Seven Roads to Hell scenario released

[El Savior]

I'm proud to present my Bastogne scenario Seven Roads to Hell is ready and released today!

You can download it from http://elsavior.albaani.org/airbornedepot/

With historical units, it is very hard task to take Bastogne for German. Scenario is best play with Favor German option where almost full XLVII Korps and its two elite panzer divisions are used for German side. It is surely good challenge for allied player. It is still 1.0 version and it might be necessary to balance scenario more. That's why I need your feedback is this too hard or easy. Still, it will be fun 8 days and 23 hours.

Hope you like it! [:)]

[Murky71]

Let me start by saying it looks great, from memory i'd say the map is pretty much spot on. (I was in Bastogne last year to have a look around). One really minor thing I noticed was that all 101st airborne troops were designated as 1/50x. (All companies from A to G seem to be placed in 1 batallion; they do have the right superior units). Apart from that: keep up the good work, I'm looking forward to playing this (probably this weekend).

[Arjuna]

Well done El Saviour. Great to see it finally released. [:)]

[Rooster]

Congrats El Savior. Can't wait to play it!

[JVSFugitive]

El Savior You da man [&o]

I will try it out this weekend and post my thoughts. [:D]

[Killswitch]

Hello everyone! Famous first post here... been playing HTTR for over a year now. There's just nothing even remotely close to it out there. Eagerly awaiting to see what's in the future.

Now, I've been playing this scenario as Allies over the weekend. Currently at day six and my Battered Bastards of Bastogne are still holding the lines, but there seems to be more trouble aheadd. In short: I love it [&o]

There's just that little problem...it crashes HTTR on day six just after 20:00. Kaboom. CTD.

Have no idea why, can provide savegame. I had a peek at the thing in the ScenMaker application. The one suspect is that XLVII Pz Korps HQ is set to arrive on scene sometime after D6 20:00.

Other things I noticed while playing was that the estimated time to complete an order (klick twice on the end waypoint) suddenly was set to the end time of the scenario now matter how short the unit had to move. This happened first after a few days of game time - in the beginning, I was able to use it to estimate when the units would arrive. (The Start-End-Duration properties).

Again, thanks for a promising scenario. I would so love to be able to complete it. HTTR bugs or scenario issues? Who knows?

[loyalcitizen]

Glad to see you've finished. Wish I could play it...
My problem:
Error and crash when I try to open the map in Map Maker Tool with new and old graphics. Error reads:
<process has already ended> and has generated errors.

When I try to load the scenario, using both new and old graphics, it crashes to desktop, fully out of game.

Any advice?
Thanks,
Matt

[El Savior]

Damn damn.... [&:]

I tested my scenario yesterday and it crashed. I did make some test games before releasing and it did work then. I'm not sure, maybe I did change something before releasing it. At least it worked with favor Germany option. That map problem seems very strange I didn't have that kind of problem ever. Have try to make cache for map?

I will try to make some changes for scenario today to make it work.

Edit: Favor Germany is working. My test games was finished few minutes ago. It's nice to have remote access to my computer from work. [:D]

[El Savior]

I made couple test games and indeed XLVII Korps HQ unit was causing this crash problem. I removed (noshow) it in historical scenario and test game was finished without crash. As I said before I didn't encountered crash during test in Favor German and it have XLVII Korps HQ. Weird. Well, hopefully you will be able to finish my scenario. 6th day is THE one when real fun begins [;)]

You can download new version from Airborne Depot.

Question to Panther Games. I have two divisinal HQ 26th Volks and 15th PG in historical scenario. Is removing Korps HQ effecting AI's ability to command all units? I believe it doesn't effect, almost every division is missing regiment, but I haven't counted commands for these units.

[loyalcitizen]

Hmm... just downloaded the 1.01 file and tried both the historical and favour Axis. Crash to desktop both times.

I also still cannot open the map in MMTool to mapcache it up.

Grr...

Any chance a Panther can spend a half hour on a debug operation?

Thanks, Matt

[sterckxe]

ORIGINAL: El Savior

I'm proud to present my Bastogne scenario Seven Roads to Hell is ready and released today!

Hope you like it! [:)]

Downloaded it today - will surely give it a spin

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[Grouchy]

Aloha,

Have you a unit that is a "No Show" in your scenario and subordinates under it that are NOT "No show" and make an appearance in the scenario? Because that will crash the scenario.

For instance 39th VGR HQ and 5th FJ Div HQ are a "No show" and 14th FJR HQ and subordinates are arriving as reinforcments later.

Or did Dave fix this?

[Grouchy]

OMG just looked at Eddy's avatar.

How about a "No Animals were hurt during the making of this picture?" disclaimer.

[RayWolfe]

ORIGINAL: Grouchy
OMG just looked at Eddy's avatar.
How about a "No Animals were hurt during the making of this picture?" disclaimer.

OMG. The dog is real ugly. But compared to Eddy he's beautiful. [:'(]
Ray

[Arjuna]

Hey I thought that was Eddy. [;)]

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: Grouchy

Aloha,

Have you a unit that is a "No Show" in your scenario and subordinates under it that are NOT "No show" and make an appearance in the scenario? Because that will crash the scenario.

For instance 39th VGR HQ and 5th FJ Div HQ are a "No show" and 14th FJR HQ and subordinates are arriving as reinforcments later.

Or did Dave fix this?

IIRC we have fixed this for COTA. But it is still an issue in HTTR. So please rearrange your force structure. Ensure that there are no reinforcements under a "No Show".

[Killswitch]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna
IIRC we have fixed this for COTA. But it is still an issue in HTTR. So please rearrange your force structure. Ensure that there are no reinforcements under a "No Show".

This seems to be the case for the historical variant of version 1.01 of the scenario: XLVII Corps HQ is set to "No show" but many of its subordinates arrive on the scene as reinforcements. Therefore, it shouldn't have fixed the crashes. But El Savior seems to have been able to run a test game with this. I'll playtest 1.01 and see what happens...

[sport]

Hi

I downloaded last weekend and played a game as Germans (with the extra reinforcements). Finished the game with no problems, and it was a lot of fun - the terrain offers all sorts of possibilities which means it will have high replay value. I really had to work even with the extra units and barely squeeked out a marginal victory (and only managed to occupy about 50% of Bastogne), so the standard reinforcements would probably be a real challenge for the Germans. (Fortunately, the AI wasted a lot of Airborne troops counter-attacking a pretty insignificant objective, otherwise I probably would have not managed to eek out a win.)

Thanks for putting this together - it was a lot of fun.

[El Savior]

So if subordninate units are in reinforcement and their HQ is noshow, this might cause crash? Can this be fixed by removing whole XLVII Korps HQ from historical reinforcement? This creates problem that some subordinate units might appear, so thats why I added many noshows example for 39th Regiment which is subornidate unit for 26th Division and for each other divisional HQ's. Historically 26th Divisional commander was the only division HQ there.

German reinforcements are:

Heeresgruppe B

5th Panzer Army HQ
XLVII Korps HQ
2nd Pz Div
26th Div
Lehr Div
15th PG Div

7th Army
LXXXV Korps HQ
5th FJ Div
14th FJ Reg

As you can see, I wanted to create whole OOB. Of course it easy to cut&paste 14th FJ Reg to under XLVII Korps. This makes no difference in game play, because even 5th DJ Div HQ is not appearing to the scene. I wanted to create complete OOB, coz' scenario editor was nice tool to keep notes too. Also, soon I realized that it is very hard or almost impossible task for Germans to take Bastogne with historical units I wanted to create Favor German option. This way it would make scenario better suited for head-to-head matches and more fun to play against AI too.

By the way, it's not too hard to get major victory with Favor German. Still it's not easy though. Direct attack to Bizory is not a good option, AI try to defend Bastogne a and Bizory very hard. Usually it is necessary to make some feint attacks to draw opponent units somewhere else and then manouver your main force during darkness of night and make the main assault. US have many artillery battalions and also couple heavy 150 mm howitzers. These units cause much problem to German player. You could try to find artillery units... You have many fast mechanized companies available. But usually I found darkness my best defence against them. If you start assault in night, when first light comes it is too late for allies to stop your mechanized strike. Also with German you have very few artillery early days. Most of them are still trying to move towards Bastogne (bad roads). Sometimes it is necessary to wait and gather more reinforcement before mounting to attack. Whole 101st division is out there and only madman will try to attack them with one or two regiment. Concentrate your forces and attack. Hint: Forests and darkness could be useful. Also there are many smaller roads and tracks. Use your mobility to attack from different directions than expected.

Of course I know how AI will try to defend, it helps a lot. [:D] Actually after test games I tweaked AI to defend those areas I found easy to attack. Now, they really defend Bastogne well. Anyway, after couple times playing, I'm sure you find some holes in it defence. But feint attacks are usually must and German should use few mechanized units as a reserve. 2nd panzer and Lehr units are your best units. Use them wise. 26th Volksgrenadier units are not that good in assault and they are *slow*. After you receive 15th panzergrenadier division you can do little more. But this is about regiment size unit reinforced with panzer battalion. I actually assaulted and keeped Bastogne few days in historical scenario. But I ended up loosing three whole regiments after they counter attacked. Oh boy, it was a bloody urban battle in Bastogne. It was fun! [8D]

[Grouchy]

When I had that problem (was around the 2179 build) Dave told me to do the following workaround: simply remove those reinforcments from under "No Show units" in the force list and place them directly under a unit that isn't a non show. -ie make them subordinates of a unit that will participate in the scenario.