'The siege of Budapest: Operation Konrad' scenario for Strategic Command WW2: War in Europe is finally finished.
This 46-turn scenario captures each day of the brutal siege of Budapest and the German relief attempts during WW2.
The siege of Budapest, nicknamed the 'Stalingrad of the SS' lasted roughly 50 days, making it one of the longest sieges of the war. The scenario includes pictures, memoirs and facts from the real events, offering a glimpse into this often-forgotten battle.
Operation Konrad was the name given to the German operation to relieve the beleaguered city. As a result of relentless Soviet resistance, the operation would be divided into three different operations: Operation Konrad I, II, and III. Each of them would ultimately fail but only after getting as close as 20km to the capital.
Assume Command of the IV.SS Panzer Corps in its ruthless drive to break the encirclement, or take control of the 2nd Ukrainian Front to stop the relief force and crush the defenders of Budapest!
General Info:
- Average multiplayer turn duration 40-60 minutes.
- AI turn duration 10-15 minutes.
- Mechanized units and Tanks have 3 strikes.
- Artillery have 1-2 strikes
- Artillery is important to make progress.
- Reinforcements will arrive through scripts, although HQs can be purchased if losing a certain amount of them.
- Victory Locations not immediately inside or next to Budapest provides Axis with a Bonus MPP/Turn and a one-time morale bonus when captured.
- Victory locations are marked with red circles on the map, and their bonuses can be seen by placing the cursor over the position.
- There are "Historical Report" popups every turn/each day. These are not necessarily tied to the actual events ingame but instead shows images, memoirs or general information from each day of the real-life battle.
- The "Victory Conditions Information" folder in the campaign folder provides detailed information on Victory conditions.
At the start of the game, the Axis player will be presented with the option to choose a game mode and some settings related to these.
Lifeline Game Mode:
This is the normal game mode where a certain combination of victory locations have to be captured in order to achieve a victory(all victory location combinations can be seen in the "Victory Conditions Information" folder) If selecting this game mode, the player will get two additional options:
Linked or Unlinked victory locations:
The 'Linked victory locations' setting means that it is not enough to simply occupy the Victory Locations for the Axis to achieve a victory, but a 2-hex wide connection has to be made between each victory location(opening an actual corridor to Budapest). These connections can be seen by pressing the blue info button.
The 'Unlinked victory locations' setting means that it is enough to capture the victory locations for the axis to achieve a victory. A full connection to Budapest is not necessary.
End of campaign - End date/Any Date:
'Any Date' - A Decisive victory can trigger at any date during the campaign as soon as victory conditions are met.
'End Date' - A Decisive Victory can only trigger at the end date of the campaign. Preventing a sudden end to the game.
Note: A 'Total Victory' can be triggered at any date no matter what setting is selected, this triggers if the Axis lose all their major starting cities, or if the Soviets lose their capital(This prevents a clearly decided game from going on until the end). Minor and Major victories can only trigger at the end of the campaign.
Evacuation Game Mode:
In this game mode 3 German 'Civilians and Wounded' units will spawn in Budapest. The Axis objective is to evacuate these to one of the evacuation areas in the west. These units can't attack but have a higher defense value against artillery and air attacks(to prevent them being picked off from a distance).
The Soviet objective is to destroy all 3 of these units, or to capture all the evacuation areas.
If playing multiplayer and nothing has been discussed in advance, the Axis player should select the settings marked with 'Recommended'.
Playing as Axis:
- When playing as axis, keep in mind that your income primarily comes from the resources Budapest provides and from victory locations. It's therefore a balancing act of giving up ground in Budapest vs reinforcing the relief force.
Giving up too much ground in Budapest without a steady capture of victory locations will result in a hard time reinforcing both the relief force and the units in Budapest.
Playing as Soviets:
- When playing as Soviets, try to inflict as many casualties on the Axis as possible and win as much ground in Budapest as quickly as possible. It is vital to tip the income balance in your favour. Reinforcements will come.
Singleplayer:
For singleplayer I recommend playing as Axis. The Soviet AI does a pretty good job attacking the pocket and defending against the relief force.
The Axis AI has a harder time defending the pocket and advancing towards it.
The Axis AI uses loop scripts to defend the pocket. The only way I was able to make the AI defend Budapest in a logical way, without losing half of its force in large numbers of small pockets was to use loop scripts to help the AI pull its forces back towards the city center. This however makes the AI retreat quite fast and lose more resources than necessary at times. If you don't want this, you can disable the 3rd decision event called "Axis AI: Shorten lines Budapest".
I have always used the default difficulty settings when testing this scenario. No bonuses to either side. So hopefully playing like this should provide an enjoyable and challenging experience. I suspect if playing singleplayer as Soviets, you might want to give the Axis AI some bonus (although there does already exist some bonuses through scripts).
I did most singleplayer testing as Axis, so I'm not really sure how well playing as Soviet vs Axis AI works, although there are offensive scripts for the Axis AI that will guide it towards Budapest.
All feedback is appreciated. I have tested it a bunch but it's hard to see everything alone.
Please report bugs and feel free to post any feedback you might have, good or bad.
Special thanks to Joseph G for testing the scenario with me over and over again!
Install Instructions:
Extract the TSBOK v1.0.rar file and copy the "_1945 The Siege of Budapest - Operation Konrad" folder and the .cgn file to Users\<username>\Documents\My Games\Strategic Command WWII - War in Europe\Campaigns folder.
Download:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-siege-of ... ion-konrad
