should be definitely changed in the AI code. I think this justifies being called a "bug".

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[CoolDTA]

09SummaHardestDay

[...]

4) Player Turn 2 - The commander and his subordinate have their good news / bad news conversation: "Uloste! (Excrement!)".

Oh no, no, not like that. That's a pc word or medical term and extremely odd here. Better use "Voi perkele!" (Oh damn). To see this common word in use, please watch this short clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxTKJgsxwpE. The Canadian is so polite, while the Finnish approach is... different.

[GabeKnight]

Good one. PERKELE!

One of the comments from the video says: "there is an ancient myth that when a finn gets angry and shouts...every living thing on this planet can understand finnish language for a split second"

[GabeKnight]

This should be definitely changed in the AI code. I think this justifies being called a "bug".

Oops, partially my bad. I was sloppy and didn't check some other obvious factors. The other culprit is the scen designer using "seek & destroy" orders for the engineers instead of "move to hex".

Changed AI team 12 orders and voilà, suddenly they'e doing what they're supposed to do. Even attacking my units on the way. Better to give them specific target hexes and maybe split the AI team into two or three, but even my solution to use the nothernmost VP as target hex, worked. But I'd still suggest to reduce the amount of mines overall in these scens, and to avoid "clusters" with 3 or more mines next to each other.

And I think the S&D AI order should have some mine clearing tasks included nevertheless, at least when there's no imminent enemy to be attacked.

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[bru888]

06Terenttila
- how about changing the reward tank from the previous scen to one from the Finnish unit roster? But it's probably too early for the T-34 model, right?
- good thing you didn't include any Japanese snipers in this one. I think they could've used the tunnel entrances the "proper way" then...
- some enemy reinforcements on turn 8-10 would be nice. Tabula Rasa around turn 18.

All of the enemy tanks in 05SummaSisu were T-28Cs and the reward popup says "Well, what do you know? One of the enemy tanks was abandoned by its crew members. They probably saw what happened to their neighbors and wanted no part of it. We are the proud new owners of a T-28 tank!"

Enemy reinforcements might throw off the gameplay balance, which I try to calibrate using a spreadsheet (and a friendlies 3/4ths the enemy's force rule of thumb). I forget now if I just inserted this in 06Terenttila but there is an early scenario ending trigger in there now for when you reach Tabula Rasa.

[bru888]

Crossroads / Mannerheim-Line-Trilogy (MLT)

All:
- The popups/events are great and add much flavour to the scens. Personally I'm very happy for all the maps showing me where I'm actually fighting. Thanks!
- The maps are too big and the airfields too far away for any meaningful air combat (or achieving the sec. obj. for that matter!). The only time(s) I've achieved them was to a) sacrifice my dogfighters in pursuit of enemy bombers or b) send some of my skitroops to capture the enemy airfield...
There's also another downside as the enemy AI planes won't operate too far from their only home base. A dogfighter with 7-turn fuel won't go further than two-times their speed from the airfield. If you want this to work properly with OoB you have to use more airfields/airstrips, historical or not. Otherwise I'd suggest to scrap the air objective and use enemy bombers only.
- add (some) supply to towns/VP or the enemy might not hold them!
- less mines

07Lahde
- the easiest of the three. Everything was over around turn 10. It was here where I took the enemy airfield with my ski troops. Enough turns for that...
- the only scen where enemy arty actually managed to get into operational range and land a few shots. In none of the other scens did the arty arrive/move to even be able to fire.

08Muolaa
[-]

09SummaHardestDay
- descr. text: "the temperature is -20 Celcius" there's the "degree" or "°" missing

- you could move the campaign pin for the para objective somewhere closer to where it was achieved. At least out of the water.

Bruce, I've written this before I read your revisions (<- this one's on me ), so some of this may be obsolete by now. Just discard it in that case.

I'm glad you like the maps. Much time and effort went into selecting appropriate templates that would fit 512 x 415 pixels and be legible, then in editing them so that they orient the player.

You picked up on this already but many edits have been made in these scenarios so far to perk up the air battles a bit. One measure, of course, was to shorten the flying time for reaching the battles.

You say Lähde was the easiest of the three and that you skied all the way down here to take the airfield? God bless you, GabeKnight.

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But you may find some booby traps from now on . . .

We fixed that bridge earlier, but thanks. Also, as a result of your input and that from others, I am going back over all of this and boosting air and artillery AI aggression to 99 across the board.

I remember now why I put those pins in the water; it actually was in the middle of the map because the paratrooper mission campaign variable with which it is associated can come from one of three possible scenarios, all with different locations. Regardless, it looks dumb to pin the water, so will choose a suitable location for them, thanks.

[bru888]

09SummaHardestDay

[...]

4) Player Turn 2 - The commander and his subordinate have their good news / bad news conversation: "Uloste! (Excrement!)".

Oh no, no, not like that. That's a pc word or medical term and extremely odd here. Better use "Voi perkele!" (Oh damn). To see this common word in use, please watch this short clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxTKJgsxwpE. The Canadian is so polite, while the Finnish approach is... different.

Done. Here is the entire conversation, in case you are interested:

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[bru888]

Here is a summation of best practices that I have learned recently and which will be applied in this campaign and Continuation War 1941. (I'm also thinking of proposing some retroactive work on WW39 too, Erik):

- All scenarios to have at least one primary objective that requires the full amount of turns so that secondary objectives can be achieved. The offset is to have an early scenario ending trigger once those secondary objectives are completed.

- I will continue to use my spreadsheet method for calculating initial RPs but I have cut back bonus RP awards from 100 to 50.

- I will cling to my rule of 1 RP per unit, per turn. This is the reasoning: I don't gauge income on the basis of when the battle took place or how expensive a unit becomes to purchase later on. I base it on an overall survey of DLC in which 1RP/unit/turn was an almost exact average that official designers used in their campaigns from all war years. It seems to work.

- Airfields will not be so remote.

- Friendly airfields will be placed as close to the action as feasible without obviously putting them in harm's way. Where this is not possible, then I will use off-map air supply.

- Enemy airfields will still be placed on the map in a somewhat remote location (the AI does not properly handle off-map supply for its air units - once exited, they never return) and I will guard them from the player's single unit raids.

- Air and artillery tasks will always be with 99 aggression. (For infantry and tanks, the rule will still be 50 for moseying along, 75 for paying attention to business, and 99 for banzai attack).

- Simple is better as long as: a) it gets the job done, and b) creativity is not overly curtailed. Look, some of these triggers simply don't work as they were designed or work as they should have been designed. That's just an OOB fact of life.

[CoolDTA]

Done. Here is the entire conversation, in case you are interested:

It is quite funny and once again adds some flavour (a certain PzC2 has so much to learn from you).

[bru888]

Okay, so given the precepts contained in my manifesto above, I made some the following changes for 03MakinenRoadblock, 04Hotinen, 06Terenttila, 07Lahde, 08Muolaa, 09SummaHardestDay, and 10Kirvesmaki:

- With the exception of 10Kirvesmaki, moved Soviet airfields and airstrips closer to the action by a few hexes (much closer in 07Lahde and 09SummaHardestDay).
- I snuck in a couple of pieces of Soviet artillery in 10Kirvesmaki while I was in there.
- Increased aggression for artillery and air AI teams to 99.
- Provided air and land defences for Soviet airfields and airstrips.
- Revised (and in a couple of places, improved) the early scenario ending triggers; no longer can they look for just Category Land to be not Alive or Deployed because Soviet bunkers, foxholes, and AA guns protecting the airfields and airstrips are also land units.

So, Gabe, here are a couple of previews of what you will face the next time you decide to take a leisurely jaunt, by ski or wing, to a Soviet airbase!

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Ha. Ha, ha. BWA, HA, HA, HA!!

(Yeah, I know it's not much, but at least it won't be a walkover and such escapades are going to cost you now. And seriously, these observations of yours make the scenarios better so I thank you for them.)

So this gets me back up to where I was last night, with only five scenarios left to edit. I have uploaded version 0.92 with all changes for the first 10 scenarios.

[bru888]

11Honkaniemi

- added the missing Set Objective State effect for destroying the supply train.
- fixed the module for spawning and moving trains. All trains are now running on or close to schedule! (I keep learning new things. For example, combining AI teams is permanent. Adding new units to the old team from before it was combined does not assign the units to the old task; they follow the new team's task.)
- Soviet artillery aggression increased to 99.
- Converted the "Capture the town of Honkaniemi" to "Capture and hold the town of Honkaniemi" and made it evaluate at scenario turn limit.
- Added an early scenario ending trigger.

Note: For historical accuracy, and because the six Vickers (not T-28) tanks are specifically mentioned in the scenario description and briefing as being the sole armoured forces for Finland in this battle, I don't permit any core tanks (or artillery).

Note: I am confused by all the comments about a recon plane. True, I have not been allowing a command point for it (either 1 by itself or an extra +1; say 7 instead of 6 air CPs). But doesn't the War Economy specialisation provide for +1 Air Command Point and couldn't you just buy your own recon plane?

Note: The comments about "This time there were not enough sresources left to fully repair the core units. This meant 26 CPs worth of units were deployed severly
understrength in the rear at scenario start" and "Almost all of my reserve RPs disappear during this scenario (the aux tanks being quite costly to repair!") now have
me re-thinking the reductions of bonus RPs from 100 to 50. It certainly validates my having given more RPs in the beginning, and here and there as needed for additional purchases, than was done in the original. You are supposed to manage your RPs and conserve them so that by the time you get to Scenario 11, you don't run out of them (by superior play, of course). Now I have taken 400 potential RPs out of the campaign and the challenge will get worse. Suggestions about the bonus RPs? Back up to 100?

[Zekedia222]

Perhaps put it in the middle. I’d think 75-80RP would increase difficulty, but not necessarily allow for depletion of units.

[bru888]

Perhaps put it in the middle. I’d think 75-80RP would increase difficulty, but not necessarily allow for depletion of units.

That occurred to me, Zeke, but I am looking for a rule of thumb to apply in all bonus situations. 75 is a compromise but only perhaps for this campaign. Is it right for all campaigns? I am not sure. Unless I get a strong opinion, I'm thinking leave it at 50 because, frankly, I have never seen Erik award 100 RPs as a bonus for secondary objectives.

[bru888]

12Lemetti

- added the village of Lemetti to the primary objective links.
- improved (simplified) the early scenario end trigger to work reliably.
- redesigned and simplified the Capture Tank Module: "simpler is better, Bruce."
- the prize tank will be chosen randomly, at Scenario Start, for better replayability.
- the prize tank will become part of the player's core.
- this module redesign will resolve "On the beginning of turn 10, the obj "Prevent Soviet from escaping the motti" was considered as failed, although NO unit at all managed to escape nor was close at all from any exit point" because, yes, the old capture tank module was removing tanks instead of being destroyed. When they were removed, they "exited" and failed the primary objective. Another good catch, Colonel.
- this module redesign will also resolve "The map has been completely cleared at the 15th turn... but the sec obj counter said that there was 24/30 units destroyed." Again, the surrounded tanks were being removed and thus exited. Yet another good catch, Colonel. You are on a roll!
- took the T-28 out of the mix. That's too much tank for the Finns to be driving around, especially now that it would be a core unit. On the other hand, I resisted putting in a Matilda or, even worse, a T-38; those are too puny. Mix: Two each of T-26 1939, OT-130, and BT-7. One will be the prize tank if the player gets to it in time.
- decided to give two more turns for this objective, since the player must destroy the tank to earn a prize (if it is the right one). Now the mission is "On or before Turn 12, destroying an idle tank will capture it instead. After Turn 12, Soviet engineers will destroy all remaining idle tanks."
- reduced tank strength to 5 to reflect their undermanned/unmanned status.
- moved prize tank spawn to just outside the Vehicle Park to avoid any cancellations due to too all nearby hexes being already occupied. Explained shift in popup message.

The prize tank randomness is there, as these tests show. The module is working.

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[bru888]

At this point, I uploaded version 0.93 in case anybody wants to catch up in beta testing. I'm looking to finish tomorrow, though; only three scenarios left.

[ColonelY]

11Honkaniemi

[...]

Suggestions about the bonus RPs? Back up to 100?

Not necessarily, it could be a lot a work, but you can instead simply increase the amount of "new" RPs directly given when this scenario begins.

Or, another easy solution: simply increase the income for this scenario!


To buy a recon plane? Yes, it was done previously.
But 6 LCP = 2 planes (either bombers or dogfighters), which means that bringing a single recon plane like this (with 6 LCP!) actually takes a fighting plane away... This is better to be avoided. But recon planes ARE useful. This may explain that. (And why there were MANY comments about it.)

[ColonelY]

Yet another good catch, Colonel. You are on a roll!

Glad to help!

[bru888]

DECISION: All RP bonuses will remain at 50. It is just a bonus after all and is not meant to be a crutch if the player is under-funded. In that case, the initial RPs should be adjusted (I am fully committed to 1 RP per unit per turn).

Erik began the campaign review by relaying how he had a glut of RPs but then ran out by Scenario 11. When the campaign is released, he will know whether to adjust them again based on his own replay or player comments.

[bru888]

Regarding the recon plane, when you have War Economy, don't you have +1 air CP? So, if you had 0 air CPs, you now have 1? Or if you had 6, you now have 7?