New Britain 1943-45 Beta Test

[bru888]

Quick question. For Cape Gloucester scen, do I have to deploy all land forces at sea before Turn 1 or can I hold some back?

Well, first don't forget that some of your forces must defend the sector Arawe and its airfield... mainly those from the 112th Cavalry RCT.

About the other forces, the point is that if you don't deploy all the remaining forces directly at sea, you may (I'm not completely sure!) have to wait until you've taken some villages and until the flags have changed (several turns to raise flags!) to be able to deploy them on land. And what if you do need these units on the battlefield? You don't exactly know what to expect, apart of course a bunch of Japs.

Let's consider the other option: if the sea deploy hexes remain for several turns... they are quite far from the coast, actually (it's normal, having seen the incoming action). So if, when you want/need them, they have to travel all the way to the coast(s)... that's again several turns "lost" for this purpose!


So, yes, you can hold some back if you (really) will.

In my opinion, therefore, it is not obligatory to deploy all from start, but rather advisable (anyway, you can, so why not?)...

I think it's better to try keeping some margin of maneuver, some tactical flexibility... and that's by having the troops not too far away, i.e. at your immediate disposal (or almost)... even if some are kept a few hexes (only) farther, maybe still at sea...

I will confirm what the Colonel says about "if you don't deploy all the remaining forces directly at sea, you may . . . have to wait until you've taken some villages and until the flags have changed (several turns to raise flags!) to be able to deploy them on land." In a pure land battle, Erik and I have been making provision for subsequent deployments after the initial Deployment Phase - usually a hex or two on the map edges. Here, though, that didn't seem appropriate. The best advice is to deploy all Marines at sea (the U.S. Army is on land near Arawe) and, if you don't want to commit them immediately to landings, they can always linger offshore. Beware the Japanese aircraft, however.

[bru888]

By the way, you may have seen this message when trying to deploy a Marine near Arawe:

Screenshot 3.jpg (366.1 KiB) Viewed 2839 times

but you were not seeing this equivalent message when deploying U.S. Army offshore of Cape Gloucester:

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The intention is, Marines at Cape Gloucester and U.S. Army at Arawe. The trigger for the Marines was working but the U.S. Army trigger was not because I forgot that infantry units at sea are technically Class: Naval (Transport). I had it set for Category: Land.

But when I changed the trigger to Class: Naval (Transport), it detected and removed the supply ships which are the same class! Solution: Switch the supply ships to the alternate U.S. Army faction (white star on blue background). Works fine now.

Tell me again why the original designer thought these alternate factions ([IJN], [REDUSA], [USARMY], [RAF]) were useless and cluttering? If anything, there should be MORE alternate factions in the game! This kind of arbitrary decision drives me bonkers when it comes to software programming. Fortunately, these four factions can be restored to the editor by editing a text file and they work fine in custom scenarios. This issue is yet another example of why they can be so helpful.

[ColonelY]

Excellent, these two events to force the player to follow the History! Good job!

[bru888]

3. Agreed about the Jungle Lurker and about the engineer message .

I assume that you find "Jungle Lurker" to strike your fancy. The AIB Scouts are blessed with "Jungle Vision" to help find the lurkers.

Regarding the engineer message, I will leave that alone because a) say you want a few engineers anyway, despite the advisory; you would only see it a few times, and b) it helps if the player decides to buy one later. [Wrong - see next post.]

Then, some other points:

1. We don't need the US RPs anymore... So, one could remove all of them (a "#warbonds -1000", or the equivalent in terms of triggers, shall do the trick), transfer about 20% from the US to the Australians (to still reward us for being thrifty), maybe together with an event at the commencement (an event similar to the campaign event "Handover", or something, but saying few words about this RP affair).

2. Our "Supply Ship" is already experienced? Not sure at all whether it's useful or not... (later, I've sent this supply ship as "bait" together with the destroyer )

3. I've had a little issue with (only) one of the "AIB Scouts" refusing to exit the map... Well, this unit has moved a little, participated a little as well in some fights... I guess any one of these 6 units can exit through any one of these 6 exit points, so I don't understand this but it may be some sort of OoB mystery... As "safety", in case it appears again later for some reason, what about changing this obj to exit maybe at least 4 or 5 to these units instead of all 6? Like this, as well, one could keep a little extra unit with us OR allow us to lose one in unlucky fights or unwise exploration moves.


This campaign is excellent, although it is "short" in terms of number of scenarios, it is certainly not "short" in terms of depth of content or number of turns, and these maps are rather large overall!

Great work, thanks, keep up the good work!

Regarding the U.S. RPs going into Jacquinot Bay, your idea of "one could remove all of them ('#warbonds -1000')" worked but I added an extra "0" and made it -10000. The game does not go negative in RPs so the result is zero showing for the U.S.

The supply ship is experienced due to this trigger that gives 4 experience to any Australian unit purchased for Jacquinot Bay. It's the last scenario and I cannot see Australian units starting with even just one experience star at this point (if they have the training specialisations; zero if not). The trigger applied it to all Australian units but I have restricted it now to air and land units (no sea units can be deployed). The supply ship now has zero experience:

Screenshot 7.jpg (253.54 KiB) Viewed 2822 times

All six AIB Scout exits seem to be working fine; I just tested them:

Screenshot 9.jpg (395.52 KiB) Viewed 2820 times

There is a twist in that one Japanese lurker is sitting right on top of the AIB exit; he has to be "evicted," of course.

Well, you are done here, Colonel, so thanks. You make many perceptive observations and suggestions. I hope you will continue to review our studio output. If so, you will have a task ahead of you for the Free France campaign!

[bru888]

Regarding the engineer message, I will leave that alone because a) say you want a few engineers anyway, despite the advisory; you would only see it a few times, and b) it helps if the player decides to buy one later.

Urp! Sorry, I misunderstood this. The message is popping up on EVERY purchase, not just engineers. I will fix.

[bru888]

Regarding the engineer message, I will leave that alone because a) say you want a few engineers anyway, despite the advisory; you would only see it a few times, and b) it helps if the player decides to buy one later.

Urp! Sorry, I misunderstood this. The message is popping up on EVERY purchase, not just engineers. I will fix.

Well, this was another tough one. First of all, the offer to refund RPs only applies to the Deployment Phase, not thereafter, so that idea had to go. Also, what if the player still wants an engineer or two regardless of what the message says about them not being needed to suppress pillbox snipers? I cannot automatically undeploy them like I did for ski troops during the summer in Finland.

So it had to revert to a one-time warning which must be displayed at Scenario Start so that the player has the information while he is purchasing units for initial deployment. Trouble was, I already had two Scenario Start popup messages to explain the Australian Commando units. I usually don't like more than two popups in a row, but I made an exception.

Here is the sequence. Remember, the first two messages explain the commander/gurkha units that the player has in reserve and the weird "2/7th" designation that they have:

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[bru888]

Lastly, I noticed Talasea was dragging a bit ("Thinking...") so I split the Navy S&D team into North and South and simplified their task. Seems to have helped.

That should be it for now. Version 0.94 has been uploaded with all of the changes discussed here today.

[ColonelY]

Oh, I've just thought at another element:

According to what you've recently written, I've got the strong feeling that you don't want our initial US recruits to be upgraded into Marines...

-> So, there could maybe be a little addition in the text of the event: "Recruits No Longer" (in 02CapeGloucester), something like: "[...] It's time to upgrade them to regular infantry, if it has not been done already. [...]"

[ColonelY]

[...]
Well, you are done here, Colonel, so thanks. You make many perceptive observations and suggestions. I hope you will continue to review our studio output. If so, you will have a task ahead of you for the Free France campaign!

You're welcome! No worries, unless the sky falls on my head in between ( ), that's what I intend to do!

[Mascarenhas]

Oh, I've just thought at another element:

According to what you've recently written, I've got the strong feeling that you don't want our initial US recruits to be upgraded into Marines...

-> So, there could maybe be a little addition in the text of the event: "Recruits No Longer" (in 02CapeGloucester), something like: "[...] It's time to upgrade them to regular infantry, if it has not been done already. [...]"

I agree, with this, because that's what I have done, experimentally. Promoting the recruits into marines made their tasks very much easier.

[bru888]

Oh, I've just thought at another element:

According to what you've recently written, I've got the strong feeling that you don't want our initial US recruits to be upgraded into Marines...

-> So, there could maybe be a little addition in the text of the event: "Recruits No Longer" (in 02CapeGloucester), something like: "[...] It's time to upgrade them to regular infantry, if it has not been done already. [...]"

I agree, with this, because that's what I have done, experimentally. Promoting the recruits into marines made their tasks very much easier.

I am fine with this too, which is fortunate because I don't think there is any easy way to prevent it. So I will leave the message as just 'upgrade them to infantry," be it regular or marine. I provide only 108 extra RPs at the beginning of Cape Gloucester for this purpose (36 for regular infantry x 3) but if you have surplus RPs left over from Arawe and can afford the 192 that it would cost for upgrading to marines (64 x 3), then I say, go for it!

Screenshot 1.jpg (435.59 KiB) Viewed 2710 times

[Mascarenhas]

This is a very well designed campaign, full of movement, surprises, unexpected situations and the player needs to balance many options in order to achieve its goals. On a whole, its superbly created and you deserve every congratulation for this accomplishment. In my view, there's only a structural problem which of course is not your fault, but from the very conception of the game which is the endless supply of ship guns ammo, which, in contrary of land guns never gets "tired" and makes for the player which achieves naval superiority an unbeatable advantage. I think it should be moddable, for instance, providing other ships than the heavy battleships the condition of getting depleted and having to rest or refuel in order to proceed. But, as I said, it's not your fault although I believe it would be easily modifiable.

[Erik2]

Re naval supply. I suggested this a few years back when the game was still in beta. I think the devs decided that it was too much hassle.
Back then, naval combat were like air/land combat, the defending ship fired back. I miss that functionality.

[Mascarenhas]

So, let's hope our modders can do it.

[bru888]

Thanks for the kind words, Mascarenhas. They mean a lot.

Erik, I think we are done with beta. Please download version 0.94 and convert it to your version 1.0. That will be the official version. As we discussed, please send me your link and I will handle the postings.

[Erik2]

I have deleted the campaign from my campaigns folder and added it to the first folder of the BrucErik thread.
I trust you to add some txt.
I renamed the zip 3.0 since my last update of the original campaign was 2.3.
Also updated the info in VPaulus' announcement thread.
Now you can officialy announce it in the BrucErik thread.

[bru888]

Nice work.

[bru888]

This beta is over. Please direct further comments to the BrucErik CSD Studio thread. Our thanks to participants!