Slitherine

In business management, "leading from behind" is a good thing. According to one source, "Leading from behind is active leadership. It requires that a leader set clear goals, enable innovation and step forward in key moments to unlock everyone's potential." With proper guidance, subordinates are free to flower into their potential.

In battle, "leading from behind" means something altogether different. "Weasel! Coward! Yes, by all means hang back on your armored cruiser while we do the dirty work. We wouldn't want you to soil that dazzlingly white dress uniform, would we?"

Never change this. I enjoy insulting this fellow every time.

My thoughts circled more around the idea of a "lazy bastard", staying behind while my forces were fighting the enemy just a few hexes away from him....could've use those ships myself.

GabeKnight wrote:My thoughts circled more around the idea of a "lazy bastard", staying behind while my forces were fighting the enemy just a few hexes away from him....could've use those ships myself.

That's what I'm saying! Here I am with my two carriers, all alone, their necks stuck out and far-advanced westerly in support of my flyboys, and finally on turn 15 this guy decides to move his fleet: "To extend our carriers' strike distance to the islands furthest west, our escort Task Force is advancing closer to these targets." Ha!

I'm thinking of a mod of this scenario in which, once green team USA finishes mopping up Japanese targets, it then strikes blue team USA in retaliation!

But don't change the official version. It's great! (It's also properly tailored to what new players should do, which is to learn to adequately protect their aircraft carriers at all times. It's just that I know this scenario now and can take chances.)

bru888 wrote:I'm thinking of a mod of this scenario in which, once green team USA finishes mopping up Japanese targets, it then strikes blue team USA in retaliation!

Do it and I'll gladly playtest if for you!
(Bastard! And to think I've used his portrait in multiplayer...if I'd knew... )

GabeKnight wrote:

bru888 wrote:I'm thinking of a mod of this scenario in which, once green team USA finishes mopping up Japanese targets, it then strikes blue team USA in retaliation!

Do it and I'll gladly playtest if for you!
(Bastard! And to think I've used his portrait in multiplayer...if I'd knew... )

That leads to a semi-serious question, come to think of it. Have you ever seen the capability of having a faction "switch sides"? That is, go from ally or neutral to a hostile team mid-scenario or mid-campaign? Would be interesting, if so.

viewtopic.php?f=374&t=80867#p731107

bru888 wrote:That leads to a semi-serious question, come to think of it. Have you ever seen the capability of having a faction "switch sides"? That is, go from ally or neutral to a hostile team mid-scenario or mid-campaign? Would be interesting, if so.

Wasn't something like that done in the very first mission of the SinoJap DLC campaign? Some of your Chinese militia switching sides and you had to destroy them, too? And I think I've encountered such "traitor" units in other custom scens as well.

GabeKnight wrote:

bru888 wrote:That leads to a semi-serious question, come to think of it. Have you ever seen the capability of having a faction "switch sides"? That is, go from ally or neutral to a hostile team mid-scenario or mid-campaign? Would be interesting, if so.

Wasn't something like that done in the very first mission of the SinoJap DLC campaign? Some of your Chinese militia switching sides and you had to destroy them, too? And I think I've encountered such "traitor" units in other custom scens as well.

Yeah, but they do it the long way which is to remove unit, change hex ownership, spawn unit, assign to hostile AI team. They swap out the East Hebel Forces for Chinese Nationalist militia in that scenario:
And they did the same thing way back in the Rising Sun campaign, in Melbourne. Remember liberating the Japanese volunteer fighters from the U.S. prison camp? Same idea:

Right, Melbourne, final mission. The dreaded heavy fortified prison mission...

Sure, you'll have to re-spawn/assign the units. I don't know how else you'd change alliances in the scens...
Do you think it would be useful to introduce some new mechanic with "change alliance" triggers? I mean, is there real demand for it?

GabeKnight wrote:Do you think it would be useful to introduce some new mechanic with "change alliance" triggers? I mean, is there real demand for it?

Not really, so don't hold your breath. What I would like to see is for the developers to put back those secondary factions which were so helpful in early game design, the ones like the blue USA faction here which would operate in conjunction as an AI team member with the human player.

For some reason which frankly sounded like convenience when it was briefly explained before solitude set in, they were eliminated from the editors. They remain active in old scenarios like this one, though, and the factions.txt file can be hacked in order to restore their editing availability. In my private OOB world, these secondary factions will continue to feature prominently.

So, how would I mutiny and turn against the blue fleet Admiral in this case? There is yet another secondary USA faction to which I would convert the blue fleet units, using the same tactics of remove/spawn unit (no territory to change ownership of at sea) and this other faction would already be set as hostile to me. And I would assign that white-clad dude as the enemy commander of one of those ships. Let the battle begin!

You know, I'm almost tempted to do this now that I'm talking about it.

I'm not designing scens myself, so I actually don't realize (or notice) such subtle changes (at least for me subtle) in the scenario editor.

bru888 wrote:You know, I'm almost tempted to do this now that I'm talking about it.

Do it, I'm in.
Although it sounds like small changes, you know there's always something causing it to take forever....new turn limit, new objectives, when to activate, timings, and so on... "rat's tail" as we say here....

Why'd you stop designing scens anyways? I always quite liked your creations. Nice, fast and small with interesting background.

BTW, you ever thought of redesigning your Aleutian Crisis a bit? I mean, add more action to the already huge map. Don't make the Japs sitting ducks, give the Soviets some REAL invading force, and so on... I've always thought that map and the whole story behind it had more potential. A huge land/air/naval battleground....sorry, I'm getting over my head...but I miss those kind of scens from the old DLCs: I want to use my battleships and carriers and invade and bomb something... historical or not...

GabeKnight wrote:Do it, I'm in.

It's already in production.

bru888 wrote:

GabeKnight wrote:Do it, I'm in.

It's already in production.

I'll wait for it...

How do y'all open official scenarios in the editor? I've never done it before.
Albeit, I've never really tried to either..

Duplex wrote:How do y'all open official scenarios in the editor? I've never done it before.
Albeit, I've never really tried to either..

First, you need to own the DLC that contain the scenarios. Even if you find them, the game will not play them anywhere that you may copy them if you don't have the required licenses.

But if you do, then you can go to where they reside in your PROGRAM'S Content folder (where the program is kept in your C:\Programs\Slitherine folder - drill down through Content to Campaigns and then to Scenarios in each campaign) and copy them to your MY DOCUMENTS Scenarios folder. The editor will look at only scenarios (and campaigns) in your MY DOCUMENTS folders. You can do your thing there.

Advice that I have learned and will offer: You may be tempted to copy the edited scenarios back over their official DLC counterparts. It can be done, although you may need administrator privileges. What I have found, however, is this:

- Every time the game is updated, your custom scenarios will be overwritten by the official versions.
- You may want to keep the official versions for reference, smooth gameplay*, and for extras like bonus units** and core exports***.

* Whenever you make a change in a scenario that is part of a campaign, there are plenty of opportunities for creating glitches in such things as core definitions and campaign variables.
** What I am referring to here is getting a unit added to your core in one DLC campaign as a bonus for owning another DLC campaign. This only applies when playing the official DLC.
*** This does not seem to work for custom campaigns, or customized DLC campaigns in My Documents, as far as I have been able to determine.

GabeKnight wrote: ↑Sun Jul 01, 2018 4:55 pm

bru888 wrote:

GabeKnight wrote:Do it, I'm in.

It's already in production.

I'll wait for it...

Done. Well, let's say it's out in beta. I may have to tinker with it because it's rather difficult.

You're one crazy guy, you know that?

Just downloaded. I'll probably play it right now, but it's late, the feedback has to wait till tomorrow. Thanks, Bruce!

GabeKnight wrote: ↑Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:04 pm You're one crazy guy, you know that?

Just downloaded. I'll probably play it right now, but it's late, the feedback has to wait till tomorrow. Thanks, Bruce!

And thank you for the encouragement to just "Do it" which is what I needed to take this crazy idea and make it happen. Well, my scenarios may not be any good but they are originals, I must say!