custom maps and pbem battles

Antonius · Post by **Antonius** » Wed Jul 19, 2000 6:14 pm

Just started my first PBEM SPWAW battle with Brits and Germans fighting over the good-looking Villers map.
But when my opponent sent me back turn 0 and i went to the deployement screen, I found out my Brits had nowhere to deploy !

So i did some testing and it seems that the set-up lines edited in the deploy screen for a given map in the editor are used for random battle using the map (but that objectives hexes are not)

I think it is in fact a good feature since I don't like the random front-lines of random maps (too close to each other in all battles and not enough depth for defenders), but it would be nice to have a section in the manual about it and maybe some on-screen warning when you start a battle.

And as far as my PBEM battle is concerned, I have obviously to restart it. The only good news is that we had settled on small budgets...

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always to the last man

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Wed Jul 19, 2000 6:47 pm

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here Antonius. So the map was not a computer generated map (Villers) and there was no start line for the British? Is that what you are saying.

Then are you saying that in spite of this, you prefer human made maps with start lines drawn in rather than random maps?

Maybe I'm slow today. Help me out a bit...WB

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

Antonius · Post by **Antonius** » Wed Jul 19, 2000 7:14 pm

yes, it was a man-made map downloaded from Tankhead's site good site.
I had looked at it through starting a phony random battle against the AI - but without ever going so far as the deploy screen, using instead the "view map" button of the unit purchase screen.
I used it to start a PBEM battle with human-picked forces, bought my OB, sent the files to my opponent. When I loaded the game and hit "human deploy" all my units were on row "1" and all the british front hexes were on row "0" and there was no way of moving them. Exiting and using "auto deploy" destroyed all units and froze the game...
So I went into the editor, loaded the map, went into deploy mode and put all british front hexes on row 25 and all german ones on row 75. Then i started a phoney battle against myself and found the front line exactly where i had put them.

And yes I prefer man-made maps since the computer generated ones use none of the new terrain types, the roads & bridges are totally unrealistic and the front lines are too close to each other (a matter of taste...). It would be a totally different story if i could have the spww2V3 random maps (even without multiple elevations) AND the spwaw engine

Mac_MatrixForum · Post by **Mac_MatrixForum** » Wed Jul 19, 2000 7:35 pm

Originally posted by Antonius:

And yes I prefer man-made maps since the computer generated ones use none of the new terrain types, the roads & bridges are totally unrealistic and the front lines are too close to each other (a matter of taste...). It would be a totally different story if i could have the spww2V3 random maps (even without multiple elevations) AND the spwaw engine

Couldn't agree more. New features to the random maps are a definite must before the game is retired

.

Also, I've experienced the same "bug". The size of the neutral ground could be an option because it definitely is sometimes too small.

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Markku "Mac" Rontu

"Understanding is a three-edged sword,
your side, their side and the truth."
- Sheridan in B5

Tankhead · Post by **Tankhead** » Wed Jul 19, 2000 7:38 pm

Glad you like the site Antonius !
Has for those maps for pbem, if I would take one of those man made map and use the editor to set the deploy lines for both side and victory hexe where I want them to be, then save the map to what ever name. Then reload the map in the battle generator buy my forces and send it to my opponent. Now with all the changes I did to the map would that fix the problem that you are talking about, having not really tested this yet, but I assume that would gives you more control of where the units are deploy and are far are they from each other in the deploy screen plus by setting the objective you would have total control of the genarated battle for pbem. Or is it a waste of time the computer will put the line where it decide and all that work was for nothing?

Tankhead

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Rick Cloutier rcclout@telusplanet.net
Coordinator: Tankhead's SPWAW Resources
http://sites.netscape.net/rcclout

Antonius · Post by **Antonius** » Wed Jul 19, 2000 8:33 pm

I haven't much experience in editing maps for use as "custom" maps in generated battles but in those tests i have done the front lines stay where you put them but the program will ignore your edited objective locations and place them in its usual way.
That means that it's a waste of time to edit objective locations and that you have to keep in mind the probable location of objectives the program will choose when you edit the front lines.

As I've already said in the first post, I like being able to set the front lines in generated battle but it would help if the topic was documented in the manual
Maybe it is documented in the SPIII manual, got to dig it out

and check.

As Mac suggests, an option for globally setting the size of the neutral area and/or the vertical rows would indeed be a good improvement.
In a meeting engagement in clear weather without any prior map editing both sides have a good chance of interdicting all the neutral ground with set-up MGs and AT guns

Tombstone · Post by **Tombstone** » Wed Jul 19, 2000 8:44 pm

I've run into the same problem myself. I think I got it ironed out at some point, but maybe not. Either way, it would be nice if there was some documentation on how to set up a PBEM game with custom maps that at least tells us what will make things go horribly wrong.

Tomo

Tankhead · Post by **Tankhead** » Wed Jul 19, 2000 9:04 pm

Originally posted by Antonius:

As Mac suggests, an option for globally setting the size of the neutral area and/or the vertical rows would indeed be a good improvement.

This would be a great feature. So far I find myself wasting a lot of time doing editing and just to find out it don't work

or worst just mest up everything. Thank god for the save feature.

Tankhead

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Rick Cloutier rcclout@telusplanet.net
Coordinator: Tankhead's SPWAW Resources
http://sites.netscape.net/rcclout

Drake666 · Post by **Drake666** » Wed Jul 19, 2000 9:20 pm

I use Freds scenario editor to change the vectory hexes in a Email game. Takes more time but you can get what you want.

Antonius · Post by **Antonius** » Thu Jul 20, 2000 10:18 pm

Originally posted by Drake666:
I use Freds scenario editor to change the vectory hexes in a Email game. Takes more time but you can get what you want.

where do i find it please ?

Drake666 · Post by **Drake666** » Thu Jul 20, 2000 11:04 pm

Go to this page
http://freds.webprovider.com/

Tankhead · Post by **Tankhead** » Thu Jul 20, 2000 11:22 pm

Thanks for the helps Drake

Tankhead

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Rick Cloutier rcclout@telusplanet.net
Coordinator: Tankhead's SPWAW Resources
http://sites.netscape.net/rcclout

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Thu Jul 20, 2000 11:40 pm

One way to get thr front line you want on a custom map is to go to the Editor and load teh map then go to deploy and make teh front line as you desire. THen save the scenario and the frontline will "Persist" if you don't do anything but go to teh battlegenerator and use custom map. the frontlines will be the same as you had jsut adjusted them to.

A bit tedious. We hope to come up with a fix for version 3...

Don · Post by **Don** » Fri Jul 21, 2000 2:38 am

Originally posted by Tankhead:

Has for those maps for pbem, if I would take one of those man made map and use the editor to set the deploy lines for both side and victory hexe where I want them to be, then save the map to what ever name. Then reload the map in the battle generator buy my forces and send it to my opponent.
_____________________________________________

Exactly, Tankhead!
When I made maps for your site I assumed this is what the users would do to customize it for thier battle, not thinking about the fact that they may not know how to do it! It is covered (but not specifically for pbem) in Wild Bill's excellent tutorial "Designing your own scenarios" in the manual.
I don't believe it's possible for the map makers to do anything but leave the deploy lines in the middle and v-hexes out, because we have no idea how the map will be used.

And Antonius,
once you get the map the way you want it, save it to a different name than the original, then you'll still have the original to use for something else.
Hope this helps somebody,

Don

Tankhead · Post by **Tankhead** » Fri Jul 21, 2000 3:33 am

Thanks Don ! So I'm on the right track.

Tankhead

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Rick Cloutier rcclout@telusplanet.net
Coordinator: Tankhead's SPWAW Resources
http://sites.netscape.net/rcclout

Antonius · Post by **Antonius** » Fri Jul 21, 2000 4:14 am

My second PBEM game, using this time the same map after editing it, saving it and testing the procedure in a mock unsecure battle against myself... ended as abruptly as the first with just nowhere to deploy.

I'm glad to hear that this may be improved in V3.0 because PBEM battles won't be very fun to play till then. And, if the randomly generated maps could be made more interesting (with walls, gullies, etc) I'd be delighted !

Tombstone · Post by **Tombstone** » Fri Jul 21, 2000 10:47 am

Oh come now Antonius.. this is better than it's ever been, and it was good back then.

Tomo

PR^Spanjab · Post by **PR^Spanjab** » Fri Jul 21, 2000 12:34 pm

This is a little bit of a pain but unless v3.0 changes it we will ahve to carry on having a scenario with each map to set it up, even if only for a generated pbem game.

I found out a lot of hints on getting the maps working from a document about map making on SP3. It was really helpful and so far has usually made things cool.

I have in one game I was setting up against SpunkGibbon had the same problem you mention, I could deploy anywhere and he couldn't deploy at all! It was a nightmare at the time, we failed a few times to get the game going but once we did it was a great game!