Slitherine

Erik2 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 3:32 pm Let me add some suggestions for primary and secondary objectives to the scenario. Then you can pick & choose. I'll put a 01Tanegashima-1 copy in your folder when I'm finished.

Rewards should primarily be commanders (at least 1 per scenario) until we run out. Then we could switch to specs and resources, whatever suits the sec obj best.

I'd like to keep the pseudo-historical unit numbers and types.
I'll use Japanese unit exp and strength as balancing tools after the initial initial singe scenario play-tests. Then probably add some AA and maybe Kamikaze units.
This first invasion in a campaign should be relatively easy for the player. It was planned as a kind of side-show anyway.

All scenarios in the campaign will be tested as singel scenarios with pre-deployed US units.
When all are deemed balanced I'll exchange US units with command points and resources. That is what we have spread-sheets for.

Anything else?

That's enough to get started. Keep in touch here. I'll use the _Back to Erik folder when appropriate. That's a good idea to add a "-1" and "-2" and so on to the end of the folder name.

Well, I have located the place, and that's a start! If you agree, I will include a popup message at the beginning of the scenario, to orient the player.

bru888 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 10:04 pm I will include a popup message at the beginning of the scenario, to orient the player.

How's this?

Excrellent Bru, you are on a roll already.

I am assuming the usual minor latitude of rearranging victory points. The primary VPs that you assigned are bunched relatively close to the beachhead whereas the secondary VPs are spread out across the island.

This could lead to the common awkward situation that the scenario is over before the player has a chance to get at the secondary VPs. It can be remedied by delaying the primary objective until the secondary objectives have been attained, which I will do anyway, but rearranging the VPs would make it more natural and enjoyable.

That said, there seems to be (and presumably, have been) one large city/town on Tanegashima called Nishinoomote and two significant smaller towns, Nakatane and Minamitane. These are perfect, being north, central, and south in the island:


What you had as Kaminaka on the OOB map seems to correspond to the location of Minamitane, so I renamed it that. Nakatane looks to be where the map had Noma, so I changed that accordingly. Nishinoomote was on your map, but it looks like, as the main city of the island, it should spread around that little bay up there in the north. So I augmented Nishinoomote accordingly (and absorbed little Kawamukee into it).

So these will be your three primary VPs unless you have a reason to keep those that you had previously. I assume when the time comes that you will augment/redistribute Japanese forces accordingly.

As for other place names on Tanegashima, I left those alone. When you zoom in on Google and Bing maps of Tanegashima, they are written in Japanese. No one will know the difference anyway (unless we have a citizen of southern Japan in the forums).

By the way, better run an anti-virus check on this scenario and your other files and folders in the campaign, just in case. This popped up while I was working on the scenario just now. I think it's a false positive, but I can't tell for sure because Windows Defender takes immediate action and scrubs the file in order to save it. When I scan the file now, it comes up with 0 threats. Just to be on the safe side, I would scan your version and the folder that it is in.

U.S. forces are attacking and Japanese are in defense. U.S. should go first, I think, in that situation. If you want coastal guns to beat up the invasion force a bit, start them a little further out to sea.

Added Kishigasaki Lighthouse and two fortresses at the northern tip of the island. Secondary objective: "Capture Kishigasaki Lighthouse - This is a vital strategic point. The lighthouse overlooks Kagoshima Strait, the body of water between Tanegashima and Kyushu. The guns at this northern tip of the island must be eliminated before any invasion of Kyushu can take place." (I was recently surprised to learn that fortresses will fire at naval units; only 3/4ths of the attack strength of coastal guns, but significant.)


Livened up Mageshima a bit. Secondary objective: "Suppress Mageshima - This tiny island off the west coast of Tanegashima does not need to be invaded at this time but it does need to be neutralized. Destroy the two coastal guns, radar station, and garrison base. Also, reduce supply in each of the island's three hamlets to zero."


These secondary objectives are not strictly additions in that they may take the place of one or more of the ones that you suggested. I may consolidate those, however, so those ideas are still viable.

Note: The battleship and bomber are there just for demonstration/testing purposes. I am not adding or moving any of those types of units.

Incidentally, I am matching the Experience of any fighting structures (guns, bunkers, fortresses) that I add to what you already have for Japanese units: Experience 3. Please remember to change these units if you alter that parameter in general for the Japanese. However, instead of half-strength (you be the judge of this in terms of gameplay balance, please), I am leaving these structures at 10 for Strength (and Entrenchment). I don't want them to be pushovers.

In case you were wondering (don't deny it — I know you were), this complicated objective trigger ...


... works!

Great work, Bru. Just what the doctor ordered. Looking forward to test it.

I do have anti-virus installed, the same system that my employeer (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation ta-ta ) uses.
So it looks like a fake positive.

As we discussed, I worked in a mechanism by which "When these primary victory points are taken, extra time will be allowed for the completion of secondary objectives." At EOS, the objective will still be awarded even if all secondary objectives are not completed.

Incremented and spread supply on the big island. Current indicators show +141 to allow additional Japanese units if you choose to deploy them.

Added Tanegashima Airfield near where the present day Tanegashima Airport is now (I figure if there is an airport in that location today, a rudimentary airfield may have been there in 1945). Supply 20. This is in case you want the Japanese to have a few planes on hand. (If so, use AI Team 3; there is a trigger in there to have Japanese planes exit the map to the north if the airfield falls to the Allies.) As in Mageshima and Kishigasaki Lighthouse, I added a strong AA gun for "Tanegashima AF Defense."

No Jap navy yet. I figured they would not have any of their remaining warships guarding this island. Maybe the big islands, later on. At most, I would perhaps add a few Shinyo suicide boats for minor excitement. Let me know if you want any of those, or you can add them and then ask me to program them the way that you want.

Also added a fortress and AA gun for "Nishino Defense" (the southern tip of the island, where there is a radar installation).

Increased the number of coastal guns to be destroyed, from your original two to eight (including the two on Mageshima). Also brought them up to full strength and entrenchment. The two on Mageshima have unique names, but for the two added on Tanegashima, I followed your "1 CD/109 IMB" naming scheme; "3", "4", etc.

Removed sea rocks decoration in this hex that was causing the Japanese infantry unit to be in sea transport mode, inland. (I have never seen that before; I didn't think sea rocks were anything more than decoration.)


Question: There are many mines, but they are all strength "1". Intentional?

I hope we are talking about the same 158th Regimental Combat Team:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/158th_Inf ... ed_States)
https://history.army.mil/html/topics/hi ... sters.html

01Tanegashima-2 has been uploaded to the _Back to Erik folder. All the objective triggers are in place and working.


Now what I think you want to do is to augment and/or redistribute Japanese land forces to reflect these new and revised objectives. You want them to protect the lighthouse, fuel depot, and radar station. The 10 secondary "Conquest Consolidation" victory points would need some defense as well. Coastal guns, not so much, and the airfield, only if you have some enemy aircraft in the scenario.

Note that no Jap units are assigned to AI teams except for structures and the few AA guns that I added. I assume you will do that as you add/move the land units around.

Add Jap Bunkers? Foxholes? Tunnels? It's up to you. I would assign any of those to AI Team 1 Static Defense. There are 12 units on that team now, so any bunkers, foxholes, and tunnels would add to that count. Any mobile land unit that you add, however, should go into some other AI team, depending on what you want them to do. I will review your arrangements and create AI task triggers to your specifications, if you would like.

You need to place U.S. deployment hexes where you want them. I am assuming, by the way, that the U.S. carriers are there to provide air supply, so I did not make any provision for off-map air supply or air unit exit/redeployment.

What specialisations to give "up front" in this starting point of the campaign? Adjust income per turn for each side? Also up to you, of course.

One important thing to ponder: With my "spreading" out the battle, is 24 turns still enough? You mention that the mission needs to be accomplished in 2 days; right now, it's set for 1 turn per day, which means 24 days will go by. It should be set for 12 turns per day if the total remains 24 turns. I'm thinking, though, that 48 turns might be better, with 24 turns per day yielding the 2 simulated days of mission time. Please see what you think. Also review in conjunction with this the timing of the arrival of the 160th Regiment. They are supposed to arrive on "D+1" and it seems too early to have them spawn in Turns 5 and 9.

Two recent innovations in my designing style: I have come to disparage the briefing, with its usually inappropriate commander image and talk, talk, talk blurbs, in favor of targeted introduction messages and clear objective descriptions. Hence there is no briefing in this one or any of the future scenarios. Also, the search for happy/sad soldier photos for the outcome images is exhausting. Instead, as of the Free France campaign, I have been using faction flags.

01Tanegashima-2

I few initial comments before I head into the nitty gritty dirt band details.

Tanegashima Airfield: I will replace this with a Japanese airstrip unit to prevent the US from using the airfield it after destroyment/capture. This capture may also be used to cancel any kamikaze unit triggers.

I would like a few Shinyo boats added at your discretion. Maybe even a couple of Kaiten kamikaze subs as well.

(The Fortress units works as anti-naval guns with lesser range than the big coastal guns. BTW, all these units should be full-strenght. Initially I used strength = number of tubes)

The sea rocks act as bumps in the sea-lanes. (They really should be placed in Other in the Editor). They do work as tank obstacles on land, but as you've noticed there's a bit of a side effect... Maybe they will function as obstacles if the unit is not deployed on top of one at scenario start.

My scenario template does indicate any bunkers/nests/tunnels, but I sprinkle a few on the map. I don't want first scenario in the campaign to be too hard.

Currently the US core air units are landbased, I'll switch this to carrier-based core units. More fun for the player. The aux land-based air will not be able to return to the map after refuel, one (long) mission only. Maybe you need to set up a primary objective to prevent users from misusing landbased air, for example keep the air units in combat flight until they go down.

In reality, all specialisations would have been checked by this point in the war. I think exploring the spec three is part of the fun, so maybe give the US all air/naval specs up front, but leave the rest to player discretion.

48 turns is a good starting point. Play-tests will adjust this number. And I'll probably set the turns/day to 24 or something.

Sure you don't want to use the 'Focus Hex' function of the briefing to lead the player round the map by the nose?
I agree with the use of faction flags. In fact, I've started using those on all my creations after you used them in FF. Suggestion: maybe switch between Marine Corps/US flags depending on the scenario?

The 1-strength-mines (or something similar low number) is an experiment to make it a bit more difficult to land troops, but not Normandy crazy. I'll fiddle with it and see how it works.

Full-strength units are battalions while 5-strength aux units are companies. I will probably bump up all those Jap 5-strengths if the invasion goes too smoothly for the USMC.

Well, maybe you are right about the briefing. After a good night's sleep, I feel better about it. U.S. commanders of appropriate rank are scarce, and Patton is out, obviously. How about using this new guy?


He is Reuben Tucker who was a bird colonel as indicated by the insignia on his helmet. He never came near the Pacific during the war, but unlike Patton, he is not a familiar enough face to cause anybody to say "no way." And as a colonel, he is of sufficient rank to be giving a briefing not just to underlings but to ranking commanders (unlike the other scruffy "commanders").

The only other prospect, as usual, is Michael Williams who is a brigadier but one must squint to notice his single star. Plus, I am tired of looking at him. Oddly enough, there is a real General Michael Williams, but he was a baby when all this was going on!


So I will work on the briefing on version 01Tanegashima-3 and at that time, I will remove "The Mission" message in Turn 1 which is just a rehash of the scenario description. The other messages will move up accordingly

You didn't say: These are the Bushmasters as you intend? Or did I dig that up without your prior knowledge?

Good idea about the airfield > airstrip. Rather than making another objective, I can put in a popup message as soon as kamikaze planes appear that tells the player to destroy the airstrip to make them stop. Remember that an airstrip provides only 10 air supply, which is a limit of three Jap planes of any type. Perhaps you don't intend for them to have any more than that, kamikaze or otherwise.

You go ahead and place Shinyo boats and Kaiten subs as you wish. Place them in a separate AI team and tell me what you want them to do, and when.

Other observations:

- You need a few land-based heavy bombers, specifically for reducing Mageshima. We don't have any such carrier-based bombers in the game. It's quite plausible to have B25s and A26s flying in from newly constructed bases on the Ryukyu Islands not too far to the south. This was an oversight on my part; I will build in off-map air supply and exit/deployment hexes for them in 01Tanegashima-3.

- I agree about your determination to make this a relatively easy scenario to start with. My failing as a designer is that I make maps that are too large, then feel the need to populate them with enemy units, then everything grows accordingly including the number of turns. I don't think we have that here, though, and the ease of play can come with just limiting the number of Jap units defending the island, spread around but still enough for bit of a challenge. Your expertise is required in this regard.

- Don't forget to adjust the timing of the second U.S. division (or adjust the wording of the scenario description). In a two-day scenario, if they arrive on Day 2, that should be halfway through the scenario. This may not coincide with what you intend in terms of gameplay, however, so maybe alter the reference to "An additional regiment, the 160th Regiment of the 40th Infantry Division, will land on 'D+1,' the second day of Operation Olympic, to assist." Maybe say "soon" instead of "second day."

- That would be what I would do for specialisations; give the Americans the basics up front: Specialized Training, Tank School, Naval Academy, and Flight School. Have the rest as goodies to be earned during the campaign. The fun involved with that outweighs certain anachronisms; this is 1945 and things like Drop Tanks and Female Factory Labor would already have been in existence long ago.

Please let me know when you are ready for me to work with 01Tanegashima-3.

I've edited a bit and will play through the first 10 turns or so, until the US reinforcements have arrived.
Detailed report tomorrow.

Do you have plans to add some small AA capability at Mageshima?

For this island, I'm thinking of a single unit concealed in the pine trees, such as a Type 96 Triple 25mm AA (plausible date level and weak enough to do almost no damage to US strategic bombers)...

But for the immersion, it would be better, I think, to have some opposition, even symbolic...

I'm planning to add both a small-calibre AA unit within range of the coastal guns and a token garrison in the port on Mageshina.

Perfect, thanks.

Erik2 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 11, 2021 2:52 pm I'm planning to add both a small-calibre AA unit within range of the coastal guns and a token garrison in the port on Mageshina.

There is a large-calibre AA gun on the island already, but you be the judge as to that and whether there should be a garrison on it, too. I thought it superfluous because the objective does not call for invasion of the island, just suppression. When you are finished with units placement, please call my attention to it and I will alter the objectives accordingly if needed.

I've added the light AA to cover the southernmost coastal gun since this gun is outside the large AA range. But I scrapped the garrison idea.

01Tanegashima-3 is in your '_Ready for Bru' folder.

I've played through the first 16 turns, pretty intensive fighting. The three Jap kamikaze and 3 fighter units are spent early, maybe add a couple more after the first are downed? I think the max number of fighters at any one time should be three though to match the capacity of the airstrip.

Redeployed a number of Jap units to silver/gold-flaggedlocations, they are all now full-strength. Added them to various AI-formations and gave them token defense orders. Please feel free to change at your pleasure. Any survivers after losing a particular flagged location should be ordered to move to the next obj loc. Eventually the surviving Japs should concentrate around the gold locations north or south.

Increased naval mine strength to 10. A Pt boat can still destroy a mine unit while losing 3-4 strength points. I've made the naval units core and they will thus carry over to the next scenario(s). This will hopefully make the player think twice about using blunt tactics against the mines and use the two support ships instead.

There are 4 gold flags up north around Nishinoomote. Did either of us intend this

Maybe add a counter so the player knows when he is close to destroying all coastal guns? Easier to plan the use of the landbased bombers, they are only available for one mission.

Removed shoals. Stupid idea...

Should the Kagoshima lighthouse be a concrete bunker? Maybe better to use a radar station, the closest we have to a lighthouse?

Destroying the Jap airstrip will spawn a US construction group.

Added one free US air and land commander at start. The Jap air/land/naval units have a number of commanders. Added Jap specialisations.