Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 is a turn-based World War II strategy game stretching across the entire Eastern Front. Gamers can engage in an epic campaign, including division-sized battles with realistic and historical terrain, weather, orders of battle, logistics and combat results.
The critically and fan-acclaimed Eastern Front mega-game Gary Grigsby’s War in the East just got bigger and better with Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: Don to the Danube! This expansion to the award-winning War in the East comes with a wide array of later war scenarios ranging from short but intense 6 turn bouts like the Battle for Kharkov (1942) to immense 37-turn engagements taking place across multiple nations like Drama on the Danube (Summer 1944 – Spring 1945).
Yeah, sure. If was that easy, it would be a trivial task. And yet "it is not a trivial task."
Ok, it would also involve an interface change in the executable. I've been developing software for over 30 years and while it may not be trivial, it does not sound like it would be especially difficult. Most likely, it is a matter of resources.
ORIGINAL: Oloren
Ok, it would also involve an interface change in the executable. I've been developing software for over 30 years and while it may not be trivial, it does not sound like it would be especially difficult. Most likely, it is a matter of resources.
Resources would probably be a better descriptor, yes. When your devs are knee-deep in making the next game, you don't/won't spend as many man-hours going back to the released, aside from specific pain-points, under-utilized devs that deal with a particular subject, or features that you're making in the next game with the intent of back-porting it later on.
Ok, here's what we've done based on what we felt we could do quickly and relatively safely, while also trying to please the most people based on the polls (and realize that the 100 or so people that answered the polls are a tiny sample size of WitE players, but we do listen to the opinions of the serious players).
We've created an alternate campaign 41-45 scenario that ends at the start of turn 212 (first turn of July). In this scenario, the German auto victory is set to 260 (remember, Leningrad/Moscow/Stalingrad is about 245, so this requires a bit more than just those cities). The Soviet Major Victory now ends 3/31/45, while a Soviet Minor can be won until 6/30/45. This required some code changes, and the end date change in the scenario file. I've tested an AI vs AI game and made sure it ended at 260 (passed that test). I'm now running a test to see if it will give the right victory levels with a Soviet win. This will take awhile as it can take a long time to get to 45. Gary says the change made should be safe and shouldn't screw up the normal scenario, but testing that would also take some time. Remember, every time a code change is made, there is a chance for a bug. Even the simplest of code changes can get screwed up and not be visible for some time. So at some point, probably in a week or so, assuming it passes the tests, we'll have the ability to release this alternate scenario. I don't know exactly when this will get out to the public, but it's a safe bet that sometime within the next month this will go out unless it turns out to fail in test, at which point we probably would have to give up on it for now.
As I've said previously, the ideal solution is to have campaign victory conditions in the editor (like the scenario victory conditions are). If they are in the editor, then any number of alternate scenarios can be created. We will look into trying to get that to happen in War in the West, and hopefully in the future in WitE 2.0.
For those of you that wished we had set the AV level to something lower, or the end date to May, I strongly suggest you use house rules to pick the victory conditions that you want to play with. Assuming this alternate scenario makes it out of test, I will be very interested to track how many games are played using this campaign versus the original campaign 41-45. This is something we can track on the server for those that play Multiplayer. We'll let you know when this scenario passes test, or if it fails. Thanks to all those who voted and shared their opinions. I hope the alternate scenario will make it out and that some of you will let us know through AAR's if it makes for a better gaming experience.
All understanding comes after the fact.
-- Soren Kierkegaard
Assuming this alternate scenario makes it out of test, I will be very interested to track how many games are played using this campaign versus the original campaign 41-45. This is something we can track on the server for those that play Multiplayer.
Yes indeed, this will be very interesting to track.
As I've said previously, the ideal solution is to have campaign victory conditions in the editor (like the scenario victory conditions are). If they are in the editor, then any number of alternate scenarios can be created. We will look into trying to get that to happen in War in the West, and hopefully in the future in WitE 2.0.
+1 [&o]
Bill Macon
Empires in Arms Developer
Strategic Command Developer
Joel!
Thanks to you, Pavel (who crunched the code I expect) and to Gary for allocating the time to get this done.
I will play the scenario as soon as it is available.
Bravo.
Ok, here's what we've done based on what we felt we could do quickly and relatively safely, while also trying to please the most people based on the polls (and realize that the 100 or so people that answered the polls are a tiny sample size of WitE players, but we do listen to the opinions of the serious players).
We've created an alternate campaign 41-45 scenario that ends at the start of turn 212 (first turn of July). In this scenario, the German auto victory is set to 260 (remember, Leningrad/Moscow/Stalingrad is about 245, so this requires a bit more than just those cities). The Soviet Major Victory now ends 3/31/45, while a Soviet Minor can be won until 6/30/45. This required some code changes, and the end date change in the scenario file. I've tested an AI vs AI game and made sure it ended at 260 (passed that test). I'm now running a test to see if it will give the right victory levels with a Soviet win. This will take awhile as it can take a long time to get to 45. Gary says the change made should be safe and shouldn't screw up the normal scenario, but testing that would also take some time. Remember, every time a code change is made, there is a chance for a bug. Even the simplest of code changes can get screwed up and not be visible for some time. So at some point, probably in a week or so, assuming it passes the tests, we'll have the ability to release this alternate scenario. I don't know exactly when this will get out to the public, but it's a safe bet that sometime within the next month this will go out unless it turns out to fail in test, at which point we probably would have to give up on it for now.
As I've said previously, the ideal solution is to have campaign victory conditions in the editor (like the scenario victory conditions are). If they are in the editor, then any number of alternate scenarios can be created. We will look into trying to get that to happen in War in the West, and hopefully in the future in WitE 2.0.
For those of you that wished we had set the AV level to something lower, or the end date to May, I strongly suggest you use house rules to pick the victory conditions that you want to play with. Assuming this alternate scenario makes it out of test, I will be very interested to track how many games are played using this campaign versus the original campaign 41-45. This is something we can track on the server for those that play Multiplayer. We'll let you know when this scenario passes test, or if it fails. Thanks to all those who voted and shared their opinions. I hope the alternate scenario will make it out and that some of you will let us know through AAR's if it makes for a better gaming experience.
Hello Joel
Just wondering if this scenario passed the test you mention here and if we might be seeing it soon?
Yes it passed most tests, then one AI vs AI test led to a crash (I had been seriously abusing the help levels to get odd situations). Gary's fixed it, but we haven't released a new version to test yet. I'm not sure when the next version will go to test, and when it will come out, but it does look like we are ready to put out an alternate scenario that ends on 212 (first July turn) with slightly adjusted victory conditions, and any campaign set to end on turn 212 will use these adjusted victory conditions:
260 Axis AV
Soviet Major Victory (Germany surrenders between 1/1/45 and 3/31/45)
Soviet Minor Victory (German surrenders between 4/1/45 and 6/30/45)
Draw if no surrender by 6/30/45
I can't give you an exact ETA yet on when the scenario will appear but sometime in the next several weeks/month would be my estimate.
All understanding comes after the fact.
-- Soren Kierkegaard