Random Battle and Campaign Generator Mod

[dazoline II]

ORIGINAL: HintJ

Hey this makes it real easy to experiment w/single units in platoons in the campaigns:

Great!, Hope you like it.

[HintJ]

ORIGINAL: dazoline II

Great!, Hope you like it.

Oh yes, very much so!

In fact, having the ability to easily modify the units in a random campaign by editing only one .xml file is great.

I'm now playing random campaigns as 40:0, with every unit able to act independently each turn. I could have always have done this, but not w/out the laborious task of editing numerous .xmls.

[junk2drive]

The Campaign Editor has a button to switch to editing Random campaigns as well. Once a person gains enough experience with how this all works together, he should be able to customise a random campaign setup to be able to generate some interesting and challenging campaigns.

[Nemo84]

I'm using this mod to create my own motorised kampfgruppe using the 1st Infantry Div campaign as a template, and I have a small question. I've noticed in your "1st Infantry Div 1942 short.xml" file (and a few others) something peculiar concerning unit upgrades.

The original:        <unit unitid="Regular 41" unitname="HQ/3/1-43 Infantry" exp="Elite" number="3" max="3"></unit>
upgrades into:     <unit unitid="Regular 42" unitname="HQ/3/1-43 Infantry" exp="Elite" number="1" max="3"></unit>

What exactly does this change in "number" mean? This is no doubt WAD from the original campaign author, but I'd like to know the consequences for points balancing. Will the other two squads of this unit simply vanish, including all their medals? Or will those still be present after buying the "replace losses"?

[junk2drive]

When you get to a battle where the upgrade appears, in the purchase screen, it will show 1 squad and replacements available 2. If you have points to spend, you can then click the replacement button with the chance of the experience dropping.

I think it would be better to edit it to 3.

It could be though, that if a 1940 tank is 50 points and an upgrade 1943 tank is 100 points, changing from 1 to 3 may cause you not to have enough points to get the rest of the TOE.

[dazoline II]

I haven't gotten through enough of a campaign to see the effect on numbers, I was assuming that the campaign running total for the unit in question would override the battle XML and replace the number there with the actual number of elements left after the last battle.

Junk do you believe that the upgrade battle.xml unit numbers will override the campaign running total for the unit in question?

[Nemo84]

Personally, I suspect this lower number will override and is supposed to simulate troop transfers (to fill out other depleted companies with at least some veterans for example) and subsequent fresh replacements taking their place. Each time a unit does this in the xml files, it is automatically made "elite" while its predecessor was merely "veteran". The battle files that accompanies these kind of upgrades have a lot of additional points awarded to the player so he can get these units back to full strength.

[dazoline II]

Seems this got me to do a test.

I generated a random campaign and changed the first two battles XML. The first one I changed so the battle would be a minimum of turns. Changed all the flags to mine and 300 points each. The second battle I changed every unit to have a number of 1.

After winning the first battle with a marginal victory, seems you actually have to kill something to get a lengendary one [8D] The unit choice screen for the second battle comes up with the unit numbers for the first battle.

Ie. 5 Pz IIIGs for a unit in the first and 5 Pz IIGs still in the same unit for the second.


It leads me to conclude the numbers don't matter in the upgrade battles XML files as the campaign numbers are taken in the above test. I imagine the numbers are filled like that so a player could play the battle individually if they wanted and were able to manuiplate XML.

[Nemo84]

Okay, here's a quick mod of the short '42 1st Inf Div campaign. Normal OOB was exchanged for a motorized kampfgruppe: 3x3 infantry platoons, a few HMGs and a AT team with trucks, 4 Sd Kfz 231, 3 StuG IIIC and some mortar support. The mid-year upgrade improves the infantry units and exchanges the StuGs for Marder III's to deal with the heavier Soviet tanks.

It's balanced around the same point costs as the original. I just finished the first campaign battle using this force, and it seems to still provide a decent challenge. The added armor makes dealing with light Soviet tanks a lot easier, but especially those armoured cars are far from invulnerable. There's a lot less infantry now, so it's a lot harder keeping those Russian swarms contained.

Just add using JSGME after adding dazoline's campaign mod and overwrite the original xml file from that mod.
Disclaimer: This file is not historically accurate, not balanced apart from point cost and not tested. If it somehow messes up the campaign halfway through, take some small consolation in the fact that I'll be as frustrated about it as you are.[;)]

[76mm]

I have a question about using this mod: I like to run macro-campaigns which are essentially mini-fictional wars, with the maneuver units being individual platoons. Over time, each army grows to several dozen platoons (or more). The key for playing such a campaign is retaining losses, etc. between campaign battles (just as in the standard campaign games).

Can I use this mod to track several dozen units over the course of a macro-campaign? Any particular battle might only feature a handful of platoons, rather than all of them, so I would need some means of selecting which platoons would participate in each battle.

I have no problem if I need to cut/paste things, as long as I don't have to manually track all of the casualties, etc.

Not sure if I explained this very clearly, but do you think I can work with this mod?

[dazoline II]

As the game stands now no, unless I misunderstand how units are treated when not appearing in a battle I.E. they lose any campaign information when apearing after a pause of one or more battles. I base my understanding from a thread between Mad Russian and ComradeP where ComradeP asked a very similar question, course now I can't find the thread.

[76mm]

But it seems like by modifying the xml files, you could fool the computer so that it didn't know that a unit hadn't participated in a battle?

In other words, units A, B, and C participate in a battle; Units A and B participate in a second battle. Then units A, B, and C participate in a third battle. Wouldn't it be possible to paste the unit C data from Battle 1 into the file with the Unit A and B data from Battle 2, and continue with Battle 3? Or would this be harder than it sounds (or even impossible)?

[junk2drive]

Not possible. The data is encrypted.

[junk2drive]

Bumping this over the old version thread.

[junk2drive]

dazoline can you check your version after installing the beta patch? I am getting script errors with the campaign generator. This is on the new computer so it could be something else. I don't remember if I have done a campaign with your mod on this computer.

[dazoline II]

Works for me.
If you keep getting it post a SS of the error.

[junk2drive]

Today I uninstalled the game, installed and updated with the beta. I just ran your RCG for Soviet 7th. I click yes to continue running scripts
First error

[junk2drive]

When it starts to create the files I get this one for every step. I also get the Windows security popup asking me if I want to run this software

[junk2drive]

When it finishes I get this one

[junk2drive]

I click yes to the one above and the window just sits there. If I click anywhere on the window I get this. I then use the upper right x to close.