Spanish Civil War ToT Mod

[McMonkey]

I have just reclaimed my study from the builders. It has been used as a storage area / temporary kitchen and covered in a thick layer of dust for weeks. Now I'm back in I can get on with this scenario again. Hopefully I can get the finishing touches done relatively soon. Taking a look at it right now.

 

[McMonkey]

Quick update. I have been working on the events, specifically the flags, over the past few days. To be honest I find the testing of these events frustrating and wherever possible I have replaced them with simplified versions that I know will work, rather than flag triggered events that looks like they should work perfectly but just don't trigger. A lot of the flag events are replicated by modifying Nationalist units spawning co-ordinates which will not trigger if they don't hold certain cities.

I wish I had more skill and perseverance with these kind of events but I just find the dis-functionality and labour intensive testing required a real chore which is a huge factor behind the project stalling. There are still a lot of money related events controlled by flags and these seem to work perfectly, but unit spawning ones just seem to fail.

At the end of the day my priority is to complete the project in a form where it is fun to play and I genuinely think I have achieved that. I hope to post the final product soon.

 

[Patine]

This is why my only use of flags in the Korean War scenario is to have a count of North Korean cities captured by the UN until the Chinese aggression triggers, They strike me as a migraine-inducing can of worms, potentially.

 

[McMonkey]

In theory they are quite straight forward. In practice they can drive me round the bend. I think it's the testing that really does my head in. I have great admiration for the likes of Catfish, Techumseh and Boco who have all made extensive use of flags.

Anyway, all of the events are now sorted. My next question is: Would you guys prefer me to release the scenario now or after a thorough playtest? My last playtest took a good few weeks to go through and I think I located all of the bugs then. The alterations are more of a simplification than an addition of potentially buggy events, so in theory there should be no problems. I'm happy to playtest then release it if you guys prefer a guaranteed bug free scenario, or does anyone fancy helping me test it?

 

[Patine]

I, myself, have always found an open playtest can often expose flaws the designer may overlook or otherwise be blind to (or, in some cases, "features" they may be very proud of but end up being unnecassary, unenjoyable, or even annoying by other players' perspectives).

 

[techumseh]

Playtest.

 

[McMonkey]

This may not be a new idea but I have not come across it before. I decided to test elements of the scenario as a two player Hotseat game controlling Britain and Tangier. This way I can advance through the game rapidly with the AI controlled Nationalist and Republican turns passing very quickly. I can then make saves each turn and dip in with the cheat mode to check how events, especially move unit events, pan out in game. A hell of a lot quicker than sitting through lengthy turns watching the units ambling about the map!

 

[McMonkey]

The Hotseat test has been very useful. So far the Nationalists AI has been extremely effective against the Republican AI, despite a few isolated counter-attacks providing propaganda victories. The Nationalist Army of Africa rapidly advances to the south of Madrid, encircling the city shortly after the Italian CTV succesfully broke the Republican line to the east of Madrid at Guadalajara. Finally in March 1938 the Nationalists enter the capital.

Nationalist victory in the North is already assured and in Aragon and Catalonia massive offensives are underway with Barcelona and Valencia as their goals.

My only concern now is that the Army of Africa move unit events are still not working as planned. Before they caused a bottling up of Legionaries and Regulares in Sevilla meaning that the thrust to Madrid from the south was too weak. Now that axis of advance seems to be working effectively, but I also see the Nationalists have a lot of Army of Africa units heading east against the Republican stronghold in eastern Andalusia (based around Andujar).

This is not the end of the world. As long as they are primarily focussing on Madrid and not getting bogged down in a war of attrition over minor Andalusian towns. I'm just a little concerned that if a human Republican player puts up a stiffer resistance around Andujar the AI Nationalists will be distracted from the main goal of Madrid. I will need to carry out a playtest to check this, but that is a very time consuming process just to iron out one relatively minor kink. Why can't move unit events just work god damn it!

The event clean-up with Notepad++ was a very worthwhile exercise and the new units all seem to appear without any problems. It's close to being 100% ready!

EDIT: Barcelona falls in December of 1938 followed by Valencia in February 1939. The last Republican city (bar Odessa) falls in August 1939.

 

[gapetit]

 

[McMonkey]

I'm going to do some more play-testing on my night shift tonight providing the weather doesn't get any worse.

One thing that has started to bother me slightly about this scenario is that a 'Republican' victory would in effect be a Communist victory. Of course the victory of Franco and his Fascist allied was a terrible outcome, but I wonder if Spain would have been any better off for a 'Republican' victory when the government had become so controlled by the Communist Party. Most of the moderate left wing groups, the Anarchists, Trade Union movements, the Popular Front, Trotskyists and so on, had be supressed or purged by the increasingly paranoid and influential Communist Party which, with Russian backing, held all of the military and economic power. I'm starting to wonder if a 'Republican' win is just the lesser of two evils and not the idealistic victory for peoples power painted by popular culture.

Now this is just something I just wanted to get off my chest. Its not something that has to really effect the game. We play Civ for fun, not to dictate our morals. Playing a scenario as Ghengis Khan doesn't mean you agree with his methods. Perhaps I have just been thinking about this scenario for so long and in such depth that I'm starting to read things into it that don't need to be there.

I'm hoping I can release it over the next few days. Stay tuned

 

[Patine]

Your thoughts are much the same as Red Front, only in that one it's much more overt without the nuances. Of course, unless you're doing a LotR, Star Wars, or other such genre of scenario, the fact is there will be no objective good guys or bad guys. Our own "enlightened Western democracies" have been behind horrible things for centuries around the world too. I definitely agree that Civ2 should not be a vehicle for promotion of morality.

 

[McMonkey]

I'm definitely thinking about thinks too deeply at the moment. I think the SCW has been romanticised to a large extent, especially the image of the brave and idealistic militia columns going up against the Fascist hordes. I did read one intriguing article about a British guy who volunteered for Franco as he was a fervent anti-communist and didn't realise the kind of support Franco was getting from Hitler and Mussolini. He thought he was fighting for the right reasons, just like the Irish Catholic unit who saw the red terror against the Church and went to defend Christendom. It is a fascinating conflict and making this scenario has given me a much deeper appreciation of its historical impact.

I wonder if there would be any interest for a Nationalist version? I'm sure from a military standpoint a very fun scenario could be created. I could have a strict time limit for success. The player would need to airlift the Army of Africa into Spain and support the scattered elements of the Falange, Carlists and other traditionalist movements fighting the Red scourge in mainland Spain.

 

[Fairline]

I guess the best you could say would be that the Republican forces did include progressive elements alongside the Comintern hardliners, whereas Franco and his forces stood for all that was reactionary and repressive. Massive shades of grey involved of course, but Franco was a brutal dictator who showed what he stood for in the repression and massacres that followed the end of the War.

 

[Patine]

I've actually heard a historian compare France's regime in terms of reactionary and repression tendencies, brutality, intolerance of dissidence, and military pre-dominance with a strange obsession with achieving monarchial legitimacy despite not being a monarch mixed with nepotism and pageantry to the Tokugawa Shogunate, actually, which is an interesting comparison.

 

[gapetit]

I think so remote historical comparisons in time and history is very complicated ... but there inheritance and my family is the daughter of the defeated. You can argue that the Franco's army soldiers were brave, idealistic people who thought they were in a "crusade" against communism, but the truth is that there were weapons and troops Italian and German (and the complicity of the British Empire) in aid to a military coup that betrayed their homeland who won. Spanish citizens lost their social and political rights. And they were condemned for many years to spend hardships and poverty. And the "democracies" did not release us after the Normandy landings. So I think one can create a scenario from Franco's troops, but need not justify saying that the "others" were not as good. In history there are no good or bad. There is one position that he has lived or choose. And this is a game.

 

[Patine]

@gapetit, I apologize if my own comments have offended in any way. Having two personal friends, one an immigrant from Rwanda, and one a Kurd from Iraq, I have heard first-hand how these situations can go and how foreign countries can view such things in entirely inappropriate ways. I meant my statements only in academic points and response to McMonkey's seeming moral dilemma and didn't mean to belittle the suffering of your country or relatives. So, I do apologize if offense was taken.

 

[McMonkey]

I guess the point I wanted to get across is was that this scenario wasn't intended to be a simple good vs evil situation. There were diverse motivations on either side. For example the Carlist Requetes who's primary motivation was the defence of the Church and the Basques who's aim was an independent state. Many of the hard line Communists were are brutal and repressive as Stalin's regime and they repressed groups such as the Anarchists and Trotskyist POUM. It definitely is about shades of grey, but on balance the Republican side is the more sympathetic of the two and also made for the most challenging game.

 

[gapetit]

Patine sorry if it seems I had offended. It's not the case.
McMonkey the world is gray but you like the controversy but we agree that the Republic is the more sympathetic

 

[McMonkey]

I do like the controversy, that is true

 

[McMonkey]

The changes to the Army of Africa move unit events seems to have had the effect I was after. The Legionaries and Regulares have just ripped through my defences at Toledo, exposing the southern flank of the Madrid defences. I now have to defend Gatefe and Aranjuez instead of just Toledo. Fortunately the first of the International Brigades has arrived in the capital along with a few T-26 tanks. So far the playtest has gone without a hitch. Fingers crossed it continues this way!