Slitherine

OK, my last (and first) scenario was simply a test to see how to create a new unit. This is a bit more of an actual campaign based around combat – but obviously it has nothing to do with the name of the game. Not many “Panzers” were involved with the Battle Of Britain.

This is my first “completed” campaign. I say completed because I have started 3 others and get so far in to them and think, “Wait I want to do this instead.” This campaign held many challenges in trying to get the AI to work at least somewhat the way it needed to, and in balancing, etc was also difficult. So I'm especially looking for any and all comments, suggestions, and what have you in those areas.

There is an equipment file in the MOD. The only change to it is that I added one unit for the 3rd and 4th scenarios.

Basic background for the campaign:
• You play as the British (I was able to get the AI to cooperate better if it played the Germans).
• There are only four scenarios – the four basic parts or phases to the Battle Of Britain.
• Campaign path is that you play all four scenarios, just prestige points are different depending on which victory you achieve.
• A loss in any scenario ends the campaign.
• I had to deviate from history in regards to what types of planes were used to get the balancing to work better. But I tried to stay as close to it as possible from what I could determine from the research I did.
• You will no doubt notice right off that there is not much in the way of terrain features. Something that planes don’t worry about, so I didn’t either. At least not yet. I do plan to put some in at some point (maybe), but since terrain has no bearing on the campaign, they are left out.

Please give your honest opinions, comments, questions and suggestions as you see fit.

Thanks

Change Log:
1.01
Thanks again El_Condoro for your help.

• Removed extra flags and victory hexes
• Shorten number of turns
• Added “Cargo” ships
• Removed some British ships
• Rebalanced number of Axis and Allied units
• Reorganized Core and Aux British units
• Changed victory conditions to be focused on Cargo ships
• Added visibility help to AI

1.02
Changed to work with PzC Patch 1.01

1.03
Thanks to odim70 for the new screens
Changed scenario and campaign screens.


http://www.mediafire.com/?ng6z7i6eybtmofq

I have not played the campaign through but these are my initial thoughts. As such, they are just my opinion and feel free to take them or leave them.

1. I would remove the flags on the east end of the Channel. Just name the hexes 'Escape' or whatever as they are all Zone 1 and part of victory conditions.
2. Name the ships. They don't need to be meticulously researched but HMS This or HMS That is better than nothing.
3. Less of everything. This is a fairly repetitive scenario (move ships, cover with fighters) and is too long at 18 turns. Less things to move (and less Luftwaffe, too) would alleviate that a bit.
4. I would consider a custom equipment file OR use a larger scale. The planes don't fly far enough and the ships don't move far enough at the scale the map is.
5. Set the Germans as all being AUX rather than CORE. This is just a preference of mine to further separate the player's core units.
6. Have less core units. Same number overall - so more AUX - but less core helps to make them 'special'.
7. There are 2 plane types (Hurricane and Spitfire) - a bit boring. Maybe a custom efile is looking better.
8. Planes don't care about terrain but players do - it just adds interest to the game.
9. Victory conditions: currently ships must wait at the edge of the map until the 14th ship arrives if they want to get a DV. Maybe change the conditions by having say 6 of the slower ships (or use sea transports) designated 'Supply' and have the victory conditions look for 6 or more in Zone 1. They should all arrive at the same time (if they make it) so ships won't be hanging around waiting. This would be a good reason for faster ship movement in the efile, too. Add more interest by adding a well-known name of a ship to a victory condition (e.g. HMS Prince of Wales in Zone 1). Add conditions for the destruction of German air units (I know this comes in a later scenario).
10. 18 turns is too long, especially when the victory is determined on the last turn (unless you get 14 ships into Zone 1). I had most of them ready to leave the map by turn 11.
11. The AI is just too dumb to handle this properly. There were 4 or 5 turns where no LW planes appeared - they obviously couldn't find my ships as I had moved as far north as possible. This may need some experimentation to fix - some victory flags along the ships' route? I had one turn where 6 German bombers got 'Unexpected encounters' because they went in to bomb my ships without sending in the fighters to check what was protecting them!

Overall, I think the concept is good but it needs some more experimentation to make it work as the Battle of Britain.

I was expecting maybe a stray word here and there, but something of this size is awesome. Thanks El_Condoro.

I’ll go through your points one at a time, but some of what you have written is the issues I was having in trying to get the AI to do something close to what needed to be done. So with that in mind, here we go.

1) The flags in the eastern end of the Channel were the only way I could get the AI to move the ships at all. This was when I was building the campaign from the Axis side and AI controlled the Allies. But since I switch sides, those can be removed.

2) Good idea on the naming it would give it all more depth.

3) Less Luftwaffe? This was one of the biggest frustrating parts. Play the scenario without doing anything and by the end the AI will have lost about 75% of its planes if not more. The AI constantly let’s its planes run out of fuel. So to compensate for that, I added a ton of planes… and anyhow – this is the Battle of Britain; tons of planes are the point.

4) Yeah, you’re right; those ships are slow. But I really didn’t want to mess around with the E-File. I know how to, but I just wanted to leave the stats of the units they way the makers thought they should be.

5) Not sure I understand why you would need or want to do that. You might need to explain a little more here.

6) Good idea. Perhaps increase starting prestige also, so the player can better build their own Core.

7) In the research I did, these were the only two that kept showing up and the only fighters that are available for that date. If you noticed from some of my other posts; I like things as close to history as can be.

8 ) Agreed. And I mentioned that in the initial post here. I do want to add that at some point. But just wanted to start getting feedback on all the other issues… and I was really getting burned out from trying to get the AI to work. (Side note to Devs: after doing this campaign, the AI has a lot of issues when it comes to planes.

9) Really liking this idea. The point of the attacks on the convoys is the protection of cargo ships; not the protection of war ships. I did start with this idea and tried to use the E-File’s transport ship, but the editor does not let you place the transport on its own (has to be on top of another unit). Maybe I’ll copy / paste the transport and rename it.

10) This one is again a left over from when I had the AI running the Allies. But I found out that no matter how much time I gave it; the AI was just not going to understand that it needed those ships to get through the Channel.

11) You might notice some of the attempts to give the AI some better “eyes” (starting a few fighters on top of your ships, putting a few bunkers along the way, etc.) I did have one idea that seemed to work fairly well, but took it out because it could have easily have some reactions from players as “hey, that’s not fair.” But maybe I need to put it back in.

Again, thanks for the words this gives me direction now. And I hope to get more.

5) Just a simple visual thing. AUX have silver border and CORE have gold. If all units are AUX it makes it easier to see what is CORE or not. Obviously, all German planes are not CORE but they still have a gold border - changing to AUX gets rid of that. Nothing important - just an aesthetic thing.

9) Just put something in the transports (INF?) and name them 'Cargo' or whatever.

11) The AI is so dumb compared to a human, it needs every advantage it can get!

Changes made (so far) to first scenario and update the download.
Thanks again El_Condoro for your help.

• Removed extra flags and victory hexes
• Shorten number of turns
• Added “Cargo” ships
• Removed some British ships
• Rebalanced number of Axis and Allied units
• Reorganized Core and Aux British units
• Changed victory conditions to be focused on Cargo ships
• Added visibility help to AI

The correct graphic interface http://www.mediafire.com/file/dipd50hj5vl2bbr/UI.rar
and Russian variant of campaign http://www.mediafire.com/file/eijr8vfk5 ... %20RUS.rar
You not against?

odim70 wrote:You not against?

Are you kidding? That is awesome that you did that.
My campaign has gone international. Cool!


I will incorporate your new screens in to my campaign this weekend. Thank you so much for that.

If you have any addition ideas on how to improve on the campaign, by all means let me know.

OK
The line "Italy" after a line "Kursk" in a file campaign.pzdat was lost. Because of it there is no description in the menu of a choice of campaign.
Sorry for my English. I use the online translator.

odim70 wrote:OK
The line "Italy" after a line "Kursk" in a file campaign.pzdat was lost. Because of it there is no description in the menu of a choice of campaign.
Sorry for my English. I use the online translator.

I will have to look at that too this weekend. Must of deleted it by accident.


Your English is just fine – no worries.

I like the idea of international cooperation.
This reminds me the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project in 1975.

VPaulus wrote:I like the idea of international cooperation.
This reminds me the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project in 1975.

Yeah, but this "might" be a bit of a smaller project.