New player, am I unlucky or just not getting it?

[theunpaidBill]

Hey everyone, I just picked this up. I bought version 1 back about 20 years ago from Talonsoft, but got busy raising kids and didn't get to play it a lot.

Anyway, I loaded up a new game with the "Tutorial" scenario (Korea). On turn 4 the UN nuked China, and it's been all downhill from there. The Chinese and Russians have joined the fight, and it's now Turn 14 and they have me pinned down at Pusan and I am not seeing a way out of this. My reinforcements have barely kept up with the additional troops they are getting, and I have managed to keep my toehold, but it's been a very tenuous stasis for the last 5 turns.

So is the nuke just bad luck, or does that happen to everyone? Am I just failing to understand how to break out? The Communist unit stacks are 3 deep completely surrounding my beachhead. I figured out they are doing Reserves, so any time I push out they get reinforced.

[FellingerXZ]

That is very rare Lol, did the US president die

[theunpaidBill]

So I'm just unlucky. I don't remember seeing a notice that the president died. I was frankly a little stunned when the nuke dropped in turn 4. I guess I can go weapon's free with my nukes if I want.

Is there a different scenario that would be a better one to learn the game? The "tutorial" has zero tutorial features.

[Curtis Lemay]

I always recommend my thread I did in detail on the first turn of my France 1944 scenario here:

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 5#p1451315

[theunpaidBill]

I always recommend my thread I did in detail on the first turn of my France 1944 scenario here:

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 5#p1451315

Thanks, that's kind of my area of knowledge anyway.

[Slowcoach01]

A very similar thing just happened to me playing as the UN in this scenario - except that the UN nuked China (hex 0,0) on turn 2! The entire Chinese army arrived so fast that I actually lost Pusan on turn 8 and consequently most of my reinforcements. It's still fun, although I am now playing for a draw at best.

I'm no scenario designer but thought I could at least find my way around the events list. However, despite some time spent in the scenario editor, I can see no way how this rogue nuke attack on hex 0,0 (outside the playable map area) is triggered. It reminds me of an insane Dr Strangelove-style US general going for POE (Peace on Earth / Purity of Essence) - that's showing my age!

Can anyone explain how this nuclear attack is triggered?

[Telumar]

A very similar thing just happened to me playing as the UN in this scenario - except that the UN nuked China (hex 0,0) on turn 2! The entire Chinese army arrived so fast that I actually lost Pusan on turn 8 and consequently most of my reinforcements. It's still fun, although I am now playing for a draw at best.

I'm no scenario designer but thought I could at least find my way around the events list. However, despite some time spent in the scenario editor, I can see no way how this rogue nuke attack on hex 0,0 (outside the playable map area) is triggered. It reminds me of an insane Dr Strangelove-style US general going for POE (Peace on Earth / Purity of Essence) - that's showing my age!

Can anyone explain how this nuclear attack is triggered?

I cannot explain this but having looked at the events of both instances of the Korea 50-51 scenario (Tutorial in the Tutorials folder and Korea 50-51 in the Modern - Asia folder) I can confirm that there is no such event that could be responsible for a nuclear attack on a certain specific hex. Can you maybe provide a save file?

[Slowcoach01]

Thanks for looking at this Telumar. At least that shows I am not missing anything obvious. I do have a couple of save files that might give a clue as follows:

1. Turn 2, before any attacks were planned or carried out. (If this rogue nuclear strike had showed up in the planned attacks I would certainly have cancelled it before combat resolution).

2. Turn 3, just after the attack and Chinese intervention (several Chinese units are already south of the 38th parallel). The combat results for the previous turn, screenshot below, now shows that 5 bombardment attacks were made on turn 2, the third of which (on combat round 4) was the rogue nuclear attach on hex 0,0.

Combat Results turn 2.jpg (101.64 KiB) Viewed 464 times

I would be happy to share the save files except that I can't work out how to attach them to this post (.sav does not seem to be a valid file type for attachments). Any further help you can give on this would be fantastic as it's got me completely baffled.

[Cpl GAC]

Files have to be put in a service like DropBox or Drive and you post the link for uploading.

[Slowcoach01]

Thanks for the guidance Cpl GAC. I'd just about come to that conclusion but will now give it a try with Drive and see what happens.

[Slowcoach01]

Here are the links to the two save files mentioned above:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/160XzvO ... drive_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-JW6XB ... drive_link

I hope they work!

[Cpl GAC]

I'm not seeing the actual .sal files in there.

Screenshot (90).png (210.77 KiB) Viewed 409 times

You have to drag them from Windows explorer and drop it into that Drive folder.

[Telumar]

Just click the little download symbol in the upper left corner

[Curtis Lemay]

These are the file types you can add to a post: (note that .zip is included - so any file that can be zipped could be attached to a post):

[Telumar]

So I took a look at your save files. I cannot explain the nuclear attack on 0,0. The attack definitely happened as the hex and the hexes around 0,0 were displayed as contaminated (visible only in the info box on the bottom of the map). Even if a nuclear release was triggered - for which the conditions are not met in your game - there is no event that causes a Nuclear Attack on Hex 0,0; there is no event in the sce at all that has the effect "Nuclear Attack". (normally you would get one nuke, which you could deliver at your own discretion with the B-29s)

You did not tinker with the events in the editor before playing?

If you did not change anything in the event editor it might be an event engine bug? Bob?

[Telumar]

There is an oddity with the scenario. Note the Force 2 supply points in the unplayable hexes with really abnormal high supply values (the upper limit would be 250 if entered manually). Could this be related? One of these is in 0,0

This is only in the "Korea 50-51" sce from the Modern - Asia folder, not with "Tutorial" from the Tutorials folder.

[Slowcoach01]

Yes, I was playing the scenario version from the Modern - Asia folder, not the one from the tutorial folder. I definitely did not tamper with events before starting. So it seems I may have just been unlucky in that I have discovered an anomaly in this scenario that no-one has ever spotted before! It hasn't ruined the current game or put me off in any way. In fact, I'm still going as the UN and hoping to claw back some more territory before game end. But it's looking unlikely that I will ever recapture Pusan and so will never get any Commonwealth units (shame, as I'm a Brit!).

I think it's great that (nearly 30 years after initial release of TOAW Volume 1) there are still experienced players who are willing to help out with queries like this and that even they can still discover new things that they have never seen before! Thanks everyone.

[cathar1244]

There is an oddity with the scenario. Note the Force 2 supply points in the unplayable hexes with really abnormal high supply values (the upper limit would be 250 if entered manually). Could this be related? One of these is in 0,0

This is only in the "Korea 50-51" sce from the Modern - Asia folder, not with "Tutorial" from the Tutorials folder.

Wonder if this scenario is a raw TOAW III scenario that didn't get converted to IV, or a similar situation. The supply point values indicate some kind of data corruption.

[Slowcoach01]

Epilogue

I finished my unusual game of Korea 50-51 playing as the UN, the game where a rogue UN nuclear attack on China by General Jack D. Ripper (or maybe it was Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw for a modern audience) had triggered full Chinese intervention ridiculously early on turn 2. Unsurprisingly I lost! In fact it was an overwhelming defeat. Losing Pusan early means you never get most of your reinforcements and drastically reduced supplies.

It was still fun and I nearly clawed it back to only a substantial defeat after a daring (unfortunately unsupplied) amphibious landing at P'ohang and subsequent recapture of Taegu. But the Marines just couldn't hang on in the face of overwhelming Chinese numbers. I couldn't face playing all the way up to turn 52 in this hopeless situation so I manually ended the scenario on turn 28 (the turn it would have ended without Chinese intervention). Almost worth losing to get the fantastic end of game report that appears after a UN defeat describing the inevitable global triumph of socialism (I'm off to a re-education camp now).

Out of interest, I did go back to saved turn 2 and started again without any rogue nuclear attack on China so far. So this second game could well follow a more historic course. I will finish it at some stage but, for now, it's off to other wars in other eras to experience the full range of this great game.