Total War 1941 -1945 ToT scenario released

Hi Cyrion,

Thank you for your advice. Here is my feedback:

unmovable bunkers: why not make them naval units with 0 move

That's a very interesting idea, though as you indicated, I would have to adjust the unit's stats to offset the 'Ships caught in port' penalty that naval units receive when attacked in port. I hope the penalty isn't so severe that no amount of unit tweaking will offset it. I will have to test it.

The other problem I might have is that not all my bunker units are placed in cities. There are some that are placed on land tiles to block Allied movement and I don't think you can place naval units on land. I might have to create 2 types of bunker units in that case, which means I would have to review my unit list.

Only problem I can see is: do the naval units defend only after all ground units have been killed, no matter what their stats are?

I noticed during my testing that the bunker units weren't always the first unit the AI choose to use to defend when I attacked a city that had a combination of bunker/ground units. This surprised me because I thought the game was always supposed to select the strongest unit to defend first.

bypassing the outer islands: if those unmovable bunkers in Japan proper are homed to outer islands cities, then bypassing those islands might be less interesting...

That's how I originally set up the bunker units, i.e. homed to the outer islands. But when I found out the AI kept moving them from the original cities they were set up in, I gave up on that idea as it became pointless.
 
Oops, forgot one item of US income in my previous post - gold looted from captured cities. The number given below is slightly smaller than the actual amount because I did not bother to allow for the German's monthly income.

Taxes less costs --- 18,350 41%
Freights --- 11,750 26%
Sale of improvements --- 8,940 20%
Capture of cities --- ~6,000 13%


I would not unduly worry about the income from freights completely upsetting a scen.
 
Hi Agricola,

It definitely was NOT primarily bought with gold from Freights. I did the numbers for the last year of the game, from March ’43 until Feb ’44. The US raised a total of 39,000 gold in that period from three sources:

Taxes less costs --- 18,350 (47%)
Freights --- 11,750 (30%)
Sale of improvements --- 8,940 (23%)

Furthermore, the bulk of the M-12’s, M26’s, P-47’s and P-51’s that participated in the attack on Japan were veterans of the European campaign

I never should have doubted you ;)! Though I imagine having to redeploy your units from Europe to the Pacific must have been quite an enterprise.

I never tracked the actual gold production in the past. Your source breakdown is very interesting.

I wouldn't have though the regular taxes would account for 47% of the total revenue. On average what would you say was your tax rate %?

I'm also curious about your Sale of Improvements. This is a strategy that never occurred to me to follow. Did you primarily sale off the improvements from liberated cities or American cities as well? Where there only specific improvements you sold off or any kind would do?

All the same, you feedback prompts me to investigate the whole economic aspect of my scenario to see if further adjustments are required, including the removal of freight units.

The problem arose at the time the map was created and both North America and Asia were extended to the northern edge of the map. I am not aware of any easy way to fix this.

As usual your knowledge of the game mechanics is impressive. Unfortunately, I don't know how I could fix this or whether it's even worth the effort.
 
Hi all,

As promised, here is a preliminary list of possible changes I'm contemplating:

• Correct on map city spelling mistake for 'Pittsburgh'
• Correct readme city spelling mistake for 'Manila'
• Review Neutrals unit building options. Possibly remove artillery and tanks from Neutral allowable builds to make the power less aggressive when attacked by the Allies.
• Make tiles [35,51] and [36,52] deserts to prevent 'Mexican' invasion of Texas
• Review opening up routes for Suez [107,57] and Panama [46,68] Canals. Adding new sea mine unit to limit access to non-Allied powers.
• Remove German Fallschirmjäger paradrops flag when playing as the American player. This would prevent the German AI from capturing British Home Island cities.
• Make the building of Japanese naval units event driven to circumvent the 'Bermuda Triangle' bug. Create these event driven naval units in Japan's outer islands to increase the IJN aggressiveness in the Pacific.
• Increase the size of the Japanese reaction force when it's home islands are invaded
• Increase the number of Japanese army units redeployed to Japan after the 'Inner Defenses' event is triggered.
• Increase the number of Kamikaze units generated after the 'Inner Defenses' event is triggered.
• Review making bunker units as naval units to prevent the AI from moving them (this might require either having 2 bunker unit types or rethinking the placement of bunkers on land tiles).
• In the case of Japan, home these bunker units to the outer islands, making bypassing these islands more costly in terms of invading Japan proper
• Increase the number of objective cities in the Pacific and increasing the total number of American objectives required for a decisive victory, again with the goal of making bypassing the outer islands a less attractive strategy.
• Review American/British economic base. Possible options:
o Remove ability to build freight units (maybe keep at start Freight units)
o Reduce number of economic improvements in cities (but increase number of happiness buildings to offset negative unhappiness)
o Give American player access to Courthouse improvement
o Slightly increase productive capacity to offset loss of gold revenue (maybe add extra mining or oil refineries tiles)

• With the possible addition of a 'Sea mine' and 2nd 'Bunker' unit, I would have to review which current unit(s) would have to be displaced. Possible candidates to replace: Freight unit, TBF-1 Avenger.
Does anyone besides myself use the TBF?

Any feedback is welcome.
 
The other problem I might have is that not all my bunker units are placed in cities. There are some that are placed on land tiles to block Allied movement and I don't think you can place naval units on land. I might have to create 2 types of bunker units in that case, which means I would have to review my unit list.

If you place them "manually" from the start in the *.scn file, there should not be any problem (or if there is, just temporarily modify the rules to make the bunker land units, place them, save the scen and remodify the rules back to sea unit). :)

Now, if they are events created you might have a problem (for instance you can't create land units on sea via events), but I'm not sure: you would have to test it! ;)
 
Hi Cyrion,

Thanks for the placement tip. Indeed all the land bunkers are initially placed from the start in the .scn file.

Assuming converting the bunker units into naval units works, there are a few bunker units I previously tried to place through the event file when certain cities were captured by the Japanese that I can try to reinstate.
 
@TOOTALL

Q. Though I imagine having to redeploy your units from Europe to the Pacific must have been quite an enterprise.
A. No big deal. There were 6 Air Bases in European cities, so 6 ground units were airlifted to US monthly. Another 6 were freighted monthly by a conveyor belt of 4 Liberty Ships.


Q. I wouldn't have though the regular taxes would account for 47% of the total revenue. On average what would you say was your tax rate %?

A. It varied all over the place. In 1942 it was 0% and ~70% in 1943. In ’42 the US was beginning to rearm by converting, expanding and building new factories for war production, designing (researching) new vehicles and aircraft and starting to mass produce equipment for its rapidly expanding army, navy and army air force.

To pay for the huge cost of all this, the US government borrowed enormous sums from the population in the form of war bonds. In a scen, such borrowing is impossible and is replaced by payouts for freights. If you are thinking of getting rid of freights, please figure out some other way for governments to raise money, other than simply raising taxes and thereby killing research.


Q. I'm also curious about your Sale of Improvements. This is a strategy that never occurred to me to follow. Did you primarily sale off the improvements from liberated cities or American cities as well? Where there only specific improvements you sold off or any kind would do?

A. Only specific improvements that were no longer needed were sold.
For example, Anti-tank defenses after the Great Wall wonder was captured; Coastal defenses around the Atlantic and Mediterranean after the German naval threat was eliminated; Sewer systems and Aqueducts because there is little possibility of city growth in the scen; Universities and Libraries after the last critical tech, Heavy Armor, was discovered and I was not interested in the Atomic Bomb; and so on.


MISCELLANY:

You may want to thoroughly test out the idea of immobile naval Bunkers in port cities. Naval units attacked while in port are generally sitting ducks with greatly reduced D values.


Quote by Tootall: All the same, you feedback prompts me to investigate the whole economic aspect of my scenario to see if further adjustments are required, including the removal of freight units.

I would recommend that great care be taken in altering or removing a fundamental component of a very carefully balanced game that has withstood the test of time and the best efforts of countless very good players.


If you make ocean squares stackable, it may eliminate the Bermuda Triangle effect.


You can use events to create land units on ocean squares. Check the following post for how to create loaded freighters at sea.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=501646

To create a land unit, changeterrain an ocean square to land, create 2 land units on the square and then changeterrain the square back to ocean.
 
Hi Agricola,

You may want to thoroughly test out the idea of immobile naval Bunkers in port cities. Naval units attacked while in port are generally sitting ducks with greatly reduced D values.

I certainly will, though preliminary tests I did last night seemed encouraging.

I would recommend that great care be taken in altering or removing a fundamental component of a very carefully balanced game that has withstood the test of time and the best efforts of countless very good players.

Sage advice indeed. I've already been having second thoughts about tinkering with this aspect of my scenario. I've already spent a considerable amount of time fine tuning the trade routes and improvements (both economic and happiness ) of the cities to make certain the game is balanced. I'm not certain I would want to mess with this.

As you well know, my 'issue' with this aspect of the game stems from my own personal aversion to using gold to buy rather than build my units. In my own very humble opinion, I find it gives the human player an unfair advantage.

But as you indicated this remains a fundamental part of the game and a completely legal and acceptable tactic. As such, I need to accept that the trade system plays an important part in a strategic level game and that unit rush buying is one component of that system. In the end, the beauty of the Civilization game engine is that it allows each player to design their own winning strategies.

If you make ocean squares stackable, it may eliminate the Bermuda Triangle effect.

Making ocean squares stackable isn't an option that I'm willing to consider because ground units being transported on ocean tiles don't get killed when their Freighter unit is sunk. In my opinion, seeing stacks of ground units on ocean squares, ready to be picked up again by other freighters is completely unrealistic. Unless a developer, one day, comes up with a mod to resolve this glitch (we can all dream :lol:), my ocean tiles in my scenarios will remain unstackable.

Besides, as I've indicated, I believe generating the Japanese naval units through the event file will give me more control on its ability to contest the Pacific.

QUESTIONS:

Did Germany give a good account of itself? Is it hard or easy for the Allies to beat it? Does its defenses need to be increased?

Does anyone build Lend-Lease units and ship them to Russia to aid in its defense?
 
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=501646[/url]

To create a land unit, changeterrain an ocean square to land, create 2 land units on the square and then changeterrain the square back to ocean.

Yes, I kept that explanation for the case where it would be needed (translation: I was too lazy to explain that option, sorry... ;))
 
Naval units attacked while in port are generally sitting ducks with greatly reduced D values.

I may be able to answer that. In this situation (@PEARLHARBOR), the defending unit has its firepower reduced to 1, while the attacking unit's firepower is doubled. There are no changes to the defense factor of the defending unit.
 
Thank you for the explanation about ships caught in port. I had only empirical observations of ships having major promblems when caught in port by enemy units. It's good to have have an explanation of what actually happenc. Many thanks!:goodjob:
 
@TOOTALL

Q. I wouldn't have though the regular taxes would account for 47% of the total revenue. On average what would you say was your tax rate %?

A. It varied all over the place. In 1942 it was 0% and ~70% in 1943. In ’42 the US was beginning to rearm by converting, expanding and building new factories for war production, designing (researching) new vehicles and aircraft and starting to mass produce equipment for its rapidly expanding army, navy and army air force.

To pay for the huge cost of all this, the US government borrowed enormous sums from the population in the form of war bonds. In a scen, such borrowing is impossible and is replaced by payouts for freights. If you are thinking of getting rid of freights, please figure out some other way for governments to raise money, other than simply raising taxes and thereby killing research.


Q. I'm also curious about your Sale of Improvements. This is a strategy that never occurred to me to follow. Did you primarily sale off the improvements from liberated cities or American cities as well? Where there only specific improvements you sold off or any kind would do?

A. Only specific improvements that were no longer needed were sold.
For example, Anti-tank defenses after the Great Wall wonder was captured; Coastal defenses around the Atlantic and Mediterranean after the German naval threat was eliminated; Sewer systems and Aqueducts because there is little possibility of city growth in the scen; Universities and Libraries after the last critical tech, Heavy Armor, was discovered and I was not interested in the Atomic Bomb; and so on.


Quote by Tootall: All the same, you feedback prompts me to investigate the whole economic aspect of my scenario to see if further adjustments are required, including the removal of freight units.

I would recommend that great care be taken in altering or removing a fundamental component of a very carefully balanced game that has withstood the test of time and the best efforts of countless very good players.

I haven't played (or looked at) the scenario, so I'm not recommending changes (though anyone can feel free to use the ideas presented), but I would like to comment about wartime economics and the Civ 2 Engine.

Government borrowing is a way for the government to acquire a larger share of the nation's production. However, the Civ 2 engine gives the player (government) essentially complete control over the economy to begin with, so government borrowing has been abstracted away. This is similar to the fact that you don't actually have to transport supplies to your troops; it happens automatically.

The tax/science tradeoff is simply a tradeoff between research and increased production, and it is reasonable for the player to face this tradeoff.

The Civ 2 Engine allows very sudden changes from "civilian production" (Improvements, Engineers, Freight) to military production. This is reasonable in the standard game where turns represent several years, but it may not represent history very well in this case.

In a standard game, freight deliveries to foreign civs are exports, freight payouts are the payments for exports, and you can then think of rushbuying as using imported resources in production. You can also think of freight as "general economic activity."

This story doesn't make much sense in the context of WWII. However, moving resources around was an important part of WWII, and you may still want to represent this using freight. You can tell an alternate story that moving resources around increases productivity (producing some components locally is either expensive or impossible) and that the freight payouts represent this increased productivity. (This story is also valid in general.) In the WWII context, you want the receiving nation/place to get the payout, not the nation/place that sent the goods.

Essentially, the Civ 2 engine has 2 big problems for representing World War II. 1. The engine has a limited representation of logistics. 2. There is little or no need to consider tradeoffs between civilian production/consumption and military needs.

Following up on point 2, the reason a player would sell their buildings is because they have no negative consequences for leaving their nation in a bad state after the war. The massive sale of buildings makes sense for a nation in danger of being overrun, but not for the nation winning the war.

I suggest the following concept for a WWII scenario: Use food to represent civilian needs, and make the player tradeoff between food and shield production.

Instead of having most squares produce food and shields, use irrigation vs mining to represent civilian vs military industry. Starting with a lot of civilian (food) production, the player uses engineers to convert civilian factories to military factories, thereby reducing food production and increasing shield production. By giving most cities some food in storage, the player can run high military production for some time. Starvation can represent crumbling infrastructure, loss of civilian productivity, war weariness, or whatever, if civilian needs are neglected for too long.

Lend-Lease can be represented by giving the allied civs food deficits in their cities, requiring the delivery of food caravans to keep them alive.

You can take or leave these thoughts as you like.
 
May I suggest a couple of tweaks as well?

The US player may benefit from the addition of the Azores; an island with an airfield at say, 68,42. This would allow more trans-Atlantic options for US bombers.

The British player may benefit from a sub-saharan airbase at 91, 73. This would allow the transfer of fighters from Dakar, if captured, to Egypt. Both are historical aircraft staging bases. The Azores were also used as an anti-submarine airbase.

Thunder Bay was only created in the 1960s from the amalgamation of Port William and Fort Arthur.

One more spelling correction: Addis Abeba.
 
How hard would it be for me to modify this to play under MGE?
 
How hard would it be for me to modify this to play under MGE?

There is a mod that allows converting MGE scenarios to ToT, but the reverse is frankly impossible, as ToT allows more event space, more unit slots, more options to define units, a richer color palate, and, whether utilized or not, the transporter improvement and equivalent terrain improvements and option of up to four seperate maps, are all written into ToT code and can't be shed, at least not without making the scenario thereafter unplayable beyond repair by us mere mortals. Sorry about that. :(
 
@Serutan

AFAIK all new scens as well as updates use TOT for the reasons listed by Patine. Your best bet would be to check the CFC marketplace where new TOT disks are available for $10 plus shipping. Don't worry about the lack of a manual - it is available for downloading.
 
There is a mod that allows converting MGE scenarios to ToT, but the reverse is frankly impossible, as ToT allows more event space, more unit slots, more options to define units, a richer color palate, and, whether utilized or not, the transporter improvement and equivalent terrain improvements and option of up to four seperate maps, are all written into ToT code and can't be shed, at least not without making the scenario thereafter unplayable beyond repair by us mere mortals. Sorry about that. :(

Thanks. I thought that was probably the case, but figured it was worth asking.

@AGRICOLA - Thanks for the info.
 
Hi Prof. Garfield,

My apologies for the delayed response.

I haven't played (or looked at) the scenario, so I'm not recommending changes (though anyone can feel free to use the ideas presented), but I would like to comment about wartime economics and the Civ 2 Engine.

This is certainly one of the most eloquent dissertation I've read on the subject of Civilization. I find your solution very original and sophisticated in its simplicity. I guess, in a manner, it's a testament to the creative genius of the original designer of the franchise, Mr Meiers, that 20 plus years later, designers and fans of the series are still able to conceive fresh and innovative solutions to age old problems. In terms of my game, I've taken a different approach to represent the transition from a peacetime to a wartime economy.

The war significantly impacted the lives of most of the civilian populations of the belligerents and thus most nations experienced little or no growth during the period. Besides, since the game only covers a very short time span, a little over three and a half years, I felt that population growth should be substantially restrained. As such, most cities on the map were set up to produce little or no food surpluses, and therefore, your innovative solution doesn't easily translate into my game vision.

Besides, at this stage of the war all the major powers had or were already deeply committed to the process of ramping up their war making industries. As such, I had already restricted the access to civilian city improvements to the initial set up phase. Therefore players cannot, in most circumstances, build civilian improvements like aqueducts, sewers, banks, schools, etc.

Because I wanted the players, both human and AI, to concentrate their efforts on increasing their war making capability, I designed the scenario to allow them to only primarily build either, training improvements (military bases, naval bases, air force Base), production improvements (factories, ammunition plants) or military units.

Though not as polished as your concept, my approach, in the end, served my purposes. Nonetheless, thank you for your very interesting comments.
 
May I suggest a couple of tweaks as well?

The US player may benefit from the addition of the Azores; an island with an airfield at say, 68,42...

The British player may benefit from a sub-saharan airbase at 91, 73...

One more spelling correction: Addis Abeba.

Hi Techumseh,

These sound like very reasonable requests. I will add them to my list of changes.

After taking a break from my scenario, I hope to get back to making all the proposed adjustments in the very near future.
 
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