A small suggestion beforehand: There are two active links to the "Low Vosges" scen in this thread. After I've played the v0.1 version, Bruce poined out the fact that there's a new version out in your "conboys scen" thread. My point: There's no mention about that in
this thread. My suggestion would be to remove all the old links altogether and to either put an active link to your scen in the OP or at least a link to the "conboys scen" thread.
Now back to business:
"Low Vosges to Strasbourg" v0.1, lvl3 difficulty
I've played the scen out of my mod, but I don't think this is going to change the balance of the scen. Maybe some minor supply changes and some new switch modes for the Germans. Shouldn't do much IMO.
Overall, it was quite the tight scen for the first half of the mission. The 20 turn limit may be a bit too much. I'm not sure I would've made it in time with a higher difficulty setting. There's just no real room to maneuver as most units move 1-2 hexes in forests/difficult terrain. And every enemy unit coming from a roadblock or counterattack have to be destroyed completely to avoid having some forgotten enemy unit rampaging through my backyard. I'd suggest about 22 - 23 turns for the average player, you don't want your scens to become puzzles - that's frustrating.
As mentioned, I very much enjoyed the first half of the scen. Although quite the large map, the fighting took place almost entirely in a small fraction of it. That was a great idea. Nice counter-attacks, it was never boring.
But after that, well, something happened what I've feared would happen, because it happens like this with almost all large maps: The bulk of the enemy units are destroyed, it's mostly mop-up action after that. At that point I clearly have the numerical superiority in RP and units and am overrunning everything. Not that it's needed in your scen. Almost no resistance for the last 20 turns. Merely moving large portions of my units through endless roads to fight scattered resitance pockets. Resistance may be a strong word, rather "nuisances" on the way to the final VP hex. But that's my personal experience and preference: Usually I like smaller maps with tighter turn limits.
Yeah, okay, there was some small German Panzer formation (XX Lehr) waiting in the north, but for one, they were under-supplied when I've got to them and either way, they would have had no chance against my airforce and Hellcats combined. I think it may have been more interesting if you would scratch my final reinforcements wave (after the 20-turn primary objective).
Another thing you should
DEFINITELY change are the supply sources of your map. I have no idea how you came up with such nonsense (sorry, but it's true): The whole north is pitifully under-supplied, most cities and prim. or sec. VP locations have no supply whatsover, the rest of the supply sources are scattered wildy throughout the map, some on mountain hexes, others inside river hexes or just somewhere in the open.
This leads to either unwanted under-supply situations (like mentioned above), enemy units guarding unimportant supply locations (and leaving the important ones unguarded!) or just some silly supply pockets for enemy units to hide and repair (and to come back to haunt me).
Personally I hated it when I had to revert at least 2 inf. units to chase some enemy infantry through mountain hexes (above hill 645) because there's some supply point there and the enemy unit just didn't want to die...
If there's no need to create
intentional under-supply situations for the player or AI in the scens (because it's in the nature of the objectives), my suggestion: just don't do it. There's no real downside (or advantage) to over-supply as far as I know. Assign 5-10 supply to every city/town/village hex and even more to some important supply-hubs (like Strasbourg).
On the bright side, all triggers and objectives and enemy units did what they were supposed to do and the RPs were plenty (and I've always
elite repaired every unit)
- the event "French Clear South" has no pic
- one of the units of the "Raon/Etival"-reinforcement-wave is a halftrack truck without any infantry unit assigned to it. Intended?
- there were some units east of "Fraize" that basically did nothing until being attacked. I've "discovered" them rather by accident and almost bypassed them. If this is part of some cunning counter-attack later on, good, otherwise they may have been forgotten in the AI team settings(?) (EDIT: I see, this was changed in the v1.0 version to an objective)
Thanks for sharing, conboy!
- Screenshot 27.jpg (910.27 KiB) Viewed 3043 times
