Global Campaign

[danizg70]

I am working on a project called Global Campaign using the WW2/player db. I would like to have both single player and multi-player scenarios. The scenarios begin in 1934 with players controling a country through to present time.

I would like H3ANW to manage operations and also to issue orders that can be read by other games for submarine and land operations.

Is it possible to have H3ANW create a text file when an order is given? I would also like H3ANW to import events after a mission/campaign has started.

Just purchase H3ANW recently and am enjoying scenario building. Any help/advice/criticism is appreciated.

[hermanhum]

Welcome aboard, shipmate.  Great to see you getting into the scenario writing process.  [8D]

Unfortunately, it is not possible to do the things you wish.  The game is unable to issued orders that can be easily read by other games for submarine or land operations.  The Scenario Editor has a function whereby it exports all the text descriptions/orders for the scenario.  You can find it under the Edit pull-down menu "Export Text Data".  This command creates a text file that can be read by programs like Notepad.

You can also activate the AALog function (under the Options tab when you use the Configuration Launcher) to track events during the game.  However, I do not think that it will be very helpful for order creation since it tracks every single event.

ANW cannot import any events or text from pre-existing files.  For example, if you play a scenario and it ends with 10 ships sunk, you cannot continue from that point and write a new scenario with the last saved game.  Well, you 'can', but there will be all sorts of problems with things like Victory Conditions.

It is interesting that your campaign will encompass 1934 to the present.  Sadly, ANW does not do a good job with gun battles.  The game is very limited in what it can simulate with surface gunnery.  For example, the game pays very little attention to gunnery arcs.  So, all ships can fire all their weapons in all directions.  This was a huge limitation at the time.  Just imagine if battleships like the Rodney and Nelson could fire their huge weapons in all directions.

Also, the game does not simulate acceleration or turn rates.  Ships can turn on a dime and go from 0kts to Flank speed (30knots+) instantaneously.

[danizg70]

Thank you for your quick reply. That seems to be the consensus with all the games I wanted to use. The project is taking off like a lead balloon. Very frustrating.

All the global scale games have battle simulation limitations and all the combat games have limited scope.

I havent given up just yet. I have downloaded Matrix's war engine program and will see what I can do with that. I was thinking of having a Civ4 type of objective, such as developing space travel, anyways.

Thanks again for the information

Dan

[hermanhum]

You should not be despondent.  Where there is the will, there will usually be some way to accomplish your desire.  It may be awkward and time intensive, but some work-around is usually possible, in my limited experience.  [:)]

Perhaps you could elaborate on your Grand Campaign plans.  What other games do you intend to use?  I read about your exploration of SH3/4.  There are other games out there such as Warship Combat: Navies at War.  It does a pretty good representation of tactical surface combat.  However, it does not cover larger scale engagements and has its own limitations such as no land or aircraft.

Every game has its limitations.  If you are willing to put the work into filling in these gaps as some kind of human Games Master, you might be able to carry out your Campaign.  For example, using ANW to do all naval situations might be convenient for you, but it may not give you the results you seek.  You might need to use WC:NAW for the WW2 situation and ANW for post-WW2.

Freek Schepers tried a campaign a long time ago.  You can contact him (showProfile.asp?memid=20645) and see his results. http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread. ... post440909
IIRC, it was a lot of work for Freek to pretty much set up individualized scenarios for each of the contest participants.

[danizg70]

Thanks for the kind words hermanhum.

I am building an html "interface" that has maps, photos, narrative, spreadsheets and hyperlinks.

I also play a game called Blitzkrieg by Nival Interactive and discovered that I could use command line switches on the game shortcut to start the game with a particular map loaded. So, I figured out how to place hyperlinks on top of an image to make an "interactive" map where a player could click on an area of the map and launch a game with a map that represents that area. This gives the player some perspective on where the battle takes place. Blitzkrieg has a career that can be tracked in-game and mission/campaign editor. The player add screenshots from the battles on the html page as a kind of battle report. The drawback is that the missions are linear with no consequence for losing a battle other than having to replay it until you win and then proceed.

Then I purchased WC-NAW for naval battles. It is very easy to build scenarios and the ship list is fairly large. The maps are just blue water so it can represent anywhere that isnt near coastline. Unfortunately there speed restrictions and no merchant ships for convoy missions.

I have a very large satellite image of the world from Wikimedia. I cut portions of it to serve as tactical maps such as the North Sea, North Atlantic, South Pacific, etc. So, for example, on a mission for Germany to send its fleet to China in 1934, it would have a series of images such as North Sea, English Channel/French Coast, Spain, South Africa, India and finally Pacific/South China Sea. Each image/map has a highlighted square hyperlink to launch the battle.

Then I purchased Silent Hunter 3 by Ubisoft and became quite smitten. SH3 has a great world map, mission/campaign editor, and a career track. I like SH3 Commander because the personnel and crew html files that can be created and added to the "interface" pages. SH3 could supplement WC-NAW on a strategic scale.

Finally I purchased H3ANW for its Command Room qualities. I figured H3ANW and WC-NAW had common warships; H3 and SH3 have common merchant ships; and SH3 was moddable so that surface ships can be added as environment. I planned on building the same campaign in each game and have updates from one game appear in the other as news briefs. Just an immersion thing, I suppose. Blitkrieg would be for the land lubbers and I was hoping to be able to create output text files using LUA scripts. This can overwrite the radio reports in SH3 so that while playing SH3 you can receive a radio report about the outcome of a Blitzkrieg battle.

I still would have no AI except that which is built into each separate game. I was hoping to use H3 to coordinate all three. No game exports data files easily, if at all. Only SH3 has the ability to customize incoming radio messages. I was hoping that data files that were created would update MS Excel spreadsheets on the "interface", so the user wouldnt have to do it manually.

But instead the campaigns would be purely scripted for a single-player campaign with statistics stored in SH3 and BK career statistics. You can be awarded medals and so forth. For H3 and WC-NAW, if the player wished to, they could update the spreadsheets and strategic map manually to chart their progress.

So I am in the process of creating a campaign from 1934 to present day in H3 and will build campaigns/missions in the other two game based on the AI's actions.

There seems to be an interest in MP matches so I am thinking about using the "interface" as a platform for MP games. The same restrictions exist so players would have to update spreadsheets and so forth manually. Screenshots can be added for eye candy. If there is an interest in it, I would love to have one or more players for each country in a grand MP campaign. It would be like a free MMORPG except instead of everything on-line, matches would be direct IP connections between players. The interface could be a webpage that has links to purchase games, download maps/mission/mods, and check progress on the strategic map that is updated by an administrator. Some games lend themselves to PBM or PBEM. This could allow offline players to participate.

I have the ability at work to print html pages to a pdf format that retains the hyperlinks. This way players would just download a mision sheet that has all the maps, photos, etc on it and not have to download all the files associated with the html page.

This way, SH3 multiplayers could play MP SH3; H3 players could play H3 MP matches, and so on. I am not terribly excited about historical missions but that would be up to the players. If I played Germany I would want the Netherlands and China as an ally to open up Asia-Pacific scenarios.

Sorry to be so verbose. I dont think I have written this much in all my forum postings combined. I suppose it is a solicitation if people would like to contribute. The Blitzkrieg forum at Panzer-Blitz Forum is creating a series of new improved BK campaigns, and of course subsim and this site has a lot of content for SH3 and H3.

I played Eve Online for some time and liked the grand scope of it. Didnt like paying $15 per month though. This represents my alternative.

Anyways, that's all I have now. Updates can be found here in the future.

[hermanhum]

Using ANW to coordinate the other games seems like a pretty good idea. There are a number of MBX (eMail Battle Exercises) going on and I think a number of them use ANW in the same manner for it's map and management capabilities to track units on the globt. For example, you can build a world map like the one attached. Please note that this is the ONLY world map capable in ANW. (This means that you cannot build a world map centred on the International Dateline.)

[hermanhum]

While you have a World Map to track all the units, you can then create zoom maps to track smaller areas. It is theoretically possible to play a scenario with just the world map and have all the units on it. However, I would not advise using ANW in this manner as the CPU demands would be incredibly huge and your scenario would run very, very, very slowly.

You would probably be better off creating new (smaller) scenario file maps. I think that this is similar to your idea for using Wikimedia World map and then using the smaller tactical maps with the various games.

The major drawback of using ANW as the Global map is probably the inability to have land units move. You can re-position units with the ScenEditor, but it is a manual function.

[hermanhum]

There are a couple of additional functions you might find useful in the ANW game. The game has a VCR function that records an entire battle. However, be forewarned. It creates incredibly large files that have been known to fill up an entire hard drive. Also, these VCR files can only be watched from owners of the ANW game. I do not know if they are transferable to any other media for viewing.

The second function is the Screen Shot feature. You can take individual screenshots either manually or automatically at specific intervals (i.e. 30 seconds). These screenshots appear as *.PCX format and can be converted to other format. There are other utilities that can then gather a number of screenshots together and run them as animated *.GIF files. This is kind of a 'poor man's VCR' (a.k.a. slide show).

Another possible use of ANW is to run it as the Global or Theatre map/management, insert the units, then have the AI run it until a contact/detection is made. At that point, you can create a smaller scenario with either ANW or WC:NAW and fight it out. Then, transfer the results back to the main map. The surface gunnery simulation in ANW is not as good as WC:NAW, but the automated features like air patrols is pretty good and consistent.

I think that a small situational set up as a "proof of concept" is probably your best bet.

Why have you chosen 1934 as your starting point?
Why do you think that there are many players wanting MP? In my experience, I see the opposite.

[danizg70]

Thanks for the tips!

[danizg70]

I apologize. I just realized I didnt answer your two questions.

I chose 1934 because I usually play as Germany and dont like to be constrained by the decisions that Hitler made. The Global Campaign allows the player to make leadership decisions rather than follow the historical progress.

I chose a MP campaign overall to reduce the amount of AI I would have to figure out. I was thinking of designing a chess style logic for programming the AI but I havent learned how yet.

Of course, after attempting to change out motherboards, neither appear to work. I am building a new computer, have purchased the case, but that is a looooong way from completion.

Anyways, I am going to get back into H3 editing.

[hermanhum]

Here is Bill Jennings' site for his MBX "War in 2012"

http://homepage.mac.com/bjennings/Sites/2012/start.html

He's a good guy and may allow you to enlist and look around to see how he has things arranged.

[danizg70]

Very interesting site.