Slitherine

Strange, I definately changed the Compass date...

Edit:Checked and the date is correct, 9-12-1940

Erik2 wrote:Strange, I definately changed the Compass date...

Edit:Checked and the date is correct, 9-12-1940

Erik, I apologize. I must be suffering from desert battle fatigue because I forgot the crucial second step of copying the updated scenarios from the campaign folder to the scenarios folder where the editor can see them. So when I looked at OC, I was still looking at yesterday's version.
You have restored my momentarily shaken faith in you; so much so that I am not going back to check on the date of Operation Compass!

(Although, you never answered my question but never mind. I think the answer is "Yes indeed, window-dressing.")

Operation Battleaxe, v. 1.2

I should have mentioned this before but I have noticed that you have been sporadic in linking hexes to your objectives. In Battleaxe, for example, none are linked and that makes it tough to find where these locations are. You may want to go back over the previous four scenarios and see if you want to link to objective hexes.

So in Battleaxe we are looking at Sofafi, Buq Buq, Alum Batuna, Bardia, and Gambut, I believe, a total of five primary VPs. Now, there is only one primary objective and that is to "Control 4 objectives." The British already own three to start the scenario and therefore need only to conquer one more to win, say, Bardia which is closest to their front lines. Is this perhaps too easy? Or am I missing something in my forensic approach (i.e., not playing the scenario, yet) in that the British are very likely to lose one or two primary VP's in the early going? Or that Bardia is not going to be easy to take at all?

You need trigger event Turn Start here:
Okay, looking at the secondary objective to "Capture 8 objectives (secondary VP's) may have answered my question about the primary objective. All 8 are clustered around Sollum and that's the idea, I believe. The real tasks here are 1) Don't lose ground; 2) Don't lose any primary VP's; 3) Advance and take Sollum and environs; 4) When the way is clear, advance and pluck the low-hanging fruit of Bardia to win. I see.

Operation Battleaxe, v. 1.2 continued

But here's the thing; see if I am right. I took this screenshot with the dialog window placed so that you can see the bunch who are guarding Sollum. I did a "J" to indicate that they are AI teams 4, 5, and 6:
You don't want to encourage the British player to just bypass Sollum by taking a right turn at Sidi Omar, heading north through Sidi Azeiz, and taking Bardia from the rear, I assume. That would not be realistic for the Germans to sit in Sollum and watch the parade go by. So while I don't think AI teams 4, 5, and 6 should be Idle anyway (perhaps at least Local Defense), perhaps you want some of them to also be set to Seek & Destroy to prevent a British end run?

Regardless of that, I don't see any Setup AI triggers to activate AI teams 4, 5, and 6, nor any of the other ground unit AI teams. I do see multiple triggers to activate fighters and bombers but nothing for ground units.

Heh, I often ask myself why I spend so much time with OOB and doing things like this beta project. In addition to being a kind-hearted person / obsessive-compulsive sicko (take your pick), I believe it's because this game really resonates with me historically. I love details like this:
Who? You defeated even Wikipedia with this one, Erik! I really had to dig to come up with this reference. [The website seems okay but it's slow to load and beware the popup.]

It looks like you neglected to choose Germany as the nation here:

I don't know why I've been so sloppy with the objective map markers, I'll go back and add them.

Battleaxe:
I have not gotten around to playtest this scenario yet, so the 1 more objective may be too easy. Let's add one.
Added activation to a few German units whenever the Allies get too close to Bardia.
Added AI tasks to those missing them.
Yes, Georg Bach, the Pastor of Hellfire Pass (the British gave Halfaya Pass this nick-name) could well have been added as a colourful commander to Sandstorm.

Other scenarios:
Added objective map markers and fixed a few triggers in the next scenarios.
Link updated to v1.3

Erik2 wrote:Link updated to v1.3

Bad link.

Link works for me now. Maybe it had not finished uploading when you tried?

We're back in business. Yes, perhaps you were doing something when I tried because I was seeing version 1.3 at that time and now you have 1.4 up there.

Operation Battleaxe, v. 1.4

Only because you said you made significant changes to this do I revisit it. So you added Gambut to the list and now the British need all 5 primary VP's. The British objective trigger for this looks fine to me but I am questioning the reciprocal Axis trigger for denying the British objective and achieving their own:
My reasoning: If the British must now own 5 primary VP's to win, the Axis must own 0 at the end. The Axis wins if the British loses so all they need to do is hold 1 primary VP. Their objective should be "1obj" and this should be Value >0, I believe.

Heh, I see that there will be no Germans napping in Sollum anymore!

Operation Crusader, v. 1.4

Scenario Description: "Before Rommel is ready—British Eighth Army strikes."
Brit Objectives Event Popup text: "Afvter securing the original objectives . . ." (Remove the "v" in "After.")

This one needs editing; wrong alliance and linked objective:
This trigger ("T-SB open") should work on its own; I don't think you need its mate ("T-SB broke"):
We've seen two triggers paired in official DLC where if one is fired (say, "T-SB open"), it shuts itself off and enables the other ("T-SB broke") if the situation changes. And vice versa. Both triggers are marked "-1" for infinite frequency in that case. But in Crusader, only when the three objectives are taken is this objective enabled and the moment it is achieved ("T-SB open"), the scenario is over. There is never an opportunity for the objective to be reopened ("T-SB broke"). So as it is, I don't think you need the second trigger.

However . . .

I have a suggestion. Would it be better to have the objective "Link up Tobruk with Sidi Barrani" active from the start? The goal as I see it was to relieve Tobruk first and foremost, not conquer an out of the way place like Bir Hachiem. I would have both objectives running concurrently and that would open up the possibility of the Tobruk - Sidi Barrini suppy route opened up, and broken, more than once. If you set it up the way I described above, the British could relieve Tobruk, then take the third objective only to have their supply route cut in the meantime. Only when they reconnected the points would the scenario end in a victory for them.

Holy Smokes, 42 AI teams! I wonder how this one is going to play . . . lots of thinking?

By the way, this is something you will know about: In a campaign, Core commanders are established, say, in the first scenario and they carry forward, I assume. Whereas, AI commanders must be "re-established" in each scenario, correct? So, in Operazione E, you introduce the three British commanders. Done. You also bring in three Italian commanders but no Germans because Germany is not in the campaign yet. Same for Operation Compass and Beda Fomm. In Operations Sonnenblume and Battleaxe, the Germans have arrived and you introduce five German commanders to go along with the Italians. My point is, for the AI, commanders must be redefined for each scenario so I am wondering why you left two Germans off the list for Operation Crusader.

Bir el Gubi, v. 1.4

Here are a few questions on these triggers:
On the first one, All Bir el Gubi, why do you want to have an Scenario End condition? Yes, it's only 12 turns in this scenario but if the player takes both primary VP's, and has done the armor thing, why make him play out all 12?

On all three triggers, for the Axis objective, you have the right alliance but somehow it's the British objective that is selected. Clicking the left or right arrow will clear that up.

You need trigger event Turn Start here:
Please scroll this image; I spliced two pictures together because only three images are allowed per post:
None of the air units in your T2, T3, and T4 air triggers are placed on the map nor are they assigned to AI teams. It looks to me like the oversights in the first trigger were cloned to the other two triggers.

Only two Italian commanders in this one but this is a rather small-scale scenario.

Bardia, v. 1.4

The immediate problem with this scenario is this:
Here is your problem plane; you have no air supply to cover it:
You probably want to turn on the Off-map Air Supply for it because I don't see any airfields on the map:

Bardia, v. 1.4, continued

Two things with this "Ax Bardia" trigger:
1) You want to add a condition to evaluate at Turn Start / Scenario Turn Limit. 2) You need to fail the British objective, not keep it open.

The same two comments apply to the "Ax Port" trigger:
Oops, no nation selected here:

Deja Bru wrote:Holy Smokes, 42 AI teams! I wonder how this one is going to play . . . lots of thinking?

Au contraire; I suppose the previously conducted AI tests are still valid and this means: more AI teams = less AI CPU time

GabeKnight wrote:

Deja Bru wrote:Holy Smokes, 42 AI teams! I wonder how this one is going to play . . . lots of thinking?

Au contraire; I suppose the previously conducted AI tests are still valid and this means: more AI teams = less AI CPU time

Oh yeah, I remember you guys talking about that. Conversely, less AI teams but more units per team meant more AI CPU time, correct?

Deja Bru wrote:Oh yeah, I remember you guys talking about that. Conversely, less AI teams but more units per team meant more AI CPU time, correct?

Wow, reading it up, I was wrong it seems: My statement's right for naval units (less units per AI team = faster processing), but less AI teams should work better with land and air units. Sorry, I mixed it up. (I shouldn't have started this discussion...never knew when to shut up.... )

The general AI team problem was, that units of the same AI team coordinated their attacks "better"/different than separate teams (like Arty firing before the infantry's attack, dogfighter/bomber escorts and such). It's always pros and cons...

For those interested: AI Team test

Gabe, no problem. Thanks for reminding me of that discussion; this time, I earmarked it to go back and read it thoroughly.

Gazala to Tobruk, v. 1.4

This one is a biggie, I see. Requires all five German commanders!

I noticed that in this scenario, the Germans start with a slight supply problem (-1) which will affect their performance in the beginning. Crusader was the only other scenario where this also occurs, (-5) for the Germans to start.

Well, similar to the last scenario, somehow you have the British objective stuck in the Axis alliance effect to fail. Just click one of the arrows:
These two Axis victory triggers are interesting. Either one will fail the British objective but technically the Germans must take both Tobruk and the air field to win because you have two separate objectives for them. That means, say, if the British were to lose the airfield but hold onto Tobruk, they could eke out a Draw because the AI must achieve all of its primary objectives to inflict a Defeat on the human player:
You want to add a condition to evaluate at Turn Start / Scenario Turn Limit:

Gazala to Tobruk, v. 1.4 continued

I don't believe this trigger is going to fire because you have only 5 secondary VP's on the map and this is calling for 6:
It's interesting to note that the "j" trick only works up to AI team 20, at least on my computer and screen resolution. Seeing blank boxes, I thought you had missed assigning a bunch of your units to AI teams but that was not the case:
One last thing; this is just a blemish but it's not logical to start with this hex as Axis territory unless there was just a failed commando raid:
I'll finish the last two scenarios tomorrow.

Battleaxe:
Fixed obj

Crusader:
Fixed txt errors and objectives
Followed supply road suggestion.
There are missinbg Italian and German air commanders since all Axis aur units arrive as reinforcements. You need on-map units to assign commanders to.

Gubi:
I need the player to continue to allow Axis reinforcements to arrive. Just in case the player fulfills the objectives real fast.

Bardia:
Added Allied off-map air supply.
Added scenario-end trigger to Ax objs (and changed event to turn start...).
Removed naval command points as the player get fresh destroyers.

Gazala:
This is the first of the big scenarios, leading up to El Alamein. Gazal was maybe Rommel's finest moment in North Africa.
Added Axis supply.
Added scenario end trigger to Allied sec objs.
Fixed Ax sec obj.
The J command is nice even if it is somewhat erratic when the number of AI teams get high. i also noticed that J works to refresh any team changes.
Fixed Axis hex ownership.

link updated to 1.5