DAK - Deutsches Afrika Korps

[Panzermate]

Howdy, fellow Players.

After getting a PM from one of the Grand Campaign guys, I thought, I check it out.
Well the Africa Korps portion of it that is, since this is one of my ...well I would'nt say "expertise" areas but rather
an area I know a thing or two about.

After just playing the very first scenario several times I have some questions/issues that arose.

1.) While there are some nice features in it (Bonus objective: scout Tobruk before Turn 8 for example)I have no idea how
the designer(s?) think, one can achieve this first scenario playing at a higher difficulty level.
Ridicolously low amount of prestige, even after selling off 2 heros you have barely enough to reach some 40 of 52 available Army slot points.
Very strong and lots of relatively expierenced enemy units compared to my own forces, maybe playing this thing only makes sense when you already possess
an experienced core army after having played the Poland/France campaigns beforehand, but with zero exp units and low prestige this is a drag.

Given the fact, that in reality British forces after Operation Compass were weakend to the bone, Air superiority changed in favor of the Axis after Germany deployed
X. Fliegerkorps there and that didn't change until british reinforcements arrived in Alexandria later in 1941 the British troops were mostly on the run trying to avoid lenghty battles with the Africa Korps.
But in this setup, British forces are actually superior in every aspect and more experienced (which was also vice versa in reality because the most experienced British troops
were redeployed to Greece right before Rommel arived in Lybia and only the weakest, poorly equiped and inexperienced units stayed in Lybia) so this is not very accurate at all in my book.

2.) There are some typos and stuff like "Blala" in the slection screen which I would correct If it were my own campaign and the introduction also
leaves something to be desired but that's subjective view since I know this historical campaign very well and my apporach to it is vastly different for example, reaching Tobruk the first time takes 4-5 scenarios
in my campagin and North African distances and locations are far wider (i.e. more realistic than this) in my own maps than here.

3.) What's great in it is the beahaviour of the AI.
Very smart, defending the objectives but quickly pouncing on singled out, unprotected or low life units of the player whenever possible.
Very good and that standard is what I want to achieve with my own custom campaigns.
Strange is the lack of prestige acquired when capturing hexes which renders selections like double prestige or hero traits like "Liberator" pretty much useless.
Same for turn based prestige it seems.
Where can I examine the settings of those scenarios to have a look at how it is crafted and learn more about some elements of it?
How to get the maps and scenario data of this campaign to toy around with it a little bit?

Enjoy the weekend, guys!

Greetings from Panzermate

[Panzermate]

So, I tried again and documented it.
If anyone here has started this campaign and played it through, please post a screenshot.
I just want to get a glimpse at your glory.

Either I am a much (and I mean MUCH) worse player than I thought I was and obviously worse than most of the people in this forum or
this scenario just can't be done (the basic victory conditions, the bonus at Bengazi is entirley out of the question IMHO).
So I just started out at the lowest level of difficulty, chose really easy settings and tried to give it a go.
See here:



I'm going with 10 traits, complete undo option, core army and 35% random factor.

Next I chose the following traits:



Infantrygeneral, panzergeneral, industry connections, liberator, battle academy, trophies of war, killer team and anti-air veteran as positive traits
as well as slow modernization and denied air force as negative ones.

To even further pimp my otions I sold of 2 of my 3 heroes to collect an additional 2000 PP for a shopping spree and
to be able to afford some quality in-game-reinforcements (which I usually rarely do). Look here:



My core army looked like this:

5 X Grenadier INF on trucks
2 x Pz IIIH
2 x Pz IVE
1 X Kradschützen Recon
2 x 232/8 Recon
2 x 5cm AT on truck
1 x PzJäger I SPAT
2 x 3,7cm AA on wagon
1 SdKfz 7/1 AA
2 x 10,5 cm ART on wagon
2 x 15cm ART on SdKfz 7



Pretty solid I'd say but the actual Africa Korps was nowhere near this "perfect" material at the beginning, still using Panzer I's and II's
as well as worse artillery and worse AA but and were the Brits. But not in this setup here...


But after 21 turns the result was this:




21 turns and not even close.
Too many aggressive tanks, to many entrenched, dug in units supported by counter fire arty and
therefore: no victory!
Terrain didn't help as well.

[DefiantXYX]

All I can say is, I started this campaign with my imported chor units and had not problems at all.
Maybe it is just not designed for playing with a green army.

[Panzermate]

All I can say is, I started this campaign with my imported chor units and had not problems at all.
Maybe it is just not designed for playing with a green army.

Exactly right, Defiant.
If you have some 2 star (maybe even 3 star) core units with a bunch of useful heroes attached to them,
this might be a piece of cake but otherwise...see for yourself.

Well, my own DAK campaign will be set up the way you can (and must have) success early on.
In reality Rommels first encounters were with recon and AT units only since infantry/artillery and tanks of Panzer Regiment 5
were still at sea or on the way from tripolis to nofilia when he engaged the Brits for the first time at El Agheila.

Should you do it again or should you have some undeleted saved games, could you please post your core army via screenshot?
Would be interesting for me also in terms of scenario design for my own campaign I am working on right now.
Thanx.

Greetings from Panzermate

[tpoo]

All I can say is, I started this campaign with my imported chor units and had not problems at all.
Maybe it is just not designed for playing with a green army.

Exactly right, Defiant.
If you have some 2 star (maybe even 3 star) core units with a bunch of useful heroes attached to them,
this might be a piece of cake but otherwise...see for yourself.

Well, my own DAK campaign will be set up the way you can (and must have) success early on.
In reality Rommels first encounters were with recon and AT units only since infantry/artillery and tanks of Panzer Regiment 5
were still at sea or on the way from tripolis to nofilia when he engaged the Brits for the first time at El Agheila.

Should you do it again or should you have some undeleted saved games, could you please post your core army via screenshot?
Would be interesting for me also in terms of scenario design for my own campaign I am working on right now.
Thanx.

Greetings from Panzermate

At this time the AfrikaCorps was intended to use an imported core. There is no preset Core units at this time when starting AfrikaCorps if you have none to import from earlier campaigns. At the very least you should play the Preludes campaign to use as a core. Using all the prestige given to buy units to form a core will certainly be a severe disadvantage. Grondel moderates the PC1 Grand Campaign on the Steam workshop and created the AfrikaCorps segment so you might want to get his take on this on that platform.

[Panzermate]

At this time the AfrikaCorps was intended to use an imported core. There is no preset Core units at this time when starting AfrikaCorps if you have none to import from earlier campaigns. At the very least you should play the Preludes campaign to use as a core. Using all the prestige given to buy units to form a core will certainly be a severe disadvantage. Grondel moderates the PC1 Grand Campaign on the Steam workshop and created the AfrikaCorps segment so you might want to get his take on this on that platform.

I agree.

It's the same when you play the stock campaign starting in 1941 (Afrika or Barbarossa for that matter).
You have to start early and build and develop your core elements, that's the name of the game and the most fun obviously - at least for me.
No offence or insult here, any experienced player knows that already.

I was just curious to see, since DAK is kind of my speciality.
For me there's no need to do any preludes or to do the 1939 CG campaign (which I at least started until that dreadful "Piatek" scenario after which I quit)
or any other CG campaign to build a core army for one simple reason: I simply don't like what I've seen/played so far.

Just a pure personal preference, totally subjective.

From maps to objectives to gameplay (also little things like "North Afrika blablaba" in the menue screen, wrong cardinal directions of the Cyrenaica map for example) and the fact that you play boatloads of polish scenarios
when 3 or max 4 would have been enough for me while on the other hand in Africa you cover three scenarios - if not four - in the first scenario alone, doing the exact opposite.
For me this is not balanced and eked out enough. but like I said before: Each to their own.

I understand that it may be great for the players who have played PC1 and wanted to play this on PC2 (we all cherish nostalgia in one form or another don't we? ),
but since I didn't play PC1 I am not affiliated with it in any way.

So all you GC enthusiasts out there have fun with it, it's just not my cup of tea - that's why I'm working on my own campaign and are eager to learn more about crafting custom content every day...

But what's great about this grand campaign are the tons of valuable tricks, inputs, ideas and information on how to do things
for my very own creations. Way better than the stuff you get from the stock campaign/scenarios.
So adapting and incorporating wrinkles, whistles and bells from this valuable source is truely worth examining and exploring the scenarios/campaigns, especially since I don't have to play them...

So thanx for providing this opportunity.

Greetings from Panzermate

[Panzermate]

Just to inform you, I changed the name of this thread, so I don't have to open another one.
I want to share some things of the developmental process of my own campaign in this thread so others don't have to
endure some of the flaws and mistakes.
Also when the first scenarios are ready, maybe some of you might want to help out in playtesting/adjusting etc.
I will update this on a regular basis.

Campaign Title:
"DAK - Deutsches Afrika Korps"

Timeline: March 1941 to May 1943
Type: Historic scenarios only - but when the campaign is finally ready and working, I might think about developing an expansion.
One or two alternative paths but certainly it won't be as unrealistic as taking the entire middle east with 3 lousy divisions
and open up a second front against the Red Army in the Caucasus region like in the stock campaign.
Features: 27 mandatory scenarios to finish out the campaign as well as six voluntary additional scenarios for all those who can never get enough experience for their units - ever.
So 33 total scenarios.
But since there are some scenarios featured with only 8 or 10 turns 33 sounds more than it actually is.

Goals: Should I ever be able to create spoken intros/briefings with custom made audio files I would like to create this campaign bilingual with english spoken briefings
and german text briefings. But for now, everything will be in English except the units/persona/weaponry will be in its German origin.
I occasionally might use "barrier detachment" instead of "Sperrverband" because Sperrverband truely is a very special/old German term non-native speakers might no be too familiar with.
But prefering "Luftwaffe" over "Air force" or "Panzer" over "tank" shouldn't be that tough to figure out even for people without any basic knowledge of the German language.
Same goes for embedding media like pictures, maps or even videos into this campaign, but that is out of the question right now, as I am still into baby step mode and figure to be for quite some time.
But maybe down the road..well, let's see.

Here's the preview image



as well as the campaign description text:



How it looks like in the game campaign menue:









So the table is set, let's get back to work!

Greetings from "African" Panzermate

[Panzermate]

Next step accomplished!
After rereading this entire data location stuff (with friendly big time dummy-advice by knowledgable dalfrede), I decided to basically avoid too much
Steam/workshop/ location/relevance stuff.

Also I forgot that my opening scenario was placed both in "scenarios" as well as in the "campaign" folder.
That caused some uneccessary stir as well....when saving and wondering why the saves weren't applied!
OUCH!

Anyway, I tinkered around with the Lua script in order to get campaign description and scenario running order in gear and there you go:

1. Campaign shows up in the main menue under the "right" menue area( "custom campaigns" that is rather than the awkward placement when incooperated with the workshop too via steam)
2. First scenario is playable without any issues (had to figure out that all the letters and numbers have to be connected in lua - feature empty spaces in between and you get an error message)
I have to get back to the "If/else" portion of the script later on when I have to implement the bonus/voluntary scenarios into my campaign.
3. Now I am trying to get the balance settings right (scenario vs. campaign prestige, core slots, experience for enemy units and the custom purchase and naming options for the player.


But so far, so good:


Greetings from Panzermate

[koos]

waar in steam workshop

[Panzermate]

waar in steam workshop

Great contribution.
Thanx for really distributing major input...

[sapper1]

Is this available for play? Looks great!

[Ezequiel1996]

This looks great! can't wait to play it

[SirAllan]

Enlist me in you Testing Corps - Im ready for dessert warfare

[SirAllan]

@Panzermate
Any news on your DAK-Project?

[Magic1111]

@Panzermate
Any news on your DAK-Project?

I would also be interested, but unfortunately he hasn't been online since the end of February.