Over the Reich - Creation Thread

[JPetroski]

Over the Reich – Design

I’d like to create this scenario publicly and will use this thread for updates and brainstorms. Questions and comments are always welcome. Here’s my general plan so far:

1. Over the Reich will be a multiplayer scenario for Test of Time. Though it will have four civs that must be played, it is advised that this scenario be played by only two players (players three and four would be very bored).

2. The scenario will loosely depict the 8th Air Force’s bombing of Germany from 1943 to 1945. Token RAF day fighters will be available, but Bomber Command will be abstractly represented.

3. This scenario will take place on two maps: low altitude, and high altitude. Though the Allies may raid Germany from either altitude, certain objectives can only be destroyed from one or the other (most strategic targets must be attacked from high altitude, whereas targets of opportunity can be found on the ground).

4. The four (mandatory) playable civs are: England, the 8th Air Force, Germany, and the Luftwaffe. A fifth, non-playable civ is essentially a utility civ used to create some rubble and help with events.

5. The most basic element of this scenario is the struggle for air superiority between the Luftwaffe and the 8th Air Force. Each needs to have a way to gain this, and I plan to accomplish this by uniquely tailoring each nation’s economy and purpose.

6. The purpose of England is to provide the 8th AF with trade routes, and to abstractly represent Bomber Command. This will be done via research. For example, England can choose to research “Attack Dresden.” Once they research it, a message will pop up and some terrain around Dresden will change to rubble, thus destroying its useful qualities.

7. The purpose of the 8th AF is to provide England with trade routes, and to conduct the daylight bombing campaign of Germany. The 8th AF decides what new planes to acquire via research, and also produces its own units, a healthy amount of which (but not all) are free from support costs.

8. In Germanicus on the Rhine, I used a unit called “Massacre” to represent certain units being killed to increase public anger. I will use a similar technique in this scenario, but instead it will be “Bomber Losses,” and the primary goal will be to soak up support costs so that further bombers can not be built as easily. There will be a 1/12 chance that each 8th AF city (they only have 12 cities) will receive one of these units every time an 8th AF bomber goes down. Thus, the Luftwaffe’s primary goal is destroying as many bombers as possible.

9. In short, the Allied economy primarily revolves around production (with some trade for Bomber Command).

10. The purpose of Germany is to provide the Luftwaffe with trade routes, and to “mass-produce” aircraft for the Luftwaffe. This is done via technology. When Germany researches certain technology (“Large 190 shipment”), the Luftwaffe receives a set amount of those units.

11. Germany produces expensive trains (freight) which are sent to Luftwaffe bases, giving new science beakers.

12. Therefore, the Allies’ goal is to break up the possibility for reinforcement. This is done by attacking key railroad centers (which changes terrain, wiping out the roads), or attacking key cities (which changes terrain, wiping out production). If enough bomber raids are successful, the Luftwaffe’s reinforcements can quickly dry up.

13. Not all Allied raids will be successful – even if they do “destroy” the target (which always reappears in the same spot instantly, by the way). Because of the inaccuracy of WW2 bombing, there will be a random chance that, for example, a railroad yard is successfully bombed to the point where the terrain wipes out the railroads near it. Therefore, it will be important that MANY bombers are sent for each raid to guarantee the results you want (I’m currently thinking 1/8 chance, so if it took all 8 tries, you still wouldn’t need to stack units, but this will take some playtesting).

14. D-Day will be represented via flags. After certain conditions are met, the Allies (English) will land in France. I’m planning on only having one generic unit to represent their entire army (and the same for Germany). When D-Day occurs, the allies will also get radio (renamed) so they can create new airfields in France for the 8th AF to operate from. They cannot cross into Germany, however.

15. Victory will be determined via some sort of points system rather than traditional means.

I have some other ideas, but for now, this should give a pretty good indication of where I’m headed with the scenario. Any ideas, comments, or concerns would be greatly appreciated.

 

[McMonkey]

Amazing concept. I really hope you pull it off. After playtesting Germanicus with its pollution/stability aspect I'm certain you can pull it off. BTW I will get back to you with a report on Germanicus but this week has been very hectic and I have not got very far into the playtest yet.

 

[Ingvar VII]

If you need another playtester for Germanicus I could give it a go.
I´m certainly not a pro like McM, but more feedback cannot hurt.

 

[JPetroski]

PM sent, Ingvar

Thanks McMonkey... This scenario has been gnawing at my head for the better part of a decade... It's one of those ones I really want to play, so I don't have much choice but to pull it off

 

[McMonkey]

I´m certainly not a pro like McM, but more feedback cannot hurt.

Thanks for the compliment Ingvar, but I'm certainly not a pro, especially when it comes to play testing as I am not the the sort of player who will ace a scenario like, for example, Agricola. All I do is give it my best shot and keep a record of what I did and list any abnormalities that need fixing. I guess this is useful as it gives the designer an insight into how an average player gets on, is the scenario too hard/easy and so on. I'm sure you are more than qualified to be a playtester!

 

[techumseh]

John, it sounds fairly brilliant!

Ever since Nemo abandoned his Battle of Britain scenario because of an uncooperative AI, I've thought from time to time about how an air campaign scenario might work. In the end, like you, I've concluded that multi-player is the best way to go.

Since air units in Civ2 are only tactical, ie: they can only attack other units, not factories or other city improvements, simulating strategic bombing is a real design challenge. I like your idea of dual civs, with one producing trade units, though I don't yet have a clear idea how it will work in practice.

A concept I was working with involves the use of a number of specific "factory" units; stationary and undisbandable. They could represent different targets, eg. ball bearing plants, the Rohr Dams, oil refineries, etc. When a particular unit is killed, then events gives the Germans a tech which renders one of their wonders obsolete. After a fixed number of turns, or after the researching of a specific technology, an event replaces the factory unit and a "taketechnology" event removes the obsoleting tech, thus restoring the effects of the wonder.

Financial wonders (Colossus, Adam Smith) production wonders (Richard's Crusade, Hoover Dam), and science wonders (Copernicus, Newton and SETI) are well suited to be USAAF targets since they hit specific ecomomic targets. Happiness wonders (Oracle, Hanging Gardens, Michelangelo's, Bach's and Cure for Cancer) are more suited to Bomber Command, since they targeted entire cities, including civilan populations.

Old board wargames on the theme, like Avalon Hill's "Luftwaffe", used monthly phases, each consisting of a fixed number of hourly turns. In effect, one day represented the entire month. Each month, the Allied player had to launch a number of simultaneous missions, since several successful missions per month were needed to secure victory. Each aircraft type had a fixed number of turns it could spend in the air, before returning to base (exception: the Me 163 Komet, a rocket-powered interceptor that had to return to base in the same turn it took off and attacked).

There are lots of great tech races to be had in this scenario. The progression of escorts is obvious: P-38 Lightning, P-48 Thunderbolt, P-51 Mustang, similarly for the German interceptors: Me-109, FW-190, and the Me-163 rocket and the Me-263 jet. If you wanted to get into the night bombing of the RAF, there's lots of juicy arms races to be had. Ditto for radar and radar-jamming techs.

Have you considered how bombers will attack cities in a multi-level scenario? This is a problem, given the mechanics of ToT multi-level games. You can have bombers descend to ground level to attack a city, but how do they regain altitude before ending their turn? Alternatively, you could have the cities represented on both levels at the same time, though I'm not sure how this would work, either.

I think this is a fascinating subject, and I'm happy to assist in any way I can. Best of luck!

 

[JPetroski]

Hi Techumseh

Since air units in Civ2 are only tactical, ie: they can only attack other units, not factories or other city improvements, simulating strategic bombing is a real design challenge. I like your idea of dual civs, with one producing trade units, though I don't yet have a clear idea how it will work in practice.

Basically – and I might have my bubble burst soon – I'm hoping to use a received tech/ take tech events sequence... I understand that give and take cannot be in the same event sequence, but it is unclear whether receive and take can or cannot be. I was thinking something along these lines:

@IF
ReceivedTechnology
receiver=Germany
technology=”Me109 quota” (or what have you)
@AND
Delay
delay=1
@THEN
CreateUnit
owner=Luftwaffe
unit=Me109G
Count=8 (or whatever)
veteran=no
homecity=whatever
locations...
endlocations …
TakeTechnology
whom=Germany
technology=”Me109 quota”
@ENDIF

Now, if something along those lines works... Then I'm in business. I can devote several techs to “production orders” like this, and have them infinitely repeatable.

If this won't work I will have to either figure out a way to do something similar via flags, OR just use up more advance slots. The latter would limit the amount of reinforcement though (a good balance could probably still be found).

So, essentially, scientific achievement for the German civ represents industrial production by them. The science rate will be set as such that trains (trade units) are necessary to get advances quickly. This opens up many targets for the allies, as they can attack RR centers (a special unit) to destroy many sectors of track, requiring it to be fixed, OR, they can just attack the trains themselves.

Further, there are several techs which reduce the trade payout of caravans (and freight too I assume?). I think railroad, flight, and navigation are a few of them (some stack, others don't). So I was thinking, when the Allies bomb, say, a major ball bearing plant (such as Schweinfurt), the German civ could get “flight,” thus reducing their trade (industrial production).

A concept I was working with involves the use of a number of specific "factory" units; stationary and undisbandable. They could represent different targets, eg. ball bearing plants, the Rohr Dams, oil refineries, etc. When a particular unit is killed, then events gives the Germans a tech which renders one of their wonders obsolete. After a fixed number of turns, or after the researching of a specific technology, an event replaces the factory unit and a "taketechnology" event removes the obsoleting tech, thus restoring the effects of the wonder.

Financial wonders (Colossus, Adam Smith) production wonders (Richard's Crusade, Hoover Dam), and science wonders (Copernicus, Newton and SETI) are well suited to be USAAF targets since they hit specific ecomomic targets. Happiness wonders (Oracle, Hanging Gardens, Michelangelo's, Bach's and Cure for Cancer) are more suited to Bomber Command, since they targeted entire cities, including civilan populations.

These are good ideas that could also be incorporated. I was considering the use of flags to possibly take away some happy wonders from the Germany civ (thus making their production even higher). Say, if a % of Germany's cities had been attacked by the RAF firebombers (abstractly – ie, England researches attacks on a certain number of cities), then the wonder is made obsolete by a tech.

Old board wargames on the theme, like Avalon Hill's "Luftwaffe", used monthly phases, each consisting of a fixed number of hourly turns. In effect, one day represented the entire month. Each month, the Allied player had to launch a number of simultaneous missions, since several successful missions per month were needed to secure victory. Each aircraft type had a fixed number of turns it could spend in the air, before returning to base (exception: the Me 163 Komet, a rocket-powered interceptor that had to return to base in the same turn it took off and attacked).

That's interesting because I will represent speed in this scenario (as in jet speed) by the ability to attack several times in a turn, and to have to land that turn. I'm not entirely sure how the progression of time will go, however. I'll probably just go with “Turn 1, 2, 3...” Civ2 just doesn't offer a great solution.

There are lots of great tech races to be had in this scenario. The progression of escorts is obvious: P-38 Lightning, P-48 Thunderbolt, P-51 Mustang, similarly for the German interceptors: Me-109, FW-190, and the Me-163 rocket and the Me-263 jet. If you wanted to get into the night bombing of the RAF, there's lots of juicy arms races to be had. Ditto for radar and radar-jamming techs.

I very much want to do the night bombing directly, but it would be so minimalist that I think representing it abstractly is probably better. I had originally thought that perhaps things like “window” could be represented by having the German player and the British player each use different rules/units. The German player would see “window” as a Lancaster (named that as well) while the British player would see it as chafe.

Unfortunately there are just not enough unit spaces to do justice for the night campaign. Well, at least not without a major revision. I do think I will stop work on the map this week and try to figure out whether or not I could pull that off.

Have you considered how bombers will attack cities in a multi-level scenario? This is a problem, given the mechanics of ToT multi-level games. You can have bombers decend to ground level to attack a city, but how do they regain altitude before ending their turn? Alternatively, you could have the cities represented on both levels at the same time, though I'm not sure how this would work, either.

Cities are going to be high-altitude targets. Essentially, you have a terrain called “city” or “urban” that is on the lower level map and looks like a built up city (can't use railroad for this, so I'm using forest).

Above the city center, on the high alt map, is a target unit (that will probably look like a target). If THAT unit is killed, not only does it instantly reappear, but there is a random chance that city squares on the lower map will change terrain to “rubble” (and that other problems like wonders going obsolete will happen).

If a unit decides to attack a city at low level, it will probably be chewed up by anti aircraft, first of all, and secondly it won't reap the rewards of a high alt attack.

Is it completely accurate? No. But it's the best I can think of.

Phew.... Well, looks like I need to hit the excel sheet and see whether or not I need to restart work on the map

 

[JPetroski]

Well, I dug out the booklet and have been studying events sequencing (when you take forever in between scenarios, you have to reinvent the wheel each time), and unfortunately it appears that I will not be able to randomize whether or not the terrain changes when an Allied bomber attacks a target.

That's a pity, but it does open up more of a tech race. I believe that via flags I can check and see if the Allies have developed more accurate bombing measures, and destroy more of the city if they have.

I guess it also means that the targets have now received a stats boost to make them more difficult to kill

 

[civ2units]

This scenario sounds very interesting because it completly changes the gameplay of civ2. I hope you can realize your project like you have it in mind. Unfortunatelly Civ2 is in some points very limited.

I would play with the Luftwaffe and kicking away all these filthy yankee bombers who destroyed all of our nice looking cities.

Are there any chance to get the V1 or V2 rocket? Would the Luftwaffe also be able to make raids in Britain or only defending Germany?

 

[JPetroski]

This scenario sounds very interesting because it completly changes the gameplay of civ2. I hope you can realize your project like you have it in mind. Unfortunatelly Civ2 is in some points very limited.

I would play with the Luftwaffe and kicking away all these filthy yankee bombers who destroyed all of our nice looking cities.

Are there any chance to get the V1 or V2 rocket? Would the Luftwaffe also be able to make raids in Britain or only defending Germany?

Hi Civ2units,

Well, right now I'm making some tough choices on units to see if I can include bomber command a bit more than abstractly, so I can't really promise what units will or will not make it into the scenario.

I will say I don't see the point of having both the V1 and V2, and would probably pick one or the other (and in all likelihood, the V2).

To answer your question about Luftwaffe retaliation, it really depends on how many units are available. There is certainly no chance of massive large scale city bombing occurring, as each city target would require a unit of its own, and I can't spare the slots. I may just make a generic "urban" unit for the English, and give points when they are attacked.

I hope to have a better idea regarding the unit list in a few days.

 

[techumseh]

Well, I dug out the booklet and have been studying events sequencing (when you take forever in between scenarios, you have to reinvent the wheel each time), and unfortunately it appears that I will not be able to randomize whether or not the terrain changes when an Allied bomber attacks a target.

I'm not sure why. What are the factors that the event has to take into consideration?

 

[techumseh]

I would play with the Luftwaffe and kicking away all these filthy yankee bombers who destroyed all of our nice looking cities.

Actually it was the British bombers that destroyed all your nice looking cities. The yankee bombers destroyed your unattractive factories.

 

[Fairline]

Ah, we'd occasionally hit a factory or two when flattening a major industrial centre like, er, Dresden...

John, any possibility of having both US day and British night bombing? it could be quite something with automatic terrain changing between day and night turns (featureless, near black night terrain and cities with black text for names to add to the confusion etc). Mercator made an auto file swapping tool thingy which I may have somewhere, as it would obviously be too much of a pain to keep having to batch-file terrain changes every turn. Just a thought...

 

[civ2units]

@JPetroski:

Using the Luftwaffe only for defending the German Empire would be also a challenge. I´m not sure but I still remember that this stupid megalomaniac Austrian Monster (he is also known as Hitler) founded in 1943 the Fortress Europe. Unfortunatelly this fortress didn´t have a roof.

However, it could be a real challenge for the Luftwaffe player to defend this fortress without a roof. In this case V2 rockets doesn´t make sense.

@Techumseh:

I always thought that the yankees starts bombing civilian areas in german cities. I should read a book about the bombardements of german cities by the US and Royal Airforce.

I can understand the Brits, before they starts bombing Germany the Luftwaffe made many raids on Great Britain and destroyed parts of London, Liverpool, etc...

Unfortunatelly many innocent civilians died on both sides.

@Fairline:

Dresden was one of the most beautiful cities before the short visit of the RAF.
Only a few hours later the city looked like a lunar landscape

 

[Fairline]

To be fair to the Americans Sebastian, initially they made every effort to avoid indiscriminant civilian casualties by bombing in daytime and using Norden bombsights to ensure they hit the target. It was the Brits who flattened cities with area bombing. Yes they got the target, but they wilfully destroyed the city surrounding it as well. I guess its easy now to see this as the breach of the Geneva Conventions it certainly was, but as you said, there was a stong feeling that Hitler was reaping the whirlwind he sowed over Coventry, London, Bristol etc in 40-41.

 

[JPetroski]

@Techumseh - I was under the (false?) assumption that "random turn" could fall after @AND, but apparently it needs to only come after @IF... So

@IF
unit killed
@AND
@RandomTurn

wouldn't (according to the book at least) work. I suppose it's worth giving it a shot just to see if the book is wrong, but I don't have high hopes.

@Fairline - All I can say now is that given that it seems as though half the remaining Civ2 population is British, I will try to incorporate bomber command directly.

I'm thinking of using a slightly different approach than you suggested, however. I'd like to go with three maps:

A - Low level (Day)
B - High Level (Day)
C - High Level (Night)

I would probably just put Bomber Command and the night Luftwaffe's bases directly on the high level map to prevent them from ever attacking during daylight. Round-the-clock bombing would be shown like this:

Say you're attacking Berlin. The "Target: Berlin" unit would be "alive" on two maps: Map B, and C. If it is killed on map B, then industrial squares on map A would change to rubble. If it is killed on map C, then urban squares on map A would change to rubble (or perhaps firestorm).

I think that would work better than having people change files every turn (plus it avoids the problem of B-17s attacking at night).

Also, having "two" Berlin cities (as opposed to units) creates a major problem. Sure, I could easily replicate damage for both maps from attacks, but how do you replicate repairs by engineers? You can't.

@Civ2Units - I'm not sure I'm following you regarding the V2s... If Bomber Command winds up in this scenario, there probably won't be room for them though.

 

[McMonkey]

War is hell!

 

[Ingvar VII]

Using aerial units is so much fun! It's my favourite part of Nemo's D-Day scenario.

 

[techumseh]

JP, I have used 'randomturn' in conjunction with lots of other triggers: 'receivedtechnology', 'citytaken', 'checkflag', etc. I have no doubt that it will work with 'unitkilled' as well.

 

[JPetroski]

JP, I have used 'randomturn' in conjunction with lots of other triggers: 'receivedtechnology', 'citytaken', 'checkflag', etc. I have no doubt that it will work with 'unitkilled' as well.

You know what? You're absolutely right. I completely misread the manual. Phew, well, then that makes bombing interesting again

----

On another note... While trying to figure out how to squeeze in Bomber Command, I've determined that I need to reduce the cities Germany will control (they originally were to have some 23ish, each with its own target unit). I now have the following tentative list:


1. Berlin
2. Hamburg
3. Dresden
4. Leuna (a major synthetic oil production city)
5. Schweinfurt (a major ball bearing production city)
6. Cologne
7. Essen
8. Dusseldorf
9. Bremen
10. Hannover
11. Munich
12. Nuremburg
13. Stuttgart
14. Leipzig

Those in bold are definitely in the scenario. The others are going to be in the scenario unless someone can give me a compelling reason why an unmentioned city should be instead.

Cities not listed will be represented only by terrain that looks like a city.

Although I originally gave Germany a few occupied cities (Brest, Paris, Le Havre, Cherbourg, Amsterdam and Rotterdam), I'm now going to go with a different direction for these. I plan on representing their areas via terrain, having one unit for the lot of them, and that unit representing supplies that have been seized by Germany from these countries. They will be on trucks or trains, created at some interval, and the Allies will have the chance to destroy them before they can be brought to German cities and disbanded (as they will have a high cost) to help fuel the economy.

As of now, there are to be four major "Economy" units for the Germans:

1. Barge (to be disbanded)
2. Train (a freight trade unit)
3. Truck (all as road, to be disbanded)
4. Laborers (to make repairs to infrastructure).

I'm still considering the unit list, but I think these 18 are pretty close to set in stone.