What are you working on?

[techumseh]

@YazzyT It depends on the situation. If the British Army is cut off, then there must be a benefit in the game to withdrawing it to England. If it's not cut off, then why evacuate? I suggest that you place the player on the horns of a dilemma. The Allies need the British Army (Was it called the BEF in the Second World War?) to have a chance of holding off the Germans. But if they lose too many units and France falls, then Britain is open to invasion. So there should be some sort of penalty for losing British units, which I think is the simplest solution. That might involve a house rule around the victory conditions, or perhaps the programmer lords can work out a solution using Lua. Regardless, I think it's a grand idea for a scenario.

 

[YazzyT]

@YazzyT It depends on the situation. If the British Army is cut off, then there must be a benefit in the game to withdrawing it to England. If it's not cut off, then why evacuate? I suggest that you place the player on the horns of a dilemma. The Allies need the British Army (Was it called the BEF in the Second World War?) to have a chance of holding off the Germans. But if they lose too many units and France falls, then Britain is open to invasion. So there should be some sort of penalty for losing British units, which I think is the simplest solution. That might involve a house rule around the victory conditions, or perhaps the programmer lords can work out a solution using Lua. Regardless, I think it's a grand idea for a scenario.

Yeah, I was thinking that one solution might be like Case's Cruel Sea scenario, where you have an excel checklist for which types of British units you lost, and it calculates whether you're winning or not..but that seems a little too tedious especially with TOTPP allowing huge unit limits. Maybe having a general unit which you need to protect (not use in combat, I'd give him pathetic att/def values) and if you lose him that's the end of the BEF? BEF, by the way stands for British Expeditionary Force and is the name of the British armies deployed to France; the forces in WW1 were also referred to by that title.

I'm thinking to keep things historical and challenging, any reinforcements that the BEF gets in my scenario would be generated by events; a few types of French, German, and Italian units would be able to be built in cities since French factories worked til the day of the armistice to produce war materiel; obviously the cost of these units would be high to keep the rate of reinforcement slow, both in France and Germany since German resources were actually pretty strained, and if the human player is lucky and manages to push the Germans back, then the rate of German reinforcement would be too slow to continue the offensive.

 

[YazzyT]

I actually had started work a while back on a Fall Gelb scenario, though I had a smaller map in scope - no Algeria or any but the Coastal Mediterranean, only the Northeastern corner of Italy, only the Kent/Dover/London corner of England, and I don't even believe I had Brittany. My biggest concern was making it a challenge, and not an easy victory for a skilled player, as EITHER side, to be honest, as I recall.

Much like the old Drole scenario (did you use the map from that one? It covers exactly the same area you describe), I intend my scenario to be a single player scenario where you control Entente forces trying to stop the Germans, since the Allied perspective is less represented in Civ2 (although nowadays that's changing) and it seems more challenging to play the "underdog". However, it would also be fun to be able to play from the German perspective - most WW2 scenarios start with the player steamrolling France and don't really represent the improbable odds of German victory - even German top brass was caught completely off guard by victory, and it would be interesting to give players a chance to make the mistakes that German generals almost did. I think it's better right now to practice my scenario making skills on a single player scenario, but it could also be a really good multiplayer scenario; maybe I'll make multiple versions of it.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Yeah, I was thinking that one solution might be like Case's Cruel Sea scenario, where you have an excel checklist for which types of British units you lost, and it calculates whether you're winning or not..but that seems a little too tedious especially with TOTPP allowing huge unit limits.

Keeping track of killed units and doing calculations based on them isn't particularly difficult with Lua, and wouldn't burden the player at all.

 

[YazzyT]

Keeping track of killed units and doing calculations based on them isn't particularly difficult with Lua, and wouldn't burden the player at all.

That might work then. I have no idea how Lua works, but whatever I need to know I will try to learn.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

That might work then. I have no idea how Lua works, but whatever I need to know I will try to learn.

Have a look at my Lua Lessons, which are an introduction to using Lua events and programming in general. I hope I've made things accessible. If I haven't, please let me know, so I can make changes. The project has little value if it doesn't actually help people learn to use Lua.

Even if you don't become 'expert', having some knowledge of how to use Lua makes it much easier for those of us with more skill to help you, either by offering explanations and suggestions, or by writing some tricky code.

 

[YazzyT]

Have a look at my Lua Lessons, which are an introduction to using Lua events and programming in general. I hope I've made things accessible. If I haven't, please let me know, so I can make changes. The project has little value if it doesn't actually help people learn to use Lua.

Even if you don't become 'expert', having some knowledge of how to use Lua makes it much easier for those of us with more skill to help you, either by offering explanations and suggestions, or by writing some tricky code.

I barely know how to use the regular civ2 events! This is gonna probably be a very very long project. Which is okay, because I'd like to make the best scenario possible rather than rush to produce something that isn't playable.

 

[YazzyT]

Another aspect of the 1940 campaign I'd like to implement in my scenario: refugees fleeing the front. Not quite sure how exactly to make it work but I want there to be some confusion behind the lines for the allied player.

 

[CurtSibling]

I'd make the refugees barb turck or foot units with no attack or defence, who block up roads and get in the way.
Perhaps make an events penalty for the crime of destroying them to clear the way

This would apply to the BEF, as such behaviour is expected of the German side.

 

[YazzyT]

I'd make the refugees barb turck or foot units with no attack or defence, who block up roads and get in the way.
Perhaps make an events penalty for the crime of destroying them to clear the way

This would apply to the BEF, as such behaviour is expected of the German side.

I'm wondering too if there's a way to create additional refugee units with events that would spawn each time the Germans capture a city, so the more cities the Germans get=more refugees you have to deal with. Maybe have it so they pop up behind the frontline, so say if the germans capture a city on the border of Belgium the refugee units would appear maybe 5 or 6 squares back closer to Paris, on the roads meaning that reinforcements get delayed. I don't want it to be excessive though - no more than 5 units lets say for a size 12 city getting conquered.

 

[CurtSibling]

Again, it could be straightforward to random-spawn the barb refugees around any cities that the Germans take. It would mean quite a number of events, but easy to implement.

 

[techumseh]

Refugees are a feature of most wars, and frankly, it's a complication and a distraction in a scenario. However, I did use partisans as refugees in Great War of Africa (Congo!). You just end up killing a lot of defenseless civilians. It's pointless and demoralizing.

 

[CurtSibling]

I also use the partisans as refugees/slaves in the upcoming Zarklaw scenario...The enemy kingdoms will get ransom payouts for destroying the units, and kingdoms of the same race will liberate them and gain workers.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Another aspect of the 1940 campaign I'd like to implement in my scenario: refugees fleeing the front. Not quite sure how exactly to make it work but I want there to be some confusion behind the lines for the allied player.

You could make a separate 'refugee' civ, and have it allied with the Allies. Then, you can create refugee units that can block progress.

Another option might be to use 'railroads' as your 'regular' roads, and standard roads as your 'refugee filled' roads, which would slow down troop movements. With Lua, you could change the railroads to roads when the refugees spawn, and clear them once the Germans get nearer. If you want to get fancy, you could make the refugees move away from combat along the roads between turns (i.e. change some rails to roads, and roads back to rails to simulate movement).

 

[JPetroski]

Playtesting has begun...

 

[Tanelorn]

The fall of France!

 

[JPetroski]

Lua allowing true east-west movement between maps = dreams from 20 years ago can become a reality.

 

[civ2units]

Very nice screenshots, looking forward to play this scenario

I like the North America map, it looks like it could be perfect for my AWI scenario. May I ask you where you found the map and if I can use it for my own scenario?

 

[JPetroski]

I made the map myself and you're more than welcome to use it. Just bear in mind that I am not that great at making maps and there are likely inaccuracies. You'll note I have a warm weather zone that won't be affected by winter for the scenario as well. I guess it's any given year to say which zones won't get snow but I basically used what I thought made sense on average.

 

[civ2units]

Many thanks for the map, @JPetroski

The map looks perfect for me, maybe I will make some tweaks here and there for fitting the map for the colonial era.
You are planning winter and summer seasons in your scenario? This sounds very interesting