Slitherine

iceFlame wrote:

In all honesty, this is a masterful mod so I just want to thank you again for sharing this 'work of art' with the community. Cheers for including the multipurpose U-boats and I hope real life treats you well.

Sure, I just moved to the UK again to work (actually I am an undercover agent examining the implications of a possible Sealion '14 operation ). So further updates would only come sparingly in the foreseeable future, if at all.

Hellki wrote:

On the other hand, I ve been completely smashed in less than 50 turns, with no subs or planes left. North Africa belongs to the allies and i couldn't even take Malta. Guess General difficulty is too much for me

The Battle of Atlantic was a bit too hard in v1.2, but in v1.3 it is slightly easier. U-boats travelling on the surface are very vulnerable, so it might be a good idea to submerge, unless movement speed is a priority. Which normally means travelling to and from the designated area of operations. I also added Schnorkel (snorkel) equipped U-boats appearing from late 1943, with a higher submerged speed. Nevertheless, German U-boats are fighting a losing war and unless the player deploys considerable air assets to help them they would be mostly wiped out by spring 1943, as historically, which is just about at turn 43-47. From that point it might be better to save the newly arriving U-boats for the D-day landings. (Unless the player manages to capture England by that time, as in that case D-day would not happen.)

As for the planes, while the Red Air Force should not be a real concern until '43, the fighters of the Western Allies are indeed dangerous foes from turn 1. They can be countered temporarily by a few Fw-190s, but after a while it is better to avoid direct engagements with them and only mass attack enemy planes weakened by German AA fire.

And if you want to take Malta for sure, transfer the Ju-87R Stuka with Rudel as a pre-attached hero from the Eastern front to there (preferably during the winter of 1941-42, when planes are ineffective anyway). It would need some fighter cover as well, preferably an Fw-190 or a good Bf-109 with a strong hero, to deliver the first blow to the re-appearing British fighters defending the island, plus some more lesser planes like Italians, to finish the job. This should do the trick.

As for reducing the difficulty: Colonel would not make a big difference, apart from lower AI level, but Lieutenant would give 50% extra presitge for the player and 20% less for the AI which would make the whole thing somewhat easier, but still challanging.

LandMarine47 wrote:

Seriously Uhu, how did you beat this mod on Rommel?!

Uhu wrote:

On Rommel, and last time without additional gift-prestige.
I think, the absolute proof would be the replay file, but maybe from a strategic guide, also much can be learnt.
But the key world is patience, endurance and very focused planning because without planning and managing 200+ units in every turn the operations will be unsuccessful. Hmm, I would also add to look constant the PzC Edit tool, because in it you can easy look all stats of units and the possible arrival of the given type.

I must agree with Uhu, planning forward, being organized and focused are essential for beating this mod. I am fully aware that this is not everyone's cup of tea,: there is a reason why the developers of vanilla PzC decided to reduce the size of most maps and the number of units compared to the classic Panzer General. Today's players typically want quick and guaranteed success, possibly mainly due to the lack of time in this globalized and fast changing world we have to live in.

Luckily, this is a free to download mod, so I do not have to worry about sales figures and popularity at all.

Wellingham wrote:

I beat it.....Just! On Colonel! Needs to be a BIT easier

Congrats to you as well then! I would not make it easier as first and foremost it is quite hard to change the difficulty now without braking the existing balance, and secondly because currently it is possible to beat it on General, or as Uhu showed even on Rommel. There are several difficulty settings under that that
level so everyone can find the one that suits him best. And once the player manages to achieve a (Marginal) Victory by defeating either the Soviets or the British he can try to defeat the other one in another replay, and after that he can try to go for a Total Victory or increase the difficulty level, providing a nice re-play value.

McGuba wrote:Luckily, this is a free to download mod, so I do not have to worry about sales figures and popularity at all.

Yeah, sure, but this is Modding War - winner is the most downloads (Watch it, I got 2 new mods planned for this year, as well as GC14):

War of the World - 151 downloads (v1.1)
WWI - 204 downloads (v1.0)
How many you had so far? (Use the highest figure of all updates, but only 1 version)

- BNC

I just found that the mod is totally broken when used in the steam version - I loaded it up, it played a funny sound (including someone dying) and then crash to desktop. Maybe you could release a Steam friendly version as well?

- BNC

McGuba wrote:
Luckily, this is a free to download mod, so I do not have to worry about sales figures and popularity at all.

BNC wrote:
Yeah, sure, but this is Modding War - winner is the most downloads (Watch it, I got 2 new mods planned for this year, as well as GC14):

War of the World - 151 downloads (v1.1)
WWI - 204 downloads (v1.0)
How many you had so far? (Use the highest figure of all updates, but only 1 version)

This supposed "war" only exists in your imagination. I made this mod for my own amusement as I wanted to take PzC to its limits and see if I can model WWII as a whole in one scenario. When finished I had decided to share it with the rest of the world so that others can test it as well, and that's it. As for your question I do not know the answere as rapidshare does not give the number of downloads and that is the first download link so the mediafire number alone could be misleading. I think the two numbers combined should be around those of your numbers, but I do not really care.

I think the more free mods are around for the players the better for everyone and comparing user made mods to each other does not lead anywhere and can be very destructive in the long run. Custom mod makers devote their free time to create new material without charging money for it, and if someone is being told something like "your mod is crap" or "my mod is way too much better than yours" or even "HTC's mods are so much better than JohnDoe's" would make the poor guy feel bad and would lead him to stop further modding all together. With the Battlefield: Europe mod it is not the case, as I know it is good and that is enough for me. It is just not everyone's cup of tea, but it is all right as well, as it was not my intention to make it an all-time-favorite for everyone. I leave this job for the "official" game maker guys who have to make a run for their money.

Obviously I cannot stop you from comparing your mods to mine or anyone else's and it is up to you to do so, but having said that I hereby stop to respond to such questions and challenges. If it makes you any happier you can declare yourself the winner of this "mod war" or whatever.

I just found that the mod is totally broken when used in the steam version - I loaded it up, it played a funny sound (including someone dying) and then crash to desktop. Maybe you could release a Steam friendly version as well?

Which version of the mod are you using? The incompatibility with the Steam version on PzC should had been fixed with v1.2 and currently the latest version of the mod is v1.3. Please let me know if you are using the latest version and still have this problem.



....


In case if anyone interested Germany0109 has uploaded a playthrough of the Battlefield: Europe mod to youtube in 27 parts. The guy manged to achieve a total victory, so congrats, however, it seems he played at a lower difficulty level, probably on Lieutenant. Anyway, it is a great achievement, and many thanks for his efforts for uploading cca 12 hours of game replay to youtube. I hope one day someone will do the same playing on General or Rommel, for everyone's benefit.

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... qnC6-YZ_FQ

Nikivdd's mods beat everything. (I would say at least 5000-10000 downloads.)
With IC 2.0 I have about 2600 downloads but I also do not care: I made it first for myself and if anybody else have fun with it, than I'm even more happy.

BiteNibbleChomp wrote:

McGuba wrote:Luckily, this is a free to download mod, so I do not have to worry about sales figures and popularity at all.

Yeah, sure, but this is Modding War - winner is the most downloads (Watch it, I got 2 new mods planned for this year, as well as GC14):

War of the World - 151 downloads (v1.1)
WWI - 204 downloads (v1.0)
How many you had so far? (Use the highest figure of all updates, but only 1 version)

- BNC

Sure, that's what modding is about, it is not a competition and even less a "war".

I remember the good old days over at JP's Panzer General and Allied General Forum where modders of PG helped each other as they could creating tons of user made material, some of which are fun to play even nowdays. I really value cooperation highly over competition in these matters, after all we are talking about a hobby of some sort.

Indeed, cooperation is the way to go here!

Hi, does anyone have a working link for 1.3? Rapidshare seems to be loading ad infinitum and the mirror one doesn't contain the file in question. Thanks in advance!

Is this mod self contained? I mean do you need to also download and install separate sound and graphic mods or are they all included in the mod download?
Thanks.

Per previous post - rapidshare seems to be working again.

Oh, and yes, the mod is self-contained.

Thanks

Uhu wrote:Nikivdd's mods beat everything. (I would say at least 5000-10000 downloads.)
With IC 2.0 I have about 2600 downloads but I also do not care: I made it first for myself and if anybody else have fun with it, than I'm even more happy.

How do people get thousands of downloads?!

Borsook wrote:Rapidshare seems to be loading ad infinitum and the mirror one doesn't contain the file in question. Thanks in advance!

I don't know why, but it seems all download sites (not just for the mod, also for pictures and sound files from youtube even!) are down. It took me 4 minutes to download a 1.5 MB sound file earlier. (And my internet isn't ever slow enough to download at 15 KBps)

----------------

McGuba, do you care to tell us how you got those scenarios to appear in the single scenario selection box? I want to add a similar feature to WWI v1.2

- BNC

BiteNibbleChomp wrote:

Uhu wrote:Nikivdd's mods beat everything. (I would say at least 5000-10000 downloads.)
With IC 2.0 I have about 2600 downloads but I also do not care: I made it first for myself and if anybody else have fun with it, than I'm even more happy.

How do people get thousands of downloads?!

His GTPG-SS mod is great.It is about 50 scenarios long, you can get a large core so even the units you might not normally buy get used (I had 5 AA units in my core at one time and could deploy them all with sacrificing anything) and the scenarios are well thought out and fun. It would not suprise me if he has 5000 downloads, he deserves them!!

BiteNibbleChomp wrote: How do people get thousands of downloads?!

With good mods and patiance: I had about 100-200 downloads/month. The IC 2.0 was published about 1,5 year ago, so came the 2,6k together.

This is a very good mod. Nice job. It was a breeze to install and the units look really good. It does play a lot different though. I just started Russia and while I could pull units back and leave them out of the fight in the first three scenarios I don't think there is anywhere to hide now. Plus the map is huge and you have a LOT of units once you get to Russia. I just about missed the entire Finnish Army!

I noticed that towards the middle of the 3rd scenario the graphics began to get a little choppy even though I followed the instructions for nocache. I play them all back to back with no break. It wasnt to bad though and when I finally took a break I just exited the game and when I restarted it ran great.

OK, I just noticed a minor issue. In the Poland 1939 scenario, Chernivtsi (hex 39,20), is represented with a Belgian flag, not a Romanian one. This is with v1.3

- BNC

I have a question about subs in this mod. Can subs on the $ be submerged and still get the 50 prestige for being on on the convoy route or do they need to be at least periscope level and can be attacked?
Thanks.

As I am abroad, i managed to catch up with a few threads. I agree with McGuba and Uhu's statement. Modding should be fun, not a competition. It doesn't really matter how many downloads a mod has accumulated over time. The feedback is more important and the fact that it is available to anyone interested. I don't measure my work to other projects. Every project is unique and worth to be played in its own way.

Borsook wrote:
Hi, does anyone have a working link for 1.3? Rapidshare seems to be loading ad infinitum and the mirror one doesn't contain the file in question. Thanks in advance!

It seems to work now, but Rapidshare says that their standard (free) offer will no longer be available from July so I will try to upload it to another space provider such as senspace or dropbox, those seem to be stable for the time being. The mirror at mediafire seems to work with no problem, so I will leave that one as well. If you have a better idea for a free webspace provider for such big files (which is always a problem) please let me know.

MartyWard wrote:
Is this mod self contained? I mean do you need to also download and install separate sound and graphic mods or are they all included in the mod download?
Thanks.

Yeah, everything is included, even the JSGME tool for an easier install. You only need Panzer Corps patched up to v1.22 (or later).

BNC wrote:
McGuba, do you care to tell us how you got those scenarios to appear in the single scenario selection box? I want to add a similar feature to WWI v1.2

Sure, you have to edit the "gamesetup.htm" file, which is in the "UI" folder. Look for the line:

<div style="width:400px; color:#DED6CD; background-color:#544338; font-weight:bold">IDS_HEADER_SP_SCENARIOS</div>
</div>

under it you will find the referencies for the scenarios in the "scenario selection box". For this mod I just deleted all the lines from here except for the four scenarios I needed (Poland, Barbarossa, Italy and Kursk).

Then I just edited the "strings.pzdat" file in the "Data" folder like this:

IDS_SCEN_BARBAROSSA France
and then:
IDS_SCEN_ITALY Mediterranean
IDS_SCEN_KURSK Barbarossa

So that instead of Barbarossa there would be France (second scenario) appearing in the sceanrio selection box and so on. I did not edit Poland, as poland is the first scenario in both the vanilla campaing and in my mod.

MartyWard wrote:
This is a very good mod. Nice job. It was a breeze to install and the units look really good.

Thanks, but wait until you get to the last turn. It is like you have to read the last page of a book before you can say: it has been a good book to read.

It does play a lot different though. I just started Russia and while I could pull units back and leave them out of the fight in the first three scenarios I don't think there is anywhere to hide now. Plus the map is huge and you have a LOT of units once you get to Russia.

Just as the map is quite big, there is plenty space to retreat or even hide. Actually on many occasions it is better to retreat (mainly during major enemy offensives) and force the AI to attack as it is almost always worse on attack then on the defense. Also the AI can only "see" and take into account those of your units that are within the spotting range of its units. All the rest or your units are virtually non-existing for the AI, even if they were visible before.

I just about missed the entire Finnish Army!

Ah, yeah, I think it is a common error, duing my test-plays I often forgot to move with the entire Afrika Korps or the Finns. My best advice is to always check that you have moved all the units you wanted on the strategic map before clicking the "End turn" button. Moved units (and unmovable structures) are black, idle units are light gray.

I noticed that towards the middle of the 3rd scenario the graphics began to get a little choppy even though I followed the instructions for nocache. I play them all back to back with no break. It wasnt to bad though and when I finally took a break I just exited the game and when I restarted it ran great.

I do not know why it happened in the third scenario, there should not be an issue there with the memory. That one is not a very large scale scenario. The /nocache switch is only neccessary for the fourht, large scenario.

BNC wrote:
OK, I just noticed a minor issue. In the Poland 1939 scenario, Chernivtsi (hex 39,20), is represented with a Belgian flag, not a Romanian one. This is with v1.3

Thanks I just fixed it. Indeed, it is not a big issue though, as in my laptop monitor the Belgian and the Romanian flags are very similar, especially when it is in a darkened (neutral) zone, as in the Poland scenario.

MartyWard wrote:
I have a question about subs in this mod. Can subs on the $ be submerged and still get the 50 prestige for being on on the convoy route or do they need to be at least periscope level and can be attacked?
Thanks.

They can be at any depth and the player will still get the prestige. I know it is not very realistic, but that's how it is at the moment. By the way, they can be attacked even if at crush depth by destroyers (by depth charges), the arey only invulnerable against attacks by aircraft when dived deep.

nikivdd wrote:
As I am abroad, i managed to catch up with a few threads. I agree with McGuba and Uhu's statement. Modding should be fun, not a competition. It doesn't really matter how many downloads a mod has accumulated over time. The feedback is more important and the fact that it is available to anyone interested. I don't measure my work to other projects. Every project is unique and worth to be played in its own way.

Thanks for strenghtening my point.

McGuba wrote:I do not know why it happened in the third scenario, there should not be an issue there with the memory. That one is not a very large scale scenario. The /nocache switch is only neccessary for the fourht, large scenario.

I thought it may have been because I play all those turns in a row but it probably was just my machine.

If I can make a suggestion. If you ever make another uppdate would you consider putting a space or two in North Africa to deploy so that if you want to start with a reinfrced Africa Corps you can. Maybe one spot for a ground unit and one for a plane.