Over the Reich - Creation Thread

Beautiful as usual!

I'd love to be able to make a single player scenario, but who am I kidding - if Nemo couldn't pull it off, neither can I :) I remember playing his "The Blitz" and the AI would just do such stupid things. Namely, stack 90 aircraft on one space at a time.

I anticipate they'd ruin it by targeting "cities" almost exclusively, stacking all their units on one space, and having absolutely no idea how to handle multiple maps.

On the other hand, I'm not having much better luck making this a MP scenario given this will be the third go! But as they say, that's the charm, right?
 
I think you're thinking of a different aircraft? I'm talking about the he219 uhu, operational from 1943 with about 300 built.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_219

Edit - perhaps it was the one you're referring to - hard to tell with Wikipedia. This scenario does feature a few of the superweapons the Luftwaffe developed. I'm trying to make there be a choice between going after them, or maximizing production of more regular types.

It is the same bird...I never knew it was built in large numbers, and not that it made much of a difference, despite being a potentially great warplane.
Without having to resort to the ever-dubious wiki, I do know that the development was plagued by departmental rivalry, but that was the norm in the
psychopathic atmosphere of the 3rd reich military...But regardless, the new units look simply awesome! Truly good work by Fairline!
 
Here's a quick and dirty Flak train

flak train.png
 
Yep - I need to get cracking... I started a new job recently and had been cleaning up stuff for my old job so my colleagues wouldn't chase me down and throw a stapler at me... Hopefully I can make some progress this weekend!
 
I've gotten back into it and made some progress... Trying to decide just how many cities the USAAF should start off given that now part of the scenario is the build up. I think I'll err on the side of few for the start as it's easier to add them later than delete them (not that either is that hard).
 
The more I think of it, given TNO's return and the anticipated release of a new version of ToTPP - I am going to cease building this for the time being. It looks like a few welcome additions are on the way.

*It seems that he has fixed or is fixing the attacks per turn bug, which would be critical to keeping jet fighters balanced;
*He also appears to be working on additional transport capabilities. Potentially having the bombers carry bombs would solve the problem of having to waste 7-10 bomber units each turn attacking targets. If we can't have combats resolve without a guaranteed death, then this is the next best thing. Instead, they could carry relatively weak (and inexpensive) bombs.
*He is making 1.14 stable. I hadn't used it because I heard it was not stable. You can't use lua scripting with 1.3, but you can with 1.4. I don't have any idea what I'm doing with lau scripting, but I am very hopeful that it might be useful in cutting down some of the monotonous "work" of playing this scenario. So I think while I wait for the next release, I'm going to play around with lua.

Sorry for any disappointment. This is officially my longest (substantially worked) project. I don't know how many more scenarios I have in me. I want to try and use as much functionality as possible.
 
I'm very curious to see if Lua could help make this a single player scenario... The reason Blitz failed was because the Luftwaffe would stack 100+ units at a time. I'm not sure if there is a way to script away from that or not, but the scenario would likely be wider used as a single player action (not to say I couldn't also offer a multiplayer version).
 
Although I have other projects that are taking precedence, I continue to think of this project. I’m annoyed that it hasn’t been finished but I really think this is the type of scenario that truly needs lua to shine. A few issues with it as discussed before and elsewhere is that there were too many units to move around, it was too hard to juggle the various civs (you’d spot aircraft with one civ then have to remember where it was to attack it with another, which was clunky).

Another issue was that past versions had no less than 50 different “targets” divided into some 8-10 different categories and the player was expected to keep track of which ones had been destroyed, as well as try and figure out which ones should be defended.

I intend to simplify things and make them more intuitive with lua. In short, to make the experience more like a Civ2 scenario. I’m going to focus on a few targets/objectives:

Industry
Railroads
Fuel
Urban Centers
Ports (including U-Boat pens)
Pilots

Industry: Rather than have numerous types of industries with different effects this will be greatly simplified. Cities (but not airbases) will be able to build factories, powerplants, manufacturing plants, etc. When the improvement is built in a city, lua will allow me to place a corresponding target unit on the high alt map. When that target unit is destroyed, the city improvement will vanish and will need to be rebuilt. The idea being that rather than some clunky industry interface you simply are trying to maximize production or reduce it for the opposing player. I need to determine if any of the three can work independently of each other or if all three can, otherwise a player would simply destroy the one linked to the factory rather than the powerplant to shut them all down.

Cities will only produce Goods units that have to be moved to airfields and disbanded to build planes. Because they will be built rather than granted every turn, there won’t be anywhere near as many of them as in earlier versions (you can only get one per city per turn max, if your industry allows it) and should be manageable. These units will have to move on railroads.

Railroads: Bombing the railroad depot unit will change the terrain around it which will need to be repaired. The unit auto-respawns over and over again allowing this to keep happening. With lua I can use one unit for many different depots and cross reference against its point on the map for specific effect.

Fuel: Aircraft will once again have the settler flag and be reliant on fuel to perform. The Germans will start with a number of fuel refineries/synthetic plants with the ability to build more. They will “build” the unit the same way that industry units are built (by building an improvement, which will then cause a corresponding unit to be built). Destroying the unit will remove the improvement. Each turn, I’ll have lua scan the map to see how many of these units are around. If they fall below a threshold, the map tiles for fuel stores will change to ones that have significantly less capacity (high fuel levels might allow 6 ‘food/fuel’, 2/3 down would allow 4, 1/3 down would allow 2).

Urban Centers: RAF and Luftwaffe attacks on urban centers will change the terrain surrounding cities, reducing income and science beakers. The units will always respawn meaning that they can be attacked repeatedly. Engineers will have to fix the terrain below. I’m moving to one low-alt map for this version rather than two. The night battles will only take place at high alt. It means no dambusters but it allows for a more dynamic world where RAF actions will affect Germany as a whole. The low alt night was always a waste of time in earlier versions and the few low alt raids at night don’t make it worthwhile.

Ports (including U-Boat Pens): I’m moving away from the Battle of the Atlantic. It will be represented abstractly as in the first version from years ago. The game will check to see how many u-boat pens Germany has. If they have a full allotment (for example, let’s say 10), the Allies will get 0 bonus/benefit. If one is destroyed, and the count is now 9, the Allies will get an extra $1,000 per turn. They get an extra $1000 for every pen not there and Germany can rebuild these in actual cities. Likewise, the same can work for actual ports, but in reverse. If the Allies have 10, they get $10,000 (or whatever). If Germany destroys 1, the Allies get $9,000. These units will be respawned with the same technique as fuel and industry described above making it much more intuitive to repair this stuff than relying on tech advances as in the old versions (this is also a heck of a lot more stable as often techs won’t show up as options for whatever reason).

Pilots: These aren’t really a target but lua finally allows a good method of replicating one of the Allies’ main objectives: drawing the Luftwaffe into the skies and destroying it. Lua allows one to have a ticker/ticket system similar to a FPS like Battlefield. Airbases will now start at all airfields. They will be inexpensive to own but very expensive to build. Their function will be to provide trained pilots as well as a “force pool” of more (instant replenishment of combat losses i.e. repair of the unit in one turn). As losses build, lua will allow me to randomly remove one airbase meaning that one airfield won’t have this pool. I may just have that every 10 (or whatever) plane losses removes one. They can keep being rebuilt, but the shields have to be diverted from other tasks. Therefore, the Luftwaffe will want to be much more careful about where and when they attack, and avoid getting caught up in fighter sweeps.

Because I will make all air units “k” units that carry ammo, the expectation is that the units will be much more likely to survive combat. This allows there to be less of them and for them to be more expensive. The destruction of one of them should be a big deal to the Allies and to the Germans. Gone will be the days of moving hundreds of air units per turn. You might only have 50 in your inventory at any time by game's end, making each more meaningful.

Essentially, this will allow me to go from over 50 targets that are hard to keep track of to 5 targets that are easier to understand and also (hopefully) more intuitive, as well as instituting a force pool of sorts to finally replicate Germany's trained pilot problem as the war progressed. It should make planning easier and should make the game run much smoother.
 
It would mean adding one more type of factory, but I could just simply cause and effect even more (I'm not sold on the name of each of these):

Industry: removes industrial improvements
Aircraft factory(?): removes science improvements (so you will be delayed in retooling/sending out new models a.k.a. researching them)
Urban: removes happy improvements
Ball bearings(?): removes economic improvements

The fuel would be standalone because I really want it to ground units if one runs out of fuel. Though it would be *very* interesting to see if I could have gold("Fuel") deplete each time a certain unit moves a space. So you'd need a cash("fuel") reserve available to actually fly operations.
 
I've been playing around with this the past few days and have found that the simplification of the game play has significantly simplified the construction of the scenario. I've quite quickly been able to build out the most important sections of rules in excel (tech tree, improvements, units, and terrain) and can start bringing that into the actual rules file. The unit list has changed somewhat given that there are no longer targets (but there is considerable ammo to consider).

I am attaching the units graphic that I have so far. I need to make some changes or figure out a way to draw a few other units (chiefly the different radar types and the V1 and V2 launch sites).

As you'll notice I use 8 slots for anti aircraft ammo and radar. This is a drawback to using 3 maps rather than two as a unit can't use native transport to two different exit maps from the same starting map. I will instead have to have two keys for the flak and radar units, one of which shoots something that can travel to high alt day, and one which shoots to high alt night. I think this works.

Scenarios with map transport really need to be built in rules prior to starting anything on the map because you can't change these things after the fact unless you want to hex edit, so I won't have any map updates for a while.

Russian Infantry
Construction Team
Russian Tanks
Freya Radar
Wurzburg Radar
Chain Home Radar
Mfg Goods
Railyard
Coastal Fortress
Sdkfz 7/2
88mm Flak
Flak Train
Me109G6
Me109G14
Me109K4
Fw190A6
Fw190A8
Fw190D9
Ta152
U-Boat Pen
Me110
Me410
Ju88C
Ju88G
He219
He162
Me163
Me262
Ju87G
Fw190F
Do335
Do217
He277
Arado234
Go229
Spitfire IX
Spitfire XII
Spitfire XIV
Hurricane IV
Typhoon
Tempest
Meteor
Beaufighter
Mosquito NF Mk II
Mosquito NF Mk XIII
Industry I
Industry II
Industry III
Prototypes I
Prototypes II
P-47D11
P-47D25
P-47D40
P-47M
P-38H
P-38J
P-51B
P-51D
P-80
Stirling
Halifax
Lancaster
Pathfinder
A-20
B-26
A-26
B-17F
B-24J
B-17G
Schutzen
Panzers
Artillery
Anti Aircraft Artillery
US Army
UK Army
US Tanks
UK Tanks
Allied Artillery
Landing Craft
Destroyer
Light Cruiser
Heavy Cruiser
Battleship
332nd FG
15th AF Bombers
Aircraft Factory I
Aircraft Factory II
Aircraft Factory III
Fuel Refinery I
Fuel Refinery II
Fuel Refinery III
Urban Center I
Urban Center II
Urban Center III
Port
50 cal MG
20 mm cannon
30 mm cannon
250lb bomb
500lb bomb
1000lb bomb
Window
A2G rockets
A2A rockets
88mm shell (D)
88mm shell (N)
Radar wave 1 (D)
Radar wave 2
Radar wave 2 (D)
Radar wave 2 (N)
Artillery shell
5 inch shell
6 inch shell
8 inch shell
12 inch shell
Anti Aircraft Burst (D)
Light flak
Yak-3
Il-2
Italian Theatre
Russian Front
V1 Launch Site
V2 Launch Site
V1
V2
Photo Recon
Anti Aircraft Burst (N)

file
 
-I'll be borrowing Techumseh's method of build-up/launching of Overlord via techs rather than some abstract trigger based on targets destroyed (which wouldn't make sense now anyway because literally every target can be rebuilt). The Allies will need to find a point in time where they are comfortable devoting resources to planning D-Day and when this is done they'll get access to ships which they can build and launch an invasion pretty much wherever. Normandy will be a good target for the same reasons it was in real life.

-The V1 and V2 sites and most other targets will have sub characteristics making them tough to spot. The recon aircraft can find them.

-The V1 and V2 sites can move, but they won't be able to fire V1s and V2s unless they are on prepared sites (like siege artillery in Caesar's Gallic Wars). Same with heavy flak and radar. The mobile flak can move around and fire from anywhere. This will allow the German player an opportunity to lay out defenses as they see fit.

-The Germans will not start with enough resources to defend everywhere. It's up to them to build more flak and fighters as necessary.

-I've committed to the "money = fuel" discussed above. I think this will add an easy to manage yet absolutely fascinating layer to this game. I was never able to get fuel just right in earlier versions. Rather than having aircraft use the settler function, they'll simply need money in the bank to move without crashing. Certain aircraft (like jets) will require more fuel than others. Thus, the Allied player has a *significant* motivator for targeting German fuel structures as sustained attacks on these will make continued operations by the Germans difficult. Likewise, the German player will have a key motivator for keeping u-boat pens alive and defending them because they will directly affect how much fuel the Allies receive each turn via events. I think this concept is really going to be great. I also think a readme showing the different aircraft, what ammo they fire, and how much each movement point costs (as well as a calculation for how much it costs for it to move its full allotment in a turn, and over its entire range) will make this easy enough for the player to handle.

-Settlers will not repair terrain. Lua will repair terrain when improvements are rebuilt in cities. Each city can have a maximum of three industrial squares, and three fuel refinery squares, with the remainder (at minimum, 3 but there can be more) being urban squares. Attacks on corresponding units on the high alt map will remove the improvement linked to them and change one of the squares that is also linked to them. Rebuilding the improvements fixes the square.

In short, lua has FINALLY made strategic bombing possible in Civ2.

(And the coolest part is this is something that could be taken and modified for single player use and the AI could almost certainly handle it... To them, they're just killing a unit).
 
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@JPetroski If I may ask (out of curiosity - I'm not looking to stir up controversy), but that shield you and @techumseh attached to most of your German units with the WW1 Imperial colours in a diagonal slant - was that an actual WW2 German military crest or symbol, or is it to avoid certain - ahem, social issues - with those who are not long-standing SL members who take alternative symbols the wrong way (or live in countries where such symbols are legally banned)?
 
I publish under my real name and will probably have screen shots and perhaps video of the game play out in the world.

This is also a multiplayer scenario for a game with a limited.audience, much of which is German. It makes sense to be respectful of their laws.

Given all of the above, I'm trying to reduce the number of swastikas in the game. I'm not sold on the shield icon though. I might swap to the iron cross when I have time. I just selected the shield because I thought it looked nice.
 
The scenario continues to take shape. I add frequent updates so I can remember them when I have to take a long break (baby #2 is due in a few weeks and I don't know how much time I'll have for all this then)!

I want to make the Allied campaign a little less certain than in prior versions. The way I'm going to do that is by:

1. Giving them significantly fewer ground forces than the Germans at the start of the scenario;
2. Starting a 10-turn timer after any German city is captured (D-Day) wherein if the city is recaptured by the Germans, the Allies automatically lose the war (no Dieppe raids here!)

I think the two of these things will create a situation where the Allied player is basically going to need to engineer a situation where they can establish local air superiority to get a vast armada across the channel, seize beaches, take a city and hold it for 10 turns against an enemy who will possibly outnumber them on the ground (depending on what the Allies build during their scenario). The player can land anywhere they can get the armada to but of course the north of France will have obvious advantages for resupply.
 
Work continues. The rules are finalized. I've decided to use the old map with the Atlantic because it will make it easier to continue building it as I already have the template/city size/locations, etc.

Right now I'm busy building a spreadsheet that will assist with the industrial targets. Basically I'm putting in information for every single city including what terrain their industry units will populate to. This is going to take awhile as each city has 13 targets and there are around 60 cities in the game, but it's just a matter of finding the time.

I next plan to start working on the events in lua to build the industry.

I have hit a roadblock with the money = fuel concept. I can't have it reduce money per movement spent. There are a few options, none of which are great as I don't want to complicate things further. I'd still like to use money for fuel but I think the best way to do it will be to have it only be fuel for attack runs meaning every time you hit 'k' to shoot ammo, you'll lose money/fuel. It is a bit abstract but actually probably preferable to my original method because it won't take nearly as much planning or forethought on the players behalf - just a quick look at their treasury to see if they can afford to attack with a particular unit or not. It's not totally unrealistic, either, because most of the published top speeds (read: heavy fuel consumption) are for military power - not typical cruise speed.
 
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