Kursk design bug... ?

[o_t_d_x]

When i first played the map i did what i always do: i scouted my flanks, with scout planes. So i knew the position of the soviet strategic reserve, from the beginning. I cannot ignore such a large threat in my flank, so i ignored the orders and stopped my approach to kursk. Instead i formed a stable defence line and the majority of my army attacked the strategic reserves in the east. That lead to the biggest encirclement ever .... and the odd experience that i have achieved more than the real germans ever could have hoped (annihilated absolutly everything with nearly no losses) and then i have lost. Even bigger story logic problem in the smolensk mission: I kill everything, conquer all cities in the east and so i am very near to moscow, with an army consisting only of tigers, elefants, foque wulfs, hummel artys, gustav rail gun, much supplies and then its historic ??? I mean its only a text problem, some text that explains that the soviets had a major victory on another front that forces us back etc... in some missions they did that, but here its a little bit odd. Especially the smolensk map is a problem, because its so close to moscow. With such an huge modern army so near to the capital of the soviets ... imagine what this army could do to the supply lines of the stawka...

The kursk problem: The units of the soviets are activated over one script trigger only. There is no second script that activates them, if they are approached without taking victory hexes. (the trigger i think) It was no problem with the north east soviet troops, they tried to attack my positions. But the infantry reserves in the east did nothing - i just could butcher them all. I solve such problems, in my mod, with additinal secondary area triggers, that make sure, that the units attack, even if the player ignores the briefing and does something unexpected. It would have been much better, to activate ALL strategic reserves, when i move east, instead of north. A simple area trigger could achieve that. And it would have been even better, when in addition to the strategic reserves, the tanks at pokorovka would have set to attack too. And if you add a little percentage for randomness then this trigger could be triggered not at the same time always. That way it would have been much more challenging. And all of that was easily and fast achieved with the editor of pc1. With the so called user friendly editor of part 2 i couldnt do anything of it.

Personally i wouldnt have positioned the reserve at the map at all. In reality the russians would have camouflaged their troops, so the scout plane wouldnt have seen much. In my mod i just let the units drop on the map, when the trigger is activated. But far enough of the player, so he can see them soon enough, IF he has good scouting.

[Horseman]

Not a design bug....more a design flaw.

Still I agree with you - there are several instances through the campaign where this sort of thing can happen. The thing is its unlikely that you'll find them on your first play through (for most players) Most people will follow the briefing.

At the end of the day I'd rather have seen additional triggers so those units will surge forward if I choose not to take the victory hexes (you could just leave the victory hexes empty until the last turn and never have to deal with those forces at all) but then I can also choose to not game the system and exploit obvious flaws.

Almost every game has flaws or exploits that a player can use to win - no matter how well designed, some one very clever (or rather someone setting out to find them) always finds them. Just look at "The power4" traits - when used together these really remove almost all challenge and break the prestige model. As players we can choose not to use them to keep things interesting and fun. Of course some people find that sort of play fun so I'm glad they haven't (yet) removed them. In single player games its up to the players how they play to maximise their own fun.

As a base campaign I think they did well enough in making it interesting and it has to cater to all types of players.

As we can see with the upcoming DLC, these sorts of things are being ironed out as they come up with interesting and different ways to challenge us!

[o_t_d_x]

Its not a big problem, if the editor will be finished, i will include more triggers.

BTW: i never used the "power 4". I only read no zone of control for the enemy.... it sounded like an i win always button. For me the power 4 are cheating. No offense ag. people who use it, just my feeling bout it.

[dalfrede]

PzC1 had a similar issue with preplaced units subject to preemptive attack.
The scripting functions for spawning attack waves came late in development.
It had been 'solved' prior to game release, but they have not gone back to the older scenarios to 'fix'.
Random AI Spawning was tested in the 'Defending the Reich' stand alone scenario.

In SCW Ebro the attack waves are not preplaced and show up pseudo randomly.
So do not expect to see much of it in new DLCs.

[o_t_d_x]

Not a design bug....more a design flaw.

The thing is its unlikely that you'll find them on your first play through (for most players) Most people will follow the briefing.

Interesting, i always thought that securing and scouting flanks is imperative. Its a basic of military tactical doctrine. So at least all PC1 veterans and everybody who at least knows military basics, should have seen the soviet reserves in their first try of the map. Thats the really difficult thing in designing a good map: to foresee all the things the player might do and cover it with intelligent scripts. The lack of such scripts strenghtens my impression, that the time pressure was high in the development process. I really would wish, that the editor could do scripts and zones like the pc1 editor. It would be a matter of minutes, to make some good scripts. Testing them is the time cosuming part.

[Horseman]

Not a design bug....more a design flaw.

The thing is its unlikely that you'll find them on your first play through (for most players) Most people will follow the briefing.

Interesting, i always thought that securing and scouting flanks is imperative. Its a basic of military tactical doctrine. So at least all PC1 veterans and everybody who at least knows military basics, should have seen the soviet reserves in their first try of the map. Thats the really difficult thing in designing a good map: to foresee all the things the player might do and cover it with intelligent scripts. The lack of such scripts strenghtens my impression, that the time pressure was high in the development process. I really would wish, that the editor could do scripts and zones like the pc1 editor. It would be a matter of minutes, to make some good scripts. Testing them is the time cosuming part.

But most players wouldn't know the trigger for them to start moving.

You'd probably assume that they'd be time released - like the Moscow reserves. I suspect if I was playing kursk blind I'd have units in place to block them whilst fighting my way to the objective desperately trying to secure it before I had to respond to the death wave incoming. Unknowingly advancing my own doom!

[o_t_d_x]

Not a design bug....more a design flaw.

The thing is its unlikely that you'll find them on your first play through (for most players) Most people will follow the briefing.

Interesting, i always thought that securing and scouting flanks is imperative. Its a basic of military tactical doctrine. So at least all PC1 veterans and everybody who at least knows military basics, should have seen the soviet reserves in their first try of the map. Thats the really difficult thing in designing a good map: to foresee all the things the player might do and cover it with intelligent scripts. The lack of such scripts strenghtens my impression, that the time pressure was high in the development process. I really would wish, that the editor could do scripts and zones like the pc1 editor. It would be a matter of minutes, to make some good scripts. Testing them is the time cosuming part.

But most players wouldn't know the trigger for them to start moving.

You'd probably assume that they'd be time released - like the Moscow reserves. I suspect if I was playing kursk blind I'd have units in place to block them whilst fighting my way to the objective desperately trying to secure it before I had to respond to the death wave incoming. Unknowingly advancing my own doom!

I didnt know the trigger and i dont know it now, at least not exactly. And btw. the trigger doesnt matter. When i see masses of enemys in my flank, then its simply stupid to advance. It makes it easy to encircle my army, so i dont do it no matter what the okw says.