Stalingrad Campaign ENH... You Pick for Me

[vahauser]

Fair enough.  But what Barthheart said is still misguided.
 
For example, what would revitalize SPWaW and the SPWaW community more:  1) Wild Bill coming out of retirement and designing scenarios and campaigns again? or 2) Yet another revision to Enhanced?
 
This is a no-brainer and should require absolutely no thought to come up with the correct answer.  What we need are new, exciting and challenging scenarios and campaigns more than we need further revisions to Enhanced.
 
I'm not trying to be uncivil, but it bothers me that our priorities are malfunctioning.

[Goblin]

It's a matter of opinion. Obviously if Wild Bill came out of retirement, people would flock to see what he had created. I definately agree with that. I can also state, for a fact, that each version of ENH that comes out generates a heck of alot of interest and hits at the Depot. Not opinion, fact.

Everyone has differing opinons on what is best for the game. Someone might think a Middle Earth mod for the game is vital to continuing its popularity. He may state that it is obvious, and a no-brainer. He would be both right (in his eyes), and wrong (in other players' eyes, possibly MOST other players'), but neither side would be 'wrong' per se, since it is a matter of opinion.

I definately see where you are coming from, and partially agree with you. But to me there is also the specific thrill of 'seeing what the newest thing' is. I may not care for it, but if there is something else new coming after it, then I still have that thrill. So I can see both sides of the argument.



Goblin

[vahauser]

Well, since I couldn't get Enhanced 2008 to work with Stalingrad ENH, I installed Enhanced 2009.  So I'll be posting a Stalingrad AAR thread after all.  After examining Alby's Enhanced 2010 core it became apparent that he was simply choosing 1 of everything (probably to test his OOB).  I'm going to build a core using a different approach.
 
However, here is a twist.  After each battle, I'll take suggestions as to what upgrades/changes I should make to my core with the available build points.
 
Minor note to Alby:  You misspelled Abteilung in the campaign introduction.

[Barthheart]

ORIGINAL: vahauser

Fair enough.  But what Barthheart said is still misguided.

[X(].... ummmm.... how to be civil..... Well I sure don't want you to guide me.... what ever that means.....
How can my opionion of how I like to play the game be misguided. I certianly wasn't trying to change your opinion, I was applauding what I thought was good work by obviously selfless people prividing their hard work for no other reason than they like to do it.

ORIGINAL: vahauser
I'm not trying to be uncivil, but it bothers me that our priorities are malfunctioning.

How can you say that "our priorities" are malfunctioning when you have no idea what my priorities are? I love to hear other's opinions but don't try to force them down my throat. To me that's being uncivil.

Sorry Goblin, but he mentioned me by name.... I'll stop posting in this thread now.....

[Goblin]

No need to stop posting, Barthheart (or anyone). I think you guys are having an excellent discussion. My request for civility was more to head off any insults before they might have started. Please don't abandon the discussion if you wish to post further!



Goblin

[junk2drive]

I'll join in.
 
My impression of Enhanced from the beginning is to use Enh for generated battles and campaigns and stick with the official release for scens and camps. In addition, people can update scens and camps to Enh or design from scratch with Enh. If a later version upsets the scen or camp, someone can update it. Or not.
 
Observations
 
One of the official updates to JTCS caused an uproar, with one designer going ballistic that a tourney he had been working on had been ruined by the update and months of work were down the tubes.
 
One of the official updates to WinSP caused such an uproar because it overwrote previously unused data with new official data, that there is now a sticky post warning to back up your unofficial stuff because it may get hosed.
 
So, it ain't just here folks.

[vahauser]

Well, I take full responsibility for this thread going way off topic.  My fault, I'm to blame.  So, I've moved back to the original topic--the updated Stalingrad campaign.  I've posted a thread in the AAR to get things started. 
 
As I wrote previously, I'll gladly take suggestions regarding how to spend the available build points between battles.  Also, feel free to make comments/suggestions in the AAR thread regarding the progress of the campaign.

[Alby]

ORIGINAL: vahauser

Oh well.  The updated version of Stalingrad ENH doesn't work well with Enhanced 2008.  I was afraid of that.  This is one of the reasons I didn't want Enhanced 2009.  Specifically, the changes you made to the weapons and weapons slots in ENH 2009 are incompatible with ENH 2008.  For example, Soviet HMGs now have 45mm AT guns in weapon slot 3 (they are supposed to have rifles).  This means that Soviet HMGs are seriously deadly if you try to use ENH 2008 to play the updated Stalingrad ENH campaign.  There are other weapons anomalies as well, but you get the idea.  Trying to use ENH 2008 to play the new Stalingrad ENH is most likely impossible (I have no idea what other weapons/equipment issues will arise in the campaign since I'm only on Turn 1 of the first battle).

nothing was changed with those units. I just looked over a few scenarios using 21008 and the HMGs have a grenade in slot 3 or a rifle. perhaps a unit here and there was missed during editing, but hell , some of those battles had TONS of units to edit. Stalingrad should work fine with 2008 for the most part, you sure you havent got something screwed up in your install or something???

Every time you guys screw with Enhanced it invalidates everything that has gone before.  Pisses me off.  Every campaign, every scenario, everything now has to be updated to Enhanced 2009 or else it doesn't work.  This is worse than Windows Vista.  Please leave Enhanced alone.  You are not making things better.  The only thing you guys are doing is ruining all campaigns and scenarios that were designed with an earlier version of Enhanced.  And since there is no way for people to access earlier versions of Enhanced (since you take away all links to them), then people are forced to use the latest version of Enhanced.  Thus invalidating all previous scenarios/campaigns designed with earlier versions of ENH. 

Hey dude, me and Flashfyre and others spent countless months and years or more editing all those original campaigns to play with enhanced, some were 50 battles or more, plus he edited nearly 200 battles in Desert Fox, Plus I am still going back and rediting things when I see something wrong...give me a break, I guess we should have not edited any of them at all in the first place if this is thanks we get. I never saw anyone from Matirx going back and editing anything after they released an update

I have a close friend I've known for many years who has spent more than 2 years designing a campaign for SPWaW.  Problem is that he has been using an earlier version of Enhanced.  Now, nobody can play his campaign (which is due to be completed within the next few months) because it would take him at least a year to update it to 2009.  By which time ENH 2010 will be released, thus ruining any effort on his part spent trying to update it to 2009 (which he probably won't waste his time doing in the first place because he realizes that it would be a futile effort since he can't keep up).  And so on.  And thus a really great SPWaW campaign is going down the drain (plus the 2+ years it took to design and develop it) all because he couldn't keep up with all the Enhanced revisions you kept proliferating.  And now nobody is ever going to get to play it.  He put his SPWaW heart and soul into that campaign.  And that really pisses me off.  He was "this close" to completing it... 

[You guys have no idea how much enjoyment you might have gotten from that campaign.  I've played a lot of SPWaW campaigns and I know how great his campaign was going to be.  But unfortunately it looks like you guys will never know.  All because he couldn't keep pace with changes to Enhanced.  One of the reasons he decided to do the campaign in the first place was because he was assured that Enhanced FV was going to be the true and honest Final Version.  He actually believed you guys when you said that.  So he made the enormous commitment to try and do his SPWaW campaign.  But you guys lied and now he is left with a fabulous campaign that now is incompatible with ENH 2009 and nobody can play.]

BS, there have not been that many 'moved' or 'deleted' units in Enhanced since FV
so his campaign should not be effected hardly at all. perhaps a unit or 2 or 4 here and there might need fixing up, but you make it sound like the entire list of units and weapons has been moved around so now every unit is screwed up, which is the only thing that would cause what you describe, hell even most of the original campaigns and scenarios play ok for the most part, with only a few units here and there with oddities...give me a break
[:-][8|][:-]

[Alby]

ORIGINAL: vahauser

ORIGINAL: Barthheart

Well I like all the work that these fine fellows have done over the years and continue to do, on a volunteer basis no less. Keeps breathing new life into this old gem.[&o]

So, please contiue making new versions of Enhanced. May it never be the final version.....[8D]

Wrong answer.

No, what is needed to really breathe new life into SPWaW are new scenarios and campaigns. Enhanced DV and DVRN worked (and still works) just fine. What you are witnessing with all these revised versions of Enhanced is simply people with too much time on their hands who can't leave well enough alone. Every new version of Enhanced undoes and ruins all the previous campaigns and scenarios.

EDIT: How do I know this? Because they told us that Enhanced FV was the Final Version. Get it? They lied.

You call us liars???!!!!
Bite me! we thought it was done, but other things needed attention, we listened to other gamers whou broguht up things, so it went on after FV.
I guess matrix should have stopped after version 1 or 2 or 5 or 7 too huh?
what nerve you got dude.

[Alby]

ORIGINAL: vahauser

Fair enough.  But what Barthheart said is still misguided.

For example, what would revitalize SPWaW and the SPWaW community more:  1) Wild Bill coming out of retirement and designing scenarios and campaigns again? or 2) Yet another revision to Enhanced?

This is a no-brainer and should require absolutely no thought to come up with the correct answer.  What we need are new, exciting and challenging scenarios and campaigns more than we need further revisions to Enhanced.

I'm not trying to be uncivil, but it bothers me that our priorities are malfunctioning.

People are still pumping out new scenarios almost weekly

[vahauser]

Alby,
 
Points taken.  Let's move on, okay?  I've installed Enhanced 2009 and I've started an AAR on your updated campaign and I want you to contribute.

[Alby]

One thing to remember, 2 scenarios in that campaign have not been edited, they may be ones you jump to depending on the outcome of your battle, so indeed there may be screwed up units in those battles.
and also indeed 2010 or FR as it will be called will be infact the last release of enhanced, and I will continue to go back and redit all those campaigns when something wierd p[ops up.
I am using whats been done so far on "FR" (or 2010) playing stalingrad right now, up to 4th battle and I have not seen anything wierd yet...so i dont know whats going on.

[vahauser]

Alby,
 
So in a sense I can make a contribution by helping to playtest the campaign for you, right?

[Alby]

yes

[FlashfyreSP]

Many good points made here...it's always been a balancing act, trading fixes and updates for compatibility. Enhanced was never really intended to replace the 'vanilla' game, but to 'enhance' the playing experience by introducing revised OOBs and icons. Over the years, it grew a bit, turning into more of a replacement for most players, especially those who preferred PBEM or H2H games. Unfortunately, that meant that all the old scenarios and campaigns were flawed, since most of the unit data is actually contained in the Scenario Data file, which isn't modified by the installation of the Mod. Thus, a lot of units end up with bad weapons or stats, which can only be corrected by re-editing the scenario files.

And that takes a lot of work, going through each scenario unit-by-unit and replacing all of them. For example, it took me the better part of 3 months, working each night after work, to update the 300+ scenarios in the Desert Fox MegaCampaign.

[Alby]

One more thing, somewhere back in one of the many updates to 'vanilla' SPWAW. the Panzerfaust weapon in the German weapons list, got moved to a different slot and was replaced by the 88mm Pzgrante (used by the 88mm RR anti tank gun)
This one change effected countless scenarios and campaigns because German infantry that were supposed to be armed with a panzerfaust when they were created,  were now all armed with the wrong and more deadly weapon, one thats not even meant to be used by Infantry. So in Enhanced we, as far as I can recall, did not move weapons to different slots in the oob editor. But you can see what only one change can effect, so it is quite a task to maintain 'backwards compatability".
Some units here and there however have been replaced over the past 3-4 years, , so here and there you might see a wierd unit, but for the most part, all 'Enhanced' scenarios and campaigns should play ok with whatever version of Enhanced it was created with, and as I say, when someone brings to my attention something wierd, I usually go and re edit that battle. Which BTW, everyone has the ability "fix" Scenarios and Campaigns on their own if they choose too. [:D]
Now back to the war.

[Goblin]

Wouldn't it have been more challenging to start with the recommended core force instead of making all of the restrictions and rules on yourself, vahauser? Just curious as to why you chose the heavy core over the recommended, then gave the comp an advantage. Seems counterproductive.


Goblin

[vahauser]

See?  This is the sort of input I wanted before I started the campaign.  Why did you wait until now to post that?

Also, all the campaign introduction suggested was "good tank platoons", "one infantry company", "no transport".

Well, I got mostly obsolete tank platoons, one machinegun company (worse than infantry), and plenty of transport (thus diluting my core by wasting points on units that are not needed).

But I would have been happy to go with any core that anybody suggested (Alby's being impossible since he wasn't playing with 2009 OOBs).  But nobody came forward with a suggestion.  Should I just scrap what I've done?

What are you suggesting that I do now?

EDIT: P.S. I choose those handicaps against myself pretty much every campaign I play against the computer. Been doing that for years. Not something new I did just for this campaign.

[Goblin]

Your force was weak, no argument. But with upgrades later, I think you will be bored out of your skull. The two platoons of PzIVD's are in addition to the two good tank platoons, so they are icing on the cake, even without an upgrade. Alby did suggest a core, and all of those units are in '08 too, are they not?

I just saw the screens of your core, which is why I asked. It's not a big deal, but believe you like a challenge, which was why I was confused.




Goblin

[Goblin]

I have noted that you are able to buy a hell of alot more for this campaign than you could in the past. You used to be able to get a couple of tank platoons, an infantry company, some mortars and a few odds and ends (maybe a couple of ATG's, an FO, an ammo truck, etc). Now there seems to be room for assault guns, halftracks, AA gun batteries, etc. Maybe my memory is off, or the points are off.


Goblin