Slitherine

BrucErik CSD Studio has improved (hopefully) and expanded (slightly) Erik's old New Britain 1943-44 campaign. That campaign included Arawe, Cape Gloucester, and Talasea and ended in 1944.

This new campaign includes enhanced versions of those scenarios and adds a fourth scenario, Jacquinot Bay, which portrays when Australian forces took over for the Americans on New Britain as the U.S. shifted its focus to retaking the Philippines (hence the ending year as 1945).

Please beta test New Britain 1943-45 and provide us with your comments and suggestions.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Pyxlh6 ... sp=sharing

Hurrah!

Okey-dokey, got it!

Arawe

After a bloody battle, I got to reach every obj at 28th round, and from the blue appears another task that is to find more foxholes; if not, as was my case, you get a draw. It seems to me that this should be stated clearer and before. It took me some time to kill the last jap unit,that could be disregarded in exchange of hunting the foxes.

Mascarenhas wrote: ↑Tue Jun 23, 2020 9:59 pm Arawe

After a bloody battle, I got to reach every obj at 28th round, and from the blue appears another task that is to find more foxholes; if not, as was my case, you get a draw. It seems to me that this should be stated clearer and before. It took me some time to kill the last jap unit,that could be disregarded in exchange of hunting the foxes.

Please take another look. The "Destroy all ground Japanese units" objective is displayed from the beginning and the mission description says "This includes Japanese pillboxes." [Edit: I found the problem now. See the additional posts below.]

Arawe:

Simply splendid!

Excellent and immersive briefing (with coconuts , about General’s health , etc.), great mechanism to prevent the apparition of Jap snipers, good idea as well to allow us to rebuild the Radar Station, etc.
Indeed, huge added value!

I've let one Jap sniper appear, on purpose, just to check if it's working... it is!


So, let's do a little feedback, shall we?

1. First, a little detail:
Maybe change the obj “Capture the radar on Pilelo Island” into “Destroy the enemy radar on Pilelo Island”…
Because now this sec obj is validated once the radar has been blown, with still the Japanese flag still flying in the air, therefore it’s still not “captured” but instead really “destroyed”. Which is coherent with its own description about having to “rebuild” it… anyway, why rebuilding something simply taken or captured?

2. Then, I've had a "draw" issue as well, for another reason:
I think it would be better to remove the golden star of the flag of Pilelo Island (where the Radar Station stands)… because it’s indeed NOT a pri obj right now…
-> And because it may even cause an issue by being counted as well as pri obj taken… for example, when the Arawe AF and the Plantation (and of course this Island!) have been captured, the counter shows 3/4 instead of 2/4 (with the villages of Meselia and Didmop still left to capture)…
So, at the end of this scenario, with all the map cleared and all flag flying US colors, all sec obj were validated, the primary obj shows 5/4 and stays as “open” (the blue “?”), therefore it finishes with a “Draw”… (So, I’ve reloaded this scenario and nuked my way to test the next one.)
I've taken a quick look at the triggers... at "Scenario Turn Limit", it's checked whether VP=4 or not, so if all five do count, then VP=5 instead of 4 and this obj can't be validated... (Even wih the nice event once the village of Didmop has been captured, likely to be the last pri obj to be taken.)

Thanks for the kind words and the usual very helpful feedback. Version 0.91 has been uploaded.

- Changed the objective to "Destroy the enemy radar on Pilelo Island."
- Fixed the primary VP flag issue. Pilelo Island has just a regular flag now.

Good catch, Colonel. In case you are interested, here is what happened with the primary VP flag:

Yes indeed, the gold-star flag on Pilelo Island is misplaced. The island itself is not a primary VP.


So there were 5 primary VPs on the map and the trigger is looking for EXACTLY 4 (I used "= 4" instead of ">3") so when you seized the island and the four actual objectives, 5 did not equal 4 so the objective remained open!

And Mascarenhas, I see what threw you. It stems from this popup message (the image is missing because I was testing the scenario in the editor):


As you see here, the scenario does not end when all four primary VPs have been taken:


As the explanation says, "Time will be allowed for the completion of secondary objectives":


It goes to the dilemma of what to do about the secondary objectives when all (or, in this case, the only) primary objectives have been completed. Erik and I believe that it's rather silly, and the opposite of immersive, for the player to purposely hold back from taking the last primary VP because he hasn't finished one of the secondary objectives.

Instead, we have been making at least one primary objective evaluate only at "Scenario turn limit" (which requires a separate primary VP counter trigger). Of course, we don't want the player to need to play out all of the turns if every primary and secondary objective has been accomplished, so there is also an "Early scenario ending" trigger.

So it was the popup message that you saw but it did not mean a new objective. The requirement to kill pillboxes is always part of the objective to "Destroy all Japanese ground units" as per the description.

So now, also in version 0.91, that message reads as follows:


Thanks, Mascarenhas.

ColonelY wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2020 6:47 am great mechanism to prevent the apparition of Jap snipers, good idea as well to allow us to rebuild the Radar Station, etc.

The radar module was Erik's original idea. So were the Jap snipers. I came up with destroying pillboxes with engineers (flamethrowers) so as to prevent the emergence of snipers. I included this module in the first three scenarios but not in the fourth, Jacquinot Bay, for three reasons:

1) I was tired of programming this nonsense! Just kidding, but yes, it was getting tedious. However, this would not have been sufficient reason for discontinuing it if there were not these other two reasons:

2) The Jacquinot Bay map was getting a bit crowded and there is an objective to clear enemy units south of a certain line, including a few lurkers that need to be found, so I didn't want the scenario to get bogged down with a bunch of snipers roaming around as well.

3) The game designers have never finished fully outfitting the Australian military. Generally, they create new units only to satisfy the needs of their latest DLC, which is understandable. To date, the Australians have units for early and late in the war, but not in the middle. Australian engineers appear only in a 1941 version. That makes this unit rather weak in combat with, say, Japanese infantry of 1944 and 1945. So to require them for the purpose of pillbox destruction and sniper suppression was no longer desirable.

Hence, at Scenario Start in Jacquinot Bay and any other time the player goes to purchase an Australian engineer, this popup message will display:


This latest change was uploaded, still as version 0.91, shortly before this message was posted.

Bru, you could always borrow British 42-43-44 units.
The graphics are the same and the Aussies were still part of the British crown at the time (still is?)

Erik2 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2020 3:29 pm Bru, you could always borrow British 42-43-44 units.
The graphics are the same and the Aussies were still part of the British crown at the time (still is?)

True, but the timing of Jacquinot Bay was such that, given the default Australian units in the game, the scenario could be accomplished without swapping for GB units. Even the official Australian Hawker Hurricane fighters were sufficient for the purpose of establishing an equivalent of a beachhead in the air. The only exception was the 1941 Australian engineer but for the reasons above, I decided not to bother with the pillbox/sniper thing in this one.

Say, when you review this beta version, please make sure you have 0.91, unless you have already started, for the changes to Arawe to appear. Or make allowances when you see what the Colonel and Mascarenhas brought up.

By the way, I corrected my earlier post. The Jap sniper spawns were also your original idea. My improvement was the part about using engineers (flamethrowers) to suppress them when pillboxes were destroyed. If destroyed by any other type of unit, a sniper emerges.

02CapeGloucester:

Trully wonderful! Good action, great content, immersive events, etc.

Well, I'll have to temper my enthusiasm a little, otherwise I'll soon run out of suitable adjectives...


So, issue found? None.
Some suggestion to bring? Well, it seems already well complete to me...


About the Green and Yellow beaches, 'could maybe add a flag with the name of the beach (perhaps even on water, thus forming two times a kind of triangle?)... But already clearly explained within the brief and almost logical having seen how our supply ships are deployed, so not really necessary anyway. So, I don't know if it would be really worth it. Maybe there would then be too much flags on this area?

By the way, about the names of these supply ships, with Lime, Avocado, Lemon and Banana Green/Yellow... Don't change it anyway, it's funny, but (pure curiosity) is it historical?

Amongst (many) others, I do like this plantations side-story (coherent too with the previous scenario), the event about "Recruits" (it's much clearer with this one!)... And I appreciate seeing that we have exactly the good amount of naval deploy hexes to put all our units (our Marines!), including the Medical Jeep if the player has unlocked this spec; well done! 'Seems to me that the naval deployment has been completely reworked but, well, enough digressions!

I've only achieved a Minor Victory because there was one unit of "Banzai Marines" that I haven't managed to spot... probably the 5th, but it's my bad so that's fine (for the scenario, I mean )!

I was astonished to see from start the "AIB Scout 1" unit... but it's actually much better that way, because it should intrigue the player and make him (or her) want even more to go to this famous meeting to find out more...

Almost in the "middle" of the map, South to the village of Kokopo, there is a bridge missing (where there is a "three roads" crossing)...

I’ve seen a little something: our “AIB Scouts” won’t vanish in the jungle if the Banzai Marines “suicide” themselves.
By “suicide”, I mean if a Banzai Marines unit, heavily depleted by previous fights, launch an attack but receive enough damages in return to simply be whipped out of the map… But it seems to be quite exceptional anyway and a little extra unit is always welcome. So, I don’t think it’s worth changing anything related to this , but at least it has been mentioned once.

Not all MG-foxholes can spawn a sniper in this scenario... only the ones called "Pillbox XYZ", but it's certainly on purpose (the other being "out of the way", more to defend far Jap airfields), so it's perfectly fine as it is.


So, in short: visual aspect of one bridge and maybe the name of the beaches on map, otherwise I see nothing else right now...

First impressions.

I checked the various additions to the original scenarios.
Excellent production work as always.
Then I nuked my way to the new scenario (I'm a bit short for time these days).

04JacquinotBay:

Just curious, did you test the Australian Commando unit type before you selected the Gurkhas? Or the Marine Scouts before settling on the Partisans?

There are some core and some non-core scouts with identical unit names. Any specific purpose?

Jungle Lurker, that is a good one.

The engineer message appear after every purchase. Maybe restrict it to the first one if possible?

I think there should be another supply ship. I ran out of supply with 81 CPs left in the bank. And then came the Japanese attack....

More later.

03Talasea:

Another trully excellent scenario! I have to say it's a pleasure to play/test it.


So, let's get straight to the debrief, shall we?

1. Sec obj “Destroy 12 pillboxes with flamethrowers” -> text: “[…]Get 50 specialisation points each for U.S. Army and Marines.”
Nope, that’s of course 50 RPs each!
(According to the triggers as well where it’s about “Add Ressources” instead of “Add Specialisation Point”. By the way, otherwise it would be too much…)

2. During deployment phase, I don’t know why but I can see (despite the fog of war!) the 4 Infantry units of the “Highland forces”… and since they are not all side by side, we know that there are (most likely) other units with them... That may be problematic because it may spoil a little the nice mission to recon the Highland, if the player takes a look at the map before or while deploying troops.

3. ‘Could be good to add a last immersive event/pop-up when the two advance regiments of the US 40th Infantry Division actually begin to land… on time, as planned!


Thanks, keep up the good work!

ColonelY wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2020 4:12 pm Well, I'll have to temper my enthusiasm a little, otherwise I'll soon run out of suitable adjectives...

Please don't hesitate to reuse such kind adjectives, be they deserved or not. They are like an oasis of food and drink to the dying man in the desert of OOB designing!

ColonelY wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2020 4:12 pm About the Green and Yellow beaches, 'could maybe add a flag with the name of the beach (perhaps even on water, thus forming two times a kind of triangle?)... But already clearly explained within the brief and almost logical having seen how our supply ships are deployed, so not really necessary anyway. So, I don't know if it would be really worth it. Maybe there would then be too much flags on this area?
curiosity[/i]) is it historical?

Good idea. Note that the beaches themselves are also briefly illuminated (at Scenario Start) for dramatic effect:

ColonelY wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2020 4:12 pm By the way, about the names of these supply ships, with Lime, Avocado, Lemon and Banana Green/Yellow... Don't change it anyway, it's funny, but (pure curiosity) is it historical?

No, purely imaginary but I thought just the thing that military men might do to use such code names. By the way, did you catch the extra supply ship, "Chartreuse Auxiliary," which can be used to support either beach?

ColonelY wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2020 4:12 pm I was astonished to see from start the "AIB Scout 1" unit... but it's actually much better that way, because it should intrigue the player and make him (or her) want even more to go to this famous meeting to find out more...

Sorry, but this little rascal is making an impromptu and premature appearance, already causing a ruckus down there in the very beginning!


I deployed him for a test and forgot to put him back into reserve. "AIB Scout 1" and all other scouts should not appear until the player has "made contact with the island AIB." In one of the objectives, he is told "Somewhere on the farm road between Natamo and Cape Bushing, your forces will encounter members of the Allied Intelligence Bureau. You will receive further instructions at that time."

That's when "AIB Contact" is deployed and the explanatory popup messages are shown. That's also when the last secondary objective, "Destroy all Banzai Marines lurking in the jungle," is enabled. The AIB Scouts help you locate them.

"AIB Scout 1" is back in reserve where he belongs.

ColonelY wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2020 4:12 pm

Almost in the "middle" of the map, South to the village of Kokopo, there is a bridge missing (where there is a "three roads" crossing)...

Yes, that comes under the heading of "Hey mastermind, what kind of a genius builds a road intersection over a river crossing?"


It's fixed now:

ColonelY wrote: ↑Wed Jun 24, 2020 4:12 pm I’ve seen a little something: our “AIB Scouts” won’t vanish in the jungle if the Banzai Marines “suicide” themselves.
By “suicide”, I mean if a Banzai Marines unit, heavily depleted by previous fights, launch an attack but receive enough damages in return to simply be whipped out of the map… But it seems to be quite exceptional anyway and a little extra unit is always welcome. So, I don’t think it’s worth changing anything related to this , but at least it has been mentioned once.

Not all MG-foxholes can spawn a sniper in this scenario... only the ones called "Pillbox XYZ", but it's certainly on purpose (the other being "out of the way", more to defend far Jap airfields), so it's perfectly fine as it is.

Interesting about the "AIB Scouts" in that I thought it would be better to have them vanish once their job of locating jungle lurkers was accomplished so as to not bore the player but you feel that "a little extra unit is always welcome." The trigger is set that each Banzai Marine is killed, the corresponding AIB scout exits. Maybe in the instance that you describe, the Banzai Marine is actually removed instead. To cover this rare situation, a new set of triggers would need to be designed; it's probably not worth the effort, especially if there is only one scout hanging around. He could be useful, as you mention.

Yes, those MG-foxholes near the Jap airfields (which, by the way, are not historically accurate and merely are convenient conglomerations of Japanese airfields at Rabaul, Gasmata, and Talasea) are not in the module that produces snipers when destroyed. As a matter of fact, I use an alternate Japanese faction for them; probably not necessary, but to keep them distinct from regular Japanese forces.