Bru's Scenarios and Campaigns

[bru888]

Shards, per your suggestion. The "Visit the port of Montevideo" mission now reads as:

"For diplomatic and supply reasons, the Graf Spee is ordered to pay a visit to the port of Montevideo. It may take some persuasion to convince Uruguay to offer hospitality to us. If successful, we will be afforded a one-time opportunity to resupply (restore the Graf Spee to full strength)."

Whether the visit is by force or by stealth, the successful event popup message says:

"The Graf Spee has docked in Montevideo. She enjoys diplomatic immunity for as long she remains in port. The Uruguay government is actually quite accommodating, welcoming Captain Langsdorff and assuring him that the Graf Spee will be resupplied (restored to full strength) once, upon his request."

In the "Montevideo Hospitality" folder, which is activated when the "Visit the port of Montevideo" mission is completed, the repeating "Withdraw Task Force G" and "Reactivate Task Force G" triggers are changed. They only handle this now: As long as the Graf Spee stays in Montevideo, British Task Force G is ordered to loiter on the east side of Isla Martín García. If the Graf Spee moves just one hex away from the docks, Task Force G is back on the offensive.

The resupply effect is handled by a separate trigger (Another dialog! Please get it fixed! ). Each turn that the Graf Spee is at Montivideo, the player will be asked a question whether he wants to use the one-time full strength option.

Version 2.4 of the Battle of the River Plate has been uploaded. Here are the revised triggers, in case you are interested:

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[Shards]

I'm intrigued as to what the reporters on the quayside in Montevideo at the time would have been drinking? I'm guessing not that many would have converted to Mate?

You got me, mate.

Had to just go back and scroll through Battle of the River Plate (1956) to see what they were drinking in the cafe/bar scenes there. Of course, this is an American movie from the 50's, so they're all drinking Coca Cola

[Shards]

And 2.4 sounds like a good gameplay change Bru!

[bru888]

And 2.4 sounds like a good gameplay change Bru!

Thanks. I know you are considering River Plate for Community Crate status, pending the fix of the dialog box priority. Instead, you are talking about using the Raid on Turku. First, please make sure you are looking at version 2.2 of Turku; the screen shot that you posted in another thread had the VP flags outside of the proper hexes which, as you pointed out, looked awkward although I did that for a reason. Now it looks like this:

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But there is another problem, I just realized . . .

[bru888]

But there is another problem, I just realized . . .

Shards, (or Erik, Gabe, whoever), please take a look at the garrison at the top right in the above image. I had been testing the other scenario on Difficulty 1 which was fortunate in that, when I started Turku, the garrison appears at strength 6. The garrison is allied to the human player, but because it is a non-human faction, the game lowers its strength to 6 which is, of course, detrimental to the player on the lower difficulty level.

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So here is where I would like your opinion. As you saw with River Plate, I sometimes overlook the effects of various difficulty settings for trigger conditions like this:

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Should I set the "Difficulty bonus compensation" for this condition or, and this is the way I am tending, should I redesign this verdammt garrison module which has never worked properly?

[Shards]

Hi,

Yeah. Following Gabe's logic from the other chat, I think ticking the Difficulty Bonus box essentially turns it into a percentage rather than a hard value.

So it would be testing that this unit was a Less Than 3 health on Diff 1.

[bru888]

Hi,

Yeah. Following Gabe's logic from the other chat, I think ticking the Difficulty Bonus box essentially turns it into a percentage rather than a hard value.

So it would be testing that this unit was a Less Than 3 health on Diff 1.

Do you think, then, that it would be sufficient to just tick that "Difficulty bonus compensation" for this condition? Because it would take a two or three hits to reduce the garrison from 6 to 2, which perhaps is comparable to reducing it from 10 to 4 on middle difficulty?

[Shards]

Yes, I think that's a sensible compromise

[bru888]

Alright, thanks muchly for the prompt responses and advice. Rather than going back to the well, the garrison module will work well for the most part as designed if I tick that setting. Rather than ripping the thing apart, that is what I will do. Please look for the Raid on Turku version 2.3 in a few minutes.

EDIT: Version 2.3 of the Raid on Turku has been uploaded.

[GabeKnight]

Yes, I think that's a sensible compromise

Agree, if the "Difficulty bonus compensation" really works percentage-wise.

And BTW, those garrison troops will have 13HP with higher difficulties; it's always a trade-off assigning (AI) aux. factions to the player.

[bru888]

Yes, I think that's a sensible compromise

Agree, if the "Difficulty bonus compensation" really works percentage-wise.

And BTW, those garrison troops will have 13HP with higher difficulties; it's always a trade-off assigning (AI) aux. factions to the player.

It's not a bug but I would call it an oversight. The difficulty unit strength adjustment should not apply to AI alliances on the same team as the human player; i.e., "on the same side."

[Shards]

If we started again, I'd say that was the right decision, but changing that now would potentially affect so many scenarios and campaigns

[bru888]

If we started again, I'd say that was the right decision, but changing that now would potentially affect so many scenarios and campaigns

Agreed. We live with it. (And retain memory of it, for the future.)

[Shards]

FYI, I've just played a new test build and the messages popups in River Plate are appearing in the appropriate order now

[bru888]

FYI, I've just played a new test build and the messages popups in River Plate are appearing in the appropriate order now

That's great news! I was just thinking of using a dialog box in something that I am working on but shied away from it due to this issue.

[bru888]

Operation Lila Denied v1.0 is uploaded. Download link is in the opening post.

I was working on this scenario about a year ago, intending to insert it between Operation Torch and Arctic Convoy in the Kriegsmarine campaign. Obviously, it was from the German point of view. I never finished it, despite being about three quarters done. With my Free France 1940-1945 campaign, I saw an opportunity to revive it, switch sides, and play it as the "Free" French (technically, the French involved were still loyal to Vichy, but not on the day that Operation Lila was denied).

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[Erik2]

I have a slight scuttle problem, Sir. Maybe some duds in play.
Is this FF position supposed to scuttle the boat in their midst?
Or must the scuttlers be next to each other?

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[bru888]

Went fine for me; I believe this is the situation that you depicted above. Please know that scuttles occur on the first turn after the positioning of the scuttle crews (and they don't have to be side-by-side but the scuttled ship needs to have two scuttle crews next to it at the start of the turn):

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I have to work on this scenario today, so I will check to see that every scuttle is choreographed properly and I will put something into the instructions to tell the player that scuttling is not instantaneous but occurs at the start of the next turn.

[bru888]

Okay, so I ran the table and cleared the harbor! All ships are definitely scuttleable! It took a bit of overtime to get every ship, but the objectives don't require all of them to be scuttled. 24 turns is definitely right for this scenario, given the player being able to hold off the Germans and British long enough.

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I did notice, however, that the first scuttles were delayed. That is, after positioning the scuttle crews during the player's Turn 1, the scuttle would not happen until Turn 3. That's because I did this for some reason on all scuttle triggers; I will fix:

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[bru888]

By the way, I beg the player's indulgence for what could be viewed as a clumsy and unrealistic mechanism for scuttling ships.

I was faced with a dilemma. Originally, this scenario was designed to be played as the Germans. The player was racing against the clock to secure the harbour facilities before the AI could scuttle too many ships. The scuttling was done according to a schedule, a ship or two each turn.

Then, when I turned the scenario around to be be played as the "Free" French (an honorary term, for these men were still mostly loyal to Vichy; they just didn't want German or British paws on their ships), I ran into a problem. How boring would it be to just sit there, holding off the enemies, while the ships scuttled themselves?

I needed a mechanism for the player to be able to control the scuttling so as to give him something to do and an interest in what was going on in the harbour. Obviously, in real life, the ships' crews scuttled their own ships. How to do that in OOB?

There is not a means for picking which ships to blow up each turn, except for making them core units which would enable the player to disband them (I think - can you do that with core ship units?). Even so, how could I limit the number of ships to be disbanded each turn?

I didn't want to create an absurd situation in which Free French coastal guns or bombers would destroy the fleet. Scuttling is scuttling, not bombardment.

Then I hit on the "scuttle crews" idea. That is, using two pairs of Schnellboote (under the FF flag), make it seem that two crews had to be alongside of a ship in order to scuttle it (on the next turn). Plus, make it a bit of a puzzle by blocking and obscuring the warships with barges and support ships.

It works, but only if the player suspends belief just a bit and "plays along."