Fortress Europe

[McMonkey]

keu
I have just been trying to use CivRiver on my master save but I can't seem to get it to work. I remember trying it out when you released it and it worked Ok. I have been through the read me and I don't think I am doing anything wrong. The file I want to work on it called FORTRESS.SAV so I type:

civriver FORTRESS.SAV +r 199 191 (then press enter)

Unfortunately when I load the save nothing seems to have happened. I was trying to add a river under a city and I thought this might be the problem, but when I try it on a square in the open nothing happens either. Can you advise?

 

[clightning]

Thanks for explain. Just for joke: Is it allowed to use Carriers to extand Spitfire's range?

But Spit less effective than Hurrican? Is it because the fighterbomber have a better A than fighters? Personally think Hurrican's role of ground attack in history is not because she's a good attack/bombinng capability, but because she is low end low cost, more expendable than Spit. So she should be a low cost low defence fighter rather than a high A fighterbomber, compare to Spit to be about A=D.

Regard to Mossie, it is interesting but...would by totally untouchable except for attack fighter-defended citys, like a F117 in 1980s. Don't know Mossie's operations very much, but is she really that "Stealthy"?

 

[McMonkey]

I agree with you that the Fighter (Spitfire) should be better than the Ground Attack. I have made some changes. I decided not to go with the RAF Medium Bomber idea as it would have been too powerful. I decided to change the name of the RAF Ground attack to RAF Fighter Bomber (Hurricane > Mustang early type > Typhoon) and I replaced the Turkish Infantry with RAF Ground Attack (Kittyhawk > Beaufighter > Mosquito) which the Allies will receive via the Lend Lease arrival events in the Middle East in addition to the US Heavy Armour (Grant). This will boost 8th Army's air power considerably if the Battle of the Atlantic goes well and the Lend Lease get through. In my latest game I find I hardly ever risk attacking Axis aircraft in North Africa as I cannot afford to lose aircraft. I hope this will remedy the shortage. I have also added a few more Allied units in the Middle East/North Africa from the start and allowed some of the ones on the front line to move from turn 1 so they can either attack or withdraw straight away.

The Mosquito was a extremely fast and was often used in a stealthy role for recon or special raids over Europe where its speed and climb made it very difficult for the Luftwaffe to intercept, especially if the Mossies flew in low to avoid enemy radar. Best of all it was made mostly of wood which was a readily available resource.

 

[JPetroski]

All this talk about WW2 aircraft... Man, you guys really have to try Aces High II sometime (www.hitechcreations.com). After mid-April, I'd even resub to help you get set up...

Course, you could kiss finishing any Civ2 projects goodbye... Possibly forever

 

[clightning]

Thanks for explaination. Just did some Google, got shocked by Mossie's 1942/9/25 "Burn Paper" and 1944/2/18 "Break Jail" operation. No wonder she is called woody wonder. Much much more successful than Bf110, which I thought should be a equivalent before. This seems very much like morden RAF Tornado.

However she leaves us a problem, CIV2 don't represent "evasive ability". Would it make sense to make Mossie to be high Movement rate(hardly interceptable before bomb drop) high Defence (hard to intercept/can more or less escort others)?

Hey JPetroski Please don't disturb this project, just tell McMonkey there is no other game on earth

 

[McMonkey]

I have just had the great pleasure of capturing Bardia and relieving Tobruk. I now need to work out my plan of action for Banghazi. Do I take the high road or do I take the low road? This latest version v1.2 may be a tiny bit too easy, I may drop one or two units possibly. One thing I have decided to add is a delayed Africa Corps counter attack after the capture of Benghazi with the aim of driving the 8th Army back towards Egypt (and possibly replicate the El Alamein battles). This will mean I need to find a different trigger for Operation Torch. Possibly just putting a delay on the Torch event will do it but I don't have much free event space so I will have to see. Alternatively I could find a different trigger city for that event.

 

[JPetroski]

Just make sure it really is too easy because of the extra units, and not because you've played the first 30 turns a few dozen times

 

[McMonkey]

True. Good point!

I'm now wondering if I should press on to Benghazi while I have a decent sized force of around 35-40 units and risk arriving in poorer state and then be unable to hold the city or push on and link up with the Torch forces. I'm only in January 1942 so there is no rush to trigger the Torch event (I really do need to change the trigger!). If I decide to hold on in Tobruk I will lose some troops to the Africa Corps counter attack but I will also get reinforcements arriving from Egypt and I can wait for the summer campaign (rules change increasing road move multiplier from 2 to 4) and cross the open ground quicker. Holding ground and building up reserves has served me well so far so I'll probably stick to that.

One thing I have been thinking is that the game may be too long, both to keep the players attention and to keep the pressure on the Allies. I was thinking about making every turn a fortnight instead of a week. It would be an easy change to make in the events file and by adjusting the tech paradigm, plus a few tweaks to the tech tree. Your further into the game than me now John, what do you think?

 

[JPetroski]

It's tough to say without knowing what's in store after Tunisia and how many units I'll face elsewhere. All I know right now is that at turn 31, I'm going to have at least another 10 turns worth of slogging towards Tunis. I think I should take Tripoli pretty soon, but I anticipate Mareth onward being a disaster, if the American front is any indication.

I don't think the arbitrary number of turns in a scenario will make a person lose interest/attention. It is a question of how those turns play out.

Now whether or not the current timescale keeps the pressure up is another issue.

 

[McMonkey]

In the latest version I have strengthened the Torch landings to give them more of a chance against the build-up of German troops in Tunisia. Looks like your going to have to do your best and slog your way through to Tunis with what you got JP I will use yours and my playtests to make a judgement on the length of the scenario when we are done playing. That's not to say your under any pressure at all to try and complete the game, just play for as long as your enjoying yourself or when RL permits

 

[Hans99]

Turn 4
Bardia has fallen into british hands... but i lost Gibraltar after malta...

One more suggestion, why dont you make vichy france german ?

 

[McMonkey]

Vichy France was part of Germany originally but this was historically inaccurate because the Axis would use it as a base to attack Gibraltar. Historically this did not happen and when the Allied launched Operation Torch they mostly met with half hearted Vichy resistance until they reached Tunisia. That's why I decided to leave Tunisia in German hands. When North Africa falls to the Allies the Strongpoints in Metropolitan France will be deleted and the Axis will occupy the southern cities.

I have been thinking about using the current Neutral Civ as the Vichy French and forcing them to be at peace with the Germans until an event makes the Germans attack. This would stop the Germans attacking the barbarian/Vichy Strongpoints! It would also free up two more cities which I'm sure I will need to place somewhere as the playtest throws up new problems / ideas!

I have begun work today on reducing the size of the Tech tree and making sure all of the units show up around the right time. There were a lot of pointless techs and the tree was too long to complete if techs are only every 3 turns. I don't really want the player to have to worry too much about the tech rate, as long as it is around every 2-3 turns everything should work well. I am also renaming some of the techs to give the tree a more logical flow and to remove some of the anachronistic techs. This shouldn't have a major effect on the flow of the game, its just to polish it a bit!

 

[Hans99]

Now i understand your intention. But when germany will occupy france in 1942, there will be still some fighting between french and german forces ( Actually the fighting was minor if at all ). So my suggestion was to make vichy french cities to german cities and give them german french units. This would prevent the problems with the early assaults of german troops to french, and also would prevent the big wandering of german units to these barbarian strongpoints ( The Ai seems magically drawn towards such cities, i had to erase them in my balkan scn, to prevent the ai doing just that ). Just a suggestion.

Update 20:46 Vichy France also was under heavy german influence, so i think that step could be justified...

 

[McMonkey]

I will give this some thought. I doubt the German takeover will be too violent as the French will have very few units to resist with. There may be a little fighting, but I can cope with that. I just wish the Axis wouldn't attack the (virtually) indestructible Strongpoints! Also, I kind of like the way the blue French cities look on the map and I would like to keep them one way or the other!

 

[JPetroski]

I think it works well as you have it. The strong point issue is annoying, but ONLY annoying in France. In Russia, it may very well be completely detrimental. They launch at least 4-5 aircraft against German strongpoint cities per turn...

 

[McMonkey]

That's fine by me. As soon as the Allies do their bit and take these Strongpoint's home cities the sooner the Russians can have a proper crack at these cities and start their push into Europe. The Soviets are not likely to run out of units!

This playtest is proving to be immensely valuable. I have already been caught out by a few of my own events as I have forgotten about a lot of them! I just need to refine a few of them to get the balance perfect. I had started to think the Africa Corps was going to be a pushover in Libya. I'm pretty sure with a bit of work I can get the major Axis push to El Alamein right. What I need to work out is a situation where the player won't just learn to trigger the event after making thorough preparations for the counter attack. I need to make the capture of Benghazi a necessity and the counter-attack an unfortunate consequence that cannot be avoided or stifled with the benefit of hindsight!

I'm really excited about how this scenario is working out. It is miles ahead of anything I have made before. I'm sorry it is taking a long time to perfect, but I think the extra work is well worthwhile

 

[Hans99]

This baby will be great, i am sure, just do not hurry, good things have while

 

[CurtSibling]

Indeed - This scenario has classic written large all over it!

 

[Civinator]

I think it works well as you have it. The strong point issue is annoying, but ONLY annoying in France. In Russia, it may very well be completely detrimental. They launch at least 4-5 aircraft against German strongpoint cities per turn...

What is about a circle of impassable terrain around the cities that need these strongpoints and a change-terrain-event if the key cities are captured, that originally hold these strongpoints?

 

[JPetroski]

What is about a circle of impassable terrain around the cities that need these strongpoints and a change-terrain-event if the key cities are captured, that originally hold these strongpoints?

That would likely take way too much event space, it would definitely destroy all units on that terrain, and I'm not sure you could even use the exceptions parameter for "city" terrain if there is actually a city on it... And if that causes the event to misfire, you need 4 separate change terrain events per city.

I don't know if the good outweighs the bad with that...

Here's the data for the strongpoint, in case someone can see what to change:

Strongpoint, nil, 1, 0.,0, 8a,99d, 12h,3f, 1,0, 0, no, 010100000000001