The Hinge of Fate - Development Thread

[JPetroski]

The Tigers draw enough blood near Kaluga with their ranged attack that I have to nerf it so that each only gets to fire a range attack once per turn. They can still close the gap and attack normally two other times, but of course that exposes them. The Soviets have put up a vicious fight near Tula and badly blooded forces sent to take it. So badly that I had to load them up on trucks and evacuate them back to Moscow. It's very hard to fight the Soviets during the winter as they have random offensives that trigger when they kill units as the aggressor. They also get a lot of reinforcements during the winter months. It's turn 44 now and I have captured precisely one more city than I had on turn 36. While I do think the Tigers are going to start swaying the battle in localized areas, they're slow and I don't have enough of them to be everywhere. I'm able to bring them to Moscow fairly quickly because I invested so much money in building up the infrastructure, but this also means the Luftwaffe no longer trains veteran pilots mere turns before the USAAF is going to show up.

Now that I have reliably fixed the southern convoys (STILL no idea why the northern ones are stuck on stupid when there are a ton of units on the map), Malta and Africa have become very difficult to deal with (though I did delete a number of my units to be balanced given the Brits didn't get reinforcements they should have for probably 10-15 turns while I sorted that out). I plan to continue this play test to ensure the Western landings work well and to spot check moveto commands to bring them up through Italy and through France to Germany. In the meanwhile I'll continue dragging out the fight in the East.

 

[CurtSibling]

It seems like every day I learn a new thing that ToTPP makes better. This time, it's sounds. Making sounds has always been enjoyable, but for whatever reason it used to be a two computer process for me as I didn't have soundrecorder or other software that could convert the files appropriately to Civ2 on my Windows 10 machine. Now, I can simply use MP3s, or a variety of .wav files that don't have to have such stringent conditions. This has allowed me to source some music and also create some audio files of speeches and such that I think will really add to this scenario. YouTube has some great artists out there, many of whom allow you to freely use their work so long as you credit them, just like all of us do. It's a little touch but it's nice that at this stage the little touches seem to be what I need to spend most of my time on (at least until v.018 comes out and I make the changes above).

I'm quite excited about the Barbarossa song in particular. that moment is the pivotal moment in this scenario and I think people will get amped up for it now.

Nice!
So the Wav files no longer need to be at an exact format when running in ToTPP? Is this a new thing with ToTPP 0.17?

 

[JPetroski]

So the Wav files no longer need to be at an exact format when running in ToTPP? Is this a new thing with ToTPP 0.17?

You can also reencode them as .mp3 so long as you keep the file name extension of .wav - it allows for much more given the vast difference in size.

I don't know if it's new to 0.17 or if it has been around for longer.

 

[CurtSibling]

BTW - If you want new WW2 cities, I will be making some for overlords pretty soon, and will share with you, sir.

 

[JPetroski]

Turn 25 (start of the invasion):
844 German units

Turn 49 (start of Spring '42):
-684 German units

The Soviets put up a huge fight, to say the least. I still need to capture Stalingrad and Baku to force them to capitulate.

 

[JPetroski]

You'll note that Dnepropetrovsk was an objective of my initial offensive into Russia. Yet one year later, it remains defiantly Soviet. As you can see, however, I have three armies driving towards it as well as more of the vaunted Tigers which have proven very useful. Unfortunately, my fuel stores are becoming critically low (16,000) so these might be the units I have to finish the game with...

 

[JPetroski]

I took a break from playing to have a coding day.

--Reworked Afrika Korps reinforcement. Now, Taranto no longer goes into German hands. This means that the only way to reinforce the DAK is to agree to spend the money to have cargo ships show up outside of Taranto. Then of course these need to actually reach Afrika. It should make reinforcement much more difficult.
--Introduced a cost to Case Anton (5000 fuel) which will hurt you at the time. However, if you don't occupy Vichy France following Operation Torch, you'll find you have other issues.
--Added several counter offensives in Russia, some of which encircle German forces and generally make you spit out your coffee.
--Introduced a mechanism to evacuate Rommel from Afrika after Operation Torch. You'll get precisely one chance to do it.
--Fixed the initiateCombat issue I had given I left out .id at the end of many units.
--Made it so that infantry enjoy a +5 bonus when attacking defenders who are in a city. This should make infantry much more useful.
--Bombers such as Il2 no longer "defended" by ground forces when attacked by fighters

To Do:
--I need to build out goto commands for great Soviet offensives of '43, '44, '45
--I need to build out goto commands for Italian campaign
--Likely wish to make Italy very difficult to dislodge Allies from once they land. Germans would have faced the same issue in the Deadly Boot but in reverse, after all, had they tried to break them.
--I want to add some of the larger bomber raids
--Add some encirclement events to the US Campaign

When V.018 comes out:
--Add full line ups for Axis Minors
--Imagine and build out Turkish and Spanish campaigns: there's already a mechanism for aligning both but what if things go wrong?

 

[JPetroski]

I've been playing around with units. The goal is to make there be a point to each unit. New additions for the Germans:

-Mobile artillery will now be available from the beginning. This is artillery that can move and fire. Field artillery can only fire with full MP available, so the mobile stuff has an advantage.

-SP Anti-tank guns (think PzJg I though Marder through Nashhorn). Will have a benefit to killing tanks from initiate combat. Cheaper than regular tanks but also much worse on defense.

-Heavy Assault Gun (classification, not name in game) - represented by unit art first Elefant, then Jagdpanther, then Jagdtiger. I need to figure out a way to differentiate these from tanks. They're going to have similar stats. These will be less expensive, so there needs to be a drawback. Any suggestions? I was thinking having them move one space slower than tanks, or perhaps being more vulnerable to infantry given they have no turret.

-Because of this, the current slot taken at the scenario start by the StuGIII is going to represent "Light assault guns" and will stay as StuG's and then eventually become either a Jagdpanzer IV or Hetzer. Probably Hetzer just because I like it better.

-Strategic bombers - in general, I'll cut back the distance tacticals can roam as these heavies will be the ones that can range far and wide. To ensure they only attack once per sortie, these will be payload aircraft and will drop a new bomb I now have room for.

-Ho229 will have its own slot as well now. These go even further than the strat bombers and can drop nuclear bombs.

-In keeping with the "Luft '46" idea, the Ta183 will now be available as a successor to the 262.

-The V1/V2 will be available.

-Ground and air recon will be available.

 

[JPetroski]

I'm also quite happy that the Polish will get to keep fighting. They had a number of air squadrons throughout the war and will get their own slot so they aren't out of the fray. They'll get a slight stat boost and be rare.

 

[CurtSibling]

My town square has a monument in honour of Polish warships who sent up AA fire during the blitz on the Clyde naval yards.

 

[Civinator]

Heavy Assault Gun (classification, not name in game) - represented by unit art first Elefant, then Jagdpanther, then Jagdtiger. I need to figure out a way to differentiate these from tanks. They're going to have similar stats. These will be less expensive, so there needs to be a drawback. Any suggestions? I was thinking having them move one space slower than tanks, or perhaps being more vulnerable to infantry given they have no turret.

Some thoughts:

If it is possible with Lua, restrict these Jagdpanzers to have only one attack, but with the same MV points as the chassis of the tanks offers for the tanks. (in the Civ 3 Scenario SOE this can be achieved with the Blitz-attack flag). Another solution would be to give them a heavy one time bombard attack when firing before any movement was done, as they were mostly used from an ambush.

Early StuG III should have the 'ignore city walls flag'. This is a nice flag that unfortunately is not available for Civ 3.

 

[JPetroski]

Some thoughts:

If it is possible with Lua, restrict these Jagdpanzers to have only one attack, but with the same MV points as the chassis of the tanks offers for the tanks. (in the Civ 3 Scenario SOE this can be achieved with the Blitz-attack flag). Another solution would be to give them a heavy one time bombard attack when firing before any movement was done, as they were mostly used from an ambush.

Early StuG III should have the 'ignore city walls flag'. This is a nice flag that unfortunately is not available for Civ 3.

Well, not that it's set in stone, but as of now, Tiger I and II both have an opportunity to fire ranged attacks. At present, they can only do this with full MP. However, maybe:

"Tanks" can fire once per turn regardless of MP, but doing so uses all their MP.

"Tank Destroyers" can fire once per turn, but only if they have full MP (as per their ambush).

So, a Tiger could charge across a plain and shoot at the last moment, a Jagdtiger would have to sit and wait?

 

[JPetroski]

These are just for ranged attacks, mind you. I could also use attacks per turn to limit the TD to 1 vs. 2 for the tanks.

 

[Civinator]

Both your ideas are sounding nice. May be they should be combined ?

 

[Patine]

Hello, again, everyone. I want to give a great thanks to @JPetroski for advocating for my clemency.

Moderator Action: Removed the PDMA, please do not post it in future. leif

 

[CurtSibling]

Welcome back, dude. And for heaven's sake - No more politics, man!

 

[JPetroski]

You're very welcome, Patine. We have a small community and you're an engaged member of it. This place is also 1000x easier to discuss scenarios than discord (though it was cool of you to set that up as a Plan B for everyone).

If you need an OT fix could I humbly suggest that you seek it over at twcenter.net or even flamewarriors.net?

twcenter.net will have the same mix of folks as over here with a good variety across the world. They have a special way of dealing with infractions including "trials/hearings" of sorts.
flamewarriors.net was created by a bunch of folks who play the flight sim Aces High and were annoyed that there was such a thing as forum rules. You can go absolutely wild there and no one will care.

Both of these would be infinitely better places to discuss OT topics than here, which is a place where we keep this golden game alive despite our small (though, encouragingly, growing) numbers.

Glad to see you back and I'm looking forward to your feedback on some scenarios soon!

 

[Blake00]

Welcome back mate. I see you're off to a good start with your first post being 'cleaned' lol.

Agree with Curt and JP, just use this place for Civ talk! That's what I do, I'm almost never in OT as I'm just here for Civ and gaming!

RPG Codex is another good OT option as it's one of the largest forums online and has some pretty epic political flame wars so if you've got the itch for a debate there's plenty of it there. You can use every 4 letter word in the book and they don't care. So naturally I avoid that one too as it's too spicy for me haha.

.

 

[techumseh]

Good for you John. Welcome back Patine. I second Curt. You are welcome here, but please stay away from OT!

 

[Patine]

Welcome back mate. I see you're off to a good start with your first post being 'cleaned' lol.

Agree with Curt and JP, just use this place for Civ talk! That's what I do, I'm almost never in OT as I'm just here for Civ and gaming!

RPG Codex is another good OT option as it's one of the largest forums online and has some pretty epic political flame wars so if you've got the itch for a debate there's plenty of it there. You can use every 4 letter word in the book and they don't care. So naturally I avoid that one too as it's too spicy for me haha.

.

Good for you John. Welcome back Patine. I second Curt. You are welcome here, but please stay away from OT!

Thank-you. And don't worry, tech, I would be more thrilled about revisiting my dental surgery back in October than going there again.