World War II in the Pacific

[Gaius Octavius]

Since interest in this project just won't die...

I am hereby announcing the sequel to this scenario, "WWII in the Pacific: Zero Hour." Designed for multiplayer games, it has been rebuilt from the ground up to offer greater realism without that feel of clutter you often get from scenarios with scores of units.

The main difference from the old versions will be the amount of custom techs and units: instead of copying Civ 3's directly, I've rearranged the modern tech tree to give the scenario a more WW2 flavor and greater diversification of unit roles. Among other things, this means you'll now have two types of fighter aircraft, land-based and carrier-based, as well as multiple classes of battleships and carriers. Additionally, I've completely re-done the order of battle for 7 December 1941, so all units will start in their historical locations.

Work on the new scenario has been ongoing for about two months at a slow pace. Currently, it's still in the process of beta testing and balancing, but with any luck I'll have a playable version out within the next few weeks/months. It depends on how much time I can devote to it, since I'm also working on two other Civ projects, and each is pretty time-consuming in its own right.


Preview Screenshot: Japanese fleet underway off Malaya

Spoiler :

 

[cav scout]

Awesome!

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Partial list of unique units:

Spoiler :

A6M2 'Zero'
A6M5 'Zero'
ANZAC Infantry
American GI
Audacious-class Carrier
Avro Lancaster
B-17
B-25
B-29
B5N 'Kate'
B6N 'Jill'
Bristol Blenheim
British Infantry
Chinese Infantry
D3A1 'Val'
D3A2 'Val'
Essex-class Carrier
F4F Wildcat
F4U Corsair
Fairey Swordfish
G4M 'Betty'
G5N "Shinzan'
Hawker Hurricane
Hawker Tempest
Illustrious-class Carrier
Implacable-class Carrier
Indian Infantry
Iowa-class Battleship
Japanese Infantry
Ki-21 'Sally'
Ki-43 'Oscar'
Ki-61 'Tony'
Ki-84 'Frank'
King George V class Battleship
Kongo-class Battleship
M26 Pershing
M3 Stuart
M4 Sherman
Maritime Patrol Aircraft
Matilda II
Midway-class Carrier
Nagato-class Battleship
Nelson-class Battleship
P-38
P-40
P-47
Pennsylvania-class Battleship
Queen Elizabeth-class Battleship
SB2C Helldiver
SBD Dauntless
Shokaku-class Carrier
Soryu-class Carrier
South Dakota-class Battleship
TBD Devastator
TBF Avenger
Type 3
Type 95
Type 97
U.S. Marine
Unryu-class Carrier
Yamato-class Battleship
Yorktown-class Carrier

You may recognize that this list includes some advanced equipment used sparingly or not at all in the closing days of the Pacific War. This is because the game now lasts until 1946, not September 1945, which gives you a chance to invade Japan if you so desire.

Infantry and marine units come in three versions, 1941, 1943, and 1945, to represent improvements in tactics and equipment over the course of the war. Air units follow a similar progression, as do ships. No more Iowas in 1942.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

And now a very long update...

Due to the scenario's multiplayer emphasis, I've been having trouble testing it because I cannot get a group of 2-4 people together for any length of time. It's difficult to make accurate assessments about balance when playing aganist the AI, and this has consequently slowed development.


Feature-wise, there are three main systems I've been thinking about adding to the mod, which I believe will enhance the realism and allow for some very interesting strategic decisions. All are currently in their development phase, however, and it will be some time before they make it in, if ever.

Oil and supplies are the obvious choice, being one of the main motivations for Japan to attack the western powers in 1941 and a big constraint on the war effort. I've created a supply system to go along with Grey Fox's Unit Fuel Mod, which works much like that in the Hearts of Iron series. Any unit not in supply (not connected to its capital by a viable sea or land route) will not be reinforced from a global stockpile. It will have to draw on its internal supply until it eventually runs out, at which time it receives a significant negative modifier to combat and movement. This adds a new twist to naval blockades and encircling maneuvers, since you can now literally cut off your enemies from reinforcements by surrounding a city or using subs to attack enemy shipping; the only obstacle is the present lack of a good tile control system, which is necessary for this to be balanced, but I'm confident Dom Pedro II's ToT mod will fix that once it's finished.

Military doctrine is the second feature, and probably easiest to implement, and it simulates the different strategic approaches to the war in the Pacific. Hearts of Iron players will also find this familiar, as it's reminiscient of the various minister effects you get from your Chief of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. It would be done through a second tier of civics (although it would not send your empire into revolution each time you switched doctrines), and would confer unique bonuses on specific types of units. "Carrier Aviation," for example, might give an attack bonus to all carrier-based airplanes, while "Decisive Battle" would provide a combat boost to battleships. The difficulty lies in training the AI to use it, but that may not be much of an issue in a mod aimed at MP.

Manpower is the final mechanic, and in my experience notoriously hard to balance due to the frequency with which Civ cities change sizes. In its basic form, it would add another level to healing - units that take damage would need replacements in personnel, drawn from a global pool like supplies. Each city you control with your "state manpower" (replaces religion) would contribute to that pool using a function native to Civ 4 and used in the Apostolic Palace vote calculations. I'm skeptical that this will ever make it in due to balancing problems, but it's definitely on my to-do list.


Now for some new features that are currently in:

- The old scripted reinforcements events are much more realistic. Allied ships and land units will appear in the Pacific more or less on their historical arrival dates. This means that a Japanese player will face increasingly tough opposition in the late game, and will have to employ quick thrusts at the beginning of '42 and '43 to gain and hold territory. You simply can't outproduce the Americans and British; you will have to outthink them.

- There are restrictions on where you can train certain types of units, especially infantry, to prevent you from building a 10,000-man division out of nothing on small islands. For the most part you will have to build new units in your homeland and ship them to combat zones.

- Planes will now target carriers first in any air strikes on sea tiles, in order to accurately simulate the naval air battles of the Pacific War. It turns out this did not require C++ to implement, as there's an unused tag in XML that can do it. I wish I'd known before I spent three hours redoing the air strike function.

- Capital ships require drydocks to be constructed, and take significant amounts of time to do so. If you lose three or four carriers in a single battle, you won't be able to shrug it off and replace them in 5-10 turns, as you might in regular Civ.

- The Manhattan Project, now a team wonder, allows the construction of nuclear weapons only for the team that builds it.

 

[cav scout]

I'd be happy to help with any beta testing.

 

[Tasunke]

yea, I wouldn't mind testing

Unless some one else would rather be Japan, that's what I would be.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Well in that case, I might put up a public beta and have the community help balance it, instead of releasing a polished version much later.

 

[wotan321]

oOOh, I'd like to test this....

 

[Veqryn]

this download is for BTS version 3.13.... so will it not work with 3.19?

 

[cav scout]

this download is for BTS version 3.13.... so will it not work with 3.19?

Not right now, but the creator has indicated there is a sequel in the works that will be 3.19 compatible.

If you want to play the current version (it's a blast!) you can do a dual install. Just reinstall BTS and patch up to 3.13. Then make a copy of the BTS folder and rename it "Beyond the Sword 3.13". Then patch up to 3.19 in the normal fashion and you are all set.

Whenever you want to play this mod you just go into the "Beyond the Sword 3.13" folder and doubleclick the .exe there to play. In all other cases the game will start up in the current 3.19 version.

 

[February]

I loved this scenario and I hope the 3.19 version comes out soon

One request to the author, I've played this scenario before, and one thing I did not like about it was that nukes (when used) did not eradicate everything in the city. Could you fix that and make sure it completely destroys everything?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Does this work with 3.17 becouse I tried runing it and all I got was a bug.
(I still have not updated becouse of some moding that I am doing and a lot of my work is still in 3.17 mode.)

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Not compatible with 3.17. I don't think I ever made a DLL for that version, since by the time I started work on the new scenario, 3.19 had been released already.

Development update: I've been working on the SDK for the past few weeks, merging the unofficial patch with the three DCM components this mod uses. It took more time than I anticipated due to a bug in the turn execution phase, but I believe I've fixed it. Other changes include tweaks to the unit reinforcement events, some small adjustments to the December '41 order of battle, and the new carrier prioritization logic for naval bombers conducting air strikes.

 

[dutchking]

Hey Gaius I'd be glad to rejoin the team it's kind of been 7 months lol.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Good, you can begin with the F6F fix I requested.

Does anyone out there have a comprehensive list of reinforcements sent to the Pacific between 1941 and 1945? I've been using the Pacific War Online Encyclopedia (example) to help with events, but it's incomplete. Orbat.com has some additional information but not in a neatly categorized form.

 

[FNP]

"Does anyone out there have a comprehensive list of reinforcements sent to the Pacific between 1941 and 1945? I've been using the Pacific War Online Encyclopedia (example) to help with events, but it's incomplete."

What is incomplete? Has Brit, US, Jap order of battle. Do you need Aus and NZ?

 

[Gaius Octavius]

It says explicitly that some of the OOB and replacement tables are incomplete, most notably here: http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/B/r/British_Order_of_Battle.htm

"Note: The order of battle pages in the Pacific War Online Encyclopedia are still under construction. At present, the initial order of battle is probably accurate for units east of India but not in India itself. Our warship and Army ground unit reinforcement schedules are likely incomplete and inaccurate, and we have almost no information on air reinforcements."

I'd prefer to include everything if I can, but if that's not possible I will use what's available.

 

[MasterOfDomain]

Where do I put this file?

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Well, folks, it's been several months but work continues, albeit at an agonizingly slow pace. I still have yet to find an MP crew to playtest it all the way through, something I consider pretty important to the process. You can only go so far with single player.

I've implemented a new objectives victory condition that works like time victory, except that your score is now based on how many strategic points you control. These include Midway, Pearl Harbor, Tokyo, Sydney, Okinawa, the Philippines, and several other places. Aside from that I've been tweaking the starting orders of battle, added some new graphics icons for manpower, and made other balance changes to unit costs and production capacity.

 

[cav scout]

How is the new version coming along? I hope civ5 won't become a distraction when its released