Crusade in Europe 20km Pre-Release Thread

[rmelvin]

Know not in the original game but should the French on the Maginot Line be an AI Guard script of Hold 6 or 7. Just think. but in real that what the French did.

[Elessar2]

Yeah that error usually means the EXE is telling you "I didn't like the exact nature of the steps you took to boot me up, and I hereby refuse to work, nyah!" As said, I usually get it when I alt-tab in and out of the game/editor window.

As the notes indicate, there's no Allied AI, yet.

[cosimus2000]

Second playthrough ( "Fall Weiß")
The "game feeling" especially the extended range of Tank and Mot is something new in strategic command, bypassing enemy strongpoints and mob it up with Inf is cool. Got Warsaw on 19.09.1939 on intermediate difficulty.
Something is strange. Britain send a fighter and a bomber to Poland and are easily destroyed after Poland capitulates. Should not happen, in real life Britain refuses to send RAF to France not to mention Poland.
France is very aggressive on "Westwall" which is something unhistorical, no "Sitzkrieg" (Phoney War) at all.
Can`t wait to play "Fall Gelb", will try if Mansteins sickle cut works out.

[Elessar2]

Heh, I may have to move the victory dates back-I can get into Warsaw by late September usually as the supply tends to be poor until then thanks to Scorched Earth. I could throw in a few more Polish divisions for the next build.

Were those planes from a DE, because I don't recall seeing a DE for shipping planes over there--did you do it manually? Or did the AI do it? Again there's no AI scripts so if that was the case it was from a hard-coded routine.

A repeat of the Saar Offensive most certainly can be something France can try-they may not succeed of course. Again if you were running the Allied side as the AI no surprise they would do that. Note I have a small wedge of unoccupied territory in that area between the Maginot Line and the Siegfried Line; historically the French crossed over, spent a few days there, then unceremoniously scuttled back to their own lines.

[slaytanic]

Love it so far, however the spotting ranges of planes are somewhat big, I see 5-7 hexes. This encourages a gamey tactic of simply placing a 1 strength plane somewhere close to the frontline and having mega sight of the entire depth of the enemy which is unrealistic IMO. I was hoping to actually force the player to fly and get recon that way. Also, wasnt the plan to reduce ambush casualties but also reduce ground troop spotting to 1?

[cosimus2000]

How to conquer poland fast:
Recon with all fighters the path all mot and tank will go. Polish fighters foolishly attack the german fighters (with heavy losses), next bomb the few polish Units (without resistance fron polish fighters), which deny the german tank and mot to "blitz" and destroy these units with some german inf from the back row. Next block all polish units with the front row inf (and some mot) to enable supply for the spearhead (tank and mot) then let your mobile force out, don´t fight (with few exceptions), bypass the strongpoints. Run to warsaw as fast, as you can and put some HQ with you. Repead this in the second turn.
Every tac has to move closer to warsaw after bombing. When you are in range of warsaw, you need one free hex near warsaw. First bomb the capital with all bomber and tac you have and afterwards kill the polish unit at warsaw (which should be at low morale).
Historically the german did this mostly. I think the problem for poland isn´t the shortage of strong units, polish inf isn´t that bad, but the lack of fighting spirit and the strategic idea to fight only for the main goal (warsaw). Every polish unit in range should fight for warsaw, not sit in a secondary town of minor importance which is bypassed by the german tanks. They want to defend everything and therefore they are weak at the main spot.

poland_north.png (6.66 MiB) Viewed 655 times

[cosimus2000]

here the southern part of poland:

poland_south.png (5.56 MiB) Viewed 654 times

[cosimus2000]

and here the UK-fighter and bomber in poland after surrender.

[Elessar2]

If the AI is putting them there that is easily dealt with I believe by making Poland non-cooperative with the Western allies. Again tho at this stage the focus isn't going to be on the AI, so don't worry too much about what the AI does or doesn't do, and play both sides instead yourself. Likewise with what the AI is or isn't doing on the 2nd turn as those scripts simply don't exist yet; in my playthroughs I indeed consolidated every free unit around the capital and it became a grind for the Axis on turns 3-5.

I've disliked how SC has dealt with Declarations of War and the resulting unit dispositions for years now, but given that it is a computer game in an Igo-Ugo format it likely cannot be avoided without a major overhaul of the game engine. In a board game like World In Flames after the Axis DoW the Polish player is given a chance to set up his forces before the enemy comes rolling in.

In SC you are as a game designer forced to do it yourself, with two schemes available: set them up on-map, or script new units which arrive after the DoW is made (these however arrive at zero supply and entrenchment, tho that is a decent simulation of them being surprised). Either way I can then either go with a full historical setup, a "commonsensical" approach with historical hindsight as suggested above, or a hybrid of the two. Historically the Poles indeed went with a lot of units up front, because they foresaw losing a lot of their border areas would make their ongoing war effort unviable, AND they were counting on the UK and France to be active on the other front to take the heat off of them.

If I wanted to I could simply put a huge ring of units 3 deep around Warsaw but that is even more silly. I did put in a National Morale script which gives them a solid hit if and when they lose Lodz and I may put in a couple more in say Krakow and Poznan. The setup I have now is a hybrid of the historical and the need in SC to garrison (and capture) key population centers-a true historical setup would have even more Polish units forward with a lot of empty towns and hence would be even more of a cakewalk.

For Russia when the Axis does attack them I have decided to give them full freedom with the only autospawns being aircraft (and I may delete those scripts too), with the resulting tension being that between the pace of the Axis advance and how many units Russia is willing to spend to slow them down. Changing summer turns from 4 to 3 days (8 vs. 6) will reduce their tendency to play Sir Robin, as playtesting with the 8 day turns showed the Axis was a bit behind the historical front esp. in the south where distances are longer. [Note I tried to script some garrison requirements for the USSR, only to have the devs disclose to me that they are non-functional when a country isn't at war. One reason this thing has taken so long are little "hidden" features like that in the scripting language, where I assumed they worked one way but instead they worked a completely different way. I wasted probably a month of editing trying to get the damned things to work before I was told they wouldn't and had to scrap them.]

The scouting stuff is indeed tweakable: I simply doubled/tripled vanilla's ranges more or less, but there that is 2 hexes, here 5-7, so that can be an issue. However, given how mobile unit move rates are much greater than that, scouting ahead on likely lines of advance is still a good idea. I am well aware of the discussions in Lothos' threads on this, yes. I may take away fighter's 2nd attack (with the one level in Aerial Warfare), because the game engine doesn't take away ANY strikes even if the fighter did 2 Escorts and/or Interceptions that turn.

Ambushes were indeed reduced to a 0% combat bonus for the defender but they still can happen, wasting a tempo and an attack which the moving player may not want. However a patch from not too long ago, indeed meant to eliminate the air scouting stuff you alluded to, meant that units advanced past a certain distance STILL get just half their at-start scouting distance (I was frustrated when I kept moving 2 spaces from a city but the garrison didn't show up, until I recalled the patch notes).

[cosimus2000]

In retrospect it was clearly wrong to put the polish army near the german border. There was no strategic reserve after the front was broken. But no one could know, that a new type of warfare was coming, revolutionary, comparable only to the napoleonic warfare. A historic setup is ok, but poland should have a strategic reserve which is set up in two steps, when german units moving two (or three) hexes close to Kielce, Lotz, Plock, Modlin Ostrow or Warsaw.
First setup step if german units enter the zone of control of one (or more) of the cities mentioned above. Set up the first part of the polish reserve at the city, the zone of control was entered (random if there are more than one).
Second setup step if german units enter an other zone of control of one (or more) of the cities mentioned above. The ramdom setup when more than one zone of Control is entered simulates the uncertainty of the polish high command, but also give some extra units to the area most at risk.
I think poland should only capitulate if Warsaw, Krakow and Lotz are under german control.
By the way, you are absolutely right, in "World in Flames" the setup is well implemented (one of the most brilliant board games together with "Empires in Arms", "Europa Universalis" and "La Grande Guerre" (from AWE) are also very good. These are my all-time favorites)

[rmelvin]

""where I assumed they worked one way but instead they worked a completely different way. I wasted probably a month of editing trying to get the damned things to work before I was told they wouldn't and had to scrap them.""
I do know that situation. Even been scold by Old Crow and Lothos' for brain fog (making London fogging day as sun shining) over not understanding script. Especially those two parameters in condition statement. (See my post on position).

I like to continue testing with you. I have started to write a non-historical "Out of the East" and not the Russia attacking. Using as little script as possible.
Is there any AI targeting aid. Like maybe National Morale or enhance resources centers.
How does one move a country capital without writing a long script.
Like use one script to set up capital and another script to annex the remain minor country.

[rmelvin]

Great Map
Three things here
Sfax Road appears to be not connect 291,203 -> 292,204
Hex 353,35 wrong Owner
Hungary Oil field is missing.

Maybe someone can change to naval units so can be better seen. Disappear in background.

Have not read anyone Polish fighter's review.
Good work, hope these people give you some bucks for this, great work.

[rmelvin]

Hex 295,66 port Missing
Hex 314,96 Port facing in wrong direction

Great work Maybe have a full map game out middle of next week. All from scratches.

[rmelvin]

Hex 249,159 what is going on here
Hex 311,69 Fort missing

Good luck

[rmelvin]

Remove all port on Caspin Sea for AI will build ship there.
Hex 450,182 change road type from 86 to 77.

great work

[Elessar2]

Thanks for the error list rmelvin. I actually THOUGHT I had put in a Hungarian oil well months ago, and was puzzled by your comment. What often happens is that I might revert to an earlier build to fix some other mistake, and forget to put a newer change back in. I am not sure that the production of that well (SW of Lake Balaton I believe) was enough to make it worthy of a oil well in-game however. WiF has a mine in the south of Hungary note.

Given the choice between doing something to "help" the AI to not do dumb things or a human player to do helpful things, I'll go with the latter every time. In a current game on YT with the Lothos world scenario, the Russian player absolutely needed those Caspian ports to reinforce the Caucasus if the relevant rails and roads into there (via Astrakhan) are cut off.

[Elessar2]

https://www.mediafire.com/file/iowuuyzf ... 2.zip/file

Last update for this mini-campaign as I transition back to working out the final kinks in the main one.

CHANGELOG for .79812 POLISH CAMPAIGN

1. Fixed a number of map errors. [cosimus2000, rmelvin]

2. Reduced default land scouting ranges for land-based air units across the board (Fighters and Tacs 4, Med Bombers 5, Strats 6). [slaytanic]

3. Poland made non-cooperative with the UK and France [cosimus2000]

4. Readded Hungarian oil well near the town of Nagykanizsa (rmelvin]

5. Added 1 each of Reserve Infantry Division, Elite Infantry Division and an HQ to the Polish reserves in the east.

6. Increased Scorched Earth for ports (both kinds) to 60-90 for most countries, 70-100 for Germany/USSR/Spain.

7. Overhauled several more techs:

* Reduced Logistics from 300 MPP to 175, as the benefit at low supply isn't as dramatic/helpful as I had initially thought it was, and isn't amenable to any tweaks in the editor in any event.

* The Ground and Aerial Warfare techs now cost about double what they did per chit (from 175 to 350 and 325 each), more in line with a previous change in Naval Warfare (300). In all 3 cases (also see Mechanization) the intent is to delay early investment in them by all non-German majors so that their benefits will pay off a bit later in the war-recall both Sharing and Catchup bonuses are much more significant than in Vanilla, and that these are 1 chit techs as well.

* Following similar reasoning Artillery tech has been doubled to 200 MPPs from 100 for its single chit.

8. As a result of the previous change, all former Russian Light Tank Divisions have been changed to regular Tank Divisions, and the Light TD slot eliminated, thus allowing the automatic upgrade to 2 attacks whenever the USSR reaches L1 in Ground Warfare. Number of starting regular TDs increased to 15, still +5 per level of Army Mobilization.

[rmelvin]

Why don't we collaborate.
I have a good AI engine almost ready. I can attach to your game, and you can use it to develop your historical game. I think player would like your map with an engine. My engine is Human gets NO AI support; it is pure human against the system. Only a general morale to keep counties in the game and convoy which human gets system support. Thinking about GV Poland in some game human annex Poland other no go.