Over the Reich - Creation Thread

[Civinator]

Wow, this is a very ambitious project! Good luck JPetroski.

This scenario remembers me to the old C-64 game USAAF (and the in my eyes not so good later game "Over the Reich").



May be some of the ideas of that game could be helpful here, too. For example that game used Allied fighter cover zones, where Allied bombers couldn´t be attacked any longer. Luftwaffe aircraft may not enter a fighter cover zone and bomber raids will be more difficult to detect while flying through these zones. The manual also holds a nice OOB for U.S.A.A.F. and Germany of those days. The targets set in this game could be helpful, too. Even the campaign about aviation gas could be an interesting approach for that scenario.

 

[JPetroski]

Hi Civinator,

I never had a commodore, so "Over the Reich" wasn't spoiled by USAAF for me.

I don't want to force a player's hand arbitrarily by having certain areas "off limits." Instead, I want players to be able to develop their own strategies and play the game different ways.

Aviation fuel will most likely be represented by giving the Luftwaffe the settler function.

Thanks for your interest!

 

[Civinator]

Aviation fuel will most likely be represented by giving the Luftwaffe the settler function.

Sorry, my knowledge about modding Civ 2 rules has mostly dissapeared, as this was all very long ago. Can you please tell me, how to use the settler function for simulating aviaton gas?

 

[JPetroski]

Well, I'd basically just do as Nemo did for Second Front.

You give an airplane the settler function, thus causing it to "eat."

You rename "Food" "Fuel."

You change some type of terrain to "fuel dump."

You let the Allies try and blow it up (change the terrain).

Then you take away either aqueduct or sewers from the Luftwaffe, and replace the annoying "this city needs an aqueduct to grow" message into, "Our fuel stores are at full capacity!"

You replace "city cannot support settler, it is disbanded" with "We don't have enough fuel for these aircraft" and you're good to go!

The biggest issue will be integrating this into the economy and figuring out a way to have Germany still "produce" units for the Luftwaffe, without the units immediately being disbanded (they would have to have one home city for events, and the player would need to change this quickly to avoid a fuel shortage.

It's also possible to rename farmland fueldump, and randomly take away the supermarket advance from a random city each time a successful air raid is launched on a synthetic fuel plant.

I'm not sure which way I'll go, or if I will use a combination.

 

[civ2units]

I´m really looking forward to this scenario.

I´ve posted on the Ancient / Pre-Steam units thread a map which I tried to use for a WWI scenario. It included nearly all of the German Empire from it´s borders of 1937 and also parts of France and Great Britain.

Maybe the map can be usefull for you. Unfortunatelly I don´t know who draw this map.

 

[Civinator]

Well, I'd basically just do as Nemo did for Second Front.
You give an airplane the settler function, thus causing it to "eat."
You rename "Food" "Fuel."
You change some type of terrain to "fuel dump."
You let the Allies try and blow it up (change the terrain).
Then you take away either aqueduct or sewers from the Luftwaffe, and replace the annoying "this city needs an aqueduct to grow" message into, "Our fuel stores are at full capacity!"
You replace "city cannot support settler, it is disbanded" with "We don't have enough fuel for these aircraft" and you're good to go!

The biggest issue will be integrating this into the economy and figuring out a way to have Germany still "produce" units for the Luftwaffe, without the units immediately being disbanded (they would have to have one home city for events, and the player would need to change this quickly to avoid a fuel shortage.

It's also possible to rename farmland fueldump, and randomly take away the supermarket advance from a random city each time a successful air raid is launched on a synthetic fuel plant.

I'm not sure which way I'll go, or if I will use a combination.

Thank you very much for the explanation. This all motivates to do something for Civ 2.

 

[JPetroski]

I’ve done some work on the unit list. One spot is unfilled (reserved for an Allied trade unit should it prove necessary).

I’ve managed to incorporate Bomber Command, and figure the scenario will start somewhere in early 1942 (so the major Bomber Command attacks of that year can occur).

The German Cities
1. Berlin
2. Hamburg
3. Dresden
4. Cologne
5. Essen
6. Düsseldorf
7. Duisburg
8. Bremen
9. Hanover
10. Munich
11. Nuremburg
12. Leipzig
13. Kiel
14. Lübeck
15. Munster
16. Rostock
17. Osnabrück
18. Stuttgart

Economy Units
19. Barge (to be disbanded for shield boost)
20. Train (to be used as trade unit)
21. Truck (to be disbanded for shield boost)
22. TENO Battalion (settler, for repairing infrastructure) stands for “Techniche Nothilfe”

Defenses
23. Flak burst (high level day)
24. AA battery (low level defense) Allies get this too
25. Freya Radar Wave
26. Wurzburg Radar Wave
27. German Army
28. Flak burst (high level night)

Allied Other
29. Beachead (for events)
30. Allied Army

Events
31. Cloud front (will depend on how AI uses this)
32. Bomber Losses

Lufwaffe (night)
33. Me110 (Schräge Musik)
34. Fw190 Wilde Sau
35. Ju88 Zähme Sau
36. Ju88 w/ SN-2 Radar
37. He219

Luftwaffe (day)
38. Me109G
39. Fw190A
40. Me109K
41. Fw190D
42. Me163
43. Me262
44. V2

USAAF
45. P-38
46. P-47D11 (short range fighter)
47. P-47D40 (medium range fighter bomber)
48. P-51B
49. P-51D
50. A-20
51. B-26
52. B-17
53. B-24

RAF
54. Spitfire (day)
55. Typhoon (day)
56. Tempest (day)
57. Beaufighter (night)
58. Mosquito (night)
59. Wellingtons (represents Manchesters and other early bombers too)
60. Halifax
61 Lancaster
62. PFF (pathfinder – longer range per turn to see if targets are clear of cloud cover, etc.)
63. Window (looks like chafe to Brits, like a bomber to Germans).

Targets
64. Peenemünde (V2)
65. Obertraubling (Me262)
66. I.G. Farben at Leuna (oil)
67. Scholven (oil)
68. Zeits (oil)
69. Böhlen (oil)
70. Magdeburg (oil)
71. Lyutzkendorf (oil)
72. Brux (oil)
73. Ruhr Rail System 1
74. Ruhr Rail System 2
75. Schweinfurt (ball bearings)
76. Steel Factory (Steel)
77. Berlin Rail System
78. Hamburg Rail System
79. British City
80. RESERVED – possibly an Allied trade unit

 

[techumseh]

It's also possible to rename farmland fueldump, and randomly take away the supermarket advance from a random city each time a successful air raid is launched on a synthetic fuel plant.

Won't work, I'm afraid. You can't take an "advance" from a city, and there is no "TakeImprovement" event.

Check out the Advanced ToT tech slots tip on the Cradle site:http://sleague.civfanatics.com/COC/guides/index.shtml

Here's the listing for refrigeration:

(70 Rfg) Refrigeration Allows settlers and engineers to double-irrigate lands.

All city squares are automatically upgraded to farmland (double-irrigation) when Refrigeration is discovered.

The benefits of double-irrigation, 50% food production bonus, will only be realized once the city has built the Supermarket improvement. Interestingly, the Refrigeration advance is not needed for this to take effect.

 

[JPetroski]

Whoops, you're right. So much to forget over a decade, eh?

You're right - I guess it's either take refrigeration or have the seperate oil facilities correspond to a fuel dump terrain for a certain number of airfields. Probably best to do the latter, considering how many oil targets there are.

Won't work, I'm afraid. You can't take an "advance" from a city, and there is no "TakeImprovement" event.

Check out the Advanced ToT tech slots tip on the Cradle site:http://sleague.civfanatics.com/COC/guides/index.shtml

Here's the listing for refrigeration:

(70 Rfg) Refrigeration Allows settlers and engineers to double-irrigate lands.

All city squares are automatically upgraded to farmland (double-irrigation) when Refrigeration is discovered.

The benefits of double-irrigation, 50% food production bonus, will only be realized once the city has built the Supermarket improvement. Interestingly, the Refrigeration advance is not needed for this to take effect.

 

[JPetroski]

I have a question for those of you familiar with multiple maps...

I have three maps in mind so far:

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

I want to allow daylight aircraft from both sides to move with native transport between maps A and B. This is simple enough.

I want nighttime aircraft to be restricted to map C. Also simple enough.

Where it gets a bit complex for me (and I don't know if it'll work), is I'd like to use a fourth map, Map D, to represent American factories. I want to allow the player to produce units there, and then move them to map A via a transport square, like in El Aurens.

My questions:

1. Has anyone tried having aircraft moved via a transport square?
2. Has anyone tried having a unit allowed to move between 3 maps, with one set being native transport only, and the other being specific square only?

If this can be done, this scenario just got a bit more interesting.

 

[techumseh]

My questions:

1. Has anyone tried having aircraft moved via a transport square?
2. Has anyone tried having a unit allowed to move between 3 maps, with one set being native transport only, and the other being specific square only?

If this can be done, this scenario just got a bit more interesting.

1. Yes. Try the sci-fi game to see it in action. There are some useful notes in the Rules Txt. file from the sci-fi game dealing with some of the specifics of ToT.

2. Yes. Check out this tip from the Cradle of Civ site: http://sleague.civfanatics.com/COC/guides/map_transport.shtml

 

[JPetroski]

Well, I've been working in excel to get the units and techs in order, and I've also done significant work to the three main maps (I'm still up in the air if there will be a 4th).

The major news, however, is that I have confirmed that I can reuse any tech I want, as many times as I want, to have Germany's "research" represent production quotas of certain aircraft. I could not get this to work with receivedtech/taketech in the same sequence, but I was able to accomplish it with flags:

@IF
ReceivedTechnology
receiver=Rhine Legions
technology=13
@THEN
FLAG
continuous
who=Rhine Legions
Mask=0b00000000000000000000000000000001
state=On
@ENDIF

@IF
Checkflag
Who=Rhine Legions
Mask=0b00000000000000000000000000000001
State=On
@THEN
TakeTechnology
whom=Rhine Legions
technology=13
@ENDIF

This does take one turn/tech cycle to take effect, so you will have to research-build, for example, 109s one cycle, 190s the next, but that's fine by me.

Perhaps someone has come up with this before, but I've missed it. At any rate, I'm glad to see that the major mechanism within the scenario will in fact work. This is incredibly encouraging news for me.

Back to work!

 

[willemvanoranje]

This may be a bit early, but for unit graphs I would recommend using pictures of model airplanes or the drawings on front of the box. Just google the airplane name and add 'revell', 'airfix' or a different brand name. Worked well with WW I airplanes for me.

 

[JPetroski]

I've made some progress in excel...

Spoiler :

I’ve continued work, mainly in a spreadsheet, and have made good progress. The tech tree (including events techs) is complete, as are the improvements and the majority of units (I have two spots saved for later, but these will almost certainly be stationary targets of some sort).

I’m going to try and completely restrict industrial improvements from every civ except the USAAF and RAF. They will now represent support for the bombing campaign. Tentative, (factory), Increased (Manufacturing Plant), and Full (Hydro Plant). Each airforce will gain access to these buildings by destroying a certain percentage of targets successfully (I’m thinking, 1/3, 1/5, 2/3, but this is subject to change).

This will ensure that only Allied success will allow for increased Allied units (which will be relatively cheap to build, but will of course take a shield away from each city). If the Lufwaffe can prevent these successes (and shoot down enough heavy bombers, thus giving the “bomber losses non-disbandable unit) to the Allies, then the Luftwaffe has a real chance to win.

On the flip side, only Germany will have access to science and market improvements, as these are necessary to propel their research-production that grants large deliveries of fighters to the Luftwaffe. It is going to be extremely important that cities are heavily targeted to reduce their arrow/beaker bearing rural and industrial tiles to rubble.

These will not all be in place at the beginning, as Germany’s production was pretty pathetic before Albert Speer started to whip it into shape. The German player will have to choose whether to invest in better production methods, or simply rush off aircraft at a reduced pace.

Further, Germany will control all happiness wonders, renamed things like:

Fortress Europe (obs. With D-Day)
Goebbles’ Propaganda (obs. With massive bombing successes)
Russian Front Secure (obs. After Allies advance in France)
Jagdflieger (obs. When majority of fuel factories successfully attacked)
Vengeance Weapons (can be built when V2 developed, but made obsolete when V2s unavailable)

I haven’t decided exactly what sort of government will go to each civ, but I’m leaning toward renaming Fundamentalism “air force,” lowering its normal free support bonus, and making all German aircraft “free support for fundamentalist.”

What Germany and England will be is largely in the air at this point. England likely Communism renamed “Nation,” just to get rid of the corruption problem. I might do the same for Germany, or they might be a republic with courthouses and such another element of Speer’s reforms.

Anyway, that’s the update for now…

 

[Ingvar VII]

One thought: Do you intend to make only a single player version with allies playable, or a single player version with both playable? Do you intend to make a PBEM version?

 

[JPetroski]

This will be designed for PBEM ONLY.

I'll do small single-player things like trying to prod certain civs towards certain techs and such, and I imagine it could be "fun" playing single player (Nemo's Blitz was for me at least), but I'm not going to make any promises or offer any support for problems encountered in a single player game.

This should be playable for 2-4 players now that the RAF and Nachtjagdflieger are more developed.

 

[JPetroski]

I think I'm done working on the maps. I'm pleased with how they came out and figure they will do the job nicely.

Low Alt Day:

Spoiler :

Terrain Notes:
Forest = Urban
Swamp = Industrial
This one looks sparse because many terrains are reserved for bombing-effects.

High Alt Day:

Spoiler :

(Hills and Mountains = flak)

High Alt Night:

Spoiler :

(Hills, Mountain, Forests flak, desert = city, plains = "search light" belts

In other news, progress on the rules progresses nicely. I hope to start actually building within the game this weekend.

 

[McMonkey]

The maps look excellent. No concerns at all there. I can't wait to play this head to head with someone or in teams!

 

[Ingvar VII]

Looks awesome. Can't wait to try this out!

 

[Fairline]

Looking good. Didn't the Schweinfurt raids end with the bombers landing in Italy, or am I thinking of the Ploesti raids? Will you have an airbase for the 8th AF to land on the south of the map?