Slitherine

And believe me, bru is a trigger-happy guy

Voyage of the Bismarck is released. See what you think. Bear in mind one thing: Although I tried to be accurate as to ships and positions, I had to take some artistic liberties for the sake of balanced gameplay versus the AI.

As straight history, I played it over and over again and, frankly, the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen had no chance. To send those two ships out alone was suicidal, at least in hindsight, when faced with the might of the British fleet that pursued them.

So, in this semi-fictional scenario there are some escorts; not warships, but some support. There are some specialisations added which probably are not historically accurate. Above all, I provide both ships with a temporary shield of "enhanced armor" which, believe me, is not infinite and can be used up quickly.

Anyway, I was finally able to beat the scenario on middle difficulty so, out to the showroom it goes!

"sail the Bismarck to further glory"

Now, that, is a top quality objective

Shards wrote:"sail the Bismarck to further glory"

Now, that, is a top quality objective

Thanks. Give it a shot if you are interested. I'd appreciate hearing your opinions.

Voyage of the Bismarck new version 1.1 uploaded:

- Fixed issue where Prinz Eugen escape messages were doubled up.
- Scaled back the "enhanced armor" effect to make the scenario more difficult to win.
- "Enhanced Armor" is now explained to the player the first time it works for either Bismarck or Prinz Eugen:

You may recall that the amount of "enhanced armor" iterations each ship enjoyed in version 1.0 was 10 hits. GabeKnight and steevodeevo gave some great feedback (in the main forum thread) and recommended the optimal amount for balanced gameplay to be 5 hits. Bingo.

I dialed it down to 5, played it again, and this time not only was this thing much more of a challenge (middle difficulty), it was also a manageable challenge. That is, I sailed and fought the heck out of this and darned near came away with a victory. I needed to be just a bit quicker... if only I had done this or that...

As you can see, I came within one transport ship of winning! I just spent a bit too much time wiping up British warships before breaking away and pursuing the last two convoys.
This . . . THIS is how close I came to winning! This is the final transport ship that I realized to my horror was about to get away (it disappears when it "docks"). I almost got him with my fighters:
I actually went through the "Bismarck approaches Brest" thing, which I never thought I would get to do, and I successfully engaged in the artillery duel to cover her:
First, though, I had to sail the Prinz Eugen to safety:
Heh, as you can probably tell, I am very excited. This was the most fun that I have had playing one of my own scenarios and that's after dozens of run-throughs. I am proud of this one.

Here's the replay file if you care to go through it:

Voyage of the Bismarck new version 1.2 uploaded:

- Dialed down enhanced armor effect even further to restore gameplay balance.
- Corrected the egregious spelling error that I just noticed above: "Bismarck Approaches"
- Fixed popup message error in which Admiral Lutjens refers to his "supply ships" instead of "support ships."
- Added two historical events for a bit of flavor. **Spoiler alert: Below is a zip file of the events in case you are interested.

Voyage of the Bismarck new version 1.3 uploaded:

- Added British (and Canadian) AA guns in port cities.
- Corrected an instance of omitting "HMS" in British warship names.

I figured the AA guns would make sense in that the player should not be able to chase convoys all the way to ports by air with impunity, same as by sea. Hopefully that is the last omission of "HMS" (by the way, I read someplace that the Kriegsmarine did not append such acronyms or titles to their warship names, hence they don't appear for Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, and the other German ships).

Voyage of the Bismarck new version 1.4 uploaded:

- Fixed a couple of German language spelling errors.
- Applied authentic names to all cargo and transport ships.
- Applied authentic names to all British J-class escort destroyers.
- Provided a list of convoy ships including data sources in the Information folder.
- Included "Voyage of the Bismarck Scenario Playing Tips" in the Information folder.
- Created a module by which escort destroyers will now stay with convoys until released.

Here's some background on the last item: With each Allied convoy, there are two destroyer escorts. The problem was, you cannot just have the destroyers sailing along with the cargo and transport ships in one AI team. Why? Because destroyers have 4 MP and cargo and transport ships 3MP. If you lump them together and assign the AI team a destination, the destroyers pull ahead and leave the other ships behind.

My initial solution for this was to have each pair of escorts placed in their own AI team and assign them the job of protecting one cargo or transport ship in their convoy. However, that worked only until the assigned ship was sunk. At that point, the destroyers would become idle and ping around with their sonars. What I have done to keep them on the job is to daisy-chain their assignments so that as each cargo or transport ship is sunk, they are assigned to guard another ship in the convoy. Only if all the cargo and transport ships in their convoy are sunk are they then released to seek and destroy the enemy (you).

Up next and coming very soon: Battle of the River Plate. The preview itself looks a bit ominous, doesn't it? It should, since you will be playing as the German captain of the Admiral Graf Spee.

Wow! Keep up the good work.

bru888 wrote:Up next and coming very soon: Battle of the River Plate.

Sounds exciting Bruce! Is this going to be a combined land-naval misson? Naval battle -> invasion/naval landing kind of thing? I've been missing those...

If it's the River Plate then it's an escape mission...

Don't put into port! You'll have to blow up your own ship...

Cataphract88 wrote:Wow! Keep up the good work.

Thanks. I try!

GabeKnight wrote:Sounds exciting Bruce! Is this going to be a combined land-naval misson? Naval battle -> invasion/naval landing kind of thing? I've been missing those...

Nah. That's neutral Uruguay and Argentina over there on the left. A bit too fantastic to have either side invading. Now, if the Falkland Islands were on the map, I might have had the British . . . nah. Too fantastic. I go for semi-fictional, not purely fictional.

Shards wrote:Don't put into port! You'll have to blow up your own ship...

It's funny you mention this. I was thinking of how to include this side-story without it being a boring "end of scenario" clunker. I have, but in a way you may not expect. As I said, I go for semi-fictional.

bru888 wrote: I go for semi-fictional, not purely fictional.

Well there could have been some reinforcements incoming to "persuade" the Montevideans for a prolonged docking and repair time. Some uboats or something like that at first. And go semi-fictional from there: british naval reinforcement arrive, the germans send some themselves, too, and so on...
Oh come on, am I really the only one who prefers gameplay over historicity?

GabeKnight wrote:

bru888 wrote: I go for semi-fictional, not purely fictional.

Well there could have been some reinforcements incoming to "persuade" the Montevideans for a prolonged docking and repair time. Some uboats or something like that at first. And go semi-fictional from there: british naval reinforcement arrive, the germans send some themselves, too, and so on...
Oh come on, am I really the only one who prefers gameplay over historicity?

Interesting ideas, but then it would not really be about the Battle of the River Plate anymore, would it? When I say "semi-fictional," it is for the sake of gameplay over historicity else I would not do it. That is, if there was a way to do this scenario, and similarly Voyage of the Bismarck, in such a way as to be absolutely historically accurate and still provide the player with a challenge to win or lose, I would do that.

Unfortunately with these two scenarios, playing "straight up" from the German side is impossible (Britannia really did rule the waves, at least on the surface) and from the British side is just too easy or boring (such as "searching" for the German raider over vast seas). Hence, while I want to pay tribute to the historical events and the brave men who participated in them, I need to take some semi-fictional liberties. But an outright fabrication, no.

The greatest threat to the Admira Graf Spee will possibly the Allied recon planes that allow the Royal Navy to gun her down after a while.
The Admiral Graf Spee had two Arado 196. One or better both as fighter variant would be very useful to bring down the Allied seaplanes. If you manage to get air supremacy, sinking the enemy shouldn't be that hard.

bru888 wrote: Unfortunately with these two scenarios, playing "straight up" from the German side is impossible (Britannia really did rule the waves, at least on the surface) and from the British side is just too easy or boring (such as "searching" for the German raider over vast seas). Hence, while I want to pay tribute to the historical events and the brave men who participated in them, I need to take some semi-fictional liberties. But an outright fabrication, no.

Sorry, I really meant no offence. It's just... for me, as I'm not that of a history buff (or at all to be honest), it's just really hard to understand some people's clinging to actual historic events some 80 years ago, if, in my opinion, the GAME's experience could be made soooo much better with many of the custom scenarios I've played so far. In most cases, there just needs to be some more or "better" action going on. I then feel like all the hours of work that the designers put into creating them were kind of wasted, at least in large parts, if the possibilities of the scenario were unused or not fully utilized. I mean, what's so wrong with adding extra fighter planes or extra counter-attacks or units that historically weren't there or something like this? To balance out the whole experience of gameplay. It's not a simulation.

So sorry again, and I really don't want to start a discussion with this topic. REALLY. Just wanted to share my point of view over this matter.
And please keep up the good work! It's people like you who made me stay onto this game for so long.

Horst wrote:The greatest threat to the Admira Graf Spee will possibly the Allied recon planes that allow the Royal Navy to gun her down after a while.
The Admiral Graf Spee had two Arado 196. One or better both as fighter variant would be very useful to bring down the Allied seaplanes. If you manage to get air supremacy, sinking the enemy shouldn't be that hard.

Interestingly, I found in a Wikipedia article a mention about the Graf Spee's Arado 196 (single, not two): "On 12 December (the day before the battle), the ship's Arado 196 broke down and could not be repaired, depriving Graf Spee of her aerial reconnaissance." The article quotes a source which I found in Google Books:
Moreover, the ship that I am using for Graf Spee, a Deutschland-class cruiser, can hold only one aircraft so it would seem like a cheat to give it two even if one or both never has to land and refuel.

Compromise: There's no way the Graf Spee can accomplish one of its objectives in this scenario operating "blind" in a vast sea. I will take a liberty and give it one Arado 196 but it will be the fighter version that needs to refuel and can go after enemy Fairey Seafoxes.

GabeKnight wrote:

bru888 wrote: Unfortunately with these two scenarios, playing "straight up" from the German side is impossible (Britannia really did rule the waves, at least on the surface) and from the British side is just too easy or boring (such as "searching" for the German raider over vast seas). Hence, while I want to pay tribute to the historical events and the brave men who participated in them, I need to take some semi-fictional liberties. But an outright fabrication, no.

Sorry, I really meant no offence. It's just... for me, as I'm not that of a history buff (or at all to be honest), it's just really hard to understand some people's clinging to actual historic events some 80 years ago, if, in my opinion, the GAME's experience could be made soooo much better with many of the custom scenarios I've played so far. In most cases, there just needs to be some more or "better" action going on. I then feel like all the hours of work that the designers put into creating them were kind of wasted, at least in large parts, if the possibilities of the scenario were unused or not fully utilized. I mean, what's so wrong with adding extra fighter planes or extra counter-attacks or units that historically weren't there or something like this? To balance out the whole experience of gameplay. It's not a simulation.

So sorry again, and I really don't want to start a discussion with this topic. REALLY. Just wanted to share my point of view over this matter.
And please keep up the good work! It's people like you who made me stay onto this game for so long.

Gabe, what are you sorry about? There was no offense in your comments and none taken. I appreciate your feedback, as always. As a matter of fact, your suggestion did inspire a small vignette involving Montevideo and Uruguay which I hope will be a bit entertaining.