SCENARIO DEVELOPMENT THREAD: The Second Indochina War

[El Justo]

yeah, i have the Modern Soldier graphics in there. ARVN Airborne Inf w/ the airdrop anim. pretty cool.

i like your idea about the barracks not producing veteran units. very good idea actually.

i could probably use other graphics for the low end foot units for s vietnam. where are you finding all of these graphics from? i would add in new graphics if they looked better. i kind of like that Militia unit. it's kind of like a Homeguard/Villager unit.

 

[El Justo]

ok. got it. must've posted in between your post.

the pediaicon bugs i've been getting have been for wonder splashes which i've corrected. though, i could probably use some better splashes. i'll look around some.

how bout flagging armour (only the light armour) as defense? autopro the heavier armour only?

that's not too much work adding in the USS NJ. why have it there in 1956 when it really wasn't?

i'll try that 3-4-5 variation you listed. what was the approx. ratio for downed planes in comparison to sorties flew? maybe 15-1? probably higher if i was to guess. i don't want SAM Batteries knocking out my unbuildable and autopro'ed b52s every turn!

so, how would you handle the carriers? buildable? an upgrade? autopro'ed?

also, i was thinking about the VP thingie now that i removed it. in order for s vietnam to win, they need to take over n vietnamese cities. this isn't particularly accurate. i know, you're right when you say that the vietnam war wasn't won or lost by victory points. but the question is: how was it won and what conditions were necessary for victory?

well, for the north, it was conquest of course. this part is simple.

for the south, it was staving off the said conquest, not taking over cities in n vietnam. there should be some sort of victory 'condition' for the south whether it be VP points, cultural victory or whatever. i guess this is why such a mod is so hard to historically replicate. as such, i'm considering putting the VP scoring back in but have yet to find a suitable victory condidtion (total pts of course). any help/suggestions on this end would be fantastic

oh, i've been hackin up joint compound for the last 24 hrs!

 

[unscratchedfoot]

ok. got it. must've posted in between your post.

the pediaicon bugs i've been getting have been for wonder splashes which i've corrected. though, i could probably use some better splashes. i'll look around some.

how bout flagging armour (only the light armour) as defense? autopro the heavier armour only? The Ai will not build infantry.

that's not too much work adding in the USS NJ. why have it there in 1956 when it really wasn't? I don't think there wasn't anything there in 1956. Why do you start it so early?

i'll try that 3-4-5 variation you listed. what was the approx. ratio for downed planes in comparison to sorties flew? maybe 15-1? probably higher if i was to guess. i don't want SAM Batteries knocking out my unbuildable and autopro'ed b52s every turn! You have to bomb the SAMs first. If you are bombing a city then its realistic cause that's how almost all B-52's were lost, not to the Migs. Just need to lower the AA defense # a bit. I gave all infantry and armor an AA defense of 1 because whenever US aircraft approached, all infantry sprayed AK-47 fire into the air hoping for a lucky hit.

so, how would you handle the carriers? buildable? an upgrade? autopro'ed? No US carriers were lost in the war so I just place them at the start. I only put in the Enterprise and Kitty Hawk so far. I will add one more US carrier and maybe an Australian carrier. I think the Aussies deserve recognition for their efforts. I gave them 4 battalions of troops as well.

also, i was thinking about the VP thingie now that i removed it. in order for s vietnam to win, they need to take over n vietnamese cities. this isn't particularly accurate. i know, you're right when you say that the vietnam war wasn't won or lost by victory points. but the question is: how was it won and what conditions were necessary for victory? Cultural and victory wins just end good games prematurely. Try domination and conquest. The commies were tough and wouldnt've relented until at least Hanoi was taken. I don't think the commies would ever have given up and China may have intervened if America did too well. Then there was the fickle American politics with many silly rules so a victory for the south is pretty much impossible. I'd say domination is okay though.

well, for the north, it was conquest of course. this part is simple.

for the south, it was staving off the said conquest, not taking over cities in n vietnam. there should be some sort of victory 'condition' for the south whether it be VP points, cultural victory or whatever. i guess this is why such a mod is so hard to historically replicate. as such, i'm considering putting the VP scoring back in but have yet to find a suitable victory condidtion (total pts of course). any help/suggestions on this end would be fantastic

oh, i've been hackin up joint compound for the last 24 hrs!

Your NVA and VC soldiers look the same. You need a black uniformed unit for the NVA. I'm trying out the 'Black Cat' unit now and will likely use it. You should check it out.

 

[El Justo]

how would you flag the nva infantry in comparison to the commie light armour?

the war in vietnam didn't start in 1965. infiltration into the south had begun as early as 1957/58 after the promised elections of 1956 didn't take place. at least for my mod, this is accurate.

bombing the SAMs would require the stealth attack flag. no? good idea on the +1 Air Defense to the commie foot units. but i have to ask: those ak47 shots made it up 40,000 feet where the b52s were flying?

preplacing the carriers would work in your mod but i'll have to be creative with implementing them into mine. i'll figure something.

i accidentlly flagged the vc hamlet and nlf barracks as needing the Liberation Mvmt small wonder so that is why there are all of those nva inf running around in my screenshot. i guess this is why one playtests.

 

[El Justo]

playtesting results a s vietnam on monarch...

1st culture flip (to n vietnam): Thon Ke, week 19, 1966; c. 25 clicks south east of Khe Sanh.

Week 23, 1966: 1st Coastal Patrol Boat (nv) spotted near Hue

Week 25, 1966: 1st autopro'd American unit, US Marine

Week 31, 1966: 1st autopro'd Huey

Week 35, 1966: 1st autopro'd US GI
same week: N Vietnam stole my military plans, whatever they were b/c i was busy trying to defend s vietnamese cities, especially those w/ the autoproducing sm wonders and highways that connected them.

i also had 2 spies caught and killed in 1966.

it ain't lookin good. there are about 70 (yes, 70! ) n vietnamese foot units stationed 2 tiles outside of saigon. wish i had screenie. i'll try and post one later

 

[unscratchedfoot]

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how would you flag the nva infantry in comparison to the commie light armour? I don't know. Just make them like 12/8 +1hp vs 9/9 nva but make sure the tanks are autoprodded or you'll have problems.

the war in vietnam didn't start in 1965. infiltration into the south had begun as early as 1957/58 after the promised elections of 1956 didn't take place. at least for my mod, this is accurate.

bombing the SAMs would require the stealth attack flag. no? They didn't have smart bombs yet, so no. good idea on the +1 Air Defense to the commie foot units It goes to all infantry and armor in the game except snipers.. but i have to ask: those ak47 shots made it up 40,000 feet where the b52s were flying? That's what the snipers are for. Just kidding. American close air support jet pilots feared small arms fire more than any other threat. Can't differentiate between targets so tough luck, not likely to hit anyways unless 4 or more infantry in a stack.

preplacing the carriers would work in your mod but i'll have to be creative with implementing them into mine. i'll figure something.

i accidentlly flagged the vc hamlet and nlf barracks as needing the Liberation Mvmt small wonder so that is why there are all of those nva inf running around in my screenshot. i guess this is why one playtests.

I pretty much finished my units. I would've finished but my computer overheated. Japan is like a sauna now I put in some cool sound effects especially when a Chinese and a US cruiser go at it, but the 'coolness' didn't help my cpu much. I looked at the ingame tech chart for the first time and it reminded me of a pizza dropped on the floor and then squished around by a hippo walking on it. But I'm not gonna spend much time on the tech. Just remove and move a few, clean up the arrows a bit and add some icons. Is there a way to remove the previous eras?

Good luck with it. How is your tech chart?

 

[El Justo]

back to that 70 unit stack outside of saigon....

this is crazy. there's no way that can be defended against. a couple of things could be done:

~raise the prices of n vietnamese units (they are less expensive than the south's)
~lower the prices of s vietnam's units
~switch the autoproducing small wonders (GI & Marine only) to standard improvements that autoproduce

i'm leaning towards the latter b/c w/ all of the cities on this map (50some in s vietnam alone) it is nearly impossible to successfully defend against infiltration and pillaging (of which i'll reserve to armour/arty/air/US sea units).

another concept is to allow s vietnam to build all mechanized units except MBTs. that is, they could build all of the air units and therefore render those sm wonders obsolete.

you may say: why are you making it easier for s vietnam? well, sending in 1 or 2 US Marines at a size 28 city w/ a few ARVN units is completely futile IMHO. the aggressiveness of N Vietnam shouldn't be touched (it's at the highest level). what should be altered is the south's capacity to defend, which in reality was quite good b/c of the US firepower.

i'm also going to re-explore the VP thing again b/c there has to be a way to make it work as far as a victory 'condition' for the south is concerned.

 

[El Justo]

you can delete and rename eras. i'd rename them 1st before deleting anything though.

my tech tree is pretty much set. i think there's like 20 techs all told. i think i've posted a screen shot of them somewhere in this thread.

there is a Civ3Multitool program available for DL on cfc. i believe it can edit the arrows and stuff out of tech tree screen.

i have also developed a good way to place the tech icons on the tree so that they allign properly (arrows not withstanding). this is how i do it:

1st, you need to figure which era you have the mod working from (ie, ind age, modern, etc).

i log onto cfc and click on the 'Tech Tree' link on the homepage. i minimize that window. then i open my mod .biq, then hit the 'Desktop' icon on my toolbar and open up c3c editor again. now, @ this point, i click 'custom rules' so that i can open up the 'Civilization Advances' tab.
basically, i look at the 'Tech Tree' on cfc and compare the names & the coordinates of the techs in the specific era (industrial if that's what era is used for your mod) to those in the blank .biq. it's the coordinates that you want so that you can allign all of the icons properly.
now, you can copy the same exact format form the blank .biq tech tree (default tech tree) to your mod and you wouldn't need to edit the arrows at all b/c all of the icons would be in the same exact spot (coordinates) as the default tech tree. but this would mean coming up with a specified # of techs to meet the default # of techs. no biggie i guess.
i hope i didn't confuse you w/ my babble.

 

[unscratchedfoot]

Yeah, you could make a tech chart like that no problem. Another way is the old fashioned way of just looking at the original coordinates and adjusting them as you need. Aligning is easy, just make the techs have the same x or y coordinate and change the other. Arrows can be modded by simply copy & pasting. Fastest way is to have both paintshop and the game running at the same time and after each edit push F6 in the game to see the new chart so no need to keep restarting the game. Easy as pie just a little finicky.

As for the massive numbers of VC, I recommend you turn down the north's production instead of turning up the south. Reason is because if there are too many units on both sides, the game becomes more laborious than strategic and fun. Best way to do this is to delete out some of the cities on both sides. Also, it slows down older computers having too many cities and units. Also upping prices is smart but will not affect Diety/Sid levels noticeably.

You don't need CivMultiTool. That is for altering saved games to cheat by adding/deleting units or whatever. Although vital with new civ3 game long ago, it is useless for modding. It's obsolete cause it was made when the editor could not add/delete units or place starting points so most functions are redundant now.

 

[El Justo]

i'll try and play w/ the nv production levels some i guess.

on another note, i think i will add in a Sapper unit for the n vietnamese and give it the pillage flag and maybe invisible. not sure yet. check out that gruntonline.com site for info on the Sapper. can you tell me where you've found your added infantry type graphics?

 

[El Justo]

after surfing around and finding some worthy sea units, i devised an enlarged Mekong River along the hinterlands of S Vietnam and its western borderlands. they're coastal tiles, allowing for more patrol/torpedo boat action.

check it out...

 

[unscratchedfoot]

Good idea with the river. I had a good idea. The junks we are using are Hong Kong boats, not Vietnamese, so you should download the sampan from the Battlefield Asia thread which someone just bumped. The VC's used sampans a lot so I'm replacing the junk with it. For troops I used the Dawa for Thai infantry, American rifleman for china, black cat for nva, bebro's xsniper (the sounds must be changed) for marine sniper, smokey's green partisan for asian sniper and the rest you know. I tested them all ingame and they look best for those roles. If you use them, make sure you change the sounds cause many refer to the outdated marine unit sounds.

 

[El Justo]

i'll check out that sampan unit. thanks for those graphics descriptions.

well, i did a major overhaul on this mod over the last few days.

the focus was to make a biq version for S Vietnam (human player), N Vietnam (human player) & a multi-player version (hotseat, PBEM, online, etc).

i've nearly completed the S Vietnam version. what are the differences? many...

the human player in the S Vietnam version now has the option to build just about all of the units in the game w/ the exception of a few: MBTs, US Marine, US GI, Green Beret, USS New Jersey, Firebase of which are either autopro'd or upgraded from another unit. there may be more but i can't think of them/it right now.

the US ground forces autoproducing improvements (no longer sm wonders) crank out american troops every 10 turns.

i added the following units also:

PAVN Regular (smokingmirror's light assault commando): an upgrade from the PAVN Irregular

NVA Sapper (utahjazz7's dawa soldier): an autopro'd unit w/ extra attack and mvmt (9/7/2 all terrain as roads); invisible w/ stealth attack

PT Torpedo Boat (wyrmshadow): for use "from the Delta to the DMZ "

Destroyer, Carrier & USS New Jersey (upgrade from pre-placed, immobile battleship in Cam Rhan)

i think that's it for the units...also in the S Vietnam version is a slew of autproducing improvements and sm wonders for n vietnam. most are for mech units though some are for foot units (pathet lao, khmer rouge, sniper & sapper). my playtesting of this version has shown more diversity among the NV units on the map, which is good.

lastly, i've come to a conclusion w/ the VP scoring and it's a positive one. VP scoring HAS to be in any vietnam scenario b/c there is no way for S Vietnam to "win" w/out them. a conquest/domination only victory condition would make it so that S Vietnam would have to conquer N Vietnamese cities and we know this ain't right. the main goal for them was to sweep all commies out of s vietnam and the vp points offers the human/AI player just this. i also configured the scoring limits for VP victory. i took the total # of VP locations (@1pt/turn and flagged ALL other [cultural, population, etc] vp scoring as zero) and multiplied them by the approx # of turns for the scenario and voila...there is the # needd for victory. what helps this theory out is the fact that n vietnam owns several villages/towns and VP locations at the start of the scenario thus forcing the S Vietnamese player into fighting for them from the start. i know the war wasn't won or lost by silly Victory Points but i'm afraid it's the best we got.

i should post a screen shot or something when i'm home on my lunchbreak

 

[El Justo]

added F86 Sabre as an early fighter air unit which upgrades to F100

added cambodian and loatian cities along the mekong to act as 'gates' along the river.

 

[unscratchedfoot]

The river idea is good. You should have it connect to some north vietnam cities too so you can have river fights. And maybe add some sampans and what not on the river for startup.

I'm doing my jets different from you. The Sabre is unbuildable in my mod because the USA stopped producing them before the war started and switched to phantoms. So I give the USA some sabres at start and they can make phantoms and upgrade to a F-5E Freedom Fighter with the right tech. Same idea for bombers. However, I make Thai able to build Sabres to simulate the larges numbers of them they got from the USA.

 

[El Justo]

The river idea is good. You should have it connect to some north vietnam cities too so you can have river fights. And maybe add some sampans and what not on the river for startup.

I'm doing my jets different from you. The Sabre is unbuildable in my mod because the USA stopped producing them before the war started and switched to phantoms. So I give the USA some sabres at start and they can make phantoms and upgrade to a F-5E Freedom Fighter with the right tech. Same idea for bombers. However, I make Thai able to build Sabres to simulate the larges numbers of them they got from the USA.

the mekong cities are connected. i added 4 total w/ the top (northern) 2 a NV and the bottom 2 for sv.

i guess your mod starts in 1965 where mine is entering the 2nd era in 1965. so making the f86 unbuildable (sv/usa) and preplaced in yours is accurate i guess.

i'd playtest your mod when you get it up and running

 

[El Justo]

here's a shot of the culture scoring as of early 1966...