Wacht Am Rhein campaign beta testing

[Erik2]

Why, I've been here the whole time

[Deja Bru]

Good to see you're back.

Thanks, Gabe. I'm sort of in the "Twilight Zone," so to speak.

[Deja Bru]

So Erik, I nuked my way through Cracking the Goose Egg as you see here:

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Then I started the next campaign, Battered Bastards, and it appeared to be loading properly but then this:

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What the heck? How can I get a refund? You know, money doesn't grow on trees and for what I spent on this campaign, I should . . . oh. ( )

Yes, I see what you mean. I had to hit escape and go back to Desktop or Menu. There was no way to advance:

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All of which you know already. I am going to look at it but I am not hopeful. Also, it's late (I worked overtime and then the wife drafts me for shoe-shopping!) so I may not have an answer until tomorrow, one way or the other. Still, you know what they say about two heads being better than one, except on the same body.

[Deja Bru]

I'm sorry to report that I've got nothing. I tried everything that I could think of; even though it probably was not the map since you can start BB independently, I removed all your units, looking for any that were on the list and not on the map or in reserve; I disabled all your triggers; I removed your specialisations; I even resized the map in different directions to see if there was anything revealed. Nothing.

I looked at the campaign editor and I thought it might be a timing issue; from the looks of it, you have Cracked Egg running from 20-12-1944 to 24-12-1944 and in the campaign editor and the scenario itself you have BB starting on 22-12-1944 but when I dialed Egg back to take up only one day, it did not help. I looked at the branch links; there's no apparent issue with them. There are no campaign variables to get hung up on that I can see.

Woof, the bitter taste of defeat. You know what you must do now, yes? Approach the Oracle? If and when you do, would you post the resolution here because my curiosity is piqued, to say the least.

EDIT 1: Here's a clue, though. Notice that on the strat map, all of the U.S. counters are missing. Only the Germans appear.
EDIT 2: So pending a resolution, I will play the scenarios individually and lend a hand that way. Good luck; I hope you get your answer.

[Shards]

I've not seen that issue for a while...

I'll have a look at it later as well, see if I can remember what it was.... had you cropped this map down from a larger map Erik? Could there be any decorations left in the area outside the crop?

[Shards]

When I start the scenario as a scenario I have two Core Infantry in my Force. But I can't see how they can get there via triggers, nor can I see any Core Forces on the map to start with? Are these guys out of the deployment zone and being put into my Force when played as a Scenario? Could this be the issue? (I've no idea where they could be on the map)

Also, is your US Victory trigger correct? They get awarded the win on a Capture VP event as long as they have >0 Primary locations? Surely they'll win as soon as any VP is captured as they start out holding two?

Ta

[Deja Bru]

That's the thing, though: You can start BB independently with no problems, any trigger issues notwithstanding. From this layman's point of view, it looks like the campaign apparatus is picking up an issue in the scenario and refusing to advance.

[Deja Bru]

And yes, I noticed those two units in reserve at the beginning and not on the map. But when I erased them and every other unit in the scenario, saved it, and fed it back into the campaign, it had no effect.

[Shards]

And yes, I noticed those two units in reserve at the beginning and not on the map. But when I erased them and every other unit in the scenario, saved it, and fed it back into the campaign, it had no effect.

How did you delete them from the reserve?

[Shards]

Also, if you upload an output log from when the campaign issue happens, I can take a look at that?

[GabeKnight]

I'm sorry to report that I've got nothing. I tried everything that I could think of; even though it probably was not the map since you can start BB independently, I removed all your units, looking for any that were on the list and not on the map or in reserve; I disabled all your triggers; I removed your specialisations; I even resized the map in different directions to see if there was anything revealed. Nothing.

I looked at the campaign editor and I thought it might be a timing issue; from the looks of it, you have Cracked Egg running from 20-12-1944 to 24-12-1944 and in the campaign editor and the scenario itself you have BB starting on 22-12-1944 but when I dialed Egg back to take up only one day, it did not help. I looked at the branch links; there's no apparent issue with them. There are no campaign variables to get hung up on that I can see.

Woof, the bitter taste of defeat. You know what you must do now, yes? Approach the Oracle? If and when you do, would you post the resolution here because my curiosity is piqued, to say the least.

EDIT 1: Here's a clue, though. Notice that on the strat map, all of the U.S. counters are missing. Only the Germans appear.
EDIT 2: So pending a resolution, I will play the scenarios individually and lend a hand that way. Good luck; I hope you get your answer.

Thanks for the great analysis as always, Bruce. Saved me a lot of work.

That's the thing, though: You can start BB independently with no problems, any trigger issues notwithstanding. From this layman's point of view, it looks like the campaign apparatus is picking up an issue in the scenario and refusing to advance.

Bingo! Actually I can't really say WHY this is happening exactly, but I can tell you how to solve it: Just add the "Waffen-SS" as a faction in the new scenario, then in works.
(Maybe some follow-up-error as you have core Waffen-SS units and RPs from the previous scen)

How did you delete them from the reserve?

Deploy (press "Shift" & left-click) and then right-click when deployed

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[Deja Bru]

Gabe, you da man! I will leave it to Erik now to follow up on your suggestion.

[Erik2]

Guys, thank your for all the feedback.
Both Wehrmacht and Waffen SS are core fasctions in this campaign.
Whenever new core units arrive, they do so in the reserve list so players may deploy them at will.
No maps have been cropped, so there are no left-over stuff.

Now back to the issue. i remember way back that one of my early German campaigns suffered from the same. The solution was to make sure that every Axis faction in any scenario was added to all scenarios...
This is why it only crops up during campaign play i guess.
I'll do the simple thing which is just add both factions to all scenarios and take it from there.

Once again, thanks for helping out.
This is what a good forum is for, not complaining endlessly about minor bugs

[Deja Bru]

Happy to help, especially considering the prize will be a great campaign by Erik. While you are fixing campaign roadblock, I will advance to scenario Roadblocks tonight.

[Deja Bru]

But first, I remembered my other mission here which is trying to learn a bit about the campaign editor. So I figured I would look into what Gabe said.

(Gabe, my hat is off to you, sir. You have learned a great deal about this game in the short time that you have been here.)

And my reaction is, "Oh, for goodness' sakes. Yes, indeed." Please allow me to verbalize this for my own edification.

The campaign editor has both Werhrmacht and Waffen SS listed as core factions as you said, Erik:

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You "introduce" Waffen SS for the first time, as core units, in Cracking the Goose Egg:

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When that scenario is over, the campaign wants to hand those Waffen SS core units over to Battered Bastards but cannot because they are not a valid faction in BB (version 1.1). The campaign stops dead in its tracks. Just adding the Waffen SS to BB is what was needed to advance the campaign to BB normally:

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I take notes on this game and this is definitely going in that folder.

[Deja Bru]

So Erik, depending on whether those Waffen SS core units survive from one scenario to the next, it looks like you need to add that faction to Dinant and Mayhem because this is what the Dinant strat map looks like without it in case you are interested.

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[Deja Bru]

Battle of the Roadblocks v. 1.1

You know this already but there is no scroll bar on victory and defeat messages. I have found that if the text fits into the briefing input window without rolling it down, it will generally fit the message. You can save space by not making new paragraphs.

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I think this trigger is going to fail because for it to activate, a Capture VP event has to happen exactly at Scenario End. Maybe you want Turn Start instead?

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One more thing, on Briefing #4: "and enter your zone of operations."

[GabeKnight]

Glad I could help.

Erik, this issue in mind, I'm worried about the SeaLion branch of the GGC a bit right now. If I recall correctly, you introduced the Italian navy/airfoce as new core faction within the Gibraltar route quite recently. The same error might happen after the branches converge and the Italian units aren't used in the scens anymore. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to test it...

[Deja Bru]

Cracking the Goose Egg v 1.1

Same comment about lengthy victory and defeat messages.

With these secondary goals, I'm thinking that perhaps they should be checked (achieved) to begin the scenario, only to be failed if one or more of these units is destroyed. The trigger is saying, on a Combat Event, if I did not lose an artillery unit, then I win this objective. I think the reverse should be true. The objective is won until lost; that is, when I lose an artillery unit, I now fail the objective.

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We talked about this one before. You are doing it for a reason:

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[Deja Bru]

Buttered Bagels . . . I mean, Battered Bastards v. 1.1

My last comment about lengthy victory and defeat messages. No sense in repeating this six more times. It's up to you, of course, but if you are going to chew us out for being dummkopfs, the least we can do is to "hear" you out.

On Briefing #3: "Now more than ever it is imperative . . ."

I see what you are doing with the German objective. They start out holding 10 of 12 VPs. To win, they need only to take the other two, Remoifosse and Batogne . . . before an expected U.S. relief force arrives. So I think the German objective trigger works; as soon as Capture VP =12 for the Germans, victory.

However, the U.S. objective trigger is no good. What is going to happen here, I believe, is that as soon as anybody captures any VP, the Americans win because even if it's the Germans who just took Remoifosse as a Capture VP event, the Americans still own Bastogne (value >1) so U.S. wins and Germany loses.

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You may want to make this U.S. objective trigger something like, if at Scenario End, U.S. owns any VP (value >1), U.S. wins, Germany loses. The player can achieve an early victory just by taking all 12 VP's but if he is having trouble, the full number of turns will be appreciated. If he's still in trouble at the end, he loses.

And maybe call the objective "Take Bastogne and control all other villages" because "Hold all villages" is misleading in that the player starts with owning only 10 out of 12. The idea at this point is that the Germans needed Bastogne as a key crossroads and could not leave the American force there in their rear as they advanced.