Best Barbarossa scenario?

[BigDuke66]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
McBride actually ran afoul of that when he wanted to start charging for his scenarios back in the day. I have a suspicion he'd be vaguely hostile to people modifying his scenarios and then sharing them. As I recall, he tried to stop anyone else hosting them and actually had them removed from Rugged Defense et al.

That is new too me. When I asked him if he allows me to mod his Case Blue scenario with the intention of fixing some things I got his permission.
Hard to believe that he would have taken legal steps on others unless these would have played a dirty game like removing him from credits or so.

[Lobster]

If I recall it had something to do with Matrix. But he did indeed deny anyone the right to post his scenarios years ago. Maybe he changed his mind by now?

[rhinobones]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

From memory, vs. PO I find that (unsurprisingly) both sides are more or less a walkover for the human player. You'd want to look at some house rules for the human player to make it more of a challenge.

I’ve tried to remedy unbalanced PO games by inserting a TO for the player to add/delete PO formations. Along with liberal use of randomized PO objective tracks it seems to help, but then it’s one of those things you could spend a lifetime in test and adjustment.

Regards

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: rhinobones


I’ve tried to remedy unbalanced PO games by inserting a TO for the player to add/delete PO formations. Along with liberal use of randomized PO objective tracks it seems to help, but then it’s one of those things you could spend a lifetime in test and adjustment.

Regards

For this particular scenario I was thinking:
For the Axis: units must have a certain colour status to allow them to attack or move into an enemy-controlled hex
For the Soviets: more complicated, but you'd want to require the player to operate on the offensive for the first x turns.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Lobster

If I recall it had something to do with Matrix. But he did indeed deny anyone the right to post his scenarios years ago. Maybe he changed his mind by now?

Yeah. There was no legal action though- he just asked scenarios to be removed and they were. For a while, he had his own page which was supposed to be the only place to get them, but I think he's lost interest in TOAW some time ago- last I heard from him directly was 2008.

[Zovs]

I just look at things differently. You can't really "copyright" a scenario per see. A game yes, but a scenario, give me a break. It's public domain, and if they abandoned it, then if someone comes along and tidies it up and actually fixes it so it works properly for a new version then more power to them.

Worse case scenario I can just rename them. I did all the upgrading, updating and TOAW IV fixes from the ground up not to mention the tedious hours spent in recoloring the counters and correcting the documentation.

Its a war game, its a scenario. No worries.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

For this particular scenario I was thinking:
For the Axis: units must have a certain colour status to allow them to attack or move into an enemy-controlled hex
For the Soviets: more complicated, but you'd want to require the player to operate on the offensive for the first x turns.

Neither of those really address the problems the Soviet PO has in it:

Factories need to be judiciously railed east in the nick of time after release via TOs. New Armies arrive as empty shells and are railed from Siberia to the front. The PO needs to hold them back from the front to give them time to disembark and build strength before entering the front lines.

Hard for the PO to handle any of that. I do release a few factories automatically, but not all.

Note that it's important that the scenairo be begun with the PO enabled. If enabled after the start, those factories won't be released, and the German PO will have to handle Soviet Cadres in its rear (something it can't do).

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Zovs

I just look at things differently. You can't really "copyright" a scenario per see. A game yes, but a scenario, give me a break. It's public domain, and if they abandoned it, then if someone comes along and tidies it up and actually fixes it so it works properly for a new version then more power to them.

Worse case scenario I can just rename them. I did all the upgrading, updating and TOAW IV fixes from the ground up not to mention the tedious hours spent in recoloring the counters and correcting the documentation.

Its a war game, its a scenario. No worries.

It's not a legal issue but an ethical one. If the designer says no, you can't mod my scenario, then it would seem to be unreasonable to ignore that and then distribute the results.

If, on the other hand, they're uncontactable (which will apply to most designers at this point), then I'd say have at it. Just make sure not to remove their credits from the briefing.

[Hellen_slith]

ORIGINAL: BigDuke66

I remember we had someone some years back "updating" all MB scenario. Updating in so far that they were loaded and saved so that they were playable right away in TOAWIV. At least I have now Version 4.0, while officially 3.7 was afaik the latest.

A tweaked & fixed version would indeed be interesting, but here we have the same problem as back then. Discussion started if it was allowed to modify the scenario without the designers permission. Not sure if the thread was removed, at least I can't find it anymore.

While it may be a nice gesture to "get" designer permission to modify their scenarios, it is not
"illegal" in any way. Fair Use Doctrine. The scenario police aren't going to come knocking on your door, and if they or Matrix or whomever tried to sue or enjoin you from doing so, they would be laughed out of (American) courts.

Source: law reader for over 20 years at Baron & Budd PC and Arter Hadden PC.

[Hellen_slith]

ORIGINAL: Lobster

If I recall it had something to do with Matrix. But he did indeed deny anyone the right to post his scenarios years ago. Maybe he changed his mind by now?

He does not have that right. Fair Use doctrine.

[Lobster]

ORIGINAL: Hellen_slith

ORIGINAL: Lobster

If I recall it had something to do with Matrix. But he did indeed deny anyone the right to post his scenarios years ago. Maybe he changed his mind by now?

He does not have that right. Fair Use doctrine.

So then you feel it's okay for you to rip off someone's project that took them years to do? Not arguing, just checking.

[larryfulkerson]

I say that if you can't reach the scenario designer [ for any of a number of reasons ] then the scenario is fair game
as long as the original designer's name isn't omitted from the credits. Or I suppose if you renamed it something else then you could do whatever the hell you want with it.

I'm calling all my B41 rip offs a MOD of the original and each of them has a distinctive name different from the original [ with enough of the original name in the new name to associate it with the original scenario if you'd rather play the original instead ]. I haven't really gotten around to figuring out how to balance them and from what I can tell they are all rather heavily Axis favored.

But the main thing is that they are all supposed to be more "fun" than the original. More supply, more rail repair units, Finns don't have to wait for turn 7 to move/attack, and they don't have to stop at some arbitrary stop line until Leningrad falls, and the Romanians don't have to wait until T4 to move/attack, and the Hungarians are active from the beginning, and the Italians, wait, I didn't change the Italians.

And in an effort to try to help the Soviets to give the game more "balance" I gave the Soviets a squadron of OV-10's. [ More for me to see how they perform before I use them in some other scenario. ]

[Lobster]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
and the Italians, wait, I didn't change the Italians.

What did the Italians do that they got left out of the party? [:D]

[Zovs]

Most of my modifications, upgrades and updates to long deceased or non-active original designers goes like this near the end of all the original scenario designers notes (also note I changed the scenario name to ORIGINAL SCENARIO NAME v2.0 (for example).

This is what I add at the end (note most original designers used the old way of indicating which colors they used, I generally don't modify the in game 2D color scheme (unless there is an obvious mistake) but when I change the color scheming using the new color.xml file I also change that part of the designers notes so the players know the new colors.

Tagged at the end to give a history:

DON LAZOV'S DESIGN NOTES
I decided to bring this great scenario up to date with the newer features of TOAW IV and I think makes it an even greater scenario. Most of the changes I did were cosmetic in nature. The obvious being the recoloring of the unit counters. I wanted to add some symmetry to the scenario and to also give it a colorful flavor as well. The map updates were minor in nature and mostly included updating the Nation's fonts to use the larger size and eliminating some of the duplicate nation names, changing any named water to use the blue font and removing the Finish stop line. Since there is no Finish units present in this scenario and Turkey and Sweden are neutral, I made those areas unplayable. Historically, the Finns turned and fought the Germans to drive them out of Finland, but that is outside of the scope of this scenario. Since a lot of formations on both sides were in Force or Free support, I moved a few unit 2D colors around a bit. Mostly for the Axis Latvian and the 2nd Panzer Army, but for the Soviets I shuffled the three main groups into a block of their own for two of these at least. Lastly, I added the AD and MRPB and updated and added in all new supply points to utilize the new supply rules for TOAW IV. Finally, due to having a lot more research available, I updated the unit and formation designations for the Axis to be more reflective and given a bit more emersion into the situation.


CHANGE LOG

Version 3.0
12/24/2020 - by Don Lazov
- Converted to TOAW IV
- Updated and reformatted Scenario Briefing
- Created new color file for counters
- Modified the color of the counters to be more like board war game counters
- Adjusted all Supply Points for both sides to come into alignment with new TOAW IV supply rules
- Added and adjusted Supply Points
- Added Attrition Divider and Max Rounds Per Battle
- Made some very minor road and rail changes for ascetics
- Added map text for all Nations to use the new larger sized fonts
- Changed map text for all rivers, lakes, and seas to use the blue font
- Added to the map the new icon for Capitals
- Changed some of the unit 2D colors for both sides
- 'Blanked' out the unplayable areas of the map
- Edited and updated the equipment database file
- Changed out a lot of German equipment to be more historic (using the new database)
- Added (for color) Generals for Army, Corps, Division and Brigades where appropriate
- Added command and support squads where appropriate
- Changed all German unit and formation designations to use historical names
- Changed all Hungarian and Romanian unit and formation names
- Updated several key units TOE based on newly available data
- Overhauled both sides TOEs

Version 2.0
10/22/2000 - by Brian Topp
- (1) German rifle squads are properly assigned 1944 AT equipment, and heavy panzer regiments get their appropriate icons. The AT equipment ups the ante somewhat for Soviet offensives - although German infantry divisions still cannot long withstand attacks by Soviet armor corps without help from panzer "fire brigades".
- (2) The German army gets its flak units back. These give the Luftwaffe some defense against airbase attacks and provide the Axis side with some moderately resilient 88 mm-equipped tank-delaying "ant" units (sometimes particularly good in fortifications). To preserve game balance, some missing army-level tank brigades reappear in the OOBs of appropriate Soviet armies just before offensives.
- (3) German reinforcements arrive in smaller formations. This allows for subtler PO orders, and more flexible deployment by a player.
- (4) The order of battle of 2nd Panzer Army occupying Yugoslavia is more accurately portrayed. The order of battle of Tito's force (the "NOV I POJ" or NOVJ, People's Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia - (Narodnooslaobodilaeka vojska I partisanski odredi Jugoslavije) is also more accurately set out.
- (5) The programmed opponent's objectives have been tweaked on both sides. Some inconsistencies in the replacement priorities set-up are corrected. Some small errors in the events are corrected.

Version 1.0
10/24/1998 - Designer: Brian Topp
- Original creation for TOAW-III ver.3.0.0.0

[Zovs]

Here is another one I have worked (updated and upgraded) on.

I think this one had a weird name or part of it was missing (maybe because back then you could not have long file names?)

So I renamed it to:

Campaign for the Mediterranean 1940-43 v3.0

And I updated the scenario text file like so:



Campaign for the Mediterranean

The War in the Mediterranean and the Middle East 1940-1941

Version 3.0

Dates: October 7, 1940 - December 30, 1943


TIME SCALE:
Half week turns

MAP SCALE:
20 km per hex

UNIT SCALE:
Division/Brigade/Regiment

TURNS: 338

ATTRITION DIVIDER: 12

MAX ROUNDS PER BATTLE: 9


- UNIT COLOR KEY -

AXIS FORCES

GERMANY

Heer:
Black and Grey and Grey

Luftwaffe:
Black and Skyblue on Skyblue

Kriegsmarine:
Light Grey and Dark Grey on Dark Grey

Waffen SS:
White and Black on Black

ITALY

Italian Royal Army (Regio Esercito):
Black and Yellow on Yellow

Italian CCNN:
Yellow and Dark Green on Dark Green

Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica Italiana):
Black and Sky-blue on Yellow

Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina):
Dark Blue and White on Yellow

Royal Corps of Colonial Troops:
White and Red on Yellow

AXIS OTHERS

Arab Legion:
White and Green on Grey

Bulgarian:
White and Orange on Orange

Axis Spanish:
Black and Brown on Dark Yellow

Axis Portugal:
White and Red on Green

Axis Levant:
White and Blue on Blue

Axis Turkish:
Black and White on Purple

ALLIED FORCES

British:
Black and Tan on Tan

Royal Navy and Marines:
White and Navy Grey on Tan

Australian:
Blue and White on Tan

Indian:
White and Brown on Tan

New Zealand:
Green and White on Tan

South Africa:
White and Green on Tan

Canadian:
Red and White on Tan

Free French:
White and Blue on Blue

Polish:
White and Red on Red

Czech:
Grey and Red on Red

Greek:
Blue and White on White

Yugoslavian:
Yellow and Black on Black

Egyptian:
Brown and White on White

Palestinian Arabs:
Red and White on White

Sudan and Kenya:
Green and White on White

West African:
Green and White on White with Blue numbers

Ethiopia:
Black and Yellow on Green

Trucial Tribes:
Tan and Dark Green on Tan

Persian:
White and Burgundy on Brown

US Army:
White and Green on Green

US Navy:
White and Green on Dark Gray

Russia:
Gold and Red on Red

Allied Spanish:
Black and Brown on Dark Yellow


BACKGROUND
In fall 1940, the Axis has been beaten in the Battle of Britain. Italy is about to start its own wars against Greece and to expand its African empire.

AXIS PLAYER NOTES
As the Axis player, can you bring Britain to its knees? And perhaps push the Afrika Korps all the way into the Middle East!

ALLIED PLAYERS NOTES
As the Allied can you hold against the Axis assault and pass onto the offensive against its "soft belly"?

THEATER OPTIONS

AXIS

1. Op. "Neptune"
This assumes the Axis seriously starts planning for an invasion of Malta. The Axis will receive some special trained units, that will take time to get at full strength, but that will be useful on future invasions as well. There is a penalty however to compensate for the resources having to be committed for this operation. Watch out, if you don't allow for sufficient strength to be gathered, you may squander these elite units for nothing. A failed landing is not a pretty sight.

2. Op. "Felix"
This Option allows the Axis player to cross Spain to seize Gibraltar. However, Spain will not stay idle and probably fight on, at least initially.

3. Build Carriers
This Option Assumes Italy prepared better for war at sea by building carriers. Will they tip the Balance in the Axis favor, or just make some more targets for the Allied forces?

4. Invade Greece.
Italian 9th and 10th Armies are activated to go against Greece in Mussolini's willingness to add victories to his scoreboard. It is said that winters in the Greek mountains are cold...

5. Invade Yugoslavia.
German armies intervene in the Balkans at the risk of delaying the all-important Barbarossa operation against Russia.


ALLIES

1. Raid on Taranto.
As what happened historically, the British carriers raided Taranto, seriously damaging the Italian Fleet and its morale. If you choose this option, you have good chances to inflict heavy damage on Italian Capital ships, but also take a risk to have your precious carriers hit...

2. Spanish Torch.
This option allows the Allied player to experiment with the invasion of Spain and Portugal to open a second European Front. In doing so, the chances to grab important objectives are increased, but the Axis may react by sending some Reinforcements from Mainland Europe.

3. Commit more Navy.
This option assumes the British and Americans are willing to take the risk of sending more capital ships (not escorts) to the Mediterranean.

4. Bomb Italy.
This option assumes strong strategic bombing from Italy. If chosen, the damage and effect will grow stronger as time goes on and as Allied bases approach Italy


SPECIAL RULES
Free French and Vichy French
Allies are in a strange position against Vichy French Units. Madagascar, Senegal, Syria, and North Africa are potential strategic areas from which expand operations against the Axis.


SPECIAL EVENTS
There is a strong chance that if the Axis forces occupy Egypt, Turkey may join the war on the Axis side.

If the Allies occupy North Africa, German reinforcements will be directed to the theater of operations.


SUPPLY POINTS
I have added supply points at each of the countries capital to represent general supply, this is set for 250 for each side that controls the capital. The supply points hex adjacent to Germany are 200 points as well as some located near the border of Russia, and other supply points are based on historic location, port, airfield etc. these range from 25 to 200 per location.


SCENARIO NOTES
* CCNN = The Voluntary Militia for National Security (Italian: Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, MVSN), commonly called the Blackshirts (Italian: Camicie Nere, CCNN, singular: Camicia Nera).

Royal Corps of Colonial Troops (Italian: Regio Corpo Truppe Coloniali or RCTC) was a corps of the Italian Armed Forces, in which all the Italian colonial troops were grouped until the end of World War II in Africa.


CHANGE LOG

Version 3.0
12/16/2020 - by Don Lazov
- Converted to TOAW IV
- Updated and reformatted Scenario Briefing
- Changed and removed all unsupported umlaut characters so that TOAW IV can correctly display the text
- Created new color file for counters
- Modified the color of the counters to be more like board war game counters
- Adjusted all Supply Points for both sides to come into alignment with new TOAW IV supply rules
- Added and adjusted Supply Points
- Added Attrition Divider and Max Rounds Per Battle
- Made some very minor road and rail changes for ascetics
- Added map text for all Nations to use the new larger sized fonts
- Changed map text for all rivers, lakes, and seas to use the blue font
- Added to the map the new icon for Capitals
- Added missing Lake and River and Sea names to map
- Added missing islands names (Corsica and Sardinia)
- Changed a few islands names to English
- OOB:
Italian:
Changed Border Guards units to use a second icon, one of Border Guards and one of Security
Changed Coastal Defense units to use a second icon, one of Coastal Artillery and one of AA
Changed Coastal AA units to use a second icon, one of AA and one of Coastal Artillery
Changed Garrison units to use a second icon, one for Garrison and one for Coastal Artillery
SS:
Changed some SS units to use a second icon, one of Security or MP and one of Infantry
Bulgarian:
Changed both Security Division to use a second icon, one of Security and one of Motorcycle
Allies:
Changed Garrison units to use a second icon, one for Garrison and one for Coastal Artillery
Soviet Union:
Fixed the 16th Rifle Division it was assigned to the Persian army.
- Events:
Removed duplicated events
Rewrote event text strings
Added event text strings
- Removed a lot of overlapped text fields from the map near the x,0 and x,1 area, for some reason some were stacked with 4-5 map labels.

Version 2.0
10/28/2020 - By Don Lazov
- Converted to TOAW III
- Corrected all the spelling and grammatical errors

Version 1.0
11/15/2020 - by Piero Falotti
- Original creation

[Zovs]

One last one to show I how I modified and give credit to the original author (if known).



State Farm 79

The Battle of State Farm 79

Version 3.0

Dates: December 7, 1942 - December 10, 1942


TIME SCALE:
Half day turns

MAP SCALE:
2.5 km per hex

UNIT SCALE:
Regiment/Battalion

TURNS: 8

ATTRITION DIVIDER: 28

MAX ROUNDS PER BATTLE: 3


- UNIT COLOR KEY -

GERMAN:
Black and Blue Gray on Gray

SOVIET

Guards:
White and Red on Red

Regular Army:
White and Green on Brown


BACKGROUND
On December 7th, 1942, the German 11. Panzer Division launched an attack against parts of the 1st Soviet Tank Corps near State Farm 79. The goal of this attack was, to dislodge the breakthrough of the soviets at the Chir bridgehead and to make a relief operation of the 4. Panzerarmee possible. Parts of the 4. Panzerarmee, including General Hoth's Panzer Korps, tried to relieve the besieged 6. Armee in Stalingrad. Codename for the relief operation was "Wintersturm" (Winter tempest).


CHANGE LOG

Version 3.0
12/14/2020 - by Don Lazov
- Converted to TOAW IV
- Updated and reformatted Scenario Briefing
- Created new color file for counters
- Modified the color of the counters to be more like board war game counters
- Adjusted all Supply Points for both sides to come into alignment with new TOAW IV supply rules
- Added and adjusted Supply Points
- Added Attrition Divider and Max Rounds Per Battle
- Made some very minor road and rail changes for ascetics
- Changed map text for all rivers to use the blue font
- Rewrote and added events
- Added leaders name for 11. Panzer-Division and 5th Guards Tank Army HQ
- Renamed German formation names
- Renamed German unit designations
- Reset Soviet unit supply to 35%
- Added remnants of the 119th Rifle Division for play balance
- Set map to frozen 1

Version 2.0
10/29/2020 - By Don Lazov
- Converted to TOAW III
- Corrected all the spelling and grammatical errors.

Version 1.0
10/16/2014 - Unknown author
- Original creation
- Comments, suggestions to: hq.kw@home.ivm.de

[larryfulkerson]

[iframe width="950" height="534" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JX6AZtkWgeM" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen][/iframe]

EDIT: I guess the forum software doesn't have an equivalent for the HTML command "iframe". Too bad. It would have been great.

[Zovs]

Larry your post is all text and no YouTube, did they suspend your YouTube account?

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Zovs
Larry your post is all text and no YouTube, did they suspend your YouTube account?

Not yet. Facebook did ban me [ "hate speach" ] but I applied again six weeks later and they let me in.

I just now tried to embed one of YouTube's picture-in-a-picture video feature videos but I guess the forum's software
doesn't allow it or something.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Hellen_slith

for human v Russian PO, either D21 or the Russo-German War. I think there was one before D21, cannot remember name.

Just looking at this vs. Larry's AAR of D21, which I assume is vs. PO. He's banging on the gates of Stalingrad in October 1941 and fretting about whether Sevastopol will fall by the end of the year.

To me, this doesn't sound like the PO is able to offer a serious opposition in the scenario. What're other people's experiences? Is this just a "good vs. PO" because people enjoy occupying Moscow after a brief struggle, or because it's a real challenge and the PO can really hammer you if you make a wrong step?