jcb989 wrote:Hi Jon,
When you get back from vacation, it would be interesting for me and perhaps new downloaders too, if you could give a brief dissertation on the why's and wherefore's of the unit-level modifications that come standard in GJS44. Such as, the vision behind a true 8-man squad, the terrian % modifications, and any other workings that are note-worthy. Just a thought.
-Justin
Hey Justin, Sorry missed this post earlier...
Good question! To be honest, most of the mods were figured out by smarter people than me experimenting around, or things that I asked for and had to beg/borrow from other places... but to give you a line by line recap, here goes...
9.2
Dual deploy - Basic BA only permits one side of an MP game deploy. Granfali (the genius beyond the first GJS) felt that this was an unfair advantage (and he was correct because he was playing solo as the Germans, generously always giving us the right to deploy as Allies). Richcat helped me to find some Merr code, which let us add dual deploy to MP, so we now do that as standard.
9.3
Smokey mortars - Another of Merr's brilliant ideas, rejuvenated by Enric. Adds a sneakier dimension to just using mortars to pound things to smithereens.
9.4
Swap places - Something I'd been pleading for, for a while, which rf900 worked up for his Saving Private Brian campaign and my Fast'n'Sneaky, and then kindly shared the code for everyone.
9.41
Walking mortars - Enric and I had been looking to do this, and figured out that it could be modified in squads.csv. At some point we diverged, with Enric using a version that prevents mortars from loading/unloading as soon as they become wounded. I felt that was a bit harsh, so added a fix to permit that, and then added another fix so they can also move diagonally. Mortars can only move 1 square, never in hunt, and cannot move and fire.
9.42
Walking HMGs - Granfali & I were looking to do this, so we copied what Enric & I had done with mortars. Initially HMGs were limited to 1 square movement (compared to 4 for infantry/PIATS, and 5 for scouts) but having looked into what the MG42s were actually capable of in Normandy, I increased this to 2. Obviously, HMGs can't move 2 spaces in hunt, so their accuracy is significantly reduced if you move and fire. It's unrealistic to insist MG42s must be carried in a truck, but it's wiser to relocate, wait, then fire, if you want to grab a high impact shot without giving your position away.
9.5
Stronger infantry - To be honest, I'm not sure exactly how Granfali came to select 8-men infantry for GJS, but I do know he described experimenting (a lot) with different unit types and sizes before making his decisions. I suspect this may have been partly guided by rf900's use of 8-men infantry in Saving Private Brian. I kept Granfali's 8-men infantry because the little guys die very, very easily in plain vanilla BA, and smaller teams would mean losing units too quickly for the 25-day carryover campaign.
9.53, 9.54, 9.55
Stronger HMGs, piats/pzshreks, scouts, mortars, etc - Again, this is me just copying what Granfali experimented with and we had fun using for the original GJS. My belief is that once we bought into Granfali bumping up regular infantry sizes, to give more of them a chance of staying alive for carryover, it became necessary for Granfali to resize all of the other infantry units, to keep everything in balance. To be fair to Granfali, it seems to work very well, to the extent that Mike was chasing me in the first days of GJS'44 to add back Granfali's fixes (so that's got to be a good sign, right?
).
9.51
Stronger base morale - After we'd played about five game days of GJS original, Granfali explained that he felt that infantry-to-infantry duels were still ending too quickly. There just weren't any real gun battles to speak of. If an infantryman got caught in the open, it was dead meat and gone. So Granfali proposed lowering the suppression point (in BA units normally suppress below 50 morale, so he lowered this to zero). This made our infantry more durable and improved the infantry fights making the campaign more fun. The problem was, once one starts playing around with suppression rules for different unit types, it gets complicated for showing white flag animations, etc. More code to find and fix. So, instead of lowering the suppression point, I raised base morale (what units start with), to achieve exactly the same effect. BA tiers morale for paras/SS above regular infantry... I just extended that tiering so that paras/SS have slightly higher base morale than experienced specialists, eg. scouts and engineers, who have slightly higher base morale than regular conscript infantry, who themselves have slightly higher base morale than "ost" volksgrenadiers. VGs are genuinely weak, so you have to use 'em together, never one-on-one. The ratios of morale drop required to achieve suppression have been kept consistent with the ratios from normal BA.
9.6
M16AA fix - BA is an awesome and complex game, which looks like it's been built up in layers over time, so every now and then little errors have crept in, which Pip and Iain quickly correct. Arminius spotted that the M16AA armour is waaay too strong when he tried to shoot one from point blank with a Puma, but couldn't. Checking squads.csv, the M16AA (which was modified from the M3 truck) actually has front and side armour nearly as strong as a Sherman, and stronger than an M5 tank! It's wrong, so we fixed it. I'm pretty sure Pip/Iain will add this fix to the next version of BA too.
9.61
Firing ranges - BA sets all armour and ATGs with firing ranges of 8. This just adds some tiering so genuinely
much longer ranged weapons, get 1 or 2 squares extra. It's all based on actuals, where for example, the max effective range for an 8.8cm flak 36 is estimated around 16,000 yards versus a ground target, less for a Firefly (which carried a 17pdr), maybe half that or less for a regular Sherman. Although you can fire from a little further with a Tiger or a Firefly, it's still better to get closer because BA includes an accuracy factor, which heavily rewards "waiting until you can see the whites of his eyes".
9.62
Recon cars - There aren't many scouts in GJS'44, and once you're through 'em, you're through 'em... so I added recon cars with a true recon ability, slightly upping their line of sight... The armour on the M5 and the Puma is still painfully thin, but they're remarkably handy mobile eyes when used carefully.
Hopefully, that all makes sense? You can always browse the full list of mods used, in section 9 of the Rules (so it's easy to see everything, if we add/change anything later).
Don't hesitate to back to me with any questions at all. Or if you think we should do something new to improve the campaign...
GJS'44 Rules & Regs wrote:Allied Order of Battle
German Order of Battle
9. Modifications
9.1 GJS'44 employs a number of mods to the core BA game engine to enhance gameplay, and we believe, to improve realism:
9.2 Dual deploy - Both sides of the MP battle are permitted to deploy into wide deployment zones (thanks Merr)
9.3 Smokey mortars - Mortars can choose to fire smoke to temporarily hide positions from the enemy (Enric)
9.4 Swap places - Neighbouring units can swap positions (RF900)
9.41 Walking mortars - Mortars can move one space per turn (Enric, GL88)
9.42 Walking HMGs - HMGs can move two spaces per turn (Enric, GL88)
9.5 Stronger infantry - Infantry, Engineers, Paras, Waffen SS and Volksgrenadiers have 8 men (Granfali)
9.51 Stronger base morale for infantry - Volksgrenadiers begin with 100 base morale, Engineers & Scouts 175, Paras & Waffen SS 200, All Other Infantry 150 (Granfali, GL88)
9.52 Stronger base morale for specials - Tigers and Churchills begin with 125 base morale, All Other Vehicles remain at 100 (GL88)
9.53 Stronger HMGs - Heavy Machine Guns (MG42, Vickers) have 5 men (Granfali)
9.54 Stronger auxiliaries - Scouts, Panzerfaust/Piat and flamethrower teams have 4 men (Granfali)
9.55 More powerful mortars - Mortar teams have 3 men (Granfali, K9mike)
9.6 Realistic M16AA - Armour of M16AA corrected to similar to M3, from which it was derived (GL88 c/o Arminius)
9.61 Realistic firing ranges - Range of Tiger and 88 pushed to 10; Range of Panther, Firefly, 17pdr, 75mmPak40, Marder III, M10 raised to 9; other armour stays at 8 (GL88)
9.62 Recon cars - Puma and M5 have LOS of 7 (versus true scouts LOS of 8 )(GL88)
