Over the Reich - Creation Thread

[JPetroski]

Thanks everyone. I'm looking forward to playing it myself

I'm debating whether or not to give Allied heavy bombers the sub flag, give high altitude targets the sea domain, and have the terrain beneath each target on the high-alt maps be ocean.

The good reasons to do this are:

1. RAF nighttime bombing would become even more difficult to see;
2. Heavy bombers would be forced to go after high-alt targets and not low alt ones
3. German airborne radar would have a purpose with the "sees subs" ability.

The downside is:

1. The USAAF really shouldn't be that hard to find (I suppose I could give all day fighters the sees subs).
2. You'd have a few random ocean "dots" on the high alt maps. Not really a huge deal, but still.

I don't know. What do you all think?

 

[JPetroski]

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?

I think so, Fairline, but in the interests of playability and not having a gigantic map, every bomber will simply return to England until D-Day occurs and French/Belgium airfields are captured.

Aircraft range values in this scenario are set with playability trumping reality. Many aircraft will have a significantly greater or lesser range than they did in reality. Further, I believe all U.S. escort fighters will have a range of 5 (with various movement points):

Turn 1 & 2 = Reach the target
Turn 3 = Fight
Turn 4 & 5 = Return home

It probably won't please purists, but I'm going for good gameplay with "acceptable" broad accuracy

 

[JPetroski]

Playing McMonkey's "Fortress Europe" has reminded me how badly I want to have a scenario about the air war in Europe to play... I accomplished quite a bit today. The major news is that all cities are placed, and the Luftwaffe (day and night) have all fighter squadrons deployed and cities "finalized."

I'm operating on a scale of 1 unit = 1 staffel/squadron and have an excellent site for Luftwaffe units, but have yet to locate a great one for Allied units. The difficulty is increased because whereas the Luftwaffe "cities" are named after the units, the Allied cities are named after airfields (would not make much sense to have a B-17 with a home city of 352nd FG, but an Me109G with a home city of I/JG1 looks perfect).

Another difficulty is the lack of a "hard" start date... Generally speaking, the scenario starts right before Millennium.

Anyway, I'm very busy in real life and have playtest obligations to McMonkey, but just wanted to let everyone know that I have not forgotten about this.

As an aside - I recall we used to have a chart of WW2 city sizes in Civ2... Is that still floating about and does anyone know where to find it? If not, does anyone have a link showing the populations of major European cities during the time?

 

[clightning]

Amazing that I have some similar idea with yours but you can find out how to realise them
BTW, as the "cities" are airbases, do you think it should be effective to suppress runways? In the real air tactics, it should be. But in CIV2 defending fighters get a X2/X4 bonus.
What's your idea?

 

[JPetroski]

Unfortunately Civ2 leaves many things to be desired, and you are right, it is impossible to remove that bonus the fighters get for defending an airfield.

My thoughts are that this is ok, because I want low-level attacks to be much more dangerous than high level ones (which IMO is realistic). There will be a much higher concentration of flak down low, and of course higher fighters can successfully "bounce" targets by flying over their escorts and then dropping down to attack formations from behind.

IF you feel it is important to destroy the actual planes at their airfields, you'll pay a high cost. The question is, is this a greater cost than you would incur by attacking the oil facilities that keep them in the air? I guess that depends on how each player conducts his campaign.

Edit - by the way, RAF and USAAF units placed. The USAAF starts with absolutely no aircraft and needs to build up its strength. The scenario starts on the eve of the Millennium attack on Cologne (although you are free to attack anywhere you like). The RAF begins with "1000" (=100) bombers, half of which are of suspect quality (Harris scraped together literally everything he could find to reach that magic 1000 mark).

The Luftwaffe's units start off as veterans, but the only way to earn more is by fire.

 

[clightning]

There is actually one way to remove the bonus: make city terrains 50% less defence. However this may change too much.
You are right that this is a issue of balance, choice between airfields and oil fields. But next time if someone wants to make a 3rd Mid East War SCN("Pearl Harbour in desert") this would be a must...

BTW, good job for the Millennium placement.

 

[JPetroski]

In ToT, is it possible to have two units named the same exact thing, yet have a "Unit Killed" event that takes place for only one of them?

I would like to do this because every time the Germans shoot down an Allied bomber, I want there to be a random chance that a "bomber losses" unit will spawn for the Allies, thus reducing their production shields.

However, I also want "window" to play a role in this scenario, but the only way to do this (without enabling a very easy, right click "cheat") is to have the German and Allied players use different rules and units.bmp files. Window will be called "window" for the Allies, while it will be called "Lancaster" for the Axis. It will look like strips of foil for the Allies, but look like a Lancaster to the Axis.

So, does anyone happen to know how events looks for "Unit Killed?" Does it scroll down (or up) the rules file, stopping at the first one, or does having two units named the same thing break the events?

In the event that this won't work, does anyone have a suggestion for how to address this problem?

Thanks!

 

[Cyrion]

In ToT, is it possible to have two units named the same exact thing, yet have a "Unit Killed" event that takes place for only one of them?

Not sure if this works, but I try adding a space after one of the name: you wouldn't be able to see it with a right click, and maybe the event parser would make a difference between both names

 

[JPetroski]

Not sure if this works, but I try adding a space after one of the name: you wouldn't be able to see it with a right click, and maybe the event parser would make a difference between both names

Given the trouble McMonkey had with spaces in city names, I think you might be on to something here... Thanks!

 

[clightning]

Interesting idea for "windows".
Regarding to the naming problem, how about just give the bombers/windows a veryveryveryveryvery longlonglonglonglong name but just make the last alphabet, which can not be displayed in game interface, to be different?

 

[AGRICOLA]

In ToT, is it possible to have two units named the same exact thing, yet have a "Unit Killed" event that takes place for only one of them?

I would like to do this because every time the Germans shoot down an Allied bomber, I want there to be a random chance that a "bomber losses" unit will spawn for the Allies, thus reducing their production shields.

However, I also want "window" to play a role in this scenario, but the only way to do this (without enabling a very easy, right click "cheat") is to have the German and Allied players use different rules and units.bmp files. Window will be called "window" for the Allies, while it will be called "Lancaster" for the Axis. It will look like strips of foil for the Allies, but look like a Lancaster to the Axis.

So, does anyone happen to know how events looks for "Unit Killed?" Does it scroll down (or up) the rules file, stopping at the first one, or does having two units named the same thing break the events?

In the event that this won't work, does anyone have a suggestion for how to address this problem?

Thanks!

Events scrolls down the unit names list. Having two units with identical names does not break events, the event algorithm simply picks the first one that it encounters.

A space after the unit name and before the comma does not work. I tried that when writing events for Red Front 1.4 TOT. What does work is an extra space between the two words of the unit name or an extra character at the end the unit name.

 

[JPetroski]

That's great news Agricola, thanks for the reply!

That should work out fine. The only question will be if delevent is necessary for it to pick up the new rules adjustment. Not a big deal either way.

Progress has been moving slowly due to other commitments, but I have managed to write the second half of Germany's production sequence, and 3/4 of the city attacks by the USAAF and RAF. There aren't too many more events left to write.

A May alpha test may not be completely out of the question, but we'll see how it goes.

 

[AGRICOLA]

DELEVENT is abolutely necessary in order to transfer the modified name to the events section of game save.

 

[JPetroski]

The events are 95% done and completely debugged... Just need to throw in a few small events generating trucks, trains, and barges to give the low level allied aircraft (typhoons, P-47s) something to attack.

I'm very pleased with how everything is coming together, but unfortunately there is a massive amount of tedious work to be done right now...

1. Cover whole map/Make parts of map visible for each civ (I prefer fog of war rather than completely revealed maps).

2. Have to ensure that each city has a surplus of food/fuel so that units aren't disbanded

3. Have to work on economies so that improvements aren't sold. Will probably make many improvements free since money should be spent on aircraft rather than upkeep of cities.

4. Need to do a graphic overhaul with new placeholders... Right now I'm just using default terrains for the sci-fi game...

5. Must make a playtester readme, or at least victory conditions readme.

Thus, I'm 5 steps away from an ugly playtest.

 

[JPetroski]

So close but so far...

At this point I'm very much thinking it was a mistake to include the RAF and nighttime bombing. It was always going to have to be the junior partner in this scenario, but the events are so full that I pretty much had to take out the majority of their's, relegating it to mere sideshow.

I'm currently doing the paperwork to restart as USAAF-ONLY. A second scenario going into the RAF campaign in detail would be preferable. This will also allow me to flesh out the target list and make the maps more interesting. Also add in a few "what if" units for the Americans (P-80 and B-29... The Germans already have their superweapons, the "what if" for them is "what if they were deployed en masse).

In other news, I have completed all necessary coursework for my degree, so maybe I'll have more time for Civ2. It was the best 9 years of my life

 

[Civinator]

So close but so far...

At this point I'm very much thinking it was a mistake to include the RAF and nighttime bombing. It was always going to have to be the junior partner in this scenario, but the events are so full that I pretty much had to take out the majority of their's, relegating it to mere sideshow.

I'm currently doing the paperwork to restart as USAAF-ONLY. A second scenario going into the RAF campaign in detail would be preferable. This will also allow me to flesh out the target list and make the maps more interesting. Also add in a few "what if" units for the Americans (P-80 and B-29... The Germans already have their superweapons, the "what if" for them is "what if they were deployed en masse).

In other news, I have completed all necessary coursework for my degree, so maybe I'll have more time for Civ2. It was the best 9 years of my life

Congratulations. And with your new ideas you are nearing to the focus of the game USAAF, that was a very good game for its time. May be now you should have a closer look to that game:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10198499&postcount=21

 

[JPetroski]

I tried to find it on ebay and amazon, but could not locate it... If it pops up on your radar, please PM me!

 

[Civinator]

I have it and I can scan in some parts of the rules and targets when I have the time for it (what is mostly on weekends).

 

[JPetroski]

That would be very helpful, thank you!

Right now I'm working on the rules file in excel, and have most of it done, but I will hold off on putting it "in-game" until I see what you have. The target list would be particularly useful... I'm using the following (do you have suggestions?):

Spoiler :

Hannover Railyards
Rotterdam Railyards
Paris Railyards
Cologne Railyards
Obertraubling (Me262)
Schweinfurt (ball bearings)
Vienna Railyards
Raw Materials (stage I of German production)
Supply Truck (stage II of German production)
locomotive (stage III of German production)
Lille Railyards
Rouen Railyards
Hamburg Railyards
Duisburg Railyards
Berlin Railyards
Munich Railyards
Brux (oil)
I.G. Farben at Leuna (oil)
Scholven (oil)
Böhlen (oil)
Magdeburg (oil)
Lyutzkendorf (oil)
Berlin
Dortmund
Hamburg
Dresden
Cologne
Essen
Düsseldorf
Duisburg
Bremen
Hannover
Munich
Nuremburg
Leipzig
Kiel
Lübeck
Munster
Rostock
Osnabrück
Stuttgart
Power Plant****
Shipping****
Depot****
Docks****
Aircraft Factory****
Locomotive Factory****
Submarine Base****

**** = Generic unit that only results in loss of cash for Luftwaffe... In other words, expendable units open for change.

Also please note that I've decided to streamline and simplify the production sequence... The Luftwaffe will now construct its own aircraft, but they will be prohibitively expensive. To guarantee a steady supply of reinforcements, a few things must happen:

1. Every set # of turns (TBD), in Holland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Poland, and Denmark, the "Raw Materials" unit is spawned (unit owner = GERMANY). This unit is to be moved to German cities (factories) and disbanded for its shields.

2. In the factories, locomotives (trade units) are produced. They are very expensive, so the raw materials are needed to quickly complete them.

3. The trade units boost Germany's science rate, allowing them to research "Production Sequence West," "...East," "...North," "...South"

4. When any of those techs are discovered, it spawns numerous "supply trucks" in the described region. These supply trucks are owned by the LUFTWAFFE.

5. The Luftwaffe then brings the trucks into their airfields to disband for aircraft.

This accomplishes two things: It frees up numerous techs, and it gives MUCH more reason for the Allies to conduct low-level attacks on locomotives and transports. It greatly connects the strategic and tactical elements of the scenario, something that IMO was missing from my first version...

 

[Civinator]

I found the old game quickly and the scans were no problem, so I can give you some infos from that game now. Gary Grigsby later made another version of that game for the pc called "Over the Reich" by Talon Soft (if I remember well) -but that version was no fun for me.

Targets (on the right side of the screenshot you can see the abreviation-letters for the target types) - every location in Germany/Italy/France carries the letters for the target types inside that location:

Spoiler :

Aircraft data, replacements, industrial defense:

Spoiler :

OOB Luftwaffe / USAAF (Part I):

Spoiler :

OOB Luftwaffe / USAAF (Part II):

Spoiler :

A fun part of that game was the degression of the performance of P38G´s and P38J´s in higher altitudes.

How do you manage flak-production?