Enabling PO

[Silvanski]

Continued from this thread

I'm cleaning up the map a bit and as I'm three days off from work I'm gonna start working on the Soviet/Communist PO this weekend.

[Silvanski]

It's quite a job but I'm getting the hang of it... Something I already took care of was setting and adjusting activation dates (turns) for various Communist PO formations and also human Allied formations, according to the AH timeline in the scenario notes.
Poland will be invaded first and can't count on any help from Germany till turn 3 except for a small formation operating out of Eastern Prussia.

From what I see so far this scenario is a huge slugfest as over time other Communist formations are activated and overwhelm weaker opponents in the first year of the war.

[golden delicious]

If you need any help with this let me know.

The Soviets are all supposed to be active from the outset- that was my original intention. They then have the choice whether to just focus on, say, Poland, or to try to take out as many countries as possible before the number of countries ranged against them gets to be too large. Of course this doesn't work fantastically well because I didn't include any events to activate countries if they are attacked, relying instead on the way that formation orders work naturally in TOAW.

A while back, I was working on a more sophisticated version of this scenario. It would be starting in 1936 and would have much more of a People's War theme, with masses of Russian infantry plus communist insurgency in most if not all of the anti-Commintern powers. I think I actually finished the basic Communist OOB (without any guerrilla forces) for this but got no further.

[Silvanski]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

If you need any help with this let me know.

The Soviets are all supposed to be active from the outset- that was my original intention...

Thanks for the offer to assist. Let me know what you think of this...

As you've read I wanna try to make the Communist PO mimic outbreak of hostilities based on the dates in the AH-timeline. This might work as most Communist formations are deployed in their entirity from the outset.

So... I put certain Soviet formations on delay and enter an appropriate activation turn, taking there deployment into account.
As for the Allies , only Poland is activated on turn 1 with Germany's formations in the East activated on turn 3 coming to Poland's aid (yeah AH scenarios can be wacky hehe), Britain and France on 12, and various minor Allies activate on a certain turn much later or of course when they get attacked or approached, depending on how fast the Communists advance... those Allies' activation turns were already present in the scenario.

What I do is activate the Communist formations deployed near those countries one turn earlier.
This might mimic the spreading of hostilities to other regions... The real WW didn't start at all fronts at once either.
The Communists wanna deal with Poland, Hitler of course cannot accept this because he wants Poland in his sphere of influence... Churchill prepared to go into an holy alliance with Hitler against Communism ("rather a Nazi in my backyard than a Commie in my kitchen" [:D])

Thus as HO you'll first have to deal with the PO focusing on Poland ... initially not many units to your disposal to defend. By the time the German formations in the East activate the Communist steamroller wil be in full swing

1 September 1939: The USSR invades Poland.
15 September 1939: German Troops relieve Polish lines.
October 1939: Winston Churchill, an outspoken opponent of accepting Communism, recommends aiding Germany
December 1939: French forces begin moving East. Britain and France declare war on the Soviet Union
January 1940: As French troops leave for the front, Spain invades the South of France. Western leaders convince Portugal to go to war with them.
February 1940: Soviet and Finnish troops enter Norway and Sweden.
March-June 1940: One by one the other countries of Europe join in the struggle against the Soviet Union.

Phase one of my PO job is almost complete...
I playtested turn 1-3 (objectives entered for the Soviet formations designated to activate on turn 1 for the initial attack on Poland) and that seems to work pretty fine. The tricky part was to fine tune the objective track for the formations bordering Eastern Prussia so they don't activate the Germans there...

[Silvanski]

I have a good general outline for the objective track for each PO formation and which orders they'll be given. Fine tuning the follow-up and link-up between the various formations will need some testing, but I'm pretty confident that this scenario is gonna work with a Communist PO. 

One house rule I'd like to implement: the Allies cannot move units into a country that hasn't been attacked yet; this to represent frantic diplomatic efforts by those countries to keep them out of the war, and the fact that it takes some time for an alliance to form.

The main (initial) target of the Communist are the Polish, with who they have a score to settle for events in the 20ies. Big surprise as they find out that the Nazis.

First it's only the Germans who will come to the aid of the Polish, because they know the Polish defense is crap... Their own plan to invade Poland takes on another dimension as the Communists launch their surprise attack...

Another handicap for the Allies will be the German formations deployed near the border with France ... they'll remain immovable for several turns, to reflect Hitler's fears for a French-Soviet alliance, and thereby not immediately available for action in the east.

Over time an unlikely alliance will materialize against the Red Threat as other countries find themselves under attack and Europe slides into its largest war ever...

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Silvanski

So... I put certain Soviet formations on delay and enter an appropriate activation turn, taking there deployment into account.

OK, that could work. If you were feeling really imaginative, you could have some units participate in the main offensive, then use separate objective tracks to have the break off and attack other countries on specified turns.

As for the Allies , only Poland is activated on turn 1 with Germany's formations in the East activated on turn 3 coming to Poland's aid (yeah AH scenarios can be wacky hehe),

I can't imagine Poland would have been too hot on the idea but they don't have much choice at this point.

I playtested turn 1-3 (objectives entered for the Soviet formations designated to activate on turn 1 for the initial attack on Poland) and that seems to work pretty fine. The tricky part was to fine tune the objective track for the formations bordering Eastern Prussia so they don't activate the Germans there...

You could play around with exclusion zones and/or garrison status for the German units (with an event to activate them).

[Silvanski]

Thanks for the tips GD

ORIGINAL: golden delicious


If you were feeling really imaginative, you could have some units participate in the main offensive, then use separate objective tracks to have the break off and attack other countries on specified turns.

That is exactly what I'm trying to work out.

You could play around with exclusion zones and/or garrison status for the German units (with an event to activate them).

Excellent! I'll look into those options.

[Silvanski]

GD, I see that certain Soviet formations have unts from different SSR's (Soviet states) attached to them. I assume that was done intwntionally, i.e. there are two Ukrainian infantry units to bolster the Baltic army...

[Silvanski]

I've been tweaking the OOB a bit. I gave the smaller countries more or less their weak pre-war airforce with chance of aqquiring some German planes later in the war (if they survive the Communist onslaught that is).
Managed to get the environment fixed so when I check the properties of this scenario no comments show up anymore... got a valid scenario here.
Now comes the last major step: the Communist PO.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Silvanski

GD, I see that certain Soviet formations have unts from different SSR's (Soviet states) attached to them. I assume that was done intwntionally, i.e. there are two Ukrainian infantry units to bolster the Baltic army...

Yeah. All the armies are the same size, and the number of units from each SSR depends on population. So some mixing had to occur.

[Silvanski]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
You could play around with exclusion zones and/or garrison status for the German units (with an event to activate them).

I set up an exclusion zone around the western borders of Poland (also East Prussia to prevent Communist units to activate German units) which dissappears on turn 3 (Poland allowing German intervention)... The Communists have initially a few formations active which should have been sufficient to deal with the weak Polish army... The German intervention forces them to enter more troops...
Activation of formations on both sides will happen gradually... The Allies face a tough task in the beginning....

I have added some extra city garissons and coastal defense for port cities ( a lesson learned from a WW2 scenario where I forced the surrender of Axis-Italy due to gameyness....)

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Silvanski

I have added some extra city garissons and coastal defense for port cities ( a lesson learned from a WW2 scenario where I forced the surrender of Axis-Italy due to gameyness....)

I reason that how much points like this are garrisoned should be up to the player. If he doesn't leave anything in a vital port then he has no-one else to blame for the consequences.

[Silvanski]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious



I reason that how much points like this are garrisoned should be up to the player. If he doesn't leave anything in a vital port then he has no-one else to blame for the consequences.

OK, but this is to help Elmer cuz for him things are a bit different ...

[Silvanski]

Here's the bitmap for the title window

[Silvanski]

75% of the Communist PO is now set up and it promises to be an onslaught ... the first few turns the Allies can't do very much except sit and look on in horror how poor Poland gets mutilated...
I'll try different objective tracks, this first try is only pulled out of the hat.... so it's likely the scenario will come in several variants with a surprising PO --- if you don't go and look in the scenario dump of course

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Silvanski

Here's the bitmap for the title window

Not bad. Dude on the right looks like Bush Jr., though.

[Silvanski]

Bush jr ... hehehe

Anyway, Im fine-tuning the PO... here's a movie of the first 6 turns (Communists view)
You see that the Germans come into play in turn 3.

Not all Communist formations are active from the outset... the Soviets bring in reinforcements and the second wave in response to German intervention in Poland...
The German formations deployed along the French border will become available on turn 6, after France and Germany negotiate a non-aggression pact (I'll add some news strings to reflect diplomatic stuff)

I like the scenario. It's almost like a NATO vs Warsaw Pact thing but anno 1939.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Silvanski

I like the scenario. It's almost like a NATO vs Warsaw Pact thing but anno 1939.

Yeah. What one has to appreciate is that the Cold War wasn't strictly a post-1945 phenomenom. It essentially started as soon as the 'hot' war against Russian Communism failed in the early 20s, was suspended for about a decade during Hitler's ascendancy, then resumed when it became apparent that Communism wasn't content with what it had won at Yalta and Potsdam.

The Russia of the 20s and 30s was probably a more sinister and impenetrable place than it was in the period between Stalin's death and the 1980s detente.

[Silvanski]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

Yeah. What one has to appreciate is that the Cold War wasn't strictly a post-1945 phenomenom. .../... The Russia of the 20s and 30s was probably a more sinister and impenetrable place than it was in the period between Stalin's death and the 1980s detente.

Exactly GD.

Well, my PO project is nearing completion... only a full run-through is needed to iron out some oddities.
I use the two exclusion zones available in the editor
1) to keep Soviets from entering East Prussia before turn 3
2) to keep advancing Soviet formations from prematurely activating Romanian or Hungarian formations before turn 24 when Romania's neutrality gets violated by the Soviets' "Drang Nach Westen"

I also added some extra info in the scenario notes. Full credit for the scenario and map design remains with the authors.... I'll be only listed for enabling the PO and making minor mods in the map and OOB.

[Silvanski]

Done! I've got a workable Communist PO!

I submitted "ALTERNATIVE WORLD WAR for TOAWIII-Communist PO v1.0" to the Games Depot and Rugged Defense.
Will be available soon (I hope[;)])