Over the Reich - Prof. Garfield vs. JPetroski

[JPetroski]

Prof. Garfield and I will be playing another match of OTR. To help promote this (and assist you in learning this innovative scenario) we will occasionally post "let's plays" to youtube. We will share the links to these in this thread within spoilers. He and I have a gentleman's agreement not to peek at the other's progress so please don't spoil it for either of us.

We're probably going to be pretty limited in what we report to each other as one development Garfield implemented is a combat reporting system that can be used in lieu of detailed AARs. We hope this will speed up the game playing process.

I'm going to edit this first post from time to time with a list of any issues we find while playing.

We hope you enjoy! Garfield will post his turn when he has time.

CHANGES NECESSARY
-Liverpool does not have a corresponding aircraft factory unit on the high alt map.
-Figure out why 2 German Army groups vanished when ship was moved from city when Allies attacked on turn 8.
-Add description to readme and pedia regarding the port mechanism (see post #29 in this thread)
-Double check if Linz doesn't have correct high alt terrain
-Edit the readme to reflect the 190A8, Tempest, Typhoon changes to heavy gunfire
-Edit the readme to include 'p' as well as the view screen go to command

 

[techumseh]

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I ended up playing through the first turn a few times, since I forgot to put in the 'wait at end of turn' option. It wasn't a huge problem, since I was able to correct some audio issues anyway, but you should check to see if the scenario can be saved again with 'wait at end of turn' selected.

I figure replaying the first turn isn't a big deal, since the start of the game is presumably known. However, this raises an issue. Some units are relatively vulnerable on the first turn. There is a wolf pack north of Ireland that Sunderlands can reach, as well as some units in airfields that are not protected by flak.

EDIT: Spoiler Thread

 

[JPetroski]

but you should check to see if the scenario can be saved again with 'wait at end of turn' selected.

I think this is an end-user issue - all of my playtests against myself show this as being marked already.

However, this raises an issue. Some units are relatively vulnerable on the first turn. There is a wolf pack north of Ireland that Sunderlands can reach, as well as some units in airfields that are not protected by flak.

I've debated whether or not to randomize where the U-Boats deploy on the first turn rather than having them sit in the Atlantic and it's something we can consider.

As far as the airfields being undefended, that's true, but I don't think there are any airfields undefended that are close enough for the Allied player to attack on turn 1 without also leaving their fighters exposed to counterattack. We gave as good as we got, so I don't think it's an issue.

Here is the save as well as a minor events change. I forgot to switch the native transport of flak bursts back so they can move between both day maps. This is needed for the flak trains which are intended to attack low and high alt units.

I guess I'll start my own spoiler thread too rather than upload here. Not to clog the forums but in case anyone wants to comment on it. I just need to get the video uploaded first and since the first one was more than 15 minutes I had to verify the account and now wait for it to upload again.

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi John and Prof. Garfield,

I just wanted to let you know I had the opportunity to watch both your OTR first turn videos and wanted to express my deep admiration and awe on your project. The design, concept, plethora of implemented features, art work used is just above and beyond fantastic!

In particular, I know this has been your dream for a long time John, and I think you have finally delivered on the vision you were striving to achieve for all those many years. Great great job!

Truly remarkable effort on all involved!

Congratulations.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I think this is an end-user issue - all of my playtests against myself show this as being marked already.

Well, I always use wait at end of turn also, but I've had situations where I get saved games from others, and certain options that I usually use have been disabled. It doesn't really matter. Maybe I'll give the Allies a reminder as the last After Production message.

The Bomber destroyers (ME 110s?) don't seem to have the submarine flag. I thought we were giving all German aircraft the submarine flag (so they are invisible at night), and all daylight allied aircraft spot subs, so they can be seen during the day. Did we drop this due to wolf packs and photo recon being visible or something? Should I make an onActivate trigger to do this when units are on the night map?

 

[JPetroski]

The Bomber destroyers (ME 110s?) don't seem to have the submarine flag. I thought we were giving all German aircraft the submarine flag (so they are invisible at night), and all daylight allied aircraft spot subs, so they can be seen during the day. Did we drop this due to wolf packs and photo recon being visible or something? Should I make an onActivate trigger to do this when units are on the night map?

I think this might be a mistake. Let's talk it through.

Right now the rules are set up in such a way that the Ju88C has the sub flag but the G and He219 does not. Also, the G and He219 are showing as invisible until attack which would not make sense from a rules perspective when they are transferred via Wilde Sau to the day map. I did not check what the events are showing.

I suppose that ideally, all German fighters would have the sub flag but only at night. I'm not sure if that is possible. If it is, would it be easier just to remove the sub flag from all German units (and invisible until attack) in the rules and then apply the sub flag only at night after an Allied aircraft activates at night?

We probably don't want any aircraft to have the sub flag by day. The recon has the invisible until attack flag.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I think this might be a mistake. Let's talk it through.

Right now the rules are set up in such a way that the Ju88C has the sub flag but the G and He219 does not. Also, the G and He219 are showing as invisible until attack which would not make sense from a rules perspective when they are transferred via Wilde Sau to the day map. I did not check what the events are showing.

I suppose that ideally, all German fighters would have the sub flag but only at night. I'm not sure if that is possible. If it is, would it be easier just to remove the sub flag from all German units (and invisible until attack) in the rules and then apply the sub flag only at night after an Allied aircraft activates at night?

We probably don't want any aircraft to have the sub flag by day. The recon has the invisible until attack flag.

With invisible until attack units, McMonkey had some serious problems keeping track of the units after they were detected, as he mentioned in his spoiler thread. I also seem to remember that invisible until attack units can still be 'spotted' on the map by checking the status of each tile, which we probably don't want. Submarine abilities work nicely, since the unit is invisible unless you bump into it, but then it remains visible on the map.

So, what we want is for units on the night map to have submarine characteristics, and on the day map to be easily visible. However, the Germans can have unit types on both the night map and day map, meaning we can't easily make a distinction.

Option 1: Change unit attributes based on whether the Allied active unit is on day or night map. This can create problems if a unit is activated from the city menu, but that is probably not severe, since it only applies near airfields. I don't think that would be too hard to code (it isn't much different from the carrier code).

Option 2: Give Allied day units the see subs flag. That way, night units are invisible as usual, but day units can still be spotted. I thought that was what we did. This creates a potential problem with actual subs, and any other hard to spot units in the day. This is probably the easiest option to implement.

Option 3: Have separate unit types for day and night, and have Wilde Sau clone instead of teleport. I don't think we have that many spare unit slots, and other code would have to be re-written as well.

 

[JPetroski]

Here is a rules fix that goes with #2 - I just made subs invisible until attack - the Sunderlands have so many movement points that moving in a straight line might not be a bad way to handle this.

You might also simply code it so that only bombs and convoys can kill the U-Boats and then I can make them just have sub characteristics again. So Allied fighters can find them but only bombers can attack them. If you prefer that and can make the change before your turn just change the last 1 to a 0 in units advanced

00000100, 00001110,-1, 0000000000000000,0000000000000000,0000000000000000, 10010001 ;Wolf Pack

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Liverpool doesn't have an Aircraft Factory unit on the high altitude map.

 

[JPetroski]

Liverpool doesn't have an Aircraft Factory unit on the high altitude map.

I'll fix this for the next release. I don't think I'd ever get a bomber there to attack it so I'm not worried about it for our game. I'm going to add this to the bugs to fix thread.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Allies Turn 4

 

[JPetroski]

Hey I played through this turn but I need to change back the sub thing for the fighters. There's an unexpected side effect that is non-desirable - if an aircraft has the sub flag, it can't actually see aircraft when it bumps into them over land. So I know I can't move forward but I can't do anything else. We're going to need to use lua to give German fighters the sub flag when its the Allied turn but I'll be uploading a new rules shortly.

We also could have each player just play with a different rules (with the Allied one having the Germans have the sub flag and the German one without it) if we can't get it working in lua.

Edit - rules change uploaded. If we don't make other rules changes you could simply neglect to download this and we'd have the desired effect (where your game says the German fighters have the sub flag and mine doesn't). It might be worth just starting by doing this to double check for other unforeseen issues before you put the time in to build a lua solution.

I have left your nightfighters as having the sub flag but you might want to change that on your rules copy so you don't have the same issue I did.

Lua's great but it wouldn't be that hard to put a small batch file in and have two sets of rules, either.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I've added the code to give and take sub status from unit types at the start of each turn (and when loading the scenario). Not very difficult code. You should check the unit type lists to make sure I didn't miss anything/put anything in that shouldn't be.

I've included my rules.txt in the zip file, so that'll replace yours when you extract the zip.

I'll post my next turn soon. I won't update my GitHub repository until you confirm that the unit lists are correct.

-- these units should only have the sub flag during the allied turn
local subFlagDuringAlliedTurn={
unitAliases.Me109G6               ,
unitAliases.Me109G14           ,
unitAliases.Me109K4               ,
unitAliases.Fw190A5               ,
unitAliases.Fw190A8               ,
unitAliases.Fw190D9               ,
unitAliases.Ta152               ,
unitAliases.Me110               ,
unitAliases.Me410               ,
unitAliases.Ju88C               ,
unitAliases.Ju88G               ,
unitAliases.He219               ,
unitAliases.He162               ,
unitAliases.Me163               ,
unitAliases.Me262               ,
unitAliases.Ju87G               ,
unitAliases.Fw190F               ,
unitAliases.Do335               ,
unitAliases.Do217               ,
unitAliases.He277               ,
unitAliases.Arado234           ,
unitAliases.Go229               ,
unitAliases.EgonMayer           ,
unitAliases.He111               ,
unitAliases.HermannGraf           ,
unitAliases.JosefPriller       ,
unitAliases.AdolfGalland       ,
unitAliases.Ju188               ,
unitAliases.hwSchnaufer           ,
}

-- these units should only have the sub flag during the German turn
local subFlagDuringGermanTurn={
unitAliases.Beaufighter           ,
unitAliases.MosquitoII           ,
unitAliases.MosquitoXIII       ,
unitAliases.Stirling           ,
unitAliases.Halifax               ,
unitAliases.Lancaster           ,
unitAliases.Pathfinder           ,
}

-- need afterProduction and onScenarioLoaded
local function setSubFlag()
    if civ.getCurrentTribe() == tribeAliases.Germans then
        for __,unitType in pairs(subFlagDuringGermanTurn) do
            gen.giveSubmarine(unitType)
        end
        for __,unitType in pairs(subFlagDuringAlliedTurn) do
            gen.removeSubmarine(unitType)
        end
    elseif civ.getCurrentTribe() == tribeAliases.Allies then
        for __,unitType in pairs(subFlagDuringAlliedTurn) do
            gen.giveSubmarine(unitType)
        end
        for __,unitType in pairs(subFlagDuringGermanTurn) do
            gen.removeSubmarine(unitType)
        end
    end
end

the Sunderlands have so many movement points that moving in a straight line might not be a bad way to handle this.

You might also simply code it so that only bombs and convoys can kill the U-Boats and then I can make them just have sub characteristics again. So Allied fighters can find them but only bombers can attack them. If you prefer that and can make the change before your turn just change the last 1 to a 0 in units advanced

00000100, 00001110,-1, 0000000000000000,0000000000000000,0000000000000000, 10010001 ;Wolf Pack

Haven't done this. Not sure if it is the best idea. Even if bombs can kill U-Boats, Hurricanes can attack them also.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Maybe we don't want to give Ace status to bombs if the bomber is Ace. It makes targets much, much easier to destroy.

 

[JPetroski]

My turn 5 is attached.

Maybe we don't want to give Ace status to bombs if the bomber is Ace. It makes targets much, much easier to destroy.

I've shot down something like 40 of your bombers in 5 turns so I'm not sure how many aces you're going to have flying around at any one moment, especially when/if you start targeting some of the deeper locations. I think the easier attack is a good incentive for you to try to get them home. Let's leave it for now, but keep an eye on it.

Haven't done this. Not sure if it is the best idea. Even if bombs can kill U-Boats, Hurricanes can attack them also.

I'm fine with Hurricanes (or any low-level bomber) attacking U-Boats. Hurricanes especially as they're supposed to - they are the carrier bomber for the Allies.

I'll post my next turn soon. I won't update my GitHub repository until you confirm that the unit lists are correct.

I don't think the Ju188 should have the sub characteristics - it is the recon bird so it should definitely be invisible until attack, as should the Mossie PR.

As an aside, I would like to say that while we're only in about 5 turns, I feel that the combat reporting code you built is working very well for me at least, which is great as I don't have to keep a text file open to talk about what I've done, or worry that I'm not documenting enough. I think it would save just a ton of time off of pretty much all multi-player scenarios (how much time, after all, did you and Northerner spend reporting losses during the Anglo-Franco War in our last Imperialism match).

 

[Prof. Garfield]

JU188 removed from sub qualities list. MossiePR was never on the list.

EDIT: AA only munitions (guns, A2A rockets) already can't damage wolf packs, since wolf packs are considered strategic targets (and the AA invulnerable table is currently just a copy of the strategic targets list).

 

[JPetroski]

Those B-17s are a real pain in the butt to kill!

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Some planes on the night map were immediately visible to my bombers (and beaufighters). I presume this is because my bombers 'saw' them when they did not have the sub flag. I don't think this is a huge problem, since they'll usually only be visible like that after an engagement.

 

[JPetroski]

I guess we'll just roll with what we have for now - I agree it doesn't seem likely to be a huge problem.