Free France Campaign

[bru888]

I promised earlier that I would release a two-scenario "preview" of Free France after "several days." That has turned into a matter of weeks. [Snip: A bit of self-pitying prose has been removed. The forum moderator advises the custom designer to either put up or shut up. ]

Okay, put up.

Free France 1940-1945 (first 2 scenarios)

Three things:

1) As the title says, only the first two scenarios are ready. There are a couple of messages between the second scenario and what will be the third, but that is it.

2) Due to factors that I have mentioned before, while each scenario will have core units for the player, these units will not persist from one scenario to the next. A fresh set of core units will be generated for each scenario as needed. I did try, but it was not a go.

3) IRL, Dakar was an embarrassing loss for the Allies. Gabon, in contrast, was a virtual cakewalk with only 20 or so fatalities. Nobody would want to play scenarios that strictly adhered to this history. Therefore, each scenario is based on actual circumstances but is greatly enhanced as to the scope and challenge of battle.

[Mascarenhas]

First impressions: just great! A lot of action, a sensible use of French units that are very much underestimated against German in ETO. I'm loving this first one, Dakar.

[bru888]

First impressions: just great! A lot of action, a sensible use o French units that are very much underestimated against German in ETO. I'm loving this first one, Dakar.

I am glad, my friend, thank you. I have made a great start on Kufra. More to report soon. Funny how the sketchiness of the information (but enough to go on) and the lack of a bona fide battle map are actually stimulating the creative juices. Plus, after all that snow and heavy forest in Finland, and the jungles of Dakar and Gabon, I am finding the arid desert air invigorating. I think I am going to like Kufra very much.

[bru888]

This will be one of the objectives, the Buma Aerodrome and Radio Station outside of Al Jawf, capital of the Kufra District:

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[Mascarenhas]

Ongoing report 1 ( Dakar ):

1) Zero resources for Aussies x 01 Aussie capital capital ship; no repair possible. That's a bit unfair, the poor cruiser will be a prime target for every Vichy unit in town.

2) railroad yard has no embarking platform, can't get the train to Dakar, why is it so?

3) Île de Gorée, no pic.

Lots of fun. Patruille costière . what??? Sacre bleu!

[bru888]

Ongoing report 1 ( Dakar ):

1) Zero resources for Aussies x 01 Aussie capital capital ship; no repair possible. That's a bit unfair, the poor cruiser will be a prime target for every Vichy unit in town.

2) railroad yard has no embarking platform, can't get the train to Dakar, why is it so?

3) Île de Gorée, no pic.

Lots of fun. Patruille costière . what??? Sacre bleu!

1) As intended. In recent work, and in these particular scenarios, I don't give income for ships at sea, away from their home ports. How realistic is it for a battleship to sail to the docks at Rufisque, recently conquered and lacking an adequate shipyard, to be repaired for battle damage? Whatever income you do see is for land and air units only. Australia only has the cruiser in this scenario.

2) It's not intended for you to take the train to Dakar. What do you expect, a free ride on a commuter railroad? ( )

3) It works on my end, which troubles me in that why doesn't it work on your end?

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[Mascarenhas]

1) Well, since I can repair British and French vessels, I see no point in not having tha ability to also repair the Aussie, in the game logic.
2) I can take the train at Rufisque and go all the way to Dakar if I want. Why not having intermediary stations in the way? Either no station at Rufisque, or more stations on the way, it seems to me more realistic.
3) Probably a matter of graphic resolution, you may have done it on 5 K or 4K, and I, poor me, only have lower resolution rate.

[Mascarenhas]

Dakar, final report.

Made it at 45th turn. Smooth, surprising, tricky. Big coastal guns somewhat dull, could be a bit more aggressive. In the end, Senegalese Infantry played a nice role, with so many villages and especially foxholes to deal with. Congrats! Now, to Gabon!

[bru888]

Whew. I was on tenterhooks.

[bru888]

Erik, I am using your Afrika Korps and Desert Rats campaigns for tips on how to design a desert map. This is the first time I have ever designed a scenario in a desert setting! I feel like such a tenderfoot.

[bru888]

Case in point. Sure, mix in a few open terrain hexes to relieve the boredom of sand. Of course, rough desert is a must (must also look up the travel restrictions of this terrain). But beach? Inland beach? Who knew? You sly devil.

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[bru888]

Here is Forte Al-Taj in Kufra. It doesn't look like much . . .

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. . . until you turn the lights on. This is going to be a tough nut to crack!

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[GabeKnight]

Of course, rough desert is a must (must also look up the travel restrictions of this terrain). But beach? Inland beach? Who knew? You sly devil.

Beach is very similar to desert and only slows down wheeled and (half-) tracked vehicles more.
And the rough desert is similar to pine forest (that you should know very well by now ), but additionally impedes movement of tow and platform chassis.

PS: If you'd like, maybe you can use this:

[bru888]

Yes, apparently I need to take it easy with the rough desert; there will not be tanks in Kurfu but there will be wheeled and half-tracked vehicles and none of them can enter rough desert, even with a road:

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Beach can be entered by them but at a cost; see how they shy away from it:

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A glance at chassis.csv confirms all of this:

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Thanks for the "steer" in the right direction.

[bru888]

And thanks for this! Very professional-looking.

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[bru888]

The best use of beach in a desert environment may be to represent salt pans, salt marshes, and quicksand as found in basins like the Qattara Depression.

[GabeKnight]

And thanks for this! Very professional-looking.

You're welcome. No big deal as I had the template (more or less) ready from the KoreanWar mod.

FreeFrance, played as always on level4 difficulty out of my mod:
(Why not include some real world map? At least some map and not that...that...flag thing)

01Dakar
- after deploying everything, I still have 6LCP for the Brits and 16LCP for FreeFr (that got increased to 22 until scen end). Couldn't buy anything for the FF anyway, but purchase is possible with the Brits, so it's okay for me to buy a tank?
- I'm not sure, but I think you increase the players lands CP every time you spawn a new unit (like the 2 brit AA and the converted french). You don't need to do that with spawned units (even core)
- whole arty is useless after taking Rufisque near the landing site, too slow through forest compared to infantry. Never really catches up, to be honest.
- FYI, the trigger to remove all British ships also includes all my (land) units in naval transports. My invasion force was suddenly gone...
- and the way you've undeployed the naval units, it's possible to redeploy them on the eastern map edge (but it's not that they could reach anything in time anyways)
- the "defeat troops maneuvers" counter doesn't work, showed 6 units first and then zero, even though I've only killed half on them by that time. I guess they are supposed to be the coast patrol guys, right? But the objective checks alright together with Dakar in the end.
- it is a really large map with a lot of units just moving along the roads. But I guess it's just my personal preference to play smaller maps.
- played just fine overall, nothing to complain gameplay-wise, good popups and story, nice work!


02Gabon
- Holy...no progress whatsoever in about 10 turns, wasn't able to take even one town with the aux. land forces
- got hammered by enemy strat. air with nothing (or rather: super weak "planes") to defend really, at the same being attacked by a pack of enemy fighters. And they seem to have more RPs than me for repairing them.
- by turn 10 I had no money, no airforce and my "fleet" was decimated and I had still 4 coastal guns and 7 enemy naval units to dispose of before I could hope for some reinforcements to do anything, even accomplishing the primary objective(s). I quit then.
- I know my mod has some naval changes, but this scen of yours is just brutal IMO

[bru888]

Good comments, Gabe, thanks.

I think you have tipped the scale on the issue of core units in this campaign. Briefly, it's too wide a time span; the Free French are very limited in their array of units and therefore need to be borrowed from other factions; and the resulting juggling of core units and CPs creates more issues. So continuity of core over the campaign was out anyway - the core gets wiped after each scenario - and the only advantage was to be able to "resurrect" dead core units during the scenario. I'm overruling that and going with all aux units in this campaign. Sorry if that disappoints anybody.

Gabon may indeed be a bit too tough. I will look to tone it down. Nobody is supposed to purchase anything, so that option will be turned off for everybody.

[bru888]

Okay, the changes to Dakar so far:

The scenario is completely auxed; i.e., all core units and CPs have been removed. Nobody can purchase anything. I tell you, with the difficulties that I had juggling command points, core units borrowed from other factions, and the need to remove some but not all core units so that they did not carry forward, this transition to all aux is liberating.

The "Defeat troops on maneuvers" did not include the coastal patrol ("Patrouille Côtière") and I can see how it could have been confusing as to who is who concerning a primary objective. So I removed it but the tradeoff is that these troops on maneuvers are no longer hiding passively but will strike someplace. This is better.

Not much I can do about slow artillery; they have the same trucks as everybody else. Maybe it reflects the reality of not outrunning your big guns, to be on the safe side.

Hmmm. You weren't supposed to have a (seaborne) invasion force but you being you, Gabe, yes, I can see how that caught you with your nautical pants down. Alright, I edited the trigger to remove only British warships.

Regarding "that flag thing," earlier in the thread I talked about why I went with it. Basically, I couldn't find a suitable map that showed the area from northern France, to west Africa, to east Africa, to the Middle East. In landscape format of the proper proportions. You have only one map for the entire campaign and this is a big area. I was looking for blank maps with national borders but perhaps if I look again, I might get lucky.

[bru888]

Regarding "that flag thing," . . . I might get lucky.

Alright, I got lucky. Thank goodness I eliminated Madagascar from the campaign (no Free France participation)! That's your campaign icon in there, thanks again.

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