ETO-scenario is here!

[parusski]

Uxbridge I love it so far. The units and map are fabulous. The colors are gorgeous and I love the little animation during combat. Kudos my friend.

[Uxbridge]

Thanks, parusski!

[Flaviusx]

Ok, I've attached the zip file.

[cpdeyoung]

Dear Uxbridge,

Well, as you expected the ConsoleOut does show many fleets trying to move from node to node but not finding a path. However these are only warnings, and ones I am sure you will address. The actual stop comes in the "poorly defended front" routine, when the processor cannot find all the units. Here are the last lines.

Wroga 8 TAC Wezel Le Havre. Dod.PS 8. Silawezla=34
Wroga 9 TAC Wezel Caen. Dod.PS 8. Silawezla=20
Wroga 10 TAC Wezel Le Havre. Dod.PS 6. Silawezla=40
Wroga 11 TAC Wezel Iasi. Dod.PS 6. Silawezla=26
Wroga 12 TAC Wezel Lviv. Dod.PS 7. Silawezla=18
Wroga 2 TAC Wezel Palermo. Dod.PS 8. Silawezla=15
Wroga 30 TAC Wezel Kaunas. Dod.PS 10. Silawezla=10
Cannot find other units. Ending saving poorly defended front procedure.

Surely this routine has run often to this point, so one wonders what has happened to cause units to go missing?

Chuck

[Uxbridge]

Yes, there's a lot of can't find node this and that, but this is routine I believe.

When it comes to the actual problem, I'm at a total loss. [&:] You mean that the system has somehow "misplaced" units and for lack of finding them it crash?

[cpdeyoung]

Perhaps the developers can tell us if it quit because of the "poorly defended front" routine, or if the next process in the sequence was where the failure occurs? I looked through my ConsoleOut from another game, and it did not have that routine. Perhaps another player might have the "poorly defended front" in their ConsoleOut and can tell what the next lines are?

Chuck

[Flaviusx]

Ok, so I made the AI get a brainfart? Yay me!
 
 

[Bleck]

The problem is in "Europe" map file, few of sea hexes near Bodo (Norway) has assigned parameter that is not allowed for sea nodes. That crashes the game during deploying new units. We will fix this problem in next patch. For now you can try replacing map.hmf in your save and scenario folders with the one I've attached to this post.

[Tomokatu]

Beck advised:

try replacing map.hmf in your save and scenario folders with the one I've attached to this post.

 
Beck, is that something all the rest of us (using 1.5 or 1.6 vanilla versions) should do as well, or is it ONLY for Uxbridge's ETO scenario mod?

[Bleck]

This file is unofficial, official one will be in next patch... but if you want, you can try to replace it in all European scenarios and saves in 1.6 (not sure about 1.5, but also should work).

[Uxbridge]

All right, I have replaced the former map with the new. All my changes to the map (German economy, Slovakian erradication) is still there. Fine. Thank you.

Was this error caused by changes I made in the ETO, or was the problem in the normal map too? If the former is true, is the above attachment only for my scenario or do we have to change it for the standard scenario as well?

I will post an updated version of the ETO as soon as I have this confirmed or refuted. Those that have downloaded the scenario already can simply replace the old map-file with the attached version from Bleck.

[Flaviusx]

Started a second playtest game this weekend, this time as the Germans. Played through June 1941. More Romania weirdness. They joined the allies in this game as well. Looks like the only way to prevent this is for the Axis to throw all his DPs in that direction. I foolishly chose instead to activate Iraq. At any rate, this diplomatic setup troubles me, I think it's going to cause problems.
 
Somehow, the Soviets wound up going to war with Germany in summer 1940, not quite sure how. They caught me flatfooted in mid 1940 and I had to rapidly redeploy units away from Yugoslavia (which I was about to hit, having concluded the French campaign.) They hadn't even taken the Baltic states yet when war broke out, and were still bogged down in Finland, so even a very abbreviated German effort made good gains. Wound up declaring war on the Baltic states myself and taking them as a German. Leningrad, Moscow, Kharkhov, and Rostov all fell in the winter 1940-1 period. The Germans had to clean up Romania in fall of 1940, but not before pushing the Reds back past Khrivoi Rog and establishing a screen. Summer 1941 has the Germans pushing towards the Urals, Stalingrad, the Caucaus oilfields, and Murmansk. (Which, annoyingly, is a VP objective in this game and not easily gotten to, especially with Finaland neutral albeit at war with the USSR, and Norway skipped by me as the Germans. Basically, I have to march all the way from the Svir to the end of the map, grabbing the few supply points along Karelia. And it's all woods all the time.)
 
The Soviet AI is displaying the same production weirdness reported elsewhere, btw. Massive SMPs (48) and horribly inflated war economy (250%+). Doesn't matter, really, they are still going to go down in due course, this is just a logistical exercise for the Axis at this point. I have to conclude that it really is necessary to do this just to keep the AI somewhat competitive with a human player, and even then a human should still win. At any rate, none of this matters in a pvp game, thank goodness, a player controlled Russia behaves normally in its economics, as I can attest from experience.  

[Uxbridge]

When it comes to Romania, she starts as an neutral Allied, just as Greece and Yugoslavia start as neutral Axis. I did this to better reflect the historical pre-war set-up.

In many games we played in the past, this has been a matter of some dispute. Some argue for the 1941 situation to give the flow of the game a gentle push in it's historical direction; some, like me, prefer the more complicated version with the above sentiments of the nations concerned. As it is in the Vanilla game, it's very easy for the German player. He simple gathers DPs and attack USSR on a wide front. In reality, with Hungary, Yugoslavia and Greece as promising Axis partners, but with Romania pro-Allied and Bulgaria torn between west, Germany and USSR, it wasn't anything as easy for Hitler at start. It ended in the Greek-Yugoslavian campaign, but the situation was open to other outcomes as well.

In ETO the Axis players have one grateful relief, since they don't have to attack Greece, throwing this Axis partner into the Allied camp and producing the prerequisite to threatening the Romanian oil fields. Romania, on the other hand, can pose a problem. Some of Germanys economy, resources for a value of no less than 22 PPs, are located within this country (oil import). Germany have the choice to either try to keep Romania out of the war or attack and conquer her as a safeguard.

Yugoslavia, unless the Allied or Comintern player can change this through a coup d'etat, is on the Axis side.

[Uxbridge]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Downloading. I'll put some playtime into this as a Sov.

Flaviusx, you have played the game a lot. There's one thing that are beginning to give me a bit of concern. I haven't really undetstood how many reinforcemants there are. Now it seems they're so numerous that they threaten to affect the productional model. I want the players to buy their units, not the system to create them automatically.

The automatic reinforcements also makes other problems, such as producing a second set of DAK units, to name one. I can't change the events files without doing so also for other scenarios. And even if I could, I would be most hesitant, since muddling with them might easily create unwelcome CTDs.

I therefore suggest that the reinforcements, save the naval units which are exempted, should be disbanded immediately upon placement. This will give the player half the amount of the dstroyed unit's PPs back to spend as he sees fit.

I like some comments on this before putting it up as a home rule.

[Flaviusx]

Honestly, I tend to disband most of these reinforcements myself anyways, because they mostly come into the game understrength.
 
One thing that could cause problems here: forcing the Soviet to disband the Mechanized and Armored Corps that go directly into the deployment pool. And they come in at tech 3 (regardless of actual Soviet tech level). The event only happens 2-3 times in a game, but they're a huge shot in the arm for the Sovs. That's 6-9 beefy corps. Disbanding them would be equivalent to losing hundreds of PPs, not to mention the possibility that you couldn't rebuild them immediately to tech 3 depending on your situation. They represent, presumably, elite Siberian forces. (This is separate from the divisions that appear on the eastern edge of the map by event, however. Those come in understrength and at tech 1.)

[Uxbridge]

Do you think we should make an exception for those?

[Flaviusx]

I do. Everything else I could disband without issue.

[Tomokatu]

Somehow, the Soviets wound up going to war with Germany in summer 1940, not quite sure how. They caught me flatfooted in mid 1940

That's happened to me in a stock-standard V1.5 pbem. It may NOT be a product of the ETO scenario mod.

[Uxbridge]

Another odd crash. Console out saying this:

Event Country PBEM to kraj neutralny.
Executing all convoys for Event Country PBEM
Event Country PBEM nie prowadzi wojny, wszystkie jednostki dostaj� zaop. pokojowe
*** Licze zaopatrzenie dla kraju neutralnego Vichy France ***
=== Vichy France liczy zaopatrzenie dla swoich jednostek ===
Vichy France to kraj neutralny.
Executing all convoys for Vichy France
Vichy France nie prowadzi wojny, wszystkie jednostki dostaj� zaop. pokojowe
*** Licze zaopatrzenie dla kraju neutralnego Dummy ***
=== Dummy liczy zaopatrzenie dla swoich jednostek ===
Dummy to kraj neutralny.
Executing all convoys for Dummy
Dummy nie prowadzi wojny, wszystkie jednostki dostaj� zaop. pokojowe

What is the purpose of "Dummy Convoy" and what does "Event Country"??

[cpdeyoung]

Dear Uxbridge,

I have a question about the Italians in North Africa. They are running lickedy split because they are powerless. They have decent supply, but horrible effectivness. Is this by design?