Hi McMonkey,
I'd been wanting to tackle your scenario for some time now but was busy trying to work on my own project. After I ran into a snag I decided to take a break and give yours a try. I'll admit I was also more than a little intimidated by its size, e.g. managing the number of units and cities seem like a daunting task to undertake.
I consider myself somewhat of a history buff but I will concede that I was only familiar with the main lines of the conflict and not so much the specifics. So after reviewing your help file I decided I should educate myself a little more, before playing the game, by reading some additional articles on the web.
After playing the first couple of turns I immediately realized how much research and effort you had to have placed to design this scenario. It faithfully recreates the opening Nationalists campaign which immediately placed the Republicans on the defensive. You also took great care to identify all the different factions that were involved on both sides, which were many and varied, and took great care to reproduce many of the unique historical events related to the conflict. It's hard to imagine any scenario recreating the atmosphere and chaos more accurately.
I especially like your usage of the riverbed terrain concept. I've long though that rivers should be seen as obstacles in Civilization, not advantages, and you've shown how it can be done. It's a very clever idea.
At the beginning it's unclear where you need to concentrate your forces but after a while you are able to discern a pattern in the Nationalist campaign and you act accordingly.
It was clear pretty early from the start that ultimately it would be impossible to hold on to the north of Spain. There's no way to reinforce it, other than with the production of local troops, and the Nationalists seem to benefit from a very generous supply of reinforcements. At that point, all you can hope to do is hold on as long as possible taking as many Nationalist down as you can.
That's why I adopted, from the beginning, a strategy of hit and run whenever possible, i.e. attacking vulnerable units on riverbeds, exposed artillery or bomber units. I figured that this is a war of attrition and that in the end the Nationalists would receive a very large but finite number of units. The more units you can eliminate, without compromising your own position, the better your long term survival might be. At least, that was the idea.
Without spoiling the surprise for others, the anarchist rebellions I encountered were, though historical, terribly inconvenient and unwelcome. They certainly highlighted the great difficulties' the Republicans faced during this extremely brutal conflict.
For quite a while I was able, through great effort, to hold the Nationalists along three fronts. The first along the Motril, Guadix, Jaen, Cordoba, Puertollano, Guadalupe and Talavera line. The second around Madrid along Toledo, Brunette, Boadilla Segovia, Samosierra, Guadalajara and Brihuega line. Finally, the third front from Sagunto, Castellon, Alcaniz, Fraga, Barbastro to Viella.
I managed to survive till May 1938 when my entire Madrid front finally collapsed. I realized at that time that it was game over for the Republicans and that it was just a matter of time before the Nationalists would overrun the rest of the country. Subsequent review of the forces in play confirmed my analysis. I was down to 332 to the Nationalists 705 total units (which is in itself not a wholly accurate representation of the disparity because the latter's forces are superior in quality, especially their air units). The total number of troops generated, up to that date, was 1161 Republican to 1784 Nationalists (this is when you add the still active units to the killed units).
I believe I can trace the primary, if not the sole, reason for this collapse back to a particular event. Back in early 1937, in preparation for an eventual assault on my capital area I had taken the time, in order to protect my right flank, to set up a fortified defensive line to the north-east and east of Guadalajara. As such, I was very unpleasantly surprised to see the Italian CTV offensive magically appear behind my defensive positions just outside the city's walls around March 1937. To counter this event I had to progressively weaken my left flank to repel the repeated Italian onslaughts with the predictable result that Boadilla on my left flank was eventually overrun by the Nationalist thereby opening up the way to Madrid.
Despite pumping in massive reinforcements I could never stem the tidal wave of Nationalist forces that were flowing into the sector, especially with the fact that my air force was inferior, both in quality and quantity, and therefore unable to wrest control of the sky from Franco's air force in this area.
In this regard, shouldn't the Italian CTV units be generated closer to the city of Calatayud?
Overall, I have to say this is an extremely well crafted scenario where great attention was paid to detail. The graphics and sounds used are quite beautiful and the historical texts go a long way to totally immerse the player into the war. Great job!!!
The only qualm I may have is to ask whether the forces in play might be a little too skewed in favor of the Nationalists.
As such, here are some of my observations/comments for the period up to May 1938 (the actual war, of course, lasted till April 1939 when the Republicans finally surrendered):
What's the reasoning behind the generation of the 'Stronghold' units when Republican cities are captured. Is there a historical context for it? I ask because it seems to give them an unfair advantage. By May 1938, I inventoried 201 such units, with 2-3 units generated for each captured Republican cities. Subsequent tests I made demonstrated that it took around five non-veteran 155mm artillery pieces to defeat 2 Stronghold units in a city (which of course rarely if ever only contained just two units). You quickly realize that it would take a massive number of such artillery units to retake Spain. In the end, I was only able to create a total of 55 artillery pieces, of which only 55% were 155mm (being itself the most expensive Republican unit to build), despite using my Supply units for the exclusive use of their production.
By May 1938, the Nationalists had received 62 Legionarii Class submarines. Assuming each unit corresponded to 1 or 2 subs that means between 62 to 124 subs! Did Italy really send that many subs to fight for Franco? This is important as you know because the Republicans are heavily dependent on Russians reinforcements from Odessa whose ships must run the gauntlet of Italian subs.
By May 1938, I inventoried a total of 244 air units having fought, and died, for the Nationalists (versus 127 for the Republicans). They still had 85 surviving units by that month (versus 43 for the Republicans). I'm assuming each air unit is the equivalent of an air squadron (say between 10 to 20 aircraft). That would mean the Axis would have supplied between 2440 to 4880 planes to Franco. Does that sound correct? This is particularly important because the superior quality of the German/Italian models help to dominate the battle field. But if they are receiving more than they actually received during the actual conflict it tends to skewer the odds even more against the Republicans.
This of course was my first attempt at your scenario and I see in retrospect some things I could have handled better. All the same, I'm curious to know at what difficulty level you would rate your scenario and whether you yourself have been able to win a decisive victory.
That said, this is a great addition to the community! Congratulations!!