Italy Corps-Afrika Korps campaign v1.51 (03/02/22)

[PeteMitchell]

+1

[imp44791]

A bit of feedback now that I have played all the way to Alamein and 3 scenarios on to the "losing" path before continuing the save for the DV as the new scenarios are coming up.

As always with this modder, everything is beautifully crafted. There is an excellent mix of scenarios ranging from the traditional Panzer General "go and capture cities, QUICKLY!!!", to fighting retreats, raids for supplies, no-airforce grinds etc etc.

On the "losing" path, I loved the first two scenarios. The retreat to Tunisia was tremendous fun, and Mareth was also pretty neat though I never seriously got in trouble. Tunisia though... see below.

The only suggestions for improvement I have are:

a. There are way too many reinforcements/capturables in the DV path which makes it difficult to use all the core. I am one of those weirdos who likes to use all my lovingly grown and nurtured units. This is a minor, personal issue. I especially thought that the capturables in Gazala and Alamein were too many. I liked the Gazala "get the box HQs for reward" incentive, but I didn't need more tanks at that point (and the Grant was a bit useless - by the time it got to the front lines I had already won). Alamein (which is a beautiful brawl of a scenario otherwise) has the rather pointless reinforcements of the Churchill and (especially) Valentine.

b. The Tunisian Bridgehead scenario is however a bit annoying with all the warping in of enemy units out of thin air. I understand the need for waves of enemies to come in, but the balance is a little out of whack. The problem is that the initial Allied forces are too weak for a well constructed Axis core that has played all the scenarios up to that point and is overstrength and modernised. The result is that in the first 5 turns my forces can sweep to the edge of the map... only to have enemy tanks materialise through script next or behind them. I can just about tolerate planes coming from off the map (they fly in!) but lumbering Churchills coming behind me stretches things. Might I suggest that more Allied units are put on the map at start to discourage the player from cutting through the initial setup like the proverbial knife through butter, and then warp in reinforcements to your heart's content - as long as the player is far from the warp zones, disbelief can be suspended. The same problem was in place in the vanilla DLC 43 West in Sicily - very weak early Allied attack, but if the German player counterattacked too early he found himself among the warp zones.

Once again thank you for the tremendous work (for free!) that gives new life to this fantastic game. I hope you are not taking my criticisms the wrong way.

[nikivdd]

A bit of feedback now that I have played all the way to Alamein and 3 scenarios on to the "losing" path before continuing the save for the DV as the new scenarios are coming up.

As always with this modder, everything is beautifully crafted. There is an excellent mix of scenarios ranging from the traditional Panzer General "go and capture cities, QUICKLY!!!", to fighting retreats, raids for supplies, no-airforce grinds etc etc.

On the "losing" path, I loved the first two scenarios. The retreat to Tunisia was tremendous fun, and Mareth was also pretty neat though I never seriously got in trouble. Tunisia though... see below.

The only suggestions for improvement I have are:

a. There are way too many reinforcements/capturables in the DV path which makes it difficult to use all the core. I am one of those weirdos who likes to use all my lovingly grown and nurtured units. This is a minor, personal issue. I especially thought that the capturables in Gazala and Alamein were too many. I liked the Gazala "get the box HQs for reward" incentive, but I didn't need more tanks at that point (and the Grant was a bit useless - by the time it got to the front lines I had already won). Alamein (which is a beautiful brawl of a scenario otherwise) has the rather pointless reinforcements of the Churchill and (especially) Valentine.

b. The Tunisian Bridgehead scenario is however a bit annoying with all the warping in of enemy units out of thin air. I understand the need for waves of enemies to come in, but the balance is a little out of whack. The problem is that the initial Allied forces are too weak for a well constructed Axis core that has played all the scenarios up to that point and is overstrength and modernised. The result is that in the first 5 turns my forces can sweep to the edge of the map... only to have enemy tanks materialise through script next or behind them. I can just about tolerate planes coming from off the map (they fly in!) but lumbering Churchills coming behind me stretches things. Might I suggest that more Allied units are put on the map at start to discourage the player from cutting through the initial setup like the proverbial knife through butter, and then warp in reinforcements to your heart's content - as long as the player is far from the warp zones, disbelief can be suspended. The same problem was in place in the vanilla DLC 43 West in Sicily - very weak early Allied attack, but if the German player counterattacked too early he found himself among the warp zones.

Once again thank you for the tremendous work (for free!) that gives new life to this fantastic game. I hope you are not taking my criticisms the wrong way.

First of all, thank you for your feedback. It is really much appreciated. After 11 years of modding, it is very satisfying that after all these years that i, amongst other great content creators, can still entertain with new stuff for this wonderful game.

Like myself; some players like capturables or special rewards (prestige,prototypes,...), it almost feels compulsory on one hand but also a nice surprise on the other hand. Naturally, the advantage of those extra units, that they can be disbanded or simply kept aside for another fight. Some players might not fare so well, and what for one is unnecessary might be for someone else a blessing. It is also a part of trying to keep balance or tip the scale, especially in more difficult missions like Gazala and El Alamein. Crusader is not so easy either.

Your interesting thoughts about Tunisian Bridgehead brings a huge smile on my face. I was hoping someone would notice eventually: this is the original Tunisian Bridgehead scenario of the official Afrika Korps expansion.
I made a few minor changes (objectives) and that's about it. Diplomatically put, there are differences between modded and official content

[imp44791]

Your interesting thoughts about Tunisian Bridgehead brings a huge smile on my face. I was hoping someone would notice eventually: this is the original Tunisian Bridgehead scenario of the official Afrika Korps expansion.
I made a few minor changes (objectives) and that's about it. Diplomatically put, there are differences between modded and official content

Yeah, it looked suspiciously familiar

IF you even consider tinkering with it then my main suggestions would be:

(a) Strengthen the initial Allied placement to discourage any early attacking by Axis. You may or may not wish to tone down the warping of ground units but that's not so important if the player is not close to notice.

(b) Make the initial placement hexes less scattered in singles and doubles. After all, Axis is on the defensive, they should have some say how they place their units. The map is huge so there are enough hard decisions to make, but the mad scramble of the first couple of rounds to concentrate your forces gives it more of a feel of a battle of encounter rather than a defense of a perimeter. A good example in vanilla of how this scenario should be is Moscow in Soviet Corps. Huge deployment zones, not enough units to cover them all, enemy coming from different directions necessitating a sound central position approach to dispatch reinforcements where they're needed. Another good example is your Mareth (which is cracking good fun): four large waves of Allied troops coming in from two different directions in alternation. Makes it important to husband the central position (the northernmost tip of the dividing ridge) with mobile forces like fast tanks and Sahariana recce (an absolutely beast of a unit, I love it). Tunisia is tougher as there are a lot of obstacles (rivers, hills) that separate the zones, so the Axis player should allow the Allies to come to him as the area around the coast is flatter and allows for easier mutual support - but of course it also has the enemy fleet to annoy you.

(c) Take away the auxiliary level bomber for the Axis, if you have one in the core to pair it with then the Allied fleet is blown to matchsticks in six rounds. Or at least give the allies a carrier and Seafires to keep Axis honest. Send the level bombers unprotected, bye bye. Send fighter escort, well you're going to miss it in the land front.

Re: capturables. Fair enough, I'm a weirdo as I said. Is it possible however to not just give tanks and aircraft all the time? I wouldn't mind fooling around with the odd anti-tank, anti-air or some of the fabulous arty units the allies get. Get me a GMC SPG capturable, or a 3.7 inch AA instead of the crappy Valentine IV!

[imp44791]

So, I finished the DV path to the point it has got to. Alexandria was too easy - perhaps the counterattacks from Cairo could be beefed up, and/or helped by one coming across from Suez. After the absolute brawl of Alamein it was a bit anticlimactic. Being gifted two experienced level bombers is also too rich - and the British fleet is puny. I would cut the German level bomber (it's meant to be a mostly Italian campaign anyway!) and give an inexperienced Piaggio only. And beef up the enemy fleet.

Cairo was nice. I dislike seeing tanks appear off the edges of the map behind me as a rule, especially when we're talking deep desert, but that's a personal thing. As before (and again it's personal taste), I find the rewards too rich. Not the bonus unit in the oasis, but the 4 additional units in the special infiltration group. The Allied defences in Cairo could do with more artillery too (AA is fine, quite nasty as it should be).

The scenarios are polished as expected for this modder and good fun. Many thanks for this free (I stress this point) gift to PzC players like myself.

[nikivdd]

So, I finished the DV path to the point it has got to. Alexandria was too easy - perhaps the counterattacks from Cairo could be beefed up, and/or helped by one coming across from Suez. After the absolute brawl of Alamein it was a bit anticlimactic. Being gifted two experienced level bombers is also too rich - and the British fleet is puny. I would cut the German level bomber (it's meant to be a mostly Italian campaign anyway!) and give an inexperienced Piaggio only. And beef up the enemy fleet.

Cairo was nice. I dislike seeing tanks appear off the edges of the map behind me as a rule, especially when we're talking deep desert, but that's a personal thing. As before (and again it's personal taste), I find the rewards too rich. Not the bonus unit in the oasis, but the 4 additional units in the special infiltration group. The Allied defences in Cairo could do with more artillery too (AA is fine, quite nasty as it should be).

The scenarios are polished as expected for this modder and good fun. Many thanks for this free (I stress this point) gift to PzC players like myself.

I was imagining three Prokhorovka's after one another
No seriously, in what i consider scenario making, it should not be a hard mission after a hard mission. I always keep in mind to design for beginner/intermediary level. Veteran and elite level can be (partially) achieved by upping the level of difficulty. So how would Cairo be if every Allied unit has 5 more strength points? Or if during the whole campaign prestige is cut in half for the player? Or even winning the (official) Afrika Korps campaign without purchasing German units?
Don't get me wrong. I understand your arguments but it is a hard thing to find a kind of balance to keep it entertaining for everybody.
There are several ways for the AI to receive reinforcements, or devising counter-attacks. I understand, the least appreciated counter-attack is units appearing from "outside" the map, a more used approach is creating battlegroups somewhere on the map that move into action when a certain condition or conditions are forfilled (we see that a lot in the official East DLC's). A sneaky trick is to instruct some enemy units at the edge or close to a corner of a map (not outside the map) to attack or move them to a certain place on that map; then it can happen that they suddenly appear in the rear of the spearheads or close to one of the player controlled objectives. Still, reconnaissance units can help avoid that.
What Alexandria concearns, the Allied fleet could be beefed up somewhat and yes it does sound like a great idea to place Italian level bombers; they are actually pretty good.
And yes, the campaigns i share in the scenario design section are free and i wouldn't want to see it any other way.

[imp44791]

You are right about prestige to the player. One thing I hated in the vanilla DLCs was the soft cap which eventually I edited out. I want to be rewarded if I play well, and that means being able to upgrade/overstrength my units. But I like it when I go in with Strength 14 Tigers if I suddenly face Strength 13 Fireflys. It concentrates the mind

I am certainly not asking for an insane, ahistorical level of difficulty. Personally, I don't like the higher levels of difficulty in the game - they feel artificial with the AI getting better units and oodles more prestige. I am more interested in a tough setup. When I am on the attack it means the AI setup having a good combination of AA, arty and mobile units. When I am on the defence it means a rough air attack above all, and lots of enemy artillery. This is historical: nobody launched an offensive without lots of these two, and also concentrated. So, in the case of your (beautifully designed, I want to repeat) scenarios here, it makes more sense for me to have an Allied opponent with lots of guns, lots of planes in e.g. Tunisia when I am meant to weather the storm. Or, when I am attacking a famously tough nut like Cairo, to have an enemy stacked with 3.7 AAs and 6 inch guns. It also helps the player strategise, and not just go crazy fast like the original Panzer General -which should have been named Panzer Sprinter instead. Take your time, bring the artillery forward, probe with the recce, send the tanks around. That's much more satisfying than just race. I am not saying you do this, I am just illustrating my style.

Thanks again for the great work, and I am patiently waiting for the update (for the Soviet DLC as well).

[nikivdd]

You are right about prestige to the player. One thing I hated in the vanilla DLCs was the soft cap which eventually I edited out. I want to be rewarded if I play well, and that means being able to upgrade/overstrength my units. But I like it when I go in with Strength 14 Tigers if I suddenly face Strength 13 Fireflys. It concentrates the mind

I am certainly not asking for an insane, ahistorical level of difficulty. Personally, I don't like the higher levels of difficulty in the game - they feel artificial with the AI getting better units and oodles more prestige. I am more interested in a tough setup. When I am on the attack it means the AI setup having a good combination of AA, arty and mobile units. When I am on the defence it means a rough air attack above all, and lots of enemy artillery. This is historical: nobody launched an offensive without lots of these two, and also concentrated. So, in the case of your (beautifully designed, I want to repeat) scenarios here, it makes more sense for me to have an Allied opponent with lots of guns, lots of planes in e.g. Tunisia when I am meant to weather the storm. Or, when I am attacking a famously tough nut like Cairo, to have an enemy stacked with 3.7 AAs and 6 inch guns. It also helps the player strategise, and not just go crazy fast like the original Panzer General -which should have been named Panzer Sprinter instead. Take your time, bring the artillery forward, probe with the recce, send the tanks around. That's much more satisfying than just race. I am not saying you do this, I am just illustrating my style.

Thanks again for the great work, and I am patiently waiting for the update (for the Soviet DLC as well).

I am really enjoying our constructive conversation. It does give me a few ideas.
There are scenarios in which i am giving certain AI units overstrengthed units, usually because the AI is at a disadvantage armor wise.
Secondly, the AI can also overstrength units because of the prestige i have set for it and an amount of prestige per turn. The AI can also decide to purchase new units but those numbers are kept on purpose low.
Certain key objectives can be heavily defended, but i try to avoid that the AI can create wagon trains like in the original Panzer General around most of the objectives.
Another challenge is to set different goals for scenarios and unavoidably it comes with a different speed. Personally, some scenarios should feel like Blitzkrieg while other types of scenarios give a feeling of being bogged down, to find a weak spot and exploit it. A good example, for the Soviet 37-41 is the different feel between for example Khalkin Gol and Mannerheim Line. Or for this campaign between El Alamein and Pursuit to Tunesia.

I am working on the final set of scenarios, five in total. I think i will make another update when i tested the first three and then finish the last two.
This saying, the campaign will be 38 scenarios, which is more than enough.
The next scenarios will be Suez, British Mandates and Caucasus43.

[imp44791]

Thank you, it is a very enjoyable discussion. On the whole I feel that your designs are excellent, above all for giving a good mix of scenarios. I loved the phalanx defence early on, and pursuit to Tunisia was probably my favourite of all: I had strength enough to batter the troops around Alamein, but I needed to book it before the way to Tunisia was cut. So I kept calculating how many tanks I could leave behind to smack any pursuing troops from Egypt while giving time for resupply. So I adopted a leapfrog method, with half the troops resupplying while the other half stayed in the front and hit any allies incautious enough to get close. While a second leapfrog group raced ahead with the tanks on the desert side to protect from the probes that I knew were coming from there. It was fantastic fun. My recommendations are more a matter of degree rather than of fundamental issues: I thought you were being too generous with core unit gifts in Alexandria and Cairo, while the British fleet in Alex was too weak, and there were not enough guns in the defences of Cairo. But we're talking a few units here and there, nothing fundamental.

Sometimes even the best designed scenarios forget something which then leads to very annoying outcomes for the player. E.g. in the fantastic Soviet Storm campaign, in the Hanko scenario, the modder allowed the Finns to spawn units in the little islands - with the result that a 4 tile island suddenly had a garrison of the original infantry... plus 3 newly recruited captured Russian T26s! We're talking a tiny rock with a lighthouse with 3 armoured formations out of thin air! Not the modder's fault really, it's just that the Panzer General/Corps design is too simplistic for our clever ideas sometimes. The AI had the prestige, there was a spawn point, the tanks were best strength for prestige --> T26s next to the lighthouse! D'oh, as Homer Simpson would say. And we're talking one of the best mods around here (my favourite, along with your stuff and Peter's from streichtmacht).

[nikivdd]

Development continues...

It has been five years since i recorded anything. It is the first time i am using this program, so forgive the little glitch in the beginning.
So here is the second turn of the upcoming British Mandates scenario:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYcdVigP0Xw

And a screenshot of the Suez scenario.

Suez2.png (517.23 KiB) Viewed 3423 times

[nikivdd]

The development continues...
Here is a short video of turn 2 of the scenario Caucasus43 with game sound.
https://youtu.be/mbeKKEheXjo

Caucasus43.png (628.62 KiB) Viewed 3356 times

[guille1434]

Excellent! I remember when playing good old Panzer General to "manage" my minor/mayor victories to be able to play the big Caucasus scenario! It was so much fun!

[nikivdd]

Development update.
There are five scenarios left to complete the campaign.
Three scenarios are done and tested.
One scenario is ready for testing.
The final scenario Is being put together and is partly based on the British India map of Afrika Korps.
Those scenarios will be Suez, British Mandates, Caucasus 43, Middle East 44 and India.
The campaign will have 38 scenarios in total.
The download will be available as soon i have tested the last two scenarios.

[Vano2004]

Development update.
There are five scenarios left to complete the campaign.
Three scenarios are done and tested.
One scenario is ready for testing.
The final scenario Is being put together and is partly based on the British India map of Afrika Korps.
Those scenarios will be Suez, British Mandates, Caucasus 43, Middle East 44 and India.
The campaign will have 38 scenarios in total.
The download will be available as soon i have tested the last two scenarios.

Thank you so much for updating your interesting mod! It's only now that I've come across this video of Italy versus Japan (they were kind of allies by signing the Antikominternpakt treaty, ? The question from the court is whether the author will be able to make a couple of Italy vs. Japan cards ?
https://forum.skalman.nu/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=48311

[nikivdd]

Getting there...

For the interested:
Deployment phase and turns 1-3 of Middle East 44 with sound and in HD.

https://youtu.be/1886TKBhNX0

[nikivdd]

The campaign is now complete. The downloadlink has been updated and the campaign can be downloaded from the first post of this thread.
This update includes the following new scenarios:
34. Suez
35. British Mandates
36. Caucasus 43
37. Middle East 44
38. British India

[captainjack]

Excellent work as usual.
I'm just about to take on El Alamein on my second playthrough - one time wasn't enough.
The prestige awards are good, but maybe in some of the larger maps the oil wells could give fuel bonus within say 2 hexes, rather than prestige. It will sometimes be unwanted but sometimes very useful.

[Thunderhog]

Hey man really enjoying all of your campaigns, especially this one. I usually tend to shift more towards campaigns with a more narrative intensive aspect or description of events (kind of like in PZC 2) but your scenarios are very refreshing. Are you thinking of doing anything with PZC2?

[nikivdd]

Hey man really enjoying all of your campaigns, especially this one. I usually tend to shift more towards campaigns with a more narrative intensive aspect or description of events (kind of like in PZC 2) but your scenarios are very refreshing. Are you thinking of doing anything with PZC2?

Thank you.
If the PzC2 editor can do the same things as the PzC1 editor without the lua stuff, than i might consider it. Last time i checked it wasn't the case.
I am playing PzC2 where i reached the first Polish scenario in DLC40, a few hours per month, and then afterwards i can fry eggs and bacon on my laptop.

[rubyjuno]

Thanks again for this (and all your work), Niki. I also enjoyed the discussion with imp44791 above, very interesting. I haven't played this yet, I'm still on your "Italy goes PzC" while taking a break from GC East. Like many of us, unfortunately I don't get much time for playing...