Empire of the Rising Sun - ToTTP/LUA Remake Official Thread

[CurtSibling]

Still only one Brit Imperial troop, even though the UK ruled a quarter of the globe at this point? Also the USA is under represented.
But we get tribal rifles and other obscure soldiery? I think you are adding what looks cool, rather than the historical reality...

But, it is your scenario, and I am only an onlooker making a comment. So go for it.

 

[Fairline]

Some of the points I posted earlier still apply:

'The US army trooper has ETO uniform rather than green denims (I'd replace him with N13 in the US WW2 compilation I posted)'

The 'Russian' is the same US trooper pic

That's a really old Japanese Type 4 tank drawing. I've posted much more recent one in the WW2 Japanese unit compilation

The truck pic is ancient - from MGE days. I have posted a multitude of Japanese, British, Russian etc trucks. Take your pick.

No Ki-84, B5N, D4Y, G4M or Ki-51? But you have far less made / used aircraft like the Ki-100..

Not sure why you've extended the cockpit all the way back on the B10 bomber

Picking up on Curt's point, I'd cover the important vehicle and troop types first and have the remaining slots used for the obscure stuff

 

[Fairline]

Hopefully this will help a bit. Top row are all US Army in the Pacific, with the two dudes in khaki being very early War, and the green chappies being 1942 onwards. The next row has a choice of Soviets plus Dutch East Indies colonial uniform - they retained this uniform after the loss of the Netherlands to Germany and didn't adopt British uniforms unlike the exiled Dutch in the UK. Lastly a Netherlands E Indies B10.

 

[McMonkey]

Carefully considering the scope & objectives of a scenario is THE most important part of designing a scenario. Several times, I've made the mistake of picking a map or timeframe that was far too ambitious & the project became a nightmare, in terms of the work involved. For example, the overly ambitious timeframe for Aeterna Civitas III or the HUGE map for Yugoslav Partisans. Balkan Wars was a mess from the beginning & never really got completed satisfactorily.

Contrast that with what I'd consider 'my' two most successful scenarios: The Spanish Civil War & the Korean War Redux

Both had a clear geographical focus, clear objectives & an easily identifiable timeframe. Having these well-considered parameters in place before starting development made a huge difference. I knew from the start where the finish line would be & could focus on what needed to be done to get me there. The more open-ended the scenario, the more distant & vague that finishing line will be.

What about this for a plan?

Pick a more limited timeframe & area & focus on a specific campaign. Once that is working you can open it out to a part 2 with a broader scope. That way you're still working towards the ultimate grand scenario but you can do so via the smaller stepping stone campaigns before bringing them all together at the end. With the experience from each element, you can choose which parts to incorporate into the grand campaign, what worked & what didn't, which units were key & which could be left out.

I would also carefully consider the ability of the AI & the realistic ability of events to assist them. To build a scenario with fall & rise is far harder to achieve than a rise & fall IMHO. For example, in Red Front, SCW, Korea, Burma etc... the AI starts off with a huge offensive & it is the players goal to halt it & build up enough strength to counter-attack. I can see how in a rise & fall scenario with a human Japanese player the early part would be relatively simple to set up but how will you go about replicating the massive US counter-push to try & retake the Pacific?

I'm not for a moment saying that it can't be done but it won't be easy. By building it up step by step I think you could work out the challenges in isolation & then work out how to piece them all together into the main event.

Just my thoughts. Please feel free to disregard

 

[Patine]

Some of the points I posted earlier still apply:

'The US army trooper has ETO uniform rather than green denims (I'd replace him with N13 in the US WW2 compilation I posted)'

The 'Russian' is the same US trooper pic

That's a really old Japanese Type 4 tank drawing. I've posted much more recent one in the WW2 Japanese unit compilation

The truck pic is ancient - from MGE days. I have posted a multitude of Japanese, British, Russian etc trucks. Take your pick.

No Ki-84, B5N, D4Y, G4M or Ki-51? But you have far less made / used aircraft like the Ki-100..

Not sure why you've extended the cockpit all the way back on the B10 bomber

Picking up on Curt's point, I'd cover the important vehicle and troop types first and have the remaining slots used for the obscure stuff

The uniform thing was confusing me. Thank-you for the separate file. I must've missed the Type 4, or maybe it was added in one of your "a few tanks and updates," I somehow forgot to download, because it was late at night, early in the morning, or some such. As for the "Russian guy in a U.S. uniform," as I had mentioned in my original units.bmp file, he's not Soviet at all. He's meant to a Filipino Scout unit, the ones who conducted a guerilla warfare against the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. Their symbol was a red shield with a yellow-bull's head. I just figured that Soviet shield would be easiest to build from, just by adding a few yellow pixels, here and there. And, the Filipino Scouts were completely kitted and armed by the U.S. Army. Japanese Aircraft can certainly be re-evaluated in another go over. I don't recall changing that B10 Bomber at all. As I recall, that's how it was copied and pasted from a @Tanelorn compilation. And I will have a look at your trucks.

Still only one Brit Imperial troop, even though the UK ruled a quarter of the globe at this point? Also the USA is under represented.
But we get tribal rifles and other obscure soldiery? I think you are adding what looks cool, rather than the historical reality...

But, it is your scenario, and I am only an onlooker making a comment. So go for it.

My viewpoint of infantry in scenarios may be a bit antiquated - that is, they do garrison and defensive work while artillery, tanks/cavalry, bombers, paratroops, and marines are the main offensive, unless they're "special infantry." Since I haven't seriously take on a scenario for a while, I think you're right, that this viewpoint may be need a bit a re-evaluation.

@McMonkey Objectives and scope are indeed quite important, and definitely a free-form, "you are the commander, the battlefield is yours, victory is yours to win by whatever means, or defeat is on your head," type of scenario is probably not going to work, and wasn't quite what I had in mind.

Again, thank you all greatly for this advice. I'll see can be made fully of it.

 

[Tanelorn]

As I recall, that's how it was copied and pasted from a @Tanelorn compilation.

It is towards the end of the page, a late production WH-3 variant. The Dutch used Martin 139 WH-1, 2 and 3. Makes no difference either way, but imho Fairline's looks better, ofcourse.
http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww15/b/195/92/0

 

[JPetroski]

I think one of your biggest challenges will be making the scenario enjoyable to lose. Can a desperate fight to the end make for a good time, or will people simply restart?

 

[CurtSibling]

Creating Overlords, which is a sandbox WW2 global scenario is quite complex enough for me, and I have a few years of scenarios under my belt.
I would echo @McMonkey, in that it is best to look at one campaign, or theatre, and focus on it, then see how it goes. A lot of planning goes into any
good scenario, and making text files for Technolgies, Units, Improvements and then Events is what I always do...And even then I miss things.

Basically, work on a smaller, yet solid scenario before going for the all-encompassing magnum opus.

 

[Fairline]

Understand about your Phillippine Scout. He should be wearing khaki uniform with british type steel helmet (on the right of those units I posted above, labelled '1941'.

 

[Patine]

Well, I'm almost done the new draft of the units.bmp file with the new big units file format, and am reading stickied posts, and ones about the last few scenarios, to grasp the possibilities of LUA. I need to make a request - and, indeed, one of actual, imminent usage, here. Can anyone make a flagshield for Tibet. I did find a unit that very much looks like the pictures of their infantry and their cavalry in the 1912-1959 period of de facto independence - only the pants colour on the infantry needs changing, and some tweaks to the furry hat of the cavalry. The Tibetan flag is very intricate. And, fear not, a few units for the several neutral powers in the theatre does not take away, meaningfully, from the units of the belligerents that are needed and, mostly, even desired, with the bigger units file format.

 

[Patine]

I'm very close to getting this draft of the units files (sans Tibet flag shields). I made some significant progress in the last two weeks.

 

[JPetroski]

Looking forward to it!

 

[Pablostuka]

Good to see more activity in the Scenario League!

 

[Patine]

Sorry about the delay, all, but here is the current units file I'm working with at the moment. Any constructive criticism is, of course, always welcome.

 

[Patine]

Now, I must ask, is there any way to easily and quickly delete all units from a .scn file without going square-by-square and, "delete all units at cursor?" Given my roster, and slot usage of units, will be entirely different, but I quite like my map, its cities (with maybe changes in Improvements and Wonders), a lot of my terrain improvements, and most of my terrain (with some usage of new terrain slots), and my current file has a hex-edit that locks every civ BUT the Japanese into an alliance with the Barbarians (Neutrals and Anti-Japanese Communist Rebels), a .scn unit wipe feature would be handy, if it's available.

 

[Dadais]

Now, I must ask, is there any way to easily and quickly delete all units from a .scn file without going square-by-square and, "delete all units at cursor?" Given my roster, and slot usage of units, will be entirely different, but I quite like my map, its cities (with maybe changes in Improvements and Wonders), a lot of my terrain improvements, and most of my terrain (with some usage of new terrain slots), and my current file has a hex-edit that locks every civ BUT the Japanese into an alliance with the Barbarians (Neutrals and Anti-Japanese Communist Rebels), a .scn unit wipe feature would be handy, if it's available.

Yes there is with lua.

in your event.lua file insert :

civ.scen.onKeyPress(function (keyCode)
if keyCode == 75 then --for 'k' letter
for unit in civ.iterateUnits() do
civ.deleteUnit(unit)
end
end
end)

That should do the job pressing 'k' in game

 

[Patine]

Yes there is with lua.

in your event.lua file insert :

civ.scen.onKeyPress(function (keyCode)
if keyCode == 75 then --for 'k' letter
for unit in civ.iterateUnits() do
civ.deleteUnit(unit)
end
end
end)

That should do the job pressing 'k' in game

Thank-you!

 

[JPetroski]

Yes there is with lua.

in your event.lua file insert :

civ.scen.onKeyPress(function (keyCode)
if keyCode == 75 then --for 'k' letter
for unit in civ.iterateUnits() do
civ.deleteUnit(unit)
end
end
end)

That should do the job pressing 'k' in game

You can also place much of this code:

for unit in civ.iterateUnits() do civ.deleteUnit(unit) end

directly into the console (ctrl + shift + F3) when the cheat mode is activated. That may be quicker if you don't have an events file you can go to (you can make many fixes right from the console but you need to do it in one line)

Edit - while you may still see the units when you hit enter, once you close the console, they'll be gone.

 

[Dadais]

You can also place much of this code:

for unit in civ.iterateUnits() do civ.deleteUnit(unit) end

directly into the console (ctrl + shift + F3) when the cheat mode is activated. That may be quicker if you don't have an events file you can go to (you can make many fixes right from the console but you need to do it in one line)

This is so much true !
I got used to the onkeypress system with mre complex alterations, yet here directly in the console is way easier !

 

[Prof. Garfield]

directly into the console (ctrl + shift + F3) when the cheat mode is activated. That may be quicker if you don't have an events file you can go to (you can make many fixes right from the console but you need to do it in one line)

If you need several lines of code, you can also use the load script button to run all the code in a file.