Erik's Campaigns

[Erik2]

Horst

I'll try your 'return to base' with the air units stationed in the hangars from the start. Thanks.

The lack of unit types in OOB is putting a (temporarily?) halt to this campaign after Voronezh. Both the Germans and Soviets need hardware introduced in 1942 and later. Unfortunately, new units are naturally introduced whenever the devs launch a new campaign, it may take a while before they revisit Blitzkrieg.

Modding units may be the way to go, but we need more mod support from the devs and, not the least, some graphic whiz to create new models.
There are still a number of early-war hardware that would be nice to have, like Wurfrahmen 40

I've decided to check/edit the Sea Lion scenarios using the Kriegmarine 3.2.0 (or later) version.

[Horst]

Removed all 2-hex-distance conditions in all scenarios.
Replaced airstrips with airfields in all scenarios. No more airstrip spawning. All AI air units start launched.
Fixed a number of objective Trigger event types.
Completely revised Norway scenario based of player experience with the multiplayer variant.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/168 ... 40_3.1.zip

Eric, please check which version you've uploaded of campaign 39-40. You mentioned you've removed all 2-hex requirements, but this version to download still has them. The file date of all scenario files is from January or February.
Oh, and can you please increase the starting RPs from 425 to 500 in Poznan, please? The beginning is so difficult killing all required units in time. They retreat like slippery fishes and keep reinforcing.

[Erik2]

Removed all 2-hex-distance conditions in all scenarios.
Replaced airstrips with airfields in all scenarios. No more airstrip spawning. All AI air units start launched.
Fixed a number of objective Trigger event types.
Completely revised Norway scenario based of player experience with the multiplayer variant.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/168 ... 40_3.1.zip

Eric, please check which version you've uploaded of campaign 39-40. You mentioned you've removed all 2-hex requirements, but this version to download still has them. The file date of all scenario files is from January or February.
Oh, and can you please increase the starting RPs from 425 to 500 in Poznan, please? The beginning is so difficult killing all required units in time. They retreat like slippery fishes and keep reinforcing.

Fixed Poznan and campaign version.

[Horst]

Guderian and his lousy Kommandant (me!) thanks you for the 39-40 update!

Here is still some feedback from 41-42:

Smolensk: definitely add more supply points at beginning to support all command and especially the arriving mountain troop reinforcement. 20 more should be enough. Minsk alone should certainly be more worth than the 3 points of a backwater village. From its historical, strategical value seen, that city with 300k residents at this time is at least three times as much worth as Smolensk (~100k ppl).

21 turns was not enough for me on medium diff (with my mod. stats), so I cheated myself more extra turns. I admit that my lack of supply was severely abused by the single BT tank in the north at beginning that took Maladziecna and afterwards the railroad point to the north (5+10 points). That cost me maybe one extra turn. Maybe I should also have used engineers to build a pontoon bridge what cost me maybe another extra turn more. I just reached the city Smolensk on turn 21.
It took turn 22 to capture both primary VPs of Smolensk but I still forgot about the minor-flagged Vitebsk in the north. It was turn 25 when I kamikaze-captured Vitebsk with still 5 enemy tank units left. I didn’t bother about the villages to the north-west.
With smarter play, I’d say that least 22-23 turns are needed for all primaries, but I’m curious how other players will perform here. Destroying all armors too will certainly take more time.
Love that captured T-34 in one of the secondaries with event picture. I don’t have all the secrets of PCs in my mind anymore. Hidden bonus units make scenarios always more interesting!


Ostrov: how comes you start with so many gifted core units in your reserve? Shouldn’t these rather be auxiliary units that the player is going to help out?
There are missing like 10 supply points to place all ground units according to given command points. The exit-point in the lower-left corner doesn’t allow any planes to exit. That made me lack a lot of bombers later, as I prefer to gain air supremacy asap with fighters first.
All objectives were doable within the turn limit.

Eric, better revisit all scenarios again to compare the land-based command points and given supply points. It happens too often. In PC, you could place all units right from start too, and remember we can’t have so many tanks in OOB fielded anymore. Delaying placements costs extra turns.

By the way, I still suggest giving the Brest bunker in the Minsk scenario 5-stars experience, so it lasts somewhat longer. It was too easily dispatched without any arty reinforcement. In PC, that bunker has unique stats with a very tough defense. That stronghold was definitely not very challenging in your scenario, and I doubt even 5-stars will do much difference there.

I think I’m going to do a break now from 41 and revisit the 39-40 campaign again to check out how it plays now. I was glad that the coastal/fortress guns since France could fire again. I’d like to know if the ones in Poland and Norway still bug out for me. Norway was also well done, but the trigger issues ruined the fun somewhat.

[Horst]

Oh yes, you save much more time now not being forced to shoot down these airstrip tents for capturing. What didn't work in the Poznan scenario though was capturing 3 airfields for the first secondary objective. Maybe you still check for the airstrip tents there?

2DanzigN:
- Capture Vistula bridge-1 has a single #-sign as objective text
- There is a single deployment marker far down the map. Leftover from the DanzigS map?
- Battleship typo: correct is Schleswig-Holstein
- DD Battle as Polish destroyers is (again) somewhat too powerful for that time. E-Class is more proper here
- connection Kolberg-Danzig didn't trigger, and I don't see why in the editor
- rest of the objectives triggered fine

[Erik2]

Smolensk: Added more turns

Leningrad: You are obviously not talking about the Leningrad scenario (nor surrounded core units here), but another one. Which?

Minsk: Added fortificaion and exp to the bunker.

Supply: I've posted about this before. Add transport to all inf type units and check if you still are missing supply. Note that a couple of scenarios have two deployment areas and you can't deploy all units in just one area.

Danzig: The # is the default marker for objectives info. Couldn't find any stray deployment hex. I'll replace the Schleswig-Holstein with the new unit from Kriegsmarine when it is launched. Replaced the Polish destroyers. Can't find any fault with the supply connection triggers either.

Campaigns updated.

[Horst]

Oh sorry, Leningrad is still far away. I meant 5Ostrov what follows Smolensk where you gain too many core units. Leftover from testing?

Supply: yes, I try my best to shuffle my units around in all the deployment zones but it's not always possible. For example, in 6Wyszogrod there are also some supply points missing.

Stray deployment hex in 2DanzigN: https://picload.org/image/rlloowrw/2danzign.jpg

[Erik2]

Ostrov: Yep, those core units should have been deleted. It is the original PzC units used for testing. Fixed.

Wyzgorod: I purchased and deployed the original PzC units without problems; 3xinf w/trucks, 5 tank units, 2 art units w/transport, 1x8.8cm Pak w/transport.
But this used all of the available supply so I've added a bit more to allow for other purchase options.

Danzig: Found it, thanks.

Campaigns updated.

[prattaa]

Thanks for adding version numbers. I was playing through 39-40 campaign again v3.1 and the only error I encountered so far was Poznan secondary objective of capturing airfields being bugged thus making commander Barkhorn unattainable. Was that corrected in 3.4?

Edit: Wyszogrod has no exit point for the players forces. So far in either campaign every scenario has had one and it is awesome.

[Horst]

Piatek: I’d like to mention that I find it rather strange that you have to hold an objective like the town Piatek until the last turn, while you can wait capturing the other bridges also until the last turn. Defending on rivers is always a bad idea due penalty. In PC, you only had to maintain control of all objectives on the last turn, no matter how often you lost them during the turns.

Wyszogrod: you receive 3 land command points for taking Wyszogrod and the rail bridge, but what’s the deal if this double-objective is normally the last point to capture and will usually finish the scenario anyway? Or is it meant to possibly compensate for the loss of any other objective during the difficult trip up there? I could have used the land points right from start, as enclosing (or invading) a pocket demands a lot of troops for encirclement.

Modlin: it was enough to capture one of the golden flags to receive a (minor) victory instead of capturing both.
Both fortresses fired fine this time…ouch.
I still see no point for getting air command points when the battle is basically over. I would permit the player more air points when only the bunkers in front of the fortresses are destroyed. Then should the massive air strike commence, and not when you already hoist the victory flag. Not that more air planes really matter then, but maybe on higher difficulty grades than medium.

Warsaw: the AA guns are too much on a "seek & destroy" trip. Those inside the city moved right into my close range and even out of the city to hunt down my planes. Sooner or later the whole city was unprotected and the enemy artillery could be decimated by air attacks.
An AT-gun or two can’t hurt either there. Cavalry looks out of place in the city anyway. Cavalry would do much more hurt on the east side cutting off the usually narrow supply paths.
Oh, and unbelievable that there is only a single road bridge (that directly leads to a bunker) in Warsaw but two rail bridges?
Once again, the objective to destroy the Polish artillery to reclaim it was not doable, failing the possibility to go to Brest. Reason: no objective state effect!
I guess the third secondary objective to destroy all Polish land units is also required for a major victory to Brest, so another missing objective state.
I didn’t bother this time and cheated myself to the Soviets.

Brest: was pretty crazy. I could only win shamefully on turn 24 of 21 with still a few enemy units left. The enemy tank and infantry hordes were almost overwhelming throughout the scenario. There was hardly a time to recover unit efficiency and strength. My advance was very slow, while my artillery barrels ran hot. The RPs were on the bottom most of the time, but it was still barely enough to keep my units running.
Maybe things would have been different with an 8.8 cm Flak around, while that puny SdKfz 10/4 without AT-mode was no real help at all, besides blocking enemy units.
The secondary objective cities could need another trigger without command points as the chance is high they switch the flag more than once. I failed one city because I captured it first and lost it afterwards. A recapture to complete the objective again wasn’t possible anymore. I think this single-trigger mechanism is rather common in your scenarios and rarely fail in the end because the AI usually occupies most objectives right from start.

[Erik2]

prattaa/Horst

Poznan: Changing from airstrips to airfields/hangars broke this sec obj. Fixed.

Piatek: Scenarios with defensive objectives need at least one of them assigned a scenario-end condition. Otherwise the scenario may end way too early.
Therefore I add this condition to one objective. I could have added them to all, but then I need to check every scenario in the campaign...

Wyszogrod: Added exit location. Removed extra land command points. This was an early-type of reward that I stopped using after receiving feedback that players gathered enough core units as is.

Modlin: Added missing third owner-check.

Warsaw: Changed AA and art in the city to local defense with distance = 1. The units and map is straight from the original PzC and I'd like to stay true to the basics here. Created a new AI team for the city cowboys and armor with local defense distance = 5 so they should move around a bit. Removed the 'kill all land units' objective, I had already removed the triggers for it
Artillery: Do you mean the Trigger Event needs to be set to Combat Event instead of Any Event? I've done this change, but some of the Trigger Event use is a bit mystifying

Brest: Removed land command points from sec objs. Increased land and air command points at start. Increased resource income. I generally make single obj checks because adding flip-flop triggers to each of the objectives is simply too much work. Usually works well, but Brest is of course different from the other scenarios with the neutral villages.

Campaign file updated to v3.5

Thanks for the feedback, it is really helpful.

[Horst]

Piatek: okay, I see you have changed the Piatek town objective to scenario turn limit. That should hopefully do the trick next time.
However, after knowing that you can get a commander in only the Wyszogrod scenario, I will never ever want to decisively win Piatek anymore. I’d rather see the possibility to gain the same commander in Kampinoska for the train-objective. That would be fair.

Warsaw: I see no check how to complete the artillery objective. The four Art-X triggers work fine with the spawning, but in the end, there is no check and objective state effect if all four enemy artillery units are destroyed. Without it, you can’t complete all secondaries, thus gaining a major victory for Brest.

[Erik2]

Kampinoska: Added commander Eisenberger.

Warsaw: Fixed art objectives, but fulfilling each of them will check the objective. Otherwise I would have to create 4 identical objectives which look a bit silly.

Campaign updated to 3.6

[Horst]

Denmark: all objectives are obtainable except the connection again. The reason is that the trigger Flensburg-Skagen sets the state to Open and not Completed in the end.
As I mentioned before, I wish I had more RPs at beginning, while the additional income increase during the mission became unnecessary the longer the mission lasted. The difficulty is high at beginning and becomes rather sleepy after 20 turns in the end.
Having about +30 income throughout the scenario should be fine.

Supply connections: your triggers in Norway won’t work either if they lack a completed state for alliance black and green (if you have created this scenario with multiplayer in mind).
If I create a supply connection check then it would look like this below:

1. Enabled infinite trigger #1 on Move Event: Connection Linked; Check Supply Connection = connected; Set Objective State: Supply Connection = Completed
2. Enabled infinite trigger #2 on Move Event: Connection Broken; Check Supply Connection not connected; Set Objective State: Supply Connection = Open

This works well in a test scenario. Both triggers work infinitely until the scenario end without interfering each other.
If you don’t like the Open (?) state then change it to Failed (X).
If you like to have such for multiplayer then add the second Set Objective State with the corresponding objective of the other alliance.

I haven't been through Norway yet where I test a tweak to the triggers I've done there. By the way, the changes around Narvik resemble a mean execution of my poor battlecruisers and destroyers!

[Horst]

Norway: I had only tweaked the supply connection objective states from Open to Complete which made them all work in the end.
What I didn’t like at all that the Ger Oslo & Fornebu trigger required the scenario-end on turn 60. The player captures Oslo and has no idea why this objective is still failed.

After turn 15, I had the impression that the AI calculated like 3 minutes and longer how to land its few troops on possibly 1001 coastal tiles. That became unbearable to me, so I cheated myself to major victory on turn 19 when I had captured and connected anything.
No idea what’s still going on the rest of the turns, but most AI unit groups behaved fine so far, except maybe the one near Namsos. That looked too static and let itself get sunk easily. Maybe the reason was that I had sitting an infantry unit in Namsos. Or maybe it’s related to the landing-troops behaviour that doesn’t seem to be calculated that greatly.

The British naval reinforcements are way too much around Narvik. It would haven been a much more exciting battle agaomst only the first Brit group. The poor German battlecruisers have absolutely no chance to survive there against 2-3 groups of destroyers with King George V battleships. At least I had the satisfaction to sink two battleships with submarines. I could have needed many more submarines there which were mainly jobless in the south.

The RP income of something like +105/turn later is way too much. I would have like 5902 points afterwards in Belgium.
What I also didn’t want throughout the scenario was using up all the 80+ air command points. You already start with enough aux aircrafts, so no reason to keep yourself too busy with hundred units per turn.

The Norway scenario isn’t that bad, in particular for multiplayer maybe, but I think I prefer the three smaller maps of the PC-GC for singleplayer. I’m not interested playing that many turns with so many units on the same map, especially not if the AI thinking time becomes a nuisance later.

Something else:
PC features an adequate weather system. I can’t remember which missions in the GC had specific weather conditions and changes, but here’s an idea how to implement it for aircrafts at least:
As far as you can change the weather by trigger to calm/rain/snow in OOB, you can also change the supply output of every desired hex at same time. During rain and snow, you can reduce the supply output of airfields down to 0 so all aircrafts’ effectiveness also slowly drops to 0. Aircrafts will unfortunately still be able to fly around and spot normally, but at least they can’t take much action with low or zero effectiveness.
Aircraft effectiveness only slowly degrades by 3 points per turn due total lack of supply and will immediately jump back to 10 if fully available, so it’s not perfect but still a fair improvisation, as long as the bad weather lasts for more than 3 turns.
Easier is to start the scenario with bad weather and 0 air supply, although this only works without aircraft carriers of course. Built or newly spawned airstrips could also interfere with such weather triggers.
I hope we still see a real weather system with sight and effectiveness penalty sooner or later in OOB.

[prattaa]

The Norway scenario isn’t that bad, in particular for multiplayer maybe, but I think I prefer the three smaller maps of the PC-GC for singleplayer. I’m not interested playing that many turns with so many units on the same map, especially not if the AI thinking time becomes a nuisance later.

I would prefer the PC Norway scenarios as well. As it is now I skip Denmark & Norway.

[Telematic]

It seems to me Sea Lion Campaign has a little bug. The Eagle Attack scenario doesn't start because the directory name in the Scenario directory is wrong, it should be "1Eagle" instead is "1Eagle Attack". I renamed it and works fine.

[Erik2]

It seems to me Sea Lion Campaign has a little bug. The Eagle Attack scenario doesn't start because the directory name in the Scenario directory is wrong, it should be "1Eagle" instead is "1Eagle Attack". I renamed it and works fine.

I'm working my way through all Sea Lion scenario using the Kriegsmarine beta version.
This means an update of Sea Lion will be after KM has launched.

[Erik2]

The Norway scenario isn’t that bad, in particular for multiplayer maybe, but I think I prefer the three smaller maps of the PC-GC for singleplayer. I’m not interested playing that many turns with so many units on the same map, especially not if the AI thinking time becomes a nuisance later.

I would prefer the PC Norway scenarios as well. As it is now I skip Denmark & Norway.

If OOB support branching at some point I plan to branch from Denmark to 5-6 smaller Norway scenarios from each of the major invasions (Oslo, Kristiansand/Sola, Bergen, Trondheim and Narvik).

[Horst]

If OOB support branching at some point I plan to branch from Denmark to 5-6 smaller Norway scenarios from each of the major invasions (Oslo, Kristiansand/Sola, Bergen, Trondheim and Narvik).

I bet the three Norway scenarios from the PC-GC in a row would make most people here already happy. I prefer using mainly my core units on smaller maps what the original PC-GC scenarios offered fine enough.