Over the Reich Playtest

[JPetroski]

Germany (for bomber losses)

269,45 --> 407,45 --> 407,145 --> 269,145

We can give tech 94 to the Allies after a number of bombers are destroyed over Germany.

How many bomber losses would you think would be good? 25?

 

[JPetroski]

I've changed around the rules (which I'm not proposing to play with for this playtest, but for release):

- Spitfires, P-47D11 and P-47D25 all have their range cut from 4 to 2, bringing them more in line with historic ranges as well as making P-38 a better option and compelling the player to make unescorted strikes simply because they won't have much else of an option;
- P-47 line up got increased MP thought as mentioned range was cut.
- P-47M no longer exists. I really can't justify it. It adds nothing to the scenario. Every unit must have a purpose.
- P-51B now requires tech "Cadillac of the Skies." This is researchable after "Need for Long-Range Escort" is given to players via events after they suffer heavy losses over Germany. It also requires that Escorts III be researched.
- Cadillac of the Skies is now a prereq for the Tuskeegee Airmen unit which can only be built in Italy
- P-51D now requires "Roam at Will" which has "Cadillac of the Skies" as a prereq

I need to eventually change events, but not for playtest version:
-I need to alter P-47D11 and P-47D25 MP reduction from ammo
-I need to swap out the secondary attack ammo some units (Hurri, Typhoon, Temp, P-47 line up) use

Units:
With the deletion of P-47M we now have the following free units by my count:

-P-47M [53]
-Radar Wave [106]
-Advanced Radar Wave (D) [108]
-I'm also going to get rid of the Air-to-ground rockets as they were only used by one unit. Every unit must have a purpose. [102]

-The He162 is hanging on to life in this scenario by a thread. It does not seem to have much point. [25]

So, we have some stuff we can play with. I do still like the idea of rare "Experten" and "Aces" units but I suppose we'll see what other units are necessary to make everything work first.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I'm going to spend some time tonight doing single player testing here. I think a lot of the changes I would need to make are too far out of whack for us to implement in our current playtest, so I'll probably duplicate the folder and start making the changes in a different file. This playtest has certainly gone differently than I expected, but I for one am having a lot of fun with it and am interested to see how long I can hold you off, and I think we'll get good information for the ground war and probably game length, so I'm all for continuing it if you are. I just think it's past the point where we really will want to tweak too much in the rules file for the actual game.

I'm not very keen on managing two active copies of events, and playing on the active copy means I don't have to test as thoroughly when I make a change, since we can discover bugs while playing on the active copy. Unless we just play out the current game without updated events and maybe run a different game in the "active development" folder?

If you're having fun, I'm happy to continue this game, but I don't mind stopping if/when you feel we've learned enough from this playtest.

The Sdkfz 7/2, Bofors 20mm, and 3.7cm Flak all have x2 defense against air already whereas the 88mm and 3.7 inch don't. The larger caliber anti-air should be able to stand up to direct attack vs. ground units (such as tanks) better than the light stuff. The other stuff will be vulnerable if attacked though I'd argue that any of them would tear through infantry that got within range. They fire light flak which has 2 MP and infantry has 6MP, so I think it is fine, especially since firing the light flak reduces the MP to a point where these units can be swamped.

Now, as to the 88s and 3.7s, I'd favor raising the attack ratings of infantry and tanks to address this.

I agree that 88s (and 3.7s) should be able to stand up to tanks, they were famously used in that capacity, but it is less clear why they should be so much more effective against infantry attack than regular artillery. Maybe we just have different ideas about the "force size" that various units represent.

I've been playing MMO flight sims for as long as I've been playing Civ2 (like Aces High III). Hiding in the flak is an oft-used tactic in them. Flak should be protecting airborne planes, but the light flak in this game costs enough that there really isn't enough to go around. The trains are limited in where they can go which makes them of limited use for protection. The 88s are limited as to where they can fire and move slow. I don't see this as a big issue, personally.

If you say that flying near flak is reasonable strategy for a defending fighter, then I'll believe you.

The 250lb bomb isn't the issue - there are fighter bombers that carry it. The (for the most part) ahistorical low-level attacks by strategic bombers against ground units is the problem. Is the only way to solve this to impact the ordinance or can we link the ordinance to what unit called it up and where?

While I know there were some instances of low-level attacks by these bombers (Ploesti and the St. Lo carpet bagging spring to mind), this is a scenario. I think we would be well within our rights to restrict these bombers to the high-level attacks they spent 99% of their time doing. This also enhances A20s and Typhoons all the more.

Could we simply forbid the B-17F, B-17G, B-24J, He111, Do217, and He277 from calling up ammo on map 0? What I'd like even better would be to institute a dialogue warning box:

'WARNING: This is a strategic bomber. It is meant to attack strategic targets from altitude. While it is possible to use it to attack at low-level, its slow pace and huge size will make it an easy target for every enemy soldier in the vicinity. You can expect to take heavy damage with this attack.'

Option 1: This mission is critical. Attack!
Option 2: Stand Down.

If Option 1 is selected, ammo is called up, but the bombers HP is reduced to 1 (I *really* want to dissuade people from doing this very often).
If Option 2 is selected, the ammo call is cancelled and the bomber can go about business as though 'k' had never been pressed.

Preventing ammo call up on map 0 or the warning plus damage idea should be implementable without too much trouble.

I'm OK with air protected stacks on the low-level map. Where I think it gets cheesy is that we're able to place an air unit over one of the industrial targets on the high-level map to make it difficult to kill the air unit. I'm curious if we could simply destroy an air unit that tries to do this, if the industrial unit happens to be attacked. Call it "friendly fire" from the flak that the target sent up. I'd prefer this option to messing around with a system that has problems/isn't working properly. I also don't think the ground/sea units have quite the same issue. Air superiority was a big deal.

Our initial fights over the channel showed that even fighter ammo can take down sea units fairly easily but there's really no reason we can't reduce the defensive ratings of the battleship and heavy cruiser, while leaving it for the light cruiser. I envision the light cruiser as being the unit that defends the fleet from air attack. The destroyer hunts down the subs. The heavy cruiser and battleship have guns which damage the enemy (and which probably need to have their attack stats buffed while we're at it).

I also think the convoy zone will take care of a lot of this because going forward, keeping air units stationed near Brest (a Luftwaffe airbase has been added there for final release) will make a lot more sense. If I had to do it over again from turn 1, that's where my bomber force would be stationed, as well as some escorts. As long as the convoys have to pass through reasonable fighter range (and they do- they'll be there for at least a turn or two), there's a chance that it can be destroyed.

As to ground units, the "defensive fire" might be an appropriate response (or perhaps a weaker unit, "ground fire.") Let's give infantry and tanks a means to fire at aircraft, just not that well. I'm leaning towards "ground fire." Give it a range of 1 and have it reduce the attacking units MP to 0.

There are a few options for killing or moving an air unit over a factory. One is to kill or move it when the building underneath it is attacked, but this would require an air to air attack. Another is to move/kill on activation of a munition in an adjacent square. Theoretically, the munition's attack value could be temporarily reduced in compensation of 'air cover' if it is activated near a suitable air defender. The last is to move it when ammo is generated next to it. Perhaps a warning and chance of damage could be a consequence of trying to bomb a factory with fighter cover.

I didn't find it very easy to take out cruisers with fighters, though maybe I just wasn't bringing in enough force at the same time. I agree that air cover should provide some advantage, but I'm not sure that the appropriate advantage is to only be attacked by light and medium guns

I don't think we should do this. This whole scenario is about beating down the industrial production of Germany and reducing parity. It's actually fun having to jury-rig a defense, and scramble around to adjust industry to your attacks. When you strike facilities, they legitimately damage my efforts. I'm having a lot of fun losing here, though I don't think all is yet lost.

Also, I was almost knocked out of the fight earlier but I was able to rebound. It did compel me to invest more heavily in flak.
You were knocked down pretty good earlier, but you seem to have rebounded pretty easily as well.

As long as we institute the points system, losing certain battles doesn't mean the war has to be lost. There's still time to rebound and adjust. I've had a lot of fun adjusting tactics and seeing you do the same (you don't send all your aircraft straight for the nearest clouds any more, as I quickly figured that out). I don't want to take this from someone or cheapen the effect of one player's attacks on the others industry.

I was able to establish quite a large industrial base in this game due to the fact that initially improvements were very cheap and even after the cost increase the Allies still had tons of money from the Battle of the Atlantic system in place. Allied production will be much lower in the new version, unless little effort is made in the Battle of the Atlantic. (I should probably send the Germans a report of the results of the convoy system.)

I'm a little concerned that a tactical blunder could "snowball." Lose a large force of planes in a battle, and all future battles have a deficit of planes, leading to further losses. A "catch up" mechanic would also ease the task of balancing the scenario

I didn't intentionally change my cloud usage...

What I would like to do, however, is compel the German player to treat France as important long before the points system and I think a way to do that is to modify the convoy route and apply it to zones (in general: France, Low Countries, Denmark, Poland) where the Germans get extra trains IF they maintain enough ground forces there. I was thinking infantry might be 1 point, railyards might be 5 (I'm assuming we can check for units across all maps in the box). Extra trains would be exceptionally helpful for the Germans, and this would prevent a player from saying "Well, I know the Allies can't invade for another few hundred points, so I'm just going to disband all of my ground forces. This would basically abstractly represent the "Resistance" or "Revolt Risk" too, which would be useful for other scenarios. I might get you the coordinates for all of this pretty soon - I'm hoping that it wouldn't be that hard to copy the convoy system to it?

That can be done, and I think fairly easily. Are we still having a German convoy from Norway?

I picked 300 turns out of a hat with no idea how many would be necessary. I still probably won't have that much better of an idea until the point system is operational and a playtest is conducted using it. With that said, giving solid objectives that must be met to earn the points and having a looming deadline should do a lot to compel the player to start moving forward.

It does seem that the Americans didn't put a whole lot of stock into long-range fighters when they first got there though, and only did so after suffering heavy losses. I would be OK with the Mustang only being available after they sustain heavy losses. A box/zone system could work here too. We could simply count the bomber losses that occur over Germany. To prevent the German player from gaming the game, let's tie it to the B-24J, B-17F, and B-17G BEFORE they are totally destroyed (so simply destroying the first unit - otherwise the German player would be crazy to finish the bomber off and hand the Allies the keys to the Cadillac of the Skies).

-I will work on a few adjustments to the tech tree and also get you zone coordinates shortly.

I wrote a nearest friendly airbase function, so we could just count losses outside of the 'maximum' fighter protection, although that might cause the Germans to intentionally kill at the very edge of fighter effectiveness.

So, we have some stuff we can play with. I do still like the idea of rare "Experten" and "Aces" units but I suppose we'll see what other units are necessary to make everything work first.

I'm not sure if the game keeps unit id numbers consistent throughout the game, or if it changes the number to use less space when other units are killed. If the id number is constant, we could tie aces information to specific veteran units, and maybe even give them certain bonuses using onActivation.

If you do do "experten" and "aces," what kind of planes will they get?

Do you want a function that can transfer veteran status between aircraft? For example, so that veteran pilots can use modern aircraft and retain their experience.

EDIT: it's late, will play turn tomorrow.

 

[JPetroski]

I'm not very keen on managing two active copies of events, and playing on the active copy means I don't have to test as thoroughly when I make a change, since we can discover bugs while playing on the active copy. Unless we just play out the current game without updated events and maybe run a different game in the "active development" folder?

I'm fine with continuing to play with modified events, but I don't think it's very fair to you to play with modified rules at this point, which is why I suggested this. I've made some pretty significant changes to Spitfire range. For all I know, if I suddenly sent you the new rules file, half your air force might crash! It's up to you though--I'm certainly fine with you respawning any aircraft that happen to crash as a result of the sudden change. Tactically, I don't think the range issue should make much difference once you capture an airfield. Perhaps we hold off until you do that?

On that note - you had mentioned if cities should have their improvements stripped on capture - I didn't think they would need to. The Allies are typically the ones capturing them, and if the Germans can't sell them (which they can't) as "scorched earth" then the least we can do is let the improvements remain if the city is ever recaptured. If you're noting that something is being destroyed on capture, please let me know.

If you're having fun, I'm happy to continue this game, but I don't mind stopping if/when you feel we've learned enough from this playtest.

We might as well play at least another dozen or two turns just to see how the ground war progresses and if changes need to be made there. The new systems when put in place should pretty effectively increase the time to get to the ground war, so this is probably our best chance to test it.

I agree that 88s (and 3.7s) should be able to stand up to tanks, they were famously used in that capacity, but it is less clear why they should be so much more effective against infantry attack than regular artillery. Maybe we just have different ideas about the "force size" that various units represent.

Can you increase infantry attack when fighting this specific unit? If so, you'd give designers everywhere essentially "unlimited partisan" slots (as I'm pretty sure you're aware, they have a 8x attack bonus against units with "0" attack, so designers have been using that one slot to represent flamethrowers, etc. for years - great unless you want more than one unit like it). I'm a fan of developing code that others can copy and paste and make better use of in a broader scenario some day.

If you say that flying near flak is reasonable strategy for a defending fighter, then I'll believe you.

At low altitude, I'd say it is and it also gives the light flak guns more purpose for being. Air and ground units can be mutually supportive of one another. I wouldn't recommend it at high altitude (fighters were taking real risks flying into the flak stream), but then you really can't do it at high altitude in this scenario. How about creating a "splash effect" where if one side uses a flak burst within a tile or two of its own forces, there's a good chance they take damage too. Again, I'm also thinking about implications in other scenarios (how about a nuke that doesn't necessarily "destroy" everything in surrounding tiles but only damages some? Or an even more powerful one that damages over a considerably greater distance. Or maybe napalm that can attack a few units at once).

I think players who are stacking more than 1-2 units on top of another are taking a pretty big risk in this scenario, and deliberately flying to hover over some flak would, I'd imagine, tend to cut into mobility and could be outmaneuvered by the other side. I would like to reduce the ability to use the heavy flak guns as cover though. More on this below.

Preventing ammo call up on map 0 or the warning plus damage idea should be implementable without too much trouble.

Is it too much to expect the Allied player to invest in a sizeable force of tactical bombers in addition to strategic bombers? Would you feel like your offensive would be seriously affected if you could never attack low-alt targets with strategic bombers? Would the warning plus damage actually dissuade you? The Allies don't get airfields, so such a system would tend to affect them over numerous turns.

There are a few options for killing or moving an air unit over a factory. One is to kill or move it when the building underneath it is attacked, but this would require an air to air attack. Another is to move/kill on activation of a munition in an adjacent square. Theoretically, the munition's attack value could be temporarily reduced in compensation of 'air cover' if it is activated near a suitable air defender. The last is to move it when ammo is generated next to it. Perhaps a warning and chance of damage could be a consequence of trying to bomb a factory with fighter cover.

I didn't find it very easy to take out cruisers with fighters, though maybe I just wasn't bringing in enough force at the same time. I agree that air cover should provide some advantage, but I'm not sure that the appropriate advantage is to only be attacked by light and medium guns

"The last is to move it when ammo is generated next to it. Perhaps a warning and chance of damage could be a consequence of trying to bomb a factory with fighter cover."

Let's do this for all the improvement units, the 88mm Flak, the 3.7 inch flak, the Flak Train, and all naval ships. This way, the only units that the fighters can use as cover are the three that they ought to be able to use as cover - the light flak guns and Sdkfz 7/2 on the low alt map. These are all expensive enough that there shouldn't be an overwhelming use of the tactic.

I was able to establish quite a large industrial base in this game due to the fact that initially improvements were very cheap and even after the cost increase the Allies still had tons of money from the Battle of the Atlantic system in place. Allied production will be much lower in the new version, unless little effort is made in the Battle of the Atlantic. (I should probably send the Germans a report of the results of the convoy system.)

I'm a little concerned that a tactical blunder could "snowball." Lose a large force of planes in a battle, and all future battles have a deficit of planes, leading to further losses. A "catch up" mechanic would also ease the task of balancing the scenario

Well, I can understand your position from the Allies. I guess I was looking at it only from the side of the Germans. The whole point of the scenario is using air cover to reduce the Germans' industrial capacity, so a "catch up" (at least in terms of production doesn't make much sense for them--I actually think doing what we did - granting technology early - makes more sense for Germany).

I think you may be over-estimating German aircraft production capability, at least early game. You could probably do better, but Germany has to use a lot of early freight trains to build up their economy and this will only get worse in the next version too. They start with a fuel crisis to manage until they get Albert Speer's Reforms and build some refineries. Once this is sorted, you still need to move freight trains to airfields and there's only a few that are near major production centers at the start. Further, there really is a need to balance night vs. daylight production and you don't get both at once. It's difficult to build more than 3-4 aircraft every 2-3 turns. I don't think I've ever had a day fighter force of more than 24 aircraft. Also, the defense is a considerable issue as there is so much territory to cover. I can do a pretty good job of defending ONE major area. I can't cover many at once (and this, I think, is the critical point). So I don't know that it would really be that huge of an issue for the Allies.

The current max "payout" for the Atlantic is currently 5, right? How about increasing this by +2 for just the following military ports being destroyed?

Brest
St. Nazaire
Nantes
La Rochelle
Bordeaux

This would accomplish a few things:

1. Potentially triple the Allies' "payout"
2. Make these targets *much* more lucrative for the Allies to attack and the Germans to defend, which would require the Germans to spread out more;
3. Be close enough in range that early Allied fighters could escort the bombers (Brest, St. Nazaire, and Nantes are all within range of your first fighters assuming no extra airbases are built. If the player builds another base at 116,74, so is La Rochelle. Otherwise, that one is within range on your second escorts. Bordeaux remains out of range until your third escort).
4. Be a way for the Allies to either get back into the game or increase their production early.

That can be done, and I think fairly easily. Are we still having a German convoy from Norway?

We can, I don't know that it's a huge priority.

I wrote a nearest friendly airbase function, so we could just count losses outside of the 'maximum' fighter protection, although that might cause the Germans to intentionally kill at the very edge of fighter effectiveness.

If the Germans try to do that, wouldn't that mean that they give the Allies a free-hand beyond the maximum fighter range? I think that's balance enough to prevent it, so I like your idea of using your nearest friendly airbase function. Because I'm not allowing Cadillac of the Skies until Escorts III is researched, this won't be an early way to get Mustangs, either.

I'm not sure if the game keeps unit id numbers consistent throughout the game, or if it changes the number to use less space when other units are killed. If the id number is constant, we could tie aces information to specific veteran units, and maybe even give them certain bonuses using onActivation.

If you do do "experten" and "aces," what kind of planes will they get?

I was just thinking of a super unit kind of like the legions in Caesar (though not as strong). One of the things that has always captured my imagination about this time period are the different aces and their personalities... Marseille, Galland, Boyington, Gabreski, etc. I was picturing something very rare (each side might, if lucky, get 3-4 throughout the course of the game) that had an appreciable but not overpowering bonus. +2 to defense, perhaps an extra 10 hit points... Maybe they can attack 4 times vs. the usual 2-3... Something like that. Coding it so that the +2 scales with the technology of the time would be a plus (so whatever the best escort available is, +2).

As to what aircraft, if we have three slots for this, I'd use the P-47, Spitfire, and Fw190 as the unit pictures.

We could , I suppose, use the function Grishnach used in Caesar with the auto-swap of winter graphics to change what the icon looks like throughout the course of the game, but I think that's a lot of work for little gain.

Honestly, of all the code left to write, this is probably the least important. A nifty piece of icing for the cake someday, perhaps.

Do you want a function that can transfer veteran status between aircraft? For example, so that veteran pilots can use modern aircraft and retain their experience.

This might be very useful here and, again, exceptionally useful in future scenarios. How about letting the Allies stack, say, a vet P-47D11 and a non-vet P-47D25 on the same square, hit a key, get a text box saying "would you like to transfer this veteran squadron to the latest aircraft?" And if so, the two units "swap" veteran status between the two units? This is how it would have worked in real life--the better pilots would get the better aircraft.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

You can change the range/movement points of fighters this turn. I don't have any day (Or night, I think) fighters very far from an airfield this turn

I noticed that landing craft can be produced at airfields. Is this intentional? What about Russian and Italian Front?

Spitfire downs ME110 at (140,96)

Tanks destroy Sdkfz 7/2 at (159,101) (161,101) (163,97)

Tanks destroy Schutzen at (159,95), A20 destroyes schutzen at (155,95)

3 schutzen, 2 Sdfk, 1 FW190 killed near (138,98), 1 allied infantry, 1 Tank lost.

Schutzen strafed by sptifire at (130,106), killed at (125,105)

ME109G14 downed by spitfires at (192,92)

Schutzen at (158,94) and (166,96) Killed by A20;

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I've updated my events to-do list, so please review it. We've been discussing a lot of stuff.

Proposal for new Air Defense Bonus:

If a munition is generated within 2 squares of a fighter (not bomber, we'll have a list), there is a chance of damage to the generating unit, representing ambush by those fighters. 2 squares means that a fighter can protect a target from an adjacent square. Maybe we need to extend the range for when ships are generating munitions (as well, perhaps, as the "move planes" function). I would suggest that each fighter have a chance to do damage, so massive fighter protection chews up bombers unless the fighters are first eliminated. Maybe reduce the chance of damage if an escort is nearby.

Should we have extra defenses for military ports, e.g. "U-Boat Pens." I've heard that the Allies didn't have much success destroying U-Boat pens with strategic bombing, so maybe extra defenses (for a price) could be in order. We can just stack another military port or two. For events, I've been counting military port improvements, not units, so this shouldn't matter.

Is it too much to expect the Allied player to invest in a sizeable force of tactical bombers in addition to strategic bombers? Would you feel like your offensive would be seriously affected if you could never attack low-alt targets with strategic bombers? Would the warning plus damage actually dissuade you? The Allies don't get airfields, so such a system would tend to affect them over numerous turns.

Warning plus damage might dissuade me under certain circumstances, especially if I think there is anti-aircraft capability. In any case, the damage would reduce the subsequent effectiveness of the bomber until it went to an airbase and recovered for a few turns. This game, it hasn't been too much to ask to produce some tactical bombers along with strategic bombers. Also, remember that damaged B17s can be disbanded into other aircraft, so changing aircraft composition isn't a huge burden for the Allies if they are getting B17s damaged in raids already.

By the way, I think the silver damaged B17 is only worth 100 shields disbanded, just in case that wasn't intentional.

At low altitude, I'd say it is and it also gives the light flak guns more purpose for being. Air and ground units can be mutually supportive of one another. I wouldn't recommend it at high altitude (fighters were taking real risks flying into the flak stream), but then you really can't do it at high altitude in this scenario. How about creating a "splash effect" where if one side uses a flak burst within a tile or two of its own forces, there's a good chance they take damage too. Again, I'm also thinking about implications in other scenarios (how about a nuke that doesn't necessarily "destroy" everything in surrounding tiles but only damages some? Or an even more powerful one that damages over a considerably greater distance. Or maybe napalm that can attack a few units at once).

Instead of having Flak created as a separate unit, the 88/3.7/etc key press could deal a certain amount of damage (fixed or random) to each air unit in the vicinity. (Maybe a smaller chance to damage friendly units) Maybe calling up munitions near it would also trigger this effect. As it currently stands, if you bring in enough bombers, the flak can get killed without the bombers risking return fire.

Honestly, of all the code left to write, this is probably the least important. A nifty piece of icing for the cake someday, perhaps.

Here is my thought. Let's leave this out for now, but save a unit slot or two. If the scenario gets really popular, we can revisit it in 6 months or a year. We can add that functionality and make any other changes that are needed. There's a lot more code to write already, and the events file is getting large and unmanageable as it is. If we leave out a couple optional but cool features, we might get more feedback from people telling us that they're playing the scenario and want to see some extra features, which would give us an idea of how many people found and are playing the scenario.

 

[JPetroski]

Attached find new rules, events (renamed events1 as I wasn't sure if you were in the middle of anything and didn't want to chance copying over your work if this is so).

-The events change isn't strictly necessary - it just changes the movement cost per ammo of the 47 lineup, changes what bombs they and the British fighter bombers carry,

One downside of the rules is that your turn was no longer ctrl+n'd out - I did attempt doing this but you ended up losing 5 aircraft and of course the game showed me right where they all were as they crashed. Since that cat was already out of the bag, I restarted and moved these aircraft to the nearest airfield for you.

Turn 47

-Tank battles outside Le Havre

-A20 destroyed in same

-Halifax destroyed on approach to Karlesruhe

-Destroyer sunk in the channel

-Destroyer sunk at 68,68

 

[JPetroski]

Proposal for new Air Defense Bonus:

If a munition is generated within 2 squares of a fighter (not bomber, we'll have a list), there is a chance of damage to the generating unit, representing ambush by those fighters. 2 squares means that a fighter can protect a target from an adjacent square. Maybe we need to extend the range for when ships are generating munitions (as well, perhaps, as the "move planes" function). I would suggest that each fighter have a chance to do damage, so massive fighter protection chews up bombers unless the fighters are first eliminated. Maybe reduce the chance of damage if an escort is nearby.

Sounds good to me - great idea!

Should we have extra defenses for military ports, e.g. "U-Boat Pens." I've heard that the Allies didn't have much success destroying U-Boat pens with strategic bombing, so maybe extra defenses (for a price) could be in order. We can just stack another military port or two. For events, I've been counting military port improvements, not units, so this shouldn't matter.

We could make this easy and finally one less thing we need to do in lua and simply make these targets tougher than usual targets and/or reduce the cost of them to rebuild.

Warning plus damage might dissuade me under certain circumstances, especially if I think there is anti-aircraft capability. In any case, the damage would reduce the subsequent effectiveness of the bomber until it went to an airbase and recovered for a few turns. This game, it hasn't been too much to ask to produce some tactical bombers along with strategic bombers. Also, remember that damaged B17s can be disbanded into other aircraft, so changing aircraft composition isn't a huge burden for the Allies if they are getting B17s damaged in raids already.

OK well let's roll with this and if others complain we can just remove map 0 functionality later. I'd rather give players more choices than less so let's see how it works.

By the way, I think the silver damaged B17 is only worth 100 shields disbanded, just in case that wasn't intentional.

That was an error. I also added another error in the rules above but I'm not concerned enough to change it (it works in your favor anyway). The B-17F originally costs 300 so I want 250 shields for the damaged one (I don't think it shoudl allow you to do a 1:1 replacement since some airmen would likely be killed on a bomber that badly damaged). The B-17G costs 200 so I'm now giving 175 shields for it.

Instead of having Flak created as a separate unit, the 88/3.7/etc key press could deal a certain amount of damage (fixed or random) to each air unit in the vicinity. (Maybe a smaller chance to damage friendly units) Maybe calling up munitions near it would also trigger this effect. As it currently stands, if you bring in enough bombers, the flak can get killed without the bombers risking return fire.

Let's go for it and make it random. It really should be to soften up units anyway and this will spare another unit slot. I'd suggest a very slight chance that a unit is totally destroyed. Since all aircraft have 20 hitpoints this should be easy enough. I'm not quite sure how the math has to work for this but I'd like it to be pretty common that an aircraft loses 5 hitpoints, somewhat common to lose 10, pretty uncommon for 15, and very uncommon (but not impossible) to be destroyed.

Here is my thought. Let's leave this out for now, but save a unit slot or two. If the scenario gets really popular, we can revisit it in 6 months or a year. We can add that functionality and make any other changes that are needed. There's a lot more code to write already, and the events file is getting large and unmanageable as it is. If we leave out a couple optional but cool features, we might get more feedback from people telling us that they're playing the scenario and want to see some extra features, which would give us an idea of how many people found and are playing the scenario.

Agreed and if I really wake up in a sweat some night needing this then it's something I can probably add myself I think we have plenty here enough.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

We could make this easy and finally one less thing we need to do in lua and simply make these targets tougher than usual targets and/or reduce the cost of them to rebuild.

Extra health/defense for military ports is probably the way to go. The only advantage to the other method was that it differentiated the special submarine bunkers from other port facilities.

Let's go for it and make it random. It really should be to soften up units anyway and this will spare another unit slot. I'd suggest a very slight chance that a unit is totally destroyed. Since all aircraft have 20 hitpoints this should be easy enough. I'm not quite sure how the math has to work for this but I'd like it to be pretty common that an aircraft loses 5 hitpoints, somewhat common to lose 10, pretty uncommon for 15, and very uncommon (but not impossible) to be destroyed.

Here are my thoughts on Flak (especially 88s and 3.7s):

When the attack is activated on the Flak's turn, 2 enemy units (in range) are targeted at random, and have an elevated chance of being severely damaged or destroyed. All other enemy units suffer a less deadly attack, and friendly units suffer a still weaker attack. This way, a single flak battery offers significant power, but can be "saturated." Perhaps "special targeting" could be activated only if a technology (e.g. improved radar) is researched.

"Reactive" flak is fired when an enemy calls up munitions in an adjacent square (any elevation). It is moderately deadly to enemies in adjacent squares (but it will only likely hit one of them, since they will retreat out of range) and only slightly deadly to allies, since they are likely to be under fire for many attacks. Reactive flak won't be fired if it is expected to do more damage to friendly planes than to enemy planes (but in that case, the friendly fighters are in range for an ambush instead).

Attached find new rules, events (renamed events1 as I wasn't sure if you were in the middle of anything and didn't want to chance copying over your work if this is so).

-The events change isn't strictly necessary - it just changes the movement cost per ammo of the 47 lineup, changes what bombs they and the British fighter bombers carry,

One downside of the rules is that your turn was no longer ctrl+n'd out - I did attempt doing this but you ended up losing 5 aircraft and of course the game showed me right where they all were as they crashed. Since that cat was already out of the bag, I restarted and moved these aircraft to the nearest airfield for you.

All my recent event work has been in a separate file (to be "required"), so I can update the events. Don't worry about seeing my map, but thanks for moving the aircraft. (I thought I would still get 1 last turn of range, but it doesn't really matter.)

Will play shortly.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Sub sunk at (95,81) by destroyer, (67,65) by spitfire.

ME109s downed at (158,100), (157,99). Various other air battles in that area, and more planes downed.

Housing destroyed surprisingly easily in Linz.

A20 kills 2 tanks near Le Havre.

Tanks and schutzen killed near Nantes

Spitfire kills artillery near Lille

____________-

I think earlier you asked if we can change the attack value of units against other units. We can't do that, we can only change the attack value against all units upon activation (which might be useful for a munition that can only attack units right next to it). However, we can do something that is basically equivalent (it would be exactly equivalent if we could set fractional defense values_, which is to reduce (change) the defensive power of a class of units against a particular attacker. To do this, we use the on activation trigger to set the defensive value of the unit type in question. Since a unit must be activated before it attacks, when we activate a 'special' unit, we set the defensive value of the target unit type to what we want, and when another unit is activated, the defense is set back to normal.

 

[JPetroski]

I think 48 turns in I'm really appreciating how you are putting in effort to have a combat log that can be pulled up It would be more fun from an AAR standpoint

Turn 48

-Fighting east of Nantes, a few tanks/infantry destroyed

-First jet air to air kill in history is a P-38 south of Normandie

-Flak/fighters also attack units in eastern Normandie

 

[JPetroski]

Extra health/defense for military ports is probably the way to go. The only advantage to the other method was that it differentiated the special submarine bunkers from other port facilities.

We have a lot to chew on as it stands so let's be simple with this one.

Here are my thoughts on Flak (especially 88s and 3.7s):

When the attack is activated on the Flak's turn, 2 enemy units (in range) are targeted at random, and have an elevated chance of being severely damaged or destroyed. All other enemy units suffer a less deadly attack, and friendly units suffer a still weaker attack. This way, a single flak battery offers significant power, but can be "saturated." Perhaps "special targeting" could be activated only if a technology (e.g. improved radar) is researched.

"Reactive" flak is fired when an enemy calls up munitions in an adjacent square (any elevation). It is moderately deadly to enemies in adjacent squares (but it will only likely hit one of them, since they will retreat out of range) and only slightly deadly to allies, since they are likely to be under fire for many attacks. Reactive flak won't be fired if it is expected to do more damage to friendly planes than to enemy planes (but in that case, the friendly fighters are in range for an ambush instead).

OK - I am good with both. It'll save two more units, too. Please make low-level flak deadlier than high level flak.

Should we just rework this the defensive fire mechanism of the bombers and ships to be reactive too? Could the flak reactive fire event be built in such a way to accommodate both?

This would ensure that the bomber is always attacked (at some point the game decides the worthless-on-defense defensive fire unit should be shot at instead, which is an auto-kill for the stack), and also that it can always fire back. If we do this for the bombers, I'd like to have some way of controlling the likelihood against other fighters so I can better differentiate them. Basically, 109s should be pretty susceptible to being damaged. 190s less so. This should be easy enough because they each fire different ammo. The lighter the guns, the better chance of incurring damage would be fine if that's the quick way to do things. If it could be a table based on the unit actually calling the ammo up, that would be better, because it would allow me to tweak some things to make certain units worth building/different.

Also, certain bombers (like the B17) should be more likely to damage attackers than others.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Access combat reports using keys 7,8,9 (above letters). 7 and 9 move forward and backward through the 'list' of combat events, and 8 brings up the combat report. Unfortunately, the centerView function does not change to the appropriate map for some reason.

At some point, I'll order the 'list' of combat reports so that combat is grouped by region in some way. Also, the formatting of the text box is a problem, but for some reason 'tab' isn't recognized by the civ 2 display, and a uniform font is not used. However, that is cosmetic, so the change doesn't have to happen immediately. Still, if any changes should be made, let me know.

With 'k' units, the munition is recorded, not the bomber/fighter. I don't think that is a serious problem; the player will know the type of attacker, but not the exact vehicle.

I'll report combat for now, just in case there is a problem.

Bombs fall on Prague. All Housing destroyed.

Bombs fall on Dresden. No significant damage.

A single Halifax raids Regensburg, destroys housing.

Flak train at (159,105) attacked by a tank, takes little damage. Decide not to use the direct attack method. (change mind later after capturing nearby airfield)

Allied tanks capture Le Havre, and capture 5 units of fuel.

Panzers destroyed at (128,102) and (127,101) with 3 tanks an artillery piece, and a bomber.

Schutzen destroyed at (137,117) by tank. B24 destroys tank at (137,119).

ME109 downed at (151,99).

Spitfires strafe (and kill) units in the open near Cormeilles AF.

ME109 downed at (220,78) by spitfires, P38.

A20 defeats 2 tanks, schutzen near Rouen.

Beaumont AF captured, with 3 fuel. This new Airfield allows planes to attack Flak Trains before landing. Flak train at (159,105) severely damaged by fighters, but still fights off tank, so it is allowed to survive one more turn.

 

[JPetroski]

Turn 49
-Flak train destroys infantry
-Infantry and tanks destroyed east of La Rochelle
-Major air battle near Woensdricht with several Allied bombers shot down – hard to tell how many given potential for defensive fire
-88mms open up on infantry near a French Port but can’t destroy it

 

[JPetroski]

The combat report is pretty cool! I'm unable to cycle through by pressing 7 or 9 after pressing 8. Not sure if that is intentional or just a windows 10 thing.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Air combat near Woensdrecht AF.

Bombing raid on factory near Antwerp or Brussels.

Combat west of Beaumont.

St. Nazaire captured.

Rouen Captured (after killing defender with Spitfires.

Heavy Cruiser shells Brest.

Vannes AF captured, troops destroy night aircraft on the ground.

Combat west of Nantes and La Rochelle.

88 in Nantes destroyed by 2 A20s, a B24 and a P47 bombing and strafing. Nantes Captured, with 6 fuel.

Tank destroyed north of Vannes.

Housing destroyed in Leipzig.

A couple bombs fall on Berlin.

Housing destroyed in Merseburg.

Flak Train destroyed at (159,105) by persistent fighters.

Flak Train at (156, 98) severely damaged by artillery shell, but still kills 3 infantry, before finally being killed by a spitfire.

Stack at (156,100)

Intelligence suggests that with current German resource allocation, destroying houses may not be a very effective way of defeating Germany.

Events Change:
I now check if a valid key is pressed for combat reporting before running the combat reporting function instead of inside it (OK, it still runs inside it also). This has corrected a responsiveness issue that I've been having when moving units.

The combat report is pretty cool! I'm unable to cycle through by pressing 7 or 9 after pressing 8. Not sure if that is intentional or just a windows 10 thing.

That's strange, I haven't had that problem on the current event file. Are you sure I didn't just attack many targets close to each other? After pressing 7 or 9 check if 8 gives a report for a different square (I believe I put the location in the title).

 

[JPetroski]

Turn 50
-Much flak destroys B-24 near Dusseldorf - looking forward to the new change. I'll probably have to increase the cost of batteries once it goes into effect.
-B-17 raid torn to shreds by fighters, including 262s. One survives.
-Hurricane destroyed outside of Brest
-Some P-38's shot down here and there where not escorted.

As to Allied bombing raids:
-the night bombing is probably pointless now. It is a long-term effect where I can't devote as many specialists to fuel and science. It may need to be given a higher value for "points" though to make it a more enticing target later in the game.

-I didn't have a chance to check the scroll again - but what I experienced last time was that 7 and 9 would cycle through different tiles, but the moment you hit "8" they wouldn't scroll any more. So you have to close out from the 8 to get it to work further.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

-I didn't have a chance to check the scroll again - but what I experienced last time was that 7 and 9 would cycle through different tiles, but the moment you hit "8" they wouldn't scroll any more. So you have to close out from the 8 to get it to work further.

OK, then it is working as intended. I agree, however, that it would be useful to have functionality to let you scroll from one battle to the next. I'll get to that at some point.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I've been editing events. Will probably play turn later today.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Changelog
Introduced "after production" event functionality. Currently just shows a message. Won't work if the player has fortified/put to sleep all his units and doesn't do anything with any of them all turn. That is unlikely to be a problem in this scenario.

Search for: local function afterProduction(turn,tribe)

Money bonus of 2000 created for researching technologies 96,97,98,99. Using afterProduction, it should appear on the same turn as the research is completed. A text message also appears.

local debugFeatures = true -- this can be used as a guard to turn off things (like showing germany how many allied bombers have been killed outside of escort range) for the final release, but having them available

There is a count of bombers killed outside of range

Relevant tables

local escortTableDay = {
[unitAliases.SpitfireIX.id] = {available = alliesHaveTechFor, range = physicalRange(unitAliases.SpitfireIX)},
[unitAliases.SpitfireXII.id] = {available = alliesHaveTechFor, range = physicalRange(unitAliases.SpitfireXII)},
[unitAliases.SpitfireXIV.id] = {available = alliesHaveTechFor, range = physicalRange(unitAliases.SpitfireXIV)},
[unitAliases.HurricaneIV.id] = {available = alliesHaveTechFor, range = physicalRange(unitAliases.HurricaneIV)},
[unitAliases.Typhoon.id] = {available = alliesHaveTechFor, range = physicalRange(unitAliases.Typhoon)},
[unitAliases.Tempest.id] = {available = alliesHaveTechFor, range = physicalRange(unitAliases.Tempest)},
[unitAliases.P47D11.id] = {available = alliesHaveTechFor, range = physicalRange(unitAliases.P47D11)},
[unitAliases.P47D25.id] = {available = alliesHaveTechFor, range = physicalRange(unitAliases.P47D25)},
[unitAliases.P47D40.id] = {available = alliesHaveTechFor, range = physicalRange(unitAliases.P47D40)},

[unitAliases.P38H.id] = {available = alliesHaveTechFor, range = physicalRange(unitAliases.P38H)},
[unitAliases.P38J.id] = {available = alliesHaveTechFor, range = physicalRange(unitAliases.P38J)},
[unitAliases.P51B.id] = {available = alliesHaveTechFor, range = physicalRange(unitAliases.P51B)},
[unitAliases.P51D.id] = {available = alliesHaveTechFor, range = physicalRange(unitAliases.P51D)},

}
--
-- local escortTableNight = {}

-- Munitions that can increment the need for long range escorts for the allies (i.e. not Flak)
local munitionsForEscort = {
[unitAliases.FiftyCal.id] = true,
[unitAliases.TwentyMM.id] = true,
[unitAliases.ThirtyMM.id] = true,
[unitAliases.A2ARockets.id] = true,
}

-- table of bombers that can increment the counter leading to the need for long range escorts "KillsOutsideEscortRange"
-- table entry is a table to refer to to see if unit was killed outside escort range
local escortableBombers = {

[unitAliases.A20.id] = {validEscorts = escortTableDay, validKillers =munitionsForEscort},
[unitAliases.B26.id] = {validEscorts = escortTableDay, validKillers =munitionsForEscort},
[unitAliases.A26.id] = {validEscorts = escortTableDay, validKillers =munitionsForEscort},
[unitAliases.B17F.id] = {validEscorts = escortTableDay, validKillers =munitionsForEscort},
[unitAliases.B24J.id] = {validEscorts = escortTableDay, validKillers =munitionsForEscort},
[unitAliases.B17G.id] = {validEscorts = escortTableDay, validKillers =munitionsForEscort},
--[unitAliases.damagedB17F.id] = escortTableDay,
--[unitAliases.damagedB17G.id] = escortTableDay,
}


Commented out references to getUnitType(53) and P47M

At the moment, losing 25 planes outside of maximum escort range will trigger need for long range escorts. This should probably be changed. I'm thinking that it should have a more complicated trigger and/or do something else with escort technology if the allied player is not "ready" to research Cadillac of the Skies. Perhaps "on path" technologies re-set the counter, but if the threshold is reached, the current player's research is set to something "on path" and (if the existing research is off path) cancel the current research progress. So losing planes over Germany is bad and forces the player to research escort technology from time to time, until, finally, the losses can be used to enable Cadillac of the skies.

What scoring mechanism do you want for the Allies and Germans? We discussed a lot of stuff, and I don't know where to find it.

Will play turn later.