BrucErik CSD Studio

[bru888]

Done.
I've replaced the scenarios in your folder with the "final" ones.
Carry on, soldier

Yes sir. (Salutes with wrong hand; quickly corrects himself and looks ridiculous accordingly. ) You manage the structure the way you see fit. I will concentrate on just the "Ready for Bru" and "Back to Erik" folders, proceeding as I have been recently.

Okay, so these last scenarios have been cleansed of Allied units because it's assumed core units will be carried over and there are no aux units, at least in La Bistière. But only seven German units on the map and no subsequent spawns in La Bistière? (On the other hand, the British have 73 land command points!)

I'll do what I can with this one and you can beef up the Germans later, if that's what you have in mind.

[bru888]

La Bistière - Tigers Marsch!

Comment: This action seems to be a relatively minor aspect of Operation Bluecoat so I could not readily access much information on it. That being the case, the Scenario Description seemed fine to me; I just touched it up a little. Just remember that it says, as the Tiger tanks advanced, "The 2nd Northamptonshire Yeomanry Regiment had the misfortune of being right in their path, with their 'B' Squadron actually probing the northern outskirts of Vire as the German column emerged" so the player would expect to see this situation at the start of the scenario. From the territory outline, I see you have the "probing the northern outskirts of Vire" in mind.

Comment: So please see if this briefing sequence coincides with your intentions for this scenario:

"Sergeant, use the binoculars and tell me what you see about 900 meters up the road, between those two farmhouses."

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"It looks like a gun barrel, sir, and the front end of a tank. Whoa, 'ere it comes! That's a Tiger tank, sir. Another one coming up behind."

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"Quite. They're making a turn toward us . . . more of them now . . . seven, eight, nine tanks . . . heading straight for us. Behind them I see infantry in personnel carriers. Not quite what we expected, eh, Sergeant?"

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"Blimey, sir! What do we do?"

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"Have Sparks raise HQ. Tell those blokes that Vire is not, repeat, not undefended. A column of Tiger tanks is headed up the road in the direction of La Blanquière. Request artillery and air support and whatever else they can spare. Meanwhile, we fall back and take up defensive positions on a line from Les Champs Fleury to La Forgè. That will include the key intersections at La Graverie and La Bistière. We dig in and hold on."

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Edit: Notice that I have made some urban improvements to La Forgè - gave it a village hex and some decorations - in order to make it stand out as a primary objective. For a similar reason, I "downsized" Etouvy. Notice also that I have added La Graverie as a primary objective.

[bru888]

La Bistière - Tigers Marsch! (continued)

Edit: So commensurate with the additional primary VP, I changed the objective trigger to "UK 4 objs" and "Value >3."

Edit: The "Set Objective State" for "Ger 1 obj" was linked to "killed" which I think was supposed to be the counterpart to the "Brit killed" objective. The other AI objective was blank. I fixed and aligned both objective links.

Edit: In the "Ger(man Activations)" folder, I worked in choreography that takes La Graverie into account; depending on the random trigger, the German column heads for La Graverie, then Les Champs Fleury, then Seek & Destroy, or heads for La Bistière, then La Forgè, then Seek & Destroy.

Comment: There's not much to work with in this one, with only 7 German units and no British units on the map, so this one will be quick and dirty - only 11 turns. It's a defensive scenario, so I couldn't think of any other exciting objectives.

Suggestion: As I mentioned above, there seems to be a need for more German units to balance the 73 land command points available to the British.

Edit: Here are your outcome images:

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outcome_2_0.png (170.68 KiB) Viewed 3031 times

I'm finished with La Bistiere - Tigers Marsch! and the updated version is in the "Back to Erik" folder. Remember, only "Edits" are changes that I have actually done to the scenario. They are for you to review and approve. "Comments," "Questions," and "Suggestions" are things for you to consider and act upon as necessary.

[bru888]

Heh. It was about 7:45AM your time when I managed to get a correction into the La Bistière folder. It seems that, in my laziness, I had copied the mission outcome statements from Le Bèny-Bocage to the text file for La Bistière (merely to avoid having to type "Major Victory," "Minor Victory," etc. - how lazy is that?) but I forgot to update the statements!

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That would have been bizarre, I'd say.

Hopefully you are not an early riser and did not access the folder before that time. I have corrected the text with suitable outcomes for La Bistière.

[Erik2]

Added a few more historical SS units to Bistiere.
Love the briefing

[bru888]

Hmmm. Regarding Les Grands Bonfaits, the question comes to mind as to whether some of these scenarios are worth the time and effort. This map is tiny; the scenario is only 7 turns; and the references are rather obscure. It took a considerable amount of digging before I could decipher that "D Coy" was not code for "decoy" but "D Company" and "4 KSLI" means "4th Battalion King's Shropshire Light Infantry."

As far as Major Thorburn goes, he is largely forgotten; all that I can find was a book that he wrote, First into Antwerp, which is not germane (and I'm not spending £24.95 for it ).

I know you are getting your information from this source but I wonder whether it's necessary to include everything that they have over there. I would imagine that one must be a truly dedicated grognard to know about this man and this minor episode. In short, this appears to be "thrown into" a campaign that already has 23 scenarios. That's after some culling has been done already; I see the last scenario in the folder is numbered "34." Even 23 is a lot for a campaign and I am concerned about holding player interest.

Put another way, it doesn't inspire much interest for me, either. I'll clean it up but I'm not going to spend much time on it.

[bru888]

Les Grands Bonfaits - NedForce

Edit: I clarified portions of the Scenario Description.

Edit: Les Grand Bonfaits is supposed to be a "hilltop farm" so I made it appear as such by removing the village hex and substituting difficult terrain (hill) and placing more farm hexes around it:

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Edit: The "Set Objective State" effects for the "UK 1 obj" trigger were both set to "Open" instead of "Completed" and "Failed." I fixed.

Edit: This was also a problem. It's looking for the Tiger tank when only Panther tanks are in the scenario. I fixed and changed the mission to "Destroy at least 1 Panther tank."

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Comment: The "Germans" trigger, putting the Waffen AI Team on Seek & Destroy status once it takes Les Grands Bonfaits, is superfluous because the scenario ends at that point. I left this alone, however.

Edit: Here are your outcome images:

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outcome_2_0.png (199 KiB) Viewed 2974 times

I'm finished with Les Grands Bonfaits - NedForce and the updated version is in the "Back to Erik" folder. Remember, only "Edits" are changes that I have actually done to the scenario. They are for you to review and approve. "Comments," "Questions," and "Suggestions" are things for you to consider and act upon as necessary.

[bru888]

Ahhhh. Operation Totalize. Now we're back in business! I've been waiting for this one because this is where Michael Wittmann puts in his (final?) appearance.

Oh, wait a minute. You have this in Gaumesnil - "Wittmann's Last Ride." I'll defer and do some research . . . okay, looking ahead, I see that the scenario Gaumesnil is a subset of Operation Totalize and the location Gaumesnil was the scene of Wittmann's demise. I'll deal with it in Gaumesnil.

[MarechalJoffre]

I see at least some of these scenarios are inspired by "Panzer Battles Normandy". Some of which I've also played through PBEM. Looking great, guys. Great job.

[Erik2]

I see at least some of these scenarios are inspired by "Panzer Battles Normandy". Some of which I've also played through PBEM. Looking great, guys. Great job.

Actually these scenarios are based on another Tiller game, 'Battles of Normandy'.
Tiller games are somewhat clunky in play (and editing), but the map and unit research is top-notch.

[Erik2]

Bru

We can easily skip Le Grand Buffet . As you mention, there are plenty of scenarios left in the campaign.
Sorry about the extra work.

[bru888]

MarechalJoffre, thanks for the kind words.

Erik, only omit Les Grands Bonfaits if you are not in love with it and if you agree that, in the context of the campaign, it has the look and feel of a tutorial scenario.

[Zekedia222]

Also, I may have mentioned this, but I like the look of this campaign. I’ve always wanted a Normandy campaign, but I’ve never seen one. Someone’s probably already made one, but this is the first I’ve seen.

[bru888]

Also, I may have mentioned this, but I like the look of this campaign. I’ve always wanted a Normandy campaign, but I’ve never seen one. Someone’s probably already made one, but this is the first I’ve seen.

Thanks. It should be out soon, at least for beta play. It's unusual in that it focuses only on the U.K./Canadian aspect of the Normandy campaign.

[MarechalJoffre]

Actually these scenarios are based on another Tiller game, 'Battles of Normandy'.
Tiller games are somewhat clunky in play (and editing), but the map and unit research is top-notch.

We are talking about the same game! BoN is the game I was referring to.

And I fully agree. I really enjoy the OOB and map research in their games.

[bru888]

Erik, FYI: I took a look at some other games, particularly TOAW, and I see that "COY" is standard in those environs as an abbreviation for "company." I was okay with "BN" for battalion but for some reason when I ran across it, I was thrown by "COY."

I was not much of a wargamer before I came to OOB and if I had been, maybe such abbreviations would not puzzle me at all. Yet, consider me a poster boy for "wargaming newcomer." OOB needs a wider customer base and therefore should be as inclusive as possible. For that reason, I will favor spelling things out and avoiding the insider jargon.

Yes, I know that wasn't your doing, and in no way is this meant as a criticism in any case. I'm just stating my preference for openness and clarity. Hopefully you agree.

[bru888]

Incidentally, in my research for Operation Totalize, I came across the fact that Montgomery was not promoted to Field Marshal until September 1, 1944. My referring to him as "Field Marshal" prior to that date was an error, five times over.

Below is a zipped file containing the five corrected text files that need to be inserted in corresponding scenario folders, over the previous versions of text_english.txt. I also placed these files in a special subfolder of "Back to Erik," named "General Montgomery edited text files."

As you can see, each file has the scenario name appended. These names will need to be edited back to "text_english.txt" of course, once you have them in the proper folders.

Sorry for this inconvenience but I am sure that you want a high degree of historical accuracy (albeit with a bit of artistic license thrown in ), as do I.

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General Montgomery edited text files.7z

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[Zekedia222]

Most scenarios I created have company abbreviated as ‘co.’ and battalion as ‘btln.’
These scenarios are for my [unreleased] Pacific War mod, so you didn’t just miss that I posted a download.

[bru888]

Most scenarios I created have company abbreviated as ‘co.’ and battalion as ‘btln.’
These scenarios are for my [unreleased] Pacific War mod, so you didn’t just miss that I posted a download.

Zeke, nice to know that I have a mild excuse for my ignorance, that such abbreviations may be a bit variable. I would imagine "COY" with the "Y" on the end may be to avoid confusion with "CO" as "Commanding Officer." Just a guess.

Erik, note that "Epsom" above refers to Epsom 1 rather than Epsom 4. I edited the file name accordingly in the zipped file and in the "Back to Erik" subfolder but I cannot get at that image above to replace it.

[Zekedia222]

I would imagine thats why it is COY in reality. I just always thought it made more sense. Army’s always trying to abbreviate.