Challenge:Operation Barbarossa (GOTM November 2013)

hannurabi

Warlord
Joined
Aug 29, 2005
Messages
173
This is scenario I have wanted to create for so long as it has been possible to create scenarios to CivDOS. And here it finally is.:) The Eastern Front 1941 war scenario.

Although I'm still going to improve the quality of this scenario I want set up a small competition/challenge for all of those who enjoy big wars in civ. Winner of this competition is the player who manages to capture/destroy all USSR cities in shortest amount of turns.

Rules of combat:
  • No cheating is preferred. But if you must cheat please tell what cheats you used.
  • Not allowed to enter diplomacy screen with Stalin.

Some information about scenario.
  • Water units and diplomats are disabled in this scenario
  • If you see a battleship inside a fortress, it's a bunker (0A,12D,0M)
  • Cannon is renamed to gun. It represents artillery pieces, before you research robotics.
  • Railroads are cut in small pieces, to make logistics harder.Of course you can complete railroads with settlers if you want.
  • Research is quite difficult, but you will want to get Artilleries and Mech.Infantries asap.
  • Emperor level
  • Stalingrad has Cure of Cancer wonder, Moscow has J.S.Bach and Leningrad has Womens Suffrage. Wonders represents the psychological importance of those cities.

I still haven't playtested this scenario too much and I'm not even sure if it's possible to win...but let's see. Later I will also create scenario on Russian side of this war.
 

Attachments

  • CIVIL0.MAP
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  • CIVIL0.SVE
    37 KB · Views: 288
  • easternfront_256.png
    easternfront_256.png
    461.1 KB · Views: 463
Looks impressive, great job!

I'm wondering the Russian AI can keep Moscow and Leningrad at such high sizes without a problem...

Also, did you purposely leave an unvisited hut nearby Astrakhan?

I am also wondering why you chose to make from the German side first :)

Finally, if you used JCivED for creating this scenario, and if you see any obvious function that would have made it easier for you to work with, don't hesitate to let me know...
 
I'm wondering the Russian AI can keep Moscow and Leningrad at such high sizes without a problem...

Not sure it can keep cities on those sizes... First I though creating city sizes based on real historical data, but it was too much research for me... maybe later I'll do it.

There's certainly room for improvements to be done for this scenario. For example some cities are starving at the beginning and so on. Also there's still room for adding cities, but from my experience I'm guessing if AI has too many cities, it wastes all unit slots to build only defensive units.
I think number of buildings at start should be adjusted too.

Also, did you purposely leave an unvisited hut nearby Astrakhan?

Nope, that's a mistake. It's on my 'corrections' list now

I am also wondering why you chose to make from the German side first

Well it certainly isn't any ideological reasons...:lol: I just thought that the aggressor role could be more fun to play. Also, the russian scenario (I will call that the Great Patriotic war scenario) will be different: USSR will have less units at start and player has to move industries from west to safe into the eastern cities.

Finally, if you used JCivED for creating this scenario, and if you see any obvious function that would have made it easier for you to work with, don't hesitate to let me know...
I used both JCivED and TerraForm.
One thing comes to my mind now: I couldn't find the flag that determines how many lightbulbs is needed for the next research in JCivED. I had to use other tool to set that.
Also I'm not sure how the geopolitics databits affect the game. Cleverly used these might do well for this scenario.
Maybe you could write some tooltips for JCivED at least for the less obvious databits there is.
 
One thing comes to my mind now: I couldn't find the flag that determines how many lightbulbs is needed for the next research in JCivED. I had to use other tool to set that.

I am not sure what you are referring to... As far as I know, SVE only contains the ID of the currently research Advance by player, and also the number of accumulated lightbulbs so far for all Civs.
There are other values, such as the total number of techs for each Civ, the maximum total number of techs among all Civs, etc. but I am not sure which one of those controls how many lightbulbs needed for the next research.

Also, I had a quick look in TerraForm (v6.00 build 97) and could not find anything about Science anywhere. Where could you set this value?

Also I'm not sure how the geopolitics databits affect the game. Cleverly used these might do well for this scenario.
Maybe you could write some tooltips for JCivED at least for the less obvious databits there is.

You're right, and as a matter of fact I don't know myself how they affect the gameplay, really... A rough guess about "strategic locations" is that they represent places where an AI Civ is willing to build their next cities (I saw in the "BuildCity" routine that strategic locations are updated to remove the just yet build square from the list, if it was present). I'll know more after working on the AI in details.
 
It was probably this program:http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=2801 I used to adjust lightbulbs needed.

My guess is that it's total number of techs civ has.

Here is formula for the lighbulbs needed for next advance:
k1 = 10

k2 = 12

time_modifier = 1
if (Year > 0 AD)
time_modifier = 2

lightbulbs_needed = k1+ Number_of_techs * k2 * time_modifier
k2 is probably difficulty level modifier. I don't remember where I got the formula and how correct it is.
 
I took first real attempt to play this scenario seriously and found it's maybe way too easy. It's turn 5 and I have already marched into Moscow.
Screenshot tells everything:

I don't think there's anyway I could manage to lose this, even though russians still have many cities.

I noticed that AI fighters don't attack my bombers. They just go scouting nearby, even though they had chances to destroy my whole bomber fleet few times. Can someone confirm is this normal behaviour? I do remember AI fighters attacking bombers in the past, but I might remember wrong.

Oh well, I guess the scenario needs some more work, I want it to be more difficult.
 
I played this scenario once without any cheating. J was very cautious cause I did not know how strong were Russian forces - I remembered from history lessons that Russian forces has a lot of tanks, planes and soldiers but they were wrongly managed so they were destroyed in the first weeks of war or they were taken prisoner.
I easily taken Leningrad and Moscow. On the south I took Odessa and start to defend this city with no futher attacks on this side. I do not think it is possible to loose for me even though I did not captured Kiev and Stalingrad.

My impressions:
-Russians are too weak and do not have enough armors and bombers at the first stage of German attack according to the historical scenario.
-I was affraid that in the later turns Russians start to build a lot of armors and bombers and they counter attack me but it did not happen. That is why I built a lot of Rifflemen to defend captured cities. Russian attacks were very weak. According to history the russian defence should become harder and harder as the time goes by. In your scenario it looks like they only build some rifflemen or mech. infantry and very little armor or bombers. Maybe the cities far away from german cities should be larger so they could produce more offensive units not only defensive ones?
-The capturing of Leningrad and Moscow should be much more difficult. Capturing Leningrad which has Women Suffrage Wonder in fact gives so strong advantage that capturing Moscow goes jet very easy. If there was any chance to keep bunkers longer around biggest cities it would be really difficult to win. For now Russians get rid of money so fast that they loose their bunkers because of unability to finance them for a long time - it makes them really weak - all you have to do is to wait for this by capturing other cities.

In general I think you did a lot of good work. If you correct some issues It would be really challenging to win Operation Barbarossa.
 
Wow.. a WW2 scenario for Civ1, nice stuff @hannurabi ! So many out there probably have no idea that there was a Civ1 scenario making community, I sure as hell didn't until I first joined this forum a few years back lol! However it of course makes sense when there's excellent map & game editors out there like JCivED. I'm definitely gonna have to cover your work in my big HD Civ scenarios video series I'm working on!

I understand why you guys used CivDOS instead of CivWin (bad graphics & sound lol) however these days we have Honza's awesome DOS graphics CivWin mod and my Soundtrack Overhaul CivWin mod so I thought it would be fun to convert your excellent scenario to CivWin using the CivCracker map & game editor (which can convert save files from DOS to Win) and have attached the file to this post if others wish to play it. CivWin also supports custom save file names which makes scenario sharing and collection organising much easier!

Looks good, although funnily enough CivWin's original dark and moody graphics actually kinda suit this scenario lol.

Here's some screenshots comparing the two. Map is revealed just for the pictures to show how cool your work is but kept the window small (instead of an HD one) to avoid big spoilers.

Converted scenario with DOS graphics mod:


Converted scenario with original graphics:


Attachment removed at 28 hits and moved to downloads area here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/operation-barbarossa-scenario-civdos-civwin.29031/
 
Last edited:
Quick update!

As promised I've showcased your work in my big new Playing Civilization 1 in HD with Mods & Scenarios video tour here:


I've also included your scenario in my big scenario preservation project I'm working on!
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ1-scenario-mod-preservation-project-log.672488/

I've removed my download from the above post (counter was at 28 downloads) and I've now added it (along with your original DOS save files and a info text file crediting you) in a 7zip file to the CFC Civ1 downloads area along with Moddb & Internet Archive to ensure your work is never lost. Should you wish to make any updates or changes to the files just let me know. :)
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/operation-barbarossa-scenario-civdos-civwin.29031/

As you'll see I got the admins to create a new Civ1 scenario downloads area to put them in! I also saw people posting here a while back this old GOTM sub forum should probably be renamed to a scenario creation forum since there hadn't been monthly activities in a long time so I got them to partially rename this forum too. :)

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