Slitherine

University City A:

Please recall my discussing whether you had left out the branching for Major Victory after Western Mediterranean. Also recall that, some time ago, a developer provided for the cheat code "#igotnukes" to register a Major Victory (instead of a Minor one) in order to maximize the objective rewards of the scenario.

I took the liberty of making this one change in my copy of your mod (Disregard - see below):


So I believe that I am now playing University City A (as opposed to "B"). You don't describe what the difference is between these "A" and "B" branches other than this hint, comparing the campaign popup messages:

University City A — "Despite our best efforts, the bulk of the rebel army, which has better commanders, and which is better equipped than our troops, has arrived from the south to the outskirts of Madrid, the Spanish capital. They are almost here..."

University City B — "Despite our best efforts, the bulk of the rebel army, well-led and better equipped than our troops, has arrived from the south to the outskirts of Madrid, the Spanish capital. They are almost here..."

I don't know. Are there any differences between "A" and "B" versions of any of these scenarios? I would guess there are but I adjudge my remaining life span to be insufficient for determining what they could be. I did open the text files of University City A and University City B, side-by-side, and compared them. I could find no differences. At that moment, I waved the white flag.

I respect and admire your industriousness, but you have saddled yourself with the extra burden of editing two scenarios for each change that you make going forward. I will leave you to it; I will assist only by trying to identify which "A" or "B" version that I am playing.

Is there a better way of stating "Hold both access routesto Madrid at every moment"? Maybe "Hold the access to Madrid at all times"?

Other objectives need clarification as well.

"Let new units self-organize near their bases" — What you are saying is, leave certain units alone for a few turns and their strength will improve. Only two are involved, so perhaps say "Let new units complete their training" as the objective and add this line to the description: "(These units will gather strength for four turns and become regular infantry in Turn 5 if they are not moved.)"

For "Hold or recover 8 Secondary Objectives" and "Hold or recover 16 Secondary Objectives," be aware that you have 17 secondary victory points on the map. I don't know if this is intended or not. Being tasked to hold or recover 16 out of 17 VPs seems a bit odd.

Also, please know that this trigger is evaluated when the scenario starts and since the Republicans hold 14 of the 17 secondary VPs, the mission is completed immediately:


Which would be fine if the fail trigger was written accordingly, but it is not. The fail trigger says "If the objective is still open at scenario-end, fail it." But it cannot do so if it is already completed and I see no mechanism by which the objective is ever reverted back to "Open" status:


The same approach is used for these triggers:


In this case, suppose the player starts with 14 and takes 2 more secondary VPs; the objective would be marked complete. Let's say the player then loses a couple and moves below the 16 secondary VP threshold. He should be failing the objective at that point but the fail trigger will not do that.

Here is how I would do it, the same procedures for both objectives. (I will let you figure out what to do with the commander; I would let the player earn and keep the commander even if he falls below the 16 secondary VP threshold later). Follow this sequence carefully; note the "-1" (repeating) frequencies and how one trigger will turn itself off and turn the other on. Also note that the fail trigger is not changed from how you had it but now it will work with the others as you intended, perhaps:


The good news is, the "Hold Madrid" triggers should work. Why? Because at no time is the objective marked completed; only at the end is it checked to see if the objective is still open (and has not failed by losing one or the other VP) and, if so, is marked completed at that time.

To be continued ...

Sorry guys, these two months were a bit bumpy for me, and the enemy is still hitting us with artillery fire on daily basis, but I thank you for all your feedback and comments. I will try to address them these next days

Japoivvb wrote: ↑Tue Jan 31, 2023 2:12 pm Is there any plan to do a similar campaign from natilonalists POV? Wonderful job with those briefings/events

33Charlemagne wrote: ↑Fri Dec 30, 2022 5:00 pm scusa se mi ripeto ma : è possibile giocare con i nazionalisti ?

Again, sorry, but I have my hands more than full with the current unfinished republican campaign, so i have no immediate plans for a Nationalist one at the moment. Also, Charlemagne, were you able to run the mod finally? You need to extract it in the mod folder (you will have the Battle of Britain mod there), not in the scene one. Please ask me if you still having problems with the installation of the mod.

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Bru, super special thanks for your feedback: I felt like a kid on christmas morning when i began to read you super-detailed posts: i feast on them with happy tears (well sometimes angry tears, if my level of incompetence is just too inexcusable) I will give you some answers/ counter battery fire soon, i hope

LNDavoust wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 1:15 pm Bru, super special thanks for your feedback: I felt like a kid on christmas morning when i began to read you super-detailed posts: i feast on them with happy tears (well sometimes angry tears, if my level of incompetence is just too inexcusable) I will give you some answers/ counter battery fire soon, i hope

My pleasure. Especially since your idea of your level of incompetence and my idea of your level of competence are in glaring discord! Gabe is right; this is a special effort but it still is a work in progress.

I believe at this point I will switch to my CSI (Campaign and Scenario Investigation) mode rather than continuing with playthroughs. For example, there doesn't seem to be much point in playing University City A if the primary objectives are defective.

CSI sweeping is quicker, so let me proceed with that. Maybe I will sweep the first four scenarios again, quickly, in one post. So don't rush with any editing; let me get through the rest of the campaign in CSI mode.

Gabe, if you are reading, this doesn't mean you can't continue with your playthroughs; just keep an eye on this thread as I move out ahead of you. LNDavoust needs your expert commentary on balance, playability, and enjoyability.

So, I am going back with a CSI perspective over the four scenarios so far. But first a few general comments.

Once more, quoting myself from a previous post: "Personally, I have found that, the more triggers there are in a scenario, the more important it becomes to a) descriptively label all of them (while trying to keep the labels as short as possible), and b) use folders for grouping and organizing triggers. You may have noticed that, if you have not looked at your work in a while, how difficult it is to pick up your own programming threads otherwise!" Another thing I will add is labeling AI teams.

Another general comment: Most of your triggers are timed for Any Event. Which is fine for the most part unless you have to time something more precisely. But if you ever get complaints of scenario lag (your scenarios seem to be on the light side for map details and numbers of units, which helps), you may want to consider using more specific trigger events. The reason for this is, as the original designer said long ago, Any Event triggers are looked at continuously, literally upon any event going on in the game. Having to constantly do that with dozens of triggers may slow it down. Sometimes, however, Any Event is either advisable or required, according to the situation.

One more general comment: You don't employ AI objectives. I do, but I have been wondering whether I am wasting my time. It seems to work without them in that either the player makes all his primary objectives, and wins, or he does not, and loses. I have been providing matching primary AI objectives for it to win when the player fails, and vice versa. A mixture of wins and losses seems to be the only way a Draw happens. If you don't mind never having a Draw as a possible outcome, then you probably don't need to worry about this.

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Closing the Strait:

Superb, coming up with those Spanish Navy vessel names. It's the kind of thing that I would pay attention to, using a source like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Republican_Navy

If the purpose of the "Do not lose any unit OBJ1" trigger is merely to turn the green checkmark on, marking it as completed only to be failed if a unit is lost, you could have done this merely by clicking the second box next to the objective; the one that shows the popup tip "Is objective checked from the start?"

As mentioned previously, the target hex should be set for the Move to Hex order to the Falangist Column to move to Malaga. I speculated earlier that this unit did its job anyway based on 100 aggression, but you want to be sure.

Also, you may want to provide one more trigger for each of the Carranza and Falangist Columns. These additional triggers would change their tasks if and when they did take Huelva and Malaga respectively. At least Seek & Destroy, else they may just sit in the town cantinas and enjoy themselves.

There is a "Taking Malaga" trigger which, on Turn 9, tells AI Team 3 to move to Malaga. However, there is nobody in AI Team 3 and I do not see any triggers that spawn or transfer units into this team. Perhaps this is left over from something that was not used?

Trigger 45 is intended to set the destination as Malaga for The Crossing AI Teams 24, 25, and 26, moving them into Team 27 after they have disembarked. The issue may be, however, that only the two infantry units are transferred into Team 27. Larache Artillery, being a 7.5 cm leIG 18 artillery gun, is not included.

The Disembark of Majorca:

I think I mentioned this earlier, but you should either specify "Defeat the counterattack" as referring to destroying only infantry and militia, or include the two artillery units that are in AI Team 1 in the conditions for the objective trigger.

See that earlier post for what I said about the Soviet barge and the "Militian survivors" triggers.

When I played this, I remember wondering what "Artesanal armour cars" would be. It turns out that "Artesanal" is Spanish for "custom" or "handmade." So "Artesanal Tiznao" is a great unit name, very flavorful and yet another very nice touch. However, may I propose that you substitute "Some custom-made armored cars..." for "Some artisanally-made armored cars"? "Artisanally-made" is clumsy and arcane whereas everybody knows "custom-made" and many of us will then make the mental link to "Artesanal" in that manner.

Now for something that is going to make you want to hit your screen and curse the very name of bru888. I am a bit of a stickler when it comes to spelling and grammar and I take a dim view to acronyms, slang, and eliding (omitting letters in speech and text). So, I do not like people saying "gonna" and "wanna" and I have been cringing lately seeing my newspapers quoting people like that instead of printing "going to" and "want to." If you were making an American Civil War mod, then perhaps "gonna" would be acceptable in a popup message that replicates someone speaking to someone else. But in a Spanish Civil War mod, "Madrid is not gonna be happy" works against immersion. I have found that Europeans speak better English than most Americans. I doubt that a translation of Spanish dialogue into English would include "gonna" instead of "going to." Now, please don't damage your computer on my account!

I started talking about this before: The reward for "Take Manacor and the road to Palma" is "(+25 Resource Points/contested Majorca)". I said I did not know what you meant about "contested Majorca." It turns out there is more to be confused over here. This is the trigger that completes the objective:


And this is the trigger that fails it:


Why, though, would you award the 25 resource points for failing the objective?


This is a bit strange. You are retreating two Nationalist units in AI Team 14 when the number of Republican units alive dips below 19? Why? This trigger may fire immediately because, unless I miscounted, there are only 18 Republican units of all categories on the map at the start:


Come to think of it, remember when I complained about Manacor being too heavily defended? It could be that individually these two units would not have been a problem further east but concentrated around Manacor, they made that objective hard to achieve. In any event, you should have a trigger that gives AI Team 14 another task when it gets to Manacor, even if it's just Static Defense.

You should give some thought to the "Preserve the operational strength of the fleet" objective. You set the level of ship evacuations at 6. How do you know the player will have 6 in the scenario to evacuate? You saw already that I thought the Soviet barge should convert to Republican but now I realize that even if it did, I would not have had enough ships to evacuate when I played this. It's your call, but you are assuming that the player will deploy two core ships to use up the 6 naval CPs that you provide, but for one reason or another, I did not. Even if I did, I would have had to evacuate every ship safely to complete the objective; a bit difficult when two of them are soft, defenseless supply ships. Maybe a converted Republican barge thrown in would be a bit of a break.

Extremadura:

Heh, the Defeat outcome messages: "...re surrounded, I repeat, we... s... ded... Talavera is in hands... f the... bels... nemy's vanguard is alr... through the road to Madrid... high mobility tactics... our men run aw... captured or dead... This is ou... fina... nsmission" Priceless.

How about adding a few houses for Puerto Peña? Nothing but grass and a sign post otherwise.

I will only mention this once for the SpecArmy triggers. You have them infinitely repeating as show below:


The Army Reform specialisation is described as "The Spanish Republican Army needs a deep reorganization and a new promotion of well-trained, competent and loyal officers. Until we correct this situation our infantry won't improve its performance in battle." That makes sense with a trigger that is constantly firing and removing friendly unit experience during the scenario. However, the effect reads as "The infantry units will be able to maintain their earned experience between scenarios." The way that you have it, they don't earn experience during the scenario so there is none to maintain between scenarios. Either clear out experience just once, at scenario start, or change the effect description to reflect that units don't gain any experience until Army Reform is achieved. One other thing: maybe make it applicable to all army units, not just core. I have not noticed, but it would be weird to see aux units gaining experience during battle but not core units.

I mentioned previously that the "Air Damage2" trigger should be set for Damage > 35. (Whether it is achievable is another matter.)

For the "Sabotage!" message, may I suggest this rewrite? "The success of our guerrillas in the rebel's rear echelon has convinced Madrid about the tactical value of these irregular units."

You add just 2 land command points for "Reinforc"[ements] in Turn 18 as "additional forces to stabilize the front"? Wow, what generosity! Can you make it 3 at least?

And how does this qualify as Reinforcements?


Finally, this trigger seems superfluous; there are only 25 turns in the scenario:


There appear to be abandoned triggers and AI teams in this scenario. It is hard to tell for sure without proper labeling.

Western Mediterranean:

Don't forget that three outcome image files are in the wrong format (JPG instead of PNG).

Correct the spelling of "Mediterranean" in the fourth briefing.

For the "Canarias sail" trigger, there should be one more trigger to switch the AI team to Naval Seek & Destroy once it gets to its destination. The "Baleares sails" trigger does not need this because those units are already on Naval Seek & Destroy.

For "Most of our ships LOSS," I think I read somewhere that the Unit Status "Alive" condition applies to not just what is on the map to begin with but also core units carried over from a previous scenario. Now, you provide one core Churruca class destroyer on the map. This means the player must have three more core warship units "Alive" when he starts this scenario. I imagine he will; but there is a possibility that he may not. Let's see; he gets two in Closing the Strait (the core gunboat doesn't count in this trigger) and he gets two more in The Disembark of Majorca. That is a total basket of 5, so what you are saying is, do not lose any more than one core warship in this scenario. But if just one core warship was previously destroyed, now the player cannot lose any in this scenario. And if two were previously destroyed, the objective is immediately failed.

The mission is "Sink the Italian convoy" (which is only one transport ship, by the way; I recommended two earlier) but the "Italian Convoy WIN" trigger calls for only 3 damage on the transport ship by our submarine. That's out of 5 strength, so it's significant but it still is not sinking. I recommend the catharsis of needing to sink the transport ship(s). There is one more issue here, perhaps. Damage = 3 means exactly that; does a submarine ever get lucky and inflict more than one damage at a time with a torpedo? If so, the Damage level may go from 2 to 4 and the trigger will not fire. Perhaps Damage > 2 would be better, but sinking it would be best.

I like the "Italian Convoy LOSS2" trigger. I was wondering how you would enforce the "submarine only" requirement. As I said before, better make sure the player knows it's only the transport ship(s), not the escort destroyer.

Does Trigger 36 put a time limit on "Sink the Italian convoy"? If so, better alert the player and check the timing so that he has enough time from when his submarines spawn to reasonably accomplish this objective.

Might not the "Baleares back" trigger also remove the Canarias if she is still around? The trigger effect is to remove any CA County ship and both of them are of that class. You are assuming that we are all competent players who would have defeated the Canarias by Turn 18. A tall assumption! But yes, the Baleares needs to be removed in the same manner to give the player a chance. You could put the Baleares (and the other two ships of her flotilla, perhaps) on the map in the lower left corner, idle until needed. It is unlikely the player will find her/them down there. That way, you can use the same removal trigger mechanism as you did for the Canarias.

Remember my confusion over the Hawker Spanish Osprey? I was flying that puppy all the way up to Mahon for refueling, which limited its usefulness. I just noticed from the "Seaplane tender" popup message that you anticipated the player possibly having one on the map. Two problems: 1) It costs 50 precious resource points, and 2) It doesn't show up in the Purchase screen anyway.* How about being a big spender and providing the tender free of charge as an aux unit? Then change the popup message to activate when the player first moves either the plane or its tender.

*I believe I found out why. You linked the Republican seaplane tender to the Flugzeugträger specialisation from Kriegsmarine, and renamed it "Project Dedalus" by which "The Dedalus seaplane tender will be available for purchase." Your Flugzeugträger becomes available 9/1936 which is just before Extremadura. So sure, it is possible that the player could have purchased this specialisation before Western Mediterranean. But I submit this: It is much more likely that the player has spent his early spec points on Army Reform, the training specs, and War Propaganda. He does not know that purchasing a seaplane tender may be a good idea for Western Mediterranean. Frankly, this looks like one of those specialisations that never get used because the player is not going to prioritize it nor want it in advance. My advice stands, then: Leave the Osprey in, but provide the player with an aux seaplane tender. Reuse this specialisation for something else or remove it.

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Well, that brings me back to where I left off. Tomorrow, if I can, I will resume CSI with University City A which I never did play. I am hoping Gabe will do so and comment on gameplay and balance.

Just a quick note before I sign off for the night. It's about the Hawker Spanish Osprey.


I am in awe about the custom unit graphics in this mod. Snooping and prying, I found that you based the Osprey on the Blackburn Ripon, shown below.


It's not just colorization; zooming in reveals subtle structural differences. The pontoons are slightly different, for example.

Man, I would love to know how to do this.

You provided so much useful info that I don't quite know where to start answering you, Bru.... so I'll start with the last: regarding the Dedalo and Hawker issue.

To give a bit of prior context, neither side had seaplane tenders (much less aircraft carriers) during the civil war. In that sense, including the option for the Republic to have one of these ships is a bit along the lines of "stretching" the historical facts in favor of fun, adding the possibility for the player of managing naval air units during the campaign. In my defense the possibility is not a complete fantasy, since the Dedalo, as a ship with aeronaval capabilities did exist and served in the Spanish Navy in the interwar period, but in the 30's it had just been decommissioned and was waiting in Cartagena to be scrap. In the same line, the Republic had at the beginning of the war a very limited number of Hawker Osprey (according to the source, as few as one, or maybe half a dozen) acquired from UK although with wheels; their plan was precisely to equip them with nacelles and destine them to coastal defense (which never happened). So, at least in my head, it works as a what-if: spending the corresponding specialization points the player can open this possibility in the campaign, and that if he chooses to do so, this will make this scenario (and the following naval ones) a little bit easier.

However, and returning to your reasoning, Bru, I do worry that, either because the difficulty of the scenario is very high, or because the choice of this specialty is not a popular one, in the end the scenario without Dedalo is not fun because it is too difficult. I am not sure I want to take the final step and eliminate the specialization: I think that a purist player, for example, who knows that the Republic did not have seaplane tenders, having the possibility to play without them if he wishes is a plus. I also don't see clearly the possibility of adding ports or airports (by the way, besides landing at Mahon, did you notice that your planes had exit/supply points also to the left of the scen?).

That said, I take very seriously your observations that the scenario can be frustratingly difficult without Dedalo, so I am considering other solutions... for example, I think you are correct in your playtrough above when you comment that providing a free auxiliary support ship would be a good idea, perhaps with a small amount of additional RPs to ensure that the player can recover the health of one or two destroyers even without having acquired the Daedalus specialization.

Regarding the rest of your observations about this scenario:

bru888 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 2:28 am
Don't forget that three outcome image files are in the wrong format (JPG instead of PNG).

Correct the spelling of "Mediterranean" in the fourth briefing.

Done and done

bru888 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 2:28 am For the "Canarias sail" trigger, there should be one more trigger to switch the AI team to Naval Seek & Destroy once it gets to its destination. The "Baleares sails" trigger does not need this because those units are already on Naval Seek & Destroy.

Mmm, yep, that's true. Done.

Might not the "Baleares back" trigger also remove the Canarias if she is still around? The trigger effect is to remove any CA County ship and both of them are of that class. You are assuming that we are all competent players who would have defeated the Canarias by Turn 18. A tall assumption! But yes, the Baleares needs to be removed in the same manner to give the player a chance. You could put the Baleares (and the other two ships of her flotilla, perhaps) on the map in the lower left corner, idle until needed. It is unlikely the player will find her/them down there. That way, you can use the same removal trigger mechanism as you did for the Canarias.

Also right, well spotted, it never ocurred to me that possibility. But i feel i need to find an alternative solution, if i just leave the flotilla in that corner from the beginning the player could step into these ships too soon. Maybe by deploying the baleares (instead of spawning her) i will be able to individually exit her (sometimes the exit comand doesn't work correctly, dont know why, maybe the problem is when deploying...) Damn... i will look into in, anyway.

But if you really only have Victory and Defeat images (with Draw being a Defeat), then all you need to do is to name the bad one outcome_X_0 and the good one outcome_X_1 ("X" being the position of the human player's alliance from left to right, in this case, the third column) and to number those boxes 0,0,0,1,1 from top to bottom.

After designing 20-ish scens, i can't believe i didn't realise this before xDD Well, now I know better for the next 20 ones Answering to other of your points before, something i use the same pic for minor and major but change the text (as in this scen), but usually draw, minor and major defeat are the same, both pics and text, because i dont use objectives for the ia side (there are some exceptions at the end of the campaign, thou).

The mission is "Sink the Italian convoy" (which is only one transport ship, by the way; I recommended two earlier) but the "Italian Convoy WIN" trigger calls for only 3 damage on the transport ship by our submarine. That's out of 5 strength, so it's significant but it still is not sinking. I recommend the catharsis of needing to sink the transport ship(s). There is one more issue here, perhaps. Damage = 3 means exactly that; does a submarine ever get lucky and inflict more than one damage at a time with a torpedo? If so, the Damage level may go from 2 to 4 and the trigger will not fire. Perhaps Damage > 2 would be better, but sinking it would be best.

I like the "Italian Convoy LOSS2" trigger. I was wondering how you would enforce the "submarine only" requirement. As I said before, better make sure the player knows it's only the transport ship(s), not the escort destroyer.

Does Trigger 36 put a time limit on "Sink the Italian convoy"? If so, better alert the player and check the timing so that he has enough time from when his submarines spawn to reasonably accomplish this objective.

I see that the objective is not clear enough in the PUs. I will clarify that the TRANSPORT ship (instead of the convoy) should be sunk by the subs and BEFORE it reaches the port of Palma (therefore the trigger 36). The 3 vs 5 damage is a recurring problem... other players detected it before, in previous versions, and i was pretty sure i corrected it... I honestly think at some point i saved or mixed a non-edit version of the scene, or something like that. Anyway, well spotted: i will edit this m#th@rf&cker once and for all. And yes, the idea is that the objective is only completed by sinking the ship.

For "Most of our ships LOSS," I think I read somewhere that the Unit Status "Alive" condition applies to not just what is on the map to begin with but also core units carried over from a previous scenario. Now, you provide one core Churruca class destroyer on the map. This means the player must have three more core warship units "Alive" when he starts this scenario. I imagine he will; but there is a possibility that he may not. Let's see; he gets two in Closing the Strait (the core gunboat doesn't count in this trigger) and he gets two more in The Disembark of Majorca. That is a total basket of 5, so what you are saying is, do not lose any more than one core warship in this scenario. But if just one core warship was previously destroyed, now the player cannot lose any in this scenario. And if two were previously destroyed, the objective is immediately failed.

Yes, the objective is designed this way in order to force the player to deploy at least 4 ships (with less the scen is no winnable, anyway). He begins with 120 RPs, so in the worst case scenario (no ships from other scens, and no additional RPs) it is true he will not be able to play the scen... and he should. If he begins with 135, he will be able to buy 3 destroyers, enough to play the scen. I will change this. Also, I think i will add a deploy point in the sea for 1 turn, maybe when the new free support ship arrives, to flexibilize this objective a bit.

Also, i could use a clarification. You commented that

bru888 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:16 pm The Ciudad de Cadiz is a merchant ship, but it starts nearly 3/4ths of the way across. The Blagoev is also a merchant ship but that's not too bad since it begins nearly halfway across. It's the Komsomol that is the problem; it is a merchant ship that spawns on Turn 10 on the eastern edge of the map. And it crawls. I would make the Komsomol a supply ship (since you call it a cargo ship in the popup message). This would be better for reasonably accomplishing the objective in the number of turns allowed and given the late opposition that the Komsomol faces.

but you were able to help every merchant ship to cross safely the sea... Do you think changing this will make the scen more easy? More fun? less frustrating? Other players also commented they feel the time was almost (almost) too short for this ship... but they also also were able to get the job done. And we are talking here about a secondary objective, not a primary one. So I'm not sure what to do here :/

And now, on the bright side

bru888 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:03 am Just a quick note before I sign off for the night. It's about the Hawker Spanish Osprey.


Hawker Spanish Osprey.jpg


I am in awe about the custom unit graphics in this mod. Snooping and prying, I found that you based the Osprey on the Blackburn Ripon, shown below.


Blackburn_Ripon (custom).png
Blackburn_Ripon (original).png


It's not just colorization; zooming in reveals subtle structural differences. The pontoons are slightly different, for example.

Man, I would love to know how to do this.

Happy you liked my re-skins and the unit graphics Modding this game I have discovered I find quite relaxing to edit pictures. With a bit of luck (but not always ), "repainting" a pre-existing unit does the job quite well. The Spanish Osprey looked like this:
and the UK sea versions like this so close enough (for me).

Anyway, if you need some help with any project of yours, just let me know

bru888 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:16 pm Western Mediterranean:
Ahh, a sea battle, my favorite. Who knew we would get one in a Spanish Civil War campaign? (Yes, I am learning about the overall topic...)

My favourite too (Kriegsmarine and you Bismark scen, again) I struggle to include naval scen in the campaign, but i just have to do it because for me, as a player, they are just to much fun

bru888 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:16 pm Wait, what is that? Is it...? Majorca? Yes it is, in miniature, my old stomping grounds from The Disembark of Majorca! (Variable scale is one of the strengths of this game.)

Nice sequence of "Merchants intro[ductions]. Again, I marvel at both the images and messages in this mod.

Well, I can see which secondary objective is going to be the one most likely to deny me a Major Victory: "Sink at least 2 Italian submarines." Sinking submarines in this game is easy ... once they are located! THAT is the hard part.

Of course, instead that is the first objective that I completed...

Yeah, changing scale feels to me a bit silly AND at the same time, right for a game like OoB (i do not know how to explain it better ).

bru888 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:16 pm "Through our fingers," eh? My lips were pursed in disdain. Although, I suppose the victory is a moral one, having forced the Canarias to retreat, hopefully for good in this scenario.

Oh, you will see again both the Canarias and the Baleares later in the campaign, don't worry (or DO worry)

I dont want to spoiler anything, but i couldn't let the player sink the heavy cruisers this early in the campaign. Of course i could have use "magical" new/refloated Canarias/Baleares later, but it just didn't feel right, therefore the idea of "retreat under the veil of the night". No player have made any complains regarding this, so maybe i did the right thing.

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Also, I will add some clarification about the branched structure of the campaign later this night (although i think you already realize the whole thing, bru) but now i have to run to get some intel before my local libray closes Again, thanks a lot for YOUR intel, bru

Take your time. I know there is a lot. Don't think that you even need to respond to everything, much less defend or comply in text. Just use your own judgment. I never am irked that a suggestion of mine, or two, or one hundred, does not get adopted.

Please do take the time to review it all carefully. I will not make matters worse and clutter this thread any further by repeating anything, as in "Don't forget to ..."

But when you ask me a question in response, I will answer. Such as this:

LNDavoust wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 5:19 pm Also, i could use a clarification. You commented that

bru888 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:16 pm The Ciudad de Cadiz is a merchant ship, but it starts nearly 3/4ths of the way across. The Blagoev is also a merchant ship but that's not too bad since it begins nearly halfway across. It's the Komsomol that is the problem; it is a merchant ship that spawns on Turn 10 on the eastern edge of the map. And it crawls. I would make the Komsomol a supply ship (since you call it a cargo ship in the popup message). This would be better for reasonably accomplishing the objective in the number of turns allowed and given the late opposition that the Komsomol faces.

but you were able to help every merchant ship to cross safely the sea... Do you think changing this will make the scen more easy? More fun? less frustrating? Other players also commented they feel the time was almost (almost) too short for this ship... but they also also were able to get the job done. And we are talking here about a secondary objective, not a primary one. So I'm not sure what to do here :/

It's only one playthrough, mind, but you said others have mentioned the same thing? In my experience, the Komsomol was forced to zig, once, to evade a destroyer that had broken through. Otherwise it was unmolested. Still, it reached safety on the very last turn. It seems to me that a small margin of error should be allowed so that the player is not unfairly penalized if the voyage does not go exactly as scheduled. Maybe, instead of changing the Komsomol, add another turn or two?

And now, before I resume with University City A, which I am mulling over a playthrough/CSI hybrid approach (it would be the best) but would require me to temporarily fix those objective triggers, I will ask a simple question of my own.

And I mean, simple. It is this: What skills and what programs enabled you to do that graphics job on the Osprey? If you don't mind revealing them. Not a tutorial by any means; just a pointing in the right direction.

LND, I have to give it to you that although playing on middle diff., it's been a long time since I had the feeling that I *could* possibly lose a battle/scenario in OoB. Strange feeling...

Bruce, with OoB 9.x version they introduced some new "campaign branch variable" that can be used inside of scens. I looked briefly into the campaign editor, but I did not understand how they work (e.g. the AlliedVic. DLC has it)

However, the branching *is* working with this mod. I've achieved a Maj.Vic. everywhere but the very first scen and I've got the "crossroads" decision at the campaign map after the "Mediterranean" scen (according to the campaign tree in the OP)

Also, Bruce, I would recommend you to play the campaign further, as I'm sure that doing only "CSI" work will begin to bore you... and you won't really know and "understand" the scens unless you play them at least once.
You shouldn't feel bad about lowering the diff. setting to II (or I), if you so choose, because the scens are really quite hard even on middle diff.; I would compare them to playing stock scens on diff. V!

Re: triggers/"any event": IMO, the scens run very fast and smooth so far. No need to change them.

Re: new units: Some of the new units used are taken from the Admiral's mod, like the 15cm_sIG33; and you can use almost every paint program to redo the unit's textures, for example the free-of-charge paint.net (https://www.getpaint.net/)


I didn't try any "shenanigans" this time, as it was once called, and didn't go for (purposely) losing any objectives or something like that; so thank you Bruce for doing your "CSI" thing with the triggers.

Palma:
- it seems to me the fortress near Palma is idle
- please go a bit more easy on all the hidden enemy units/mines. I have almost no RPs to spare anyways, and the ambush damage by foxholes and "partisan" units is almost more punishing than combat itself...
(with the turn limits, a cautious approach is not really feasible. I can not recon every single hex on every road!)
- Yeah, I think an income of at least 7-8/turn for my main faction should be better. Remember that you also gave me some cavalry. Planes are expensive, too.
- I think the bombing missions started a bit too soon... with the 88 guarding everything near Palma and the "<15 damage" objective I've just send the first two waves home right away...
- Okay, even though all my whining, I did manage a Maj.Vic. on turn 30 or so...
(suggestion: change the "scen turn limits" prim. vic. triggers)

Northern Blockade
- the battle's easier and less costly (overall) than in "Palma"
- you've "adapted" my AT-setting for the armoured train. Nice, but too powerful in AT mode IMO. I had the same feeling with my own mod, and playing with early '30 infantry stats, you should tone the armoured train down a bit.
- I lost a supply ship, thus "only" a Min.Vic. here. Partly because of the changed mine-damage-model of "Horst's Hack", partly because again, there was an enemy warship exactly where my supply ship spawned. Now I know that I should've noted the destination-ports of each of the supply ships from the event-popups. Otherwise you won't know where the next ships spawns and where to sail with them next...
- no cavalry core unit in this branch; but the fighter commander is the same, right?

=> I liked how the territory changed on the campaign map, depending on the route chosen. I think I'll stick with the "Mallorca" branch, I like to have them inside my territory...

GabeKnight wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 9:38 pm Also, Bruce, I would recommend you to play the campaign further, as I'm sure that doing only "CSI" work will begin to bore you... and you won't really know and "understand" the scens unless you play them at least once.

Yeah, you are right, Gabe. Besides, I had too much fun playing the first four scenarios! So I will play first, then go back to do some CSI for each scenario.

To that end, I took the liberty (well, it's not really a liberty because you, LNDavoust, should do what you think is right) of altering these triggers in University City A in the manner in which I would have done them in order to service the "Hold or recover" nature of their objectives:

Hi, when is the next update?
https://arsenal-info.ru/b/book/2197824371/8
https://lewhobotov.livejournal.com/666633.html
https://lewhobotov.livejournal.com/672064.html
https://smolbattle.ru/threads/Итальянск ... нии.52292/
http://tankfront.ru/neutral/espana/photo.html
https://levoradikal.ru/archives/11774
https://en.topwar.ru/172098-berety-pilo ... panii.html



https://smolbattle.ru/threads/Гражданск ... 939.52766/


https://ru.pinterest.com/pin/523050944207967308/

Oops! Change in plans. I have to look at the campaign tree again, but when I nuked my way through the first four scenarios, (all ending in Major Victory, per the workings of the cheat code), I ended up in Palma instead of University City!

"What the ... where am I?"


Oh, now I know what happened. My apologies, guys. When I saw "Branch" for Major Victory, I thought it was a generic Branch, that is, it had not been assigned. Wrong; it refers to this specific Branch in which the choice between North Blockade and Palma is presented.


The phrase "Oh Lord, what have I gotten myself into?" just flitted across my mind. Oh well, I will save a renamed Campaign Save file at this point and go down both avenues. Next stop Palma, then Oviedo. University City, later.

Bobster66 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 10, 2022 11:20 pm I've replayed the Western Mediterranean again (...)

Have since advanced to A Coruna Road, and based on the warning, didn't deploy my air recon because RP's are in such short supply. When the messaged popped up saying it was now safe to do so, I couldn't find my recon unit in my reserve list, I did however find it in the destroyed unit list! Restarted the scenario and watched my reserve list, sure enough the recon unit was taking damage every turn even though it had not been deployed.

Sorry Bobster for the late answer and thank you so much for the feedback

The italian convoy objective was indeed not working properly, but it is already fixed in the next release, thanks, but regarding a coruña i always deploy my recon plane in my testing playtrhoughs so I had not be able to detect before that particular problem with the undeployed one... ok, i will look into it, thank you (it is a trigger of a minor importance in the scen, but it has give me headache before... littler bugger :/)

Bobster66 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 23, 2022 8:17 am Been having a blast with this campaign and made it to what I believe is the final scenario, Brunete II. This particular scenario has been particularly tough for me and I've had to restart several times to avoid early defeats. My current game plan has got me as far as trying to close the pocket but my available forces don't seem to be up to the task. I any case, on turn 25 the AI turn never ends. On one attempt I even went out to do the grocery shopping but the turn had still not completed upon my return.

Thanks again for the excellent campaign!

I had problems a couple of times with infinite IA turns, both in my mod and in official campaigns... reloading the last autosave always did the trick for me... i gues this time was not a valid solution?

Brunete II is mean to be a difficult scen if you chose to close the pocket... but it shoud be doable if you had enough extra RPs... i am very interested in your experience with these scens, prior to my last release almost not one but me was able to play them, so probably they are madly unbalanced :/ Sorry also for the bugs. Were you able to finish the campaign finally? Did you reinforce the second spearhead to advance also westbound?

Thanks a lot for playing the mod and for you kind words, mate

Michkov wrote: ↑Sun Jan 01, 2023 4:49 pm I noticed that the Spanish Heavy Infantry gets renamed to French Mortar Infantry when switching to its mortar role.

Good catch, Michkov! Disguised french in the spanish army, go figure! I will fix it in the next release, thanks for letting me know it.

bru888 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 10:44 pm Oops! Change in plans. I have to look at the campaign tree again, but when I nuked my way through the first four scenarios, (all ending in Major Victory, per the workings of the cheat code), I ended up in Palma instead of University City!

"What the ... where am I?"

A quick note about the structure of the campaign and why the scenarios are duplicated (a and b) from the 5th (although i think that at this point you already figured it out yourself, Bru)

Just after the Mediterranean naval scenario, and if the player gets a major victory, there is a branching point in the campaign structure: the player can choose between 2 different scenarios (North and Palma); after finishing the one he has chosen, the following scens (University City, Coruña Road,...) are identical in both routes, with the exception of the Cadiz Naval Raid/Air Raid scenarios (see below). The problem is that even if the scenarios are identical, the campaign map will have differences depending on what is chosen in the branching : for that reason I needed to duplicate the scenarios (university city a and b, etc...), because otherwise I couldn't reflect properly the territorial modifications consequence of choosing North or Palma (I see that Gabe had already noticed this, and told you in a later message ). Otherwise scenarios a and b are always identical, except that there are secondary objectives in norte and Palma that activate different campaign variables in later scenarios; also, in the original campaign design, playing through the North route led you to the bombing scenario, and if you did Palma, to Cadiz Naval Raid (but nowadays, since the bombing scenario is not complete, I let the player choose, being Cadiz the default scen in both routes, so this difference is not working as intended).


I hope my ramblings make any sense, I've explained it so badly xD

bru888 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 10:44 pm The phrase "Oh Lord, what have I gotten myself into?" just flitted across my mind.

Yep, that's me everytime i open the campaign editor xDD

bru888 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:19 pm Take your time. I know there is a lot. Don't think that you even need to respond to everything, much less defend or comply in text. Just use your own judgment. I never am irked that a suggestion of mine, or two, or one hundred, does not get adopted.

Please do take the time to review it all carefully. I will not make matters worse and clutter this thread any further by repeating anything, as in "Don't forget to ..."

Copy that. Very generous of you, as always, Bru. For my part, sorry if sometimes i get too excited adressing some point, as you already know for sure, it is very warming to be able to discuss your work with other peers, from design choices to technical problems. Don't feel obligated to answers any my ramblings

bru888 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:19 pm
What skills and what programs enabled you to do that graphics job on the Osprey? If you don't mind revealing them. Not a tutorial by any means; just a pointing in the right direction.

I will answer in my next post, but just to be sure, you are just asking about how i edit both the texture file and the graphic mini file for include in a mod a unit like for the Osprey, right?

LNDavoust wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 3:56 pm

bru888 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:19 pm
What skills and what programs enabled you to do that graphics job on the Osprey? If you don't mind revealing them. Not a tutorial by any means; just a pointing in the right direction.

I will answer in my next post, but just to be sure, you are just asking about how i edit both the texture file and the graphic mini file for include in a mod a unit like for the Osprey, right?

Yes, please, but as I said, I don't expect a full-blown tutorial. Just general ideas that will point me in the right directions.

Interesting thread.
Looks like Bru has gone to the Dark Side (Mods)

Erik2 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 4:30 pm Looks like Bru has gone to the Dark Side (Mods)

Yeah, true...

But to be fair, I remember it took some convincing for you, too, to join "our side"...

LNDavoust wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 3:56 pm Otherwise scenarios a and b are always identical, except that there are secondary objectives in norte and Palma that activate different campaign variables in later scenarios;

Nice, those sec. obj. really do matter in the later scens? Like better defenses and such?

Erik2 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 4:30 pm Interesting thread.
Looks like Bru has gone to the Dark Side (Mods)

If I only had the knowledge and the time (which is a precious commodity — don't be fooled; although you look forward to having more of it when you are retired, you realize when you get there that you have much less of it left), I could have taken this game to where it should have gone in the past five years and more: the marshes of Marathon, the heights of Philippi, the shore of Hastings, the riverbanks of Orléans, the peninsula at Yorktown, the farms of Waterloo, the fields at Gettysburg, the trenches around Gallipoli, the desert of Sinai, the jungles of Khe Sanh, the oilfields in Kuwait, the ruins at Bakhmut, the plains of Mars.

Alas, I am not smart enough and time, that precious commodity which must be allocated to many other things, is running out.

LNDavoust wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 3:28 pm I had problems a couple of times with infinite IA turns, both in my mod and in official campaigns... reloading the last autosave always did the trick for me... i gues this time was not a valid solution?

Brunete II is mean to be a difficult scen if you chose to close the pocket... but it shoud be doable if you had enough extra RPs... i am very interested in your experience with these scens, prior to my last release almost not one but me was able to play them, so probably they are madly unbalanced :/ Sorry also for the bugs. Were you able to finish the campaign finally? Did you reinforce the second spearhead to advance also westbound?

Thanks a lot for playing the mod and for you kind words, mate

Glad to see you back at it! Looking forward to the day when we can see this finally completed. Unfortunately, I had not been able to complete the campaign as Brunete II just will not work for me. It stops on turn 25 every time. Reloading does not help.

Brunete II was difficult from the beginning and it took many attempts to just survive the initial attacks. Then it took several attempts to push far enough to get to turn 25 before the game hangs, and I've retried that turn several times as well. As for the poor spearhead pushing west, they are usually overwhelmed by the Nationalist counterattack. I do have plenty of RPs available but the 3 CPs given to support that push has proven insufficient to improve the survivability of that force.

Going back to the campaign file for just a moment...

Correct the spelling of "campaing" in the Victory message.

For "Almeria bombardment," "The German battlecruiser Admiral Scheer has bombarded the city of Almeria for an hour in a cowardly attack, and from a country that is not at war with us!" maybe should be "by a country" unless the Admiral Scheer was firing its guns all the way from Germany.

It should be "A letter written by the Catholic Spanish bishops..."

Regarding this, before Cartagena: "Democratic Senator Franklin D. Roosvelt, reelected past November, has begun his second term in the US Presidency today. Although it is known that Roosevelt sympathies lies far from European fascist regimes, it is unlikely that he break the american isolationist policy to intervene in our little far-from-america domestic European war." Franklin Roosevelt was never a U.S. Senator; as a matter of fact, he was President when he was re-elected, obviously. Drop that, and please drop the reference to "Democratic." There is enough political nonsense over here as it is; what difference to the topic at hand was his party affiliation? Also please capitalize "America" and "American."

Not that I knew, but apparently "Per aspera ad victoriam" means "Through hardship to victory." How about a translation in the popup message text for us dummies?

Capitalize references to "Republican" and "Spanish" in the specialisations and loading tips.

I suggest that you include a brief popup message that explains the CNT-FAI faction that appears in some scenarios. Apparently it was an alliance of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (labor) and the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (anarchism).


You also may want to elaborate a bit on the Corpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV), the corps of Italian troops sent to Spain as "volunteers."