PBEM Scenario : The End Of Francafrique

[nukkxx5058]

Hello,

I made a new very large scenario for PBEM. It's massive and tough for the CPU. You've been warned ! Recommended for grognards !
It involves China vs France in 2021 and a full scale invasion of Cameroon by China (defended by France). It involves lots of ground combat and logistics in addition to air + naval ops.

THE END OF FRANÇAFRIQUE - v 1.0
IKE v 1.53
SANDMAN v 0.2.1

!!! PBEM: FRANCE vs CHINA !!!
CHINA PLAYS FIRST !!!!
TURNS = 15 minutes
Duration : 2 days

WARNING: THIS IS A VERY LARGE SCENARIO. It's CPU Intensive ! Minimum configuration : AMD Ryzen 5 - 1600 Six-Core Processor 3.20 GHz or equivalent. Recommended: Quantum CRAY
Close all other running programs.

Author's note: With "The End Of FrançAfrique (TEOFA)" I've tried to recreate with CMO+IKE the feel of massive wargames like the Gary Grigsby "mammoth games" series (War In The East 1 and 2 / War In The West or War In The Pacific) where the Grand Campaign can litterally last years to complete in PBEM and where the level of details is overwhelming. In TEOFA you can play up to 192 turns (one turn is 15 minutes and the scenario duration is 2 days). So take your time to play your turns, don't rush your attacks and think ! Do not sacrifise 90% of your Airforce in the first two hours of the war There will be plenty of time, plenty of opportunities and plenty of actions to complete. In particular, you will have to think about logistics, cargo, paradrop, helicopter troops pick-ups, sabotage, replenishment, pilote fatigue (with the SANDMAN mod - see special actions), individual units settings (WRA, Doctrine, etc) and there will be plenty of possible tactics and strategies to achieve your goals.
I hope you'll enjoy the game !
nukkxx

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(Fictional events, but you might have guessed it )

Year 2021. The "Françafrique" doctrine, which is dictating France foreign policy in Africa since the General De Gaulle in the 60's has been challenged by China in the last decade. China started to be more present in Western Africa with the consequence for France to lose influence and, as a result, to lose access to abundant and cheap raw materials. The situation recently degenerated between China and France when President Xi Jinping managed to impose a new government in Abuja (Nigeria) after the coup perpetrated in 2020 by Generals and other rogue elements of the Nigerian army. The first tensions with France occurred soon after a remarkable deposit of palladium ore was discovered in the Far North Region of Cameroon near the border with Nigeria. President Macron, in a desperate attempt to keep the former colony in Western Africa under French influence decided to send substantial French military forces to Cameroon to try to dissuade China from invading the country and seize its natural resources as it was feared by France's foreign intelligence agency (DGSE).

China, unimpressed by Macron's strategy and blaming Cameroon for a terror attack in a maternity center in Lagos (killing 8 mothers and their babies), started to move their forces stationed in Nigeria to the border with Cameroon and launched a surprise attack in the north to seize the precious ore deposit. By early December 2021 the war between France and China had started in Cameroon. China is now preparing a large scale offensive to fully occupy Cameroon and with the clear intention to boot France out of Western Africa for good !

By December the 19th China has taken the city of Maroua in the north and is about to seize Garoua (Objective city) as well as the French Forward Base (Objective located near Kontcha)

Chinese troops stationed in the south of Nigeria along the border with Cameroon between Makurdi and Port Harcourt are ready to move eastwards and China seems now determined to take Mamfe, Munbemba and ultimately Douala while at the same time planning to disrupt country telecommunications networks with strikes on the TV station and the radio antenna in the capital city Yaoundé.

France is waiting reinforcements departed three days ago from Chad where a whole division was stationed as part of the permanent French military presence in Western Africa.

A French trucks convoy has just left Bafoussam and is en route to bring supply to Garoua in the north of the country. The convoy is bringing both humanitarian aid for local populations and military supply to the troops stationed in the north. France shall protect the trucks convoy at all price. It’s of vital importance that the convoy reaches Garoua, its final destination. China shall prevent the trucks from reaching their final destination. The convoy is escorted by the French 2e REI Mech Inf Regiment and an Air Defense mobile MANPAD Group.

December, 19th, z07:00 – The scenario begins - France is determined to defend the Maroua-Salak Civilian Airport. A Cameroonese regiment (16th BIM - Forces Armées Camerounaises) is positioned north of the airport with orders to stop Chinese troops and defend the airport at all cost. China is preparing an assault on the airport in order to seize this strategically vital facility. Controlling the airport would allow China to use it for its own military operations and to bring reinforcements and supply to the troops in the northern frontline.

The Chinese fleet is arriving and could attempt to land troops south of Douala and take the city. The French naval Task Force is arriving from Libreville in Gabon and must prevent such an attempt.

The war has started, good luck !

You can get the file from my Steam Workshop.
Enjoy !

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 2786665145

TEOFAcover1.0.png (600.88 KiB) Viewed 807 times

[nukkxx5058]

A short note about performance:

Some people are having massive lag issues making it unplayable. Some don't.

I developed it (and started to play) with a RYZEN 5 1600 and it was clearly the minimum configuration (or slightly below minimum). It was roughly playable at 5x with some lag peaks from time to time (occasionally severe ones) but overall it was acceptable especially taking in account the fact that IKE system is turn-based so you can't give orders during turn resolution phase. You just have to watch. So slowdowns are acceptable in my opinion.

Meanwhile, I changed my CPU for a Ryzen 7 3700X (3rd generation) and it's much better. At 5x I have a fair 1 second / second real time with occasional slowdowns to 2-3sec/sec. I tried to launch a massive offensive by giving a move order to all my ground units and it's OK (and my opponent is on heavy attack too). The CPU is taking it. And 15x is even faster (higher compression generated more lag on my Ryzen 5-1600 but not with my new Ryzen 7-3700x).
I have reports that it works well on Intel i9 - 9900

I also recommend you switch to the log is raw text (in separate window) when/if things become too laggy, especially when massive Arty barrage start. It helps. There's "only" 3.000 AU in the game but ground units firing are very CPU intensive.

Hope you can have it to work ...

[nukkxx5058]

Hi, I just sent an updated version of TEOFA to my Steam Workshop.

Changes in v1.033:
- Added a new Special Action Lua script to group unloaded units by unit class (arty, armored, mech inf, infantry, ...). This will greatly ease giving orders to unloaded cargo. First select all unloaded cargo and run the special action. This will create one group per unit class (arty, armored, mech inf, infantry, ...).
- Added scoring 500 points for destroying air radars on both China and France sides (China JY-26 and TRS 2056 Centaure for France) [Thank you jheinrichk !]
- Added Runway-Grade Taxiway (4000m) in Garoua airbase and FFB (France side)
- Added 1 SAM (Mamba [SAMP/T]) in Garoua (France)
- Added 1 SAM (Mamba [SAMP/T]) in FFB (France)
- Added 1 Runway-Grade Taxiway (2600m) in Makurdi (China)
- Added 1 SAM Bty (HQ-16A [SA-17 Semi-Copy]) near Makurdi (China)
- Fixed access points duplicate names in Makurdi (China)
- A few small changes in the scenario description
- Improved the 'unload cargo' special action - button 'Cancel' now aborts the script