Shards' Scenarios

[Shards]

No problem with the suggestions so far.

A few of those triggers are dead (used in development but superceded now, I should tidy up) and the heavy inf are swapped over to the player side when the ai encroaches. I should give them basic ai teams though.

Maybe I'd changed the IDs for the outcomes and forgotten to save at some point...

[Shards]

0.2.4 available with responses to your suggestions, Bru

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qrl6fjjqrs34s ... 4.zip?dl=0

[bru888]

Thanks for the changes. Glad to see that I still have some of the old stuff.

"Intro Shenanigans," indeed.

Will return shortly with more impressions.

[bru888]

"Intro Shenanigans," indeed.

Speaking of which, do you get this after you do those "T1 Move Hinf" shifts? If so, then I'd say we are all going to see this, in both locations:

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It happens no matter if you choose red, blue, or purple Alliance in this trigger:

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Yet another case of Bru opening up a can of worms! No good intentions go unpunished in OOB!

Well, two options:

1) Revert back to placing the units in the towns and delete "Intro Shenanigans"; the player will at least have a clue where De'An is from the camera shifts and will confirm it upon play or consulting the objectives.

2) Or do this instead:

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[bru888]

Good job on the briefing. Nice flow; covers what is needed. Again, a beautiful map in terms of layout and placements.

A minor quibble on one of the primary objectives. (But don't do anything other than maybe change a mission description or two, please!)

"Delay the Japanese Advance" is rather vague. The blurb is okay, but it doesn't tell one how this objective is achieved.

It turns out, I believe, that it is redundant with the objective above it, "Hold De'an and YongXiu." That is, the way to attain "Delay the Japanese Advance" is to "Hold De'an and YongXiu" until the end of the scenario, if I am reading your triggers correctly.

But, it's complicated. If the player fails to "Hold De'an and YongXiu," "Delay the Japanese Advance" is not failed; merely the trigger that would complete that objective is turned off. The only way to fail it is to also fail the "Hold the Front Line for 4 turns" objective.

I assume this is WAD according to what you have in mind.* You may, then, want to add something like this to the mission description:

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*See what you think, though. Should you fail "Delay the Japanese Advance" objective in the "Fail Defend Primary" trigger as well?

[bru888]

One last thing before I start actually playing this baby! And before I go into it, remember that I have said previously many times that when I am in this CSI mode, I don't take anything personally. If something that I mention is too much work or too insignificant in your estimation, just ignore it.

That said, you provided for a separate Draw outcome and image. With only only AI objective for it to achieve or fail, the outcomes can only be Victory or Defeat for the player. The reason is this:

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You have only one AI goal, to Win. If the player fails on any of his primary objectives, the AI is awarded that objective. "All" of the AI's primary objectives are completed. The result is player Defeat.

So, the player must achieve all of his objectives for Victory; hence the AI goal to Win is never awarded and the player wins.

But what about a Draw? In my opinion, a Draw can only happen when the player has achieved some objectives and failed in others, with corresponding wins or losses on the AI side. Thus you would need something like this, working each of these, win or lose, into your primary objective triggers; a Draw being a mixture of results, so to speak:

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But as I said, if this is too much, then forget about it. Most players go at it for Victory or Defeat. A Draw is like kissing your sister.

[Shards]

Old school programmer. I put something in draw, even if I think it's impossible to reach it.

[Shards]

Delay the Advance is vague on purpose.

I don't want players to immediately abandon their positions and just fall back to preserve their forces, that's not the theme of the battle. They're there to be a human roadblock to superior forces, it's one of the reasons why I give so many rubbish aux units. Get them to the line and stop some bullets with them...

But I also don't want to be super explicit about defending points X and Y because I want the player to be thinking on their feet about dealing with the AI threats that manifest...

[bru888]

Shards, my hat is off to you. (Yes, I did end up extensively looking under the hood/bonnet.) There are rather clever mechanisms in here which I intend to appropriate someday. There are no patents involved, I assume.

Just a few quick notes:

When the vanguard enters, they are facing left as if walking backwards into the battlefield.

Did you mean to leave "W Tank" out of the Tank Landings random trigger?

The Japanese artillery on the East Flank is without horse transportation which makes it rather useless.

I noticed that, when the scenario starts, the damage counter is set to 350 no matter the difficulty setting. I believe it defaults to the highest number until a Combat Event occurs, stimulating the counter and setting it correctly. It might be best to make all of those damage counters trigger on Any Event.

I see no triggers that direct AI teams to move to YongXiu once De'An is taken. Only one trigger would be needed, directing everybody south at that point. (Though this may be moot, really, because unless the player is performing abysmally, the AI will never make it to YongXiu.)

To your "Reinforcements Coming" Event Popup, I would add "Expect the vanguard soon." (Calls attention to/explains the "Turns until vanguard" countdown clock.)

To your "Here Comes the Cavalry!" Event Popups, I would add "The main force will follow soon." (Calls attention to/explains the "Turns until main force" countdown clock.)

You may want to point the Event Popup for "Failure" to Defend Front Line - Primary to the same clump of trees that you use for the "Success" Event Popup.

Perhaps an Event Popup for Defend 2nd Line / Start Fall Back to alert the player to the activation of the "Fall back and defend approaches to De'an" objective? (And throw a few huts near two intersections for "villages"?) Note the subtle difference in phrasing depending on whether "Hold the Front Line for 4 turns" has been accomplished or not:

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[bru888]

So, all that said, this is a great scenario. It is one of the best examples that I have seen of a "fighting retreat" filled with plenty of perils (such as that sneaky Lushan Corridor — better plug that up, quick, before it splits our lines in two!).

It seems nicely balanced, although not too difficult for somebody who knows the game as I pretend to (and who plays only on Difficulty III). Like I said, you have to know how to retreat, consolidating and positioning forces along natural lines of defense until either the clock runs out or the tide turns your way.

Well done, Shards. This one joins Tallinn in my vault of favorites.

[bru888]

This one joins Tallinn in my vault of favorites.

Funny that I mentioned that. When I went to check to see if I had the latest version of Tallinn, I received this message:

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It's the same message for all of your multi-player scenarios as well. (Yet, oddly, the 2_Wanjialing 529 0.2.4 link is working.)

Is it something I said? ( )

[Shards]

Thanks for the detailed report Bru!

As for Tallinn, I updated it. It's correct in the community crate but I obvs forgot to update the link here

[conboy]

Thanks, Shards, I played on Level III.
Held onto the Western Pass till very late in the scenario but left the Eastern one too early to get a Major Victory. I think when the pop-up appeared to move to a second line of defense, I took it too much to heart. Could have held out there another turn or two to check the secondary objective. But I was in too good of a position in the West to abandon that position, which delayed the Japanese advance through there so long that that they couldn't make it south in time to do the Japanese any good. Started pulling units out of there when the Japanese advance in the Northwest corner started but held it for several more turns after that.

It plays very well, thanks for posting it. It's interesting all the way through and is exciting at times.
Once the reinforcements start showing up, the player is a little more confident that there is a way to win.

Well done!

conboy

[Shards]

Good stuff, glad you liked it!

I do want players to "win" the scenario and most players should be fine as long as they pay attention to the enemy actions.

Glad that it made you at least a bit concerned at some points though!

I'm most proud of the fairly simple triggers that manage the AI's Engage->Retreat->Replenish->Re-Engage loop. That they generally keep the pressure up on the player without (mostly) getting in each other's way or sacrificing themselves is pleasing.

[Shards]

Updated to 0.3.0 with some small tweaks from Bru's suggestions

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6sqgyh4q7cz86 ... 0.zip?dl=0

Also updated first post with updated Tallinn

https://www.dropbox.com/s/q8fc3nwcvgsmj ... 0.zip?dl=0

[FrancoisPhilidor]

It says the dropbox file is deleted?