Am creating new balanced MP scenarios

[ThvN]

Global Parameters:

Turns: 100 - sounds okay?

It depends on the scale, the scenario would last 100 days with 'normal' settings. I'm not sure if you want that kind of timescale?

Days per turn: 0 - leave it as zero for one day a turn?
Turns per day: 1 - leave it at 1?

If you want each turn to last a single day:
Days per turn: 1
Turns per day: 0

Probability of Clouds: ?
Probability of Rain: ?
Probability of Snow: ?

Moisture: ?

What to set all these to? I want the weather to be fairly vanilla, so some rain, some clouds and occasionally some snow. I don't want it to be heavy Russian winter or anything and frozen a lot of the time, despite it being an Eastern Front game.

Tricky to give some decent values for 100 turns, clouds could be roughly around 10%-20%, rain 2%-10% and snow 2%-6% (but this would depend heavily on what season you want to play in). But you can script weather changes, so for example in turn 30 you can change the chances for weather types appearing, to simulate spring thawing or worsening winter weather.

Moisture is an 'invisible' parameter that controls the state of the ground. With this you set the amount at the start, but the weather will influence the value over time. I'll quote Rudankort, the programmer:

Moisture level is [0,5] typically. When it reaches 3, the ground becomes muddy/frozen. It decreases by 2 when clear and increases by 2 when raining/snowing. It decreases by 1 when cloudy, unless ground is frozen.

Sides:

Initial prestige: ?
Prestige per turn: ?

I imagine with prestige there might be some subjectivity involved but what thoughts do you have?

Max experience 599 - leave this as is?

Max experience is fine, but I have some other questions to try and find out some of your goals. If a player buys a new unit, how much experience do you want it to have? (this is the 'Unit Experience' setting)

And a very important question is how many core slots do you allow for each of the sides? If you use a low number, players can't begin to buy new units until a fair number has been destroyed. But if you allow more core slots than there are units deployed initially, players can start buying extra units right away. This sort of thing determines how much prestige you want at the start and how much is added each turn. If players are supposed to purchase some extra units at the start, give them enough prestige to fill out the slots with 'historical' units (200-500pr for each empty slot?), so they can choose between quality and quantity.

If you start out unable to purchase any units but give a nice amount of starting prestige + turn income, players will be able to save up prestige, and replace lost units with expensive stuff. It might be nicer to give the players just enough to have to make some tough decisions on what to do with it. Turn income, for me, depends on number of year, units deployed and map scale. As a rule of thumb you can set the amount so that a cheap 'emergency' unit can be bought each turn or something, this will give you a benchmark. You can experiment, start out with 150-250 pr per turn, or perhaps a little more if the map is proportionally smaller.

Transports:

I've gone for:

4 land
2 air

for both sides. Sounds okay?

Sounds OK. I assume by land transport you mean rail transports? These are very fast (30 move), so watch out that they aren't abused too much as flag-grabbers (I always try silly stuff like that... )

Victory conditions:

Campaign conditions: - leave blank ?

Yes.

Scenario conditions:

I've got the following.

Axis Victory / 100 / Number of allied flags in all map is equal to 3
Allied Victory / 100 / Number of axis flags in all map is equal to 3

is this complete? I want it so that when the opponent is down to only three flags they lose.

I'm not sure what your '/ 100 /' here means?

This is a 'sudden death' condition if you do not specify a Turn number in which this condition is valid, so that is correct here. For the rest, not quite there yet, the 'Equal to 3' would imply that the opponent would have to have exactly three flags left; no more, no less. 'Less than 4' would be better, in case you grab 3 flags in one turn when there are 5 opponent flags remaining, it wouldn't trigger as you 'skipped' the condition.

That would leave the problem of what would happen on the last turn, but both opponents have more than 3 flags? Do you want the player with the most flags to win? You would need to add two extra victory conditions that are checked on the last turn in that case. So (victory condition AND [Turn -1, -1] means it will check on the last turn if the condition is met.

This is your 'backup' in case no-one has managed the 'sudden death' condition. How many flags does your map have in total (axis, allied, neutral, everything)? You could use 'No less than' (half +1) of that number of flags as a condition, so the player with more than half of the flags wins.

But beware, there is a small chance that neutral flags would remain, messing up the count. The situation were both players fail to meet the minimum because they both have less than (half + 1) because of neutral flags will be small, though.

---------

Thanks in advance. I think this could be a fun scenario and am looking forward to giving it a whirl.

As soon as they get that server back up and running, yes. Hope they can find a bigger hammer somewhere.

[the_iron_duke]

Thanks ThvN for the detailed response and I shall consider it, gather my thoughts and reply in due course.

Meanwhile, I've been reviewing my armies and am going to try and get them even more realistic. In particular, I am thinking of downgrading the divisional artillery and anti-aircraft as I think they are a bit over-powered compared to what I'm reading. For example:

QF 25 Pounder @215 points was the major British field gun/howitzer in WWII.
105mm M2A1 @192 points was the standard light field howitzer for the United States in World War II.

Similarly, I've read German infantry divisions had two battalions worth of 10.5 cm leFH 18 @192 points and one of 15 cm leFH 18 @271 points.

For Soviets I've read two of 76.2mm (M1942) @154 points and one of 122m M1938 @ 205 points.

I might downgrade the Hummels to Wespe too.

[the_iron_duke]

I appear to have started making armies for a late 1944 Western Front scenario version with British, U.S. and late '44 playable armies.

[the_iron_duke]

I've been doing more research and am thus amending the German land forces to be even more historically accurate:

From

2 Towed artillery (w/ Opel Blitz truck) - 15 cm sFH 18
1 Self-propelled artillery - Hummel

1 Anti-Air - 8.8 cm FlaK 36 (w/ SdKfz 7 half-track)

To

2 Towed artillery - one 10.5 cm leFH and one 15 cm sFH 18 (w/ Opel Blitz trucks)
1 Self-propelled artillery - Wespe (or possibly StuH 42)

Anti-aircraft - 3.7 cm FlaK 37 (w/ Opel Blitz truck)

I think I'm going to add an attached heavy AA battalion to each army at corps level. The Germans will get one 8.8 cm FlaK 36 (w/ SdKfz 7 half-track).

Am still working on the Soviet changes. I'll also review aircraft organisation.

[the_iron_duke]

Does anyone know the size of Soviet battalions? A German infantry battalion I've read as 860 or 500-1000 men. I'm wondering if I read somewhere that Soviet ones were smaller but I'm not sure.

[the_iron_duke]

Some more thoughts. A Panzer division I've read as 14/15,000 men in size and a Soviet Mechanized Corps around 16,000 men. So they are roughly equal. Yet a Panzer division has about 13 useable battalions in game terms, while a Soviet Mechanized Corps has 20-24.

[the_iron_duke]

If those figures are right, then I can see there being two options. Either accept it as it is or change the maximum unit strength to say 10 for Germans and 8 for Soviets. There are two problems I see with going down the latter route, however. Firstly, the German units are almost universally stronger than the Soviets anyway, so to weaken the Soviets more would only emphasise this. Secondly, they would cover a lot more terrain for their reduced size. So, if we accept that in terms of personnel numbers (around 15,000 men) they are equal, the Soviet army would be able to occupy maybe 50% more space on the battlefield.

What are your thoughts?

[Tarrak]

You have two different goals in mind that are quite opposing each other. Creating a scenario that is balanced and historical at same time is very difficult. Especially when you are trying to stick as close to the real army structure as you are. I think you need to accept the fact that you need to sacrifice some of the historical correctness for game play balance. I would not reduce the strength of any side per unit as this is one of the most important parameters in the game system (thats why overstrengthing is so powerful). I personally would ignore the fact that the amount of manpower on the sides was different. Firstly the units seldom operated under nominal strength. Combat losses, lack of reinforcement, mechanical breakdowns and all the nasty stuff that tends to get in your way of planning caused quite a fluctuation in the real manpower of most units during the war. Secondly there is certain level of abstraction in Panzer Corps. For example a German and Russian infantry unit with strength of 10 does not necessarily need to consist of the same amount of men. The strength is just an arbitrary unit to measure the units effectivity. If you destroyed 5 strength points of a unit it just means you reduced it's fighting effectivity by 50%. It doesn't say you killed/wounded so many men.

[the_iron_duke]

So, after more research I have a German Panzer division of the period nailed down:



1 Panzer IVH tank
1 Panther A tank

1 Panzergrenadier 43 (w/ SdKfz 251/1 half-track)
3 Wehrmacht Infantry 43 (w/ Opel Blitz truck)

1 10.5 cm leFH 18 (w/ Opel Blitz truck) towed artillery
1 15 cm sFH 18 (w/ Opel Blitz truck) towed artillery
1 Wespe self-propelled artillery

1 Pioniere 43 (w/ SdKfz 251/1 half-track)
1 StuG IIIG self-propelled anti-tank
1 3.7 cm FlaK 37 (w/ Opel Blitz truck) anti-air
1 SdKfz 232 8Rad recon

This is now completely historically accurate in Panzer Corps (the game) terms for an archetypal, theoretical Panzer division (although there were of course often variations in real terms from division to division). A change could be in substituting the Wespe for a Hummel as they appear to have often operated in mixed battalions. For my late 1944 Western Front German army I may indeed do this.

The Soviet forces are slightly more problematic as they do indeed appear to have used smaller operating units. For example, a German tank battalion had about 80 tanks while I've read of Soviet ones having half this number. So there is going to be a bit of manipulation regarding the composition of a Soviet Mechanized Corps to get it to work in game terms.

I have therefore created two different versions of a Soviet Mechanized Corps, both of which are somewhat altered to fit the game. The first is a slightly revised (in terms of artillery and anti-air) version of what I posted earlier, which gives the Mechanized Corps 20 game units to a Panzer Division's 13 units. The second version gives the Mechanized Corps 12 units, comparable in number of units to the Panzer Division.

This is the 20 unit version:



1 KV-1C tank
2 T-34/43 tanks

9 Regular 43 infantry (w/ Truck)

1 Soviet Eng 43 infantry (w/ M3 Halftrack)

1 122mm M1938 (w/ Truck) towed artillery
2 76.2mm M1942 (w/ Truck) towed artillery
1 SU-76 self-propelled artillery

1 85mm M1939 (w/ Truck) anti-air
1 SU-85 self-propelled anti-tank
1 BA-64 recon

The manipulation of this version sees the motorised brigades losing their integrated tank regiments, which would perhaps add another 3-6 units to the Corps size.

This is the condensed, 12 unit version:



2 T-34/43 tanks

3 Regular 43 infantry (w/ Truck)

1 Soviet Eng 43 infantry (w/ M3 Halftrack)

1 122mm M1938 (w/ Truck) towed artillery
1 76.2mm M1942 (w/ Truck) towed artillery
1 SU-76 self-propelled artillery

1 85mm M1939 (w/ Truck) anti-air
1 SU-85 self-propelled anti-tank
1 BA-64 recon

It sees the three motorised infantry brigades rounded down to single game units and the armoured brigade to two tank units. One of the towed artillery units has also been dropped. It makes it a bit more similar in composition to a Panzer division. What I don't like about it, though, is it gives a Mechanized Corps less infantry than a Panzer Division and I quite like the idea in game terms of the Soviets having the advantage in numerical manpower while the Germans have the material advantage.

It is also worth remembering that the Soviets also had dedicated armoured corps and infantry corps, as well as higher quality Guards versions, so there are more possibilities for future scenarios, but I think for this one I will use the first version of the Mechanized Corps.

[the_iron_duke]

I have been mulling over the Soviet Mechanized Corps and have come up with a third version.

These are the previous formations with number of units and points cost:

Panzer division, 13 units, 4014 points
Soviet Mechanized Corps (version 1), 20 units, 4888 points
Soviet Mechanized Corps (version 2), 12 units, 3088 points

This is the new version of the Soviet Mechanized Corps I have come up with:



2 T-34/43 tanks

6 Regular 43 infantry (w/ Truck)

1 Soviet Eng 43 infantry (w/ M3 Halftrack)

1 122mm M1938 (w/ Truck) towed artillery
1 76.2mm M1942 (w/ Truck) towed artillery
1 SU-76 self-propelled artillery

1 85mm M1939 (w/ Truck) anti-air
1 SU-85 self-propelled anti-tank
1 BA-64 recon

It has 15 units at a cost of 3634 points.

The concept behind this is to count the motorised infantry brigades as being size equivalent to a German regiment and so the number of battalions drops from three to two.
The KV1-C tank has been dropped (they were going out of fashion at this time due to their slowness) as has one of the towed artillery battalions. I think this corps formation is preferrable as although the organisational structure has been been modified, the force compositional balance is more authentic, as is its size and points cost in relation to a German Panzer division.

Got there in the end - I think this third version is the best option.

[the_iron_duke]

You have two different goals in mind that are quite opposing each other. Creating a scenario that is balanced and historical at same time is very difficult. Especially when you are trying to stick as close to the real army structure as you are. I think you need to accept the fact that you need to sacrifice some of the historical correctness for game play balance. I would not reduce the strength of any side per unit as this is one of the most important parameters in the game system (thats why overstrengthing is so powerful). I personally would ignore the fact that the amount of manpower on the sides was different. Firstly the units seldom operated under nominal strength. Combat losses, lack of reinforcement, mechanical breakdowns and all the nasty stuff that tends to get in your way of planning caused quite a fluctuation in the real manpower of most units during the war. Secondly there is certain level of abstraction in Panzer Corps. For example a German and Russian infantry unit with strength of 10 does not necessarily need to consist of the same amount of men. The strength is just an arbitrary unit to measure the units effectivity. If you destroyed 5 strength points of a unit it just means you reduced it's fighting effectivity by 50%. It doesn't say you killed/wounded so many men.

Thanks for the input. I think my latest version of a Soviet Mechanized Corps finds an adequate compromise between historicity and gameplay.

[the_iron_duke]

I am now thinking about the Luftwaffe. Here are some organisational points:

A Geschwader (equivalent to a USAF Wing) contained three (and sometimes even four or five) Gruppe. Each Geschwader would have a different role such as bombing, interception , ground attack and reconnaissance.

A Gruppe had about 30-40 aircraft formed into three Staffel.

A Staffel squadron typically had 12 aircraft (but could be from 6-16 aircraft).

I am thinking that the formation that best represents a unit in the game is a Gruppe. What do you think?

[the_iron_duke]

The Soviet air formation that best corresponds to a German Gruppe is the air regiment. These were contained within air divisions, like the German Geschwader, which were similarly assigned a particular combat role. The number of air regiments in an air division varied at differing times in the war from as little as two to as many as five.

So I am thinking of having two German Geschwader, one fighter and one bomber, each containing three Gruppe. The tactical and strategic bombers will be combined within one Gruppe, probably ahistorically. The alternative would be to have separate tactical and strategic bomber Geschwader but that would bring the number of German aircraft units up to nine which I think will start to make the game a bit aircraft-heavy. Any thoughts?

The Soviet air forces will follow similar lines - two air divisions, one fighter and one bomber.

[ThvN]

The biggest design decision is modelling the numerical superiority of the Soviets, I guess. The standard equipment file limits your options a bit further, but you might be able to compensate with the prestige settings?

As for the airforces, the Soviets had a massive numerical superiority, and in the course of 1943 the Luftwaffe started to degrade badly. So, while the Luftwaffe still had good quality, the Soviets had about 10 times the number of airplanes. And they were busy introducing very competitive models as well.

Some idea of the relative strengths: http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.nl/2 ... h-and.html

For the Axis, I'd say five or six air units is more than enough. If you want a real historical touch, allow only a single Ju 52 transport, as these were getting very scarce.

For the Allied, far more planes are needed, with about half being fighters (not all the latest models, though), the rest is divided equally in Il-2 and Pe-2, and perhaps a single Il-4 unit. But this might unbalance the map, as experienced aircraft are very effective versus tanks; too effective I think. So you might try to go for a middle ground, but historically the Axis should not be able to achieve anything other than temporary local air superiority. So maybe give them just four planes (Bf 109, FW 190, Bf 110, Ju 88), to prevent having to put in too many Allied planes?

Earlier in the war there were a lot of Soviet 'mixed' air divisions, which were being dissolved afterwards, but they might still provide an interesting option for you. A mixed air division could have two fighter regiments, two assault (Il-2) regiments and a bomber regiment. Or you could use a fighter division with three fighter units and a mixed air division with a mix of fighter, assault and bomber regiments. Anyway, this gives you plenty of options to balance the air forces.

I'm not sure how your final lists will be, but I would add some extra anti-aircraft, maybe a bit more Soviet artillery as well; the Soviets had separate (but small) artillery and anti-aircraft divisions, a more detailed breakdown here.

It's very hard to make things historical, because that could make a scenario very unbalanced; I'm just trying to give you some ideas to mould your forces on.

[the_iron_duke]

I have revamped both armies. The biggest change is that the Soviet Mechanized Corps have been upgraded to Guards Mechanized Corps and so have better quality infantry. Both air forces have been augmented.

Other Soviet changes include more attached units: a tank-destroyer, assault gun, heavy towed artillery, paratroops and a mountain unit, engineers downgraded to truck rather than half-track.

The Germans have lost their alpine unit.

The unit totals and points are now:

Germans: 38 units, 12,978 points.
Soviets: 45 units, 12,979 points.

So there's now only 1 point difference between the armies!

Here follows the latest, and hopefully final, order of battle, along with pictures:

GERMAN FORCES





Panzer Division 1:

1 Panzer IVH tank
1 Panther A tank

1 Panzergrenadier 43 (w/ SdKfz 251/1 half-track)
3 Wehrmacht Infantry 43 (w/ Opel Blitz truck)

1 10.5 cm leFH 18 (w/ Opel Blitz truck) towed artillery
1 15 cm sFH 18 (w/ Opel Blitz truck) towed artillery
1 Wespe self-propelled artillery

1 Pioniere 43 (w/ SdKfz 251/1 half-track) engineers
1 StuG IIIG self-propelled anti-tank
1 3.7 cm FlaK 37 (w/ Opel Blitz truck) anti-air
1 SdKfz 232 8Rad recon armoured car

Panzer Division 2: (Same as Panzer Division 1)

Attached supporting units:

1 Tiger I independent heavy-tank
1 21 cm Mrs 18 (w/ SdKfz 7) corps-level heavy artillery
1 Panzerwerfer 42 independent Nebelwerfer artillery
1 8.8 cm FlaK 36 (w/ SdKfz 7 half-track) heavy anti-air

1 Fallschirmjager 43 paratrooper
1 Bruckenpioniere (w/ Opel Blitz truck) bridge pioneer

Aircraft:

2 Messerschmitt Bf 109G fighter
1 Focke-Wulf Fw 190A fighter

1 Messerschmitt Bf 110G tactical bomber
1 Junkers Ju 87G tactical bomber
1 Heinkel He 111H2 strategic bomber

Total: 38 units, 12,978 points

SOVIET FORCES





Guards Mechanized Corps 1:

2 T-34/43 tanks

6 Guards 43 infantry (w/ Truck)

1 Soviet Eng 43 infantry (w/ Truck)

1 122mm M1938 (w/ Truck) towed artillery
1 76.2mm M1942 (w/ Truck) towed artillery
1 SU-76 self-propelled artillery

1 SU-85 self-propelled anti-tank
1 37mm M1939 (w/ Truck) anti-air
1 BA-64 recon

Guards Mechanized Corps 2: (same as Guards Mechanized Corps 1)

Attached supporting units:

1 IS-1 heavy tank
1 SU-152 heavy tank destroyer
1 SU-122 assault gun

1 BM-13 Katyusha rocket launcher
1 152mm M1938 (w/ Truck) heavy artillery
1 85mm M1939 (w/ Truck) heavy anti-air

1 Para 43 paratrooper
1 Mnt 43 alpine unit
1 Soviet BridgEng (w/ Truck) bridge engineer

Aircraft:

2 Lavochkin La-5 fighter
1 Yakovlev Yak-9D fighter

2 Il-2 Shturmovik tactical bomber
1 Ilyushin Il-4 strategic bomber

Total: 45 units, 12,979 points

[the_iron_duke]

The biggest design decision is modelling the numerical superiority of the Soviets, I guess. The standard equipment file limits your options a bit further, but you might be able to compensate with the prestige settings?

As for the airforces, the Soviets had a massive numerical superiority, and in the course of 1943 the Luftwaffe started to degrade badly. So, while the Luftwaffe still had good quality, the Soviets had about 10 times the number of airplanes. And they were busy introducing very competitive models as well.

Some idea of the relative strengths: http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.nl/2 ... h-and.html

For the Axis, I'd say five or six air units is more than enough. If you want a real historical touch, allow only a single Ju 52 transport, as these were getting very scarce.

For the Allied, far more planes are needed, with about half being fighters (not all the latest models, though), the rest is divided equally in Il-2 and Pe-2, and perhaps a single Il-4 unit. But this might unbalance the map, as experienced aircraft are very effective versus tanks; too effective I think. So you might try to go for a middle ground, but historically the Axis should not be able to achieve anything other than temporary local air superiority. So maybe give them just four planes (Bf 109, FW 190, Bf 110, Ju 88), to prevent having to put in too many Allied planes?

Earlier in the war there were a lot of Soviet 'mixed' air divisions, which were being dissolved afterwards, but they might still provide an interesting option for you. A mixed air division could have two fighter regiments, two assault (Il-2) regiments and a bomber regiment. Or you could use a fighter division with three fighter units and a mixed air division with a mix of fighter, assault and bomber regiments. Anyway, this gives you plenty of options to balance the air forces.

I'm not sure how your final lists will be, but I would add some extra anti-aircraft, maybe a bit more Soviet artillery as well; the Soviets had separate (but small) artillery and anti-aircraft divisions, a more detailed breakdown here.

It's very hard to make things historical, because that could make a scenario very unbalanced; I'm just trying to give you some ideas to mould your forces on.

I hadn't had a chance to read your post before I posted my orders of battle although I think generally I've gone down the routes you've suggested, except for not giving the Soviets air superiority.

My aim is to try and create a template for a good balanced multiplayer game, while trying to keep it as historical as that will allow - something that can be taken forward to other scenarios on different maps. So I'm happy to have both air-forces more balanced as I think that will make for a more interesting multiplayer game in the long run. I think there's pretty good balance all across the armies on all fronts now, with neither side having any great advantage in any category.

[the_iron_duke]

Here's a breakdown of unit numbers by category (Germans/Soviets):

Tanks 5/5
Tank destroyers 2/3
Artillery (SP): 3/4
Artillery (towed): 5/5
Infantry: 12/17
Anti-air 3/3
Recon 2/2
Fighters: 3/3
Bombers: 3/3
TOTAL: 38/45

[the_iron_duke]

Global Parameters:

Turns: 100 - sounds okay?

It depends on the scale, the scenario would last 100 days with 'normal' settings. I'm not sure if you want that kind of timescale?

Days per turn: 0 - leave it as zero for one day a turn?
Turns per day: 1 - leave it at 1?

If you want each turn to last a single day:
Days per turn: 1
Turns per day: 0

Probability of Clouds: ?
Probability of Rain: ?
Probability of Snow: ?

Moisture: ?

What to set all these to? I want the weather to be fairly vanilla, so some rain, some clouds and occasionally some snow. I don't want it to be heavy Russian winter or anything and frozen a lot of the time, despite it being an Eastern Front game.

Tricky to give some decent values for 100 turns, clouds could be roughly around 10%-20%, rain 2%-10% and snow 2%-6% (but this would depend heavily on what season you want to play in). But you can script weather changes, so for example in turn 30 you can change the chances for weather types appearing, to simulate spring thawing or worsening winter weather.

Moisture is an 'invisible' parameter that controls the state of the ground. With this you set the amount at the start, but the weather will influence the value over time. I'll quote Rudankort, the programmer:

Moisture level is [0,5] typically. When it reaches 3, the ground becomes muddy/frozen. It decreases by 2 when clear and increases by 2 when raining/snowing. It decreases by 1 when cloudy, unless ground is frozen.

Sides:

Initial prestige: ?
Prestige per turn: ?

I imagine with prestige there might be some subjectivity involved but what thoughts do you have?

Max experience 599 - leave this as is?

Max experience is fine, but I have some other questions to try and find out some of your goals. If a player buys a new unit, how much experience do you want it to have? (this is the 'Unit Experience' setting)

And a very important question is how many core slots do you allow for each of the sides? If you use a low number, players can't begin to buy new units until a fair number has been destroyed. But if you allow more core slots than there are units deployed initially, players can start buying extra units right away. This sort of thing determines how much prestige you want at the start and how much is added each turn. If players are supposed to purchase some extra units at the start, give them enough prestige to fill out the slots with 'historical' units (200-500pr for each empty slot?), so they can choose between quality and quantity.

If you start out unable to purchase any units but give a nice amount of starting prestige + turn income, players will be able to save up prestige, and replace lost units with expensive stuff. It might be nicer to give the players just enough to have to make some tough decisions on what to do with it. Turn income, for me, depends on number of year, units deployed and map scale. As a rule of thumb you can set the amount so that a cheap 'emergency' unit can be bought each turn or something, this will give you a benchmark. You can experiment, start out with 150-250 pr per turn, or perhaps a little more if the map is proportionally smaller.

Transports:

I've gone for:

4 land
2 air

for both sides. Sounds okay?

Sounds OK. I assume by land transport you mean rail transports? These are very fast (30 move), so watch out that they aren't abused too much as flag-grabbers (I always try silly stuff like that... )

Victory conditions:

Campaign conditions: - leave blank ?

Yes.

Scenario conditions:

I've got the following.

Axis Victory / 100 / Number of allied flags in all map is equal to 3
Allied Victory / 100 / Number of axis flags in all map is equal to 3

is this complete? I want it so that when the opponent is down to only three flags they lose.

I'm not sure what your '/ 100 /' here means?

This is a 'sudden death' condition if you do not specify a Turn number in which this condition is valid, so that is correct here. For the rest, not quite there yet, the 'Equal to 3' would imply that the opponent would have to have exactly three flags left; no more, no less. 'Less than 4' would be better, in case you grab 3 flags in one turn when there are 5 opponent flags remaining, it wouldn't trigger as you 'skipped' the condition.

That would leave the problem of what would happen on the last turn, but both opponents have more than 3 flags? Do you want the player with the most flags to win? You would need to add two extra victory conditions that are checked on the last turn in that case. So (victory condition AND [Turn -1, -1] means it will check on the last turn if the condition is met.

This is your 'backup' in case no-one has managed the 'sudden death' condition. How many flags does your map have in total (axis, allied, neutral, everything)? You could use 'No less than' (half +1) of that number of flags as a condition, so the player with more than half of the flags wins.

But beware, there is a small chance that neutral flags would remain, messing up the count. The situation were both players fail to meet the minimum because they both have less than (half + 1) because of neutral flags will be small, though.

---------

Thanks in advance. I think this could be a fun scenario and am looking forward to giving it a whirl.

As soon as they get that server back up and running, yes. Hope they can find a bigger hammer somewhere.

Turns:

The timescale I set at 100 turns basically as I want the game to end when a player has achieved the objective, namely pushing the opponent off the map. 100 turns I put as an arbitrary figure as I would expect the game to be done and dusted by then and 100 turns is a lot of PBEM rounds. I think having a lower set number of turns would risk the possibility of spoiling a good multiplayer game in full flow.

So these turn settings would be correct for 1 day/1 turn like the basic vanilla Panzer Corps campaign?

Days per turn: 1
Turns per day: 0

Weather.

I don't want to script any weather changes and want the season to be the same throughout the scenario. The date of October 1943 was chosen a bit arbitrarily due to it being roughly the time some units like Panthers and others were getting into circulation. Perhaps "late 1943" would be more accurate. I might make the start date 1st September - I will just need to check that all the units deployed are available to purchase at that date. As I wrote earlier, the aim is to create a balanced and replayable multiplayer game rather than specifically to recreate the Autumn/Winter 1943 Eastern Front conditions per se or even just the seasons in general!

I'm thinking of having a bad weather day every one in four days on average and these figures:

12% Cloudy
8% Rain
4% Snow

Moisture: 0.5

Unit experience:

The default is 0. Any reason to change this?

Prestige:

There are almost 13,000 points per army.

There are 38 flag hexes (no victory hexes) and 8 are already under control by each side. So that's 22 flags up for capturing, equating to 1100 points. Divided by the two armies that's 550 points. Let's say about half might be recaptured so another 275 points - let's call it around 800 points per army for prestige gained by capturing flag hexes.

I'm trying to think of a ballpark figure of how much prestige I will want each army to get overall for reinforcements: half the army's starting value total (so c. 6,500 points), or perhaps full army replenishment (c.13,000 points)? Or even more? I haven't played enough multiplayer games to know what works best, so any thoughts appreciated.

Then working out whether to give all the prestige up front, make it all come turn by turn or a mixture. I'm thinking perhaps turn by turn is better as it prevents a player from buying lots of high-value units at the start. If it's going to be done turn-by-turn it's difficult to conjecture how long a game might go on for, though.

I think the 150-250 points per turn you suggested might be the best option. No starting prestige - the 500 points or more from flag capturing will arrive in the first few turns.

I'm thinking I will set it so there are no extra core slots available and one plays with the army that is deployed.

I am also thinking of an optional historical "house rule" in which one can only purchase units that are direct replacements for those that have been destroyed. I don't think there's any way to enforce this within the scenario editor so it would have to be on a pre-arranged "gentleman's agreement" basis. I'd like to give it a try anyway - it would at least allow a better appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of these armies. I think playing it with the standard rules, with no buying limitations, would also be fun and the games would both be slightly different flavours or experiences.

Transports.

I think I'll change them to 2 train, 2 air. I'm also making sure no units start the scenario on a station hex.

Scenario conditions:

The '100' figure is under the 'Score' heading. I just copied from what is shown in the examples shown in the scenario editor. I'm not sure what it means or whether it makes a difference - prestige maybe?

I've changed the victory conditions to the following,

Axis Victory / 100 / Number of allied flags in all map is less than 5 (4 being the number of "home" flags for each side at either map edge)
Allied Victory / 100 / Number of axis flags in all map is less than 5
Axis Victory / 100 / Number of axis flags in all map is no less than 20 AND Turn [1,-1] (there being 38 flags)
Allied Victory / 100 / Number of allied flags in all map is no less than 20 AND Turn [1,-1]

[the_iron_duke]

Moisture level is [0,5] typically. When it reaches 3, the ground becomes muddy/frozen. It decreases by 2 when clear and increases by 2 when raining/snowing. It decreases by 1 when cloudy, unless ground is frozen.

Just to be clear, the moisture level setting is best left at zero?

EDIT: Inputting a 0 turns the number red, which I guess is bad. Is it 5 then?

RE-EDIT: No, it's got to be 0 hasn't it.

[the_iron_duke]

Also, when I validate the scenario I get about 500 of these messages:

[WARNING] Hex (4,4) should have custom string.
[WARNING] Hex (27,4) should have custom string.
[WARNING] Hex (4,5) should have custom string.
...........

It seems to be playing okay so I'm not sure if it's affecting anything.