Slitherine

When Editor starts up, the map png is shown. That png can be replaced by anything 4500x2320 png.

In the data folder of the editor, all files are saved.
Originally these files exist.

1939.scn
1940.scn
1941.scn
1942.scn
1943.scn
1944.scn
ww2.map - Contains the original nationality, terrain and borders in 1939
ww2_city_eng.txt - Contains the name of hexes.

Map files are .map files and they save terrain, original nationality of countries and original borders. This files should not be changed in order to make scenarios.
Scenario files are .scn files and those alter the CURRENT occupation and situation of the countries and placements of units. If a hex is owned by Poland in the ww2.map file and owner by Germany in the .scn then tjhat will read in game as
Owner : Germany
Nationality : Polish

After editing map and scenarios, simply copy them from the data folder of the editor to the data/scenairo folder of Commander. Exception is ww2_city_eng.txt, this file should go into Commander data folder (not scenairo folder).




UI Guide:
Load Map - load the terrain and resources on map, but it does NOT load units or country data.
Save Map - saves the terrain and resources on map, but it does NOT save units or country data.
Load Scenario - Load the specific land ownership, units, country data on a certain point in the war
Save Scenario - Save the specific land ownership, units, country data on a certain point in the war
Quit - quit the editor

QUICK GUIDE:
1) Select Load Map, pick the ww2.map
2) Select Load Scenario, pick the scenario you like to edit
3) Click around, add units, change country data and then select Save Scenario and type in a name folloed by .scn
4) Place the ww2_city_eng.txt in your Commander Europe at War data folder
5) Place all other files i.e .scn and .map files in the Commander Europe at War data/scenario folder
6) Start Commander Europe at War, select a game mode and with the 1939 button you can now select you new scenario instead of the 1939-1944 original ones.
7) When editing the map, holding down the 7, 8 or 9 keys while clicking or righ clicking a hexagon will add border or river
8 ) Holding down x or c while creating a Sea hex puts a loop hex marker on it. You need to have exactoly 2 of each loop

DETAILED GUIDE:
- 'Z' key turn grid On/Off.
- Remember to load the ww2.map when you start up the editor
- Countries can at most 2 Capitals and the primary Capital is the one to the south, so that means Moscow is to the south of Perm and is primary Capital.
- Fortresses need to be placed manually each time a scenario is loaded, else they disappear. Beware!
- If editing the map, you can change land to owned by "NO_COUNTRY" which means that hex will be impassable in game, for instance New Foundland currently.


TROUBLESHOOTING:
- Fortresses that have no port and no production values count as scenario dependant forts and those will be removed when you load a scenario so need to be placed again.

- Do not mess with Port Said, Gibraltar, Iceland ports or the exclamation markers "!" on map unless you are sure what you are doing. They contain the convoy and loop system of the game and could cause the game to crash if not set properly. Port Said for instance has to be Egyptian nationality else game wont find Port Said by its definition.

- If you load a map and therafter load a scenario you should not pick save map because then you will overwrite nationality on the map from the current scenario viewed. For example if you load map and then the 1942 scenario and save map then map will now say that the nationality of large parts of USSR is German.[/b]

- Major countries need at leist one Capital so be careful not to delete them

When do you guys plan to release the first patch for this game?

Hi Guys,
This is more information from Iain with thanks to him:

- To place border or river, hold down 7, 8, or 9 keys while pressing left or right mouse button on a hex
- Gibraltar, Port Said, Iceland ports and the transportation loop "!" should not be messed with since they contain the convoy system and loop system in game. In this case, the Nationality of Egypt should be Egyptian and not UK else it wont find the Port Said city. Port Said is defined as the "eastern most port city of egypt".

Is anyone else actually actively making map modifications?

I am. Together with Happycat we make a modified game with updated map and also updated files for tech, terrain and general. We have been playtesting for several months and it goes well.

Some thing we would like to change is not possible (e. g. like giving subs a chance to evade combat). We tried a workaround by making subs cheaper, but it didn't work well. Germany then built lots of sub units and attacked the escorts instead. So they need to be as expensive as DD's.

The game mechanics (except sub warfare) work pretty well in our mod now. So we don't expect the need to make many more modifications. Then we may publish it for other to try as well.

Good news.

I hope you'll publish out soon (before christmas, it will be a good present for us...)
I'll be impatient to test everything new about this great game.

Bongo

Good work Stauffenberg, keep it up
One way to make a different Sub warfare is to increase sub survivability and decrease their naval combat. This will make Atlantic battles longer and allow more naval units to be on map at the same time.

To compensate you also need to reduce convoy surv from 2->1 so that Subs still can hurt them.

Why this is not in the standard version is because it also means higher unit density and more tedious gameplay which is a factor I always need to consider. A lot of ideas are very good stand alone but adding too many of them might make the whole thing too large. So the standard version is meant to be playable for the average player but it is great that you make mods for the more dedicated players that want "more"

That's why I suggested to make 3 variables in the general.txt file making rules for the evasion chance.
E. g. default_evasion_percentage 50
evasion_increase_submarine_level 15
evasion_decrease_ASW_level 20

Example above shows 50% evasion chance by default and +15% per sub tech and -10% per ASW tech. By default the game could have all the variables set to 0. This means it will work exactly like now, but by adding these variables you give the mod designers a chance to use evasion rules. This way you won't have to worry about the overall effects for the standard game because it won't affect the standard game. So everybody wins with such a solution.

I agree with you that you should be restrictive to change rules that you don't know the consequences of. It means it must be playtested a lot before you chance a rule that can't be optional. So making optional changes is a good idea. I guess this is one of the reasons all the configuration files are possible to change for the mod designers.

Happycat and I already play our mod with starting tech level 1 for the Germans subs and we have switched the techs so tech 1 gives +1 survivability. We have also decreased the sub attack by 1 from the start. To compensate for it we have added a sub in the Baltic that can only get into the Atlantic after Denmark is captured.

Even with these changed we have problems with subs being too vulnerable and from 1942 and beyond the Allies have killed all the subs in the Atlantic even if new subs are built. With starting tech 1 for the Germans in subs it means the Allies don't inflict so much damage with their DD's so the subs can survive and get back to port to be repaired.

But the problem is that the DD's get better and better ASW factors quickly because the Allies build several labs in naval with focus in ASW. The Allies also build many several new DD's and keep the close to each other located in the Atlantic between Canada / USA and Ireland. All convoys converge to Britain so by placing the escorts in the right spot it means they can intercept all subs who attack except the first turn the convoy is sailing. So the subs get one shot at the convoys and then they come too close to the escorts if the pursue the convoy.

After some time the escorts are so many they can start sweeping the area for subs. Then the war is virtually over. The CV's will make it even harder for the subs. A good sweeping strategy is the move e. g. 4 or 5 DD's adjacent to each other in the same direction. This means they cover an area of 5x18 hexes each turn. If a sub is in this box it will be detected and quickly destroyed.

One annoying part being a sub is that you have to sail to a port to be repaired and while you're en-route you're very vulnerable. The Allies know the sub will have to go to a port and can anticipate which ports the sub can possibly travel too. E. g. the Allies can put a DD or sub in each side of the English Channel. This means no subs can travel through the Channel to get to a port.

So the Germans will use the port in Brest or La Rochelle or have to travel the long way to Wilhelmshaven around the north shore of Britain. If Norway is captured it's possible to use Bergen or Oslo as well. The Allies can bombard the ports with strat bombers to see if there are subs in port. When the sub is detected it will be attacked by Allied naval and air units. Since you can only repair 3 steps per turn now it means it takes several turns to repair a heavily depleted sub. If it's detected in port it will lose more steps every turn than they can repair. Eventually the sub will be destroyed.

So the first years you either see the 3 subs staying close to the forming points of one of the convoys in a wolf pack formation. So they get one turn to damage the convoy. The aggressive Germans will pursue the convoys for some turns only to see one sub being attacked by several escorts and maybe killed. If not it will be heavily damaged and it must be repaired. So it's a normal situation to see one damaged sub going to port to be repaired, another sub having been repaired returning to the hunt area and the third sub searching for convoys to attack. So you rarely have 3 subs attacking. The Germans can build more subs and being a bit more effective. But since every move costs 1 oil you will ruin your oil levels if you have many subs.

In one of our games I had at most 10 subs with tech 4 in sub warfare who were so powerful they even dared to engage the Allied convoys. But every turn they spent 10 oil and I was down below 300 oil in 1943. Then the Russians made a major offensive in the east and my defending armor and air units made me lose 30 oil per turn. But even with 10 strong subs I have beaten because the combined US and British power built more naval units than I could build subs. 3 subs could destroy a DD, but 2 DD's could destroy a sub. When the Allies even had several CV's it meant they could destroy 2-3 subs per turn in 1943. So my strong sub force vaporized and the Battle of the Atlantic was lost to the Axis.

So we can tweak all the settings we want, but the Axis will be in trouble in the Atlantic. Remember that each sub costs 70 PP's and if you lose 5 steps you have to pay lots of PP's to repair the sub. It takes 5-6 turns from the sub was attacked until it can be back in attack mode after sailing to a port to be repaired and back. When attacking a convoy the sub can inflict maybe 4-6 PP losses. With higher tech a bit more. But the repair losses for the subs are so much higher than the inflicted losses upon the convoys so it's a poor economic choice for the Axis to build subs. It's better to ignore the subs and let the convoys be.

I think the subs should do at least twice the amount of losses to feel it's worth building them. I think a wolfpack of 3-4 subs should be able to destroy a 40-50 PP convoy in one turn.

CeaW has the invisibility effect so the subs can spy upon the other side without being detected unless a naval unit accidentally sails over it. But after they attack or are being detected it means the sub can be attacked by all naval units within range without any chance of evading the combat. This is not very historical. The subs were a bit vulnerable just after they attacked convoys and tried their best to hide from the escorts. In the beginning they were very effective with this and the sub losses were low, but after ASDIC became a common anti-sub weapon the sub losses were substantial. The current CeaW rules don't show this at all.

The easiest solution to this would be to introduce evasion rules for the subs.

It's also frustrating for a sub trying to hide and not even attacking that they can be found and killed even when passive. I have lost many subs heading back to port being depleted because the Allied player use the effective sub sweep strategy. It doesn't help that the direction the sub sailed after combat is shown to the other side when you load the save game. So the Allied player can easily anticipate where the sub sailed and use the sweep strategy. So it would be even better if subs in invisible mode can't be attacked. It means that you simply move through the sub hex without even detecting the sub. If you by chance end up in the same hex as an invisible sub then the game could move the sub to an adjacent hex (it simulates the sub evaded while in invisible mode).

If the evasion rule (described above) won't be implemented then I think there should be restrictions to number of naval units being able to attack the sub per turn. It's not logical a sub will remain in a hex being attacked by DD fleet after DD fleet without even trying to escape. Maybe a sub already being attacked during the turn can't be attacked again, that could simulate it had dived and evaded. So each turn you get one attack chance per sub. So if you detect a wolfpack you must attack each sub in the pack once instead of ganging upon one of the subs to kill it.

I know there are many ways to implement sub warfare. So I won't say my suggestions are the best way to go, but I feel the current sub rules have room for improvement.

Subs will be a bit cheaper in next patch also. Do not forget that you can use Sub invisibility to protect your flanks so that incoming DD gets surprise attacked (since in naval combat the attacker fires first so try to be the cat and not the mouse in the play). Naval units cost 80% of new cost to repair so sometimes might be worth to just keep them running until they sink. I usually hit for 8-10 PP per attack with my subs, not 5 PP.

Increased survivability is roughly the same as evading rule just that the surv way of doing it means the damage variation will be less since it will be very unlikely that it gets hit for 0 points.

I dloaded the editor and followed the procedures spelled out above.

When I save the scenario file it does not save. It's not anywhere on my computer.

Is this a familiar screw up on my part?

thanks

Maybe this editor does not work with CEAW Gold?

I have also tried editor with gold edition and cannot find save

It works with CEAW Gold, it's just a very awkward thing to use.

If 'cannot find save' means you don't physically see the save button then the issue is probably your screen resolution. Look at the read-me doc for the editor - it has a picture of the editor UI. If that does not match what you see when you open the editor then it's a screen resolution problem. To resolve that you could try to edit the link to the editor (that used to work in XP anyway) or simply try a different screen resolutions until the editor loads properly.

i have the same problem, i load the ww2.map file i then load the 1939.scn file i make my changes (only small one i.e place a unit) i save it as "something".scn. but when i look in the editor data folder my new .scn is not there, just the original ones?

wheres my new file gone? what have i done wrong?

it seems like the editor just wont save my .scn